folklore to kiss the ground is a synonym for to die. The privilege in English folk-custom known as kissing under the mistletoe' is a Christmas festal practice connected by Frazer with the licence of the Saturnalia. It may have originated independently as an expression of festivity. Greek, Latin, and Teutonic mythology employed the motive of unbinding a spell by a kiss-le fier baiser of Arthurian romances, which changes a dragon into the maiden who had been enchanted. The Sleeping Beauty awakened by the kiss of the lover is a widely-distributed motive. An analogy, without actual derivation, is to be found in many primitive cases of cancelling a tabu. Thus in Australian ceremony bodily contact, analogous to the kiss, in various forms, removes the tabu between two persons, such as the celebrant and the subject of a rite. An analogy may be seen between Teutonic and early Christian ritual in the connexion drawn out by Grimm between minnedrinking and the kiss. He finds this both in sorcery and in sacrificial rites. Closely parallel to the magical power of the kiss in breaking tabu and restoring to consciousness is the myth-motive in which a kiss_produces both forgetfulness and remembrance. This capacity is evidently based on human experience, and is significant in connexion with the practice of the kiss in religion. It brings to one focus the kiss of love and the kiss of adoration. In the psychology of adolescence the kiss produces a forgetfulness of old conditions and awakens the subject to a new life. The kiss appears to have no symbol in art. European children and adolescents express it in writing by a cross, perhaps merely an accidental choice. The Slavic Jews style an insincere kiss as a 'kiss with dots.' Some Rabbis explain that Esau's kiss was insincere (Gn 334), and every letter of the word pen is dotted by the Massoretes." LITERATURE.-E. B. Tylor, Salutations' in EBrl H. Ling Roth, in JAI xix. [1890]; H. Thurston, in CE, 8.v.; J. Jacobs, in JE, 8.v.; H. Havelock Ellis, "The Origins of the Kiss' in Sexual Selection in Man, Philadelphia, 1905; C. Lom broso, in Nouvelle Revue, xxi. [1897]; C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History, tr. W. F. Harvey, London, 1901; J. Neil, Kissing: its Curious Bible Mentions, London, 1885; E. W. Hopkins,

'The Sniff-kiss in ancient India,' JAOS xxviii. [1907] 120-134. For an elaborate schematization of the love-kiss in India see R. Schmidt, Beitr. zur ind. Erotik, Leipzig, 1902, pp. 453–477. A. E. CRAWLEY.

rock-caves of the Buddhist period and a few ancient Hindu temples.

LITERATURE.-BG xix. [1885] 13 f., 472, 516, 610, xxi. [1884] 10, xxiii. [1884] 7, 675, xxiv. [1886] 8 f. For the Bezwada caves, J. Fergusson and J. Burgess, The Cave Temples of India, London, 1880, p. 95 ff.; S. H. Bilgrami and C. Willmott, Historical and Descriptive Sketch of the Nizam's Dominions, Bombay, 1883, i. 11 f. W. CROOKE.

KIZIL BASH.-Kizil Bash, 'Red Heads,' is the name by which are denoted the members of a sect distributed throughout the whole of Asia Minor. They call themselves 'Alevis; their nickname, which in Persia and Afghanistan was and is given to other peoples also, originates doubtless from the colour of their head-dress. Their total number is estimated at more than a million; they form an important section of the population of the vilayets of Sivas (about 305,000), Erzerum (107,000), Angora, and Mamurete ul-Aziz (Kharput), and in certain districts constitute even the majority. Their language is Turkish or Kurdish. Though reckoned officially as Musalman Sunnites, in reality they are not such; they practise Islamism only in a formal way to avoid persecution. When they think they are in safety, they do not attend the mosques, read the Qur'an, say the prayers, or perform the Muhammadan ablutions. Except in the presence of a Sunnite, their women are not veiled. They drink wine, they do not observe Ramadan, and some of them do not practise circumcision or shave the head and other parts of the body as the Turks do. Moreover, they cherish a profound aversion to the Turks, and regard them as unclean; when they are obliged to entertain them, they even go so far as to pollute the dishes with which they serve them. On the other hand, they show great goodwill in their villages towards the Christians. They have secret beliefs and practices which they reveal only with extreme reluctance, and no one has hitherto been able to penetrate, except very imperfectly, the mystery with which they are surrounded.

