Darwin thus describes the Malay kiss: “The women squatted with their faces upturned; my attendants stood leaning over them, laid the bridge of their noses at right angles over theirs, and commenced rubbing. It lasted somewhat longer than a hearty hand-shake with us. During this process they uttered a grunt of satisfaction.”[28] The French savant Gaidoz, who has also described this custom, remarks, “I have many times observed that cats which are fond of one another greet each other in this way; and I myself once had a cat which always tried to squeeze its nose against mine as a mark of affection.”[29]
Everything is in favour of this nose-salute being a very primitive custom, and its origin may be sought beyond the sense of touch; no doubt, in the sense of smell.
Spencer has arrived at the following conclusions: The sheep bleats after her little lamb which has run away. It sniffs at several lambs that are skipping about near her, and at last recognises her own by means of the sense of smell, and undoubtedly feels great delight at recognising it. In consequence of assiduous repetitions of this a certain relation is developed between the two factors, so that the smell of the lamb excites joy in the sheep.
As every animal has its peculiar smell, so, too, has every human being. When the patriarch Isaac grew old his eyes began to get dim, and he could not see. He wished to bless his eldest son, Esau, but Jacob deceived him by clothing himself in his brother’s garments, and giving himself out as the latter. Isaac then said to him: “Come near now and kiss me, my son.” And he came near and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said: “See the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed.”
The sense of the smell peculiar to some one we are fond of is capable of exciting pleasure. Timkowski writes of a Mongol father that the latter time after time smelt his youngest son’s head. This mark of paternal tenderness serves with the Mongols instead of kisses. In the Philippine Islands, the sense of smell is so developed that the inhabitants, by simply sniffing at a pocket-handkerchief, can tell to whom it belongs; lovers who are separated send one another presents of bits of their linen, and, in their absence, keep each other in mind by often inhaling each other’s scent.
That the delicate perfume that exhales from a woman’s body plays an important part in love affairs even with modern civilised nations is too well-known to require more than a passing mention on my part.
Certain races of mankind now actually salute each other by smelling; they apply their mouth and nose to a person’s cheek, and draw a long breath. In their language they do not say “Give me a kiss,” but “Smell me.” The same sort of kiss is also met with among the Burmese; and with many Malay tribes the words “smell” and “salute” are synonymous. Other races do not confine themselves to smelling each other’s faces, but sniff their hands at every salutation.
Alfred Grandidier, a French traveller, says of the nose-kiss in Madagascar: “It always excites the merriment of Europeans, and yet it has its origin in an extremely refined idea. The invisible air which is continually being breathed through the lips is to savages, not only, as with us, a sign of life, but it is also an emanation of the soul—its perfume, as they themselves say—and, when they mingle and suck in each other’s breath and odour, they think they are actually mingling their souls.”[30]
Then the origin of the nose-kiss, it seems, undoubtedly ought to be sought—at any rate partly—in the sense of smell. The love of another human being involves, as a consequence, one’s loving everything belonging to this other being; and this love is shown in casu by drinking in his or her breath, whereby, little by little, a peculiar nose-salutation is very ingeniously developed, which, naturally, is capable of gradually assuming various conventional forms.
Now we will proceed to the kiss proper—that on the mouth. How can its origin be explained?[31]