CHAPTER IX: BADGES AND COSTUMES.

§ 408. The pursuit of interpretations once more takes us back to victories achieved over men or animals. Badges are derived from trophies; with which, in early stages, they are identical. We have seen that by the Shoshones, a warrior is allowed to wear the feet and claws of a grizzly bear, constituting their “highest insignia of glory,” only when he has killed one: the trophy being thus made into a recognized mark of honour. And seeing this, we cannot doubt that the buffalo-horns decorating the head of a Mandan chief and indicating his dignity, were at first worn as spoils of the chase in which he prided himself: implying a genesis of a badge out of a trophy, which gives meaning to the head-dresses of certain divine and human personages among ancient peoples.

Beginning as a personal distinction naturally resulting from personal prowess, like the lion’s skin which Hercules wears, the trophy-badge borne by a warrior whose superiority gains for him supremacy, tends to originate a family-badge; which becomes a badge of office if his descendants retain power. Hence the naturalness of the facts that in Ukimi “the skin [of a lion] . . . is prepared for the sultan’s wear, as no one else dare use it;” that “a leopard-skin mantle is the insignia of rank among the Zoolus;” and that in Uganda, certain of the king’s attendants wear “leopard-cat skins girt round the waist, the sign of royal blood.”

Of course if skins or other parts of slain beasts, tend thus to become badges, so, too, do parts of slain men. “The Chichimecs flea their heads [of their vanquished enemies] and fit that skin upon their own heads with all the hair, and so wear it as a token of valour, till it rots off in bits.” Here the scalp which proves his victory, is itself used in stamping the warrior as honourable. Similarly when, of the Yucatanese, Landa says that “after a victory they tore from the slain enemy the jaw-bone, and having stripped it of flesh, they put it on their arm,” we may recognize the beginning of another kind of badge from another kind of trophy. Though clear evidence that jawbones become badges, is not forthcoming, we have good reason to think that substituted representations of them do. After our war with Ashantee, where, as we have seen, jawbones are habitually taken as trophies, there were brought over to England among other curiosities, small models of jawbones made in gold, used for personal adornment. And facts presently to be cited suggest that they became ornaments after having originally been badges worn by those who had actually taken jawbones from enemies.

§ 409. Besides sometimes losing parts of their bodies, which thereupon become trophies, conquered men invariably lose their weapons, which naturally also become trophies; as they did among the Greeks, and as they did again in the time of Charlemagne, to whom swords of subdued chiefs were brought. And if, as we see, parts of vanquished foes’ bodies, brute or human, when worn become badges; we may expect that the weapons of the vanquished when carried by the victors, will also become badges.

That swords are thus transformed from trophies into badges, if not directly proved is indirectly implied. In Japan “the constant criterion [of rank] turns upon the wearing of swords. The higher orders wear two . . . the Edition: current; Page: [181] next in rank wear one. . . . To the lower orders, a sword is strictly prohibited.” And since a practice so inconvenient as that of carrying a superfluous sword, is not likely to have been adopted gratuitously; it may be inferred that the “two-sworded man,” as he is called, was originally one who, in addition to his own sword, wore a sword taken from an enemy: in which case what is now a badge was once a trophy. Even where both swords are not worn, it results that as the vanquished man is made swordless, the victor’s sword marks him as master in contrast with the swordless as slave. Hence, then, the fact that in various countries a sword is a symbol of power. Hence the fact that of old the investiture of princes was in many cases by the girding on of a sword. Hence the use of a sword as an emblem of judicial authority. Implying power and position, the sword is a mark of honour which, in common with all others, has tended to spread downwards; as till lately in Japan, where swordless men in underhand ways acquired the privilege of wearing swords; and as in France, where, two centuries ago, punishments for the unauthorized wearing of swords were inflicted.

