HAND AND LEFT-HANDEDNESS. itil 
So also with the Hebrews and other ancient nations, as still among ourselves, the seat at 
the right hand of the host, or of any dignitary, was the place of honour; as when Solomon 
“caused a seat to be set for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right hand” (1 Kings, 
ii. 19). Again, the term is frequently used in opposition to semal, left hand ; as when the 
children of Israel would pass through Edom ; “ We will go by the king’s highway; we 
will not turn to the right hand or to the left” (Numbers, xx. 17). 
But a further use and significance of the terms helps us to the fact that the Hebrew 
yamin and our right hand are the same. In its secondary meaning it signified the “ south, ” 
as in Hzekiel, xlvii. 1: “The forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters 
came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.” 
The four points are accordingly expressed thus in Hebrew: yamin, the right, the south; 
kedem, the front, the east; semol, the left, the north ; achor, behind, the west. To the old 
Hebrew, when looking to the east, the west was thus behind, the south on his right hand, 
and the north on his left. This determination of the right and left in relation to the east 
is not peculiar to the Hebrews. Many nations appear to have designated the south in the 
same manner, as being on the right hand when looking to the east. Its origin may be 
traced with little hesitation to the associations with the most ancient and dignified form 
of false worship, the paying divine honours to the Sun, as he rises in the east, as the Lord 
of Day. Thus we find in the Sanskrit dakshina, right hand, south ; puras, in front, east- 
ward ; apara, pagchima, behind, west ; wltara; northern, to the left. The old Irish has, in 
like manner, deas or ders, on the right, southward ; oirthear, in front, east ; jav, behind, west ; 
tuath, north, from thwaidh, left. The analogous practise among the Esquimaux, though 
sugested by a different cause, illustrates a similar origin for the terms “right” and “ left.” 
Dr. H. Fink, in a communication to the Anthropological Institute (June, 1885) remarks :— 
“To indicate the quarters of the globe, the Greenlanders use at once two systems. 
Besides the ordinary one, they derive-another from the view of the open sea, distinguish- 
ing what is to the left and to the right hand. The latter appears to have been the origi- 
nal method of determining the bearings, but gradually the words for the left and the 
right side came to signify at the same time ‘south’ and ‘north’.” 
A diverse idea is illustrated by the like secondary signifiance of the Greek oxazos, left, 
or on the left hand ; but also used as “west”, or ‘“ westward”, as in the Iliad, ili. 149, oxazat 
mviat, the west gate of Troy. The Greek augur, turning, as he did, his face to the north 
had the left—the sinister, ill-omened, unlucky side,—on the west. Hence the meta- 
phorical significance of æprorepos, ominous, boding ill. But the Greeks had also the 
other mode of expressing the right and (eft, derived from their mode of bearing arms. When 
Carlyle, at the advanced age of seventy-five, lost the use of his right hand, which had for 
so many years wielded the pen with such marvellous effect on his age, among the 
reflections which this privation suggested to him, he asks. “ Why that particular hand 
was chosen ?” and dubiously answers : “ Probably arose in fighting ; most important to 
protect your heart and its adjacencies ; and to carry the shield on that hand.” Archaic 
vases suffice to illustrate the mode of carrying the shield among the Greeks and hence, the 
shield-hand became synonymous with the left. The right side was #7? dopuv, the spear 
side, while the left was, 7 aozida, the shield side. The familiar application of the terms 
in this sense is seen in Xenophon’s ‘‘ Anabasis ” (IV. iii. 26) Kai zmapnyyeie tots Aoxayots 
HAT EV @UOTIAS momnoacbat ENXAOTOV TOV EAUTOD Aoyor, apy aonidas mapayayovTras TV 
