Tree Worship
In Trabzon folklore, the swinging of tree branches and leaves symbolized worship. It is believed that oak trees do not worship God because their leaves do not swing as much as those of other trees.
Şakir Şevket says that Akçaabat society believed in an idol and worshipped a tree called platana, and that is how the city was given this name. Although the platana (Platanus Orientalis in Latin) was a plane tree he had confused this tree with the poplar.
The words of Lermioglu “today peasants love trees as their children.There were several events which people kill someone for a tree” and a story from 19th century show us that this love comes from very old days. A hunter from Mersin village cut a tree called kragen which was idol of Akcaabat society (Since 1940). Then the peasants called the police and said that the hunter cut the Evliya Turkish and Arabic Evliya “Saint”).This event can only be explained with the “paganist” beliefs comes from “Caucasia”. At first the police understood that the hunter killed a man called Evliya (Saint) but later they saw that the “saint” was a tree so they let the hunter go.It was an example of Colchis culture that can be seen today which was mixed with Islam in Trabzon under the name of saint and common before one God religions that people used to believe in nature.
It is possible to see same things in Hemsheen region of Rize “the branches are praying three days before and during bairam,so we do not cut live branches during bairam, the branches are praying”.
Read more about this topic: Bardi (folklore), Folklore From The Black Sea Region
Famous quotes containing the words tree and/or worship:
“I saw the spiders marching through the air,
Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day
In latter August when the hay
Came creaking to the barn.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.”
—William Golding (b. 1911)