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 Contributors

Julie Bernhardt BSc, PhD Phu D Hoang PhD (Syd)

Director, Very Early Rehabilitation Research Program, NHMRC Post-doctoral Training Fellow,
Senior Research Fellow, National Stroke Research Institute Research Officer, Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute,
(Florey Neuroscience Institute), University of NSW, Australia
Melbourne, Physiotherapist, Multiple Sclerosis Society,
Australia Australia

Colleen Canning BPhty (Qld), MA (Columbia), PhD Anne Moseley BAppSc (Physio), Grad Dip (ExSpSc),
(Syd) PhD
Senior Lecturer, Senior Research Fellow,
Faculty of Health Sciences, The George Institute for International Health,
The University of Sydney, The University of Sydney,
Australia Australia

Leanne Hassett BAppSc (Physio), MHlthSc(NeuroPhty),

PhD
Senior Physiotherapist,
Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit,
Liverpool Health Service,
Australia

vii
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 Preface
to the first edition

This book represents an attempt to set down a philosophy and model of rehabilitation for individu-
als with movement dysfunction which is an alternative to models most commonly in use through-
out the world, the eponymous facilitation–inhibition models. The view taken here is that research
in the areas of neuromuscular control, biomechanical aspects of performance, the link between
cognition and action, together with recent developments related to pathology and adaptation can
inform rehabilitation methods.
In this book, we argue that consideration of movement science research implies that movement
rehabilitation should focus on motor performance, on exercises and training to ensure appropriate
muscle strength, on endurance and physical fitness to enable the desired physical activities to be
carried out and on increased cognitive engagement with the environment. The clinician is
then coach to the individual with the disability, one who is skilled in methods of training action,
and of organizing independent practice. Too often therapists underestimate the capacity of
individuals, including small children and the elderly, to work hard, pay attention and actively
engage with a training regime over which they have some control. One-to-one therapy remains the
preferred style in many rehabilitation settings, yet the available evidence points to the need for
disabled individuals to be actively involved in their rehabilitation for several hours a day. This
requires that there be a plan for group practice, and work stations for independent practice; that
therapists work with engineers, computer scientists, orthotists and the makers of gymnasium equip-
ment to design training devices which will enable independent practice and promote the wanted
actions. The clinician as problem-solving scientist is both a user of research and an adaptor of
technology.
The chapters are clustered into three groups. Chapters 1 to 3 focus on three major issues critical
to neurorehabilitation: the nature of the adaptive system, the optimization of functional motor
performance and methods of measurement. It is increasingly being shown that the brain, neural
system, muscles and other soft tissues reorganize and adapt according to patterns of use and experi-
ence. We argue that what happens to an individual and what that person does will affect positively
or negatively the reorganization and adaptation which are naturally occurring phenomena. Focus
in the second chapter is therefore on skill learning, physical training and exercise in neurorehabili-
tation, stressing the importance of cognitive engagement and practice. The third chapter sets out a
selection of, for the most part, reliable and valid measures which are appropriate for use in neu-
rorehabilitation. Tests are grouped according to the level of measurement – whether global tests of
function or specific biomechanical measures of motor performance, tests of muscle strength or
perception; whether tests of impairment or of anxiety or self-efficacy. Emphasis throughout the
book is on the need to measure the effects of the interventions that make up rehabilitation.
Chapters 4 to 7 focus on actions critical to an independent and effective lifestyle: standing up
and sitting down, walking, reaching and manipulation, and balancing, in which biomechanical
models of the action are presented as a framework upon which training and exercise to improve
performance are based.
Chapters 8 to 10 focus on pathological and adaptive aspects of lesions of the motor system (upper
motor neuron, cerebellum) and of the sensory-perceptual system.

ix
 Preface to the first edition

Chapters 11 to 14 contain descriptions of the particular pathological impairments, adaptations

and disabilities associated with stroke, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s disease and multiple
sclerosis, with specific points about rehabilitation which are of significance for these conditions.
Throughout the book, we have provided references in order to illustrate the process of utilizing
theoretical and data-based information in clinical practice. Where these are available, we have
included reference to outcome studies because it is such evidence-based material which is a powerful
determinator of theory and direction, enabling the development and testing of protocols (or strictly
observed guidelines) as a means of establishing best practice. Our aim in writing this book was to
assist clinicians to become more informed and effective practitioners and to raise questions intended
to stimulate clinical and laboratory research which will in turn lead to dynamic and effective meth-
odologies. Finally, we hope the book will give the reader an appreciation for what are currently
unexplored possibilities of movement rehabilitation.

J.H.C.
R.B.S.

x
 Preface
to the second edition

In the first edition of this book we set out to illustrate how to develop science-based rehabilitation
methods designed to optimize functional motor performance of individuals with acute and chronic
lesions of the brain. Ten years later the evidence from clinical trials and systematic reviews makes
it clear that methods used in neurorehabilitation should provide a sufficient stimulus to learning
and to the acquisition of skill. It is also clear that sufficient time must be spent practising everyday
actions, and exercising vigorously to increase muscle strength, endurance and aerobic fitness to the
level required for general wellbeing and participation in daily life.
In this new edition, we have been joined by colleagues whose research and clinical practice skills
reflect their education in the brain, movement and medical sciences. Education in these fields is
critical for rehabilitation professionals as a solid knowledge base upon which to build practical
clinical skills. Together we have brought fresh insights to the content of the new volume.
The new edition continues with themes developed in the first edition. There is now an increased
understanding of the nature of impairments of central origin, secondary changes that occur in soft
tissues, in intersegmental biomechanics and in cardiorespiratory function that are associated with
physical inactivity and disuse. In addition, new insights into motor learning and cognitive science,
developments in exercise science, and in technology are providing the rehabilitation team with
increased opportunities to develop and test potentially more effective rehabilitation methods. The
development of rehabilitation practice also takes place with the growing recognition of the factors
that have a positive influence on brain plasticity and recovery. Optimal progress seems to be depend-
ent on the opportunities available to an individual. It is now acknowledged that what people do,
what opportunities are available for intensive, meaningful and challenging practice, the process of
rehabilitation itself, can really make a difference. The rehabilitation team is making changes not
only to the methods used in acute care and rehabilitation but also to the mode of delivery and to
influencing what occurs after discharge. Opportunities for supervised group practice and exercise,
increased use of exercise machines, and interactive practice are increasing the time spent in task-
relevant physical and mental activity.
Physiotherapists are making a major change away from methodologies developed in an earlier
time for with there is no evidenciary support, and increasingly using methods that are congruent
with current knowledge and for which there is encouraging evidence. The results of suitably rigor-
ous clinical trials eventually contribute to evidence-based practice. The current interest in rehabilita-
tion research and the quality of that research are grounds for optimism.

J.H.C.
R.B.S.

He who has not endured the stress of study will not taste the joy of knowledge …
Abd al-Latif
Medical scholar of Baghdad
1162/3-1231

xi
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 Acknowledgements

We wish to express our thanks to the contributors to this book, Julie Bernhardt, Colleen Canning,
Leanne Hassett, Phu Hoang and Anne Moseley, who worked with us to update the second edition;
it was a pleasure and a privilege to work with them.
We wish to thank the people who so kindly agreed to be photographed for this book and the
physiotherapists from Sydney hospitals who have given us generous support, in particular Karl
Schurr, Simone Dorsch and their colleagues at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital, Fiona Mackey at
Illawarra Health Service, Jill Hall and colleagues at War Memorial Hospital, Waverley, and Anne
Løge and colleagues, Trondheim, Norway. We also wish to thank Jeanette Blennerhassett for reading
and commenting on the Appendix to Chapter 11.
The authors and publishers of this book express their appreciation for being granted permission
to reproduce figures and photographs as indicated throughout.

J.H.C.
R.B.S.

xiii
This page intentionally left blank
 Part 1

Introduction: adaptation,
training and measurement

1 The adaptive system: plasticity and recovery 3

2 Training motor control, increasing strength and fitness and promoting skill acquisition 15
3 Measurement 57
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 1

