CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 401 



are less and less unlike those of the visible man, and eventually reach- 

 ing the early stage in which the other-self of the dead man, considered 

 indiscriminately as ghost and god, is not to be distinguished, when he 

 appears, from the living man ; we cannot fail to see the alliance in 

 Nature between the functions of those who minister to the ruler who 

 has gone away and those who minister to the ruler who has taken his 

 place. What remaining strangeness there may seem in this assertion 

 of homology disappears, on remembering that in sundry ancient so- 

 cieties living kings were literally worshiped as dead kings were, and 

 that the adoration of the living king by priests was but a more 

 extreme form of the adoration habitually paid by all who served 

 him. 



Social organizations that are but little differentiated clearly show 

 us several aspects of this kinship. In common with those below him, 

 the savage chief proclaims his own great deeds and the achievements 

 of his ancestors ; and that in some cases this habit of self-praise long 

 persists, Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions prove. Advance from 

 the stage at which the head-man lauds himself to the stage at which 

 laudation of him is done by deputy is well typified in the contrast 

 between the recent usage in Madagascar, where the king in public 

 assembly was in the habit of relating " his origin, his descent from 

 the line of former sovereigns, and his incontestable right to the 

 kingdom," and the usage that existed in past times among ourselves, 

 when the like distinctions and powers and claims of the king were 

 publicly asserted for him by an appointed officer. As the ruler, ex- 

 tending his dominions and growing in power, gathers round him an 

 increasing number of agents, the utterance of propitiatory praises, at 

 first by all of these, becomes eventually distinctive of certain among 

 them : there arise official glorifiers. " In Samoa, a chief in traveling 

 is attended by his principal orator." In Feejee each tribe has its " ora- 

 tor, to make orations on occasions of ceremony." Dupuis tells us that 

 the attendants of the chiefs of Ashantee eagerly vociferate the " strong 

 names " of their masters ; and a more recent writer describes cer- 

 tain of the king's attendants, whose duty it is to " give him names " 

 cry out his titles and high qualities. In kindred fashion a Yoruba 

 king, when he goes abroad, is accompanied by his wives, who sing 

 his praise. Now, when we meet with facts of this kind when we 

 read that in Madagascar " the sovereign has a large band of female 

 singers, who attend in the court-yard, and who accompany their mon- 

 arch whenever he takes an excursion, either for a short airing or dis- 

 tant journey ; " when we are told that in China " his imperial maj- 

 esty was preceded by persons loudly proclaiming his virtues and his 

 power ; " when we learn that among the ancient Chibchas the hogotd 

 was received with " songs in which they sung his deeds and victo- 

 ries " we cannot deny that these assertors of greatness and singers 

 of praises do for the living king exactly that which priests and priest- 

 vol. xii. 26 



