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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f57f44 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text +*.htm text +*.html text +*.png binary +*.jpg binary +*.svg text +*.pdf binary +*.bmp binary +*.zip binary +*.midi binary +*.mp3 binary diff --git a/79292-0.txt b/79292-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8268551 --- /dev/null +++ b/79292-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14428 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79292 *** + + + + +REST DAYS + + [Illustration] + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS + ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO + + MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED + LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + + + + + REST DAYS + + _A Study in Early Law and Morality_ + + BY + HUTTON WEBSTER, PH.D. + PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA + AUTHOR OF “PRIMITIVE SECRET SOCIETIES” + + “The study of their own species is doubtless the most interesting + and important that can claim the attention of mankind; and this + science, like all others, it is impossible to improve by abstract + speculation, merely. A regular series of authenticated facts is + what alone can enable us to rise towards a perfect knowledge in + it.”—WILLIAM MARSDEN, _The History of Sumatra_, London, 1811, + Preface. + + New York + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1916 + + _All rights reserved_ + + COPYRIGHT, 1916, + BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + + Set up and printed. Published May, 1916. + + Norwood Press + J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. + Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +To MY WIFE + + + + +PREFACE + + +What perhaps might be described as the first edition of this work +appeared in 1911 in the _University Studies_ of the University of +Nebraska. The title of the original monograph has been retained for +the present volume, in which the same line of argument is followed and +the same conclusions are reached. After a lapse of nearly five years I +have not felt the necessity of modifying, to any essential degree, the +results of the earlier investigation. The book, then, differs from its +predecessor chiefly in providing a more extensive collection of the +relevant data. + +Although much has been written on the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian +Sunday, and on the assumed Babylonian prototype of these institutions, +little inquiry has hitherto been made into the rest days so commonly +observed outside the Semitic area in antiquity and later ages. The +principal reason for this neglect of the comparative aspects of the +subject must doubtless be found in the still imperfect appreciation of +the fact that the great institutions of modern civilization have their +roots in the beliefs and customs, and often in the superstitions, of +savage and barbarian society. It will be the task of social anthropology, +by an impressive accumulation of evidence, to make this truth a +commonplace of popular knowledge. + +Among the friends and correspondents who have aided me by criticisms +and suggestions I wish particularly to mention Dr. Crawford H. Toy, now +Professor Emeritus in Harvard University, and Dr. Louis H. Gray, now +Assistant Editor of Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_. +Mr. G. D. Swezey, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Nebraska, +was good enough to help me in some troublesome details relating to the +calendar. The late Walter Kendall Jewett, formerly University Librarian, +and the kindest and most genial of men, put at my disposal many books +which otherwise would have been difficult of access. To my honoured +colleague, Professor George Elliott Howard, I owe the inspiration, +reaching back to undergraduate days, which comes from association with +one whose devotion to scholarly ideals is matched only by his enthusiasm +for social service. Finally, I must acknowledge my obligation to +Chancellor Samuel Avery, whose interest in the book has made possible its +publication at this time. + + HUTTON WEBSTER. + +LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, February, 1916. + + + + +ERRATA + + +Page 80, note 2, _read_: p. 156; Macrobius, _Satur-_ + +Page 92, note, _read_: αὖον ἀπὸ χλωροῦ τάμνειν αἴθωνι σιδήρῳ + +Transcriber’s Note: The errata have been corrected. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION + + Observance of days of abstinence and quiescence not unknown in the + lower culture, p. 1.—Probable origin of the sabbatarian regulations + in primitive taboos, pp. 1, 2.—_Tabu_ in Polynesia and equivalent + customs in other parts of the world, pp. 2, 3.—Classification of + taboos, p. 4.—Characteristics of taboos, pp. 4, 5.—Their animistic + sanctions, pp. 5, 6.—Reasons for imposing taboos which necessitate + abstinence and quiescence, pp. 6, 7.—Connection of communal taboos + with those observed by individuals, p. 7. + + CHAPTER I + + TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS + + The institution of taboo in the Hawaiian Islands, pp. 8, + 9.—Observance there of tabooed days, pp. 9, 10.—Likeness between + the Hawaiian Sabbaths and the sabbatarian regulations introduced by + missionaries, p. 10.—Communal taboos imposed when a chief temple + was consecrated, pp. 11-13; at the time of the celebration of the + New Year’s festival, p. 13; and in connection with the taking of + certain fish, p. 14.—The four regular _tabu_ periods in the Hawaiian + month, pp. 14, 15.—Tabooed days observed in the Society Islands, + the Marquesas Islands, and New Zealand, pp. 15-17.—In the Tonga + Islands a period of taboo imposed at the time of the first-fruits’ + sacrifice, pp. 18, 19.—Days kept sacred to certain gods in Samoa and + other parts of Polynesia, pp. 19-21.—Tabooed days of the Fijians, + pp. 21-24.—Other instances of communal rest days in Polynesia, + pp. 24, 25.—General significance of the Polynesian evidence, p. + 25.—Tabooed days not unknown in New Guinea, p. 26.—Tabooed days in + Borneo, pp. 26, 27.—Those observed by the Kayan of Sarawak and Dutch + Borneo, pp. 27-33; by the Iban or Sea Dyak, pp. 33-35; and by the + Land Dyak, pp. 36, 37.—General significance of the Bornean evidence, + pp. 37-39.—Observance of seasons of communal repose confined to the + Indonesian population of Borneo, pp. 39, 40.—Tabooed days in the + Nicobar Islands, pp. 40, 41; in Bali and Nias, pp. 41-43; in the + Mentawi Islands, pp. 43, 44; in Formosa, p. 44; and in the Philippine + Archipelago, pp. 44-49.—The _genna_ among the Naga tribes of Manipur, + pp. 49-53.—_Genna_ customs among other peoples of Assam, pp. + 53-55.—Customs allied to the _genna_ in Burma, pp. 55-58.—Indo-China + probably the centre of diffusion of the _genna_, p. 58.—Resemblance + of communal rest days to the practice of the _couvade_, pp. 58, + 59.—Psychological and sociological aspects of these communal + regulations, pp. 59, 60.—Days of abstinence and quiescence mark + crises in the community life, pp. 60, 61. + + CHAPTER II + + TABOOED DAYS AFTER A DEATH AND ON RELATED OCCASIONS + + Prohibition of work and other forms of activity a common regulation + following a death, p. 62.—The animistic explanation of this taboo, + pp. 62, 63.—Belief in the pollution of death, p. 63.—Many instances + of communal taboos imposing abstinence and quiescence to be found + among semi-civilized peoples in various parts of the world: in the + East Indian Archipelago, pp. 63, 64; among the tribes of Borneo, p. + 65; in Assam, pp. 65, 66; in India and Tibet, pp. 66, 67; throughout + Africa, pp. 67-70; in Madagascar, p. 70; in North America, especially + among the Eskimo, pp. 70-73; and among some Siberian tribes, pp. + 73, 74.—Survivals of such taboos in the funeral observances of + civilized peoples, p. 74.—Similar regulations imposed in connection + with feasts of the dead and ceremonies of demon-expulsion, pp. 74, + 75.—The evidence from Africa, pp. 75-78.—Unlucky days observed by + the Athenians in connection with the festivals of the Genesia and + the Anthesteria, pp. 79, 80.—Unlucky days observed by the Romans in + connection with the festivals of the Parentalia and the Lemuria, + pp. 80, 81.—The Hebrew Day of Atonement, pp. 81-83.—The Feast of + Sacrifices in Islam, p. 83.—World-wide diffusion of the custom of + observing tabooed days after a death and on related occasions, p. 84. + + CHAPTER III + + HOLY DAYS + + Characteristics of religious festivals, p. 85.—Festival times often + marked by cessation of labour, pp. 85, 86.—Origin of the conception + of a “holy” day, pp. 86, 87.—Consecration of holy days to particular + divinities, pp. 87, 88.—Connection between tabooed days and holy + days, p. 88.—The taboo element in the festivals observed by Dravidian + peoples of India, pp. 88-90.—The Hebrew Day of First-fruits, pp. 90, + 91.—Greek holy days, p. 91.—The Athenian Plynteria, pp. 92, 93.—The + Roman Vestalia, pp. 93, 94.—Ferial days of the Romans as tabooed + days, pp. 94-100. + + CHAPTER IV + + MARKET DAYS + + The observance of periodic rest days confined to agricultural + peoples, pp. 101, 102.—Connection of these days with the institution + of the market, pp. 102, 103.—The evidence for market weeks and market + days in various parts of the world: in New Guinea and Melanesia, pp. + 103, 104; in Celebes, Sumatra, Java, and the Malay Peninsula, pp. + 104, 105; in Tonkin, Siam, and Assam, pp. 105, 106; throughout the + central parts of Africa, pp. 106-108; among the Congo negroes, pp. + 109, 110; and among the Guinea negroes, pp. 110-117.—Origin of the + market week in Africa, pp. 117, 118.—Sabbatarian features of the west + African market day, p. 118.—Market weeks and market days in ancient + Mexico and Peru, pp. 118-120.—The Roman nundinal day, pp. 120-123. + + CHAPTER V + + LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS + + Great importance assigned to the moon by primitive peoples, pp. 124, + 125.—The lunar rays often believed to be deleterious to both children + and adults, pp. 125-127.—The moon supposed to cause menstruation and + impregnation, pp. 127-130.—Influence of the moon on the tides, p. + 130.—Belief that the moon affects the growth of vegetation, pp. 130, + 131.—Doctrine of lunar sympathy, p. 131.—The waxing moon commonly + regarded as favourable, the waning moon as unfavourable, for business + of various sorts, pp. 131-134.—Lunar eclipses sometimes marked by a + general suspension of activity, pp. 134, 135.—The _interlunium_ often + observed by a cessation of labour, pp. 136-140.—Ceremonies performed + at new moon, pp. 140-142.—Seasons of abstinence and restriction at + new moon and full moon, p. 143.—Tabooed days in connection with + the lunar changes found among the Bantu peoples of Africa, pp. + 144-148.—Lunar taboos in modern India, pp. 148, 149.—The _upavasatha_ + of the Aryans of ancient India, pp. 149-151.—Sabbatarian observance + of lunar days in post-Vedic times, pp. 151-154.—The _posaha_ of + Jainism, pp. 154, 155.—The Buddhist Sabbath, or _uposatha_, pp. + 155-158.—Introduction of the _uposatha_ into Ceylon, Burma, Siam, + and Cambodia, pp. 158-162.—The Buddhist Sabbath in Tibet, Mongolia, + China, and Japan, pp. 162-164.—Lunar days observed in Indonesia, + pp. 164, 165.—Lunar festivals of the ancient Iranians, pp. 165, + 166.—Lunar festivals in ancient Egypt, pp. 166-169.—The Greek + Noumenia and Dichomenia, pp. 169, 170.—The Roman Kalends, Nones, and + Ides, p. 170.—The _dies postriduani_, pp. 170, 171.—Lunar festivals + in heathen Europe, p. 172. + + CHAPTER VI + + LUNAR CALENDARS AND THE WEEK + + Beginnings of the calendar, p. 173.—The moon as the measure of + time, pp. 173-175.—Popular calendars based on the moon, pp. 175, + 176.—The lunar year, pp. 176, 177.—Adjustment of the lunar year to + the solar year, pp. 177, 178.—Calendarizing of the lunation, p. + 178.—Commencement of the lunar month, pp. 178, 179.—Phases of the + moon often named and used for time-reckonings, pp. 180-182.—Bipartite + division of the lunation, pp. 182-186.—Shorter divisions of the + lunation, pp. 187, 188.—The decade, pp. 188-192.—The ennead, pp. 192, + 193.—The octad, pp. 193, 194.—Six-day weeks, p. 194.—The pentad, pp. + 194-196.—The hebdomad, pp. 196, 197.—Diffusion of the hebdomadal + cycle: in Africa, pp. 197-199; in India, pp. 199-201; in southeastern + Asia, p. 201; in China and Japan, pp. 202-204; and in the Malay + Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago, pp. 204, 205.—The Arabic + week and the Mohammedan Sabbath, pp. 205, 206.—Mystic numbers in + general, pp. 206-208.—Seven as a mystic number among semi-civilized + peoples, pp. 208-211.—Symbolism of seven in ancient India, Greece, + and Babylonia, pp. 211-212.—The seven planets and planetary deities + of the Babylonians, pp. 213-215.—The planetary week, pp. 215, + 216.—Theories of its origin, pp. 216-218.—Spread of the planetary + week in the Roman Empire, pp. 218, 219.—Adoption of the planetary + designations of the weekdays by the Christians, pp. 220, 221.—Spread + of the planetary week among Romance, Germanic, and Slavic peoples + during the early Middle Ages, pp. 221, 222. + + CHAPTER VII + + THE BABYLONIAN “EVIL DAYS” AND THE SHABATTUM + + The “evil days” of the months of Elul II and Markheshwan, pp. + 223, 224.—Possible explanations of the origin of these days, pp. + 224, 225.—The Babylonian lunar month, p. 226.—Determination of + the beginning of the month, pp. 226, 227.—Adjustment of septenary + divisions to the lunation, pp. 227, 228.—Association of septenary + divisions with successive phases of the moon, pp. 228, 229.—The + seven-day cycles in Babylonia not true “weeks,” pp. 229, 230.—Special + significance attached to the seventh day, pp. 230, 231.—Taboo in + Babylonia, pp. 231, 232.—Prohibitions observed on the seventh day, p. + 232.—Their connection with primitive taboos, pp. 232-234.—How far the + seventh day was marked by a general abstention from labour, pp. 234, + 235.—The term _shabattum_, pp. 235, 236.—Various explanations of its + meaning, pp. 236-238.—_Shabattum_ applied to the fifteenth day of the + month, pp. 238, 239.—Festival observance of new moon and full moon by + the Babylonians, pp. 239, 240.—Probable connection of the _shabattum_ + with the “evil days,” pp. 240, 241. + + CHAPTER VIII + + THE HEBREW SABBATH + + The Sabbath an ancient institution, pp. 242, 243.—The theory of its + origin in the worship of Saturn untenable, pp. 243, 244.—Connection + of the Sabbath Day with Saturday, pp. 244, 245.—The Sabbath, with + the seven-day week, not borrowed from Egypt or Babylonia, pp. 245, + 246.—Importance of the moon to the early Hebrews, pp. 246-248.—The + festival of the new moon, pp. 248, 249.—Observance of the new-moon + day by abstinence from work, pp. 249, 250.—Religious significance + attached to the day of full moon, pp. 250, 251.—The Sabbath + originally the full-moon day, p. 251.—Early association of new moon + and the Sabbath, pp. 251-253.—The term _shabbath_ later applied to + every seventh day of the month, p. 253.—Differences between the + Hebrew seven-day week and the septenary cycle of the Babylonians, + pp. 253, 254.—The Hebrew week probably at first no periodic but + connected with the lunation, pp. 254, 255.—Obsolescence of the + new-moon day as a day of rest, p. 255, 256.—Character of the Sabbath + in pre-Exilic times, p. 256.—Various sabbatarian regulations to be + explained as taboos, pp. 256-262.—Revival in post-Exilic times of the + austere significance attached to the Sabbath, pp. 262, 263.—Strict + observance of the Sabbath rest according to the rules of pharisaic + Judaism, pp. 263, 264.—The Sabbath as a day of gladness and good + cheer, pp. 264-266.—Introduction of the Sabbath into the Roman world, + pp. 266, 267.—The Lord’s Day as observed by the early Christians, + pp. 267, 268.—Their adoption of the pagan designation Sunday, p. + 268.—Ecclesiastical recognition of Saturday as a holy day, p. + 269.—The Lord’s Day not at first marked by abstinence from labour, + pp. 269, 270.—Beginning of Sunday legislation, pp. 270, 271. + + CHAPTER IX + + UNLUCKY DAYS + + The belief in unlucky days frequently a result of erroneous + association of ideas, pp. 272-274.—The observation of natural + phenomena sometimes accounts for the unlucky character attached + to certain times, pp. 274, 275.—The conception of unluckiness + sometimes deduced from the assumed critical nature of certain + periods, such as epagomenal months and days, p. 276.—The Twelve Days + in ancient India, pp. 276, 277.—European folklore of the Twelve + Days, pp. 277-279.—Unlucky character of the five supplementary + days in the Mexican and Maya calendars, pp. 279-281.—The five + supplementary days among the ancient Egyptians, Persians, and + Armenians, pp. 281-283.—Epagomenal days in the French Republican + calendar, p. 283.—Some unlucky days observed in southeastern + Europe probably derived from the holy days of classical antiquity, + pp. 283-285.—Likeness between tabooed days and the unlucky days + observed in southeastern Asia, pp. 285-288.—The Toda rest days, pp. + 288-292.—Rest days of the Siah Posh Kafirs, pp. 293, 294.—Unlucky + days among the Malagasy, pp. 294, 295.—Egyptian calendars of lucky + and unlucky days, pp. 295-297.—A Babylonian calendar, pp. 297, + 298.—The Hesiodic calendar, pp. 298, 299.—Unlucky days observed + during the Middle Ages, pp. 299-301.—Decline of the superstition + after the Reformation, p. 301. + + CONCLUSION + + The observance of tabooed and unlucky days exerts a hampering + influence on social and economic progress, pp. 302, 303.—Non-working + days in Hawaii, in Ashanti, and among the Hopi Indians of Arizona, p. + 303.—The numerous religious festivals held in modern China and Korea + and in ancient Egypt and Greece, pp. 303, 304.—Excessive development + of Roman festivals, pp. 304-306.—Holy days in the religious calendar + of Christendom, pp. 306, 307.—Passage of the holy day into the + holiday, pp. 307, 308. + + + + +REST DAYS + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The custom of refraining from labour on certain occasions is by no means +unknown to peoples in the lower stages of culture. Associated practices +include the discontinuance of public gatherings, the closing of the house +or of the village against all strangers, the extinguishing of lights, and +fasting, either partial or complete. Bright and gay dresses may be laid +aside, bathing and anointing given up, and songs, dances, and loud noises +forbidden. Under these conditions the cessation of labour merges into a +cessation of all the usual activities. The day of rest becomes a day of +abstinence and quiescence. + +It might be thought that such observances, especially those which impose +a period of rest, have a rationalistic basis and arise from man’s need +of relaxation and idleness as a relief from daily toil and the harsh +conditions of existence. Yet for the vast proportion of the rest days +observed by primitive peoples it would be rash to assume an origin in +considerations of practical utility. A survey of the evidence to be +submitted indicates that the sabbatarian regulations have arisen chiefly, +if not wholly, as pure superstitions, the product of an all-too-logical +intellect or of a disordered fancy. In the last analysis they are based +primarily on fear, that “fear of things invisible,” which Hobbes, +foreshadowing modern anthropological theories, regarded as “the natural +seed of religion.”[1] They find their clearest expression in the +“taboos,” or prohibitions, first noticed among the natives of the South +Seas, but now known to exist in many other regions of the aboriginal +world.[2] + +“Taboo,” from the Polynesian _tabu_, is one of the few words which the +languages of the Pacific have contributed to our English speech. _Tabu_ +appears to be, properly, the Tonga term, _tapu_, the word as found in +Samoa, the Marquesas Islands, the Society Islands, and New Zealand, and +_kapu_, the Hawaiian expression.[3] The etymology of _tapu_ is uncertain, +though an attempt has been made to derive it from _ta_, to mark, and +_pu_, an adverb of intensity. The compound _tapu_ would then mean “marked +thoroughly,” and would come to signify “sacred” in a secondary sense, +since sacred things and places were commonly indicated in a particular +manner.[4] The word _tapua’i_ means “to abstain from all work, games, +etc.”[5]—a translation which indicates how intimately the idea of +abstinence was associated with the notion of _tapu_. + +In all the Polynesian languages _tapu_ or _tabu_ appears to have been +employed with an adjectival meaning, referring to something holy, sacred, +and inviolable, or to something polluted and accursed. The word, we +learn, did not imply any moral quality, but expressed “a connection +with the gods, or a separation from ordinary purposes, and exclusive +appropriation to persons or things considered sacred; sometimes it means +devoted as by a vow.”[6] In a derivative sense _tabu_ came naturally +to signify “forbidden” or “prohibited”;[7] and this is the most general +meaning of the word in its anglicized form. But in anthropological usage +the term “taboo” refers, not to all negative regulations or prohibitions, +but to those only which are supported by a supernatural sanction and the +violation of which is visited with a supernatural punishment. + +The progress of comparative research has shown that conceptions very +similar to the Polynesian _tabu_ have a wide prevalence in the lower +culture and even among peoples of archaic civilization. The Melanesian +_tambu_, though never signifying any inherent holiness or awfulness, does +refer to the sacred and unapproachable character which things may possess +when solemnly cursed in the name of a powerful ghost or spirit.[8] Among +the natives of the Gabun colony of French Equatorial Africa _orunda_ +meant, originally, “prohibited from human use.” Under missionary hands +the word developed into its related sense of “sacred to spiritual use,” +and in the Mpongwe Scriptures _orunda_ serves as the translation of +our word “holy.”[9] The Malagasy equivalent of _tabu_ is _fady_, which +means, primarily, “dangerous,” but which has the derivative meanings +_sacré_, “prohibited,” “ill-omened,” “unlucky.”[10] Anthropologically, it +is no far cry from such expressions to the Greek ἅγιος or to the Latin +_sacer_, since each of these terms conveys the twin ideas of sanctity and +pollution.[11] + +It is convenient to distinguish between taboos which are artificially +imposed and those which follow inevitably as the consequence of +particular acts or as the outcome of certain situations. Thus, a chief +may set a taboo over the common crops until harvest time, or a private +individual may protect his own property through the use of the same +supernatural machinery: these are prohibitions analogous to the laws of +an advanced society, though supported by sanctions both human and divine. +On the other hand, new-born children with their mothers, strangers, +manslayers, and mourners are frequently subjected to taboos which exist +in the social consciousness rather as well-defined customs of anonymous +origin than as specific ordinances laid down by some superior authority. +In both cases, however, it is legitimate to suppose that a reason has +always existed for the ascription of the _tabu_ character to persons and +things—although an explanation may not now be forthcoming and although +the ideas on which the practice was once based may have become obscure or +meaningless with the lapse of time. + +A comparative study of the taboos observed by primitive peoples indicates +that originally things or persons are tabooed because they are considered +dangerous, mysterious, abnormal, uncanny, “awful”—because they are felt +to be potent for weal or woe in the life of man. Primitive psychology, +refining these ideas and applying them to different classes of phenomena, +produces the cognate notions of pollution and sanctity. The corpse is +unclean; the shedder of human blood is likewise unclean; but the chief +or king, who belongs to a superior order of beings, is sacrosanct or +holy. These characteristics are easily regarded as infectious, as capable +of transmission, not alone by physical contact, but also by sight and +mere proximity. It is probably true that, in using such expressions as +“contagion” and “infection,” we are resorting to a refined terminology to +express what must be really simpler in the thought of the savage. Living +in a mental stage where distinctions of cause and effect are not clearly +drawn, where a rigid distinction of the natural and the supernatural can +scarcely be said to exist at all, he finds no difficulty in imagining an +universe in which all things have power, after their kind, a power for +good or a power for ill—in other words, have _mana_. This now-familiar +Melanesian term, like the Algonkin _manitou_, the Iroquoian _orenda_, and +the Siouan _wakanda_, may be said to express early man’s sense of those +ever-present, though vague and impersonal, forces immanent in nature.[12] + +At the same time the fact must be recognized that the majority of taboos +are now supported by animistic beliefs of a much more precise character. +The penalty for the infraction of a taboo is generally death or some +physical ailment supposed to be inflicted by the offended spirits or +demons.[13] The Polynesian _atua_, by entering the body of any impious +person, caused disease or “intestinal embarrassment”: the culprit +forthwith swelled up and died. The same demonic beings, if angered, +might visit entire tribes with an epidemic, or send down lightning and +fire from heaven, or bring about the unsuccessful issue of a war.[14] +Among the Kayan and other pagan tribes of Borneo the minor spirits, or +_toh_, play a considerable part in the regulation of conduct. They are +the powers that bring misfortunes upon an entire house or village when +any member of it ignores taboos or otherwise violates tribal customs, +without performing the propitiatory rites demanded by the occasion. “Thus +on them, rather than on the gods, are founded the effective sanctions +of prohibitive rules of conduct.”[15] Among the Akikuyu of British East +Africa, who possess a most elaborate system of taboos, it is a general +belief that any one in the condition of _thahu_ becomes emaciated and ill +or breaks out in eruptions and boils. If the _thahu_ is not removed, the +patient will die. “In many cases this undoubtedly happens by the process +of auto-suggestion, as it never occurs to the Kikuyu mind to be skeptical +in a matter of this kind. It is said that the _thahu_ condition is +caused by the _ngoma_, or spirits of departed ancestors, but the process +does not seem to have been analyzed any further.”[16] The Babylonians, +again, appear to have entertained very definite conceptions of taboo, +and conceptions, equally definite, of the evil spirits which vexed the +soul and body of one who had infringed a _mamit_, or prohibition with a +supernatural penalty.[17] With the progress of religious conceptions the +punishment of the taboo-breaker may come to be regarded as an important +function of the tribal or national god, whose chief concern is the +maintenance of the customary moral rules. + +Since persons, objects, and even actions are all liable to infection, +prudence dictates a variety of precautions: the dangerous individual or +thing is removed to a safe distance; or is carefully isolated; or is +subjected to a series of insulating regulations. The entire community +is interested in such proceedings, and on certain occasions may itself +be placed under a rigid quarantine. When this happens, a period of +abstinence and quiescence is regarded as the surest means of avoiding +dangers felt to threaten each and every member of the social group. +Nor will the procedure greatly differ where distinctly animistic ideas +prevail, and when the impending danger is specifically attributed to the +action of spiritual beings or of gods. In the latter case, it is true, +the idea of propitiation becomes increasingly prominent, since it is +often felt to be necessary to appease by various rites and ceremonies the +supernatural powers responsible for the visitation. The two conceptions +of abstinence and propitiation are not, indeed, always sharply +distinguishable in concrete cases, and with advancing culture they tend +to become more and more closely conjoined. + +It is highly probable that the origin of some of the communal regulations +is to be sought in the taboos observed by persons at such great and +critical seasons as birth, puberty, marriage, and death.[18] Comparative +studies have indicated how numerous are the prohibitions which attach to +these times of high solemnity and significance; and it is reasonable to +suppose that, with the deepening sense of social solidarity, observances +once confined to the individual alone, or to his immediate connections, +would often pass over into rites performed by the community at large. +Some evidence tending to substantiate this opinion will be presented +incidentally as the investigation proceeds. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS + + +Our knowledge of taboo within the Polynesian area rests chiefly on the +vague and unsatisfactory accounts by early missionaries, who were unable +to describe much more than its exterior aspects, its origin and inner +significance having quite escaped their consideration. Fundamentally, +the system of taboos formed a religious institution, if religion be +understood in its broadest sense as a recognition of the supernatural. +The Polynesian belief that the violator of a taboo would be punished +by the offended _atua_, or spirits, readily lent itself to priestcraft +and statecraft and so became in the hands of the ruling classes an +_instrumentum regni_, a powerful engine of social and political control. +In Hawaii, where the superstitions in question reached their most +elaborate and grotesque development, communal taboos could be imposed +only by the priests, although this action was often taken at the instance +of the civil authorities. Police officers were even appointed to make +sure that all prohibitions were strictly observed. For every breach of +the rules the death penalty was inflicted, unless the delinquent had some +very powerful friends who themselves were either priests or chiefs. + +The range of these Hawaiian taboos, as extended for reasons of state or +religion, was very wide. We are told that idols, temples, the persons and +names of the king and his family, the persons of the priests, and the +houses and clothes of the king and priests were always _tabu_. Certain +much-prized articles of food, besides almost everything offered in +sacrifice, were reserved by taboos for gods and men; hence women, except +in cases of particular indulgence, were restricted from using them. +Sometimes an entire island or district was tabooed and no one was allowed +to approach it.[19] + +The institution of taboo also included regulations for the special +observance of certain times and seasons. Their duration was various, and +apparently much longer in remote ages than in the period immediately +preceding the arrival of the missionaries. In Hawaii, before the reign +of Kamehameha II, forty days was the usual length of time. There were +also periods of ten days and of five days, and sometimes of only one +day. Tradition declares, however, that once a taboo was in force for +thirty years and that during this time the men were not allowed to trim +their beards. A tabooed period kept for five years is also mentioned. +Elsewhere in the South Seas less extensive periods prevailed, the longest +known being at Huahine, one of the Society Islands, where a season of +abstinence is said to have lasted for ten or twelve years.[20] + +The observance of such taboos varied according as they were common or +strict. When a common season prevailed, the men were required only +to abstain from their usual duties and to attend at the _heiau_, or +temple, where prayers were offered every morning and evening. During a +period strictly tabooed the regulations had a sterner character, and in +consequence a general gloom and silence pervaded the whole district or +island. Every fire and light was extinguished; canoes were not launched; +no person bathed; and no one was to be seen out of doors, save those +whose presence was required at the temple. Even the lower creation felt +the force of the law: “no dog must bark, no pig must grunt, no cock must +crow—or the _tabu_ would be broken, and fail to accomplish the object +designed. On these occasions they tied up the mouths of the dogs and +pigs, and put the fowls under a calabash, or fastened a piece of cloth +over their eyes.”[21] From another account we learn that any one found +in a canoe on a _tabu_ day incurred the death penalty, and that the same +Draconian punishment was meted out to the individual who indulged in +carnal pleasures or made only a noise at such a time.[22] + +The sabbatarian regulations introduced by Christian missionaries among +their Hawaiian adherents presented no sharp contrast to the rigours +of the old dispensation. The natives even called Sunday _la tabu_, +“the tabooed day.” No food was cooked on that day, the meals being all +prepared on the previous Saturday; no fires were kindled; and no canoes +were paddled. The people neither fished nor tilled the soil and, if on +a journey, they halted until the sacred day was over.[23] In Tahiti, +also, the Sunday rest was rigidly maintained. On that day no canoes were +launched, and no person was seen abroad except on the road to church or +when returning from divine service. The success of the missionaries in +introducing this strict observance of Sunday was, we learn, “ascribed by +themselves in a great degree to its analogy to the taboo days of heathen +times.”[24] + +Communal taboos were observed by the Hawaiian Islanders generally in +connection with important religious ceremonies. Of these, one of the +most elaborate was the consecration of a _luakini_, or chief temple. The +rites, which were often performed just before a war in order to insure +victory, occupied ten or more days. After a solemn purification of the +island or district all the people were summoned to divine service, during +which a priest sprinkled them with holy water, _i.e._, salt water mixed +with a little turmeric, some moss, and a bunch of a sacred fern. “The +next thing in order was to bring down the principal idol, called the +_hakuohia_, from the forest. A great procession was formed, consisting of +the king, the _hakuohia_ priest, and a crowd of attendants carrying idols +and various offerings, and leading a human victim. The tree had been +selected and the axe consecrated the day before. On arriving at the tree, +the priest recited the appropriate _aha_ [prayer] amid dead silence, +after which the king pronounced the _amama_ [spell], and killed the hog +with a single blow. The priest inquired whether any sound of man or beast +or bird or cricket had been heard during the _aha_, and if not, it was a +good omen. The doomed man was then brought forward, and offered to the +god by the king, after which his body was buried at the foot of the tree. +The consecrated hog was baked in an oven on the spot, while the tree was +cut down, trimmed, and covered with _ieie_ vines. After the company had +feasted, a procession was formed with the feather-gods in front, followed +by the chiefs and people with _pala_ fern, _ohia_-branches, etc., and +others carrying the new idol.... The inhabitants remained indoors, for it +was death to meet the procession, and all fires were strictly forbidden. +The images were finally carried to the _heiau_, where they were deposited +with shoutings and beating of drums.”[25] Following this rite came a long +series of services at the _heiau_. The night of the great _aha_ “was +the most solemn and critical of all. The omens were carefully observed, +and prayers were offered in every house for the success of the coming +_aha_, and for auspicious weather, that there might be no wind or rain, +no thunder or lightning, no high surf, and no sound of man or beast to +mar the ceremonies. If the sky was clear and everything favourable, +between midnight and morning the king and high-priest entered the small +house, called _waiea_, to perform the great _aha_ (_hulahula_), while the +congregation sat in front of the _mana_ house, listening and watching +in profound silence. The king stood listening intently and holding a +pig, while the high-priest, clad in white _kapa_, and holding a _lama_ +rod wound with _aloa_ (white _kapa_), recited the long prayer. At its +close the king killed the pig with a single blow, and offered it up with +a short prayer to the four great gods. The priests then asked the king +whether the _aha_ was perfect, and whether he had heard the voice of man +or dog or mouse or fowl, or anything else during the prayer. If not, he +tapped the large drum as a signal that it was over, and they both went +out to question the assembly outside. If no one had heard a sound during +the ceremony, the high-priest congratulated the king, and predicted for +him victory and long life. The people then raised loud shouts of _Lele +wale ka aha e!_ which were repeated by all who heard them, and so the +news travelled far and wide.”[26] Such were some of the ceremonies at +the dedication of an important temple.[27] + +Communal taboos also marked the celebration by the Hawaiians of the +great _makahiki_, or New Year’s festival, sacred to the god Lono. On the +twenty-third of the month Welehu, which nearly corresponded to November, +Lono’s image was decorated and, when night came on, all the people went +to bathe in the sea. This rite of purification having been accomplished, +men and women donned new clothing in preparation for the festival which +began at sunrise on the morrow. During the four days of its continuance +no fishing, no bathing, no pounding of _kapa_, and no beating of drums +or blowing of conchs was permitted. Land and sky and sea were _tabu_ +to Lono, and only feasting and games were allowed. The high-priest was +blindfolded and remained in seclusion. On the fifth day the bandage was +removed from his eyes and canoes were allowed to put to sea. On the +sixth day the _tabu_ season began again and continued for about twenty +days longer. The festivities at length drew to a close, the ornaments of +Lono’s image were packed up and deposited in the temple for use another +year, and all restrictions on fishing and farming were taken off—_noa ka +makahiki_.[28] + +In old Hawaii, as in the other Polynesian islands, fishing formed one +of the chief means of livelihood and ranked next to agriculture in +importance. The fishermen, who composed almost a distinct class, observed +many religious rites peculiar to themselves. For instance, a man would +not venture to use a new net or to build and launch a new canoe, without +prayer and sacrifice to his gods. Communal regulations relating to +fishing were imposed twice a year in connection with two sacred fish, +the _aku_, or bonito, and the _opelu_. Each was _tabu_ by turns for six +months. In Hinaiaelee (July) the taboo began on the first night of the +month, at which time no fire might be kindled, and no sound of man or +beast or fowl might break the profound silence. The following morning +the high-priest repaired to the house of Ku-ula, the god of fishermen, +to offer a pig and to recite the great _aha_, as during a dedication. +Meanwhile a man was sent to the woods to gather _pala_ fern. All that day +a solemn rest was observed on shore. Next morning the head fisherman, +wearing a white _malo_, or girdle, took the sacred fern and a new net in +his canoe and put to sea. After prayers to his tutelary deities and to Ku +the fisherman proceeded to cast the net. If he and his crew made a haul +of _opelu_, they paddled joyfully for the shore and presented the fish +to the high-priest, who sent some to the king and placed the rest on the +altar in the temple. Next day the _opelu_ became _noa_, or free to all, +but the _aku_ in its turn was prohibited to human use for six months, and +was not to be eaten on pain of death.