Salutations
SALUTATIONS are more or less formally ordered expressions acknowledging the presence of another. They occur generally upon meeting but also upon departure from the person met. Salutations include an enormous variety of oral and ritual forms that differ significantly in length and elaborateness and that express a range of emotions from kindness to humility or dread. Among these are bows, prostrations, ritual attack and defense, the firing of arms, the baring of the head, the clasping of hands, embracing, weeping, kissing, and smelling, as well as the utterance of short to very lengthy verbal prescriptions. The form of salutation appropriate in one civilization is very often offensive or ludicrous in another, and in any particular civilization the salutation varies with context. Most research on salutations has attempted to account for the relative elaborateness or simplicity of traditional greetings by seeing the relation of these to other aspects of religion and culture.
Ceremonial Greetings
While the salutation has been largely neglected in the study of religion and culture, it has been observed that salutations between equals tend to be brief and simple while those offered to sovereigns by their subjects or to higher ranking persons by lower ranking persons tend to be more ceremonious.
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