d
tribes, we may quote the Damaras, a South African race, with whom "a
tree is supposed to be the universal progenitor, two of which divide the
honour."[18] According to their creed, "In the beginning of things there
was a tree, and out of this tree came Damaras, bushmen, oxen, and
zebras. The Damaras lit a fire which frightened away the bushmen and the
oxen, but the zebras remained."

Hence it is that bushmen and wild beasts live together in all sorts of
inaccessible places, while the Damaras and oxen possess the land. The
tree gave birth to everything else that lives. The natives of the
Philippines, writes Mr. Marsden in his "History of Sumatra," have a
curious tradition of tree-descent, and in accordance with their belief,
"The world at first consisted only of sky and water, and between these
two a glede; which, weary with flying about, and finding no place to
rest, set the water at variance with the sky, which, in order to keep it
in bounds, and that it should not get uppermost, loaded the water with a
number of islands, in which the glede might settle and leave them at
peace. Mankind, they said, sprang out of a large cane with two joints,
that, floating about in the water, was at length thrown by the waves
against the feet of the glede as it stood on shore, which opened it with
its bill; the man came out of one joint, the woman out of the other.
These were soon after married by the consent of their god, Bathala
Meycapal, which caused the first trembling of the earth,[19] and from
thence are descended the different nations of the world."

Several interesting instances are given by Mr. Dorman, who tells us how
the natives about Saginaw had a tradition of a boy who sprang from a
tree within which was buried one of their tribe. The founders of the
Miztec monarchy are said to be descended from two majestic trees that
stood in a gorge of the mountain of Apoala. The Chiapanecas had a
tradition that they sprang from the roots of a silk cotton tree; while
the Zapotecas attributed their origin to trees, their cypresses and
palms often receiving offerings of incense and other gifts. The
Tamanaquas of South America have a tradition that the human race sprang
from the fruits of the date palm after the Mexican age of water.[20]

Again, our English nursery fable of the parsley-bed, in which little
strangers are discovered, is perhaps, "A remnant of a fuller tradition,
like that of the woodpecker among the Romans, and that of th