[29] + +The Hawaiian religious system included a remarkable approximation to +the institution of a weekly Sabbath. In every lunar month there were +four tabu periods, dedicated severally to the four great gods of the +native pantheon. The first was that of Ku, from the third to the sixth +night; the second, that of Hua, at full moon, including the fourteenth +and fifteenth nights; the third, that of Kaloa, on the twenty-fourth and +twenty-fifth nights; and the fourth, that of Kane, on the twenty-seventh +and twenty-eighth nights. During these _tabu_ periods a devout king +generally remained in the _heiau_, busy with prayer and sacrifice. Women +at such times were forbidden to enter canoes, and sexual intercourse was +also prohibited.[30] + +The occasions when seasons of communal abstinence and quiescence were +enforced in the Society Islands, the Marquesas Islands, Samoa, and New +Zealand were not always the same as in the Hawaiian group. Divergencies +of custom might well be expected among the widely scattered divisions of +the Polynesian race. But, if such rites as those for the dedication of a +temple or for the observance of four _tabu_ periods in every month were +confined to the Hawaiians, some other ceremonies, notably those connected +with fishing, were much alike throughout the entire Pacific area. + +In the Society and the Marquesas islands the bonito fishing in November +or December opened with a ceremony removing the prohibition which +had previously rested on the capture of that fish. A strict taboo of +all activity marked the first day of the proceedings: no one could +approach the seashore, or make a fire, or cook food, or even eat before +the going-down of the sun. The customary employments of the men in +canoe-building and house-building, of the women in the preparation of +cloths, mats, and thread, were abandoned; “in a word, all work was +forbidden; it was a day of silence and of devotion.” Meanwhile the +priests remained in the _marai_, or temple, engaged in prayer; and +their assistants prepared an altar to receive the first-fruits of the +fishing. At nightfall the single canoe which had gone forth to the +fishing returned with the catch of bonito. Several of the largest fish +were placed on the altar, and the others were entirely consumed in a +blazing fire before the altar. The fish caught on this day belonged to +the gods and those on the following day to the high-priest; but on the +third day fishing was opened to all.[31] Among the Maori of New Zealand +the preparations for mackerel fishing included the observance of various +taboos. Every one concerned in making or mending nets, the ground where +the nets were made, and the river, on the banks of which the work went +on, were in a state of sacredness. Nobody might walk over the ground, no +canoe might pass up and down the river, no fire might be made within a +prescribed distance, and no food might be prepared, until the holy season +came to an end.[32] In this instance only fishermen and their assistants +appear to have been subject to the restrictions. The Maori, however, +observed communal taboos in connection with the planting of the _kumara_, +or sweet potato, formerly the most important agricultural product of New +Zealand and the chief reliance of the natives for food. An old chief of +Mokoia Island, Lake Rotorua, has described how, when the time to plant +_kumara_ arrived, the priests went forth to the woods for branches of the +sacred _mapau_ tree. “On that day and the day following, everything was +_tapu_. The people fasted and did no cooking. The waters of the lake were +_tapu_; no canoes were allowed to put out and no fishing was done.” The +priests took the _mapau_ twigs to the stone image of the _kumara_-god +(still kept on the island), and laying them on the idol, prayed for an +abundant harvest. In the evening they went to the gardens and stuck +the branches in the earth. The skull of a tribal chief of _ariki_ rank +was disinterred and placed beside the _mapau_ sticks, in order that +the _mana_, or magical power of the dead chieftain, might guard the +plantation and assist in securing a bountiful harvest.[33] + +Still another critical epoch when the Maori subjected themselves to +communal taboos occurred at the beginning of a war. Hostilities having +been decided on, the first thing necessary was to take the auspices +by casting the _niu_. One of the leading priests procured a quantity +of fern-stalks, some of which represented spears, and the remainder, +warriors. The warrior-sticks were stuck in a mat and a fern-stalk +was hurled at each one. If the missile fell on the left side of the +warrior-stick, this was a sign that the person whom it represented would +fall in battle, if on the right side, that he would live. A similar +procedure was enacted with sticks named for enemies, and for the men, +women, and children who were to be left at home. On the completion of the +_niu_ ceremony, the priests lifted the taboo which had rested over the +settlement, a taboo imposing abstinence from food, but not, apparently, +from work.[34] + +The sacrifice of first-fruits seems to have formed a regular part of +the religious system of the Polynesian peoples, for we possess specific +references to it among the Hawaiians, the Samoans, the New Zealanders, +the natives of the Society Islands, and those of the Tonga Islands. In +the latter group the ceremony, called _inachi_, generally took place +about October. It was observed with scrupulous care, since the people +believed that to neglect it would bring upon them the vengeance of the +gods. We are fortunate in possessing a detailed description of the +ceremony by an eye-witness of it.[35] According to William Mariner the +word _inachi_ referred to that portion of the fruits of the earth and of +other eatables which was offered to the god in the person of the divine +chief Tooitonga, an allotment made once a year, just before the yam crop +had arrived at maturity. On the day before the ceremony the first-fruits +of the yam season were dug up, ornamented with ribbons, and dyed red, +in preparation for the procession on the morrow. “The sun has scarcely +set when the sound of the conch begins again to echo through the island, +increasing as the night advances. At the _mooa_ [capital] and all the +plantations the voices of men and women are heard singing _Nófo, óooa +tegger gnaoóe, óooa gnaoóe_, ‘Rest thou, doing no work; thou shalt not +work.’[36] This increases till midnight, men generally singing the first +part of the sentence, and the women the last, to produce a more pleasing +effect: it then subsides for three or four hours, and again increases +as the sun rises. Nobody, however, is seen stirring out in the public +roads till about eight o’clock, when the people from all quarters of the +island are seen advancing towards the _mooa_, and canoes from all the +other islands landing their men; so that all the inhabitants of Tonga +seem approaching by sea and land, singing and sounding the conch. At the +_mooa_ itself the universal bustle of preparation is seen and heard; and +the different processions entering from various quarters, of men and +women, all dressed up in new _gnatoos_, ornamented with red ribbons and +wreaths of flowers, and the men armed with spears and clubs, betoken +the importance of the ceremony about to be performed.” The proceedings +consisted in the solemn presentation of the first-fruits to the divine +chief at the grave of his predecessor, and closed with a feast and +dance. Then the people returned to their homes, perfectly assured of the +protection of the gods. + +The natives of Samoa possessed a remarkably complex pantheon of household +and village gods, the recipients of prayer and sacrifice, and, in the +case of the village gods, honoured with temples, priests, and annual +festivals. The Samoans had also war-gods, who in character resembled +the other deities, since they were supposed to be incarnate in animals +or embodied in inanimate objects.[37] One of these militant divinities +was the cuttle-fish (_fe’e_), said to have been imported from Fiji. In +one place Fe’e was a general village god whose province was not confined +to war. “The month of May was sacred to his worship. No traveller was +then allowed to pass through the village by the public road; nor was any +canoe allowed in the lagoon off that part of the settlement. There was +great feasting, too, on these occasions, and also games, club exercise, +spear-throwing, wrestling, etc.... In another district three months +were sacred to the worship of Fe’e. During that time any one passing +along the road, or in the lagoon, would be beaten, if not killed, for +insulting the god. For the first month torches and all other lights +were forbidden, as the god was about and did not wish to be seen. White +turbans were also forbidden during the festivities, and confined to war. +At this time, also, all unsightly burdens—such as a log of firewood on +the shoulder—were forbidden, lest it should be considered by the god as +a mockery of his _tentacula_.”[38] Another village god, who rejoiced in +the name of Titi Usi, or Glittering Leaf Girdle, received worship at +the new moon. “At that time all work was suspended for a day or two. +The cocoanut-leaf blinds were kept down, and the people sat still in +their houses. Any one walking in front of the house risked a beating. +After prayer and feasting a man went about and blew a shell-trumpet as +a sign to all that the ceremonies were over, and that the usual routine +of village and family life might be resumed.”[39] The festivals of the +other village deities of Samoa seem not to have been marked by compulsory +cessation of activity.[40] + +The observance of regular periods consecrated to the gods has been +noticed in some other parts of Polynesia. At Fakaofo, or Bowditch +Island, in the Union group, the month of May was devoted to the worship +of the great god Tui Tokelau. All work was then laid aside. The people +assembled from the three islands of the group to enjoy feasting and +dancing. They prayed to their divinity for life, health, and a plentiful +supply of fish and cocoanuts.[41] In tiny Manahiki, or Humphrey Island, +the natives had special days for worship, every three or four months. At +such times heaps of food were collected in the place of public assembly, +and the king, who was high-priest as well, prayed for food and life +and health in behalf of his people.[42] We are told, also, that when +the god Ratu-mai-Mbulu visited the Fiji Islands, the inhabitants lived +very quietly for an entire month, lest they should disturb the deity in +his task of making the fruit-trees blossom and bear fruit. During this +Lenten season the natives did not plant or build or sail on the ocean +or go to war. The priests announced the time of the god’s advent and +departure.[43] According to a later account Ratu-mai-Mbulu (Lord from +Hades) was probably a deity of foreign extraction. “Through him the +earth gives her increase. In December he comes forth from Mbulu, and +pours sap into the fruit-trees, and pushes the young yam shoots through +the soil. Throughout that moon it is _tabu_ to beat the drum, to sound +the conch-shell, to dance, to plant, to fight, or to sing at sea, lest +Ratu-mai-Mbulu be disturbed, and quit the earth before his work is +completed. At the end of the month the priest sounds the consecrated +shell; the people raise a great shout, carrying the good news from +village to village; and pleasure and toil are again free to all.”[44] + +The descriptions of Polynesian customs by early observers, though +frequently the only accounts we possess, are sometimes very brief and +obscure. These remarks apply to a curious ceremony annually performed by +some Fijian tribes. The time of its celebration was determined by the +appearance of a certain sea-slug, which swarms out in dense shoals from +the coral reefs on a single day of the year, usually in November during +the last quarter of the moon. The arrival of the sea-slugs furnished +the signal for a general feast at those places where they were taken. +Hostilities were suspended between rival communities for four days, and +a taboo was laid to prevent noise or disturbance during this period. +No labour might be done and no person might be seen outside his house. +“In Ovolau the ceremony begins by a man ascending a tree and praying +for fine weather and winds throughout the year. Thereupon a tremendous +clatter, with drumming and shouting, is raised by all the people inside +of the houses for about half an hour, and then a dead quiet ensues for +four days, during which they are feasting on the _mbalolo_. If in any +dwelling a noise is made, as by a child crying, a forfeit (_ori_) is +immediately exacted by the chief.”[45] According to another account the +rule requiring quiescence was so strictly observed that not even a leaf +might be plucked or the offal removed from the houses. During these four +days the men lived in their special club-house (_mbure_), and the women +and children remained shut up in the family abodes. At daylight, on the +expiry of the fourth night, the whole town was in an uproar; and men and +boys scampered about, knocking with sticks at the doors of the dwellings +and crying _Sinariba_. This concluded the ceremony.[46] It would seem +that these accounts refer to a Fijian New Year’s festival, which, like +that of the Hawaiians, was held in November for a period of four days, +and was marked by communal taboos imposing abstinence and quiescence.[47] + +The western tribes of Viti Levu, largest of the Fiji Islands, in +traditions, language, and physical type are recognized as distinctly +Melanesian. In former days these tribes possessed a secret association +known as _nanga_, or _mbaki_, which closely resembled the secret +societies so common in the Melanesian Archipelago. It is highly probable, +therefore, that, at least in its known form, the _nanga_ was a late +importation into the island of Viti Levu. Initiation into the _nanga_ +was supposed to bring the youth of the tribe into relations with the +ancestral spirits, who were represented, at the time of the ceremonies, +by the elders and by some of the middle-aged men. The sanctuary and lodge +of the association formed the earthly dwelling-place of the spirits; it +was a tabernacle as holy to these Fijians as was the structure in the +Wilderness to the Israelites; there the first-fruits of the yam harvest +were solemnly presented to the ancestors; and there the young men of Viti +Levu were introduced to the mysteries of the tribe. When the _nanga_ +enclosure was being raised for the initiatory performances, the people +suspended all other work. Not even food-planting might be done at such a +time. “If any impious person transgressed this law, ‘he would only plant +evil to himself and to his kinsfolk.’”[48] In this instance there was no +attribution of the sacred period to any particular divinity, though all +the ceremonies connected with the _nanga_ were supposed to be directed by +the ancestral spirits. + +The scanty records of aboriginal Polynesian society also contain some +passing references to the observance of communal rest days on certain +occasions when the social consciousness had been deeply moved by untoward +and disastrous events. In Futuna, or Erronan, an island which lies +close to the dividing line between Polynesia and Melanesia, the custom +of taboo is said to be very common. “They go so far as to _tapu_ the +day—_e.g._, to interdict all work in order to please the gods, or to +avert the hurricanes.”[49] In Hawaii a _tabu_ period was declared during +the sickness of chiefs.[50] In Samoa the death of a chief of high rank +was followed by the suspension of all work in the settlement for from +ten to thirty days, until the funeral ceremonies were performed. During +this time no stranger might approach the stricken village; a luckless +wayfarer, pushing in by accident, would have been promptly clubbed.[51] +This Samoan regulation, as we shall see, is only a particular instance of +a widespread primitive custom. Communal rest days are still observed in +some parts of Micronesia, as on the island of Yap, one of the Carolines. +Here two aged “wizards,” before whom all important questions come for +decision, have the power of imposing taboos on an entire village. The +periods of seclusion have been known to last for six months. The critical +epochs, when such interdicts are enforced, occur during a time of +drought, famine, or sickness, after a death of a chief or famous man, +and before a fishing expedition.[52] “In short, any great public event +is thus celebrated, and, in fact, there is always a _tabu_ in full +swing somewhere or other, to the great disgust of the traders, who only +see in these enforced holidays an excuse for idling, drunkenness and +debauchery.”[53] + +The accounts preserved in the older literature relating to Polynesia thus +make it evident that communal taboos occurred at critical, or especially +important, seasons. The prohibitions were negative in character, required +a period of abstinence sometimes verging upon complete quiescence, and +were closely connected with the aristocratic and theocratic organization +of Polynesian society. At the same time the communal regulations, +artificially created, are to be assimilated to those which rested +upon individuals alone and arose spontaneously as a result of various +circumstances. Every description of aboriginal culture, from Hawaii +to New Zealand, contains numerous references to the network of taboos +which invested private life. All persons dangerously ill, all mothers at +childbirth, together with their infants, all persons who handled a corpse +or assisted at a funeral, were deemed unclean and hence were subjected +to a rigid quarantine, a protective measure necessary for the safety +of the social group. If we assume that the individual taboos represent +the earlier phase of the institution, then the communal taboos may be +regarded as merely an extension to the body politic of these simpler +and more rudimentary customs. The probability of such a transition will +be strengthened by a consideration of the tabooed days found among some +other primitive peoples. + +Seasons of communal abstinence are not found in Australia, and only +faint indications of them exist within the Melanesian area, that great +island group which extends from New Guinea to the Fiji Archipelago. In +New Guinea itself a few instances of the custom under consideration have +been noted, all within the British possessions there.[54] Among the +Roro-speaking tribes, inhabiting the strip of coast from Cape Possession +in the west to Kabadi in the east, it is said that an entire village +will mourn for a chief or influential man “by abstaining from fishing, +hunting, and pot-making, and by reducing garden-work to a minimum.” The +period of mourning lasts from six to ten days.[55] In the neighbourhood +of Port Moresby are the Motu and Koita tribes, some of whose customs +were described, many years ago, by a native missionary who long laboured +in New Guinea. Among these tribes, we are told, “fishing work lays the +people under a number of restrictions. There must be no talking; any one +causing another to speak prevents his getting any fish. If the fishermen +are going on a turtle expedition, all must be still throughout the +village. None go about among the houses, or on the public road. All go up +to their houses and sit still. No sound of a voice, or chopping firewood, +or any movement is allowed, until it is supposed that the fishing party +is clear of the lagoon, and out into the deep ocean, and then the +villagers resume their usual occupation.”[56] These taboos in connection +with fishing closely resemble the regulations so common in Polynesia. + +The Indonesian inhabitants of Borneo are divided into a large number +of tribes, among which the Kayan, the Sea Dyak, and the Land Dyak are +perhaps the best known. All these peoples till the soil and live in long +communal houses situated on the banks of the rivers. Though now spread +over a wide area in Borneo, the different tribes possess in common +many social and religious customs, notably the cult of omen animals, +together with the observance of numerous taboos which are regularly +enforced at the time of rice (_padi_) planting and harvesting, sometimes +also at mid-harvest.[57] The taboos found among the Kayan on the Baram +River, Sarawak, have been well described by a recent traveller, whose +picturesque narrative deserves an extended notice.[58] “During the days +devoted to search for omens in reference to the sites of the rice-fields, +and also again in reference to the planting, the Kayan refrain from +their usual daily occupations, and neither leave their houses themselves +nor allow strangers to enter. These days of seclusion are termed +_permantong padi_, or _lali padi_, and correspond very closely to taboo +elsewhere.”[59] + +The rude agricultural methods of the Kayan start with the preliminary +process of clearing a site in the dense jungle. The work is extremely +tedious and if, after all the heavy labour, the crops should fail or +be destroyed by monkeys, birds, or beetles, the entire household feels +that some act has been committed whereby the displeasure of the spirits +is aroused. Accordingly, before beginning so arduous a task, it is +essential to take omens from the actions of certain birds, mammals, and +reptiles, called _amau_, which are supposed to be in the confidence of +the spirits.[60] A patch of jungle having been tentatively selected, +the work begins with the removal of the dense undergrowth. During this +preliminary stage, while the labour is less heavy than it will be later, +when trees must be felled, the household is not as yet under a taboo. +Each person, nevertheless, keeps a sharp eye for evil omens. Should a +native on the way to the clearing see any one of four ominous animals, a +certain species of snake, a deer, a civet cat, or a rain-bird, the site +will be at once abandoned, regardless of the work already done there. +Wilfully to ignore such a warning “not only compromises the abundance and +quality of the crops, but also the health, or even the life, of the whole +household.”[61] + +If no evil omens are observed for three days, the Kayan workers feel +sufficiently encouraged to proceed to the next stage of felling the +heavy timber on the site, which has now been stripped of its underbrush. +Then ensues an elaborate series of auguries. While the various families +making up the household of a communal dwelling remain secluded on the +long veranda, or in their small private rooms, sitting very still all +day and smoking and talking, two hawk-men are off in the forest looking +for a hawk, called _niho_. Three days must be devoted to this search: if +the hawk is seen on the first day, but not on the two days following, +the omen is unfavourable. The people will continue the preparation of +the soil, but they expect poor crops, a result pretty certain to follow +their half-hearted and discouraged labours. On the second day the search +is continued, and if the hawk is seen, the omen is favourable, but not +completely so. If the third day’s search again reveals a hawk, the two +men return at once to the house and spread the good news. Every one +now watches the actions of the hawk. “Should he sail away out of sight +without once flapping his wings all are delighted; it means that the +clearing of the jungle may now continue prosperously, and that neither +attack of enemies nor accident to the workers need be feared. Should the +hawk flap his wings, it follows that some men, in felling the jungle, +will be badly cut by their axes or perhaps crushed under falling trees. +All instantly avert their eyes from the flapping hawk, lest the bird +should recognize them in the fields and select them as victims.”[62] + +There now occurs a brief respite of the _lali_ observance, and the people +may leave their houses. But the same formalities must be observed by the +natives while search is made for four other ominous animals. In each case +there is a period of seclusion and abstinence lasting for three days. +These are all the omens that must be consulted before the heavy timber +may be felled, the ground burned over, and the rice planted. + +Such are the various taboos which affect the inmates of a communal +house or village, before the crop is started. Other regulations concern +outsiders. From the hour when the real labour of felling the jungle +begins and until the seed-planting is completed, no stranger may enter +house or field. Should a neighbour, by accident or necessity, come +within the tabooed district, he must atone for the trespass by making a +small payment, called _usut_. It consists, ordinarily, of a few beads or +an iron implement. These objects are placed in a basket and hung up in +the rice-field till they rust away or disappear. It is a special duty of +the women to see that this _usut_ is paid. + +The _lali_ ordinances of the Kayan are not confined to the time of +seed-planting. Once more, when the crop is all harvested, the house is +closed to strangers. For eight days no one may go away on an expedition +or return to the village from abroad. Another season of restriction +follows during the period when the rice is being stored in the granaries. +“But as soon as this harvesting is over, a general feast is prepared, +and merriment of all sorts makes up for the weariness of the long day’s +work. The women don every stitch of their finery and every bead to their +name; some even assume men’s clothes, and carry shield, spear, and +_parang_. In the evening all join in a long procession round the house; +guests are invited to participate in the festivities, and ‘jest and +youthful jollity’ rule the hour; the brimming cup passes freely, and to +the harmonious strains of the _kaluri_ the women ‘trip it as they go,’ or +leap in war-dances in imitation of the men.” After this festival there +follows yet another period of taboo, ten days in length, when no one is +allowed to do a stroke of any work that resembles the cultivation of +rice: “should any restless creature express a desire for active work, he +is scoffed at and scorned as a spoil-sport and kill-joy.”[63] + +These customs of the Kayan of Sarawak are significant as showing how for +a Bornean community the whole period of farming, from the initial task +of selecting a site to the final storing of the rice in the granaries, +is supposed to be subject to supernatural influences. Planting and +harvesting are critical times, when every precaution must be taken to +win the approval, and to thwart the ill will, of the spirits which +affect the tribal life. If we turn, now, to the Kayan on the Mendalam +River in Dutch Borneo, we shall find here also a community of primitive +farmers who depend mainly on the rice crop for subsistence, and by +whom all agricultural operations have been invested with a religious +significance. Without the consent of the spirits no farm work may be +undertaken; without a strict regimen of sacrifices and taboos their aid +cannot be secured for the growth and maturity of the crops. A traveller, +who has described in detail the agricultural rites of the Kayan, tells +us that the sowing festival lasts several weeks and that during this +period certain communal regulations are enforced. On the first day of the +festival every one, save the very old and the very young, must refrain +from bathing; then for eight successive days no work may be done and no +intercourse may be held with neighbouring communities. The custom of +excluding strangers at this time has a purely religious meaning: the +presence of strangers, so the Kayan believe, would frighten or annoy the +spirits and consequently endanger the welfare of the crops.[64] Following +the rites at sowing come those which inaugurate the hoeing of the fields, +and finally the New Year’s festival, eight days in duration, when the +harvest has been safely garnered and the long period of labour and +anxiety is at an end.[65] + +But the critical occasions demanding the observance of taboos are not +confined by the Kayan to agricultural occupations. Every important +undertaking may be commenced only when favourable omens have been +vouchsafed by the good spirits, and when the spirits of evil intent have +been pacified by many acts of abstinence. These aborigines, for example, +entertain the belief that house-building, which necessarily involves +the cutting-down of many trees, is a dangerous occupation, because it +arouses the animosity of the tree-spirits. Hence some Kayan villages, +after the erection of a communal house, observe a period of penance for +an entire year. The Ulu-Ayar Dyak on the Mandai River, when they use the +valuable ironwood as timber, feel it necessary, in consequence, to deny +themselves various dainties for three years.[66] To the Kayan on the +Mahakam River in Dutch Borneo, the building of a chiefs house, in which +task all take part by contributing either materials or labour, forms a +matter of great moment. Dr. Nieuwenhuis, who witnessed the ceremonies +on such an occasion, tells us that the regulations enforced begin with +the collection of materials for the new dwelling. Nothing may be done +at full moon, a time when important business is always suspended.[67] +During the search for satisfactory trees and while these are being turned +into piles, planks, and shingles, watch is kept for spirit-warnings as +revealed by the flight and cries of the ominous birds. Work on the house +always terminates at nightfall, when birds are silent. Important stages +in the construction of the house, such as the sinking of the piles and +the placing of the finely carved wooden figureheads at the two ends of +the ridgepole, are signalized by appropriate sacrifices to the spirits. +When a sufficient quantity of shingles has been prepared for covering +the roof, another offering, consisting of a fat pig and two chickens, is +made to the spirits. Then follows a rest period, called _melo_,[68] two +days in length. During this time a strip of rattan is stretched around +the house to indicate that no one may enter it. While the house is being +shingled, any untoward event will interrupt the progress of the work. +For instance, should a man tumble off the roof, it would be necessary to +perform another sacrifice and to declare a _melo_ lasting eight days. +Thus anxiously and seriously does the Kayan conduct himself in all the +crises of his tribal life.[69] + +Among the most numerous and powerful of the Bornean tribes are the Iban, +or Sea Dyak, who occupy much of the country between the Baram River in +Sarawak and the Kapuas River in Dutch Borneo. Throughout this extensive +district the Iban use the same language and possess substantially uniform +customs. A Christianized native, who has given to us a remarkably +intimate description of the religious observances of his people, thus +sets forth the omens and incidents which require abstention from work. + +“When at night the Iban dreams of insult, anger, or that he has been +bitten by a snake, crushed by a falling tree, waylaid by a ghost, chased +by a crocodile, the following day he rests from all work: to go abroad +or about his work after such dreams would cause him to be wounded, hurt +by falling wood, or shot by an arrow from the evil spirits’ blowpipe. +On the frequent recurrence of such dreams the medicine-man is called +in, who rubs the patient’s body with a charm which makes him invisible +to the evil spirits. This ceremony is called _bedinding_, _i.e._, the +shielding.... To dream of being enveloped by a swarm of bees, of being +overwhelmed by falling earth, that the waist-cloth has rotted away, or of +eating rice from a winnowing-fan, will deter the Iban from going on the +warpath, for they tell of defeat and of being overpowered by the enemy. + +“To hear the cry of a bird of evil omen on first waking in the morning, +or on rising up from the morning meal, prevents the Iban from going to +his work on that day.... When the Iban is setting out to his work and has +descended the ladder leading from his house, if the note of a bird of +any kind is heard at the same time as his foot first touches the ground, +he must turn back. The cry of the _kikeh senabong_, gazelle, or deer, +heard on the path, will cause him to give up work for that day. The same +happens if these omens are heard as he enters the field; arrives at the +_pankalan_, _i.e._, ‘resting place’; when commencing his work; whilst +sharpening his chopper, or after the midday meal. + +“The news of a death occurring in the neighbourhood or at a distance, the +time of full moon,[70] the performance of ceremonies over the sick by +the medicine-man, a sacrifice to the spirits, are incidents that require +all the villagers to rest from work. Likewise, if some of the villagers +attend a feast in a neighbouring village, those that remain behind must +rest from work lest they should incur the anger of the guardian spirits +of those attending the feast.”[71] + +But these are not all the circumstances under which an Iban community +subjects itself to the rule of abstinence. Rice-planting here, as among +the Kayan, necessitates certain rest periods, each of three days’ +duration.[72] While a village is under construction, weaving the native +cloth, settling quarrels, and going on the warpath are forbidden; to +break this taboo would cause a death in the village.[73] When rumours +are abroad of cholera, smallpox, or fever, another season of seclusion +is imposed. The entrance to the village is railed off, and no one is +allowed either ingress or egress for three days, during which time all +rest from work. Meanwhile the village elders have prepared an offering +to the evil spirit of the epidemic. This sacrifice, together with a +winnowing-fan on which is the figure of man drawn in chalk, is placed +in a shed near the village. The evil spirit, it is thought, will stop +to observe the chalk-drawing and thus will be led to discover the food +which has been left in the shed. Having satisfied his hunger, he will not +seek to enter the village.[74] The general character of these taboos as +propitiatory rites is further illustrated by some of the customs relating +to agriculture. When the forest land has been fully cleared and left +to dry, sun and wind become of vital consequence to the Iban, for, if +the people are unable to burn the immense mass of timber and brush-wood +in the jungle, famine stares them in the face during the year to come. +“If it pour with rain day after day and week after week, and there is +no promise of continued fine weather, they are apt to imagine that some +impurity has defiled the tribe and that the face of the Great Spirit is +hid from them. So the elders of the people get to work to find it out, +and adjudicate on all cases of incest and bigamy, and purify the earth +with the blood of pigs. Prayers are offered to Betara[75] from one end of +the country to the other; for the space of three days the villages are +tabooed, and all labour is discontinued; the inhabitants remain at home +and strangers are not admitted. But if the weather is warm and dry, the +farms are ready in a very few days for the burning.”[76] + +The seasons of communal abstinence found among the Land Dyak, who dwell +in the southwestern part of Sarawak, differ only in minor details from +those of other Bornean tribes. There are three principal occasions when +the Land Dyak subject themselves to _pamali_, or taboo: + +“The first, _pamali mati_, is on a house, and on everything in it for +twelve days after the decease of any person belonging to it: during this +time, no one who is not an inhabitant of the dwelling can enter it, nor +are the persons usually residing in it allowed to speak to such, nor can +anything, on any pretence whatever, be removed from it, until the twelve +days of the prohibition be expired: its conclusion is marked by the death +of a fowl or pig, according to the circumstances of the family. + +“The _pamali peniakit_ is undertaken by a whole village during any +sickness which prevails generally amongst the members of the tribe; it +is marked by a pig slain, and a feast being made in order to propitiate +the divinity who has sent the malady among them; in its severest form +it is of eight days’ continuance, and during this period everything in +the village is at a standstill, the inhabitants shutting themselves up +from all intercourse with strangers.... The _pamali peniakit_ is also +undertaken by individuals when any member of the family is sick; thus +parents often put themselves under its regulations, fondly hoping that +by denying themselves for a time the pleasures of intercourse with their +fellow creatures, they will prevail upon the malignant spirit, which is +supposed to have shed its withering influence over their offspring, to +restore it to its wonted health and strength. + +“The _pamali omar_, or taboo on the farms, occurs immediately after the +whole of the seed is sown: it lasts four days, and during that period, +no person of the tribe enters any of the plantations on any account; +a pig and feast are, according to their practice, also necessary. The +proper observance of these various forms of _pamali_ is probably amongst +the most ancient of their customs, and was practised by their tribes +previously to the introduction of the Hindu religion.”[77] From another +authority we learn that the Land Dyak recognize a variety of incidents, +more or less inimical to the operations of farming, which suffice to +impose taboos. “If the basket in which the paddy is put as it is cut +during harvesting be upset, that farm must rest for a day, and a fowl +must be killed, or all their paddy will go rotten. If a tree falls across +the farm-path, a fowl must be killed on the spot, and the path be disused +for one day, or some one will meet with an accident on it.... At full +moon, and on the third day after it (called _bubuk_), no farm work may +be done, unless it is wished that the paddy should be devoured by blight +and mildew. In some tribes the unlucky days are those of the new and full +moon, and its first and third quarters.”[78] + +In the course of an excellent study of the Land Dyak festivals,[79] +Mrs. S. B. Scott argues that they are far more effective as social +observances when accompanied by the various taboos. The change of +occupations heightens the sacredness of the feast, and also enables all +the inhabitants of a village to join in the long, elaborate ritual. +At the same time the closed house prevents intrusion and secures the +presence of every member of the community. Furthermore, the prospect +of feasting, drinking, and general excitement gives an added zest to +the labours of the Dyak farmers. The mid-harvest festival, when this is +celebrated, affords a much needed rest from the heavy work of harvesting; +and the last and greatest of the festivals comes as a natural period +of relaxation after the long strain of toil and frugality is suddenly +relaxed.