Their sect, like some Christian Churches, has called dédéhs, whose dignity is hereditary from a hierarchical organization. They have priests father to son, and who are the necessary intermediaries between God and the rest of the com

At its source is an ancient temple of Siva, inside which the infant stream pours out of a stone formed in the shape of a cow's mouth (gaumukhi). This place, known as Kṛṣṇabãi, the lady Kṛṣṇa,' is a favourite resort of pilgrims. Fifteen miles down stream is the old Buddhist town of Wai, one of the most sacred places in its course, with a group of cave-temples and several later Hindu shrines (BG xix. [1885] 610 ff.). Farther on it passes close by the town of Sātāra, Karād, or Karhad, at the junction with the Koyna and Mahuli, where it is joined by the Yenna. In the Bijapur District, Sangam, at its junction with the Mahaprabha, possesses a temple of some sanctity, dedicated to Siva under the title of Sangamesvara, lord of the sacred meeting of the waters,' the site of an annual religious fair. Thence passing through the dominions of the Nizam of Haidarabad, it reaches the Bay of Bengal in the British Kistna District. Here Bezwada contains some 1 Nyrop, p. 130. 2 Ib. 94.

3 J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, tr. J. S. Stally brass, London,

1882-88, p. 1102.

4 Jacobs, loc. cit.

of Khubyar (about 34 miles to the N. W. of Sivas), a popular place of pilgrimage. It is certain that the Kizil Bash possess a sacred book, probably liturgic in character, but as yet no part of it has been made public.

Three superimposed stratifications in the religion of the Kizil Bash may be distinguished.

(1) There is an old pagan foundation going back to the ancient Anatolian beliefs, tinged with Persian Mazdaism, which were practised in the country before its conversion to Christianity. The Kizil Bash regard certain heights or certain rocks as sacred, e.g. near Kara Hissar (Taylor, Journal Royal Geogr. Society, xxxviii. [1868] 297), and on holidays they sacrifice sheep and fowls on these summits. The trees which grow there-usually pines-are surrounded with superstitious regard, and no one is allowed to carry an axe near them (cf. F. and E. Cumont, Voyage dans le Pont, Brussels, 1906, p. 172 ff.). The Kizil Bash, like the ancient Mazdæans, worship streams and especially springs. They also venerate fire; when they build a house, they light a fire with great ceremony, and this must be kept burning as long as the house remains standing. The place of honour is near the hearth, and to spit there is sacrilege. A fire

altar hewn out in the rock is still the object of devotion at Manasgerd (C. Wilson, Handbook of Asia Minor, London, 1895, p. 250). They worship the sun at its rising and setting, and a day in which it does not appear is for them a day of mourning. They also worship the moon.

Everybody in the East accuses the Kizil Bash of giving themselves up to orgies in their nocturnal ceremonies (cf. below), when, the lights out, each man has commerce with a woman taken by chance. That is why the Turks call them, in derision, terah sonderan, 'extinguishers of the light.' It is difficult to know what degree of truth there is in this imputation. But it is remarkable that the same promiscuity was, during their feast of 1st January, laid to the reproach of the Paulicians in the 9th cent., who were distributed throughout the same regions as the Kizil Bash of to-day (Manichæan formula of abjuration, in PG i. 1469: μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἑσπερινὴν μέθην ἀποσβεννύουσι τὰ φῶτα, σαρκικῶς τε ἀλλήλοις ενασελγαίνουσι, καὶ μεδεμιᾶς ὅλως φειδομένοις φύσεως ἢ συγγενίας ἢ ἡλικίας). It is possible that those supposed acts of debauchery may be an inheritance from the sacred prostitution of the worship of Ma and Anaïtis. This would also be true of the custom, if it were well attested, of offering a young girl every year to the dédéhs, whose son, they say, if one is born, becomes a priest, or whose daughter must remain a virgin and set herself apart for the cult (Cte de Cholet, Arménie, Kurdistan et Mésopotamie, Paris, 1892, p. 96).