The adaptive system: plasticity and recovery

Hemiparesis after stroke provides a good model for study-

Chapter Contents ing cerebral reorganization. An important question is to
Plasticity of the intact brain 4 what extent post-ischaemic events can influence lesion-
induced plasticity and improve functional restoration.
Motor learning, training and plasticity 5 Half a century ago, Hebb (1947) hypothesized that neural
Plasticity following a brain lesion 6 cortical connections had the capacity to remodel through-
Recovery of function 8 out life by strengthening synapses thus enabling improved
function.
Effect of the environment on behaviour
A brain lesion, such as a stroke, affects both the anatomy
and recovery 9
and the physiology of the nervous system. It interferes
All living organisms have an inherent capacity to self- with (or destroys) nerve cell bodies, dendrites and axons
organize throughout life, and organizational processes and indirectly affects the ‘programming’ or networking of
affecting all systems are reflective of the organism’s history, nerve impulses throughout intact brain tissue. This chapter
i.e., learning, experience and use. Specific molecular, bio- addresses issues related to neural plasticity after stroke as
chemical, electrophysical and structural changes take place a means of stressing the potential for rehabilitation to
throughout life in central nervous system (CNS) neurons affect such processes. Concurrent with brain changes,
and neuronal networks in response to activity and behav- muscles and other soft tissues also adapt and reorganize
iour (Weiller 1998; Johansson 2000; Nudo et al 2001). according to patterns of use, and this issue is discussed
Learning how both the normal and lesioned brain func- throughout the book. We have hypothesized (Carr &
tions provides insights into how these processes can be Shepherd 1987, 1996, 2000, 2003) that training following
manipulated to drive optimal recovery. Developments a stroke involves people learning again how to perform
over the last two decades in brain imaging during func- actions and mental processes that were performed with
tional activity provide the means to explore the reorgani- ease pre-lesion. Training appears to be a critical stimulus
zational processes related to normal behaviour and to making new or more effective functional connections
learning. It is becoming increasingly clear that the brain within remaining brain tissue.
retains a plastic potential to reorganize in adult humans, What seems certain is that for rehabilitation (including
even in old and/or lesioned brains and that neural plastic- physiotherapy) to be effective in the restoration of optimal
ity can be influenced by drugs, training, rehabilitation and function, there needs to be more emphasis on providing
the environment (Weiller & Rijntjes 2005). an activity-stimulating environment, and repetitive and
Functional improvement after a brain lesion results intensive task-related exercise and training of the partly
from changes in spared sections of the brain. The mecha- compromised limbs. There is mounting evidence that
nisms may vary with the type and location of lesion, and neural reorganization reflects patterns of use. It also seems
can involve improved connectivity with individual likely that sensory feedback provided by the use of the
neurons, modification of cortical representations, cortical affected limbs may play a major role in reshaping remain-
maps and non-synaptic transmission (Johansson 2005). ing circuits.

©
2010 Elsevier Ltd
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-7020-4051-1.00008-4 3
Part 1 Introduction: adaptation, training and measurement

Following a stroke, those individuals who survive begin according to use. Specific mechanisms underlying brain
to demonstrate behavioural recovery, and the underlying plasticity are described in detail elsewhere (Kolb 1995;
biological manifestations of recovery reflect the inherent Kandel 2000).
reorganizational ability of the system. The notion of the Remodelling of cortical neuron responses occurs
brain (indeed the entire human system) as adaptable is between columnarly arrayed and cooperative groups of
filtering through to the clinical community together with neurons of which there are hundreds of millions. Merzen-
an understanding that events occurring post-lesion, the ich and colleagues (1991) describe a continual competi-
rehabilitation environment and the actual methods of tion between neural groups for the domination of neurons
training affect recovery; that some methods may facilitate on their mutual borders. This competition for cortical ter-
and others actually inhibit recovery. It is necessary to ritory appears to be use-dependent. Cortical maps differ
accept that there is a link between brain plasticity (i.e., in ways that reflect their use (Merzenich et al 1983),
anatomical, physiological and functional reorganization) appearing to be subject to modification on the basis of
and the methods used in rehabilitation and recovery. activity of peripheral sensory pathways. For example, a
Major clinical research emphasis should now be on study- monkey was trained for 1 hour a day to perform a
ing the effects of rehabilitation methods upon brain mor- task that required repeated use of two, three and occasion-
phology and function. ally four fingers to obtain food. After a period of repeated
stimulation, with several thousand repetitions, the area of
cortex representing the tips of the stimulated fingers was
substantially greater than in an untrained monkey (Jenkins
Plasticity of the Intact Brain et al 1990) (Fig. 1.1). A human subject trained to do a
rapid sequence of finger movements improved in
The term ‘plasticity’ refers, in general, to the capacity of accuracy and speed after 3 weeks of daily (10–20 min)
the CNS to adapt to functional demands and therefore training. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans showed
to the system’s capacity to reorganize. Following from that the region activated in the primary motor cortex of
experimental studies of both animals and humans, brain the trained subject was larger than the region activated by
processes are now acknowledged to be remodelled by our the control subject who performed random finger move-
experiences, particularly by the use to which we put the ments of the same hand. The change in cortical representa-
system. Plasticity includes the process of learning. Sub- tion was retained for several months. In these examples,
stantial evidence has emerged that the human brain is repetitive practice may have acted on pre-existing patterns
dynamic, flexible and problem solving throughout life of connections to strengthen their effectiveness (Kandel
(Weiller 1998). This view is in contrast to an earlier view 2000).
of the brain as functionally static (for discussion, see Studies of humans following surgery to transpose
Merzenich et al 1991). muscle or with congenital blindness have also shown the
Mechanisms of brain plasticity include the capacity for capacity of the brain to reorganize. For example, reorgani-
neurochemical, neuroreceptive and neuronal structural zation of cortical outputs has been reported in individuals
changes. Furthermore, the parallel and distributed with amputation of a limb or segment of a limb. Follow-
nature of brain organization appears to play an important ing amputation, neighbouring networks expand into the
role in its capacity for flexibility and adaptation. Extensive area previously devoted to activity of the amputated
intracortical axonal collaterals provide input to many segment (Hall et al 1990; Fuhr et al 1992). In congenital
different movement representations of a given body part, upper limb amputees and early following amputation of
and their pattern of recruitment may determine the execu- part of a limb, the remaining muscles in the limb received
tion of complex movements. There is a wide overlap in more descending connections than those muscles of the
cortical neuronal networks targeting different body parts, uninvolved limb (Hall et al 1990). Changes reported
and these networks, in part, share common neuronal include increased size of cortical motor representation
elements (Schieber 1992). Cellular populations within the area and recruitment of a larger percentage of the alpha
brain are dynamically organized, with the possibility motor neuron pool of muscles ipsilateral and immediately
for variability in structure and function according to proximal to the side of the amputation.
behavioural needs (Edelman 1987). Even the simplest It seems clear, therefore, that neuronal elements are
task requires coordination of several distinct brain inherently flexible, responding according to use and expe-
areas. Individual cells and neuronal systems have the rience and the capacity for functional gain for that indi-
ability to subserve more than one function. Regulation of vidual. In contrast, a significant shrinkage in cortical
both transient and long-term effectiveness of synapses representation of inactive muscles in healthy subjects was
occurs daily throughout life and is also determined by found after only 4–6 weeks of unilateral ankle immobili-
experience. Receptors themselves demonstrate plasticity, zation and this was more pronounced when duration of
synaptic transmission becoming stronger or weaker immobilization was longer (Liepert et al 1995).

4
 The adaptive system: plasticity and recovery Chapter 1

Before stimulation Normal Stimulation

5 4 3 2 1

After stimulation

5 4 3 2 1

1 mm 1 cm

Figure 1.1 Repetitive use of fingers 2, 3, 4 caused expansion of the cortical representation of these fingers. Outlines of
regions in cortical area 3b represent surfaces of fingers before and after training. Maps of glabrous fields are identified for
recording sites within area 3b before and after training. (From Jenkins et al 1990, with permission).

Motor learning, training sensorimotor representation of the reading finger

(Pascual-Leone & Torres 1993), with brain changes
and plasticity
mapped by focal transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
Evidence of the effects of different environments, of learn- Flexible modulation of corticomotor outputs may repre-
ing and of training on brain reorganization, including sent a first stage in learning, with further practice of a task
functional changes in cortical motor and sensory neurons, eventually leading to structural changes in intracortical
comes from numerous studies (e.g., Merzenich et al 1990; and subcortical networks (Pascual-Leone et al 1995). In
Sanes et al 1992). For example, rats housed in enriched addition, the size of the representation fluctuates with the
environments after brain infarction performed signifi- amount of reading activity (Pascual-Leone et al 1995).
cantly better on motor tasks such as narrow-beam walking, Learning is reflected in alterations in the pattern of inter-
ladder-rung walking and skilled forearm reaching than rats connections in those sensory and motor systems involved
housed alone or in standard cages (Held et al 1985; in learning a specific task, in particular changes in the
Ohlsson & Johansson 1995). Aspects of an enriched envi- effectiveness of neural connections (Kandel 2000). Spe-
ronment found to result in the best performance were the cific motor training can increase the size of different com-
opportunity for physical activity combined with social ponents of motor maps. For example, brain maps in
interaction (Johansson & Ohlsson 1996; Biernaskie & humans have demonstrated that cortical representations
Corbett 2001; Risedal et al 2002). Training rats on specific of muscles of the fingers of the left but not the right hand
tasks such as reaching increases selectively the dendritic were expanded in right-handed skilled violin players who
arborization in the forelimb representation of the motor regularly perform (Elbert et al 1995).
and sensory cortex (Greenough et al 1985). Such changes There is now substantial evidence from biomechanical
are found for both unimanual and bimanual reaching studies of healthy subjects that neuromuscular as well as
either on one side of the motor cortex or on both sides brain adaptations occur in response to physical activity,
(Kolb 1995). strength training and immobilization (Enoka 1995). The
Skill learning in humans is associated with similar gain in strength occurring in the first few weeks of a
nervous system changes as seen in animals (see Merzenich strength-training programme is accompanied by a compa-
1986 for review). Humans with an intact brain have rable increase in electrical activity in muscle which pre-
shown functional changes in the brain associated with cedes a significant change in muscle size (Moritani &
training and use, specifically with increased use of a body deVries 1979; Narici et al 1989). This time course impli-
part or enhanced sensory feedback from it. This is particu- cates a role for neural adaptation. Qualitative and quanti-
larly so where the increase in use is accompanied by func- tative changes in neural drive occurring in association with
tional gain for the subject. Increased use of a body part or exercise appear to be task specific.
enhanced sensory feedback from it may lead to a shift in There is increasing evidence that altered physical activity
the balance of intracortical networks towards that body is likely to involve functional and structural adaptations
part (Gracies 1996). For example, skilled Braille reading in the motor pathway (e.g., Cracraft & Petajan 1961; Sale
is associated with a relative enlargement of the cortical et al 1982; Hakkinen & Komi 1983). It has been shown