Better than the sword does the spear illustrate this genesis of the badge from the trophy; since, while the sword in becoming a badge retains its original shape, the spear in becoming a badge partially loses the aspect of a weapon. In its untransformed state, the spear is used to signify authority by various semi-civilized peoples. Among several parties met by Mr. Ellis when travelling in Madagascar, he noticed that “the chief usually carried a spear or staff, or both.” “No person is permitted to carry weapons of any sort in the palace,” of Uganda, says Speke; “but the king habitually bears a couple of spears”: a duplication of weapons again suggestive, like the two swords, of a trophy. In Japan, nobles “are entitled in virtue of their rank to have a spear carried before them when moving about officially.” That the javelin was a symbol of authority among Edition: current; Page: [182] the Hebrews, Ewald infers from 1 Samuel, xviii., 10 and xxvi., 12 and 22. And then there is the still more significant fact that a lance or spear, in the time of Pausanias, was worshipped as the sceptre of Zeus. Early European history yields further evidence. “The lance was a sign of kingly power” among the Franks, says Waitz; and when Guntchram adopted Childebert, his nephew, he placed a spear in his hand, saying, “this is a sign that I have given over my whole kingdom to thee.” Add the evidence furnished by the shape of its terminal ornament, and we cannot doubt that the sceptre is simply a modified spear—a spear which, ceasing to be used as a weapon, lost its fitness for destructive purposes while becoming enriched with gold and precious stones. That only by degrees did its character as a weapon disappear, is implied by the fact that the prelate who consecrated Otho in 937, said—“By this sceptre you shall paternally chastise your subjects.” And then we may infer that while the spear, borne by the supreme ruler, underwent transformation into the sceptre, the spears borne by subordinates, symbolizing their deputed authority, gradually changed into staves of office, batons of command, and wands.

Other facts from various quarters, support the conclusion that all such marks of official power are derived from the weapons or appendages carried by the militant man. Among the Araucanians “the discriminative badge of the toqui [supreme chief] is a species of battle-axe, made of porphyry or marble.” Describing a governor-general of a Uganda province, Speke says:—“His badge of office is an iron hatchet, inlaid with copper and handled with ivory.” And then mediæval France supplies two instances in which other parts of the warrior’s belongings became badges. Plate armour, originally worn by the knight as a defence, was clung to by the nobility after it had ceased to be useful, because it was a mark of distinction, says Quicherat; and spurs, also at first knightly appendages, grew into appendages Edition: current; Page: [183] of honour, and spread through bishops down even to the ordinary clergy.

§ 410. Another symbol of authority, the flag or ensign, seems to have had a kindred origin. This, too, is a modified and developed spear.

Certain usages of the Peruvians yield evidence. Garcilasso says, “the lance was adorned with feathers of many colours; extending from the point to the socket, and fastened with rings of gold. The same ensign served as a banner in time of war.” This suggests that the appendages of the lance, first used for display, incidentally furnished a means of identification, whereby the whereabouts of the leader could be traced. And then Mr. Markham’s statement that planting a lance with a banner at the end seems to have been a sign of the royal presence, while it verifies the inference that the lance became by association a mark of governmental power, suggests also how, by development of its decorative part, the banner resulted.

That along with consolidation of small societies into larger ones by conquest, followed by development of militant organization, there arises not only the need for distinguishing each chief of a tribe from his followers, but also for distinguishing the tribes from one another, is shown by sundry slightly civilized and semi-civilized peoples. During wars in the Sandwich Islands, different ranks of chiefs were distinguished by the sizes and colours of their feather cloaks. Among the Fijians each band “fights under its own flag,” and “the flags are distinguished from each other by markings.” When armies were formed by the Chibchas, “each cazique and tribe came with different signs on their tents, fitted out with the mantles by which they distinguished themselves from each other.” And “the Mexicans were very attentive to distinguish persons, particularly in war, by different badges.” When with this last statement we join the further statement that “the armorial Edition: current; Page: [184] ensign of the Mexican empire was an eagle in the act of darting upon a tiger,” recalling the animal-names of the kings, we are shown how, at any rate in some cases, the distinctive marks on the flags of leaders represented their names; carrying us back to those achievements in war and the chase which originated their names.

That the devices on flags were in early stages commonly of this kind (though naturally not in cases like those of Sandwich Islanders and Fijians above named, whose habitats contained no wild beasts of fit characters) seems implied by the fact that even still, the predatory mammals and birds of prey which, in early times, mostly furnished the animal names of great warriors, still linger on flags, or on the standards carrying them: the reason for the gradual subordination of the animal-figure being obviously the growth of that expanse of colour which gives the needful conspicuousness.

