probably implies
(at least in many cases) a recognition of personality. In Samoa,
metamorphosis into vegetables is not uncommon. For example, the king of
Fiji was a cannibal, and (very naturally) "the people were melting away
under him". The brothers Toa and Pale, wishing to escape the royal oven,
adopted various changes of shape. They knew that straight timber was
being sought for to make a canoe for the king, so Pale, when he assumed
a vegetable form, became a crooked stick overgrown with creepers, but
Toa "preferred standing erect as a handsome straight tree". Poor Toa
was therefore cut down by the king's shipwrights, though, thanks to
his brother's magic wiles, they did not make a canoe out of him after
all.(4) In Samoa the trees are so far human that they not only go to
war with each other, but actually embark in canoes to seek out distant
enemies.(5) The Ottawa Indians account for the origin of maize by a
myth in which a wizard fought with and conquered a little man who had a
little crown of feathers. From his ashes arose the maize with its crown
of leaves and heavy ears of corn.(6)

(1) Primitive Culture, i. 145; examples of Society Islanders, Dyaks,
Karens, Buddhists.

(2) Maspero, Contes Egyptiens, p. 25.

(3) J. G. Muller, Amerik. Urrel., p. 264.

(4) Turner's Samoa, p. 219.

(5) Ibid.. p. 213.

(6) Amerik. Urrel., p. 60.

In Mangaia the myth of the origin of the cocoa-nut tree is a series
of transformation scenes, in which the persons shift shapes with the
alacrity of medicine-men. Ina used to bathe in a pool where an eel
became quite familiar with her. At last the fish took courage and made
his declaration. He was Tuna, the chief of all eels. "Be mine," he
cried, and Ina was his. For some mystical reason he was obliged to leave
her, but (like the White Cat in the fairy tale) he requested her to cut
off his eel's head and bury it. Regretfully but firmly did Ina comply
with his request, and from the buried eel's head sprang two cocoa
trees, one from each half of the brain of Tuna. As a proof of this be it
remarked, that when the nut is husked we always find on it "the two
eyes and mouth of the lover of Ina".(1) All over the world, from ancient
Egypt to the wigwams of the Algonkins, plants and other matters are said
to have sprung from a dismembered god or hero, while men are said to
have sprung from plants.(2) We may therefore perhaps look on it as a
proved point that the general savage habit of "