APPENDICES
APPENDIX A.
THE ORIGINS OF THE KISS.
Manifestations resembling the kiss, whether with the object of expressing
affection or sexual emotion, are found among various animals much lower
than man. The caressing of the antennæ practiced by snails and various
insects during sexual intercourse is of the nature of a kiss. Birds use
their bills for a kind of caress. Thus, referring to guillemots and their
practice of nibbling each other's feet, and the interest the mate always
takes in this proceeding, which probably relieves irritation caused by
insects, Edmund Selous remarks: "When they nibble and preen each other
they may, I think, be rightly said to cosset and caress, the expression
and pose of the bird receiving the benefit being often beatific."[196]
Among mammals, such as the dog, we have what closely resembles a kiss, and
the dog who smells, licks, and gently bites his master or a bitch,
combines most of the sensory activities involved in the various forms of
the human kiss.
As practiced by man, the kiss involves mainly either the sense of touch or
that of smell. Occasionally it involves to some extent both sensory
elements.[197]
The tactile kiss is certainly very ancient and primitive. It is common
among mammals generally. The human infant exhibits, in a very marked
degree, the impulse to carry everything to the mouth and to lick or
attempt to taste it, possibly, as Compayre suggests,[198] from a memory of
the action of the lips protruded to seize the maternal nipple. The
affectionate child, as Mantegazza remarks,[199] not only applies inanimate
objects to its lips or tongue, but of its own impulse licks the people it
likes. Stanley Hall, in the light of a large amount of information he
obtained on this point, found that "some children insist on licking the
cheeks, necks, and hands of those they wish to caress," or like having
animals lick them.[200] This impulse in children may be associated with
the maternal impulse in animals to lick the young. "The method of licking
the young practiced by the mother," remarks S. S. Buckman, "would cause
licking to be associated with happy feelings. And, further, there is the
allaying of parasitical irritation which is afforded by the rubbing and
hence results in pleasure. It may even be suggested that the desire of the
mother to lick her young was prompted in the first place by a desire to
bestow on her offspring a pleasure she felt herself." The licking impulse
in the child may thus, it is possible, be regarded as the evanescent
manifestation of a more fundamental animal impulse,[201] a manifestation
which is liable to appear in adult life under the stress of strong sexual
emotion. Such an association is of interest if, as there is some reason to
believe, the kiss of sexual love originated as a development of the more
primitive kiss bestowed by the mother on her child, for it is sometimes
found that the maternal kiss is practiced where the sexual kiss is
unknown.
The impulse to bite is also a part of the tactile element which lies at
the origin of kissing. As Stanley Hall notes, children are fond of biting,
though by no means always as a method of affection. There is, however, in
biting a distinctly sexual origin to invoke, for among many animals the
teeth (and among birds the bill) are used by the male to grasp the female
more firmly during intercourse. This point has been discussed in the
previous volume of these Studies in reference to "Love and Pain," and
it is unnecessary to enter into further details here. The heroine of
Kleist's Penthesilea remarks: "Kissing (Küsse) rhymes with biting
(Bisse), and one who loves with the whole heart may easily confound the
two."
The kiss, as known in Europe, has developed on a sensory basis that is
mainly tactile, although an olfactory element may sometimes coexist. The
kiss thus understood is not very widely spread and is not usually found
among rude and uncultured peoples. We can trace it in Aryan and Semitic
antiquity, but in no very pronounced form; Homer scarcely knew it, and the
Greek poets seldom mention it. Today it may be said to be known all over
Europe except in Lapland. Even in Europe it is probably a comparatively
modern discovery; and in all the Celtic tongues, Rhys states, there is no
word for "kiss," the word employed being always borrowed from the Latin
pax.[202] At a fairly early historic period, however, the Welsh Cymri,
at all events, acquired a knowledge of the kiss, but it was regarded as a
serious matter and very sparingly used, being by law only permitted on
special occasions, as at a game called rope-playing or a carousal;
otherwise a wife who kissed a man not her husband could be repudiated.
