EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 163 



posing to give the other precedence, will refuse to go first, and there 

 will result at the doorway some conflict of movements, preventing either 

 from advancing ; so, if each of two tries to kiss the other's hand and 

 refuses to have his own kissed, there will result a raisin o- of the hand 

 of each by the other toward his own lips, and by the other a drawing o 

 it down again, and so on alternately. Though at first such an action 

 will be irregular, yet as fast as the usage spreads, and the failure of 

 either to kiss the other's hand becomes a recognized issue, the motions 

 may be expected to grow regular and rhythmical. Clearly the differ- 

 ence between the simple squeeze, to which this salute is now often 

 abridged, and the old-fashioned hearty shake, exceeds the difference 

 between the hearty shake and the movement that would result from 

 the effort of each to kiss the hand of the other. 



Even in the absence of this clew yielded by the Arab observance, 

 we should be obliged to infer some such genesis. After all that has 

 been shown, no one can suppose that hand-shaking was ever deliber- 

 ately fixed upon as a salute ; and if it had a natural origin in some act 

 which, like the rest, expressed subjection, the act of kissing the hand 

 must be assumed as alone capable of leading to it. 



Whatever its kind, then, the obeisance has the same root with the 

 trophy and the mutilation. At the mercy of his conqueror, who, cutting 

 off part of his body as a memorial of victory, kills him, or else, taking 

 some less important part, marks him as a subject person, the con- 

 quered enemy lies prone before him now on his back, or now with neck 

 under his foot, smeared with dust or dirt, weaponless, and with torn 

 clothes, or, it may be, stripped of the trophy-trimmed robe he prized. 

 Thus, the prostration, the coating of dust, and the loss of covering, in- 

 cidental on subjugation, become, like the mutilation, recognized proofs 

 of it : whence result, first of all, the enforced signs of submission of 

 slaves to masters, and subjects to rulers ; then the voluntary assump- 

 tions of humble attitudes before superiors ; and, finally, those compli- 

 mentary movements expressive of inferiority, made by each to the 

 other between equals. 



That all obeisances originate in militancy is a conclusion harmoniz- 

 ing with the fact that they develop along with development of the mili- 

 tant type of society. Attitudes and motions signifying subjection do 

 not characterize headless tribes and tribes having unsettled chieftain- 

 ships, like the Fuegians, the Andamanese, the Australians, the Tasma- 

 nians, the Esquimaux ; and accounts of etiquette among the wandering 

 and almost unorganized communities of North America make little, if 

 any, mention of actions expressing servitude or subordination. There 

 are indeed, in India, certain simple societies politically unorganized and 

 peaceful, in which there occur humble obeisances ; as instance the 

 Todas. At marriage, a Toda bride puts her head under the foot of the 

 bridegroom. But, since exceptions of this kind, and less marked kinds, 