[80] + +That in actual practice the Land Dyak observances have this outcome, it +is impossible to deny. Yet it must be noticed that similar regulations +are in force on other and quite different occasions. As we have just +seen, the Land Dyak place an interdict, twelve days in length, upon a +house in which any one has died; the same event also causes a general +banning of the village for one day only.[81] Childbirth imposes a taboo +of eight days’ duration on a Land Dyak family;[82] in this case the +regulation does not appear to be extended to the community at large. +Sickness is another event which puts a family under the ban;[83] when the +sickness assumes an epidemic form and threatens the general well-being, +the rule of abstinence must be observed by every one in the village. Such +evidence from the Land Dyak customs, confirmed as it is by the facts +relating to the customs of other Bornean tribes, clearly illustrates +the passage of individual taboos, based on gross superstition, into +community ordinances which may sometimes have a real justification in +their social usefulness. + +These Bornean regulations disclose a fairly consistent effort to adjust +the length of the communal taboo to the importance of the event which it +commemorates. Thus, house-building imposes a shorter season of abstinence +than does planting or sowing; a single death in the village may require +the cessation of activity by the inhabitants for only one day; but an +epidemic sickness may necessitate a three days’ rest, as among the Iban, +or even eight days’ rest, as among the Land Dyak. The restrictions +themselves appear to be substantially the same in all instances: the +inhabitants “remain in their houses, in order to eat, drink, and sleep; +but their eating must be moderate, and often consists of nothing but rice +and salt.... People under interdict may not bathe, touch fire, or employ +themselves about their ordinary occupations.”[84] To these prohibitions +should be added that of sexual intercourse, a taboo specifically +mentioned for one Bornean tribe, and probably found among others.[85] + +The close resemblances, even in details, between the communal taboos +observed in different parts of Borneo must, unquestionably, be attributed +to a long-continued process of diffusion among the various Indonesian +tribes. These taboos have not been found, at any rate have not been +described, among the nomadic hunting tribes, which occupy the interior +parts of Borneo and probably represent an aboriginal population. +Though our knowledge of Bornean ethnography is still very imperfect, +there seems to be no doubt that the present Indonesian inhabitants are +descended from immigrants into the island at no very remote date. We are +justified, therefore, in seeking a foreign source for various elements of +the existing Bornean culture. In particular, the practice of observing +communal taboos, in its rudiments, if not in its completely developed +form, may reasonably be regarded as an importation into Borneo, if +similar customs are found to prevail among other Indonesian peoples. + +Between the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal and the northern coast +of Sumatra lies the archipelago of the Nicobars. The inhabitants appear +to be of Indonesian type, but more or less intermixed with Malays and +with the natives of Burma and Siam. In spite of the labours of numerous +missionaries the Nicobarese are said to entertain no conception of a +Supreme Being or of a future state. They have, however, a very lively +belief in evil spirits, which seem to be chiefly the ghosts of the +wicked. These malignant beings, the source of all misfortune and +disease, are propitiated with offerings or driven out by exorcisms. On +such occasions the Nicobarese hold lengthy festivals, some of which +are accompanied by periods of communal abstinence. The native name for +these enforced rest days or holidays is _anoiila_.[86] Every year the +inhabitants of Kar Nicobar observe the ceremony of _kataphang_, at which +time the group of buildings, called the _elpanam_,[87] is cleaned out and +purified to the accompaniment of much singing and dancing. When this +preliminary work is done and the rubbish has been cast into the sea, the +doors of the houses in the _elpanam_ are closed and the people return to +their private abodes in the village. “Silence has now to be observed for +a full month; no fire or light may be seen; no cheroot may be smoked. +Women and children are interdicted from coming to the _elpanam_, and, +if they have to come during the night on urgent affairs (to purchase +things), they have to place a light at the entrance of the _elpanam_ and +then come without noise.... The chief sufferers by this festival are the +Burmans, because the people cannot supply any nuts nor can they work in +making _kopra_, for the reason that they cannot go into the jungle to +fetch nuts nor can they come to the _elpanam_.” The natives believe that +during this time the evil spirits from the jungle visit the _elpanam_. +When the month is up, a great feast is given to the spirits and they are +sent back to the jungle.[88] Another Nicobar festival is that of _kiala_. +The word means, properly, “to take food.” The _kiala_ is celebrated with +much feasting, to which the inhabitants of neighbouring communities come +as guests. At midday a cry of supplication is heard from each building: +“Let our house be enriched with plenty of food. Let us have many eatable +things from other villages. Let there come new women to our villages. Let +us be happy.” Then follow in regular sequence a day of rest—_anoiila_—a +day of pig-hunting in the jungle, a second _anoiila_, and a second day of +pig-hunting. One more rest day ends the festival.[89] The exact meaning +of these observances is difficult to make out. + +Very similar customs have been found among the people of Bali, an +island to the east of Java. When the Balinese are confronted by some +real or imaginary danger, such as an epidemic, an earthquake, or a lunar +eclipse, they at once take measures to drive away the evil spirits, or +_buta_, which have caused the ominous event. This praiseworthy object +is supposed to be accomplished partly by verbal commands “go away! go +away!” addressed to the _buta_, partly by means of an unearthly uproar +of shouting and knocking. Then follow two days of absolute silence, the +stillness of the grave. During this period, known as _sepi_, no one +ventures out of doors and no strangers are admitted to the village. +Even the usual domestic work, including cooking, is discontinued. The +interdict against all activity is lifted on the third day, but even +then work in the rice-fields and buying and selling in the market are +forbidden. The evil spirits, it is believed, would like to return at +once to their old haunts, hence they must be led to think that Bali is +not Bali, but some uninhabited island.[90] This period of quiescence is +clearly a means of avoiding contact with the ghostly powers. The reason +given for abstaining from activity—to make the spirits suppose that Bali +is not Bali—may be taken as a naïve effort to explain a custom no longer +understood. The Balinese have also a New Year’s festival, which shows the +influence of Buddhism in the date chosen for its observance, the first +five weeks of the Buddhist year. “At this time the gods are supposed to +dwell on the earth, and the _pitara_ especially return to the bosoms of +their families; hence the constant offerings and the incessant games +and amusements, which are regarded as necessary less for the living +generation than for the _pitara_ and gods sojourning among them; hence +also the cessation from work and the disinclination to intercourse with +foreigners during this period. Trade and foreigners are not agreeable +to the _pitara_, who desire to see the old institutions and usages +faithfully preserved.”[91] + +In the island of Nias, lying off the western coast of Sumatra, the +news of an epidemic sickness will cause a quarantine to be established +in every community, not only against the inhabitants of the infected +village, but against all strangers without discrimination. The quarantine +lasts for eight days.[92] Probably this taboo is observed on other +occasions, as seems to be the case with the inhabitants of the Pagi +Islands, which form the southern extension of the Mentawi group. +These islanders are scarcely above the level of culture reached by +Bornean tribes: they live in large communal houses, practise tattooing +assiduously, and worship the evil spirits which manifest their power in +thunder and lightning, earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods. The natives, +at certain times, are said to remain in their villages and to exclude +all strangers. During this period of separation from the world they may +neither give nor receive anything, they must refrain from eating certain +articles of food, and they may not engage in trade.[93] A very competent +observer, who has made a special study of the taboo system in the +Mentawi Islands, describes the seasons of restriction found there under +the name of _punän_. The “great” _punän_ arises from any circumstance +which vitally affects the welfare of a community: when a chief erects +a house for himself, when a village is visited by an epidemic, or when +a cocoanut-palm is overthrown by some _force majeure_. Similarly, the +inauguration of a superior chief or the choice of a priest requires the +imposition of a “great” _punän_. The same propitiatory usage becomes +necessary when a villager has been killed by a crocodile. The “little” +_punän_ relates rather to individuals and to families. Many are the +occasions when it is imposed—at house-building, at the setting-out of a +garden, at boat-making, and when a native leaves his village to settle +elsewhere. The “little” _punän_ is especially obligatory for women during +pregnancy, at birth, and for eight months thereafter. It occurs also as +an accompaniment of marriage, when there is sickness in a family, and +when some member of the household has died. All crises in the communal +and individual life of the Mentawi Islanders are thus kept as periods of +restriction; in some cases, however, these rest days have become to all +intents and purposes festivals and holidays.[94] + +The wild and little-known aborigines of Formosa, who are probably of +Indonesian origin, appear to possess similar customs. Of them it is +said, generally, that “great fasts are held after a sickness or when any +of the tribe have been killed. At such times they will be silent, and +will only eat sufficient food to maintain life.”[95] Another traveller +refers to these communal fast days under the native name of _hiang_, and +adds the further fact that at such times strangers are excluded from the +village.[96] A very intelligent observer, describing the superstitions +of the Peiwan, mentions a curious custom according to which “one who has +unpleasant dreams must confine himself to his house for the day.”[97] +This very scanty information will doubtless be supplemented by much more +evidence, when the Formosan tribes have been scientifically studied. + +The Philippine Archipelago contains a great number of Indonesian tribes, +among which are the Subanu of Mindanao, a mountain people occupying the +interior portions of the Zamboanga District, where they have taken refuge +from the raids of their hereditary enemies, the Moros and Filipinos. +The Subanu are described as a suspicious and superstitious people +with a pronounced belief in spirits—both good and evil. Ceremonies of +propitiation accompany all important undertakings, such as the clearing +of a new plantation, the building of a house, the beginning of a +journey, hunting, and the harvesting of the crops. Festivals are held to +propitiate these spirits, or to celebrate some event in which an entire +settlement is interested. From the following account it would seem that +the custom of communal abstinence is frequently observed by the Subanu. +“In contending against the difficulties of their settlement life the +Subanu have gradually adopted an effective quarantine service against the +spread of infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and cholera. Upon +the appearance of the first case among any of the settlement families, +the _timuai_ [communal chief] orders the establishment of the signals +of quarantine, and these are quickly provided. Fences of poles and +split bamboo, or _bejuco_, are erected across the main trails leading +to the houses of the settlement. On these fences are placed, in fixed +positions, carved imitations of war weapons, such as spears, _kampilan_, +_barong_, and _pira_, pointed outward to warn the approaching stranger +or visitor to remain away. It is a notice that death will be visited +upon the person who attempts to enter the settlement while the scourge +of disease prevails.... Near the signal fences are erected light wooden +stands with offerings of various articles of food to appease the wrath +of the gods and cause them to assist in extirpating the disease. Small +sheds are also sometimes erected near the stands, under which guards +may be stationed to prevent the food from being taken by wild animals, +birds, and mischievous persons. But the guards go to sleep and the food +(cooked rice, boiled eggs, fruit, tobacco, betel-nut, cooked chicken, +etc.) disappears, whereupon the guards report that _diuata_ (god) has +accepted the gifts and will drive away the disease. Superstition and good +sense are strangely but effectively mingled in this scheme of practical +and efficacious quarantine; and the Subanu stand alone among all the +tribes and peoples of Mindanao in devising and operating such protective +measures.”[98] + +Another Indonesian people of the Philippines are the Bontoc Igorot, a +non-Christian folk dwelling in northern Luzon. They are mountain farmers +and live in towns made up of political divisions, or _ato_, analogous to +the wards of an American city. The business of each _ato_ is conducted +by a council of elders. These Bontoc Igorot observe a sacred rest +day, called _tengao_.[99] It occurs, on an average, about every ten +days during the year, though not with absolute regularity. Three men, +belonging to what might be described as a hereditary priesthood, fix +the time for the _tengao_, as for all other ceremonials of the pueblo. +They then inform the elders of each _ato_, who, in turn, make a public +announcement on the evening preceding the day. “The small boys, however, +are the true ‘criers.’ They make more noise in the evening before the +rest day, crying _Tĕng-aó! whi tĕng-aó!_ (‘Rest day! hurrah! rest day!’) +than I have heard from the pueblo at any other time.” The _tengao_ +appears to be marked by the cessation of agricultural work, but not by +abstinence from all activity. “If a person goes to labour in the fields +on a sacred day—not having heard the announcement, or in disregard +of it—he is fined for ‘breaking the Sabbath.’” The lawbreaker has to +surrender firewood or rice or a small chicken to the value of about ten +cents, or the wage of two days. The fines are then expended in buying +chickens and pigs for certain religious ceremonies, known as _patay_. +These rites are performed every new moon for the general well-being of +the pueblo.[100] We are further told that the rest days are selected +in order that “such intimate, important interests as agriculture and +beneficial weather may be given the amount of attention they deserve. +The people have no calendar for succeeding ceremonial observances, so +a priesthood has developed to fix such days at the opportune time when +needed. They are sacred because all petitions are made to Lumawig their +god, a living, spirit, hero, and benefactor.”[101] + +There seems to be every reason for supposing that this remarkable +institution of an almost periodic Sabbath is of native origin. The Bontoc +Igorot dwell in a remote and inaccessible region; and they are a fairly +primitive people whose religious ideas have been unaffected by either +Christianity or Mohammedanism. The _tengao_ itself is apparently confined +to this single tribe of northern Luzon. At the same time the sacred +rest day does not stand without relation to the other observances of +the Igorot. Like the Bornean tribes they have a number of agricultural +ceremonies, religious in character, and designed to secure an abundant +harvest. Some of these ceremonies are accompanied by periods of rest. +Every year, on the occasion when _camotes_ are planted, the pueblo priest +kills a chicken or a pig, and petitions Lumawig for so many _camotes_ +“that the ground will crack and burst open.” This rite takes place in the +fifth period of the Igorot year, called _baliling_. A similar rite is +performed when black beans are planted. The end of _baliling_ (about the +first of September) is marked by a three days’ rest, known as _kopus_. At +this time one of the priests charged with the performance of the _patay_ +rite addresses a short supplication to Lumawig and then solemnly kills +a chicken. It is a critical moment for the people of the pueblo. Should +the gall of the fowl be found white or whitish, this means that disaster +will overtake the community. But a gall with a dark green colour implies +that the spirit enemies of Bontoc are not revengeful and that the pueblo +will enjoy prosperity. Another occasion when the Igorot rests from labour +comes at the _fakil_ ceremony for rain. It occurs four times each year, +on four succeeding days, and is performed by four different priests. +There is the usual sacrifice of a pig by the priest, and each night, just +before this rite takes place, all the people cry _I-tĕng-aó ta-ko nan +fa-kilʹ!_, an expression meaning, “Rest day! We observe the ceremony for +rain!”[102] These and other instances cited by Professor Jenks indicate +clearly that the Igorot festivals are intended to propitiate evil-minded +spirits and to secure material blessings from Lumawig, the supreme +being.[103] The evidence from Borneo and other regions suggests that +here in Luzon the rest accompanying some of the festivals has likewise a +propitiatory character, quite as much as the prayers and sacrifices. The +same interpretation would accordingly apply to the _tengao_, though that +day seems now to be regarded in some degree as a holiday. Furthermore, +the conjecture is plausible that the _tengao_ in its earlier form was not +a periodic but an occasional observance, called forth only by particular +emergencies in the communal life. The present form of this institution +gives evidence of a tendency, doubtless directed by the Igorot +priesthood, to calendarize seasons of taboo at definite and regular +intervals. And the dedication of this “Sabbath” to Lumawig may be only +a natural outcome of the preëminence assigned to that supreme god, who +stands out in such bold relief against the crowd of ancestral spirits, +good and bad, investing the Igorot world.[104] + +The foregoing examples suffice to show how numerous are the occasions +on which the natives of Indonesia subject themselves to the rule of +abstinence. Assuming, with modern ethnographers, that the Indonesian +peoples represent an admixture in various proportions of primitive Indian +and southern Mongolian stocks, we need not be surprised to discover +that in certain parts of southeastern Asia, and notably among the +Tibeto-Burman tribes of Assam and Burma, there flourishes a system of +communal regulations strikingly similar to those which have just been +described. + +The Naga tribes, who are said to resemble more closely the natives of +the Indian Archipelago than any of the other peoples occupying the hills +of Assam, apply the name _genna_[105] to their system of taboos.[106] +The following description refers particularly to the Naga of Manipur. +Here, as in Borneo, the regular communal taboos are for the most part +connected with the crops. Every stage of the rice cultivation is marked +by a village _genna_, the duration of which varies. Thus, among the Mao +Naga the rice-sowing necessitates a ten days’ _genna_, the transplanting +of the rice calls for only one day of restriction, the beginning of +the harvest for four days, and the harvest home for ten days. At such +times the village gates are shut and neither egress nor ingress is +allowed. “Among all these tribes from the day of the first crop _genna_ +to the final harvest home all other forms of industry and activity are +forbidden. All hunting, fishing, tree- and grass-cutting, all weaving, +pot-making, salt-working, games of all kinds, bugling, dancing, all +trades are strictly forbidden—are _genna_—lest the grain in the ear be +lost.”[107] + +It is obvious that some of these taboos tend, indirectly, to produce +beneficial effects. The prohibition of all labour, except agricultural, +during the season of rice-planting and harvesting permits the inhabitants +of a village to devote their time and attention solely to the care of +the crops. And the practical result of the taboo against hunting is +to provide a much-needed close season for wild animals, “for these +sportsmen spare not the game.” It is equally obvious, however, that the +regulations in question have had no utilitarian origin. Identical taboos +are imposed on a great variety of other occasions. A rain-compelling +ceremony, when the headman works magic for the benefit of the entire +village, is accompanied by a _genna_. General _genna_ are also proclaimed +after the occurrence of unusual phenomena, such as earthquakes, eclipses +of the sun or moon, and the appearance of comets. These events are +attributed to supernatural activity.[108] The destruction of a village +by fire occasions a general _genna_, sometimes for three days, before +any steps are taken to rebuild the houses. Such an event indicates that +spirits inimical to the people are about and active; consequently the +mere sight of the burning of a neighbouring village is enough to require +the imposition of a _genna_.[109] The outbreak of epidemic sickness +necessitates a _genna_, the purpose of which is clearly prophylactic. +Animal sacrifices of a propitiatory nature are made at such times. Some +of the Mao Naga even hold a regular village _genna_, as a means of +preventing all sickness during the year, while the Kabui Naga observe an +annual _genna_ in order to protect themselves from being hurt by bamboos. +The occurrence of mysterious cases of death requires a _genna_, for the +purpose of separating the living as soon as possible from the dangerous +dead; in the Mao group it is customary to hold a village _genna_ when a +villager dies, irrespective of the immediate cause of his decease.[110] +All the Naga communities hold a _genna_ devoted to the praiseworthy +object of finally laying to rest the ghosts of those who have died +during the preceding year. The rite takes place at the time of cold +weather, after the crops have been reaped. At this annual festival, “they +restore to the living those of their members who have been in jeopardy +of the contagion of death.”[111] Communal _genna_ are also enforced in +connection with the first death in the year of any domestic animals; on +the return to the village of a party of warriors with human heads taken +in a foray; when a python—a serpent closely associated with sickness—is +killed and eaten; during the deliberations of the village council; and +also when a man rashly allows his private or secret name to be mentioned +in public.[112] We may agree with an early writer, who, commenting on +these practices among the Angami Naga, remarks that there is “no end +to the reasons on which a _kennie_ must or may be declared, and as it +consists of a general holiday when no work is done, this Angami Sabbath +appears to be rather a popular institution.”[113] + +A survey of these Naga ordinances indicates that here in Assam they +have much the same purpose as in other regions: they are protective +and conciliatory; to a certain extent they are even compelling, in so +far as the observance of the taboos is supposed to prevent the evil +spirits from inflicting further harm. The coercive quality of a _genna_ +is also illustrated by the idea that, while the ill effects of an +interruption of a village ceremony are sometimes irremediable, there +are other cases where a repetition of the rite is enough to avert all +disastrous consequences.[114] It is to be observed, furthermore, that +all _genna_ are declared and supervised by the _khullakpa_, the secular +and religious head of the village. He acts in a representative capacity, +whenever a rite is to be performed which requires the whole force of the +community behind it, a force which operates through him. “These village +_genna_,” declares Mr. Hodson, “seem in many cases to be inspired by +the belief that man, _the man_, the _khullakpa_, when fortified by the +whole strength and will of the village, is able to control and constrain +forces which are beyond his control if unaided. He relies on coöperative +strength.”[115] + +In addition to the village _genna_ the Naga are subject to numerous +regulations which affect individuals or families only, and do not extend +to the community at large. Household _genna_ are occasioned by such +events as the birth of children or of domesticated animals, the first +hair-cutting and ear-piercing, the naming of children, and finally the +death of domesticated animals in the house. The restrictions apply to +all who are normally inmates of the house, and to any others, such as +midwives, who may be temporarily members of the family. The duration of +these _genna_ varies not only from tribe to tribe but also from village +to village. The Mayang Khong Naga, in particular, have worked out an +elaborate scale for _genna_ following the birth of domestic animals. +“When a cow calves, the _genna_ lasts for five days; when a sow litters, +three days’ _genna_ is necessary; while when a bitch has pups, or a cat +has kittens, two days are ample. A hen hatching out a brood of chickens +brings on a _genna_ of one day.”[116] Such observances may be said to +mark the acme of the Naga taboo system, or, from another point of view, +to reduce it to an absurdity. + +The _genna_ custom, which seems to have attained its most complicated +and grotesque development among the Naga, prevails, or in the past has +prevailed, throughout a wide area of Assam. The Hinduised Meithei of +Manipur, whose affinity to the wild hill tribes such as the Naga and Kuki +is admitted, no longer possess the custom itself, though preserving the +memory of it in their word _namungba_, or taboo.[117] General seasons of +restriction seem to be unknown among the Khasi, who inhabit the Khasi +and Jaintia hills, except in a single instance.[118] Their neighbours on +the west, the Garo, a people of Tibeto-Burman stock, have the equivalent +of _genna_ in the word _marang_, conveying the ideas of “unlucky” and +“unlawful.” But the Garo custom itself is scarcely socialized: the taboos +relate to individuals, and in only one case extend to the community at +large. This is the prohibition for any one in a village to labour in the +fields on the day when a child is born. It is believed that should a farm +be visited at such a time the crop would be cursed and blighted.[119] +Another Tibeto-Burman people, the Mikir, who dwell in the Mikir Hills +to the northwest of Manipur, have individual taboos of various kinds +and, in addition, a compulsory village festival called _rongker_. It is +held annually at the beginning of cultivation. At this time the gods +are invoked for good crops, good health, and preservation from tigers. +There is no music or dancing during the festival.[120] The _genna_ exists +among the Mishmi and Abor on the frontiers of northeastern Assam and +Tibet.[121] The Lushei (sometimes called Kuki) of the Lushei Hills to the +south of Manipur have a well-developed system of taboo, here known as +_hrilh_. Persons subject to _hrilh_ “must do no work, except necessary +household tasks, and must not leave a prescribed area.”[122] These +restrictions sometimes affect households only, sometimes entire villages. +They are communally imposed in connection with the sacrifice performed +before a large hunting party starts out, at the harvest festival, when an +epidemic sickness rages, and on other occasions.[123] West of the Lushei +dwell the Tippera and Mro tribes, among whom the communal taboo observed +in consequence of an epidemic goes under the name of _khang_. “The +quarantine is inaugurated and declared with a certain degree of ceremony. +A sacrifice is offered, and the village is encircled with a fresh-spun +white thread. The blood of the animal sacrificed is then sprinkled about +the village, and a general sweeping and cleansing takes place, the houses +and gates being decorated with green boughs. They attach great importance +to the quarantine being kept unbroken. It generally lasts three days, +and during that time no one is allowed to enter or leave the village. +I have known several murders committed, owing to persons persisting in +breaking the _khang_.”[124] The same communal taboo is observed when a +village is being built, and regularly in July, when the rice requires +cultivation.[125] These tribes formerly lived in the Arakan Hills of +Lower Burma, where identical regulations, known as _ya_, are also +enforced.[126] + +The _genna_ custom may be traced in various parts of Burma. From the +Naga, Lushei, and other tribes of Assam the ethnical transition is +unbroken to the Chin, who occupy the Chindwin valley and the hills to +the west. Probably these aborigines are not unfamiliar with the _genna_ +as a device to avoid a visitation by demonic powers identified with +smallpox, cholera, and other diseases. We are told that once, when +cholera broke out among some Chin on a visit to Rangoon, they spent the +day hiding under the bushes so that the cholera-spirit might not find +them.[127] The Kachin (Chingpaw) on the upper Irawadi River, a people +generally regarded as closely akin to the Chin on the one hand and to +the Karen on the other, recognize six occasions during the year, when +no one is supposed to do any work. The rest days, numbering sixteen +in all, are known collectively as _na na ai_, which may be translated +“ceremonial holiday.” They all occur in connection with agriculture—when +the jungle is fired, before and after seed-planting, while the crop is +ripening, and at harvest—as a means of securing the good will of the +_nat_, or spirits.[128] Similar customs are still observed by some of +the Karen tribes. Of the Tsawku Karen it is said that their religion +consists entirely in attempts to appease various malignant spirits. When +the inhabitants of a village or the members of a household are engaged +in ceremonies of propitiation, “they put up a bow with an arrow ready +fitted to the string, or some other sign to indicate that there is ‘no +admittance,’ or that ‘trespassers will be prosecuted according to law,’ +and these insignia are scrupulously respected.”[129] The Sawngtung Karen +forbid any one to leave the village on the day of the birth of a child +in it, and no eggs may be kept in the village while the fields are +being reaped. The Taungthu Karen believe that giving away anything at +all on sowing or planting days means blight for the crop.[130] These +superstitions no doubt represent decadent forms of a once-extensive +_genna_ system among the Karen. The _genna_, again, has been noticed +among the Muhso, or Lalu, a large tribe which has emigrated from China +to the Shan States. The Muhso close their villages against strangers +for five days during an annual festival, which begins on the Chinese +New Year’s Day. Bamboo gateways and symbols are erected along the paths +approaching a settlement, in order to warn possible intruders. If an +outsider persists in entering a village, he is kept a prisoner there till +the festival is over. All his possessions, even his clothes, are taken +away from him and he is returned naked to the world. In explanation of +this conduct the natives say that the spirits, in whose honour the feast +is held, are displeased at the presence of strangers.[131] The Wild Wa, a +head-hunting tribe on the northeastern frontier of the Shan States, are +said to have no regularly recurrent festivals, but hold them as often +as they are confronted by “particular dangers or necessities.”[132] The +Miao (Miao-tse), one of the little-known tribes of southwestern China, +celebrate musical festivals throughout the year. These seem now to be +_fêtes_ pure and simple, though at one time possessing a religious +character. “If asked why they hold these festivals, they say that if they +failed to do so their crops would be bad; and yet they do not profess to +understand how the harvests are influenced by this custom.”[133] + +The _genna_, either in vigorous activity or in attenuated survival, +has now been traced throughout a wide area in southeastern Asia, and +particularly among the Tibeto-Burman tribes of Assam and Burma. Modern +ethnographers recognize in the Indo-Chinese an immigrant population, +probably from western China, which for many centuries has been gradually +moving southward along the course of the great rivers emptying into the +Bay of Bengal. The custom of the _genna_ appears to be one of the most +characteristic features of Indo-Chinese culture; its presence, therefore, +throughout this area must be explained as the result of diffusion and +not of independent origination. Furthermore, we have found that in the +various Indonesian islands as far as New Guinea, and especially in +Borneo, customs closely akin to that of the _genna_ also belong to the +native culture. It is likely that the ancestors of the Polynesians passed +through these islands on their way to the Pacific; if this be so, we +can understand why _tabu_ in Polynesia should present so many obvious +resemblances to _lali_ in Borneo and to _genna_ in Assam. The student +whose primary concern is the wanderings of peoples cannot neglect such +evidence of extensive diffusion, showing how for ages cultural elements +have been drifting from the interior of Asia over the Indo-Chinese region +and the Indian Archipelago, and thence into the island world of the +Pacific. + +What general conclusions may be drawn from a comparative survey of these +communal taboos in the several areas under consideration? In the first +place it seems clear that the various negative regulations, such as those +imposing idleness, fasting, and continence, closely resemble some of +the pains and penalties to which the savage subjects himself on other +occasions. For instance, the well-known custom of the _couvade_ imposes +on the husband, during the pregnancy of his wife or after the birth of +the child, a number of restrictions, which often include abstention from +various sorts of work, and sometimes from all occupations whatsoever. +The practice of the _couvade_ appears to be an outgrowth of the idea +that under special circumstances the close ties uniting husband and wife +engender a mystic sympathy between them, so that the acts of the one +affect the welfare of the other. Similar ideas underlie the numerous +rules of abstinence observed by hunters, fishers, and warriors when +absent from home, and by the relatives and friends whom they have left +behind.[134] We cannot always fathom the savage logic which has generated +the numberless regulations observed at such critical seasons; but they +would seem to be particular expressions of an ancient doctrine—“In +quietness shall be your strength.” + +In the second place it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, however +vexatious and burdensome may be the restrictions resting on a primitive +community, these are not without a definite psychological value. The +consciousness that all the omens have been duly taken and that all taboos +have been properly observed is itself invigorating; the community goes +forward, henceforth, with renewed strength and confidence to the tasks +which lie before it.[135] + +Finally, it may be pointed out how directly these communal regulations +make for social solidarity. Students of early society have long +recognized the fact that the institution of taboo, in its individualistic +aspects, has helped to nurse in man a sense of reverence and a power of +self-restraint greatly needed under primitive conditions. Such beneficial +results are even more manifest in the case of communal taboos. For, when +the restrictions are violated by any one, there is always the feeling +that misfortune will overtake the entire social group, and hence a duty +devolves on each man to see that his neighbour obeys the law. Altruism +becomes a coercive process, and social cohesion is secured by each member +of the group making himself his brother’s keeper. It is desirable to +keep in mind these positive benefits inherent in the taboo system, since +perhaps excessive attention has been directed to its hampering influence +on society. + +In the three regions which have been selected for close examination—the +Hawaiian Islands, Borneo, and Assam—it thus appears that there are +certain occasions when the normal current of life is interrupted, and +when what may well be called a crisis presents itself.[136] In general +any time of special significance, inaugurating a new era or marking the +transition from one state to another, any period of storm and stress, any +epoch when untoward events have occurred or are expected to occur, may be +invested with taboos designed to meet the emergency in the communal life +and to ward off the threatened danger or disaster. Periods of abstinence +are imposed because of such unusual, and therefore critical, events as a +conflagration, an epidemic sickness, or an earthquake; after a death; at +the changes of the moon; at the end of the old year and the beginning of +the new year; during a time devoted to the banning of ghosts and demons; +and in connection with such important undertakings as the commencement +of a war, seed-planting, and harvest, and the celebration of a solemn +religious or magical ceremony. The peoples whom we have just studied +have, so to speak, institutionalized their fears, working out thereby a +protective procedure highly complex and elaborate. But the conceptions +which generated the tabooed day in Polynesia, Indonesia, and southeastern +Asia are not local and confined; on the contrary they underlie a wide +range of social phenomena. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +TABOOED DAYS AFTER A DEATH AND ON RELATED OCCASIONS + + +Among the lower races perhaps the most common occasion for the suspension +of ordinary occupations is after a death.[137] The prohibition of work +at this time usually forms only one of a number of regulations, which +also impose partial or complete abstinence from food and place a ban on +loud talking, singing, and the wearing of ornaments and gay clothing. +The taboos are often confined to the family or at most to the relatives +of the deceased; in other cases they affect the entire community. +The explanation of these rules must sometimes be sought in animistic +conceptions. The soul of the dead man is supposed to remain for a time +with the body in the grave or near the scenes of the earthly life. Until +the funeral ceremonies are completed, when the ghost is finally “laid” +or departs for the abode of the dead, prudence requires the survivors to +avoid all conspicuous activity, if they would not attract the unwelcome +attentions of the ghost. A similar period of quiescence may be considered +necessary when the death is attributed to an evil spirit, which lurks +about its quarry and seeks another victim. + +But earlier, probably, in development, and certainly far more general, +is the belief in the pollution of death.