Liberian snap handshake

{{Short description|Liberian greeting gesture}}

In Liberia, the snap handshake or finger snap is a gesture of greeting, in which two people shake hands in the conventional Western way, but end the handshake with a mutual press of the fingers that creates a "snap" sound.{{cite book|author=Leanne Olson|title=A Cruel Paradise: Journals of an International Relief Worker|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vAS2DvHzXLQC&pg=PA50|year=2009|publisher=Insomniac Press|isbn=978-1-897414-89-7|pages=50–}}

Apocryphally, the custom is attributed to the Americo-Liberian population of freed slaves, who created the gesture to contrast with slave owners' practice of breaking slaves' fingers.{{cite book|author=Ayodeji Olukoju|title=Culture and Customs of Liberia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jOo6fCPSt0QC&pg=PA119|year=2006|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-33291-3|pages=119–}}

During the 2014–15 Ebola epidemic, handshaking in Liberia was curtailed, leading a BBC commentator to note that avoidance of handshaking was detrimental to the established custom of the Liberian handshake.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29260185|title=Ebola outbreak: How Liberia lost its handshake|work=BBC News|date=20 September 2014 }}