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The word "kiss" is connected by Skeat with the Latin "gustus," taste; both words signify essentially "choice." But it would be a mistake to regard the lip-kiss as merely an effort to taste in the strict sense, since the act of inspiration accompanying it brings the olfactory passages of the nose into play.
The "nose-kiss" exists in races so far apart from one another as the Maoris of New Zealand and the Esquimaux of the Arctic regions. It is the habit of the Chinese, of the Malays, and other Asiatic races. The only Europeans who practise it are the Laplanders. The lip-kiss is distinguished by some authorities as "the salute by taste" from nose-rubbing, which is "the salute by smell."
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