EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 27 



ico, " when any one goes to salute the lord or king, he takes with him 

 flowers and gifts." So too of the Chibchas we read that, " when they 

 brought a present in order to negotiate or speak with the cazique (for 

 no one went to visit him without bringing a gift), they entered with the 

 head and body bent downward ; " and among the ancient Yucatanese, 

 <; when there was hunting or fishing or salt-carrying, they always gave 

 a part to the lord." People of other types, as the Malayo-Polynesians, 

 living in kindred stages of social progress under the undisputed sway of 

 chiefs, exemplify this same custom. Speaking of the things they bar- 

 tered to the Tahitian populace for food, native cloth, etc., Forster says : 

 "However, we found that after some time all this acquired wealth 

 flowed as presents, or voluntary acknowledgments, into the treasure 

 of the various chiefs ; who, it seems, were the only possessors of all 

 the hatchets and broad-axes." In Feejee, again, " whoever asks a favor 

 of a chief, or seeks civil intercourse with him, is expected to bring a 

 present." 



In these last cases we may see how this making of presents to the 

 chief passes from a voluntary propitiation into a compulsory propitia- 

 tion ; for, on reading that " the Tahitian chiefs plundered the planta- 

 tions of their subjects at will," and that in Feejee "chiefs take the prop- 

 erty and persons of others by force," it becomes manifest that present- 

 making has come to be the giving of a part to prevent loss of the whole. 

 It is the policy at once to satisfy cupidity and to express submission. 

 " The Malagasy, slaves as well as others, occasionally make presents of 

 provisions to their chiefs, as an acknowledgment of homage." And it 

 is inferable that, in proportion to the power of chiefs, will be the anx- 

 iety to please them, both by forestalling their greedy desires and by 

 displaying loyalty. 



In few if any cases, however, does the carrying of gifts to a chief 

 become so developed a usage in a simple tribe. At first, the head-man, 

 not much differentiated from the rest, and not surrounded by men ready 

 to enforce his will, fails to impress other members of the tribe with a 

 fear great enough to make present-giving an habitual ceremony. It is 

 only in compound societies, formed by the overrunning of many tribes 

 by a conquering tribe, of the same race or another race, that there comes 

 a governing class, formed of head-chiefs and sub-chiefs, sufficiently dis- 

 tinguished from the rest, and sufficiently powerful to inspire the re- 

 quired awe. The above examples are all taken from societies in which 

 kingship has been reached. 



A more extended form is, of course, simultaneously assumed by this 

 ceremony. For, where along with subordinate rulers there exists a chief 

 ruler, he has to be propitiated both b} r the people at large and by the 

 subordinate rulers. Hence two kinds of gift-making. 



A case in which the usage has retained its primitive character is 

 furnished by Timbuctoo. Here " the king does not levy any tribute 



