e sacred by a tree, and a ritual
connection between the two was thus established. Later, when a shrine
for any reason (in consequence of a theophany, for example) was built
where there was no tree, its place was supplied by a wooden post, which
inherited the cultic value of a sacred tree. In the Canaanite cult,
which was adopted by the Hebrews, the sacred post (called "ashera")
stood by the side of every shrine, and was denounced by the prophets as
an accompaniment of foreign (that is, non-Yahwistic) worship.[487] The
transition from tree to post is illustrated, perhaps, by the
conventionalized form of trees frequent on Babylonian seal
cylinders.[488] How far the sacred post was an object of worship by the
people we have no means of knowing; but by the more intelligent,
doubtless, it came to be regarded simply as a symbol, a sign of the
presence of a deity, and was, in so far, in the same category with
images.[489]

+273+. It is not impossible that totem posts may be connected with
original totem trees or other sacred trees. A tree as totem would
naturally be the object of some sort of cult, and when it took the form
of a post or pole, would have totemic symbols carved on it. Oftener,
probably, it was the sacred pole of a village (itself descended from a
sacred tree) that would be adorned with totemic figures, as among the
Indians of Northwestern America.[490] In all such cases there is a
coalescence of totemism and tree worship.

+274+. It was natural in early times, when most men lived in forests,
which supplied all their needs, that trees should be looked on as
intimately connected with human life. A tree might be regarded as in
itself an independent personality, having, of course, a body and a soul,
but not as dependent on an isolated spirit. A group of men might think
itself descended from a tree--a conception that may have been
widespread, though there is little direct evidence of its
existence.[491] Indirect evidence of such a view is found in the custom
of marrying girls to trees,[492] and in the belief in "trees of life,"
which are sometimes connected with individual men in such a way that
when the tree or a part of it is destroyed the man dies, as in the case
of Meleager whose life depended on the preservation of a piece of
wood,[493] the representative, probably, of a tree, and the priest of
Nemi whose life was bound up in the "golden bough"[494]; sometimes the
tree has a magical power of conferring life on