Throughout eastern Asia it is unknown; thus, in Japanese literature kisses
and embraces have no existence. "Kisses, and embraces are simply unknown
in Japan as tokens of affection," Lafcadio Hearn states, "if we except the
solitary fact that Japanese mothers, like mothers all over the world, lip
and hug their little ones betimes. After babyhood there is no more hugging
or kisses; such actions, except in the case of infants, are held to be
immodest. Never do girls kiss one another; never do parents kiss or
embrace their children who have become able to walk." This holds true, and
has always held true, of all classes; hand-clasping is also foreign to
them. On meeting after a long absence, Hearn remarks, they smile, perhaps
cry a little, they may even stroke each other, but that is all. Japanese
affection "is chiefly shown in acts of exquisite courtesy and
kindness."[203] Among nearly all of the black races of Africa lovers never
kiss nor do mothers usually kiss their babies.[204] Among the American
Indians the tactile kiss is, for the most part, unknown, though here and
there, as among the Fuegians, lovers rub their cheeks together.[205]
Kissing is unknown to the Malays. In North Queensland, however, Roth
states, kissing takes place between mothers (not fathers) and infants,
also between husbands and wives; but whether it is an introduced custom
Roth is unable to say; he adds that the Pitta-pitta language possesses a
word for kissing.[206]
It must be remarked, however, that in many parts of the world where the
tactile kiss, as we understand it, is usually said to be unknown, it still
exists as between a mother and her baby, and this seems to support the
view advocated by Lombroso that the lovers' kiss is developed from the
maternal kiss. Thus, the Angoni Zulus to the north of the Zambesi, Wiese
states, kiss their small children on both cheeks[207] and among the
Fuegians, according to Hyades, mothers kiss their small children.
Even in Europe the kiss in early mediæval days was, it seems probable, not
widely known as an expression of sexual love; it would appear to have been
a refinement of love only practiced by the more cultivated classes. In the
old ballad of Glasgerion the lady suspected that her secret visitor was
only a churl, and not the knight he pretended to be, because when he came
in his master's place to spend the night with her he kissed her neither
coming nor going, but simply got her with child. It is only under a
comparatively high stage of civilization that the kiss has been emphasized
and developed in the art of love. Thus the Arabic author of the Perfumed
Garden, a work revealing the existence of a high degree of social
refinement, insists on the great importance of the kiss, especially if
applied to the inner part of the mouth, and he quotes a proverb that "A
moist kiss is better than a hasty coitus." Such kisses, as well as on the
face generally, and all over the body, are frequently referred to by
Hindu, Latin, and more modern erotic writers as among the most efficacious
methods of arousing love.[208]
A reason which may have stood in the way of the development of the kiss in
a sexual direction has probably been the fact that in the near East the
kiss was largely monopolized for sacred uses, so that its erotic
potentialities were not easily perceived. Among the early Arabians the
gods were worshiped by a kiss.[209] This was the usual way of greeting the
house gods on entering or leaving.[210] In Rome the kiss was a sign of
reverence and respect far more than a method of sexual excitation.[211]
Among the early Christians it had an all but sacramental significance. It
retains its ancient and serious meaning in many usages of the Western and
still more the Eastern Churches; the relics of saints, the foot of the
pope, the hands of bishops, are kissed, just as the ancient Greeks kissed
the images of the gods. Among ourselves we still have a legally recognized
example of the sacredness of the kiss in the form of taking an oath by
kissing the Testament.[212]
So far we have been concerned mainly with the tactile kiss, which is
sometimes supposed to have arisen in remote times to the east of the
Mediterranean—where the vassal kissed his suzerain and where the kiss of
love was known, as we learn from the Songs of Songs, to the Hebrews—and
has now conquered nearly the whole of Europe. But over a much larger part
of the world and even in one corner of Europe (Lapland, as well as among
the Russian Yakuts) a different kind of salutation rules, the olfactory
kiss. This varies in form in different regions and sometimes simulates a
tactile kiss, but, as it exists in a typical form in China, where it has
been carefully studied by d'Enjoy, it may be said to be made up of three
phases: (1) the nose is applied to the cheek of the beloved person; (2)
there is a long nasal inspiration accompanied by lowering of the eyelids;
(3) there is a slight smacking of the lips without the application of the
mouth to the embraced cheek. The whole process, d'Enjoy considers, is
founded on sexual desire and the desire for food, smell being the sense
employed in both fields. In the form described by d'Enjoy, we have the
Mongolian variety of the olfactory kiss. The Chinese regard the European
kiss as odious, suggesting voracious cannibals, and yellow mothers in the
French colonies still frighten children by threatening to give them the
white man's kiss. Their own kiss the Chinese regard as exclusively
voluptuous; it is only befitting as between lovers, and not only do
fathers refrain from kissing their children except when very young, but
even the mothers only give their children a rare and furtive kiss. Among
some of the hill-tribes of south-east India the olfactory kiss is found,
the nose being applied to the cheek during salutation with a strong
inhalation; instead of saying "Kiss me," they here say "Smell me." The
Tamils, I am told by a medical correspondent in Ceylon, do not kiss during
coitus, but rub noses and also lick each other's mouth and tongue. The
olfactory kiss is known in Africa; thus, on the Gambia in inland Africa
when a man salutes a woman he takes her hand and places it to his nose,
twice smelling the back of it. Among the Jekris of the Niger coast mothers
rub their babies with their cheeks or mouths, but they do not kiss them,
nor do lovers kiss, though they squeeze, cuddle, and embrace.[213] Among
the Swahilis a smell kiss exists, and very young boys are taught to raise
their clothes before women visitors, who thereupon playfully smell the
penis; the child who does this is said to "give tobacco."[214] Kissing of
any kind appears to be unknown to the Indians throughout a large part of
America: Im Thurn states that it is unknown to the Indians of Guiana, and
at the other end of South America Hyades and Deniker state that it is
unknown to the Fuegians. In Forth America the olfactory kiss is known to
the Eskimo, and has been noted among some Indian tribes, as the Blackfeet.