5
Part 1 Introduction: adaptation, training and measurement

that strength training can result in a greater improvement (Kandel 1991) and these two factors probably play key
in performance than in either muscle bulk or muscle roles in determining the extent of functional recovery.
strength (Rutherford & Jones 1986). Descending drive on The mechanisms underlying recovery from brain
to spinal motor neurons appears to increase following damage in humans are known to be complex and multi-
strength training and decrease after a period of inactivity factorial, including functional and anatomical reorganiza-
(McComas 1993). tion, altered neurotransmission and metabolism. Only
In acquiring a motor skill, the learner must combine recently have direct studies of brain function in humans
movements of individual segments into the pattern or become possible with the introduction of imaging tech-
synergy, in both spatial and temporal domains, that niques, such as positron emission tomography (PET),
ensures successful performance of the action. Practice functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and tran-
enables the movements to become smoother, more coor- scranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The results have
dinated and usually more rapid. Such biomechanical demonstrated functional reorganization in intact cortical
changes are reflective of changes at the neural level. tissue both adjacent to the injury and in more remote
It is not only physical practice that can promote modu- cortical areas after recovery of lost motor function (e.g.,
lation of neural circuits but also mental practice (Ch. 2). Johansson 2000; Liepert et al 2001; Nelles et al 2001;
In the early stage of learning a complicated finger exercise, Nudo et al 2001; Kolb 2003; Nudo 2003; Nelles 2004).
changes to cortical motor output maps show that mental Several studies have correlated changes in activation pat-
practice alone can lead to the same plastic changes in the terns with physiotherapy/training-induced improvement
motor system as those occurring with repetitive physical in function (Nelles et al 1999, 2001; Liepert et al 2000)
practice (Pascual-Leone et al 1995). (Fig. 1.2). Reorganization may take a number of forms:
Do comparable brain changes occur in ageing brains? perilesional extensions of representations, shifts from
Histologically there is a loss of neurons as we age. However, primary to secondary parallel processing systems, and
there is evidence that one mechanism that enables the recruitment of homologous areas of the unaffected hemi-
adaptation associated with learning a new skill at any age sphere (Weiller & Rijntjes 2005). It appears that the greater
is an increase in the number of synapses per neuron (Buell the involvement of the ipsilesional network, the better the
& Coleman 1981). It appears that the effectiveness of exist- recovery.
ing connections is increased by practice and learning at The actual mechanisms underlying reorganization and
any age. therefore recovery are still not entirely understood but are
currently being explored using new technologies. In a
current hypothesis, functional loss is seen as a disconnec-
Plasticity Following a tion phenomenon and recovery may mean, as Weiller &
Rijntjes (2005) suggest, reconnection or better recoordina-
Brain Lesion tion of a whole set of areas. The challenging aspect for
each stroke patient is the question to what degree will he
The logical question arising from studies of brain plasticity or she recover.
is whether an enriched environment, use, training and Of critical importance for the patient’s rehabilitation is
experience would have similar effects on the damaged that experience, with the opportunity to work with the
brain and whether these effects would enhance functional physiotherapist to acquire motor skill by training active
recovery (Kolb 1995). Conversely, do environmental use of the paretic limbs, modulates the adaptive reorgani-
impoverishment and non-use inhibit recovery? Techno- zation that inevitably occurs. However, post-injury plastic
logical advances that enable brain processes to be more changes occurring over time can have beneficial or nega-
closely examined demonstrate that recovery of function tive effects driven in part by the individual’s physical and
following a brain lesion occurs as a result of structural and mental activity levels following the stroke. Immobility and
functional reorganization. lack of use induces negative effects. For example, muscle
As might be expected, recovery mechanisms are wide- structure, like any physical structure, is dependent upon
spread throughout the brain. Ipsilateral motor pathways and reflects patterns of use, and inactivity imposed by a
may play a role in recovery of motor function (Chollet stroke can result in adaptation in the musculoskeletal
et al 1991; Fisher 1992; Weiller et al 1992; Silvestri et al system. Sustained physical inactivity also involves a reduc-
1993). Extensions of cortical motor fields into undamaged tion in aerobic capacity, limiting the performance of eve-
areas have also been demonstrated (Asanuma 1991; ryday activities and increasing the risk of falls and
Weiller et al 1993). Differences in levels of motor unit dependence on others.
synchronization have been found during recovery follow- The use of animal models permits tight control of
ing stroke, paralleling improvements in fine motor control factors that may confound the outcomes of human studies,
(Farmer et al 1993). Environmental factors and learning given the complexities inherent in working with people
bring out specific capabilities by altering the effectiveness who are active participants in the recovery process. It is
(and anatomical connections) of pre-existing pathways in the patient’s best interest for those working in

6
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 future by the boy as his own mother. A goat or sheep is killed in the
afternoon by any one, usually not by the father, and the stomach and
intestines reserved. The ceremony begins in the evening. A piece of skin is
cut in a circle, and passed over one shoulder of the candidate and under the
other arm. The stomach of the goat is similarly treated and passed over the
other shoulder and under the other arm. All the boy's ornaments are
removed, but not his clothes. No men are allowed inside the hut, but
women are present. The mother sits on a hide on the floor with the boy
between [pg 263] her knees. The sheep's gut is passed round the woman
and brought in front of the boy. The woman groans as in labour, another
woman cuts the gut, and the boy imitates the cry of a new-born infant. The
women present all applaud, and afterwards the assistant and the mother
wash the boy. That night the boy sleeps in the same hut as the mother.”653
Here the cutting of the sheep's gut, which unites the mother to the boy, is
clearly an imitation of severing the navel string. Nor is it boys alone who are
born again among the Akikuyu. “Girls go through the rite of second birth as
well as boys. It is sometimes administered to infants. At one time the new
birth was combined with circumcision, and so the ceremony admitted to the
privileges and religious rites of the tribe. Afterwards trouble took place on
account of mere boys wishing to take their place alongside of the young
men and maintaining they were justified in doing so. The old men then
settled the matter by separating the two. Unless the new birth has been
administered the individual is not in a position to be admitted to
circumcision, which is the outward sign of admittance to the nation. Any
who have not gone through the rite cannot inherit property, nor take any
part in the religious rites of the country.”654 For example, a man who has not
been born again is disqualified for carrying his dying father out into the
wilds and for disposing of his body after death. The new birth seems to take
place usually about the tenth year, but the age varies with the ability of the
father to provide a goat, whose guts are necessary to enable the boy or girl
to be born again in due form.655

Among the Bondeis, a tribe on the coast of German East Africa, opposite to
the island of Pemba, one of the rites of initiation into manhood consists in a
f pretence of [pg 264] slaying one of the lads with a sword; the entrails of a
fowl are placed on the boy's stomach to make the pretence seem more
real.656 Among the Bushongo, who inhabit a district of the Belgian Congo
bounded on the north and east by the Sankuru River and on the west by the
Kasai, young boys had formerly to undergo certain rites of initiation,
 amongst which a simulation of killing them would seem to have had a place,
f though in recent times the youths have been allowed to escape the ordeal
by the payment of a fine. The supreme chief of the tribe, who in old days
bore the title of God on Earth (Chembe Kunji), used to assemble all the lads
who had just reached puberty and send them away into the forest, where
they remained for several months under the care of one of his sons. During
their seclusion they were deemed unclean and might see no one; if they
chanced to meet a woman, she had to flee before them. By night the old
men marched round the quarters of the novices, raising hideous cries and
whirling bull-roarers, the noise of which the frightened lads took to be the
voices of ghosts. They wore nothing but a comb, and passed their leisure
hours in learning to make mats and baskets. After about a month they had
to submit to the first ordeal. A trench about ten feet deep was dug in the
ground and roofed over with sticks and earth so as to form a dark tunnel. In
the sides of the tunnel were cut niches, and in each niche a man took post,
whose business it was to terrify the novices. For this purpose one of them
was disguised in the skin of a leopard, a second was dressed as a warrior
with a knife in his hand, a third was a smith with his furnace and red-hot
irons, and a fourth was masked to look like an ugly ape, while he too
gripped a knife in his hand. The novices generally recoiled in dismay from
each of these apparitions, and it was only by means of reiterated taunts and
threats that the elders forced them to traverse the whole length of the
tunnel. After the lapse of another month the youths had to face another
ordeal of a similar character. A low tunnel, about three feet deep, was dug
in the earth, and sticks were inserted [pg 265] in it so that their tops
projected from the surface of the ground. At the end of the tunnel a
calabash was set full of goat's blood. By way of encouraging the timid
novices the master of the ceremonies himself crawled through the tunnel,
his progress under ground being revealed to the novices above ground by
the vibrations of the sticks with which he collided in the dark passage. Then
having bedabbled his nose, his mouth, and all the rest of his body with the
goat's blood, he emerged from the tunnel on hands and knees, dripping
with gore and to all appearance in the last stage of exhaustion. Then he lay
prostrate on his stomach in a state of collapse; the elders declared him to
be dead and carried him off. The chief now ordered the lads to imitate the
example set them by the master of the ceremonies, but they begged and
prayed to be excused. At first the chief was inexorable, but in time he
relented and agreed to accept a fine of so many cowries as a ransom paid
by the youths for exemption from the ordeal. A month later the last of the
 ordeals took place. A great trunk of a tree was buried with its lower end in
the earth and surrounded for three-quarters of its circumference with
arrows stuck in the ground so that the barbs were pointed towards the tree.
The chief and the leading men sat down at the gap in the circle of arrows,
so as to conceal the gap from the eyes of the novices and other spectators,
among whom the women were allowed to be present. To the eyes of the
uninitiated it now seemed that the tree was surrounded by a bristling hedge
of arrows, to fall upon which would be death. All being ready the master of
the ceremonies climbed the tree amid breathless silence, and having
reached the top, which was decorated with a bunch of leaves, he looked
about him and asked the women, “Shall I come down?” “No! no!” they
shrieked, “you will be killed by the arrows.” Then, turning disdainfully from
these craven souls, the gallant man addressed himself to the youths and
repeated his question, “Shall I come down?” A shout of “Yes!” gave the
answer that might have been expected from these heroic spirits. In
response the master of the ceremonies at once slid down the tree and,
dropping neatly to the ground just at the gap in the hedge of arrows,
presented himself unscathed to the gaze of the excited assembly. The chief
[pg 266] now ordered the young men to go up and do likewise. But the
dauntless courage with which they had contemplated the descent of the
master of the ceremonies entirely forsook them when it came to their turn
to copy his shining example. Their mothers, too, raised a loud cry of protest,
joining their prayers and entreaties to those of their hopeful sons. After
some discussion the chief consented to accept a ransom, and the novices
were dispensed from the ordeal. Then they bathed and were deemed to
have rid themselves of their uncleanness, but they had still to work for the
chief for three months before they ranked as full-grown men and might
return to their villages.657

