But one can tattoo both of them with the same pattern.

It is even more easy and less painful to attach a symbol to a king which is not a part of the man himself, a royal staff for instance, which may be decorated and enlarged until it is useless as a staff, but unmistakable as a symbol.

The king is then recognised as king because he is the 'staff-bearer' ([Greek: skeptouchos basileus]).

Such a staff is very like a name, and there may, perhaps, have been an early Mexican system of sign-writing in which a model of a staff stood for a king.
[11] Cf.

William James, _Principles of Psychology_, vol.ii.