i 5 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the salutation of clapping the hands until the great ones have passed ; " 

 and a like use of the hands occurs in Dahomey. A further rhythmical 

 movement having like meaning must be added. Already we have seen 

 that jumping as a natural sign of delight is a friendly salute among 

 the Fuegians, and that it recurs in Loango as a mark of respect to the 

 kino\ Africa furnishes another instance. Grant narrates that the 

 King of Karague " sat concealed, all but his head, in the doorway of 

 his chief hut, and received the salutations of his people, who, one by 

 one, shrieked and sprang in front of him, swearing allegiance." Let 

 such saltatory movements be gradually methodized, as they are likely 

 to be in the course of development, and they will constitute the dan- 

 cing with which a ruler is sometimes saluted ; as in the before-named 

 case of the King of Bogota, and as in the case Williams gives in his ac- 

 count of Feejee, where an inferior chief and his suite, entering the royal 

 presence, " performed a dance, which they finished by presenting their 

 clubs and upper dresses to the Somo-somo king." 



Of the other simulated signs of pleasurable emotion commonly 

 forming part of the obeisance, kissing is the most conspicuous. This, 

 of course, has to take such form as consists with the humility of the 

 prostration or kindred attitude. As shown in some foregoing instances, 

 we have kissing the earth where the superior cannot be, or may not be, 

 approached close enough for kissing the feet or the garment. Others 

 may be added. " It is the custom at Eboe, when the king is out, and 

 indeed in-doors as well, for the principal people to kneel on the ground 

 and kiss it three times when he passes ; " and the ancient Mexican em- 

 bassadors, on coming to Cortez, " first touched the ground with their 

 hands and then kissed it." This, in the ancient East, expressed sub- 

 mission of conquered to conqueror ; and is said to have gone as far as 

 kissing the footmarks of a conqueror's horse. Abyssinia, where the des- 

 potism is extreme and the obeisances are servile, supplies us with a modi- 

 fication. In Shoa kissing the nearest inanimate object belonging to a 

 superior or a benefactor is a sign of respect and thanks. From this we 

 pass to licking the feet and kissing the feet. Drury tells us that lick- 

 ing the knee is a sign of respect among the Malagasy, but does not 

 indicate such deep abasement as licking the feet ; and, describing the 

 return of a Malagasy chief from war, he says : " He had scarcely seated 

 himself at his door, when his wife came out crawling on her hands and 

 knees till she came to him, and then licked his feet ; when she had done, 

 his mother did the same ; and all the women in the town saluted their 

 husbands in the same manner." Slaves, etc., did the like to their mas- 

 ters. So in ancient Peru, where subordination was unqualified, " when 

 the chiefs came before" (Atahuallpa), "they made great obeisances, 

 kissing his feet and hands." And that this extreme homage was, and is 

 now, the practice in the East we have clear proof. In Assyrian records 

 Sennacherib mentions that Menahem of Samaria came up to bring pres- 

 ents and to kiss his feet. " Kissing his feet " was part of the reverence 



