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And since caprification is in fact a marriage of the male fig-tree
with the female fig-tree, Mr. Paton further supposes that the loves
of the trees may, on the same principle of imitative magic, have
been simulated by a mock or even a real marriage between the two
human victims, one of whom appears sometimes to have been a woman.
On this view the practice of beating the human victims on their
genitals with branches of wild fig-trees and with squills was a
charm intended to stimulate the generative powers of the man and
woman who for the time being personated the male and the female
fig-trees respectively, and who by their union in marriage, whether
real or pretended, were believed to help the trees to bear fruit.
The interpretation which I have adopted of the custom of beating the
human scapegoat with certain plants is supported by many analogies.
Thus among the Kai of German New Guinea, when a man wishes to make
his banana shoots bear fruit quickly, he beats them with a stick cut
from a banana-tree which has already borne fruit.


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