[138] Primitive peoples seldom +recognize a death as due to what we should call natural causes. Sickness, +and death following on sickness, when not attributed to the direct action +of an evil spirit or of some malevolent person who has been practising +nefarious magic, are thought to be due to the contaminating miasma of +death. Death is a mysterious atmospherical poison which extends its +defiling influence far and wide. Hence we have at least one motive for +the very common custom of destroying the house and personal property of +the deceased. Hence arise the taboos of the corpse, of persons who have +anything to do with the corpse, of the relatives of the deceased, and of +mourners, generally. An obvious application of such ideas requires that +all activities should be abandoned by the survivors for some time after +a death; and, where the sense of social solidarity is strong, the notion +of abstinence at so critical a season may be extended to the entire +community.[139] + +Communal taboos following a death are not unknown in Polynesia, +Micronesia, and New Guinea,[140] and may be traced elsewhere in the +Oceanic area. In Timor, when a king dies, no work is done for seven days +thereafter.[141] In Halmahera an entire village will be tabooed in +consequence of the death of one of its members. Violations of the taboo +(_pomali_) are severely punished.[142] The practice of intermitting work +in a village until a corpse is buried prevails in many of the Molucca +Islands.[143] Among all the non-Christian tribes of northern Luzon, +“there is no field work in an _ato_ on the day when an adult person +is buried.”[144] The inhabitants of Kar Nicobar exhibit great fear of +ghostly influence before the funeral ceremonies have been completed. The +corpse of any one who has died in the village is conveyed at once to +the “dead house,” and the inhabitants proceed to barricade themselves +in their houses and to keep fires burning before the doors. The houses, +canoes, and ground about the village are covered with palm leaves to +prevent the ghost from entering. Some of the dead man’s pigs are killed, +a few cocoa palms are cut down, and on rare occasions his house is +burnt, or unroofed and left deserted. “Shaving the head is sometimes +indulged in as a sign of mourning, together with frequent bathing and +abstinence from work.”[145] The Malay fishermen of the Patani States in +the Malay Peninsula observe various restrictions and prohibitions, the +transgression of which would bring sickness or misfortune. If a death +occurs in a fishing village, no boat from that village must go to sea +on the following day, and no one must set out on a land journey. The +fisherman or the traveller who disregarded this injunction would have no +luck and would probably meet with some disaster.[146] + +Periods of abstinence after a death are observed by many of the tribes +of Borneo, in close connection with the prevailing institution of taboo. +When a death occurs in an Iban village, the inhabitants give up their +outdoor occupations and remain at home, seven days in the case of a male, +three days for a female, and one day for an infant. During this time the +relatives of the deceased lay aside their ornaments and bright dresses, +assume deep mourning, and abstain from music and jollity.[147] Another +authority declares that after a death “it is tabooed to work on the farm: +at busy times for three days; at other times for seven days.”[148] In +the case of a chief’s death the natives refrain from work for a longer +period than is usual when a commoner dies.[149] Similar restrictions are +found among the Land Dyak,[150] the Dusun, or Sundyak, of British North +Borneo,[151] and some other tribes. Members of a Kayan household observe +various mourning ceremonies, and in particular avoid all music, feasts, +and jollifications for a period which varies in length according to the +social standing of the deceased.[152] + +Among the Naga tribes of Manipur, with the notable exception of the +Mao people by whom a village _genna_ is held whenever a villager dies, +it is not necessary or usual to perform this communal rite in cases of +regular and non-mysterious death. The _genna_ is then confined to the +clan, that is, to the group of individuals who comprise the heirs of the +deceased.[153] But all cases of death by sudden illness, by accident, by +the hand of an enemy, and by wild animals or snakes necessitate general +or village _genna_.[154] The same rule prevails when a woman has died +in childbirth.[155] The purpose of these regulations seems to be that +of separating the living as soon as possible from the dangerous spirits +of the dead, or of avoiding the contagion of death. Among the Khasi of +Assam, who do not observe general seasons of restriction, clan _genna_ +are imposed after a death. The surviving clansmen are not allowed to work +until three days have elapsed from the time of placing the bones of the +deceased in the clan tomb.[156] In northern Arakan, Lower Burma, when +any native has been killed by a tiger, crocodile, or other animal, when +any woman resident in the village dies in childbed, or when the body +of a person who died in such a manner is brought into the village, all +intercourse with that village is cut off until the appearance of the next +new moon.[157] Similar regulations exist among the Lao of northern Siam +and among the savage inhabitants of Indo-China.[158] + +Taboos following a death and imposing abstinence from work are found +in various parts of India. Among the Muppan, a hill-tribe of Wynaad, +Malabar, the relatives of the deceased do no work on the day after +the funeral, and also partially abstain from food. At a subsequent +date they perform a final ceremony to remove every trace of the death +pollution and to give peace to the departed spirit.[159] In former times +the Kataharayan, a fisher folk living on the Malabar coast, intermitted +their fishing for three days after the death of a prince of Malabar.[160] +Among the Kasuba, a forest tribe inhabiting the Nilgiri Hills in the +Madras Presidency, fear of pollution requires the relatives of the +deceased to abstain from all kinds of work for an entire day.[161] Far +away to the north, among the Paharia of British Sikkim, the same ideas +of pollution prevail. All persons belonging to the household of the +deceased must observe strict silence during the period of mourning, and +they may eat only one meal a day and that “half a bellyful.” Under such +circumstances, we are told, work in the fields is impossible.[162] With +these regulations may be compared those observed in Tibet, where rich +and respectable men, when their parents die, abstain for a year from +participating in marriage ceremonies and festivities, and undertake no +lengthy journeys. Upon the demise of the Dalai Lama or of the Tashi Lama, +all work ceases for seven days, public offices are closed, and markets +are suspended. The people refrain from amusements and festivities and +from going into groves for pleasure, sport, and love-making. For thirty +days women are forbidden to put on their jewellery, and neither men nor +women may wear new clothes. Thus the land of Tibet goes into mourning for +the loss of one of its great hierarchs.[163] + +Very similar customs are found within the African area. They seem to +be generally observed by the Bantu peoples of South Africa. Among all +the Zulu tribes it is the rule that no one labours in the fields on +the day following a death, and that after the death of a chief work +of every sort is suspended for six months.[164] “If a person is struck +by lightning, the whole kraal fast and do not even drink water, until +the mediciner has performed his office.”[165] The Basuto, who form the +eastern branch of the widespread Bechuana people, abstain from all public +work on the day when an influential person dies.[166] In Ussindja, a +district of German East Africa, the Sultan Rwoma gave vent to his sorrow +for the loss of a favourite son by forbidding all agricultural work for +six years. Within a few months, however, famine stared his subjects in +the face, and the grief-stricken father was compelled to rescind the +prohibition.[167] Mourning regulations which impose abstinence from work +have been described among various tribes of British East Africa occupying +the territory to the east and north of Lake Victoria Nyanza. The Akikuyu, +who observe many restrictions connected with the corpse, regard the day +after a death as unlucky. “People will not travel, and goats and sheep +will not bear, and all the inhabitants of the village shave their heads. +The women will not go out for four days. On the next day the sons who +have taken part in the burial do not work.”[168] The taboos enforced by +the Nandi present some curious resemblances to those which we have met +among Indonesian peoples. The Nandi, probably in former days a hunting +tribe, have now taken to agriculture and raise large crops of eleusine +grain and millet. Their superstitions invest the process of farming with +many restrictions: no one while in a plantation may carry a spear or +rest a spear on the earth; thigh-bells must not be worn; a hide must not +be dragged along the ground; whistling is strictly forbidden. Work is +prohibited for an entire day following an earthquake, a phenomenon which +Nandi speculation, in common with other savage philosophies, attributes +to the movement of underground spirits.[169] If a hailstorm occurs, if a +hoe breaks, or if a beast of prey seizes a goat, no work must be done in +the fields for the rest of the day and for twenty-four hours afterwards. +It is believed that any sick person who eats the grain when harvested, +or who drinks beer made from the grain, will die, and that pregnant +women will abort. If the owner of a plantation dies while his crops are +ripening, all the grain must be eaten and none reserved for sowing; +otherwise the grain will rot in the ground.[170] The Nilotic Kavirondo +do not cultivate their fields for three days after the death of any one +of importance, and for ten days after the death of a chief.[171] Their +neighbours, the Basoga, sometimes extended the days of mourning for a +deceased chief to two months. It is said that the crops not infrequently +suffered because of the strict abstention from work in the fields.[172] +Certain Abyssinian tribes refrain from ploughing, sowing, and grinding +grain until a corpse is buried.[173] Among the Arabs of Morocco, studied +by Professor Westermarck, there is a prohibition of all work in the +village until the funeral has taken place.[174] + +The belief in the pollution of death is very strong among the Malagasy. +On the decease of a sovereign many practices are tabooed (_fady_) to the +common people, such prohibitions extending to various periods according +to the will of the new ruler. Thus, to sing, to play music, to clap +hands, to laugh boisterously, to dance, to wear ornaments or brightly +coloured garments, to dress or anoint the hair, to wear a hat, to cut the +nails, to clean the teeth, to bathe, to gaze in a mirror, and to carry +the arms akimbo are all _fady_. Such tasks as pottery-making, spinning +and weaving, plaiting of mats, carpentry, and metal-working are often +suspended. Furthermore, no, one is allowed to lie on a bedstead or to +ride in a palanquin or on horse-back, and every one is expected to shave +the head and uncover the shoulders. Many of these regulations, it is to +be noticed, are also enforced after the death of a near relative.[175] + +In the New World the funeral ceremonies of the rulers of Mechoacan +furnish another illustration of the superstition under discussion. We +are told that when a king was buried all who had participated in the +obsequies washed themselves and went to dinner in the yard of the king’s +house, “and having dined they wiped their hands upon certain locks of +cotton-wool, hanging down their heads, and not speaking a word, except +it were to ask for drink.” These purificatory rites were accompanied +by a season of communal abstinence which lasted five days, “and in all +that time no fire was permitted to be kindled in the city, except in +the king’s house and temples, nor yet any corn was ground, or market +kept, nor durst any go out of their houses.”[176] Among the Seminoles +of Florida on the day of a funeral, and for three days thereafter, the +relatives of the deceased remained at home and abstained from work. +During this time the dead man was supposed to remain in his grave. +Subsequently he took his departure for an abode in the skies, and +mourning then ceased.[177] + +The restrictions following a death appear to be especially prominent +among the Eskimo tribes, who possess a well-marked system of taboos. In +Greenland we meet the practice of requiring not only the kindred of the +deceased, but likewise all who have lived in the same house with him to +abstain from certain articles of food and from work for some time after +death.[178] Among the Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Strait after +the death of any person it is forbidden “to scrape the frost from the +window, to shake the beds or to disturb the shrubs under the bed, to +remove oil-drippings from under the lamp, to scrape hair from skins, to +cut snow for the purpose of melting it, to work on iron, wood, stone, or +ivory. Furthermore, women are forbidden to comb their hair, to wash their +faces, and to dry their boots and stockings.”[179] These Eskimo require +the relatives of the deceased to shut themselves up in his hut and mourn +his loss for three days. During this time the inhabitants of a village +must not use their dogs, but must walk to the hunting-ground. For one day +at least they are not allowed to go hunting, and the women refrain from +all work whatsoever. Dr. Boas notes how in the winter a long space of +bad weather occasions privation, since hunters cannot leave their huts. +“If by chance some one should happen to die during this time, famine is +inevitable, for a strict law forbids the performance of any kind of work +during the days of mourning.” During these three days the soul of the +deceased is supposed to be still with the body, not having yet gone to +the home of the goddess Sedna in the underworld.[180] According to one +account the Innuit, from the head of Bristol Bay to the Arctic, require +the survivors to refrain from work for twenty days after a death in the +family.[181] This is probably too broad a statement and does not allow +for minor divergencies of custom throughout so extensive an area. On the +lower Kuskokwim River the Alaskan villagers abstain from work on the day +of a death, and, in many instances, on the day following such an event. +None of the relatives of the deceased may perform any labour during the +period, four or five days in length, when the shade is believed to remain +with the body.[182] The rule requiring no work in a village on the day +when a person dies prevails among the Bering Strait Eskimo. Relatives +of the deceased must abstain from activity during the three following +days.[183] One observer tells of a Point Barrow woman who declined to +sew on clothing, even at his house, because there was a dead man in the +village who had not yet been carried to the cemetery. She feared that “he +would see her.” But after consultation with her husband she concluded +that it was possible to protect herself from “him” by tracing with a +snow-knife a circle about herself on the floor. Within this area she +did the sewing required, being very careful to keep all her work inside +it.[184] + +Remarkably similar customs prevail among some of the Asiatic Eskimo, and +incidentally reinforce the argument for the transmission of cultural +elements between northwestern America and northeastern Asia. The Reindeer +Chukchi forbid any kind of woman’s work with needle and scraper during +the period of the funeral ceremonies. This rule refers to all the +houses of the camp or village, and even to other settlements in the +vicinity.[185] The Koryak stopped all work in the settlement before the +last rites to the dead. No one went hunting or sealing, no one went to +fetch wood, and the women did no sewing. At the present time this rule is +so far abrogated as to apply only to those in the house where the body +lies.[186] Among the Yakut, when a man dies, the members of his household +may not execute any work until after the next full moon.[187] + +Taboos of this nature are not confined to savage and barbarous +communities, since the fear of the death pollution has been felt by +various civilized peoples and has found expression in their funeral +ceremonies. Thus, we learn that in Rabbinical times and among some +modern Jews, during the _shib‘a_, or seven days of strict mourning, “the +relatives abstain from work and remain at home, sitting on the floor +or on a low bench, reading the _Book of Job_, and receiving visits of +condolence. Bereaved children should abstain for a year from music and +recreation.”[188] Outcroppings of the same belief occasionally manifest +themselves among the folk of Europe. German peasants abstain from all +work, except what is absolutely necessary, before the funeral,[189] and +the Scotch think that “it is not right to spin if there be a corpse in +the same township.”[190] This latter instance furnishes a close parallel +to the Eskimo superstition. + +Feasts of the dead, the primitive All Souls’ days, are sometimes +occasions for abstinence from work. The same custom may be observed at +times devoted to the public and ceremonial expulsion of ghosts and demons +from the community.[191] Here, as elsewhere, we may well raise the query +whether such proceedings have always existed with the particular meaning +now assigned to them; or whether in many instances they may not hark back +to a “pre-animistic” epoch when the evil influences, instead of being +personified under the form of spirits, were more vaguely regarded as some +mysterious and infectious contamination. + +Rites for commemorating kindly spirits or for expelling those of evil +intent were doubtless first performed at irregular intervals, as the +supposed need for them arose. They tend, however, to be massed and +assigned to particular times, thus meeting a demand for order and +precision. Their celebration usually takes place at a period which +coincides with well-marked changes of the seasons, or with one of the +great epochs of the agricultural year, as sowing or harvest. They have +a particular and appropriate association with the end of the old year +or with the beginning of the new year, a time which, by many primitive +peoples, is itself fixed with reference to seasonal changes or to +agricultural operations. + +Ceremonies of ghost-riddance and demon-riddance, accompanied by communal +abstinence, have already been noted in Polynesia, Indonesia, and +southeastern Asia.[192] They are not unknown in Africa. The Basuto, +who do no work on the day when an influential man dies, also observe +as holidays the times of sacrifice or of great purification. “Hence it +is,” writes a French missionary, “that the law relative to the repose of +the seventh day, so far from finding any objection in the minds of the +natives, appears to them very natural, and perhaps even more fundamental, +than it seems to certain Christians.”[193] The Bahima, a Bantu-speaking +tribe of Ankole, a district which lies immediately to the west of Lake +Victoria Nyanza, set apart one day each month for festival purposes. +It is then that the Bahima seek to appease certain ghastly, shrivelled +demons who, though they expend most of their fury on one another, +frequent the kraals and occasionally take a native by the arm and shake +him mercilessly. These demons are called _balubale_. Their placation is +said to consist chiefly of drum-beating and beer-drinking. “There is no +work on _balubale_ day.”[194] On the next-to-the-last day of the year the +Swaheli of German East Africa observe an ancient custom, which probably +antedates Mohammedan influence in this part of Africa. They parch some +millet and pour it, together with ashes, on the corners of their houses +as a prophylactic against the evil spirits supposed to be particularly +troublesome at this time. Swaheli school-children enjoy a holiday on the +last two days of the year and New Year’s Day.[195] The great national +_fête_ of the _fandroana_, marking the commencement of the Malagasy year, +occurs at the new moon of the month Alahamady, and the first days of this +month are regarded as very unlucky for commoners, who therefore abstain +from all activity.[196] We may conjecture that this festival, though +traditionally established only about three centuries ago, in its present +form incorporates observances connected with the new year as a critical +season. Some of the Gold Coast tribes of west Africa hold a festival +toward the end of August, called _affirah-bi_, when there is a general +remembrance of the dead. No work may be done during this festival, +which lasts eight days.[197] The Guinea negroes would seem also to +perform annual rites for the expulsion of evil spirits. The ceremony of +demon-riddance, formerly held at Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast, +was intended to drive the devil Abonsam out of the town by means of an +unearthly uproar of shouts, screams, beating of sticks, rattling of pans, +and firing of guns, in which all the inhabitants joined. “The custom is +preceded by four weeks’ dead silence; no gun is allowed to be fired, no +drum to be beaten, no palaver to be made between man and man. If, during +these weeks, two natives should disagree and make a noise in the town, +they are immediately taken before the king and fined heavily. If a dog +or pig, sheep or goat be found at large in the street, it may be killed, +or taken by any one, the former owner not being allowed to demand any +compensation. This silence is designed to deceive Abonsam, that, being +off his guard, he may be taken by surprise and frightened out of the +place. If any one die during the silence, his relatives are not allowed +to weep until the four weeks have been completed.”[198] + +The Yoruba tribes of the Slave Coast celebrate every June an All Souls’ +festival lasting seven days. It resembles the _affirah-bi_ rites, but the +ceremony is held in honour of Egungun, who is supposed to have risen from +the dead and after whom a powerful secret society has been named.[199] +Since in west Africa, as in some other parts of the world, secret +societies are intimately related to the cult of the dead,[200] it may +be that the tabooed days, observed when these organizations hold their +ceremonies, were once connected with feasts of the dead or expulsion of +ghosts. The belief may also exist that the god of the secret society +affects with his holiness the day of his public appearance, and so makes +it unfit for business. However, the taboos seem now to be maintained +chiefly as a means of securing the respectful attention of non-initiates, +particularly women. The presence in Yoruba towns of the bugbear god Oro +compels women to seclude themselves from seven o’clock in the evening +until five o’clock in the morning.[201] On the great feast days of +Oro women must remain indoors from daybreak till noon.[202] A native +writer points out that these Oro confinements, as they may be called, +are declared in times of political crisis, when a new law or other +measure of importance is under consideration, and whenever a sacrifice +is offered in behalf of the community. The streets are then cleared of +all unseemly traffic and of women, in order to permit the god and his +followers to appear abroad without danger of contamination.[203] Again, +in Old Calabar, when the great _egbo_ society visits a community, all +business is suspended, all doors are shut, and absolute silence prevails. +On the departure of the god and his attendant mummers, the town-bell is +rung in a peculiar way to indicate that normal occupations may be now +resumed. The cessation of business on the occasion of these visits of +_egbo_ may last a day, but frequently extends to two or three days. In +the latter case, however, the strict rule of seclusion is relaxed for +an hour or more to permit the holding of the daily market.[204] During +an _egbo_ visitation it would be death for any one not a member of the +order to venture forth; even members themselves, if their grade is lower +than that which controls the proceedings for the day, would be severely +whipped.[205] + +The festivals of the dead, observed in classical antiquity, were marked +by taboos. Among the Greeks the rites took place on the so-called +ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι, unlucky days accompanied by complete idleness and +cessation of business. “At such times no one would address any one else, +friends avoided all intercourse with one another, and even sanctuaries +were not used.”[206] Ancient authorities also refer to these days as +times when magistrates suspended their functions, when courts were +closed, when sacrifices were not offered and oracular responses were +not delivered, and when people refrained from any business which it was +hoped would have a prosperous outcome.[207] At Athens the festival of +the Genesia, an annual commemoration of the dead, occurred on the fifth +of Boëdromion, a day which was included among the ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι.[208] +Three more unlucky days were the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth +of Anthesterion, when the Athenians celebrated the festival of the +Anthesteria. Though in outward semblance only a brilliant ceremony in +honour of Dionysus, the Anthesteria had also a sombre significance as +the time when the shades of the dead issued from the underworld and +walked the streets.[209] Ropes were fastened round the temples to keep +out the wandering ghosts, and the people smeared their houses with +pitch to catch any rash intruders into the dwellings of living men. +For the entertainment of the unseen guests during their short stay pots +of boiled food were everywhere placed in the streets; but at the end of +the festival the souls were roughly bidden to depart. The Anthesteria, +in substance, thus formed one of those numerous ceremonies for the +riddance of ghosts by means of feasting and placation which have so wide +a diffusion in the lower culture.[210] + +Corresponding to the Greek ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι were the Roman _dies +religiosi_, true days of abstinence, when it was unlucky to begin a +journey or to undertake any important business. During their continuance +temples and law courts were, or ought to be, closed, magistrates laid +aside the insignia of office, armies did not march, and no marriages +took place.[211] Among the _dies religiosi_ were those on which the +Romans celebrated two festivals of the dead, the so-called Parentalia +in February, the last month of the old Roman year, and the Lemuria in +May. The February celebration, from the thirteenth to the twenty-first of +that month, has been taken to embody all that was least superstitious and +fearful in the generally terrifying worship of the dead. The Lemuria (May +9, 11, 13), had rather an opposite character and probably represents the +more ancient rite for the expulsion of the ghosts of the dead.[212] The +three days in the Roman year, August 24, October 5, and November 8, when +the door of the Lower World was unclosed for the spirits of the dead to +come forth—_quibus mundus patet_—were also _religiosi_, or unlucky. “When +the _mundus_ is open,” said Varro, “the gate of the doleful underworld +gods is open; therefore, it is not proper on those days for a battle to +be fought, troops to be levied, the army to march forth, a ship to set +sail, or a man to marry.”[213] + +To the Hebrews the Day of Atonement was a _shabbāth shabbāthôn_,[214] +the holiest of rest days, “a Sabbath of solemn rest,” when “no manner +of work” might be performed. The transgressor of this regulation was +threatened with death: “Whoever doeth any work at all on that same day, +I will destroy from among his people.”[215] A similar punishment was +prescribed for one who did not fast on that day; the expression “to +afflict your souls” (_‘innā nephesh_) was considered by late theologians +to be a synonym for fasting, and as a matter of fact the Atonement fast +was the only one enjoined by the Law. On the Day of Atonement a goat, +laden with the sins of the people, was sent forth into the wilderness, +where it was sacrificed to Azazel, a bad angel or demon. In the later +centuries of Jewish history this rite took on a more spiritual character, +as the ceremonial aspects of sin and atonement became increasingly +prominent. + +The Day of Atonement has been usually considered a very late institution, +unknown in the time of Zechariah and even in the age of Nehemiah not +employed for the special purpose of a national humiliation. What seems +more probable is that the Day of Atonement was taken over and adopted +into the Priestly Code of post-Exilic Judaism from a popular and +primitive ceremony of sin-riddance, doubtless of high antiquity. It is +to be observed that the fast was held on the tenth day of the seventh +month, a day which appears to have marked, originally, the beginning of +the new year.[216] This would have been an appropriate time for an annual +ceremony of purification, since the new year is so frequently observed +with ceremonies of a cathartic or apotropaic character. Even in late Old +Testament ritual, New Year’s Day, celebrated as the Feast of Trumpets on +the first day of the seventh month, was also a _shabbāth shabbāthôn_, a +time of “solemn rest” and of “holy convocation.” No toilsome work might +then be performed; trumpets were to be blown, perhaps to indicate its +solemnity, and special sacrifices were to be offered.[217] Moreover, +certain features of the Atonement ceremony, especially that of the +sin-laden goat, which has so many parallels among the lower races,[218] +strengthen the probability that the ritual for the day represents an +elaboration of earlier and simpler customs familiar in pre-Exilic times. +If this be true, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the “Sabbath +of solemn rest” forms likewise a survival from a still ruder past, when +sin was conceived so materially as a contaminating influence that common +prudence dictated abstinence from work and other activities at a critical +season devoted to the driving-out of evil.[219] + +Ideas of this sort live long in the minds of men. The greatest of +Mohammedan festivals, the so-called Feast of Sacrifices, is now +celebrated as a means of securing moral purification and blessing. +But the ceremony rests on a heathen basis, and its principal feature, +an animal sacrifice, was borrowed by Islam from Arabian paganism. An +eminent authority, who has noticed the striking prevalence of cathartic +ceremonies at the Great Feast, suggests that its primary object may have +been to expel evils which were supposed to threaten the people at the +time of the year when the sacrifice occurred. “Throughout Morocco the +first day of the feast is kept as a holiday, both by men and women, and +so is generally the second day also, which in some places is regarded as +a particularly dangerous time. I am told that anybody who should work +on that day would have some grave misfortune—robbers would kill him at +night, or some of his children or animals would die, or he would be +struck with blindness—and travelling on that day is likewise supposed to +be accompanied with danger. But labour is also suspended on other days of +the feast, especially by the women.”[220] + +The evidence presented in this chapter raises once more the perplexing +and much-debated problem of the diffusion of culture. The custom +of keeping tabooed days after a death may be properly described as +world-wide, since it exists in all the continents. And the observance as +Sabbaths of periods devoted to the propitiation or expulsion of spirits, +though less common, has been also traced among many half-civilized +tribes of Oceania, Asia, and Africa, as well as in classic Greece +and Rome. Within contiguous areas, for example, in Borneo and the +adjoining islands, or among related peoples, such as the American and +Asiatic Eskimo, it is reasonable to ascribe the uniformity of custom +to long-continued borrowing. Again, the close resemblance between the +Greek and the Roman superstitions relating to unlucky days—the ἀποφράδες +ἡμέραι and the _dies religiosi_—is satisfactorily accounted for by the +hypothesis of a common inheritance from prehistoric antiquity. But where +tabooed days are observed for the same reasons by unrelated peoples, who, +as far as our knowledge reaches, have never been in cultural contact, the +student is obliged to conclude that the beliefs underlying the custom in +question have not been narrowly limited but belong to the general stock +of primitive ideas. In such cases the doctrine of the fundamental unity +of the human mind seems alone to be capable of explaining the astonishing +similarity of its products at different times and in different parts of +the world. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HOLY DAYS + + +There exists, perhaps, no shorter road to the comprehension of a religion +as a social product than through the study of its festivals. They are +preëminently social in character; they give expression to the feelings +of an entire community, whether clan, tribe, or nation; and in their +development they are closely associated with the general progress of +society. As civilization develops, festivals tend to increase in number, +to elaborate their ritual, and to fix more precisely the time and order +of their celebration. It becomes the business of a particular class—the +priesthood—to establish and maintain a calendar of sacred seasons. We may +assume with some confidence that the priestly attitude in such matters +has not been entirely disinterested. The holy day, observed with worship, +sacrifice, and offerings, must contribute directly to the well-being and +prestige of the sacerdotal order. + +“The Greeks and the barbarians,” declares an ancient geographer, “have +this in common, that they accompany their sacred rites by a festal +remission of labour.”[221] In fact most festivals are celebrated as +holidays, when men give up secular occupations and devote themselves to +religious exercises and relaxation. Festivals, in consequence, assume +with advancing culture a great significance from the economic and +sociological standpoint. For the peasant and the artisan they provide +welcome relief from physical exertion, and for all ranks of society +their pageants and processions, their games, feasts, and merry-makings +give an outlet to the play instincts of mankind. We must not conclude, +however, that the remission of labour accompanying a festival has always +been dictated by practical and non-superstitious considerations. It has +been already pointed out that in some fairly rude communities abstinence +from work is a part of the regular procedure for facing a crisis and the +spiritual dangers supposed to characterize such an occasion. The rest is +a measure of protection and propitiation, quite as much as the fasts, the +sacrifices, and the prayers by which it may be attended. Where ideas of +this nature prevail, all labour becomes _tabu_. + +As we pass from savagery to barbarism and from animism to polytheism, the +notion of taboo, at first vague and indeterminate, tends to differentiate +into the twin concepts of impurity and holiness. This differentiation, +indeed, is never perfectly accomplished even by peoples which have +reached some measure of civilization; and the lower races find still +greater difficulty in distinguishing between what is dangerous, because +polluted, and what is dangerous, because sacred. The “holy” thing and the +“unclean” thing possess alike the mystic potency, the magico-spiritual +power, the _mana_ or _orenda_, to employ a terminology which expresses +early man’s sense of being ever surrounded by unknown agencies, among +which he must walk warily, if he is to walk in safety.[222] + +To the primitive mind the sanctity which attaches to the divine chief +and king, to such objects of special reverence as bull-roarers, idols, +and altars, and also to certain places and shrines, is sufficiently +material to be transmissible and to be capable of infecting with its +mysterious qualities whatever is done at a particular time. The notion +of the transmissibility of holiness might seem of itself to furnish a +sufficient reason for abstaining from ordinary occupations on a sacred +day: the power that blesses can also blast. In practice, however, this +idea appears to mingle quite inextricably with the opposite though +related conception that what is holy can be contaminated by contact +with the secular and the profane. Furthermore, when holy days come to +be definitely consecrated to deities, who at such times are believed to +be present among their worshippers, it is easy to see how the belief +arises that a god is pleased and flattered by the enforced idleness of +his devotees. Abstinence from work then takes its place among other rites +as a recognized way of expressing a proper reverence for the divinity; +while, conversely, to labour on his holy day implies a disrespectful +attitude toward him. These are sentiments reasonably certain of continued +development, as priestly influence becomes predominant in any community. +“The Lord thy God is a jealous God.”[223] + +The consecration of a particular day to a divinity is a common feature +of polytheistic cults. Had we definite information concerning the +origin and development of the great deities of the higher religions, +it would probably appear that in most instances their connection with +particular days is a secondary rather than a primary formation. In other +words a period dedicated to a god and observed by his worshippers with +abstinence from labour may once have been a season of taboo for other +and quite different reasons. Some pertinent instances of tabooed days +which grew into holy days have already engaged our attention.