42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



god, becomes, by implication, significant of allegiance. Hence, making 

 the gift grows into an act of worship irrespective of the value of the 

 thing given ; while in virtue of its substantial w r orth, the gift, affording 

 sustenance to the priest, makes possible the agency by which the wor- 

 ship is conducted ; from the oblation originate church revenues. 



Thus we unexpectedly come upon further proof that the control of 

 ceremony precedes the political and ecclesiastical controls ; since it 

 appears that from actions which the first initiates eventually result the 

 funds by which the others are maintained. 



When we ask what relations present-giving has to different social 

 types, we note, in the first place, that there is little of it in simple 

 societies, where chieftainship does not exist, or is unstable. In wander- 

 ing, headless tribes it manifestly cannot become established and system- 

 atized ; nor in simple settled tribes of which the headships are nomi- 

 nal. But we find it to prevail in compound and doubly-compound 

 societies, as throughout the semi-civilized states of Africa, those of 

 Polynesia, those of ancient America, etc., where the presence of stable 

 headships, primary and secondary, gives both the opportunity and the 

 motive ; and, recognizing this truth, we are led to recognize the deeper 

 truth that present-making, while but indirectly related to the social 

 type as simple or compound, is directly related to it as more or less 

 militant in organization. The desire to propitiate must be great in 

 proportion as the person to be propitiated is feared ; and therefore the 

 conquering chief, and still more the king who has made himself, by 

 force of arms, ruler over many chiefs, is one whose good-will is most 

 anxiously sought by acts which simultaneously gratify his avarice and 

 express submission. Hence, then, the fact that the ceremony of making 

 gifts to the ruler prevails most in societies that are either actually mili- 

 tant, or in which chronic militancy during past times has evolved the 

 despotic government appropriate to it. Hence the fact that through- 

 out the East, where this social type exists everywhere, the making of 

 presents to those in authority is everywhere imperative. Hence the 

 fact that in early European ages, while the social activities were mili- 

 tant and the structures corresponded, loyal presents to kings from indi- 

 viduals and corporate bodies were universal ; while largesse from supe- 

 riors to inferiors, also growing out of that state of complete dependence 

 which accompanied militancy, was common. 



The like connection holds with the custom of making presents to 

 deities. In the extinct militant states of the New World, sacrifices to 

 gods were perpetual, and their shrines were being ever enriched by 

 deposited valuables. Papyri, wall-paintings, and sculptures, show us 

 that among ancient Eastern nations, highly militant in their activities 

 and types of structure, the oblations to deities were large and con- 

 tinual ; and that vast amounts of property were devoted to making 

 glorious the places where they were worshiped. So, too, in early 

 militant times throughout Europe, gifts to God and the Church were 



