Humans use gestures as a form of nonverbal communication to communicate important messages. If you did not know the origins of these gestures, well you now do.

Handshake

A handshake is a short ritual in which two people grasp one of each other’s like hands, sometimes accompanied by a brief up and down movement.

Handshaking was practices in ancient Greece as far back as the 5th century BC. Back in the days when the most powerful weapon was the sword, when two people meet, they would hold their right hand, since it would be difficult to draw your sword with your left hand. The handshake originated as a gesture of peace by demonstrating that the hand holds no weapon. Even after people stopped using swords, the tradition remained.

Salute

A salute is a gesture or other actions used to display respect.

Salute originated in the Middle Ages when knights who greeted each other raised their visors to show their faces, using a motion that resulted in what resulted to the modern salute. The naval salute with the palm downwards is said to have evolved because the palms of the naval ratings were often dirty through working and was deemed insulting to present a dirty palm to an officer.

Fist Bump (Chop Knuckle)

A fist bump is a gesture similar in meaning to the handshake. It is performed when two participants each form a closed fist with one hand and then lightly  tap the front of their fists together.

The origin of fist bump might lie in the animal kingdom since it is a gesture observed in natural behavior observed in primates. If we are to leave animals out of this and find another reasonable explanation, then the fist bump would be traced back to the early 1800s and early 1900s, when boxers started using it as their own form handshake, the boxers’ handshake.

Pinky swear

This is the entwinement of the little fingers of two people to signify a promise has been made. This gesture originally meant that the pinky promise would be cut off if the promise is not kept.

It originated from Yubitsume, a Japanese ritual to atone for offence to another, by means of amputating portion of one’s own little finger. And how does cutting one’s little finger is supposed to be an apology? Well, in Japanese swordsmanship, the little fingers’ grip is the tightest on the hilt, so if you lose your pinky finger, you become weak in battle and making you more dependent on your boss.

So you should be careful when making pinky promise, you never know who might cut off your pinky finger for not keeping a promise.

Toast

A toast is a ritual in which a drink is taken as an expression of goodwill or honor.

The custom of touching glasses evolved from concerns about poisoning. Clicking glasses together was supposed to cause each drink to spill over the others’. Yes, it doesn’t make sense, we know.

A toast in which you raise your glass could be a modern form of pagan practice in which a sacred liquid is offered to the gods in exchange for a wish, thus a summarized prayer would be said in the words ‘long life’ or ‘to your health’. A similar case can be seen Nigeria where we pour our wine on the ground before drinking.

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