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