EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 155 



on their foreheads severalt imes." And, describing " the punctiliousness 

 of manners shown by the Balonda," Livingstone says : 



" The inferiors, on meeting their superiors in the street, at once drop on 

 their knees and rub dust on their arms and chest. . . . During an oration to a 

 person commanding respect, the speaker every two or three seconds ' picked up 

 a little sand, and rubbed it on the upper part of his arms and chest. . . . 

 When they wish to be excessively polite, they bring a quantity of ashes or pipe- 

 clay in a piece of skin, and, taking up handfuls, rub it on the chest and upper 

 front part of each arm.' " 



Moreover, we are shown how in this case, as in all other cases, the cere- 

 mony undergoes abridgment. Of these same Balonda Livingstone says, 

 " The chiefs go through the manoeuvre of rubbing the sand on the arms, 

 but only make a feint of picking up some." And, on the Lower Niger, 

 the people when making prostrations " cover them " (their heads) " re- 

 peatedly with sand ; or at all events they go through the motions of doing 

 so. Women, on perceiving their friends, kneel immediately, and pre- 

 tend to pour sand alternately over each arm." That in Asia this cere- 

 mony was, and still is, performed with like meaning, is also clear. As 

 expressing political humiliation it was adopted by the priests who, 

 when going to implore Florus to spare the Jews, appeared " with dust 

 sprinkled in great plenty upon their heads, with bosoms deprived of 

 any covering but what was rent." And at the present time in Turkey 

 abridgments of the obeisance may be witnessed. At a review, even 

 officers on horseback, saluting their superiors, "go through the form of 

 throwing dust over their heads ; " and common people, on seeing a cara- 

 van of pilgrims start, " went through the pantomime of throwing dirt 

 over their heads." 



Hebrew records prove that this sign of submission made before vis- 

 ible persons was made before invisible persons also. Along with those 

 bloodlettings and markings of the flesh and cuttings of the hair, which, 

 at funerals, were used to propitiate the ghost, there went the putting 

 of ashes on the head. The like was done to propitiate the deity ; as 

 when "Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before 

 the ark of the Lord until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and 

 put dust upon their heads." Even still this usage occurs among Catho- 

 lics on occasions of special humiliation. 



Again we must return to that original obeisance which first actually 

 is, and then which simulates, the attitude of the conquered before the 

 conqueror, to find the clew to a further series of these bodily movements 

 signifying submission. I refer to the joining of the hands. As de- 

 scribed in a foregoing paragraph, the supplicating Khond "throws 

 himself on his face with hands joined." Whence this attitude of the 

 hands ? 



From the usages of a people among whom submission and all the 



