Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/164

152 the salutation of clapping the hands until the great ones have passed;" and a like use of the hands occurs in Dahomey. A further rhythmical movement having like meaning must be added. Already we have seen that jumping as a natural sign of delight is a friendly salute among the Fuegians, and that it recurs in Loango as a mark of respect to the king. Africa furnishes another instance. Grant narrates that the King of Karague "sat concealed, all but his head, in the doorway of his chief hut, and received the salutations of his people, who, one by one, shrieked and sprang in front of him, swearing allegiance." Let such saltatory movements be gradually methodized, as they are likely to be in the course of development, and they will constitute the dancing with which a ruler is sometimes saluted; as in the before-named case of the King of Bogotá, and as in the case Williams gives in his account of Feejee, where an inferior chief and his suite, entering the royal presence, "performed a dance, which they finished by presenting their clubs and upper dresses to the Somo-somo king."

Of the other simulated signs of pleasurable emotion commonly forming part of the obeisance, kissing is the most conspicuous. This, of course, has to take such form as consists with the humility of the prostration or kindred attitude. As shown in some foregoing instances, we have kissing the earth where the superior cannot be, or may not be, approached close enough for kissing the feet or the garment. Others may be added. "It is the custom at Eboe, when the king is out, and indeed in-doors as well, for the principal people to kneel on the ground and kiss it three times when he passes;" and the ancient Mexican embassadorsambassadors [sic], on coming to Cortez, "first touched the ground with their hands and then kissed it." This, in the ancient East, expressed submission of conquered to conqueror; and is said to have gone as far as kissing the footmarks of a conqueror's horse. Abyssinia, where the despotism is extreme and the obeisances are servile, supplies us with a modification. In Shoa kissing the nearest inanimate object belonging to a superior or a benefactor is a sign of respect and thanks. From this we pass to licking the feet and kissing the feet. Drury tells us that licking the knee is a sign of respect among the Malagasy, but does not indicate such deep abasement as licking the feet; and, describing the return of a Malagasy chief from war, he says: "He had scarcely seated himself at his door, when his wife came out crawling on her hands and knees till she came to him, and then licked his feet; when she had done, his mother did the same; and all the women in the town saluted their husbands in the same manner." Slaves, etc., did the like to their masters. So in ancient Peru, where subordination was unqualified, "when the chiefs came before" (Atahuallpa), "they made great obeisances, kissing his feet and hands." And that this extreme homage was, and is now, the practice in the East we have clear proof. In Assyrian records Sennacherib mentions that Menahem of Samaria came up to bring presents and to kiss his feet. "Kissing his feet" was part of the reverence