136 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



firmed on observing that like acts become acts of religious 

 subordination. Isaiah, himself setting the example, ex 

 horts the rebellious Israelites to make their peace with Jah- 

 veh in the words &quot; Strip you, and make you bare, and gird 

 sackcloth upon your loins.&quot; So, too, the fourscore men 

 who came from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, to propitiate 

 Jahveh, besides cutting their hair and gashing themselves, 

 tore their clothes. Xor does the parallelism fail 



with baring the feet. This was a sign of mourning among 

 the Hebrews ; as is shown by the command in Ezekiel (xxiv. 

 17), &quot; Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind 

 the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon 

 thy feet.&quot; And then, among the Hebrews, putting off the 

 shoes was also an act of worship. Elsewhere, too, it oc 

 curred as in common a mark of political subordination and 

 of religious subordination. Of the Peruvians, who went 

 barefoot into the presence of the Ynca, we read that &quot; all 

 took off their shoes, except the king, at two hundred paces 

 before reaching the doors [of the temple of the Sun ] ; but 

 the king remained with his shoes on until he came to the 

 doors.&quot; Once more, the like holds with baring the 



head. Used along with other ceremonial acts to propitiate 

 the living superior, this is used also to propitiate the spirit 



Customs among the North American Indians, pp. 55 and 67.) For, if, to pro 

 pitiate the ghost, the best clothing is sacrificed, the implication is that inferior 

 or inadequate clothing remains for use. Hence comes &quot; the chief mourner 

 being clad in moss &quot; among the Santee Indians (p. 38). The more obvious and 

 still-continuing motive is that grief is inconsistent with wearing the best, 

 which is usually the gayest, clothing. Thus we read that among the Choctaws 

 the &quot; widow wholly neglects her toilet,&quot; and that among the Chippewas she is 

 &quot; not permitted to wear any finery &quot; for twelve moons (Yarrow, pp. 92-3). In 

 a letter of a deceased relative of mine, dated 1810, I find an instructive ex 

 ample of the way in which natural feeling prompts this putting on of inferior 

 clothes. Speaking of a conversation held with a pcdler concerning an eccen 

 tric but benevolent man, the writer describes the pedlcr as praising him and 

 saying, &quot; he thought he should put on his worst clothes when he died.&quot; That 

 is, not being able to afford mourning, he proposed to revert to this primitive 