[224] Thus, +in the comparatively well-developed religious system of the Hawaiians +the New Year’s festival was consecrated to the god Lono; but the same +festival in Fiji was not associated with any particular divinity. Again, +the Hawaiians observed in every month four _tabu_ periods, which were +severally dedicated to the great gods of the native pantheon, Ku, Hua, +Kaloa, and Kane. That these Sabbaths had originally no connection with +any divinity and arose in consequence of superstitious beliefs regarding +lunar phenomena is a highly probable conclusion, when we recall the +numerous taboos attaching to the phases of the moon, for instance, among +the Dyak tribes of Borneo. Once more, the attribution of the Bontoc +Igorot _tengao_, or rest day, to Lumawig, the only god throughout the +Bontoc culture area, cannot be earlier than the emergence of this supreme +being from the crowd of spirits in which the native so firmly believes. +Lastly, we have seen how, in the case of the Athenian Anthesteria, the +attribution of the festival to Dionysus and the cheerful associations +with which the fancy of the Greeks invested it represent a comparatively +late development. + +If many holy days of polytheistic cults were once tabooed days, it +follows that a taboo element may be looked for in various religious +celebrations which in outward semblance have only a festive, happy +character. Particularly does this seem to be true of the numerous rites +observed by the Dravidian peoples of India. The Kota, an aboriginal +tribe of the Nilgiri Hills, hold an annual feast, called _kambata_ or +_kamata_, in honour of Kamataraya. It lasts about a fortnight. On the +second day of the festival no work may be done except digging clay and +making pots.[225] The Uraon keep three great feasts during the year. +The first, known as _sarhul_, occurs in May. Its object is said to +be the celebration of the mystical marriage of the sun-god with the +earth-goddess, in order that they may become fruitful and consequently +bestow good crops. At the same time the Uraon take care to propitiate all +the village spirits, lest the latter should frustrate the efforts of Sun +and Earth to increase and multiply. On the eve of the appointed day no +one is allowed to plough his fields.[226] In Bengal, Mother Earth is the +object of much devotion. The goddess generally manifests herself as the +benignant source of all things, the giver of the fruits of the earth. But +sometimes she brings disease and hence requires propitiation. The chief +festival in her honour occurs at the end of the hot season, when she is +supposed to suffer from the impurity common to women. All ploughing, +sowing, and other work cease at this time, and Bengali widows refrain +from eating cooked rice.[227] A very similar festival, called _ucharal_, +is celebrated by the natives of the Malabar coast at the end of January, +when Mother Earth has her annual menstruation. For three days at this +time the people stop all work, except hunting: the house may not be +cleaned; the daily smearing of the floor with cow-dung is discontinued; +and even gardens may not be watered.[228] The village rites observed by +the Telugu, Kanarese, and Tamil peoples of southern India, in honour of +their local deities, though unattended by compulsory abstinence from +labour, are clearly of a propitiatory character. In this respect they +are analogous to the _genna_ customs in Assam. Usually the people hold +no regular festival, but perform their rites of sacrifice only when some +great misfortune—an outbreak of cholera, smallpox, cattle disease, or +drought—has convinced them that evil spirits are about and active. “I +have dignified,” writes the Bishop of Madras, “the periodical sacrifices +to the village goddesses by the name of festivals. But the term is a +misnomer. There is really nothing of a festal character about them. They +are only gloomy and weird rites for the propitiation of angry deities +or the driving away of evil spirits, and it is very difficult to detect +any traces of a spirit of thankfulness or praise. Even the term worship +is hardly correct. The object of all the various rites and ceremonies is +not to worship the deity in any true sense of the word, but simply to +propitiate and avert its wrath.”[229] The propitiatory feature is not +absent from some of the purely Hindu festivals, which in this respect may +have been affected by the cults of the aboriginal peoples of India.[230] + +One of the Hebrew agricultural festivals described in the Old Testament +furnishes an instance of what seem to be ancient taboos surviving in +a developed religious ritual. In the post-Exilic calendar the Day of +First-fruits, inaugurating the Feast of Weeks, was declared to be a time +of “holy convocation,” when no “servile work” was allowable.[231] Now, +primitive peoples quite commonly observe various ceremonies in connection +with first-fruits, particularly a sacramental eating of them preliminary +to general use.[232] With advancing culture this rite tends to be +replaced by an act of definite sacrifice of a portion of the first-fruits +to the spirits or the gods, who have it in their power to give or to +withhold the crops. The rite of first-fruits marks a time of peculiar +solemnity, when gratitude to the supernatural powers mingles with fear of +the hostile influences which may affect injuriously the grain that lies +still ungathered. So critical an epoch is frequently inaugurated by a +ceremonial cleansing or purgation of the community; and the rite itself +may require fasting and continence on the part of those who celebrate +it. In at least one case previously noticed, the ceremonial inbringing +of first-fruits formed an occasion for abstaining from all secular +activities.[233] Since a like restriction was attached to the Hebrew Day +of First-fruits, we may surmise with some probability that abstinence +from labour at this time was observed by the early Hebrews as a primitive +taboo long before the festival was definitely consecrated to Jehovah. It +is difficult to avoid the same conclusion with respect to the sabbatarian +rules which invested other agricultural festivals of the Hebrews.[234] + +The Greeks in late classical times appear to have regarded their +religious festivals much as we regard our holidays. “The gods,” said +Plato, “in pity for the toils which our race is born to undergo have +appointed holy festivals, by which men alternate rest and labour.”[235] +With this remark, indicating that for the philosophic thinker the process +of rationalization had begun, it is interesting to compare the statement +of a modern scholar that among the Greeks “the time occupied by the feast +of the gods was as sacred, _i.e._, as much subject to taboos, as was the +whole of the Jewish Sabbath.”[236] The unlucky days (ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι) +observed by the Athenians included the twenty-fifth or twenty-ninth +of Thargelion, a day devoted to the celebration of the Plynteria, the +washing festival of their patron goddess. On this occasion Athene’s +image was borne in procession to the sea, divested of its adornments, +and laved in the purifying waters. Plutarch’s biography of Alcibiades +contains a significant reference to the ceremony. At the time when +that brilliant though shifty Greek returned from exile to his native +city, the people were holding the Plynteria, in Athene’s honour. On that +day “the Praxiergidæ solemnize their secret rites: they remove all the +ornaments from her image and cover it up. Hence the Athenians regard +this day as most unlucky, and do no work on it. It seemed as though the +goddess were receiving him in no friendly fashion, for she hid her face +from his as if to banish him from her sight.” Xenophon, also, referring +to the return of Alcibiades at the time of the Plynteria, declares that +“none of the Athenians would venture to transact any serious business +on this day.” And Pollux informs us that the sanctuaries were roped +round at the Plynteria, as at other unlucky times, doubtless to avoid +their being tainted with the pollution of the day.[237] The Athenians +themselves ascribed the unluckiness of the day of the Plynteria to +the fact of Athene’s absence from the city during the festival. It +is probable, however, that the Plynteria was at one time a rite of +purification preliminary to the bringing-in of the first-fruits, and +hence a rite which must have existed long before its ascription to the +protecting deity of Athens.[238] So considered, the Plynteria as a rest +day affords a close parallel to the Tongan _inachi_ and the Hebrew Day of +First-fruits. + +With the Plynteria may be profitably compared the better-known Roman +festival of the Vestalia. The Athenian ceremonies came in May, the +Roman, in June, but they were alike in content. The nine days devoted +to the Vestalia were ill-omened (_religiosi_). During their celebration +the innermost sanctuary of Vesta, shut all the rest of the year, was +opened to the matrons of Rome, who crowded to it barefooted, while the +Vestals themselves offered the sacred cakes made of the first ears +of corn plucked a month previously. On the ninth day (June 15) the +temple was swept and the refuse thrown into the Tiber. Then the _dies +religiosi_ came to an end, as soon as the last act of cleansing had been +duly performed—_Quando stercus delatum fas_, “When the rubbish has been +carried away.”[239] + +The Roman religious festivals, of which a few, as we have seen, were +celebrated on _dies religiosi_,[240] went collectively under the +name of _feriæ_ (_dies feriati_).[241] The public _feriæ_, numbering +sixty-one in republican times, were all consecrated to deities of the +state cults. As illustrating the Roman prejudice against even numbers +as unlucky, it is interesting to note that, with two exceptions, all +these older _feriæ_ occurred on days which, reckoning from the beginning +of the month, would be denoted by odd numbers. The same superstition +required that, where a festival occupied more than one day in a month, +there should be an interval of one or three days between the beginning +and close of its celebration, as in the case of the Lemuria on the +ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth of February. The ferial days were of +prehistoric origin, though the testimony of tradition assigned them to +Romulus and particularly to Numa, the priestly king who was believed +to have organized the Roman religion. Considering the great antiquity +of the _feriæ_, it becomes a legitimate inquiry how far they resemble +the festivals observed in modern times by peoples scarcely inferior in +culture to the Romans at the dawn of their history. What likeness, in +other words, can be traced between the _feriæ_ and days _tabu_? + +The ancients made a fundamental distinction between public and private +_feriæ_. The former included all festivals which were celebrated by the +community at large, the latter, those which appertained to individuals, +families, _gentes_, sacred colleges, and other social groups within the +body politic. Since the Roman state religion was based on the religion +of the family and the _gens_, we are entitled to believe that the _feriæ +privatæ_ provided the model for the _feriæ publicæ_; and this view is +confirmed by numerous analogies elsewhere.[242] The festivals observed by +_gentes_ are little known and appear to have become obsolete at an early +date; the family festivals, on the other hand, flourished throughout +antiquity. All important epochs in the life of a Roman housefather and +his children—birth, naming, assumption of the _toga virilis_, marriage, +and death—were kept as ferial days. The _feriæ denicales_ are especially +noteworthy, for they show that the Romans shared the superstitious +notions of many primitive peoples concerning the noxious influence of +death. These ceremonies, which took place a few days after the funeral, +were for the purpose of purifying the house and its inmates from the +death contagion.[243] Abstinence from labour formed a special feature of +all family festivals: they were rest days for both man and beast. As that +model economist, Cato the Elder, remarked, “For mules, horses, and asses +there are no other holidays than those of the family.”[244] However, we +must probably include, as an exception to Cato’s statement, the festival +of the Paganalia, or _feriæ sementivæ_, which came in January after the +seed had been sown. During this time the plough rested by command of the +gods, and not the farmer only, but also his slaves and animal servants, +enjoyed holiday idleness. The festival had a distinctly prophylactic +character, being marked by prayers, offerings, and other rites designed +to ward off evil influences from the crops.[245] The Paganalia, as its +name indicates, was an old village rite which survived into historic +times and became incorporated in the public _feriæ_ of the Roman city. +But before turning to this division of our subject it may be pointed +out that among the private _feriæ_ were also included those which were +observed by individuals only, as a means of removing the taint of some +impurity which rested upon them. A man who had pronounced accidentally +the names of certain mysterious divinities was expected to celebrate +a private festival as a means of expiation (_ferias observabat_). The +Flaminica, or wife of the Flamen Dialis, who with her husband was subject +to many restrictions, became tabooed—_feriata_—if she heard thunder, and +might not engage in her religious duties until she had performed an act +of lustration (_donec placasset deos_).[246] + +The public _feriæ_ were also occasions for abstinence, purification, and +propitiation. On the calendars they are marked _nefasti_, indicating +that at such times all political and judicial business must be suspended. +In the later period of the Roman Republic unscrupulous consuls sometimes +put this regulation to a base use by ordering special _feriæ_ for all +comitial days, so as to stave off legislation by their rivals.[247] +The gods, on ferial days, demanded the service of men by visits to the +temples and by prayers and sacrifices. Hence the _feriæ_ formed public +holidays, when even slaves enjoyed a cessation of toil. “Let contentions +of every kind cease on the sacred festivals, and let servants enjoy +them with a remission of labour; for this purpose they were appointed +at certain seasons.”[248] These words of Cicero reflect, however, not +the original purpose of the _feriæ_ but only the interpretation put upon +them by a rationalistic thinker in a sophisticated age. We may assume +with confidence that the ferial days were not established as a boon to +the labourer. The regulations enforced on the _feriæ_ indicate how, in +Roman belief, it was essential that their holiness should not be polluted +by unseemly activity. The _rex sacrorum_ and _flamines_, whose lives +were passed in an odour of sanctity, were not allowed even to see any +work being done during the celebration of _feriæ_; hence, when these +officials went out, heralds preceded them to enjoin the people from +working in their presence. An accidental neglect of such admonitions +was punished with a fine and atonement was made by the sacrifice of a +pig. An intentional disobedience constituted a crime beyond the power of +atonement.[249] + +In the later centuries of the republic, with the decay of +supernaturalism, questions began to be raised as to what kinds of work +might legitimately be done on the public _feriæ_. The pontiff Umbro +declared that it was no violation of them for a person to do any work +which had reference to the gods, or the offering of sacrifices—_ad deos +pertinens sacrorumve causa_.[250] All labour was likewise allowable which +was necessary to supply the urgent wants of life. The pontiff Scævola +held that any work might be done, if suffering and injury were caused +by its neglect or delay—_licet quod prætermissum noceret_. If a house +threatened to tumble down on a ferial day, the inhabitants might take +the requisite measures to repair it at this time. And should a man’s oxe +fall into a pit, he might employ workmen to lift it out without polluting +the _feriæ_.[251] Cato thought that on holidays a farmer might repair +ditches, pave the public roads, and make everything neat and clean about +his premises.[252] Vergil, writing when this rationalistic movement had +culminated, asserts that “even on holy days some work is permitted by +the laws of God and man. The strictest worshipper has never scrupled +to drain the fields, plant a hedge to protect a crop, set snares for +birds, fire the brambles, or wash his bleating sheep for health’s sake in +the stream.”[253] Such interpretations indicate that in late classical +antiquity the burdens of the old tabooed days were being gradually +lifted, and their observance adjusted to the social and economic needs of +a progressive community. + +Corresponding to the private _feriæ_ observed by individuals on special +occasions were those public holidays which had to be kept by the +community at large, in consequence of some unusual and terrifying event. +Certain natural phenomena resulted in the cessation of all activity +by the people and the institution of extraordinary festivals (_feriæ +imperativæ_). These were decreed by the magistrates, acting on the +advice of the priests and with the consent of the Senate. Festivals +of this sort were anonymous; they were dedicated neither to god nor +goddess—_sive deo sive deæ_—for the divine author of the portent was +obviously unknown. Numerous instances of the celebration of extraordinary +_feriæ_ are noticed by classical historians, especially by Livy. During +the reign of Tullus Hostilius, the third of Rome’s legendary kings, +a rain of stones on the Alban Mount led to the institution of a nine +days’ festival. Shortly after the establishment of the republic an +aurora borealis so terrified the people that they kept a three days’ +festival. About half a century after the sack of Rome by the Gauls +a rain of stones, accompanied by an obscuration of the sun, made it +necessary for the Senate to appoint a dictator whose special business +it was to appease the supernatural powers by appointing holidays and +performing ceremonies. When Hannibal was in Italy, threatening the +life of the Roman commonwealth, Heaven seemed to multiply portents, +and Livy particularly mentions two occasions when a shower of stones +provoked compulsory holidays for the usual period (_novemdiales feriæ_). +Earthquakes always aroused superstitious fears and made it necessary +to celebrate propitiatory _feriæ_. In the year 193 B.C. the frequent +earthquakes led to the institution of so many festivals that all public +business was blocked; the Senate could not meet and the consuls were +constantly employed in rites of propitiation. Under these circumstances, +so Livy tells us, the people grew weary, not only of the earthquakes but +also of the _feriæ_ appointed to expiate them, and an edict was passed +that, whenever _feriæ_ were ordered to be observed on a certain day, in +consequence of an earthquake, no fresh disturbance of the sort was to +be reported on that same day. Only a year after the publication of this +amusing edict the Romans were terrified by earthquake shocks which lasted +for thirty-eight days, a period which was marked by a total cessation of +business. And more than two hundred years later the emperor Claudius, +when an earthquake happened at Rome, never failed to appoint holidays for +sacred rites. Similar ceremonies, _pro valetudine populi_, were sometimes +performed to drive away a devastating pestilence.[254] + +To the ancient Romans the celebration of ferial days thus provided an +appropriate and effectual method of meeting a crisis. Like the tabooed +days observed in Polynesia, Indonesia, and southeastern Asia at the +present time, the _feriæ_ were occasions for the propitiation of +supernatural and hostile powers. As such they must have been, originally, +periods of gloom and not of joy. That subsequently, when superstition +had in some measure relaxed its grip, they became festive occasions, +celebrated so luxuriously that both Sulla and Augustus felt themselves +obliged to promulgate laws restricting expenditures in connection with +them,[255] may be taken as only another instance of man’s ineradicable +tendency to convert his fast days into feast days. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MARKET DAYS + + +Rest days, more or less regular in occurrence and following at short +intervals after periods of continuous labour, are frequently observed +by primitive agriculturists. Sabbaths of this sort seem to be unknown +among migratory hunting and fishing peoples or among nomadic pastoral +tribes.[256] A wandering hunter requires no regular day of rest, since +his life passes in alternations of continuous labour, while following the +chase, and of almost uninterrupted idleness, after a successful hunt. +For the shepherd there can be no relaxation of the diurnal duties, for +every morning the cattle must be driven abroad to pasture, they must be +watched and watered, and at night they must be milked. And, as Rudolf von +Ihering has suggested, the shepherd, compared with the farmer, scarcely +needs a regular rest day; his occupation causes him so little continuous +exertion that he can pursue it all the year round without any injury to +his health. A farmer, however, is benefited by a period of rest recurring +more or less regularly, and, though agricultural pursuits are dependent +on the seasons and weather, he is usually able to postpone his work for +a brief period without serious loss. It might be argued, therefore, that +the change from pastoral to agricultural life would itself be sufficient +to call into existence the institution of a periodic rest day.[257] The +evidence to be submitted suggests, however, that the connection of the +rest day with the farmer’s pursuits is secondary, rather than direct, +and is due to the obvious fact that the Sabbath institution implies a +settled life, a more or less developed form of social organization and +government, and something approaching a calendar system. + +The greater number of periodic rest days observed by agricultural peoples +in the lower stages of culture are associated with the institution of +the market.[258] Days on which markets regularly take place are not +infrequently characterized by sabbatarian regulations. It is necessary, +therefore, to present in some detail the evidence for market weeks and +market days in various parts of the world.[259] + +Some Australian tribes have established trade centres, where there are +periodical meetings for the purpose of exchanging the products and +manufactures of neighbouring communities. More or less bartering occurs +also in connection with great tribal convocations, especially those for +the initiation ceremonies.[260] Necessarily, such gatherings take place +at infrequent intervals. The beginnings of regular markets may, however, +be traced in certain parts of New Guinea and among some of the Melanesian +Islands. The natives of the Mekeo District of British New Guinea are +said to hold markets, every fifth day at Mawaia and Mohu (on the banks +of the Angabunga River), and at other intervals elsewhere. Women from +several villages will assemble at some appointed place, usually on the +boundary between two tribes, and there will exchange their products for +commodities from other localities. The bartering lies entirely in the +hands of the women, who, however, are accompanied by a few armed men +acting as a guard.[261] The Kerepunu of Hood Peninsula, to the east of +Port Moresby, are described by a missionary who knew them well as most +industrious farmers: every morning men, women, and children go to work +in the fields and return only at nightfall. “They have a rule, to which +they strictly adhere all the year round, of working for two days and +resting the third.”[262] The Kerepunu rest day may have originated in a +practice, now lapsed, of holding a market every third day, since there +is evidence for the former existence of markets in the neighbourhood of +Port Moresby.[263] The natives of Patipi and Roembatti, on the MacCluer +Gulf in the extreme western part of Dutch New Guinea, have markets, +which as a rule recur every fifth day.[264] In the Gazelle Peninsula, +Bismarck Archipelago, markets at which the women buy and sell take place +every third day.[265] In New Caledonia, where each tribe is divided into +sea-folk and bush-folk, the former being cocoa-tree planters and fishers, +the latter being yam-growers, there is said to be a lively market +conducted each week by the women. “The ladies [_sic_] of each section of +the tribe sit down in rows with their produce before them, and barter is +transacted in dances, with a good deal of manœuvring.”[266] In some parts +of old Polynesia markets were held at stated periods, but, unfortunately, +no record seems to have been made of the time intervals in popular +use.[267] + +Markets take place in Celebes,[268] Sumatra, and Java, usually every +fifth day, but sometimes at shorter intervals. Among the Batta of +Sumatra a market occurs every third, fourth, or fifth day, according +to a regular succession and in a designated place, until the round of +participating villages has been made. At Batta markets all hostilities +are suspended, and it is sometimes required that every man who carries a +musket in the market place shall put a green bough in the muzzle, as a +token of his peaceful intentions.[269] The Javanese _pasar_, or market +week, consisted of five days—_lege_ (or _manis_), _pahing_ (or _pa_), +_pon_, _wage_, and _kaliwon_. The principal use of the Javanese week was +to determine the markets or fairs held in the important towns.[270] + +The _pasar_ spread from Java to the island of Bali, where it is employed +in combination with the week of seven days.[271] In the Malay Peninsula, +side by side with the ordinary seven-day week, there is a popular cycle +of five days used for the determination of lucky and unlucky days. The +names of the days are those of Hindu divinities, but the cycle itself is +probably of Javanese origin.[272] + +Markets recurring every fifth day are found among the Indo-Chinese, as in +Tonkin[273] and the various Lao states of northern Siam.[274] Among the +Shan all work ceases on market days, except what is necessarily involved +in buying and selling. Every native tries to be in his own village when +the market takes place there, not only to trade but also to exchange +news and gossip. The centre of the village becomes a forum, where every +subject is fully discussed.[275] “The Shan is a born trader, and the +great feature of life in this country is the bazaar, which is held on +every fifth day at all the chief villages of the states.”[276] Another +traveller tells us that on the first three of the five days constituting +the Shan market week small bazaars are held in different parts of the +country, but no trading takes place anywhere on the fourth day.[277] +The Khasi of Assam have a great market every eighth day, from which +circumstance they have developed a week of eight days. “The reason of +the eight-day week is because the markets are usually held every eighth +day. The names of the days of the week are not those of planets, but of +places where the principal markets are held, or used to be held, in the +Khasi and Jaintia hills.”[278] It may be regarded as certain that this +eight-day period arose from a doubling of an earlier four-day cycle, as +has been the case among certain African peoples. Even now in the Wár +country, lying to the south of the Khasi and Jaintia District, markets +are usually held every fourth day.[279] + +Throughout the central parts of Africa, from the British and German +possessions in the east to those of the Portuguese and French in the +west, there are numerous market places where neighbouring communities +meet regularly to exchange their productions. Usually every fourth day +is a market day, observed with the cessation of ordinary occupations, and +by the Wanika of British East Africa, according to missionary testimony, +with feasting and carousing.[280] In the same part of British East Africa +the Wagiriama possess a week of four days, each with its name.[281] Among +the Akikuyu, who employ thirty-day months beginning with new moon, there +is a week of four days, the latter being indicated by the names of the +different markets held on them. Each market is held on the fourth day +of the cycle, and no two markets in the same neighbourhood occur on the +same day.[282] The Akikuyu market places in populous districts are often +not more than seven miles apart. The site chosen for a market is usually +a hill-top, sufficiently open and accessible to accommodate the natives +who may assemble there to the number of four or five thousand. All in +all the market forms a very important feature of Akikuyu society.[283] +The Wachaga of German East Africa, who dwell on the southern slopes of +mighty Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, hold a daily market, +so ordered as to recur every third day in one of three neighbouring +settlements. The days of this three-day week are separately named, +and hence the Wachaga always know where the market is to be held. +The markets, which are said to be very ancient, are visited only by +women.[284] The English missionary, David Livingstone, has described the +markets held by the Manyema, who occupy part of the territory between +Lake Tanganyika and the Congo. As many as three thousand people, chiefly +women, may sometimes be seen in the _chitoka_, or market place. The +market is held to-day in one locality, to-morrow in another, and so on +till the cycle of four days is completed.[285] Among the natives on the +lower Lomami River, near the equator, markets are described as recurring +every third day,[286] and among the Bakuba (Bushongo), who occupy the +valley of the Sankuru River, every fifth day.[287] The Baluba, whose +territory lies between the Sankuru and Kasai rivers, hold important +markets. A German explorer who was present at one of them described the +market place as neutral ground, where even members of hostile tribes +might appear without danger. The chief, in whose honour this primitive +fair was held, kept peace and order, assisted by half a dozen stalwart +guards carrying broad axes on their shoulders. Whenever any dispute +arose, these policemen were immediately on the scene of action.[288] +The four-day market week is found among various tribes, such as the +Bayaka,[289] Bambala,[290] and Bahuana,[291] occupying the region between +the Loange and Kwango rivers, tributaries of the Kasai. + +The market week (_lumingu_[292]), four days in length, appears to be +generally diffused among the peoples on both banks of the lower Congo. +A missionary, long resident in this part of Africa, tells us that here +the week consists of four days, named _nkandu_, _konzo_, _nkenge_, and +_nsona_ in the cataract region. The markets are designated after the +days of the week and the towns near which they are held. For instance, +the Manyama market is known as _nsona a Manyama_, because it is held on +_nsona_ day. The great trade markets, however, usually occur every eighth +day, for the convenience of traders and to insure a good attendance. +At the smaller, local markets, held every fourth day, exchanges are +limited to goats, fowls, and foodstuffs. Every one wants to increase +the attendance at these local markets; hence it may be declared a penal +offence for a woman to go to her farm on the market day. “In some parts +another day of the short week is declared to be an unlucky day for +farming operations. This is no lingering trace of the idea of a Sabbath, +for the day fixed is most arbitrary, two adjacent villages avoiding +different days, while in others the women will work any day.”[293] +An early explorer, referring to the custom of observing _nsona_ as a +rest day, declares that “on this day they refrain from working in the +plantations, under the superstitious notion that the crop would fail; +they, however, perform any other kind of work.”[294] In Loango, where +the natives have a month of twenty-eight days reckoned from new moon, +seven weeks are counted to the month. The four weekdays are called, +respectively, _nsona_, _nduka_, _ntono_, and _nsilu_, the first being +regarded as a day of rest.[295] Another writer describes _sona_ (_nsona_) +as the men’s day of rest, but the women’s market day, when the latter +buy and sell in the market. At this time it is regarded as wrong for +husbands to have intercourse with their wives. On another day, _ntona_ +(_ntono_), the women may not plant, and burials take place.[296] With +these accounts it is interesting to compare the statement of an old +writer, according to whom the Loango negroes “never work above three +days in succession; the fourth is for them a general rest day, during +which they are not allowed to engage in tillage. The men, who repose +habitually, work still less on that day. They walk, sport, and go to +market. The missionaries have been unable to procure from the negroes any +explanation of this period of four days, which forms their week.”[297] + +The market is a well-developed institution among the semi-civilized +negroes about the Gulf of Guinea. In this part of Africa the sabbatarian +character of the market day is specially pronounced. Markets every third, +fifth, eighth, or tenth day have been noticed in the interior districts +of Kamerun. Market days are observed with abstinence from work of every +sort, including farm labour; indeed, says an observer, they may be +considered the Sundays of the native calendar.[298] In Old Calabar the +week consists of eight days. The weekdays are named from peculiar rites +of the _egbo_ secret society performed thereon, or from the markets which +occur on them. That the week here originally contained four days only +is obvious from the circumstance that the names applied to the second +group of four days are the same as those which the four days of the first +group receive, except for being preceded in each case by the adjective +“little.”[299] The Ibo and other tribes of the Niger Delta (Southern +Nigeria) observe _eke_, the first day of the four-day week, as the +appropriate time for abstaining from toilsome labour and for marketing. +Natives are forbidden to climb a cocoanut tree on _eke_.[300] Among the +Asaba people, a branch of the powerful Ibo tribe, there seems not to be +any communal regulation respecting the observance of _eke_: “the days for +rest, for public market, and for work vary with the individual according +to the particular governing _juju_ [fetish] as determined by the medicine +man.”[301] Among the Edo, or Bini, of Southern Nigeria the week is +everywhere a recognized period of time. It is, properly speaking, four +days in length, this being the interval between the two markets in any +given locality. Occasionally, as in the Ida District, markets are found +every eighth day, “but the names applied to the intervening days clearly +show that a four-day week was the primary one.” One of the four days is +commonly known as the rest day, when men often stay at home—though farm +work is not absolutely forbidden—and when women go to the market.[302] + +The excellent studies of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Ellis, supplemented +by later accounts, furnish a considerable amount of information regarding +the rest days observed by the Yoruba-speaking and Ewe-speaking peoples +of the Slave Coast and by the Tshi-speaking and Ga-speaking peoples of +the Gold Coast. Some of these African Sabbaths are kept only by families +or by the inhabitants of a single locality. Among the Tshi, for example, +on the day sacred to the tutelary deity of a family all its members wear +white or light-coloured clothes, mark themselves with white clay, and +abstain from work. The day sacred to the tutelary deity of a town is +celebrated in the same manner.[303] + +In this part of west Africa particular days of the week are assigned to +the gods worshipped by different classes of the community. The Yoruba +keep the first day of the week as a general Sabbath, but each of the +remaining days is a period of rest only for the followers of the god to +which it is dedicated.[304] For the adherents of a god to violate the day +sacred to him is a serious offence, punishable with a fine, and in former +times, with death. The notion prevails that, if the honour of the god is +not vindicated by his followers, all will suffer for the neglect. “The +Sabbath-breaker is, in fact, killed by the other worshippers of the god +from motives of self-protection.”[305] While the first day of the Tshi +week is a general Sabbath, _bna-da_, the second day, is the fishermen’s +holiday. Any fisherman who ventures forth on this day is fined and his +catch thrown into the sea. In former times he would have been put to +death.[306] The fifth day, _iffi-da_, of the Tshi week is the regular +rest day for farmers.[307] Similarly, among the Ewe every tribal deity, +with one exception, has a sacred day, observed by his followers to the +accompaniment of much eating, drinking, and dancing.[308] + +All these west African peoples divide the month into weeks and keep +one weekday as a general Sabbath. Among the Yoruba, whose week is said +to consist of five days,[309] the first day (_ako-ojo_) “is considered +unlucky, and no business of importance is ever undertaken on it. On this +day all the temples are swept out, and water, for the use of the gods, +is brought in procession.”[310] The Ewe of Dahomey are said to observe +every fourth day as a holiday, “not kept holy, but devoted to the will of +the working classes; in short, a sort of remuneration to the slave for +the three days’ labour.”[311] Weeks of four, five, and six days, usually +ending in a general market day which is also a rest day, have been +observed in various parts of Togo.[312] + +The week of seven days is not unknown to the Guinea negroes. Its presence +in the hinterland of Togo is clearly due to the influence of Islam; in +fact, the market day here recurs on Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath.[313] +Some of the Ewe peoples nearer the Slave Coast also use a seven-day +cycle, which appears to have been borrowed by them from their neighbours, +the Tshi tribes of the Gold Coast.[314] The Tshi keep _adjwo-da_, the +first day of their seven-day week, as a general Sabbath.[315] The Ga of +the Gold Coast, who also have the seven-day week, observe the first day +as a communal Sabbath. Its name, _dsu_, means “purification,” a term +which seems also to have been used as a title of the moon.[316] + +Although market weeks of varying length have been reported among some +of the other Sudanese negroes south of the Niger,[317] it is clear that +the Mohammedan advance in this region has brought with it the week of +seven days and the custom of holding a market every seventh day.[318] +Similarly, in other parts of Africa, as on the lower Congo, the European +week of seven days has taken the place of the shorter native cycles, +with the result that, where earlier the market came every fourth day, at +present it recurs every seventh day.[319] These facts make it practically +certain that the seven-day week, found among the Ewe, Tshi, and Ga, was +originally taken over from Islam. Lieutenant-Colonel Ellis, indeed, +regarded it as a purely African institution,[320] but he himself pointed +out that Mohammedan states were formed to the north of the forest country +of the Gold Coast as early as the eleventh century A.D., and that the +period since then has been long enough to allow the new mode of reckoning +to become known throughout the entire country. The Tshi, who seem to have +moved from the Sudan interior to the coast districts at no very remote +period, doubtless took with them their septenary mode of reckoning, +which, as we have seen, they communicated to the Ewe and the Ga. + +The market, with its accompaniments, the market week and the market day, +has thus been shown to prevail throughout equatorial Africa, on the +Guinea coast, and in the basin of the Niger and the Nile.