(2) The influence of Christianity is evident both in the beliefs and in the rites of the sect. The Kizil Bash teach that God is One in Three Persons, and that the principal incarnation of God, before 'Ali, is Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, who intercedes with God for humanity. They are devoted to Mary, who is, they believe, the Mother of God, and who conceived without ceasing to be a virgin. At the same time, they acknowledge the existence of five powers, lower than the Trinity, mediators between the Supreme Being and man, analogous to the yatim of the Nosairis, a kind of archangels which are perhaps derived from the Iranian Amesha Spentas (q.v.). Moreover, they assume the existence of twelve ministers of God, who correspond to the twelve apostles and the twelve nagibs of the Nosairis. Unlike the Yezidis, they offer no worship to Satan, whom they regard as the irreconcilable adversary of God. Like the Nosairis, they believe that at the end of the ages the spirit of evil will come to fight a final battle against the last incarnation of Jesus. Mazdæan dualism is here combined with Christian ideas.

The Kizil Bash have a ceremony which they celebrate by night on certain holidays-the 10th of the month of Muharram was mentioned to the present writer-and also at irregular intervals, when a dédéh visits their villages.

Accompanying himself with a musical instrument, the priest who officiates sings prayers in honour of 'Ali, Jesus, Moses, and David. . . . The priest has a willow cane which suggests the barsom [q.v.] of the Avesta. He dips it in water while he says

the prayers. The water thus consecrated is afterwards dis

tributed throughout the houses. In the course of the ceremony those who take part make public confession of their sins, after

the manner of the early Christians. The priest prescribes various penances, frequently in the form of a fine, in money or in kind. Then they put out the lights and engage in lamenta tions over the faults of which they have been guilty. When the lights are re-kindled, the priest pronounces the absolution; then he takes some slices of bread and a cup of wine or some analogous liquid, consecrates them solemnly, dips the bread in the wine, and distributes it to those of the company who have obtained absolution. Among the Kurd Kizil Bash a sheep is sacrificed according to a certain rite after the public confession, and portions of it are distributed by the priest along

with the bread and the wine. . . The Kizil Bash celebrate

Easter on the same Sunday as the Armenians, and they pay homage to several Christian saints, as, for instance, St. Sergius' (Grenard, in JA x. iii. 516).

(3) What the Kizil Bash have borrowed from Islāmism affiliates them with the Shi'ites rather than with the Sunnites. They have adopted the legend of 'Ali, whom they regard as an incarnation of God the Father, while Jesus is an incarnation of the Son. Like the Shi'ites, they fast during the first twelve days of Muharram, and bewail the death of Hasan and Husain. Some say that they regard Muhammad as the hypostasis of the Spirit, the Paraclete, but the veneration which they show towards the prophet is only formal; in reality they refuse to credit him with any divine inspiration.

To sum up: the religion of the Kizil Bash is in many respects a survival of the ancient paganism of Anatolia, which in the east of the peninsula was deeply marked by the die of Mazdæism (cf. F. Cumont, Religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, Paris, 1909, p. 213 ff., Eng. tr., Chicago, 1911, p. 143 1.). The country population of these regions was imperfectly and slowly converted to Christianity, and we know that colonies of Magi dwelt there until at least the end of the 5th cent. (cf. F. Cumont, Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra, Brussels, 1895-99, i. 10), and perhaps until the Musalman conquest. Further, in the 12th cent., Nerses Shnorhali gives interesting details regarding the Sons of the Sun,' who worshipped the stars, and who venerated, among trees, the poplar (F. C. Conybeare, The Key of Truth, Oxford, 1898, p. 159). In the 8th and 9th centuries it was in the countries inhabited by the Kizil Bash that the dualistic Paulicians (q.v.) found their most numerous adherents, and even after their extermination by the Byzantine emperors their teaching probably did not cease to exert an influence there. Finally, the relations of the Kizil Bash with Shi'ism are probably explained by their forced conversion to Islam under the Seljuks, at a time when the Persian influence was powerful, perhaps also by the transportation of Shi'ites of Turkish origin into Kurdistan in the time of the Sultāns Salim 1. and Sulaiman I. (16th cent.). It is much to be desired that a copy of the sacred book of the sect should be obtained, or that a transcription should be made at least of the hymns of its service. It would then be possible to clear up the mysteries surrounding this very curious religion which retains numerous disciples even in our own times.

