EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 153 



shown to Christ by the woman with the box of ointment ; and that the 

 " catching hold of him by the feet " on the part of Mary Magdalene, 

 doubtless accompanied by kissing, was not exceptional, we are shown 

 by the description of a like act on the part of the Shunamite woman to 

 Elisha. At the present day among the Arabs inferiors kiss the feet, 

 the knees, or the garments, of their superiors. Kissing the shah's and 

 the sultan's feet is now a form of homage in Persia and in Turkey ; 

 and Sir R. K. Porter narrates that, in acknowledgment of a present, a 

 Persian " threw himself on the ground, kissed my knees and my feet, 

 and wept with a joy that stifled his expression of thanks." 



Kissing the hand is a less humiliating observance than kissing the 

 feet, because it goes along with a less complete prostration. To kiss 

 the feet implies bringing the head close to the ground ; while there 

 cannot be kissing of the hand without more or less raising of the body. 

 This difference of implication is recognized in regions remote from one 

 another. In Tonga, " when a person salutes a superior relation, he 

 kisses the hand of the party ; if a very superior relation, he kisses the 

 foot." And D'Arvieux states that the women who wait on the Arabian 

 princesses kiss their hands when they do them the favor not. to suffer 

 them to kiss their feet or the border of their robe. The prevalence of 

 this obeisance, as expressing loving submission, is so great as to render 

 illustration superfluous. 



What is implied where, instead of kissing another's hand, the per- 

 son making the obeisance kisses his own hand ? Is the one symbolic of 

 the other, and meant to be the nearest approach to it possible under 

 the circumstances ? This appears a hazardous inference ; but there is 

 evidence justifying it. According to D'Arvieux, as quoted by Prof. 

 Paxton 



" An Oriental pays his respects to a person of superior station by kissing his 

 hand and putting it to his forehead ; but, if the superior be of a condescending 

 temper, he will snatch away his hand as soon as the other has touched it; then 

 the inferior puts his own fingers to his lips and afterward to his forehead." 



This, I think, makes it clear that the common custom of kissing the 

 hand to another originally expressed the wish, or the willingness, to 

 kiss his hand. 



Here, as before, the observance, beginning as a spontaneous pro- 

 pitiation of conqueror by conquered, of master by slave, of ruler by 

 ruled, and which we have just seen becomes, by extension under a 

 modified form, a social propitiation, early passes also into a religious 

 propitiation : to the ghost, and to the deity developed from the ghost, 

 these actions of love and liking are used. That embracing of the feet, 

 associated with kissing them, which we have seen occurred among the 

 Hebrews as an obeisance to the living person, Egyptian wall-paintings 

 represent as an obeisance made to the mummy inclosed in its case ; and 

 then, in pursuance of this action, we have kissing the feet of statues of 