Among the Indians of Virginia, an initiatory ceremony, called Huskanaw,

took place every sixteen or twenty years, or oftener, as the young men
f happened to grow up. The youths were kept in solitary confinement in the
woods for several months, receiving no food but an infusion of some
intoxicating roots, so that they went raving mad, and continued in this state
eighteen or twenty days. “Upon this occasion it is pretended that these poor
f creatures drink so much of the water of Lethe that they perfectly lose the
remembrance of all former things, even of their parents, their treasure, and
their language. When the doctors find that they have drunk sufficiently of
the Wysoccan (so they call this mad potion), they gradually restore them to
their senses again by lessening the intoxication of their diet; but before they
 are perfectly well they bring them back into their towns, while they are still
wild and crazy through the violence of the medicine. After this they are very
fearful of discovering anything of their former remembrance; for if such a
thing should happen to any of them, they must immediately be Huskanaw'd
again; and the second time the usage is so severe that seldom any one
escapes with life. Thus they must pretend to have forgot the very use of
their tongues, so as not to be able to speak, nor understand anything that is
spoken, till they learn it again. Now, whether this be real or counterfeit, I
don't know; but certain it is that they [pg 267] will not for some time take
notice of anybody nor anything with which they were before acquainted,
being still under the guard of their keepers, who constantly wait upon them
everywhere till they have learnt all things perfectly over again. Thus they
unlive their former lives, and commence men by forgetting that they ever
have been boys.”658

Among some of the Indian tribes of North America there exist certain
religious associations which are only open to candidates who have gone
f through a pretence of being killed and brought to life again. In 1766 or
1767 Captain Jonathan Carver witnessed the admission of a candidate to an
association called “the friendly society of the Spirit” (Wakon-Kitchewah)
among the Naudowessies, a Siouan or Dacotan tribe in the region of the
great lakes. The candidate knelt before the chief, who told him that “he
himself was now agitated by the same spirit which he should in a few
moments communicate to him; that it would strike him dead, but that he
would instantly be restored again to life; to this he added, that the
communication, however terrifying, was a necessary introduction to the
advantages enjoyed by the community into which he was on the point of
being admitted. As he spoke this, he appeared to be greatly agitated; till at
last his emotions became so violent, that his countenance was distorted,
and his whole frame convulsed. At this juncture he threw something that
appeared both in shape and colour like a small bean, at the young man,
which seemed to enter his mouth, and he instantly fell as motionless as if he
had been shot.” For a time the man lay like dead, but under a shower of
blows he shewed signs of consciousness, and finally, discharging from his
mouth the bean, or whatever it was that the chief had thrown at him, he
came to life.659 In other tribes, for example, the [pg 268] Ojebways,
Winnebagoes, and Dacotas or Sioux, the instrument by which the candidate
is apparently slain is the medicine-bag. The bag is made of the skin of an
animal (such as the otter, wild cat, serpent, bear, raccoon, wolf, owl,
weasel), of which it roughly preserves the shape. Each member of the
society has one of these bags, in which he keeps the odds and ends that
make up his “medicine” or charms. “They believe that from the
miscellaneous contents in the belly of the skin bag or animal there issues a
spirit or breath, which has the power, not only to knock down and kill a
man, but also to set him up and restore him to life.” The mode of killing a
man with one of these medicine-bags is to thrust it at him; he falls like
dead, but a second thrust of the bag restores him to life.660 Among the
Dacotas the institution of the medicine-bag or mystery-sack was attributed
to Onktehi, the great spirit of the waters, who ordained that the bag should
consist of the skin of the otter, raccoon, weasel, squirrel, or loon, or a
species of fish and of serpents. Further, he decreed that the bag should
contain four sorts of medicines of magical qualities, which should represent
fowls, quadrupeds, herbs, and trees. Accordingly, swan's down, buffalo hair,
grass roots, and bark from the roots of trees are kept by the Dacotas in
their medicine-bags. From this combination there proceeds a magical
influence (tonwan) so powerful that no human being can of his own
strength withstand it. When the god of the waters had prepared the first
medicine-bag, he tested its powers on four candidates for initiation, who all
perished under the shock. So he consulted with his wife, the goddess of the
earth, and by [pg 269] holding up his left hand and pattering on the back of
it with the right, he produced myriads of little shells, whose virtue is to
restore life to those who have been slain by the medicine-bag. Having taken
this precaution, the god chose four other candidates and repeated the
experiment of initiation with success, for after killing them with the bag he
immediately resuscitated them by throwing one of the shells into their vital
parts, while he chanted certain words assuring them that it was only sport
and bidding them rise to their feet. That is why to this day every initiated
Dacota has one of these shells in his body. Such was the divine origin of the
medicine-dance of the Dacotas. The initiation takes place in a special tent.
The candidate, after being steamed in a vapour-bath for four successive
days, plants himself on a pile of blankets, and behind him stands an aged
member of the order. “Now the master of the ceremonies, with the joints of
his knees and hips considerably bent, advances with an unsteady, uncouth
hitching, sack in hand, wearing an aspect of desperate energy, and uttering
his ‘Heen, heen, heen’ with frightful emphasis, while all around are
enthusiastic demonstrations of all kinds of wild passions. At this point the
sack is raised near a painted spot on the breast of the candidate, at which
the tonwan is discharged. At the instant the brother from behind gives him a
 push and he falls dead, and is covered with blankets. Now the frenzied
dancers gather around, and in the midst of bewildering and indescribable
noises, chant the words uttered by the god at the institution of the
ceremony, as already recorded. Then the master throws off the covering,
and chewing a piece of the bone of the Onktehi, spirts it over him, and he
begins to show signs of returning life. Then as the master pats energetically
upon the breast of the initiated person, he, convulsed, strangling,
struggling, and agonizing, heaves up the shell which falls from his mouth on
a sack placed in readiness to receive it. Life is restored and entrance
effected into the awful mysteries. He belongs henceforth to the medicine-
dance, and has a right to enjoy the medicine-feast.”661

[pg 270]

A ceremony witnessed by the castaway John R. Jewitt during his captivity

among the Indians of Nootka Sound doubtless belongs to this class of
f customs. The Indian king or chief “discharged a pistol close to his son's ear,
who immediately fell down as if killed, upon which all the women of the
house set up a most lamentable cry, tearing handfuls of hair from their
heads, and exclaiming that the prince was dead; at the same time a great
number of the inhabitants rushed into the house armed with their daggers,
f muskets, etc., enquiring the cause of their outcry. These were immediately
followed by two others dressed in wolf skins, with masks over their faces
representing the head of that animal. The latter came in on their hands and
feet in the manner of a beast, and taking up the prince, carried him off
upon their backs, retiring in the same manner they entered.”662 In another
place Jewitt mentions that the young prince—a lad of about eleven years of
age—wore a mask in imitation of a wolf's head.663 Now, as the Indians of
this part of America are divided into totem clans, of which the Wolf clan is
one of the principal, and as the members of each clan are in the habit of
wearing some portion of the totem animal about their person,664 it is
probable that the prince belonged to the Wolf clan, and that the ceremony
described by Jewitt represented the killing of the lad in order that he might
be born anew as a wolf, much in the same way that the Basque hunter
supposed himself to have been killed and to have come to life again as a
bear.

