218 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



made to chiefs; and, answering to these, we find the offer 

 ings, primarily of food, made to ghosts and to gods, de 

 veloping among ancestor-worshipping peoples into sacri 

 fices showing parallel elaborations; as in China, where 

 feasts of many dishes are placed alike before the tablets 

 inscribed to ancestors, apotheosized men, and great deities, 

 and where it is a saying that &quot; whatever is good for food is 

 good for sacrifice.&quot; Visits are .paid to graves out of respect 

 to the spirits of the departed, to temples in worship of the 

 deities supposed to be present in them, to the courts of 

 rulers in evidence of loyalty, and to private persons to show 

 consideration. Obeisances, originally implying subjuga 

 tion, arc made before monarchs and superiors,. are similarly 

 made before deities, are sundry of them repeated in honour 

 of the dead, and eventually become observances between 

 equals. Expressing now the humility of the speaker and 

 now T the greatness of the one spoken to, forms of address, 

 alike in nature, are used to the visible and the invisible 

 ruler, and, descending to those of less power, are at length 

 used to ordinary persons; while titles ascribing fatherhood 

 and supremacy, applied at first to kings, gods, and deceased 

 persons, become in time names of honour used to undistin 

 guished persons. Symbols of authority like those carried 

 by monarchs, occur in the representations of deities; in 

 some cases the celestial and the terrestrial potentates have 

 like costumes and appendages; and sundry of the dresses 

 and badges once marking superiority of position, become 

 ceremonial dresses worn, especially on festive occasions, 

 by persons of inferior ranks. Other remarkable parallel 

 isms exist. One we see in the anointing, which, performed 

 on kings and on the images of gods, extended in Egypt to 

 dead persons and to guests. In Egypt, too, birthday-cere 

 monials were at once social, political, and religious: besides 

 celebrations of private birthdays and of the birthdays of 

 kings and queens, there were celebrations of the birthdays 

 of gods. Xor must we omit the sacredness of names. In 



