480 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Some gesture-signs to express friendship are simply symbolic 

 of the actions of friendly greeting. In the remarkable speech of 

 Noaman at Tinicum, on the Delaware River, in the middle of the 

 seventeenth century, he stroked himself three times down his arm, 

 as a greeting of peace, not being able to perform the ceremony 

 to the arms of the auditors. The actions, above mentioned, of 

 the Eskimos in stroking their own bodies and rubbing their own 

 noses, may merely signify that, when they could not get at the 

 proper subjects for nose-rubbing and stroking, they made the 

 semblance of those motions as the sign for their usual physical 

 demonstration of friendship. A case where actual contact and 

 symbolizing appear to be mixed was reported in 1699 by DTber- 

 ville of the Bayogoulas, who first stroked their own faces and 

 breasts, then stroked the breasts of the saluted party, after which 

 they raised their hands aloft, at the same time rubbing them to- 

 gether. The concept of intermingling personalities is indicated. 

 A suggestion of the absorption of happiness through pressure 

 and friction comes from the narrative of Sir John Franklin, as 

 follows : " Whenever Terregannceuck (a Deer-Horn Eskimo) re- 

 ceived a present, he placed each article first on his right shoulder, 

 then on his left ; and, when he wished to express still higher satis- 

 faction, he rubbed it over his head/' This is apparently more 

 than mere taking possession of the article. 



Next may be considered the mutual grasp of the hands in 

 greeting. It is difficult to realize that the junction of hands by 

 friends is not instinctive, a physical or sentimental magnetism 

 being so commonly associated with it. Nevertheless, the mutual 

 grasp of hands on friendly meeting, apart from ceremony and 

 symbol, is comparatively recent, and the practice is even yet 

 confined to a limited area. For instance, it appears in Captain 

 Back's Narrative that in 1833 the greeting by union of hands was 

 as strange to the dwellers in arctic lands as their rubbing of noses 

 was to the visitors. Mr. Spencer has published his opinion that 

 the " hand-shake," as the salutation is commonly entitled in Eng- 

 lish, originated in a struggle, first real, afterward fictitious, in 

 which each of the performers attempted to kiss the hand of the 

 other, which was resisted, thus producing a reciprocating move- 

 ment. To verify this suggestion it will be necessary to examine 

 into the antiquity and prevalence of the kiss in salutation, which 

 will be considered in its order. 



Instances are found for the identical friendly contest for kiss- 

 ing, or priority in kissing, hands, relied on by Mr. Spencer, but 

 they are connected with the topic of precedence as affecting all 

 forms of greeting. Far too much importance is given in the sug- 

 gested explanation to the shake or motion of the joined hands. 

 The ancient usage, and even that which is now general, is not 



