THE ORIGIN OF BOWING. 191 



evident, and indisputable. Tlie noble red men 

 of the West, especially among the lower and 

 more degraded tribes, if suddenly overtaken alone 

 by a body of white men, crouch upon the ground 

 and liold down their lieads, as if inviting the new- 

 comers to strike and kill them. Like the small 

 dog at the ai)proach of the l)ig mastiff, they seem 

 to say, "We will not resist you. We are your 

 inoffensive slaves. Do as you will with us. We 

 expect to be killed and eaten immediately." The 

 South Africans in similar circumstances throw 

 themselves down on the ground upon their backs, 

 grovel in the dust, and slap their thighs violently 

 with their open palms, to show that they have no 

 weapons or arms of any sort concealed anywhere 

 about them. It is from this primitive savage sub- 

 stitute for a flag of truce that the whole idea of 

 bowing and scraping has been gradually devel- 

 oped with the rise of humanity. Sometimes, 

 indeed, the notion of abject submission is even 

 more graphically and humbly exi)ressed. In the 

 South Sea Island and in parts of Africa, the com- 

 mon people throw themselves down on the road 

 before their chiefs, and put their necks beneath 

 the great men's feet. In the East, from time 

 innnemorial, the conqueror has always thus sym- 

 bolically shown the degradation of the con- 

 quered. In the Assyrian sculptures, the king is 

 represented setting his foot upon the neck of cap- 