[321] The wide +diffusion of this institution is doubtless in large measure the outcome +of borrowing from tribe to tribe. A market, however, tends naturally to +come into existence whenever neighbouring peoples have goods to exchange +and the willingness to exchange them. The market place is originally in +some neutral district on the tribal borders, where all hostilities must +cease. In process of time the increasing friendliness between communities +makes it possible for the market to be held in the different settlements +according to a definite and well-known sequence. With the regular market +is inseparably connected the market week, the length of which varies from +three to ten days. The shorter intervals of three, four, and five days +reflect the simple economy of primitive life, since the market must recur +with sufficient frequency to permit neighbouring communities, who keep on +hand no large stocks of food and other necessaries, to obtain them from +one another. The longer cycles of six, eight, and ten days, much less +common, apparently arise by doubling the earlier period, whenever it +is desired to hold a great market for the produce of a wide area. That +the recurrence of the market determines the length of the week is made +obvious by the practice of naming the several weekdays from the markets +that take place on them.[322] Thus there comes into existence a definite +and recognized cycle of time, shorter than the lunar month and in origin +unconnected with it, a true periodic week, running continuously from +month to month and from year to year. + +A market day is necessarily more or less of a rest day. Those who attend +a market must abandon for the time being their usual occupations. It is +also a holiday, affording opportunities for social intercourse, sports, +and amusements of all sorts. Such seems to be the character of most of +the market days found in southeastern Asia and the adjacent islands, as +well as in some parts of Africa. On the lower Congo, however, the market +day sometimes bears an unlucky character, and a distinct tendency exists +to attach various restrictions to it. In the Guinea region the market +day often, though not always, coincides with the general day of rest +observed by an entire community. As such it may be consecrated to a god. +The same practice, we have seen, prevails in respect to the holy days of +individuals, families, towns, and particular classes of the community. +This extensive development of sabbatarian regulations appears to be +peculiar to west Africa. + +The market week and the market day, though apparently unknown to the +ruder tribes of America, formed a feature of those more advanced +civilizations which were developed in the valleys of Mexico and Central +America, and on the lofty tablelands of Colombia and Peru. Each important +pueblo of Mexico held a market (_tianguiztli_) every fifth day, it being +provided that neighbouring pueblos should observe different days, in +order to secure a regular sequence of markets. All adults were obliged +by law to resort to the _tianguiztli_, and severe penalties were imposed +on those who exchanged commodities anywhere but at the appointed place +and at the appointed time. The market days of old Mexico thus appear as +compulsory holidays, when the people relinquished their usual occupations +and assembled in great numbers, not only to buy and sell, but also, +as we are told, to engage in games and festivities.[323] The five-day +market week also existed in various parts of Central America.[324] In the +Colombian Andes, among the Muysca (Chibcha) of Bogota, who had attained +a degree of civilization far in advance of that reached by the other +aborigines of Colombia, regular markets took place, apparently every +third day.[325] If the Muysca week consisted only of three days, that of +the Peruvians extended to ten days, ending in a holiday which was also +a market day. The institution was attributed to the Apu-Ccapac-Ynca, +whose beneficent activities gained for him the appellation of Pachacutec, +“Reformer of the World.” To an old chronicler, himself of Ynca blood, +this Peruvian Sabbath appeared to be devised solely for utilitarian +ends. “In order that labour might not be so continuous as to become +oppressive, the Ynca ordained that there should be three holidays every +month, in which the people should divert themselves with various games. +He also commanded that there should be three fairs every month, when the +labourers in the field should come to market and hear anything that the +Ynca or his council might have ordained. They called these assemblies +_catu_, and they took place on the holidays.”[326] Considering how +frequently eight and ten-day weeks have arisen by doubling periods of +four and five days, respectively, it seems not unlikely that the Peruvian +decade grew out of an earlier market week of five days similar to the +Mexican institution. + +Another important instance of the market week and the market day in +archaic civilizations is that of the Roman _nundinum_ and _nundinæ_.[327] +The nundinal cycle, eight days in length, began (or closed) with a +day when the peasants came to Rome for purposes of trade. The nundinal +day, however, was more than a market day. At this time the ordinary +occupations were interrupted; school-children enjoyed a holiday; and +sumptuous banquets celebrated the festive occasion. + +The origin and early development of the _nundinæ_ are veiled in +obscurity. The institution enjoyed a high antiquity, tradition ascribing +it now to Romulus, now to Servius Tullius, and now to the first +consuls.[328] In historic times the _nundinæ_ present themselves as the +market days and holidays of a laborious peasantry; it may be questioned, +indeed, whether they were ever anything else. It seems probable that, +at least from the middle of the fifth century B.C., the _nundinæ_ could +be used for the settlement of judicial business, as is indicated by a +passage in the Twelve Tables referring to them.[329] Furthermore, there +is reason to believe that, until the passage of the Hortensian law in +287 B.C., the nundinal days were available for meetings of the public +assemblies. This unfortunate piece of legislation effectually debarred +the rural voters from participation in law-making on the very occasions +when the largest number of them would naturally be in the capital +city.[330] The classical writers were uncertain whether the _nundinæ_ +should properly be included among the ferial days, that is, among the +days which belonged to gods and not to men.[331] In Varro’s time the +pontiffs held that the _nundinæ_ were not _feriatæ_, but many writers, +cited by Macrobius, maintained the contrary opinion. The _nundinæ_ +certainly never became public festivals in the technical sense, though +they were dedicated to Jupiter, to whom the Flaminica Dialis sacrificed +a bull on their recurrence.[332] In this consecration to a deity the +_nundinæ_ further resembled some of the west African market days. + +The Roman _nundinum_ and _nundinæ_ have much historic interest. The +eight-day cycle, as a periodic week unconnected with the lunar month, +presented a close parallel to the Jewish week of seven days. Further +parallels existed in the absence of names for the weekdays, Roman +and Jewish, and in the special observance of one day of each week by +abstention from the customary occupations. It is scarcely surprising to +find, therefore, that the Roman _nundinæ_, together with the _feriæ_, +contributed to the development of the Christian Sunday. The earliest +Sunday law is the brief edict of Constantine (321 A.D.), enacting that +magistrates, city people, and artisans were to rest “on the venerable +day of the Sun.”[333] This legislation by Constantine probably bore no +relation to Christianity; it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, +in his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, was only adding the day of the Sun, +the worship of which was then firmly established in the Roman Empire, +to the other ferial days of the sacred calendar. Much significance must +be attached to that part of Constantine’s edict permitting agricultural +labour on Sunday, “since it frequently happens that the sowing of grain +and planting of vines cannot be so advantageously performed on any other +day.” In this particular the emperor was following the long-accepted +rule as to the observance of the _feriæ_ in country districts.[334] +Another regulation of Constantine’s, expressly appointing markets to be +held on Sunday, doubtless represents an effort to assimilate the old +Roman nundinal day to the new weekly Sunday.[335] With the final triumph +of Christianity over paganism the old _feriæ_ and the _nundinæ_ were +abolished, Sunday, with the other Christian festivals, being substituted +in their place.[336] + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS + + +There is good reason for believing that among many primitive peoples the +moon, rather than the sun, the planets, or any of the constellations, +first excited the imagination and aroused feelings of superstitious awe +or of religious veneration. The worship of the moon is widespread; and in +various mythologies that luminary, often conceived as masculine, plays +the most important part among the heavenly bodies.[337] “That the moon +has certain effects on moist substances, that they are apparently subject +to her influences, that, for instance, increase and decrease in ebb and +flow develop periodically and parallel with the moon’s phases, all this +is well known to the inhabitants of seashores and seafaring people. +Likewise physicians are well aware that she affects the _humores_ of sick +people, and that the fever-days revolve parallel with the moon’s course. +Physical scholars know that the life of animals and plants depends upon +the moon, and experimentalists know that she influences marrow and brain, +eggs and the sediments of wine in casks and jugs, that she excites the +minds of people who sleep in full moonlight, and that she affects +(?) linen clothes which are exposed to it. Peasants know how the moon +acts upon fields of cucumbers, melons, cotton, etc., and even make the +times for the various kinds of sowing, planting, and grafting, and for +the covering of the cattle depend upon the course of the moon. Lastly, +astronomers know that meteorologic occurrences depend upon the various +phases through which the moon passes in her revolutions.”[338] This +succinct statement, by a learned Mohammedan of the eleventh century, of +the reasons which led early philosophers to attach a special significance +to the moon, may well serve as a text for elucidation and illustration. + +It is a widespread and ancient belief, found among peoples in all stages +of culture, that the lunar rays are deleterious, especially to little +children. Some Brazilian Indians, for instance, believe that the moon +makes babies ill; hence mothers, immediately after delivery, will hide +themselves and their infants in the thickest part of the forest, in +order to prevent the moonlight from falling on them.[339] Yao boys, +when undergoing initiation into manhood, are told to avoid not only a +menstruating woman but also the sight of the new moon, since both are +dangerous.[340] Greek nurses took special pains never to show their +charges to the moon.[341] In modern Germany it is an injunction of +peasant folklore never to point out the moon to young children.[342] + +Moonshine may also be deemed injurious to adults. Certain Queensland +aborigines will not stare long at the moon, for by doing so a heavy rain +is likely to result.[343] The Bushmen of South Africa avoid looking at +the moon.[344] The Chukchi of northeastern Siberia believe that a man who +looks too long at the moon may be bereft of his wits, or may be carried +away altogether. The moon, think the Chukchi, has a lasso with which he +catches the unlucky starer.[345] When an English traveller in Arabia +was noticed gazing at the radiant desert moon, the Bedouin said, “Look +not so fixedly on him; it is not wholesome.”[346] The same idea seems +to have found expression in one of the most beautiful of the _Psalms_: +“The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.”[347] Two +New Testament passages illustrate the belief that epilepsy may be caused +by the lunar rays.[348] Similarly, the Babylonians believed that Sin, +the moon-god, could provoke leprosy, dropsy, and, above all, fever, +which, like the lunar phases, has its periods of growth, culmination, +and decline.[349] Plutarch refers to the assumed fact that those who +sleep abroad under the beams of the moon are not easily wakened, but +seem stupid and senseless.[350] This fear of the noxious influences of +moonshine may be traced from classical times to the present day. French +peasants consider it dangerous to sleep in the moonlight.[351] German +peasants subject themselves to a long list of restrictions: no work, +and especially no spinning, must be done in the moonlight, for the spun +yarn would not hold, or the spinner would be spinning for her child a +hangman’s halter or the linen of a shroud; no waggon or tools should be +left exposed to the moonshine, for they would soon be broken; washed +clothes should not be hung out to dry in the moonlight, for he who wore +them would become moonstruck; one who sews by moonlight sews his own +graveclothes; water from a spring or well in which the moon shines should +not be drunk, since this would be to absorb the evil influences of the +moon; one should never look long at the moon, under penalty of getting +a goitre; the lunar rays should never penetrate into the kitchen, or +otherwise the maid would break many dishes.[352] So numerous, indeed, are +these lunar superstitions that throughout Germany Monday, as partaking of +the qualities of the moon from which it is named, is generally an unlucky +day.[353] In various parts of the United States the belief prevails that +it is dangerous to sleep with the moon shining on the face. If fish are +exposed to moonshine, they will spoil.[354] + +Various peoples have noticed that monthly periodicity belongs to women +and moon alike, and, joining these observations, have supposed that +the lunar changes cause menstruation, or that the first appearance +of the menses is the result of defloration induced by the moon. As a +natural outcome of such beliefs the moon is credited with the power of +impregnation and is associated with childbirth.[355] Such superstitions +are widespread. In the native legends of the Euahlayi, a tribe of New +South Wales, Bahloo, the moon, is a very important personage. He it is +who creates the girl babies. Euahlayi mothers are very careful not to +look at the full moon or to let their babies do so, for an attack of +thrush, an affection common in newly born children, would be the result. +Bahloo has also a spiteful way of punishing a woman who stares at him by +sending to her the dreaded twins.[356] In Saibai and Yam, two islands +in Torres Straits, it is believed that the moon, in the shape of a man, +embraces a girl when she is full-grown, and that the halo around the moon +represents her blood. This story is also told on the neighbouring coast +of British New Guinea.[357] Here, as well as in some parts of Melanesia, +natives ascribe menstruation to the moon.[358] The Tuhoe, a Maori tribe, +believe that the moon is the permanent (or true) husband of all women, +because the latter menstruate when the moon appears. “According to the +knowledge of our ancestors and elders,” say the Tuhoe, “the marriage of +man and wife is a matter of no moment, the moon is the real husband.” And +the women themselves, on seeing the new moon, say, “The _tane_ (husband) +of all women in the world has appeared.”[359] The Jaluo, a tribe of +Nilotic stock living in the district of Kavirondo, British East Africa, +ascribe menstruation to the influence of the new moon and believe that +women can become pregnant only at this time.[360] The Baganda suppose +that menstruation is caused by the moon, either when new or waning.[361] +Similar beliefs are entertained by the negroes of the western Sudan, who +commonly give to this female function the name of the moon.[362] The +Greenlanders believe that the moon, conceived as a masculine divinity, +possesses the power of impregnation; as a consequence young girls are +afraid to look long at this luminary, “imagining they might get a +child by the bargain.”[363] The Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco +associate the moon with marriage. Young girls will address the moon with +the appeal “Moon, moon, I want to get married.”[364] Indian women in Peru +are said to have prayed to the moon to give them an easy delivery.[365] +In old Egyptian belief the moon was supposed to make women fruitful, +and the waxing moon to develop the germ in the mother’s body.[366] The +association of human fertility with the moon may perhaps explain why +Ishtar, the mother-goddess of Babylonian mythology, came to be regarded +as a daughter of Sin, the moon-god. In this capacity she presided over +childbirth.[367] The Iranian peoples supposed that the moon contained a +bull whose semen was another form of _haoma_, the intoxicating decoction +of the moon-plant.[368] The position of Hera as a goddess of marriage +and childbirth has been explained by the assumption that she played an +ancient rôle as a moon-deity. Artemis, with whom Selene, or the divine +personification of the moon, came to be identified, was regularly +associated with childbirth. The Roman Juno was connected with the moon +as Juno-Lucina, it being held that she aided women during confinement. +Ancient mythologers found it easy to identify the Italian Diana, +originally a goddess who looked after women in their time of peril, +with the Greek Artemis, who had the same functions.[369] Modern French +folklore still contains references to the idea that the moon can cause +impregnation; in Basse-Bretagne, for example, it is thought that a young +woman who exposes her person to the lunar rays may conceive and bear a +child.[370] + +The influence of the moon on the tides furnishes another element of +mystery in the lunar phenomena. So primitive a people as the Andaman +Islanders habitually refer tidal movements to the action of the moon; +and the same connection between things lunar and things terrestrial has +been recognized by other peoples, such as the Hawaiians, the ancient +Babylonians, and the modern Chinese.[371] That changes in the moon +are associated with weather changes as cause and effect is an ancient +superstition not yet obsolete in rural communities.[372] + +Comparative studies have shown how very general is the belief that the +moon exerts great influence on growth, particularly on the growth of +vegetation, and on all human life and activity.[373] For this opinion +there appear to have been two principal causes. Observation showed that +moisture in the air and soil are favourable to organic growth and, +further, that atmospheric moisture is greater at night than during the +day. It was reasonable to suppose the moon itself to be the source of +dew and moisture, especially when it was also noticed that the dew is +heaviest on cloudless nights. These beliefs were entertained by the +ancients, who attributed heat to the sun, but moisture to the moon.[374] + +Another fallacy has had an even greater part in generating these +lunar fancies. The apparent growth of the moon in the first half of +the lunation is associated with the ripening of plants and fruits, +the increase of animals, and hence with the prosperous issue of human +undertakings. From this doctrine of lunar sympathy have arisen numerous +rules for the guidance of shepherds and husbandmen, which had a wide +prevalence in antiquity and still survive with almost undiminished vigour +among the superstitious classes of to-day.[375] + +The doctrine of lunar sympathy, by a natural extension, may also account +for the common belief that “the same things which grow with the waxing, +dwindle with the waning, moon,”[376] and therefore that all business +done in the latter half of a lunation is doomed to failure. The Toda +appear to regard the first half of the month as the auspicious time for +their numerous ceremonies. “I met with no case,” says Dr. Rivers, “in +which any ceremony was appointed for the period of the full moon or +for the second half of the moon’s period.”[377] The Andaman Islanders +abstain from work during the first few evenings of the third quarter +of the moon.[378] The Buriat are said never to undertake anything of +importance between the full and the new moon.[379] The Tatars, according +to the account of an Italian friar who in the thirteenth century made an +adventurous journey to Mongolia, began any new enterprise “at new moon, +or when the moon is full.”[380] The Mandingo paid great attention to the +changes of the moon and thought it “very unlucky to begin a journey or +any other work of consequence in the last quarter.”[381] Of the Sudanese +negroes, generally, it is said that they are much influenced in their +undertakings by the appearance of the new moon. For instance, a journey +which has been decided upon during the last quarter of the moon is always +postponed until the new moon. No chief would presume to lead out his +tribesmen on a war party before the appearance of the crescent.[382] +The Nandi celebrate their very important circumcision festival, as well +as all marriage ceremonies, during the waxing moon, but perform their +mourning rites during the waning moon.[383] The Hova and other tribes +of Madagascar regard the waning of the moon as “an unfavourable time +for any important undertaking.”[384] Similar beliefs were entertained +by the early Germans, who, according to Cæsar, despaired of victory if +they engaged in battle before the new moon.[385] Tacitus, with fuller +knowledge, declares that the Germans considered the new moon and the full +moon as the most auspicious seasons for beginning any enterprise.[386] +This superstition seems still to linger in some districts of Germany, +where it is commonly held that any work begun when the moon is on the +increase is sure to succeed, and that the full moon brings everything to +perfection; whereas business undertaken during the waning moon is doomed +to failure.[387] A like belief was that of the Scottish Highlanders, to +whom the moon in her increase, full growth, and wane was “the emblem of +a rising, flourishing, and declining fortune. At the last period of her +revolution they carefully avoid to engage in any business of importance; +but the first and the middle they seize with avidity, presaging the +most auspicious issue to their undertakings.”[388] On the other hand +the people of Thermià (Kythnos), one of the Cyclades, believe that you +should never do any work, if you can help it, on the days preceding +full moon, while for grafting, planting, cutting trees, and bleaching +clothes those days are best which follow the full moon.[389] And an +English antiquarian of the seventeenth century declares that, according +to the rules of astrology, “it is not good to undertake any business of +importance in the new of the moon; and not better just at the full of the +moon; but worst of all in an eclipse.”[390] + +Eclipses of the moon are sometimes considered unfavourable for work, +and may also be accompanied by fasting and other forms of abstinence. +During such times of uncanny and terrifying darkness it is thought to +be wise to avoid every sort of activity, as well as the consumption of +food which may be tainted with mysterious evil.[391] Among the Wasania, +a tribe of British East Africa, no cohabitation takes place during an +eclipse.[392] Lunar and solar eclipses are among the phenomena which +require a Naga community to declare a _genna_ and give up its ordinary +occupations.[393] When the Toda know that an eclipse is about to occur, +they abstain from meat and drink; when it is over, they have a feast and +eat a special food prepared on all ceremonial occasions.[394] In southern +India it is a common custom, when an eclipse occurs, for the people to +retire into their houses and remain behind closed doors. “The time is in +all respects inauspicious, and no work begun or completed during this +period can meet with success; indeed, so great is the dread, that no +one would think of initiating any important work at this time.”[395] +The natives of northern India are said to consider it a great crime to +partake of food, drink water, or answer the calls of nature during an +eclipse.[396] Such a period is considered most unlucky for commencing +any business of importance. A pregnant woman will do no work during an +eclipse, as otherwise her child would be deformed. Among high-caste +Hindus no food which has been in the house during an eclipse of the sun +or the moon may be eaten. It must be given away, and all earthen vessels +in use in the house at the time must be broken.[397] The Chinese formerly +observed lunar eclipses by a general suspension of business.[398] The +fatal delay which led to the destruction of the Athenian fleet and army +before Syracuse was the result of a lunar eclipse, as interpreted by the +soothsayers and the incompetent, superstitious Nicias.[399] Among the +Jews there were formerly many who abstained from food on the day of an +eclipse of the moon, a portent which they regarded as evil.[400] This +belief, as has been noted, prevailed in England at least as late as the +seventeenth century.[401] + +Various peoples have supposed that the moon, during the period of her +invisibility, descends to the underworld. This conception has played +a noteworthy part in generating superstitions concerning tabooed and +unlucky days. The Akamba, a tribe of British East Africa, believe that +on the day which completes the month no child is born and no domestic +animal gives birth. One of the Akamba clans is called _mu-mwei_ (_mwei_ +signifying moon), and by the members of this clan no house may be swept +on the last day of the month.[402] The Akikuyu, a tribe related to the +Akamba, regard the moon as the sun’s wife, and suppose that when the +moon comes to maturity the sun fights with her and kills her. While she +is “dead,” as the natives say, no journeys are undertaken, no sacrifices +are offered, and no sheep are killed. It is further considered that +goats and sheep will not bear on the day after the disappearance of the +moon.[403] The Wagiriama keep as Sabbaths the odd days at the end of +the month, before the appearance of the new moon.[404] Some tribes of +equatorial Africa believe that the new moon is especially ill-humoured +and hungry on the day when she emerges from darkness. “She looks down +over our country,” the natives declare, “and seeks whom she can devour, +and we poor black men are very much afraid of her on that account, and we +hide ourselves from her sight on that night.” People who die between new +and full moon are said to be those whom the new moon saw at this fateful +time, in spite of all the precautions they took.[405] The missionary, +David Livingstone, while sojourning at Lake Nyassa, discovered that the +natives in this region regarded the _interlunium_ as distinctly unlucky. +On one occasion his men delayed an expedition till they had seen the new +moon. We must have the new moon, they said, for a lucky starting.[406] +The “dark day” of the moon was considered by the Zulu as inauspicious for +engaging in battle.[407] + +A superstitious attitude toward the _interlunium_ appears to be very +prevalent among the Dravidian peoples of India. The Kanarese of Hyderabad +and Mysore do not work in the fields on the last day of the month. If +a child is born at this time, they believe that some one in the family +will die. If a cow or a buffalo has a calf at such a time, it must be +sold. On the evening before new moon no one may eat cooked food. The +new moon is consecrated to the dead.[408] The Saoria of the Rajmahal +Hills, who regard Sunday as unlucky and do not work in the fields, pay +visits, or get married on this day, observe much the same restrictions +during the period of the moon’s invisibility. Marriages will not be +fruitful if consummated during the dark of the moon, and in general the +time is associated with bad luck and sickness.[409] The same belief is +found elsewhere in northern India, sometimes with beneficial results, as +appears from the following description, which applies to the district of +Rohtak. “To-day (29th November, 1883), in passing through the Jât and +Ahîr villages in Rohtak, I noticed that no work was being done at the +wells or in the fields, and that the peasants, usually so hard at work, +were idling in the village instead. On inquiring the reason, I was told +that to-day was the _amâwas_, the last day of the moon, and that on this +day of the month the bullocks are always given a rest. The men themselves +do any work that is to be done without using the cattle, but no one yokes +his bullocks in the plough or at the well, or, if he can help it, in the +cart. I noticed that some of the peasants were busy making thorn-fences, +or doing other light work, but no bullocks were at work anywhere, and as +there is little to be done at this season without their help, the custom +practically gave the men a rest also, and the unusual idleness gave the +villages a sort of Sunday look. The bullocks are given this rest once a +month, on the last day of the moon, and also on the _makar kâ sankrânt_, +which comes about January, when the sun enters into the sign of Capricorn +(_makar_), and on the _dîwâlî_ and _gôrdhan_ (the day after the _dîwâlî_) +in the middle of Kârtik (October). Except on these fifteen days it is +lawful for a man to yoke his cattle on all other days of the year, but +these particular days are strictly a Sabbath for the cattle, and no one +thinks of yoking them on these days. If any one did, it would be a sin +(_pâp_), and his fellows would at once stop him. There is no such Sabbath +for man, and it is not thought wrong (_pâp_) for a man to work on any day +of the year, though, of course, there are many holidays (_têohâr_), on +which little work is done.”[410] + +These superstitions relating to the dark of the moon have not been +confined to the natives of Africa and the aborigines of India. They meet +us among peoples of archaic civilization and they survive among the +peasantry of European lands. To the Babylonians, who paid particular +attention to all lunar phenomena, the disappearance of the moon at the +end of the month occasioned much anxiety. The day when the moon could +no longer be seen in the heavens was called the “day of sorrow” (_ûm +bubbuli_, literally, the “day of the snatching away”). The absence of +the moon was reckoned at three days, and during this time prayers were +recited and solemn expiatory rites were prescribed, primarily for the +king, who, as the representative of his people, had to take special care +not to provoke the gods to anger at so critical a season. We still have +one of the prayers recited by the ruler in his sanctuary and addressed to +the moon-god Sin. The thirtieth day of the month is here described as the +god’s “holy day” or “festival.” The prayer concludes with an allusion to +an eclipse, from which it appears that the Babylonians, knowing neither +the cause nor nature of such a phenomenon, supposed that, unless the +gods were pacified during the moon’s temporary obscuration, there would +follow the more terrifying portent of an eclipse.[411] Modern Arabs +consider the last day or last three days of the month to be unfavourable +for any sort of undertaking.[412] By the Athenians these three days were +called ἀσέλινοι, because on them the moonlight was extinguished. They +were classed with the other unlucky days (ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι) of popular +superstition. During the ἀσέλινοι it was necessary to sacrifice to the +underworld gods in order to avoid their anger.[413] Selene at this time +was supposed to descend to the underworld and the abode of shades; +hence the moon came to be associated with Persephone.[414] The Romans do +not appear to have marked the _interlunium_ or _intermenstruum_ by any +special observances. European folklore, however, still preserves traces +of the ancient superstition, as in the Cornish belief that a child, so +unfortunate as to be born at this time, will never live to attain the age +of puberty. Hence the saying, “No moon, no man.”[415] Similar beliefs +would seem to survive in the very common idea that the three days before +the new moon are especially unlucky and likely to be attended by storms +and winds.[416] + +We may well believe that the different appearances of the moon were +the first celestial phenomena observed with any degree of continuous +attention by primitive man. Not only are the phases of the moon marked by +striking variations in her form and in the amount of light she radiates, +but from night to night she follows a regular path through the sky, +changing her elevation above the horizon and appearing to occupy at her +successive phases different quarters of the heavens. Such phenomena +present elements of mystery not found in the sun’s prosaic course. A +survey of the anthropological evidence appears to indicate, as might +indeed be expected, that of the lunar phases it is particularly the new +moon which awakens interest and attention. The first appearance of that +luminary in the western sky after sunset is often hailed with various +ceremonial observances. The Indians of the Ucayali River in Peru are +said to greet the appearance of the new moon with great joy. They make +long speeches to her, accompanied with vehement gesticulations, imploring +her protection and begging that she invigorate their bodies.[417] Certain +tribes of southern California, afterwards gathered into the Mission of +San Juan Capistrano, celebrated the new moon with dances, saying, “As +the moon dieth and cometh to life again, so we also, having to die, will +again live.”[418] The Dakota and other Plains Indians, when the moon does +not shine, “say the moon is dead; and some call the three last days of it +the naked days. The moon’s first appearance they term its coming to life +again.” At this time they stretch forth their hands toward the moon and +repeat joyful expressions.[419] The Creek and Cherokee Indians, according +to an early writer, “assemble and feast at the appearance of the new +moon, when they seem to be in great mirth and gladness, but, I believe, +make no offerings to that planet.”[420] Similar observances have been +noted in various parts of Africa. An old traveller recites how, at the +appearance of every new moon, the Congo negroes, “fall on their knees, +or else cry out, standing and clapping their hands, ‘So may I renew my +life as thou art renewed.’” But if the sky was clouded, they did nothing, +believing that the moon had lost its virtue.[421] The Mandingo, on the +first appearance of the new moon, “which they look upon to be newly +created,” say a short prayer.[422] The Bushmen had their special seasons +of merry-making, when the dance was never neglected. “Dancing began with +the new moon, as an expression of joy that the dark nights had ended, +and was continued at the full moon, that they might avail themselves of +the delicious coolness after the heat of the day, and the brilliancy of +the moonlight in this portion of the southern hemisphere.”[423] + +It has been suggested that in many cases the ceremonies at new moon have +a magical aspect. On this theory the first appearance of the luminary, +with its promise of growth and increase, would be greeted with rites +intended to renew and strengthen, by means of sympathetic magic, the +life of man.[424] Though it is true that in process of time ideas of a +magico-religious character may attach themselves to lunar phenomena, and +especially to new moon, there seems to be little reason for assuming them +to be original and primary. Most of the foregoing examples, indeed, may +be more simply interpreted as a naïve expression of man’s delight at the +return of the moon to the world, after an absence at once mysterious and +portentous. Still less necessary is the assumption, so commonly made, +that all lunar ceremonies are acts of worship addressed to the moon as a +divinity. Religious festivals appear in the first instance to be fixed +at new moon or full moon because these are the two most striking periods +of the lunation and mark, respectively, the beginning and middle of the +lunar month. + +Among many peoples in both the lower and the higher culture the time +of new moon and full moon, much less commonly of each half moon, forms +a season of restriction and abstinence. The lunar day is sometimes +a holy day dedicated to a god, who may be identified with the moon +itself. Instances of this sort are to be correlated with the general +course of religious development, involving, as it does, the emergence of +polytheistic cults and the schematization of the ritual. But under more +primitive conditions the lunar day is a tabooed day, quite independent +of any association with a deity. It seems idle to seek a particularistic +explanation for the taboos observed on such an occasion. We have already +noticed the sympathetic influence which the waxing and waning of the moon +is supposed to exert on human activities. Furthermore, we have seen that +the new moon, rising as it were from the dead, is thought to be pregnant +with meaning for the life of man. Her very newness is an element of +interest; her contrasts, in shape, size, and position in the heavens, to +the old moon further deepen the impression of her significance; and her +function of inaugurating the month not only gives to her a special place +in primitive calendar systems but also invests her with the emotional +importance belonging to the commencement of any new period. These ideas +of lunar influence are naturally extended to the full moon, which, as +will be shown, is commonly regarded as marking the division of the lunar +month into two equal parts, and in some instances to the half moons, as +indicating the other prominent stages in a lunation. The phases of the +moon thus come to be considered critical times and to be marked not only +by religious exercises but also by fasting and cessation of the customary +occupations.[425] + +Lunar taboos, involving abstinence and quiescence, are commonly observed +in Polynesia and Indonesia.[426] Various African peoples likewise +entertain pronounced beliefs regarding the unfavourable influence of the +moon’s changes on human activities. The Zulu welcome the first appearance +of the new moon with demonstrations of joy, but on the day following they +abstain from all labour, “thinking if anything is sown on those days they +can never reap the benefits thereof.”[427] The Bapiri, a tribe of the +Bechuana stock, stay at home at new moon and do not go out to the fields. +“They believe that if they should set about their labour at such a +season, the millet would remain in the ground without sprouting, or that +the ear would fail to fill, or that it would be destroyed by rust.”[428] +Of another Bechuana tribe, the Makololo, in the neighbourhood of the +Leeambye River, Livingstone remarks, “There is no stated day of rest in +any part of this country except the day after the appearance of the new +moon, and the people then refrain only from going to their gardens.”[429] +An earlier writer, referring to the Bechuana, says that when the new moon +appears, “all must cease from work, and keep what is called in England +a holiday.”[430] To the north of the Bechuana, in the upper basin of the +Zambesi, live the Barotse, by whom the new moon is made an occasion for +great festivities. “It is a general holiday; men of all ranks sing and +dance, while the women assemble apart and give vent to strident howls of +their own.”[431] Similarly, among all the people from Nyassaland to Ujiji +on Lake Tanganyika the first night of the new moon is a public festival, +sometimes celebrated by a dance in which the men alone participate.[432] +The Baziba, who dwell to the west and southwest of Lake Victoria Nyanza, +are said to be one of the few tribes in this part of Africa having “a +recognized day of rest, independently of the Christians’ Sabbath. The two +first days of every moon are universal holidays.”[433] + +A superstitious observance of the new-moon day is found among some of +the tribes and peoples occupying British East Africa. The Akamba, whose +beliefs regarding the _interlunium_ have been already mentioned,[434] +also consider it very unlucky to move cattle or livestock of any kind +from one place or another, or even to give presents of any stock, +during the first four days of the new moon.[435] Well-marked Sabbaths +are kept by some sections of the Baganda, the great tribe, or rather +nation, occupying Uganda. At the temple estate of the god Mukasa, the +most important Baganda deity, there was a week’s rest, _bwerende_, on +the appearance of each new moon; no special gatherings were held during +this period, but the people did the minimum of work, even the cutting of +firewood being forbidden. All preparations for the festival were made +beforehand, in order that the women should not be obliged to perform any +labour other than cooking.[436] In Budu, a district of Uganda, there is +a curious worship of the python, conducted by members of the Heart clan. +The sacred snake, which bears the title of Selwanga, is kept in a temple +and receives worship at the new moon. When this appears, the people +repair to the shrine of the python and make their offerings. No work may +be done on the estate for seven days.[437] Again, the principal chief of +the district of Singo, who was shield-bearer to the king of the Baganda, +“had to observe a taboo each full moon, namely, to abstain from food from +noon of the day of the full moon until the following morning, and also +to live apart from his wives during that time. ‘It is full moon, the +Mukwenda may not eat,’ was a saying among the people.”[438] The Banyoro, +a Bantu people related to the Baganda, who inhabit the country to the +northwest of Uganda, performed every full moon a ceremony which has been +thus described: “In the afternoon all the drums in the place were beaten, +and everybody shouted, as no one dared keep silent for fear of offending +the moon. The king posted men at the cross-roads and seized every one who +passed along. These unfortunate folk were brought in to him and offered +as a propitiatory sacrifice for the whole country to the evil spirits. +The hair of the victims was put into cow horns and their blood was poured +on to it, the horns being then kept by different people as charms against +sickness and trouble. After this the king appeared swathed in barkcloths, +taking up his position in his council hall, his subjects coming to do +obeisance to him. A dead silence prevailed, for no one was allowed to +even cough in his presence.... As the full moon rose the feasting began, +and the drinking and dancing continued till dawn. The king’s chief wife +had to sit by her intoxicated spouse and pinch his arm or bite his +finger, to prevent sleep; for a man to slumber during full moon brought +disaster to the household.”[439] New moon, as well as full moon, seems +to have been observed by the Banyoro, for Speke found the palace of the +king of Unyoro shut up, because the new moon had been seen for the first +time on the preceding evening.[440] The same explorer describes a like +custom found among the Bahima, or Wahuma, of Ankole, a region lying to +the southwest of Uganda. “On the first appearance of the new moon every +month, the king shuts himself up, contemplating and arranging his magic +horns—the horns of wild animals stuffed with charm-powder—for two or +three days. These may be counted his Sundays or church festivals which he +dedicates to devotion.”[441] + +New-moon and full-moon festivals, accompanied by abstinence from secular +activities, are thus seen to form a common feature of native life in +southern and eastern Africa. The custom of keeping them as rest days is +apparently confined to Bantu peoples, who arose from a mixture of Hamites +with the true negroes. No sabbatarian regulations are discoverable among +the Bushmen, representing the aborigines of southern Africa, or among the +non-Bantu tribes of eastern Africa. It may be argued, therefore, that +these African Sabbaths are of foreign parentage, being derived remotely +from Hamitic and Himyaritic (Semitic) immigrants into Africa. The +argument is strengthened by the fact that lunar festivals may be traced +to a remote antiquity, both in Egypt and in western Asia. In any case, +however, they must have been much modified with their transmission from +tribe to tribe and from century to century. + +None of the natives of southern and eastern Africa who observe new moon +and full moon as seasons of abstinence appear to be familiar with the +market week and the market day. On the other hand, in central and western +Africa, where markets are so generally found and where the market day is +kept as a holiday, lunar festivals accompanied by a cessation of labour +are very rare.[442] Lieutenant-Colonel Ellis, who was much impressed +with the resemblance of the west-African rest day to the Hebrew Sabbath, +supposed that both were once lunar festivals, connected with moon-worship +and celebrated on the first day of the new moon. “This holy day, before +the invention of weeks, recurred monthly, but after the lunar month +was divided, it recurred weekly, and was held on the first day of the +week.”[443] His theory, however plausible at first sight, breaks down +when we remember that the keeping of moon-days as Sabbaths does not +necessarily imply worship of the moon as a deity; that full moon, as +well as new moon, may be observed festively with abstinence from labour; +and, finally, that the market week did not arise as a subdivision of +the month, but was in origin quite independent of the lunation. The +restrictions attending market days have nothing to do with superstitions +relating to the moon. + +Lunar taboos are not unknown in modern India. The natives of northern +India regard the new moon as an unfavourable time for undertaking +important business.[444] The Kanarese, whose customs and beliefs relating +to the last day of the lunar month have already been noticed, do not +plough their fields at new moon and full moon.[445] The Badaga of the +Nilgiri Hills in southeastern India think that children born on the day +of the new moon, the full moon, or any one of the three days immediately +preceding the full moon, will be unfortunate throughout life.[446] The +Korava regard the day after new moon as unlucky for starting out from +home.[447] Similar superstitions are doubtless to be found among other +Dravidian peoples. + +The Aryans of ancient India observed two sacred periods in every month, +new moon and full moon, with sacrifices to the gods.[448] The simpler +forms of the rite were gradually extended into an elaborate ritual. +Every Brahmanical householder was required to perform two half-monthly +sacrifices for a period of thirty years, after he had set up a home of +his own. According to some authorities these sacrifices were obligatory +for the rest of his life. The ceremony usually occupied the greater +part of two consecutive days. While the first day was to be chiefly +occupied with preparatory rites and the taking of the vow of abstinence +(_vrata_) by the sacrificer and his wife, the second day was reserved +for the performance of the main ceremony.[449] Since it was permitted +to compress the two days’ rites of the full-moon sacrifice into a +single day, the conjecture is plausible that originally only one day +was assigned to the observances of abstinence and sacrifice.[450] The +ritualistic requirements for this ceremony do not expressly include the +cessation of labour by the Brahmanical householder and his family. It +might be argued, therefore, that the new-moon and full-moon observances +were not originally dictated by a superstitious regard for the lunar +phases. The fasting on the _upavasatha_ day would then be merely a rite +preliminary to the sacrifice on the following day; and the association of +the two ceremonies with new and full moon would mean only that these two +divisions of a lunar month were selected as convenient and conspicuous +periods for the performance of religious duties. But the evidence at our +disposal enables us to attach a deeper significance to the ancient Aryan +rite. + +In the first place it is well known that the _upavasatha_ was a fast +preparatory to the offering of the “moon plant,” the intoxicating _soma_, +whose personification and deification are assigned to a date earlier than +that of the Vedas themselves. A very competent scholar, after pointing +out that in Vedic literature the moon takes a much higher rank than the +sun, being regarded as the creator and ruler of the world, has argued +that everywhere in the _Rig-Veda soma_ and the moon are identified, and +that the terrestrial plant is merely a symbolic representation of the +luminary. According to this view the moon-god as Soma forms the centre +of Vedic religion.[451] The theory, thus unequivocally stated, has not +won wide acceptance; according to the commoner view Soma as a god is +ordinarily celebrated in the Vedic hymns only as a personification of +the beverage; and his identification with the moon is to be explained +as a secondary mythological formation. Certain instances of such +identification are met in a few of the latest hymns of the _Rig-Veda_; +and in the _Atharva-Veda_ Soma several times means the moon. Post-Vedic +writings regularly refer to Soma as the moon, which, when drunk by the +gods, begins to wane.[452] + +In the second place the two half-monthly sacrifices were characterized +by restrictions which can best be described as taboos. The Brahmanical +householder was obliged to abstain from certain kinds of food, especially +meat, and from sexual intercourse. He might not cut hair, beard, or +nails. He should sleep, not on a bed, but on the ground. The directions +for the ceremonies, as given in the _Grihya-sûtra of Gobhila_, further +require the worshipper not to set out on a journey; if he is away from +home even at a distant place, to return to his house; not to sell +goods (though he may buy them from others); and to speak as little as +possible.[453] It is obvious that the scrupulous observance of all these +regulations would convert the _upavasatha_ day into a Sabbath, marked, +not only by fasting, but also by the cessation of most secular activities. + +In post-Vedic times the sabbatarian quality of lunar days becomes +increasingly prominent. In the _Institutes of Vishnu_ the new moon is +mentioned as a penitential fast day.[454] A variety of lunar penances +is prescribed in the _Laws of Manu_.[455] The same lawbook sets forth +that “on the (night of) new moon and the eighth (lunar day), and also on +the (night of) full moon and the fourteenth (lunar day), let a Brahman +who has finished his student’s course be always (as) a student, even in +season,” that is, let him remain chaste.[456] According to the _Vishnu +Purana_, a relatively late production of Brahmanical thought, there +are “certain days on which unguents, flesh, and women are unlawful, as +the eighth and fourteenth lunar days, new moon and full moon, and the +entrance of the sun into a new sign. On these occasions the wise will +restrain their appetites, and occupy themselves in the worship of the +gods, as enjoined by holy writ, in meditation, and in prayer; and he +who behaves differently will fall into a hell where ordure will be his +food.”[457] It is also said that he who attends to secular affairs on the +days of the _parvans_ (new moon and full moon) will be punished hereafter +in a hell of blood.[458] For modern Brahmans the new-moon and full-moon +days are regularly fast days.[459] + +With the development of the complex ritual of Brahmanism holy and +unlucky days became almost identical with days when the sacred books +should not be read. The code of Manu requires a learned Brahman not to +recite the Veda on the new-moon day, or on the fourteenth and eighth +days of each half-month, or on the full-moon day. It is said that “the +new-moon day destroys the teacher, the fourteenth day the pupil, the +eighth and full-moon days destroy all remembrance of the Veda; let him +therefore avoid reading on those days.”[460] This injunction, moreover, +is repeated for a great variety of other critical occasions: during a +heavy thunderstorm; during an eclipse; and when an earthquake occurs. A +like prohibition is enforced after events causing pollution; a Brahman, +for example, should not read the Veda in a village through which a corpse +has been taken, or near a burning-ground.[461] Similar prohibitions are +set forth at great length in the lawbook of Gautama. The Veda ought not +to be studied and recited when there is a thunderstorm, an earthquake, an +eclipse or a fall of meteors; on the day of the new moon (on the latter +occasion reading may be interrupted for two days); on the full moon of +three months of the year, and so forth.[462] In the _Vishnu Purana_ we +read that “on the days called _parvans_, on periods of impurity, upon +unseasonable thunder, at the occurrence of eclipses or atmospheric +portents, a wise man must desist from the study of the Vedas.”[463] Some +of these taboos have endured till the present time, the eighth day of +each fortnight, held sacred to the goddess Durga, being a period when no +study is allowable for a pious Hindu.[464] + +The Vedic ceremonies at new moon and full moon appear to have influenced +the Hindu festival of Bhaskara Saptami, which takes place on the +twenty-second of the month Magha, the seventh day of the light fortnight +(4th of February). “This day is in an especial degree sacred to the sun. +Abstinence is to be practised on the day preceding; and in the morning +before sunrise, or at the first appearance of dawn, bathing is to be +performed until sunrise; a rigid fast is to be observed throughout the +day, worship is to be offered the sun, presents are to be made to the +Brahmans, and in the evening the worshipper is to hold a family feast; +one of the observances of the day is abstinence from study, neither +teacher nor scholar being allowed to open a book.”[465] For the proper +observance of the festival it is also necessary that the sun should be +worshipped in his own temple, with prayers and offerings on the sixth +day, during which abstinence is to be practised, and at night the +worshipper should sleep on the ground. In upper India the festival day is +also called Achala Saptami, the fixed or immovable seventh, or Jayanti +Saptami, the victorious seventh, and so forth. “Whatever the designation, +the worship of the sun is the prominent ceremony of the seventh of the +light half of Magha. The same may be said, however, of the seventh lunar +day throughout the year, chiefly of one seventh in each fortnight, +that of the moon’s increase; but also of the seventh day of the moon’s +wane.”[466] The religious books declare that whoever worships the sun on +the seventh day of the moon’s increase, with fasting and offerings of +white oblations, as white flowers and the like, and whoever fasts on the +seventh of the moon’s wane and offers to the sun red flowers and articles +of a red colour, is purified from all iniquity and goes after death to +the solar sphere. “The worship of the sun, on the seventh of the dark +fortnight, seems to have gone out of use, but that on the seventh of the +light fortnight is strongly recommended in various authorities, beginning +with this seventh of Magha and continuing throughout the year.”[467] +The selection of the seventh day of each fortnight as the time of the +festival may have been due to the symbolic significance of that number, +while the choice of the sun as the object of adoration doubtless reflects +the commanding position which that luminary assumed in post-Vedic times. +The close resemblance between these Hindu ceremonies of sun-worship and +those prescribed in the Vedas for the observance of new moon and full +moon suggests, however, that there has been a partial fusion of the two +festivals. + +The Vedic observance of new moon and full moon survived in the ritual of +both Jainism and Buddhism, the two great monastic sects which arose in +the sixth century B.C. out of the bosom of Brahmanism. The Jain ceremony, +known as _posaha_, is declared to have been specially instituted for +those who said that “we cannot, submitting to the tonsure, renounce the +life of a householder and enter the monastic state, but we shall strictly +observe the _posaha_ on the fourteenth and eighth days of each fortnight +(on the new-moon and) full-moon days.”[468] The faithful householder +“should never neglect the _posaha_ fast in both fortnights, not even for +a single night.”[469] In the Jain scriptures, the _posaha_ is further +defined as the observance of a fast or the eating once only on the two +holy days of each fortnight, “after having given up bathing, unguents, +ornaments, company of women, odours, incense, lights, etc., and assumed +renunciation as an ornament.” The _posaha_ is thus distinguished by +the four abstinences from food, bodily attentions, sexual intercourse, +and daily work.[470] The keeping of the _posaha_ at the present day is +especially connected with the holy fast of Pajjusaṇa at the close of the +Jain religious year. The observance of the rite at other times by laymen +appears to be dying out.[471] + +The Buddhist Sabbath, or _uposatha_, like the Jain _posaha_, owed its +existence remotely to the Vedic lunar rites. As celebrated anciently in +India and in modern times in Nepal and Ceylon, the _uposatha_ falls on +the day of the new moon, on the day of the full moon, and on the two +days which are eighth from new and full moon. The _uposatha_ is marked +not only by fasting but also by abstinence from secular activities: +during its continuance buying and selling, work and business, hunting and +fishing are forbidden, and all schools and courts of justice are closed. +Whoever observes the _uposatha_ rigidly must abstain from food between +sunrise and sunset. Since no cooking is allowed to taint the sanctity +of the _uposatha_, the pious Buddhist prepares his evening meal in the +early morning before the sun appears.[472] + +The _uposatha_, as contrasted with the _upavasatha_, is a ceremony +attached to all four of the lunar phases, instead of to two only; +moreover, it is a rest day as well as a fast day. How may it be shown +that the Buddhist institution forms a natural outgrowth of the earlier +Brahmanical rite? + +The origin of the custom of observing four days in the lunar month as +_uposatha_ is involved in some obscurity. According to Buddhist tradition +the monks of non-Buddhistic sects were accustomed to assemble at the +middle and close of every half-month for the purpose of proclaiming +their teachings. The Buddhists also adopted the custom of these +periodical meetings on the fourteenth or fifteenth and eighth day of +each half-month, a custom by them attributed to the Buddha himself.[473] +There seems to be not the slightest ground for supposing that the number +of Buddhist Sabbaths was originally two, but was afterwards increased +to four in every month. The words of the canon are: “I prescribe that +you assemble on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and eighth day of each [half] +month.”[474] In the _Dhammika Sutta_ the wording is: “Then having with a +believing mind kept abstinence (_uposatha_) on the fourteenth, fifteenth, +and eighth days of the half-month,” etc.[475] When Buddhism arose, the +custom of keeping the eighth day of each lunar fortnight, in addition to +new moon and full moon, appears to have been well-established in both +Brahmanism and the non-Buddhistic sects, a circumstance which led to the +adoption of all four periods by Buddhists as well.[476] Two of these +days (at new moon and full moon) are devoted to the special ceremony of +reading, in an assembly of at least four monks, the _patimokkha_, or the +disciplinary and penal code of Buddhism, according to the regulation laid +down by the Buddha.[477] + +In the _Sutta Nipâta_, a collection of seventy didactic poems belonging +to the Pitakas, or sacred books of the southern Buddhists, Eight Precepts +or Moral Commandments are enumerated. Five of these are binding on every +Buddhist, whether mendicant or layman, but the remaining three are not +obligatory for the laity. The precepts are: (1) not to destroy life; (2) +not to commit theft; (3) not to tell lies; (4) not to drink intoxicating +liquors; (5) not to indulge in unlawful sexual intercourse; (6) not to +eat unseasonable food at night; (7) not to wear garlands or use perfumes; +and (8) not to sleep on a raised couch.[478] These precepts are said to +constitute the eight-fold fast, or _uposatha_, declared by the Buddha. +Their special observance on the _uposatha_ day is inculcated, and to +break any of them on that day is considered highly irreligious. Instead +of observing lunar taboos, the Buddhists were to keep the _uposatha_ by +a special fulfillment of the moral law, with clean garments and with +clean minds; one of the many instances in which the founder of Buddhism +gave a spiritual meaning to an earlier superstitious rite. That the +_uposatha_, marked as it was by fasting, avoidance of sexual intercourse, +and refraining from wearing wreaths and using perfumes, should have come +to be regarded as a rest day seems to be only the natural result of its +observance as a season of abstinence. The _uposatha_ is thus discovered +among the earliest institutions of Buddhism; in its origin it could +have owed nothing to Jewish or Christian influence; in its diffusion +throughout southeastern Asia it appears to have remained unaffected by +the influence of Islam. If these conclusions be accepted, the Buddhist +Sabbath dates back, remotely, to taboos observed at changes of the moon. + +Buddhism was early introduced into Ceylon. The Sabbath still observed +there by the Sinhalese falls on the four _poya_ days of the month, the +days of the changes of the moon.[479] Missionaries from Ceylon carried +the new faith to Burma, at least as early as the fifth century A.D. +According to an old traveller the “eighth day of the increasing moon, +the fifteenth or full moon, the eighth of the decreasing moon, and the +last day of the moon, are religiously observed by Birmans (_sic_) as +sacred festivals. On these hebdomadal holidays no public business is +transacted in the Rhoom: mercantile dealings are suspended; handicraft is +forbidden; and the strictly pious take no sustenance between the rising +and the setting of the sun; but the latter instance of self-denial is not +very common, and, as I understood, is rarely practised, except in the +metropolis, where the appearance of sanctity is sometimes assumed as a +ladder by which the crafty attempt to climb to promotion.”[480] According +to a more recent and sympathetic account there are “four _ubone_, or +duty days, in every lunar month, on which all good Burmans are expected +to go and worship at the pagodas. These are the eighth of the crescent, +the full moon, the eighth of the waning, and the change, of which the +second and the fourth are the more sacred. As the monks have nothing to +do with looking after the spiritual state of the people, it is entirely +a matter to be settled by one’s self whether any particular worship +day is to be observed or not. If you conclude that strict religious +observances are only necessary for your spiritual well-being on the +day of the full moon, or at any rate that you may leave out the eighth +of the crescent and waning moon, then the _ubone_ does not concern you +at all, and you may proceed about your ordinary business without being +considered a reprobate. The very devout may go to the pagoda on all the +four sacred days of the month; but if you choose to omit one or several, +or substitute an ordinary day for that provided by religious custom, +there is no one to take you to task for it. Were a Burman never to go to +the pagoda at all, or fail to do so for any considerable time, he would +indeed soon get a very bad character among his neighbours, and might even +be formally excommunicated by the _yahan_. There is, however, practically +no constraint save the force of public opinion. But the duties of worship +are so light, and so dependent in their details upon yourself, and +there is so much amusement to be got out of a visit to the pagoda on +an _ubone_, that few, even of the most worldly-minded, miss any great +number of the appointed days, and a special festival is always carefully +observed.... It must not, however, be supposed that all the people take +this easy-going and frivolous view of duty days. Diligent seekers after +_kutho_ behave very differently. They do not merely limit themselves to +the customary forms of worship and offerings. They sleep little, or not +at all, the night before; telling their beads instead, and reading good +books, some of the discourses of the Buddha, or portions of the greater +_zat_. All necessary business is transacted the day previous to the +_ubone_, and neighbours are exhorted to observe the festival properly. +After one simple dish in the morning, they eat nothing for the rest of +the day; or perhaps on certain occasions do not break their fast till +after midday, a custom very general on the first day of Lent. Instead +of staying in the noisy _zayat_, where the assembled people are talking +of light matters, laughing and diverting themselves, they retire to a +_tazaung_ on the pagoda platform or to some place shaded by trees; there +they finger the hundred and eight beads of their rosary, muttering, ‘All +is transient, sorrowful, and vain; the Lord, the Law, the Assembly; the +three precious things’; and meditate on the example of the Lord Buddha +and the excellence of his Law. To vary the monotony of this performance, +they go for an hour or two to one of the monasteries to talk with the +prior or some learned brother, or perhaps to hear him read and expound +one of the _jataka_, or birth-stories. So the duty day passes. By sunset +most of the worshippers are making their way back to their homes; but +a few zealous spirits remain all night in the _zayat_, and only return +with daylight on the following morning. This simple round of celebration +is repeated four times in every lunar month, with here and there a feast +day of some particular shrine thrown in, when the only difference is that +there is greater ceremony and a more or less large influx of strangers, +according to the sanctity of the pagoda.”[481] + +The Siamese Sabbath (_wan phra_) was also an institution introduced by +Buddhist missionaries. An old writer describes it as follows: “Their +Sunday, called by them _vampra_, is always the fourth day of the moon; in +each month they have two great ones, at the new and full moon, and two +less solemn, on the seventh and twenty-first. This day does not exempt +them from labour, since only fishing is forbidden to them. Those who +transgress this prohibition pay a fine and are thrown into prison, as +having profaned the sanctity of the day.”[482] A later writer declares +that hunting is also forbidden, and adds that on these days one cannot +find fresh fish and meat in the shops.[483] In former times the temples +were crowded with worshippers, who brought their offerings and listened +to the hymns, prayers, and moral discourses addressed to them by the +Buddhist priests.[484] But we are told that now a majority of the temples +stand empty on the _wan phra_, and what worshippers there are consist +invariably of women. Since the adoption of the solar calendar in 1889 the +_wan phra_ has been superseded to a large extent for civil purposes by +Sunday.[485] The Buddhist Sabbath is also found in Cambodia.[486] + +In some districts of Tibet the monthly Buddhist festivals (_du-zang_) are +four in number, following the successive phases of the moon. In other +parts of the country only three festivals are celebrated—at new moon, +first quarter, and full moon. On these days no animal food ought to be +eaten and no animal killed; those who break this rule are threatened +with severe punishment in a future existence. “To abstain from worldly +occupations is, however, not enacted, and as the Buddhist laymen in the +Himalaya and western Tibet are not very fond of passing the whole day in +prayers and in the temples, these holy days are not particularly marked +in the habits of the population.”[487] As elsewhere in Buddhist lands the +new-moon and full-moon Sabbaths are of most importance, since on these +occasions the _patimokkha_ is recited in the monasteries, accompanied by +a public confession of sins.[488] However, in Tibet there appears never +to have been much uniformity as to the times for the observance of the +_uposatha_, the practice varying with different provinces and sects.[489] +In Bhutan, where Buddhism was introduced by missionaries from Tibet, the +eighth, fourteenth, twenty-fourth, and thirtieth of the month are said to +be the holy days, while the Mongolians have the thirteenth, fourteenth, +and fifteenth, the three days being brought together perhaps because of +the great distance which separates the monasteries from the temple.[490] +Among the Kalmucks on the Volga, to the north of the Caspian, the +_uposatha_ is generally observed thrice a month—the eighth day after new +moon, the fifteenth, and the thirtieth.[491] + +The _uposatha_ is not unknown among the Buddhists of China. The Chinese +_Ts’ing-kwei_, or “Regulations of the Priesthood,” a Buddhist document, +enumerates, among others, four festivals to be kept each month, at new +moon and full moon, and on the eighth and twenty-third days. These are +called _kin-ming sï-chai_, “the four feasts illustriously decreed”; they +may be regarded as a variant of the _uposatha_.[492] Among non-Buddhists +there is another custom of observing on the new and full moon of each +month a ceremony, anciently in honour of the moon, but now particularly +addressed to various deities, especially the gods of wealth. It was +formerly the rule to sacrifice a bullock to the moon at this time. +During the festival the courts of justice and _yaman_, or government +residences, are closed. Offerings are made in the Confucian temples, and +even the family gods receive their meed of worship. The householder on +this day enjoys a better meal than usual, without, however, intermitting +his ordinary occupations.[493] There is no reason to believe that this +Chinese festival owes anything to contact with Buddhism. Its independent +origin, in connection with an early cult of the moon and perhaps at a +remote period with various lunar taboos, becomes, therefore, something +more than a conjecture. + +The Buddhist Sabbath penetrated to Japan. An old writer tells us that in +Japan there are three monthly holidays connected with the moon, though +now immovable feasts. “The first is called _isitatz_, and is the first +day of each month. It deserves rather to be called a day of compliments +and mutual civilities, than a church or Sunday.” The second holiday is on +the fifteenth of each month, “being the day of the full moon. The gods of +the country have a greater share in the visits the Japanese make on this +day, than their friends and relations.” The third festival occurs on the +twenty-eighth of each month, “being the day of the new moon, or the last +day of the decreasing moon. Not near so much regard is had to this, than +there is to either of the two former, and the Sintos [Shinto] temples +are very little crowded on it. There is a greater concourse of people on +this day at the Budsos [Buddhist] temples, it being one of the monthly +holidays sacred to Amida.”[494] + +Buddhism and Brahmanism, spreading beyond the confines of continental +Asia, carried the custom of keeping lunar festivals into some parts of +Indonesia. In Bali, where the _padanda_, or Brahmans, have preserved +many features of the old Vedic religion, fasts and sacrifices are still +obligatory on the householder at new moon and full moon.[495] In Kar +Nicobar Buddhist influence from Burma is seen in the custom of observing +a rest day on the seventh day of the moon, at full moon, and on the +twenty-second day of the moon, but only during seven lunar months of the +year.[496] The Nicobarese have given to this imported Buddhist Sabbath +their native name _anoiila_, which is regularly applied to the rest days +or holidays observed by them on various critical occasions.[497] + +We pass now from the lunar festivals found in ancient and modern India +and in those countries of southeastern Asia which have been long affected +by the cultural influence of India to similar observances among peoples +of archaic civilization. The ancient Iranians appear to have celebrated +four lunar days in each month, for the oldest part of the Avesta +contains the following passage: “I dedicate, I perform (the sacrifice) +for the month (gods), the time-divisions of Asa, for the between-moon +[_i.e._, the new moon], ... for the full moon, and for the intervening +seventh(s),” in other words, for the first, eighth, fifteenth, and +twenty-third days, which were all dedicated to Ahura Mazda.[498] The +choice of these four lunar days was due to the division of the Avesta +thirty-day month into two unequal parts, containing fourteen and sixteen +days, respectively, and to the further subdivision of each part so as to +form two groups of seven days and two of eight days. This arrangement +had the practical advantage of permitting a quadripartite division of +the month without a remainder. There is no evidence that the four groups +formed civil weeks, or that the first day of each group was observed as a +Sabbath.[499] + +Although the Egyptians had abandoned the old lunar year and lunar month, +perhaps as early as the beginning of the fourth millenium B.C., the +people continued for many centuries to observe as festivals the first and +fifteenth days of the month. In the earlier calendar these would have +coincided with the two significant epochs of the lunation, namely, new +moon and full moon. The “monthly feasts” and the “half-monthly feasts” +are mentioned in the very ancient texts preserved in the pyramids at +Sakkara of kings of the Sixth Dynasty.[500] They are referred to in +the _Book of the Dead_, in the directions requiring special chapters +of that work to be recited on the first day of the month, apparently +when it coincides with new moon, and on the last day of the sixth month +of the Egyptian year, when that day coincides with the full moon.[501] +That they were practised under the Twelfth Dynasty appears clearly from +the well-known inscription of Khnumhotep II, cut on the walls of the +chapel chamber in his tomb at Benihasan. Khnumhotep II, a local ruler +of the sixteenth nome in Upper Egypt, sets forth in this inscription +a somewhat vainglorious account of his buildings and his piety. Among +other things he says, “I endowed him [the mortuary priest] with fields +and peasants; I commanded the mortuary offering of bread, beer, oxen, +and geese, at every feast of the necropolis: at the feast of the first +of the year, of New Year’s Day, of the great year, of the little year, +of the last of the year, the great feast, at the great Rekeh, at the +little Rekeh, at the feast of the five intercalary days, at —— ——, at +the twelve monthly feasts, at the twelve mid-monthly feasts; every +feast of the happy living, and of the dead.”[502] Again, there is an +explicit reference to new-moon festivals under the Thirteenth Dynasty +in a celebrated inscription placed by Thothmes III (1501-1447 B.C.) +on the walls of the great temple of Amon at Karnak. This inscription +describes the numerous campaigns made by the Egyptian king in Syria. +The account of the battle of Megiddo opens as follows: “Year 23, first +(month) of the third season (ninth month), on the twenty-first day, the +day of the feast of the new moon, corresponding to the royal coronation, +early in the morning, behold, command was given to the entire army to +move.”[503] The significance of this lunar festival is further set +forth in the inscriptions on the ceiling of the pronaos of the temple +of Dendera, where the phases of the moon are portrayed together with +other astronomical matters. The thirty days of the month are here given +their eponymic names and are arranged in two divisions, according as +they belong to the decreasing or to the increasing moon. Four lunar +days are brought into special prominence as associated with the chief +phases of the moon, viz., 1st lunar day = “festival of new moon”; 7th +lunar day = “festival of the first quarter”; 15th lunar day = “festival +of the fifteenth,” and 23d lunar day = “festival of the third quarter.” +In this inscription full moon on the fifteenth of the lunar month, +repeatedly mentioned in poetical terms as “the eye of the moon,” seems +to have been regarded as the most significant of the lunar phases.[504] +The oldest traces of this important list of lunar days belong to the +Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties; the latest date from Ptolemaic and +Roman times.[505] The evidence, then, fully warrants the conclusion +that from the earliest period the Egyptians included the celebrations +at new moon and full moon among the most important of their religious +ceremonies.[506] In late classical times the lunar festivals appear to +have been consecrated to Osiris, whose identification with the moon +is reasonably certain.[507] But to what extent, if any, they were +accompanied by the imposition of taboos remains problematical. + +The evidence for lunar rites among the Greeks must be pieced together +from scattered references in the classical writers. The day of the +visible new moon (νουμηνία), marking the beginning of the lunar month, +appears to have been ceremonially observed throughout the Greek +world.[508] The Noumenia was particularly associated with Apollo and also +with Hera, a goddess who seems to have had an ancient rôle as a moon +deity. The antiquity of the Noumenia may be judged from the references to +it in the _Odyssey_, where no other general festival than that of Apollo +is mentioned. In the island of Ithaca a feast of Apollo on the new-moon +day was in progress at the time of the trial of Odysseus’s bow. Is it not +the holy day of Apollo, ask the suitors? Who on such a day could stretch +the bow?[509] The first of the month is holy, declares Hesiod.[510] In +Athens, and doubtless in other Greek cities, the Noumenia continued to be +in historic times a day of repose, when all public activities, except of +a religious character, were intermitted.[511] Private business, however, +was not suspended on the Noumenia; the markets, especially those for the +purchase of slaves, were then particularly frequented; the time was +regarded as the most favourable for marriage; and in the homes there +was much feasting and good cheer.