It is also known in Polynesia. At Samoa kissing was smelling.[215] In New
Zealand, also, the hongi, or nose-pressing, was the kiss of welcome, of
mourning, and of sympathy.[216] In the Malay archipelago, it is said, the
same word is used for "greeting" and "smelling." Among the Dyaks of the
Malay archipelago, however, Vaughan Stevens states that any form of
kissing is unknown.[217] In Borneo, Breitenstein tells us, kissing is a
kind of smelling, the word for smelling being used, but he never himself
saw a man kiss a woman; it is always done in private.[218]
The olfactory kiss is thus seen to have a much wider extension over the
world than the European (or Mediterranean) tactile kiss. In its most
complete development, however, it is mainly found among the people of
Mongolian race, or those yellow peoples more or less related to them.
The literature of the kiss is extensive. So far, however, as that
literature is known to me, the following list includes everything that may
be profitably studied: Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions; Ling
Roth, "Salutations," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, November,
1889; K. Andree, "Nasengruss," Ethnographische Parallelen, second
series, 1889, pp. 223-227; Alfred Kirchhoff, "Vom Ursprung des Küsses,"
Deutsche Revue, May, 1895; Lombroso, "L'Origine du Baiser," Nouvelle
Revue, 1897, p. 153; Paul d'Enjoy, "Le Baiser en Europe et en Chine,"
Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie, Paris, 1897, fasc. 2. Professor
Nyrop's book, The Kiss and its History (translated from the Danish by
W. F. Harvey), deals rather with the history of the kiss in civilization
and literature than with its biological origins and psychological
significance.
[196]
E. Selous, Bird Watching, 1901, p. 191. This author adds:
"It seems probable indeed that the conferring a practical benefit of the
kind indicated may be the origin of the caress throughout nature."
[197]
Tylor terms the kiss "the salute by tasting," and d'Enjoy
defines it as "a bite and a suction"; there seems, however, little
evidence to show that the kiss contains any gustatory element in the
strict sense.
[198]
Compayre, L'Evolution intellectuelle et morale de
l'enfant, p. 9.
[199]
Mantegazza, Physiognomy and Expression, p. 144.
[200]
G. Stanley Hall, "The Early Sense of Self," American
Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, p. 361.
[201]
In some parts of the world the impulse persists into adult
life. Sir S. Baker (Ismailia, p. 472) mentions licking the eyes as a
sign of affection.
[202]
Book of Common Prayer in Manx Gaelic, edited by A. W.
Moore and J. Rhys, 1895.
[203]
L. Hearn, Out of the East, 1895, p. 103.
[204]
See, e.g., A. B. Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 288.
Among the Swahili the kiss is practiced, but exclusively between married
people and with very young children. Velten believes they learned it from
the Arabs.
[205]
Hyades and Deniker, Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn,
vol. vii, p. 245.
[206]
W. Roth, Ethnological Notes Among the Queensland
Aborigines, p. 184.
[207]
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1900, ht. 5, p. 200.
[208]
E.g., the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, Bk. III, Chapter
I.
[209]
Hosea, Chapter xiii, v. 2; I Kings, Chapter xix, v. 18.
[210]
Wellhausen, Reste Arabischen Heidentums, p. 109.
[211]
The Romans recognized at least three kinds of kiss: the
osculum, for friendship, given on the face; the basium, for affection,
given on the lips; the suavium, given between the lips, reserved for
lovers.
[212]
In other parts of the world it would appear that the kiss
sometimes has a sacred or ritual character. Thus, according to Rev. J.
Macdonald (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, November, 1890, p.
118), it is part of the initiation ceremony of a girl at her first
menstruation that the women of the village should kiss her on the cheek,
and on the mons veneris and labia.
[213]
Journal of the Anthropological Institute, August and
November, 1898, p. 107.
[214]
Velten, Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli, p. 142.
[215]
[216]
Tregear, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1889.
[217]
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1896, ht. 4, p. 272.
[218]
Breitenstein, 21 Jahre in India, vol. i, p. 224. |