LITERATURE.-R. Oberhummer and H. Zimmerer, Durch will be found from the more ancient authors; F. Grenard (Consul of France at Sivas) has collected some new and accurate information in JA x. iii. [1904] 511-522. The writer of this article has added here some facts gathered by himself among the Kizil Bash of the region of Amazia in 1900.

Syrien und Kleinasien, Berlin, 1899, p. 393 ff., where citations

FRANZ CUMONT.

KNEELING.-Kneeling may be described as a natural reaction to the emotions of self-abasement and supplication. As such, it has been observed among unsophisticated peoples. In a less degree only than prostration, it symbolizes inferiority and dependence, by the abandonment of the erect posture of human active life. According to Tylor,1 kneeling as a ceremonial posture prevails in the 'middle stages of culture.' The same limitation, however, applies to prostration as still practised in Islam and Hinduism. Both in the middle and in the higher stages kneeling is more or less constantly associated with a third gesture-bowing, a symbolic expression of respect or reverence. It would be quite erroneous to derive' ceremonial kneeling from prostration, or bowing from kneeling. But certain forms of the bow, surviving in modern etiquette, include some bending of one or both knees such are the curtsey, still made by ladies at court, and the bow of ceremony in which one

1 Art. 'Salutations' in EBrll xxiv. 94.

'The knee is made flexible, by which the offence of the Lord is mitigated, wrath appeased, grace called forth.'1

Pseudo-Alcuin has the general explanation:
By such posture of the body we show forth our humbleness

of heart.' 2

As early as Tertullian's time a distinction was marked; he observes that on Sundays and during Pentecost prayer was not to be said kneeling. The implication that a divergence of use existed is proved by the ruling of the Council of Nicæa, more than a century later:

'Because there are some who kneel on the Lord's Day and on the days of Pentecost, that all things may be uniformly performed in every parish or diocese, it seems good to the Holy Synod that the prayers be by all made to God, standing.' Standing was the attitude of praise and thanksgiving. Hence standing was obligatory during the psalms, hymns, and Eucharistic prayer. For a similar reason, perhaps, St. Benedict uttered his dying prayer standing, erectis in cœlum manibus.' In his lifetime he had instructed his monks to kneel during private prayer, not to stand as when in choir. There was, it is to be assumed, an inner meaning of penitence attaching to private prayer, and some importance here seems to have been given to the Gospel account of Christ's kneeling in solitary prayer. Naturally, public penance made use of the attitude of kneeling. The custom of the early Church is clearly marked by St. Basil, who describes kneeling as the lesser penance (μerávola μκpá) and prostration as the greater (μeTávola μeɣáλn). A posture with such associations was a favourite one for anchorites and ascetics. Some such associations of thought may have inspired Eusebius's observation that the knees of James, 'the Lord's brother,' became callous like a camel's, from continual kneeling. 7

6

The Canon Law emphasized still further the distinction between standing and kneeling. The latter was forbidden in public prayer at all the principal festivals. To be degraded into the class of genuflectentes or prostrati, who were obliged to kneel during public service even on Sundays and in paschal (or pentecostal) time, was a severe punishment. A gradation of posture appears in the two terms quoted, which still obtains in Roman Catho

lic adoration.

That kneeling is a posture characteristic of prayer, as such, is a principle developed by the Reformation Churches, adoration, on the one hand, and penance, on the other, being disregarded. The Declaration on Kneeling' during the Lord's Supper illustrates the avoidance of Roman Catholic adoration. The Presbyterians sat to receive the Communion. The originally threefold use of the attitude was perhaps assisted towards its Protestant simplification or reduction into one for prayer alone by the negative emphasis which it received from contrast with the Roman Catholic idea.

