EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 41 



always exchanged belts, which were not only the ratification, but the 

 memorandum of the compact." 



How gift-making, first developed into a ceremony by fear of the 

 ruler, and made to take a wider range by fear of the strong or the 

 influential, is eventually rendered general by fear of equals who may 

 prove enemies if they are passed over when others are propitiated, we 

 may gather from European history. Thus, in Rome, "all the world 

 gave or received New- Year's gifts." Clients gave them to their pa- 

 trons ; all the Romans gave them to Augustus. " He was seated in the 

 entrance-hall of his house ; they defiled before him, and every citizen, 

 holding his offering in his hand, laid it, when passing, at the feet of 

 that terrestrial god. These gifts consisted in silver money, and the 

 sovereign gave back a sum equal or superior to their presents." Be- 

 cause of its association with pagan institutions, this custom, surviving 

 into Christian times, was condemned by the Church. In 578 the Council 

 of Auxerre forbade New- Year's gifts, which it characterized in strong 

 words. Ives, of Chartres, says, "There are some who accept from 

 others, and themselves give, devilish New-Year's gifts." In the twelfth 

 century, Maurice, Bishop of Paris, preached against bad people who 

 " put their faith in presents, and say that none will remain rich during 

 the year if he has not had a gift on New-Year's-day." Notwithstand- 

 ing ecclesiastical interdicts, however, the custom survived through the 

 middle ages down to modern times ; until now priests themselves, as 

 well as others, participate in this usage of mutual propitiation. More- 

 over, there have simultaneously developed kindred periodic ceremonies; 

 such as, in France, the giving of Easter-eggs. And present-makings 

 of these kinds have undergone changes like those which we traced in 

 other kinds of present-makings : beginning as moderate and voluntary, 

 the presents have become extravagant and in a measure compulsory. 



It thus appears that, spontaneously made among primitive men by 

 one member of a tribe to another, or to an alien whose good-will is 

 desired, the gift becomes, as society evolves, the originator of many 

 things. 



To the political head, as his power grows, the making of presents is 

 prompted partly by fear of him and partly by the wish for his aid ; and 

 the presents made, at first propitiatory only from their intrinsic worth, 

 come presently to be propitiatory as expressions of loyalty ; from the 

 last of which there results present-giving as a ceremonial, and from the 

 first of which there results present-giving as tribute, eventually devel- 

 oping into taxes. Simultaneously, the supplies of food, etc., placed on 

 the grave of the dead man to propitiate his ghost, developing into 

 larger and repeated offerings at the grave of the distinguished dead 

 man, and becoming at length sacrifices on the altar of the god, differen- 

 tiate in an analogous way. The present of meat, drink, or clothes, at 

 first supposed to propitiate because actually useful to the ghost or the 