§ 411. And here we come upon the now-familiar inference that heraldic badges have descended from these primitive tribal badges, or totems. That the names of tribes, in so many parts of the world derived from animals, and often joined with beliefs that the animals giving the names were the actual ancestors, sometimes originate tribal badges, we have direct proof. Of the Thlinkeets we read in Bancroft that—

“The whole nation is separated into two great divisions or clans, one of which is called the Wolf, and the other the Raven. Upon their houses, boats, robes, shields, and wherever else they can find a place for it, they paint or carve their crest, an heraldic device of the beast or the bird designating the clan to which the owner belongs.”

With such support for an inference reasonably to be drawn, we cannot but accept the hypothesis that the heraldic devices which early prevailed among the civilized, had a like genesis. When we read that in China, “the Mandarins Edition: current; Page: [185] of letters have birds on their Habit embroidered in Gold, to distinguish their rank; the Mandarins of the Army have Animals, as the Dragon, the Lion, the Tiger,” and that “by these Marks of Honour the People know the Rank these officers have in the nine Degrees of the State;” we can scarcely draw any other conclusion than that this use of animal-symbols, however much it has deviated from its original use, arose from the primitive system of tribal naming and consequent tribal badges. And finding that during early times in Europe, coats of arms were similarly emblazoned upon the dresses, as well as otherwise displayed, we must infer that whether painted on coach-panels, chased on plate, or cut on seals, these family-marks among ourselves have a kindred derivation.

§ 412. Civilized usages obscure the truth that men were not originally prompted to clothe themselves by either the desire for warmth or the thought of decency. When Speke tells us that the Africans attending him, donning with pride their goat-skin mantles when it was fine, took them off when it rained, and went about naked and shivering; or when we read in Heuglin that “among the Schiluk the men go quite naked, even their sultan and his wezir appear in a kind of parti-coloured shirt, only during official interviews and on festive occasions;” we are shown that the dress, like the badge, is at first worn from the wish for admiration.

Some of the facts already given concerning American Indians, who wear as marks of honour the skins of formidable animals they have killed, suggest that the badge and the dress have a common root, and that the dress is, at any rate in some cases, a collateral development of the badge. There is evidence that it was so with early European races. In their Life of the Greeks and Romans, Guhl and Koner remark:—

“The covering of the head and the upper part of the body, to protect them from the weather and the enemy’s weapons, originally consisted of the hide of wild animals. Thus the hunter’s trophy became the warrior’s armour. . . . The same custom prevailed amongst Germanic nations, and seems to have been adopted by the Roman standard-bearers and trumpeters, as is proved by the monuments of the Imperial period.”

Whence it is inferable that the honourableness of the badge and of the dress, simultaneously arise from the honourableness of the trophy. That possession of a skin-dress passes into a class-distinction, I find no direct proof; though, as the skins of formidable beasts often become distinctive of chiefs, it seems probable that skins in general become distinctive of a dominant class where a servile class exists. Indeed, in a primitive society there unavoidably arises this contrast between those who, engaged in the chase when not engaged in war, can obtain skin-garments, and those who, as slaves, are debarred from doing so by their occupation. Hence, possibly, the interdicts in mediæval Europe against the wearing of furs by the inferior classes.

Even apart from this it is inferable that since, by taking his clothes, nakedness is commonly made a trait of the prisoner, and consequently of the slave, relative amount of clothing becomes a class-distinction. In some cases there result exaggerations of the difference thus incidentally arising. Where the inferior are clothed, the superior distinguish themselves by being more clothed. Cook says of the Sandwich Islanders that quantity of clothing is a mark of position, and of the Tongans he says the same; while he tells us that in Tahiti, the higher classes signify their rank by wearing a large amount of clothing at great inconvenience to themselves. A kindred case occurs in Africa. According to Laird, “on all great occasions it is customary for the king” of Fundah “and his attendants to puff themselves out to a ridiculous size with cotton wadding.” And the Arabs furnish an allied fact. In Kaseem “it is the fashion Edition: current; Page: [187] to multiply this important article of raiment [shirts] by putting on a second over the first and a third over the second.”