This conjectural explanation of the ceremony has, since it was first put
forward, been confirmed by the researches of Dr. Franz Boas among these
Indians; though it would seem [pg 271] that the community to which the
 chief's son thus obtained admission was not so much a totem clan as a
secret society called Tlokoala, whose members imitated wolves. The name
f Tlokoala is a foreign word among the Nootka Indians, having been
borrowed by them from the Kwakiutl Indians, in whose language the word
means the finding of a manitoo or personal totem. The Nootka tradition
runs that this secret society was instituted by wolves who took away a
chief's son and tried to kill him, but, failing to do so, became his friends,
taught him the rites of the society, and ordered him to teach them to his
friends on his return home. Then they carried the young man back to his
f village. They also begged that whenever he moved from one place to
another he would kindly leave behind him some red cedar-bark to be used
by them in their own ceremonies; and to this custom the Nootka tribes still
adhere. Every new member of the society must be initiated by the wolves.
At night a pack of wolves, personated by Indians dressed in wolf-skins and
wearing wolf-masks, make their appearance, seize the novice, and carry him
into the woods. When the wolves are heard outside the village, coming to
fetch away the novice, all the members of the society blacken their faces
and sing, “Among all the tribes is great excitement, because I am Tlokoala.”
Next day the wolves bring back the novice dead, and the members of the
society have to revive him. The wolves are supposed to have put a magic
stone into his body, which must be removed before he can come to life. Till
this is done the pretended corpse is left lying outside the house. Two
wizards go and remove the stone, which appears to be quartz, and then the
novice is resuscitated.665 Among the Niska Indians of British Columbia, who
are divided into four principal clans with the raven, the wolf, the eagle, and
the bear for their respective totems, the novice at initiation is always
brought back by an artificial totem animal. Thus when a [pg 272] man was
about to be initiated into a secret society called Olala, his friends drew their
knives and pretended to kill him. In reality they let him slip away, while they
cut off the head of a dummy which had been adroitly substituted for him.
Then they laid the decapitated dummy down and covered it over, and the
women began to mourn and wail. His relations gave a funeral banquet and
solemnly burnt the effigy. In short, they held a regular funeral. For a whole
year the novice remained absent and was seen by none but members of the
secret society. But at the end of that time he came back alive, carried by an
artificial animal which represented his totem.666

In these ceremonies the essence of the rite appears to be the killing of the
novice in his character of a man and his restoration to life in the form of the
animal which is thenceforward to be, if not his guardian spirit, at least linked
to him in a peculiarly intimate relation. It is to be remembered that the
Indians of Guatemala, whose life was bound up with an animal, were
supposed to have the power of appearing in the shape of the particular
creature with which they were thus sympathetically united.667 Hence it
seems not unreasonable to conjecture that in like manner the Indians of
British Columbia may imagine that their life depends on the life of some one
of that species of creature to which they assimilate themselves by their
costume. At least if that is not an article of belief with the Columbian
Indians of the present day, it may very well have been so with their
ancestors in the past, and thus may have helped to mould the rites and
ceremonies both of the totem clans and of the [pg 273] secret societies. For
though these two sorts of communities differ in respect of the mode in
which membership of them is obtained—a man being born into his totem
clan but admitted into a secret society later in life—we can hardly doubt that
they are near akin and have their root in the same mode of thought.668 That
thought, if I am right, is the possibility of establishing a sympathetic relation
with an animal, a spirit, or other mighty being, with whom a man deposits
for safe-keeping his soul or some part of it, and from whom he receives in
return a gift of magical powers.

The Carrier Indians, who dwell further inland than the tribes we have just
been considering, are divided into four clans with the grouse, the beaver,
the toad, and the grizzly bear for their totems. But in addition to these clan
totems the tribe recognized a considerable number of what Father Morice
calls honorific totems, which could be acquired, through the performance of
certain rites, by any person who wished to improve his social position. Each
totem clan had a certain number of honorific totems or crests, and these
might be assumed by any member of the clan who fulfilled the required
conditions; but they could not be acquired by members of another clan.
Thus the Grouse clan had for its honorific totems or crests the owl, the
moose, the weasel, the crane, the wolf, the full moon, the wind, and so on;
the Toad clan had the sturgeon, the porcupine, the wolverine, the red-
headed woodpecker, the “darding knife,” and so forth; the Beaver clan had
the mountain-goat for one of its [pg 274] honorific totems; and the goose
was a honorific totem of the Grizzly Bear clan. But the common bear, as a
honorific totem or crest, might be assumed by anybody, whatever his clan.
The common possession of a honorific totem appears to have constituted
the same sort of bond among the Carrier Indians as the membership of a
secret society does among the coast tribes of British Columbia; certainly the
rites of initiation were similar. This will be clear from Father Morice's account
of the performances, which I will subjoin in his own words. “The connection
of the individual with his crest appeared more especially during ceremonial
dances, when the former, attired, if possible, with the spoils of the latter,
was wont to personate it in the gaze of an admiring assemblage. On all such
occasions, man and totem were also called by the same name. The adoption
of any such 'rite' or crest was usually accompanied by initiatory ceremonies
or observances corresponding to the nature of the crest, followed in all
cases by a distribution of clothes to all present. Thus whenever anybody
resolved upon getting received as Lulem or Bear, he would, regardless of the
season, divest himself of all his wearing apparel and don a bear-skin,
whereupon he would dash into the woods there to remain for the space of
three or four days and nights in deference to the wonts of his intended
totem animal. Every night a party of his fellow-villagers would sally out in
search of the missing ‘bear.’ To their loud calls: Yi! Kelulem (Come on, Bear!)
he would answer by angry growls in imitation of the bear. The searching
party making for the spot where he had been heard, would find by a second
call followed by a similar answer that he had dexterously shifted to some
opposite quarter in the forest. As a rule, he could not be found, but had to
come back of himself, when he was speedily apprehended and conducted to
the ceremonial lodge, where he would commence his first bear-dance in
conjunction with all the other totem people, each of whom would then
personate his own particular totem. Finally would take place the potlatch
[distribution of property] of the newly initiated ‘bear,’ who would not forget
to present his captor with at least a whole dressed skin. The initiation to the
‘Darding Knife’ was quite a theatrical performance. A lance was prepared
[pg 275] which had a very sharp point so arranged that the slightest
pressure on its tip would cause the steel to gradually sink into the shaft. In
the sight of the multitude crowding the lodge, this lance was pressed on the
bare chest of the candidate and apparently sunk in his body to the shaft,
when he would tumble down simulating death. At the same time a quantity
of blood—previously kept in the mouth—would issue from the would-be
corpse, making it quite clear to the uninitiated gazers-on that the terrible
knife had had its effect, when lo! upon one of the actors striking up one of
the chants specially made for the circumstance and richly paid for, the
candidate would gradually rise up a new man, the particular protégé of the
‘Darding Knife.’ ”669
 In the former of these two initiatory rites of the Carrier Indians the
prominent feature is the transformation of the man into his totem animal; in
the latter it is his death and resurrection. But in substance, probably, both
f are identical. In both the novice dies as a man and revives as his totem,
whether that be a bear, a “darding” knife, or what not; in other words, he
has deposited his life or some portion of it in his totem, with which
accordingly for the future he is more or less completely identified. Hard as it
may be for us to conceive why a man should choose to identify himself with
a knife, whether “darding” or otherwise, we have to remember that in
f Celebes it is to a chopping-knife or other iron tool that the soul of a woman
in labour is transferred for safety;670 and the difference between a chopping-
knife and a “darding” knife, considered as a receptacle for a human soul, is
perhaps not very material. Among the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia warriors who had a knife, an arrow, or any other weapon for their
personal totem or guardian spirit, enjoyed this signal advantage over their
fellows that they were for all practical purposes invulnerable. If an arrow did
hit them, which seldom happened, they vomited [pg 276] the blood up, and
the hurt soon healed. Hence these arrow-proof warriors rarely wore armour,
which would indeed have been superfluous, and they generally took the
most dangerous posts in battle. So convinced were the Thompson Indians
of the power of their personal totem or guardian spirit to bring them back to
life, that some of them killed themselves in the sure hope that the spirit
would immediately raise them up from the dead. Others, more prudently,
experimented on their friends, shooting them dead and then awaiting more
or less cheerfully their joyful resurrection. We are not told that success
crowned these experimental demonstrations of the immortality of the
soul.671

The Toukaway Indians of Texas, one of whose totems is the wolf, have a
ceremony in which men, dressed in wolf-skins, run about on all fours,
howling and mimicking wolves. At last they scratch up a living tribesman,
who has been buried on purpose, and putting a bow and arrows in his
hands, bid him do as the wolves do—rob, kill, and murder.672 The ceremony
probably forms part of an initiatory rite like the resurrection from the grave
of the old man in the Australian rites.

The simulation of death and resurrection or of a new birth at initiation

appears to have lingered on, or at least to have left traces of itself, among
f peoples who have advanced far beyond the stage of savagery. Thus, after
f his investiture with the sacred thread—the symbol of his order—a Brahman
 is called “twice born.” Manu says, “According to the injunction of the
revealed texts the first birth of an [pg 277] Aryan is from his natural mother,
the second happens on the tying of the girdle of Muñga grass, and the third
on the initiation to the performance to a Srauta sacrifice.”673 A pretence of
killing the candidate perhaps formed part of the initiation to the Mithraic
mysteries.674

Thus, on the theory here suggested, wherever totemism is found, and

wherever a pretence is made of killing and bringing to life again the novice
at initiation, there may exist or have existed not only a belief in the
possibility of permanently depositing the soul in some external object—
animal, plant, or what not—but an actual intention of so doing. If the
question is put, why do men desire to deposit their life outside their bodies?
the answer can only be that, like the giant in the fairy tale, they think it
safer to do so than to carry it about with them, just as people deposit their
money with a banker rather than carry it on their persons. We have seen
that at critical periods the life or soul is sometimes temporarily stowed away
in a safe place till the danger is past. But institutions like totemism are not
f resorted to merely on special occasions of danger; they are systems into
which every one, or at least every male, is obliged to be initiated at a
certain period of life. Now the period of life at which initiation takes place is
regularly puberty; and this fact suggests that the special danger which
totemism and systems like it are intended to obviate is supposed not to
arise till sexual maturity has been attained, in fact, that the danger
f apprehended is believed to attend the relation of the sexes to each other. It
would be easy to prove by a long array of facts that the sexual relation is
associated in the primitive mind with many serious perils; but the exact
nature of the danger apprehended is still [pg 278] obscure. We may hope
that a more exact acquaintance with savage modes of thought will in time
disclose this central mystery of primitive society, and will thereby furnish the
clue, not only to totemism, but to the origin of the marriage system.
[pg 279]
 Chapter XII. The Golden Bough.

