A Variety of Etiquette Across the Globe

The Māori culture is an integral part of New Zealand's identity. – Above, Māori women in traditional dress. — Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Soos, Auersmont Etiquette 

Curiosities of Behavior

It may be said, on general principles, that a person who does unto others as he would be done by, cannot diverge very far from the essentials of true politeness. Unobtrusiveness, self-denial, moderation of voice and cleanliness of habit, in a word, self-respect combined with consideration for others, these are the qualities which constitute politeness. A poor farmer’s boy may possess them, while a man who has rank, wealth and every sort of social pretension may wholly lack them.

But in every country there is an arbitrary code of politeness which is called etiquette, and its rules are often purely formal and meaningless, changing from year to year like the fashions. Even primitive tribes and indigenous people have a system of etiquette, and what is polite in this restricted sense, varies curiously in many different parts of the world.

As everybody knows, kissing is indulged in to a much greater extent among European nations than in our own country or England. The fact of two men kissing each other, which would pass without comment in many places abroad, would cause considerable amusement if practiced in the streets of New York or London. But in St. Petersburg or Paris the case is different.

Some of our readers will recollect Du Maurier's amusing sketch, which appeared in Punch a few years since. It depicted an Englishman awaiting the arrival of a French friend, who has crossed the channel in order to pay him a visit.

The Englishman hears the Frenchman's knock at the hall door, and not desiring to be favored with the osculatory embraces of the excitable foreigner, runs into his dressing-room, from whence he emerges, razor in hand, with his face plentifully covered with lather as M. Alphouse rushes up the stairs, half a dozen steps at a time. But M. Alphouse is not to be done, and seizing his friend round the neck, he, to his entire satisfaction, impresses an ardent kiss upon his bald and undefended pate! 

The custom of kissing in Russia is, however, never in such full swing as during the Fetes Paques, which answer to our Eastertide. Then every man, woman and child, from the highest to the lowest, as he meets his neighbor, utters the sentence “Kristos voskres” (He is risen), and the kiss of peace is given and taken in remembrance of the great event which at that period of the year all Christendom is engaged in celebrating.

The etiquette of more primitive peoples, however, includes stranger customs than kissing. Nose-rubbing is a form of salutation affected by the natives of many indigenous lands, and amongst them New Zealand. In that country it forms, in fact, the preliminary to the tangi, one of the strangest, if not the strangest, of the many strange forms of etiquette to be found scattered over the globe. To welcome with a cheerful countenance seems natural to man, of whatever part of the world he may be a native. Black, white, brown, or yellow, his face lights up into a pleasant smile, or expands into a broad grin, as he greets his friend.

But here, at the other side of the world, the case is different, and when friend meets friend at a tangi — a ceremonial Māori funeral or wake — especially if their absence from each other has been at all of lengthened duration, it is the correct thing for them to plant themselves opposite each other on the ground, cover up their faces with the exception of one eye with their mats, and weep and howl and roar for more than an hour together.

As the tangi goes on, the performers encircle one another’s neck with their arms, and covering their heads beneath one garment, sob to their hearts’ content. The proceedings are only varied when food is served, when the wailing and groaning ceases as if by magic, and they fall-to upon the feast with a will, each striving to outdo tho other in jollity. The moment the viand have disappeared, the performers once more to all appearance wallow in the depths of hopeless agony.

Frequently, as a part of the practice, they each cut their flesh with sharp mussel-shells, until their bodies in every part are streaming with blood. There is morality in politeness, but the etiquette of civilized nations is occasionally as absurd and unaccountable as that of the indigenous people above mentioned. - Placer Herald, 1884

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia