Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/413

Rh Feejeeans, respect is "indicated by the tama, which is a shout of reverence uttered by inferiors when approaching a chief or chief town." In Australia, as we have seen, it is necessary on coming within a mile of an encampment to make loud cooeys—an action which, while primarily indicating pleasure at the coming reunion, further indicates those friendly intentions which a secret approach would render more than doubtful.

One more example may be named: Tears result from strong feeling—mostly from painful feeling, but also from pleasurable feeling when extreme. Hence, as a sign of joy, weeping occasionally passes into a complimentary observance. The beginning of such an observance is shown us by Hebrew traditions in the reception of Tobias by Raguel, when he finds him to be his cousin's son: "Then Raguel leaped up and kissed him and wept." And among some races there grows from this root a social rite. In New Zealand a meeting "led to a warm tangi between the two parties; but, after sitting opposite to each other for a quarter of an hour or more, crying bitterly, with a most piteous moaning and lamentation, the tangi was transformed into a hungi, and the two old ladies commenced pressing noses, giving occasional satisfactory grunts." And then we find it becoming a public ceremony on the arrival of a great chief: "The women stood upon a hill, and loud and long was the tangi to welcome his approach. Occasionally, however, they would leave off, to have a chat or a laugh, and then mechanically resume their weeping." Other Malayo-Polynesians do the like.

To these illustrations of the way in which natural manifestations of emotion originate ceremonies, may be added a few illustrations of the way in which ceremonies, not originating directly from spontaneous actions, nevertheless originate by natural sequence—not by intentional symbolization. Brief indications must suffice.

Livingstone tells us that blood-relations are formed in Central South Africa by imbibing a little of each other's blood. A like way of establishing brotherhood is used in Madagascar, in Borneo, and in many places throughout the world, and it was used among our remote ancestors. This is assumed to be a symbolic observance. On studying early ideas, however, and finding, as we have done, that the primitive man regards the nature of anything as inhering in all its parts, and therefore thinks he gets the courage of a brave enemy by eating his heart, or is inspired with the virtues of a deceased relative by grinding his bones and drinking them in water, we see that, by absorbing each other's blood, men are supposed to establish actual community of nature, and are also supposed to gain power over each other by possessing parts of each other.

Similarly with the ceremony of exchanging names. "To bestow his name upon a friend is the highest compliment that one man can offer another," among the Shoshones. The Australians exchange