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 mediaeval 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