Thus the view that Balder's life was in the mistletoe is entirely in harmony
with primitive modes of thought. It may indeed sound like a contradiction
that, if his life was in the mistletoe, he should nevertheless have been killed
by a blow from the plant. But when a person's life is conceived as embodied
in a particular object, with the existence of which his own existence is
inseparably bound up, and the destruction of which involves his own, the
object in question may be regarded and spoken of indifferently as his life or
his death, as happens in the fairy tales. Hence if a man's death is in an
object, it is perfectly natural that he should be killed by a blow from it. In
the fairy tales Koshchei the Deathless is killed by a blow from the egg or the
stone in which his life or death is secreted;675 the ogres burst when a certain
grain of sand—doubtless containing their life or death—is carried over their
heads;676 the magician dies when the stone in which his life or death is
contained is put under his pillow;677 and the Tartar hero is warned that he
may be killed by the golden arrow or golden sword in which his soul has
been stowed away.678

[pg 280]

The idea that the life of the oak was in the mistletoe was probably
suggested, as I have said, by the observation that in winter the mistletoe
growing on the oak remains green while the oak itself is leafless. But the
position of the plant—growing not from the ground but from the trunk or
branches of the tree—might confirm this idea. Primitive man might think
that, like himself, the oak-spirit had sought to deposit his life in some safe
f place, and for this purpose had pitched on the mistletoe, which, being in a
k sense neither on earth nor in heaven, might be supposed to be fairly out of
harm's way. In the first chapter we saw that primitive man seeks to preserve
the life of his human divinities by keeping them poised between earth and
heaven, as the place where they are least likely to be assailed by the
dangers that encompass the life of man on earth. We can therefore
understand why it has been a rule both of ancient and of modern folk-
medicine that the mistletoe should not be allowed to touch the ground;
were it to touch the ground, its healing virtue would be gone.679 This may
be a survival of the old superstition that the plant in which the life of the
sacred tree was concentrated should not be exposed to the risk incurred by
contact with the earth. In an Indian legend, which offers a parallel to the
Balder myth, Indra swore to the demon Namuci that he would slay him
neither by day nor by night, neither with staff nor with bow, neither with the
palm of the hand nor with the fist, neither with the wet nor with the dry. But
he killed him in the morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the
sea.680 The foam of the sea is just such [pg 281] an object as a savage
might choose to put his life in, because it occupies that sort of intermediate
or nondescript position between earth and sky or sea and sky in which
primitive man sees safety. It is therefore not surprising that the foam of the
river should be the totem of a clan in India.681

Again, the view that the mistletoe owes its mystic character partly to its not
growing on the ground is confirmed by a parallel superstition about the
mountain-ash or rowan-tree. In Jutland a rowan that is found growing out
of the top of another tree is esteemed “exceedingly effective against
witchcraft: since it does not grow on the ground witches have no power
over it; if it is to have its full effect it must be cut on Ascension Day.”682
Hence it is placed over doors to prevent the ingress of witches.683 In Sweden
and Norway, also, magical properties are ascribed to a “flying-rowan”
(flögrönn), that is to a rowan which is found growing not in the ordinary
fashion on the ground but on another tree, or on a roof, or in a cleft of the
rock, where it has sprouted from seed scattered by birds. They say that a
man who is out in the dark should have a bit of “flying-rowan” with him to
chew; else he runs a risk of being bewitched and of being unable to stir
from the spot.684 A Norwegian story relates how once on a time a Troll so
bewitched some men who were ploughing in a field that they could not
drive a straight furrow; only one of the ploughmen was able to resist the
enchantment because by good luck his plough was made out of a “flying-
rowan.”685 In Sweden, too, the “flying-rowan” is used to make the divining
rod, which discovers hidden treasures. This useful art has nowadays
unfortunately [pg 282] been almost forgotten, but three hundred years ago
it was in full bloom, as we gather from the following contemporary account.
“If in the woods or elsewhere, on old walls or on high mountains or rocks
you perceive a rowan-tree (runn) which has sprung from a seed that a bird
has dropped from its bill, you must either knock or break off that rod or tree
in the twilight between the third day and the night after Ladyday. But you
must take care that neither iron nor steel touches it and that in carrying it
home you do not let it fall on the ground. Then place it under the roof on a
spot under which you have laid various metals, and you will soon be
surprised to see how that rod under the roof gradually bends in the
direction of the metals. When your rod has sat there in the same spot for
fourteen days or more, you take a knife or an awl, which has been stroked
with a magnet, and with it you slit the bark on all sides, and pour or drop
the blood of a cock (best of all the blood from the comb of a cock which is
all of one colour) on the said slits in the bark; and when the blood has
dried, the rod is ready and will give public proof of the efficacy of its
marvellous properties.”686 Just as in Scandinavia the parasitic rowan is
deemed a countercharm to sorcery, so in Germany the parasitic mistletoe is
still commonly considered a protection against witchcraft, and in Sweden, as
we saw, the mistletoe which is gathered on Midsummer Eve is attached to
the ceiling of the house, the horse's stall or the cow's crib, in the belief that
this renders the Troll powerless to injure man or beast.687

[pg 283]

The view that the mistletoe was not merely the instrument of Balder's
death, but that it contained his life, is countenanced by the analogy of a
Scottish superstition. Tradition ran that the fate of the Hays of Errol, an
estate in Perthshire, near the Firth of Tay, was bound up with the mistletoe
that grew on a certain great oak. A member of the Hay family has recorded
the old belief as follows: “Among the low country families the badges are
now almost generally forgotten; but it appears by an ancient MS. and the
tradition of a few old people in Perthshire, that the badge of the Hays was
the mistletoe. There was formerly in the neighbourhood of Errol, and not far
from the Falcon stone, a vast oak of an unknown age, and upon which grew
a profusion of the plant: many charms and legends were considered to be
connected with the tree, and the duration of the family of Hay was said to
be united with its existence. It was believed that a sprig of the mistletoe cut
by a Hay on Allhallowmas eve, with a new dirk, and after surrounding the
tree three times sunwise, and pronouncing a certain spell, was a sure charm
against all glamour or witchery, and an infallible guard in the day of battle. A
spray gathered in the same manner was placed in the cradle of infants, and
thought to defend them from being changed for elf-bairns by the fairies.
Finally, it was affirmed, that when the root of the oak had perished, ‘the
grass should grow in the hearth of Errol, and a raven should sit in the
 falcon's nest.’ The two most unlucky deeds which could be done by one of
the name of Hay were, to kill a white falcon, and to cut down a limb from
the oak of Errol. When the old tree was destroyed I could never learn. The
estate has been some time sold out of the family of Hay, and of course it is
said that the fatal oak was cut down a short time before.”688 The old
superstition is recorded in verses which are traditionally ascribed to Thomas
the Rhymer:—

“While the mistletoe bats on Errol's aik,

And that aik stands fast,
The Hays shall flourish, and their good grey hawk
Shall nocht flinch before the blast.
[pg 284]
But when the root of the aik decays,
And the mistletoe dwines on its withered breast,
The grass shall grow on Errol's hearthstane,
And the corbie roup in the falcon's nest.”689

The idea that the fate of a family, as distinct from the lives of its members,
is bound up with a particular plant or tree, is no doubt comparatively
f modern. The older view may have been that the lives of all the Hays were in
this particular mistletoe, just as in the Indian story the lives of all the ogres
are in a lemon; to break a twig of the mistletoe would then have been to kill
one of the Hays. Similarly in the island of Rum, whose bold mountains the
f voyager from Oban to Skye observes to seaward, it was thought that if one
of the family of Lachlin shot a deer on the mountain of Finchra, he would
die suddenly or contract a distemper which would soon prove fatal.690
Probably the life of the Lachlins was bound up with the deer on Finchra, as
the life of the Hays was bound up with the mistletoe on Errol's oak, and the
life of the Dalhousie family with the Edgewell Tree.

It is not a new opinion that the Golden Bough was the mistletoe.691 True,
Virgil does not identify but only compares [pg 285] it with mistletoe. But this
may be only a poetical device to cast a mystic glamour over the humble
plant. Or, more probably, his description was based on a popular superstition
that at certain times the mistletoe blazed out into a supernatural golden
glory. The poet tells how two doves, guiding Aeneas to the gloomy vale in
whose depth grew the Golden Bough, alighted upon a tree, “whence shone
 a flickering gleam of gold. As in the woods in winter cold the mistletoe—a
plant not native to its tree—is green with fresh leaves and twines its yellow
berries about the boles; such seemed upon the shady holm-oak the leafy
gold, so rustled in the gentle breeze the golden leaf.”692 Here Virgil definitely
describes the Golden Bough as growing on a holm-oak, and compares it
with the mistletoe. The inference is almost inevitable that the Golden Bough
was nothing but the mistletoe seen through the haze of poetry or of popular
superstition.

