VISITS. HI 



the Siomio, who were &quot; allowed but six months stay in their 

 hereditary dominions; the other half-year they must spend 

 in the imperial capital, Jedo, where their wives and fam 

 ilies are kept all the year round as hostages of their fidel- 

 ity.&quot; 



How in feudal Europe like customs arose from like 

 causes, the reader will need only to be reminded. Periodical 

 visits were made by vassals to their suzerains and by these to 

 their higher suzerains the kings; prolonged residences at 

 places of government grew out of these periodical visits; and 

 the payment of such visits having come to be a recognized 

 expression of allegiance, absence on the appointed occasions 

 was considered a sign of insubordination. As says de 

 Tocqueville, giving an interpretation which partially recog 

 nizes the origin of the usage : 



The abandonment of a country life by the nobility [in France] 

 . . . was, no doubt, an idea almost always pursued by the kings of 

 France, during the three last centuries of the monarchy, to separate 

 the gentry from the people, and to attract the former to Court and to 

 public employments. This was especially the case in the seventeenth 

 century, when the nobility were still an object of fear to royalty.&quot; 

 To which facts add that among ourselves down to the pres 

 ent day, going to court at intervals, expected specially of all 

 who hold official positions above a certain grade, and ex 

 pected generally of members of the governing classes, is 

 taken as an expression of loyalty; and continued absence is 

 interpreted as a mark of disrespect, bringing disfavour. 



380. In the last chapter we saw that to deceased persons 

 as well as to living persons, propitiatory presents are made. 

 &quot;We have now to observe that in the one case as in the other 

 visits are entailed. 



As in primitive beliefs, the powers of men s ghosts are 

 greater than were those of the men themselves, it results 

 that present-making visits to the dead begin even earlier 

 than do those to the living. In 83 it was shown that 



