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SEPTEMBER, 1896.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
cracked the knuckles over her own head. The sense of this salute is clear. The saluter gathers into her fingers all the evil swarms that buzz about or have entered into the strangers. Once in her hands the cracking of her joints drives the spirits into the woman's head. The salute is interesting, because not only does its Gujarâti name, ovarna, that is, removing, and its Hindustâni name, balaiya léna, that is, evil-taking, shew the object of the rite, but the practice is still continued in the belief that it passes ill-luck from the saluted to the saluter. When a Hindu by mistake jostles a neighbour in a crowd, he touches the place on his neighbour's body which he struck against, and then touches his own body with his hand. The pain returns with the touch. It is a case of evil-taking. One of the Dahomey salutes was to move the body so as to touch the saluted, apparently with the object of taking his ill-luck. That kissing is a salute, as the firing of guns is a salute or health, shews that one object of the kiss is to take evil from the person saluted. In kissing, the object is either sacrificial, that is, the kisser, by taking or sucking the ill-lack of the saluter, becomes his scape or sacrifice, or kissing is sacramental, that is, it secures communion of soul between the kisser and the kissed. That, in its sacrificial aspect, kissing is sucking, is shewn in Marathi where chumbané means both to kiss and to suck. The same object, namely, to take in the ill-luck of the person saluted, is the explanation of the Indo-Chinese salute of inhaling.50 50 The Slav kissing of the hand of the aged, the Roman kissing of the foot of the god, the English kissing of their sovereign, the Prophet Job kissing his hand to the moon walking in brightness, are all apparently sacrificial, that is, done with the object of taking into the salater evils that might annoy the saluted. That the kiss was a formal and religious salute is shewn by its history in England, where up to Charles II.'s time (A. D. 1660) the kiss was the usual salute and shaking hands was a mark either of close intimacy or of high favour.52 In Banffshire (A. D. 1800), a newly-married couple were wished happy feet. As a preventive of misfortune, if they chanced to meet on the road to or from church, they saluted each other by kissing.53 The kiss in the ring and the kiss in the Russian and Kamschatkan dance, seems indirectly to be a sacrificial salute. As the object of the dance is to house spirits, the kiss element in the dance seems to find its sense in providing specially tempting quarters for the guests who have to be housed. The Laplander's salute is to rub the person salated with his nose, 55 apparently, like the Indo-Chinese, with the object of helping the saluted by sniffing into himself the saluted person's ill-luck.
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Capping, that is, uncovering the head is a widespread salute. At first sight it appears to have its origin in submission. As a sign of submission, the uncovering may either be placing the unguarded head at the mercy of the person saluted, or, according to Mr. Baring Gould,5% since the Roman slave wore no hat, the uncovering may mean "I am your slave." But uncovering the head is a salute in many countries, where all wear head-dresses and where Roman slave practices have never been heard of. Uncapping is also a salute in many circumstances, into which no trace of submission enters. Further, the sacredness of the head-dress as the protector of those in honour, or in other form of danger, the christening cap, the Jewish, Greek and Hindu bridal crown, the noble's coronet, the royal diadem, the Bishop's mitre, and the Pope's tiara, shews that a special guardian-importance attaches to the hat, and makes it probable that the root of uncapping as a salute is the fact that the hatless saluter makes himself a home or scape for the ill-luck or worries of the saluted. In the south of Scotland, when a man meets a funeral, he takes off his hat.57 Capping on meeting a funeral is also the rule in the west of Scotland, where the (modern) explanation is given that lifting the hat is a sign of respect and sympathy
48 Macmurdo in Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. Vol. I. p. 307. Meadows Taylor (Confessions of a Thug, p. 132) describes the practice somewhat more clearly: "The old lady approached Mir Ali. She passed her hands over his face, oracked her knuckles and every joint of her fingers by pressing the backs of her hands against her temples.". 50 Jour. Roy. As. Soc. Vol. III. p. 269.
49 Burton's Mission to Dahomey, Vol. I. p. 260.
51 Victor Tissot's Unknown Hungary, Vol. I. p. 216. 53 Guthrie's Old Scottish Customs, p. 125.
62 Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, Vol. V. p. 15. St. James's Budget, 8th January 1887, p. 16. Baring Gould's Strange Survivals, pp. 282-287.
55 Hone's Table Book, p. 187.
BT Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 42.
