Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu/178

 the younger is practically merged in that of the acacia tree where he has hidden his heart; and when he becomes a bull and is sacrificed, his spiritual part passes into a pair of Persea trees. The Yarucaris of Bolivia say that a girl once bewailed in the forest her loverless estate. She happened to notice a beautiful tree, which she adorned with ornaments as well as she might. The tree assumed the shape of a handsome young man—

"She did not find him so remiss,              But, lightly issuing through,          He did repay her kiss for kiss,               With usury thereto."

J. G. Müller, who quotes this tale from Andres, says it has "many analogies with the tales of metamorphosis of human beings into trees among the ancients, as reported by Ovid." The worship of plants and trees is a well-known feature in religion, and 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