It will be well to begin by noticing two of those rules or taboos by which, as we have seen, the life of divine kings or priests is regulated.  The first of the rules to which I desire to call the reader’s attention is that the divine personage may not touch the ground with his foot.  This rule was observed by the supreme pontiff of the Zapotecs in Mexico; he profaned his sanctity if he so much as touched the ground with his foot.[2] Montezuma, emperor of Mexico, never set foot on the ground; he was always carried on the shoulders of noblemen, and if he lighted anywhere they laid rich tapestry for him to walk upon.[3] For the Mikado of Japan to touch the ground with his foot was a shameful degradation; indeed, in the sixteenth century, it was enough to deprive him of his office.  Outside his palace he was carried on men’s shoulders; within it he walked on exquisitely wrought mats.[4] The king and queen of Tahiti might not touch the ground anywhere but within their hereditary domains; for the ground on which they trod became sacred.  In travelling from place to place they were carried on the shoulders of sacred men.  They were always accompanied by several pairs of these sanctified attendants; and when it became necessary to change their bearers, the king and queen vaulted on to the shoulders of their new bearers without letting their feet touch the ground.[5] It was an evil omen if the king of Dosuma touched the ground, and he had to perform an expiatory ceremony.[6] Within his palace the king of Persia walked on carpets on which no one else might tread; outside of it he was never seen on foot but only in a chariot or on horseback.[7] In old days the king of Siam never set foot upon the earth, but was carried on a throne of gold from place to place.[8] Formerly neither the kings of Uganda, nor their mothers, nor their queens might walk on foot outside of the spacious enclosures in which they lived.  Whenever they went forth they were carried on the shoulders of men of the Buffalo clan, several of whom accompanied any of these royal personages on a journey and took it in turn to bear the burden.  The king sat astride the bearer’s neck with a leg over each shoulder and his feet tucked under the bearer’s arms.  When one of these royal carriers grew tired he shot the king on to the shoulders of a second man without allowing the royal feet to touch the ground.  In this way they went at a great pace and travelled long distances in a day, when the king was on a journey.  The bearers had a special hut in the king’s enclosure in order to be at hand the moment they were wanted.[9] Among the Bakuba or rather Bushongo, a nation in the southern region of the Congo, down to a few years ago persons of the royal blood were forbidden to touch the ground; they must sit on a hide, a chair, or the back of a slave, who crouched on hands and feet; their feet rested on the feet of others.  When they travelled they were carried on the backs of men; but the king journeyed in a litter supported on shafts.[10] Among