i 5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" The chief of Somo-Soino, who had previously stripped off his robes, then 

 sat down, and removed even the train or covering, which was of immense 

 length, from his waist. He gave it to the speaker," who gave him " in return a 

 piece large enough only for the purposes of decency. The rest of the Somo- 

 Somo chiefs, each of whom, on coming on the ground, had a train of several 

 yards in length, stripped themselves entirely, left their trains, and walked away 

 .... thus leaving all the Somo-Somo people naked." 



Further we read that, during Cook's stay at Tahiti, two men of supe- 

 rior rank " came on board, and each singled out his friend .... this 

 ceremony consisted in taking off great part of their clothes and putting 

 them upon us." And then in another Polynesian island, Samoa, we find 

 this complimentary act greatly abridged : only the girdle is taken off 

 and presented. 



With such facts to give us the clew, we can scarcely doubt that this 

 surrendering of clothing originates those obeisances which are made by 

 uncovering the body, more or less extensively. We meet with all 

 degrees of uncovering having this meaning. From Ibn Batula's account 

 of his journey into the Soudan in the fourteenth century, Mr. Tylor 

 cites the statement that " women may only come unclothed into the 

 presence of the Sultan of Melli, and even the sultan's own daughters 

 must conform to the custom ; " and what doubt we might reasonably 

 feel as to the existence of an obeisance thus carried to its original 

 extreme, is removed on reading in Speke that at the present time, at 

 the court of Uganda, " stark-naked, full-grown women are the valets." 

 Other parts of Africa show us an incomplete, though still considerable, 

 unclothing as an obeisance. In Abyssinia inferiors must bare their 

 bodies down to the girdle in presence of superiors ; "but to equals the 

 corner of the cloth is removed only for a time." The like occurs in 

 Polynesia. The Tahitians uncover "the body as low as the waist, in 

 the presence of the king;" and Forster states that in the Society Isles 

 generally "the lower ranks of the people, by way of respect, strip off 

 their upper garment in the presence of their" principal chiefs. How 

 this obeisance becomes further abridged, and also how it becomes ex- 

 tended to other persons than rulers, we are well shown by the natives 

 of the Gold Coast. Cruickshank writes : 



" They also salute Europeans, and sometimes each other, by slightly remov- 

 ing their robe from their left shoulder with the right hand, gracefully bowing 

 at the same time. When they wish to be very respectful, they uncover the 

 shoulder altogether, and support the robe under the arm, the whole of the per- 

 son, from the breast upward, being left exposed." 



And of these same people, Burton remarks that, " throughout Yoruba 

 and the Gold Coast, to bare the shoulders is like unhatting in Eng- 

 land." 



That uncovering the head, thus suggestively compared with un- 

 covering the upper part of the body, has the same original meaning, 



