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THE CURSE OF
TREES.
If a man cuts green trees that produce fruit, especially large and
honored ones, a curse from God comes upon him. Or the three which is cut
curses its cutter in this manner : when it falls the tree cracks, and
this is its curse.
And if the cutter hears its curse he says to it: "May thy curse be upon
thee !" Or else, he says: "I have not felled thee nor broken thee;
rhinoceros and elephant have made thee fall." In order that its curse
may not be upon him, but upon the rhinoceros and elephant, he always
speaks like this.
And in some large sycamore and giant fig trees there dwell the saints
and the "Marys." And night after night they pass in their tops ringing
bells. And these honored and large ones are revered, and nothing is cut
off from them ; they are not climbed, and nothing ') is thrown into
them, lest their curse come upon those [who do so]. But if some people
climb them and fall down from them; or again, if they cut them, and if
their hatchet slips off and cuts them in some place, they say: "The
curse has come upon him." There is a certain tree called karob which
grows on the precipices: and in the top of it there are demons dwelling.
And if people intend to cut some of it, they go to it being more than
two together. And when they have reached the place of the tree, every
one of them takes up stones and P. 270.
throws them in rapid succession upon the karob trees shouting. Now the
demons are there unwary, and, being scared, they flee. Then the men cut
hurriedly as much as they wish and go away. And if they are not
compelled to do so, they do not go near it at all.
1) I. e. no stick or piece of wood in order to make the fruit fall down.
2) Perhaps errub = Indigofera Hochstetteri Bak., according to
Schweinfurth.
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