Now grounds have been shewn for believing that the priest of the Arician
grove—the King of the Wood—personified the tree on which grew the
Golden Bough.693 Hence if that tree was the oak, the King of the Wood must
have been a personification of the oak-spirit. It is, therefore, easy to
understand why, before he could be slain, it was necessary to break the
Golden Bough. As an oak-spirit, his life or death was in the mistletoe on the
oak, and so long as the mistletoe remained intact, he, like Balder, could not
die. To slay him, therefore, it was necessary to break the mistletoe, and
probably, as in the case of Balder, to throw it at him. And to complete the
parallel, it is only necessary to suppose that the King of the Wood was
formerly burned, dead or alive, at the midsummer fire festival which, as we
have seen, was annually celebrated in the Arician grove.694 The perpetual
fire which burned in the grove, like the perpetual [pg 286] fire which burned
k
in the temple of Vesta at Rome and under the oak at Romove,695 was
probably fed with the sacred oak-wood; and thus it would be in a great fire
of oak that the King of the Wood formerly met his end. At a later time, as I
k
have suggested, his annual tenure of office was lengthened or shortened, as
the case might be, by the rule which allowed him to live so long as he could
prove his divine right by the strong hand. But he only escaped the fire to fall
by the sword.

Thus it seems that at a remote age in the heart of Italy, beside the sweet
Lake of Nemi, the same fiery tragedy was annually enacted which Italian
merchants and soldiers were afterwards to witness among their rude
kindred, the Celts of Gaul, and which, if the Roman eagles had ever
swooped on Norway, might have been found repeated with little difference
among the barbarous Aryans of the North. The rite was probably an
essential feature in the ancient Aryan worship of the oak.696

It only remains to ask, Why was the mistletoe called the Golden Bough?697
The whitish-yellow of the mistletoe berries is hardly enough to account for
f the name, for Virgil says that the bough was altogether golden, stem as well
as leaves.698 Perhaps the name may be derived from the rich golden yellow
which a bough of mistletoe assumes when it has been cut and kept for
some months; the bright tint is not confined to the leaves, but spreads to
the stalks as well, so that the whole branch appears to be indeed a Golden
Bough. Breton peasants hang up [pg 287] great bunches of mistletoe in
front of their cottages, and in the month of June these bunches are
conspicuous for the bright golden tinge of their foliage.699 In some parts of
Brittany, especially about Morbihan, branches of mistletoe are hung over the
doors of stables and byres to protect the horses and cattle,700 probably
against witchcraft.

The yellow colour of the withered bough may partly explain why the
mistletoe has been sometimes supposed to possess the property of
disclosing treasures in the earth;701 for on the principles of homoeopathic
magic there is a natural affinity between a yellow bough and yellow gold.
f
This suggestion is confirmed by the analogy of the marvellous properties
popularly ascribed to the mythical fern-seed or fern-bloom. We saw that
fern-seed is popularly supposed to bloom like gold or fire on Midsummer
Eve.702 Thus in Bohemia it is said that “on St. John's Day fern-seed blooms
with golden blossoms that gleam like fire.”703 Now it is a property of this
mythical fern-seed that whoever has it, or will ascend a mountain holding it
in his hand on Midsummer Eve, will discover a vein of gold or will see the
treasures of the earth shining with a bluish flame.704 In Russia they say that
if you [pg 288] succeed in catching the wondrous bloom of the fern at
midnight on Midsummer Eve, you have only to throw it up into the air, and it
will fall like a star on the very spot where a treasure lies hidden.705 In
Brittany treasure-seekers gather fern-seed at midnight on Midsummer Eve,
and keep it till Palm Sunday of the following year; then they strew the seed
on ground where they think a treasure is concealed.706 Tyrolese peasants
imagine that hidden treasures can be seen glowing like flame on
Midsummer Eve, and that fern-seed, gathered at this mystic season, with
the usual precautions, will help to bring the buried gold to the surface.707 In
the Swiss canton of Freiburg people used to watch beside a fern on St.
John's night in the hope of winning a treasure, which the devil himself
sometimes brought to them.708 In Bohemia they say that he who procures
the golden bloom of the fern at this season has thereby the key to all
hidden treasures; and that if maidens will spread a cloth under the fast-
fading bloom, red gold will drop into it.709 And in the Tyrol and Bohemia if
 you place fern-seed among money, the money will never decrease, however
much of it you spend.710 Sometimes the [pg 289] fern-seed is supposed to
bloom on Christmas night, and whoever catches it will become very rich.711
In Styria they say that by gathering fern-seed on Christmas night you can
force the devil to bring you a bag of money.712 In Swabia likewise you can,
by taking the proper precautions, compel Satan himself to fetch you a
packet of fern-seed on Christmas night. But for four weeks previously, and
during the whole of the Advent season, you must be very careful never to
pray, never to go to church, and never to use holy water; you must busy
yourself all day long with devilish thoughts, and cherish an ardent wish that
the devil would help you to get money. Thus prepared you take your stand,
between eleven and twelve on Christmas night, at the meeting of two roads,
over both of which corpses have been carried to the churchyard. Here many
f people meet you, some of them dead and buried long ago, it may be your
parents or grandparents, or old friends and acquaintances, and they stop
and greet you, and ask, “What are you doing here?” And tiny little goblins
hop and dance about and try to make you laugh. But if you smile or utter a
single word, the devil will tear you to shreds and tatters on the spot. If,
however, you stand glum and silent and solemn, there will come, after all
the ghostly train has passed by, a man dressed as a hunter, and that is the
devil. He will hand you a paper cornet full of fern-seed, which you must
keep and carry about with you as long as you live. It will give you the power
of doing as much work at your trade in a day as twenty or thirty ordinary
men could do in the same time. So you will grow very rich. But few people
have the courage to go through with the ordeal. The people of Rotenburg
tell of a weaver of their town, who lived some two hundred and fifty years
ago and performed prodigies of weaving by a simple application of fern-
seed which he had been so fortunate as to obtain, no doubt from the devil,
though that is not expressly alleged [pg 290] by tradition. Rich in the
possession of this treasure, the lazy rascal worked only on Saturdays and
spent all the rest of the week playing and drinking; yet in one day he wove
far more cloth than any other skilled weaver who sat at his loom from
morning to night every day of the week. Naturally he kept his own counsel,
and nobody might ever have known how he did it, if it had not been for
what, humanly speaking, you might call an accident, though for my part I
cannot but regard it as the manifest finger of Providence. One day—it was
the octave of a festival—the fellow had woven a web no less than a hundred
ells long, and his mistress resolved to deliver it to her customer the same
evening. So she put the cloth in a basket and away she trudged with it. Her
way led her past a church, and as she passed the sacred edifice, she heard
the tinkle of the holy bell which announced the elevation of the Host. Being
a good woman she put her basket down, knelt beside it, and there, with the
shadows gathering round her, committed herself to the care of God and his
good angels and received, along with the kneeling congregation in the
lighted church, the evening benediction, which kept her and them from all
the perils and dangers of the night. Then rising refreshed she took up her
basket. But what was her astonishment on looking into it to find the whole
web reduced to a heap of yarn! The blessed words of the priest at the altar
had undone the cursed spell of the Enemy of Mankind.713

Thus, on the principle of like by like, fern-seed is supposed to discover gold

because it is itself golden; and for a similar reason it enriches its possessor
with an unfailing supply of gold. But while the fern-seed is described as
golden, it is equally described as glowing and fiery.714 Hence, when we
consider that two great days for gathering the fabulous seed are
Midsummer Eve and Christmas—that is, the two solstices (for Christmas is
nothing but an old heathen celebration of the winter solstice)—we are led to
[pg 291] regard the fiery aspect of the fern-seed as primary, and its golden
aspect as secondary and derivative. Fern-seed, in fact, would seem to be an
emanation of the sun's fire at the two turning-points of its course, the
summer and winter solstices. This view is confirmed by a German story in
which a hunter is said to have procured fern-seed by shooting at the sun on
Midsummer Day at noon; three drops of blood fell down, which he caught in
a white cloth, and these blood-drops were the fern-seed.715 Here the blood
is clearly the blood of the sun, from which the fern-seed is thus directly
derived. Thus it may be taken as probable that fern-seed is golden, because
it is believed to be an emanation of the sun's golden fire.