That there simultaneously arise differences in the forms and in qualities of the dresses worn by rulers and ruled, scarcely needs saying. Obviously, the partial dress of the slave must become distinguished by shape as well as by amount, from the complete dress of the master; and obviously, the clothing allowed to him as a slave will be relatively coarse. But beyond the distinctions thus marking rank in early stages, there must in later stages habitually arise further such distinctions. As wars between small societies end from time to time in subjugation, it must happen that when the dress of the ruling class of the conquering society differs from that of the ruling class of the society conquered, it will become distinctive of the new and higher ruling class. There is evidence that contrasts were thus initiated during the spread of the Romans. Those inhabitants of Gaul who were inscribed Roman citizens, wore the Roman costume, and formed a privileged order. “The Gallo-Romans, who were incomparably the more numerous . . . were obliged to dress otherwise:” freemen meanwhile being distinguished from slaves, and slaves from coloni, by their mantles.

Distinctions of rank naturally come to be marked by the colours of dresses, as well as by their quantities, qualities, and shapes. The coarse fabrics worn by the servile classes, must as a matter of course be characterized by those dull colours possessed by the raw materials used; as happened in Rome, where “only poor people, slaves and freedmen, wore dresses of the natural brown or black colour of the wool.” Consequently, bright colours will habitually distinguish the dresses of the ruling classes, able to spend money on costly dyes. Illustrations come from many countries. In Madagascar the use of a “dress of entire scarlet is the prerogative of the sovereign alone.” In Siam “the Prince, Edition: current; Page: [188] and all who follow him in war or the chase, are clothed in red.” “The Kututuchtu [Mongol pontiff] and his lamas are all clothed in yellow, and no layman is allowed to wear this colour except the prince.” In China also, yellow is the imperial colour, limited to the emperor and his clan; and among the Chinese other colours, crimson, green, &c., mark potentates of divers grades, while sashes and caps of various bright hues are marks of rank. Then in Europe we have, during the last years of the Roman republic, the wearing of scarlet, violet, and purple, by men of the wealthier classes; ending in the purple of special quality distinctive of the emperor, when his supremacy became established And among later peoples like causes have effected like distinctions. In mediæval France scarlet, as the most costly colour, was worn exclusively by princes, knights, and women of high rank. “ ‘The laws ordain that no one shall wear purple, which signifies exalted rank, except the nobles.’ Froissart, speaking of Artevelle, chief of the revolted Gantese, says that ‘he was clothed in sanguine robes and in scarlet, like the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Hainaut.’ ”

Of course with that development of ceremonial control which goes along with elaboration of political structure, differences of quantity, quality, shape and colour, are united to produce dresses distinctive of classes. This trait is most marked where the rule is most despotic; as in China where “between the highest mandarin or prime minister, and the lowest constable, there are nine classes, each distinguished by a dress peculiar to itself;” as in Japan, where the attendants of the Mikado “are clad after a particular fashion . . . and there is so much difference even among themselves, as to their habits, that thereby alone it is easily known what rank they are of, or what employment they have at Court;” and as in European countries during times of unchecked personal government, when each class had its distinctive costume.

§ 413. The causes which have originated, developed, and specialized badges and dresses, have done the like with ornaments; which have, indeed, the same origins.

How trophy-badges pass into ornaments, we shall see on joining with facts given at the outset of the chapter, certain kindred facts. In Guatemala, when commemorating by war-dances the victories of earlier times, the Indians were “dressed in the skins and wearing the heads of animals on their own;” and among the Chibchas, persons of rank “wore helmets, generally made of the skins of fierce animals.” If we recall the statement already quoted, that in primitive European times, the warrior’s head and shoulders were protected by the hide of a wild animal (the skin of its head sometimes surmounting his head); and if we add the statement of Plutarch that the Cimbri wore helmets representing the heads of wild beasts; we may infer that the animal-ornaments on metal-helmets began as imitations of hunter’s trophies. This inference is supported by evidence already cited in part, but in part reserved for the present occasion. The Ashantees who, as we have seen, take human jaws as trophies, use both actual jaws and golden models of jaws for different decorative purposes: adorning their musical instruments, &c., with the realities, and carrying on their persons the metallic representations. A parallel derivation occurs among the Malagasy. When we read that by them silver ornaments like crocodile’s teeth are worn on various parts of the body, we can scarcely doubt that the silver teeth are substitutes for actual teeth originally worn as trophies.

We shall the less doubt this derivation on observing in how many parts of the world personal ornaments are made out of these small and durable parts of conquered men and animals,—how by Caribs, Tupis, Moxos, Ashantees, human teeth are made into armlets, anklets, and necklaces; and how in other cases the teeth of beasts, mostly formidable, are used in like ways. The necklaces of the Land Dyaks Edition: current; Page: [190] contain tiger-cat’s teeth; the New Guinea people ornament their necks, arms, and waists with hogs’ teeth; while the Sandwich Islanders have bracelets of the polished tusks of the hog, with anklets of dogs’ teeth. Some Dacotahs wear “a kind of necklace of white bear’s claws, three inches long.” Among the Kukis “a common armlet worn by the men consists of two semi-circular boar’s tusks tied together so as to form a ring.” Enumerating objects hanging from a Dyah’s ear, Boyle includes “two boar’s tusks, one alligator’s tooth.” And picturing what her life would be at home, a captive New Zealand girl in her lament says—“the shark’s tooth would hang from my ear.” Though small objects which are attractive in colour and shape, will naturally be used by the savage for decorative purposes, yet pride in displaying proofs of his prowess, will inevitably make him utilize fit trophies in preference to other things, when he has them. The motive which made Mandans have their buffalo-robes “fringed on one side with scalp-locks,” which prompts a Naga chief to adorn the collar round his neck with “tufts of the hair of the persons he had killed,” and which leads the Hottentots to ornament their heads with the bladders of the wild beasts they have slain, as Kolben tells us, will inevitably tend to transform trophies into decorations wherever it is possible. Indeed while I write I find direct proof that this is so. Concerning the Snake Indians, Lewis and Clarke say:—

“The collar most preferred, because most honourable, is one of the claws of the brown bear. To kill one of these animals is as distinguished an achievement as to have put to death an enemy, and in fact with their weapons is a more dangerous trial of courage. These claws are suspended on a thong of dressed leather, and being ornamented with beads, are worn round the neck by the warriors with great pride.”

And sundry facts unite in suggesting that many of the things used for ornaments were at first substitutes for trophies having some resemblance to them. When Tuckey Edition: current; Page: [191] tells us that the natives of the Congo region make their necklaces, bracelets, &c., of iron and brass rings, lion’s teeth, beads, shells, seeds of plants; we may suspect that the lion’s teeth stand to the beads and shells in much the same relation that diamonds do to paste.

And then from cases in which the ornament is an actual trophy or representation of a trophy, we pass to cases in which it avowedly stands in place of a trophy. Describing practices of the Chibchas, Acosta says that certain of their strongest and bravest men had “their lips, noses, and ears pierced, and from them hung strings of gold quills, the number of which corresponded with that of the enemies they had killed in battle:” the probability being that these golden ornaments, originally representations of actual trophies, had lost resemblance to them.

Thus originating, adornments of these kinds become distinctive of the warrior-class; and there result interdicts on the use of them by inferiors. Such interdicts have occurred in various places. Among the Chibchas, “paintings, decorations and jewels on dresses, and ornaments, were forbidden to the common people.” So, too, in Peru, “none of the common people could use gold or silver, except by special privilege.” And without multiplying evidence from nearer regions, it will suffice to add that in mediæval France, jewellery and plate were marks of distinction not allowed to those below a certain rank.

Of course decorations beginning as actual trophies, passing into representations of trophies made of precious materials, and, while losing their resemblance to trophies, coming to be marks of honour given to brave warriors by their militant rulers (as in Imperial Rome, where armlets were thus awarded) inevitably pass from relative uniformity to relative multiformity. As society complicates there result orders of many kinds—stars, crosses, medals, and the like. These it is observable are most if not all of them of military origin. And then where a militant organization Edition: current; Page: [192] evolved into rigidity, continues after the life has ceased to be militant, we find such decorations used to mark ranks of another kind; as in China, with its differently-coloured buttons distinguishing its different grades of mandarins.

