[Illustration: Fig. 26.—The sacred tree as symbol of fertility.(From an Assyrian bas-relief. Perrot et Chipiez.)] The above facts are important for their bearing on the conception of a tree-inhabiting spirit of vegetation or generalised tree-soul, which, as Mannhardt and Frazer have shown, lies at the root of many otherwise inexplicable observances found amongst the peasantry in different countries and at different periods of history. These customs will be dealt with more fully in a subsequent chapter. In all of them we find a tree, or the branch of a tree, or a human being or puppet dressed to represent a tree, figuring as the symbol or representative of a spirit who is regarded as more or less friendly to man, and endowed with the power of assisting his material prosperity. In more primitive times than the present this prosperity resolved itself into a question of fecundity, and the power which could make the fields to bear, the flocks to multiply, and women to give increase, naturally held the foremost place in the affections of the people. The rich and the cultured found other attributes to worship and other gods to personify them, but the peasant clung to the observances by which the spirit of fertility was propitiated. Hence the tree, long after it had ceased to be worshipped as the home of the great gods, or to be regarded as the parent of mankind, still held a firm place in the devotions of the people as the embodiment of the all-powerful patron of universal fertility. Of the innumerable observances founded on this idea the following may be taken as a sample. The sacred chili or cedar of Gilgit, on the north-western frontier of India, was held to have the power of causing the herds to multiply and women to bear children. At the commencement of wheat-sowing three chosen unmarried youths, who had undergone purification for three days, started for the mountains where the cedars grew, taking with them wine, oil, and bread, and fruit of every kind. Having found a suitable tree they sprinkled the oil and wine on it, while they ate the bread and fruit as a sacrificial feast. Then they cut off a branch and brought it to the village, where amid general rejoicing it was placed on a large stone beside running water. A goat was then sacrificed and its blood poured over the cedar branch, while the villagers danced around it. The goat’s flesh was eaten, and every man went to his house bearing a spray of cedar. On his arrival he said to his wife, “If you want children I have brought them to you; if you want cattle I have brought them; whatever you want, I have it.”[198]