It is also remarkable that the practices of kneeling and genuflexion, or bending of the knee, are relatively modern in their application to ideas of reverence or adoration. Here, no doubt, religious and social ritual reacted upon one another. Genuflexion with one knee was developed in the Middle Ages, clearly showing a connexion with homage. The Carthusians are noteworthy for a traditional objection to kneeling in worship; they bend the knee without touching the ground. 10

In Roman Catholic ritual the rules governing kneeling are precise. The congregation kneel throughout a Low Mass, except during the reading of the Gospel. At High Mass they kneel or prostrate themselves at the words 'et incarnatus 1 Hexaem. vi. 9 [74].

2 de Divin. officiis, xviii. (PL ci. 1210). de Cor. Mil. 3; it is nefas.

Gregory, Dial. ii. 37.

5 Bergh, loc. cit. Eusebius says that kneeling was the regular attitude of Christians in private prayer (Vita Const. iv. 22).

6 Bergh, loc. cit.

8 Bergh, loc. cit.

7 HE ii. 23.

9 Ib.

10 lb.

1

est' and 'verbum caro factum est'-a modern development. When adoring the Blessed Sacrament unveiled, the faithful genuflect with both knees, but with the right knee only when revering it in the tabernacle. In the old bidding prayers, as in the diaconal litanies of the Greek Church, the officiating priest, asking the congregation to pray for some special 'intention,' said, Flectamus genua.' In penance and confirmation, and at the coronation of a king or queen, the blessing of a new knight, reconciliation, etc., kneeling is prescribed. The celebrant in the Roman, Greek, and Anglican Churches kneels in adoration, but communicates standing, The Lutheran Church and the Church of England have always prescribed reception of the sacrament kneeling. The Lutherans, however, stand at prayer. The Presbyterians stood at prayer, but in recent times they have adopted kneeling.

In European history the social uses of kneeling are confined to court ceremonial, when subjects salute the monarch, the ritual of homage in mediæval feudalism, and various courtly symbolic fashions, as between gentleman and lady. In feudal times the rule was kneeling on one knee in homage, on two in worship. Social friction has been produced in recent times by insistence on the kneeling attitude in connexion either with religious prejudice or with ideas of military discipline.2

The differences in the form of the posture of kneeling are simple. The only uncertainty is with the early Christian forms. Most probably there was in these an element of prostration, as was usual in Oriental forms then and is now, being characteristic also of Islam. The Muslim kneels by sitting on his feet, and in that position can make various grades of prostration of body and head. The words of Seneca, inflexo genu adorare," refer to an Oriental, not Græco-Roman, posture of

reverence.

It still

The classical adoratio was performed standing. The fashion of venerating the Roman Emperor in a posture of prostration, complete or from the knees, was of Persian origin, and its introduction is ascribed to Diocletian. obtains in Asiatic courts. Prostration in a more natural form was usual in Greek times for suppliants. Its incomplete form was kneeling. Here Augustine illustrates the natural evolution of the posture, and suggests at the same time the lines of its introduction into Christianity, by identifying kneeling with the suppliant attitude:

"They fix their knees, stretch forth their hands (a gesture of prayer), or even prostrate themselves on the ground.' LITERATURE.—This is fully given in the article.

A. E. CRAWLEY. KNOTS.-The symbolical use of the knot and the ceremony of tying and untying are practices of great antiquity and of world-wide distribution. Knots have, among practically all primitive races, a special mystical signification, namely, that as amulets they possess the power of hindering or impeding specific conditions. Generally speaking, the ultimate reason for this is not abstruse: the act of tying a knot implies something bound,' and hence the action becomes a spell towards hindering or impeding the actions of other persons or things. Similarly, the act of loosing a knot implies the removal of the impediment caused by the knot, and from this belief are derived the various customs of unloosing knots, unlocking and opening doors and cupboards, setting free 1 Bergh, loc. cit.

2 The kneeling controversy' in Bavaria (1838-45) arose from the King's Roman Catholic preferences (see E. Dorn, in PRE x. [1901) 590-594). The British Army has seen in the use of 'on the knee' an excess of discipline.

3T. P. Hughes, Dict. of Islam, London, 1895, s.v. 'Prayer,' has a series of elaborate drawings of the Muslim prayer-attitudes. 4 Herc. Fur. 410.

5 de Cura, 5.