28 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



to my lord.&quot; Another parallelism exists between 



the official who proclaims the king s will and the official who 

 proclaims the will of the deity. In many places where 

 regal power is extreme, the monarch is either invisible or 

 cannot be directly communicated with : the living ruler thus 

 simulating the dead and divine ruler, and requiring kindred 

 intermediators. It was thus among the ancient Assyrians. 

 Their monarch could be spoken to only through the Vizier 

 or the chief eunuch. It was thus in ancient Mexico. Of 

 Montezuma II. it is said that &quot; no commoner was to look 

 him in the face, and if one did, he died for it; &quot; and further, 

 that he did not communicate with any one, &quot; except by an 

 interpreter.&quot; In Nicaragua the caciques &quot; earned their 

 exclusion so far as to receive messages from other chiefs 

 only through officers delegated for that purpose.&quot; So of 

 Peru, where some of the rulers &quot; had the custom not to be 

 seen by their subjects but on rare occasions/ 7 we read that 

 at the first interview with the Spaniards, &quot; Atahuallpa gave 

 no answer, nor did he even raise his eyes to look at the cap 

 tain (Ilernando de Soto). But a chief replied to what the 

 captain had said.&quot; With the Chibchas &quot; the first of the 

 court officers was the crier, as they said that he was the 

 medium by which the will of the prince was explained.&quot; 

 Throughout Africa at the present time it is the same. &quot; In 

 conversation with the King of Uganda, the words must 

 always be transmitted through one or more of his officers.&quot; 

 In Dahomey, &quot;the sovereign s words are spoken to the men, 

 who informs the interpreter, who passes it on to the visitor, 

 and the answer must trickle back through the same chan 

 nels.&quot; And, concerning Abyssinia, where even the chiefs 

 sit in their houses in darkness, so &quot; that vulgar eyes may 

 not gaze too plainly upon &quot; them, we are told the king was 

 not seen when sitting in council, but &quot; sat in a darkened 

 room,&quot; and &quot; observed through a window what was going 

 on in the chamber without; &quot; and also that he had &quot; an 

 interpreter, who was the medium of communication between 



