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tation of the living, and the removal of their cogitations from the
sphere of vanity and worldliness. This observant writer descants
upon the predilection exhibited by the early inhabitants of
the world for burial beneath trees, and points out that the venerable
Deborah was interred under an Oak at Bethel, and that the
bones of Saul and his three sons were buried under the Oak at
Jabesh-Gilead. He tells us also that one use made by the ancients
of sacred groves was to place in their nemorous shades the bodies
of their dead : and that he had read of some nations whose people
were wont to hang, not only malefacitors, but also their departed
friends, and those whom they most esteemed, upon trees, as being
so much nearer to heaven, and dedicated to God ; believing it far
more honourable than to be buried in the earth. He adds that
“ the same is affirmed of other septentrional p e o p l e a n d points
out that Propertius seems to allude to some such custom in the
following lines:—
“ The gods forbid my bones in the high road
Should lie, by every wand’ring vulgar trod;
Thus buried lovers are to scorn expos’d,
My tomb in some bye-aibor be inclos’d.”
The ancients were wont to hang their criminals either to
barren trees, or to those dedicated to the infernal gods ; and we
find that in Maundevile’s time the pracitice of hanging corpses on
trees existed in the Indies, or, at any rate, on an island which he
describes as being called Caffolos. He gives a sketch of a tree,
probably a Palm, with a man suspended from it, and remarks that
“ Men of that Contree, whan here Prendes ben seke, thei hangen
hem upon Trees ; and seyn, that it is bettre that briddes, that ben
Angeles of God, eten hem, than the foul Wormes of the Erthe.”
2Tl)e tUm of From Maunaevue's Travels.
We have, in a previous chapter, seen that among the Bengalese
there still exists the pracitice of hanging sickly infants in baskets
upon trees, and leaving them there to die. Certain of the wild
tribes of India—the Puharris, for example—when burying their
infants, place them in earthen pots, and strew leaves over them:
these pots they deposit at the foot of trees, sometimes covering
them over with brushwood. Similar burial is given to those who
die of measles or small-pox: the corpse is placed at the foot of a
tree, and left in the underwood or heather, covered with leaves
and branches. In about a year the parents repair to the grave-
tree, and there, beneath its boughs, take part in a funeral feast.
Grotius states that the Greeks and Romans believed that
spirits and ghosts of men delighted to wander and appear in the
sombre depths of groves devoted to the sepulture of the departed,
and on this account Plato gave permission for trees to be planted
over graves—as Evelyn states, “ to obumbrate and refresh them.”
Since then the custom of planting trees in places devoted to the
burial of the dead has become universal, and the trees thus selecfted
have in consequence come to be regarded as funereal.
As a general rule, the trees to which this funereal signification
has been attached are those of a pendent or weeping character,
and those which are distinguished by their dark and sombre foliage,
black berries and fruits, and melancholy-looking blossoms. Others
again have been planted in God’s acre on account of the symbolical
meaning attached to their form or nature. Thus, whilst the Aloe,
the Yew, and the Cypress are suggestive of life, from their perpetual
verdure, they typify in floral symbology respectively grief, sorrow,
and mourning. The B a y is an emblem of the resurrection, inasmuch
as, according to Sir Thomas Browne, when to all outward
appearance it is dead and withered, it will unexpectedly revive
from the root, and its dry leaves resume their pristine vitality.
Evergreen trees and shrubs, whose growth is like a pyramid or
spire, the apex of which points heavenward, are deemed emblematic
of eternity, and as such are fitly classed among funereal
trees : the Arbor Vitae and the Cypress are examples. The weeping
Birch and Willow and the Australian Casuarina, with their foliage
mournfully bending to the earth, fitly find their place in churchyards
as personifications of woe.
The Yew-tree has been considered an emblem of mourning
from a very early period. The Greeks adopted the idea from the
Egyptians, the Romans from the Greeks, and the Britons from the
Romans. P'rom long habits of association, the Yew acquired a
sacred characiter, and therefore was considered as the best and
most appropriate ornament of consecrated ground. Hence in
England it became the custom to plant Yews in churchyards,
despite the ghastly superstition attached to these trees, that they
prey upon the dead who lie beneath their sombre shade. Moreover
our forefathers were particularly careful in preserving this