Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/418

402 do for the dead king, and for the god who evolves from the dead king.

In societies that have their ceremonial governments largely developed, the homology is further shown. As such societies ordinarily have many gods of various powers, severally served by their official glorifiers, so they have various grades of living potentates, severally served by men who assert their greatness and demand respect. In Samoa, "a herald runs a few paces before, calling out, as he meets any one, the name of the chief who is coming." With a Madagascar chief in his palanquin, "one or two men with assagais, or spears, in their hands, ran along in front shouting out the name of the chief." In advance of an embassadorambassador [sic] in Japan there "first walked four men with brooms, such as always precede the retinue of a great lord, in order to admonish the people with cries of 'Stay, stay!' which means, 'Sit, or bow you down;'" and in China a magistrate making a progress is preceded by men bearing "red boards having the rank of the officer painted on them, running and shouting to the street passengers: 'Retire, retire! keep silence, and clear the way!' Gong strikers follow, denoting at certain intervals by so many strokes their master's grade and office."

Another parallelism exists between the official who proclaims the king's will and the official who proclaims the will of the deity—between the interpreter who conveys statements to the king and brings back his reply, and the priest who conveys the petitions or questions of worshipers, and explains the oracular response. 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 in ancient Mexico. Of Montezuma II. it is said that "no commoner was to look him in the face, and if one did, he died for it;" and further, that he did not communicate with any one "except by an interpreter." In Nicaragua the caziquescaciques [sic] "carried their exclusion so far as to receive messages from other chiefs only through officers delegated for that purpose." So of Peru, where some of the rulers "had the custom not to be seen by their subjects but on rare occasions," we read that at the first interview with the Spaniards, "AtahuallpaAtahualpa [sic] gave no answer, nor did he even raise his eyes to look at the captain (Hernando de Soto). But a chief replied to what the captain had said." With the Chibchas "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." Throughout Africa at the present time like customs have generated like appliances. Speke tells us that, "in conversation with the King of Uganda, the words must always be transmitted through one or more of his officers." Among the inland negroes "it is quite beneath the dignity of an attàh to reply from the throne except through his 'mouth,' or prime-minister." In