28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



on his subjects or on foreign merchants, but he receives presents." 

 But Caillie adds : " There is no regular government. The king is like 

 a father ruling his children." When disputes arise, he "assembles 

 a council of the elders." That is to say, present-giving remains vol- 

 untary where the kingly power is not great. Among another African 

 people, the Caffres, we see gifts losing their voluntary character. " The 

 revenue of the king consists of an annual contribution of cattle, first- 

 fruits, etc. ; " and " when a Koossa [Caffre] opens his granary he must 

 send a little of the grain to his neighbors, and a larger portion to 

 the king." In Abyssinia, too, there is a like mixture of exactions 

 and voluntary gifts : besides settled contributions taking the form of 

 pieces of cloth and corn, the prince of Tigre receives annual presents. 

 And a kindred system of partially-settled and partially-unsettled do- 

 nations from people to kings is general throughout East Africa. How, 

 in addition to presents which, having become customary, cease in so 

 far to be propitiatory, there is a tendency to make presents that are 

 propitiatory because unexpected, will be understood on remembering 

 that, where the kingly power has become great, subjects hold their prop- 

 erty only on sufferance. When Burton tell us that, in Dahomey, " there 

 is scant inducement to amass riches, of which the owner would assured- 

 ly be ' squeezed' as often as he could support the operation ; " and when 

 we read of the ancient kings of Bogota that, " besides the ordinary trib- 

 utes paid several times a year and other numberless donations, they 

 were absolute . . . lords of the property and life of their subjects " we 

 may see why, beyond donations which at first voluntary and irregular 

 have become compulsory and regular, there tend ever to grow up new 

 voluntary donations. 



If, when a private person brings an offering to his chief or king, the 

 act implies submission, still more does the bringing of an offering by a 

 subordinate ruler to a supreme ruler ; here, where disloyalty is more to 

 be feared, the significance of the ceremony as proving loyalty becomes 

 greater. Hence the making of presents grows into a formal recognition 

 of supremacy. In ancient Vera Paz, " as soon as some one was elected 

 king ... all the lords of the tribes appeared or sent relations of 

 theirs . . . with presents. . . . They declared [at the proclamation] 

 that they agreed to his election and accepted him as king." Among the 

 Chibchas, when a new king came to the throne, " the chief men then 

 took an oath that they would be obedient and loj-al vassals, and as a 

 proof of their loyalty each one gave him a jewel and a number of rab- 

 bits, etc." Of the Mexicans, Toribio says: "Each year, at certain festi- 

 vals, those Indians who did not pay taxes, even the chiefs . . . made 

 gifts to the sovereigns ... in token of their submission." And so in 

 Peru. " No one approached Atahuallpa without bringing a present in 

 token of submission ; and, though those who came were great nobles, 

 they entered with the presents on their own backs, and without shoes." 

 The significance of gift-making as implying allegiance is well shown 



