3 86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which are established still earlier in creatures lower than man, there 

 are established certain modes of behavior expressing subjection. 



After recognizing this fact, we shall be prepared to recognize the 

 fact that daily intercourse among the lowest savages, whose small, 

 loose groups, scarcely to be called social, are without political or 

 religious regulation, is under a considerable amount of ceremonial 

 regulation. No ruling agency, beyond that arising from personal 

 superiority, characterizes the scattered hordes of Australians ; but 

 they have imperative ceremonies. Strangers meeting have to remain 

 some time silent ; a mile from an encampment approach must be her- 

 alded by loud " cooeys ; " a green bough is used as an emblem of 

 " peace ; and brotherly feeling is indicated by exchange of names. So 

 the Tasmanians, similarly without government save that implied by 

 predominance of a leader during war, had settled ways of indicating 

 peace and defiance. The Esquimaux, too, though without social 

 ranks or anything like chieftainship, have understood usages for the 

 treatment of guests. 



Kindred evidence may be joined with this. Ceremonial control is 

 highly developed in many places where the other forms of control 

 are but rudimentary. The wild Comanche " exacts the observance 

 of his rules of etiquette from strangers," and " is greatly offended " 

 by any breach of them. When Araucanians meet, the inquiries, 

 felicitations, and condolences, which custom demands are so elaborate, 

 that " the formality occupies ten or fifteen minutes." Of the ungov- 

 erned Bedouins we read that " their manners are sometimes dashed 

 with a strange ceremoniousness ; " and the salutations of Arabs are 

 such that the " compliments in a well-bred man never last less than 

 ten minutes." " We were particularly struck," says Livingstone, 

 " with the punctiliousness of manners shown by the Balonda." "The 

 Malagasy have many different forms of salutation, of which they 

 make liberal use. . . . Hence in their general intercourse there is 

 much that is stiff, formal, and precise." A Samoan orator, when 

 speaking in parliament, " is not contented with a mere word of salu- 

 tation, such as ' gentlemen,' but he must, with great minuteness, go 

 over the names and titles, and a host of ancestral references, of 

 which they are proud." 



That ceremonial restraint, preceding other forms of restraint, con- 

 tinues ever to be the most widely-diffused form of restraint, we are 

 shown by such facts as that in all intercourse between societies, civil- 

 ized, semi-civilized, or barbarous, as well as in all intercourse between 

 members of each society, the decisively governmental actions are 

 usually prefaced by this government of observances. The embassy 

 may fail, negotiation may be brought to a close by war, coercion of 

 one society by another may set up wider political rule with its per- 

 emptory commands ; but there is habitually this more general and 

 vague regulation of conduct preceding the more special and definite. 



