Why Trees, Too, Are Good to Think With: Towards an Anthropology of the Meaning of Life

Trees are used as major symbols all over the world, and the purpose of this chapter is to present a tentative explanation of why this should be the case. The most obvious way of approaching this question is to consider what it is about trees and the way they are conceptualised that makes them such suitable objects for symbolisation; and, indeed, this will be the author's concern. In fact, a rapid survey of the comparative ethnography reveals that plants too are important, though, as Rival notes in her introductory chapter, they have rarely been the object of such theoretical interest and scrutiny as has been directed towards animals. The psychological literature on the cognition of plants offers a limited amount of choice from which to build theories that might explain recurrences in the symbolism of trees. From an anthropological viewpoint, the necessary corollary to the innatist hypothesis, is also suspicious.