I must not, however, be supposed to imply that this explanation covers all cases. Already I have admitted that the rudimentary æsthetic sense which leads the savage to paint his body, has doubtless a share in prompting the use of attractive objects for ornaments; and two other origins of ornaments must be added. Cook tells us that the New Zealanders carry suspended to their ears the nails and teeth of their deceased relations; and much more bulky relics, which are carried about by widows and others among some races, may also occasionally be modified into decorative objects. Further, it seems that badges of slavery undergo a kindred transformation. The ring through the nose, which Assyrian sculptures show us was used for leading captives taken in war, which marked those who, as priests, entered the service of certain gods in ancient America, and which in Astrachan is even now a sign of dedication, that is of subjection; seems elsewhere to have lost its meaning, and to have survived as an ornament. And this is a change analogous to that which has occurred with marks on the skin. (§ 364)

§ 414. We cannot say that the wish to propitiate, which caused the spread of present-giving, of obeisances, of complimentary addresses, and of titles, has also caused the spread of badges, costumes, and decorations. In this case it is rather that the lower grades have sought to raise themselves into the grades above, by assuming their distinctive marks; and that, where feared, they have been propitiated by allowing them to do this.

Already in passing we have noted how such badges of rank as swords and as spurs, have descended even in spite of interdicts; and here must be added proofs that the like Edition: current; Page: [193] has occurred with dresses and ornaments. It was thus in Rome. “All these insignia,” writes Mommsen, “probably belonged at first only to the nobility proper, i. e. to the agnate descendants of curule magistrates; although, after the manner of such decorations, all of them in course of time were extended to a wider circle.” And then, in illustration, he says that the purple-bordered toga, originally significant of the highest rank, had, as early as the time of the second Punic war, descended “even to the sons of freedmen;” while the gold amulet-case distinguishing the triumphator, was, at the same date, “only mentioned as a badge of the children of senators.” So was it, too, with signet rings.

“Originally only ambassadors sent to foreign nations were allowed to wear gold rings . . . ; later, senators and other magistrates of equal rank, and soon afterwards knights, received the jus annuli aurei. After the civil war, . . . the privilege was frequently encroached upon. The first emperors tried to enforce the old law, but as many of their freedmen had become entitled to wear gold rings, the distinction lost its value. After Hadrian the gold ring ceased to be the sign of rank.”

Sumptuary laws in later times, have shown us alike the distinctions of dress which once marked off classes and the gradual breaking down of those distinctions; as, for example, in mediæval France. Just alluding to the facts that in early days silk and velvet were prohibited to those below a certain grade, that under Philip Augustus shoe-points were limited in their lengths to six inches, twelve inches, or twenty-four inches according to social position, and that in the 17th century, ranks at the French court were marked by the lengths of trains; it will suffice, in illustration of the feelings and actions which cause and resist such changes, to name the complaints of moralists in the 14th and 15th centuries, that by extravagance in dress “all ranks were confounded,” and to add that in the 16th century, women were sent to prison by scores for wearing clothes like those of their superiors.

How this diffusion of dresses marking honourable position Edition: current; Page: [194] and disuse of dresses marking inferiority, has gone far among ourselves, but is still incomplete, is shown in almost every household. On the one hand we have the fashionable gowns of cooks and housemaids; on the other hand we have that dwarfed representative of the muslin cap, which, once hiding the hair, was insisted upon by mistresses as a class distinction, but which, gradually dwindling, has now become a small patch on the back of the head: a good instance of the unobtrusive modifications by which usages are changed.

§ 415. Before summing up, I must point out that though, in respect of these elements of ceremony, there are not numerous parallelisms between the celestial rule and the terrestrial rule, still there are some. That the symbol of dominion, the sceptre, originally derived from a weapon, the spear, is common to the two, will be at once recalled as one instance; and the ball held in the hand as a second. Further, in regions so far from one another as Polynesia and ancient Italy, we find such communities of dress between the divine and the human potentate, as naturally follow the genesis of deities by ancestor-worship. Ellis tells us that the Tahitians had a great religious festival at the coronation of their kings. During the ceremonies, he was girded with the sacred girdle of red feathers, which identified him with the gods. And then in ancient Rome, says Mommsen, the king’s “costume was the same as that of the supreme god; the state-chariot, even in the city where everyone else went on foot, the ivory sceptre with the eagle, the vermilion-painted face, the chaplet of oaken leaves in gold, belonged alike to the Roman god and to the Roman king.”

