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closing the two great openings for the passage of impure influence from the saluter to the saluted. To prevent evil influences issuing from his mouth the Dahomey saluter rubs his face, especially his mouth, with earth or sand till a coating of earth gathers on his lips.99 In Egyptian pictures the hand is placed over the mouth.100 In coming into the presence of the Lord of Hosts the prophet Isaian has his unclean lips purified by the touch of a live coal from the altar. So in India, the Sravak or Jain priest, when engaged in temple service, wears a cloth tied over his mouth; the Pârsi priest adopts the same precaution in worshipping fire. The prevention of the issue of evil-laden glances from the eye of the saluter is a still greater merit in prostration than the closing of the saluter's mouth. In China, in A, D, 1583, when the king passed, all people knelt with their faces to the ground, holding their hands over their heads, forbidden to look up till the king was gone.2 In Siam, in A. D. 1660, every one had to lie flat at the king's coming. To look on the king was death. So, about the same time, in Central Asia, ruled the mighty Prester John, whose person none dared look upon. In Loango, in West Africa, north of the Congo, when the chief drank, a man struck together two iron bars. All who heard the noise buried their faces in the sand. Other salutes find their sense in this same need for guarding against the Evil Eye, the most dangerous of influences. In Western India, the women of many hill and forest tribes turn their back when they meet an European. This back-turning is due neither to want of manners nor to excess of timidity. The sense is to prevent a glance harming the superior. In Dahomey and in other parts of West Africa, when the royal charmers or fetish women come to draw water, all men must run off and turn their backs. The spirit-origin of the bow, as in the case of the Parsi three separate bows to the dead, may be partly to guard the person saluted by exposing the top of the head through which, even without the laying on of hands, spirit influences enter. But the main spirit-sense of the low ceremonial bow is to save the saluted from the saluter's evil-laden eye. In Japan at Nagasaki, after the October festival, when the Shinto god o-Sawa is brought back to his temple, as the god passes, the people bow and clap their hands. When the Amir of Bokhara passed through the city, the people saluted by extending their palms and bowing low their heads. The horror of the mischief of the Evil Eye enforces the stricter precaution of holding the hand in front of the eyes. When the people of Sikhim, in the Himalayas, lay gifts on the altar, they lift both hands to the forehead, fall on their knees, and touch the ground three times with head and hands. The Bhots of the Western Himalayas salute by raising the backs of both hands level with the forehead, repeatedly describing circles in the air, and ending by drooping the fingers down and turning the palm in.10 The German, and now the British, right-palm salute is like the first part of the Bhot salute. The position suggests the open right palm of the sati, or of the baronet, guarding the saluted from evil-laden glances. When a Bombay Beni-Isra'il repeats the verse:11" The Lord our God is one Lord," he puts his right thumb in his right eye, his little finger in his left eye, and rests the three remaining fingers on his brow.12 The closing of the eyes by the finger tips forms part of the prayer gesture in the regular Jewish and Musalman service. In Christian prayer, the eyes are closed, either with or without the aid of hand-pressure.
Besides the evil influences that come out of a man, he goes pestered with spirits as if with a gwarm of flies. Unless the saluter clears his fly-swarm, they may annoy and injure the saluted. Earth and sand are among the chief scarers and cleansers. In Cheshire, white sand, called greet, is strewn in front of the bride.13 Burial scares corruption : the scanty present of a little
* Burton's Mission to Dahomey, Vol. I. p. 261. 500 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, Vol. II, p. 378. 1 Isaiah, vi. 5-8.
. Kerr's Voyages, Vol. VII. p. 500. Mr. Pepy's Diary, August 17th, 1656.
• Hudibras, Book iii, Section 8. 6 Burton's Mission to Dahomey, Vol. I. p. 245.
• Op. cit. Vol. I. pp. 191, 192. St. James's Budget, 10th December 1887, p. 11. • Op. cit. 24th November 1888, p. 5.
Hooker's Himalayan Journals, Vol. I. p. 312. 10 Balfour's Encyclopedia, Vol. V. p. 34. 11 Deuteronomy, vi. 4.
13 Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XVIII. p. 512. 15 Dyer's Folk-Lore, p. 198.
