[85] Smith, Chinese Characteristics, p. 274.
Politeness enjoins the performance of certain ceremonies upon persons who meet or part. The custom of salutation is of world-wide prevalence, though there are certain savages who are said to have no greetings except when they have learnt the practice from the whites.[86] As a ceremony prescribed by public opinion it is an obligatory tribute paid to another person’s “self-feeling,” whatever be the original nature of the act which has been adopted for the purpose. The form of salutation has sometimes been borrowed from questions springing from curiosity or suspicion. Among the Californian Miwok, when anybody meets a stranger he generally salutes him, “Whence do you come? What are you at?”[87] The Abipones “would think it quite contrary to the laws of good-breeding, were they to meet any one and not ask him where he was going”;[88] and a similar question is also a very common mode of greeting among the Berbers of Southern Morocco. Very frequently a salutation consists of some phrase which is expressive of goodwill. It may be an inquiry about the other person’s health or welfare, as the English “How are you?” “How do you do?” Among the Burmese two relatives or friends who meet begin a conversation by the expressions, “Are you well? I am well,” if they have been some time separated; whereas those who are daily accustomed to meet say, “Where are you going?”[89] The Moors ask, “What is your news?” or, “Is nothing wrong?” The ordinary salutation of the Zulus is, “I see you, are you well?” after which the snuffbox, the token of friendship, is passed round.[90] Among several tribes of California, again, a person when greeting another simply utters a word which means “friendship.”[91] The goodwill is often directly expressed in the form of a wish, like our “Good day!” “Good night!” Among the Hebrews the salutation at meeting or entering another’s house seems at first to have consisted most commonly in an inquiry after mutual welfare,[92] but in later times “Health!” or “Peace to thee!” became the current greeting.[93] According to the Laws of Manu, a Brâhmana should be saluted, “May thou be long-lived, O gentle one!”[94] The Greeks said χαῖρε (“Be joyful!”); the Romans, Salve! (“Be in health!”) especially on meeting, and Vale! (“Be well!”) on parting. The good wish may have the form of a prayer. The Moors say, “May God give thee peace!” “May God give thee a good night!” and the English “Good-bye” and the French Adieu are prayers curtailed by the progress of time. But there is no foundation for Professor Wundt’s assertion that “the words employed in greeting are one and all prayer formulæ in a more or less rudimentary state.”[95] A salutation may, finally, be a verbal profession of subjection, as the Swedish “Ödmjukaste tjänare,” that is, (I am your) “most humble servant.”
[86] Krasheninnikoff, History of Kamschatka, p. 177. Dall, op. cit. p. 397 (Aleuts). Egede, Description of Greenland, p. 125; Rink, Danish Greenland, p. 223; Cranz, op. cit. i. 157 (Greenlanders). Prescott, in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, iii. 244 (Dacotahs). Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India, pp. 230 (Kumi), 256 (Kukis).
[87] Powers, Tribes of California, p. 347.
[88] Dobrizhoffer, op. cit. ii. 138.
[89] Forbes, British Burma, p. 69.
[90] Tyler, op. cit. p. 190.
[91] Powers, op. cit. p. 58.
[92] Genesis, xliii. 27. Exodus, xviii. 7.