Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

Symbols, as a certain expression of signs, may be examined when concentrating on social functions of a sign or on logical functions of the same sign. This article deals with the place of signs (gestures) in communication not only in the eyes of the representatives of semiotics but also in the eyes of anthropologists and ethnologists. This article is restricted to the first group of gestures when non-verbal gestures appear as a part of ritual behaviour that is they are used in everyday situation at the moment of greeting. It is a hand-kissing which is the object of research in this article. The aim of the article is to reveal the origin of hand-kissing and follow the development of this gesture in Lithuania in the 20th century. The tasks there are: to examine forms of the expression of hand-kissing; to determine functions of ethical norms which regulate hand-kissing with regard to a sex, age, social status, degree of acquaintance; to show modifica­tions of the expression and normative functions of this gesture in a certain period of time. The work is grounded on the data of field works from the territory of the Republic of Lithuania collected in ethnographical expeditions in 1998-2005 by the author herself, and it is also based on the archive manuscript collections, as well as works on non-verbal communication published by other researchers.