Chapter 69 soul attached to grass

In folk stories, we also see that human life is sometimes connected with the life of vegetation. As the vegetation withers, human life also withers.If the Mbanga people of Gabon in West Africa give birth to two children on the same day, they will plant two trees of the same kind and dance around them.They believed that the lives of the two children were each linked to one of the trees.When the tree falls or dies, the child will soon die too.People in Cameroon also believe that a person's life is closely linked sympathetically with the life of a tree.The chief of the old town of Calabar [a city in southern Nigeria] hid his soul in a sacred grove near a certain spring.Some Europeans cut down some trees in the sacred forest because of ignorance or jokes. This figure was very angry and threatened those Europeans who offended him in all severe ways according to the king's will.

Some Papuans associate the life of a newborn baby with the life of a tree on the principle of sympathy, by inserting a small pebble into the bark, thinking that in this way the life of the baby is completely placed in the life of the tree. protected; if the tree were cut down, the child would die.It is customary for Māori to bury the umbilical cord in a sacred place after giving birth and plant a sapling on it.As the sapling grows up, it also symbolizes the growth of the child's life (atohu oranga); if the tree is flourishing, the child must be rich and prosperous; if the tree withers, the parents of the child can predict their worst fate.In some places on the island of Fiji, the umbilical cord of a male baby is planted together with a branch of a coconut tree or a breadfruit tree, and it is believed that the life of the baby is thus closely connected with the life of the tree.The Dayak people in Landak and Tajan in Dutch Borneo have the custom of planting a fruit tree for their babies. Folks believe that the fate of the child is closely related to the life of the tree.If the tree grows fast, the child will be healthy and happy; if it grows short or withers, the people who are closely related to it and share good and bad will inevitably suffer bad luck and misfortune.

In other parts of Europe such as Germany, France, Denmark, and Sweden, the same method is used for many diseases, especially for hernias and rickets.However, oak trees are not used in these places; sometimes poplar trees can also be used instead, and poplar trees are even specified to be used.In Mecklenburg, as in England, the child is supposed to be so closely bound up with the sympathy of life thus established by the tree that if the tree is felled, the child dies at once.