As clearly as in preceding cases, we see, in the genesis of badges and costumes, how ceremonial government begins with, and is developed by, militancy. Those badges which carry us back for their derivation to trophies taken from the Edition: current; Page: [195] bodies of slain brutes and men, conclusively show this; and we are shown it with equal conclusiveness by those badges, or symbols of authority, which were originally weapons taken from the vanquished. On finding that a dress, too, originally consisting of a wild animal’s skin, has at the outset like implications bringing like honours; and on finding also that as a spoil wrenched from the conquered man, the dress, whether a trophy of the chase or of other kind, comes by its presence and absence to be distinctive of conqueror and conquered; and on further finding that in subsequent stages such additional dress-distinctions as arise, are brought in by members of conquering societies, differently clothed from both upper and lower classes of the societies conquered; we are shown that from the beginning these conspicuous marks of superiority and inferiority resulted from war. And after seeing how war incidentally initiated badges and costumes, we shall understand how there followed a conscious recognition of them as connected with success in arms, and as being for that reason honourable. Instances of this direct relation are furnished by the militant societies of ancient America. In Mexico, the king could not wear full dress before he had made a prisoner in battle. In Peru, “those (of the vassals) who had worked most in the subjugation of the other Indians . . . were allowed to imitate the Ynca most closely in their badges.” And how dresses, at first marking military supremacy, become afterwards dresses marking political supremacy, or political power derived from it, we may gather from the statement that in ancient Rome “the toga picta and the toga palmata (the latter so called from the palm branches embroidered on it) were worn by victorious commanders at their triumphs; also (in imperial times) by consuls entering on their office, by the prætors at the pompa circensis, and by tribunes of the people at the Augustalia.”

Enforcing direct evidence of this kind, comes the indirect evidence obtained by comparing societies of different Edition: current; Page: [196] types and by comparing different stages of the same society. In China and Japan, where the political organization evolved in ancient times by war, acquired a rigidity which has kept it unchanged till modern times, we see great persistence of these class-badges and costumes; and among European nations, those which have retained types predominantly militant, are in greater degrees characterized by the prevalence of special dresses and decorations than those which have become relatively industrial in their types. In Russia, “a dress which could not denote the rank of the man, and a man whose only worth should arise from his personal merit, would be considered as anomalies.” Describing a Russian dinner-party, Dr. Moritz Wagner says—“I found that on the breasts of thirty-five military guests, there glittered more than two hundred stars and crosses; many of the coats of generals had more orders than buttons.” And this trait which by contrast strikes a German in Russia, similarly by contrast strikes an Englishman in Germany. Capt. Spencer remarks—“I do not believe that any people in Europe are more partial to titles and orders than the Germans, and more especially the Austrians.” And then after recalling the differences between the street-scenes on the Continent and in England, caused by the relative infrequency here of official costumes, military and civil, we are reminded of a further difference of kindred nature. For here among the non-official, there are fewer remnants of those class-distinctions in dress which were everywhere pronounced during the more militant past. The blouse of the French workman stamps him in a way in which the workman in England is not stamped by his comparatively varied dress; and the French woman-servant is much more clearly identifiable as such by cap and gown than is her sister in England. Along with this obliteration of visible distinctions carried further at home than abroad, there is another kind of obliteration also carried further. Official costumes, in early times worn constantly, have tended in Edition: current; Page: [197] the less militant countries to fall into disuse, save during times for performing official functions; and in England this change, more marked than elsewhere, has gone to the extent of leading even military and naval officers to assume “mufti” when off duty.

Most striking, however, is the evidence yielded by the general contrast between the controlling part of each society and the controlled part. The facts that those who form the regulative organization, which is originated by militancy, are distinguished from those who form the organization regulated, which is of industrial origin, by the prevalence among them of visible signs of rank; and that the militant part of this regulative organization is more than the rest characterized by the conspicuousness, multiplicity, and definiteness, of those costumes and badges which distinguish both its numerous divisions and the numerous ranks in each division; are facts unmistakably supporting the inference that militancy has generated all these marks of superiority and inferiority.