190 THE ORIGIN OF BOWINO. 



ority ; and once upon a time it was far more — it 

 was a tribute of submission and an act of obei- 

 sance, a deliberate prostration of the slave or ca[)- 

 tive at the feet of a master, a sovereign, or a 

 conqueror. Many of our ordinary little modern 

 ceremonial observances in the common etiquette 

 of every-day intercourse similarly descend to us 

 from a remote savage ancestry, and still bear 

 upon their very faces no slight reminiscences of 

 their barbaric origin. Among them not the least 

 is thQ practice of bowing, which at present de- 

 notes no more than the customary politeness of 

 men to women, or in a less degree of youth to 

 age and of the ordinary run of society to excep- 

 tional rank, benevolence, or intellect, but which 

 once had a far mrre servile meaning, and consisted 

 of a dee])er bodily obeisance. 



In the East, where polite ceremonial has always 

 been carried to the furthest extreme, we see the 

 best evidence of the origin of bowing in pure 

 physical savage ju'ostration. There the servant 

 salaams humbly before his master, and the subject 

 tiirows himself, not figuratively, but literally, at 

 the foot of the throne, for liis su])erior to behold 

 his absolute submissiveness. When we go still 

 lower down to pure savages, the original meaning 

 of these bodily obeisances, and their close con- 

 nectiou with the humble demeanor of the little 

 dog before his aggressor, become still more clear, 