Now, like fern-seed, the mistletoe is gathered either at Midsummer or

Christmas716—that is, at the summer and winter solstices—and, like fern-
seed, it is supposed to possess the power of revealing treasures in the
earth. On Midsummer Eve people in Sweden make divining-rods of
mistletoe, or of four different kinds of wood one of which must be mistletoe.
The treasure-seeker places the rod on the ground after sun-down, and
when it rests directly over treasure, the rod begins to move as if it were
alive.717 Now, [pg 292] if the mistletoe discovers gold, it must be in its
character of the Golden Bough; and if it is gathered at the solstices, must
not the Golden Bough, like the golden fern-seed, be an emanation of the
sun's fire? The question cannot be answered with a simple affirmative. We
 have seen that the old Aryans perhaps kindled the solstitial and other
ceremonial fires in part as sun-charms, that is, with the intention of
supplying the sun with fresh fire; and as these fires were usually made by
the friction or combustion of oak-wood,718 it may have appeared to the
ancient Aryan that the sun was periodically recruited from the fire which
resided in the sacred oak. In other words, the oak may have seemed to him
the original storehouse or reservoir of the fire which was from time to time
drawn out to feed the sun. But if the life of the oak was conceived to be in
the mistletoe, the mistletoe must on that view have contained the seed or
germ of the fire which was elicited by friction from the wood of the oak.
Thus, instead of saying that the mistletoe was an emanation of the sun's
fire, it might be more correct to say that the sun's fire was regarded as an
emanation of the mistletoe. No wonder, then, that the mistletoe shone with
a golden splendour, and was called the Golden Bough. Probably, however,
like fern-seed, it was thought to assume its golden aspect only at those
stated times, especially midsummer, when fire was drawn from the oak to
light up the sun.719 At Pulverbatch, in Shropshire, it was believed within
f living memory that the oak-tree blooms on Midsummer Eve and the blossom
k withers before daylight. A maiden who wishes to know her lot in marriage
should spread a white cloth under the tree at night, and in the morning she
will find a little dust, which is all that remains of the flower. She should place
the pinch of dust under her pillow, and then her future husband will appear
to her in her dreams.720 This fleeting bloom of the oak, if I am right, was
probably the mistletoe in its character of the Golden Bough. The conjecture
is confirmed by the observation [pg 293] that in Wales a real sprig of
mistletoe gathered on Midsummer Eve is similarly placed under the pillow to
induce prophetic dreams;721 and further the mode of catching the imaginary
bloom of the oak in a white cloth is exactly that which was employed by the
Druids to catch the real mistletoe when it dropped from the bough of the
oak, severed by the golden sickle.722 As Shropshire borders on Wales, the
belief that the oak blooms on Midsummer Eve may be Welsh in its
immediate origin, though probably the belief is a fragment of the primitive
Aryan creed. In some parts of Italy, as we saw,723 peasants still go out on
Midsummer morning to search the oak-trees for the “oil of St. John,” which,
like the mistletoe, heals all wounds, and is, perhaps, the mistletoe itself in
its glorified aspect. Thus it is easy to understand how a title like the Golden
Bough, so little descriptive of its usual appearance on the tree, should have
been applied to the seemingly insignificant parasite. Further, we can
perhaps see why in antiquity mistletoe was believed to possess the
remarkable property of extinguishing fire,724 and why in Sweden it is still
kept in houses as a safeguard against conflagration.725 Its fiery nature marks
it out, on homoeopathic principles, as the best possible cure or preventive of
injury by fire.

These considerations may partially explain why Virgil makes Aeneas carry a
glorified bough of mistletoe with him on his descent into the gloomy
subterranean world. The poet describes how at the very gates of hell there
stretched a vast and gloomy wood, and how the hero, following the flight of
two doves that lured him on, wandered into the depths of the immemorial
forest till he saw afar off through the shadows of the trees the flickering
light of the Golden Bough illuminating the matted boughs overhead.726 If the
mistletoe, as a yellow withered bough in the sad autumn woods, was
conceived to contain the seed of fire, what better companion could a forlorn
wanderer in the nether shades [pg 294] take with him than a bough that
would be a lamp to his feet as well as a rod and staff to his hands? Armed
with it he might boldly confront the dreadful spectres that would cross his
path on his adventurous journey. Hence when Aeneas, emerging from the
forest, comes to the banks of Styx, winding slow with sluggish stream
through the infernal marsh, and the surly ferryman refuses him passage in
his boat, he has but to draw the Golden Bough from his bosom and hold it
up, and straightway the blusterer quails at the sight and meekly receives the
hero into his crazy bark, which sinks deep in the water under the unusual
weight of the living man.727 Even in recent times, as we have seen,
mistletoe has been deemed a protection against witches and trolls,728 and
the ancients may well have credited it with the same magical virtue. And if
the parasite can, as some of our peasants believe, open all locks,729 why
should it not have served as an “open Sesame” in the hands of Aeneas to
unlock the gates of death? There is some reason to suppose that when
Orpheus in like manner descended alive to hell to rescue the soul of his
dead wife Eurydice from the shades, he carried with him a willow bough to
serve as a passport on his journey to and from the land of the dead; for in
the great frescoes representing the nether world, with which the master
hand of Polygnotus adorned the walls of a loggia at Delphi, Orpheus was
depicted sitting pensively under a willow, holding his lyre, now silent and
useless, in his left hand, while with his right he grasped the drooping
boughs of the tree.730 If the willow in the picture had indeed the significance
which an ingenious scholar has attributed to it,731 the painter meant to
represent the dead musician dreaming wistfully of the time when the willow
 had carried him safe back across the Stygian ferry to that bright world of
love and music which he was now to see no more. Again, on an ancient
sarcophagus, which exhibits in sculptured relief the parting of Adonis from
Aphrodite, the hapless youth, reclining in the lap of his leman, holds a [pg
295] branch, which has been taken to signify that he, too, by the help of the
mystic bough, might yet be brought back from the gates of death to life and
love.732

Now, too, we can conjecture why Virbius at Nemi came to be confounded

with the sun.733 If Virbius was, as I have tried to shew, a tree-spirit, he must
have been the spirit of the oak on which grew the Golden Bough; for
tradition represented him as the first of the Kings of the Wood. As an oak-
spirit he must have been supposed periodically to rekindle the sun's fire,
and might therefore easily be confounded with the sun itself. Similarly we
can explain why Balder, an oak-spirit, was described as “so fair of face and
f
so shining that a light went forth from him,”734 and why he should have
been so often taken to be the sun. And in general we may say that in
primitive society, when the only known way of making fire is by the friction
of wood, the savage must necessarily conceive of fire as a property stored
away, like sap or juice, in trees, from which he has laboriously to extract it.
The Senal Indians of California “profess to believe that the whole world was
once a globe of fire, whence that element passed up into the trees, and now
comes out whenever two pieces of wood are rubbed together.”735 Similarly
the Maidu Indians of California hold that “the earth was primarily a globe of
molten matter, and from that the principle of fire ascended through the
roots into the trunk and branches of trees, whence the Indians can extract it
by means of their drill.”736 In Namoluk, one of the Caroline Islands, they say
that the art of making fire was taught men by the gods. Olofaet, the
cunning master of flames, gave fire to the bird mwi and bade him carry it to
earth in his bill. So the bird flew from tree to tree and stored away the
slumbering force of the fire in the wood, from which men can elicit it by
friction.737 In the ancient [pg 296] Vedic hymns of India the fire-god Agni “is
spoken of as born in wood, as the embryo of plants, or as distributed in
plants. He is also said to have entered into all plants or to strive after them.
When he is called the embryo of trees or of trees as well as plants, there
may be a side-glance at the fire produced in forests by the friction of the
boughs of trees.”738 In some Australian languages the words for wood and
fire are said to be the same.739
 A tree which has been struck by lightning is naturally regarded by the
savage as charged with a double or triple portion of fire; for has he not seen
the mighty flash enter into the trunk with his own eyes? Hence perhaps we
may explain some of the many superstitious beliefs concerning trees that
have been struck by lightning. Thus in the opinion of the Cherokee Indians
“mysterious properties attach to the wood of a tree which has been struck
by lightning, especially when the tree itself still lives, and such wood enters
largely into the secret compounds of the conjurers. An ordinary person of
the laity will not touch it, for fear of having cracks come upon his hands and
feet, nor is it burned for fuel, for fear that lye made from the ashes will
cause consumption. In preparing ballplayers for the contest, the medicine-
man sometimes burns splinters of it to coal, which he gives to the players to
paint themselves with, in order that they may be able to strike their
opponents with all the force of a thunderbolt. Bark or wood from a tree
struck by lightning, but still green, is beaten up and put into the water in
f which seeds are soaked before planting, to insure a good crop, but, on the
other hand, any lightning-struck wood thrown into the field will cause the
crop to wither, and it is believed to have a bad effect even to go into the
field immediately after having been near such a tree.”740 Apparently the
Cherokees imagine that when wood struck by lightning is soaked in [pg 297]
water the fierce heat of the slumbering fire in its veins is tempered to a
genial warmth, which promotes the growth of the crops; but that when the
force of the fire has not been thus diluted it blasts the growing corn. When
the Thompson Indians of British Columbia wished to set fire to the houses
of their enemies, they shot at them arrows which were either made from a
tree that had been struck by lightning or had splinters of such wood
attached to them.741 They seem to have thought that wood struck by
lightning was so charged with fire that it would ignite whatever it struck, the
mere concussion sufficing to explode it like gunpowder. Yet curiously enough
these Indians supposed that if they burned the wood of trees that had been
struck by lightning, the weather would immediately turn cold.742 Perhaps
they conceived such trees as reservoirs of heat, and imagined that by using
them up they would exhaust the supply and thus lower the temperature of
the atmosphere.743 Wendish peasants of Saxony similarly refuse to burn in
their stoves the wood of trees that have been struck by lightning; but the
reason they give for their refusal is different. They say that with such fuel
the house would be burnt down.744 No doubt they think that the electric
flash, inherent in the wood, would send such a roaring flame up the
chimney that nothing could stand before it. In like manner the Thonga of
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