[512] The Dichomenia (διχομηνία), or +full-moon day, appears also to have been a regular monthly festival in +Greece, though of lesser importance than the Noumenia.[513] + +The Roman month was originally lunar, and at all periods was divided by +the real or imaginary phases of the moon. The Kalends, or day of the +visible new moon, were sacred to Juno, a goddess, who, like the Greek +Hera, was particularly associated with the moon.[514] On the Kalends +one of the pontiffs performed a sacrifice, with the assistance of the +_rex sacrorum_.[515] Pious Romans also celebrated the new-moon day with +offerings and prayers to the family gods.[516] The Ides, or day of +the full moon, were consecrated to Jupiter, but the Nones, which may +originally have marked the moon’s first quarter, were not sacred to any +deity.[517] The Kalends of March, June, and October, the Nones of July, +and the Ides of all the months were numbered among the _feriæ publicæ_, +or sacred festivals attended by a compulsory remission of labour, of the +Roman state religion.[518] + +The taboos which at Rome invested the lunar phases appear to have +lingered into the historic age under yet another guise. Among the unlucky +days (_dies religiosi_[519]) of the Roman calendar were those following +the Kalends, Nones, and Ides. The thirty-six _dies postriduani_ were +regarded as unsuitable for many purposes, both public and private: for +battles, levies, sacred rites, journeys, and marriages.[520] We are told +that they owed their unlucky quality to a pronouncement of the Senate and +pontiffs, in consequence of the grave defeat of the Allia on the 18th of +Quinctilis (July). According to the story preserved by Gellius one of the +senators publicly declared that on the day following the Ides the Roman +commander had performed sacred rites with a view to engaging the Gauls, +only to experience an overwhelming defeat two days later. Many other +senators called to mind that on sundry occasions, when sacrifices on the +day following the Kalends, Nones, or Ides had been performed to secure +the favour of the gods in battle, not victory but disaster followed. In +consequence these days were declared unfit for public sacrifices.[521] It +is obvious that this traditional explanation of the _dies postriduani_ +must be far from the real truth. Unlucky days are not generated in such +an artificial fashion or on so wholesale a scale. We may with some +confidence regard the prohibitions accompanying these days as real +survivals of primitive taboos at new moon, first quarter, and full moon, +their assumed historic significance being only the conscious fiction of a +later and more sophisticated age.[522] + +The scanty records on which we must rely for our knowledge of the heathen +inhabitants of central and northern Europe, before they came into +contact with Rome and Christianity, furnish no certain evidence that +they celebrated lunar festivals. According to Strabo the Celtiberians +and their neighbours to the north sacrificed every full moon to a +nameless god, the ceremony taking place at night and being accompanied +by dancing.[523] Again, Tacitus, who mentions the custom of the Germans +of holding their assemblies on “fixed days” (_certi dies_), either at +the new moon or the full moon, also refers to the _certi dies_ on which +they think it lawful to propitiate Mercury, their chief god, with human +sacrifices.[524] Such statements may mean much or little. Having traced +lunar festivals among the Aryans of India, the Iranians, the Greeks, and +the Romans, it might reasonably be supposed that the Celts and Germans +were also familiar with them. + +But the festive observance of the two great epochs of the lunation was +by no means confined in antiquity to Indo-Germanic peoples. The Chinese +and Egyptian festivals at new moon and full moon reach back into the +past as far as the historical eye can follow them; while in Semitic +lands, as we shall learn, the same rites occupied a most conspicuous +place in the religious calendar. Not unjust was the remark of Isidore of +Seville, a famous scholar of the Middle Ages, that the ancients, just +as the Hebrews, were accustomed to celebrate the beginnings of all the +months—_apud veteres enim omnium mensium principia colebantur, sicut et +apud Hebræos_.[525] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +LUNAR CALENDARS AND THE WEEK + + +The calendar forms one of the most important of social institutions and +registers in its gradual improvement from age to age the onward march +of culture. The first attempts at calendar-making were naturally of +the rudest sort, for they were based on the untutored experience and +observation of common men. With the progress of society the regulation +of calendrical matters tended to fall into the hands of the sacerdotal +class, partly because priests alone enjoyed the leisure necessary for +prolonged researches, but chiefly because the calendar, on which depends +the orderly sequence of holy days and festivals, was itself an affair of +religion.[526] + +It is clear that the alternations of night and day must have furnished +man with his most elementary conceptions of the passage of time. A longer +cycle was naturally suggested by the lunar phenomena, so striking, so +obvious, and marked by stages so readily determined. A survey of the +anthropological data indicates that among savage and barbarous peoples +the moon is the measure of time, and that the period of a lunation +furnishes the customary unit for longer reckonings.[527] Lunar months +are general throughout Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Africa, and +America, wherever primitive calendars have not been supplanted by more +refined calculations borrowed from advanced peoples. The computation +of time by moons naturally formed the basis of those early calendars +which were framed by peoples just rising into civilization. In Mexico +and Yucatan the year of twelve moon-months preceded the introduction of +the solar year; and the ancient Peruvians, in some respects so advanced, +always continued to reckon by the succession of lunations.[528] There +can be no doubt that the solar calendar in use among the Egyptians at +the very dawn of their history had been preceded by a more primitive +reckoning of the year in lunations. It is enough to point out in this +connection that the Egyptians regularly employed the figure of a crescent +moon as the hieroglyph for “month.”[529] The calendars of Semitic +peoples, notably those of the Babylonians and Hebrews, were based on the +moon;[530] and the prophet Mohammed, when enjoining on his followers the +observance of the pure lunar year, in place of the lunisolar year used +by the Arabians before the Hegira, was in reality reverting to a still +more primitive mode of counting time. Lunisolar calendars, in which the +primary unit is the lunation, were known, long before the Christian era, +to every civilization in the Old World from the Roman in the west to the +Chinese in the east. Linguistic researches indicate that in most, if not +all, Indo-European languages, the names for moon and month originally +coincided.[531] In Max Müller’s poetical language the moon was “the +golden hand on the dark dial of heaven.” + +The need of observing the moons, apart from religious or superstitious +reasons, was no doubt mainly connected with economic considerations. +To the savage it is of supreme importance to be able to anticipate the +different periods of the year which bring with them different supplies +of natural food; and for this purpose the moons afford a convenient +basis of reckoning. Hence we find that very generally among primitive +peoples the moons are named after the moulting, migrating, and pairing +of animals, or after the budding, blossoming, and ripening of the fruits +of the earth. Again, most shepherd tribes reckon time by moons. In the +pastoral stage it is probable that the necessity of calculating the +various periods of gestation and the proper time for breeding, so that +young animals might be brought into the world at seasons most favourable +to their health and maintenance, contributed to the observation of the +moon and to the formation of lunar calendars. If the desirability of +observing the successive moons was felt by frugivorous and pastoral +peoples, it will be readily seen how the introduction of agricultural +operations, often accompanied by religious ceremonies and festivals, +rendered definite and clearly marked divisions of time a matter of the +greatest moment. It is therefore probable that rude popular calendars +based on the moon were in use long before more accurate observations were +made by primitive astronomers. There is much evidence for the practice +of naming the moon-months after the different agricultural operations, +such as planting and harvesting, which occur in them. Among the Chinese, +Japanese, Babylonians, Hebrews, Celts, Germans, and Slavs, the early +epithets of some or all of the months are connected with agriculture and +the farmer’s life. And the Roman Aprilis, Maius, and Junius, from which +our own month-names have been taken, are believed to have been originally +seasonal designations, referring to the sprouting, growth, and maturity +of vegetation. + +A lunar month does not necessarily imply a lunar year. Of not a few +savage and half-civilized peoples it is expressly said that they have +but vague notions of a year as a fixed period of time, and that they can +refer to events more than a few months past only as happening after some +noteworthy event, such as a flood, a drought, an earthquake, a comet, or +the death of a chief. The foundation of yearly reckonings must be sought +in the observation of rhythmical natural phenomena—the alternation of +the seasons, the recurrence of periodical winds, the varying length of +day as determined by the sun’s elevation, and especially the rising and +setting of the Pleiades.[532] In order to adapt the same moons to the +same seasons as they successively occurred, or to the course of the +sun, or to the rising and setting of the Pleiades, the number of moons +was usually taken at twelve, giving the lunar year of three hundred and +fifty-four days.[533] + +It is unnecessary in this connection to discuss fully the various methods +which have been employed to adjust the pure lunar year of twelve synodic +months to the seasonal or solar year. Some primitive peoples adopt the +expedient of counting thirteen lunations to the year. A more common and +accurate procedure is to intercalate the thirteenth month, usually in +every second or third year. Familiar illustrations are furnished by the +Hindus, Babylonians, Jews, and Greeks in antiquity; among modern peoples, +by the natives of Burma, Siam, China, and Japan.[534] The methods of +intercalation employed are historically numerous, the details are often +obscure, and in no instance were the results wholly successful. The +difficulties arising from such attempts to coördinate incoördinable +quantities must have been the prime cause of the adoption of calendars +in which the month, instead of denoting the moon’s synodic revolution, +received an arbitrary number of days approaching the twelfth part of a +solar year. + +The period of a lunation seems to have been generally estimated, in +the first instance, at thirty days, a calculation found in the lunar +calendars of many half-civilized peoples, and still employed at the +present day on all occasions when absolute accuracy is not considered +necessary. Indeed, if lunations be used, it is more exact to count by +thirty days than by twenty-nine. When the moon’s synodic revolution came +to be more accurately measured by calculating an average from the number +of days comprised in several successive lunations, the true length (about +twenty-nine and one-half days) could be conveniently calendarized only by +periods of twenty-nine and thirty days in alternation. Such vacillating +months were used by the Hawaiians and the New Zealanders; they were +familiar to the Jews, the later Babylonians, and the Greeks; and they are +still found throughout the Mohammedan world, and among various peoples of +southeastern Asia.[535] + +People who reckon by moons naturally begin their lunar month with the +first appearance of the luminous crescent in the western sky.[536] The +real moon being invisible for two or three days, various expedients are +adopted in order to secure regularity in lunar reckonings. Thus, the +Toda keep a record of the number of days from new moon to full moon and +from that to the next new moon. The full moon is counted as being on +the fifteenth day after the new moon, and the new moon as being on the +sixteenth day after the full moon.[537] The Basuto begin their month on +the day when the new moon is visible, though they count two more days +when the moon cannot be seen at all in the heavens.[538] Still other +devices were employed in antiquity by the Babylonians, Hebrews, and +Romans.[539] + +The lunar month, which in rude communities provides a satisfactory +chronological unit, does not meet the needs of an advancing society. +Shorter periods become desirable, and these may be found in the division +of the lunation. There is much evidence that primitive peoples watch +the lunar phases with keen interest, often name them, and sometimes use +them for the purpose of reckoning time. The natives of Victoria are said +to employ ordinal numbers only in numbering the days of the month for +making appointments. As their months are marked by the reappearance of +the moon, their ordinal numbers do not go beyond twenty-eight.[540] The +Dieri and related tribes of South Australia reckon by lunar phases; “when +anticipating a grand ceremony they refer to the first or last quarter +of the moon.”[541] The central Australians, who regard the moon as a +male deity, have distinct names applied to new moon, first quarter, full +moon, and last quarter.[542] In German New Guinea the phases of the moon +are employed for all time-units greater than a day.[543] The natives of +New Britain are close observers of the phases of the moon (_kalang_) +and have separate terms for them.[544] The New Caledonians count by +lunar months, “each divided into four weeks, following the four phases +of the moon.”[545] The Kayan on the Mendalam River in Dutch Borneo name +eight phases of the waxing and waning moon.[546] The Dyak tribes on the +Mahakam and Barito rivers in Dutch Borneo “reckon their time by the full +moon, half moon, and new moon.”[547] In those parts of Sumatra where +the seven-day week has not been introduced, it is a common practice +to calculate by the days of the moon’s age.[548] The very primitive +peoples occupying Nias and the Mentawi Islands off the western coast of +Sumatra distinguish four phases of the moon and give to them appropriate +names.[549] Not only do the Nicobarese possess terms to denote the chief +phases of the lunation, but they are also able to indicate any particular +day in the lunar month with perfect clearness, since each day has its +particular name.[550] The Andaman Islanders, possessing no extended +enumeration, do not count the moons in the year, but nevertheless employ +appropriate words to designate the lunar phases.[551] The Bontoc and +Ibaloi Igorot have noted and named eight phases of the moon; these, +however, are said to be seldom used for counting time.[552] Throughout +the Caroline Islands (Yap, Lamotrek, Ponape, Uleai) the successive days +of the month receive names indicating the moon’s age.[553] In Polynesia +every night in the month had its distinct name derived from the changing +aspects of the moon.[554] The Nandi of British East Africa similarly +designate the successive nights of a lunar month.[555] The Bini of +Southern Nigeria even appoint special persons to observe the changes of +the moon.[556] The Ho tribes of Togo and the Hottentots of South Africa +employ separate terms for all the lunar phases.[557] In South America +the Karaja of Brazil, in addition to noting and naming the four most +conspicuous phases of the moon, also distinguish a fifth phase, which +occurs between first quarter and full moon.[558] Of the North American +Indians it has been said, generally, that the “alternations of day and +night and the changes of the moon and the seasons formed the basis of +their [calendar] systems.”[559] In the words of the _Koran_ the phases of +the moon are “indications of time for men.”[560] + +Since new moon and full moon are the most conspicuous lunar phases, it +has been a common practice to recognize two periods in the lunation, as +marked by the waxing and the waning moon.[561] This two-fold division +of the month does not seem to be employed for calendrical purposes by +the Australian aborigines, but in some parts of Melanesia the two halves +of the lunation receive appropriate names and the full moon itself bears +a particular designation.[562] The Maori of New Zealand, who sometimes +“divide the month into halves or fortnights by ‘moon-growing’ and +‘moon-lessening,’”[563] are the only Polynesian people to adopt this mode +of reckoning. It is met, also, in Malaysia (Java, Sumatra, Bali, Nias, +etc.), but only where Indian culture has penetrated.[564] + +The division of the month into two parts is found among most +Indo-European peoples. In India the recognition of the “light” and +“dark” halves of the month goes back to Vedic antiquity.[565] Modern +Hindus divide the month into two fortnights, the days of which are +reckoned continuously as those of the increasing or decreasing moon. +The full-moon day (_amavus_) is held in great sanctity.[566] Like +customs prevail in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Indo-China, and other parts +of Asia.[567] The bipartite division of the month was familiar to the +ancient Persians[568] and to the early Greeks.[569] The fifteenth of the +month was regularly called by the Greeks the full-moon day (Dichomenia, +διχομηνία) even after the introduction of the sequence of twenty-nine day +and thirty-day months.[570] In “hollow” months of twenty-nine days the +full moon, of course, would fall on the fourteenth day, except when an +extra day was intercalated every thirty-two or thirty-three months.[571] +The Roman _kalendæ_ and _idus_ corresponded to the Greek νουμηνία and +διχομηνία.[572] The Kalends were so named because in early times the +pontiffs had been accustomed to make a public announcement (_calare_) +whether five or seven days should be reckoned from new moon to the first +quarter.[573] The Ides thus fell on the thirteenth or fifteenth day of +the month, according as the Nones occurred on the fifth or seventh day. +The Roman belief in the virtue of odd numbers doubtless explains this +choice of dates for both Nones and Ides.[574] Among the ancient Germans +new moon and full moon appear as the most prominent lunar phases.[575] +The division of the lunation into two parts, the first of fifteen +days, the second of fourteen or fifteen days, according as the month +had twenty-nine or thirty days, is clearly indicated for the Celtic +peoples.[576] In the Calendar of Coligny the days of each half-month +are numbered consecutively, following what must have been the old +Indo-European practice. The second half of the month is always preceded +by the title _atenoux_, doubtless indicating full moon, and variously +translated “great night” or “renewal.”[577] That this Gallic calendar +presents no exceptional custom is obvious from the constant occurrence +in the literature of the insular Celts of such expressions as the Welsh +_pythewnos_, a fortnight (literally “a fifteen night”), and the Irish +_cóicthiges_, which has the same meaning.[578] With these terms may be +compared our English “fortnight” (O. E. _feówertȳne niht_). + +The bipartite division of the month may be traced even more widely. It +was recognized by the Egyptians, who appear to have counted the days +by the decreasing and increasing moon and to have regarded the full +moon (_mḥ_) as the most important of the lunar phases.[579] For Semitic +peoples, notably the Babylonians and Hebrews, new moon and full moon +enjoyed significance not only as religious festivals but also as the +most conspicuous periods of the lunation. A primitive cycle of thirteen +days used for ritual purposes by the ancient Mexicans may have been +originally suggested by the number of months in the lunar year, but the +choice of this number seems also to have been affected by the recognition +of thirteen visible stages of the moon’s increase (_mextozoliztli_, +the moon’s waking) and thirteen visible stages of her decrease +(_mecochiliztli_, the moon’s sleep).[580] In both Colombia and Peru the +half-months were reckoned by the waxing and the waning of the moon.[581] + +From the division of the month into two fortnights, at once the +simplest, earliest, and most widespread form of the week, we pass to +the consideration of those shorter cycles of time which are found in +various parts of the world. It might appear at first sight that all civil +weeks of five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten days would likewise have +a natural origin in divisions, either of the true lunation or of the +conventional month. But the evidence which has been presented for the +existence of market weeks shows that these arose quite independently of +the lunar month, and that only at a subsequent period, when they came +into general use for calendrical purposes, were they adjusted to the +length of the moon’s monthly course. Some interesting examples of this +process of adjustment may be studied among the negroes of west Africa. +Thus, the Yoruba week consists of five days, and six of them are supposed +to make a lunar month. As a matter of fact, since the first day of the +first week always commences with the appearance of the new moon, the +month really contains five weeks of five days’ duration, and one of four +days and a half, approximately.[582] Again, the Tshi tribes of the Gold +Coast, having chosen seven-day weeks, find it necessary to begin them +at different hours of the day. Some of their weeks, termed _n’ehsŭn_, +“It is seven,” may have eight days and six nights, others the reverse, +and others seven days and nights, with a fractional part of a day or +night.[583] Such are the expedients adopted by some semi-civilized +peoples, whose months are strictly lunar, to avoid the difficulty +presented by the fact that the length of the lunation (twenty-nine and a +half days) does not permit of subdivision into exactly equal parts. + +One of the most common forms of the week is the decade. When not based on +the institution of the market, it seems reasonable to suppose that this +cycle was originally suggested by the increase, culmination, and decrease +of the moon, as shown by the waxing crescent, the more or less full disk, +and the waning crescent. If it be held that the arrangement by decades +was based rather on denary arithmetic, we may at least feel confident +that it would not have been chosen except for its close approximation +to the length of the lunar month. As a matter of fact, such a sequence +represents the true course of the lunation in days more correctly than +a nine-day, or an eight-day, or even a seven-day week. A division of +the month into decades is definitely attributed to the Maori of New +Zealand, who doubtless were obliged to count only nine days in the third +and last decade of every other month.[584] The arrangement of the four +Hawaiian _tabu_ periods, of which the first three came at intervals of +ten days, argues strongly in favour of a division of time into decades, +or _anahulu_. This term, though now obsolete, occurs frequently in +ancient legends and songs as a measure of time comprising ten days. The +fourth monthly _tabu_ period, sacred to the god Kane, was celebrated +on the twenty-seventh of the month, only three days after the festival +of Kaloa, from which circumstance it has been plausibly regarded as of +later introduction than the others.[585] A curious division of the month +into three parts prevails in some of the Caroline Islands. In Yap, +for instance, the thirty-day month is divided into _pul_, or new moon, +lasting thirteen days, _botrau_, or full moon, lasting nine days, and +_lumor_, or darkness, continuing to the end of the month.[586] Lunar +decades are found in southeastern Asia. The Chingpaw or Kachin of Upper +Burma, whose primitive year consists of twelve lunar months uncorrected +by intercalation and arbitrarily adjusted to the successive seasons, +recognize three divisions of the month, each of ten days’ duration. The +first, called _shitta pyaw_, includes ten days of the waxing moon; the +last, called _shitta si_, includes ten days of the waning moon. The +intervening period bears no special name, though the full moon itself is +called _shitta lai_.[587] The peoples of French Indo-China (Cochin-China, +Anam, and Tonkin) regularly divide the month into three decades, but +this arrangement is now being gradually superseded by the European week +of seven days.[588] Probably the Indo-Chinese custom was borrowed from +the Chinese, among whom it has long been a common practice to speak +of anything as happening in the first, middle, or last decade of any +particular month.[589] A similar system has not yet become obsolete in +Japan, where the ten-day periods are known as the upper, middle, and +lower decades.[590] Various African peoples use the ten-day cycle. Among +the Wagiriama of British East Africa the three decades (_makumi_) exist +side by side with the market week four days in length.[591] The Sofalese +of Portuguese East Africa are said to have divided the month into three +periods each of ten days, the first day of the first week being the +festival of the new moon.[592] Among the Tofoke, a Congo tribe, the lunar +month consists of three parts, reckoned, respectively, from new moon to +the increasing half moon, from this to the decreasing half moon, and +thence to the end of the month. Each of these phases bears a distinct +name.[593] The Ahanta of the Gold Coast divide the lunar month into three +periods, two of ten days’ duration, and the third lasting till the next +new moon appears, that is, for about nine days and a half.[594] These +decades seem to be quite independent of the market weeks, sometimes ten +days long, which are also found in Africa. On the other hand the Peruvian +decades, previously noticed, were clearly connected with the institution +of the market.[595] The sole instance of a week discoverable among the +Indians of North America is found among the Zuñi of northeastern New +Mexico, a Pueblo tribe leading a sedentary existence and in many respects +advanced in culture. By the Zuñi “the month is divided into three parts, +each part being called _topĭnta as temla_, ‘one ten.’”[596] + +A ten-day week was employed in antiquity by the Egyptians. The +hieroglyphic expression meaning “the ten days” is found in inscriptions +belonging to the age of the Pyramid-builders. The names applied to each +of the three decades—_hati_, that of the beginning, _abi_, that of the +middle, and _pahu_, that of the end—are perhaps somewhat less ancient, +the earliest definite use of these appellations being found in the time +of the Tenth Dynasty. The decades ran continuously from month to month. +Since the Egyptian year consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days, +it was necessary, however, in alternate years to begin the reckoning +of the decades on the sixth, instead of on the first, of the month. +According to an inscription dating from the time of the Third Dynasty, +the first day of each decade was marked by sacrifices, and later records +contain frequent instances of a religious observance of this day.[597] + +The Greek decades betray in their names, μὴν ἱστάμενος (waxing), μεσῶν +(central), and φθίνων (waning), an association with the moon. The days of +the last decade were usually counted backward; in “hollow” months, the +day corresponding to the twenty-ninth of “full” months was omitted, so +that the decade really contained only nine days. By the Athenians the +last day of the third decade was styled ἕνη καὶ νέα (“old and new moon”), +as being the day which belonged in part to the preceding (theoretical) +month of twenty-nine and a half days and in part to the following month. +No clearer illustration could be afforded of lunar weeks adjusted to +the lunar month.[598] The Greek arrangement by decades must have been +very old. Unknown to Homer, it appears in Hesiod’s _Works and Days_ side +by side with the still earlier division of the month into two parts +determined by full moon. Hesiod, who tells his Bœotian farmer to avoid +the thirteenth of the waxing month for the commencement of sowing, and +who declares that the fourth, whether of the waning or of the waxing +month, is “a very fateful day,” also uses such expressions as the “first +sixth,” “first ninth,” “middle third,” “middle fourth,” and “the fourth +which follows the twentieth of the month.”[599] This unequivocal evidence +for the use of the decades as early as the middle of the eighth century +B.C. seems to dispose of the theory[600] that they were an importation +from Egypt. + +The evidence for the existence of weeks of nine days is very obscure. +They are found in west Africa, but only as market weeks unconnected +with the lunation. Efforts have been made to discover traces of such +periods among various Indo-Germanic peoples, particularly the Greeks +of the Homeric and pre-Homeric age.[601] There are, indeed, numerous +illustrations in the older literature of cycles of nine days (as also +of nine years), but no evidence at all that these were ever employed for +civil purposes as regular divisions of the month. The same remark applies +to the so-called weeks of nine days among the ancient Germans,[602] and +to the frequent mention in old Irish and Welsh texts of periods of three +days and nights and of nine days and nights.[603] + +Market weeks, eight days in length, which seem to have developed from +earlier periods of four days, are found in Assam, in certain parts +of Africa, perhaps at one time among the Indians of Colombia, and in +antiquity among the Romans.[604] Such market weeks are independent of the +moon and run unfettered through the months and years. On the other hand +a week of eight days, called _‘sāmĕn_, which exists among the northern +Abyssinians, is clearly adjusted to the length of the lunation. Every +month consists, theoretically, of four weeks, of which the first two are +those of the increasing moon and the last two those of the decreasing +moon. In practice, however, the people are compelled to count only six +days in their fourth and last week.[605] This Abyssinian cycle possibly +may have originated as a market week, since elsewhere in Africa market +weeks of four or more days have been adjusted, somewhat artificially, to +the length of the lunation. + +Six-day weeks, connected with the market and probably derived from an +earlier week of three days’ duration, are found in Africa.[606] There +are also a few instances of the same cycle where a connection with the +market does not certainly appear. The Lolo, Pula, and other aboriginal +tribes of southwestern China keep a “Sabbath,” as a rule every sixth day. +No ploughing may take place at this time, and in some places the women +are not allowed even to sew or wash clothes.[607] The Bawenda, who occupy +the northeast corner of the Transvaal, are said also to use a week of six +days, though only three of these are separately named.[608] + +The numerous five-day weeks found in the Malay Archipelago, southeastern +Asia, and Africa all exist in connection with the market.[609] On the +other hand this cycle seems to be sometimes independent of the market. +An Egyptian calendar, belonging to the second century B.C. but probably +based on much older material, divides the year for astrological purposes +into weeks of five days, each week corresponding to the sixth part of +one of the signs or constellations of the zodiac. The calendar also gives +the name of the presiding deity of each sign, together with the omens, +portents, and favourable or unfavourable characteristics that belong +to it.[610] A five-day period, _khamushtu_, employed as a sixth of the +month, appears to have been familiar to the Assyro-Babylonians in the +third millenium B.C. We do not know how far the _khamushtu_ entered into +the civil life of the Mesopotamian peoples, but from the circumstance +that this system of computing short time-intervals was used in mercantile +and monetary transactions it may be surmised that we here have to do with +a very ancient form of the market week.[611] Babylonian and Assyrian +cuneiform texts also contain traces of five-day periods associated with +the successive changes of the moon and dedicated to various divinities; +but it is not certain that these later cycles were derived from the +_khamushtu_.[612] The whole subject is obscure and may well await future +discoveries for its complete elucidation. Finally, there is evidence +that the old Scandinavian peoples employed time-intervals of five days, +of which six were counted to the month. Here, again, we are at a loss to +determine how far this pentad, called _fimt_, was regularly used as a +civil week in heathen times. After the introduction of the hebdomadal +cycle into northern lands, the term survived as a standing phrase in +Norse laws and popular sayings.[613] + +The preceding pages have presented much evidence to show how carefully +primitive peoples watch the changes of the moon and describe them by +appropriate names. The four lunar phases provide, indeed, an obvious +means of calculating the passage of time; and they are often used for +this purpose in the absence of any recognized calendrical unit shorter +than the lunar month. The length of the lunation being approximately +twenty-nine and a half days, a single phase occupies about seven and +three-eighths days, which must be calendarized as seven days, since it is +necessary to employ a round number. It is not a valid argument against +the natural origin of the hebdomadal cycle to urge that seven does not +form an exact division of the lunar month. No other number will divide +the lunation without a remainder. However, the hebdomad furnishes a less +satisfactory time-unit than the decade, the former falling short of a +quarter of the month by more than nine hours, the latter exceeding a +third of the lunation by rather less than four hours. This circumstance +may account for the otherwise remarkable fact that, while the ten-day +lunar week is found in many parts of the world, the week of seven days +occurs in the lower culture and among peoples of archaic civilization +only as a borrowed institution, which can be traced ultimately to Semitic +lands and Semitic antiquity. + +The prevalence of the seven-day week throughout the world furnishes a +most impressive instance of the diffusion of a cultural element. Its +introduction into the Pacific area during the nineteenth century and +among the aborigines of America as the result of their contact with +European civilization is well known.[614] In Africa it has been spread +by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; in southeastern Asia and the Malay +Archipelago the original disseminators were Hindus, followed later by +Arabs and Europeans. This imported week has sometimes provided a cycle +of time shorter than the lunar month, where none existed before; in +other cases it has supplanted a native cycle usually associated with the +market. Together with the week has often gone the Jewish, Christian or +Mohammedan rest day. + +In Madagascar and along the east coast of Africa Arab influence, +continuing for many centuries, naturally left its impress on the +calendar. The names of the Malagasy weekdays are of Arabic origin.[615] +Previous to the introduction of Christianity under Radama I (1810-1828) +no rest day was communally observed, though each god had a sacred day +when those who were its special votaries abstained from work.[616] The +Swaheli, who occupy the coast lands north and south of Zanzibar, use a +seven-day week, beginning with Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath.[617] Some +peculiar arrangements are found among the Masai of eastern equatorial +Africa, a warlike race clearly distinguished by language, customs, and +appearance from the Bantu peoples. The Masai seem to be connected with +the so-called Nilotic group, and their ancient home has been placed in +the region between Lake Rudolf and the Nile. At the present time they +dwell much farther south both in British and German territory. The Masai +count time by moon months, generally taken at thirty days in length. +The month does not begin with the visible new moon, but on the fourth +day thereafter. In addition they have a week of seven days, each one +separately named. The seventh day, which ends, and does not begin, the +week, is called _essubat ’n oloṅ_, “the good day.” According to Masai +tradition this week in remote times began on the new-moon day, but now +it is reckoned continuously without regard to the lunation. Furthermore, +the Masai appear to have once divided the months into decades, as is +still indicated by their expression, _ne̱gera_, applied to the tenth, +twentieth, and thirtieth days. This term comes from a verbal form +meaning “to be silent.”[618] There can be little question that the Masai +seven-day week was borrowed from Jewish or Christian sources, while the +decade arrangement may have been affected remotely by cultural contact +with peoples influenced by ancient Egypt. Most of the interior tribes +of British East Africa recognize no subdivision of the lunar month. But +among the Rendile and Burkeneji, who inhabit the steppes east of Lake +Rudolf, we find a week of seven days. Three of these days are marked +by restrictions. The first day, _hahat_, is a fast day, at which time +animals cannot be slaughtered for food. On the second day, _hura hakhan_ +(_hura_ in the Rendile language means sun), no work may be done, except +the slaughtering of food animals. On the fifth day, _ser hakhan_, people +will not travel, move their grazing grounds, or make cattle-medicine. +The natives are unable to identify the particular days of their week +with those of the European cycle.[619] Many of the Galla tribes between +Shoa, a kingdom of southern Abyssinia, and the Tana River of British +East Africa, are said to show great respect for Saturday and Sunday, +and on these days do not work in the fields. Here we may legitimately +assume Jewish and Christian influences from Abyssinia, especially since +the nomadic Galla of equatorial Africa do not seem to keep any special +rest days.[620] Other eastern Hamitic peoples, the Somali, Afar, and +Danakil, use the seven-day week with Arabic names and observe Friday, the +Mohammedan Sabbath.[621] The seven-day week found among the natives of +Kaffa, a region of eastern Africa on the borderland between the British +and Italian spheres of influence, appears to have been introduced a few +centuries ago by Christian immigrants from Amhara, the central province +of Abyssinia.[622] The spread of Islam among the Sudanese and Guinea +negroes has resulted in the introduction of the hebdomadal cycle and of +the custom of holding markets on the seventh day.[623] + +The seven-day week in India has a long history. The original division +of the Hindu lunar month was, as we have seen, into two equal parts, +determined by the waxing and the waning moon. This arrangement, which +still prevails in India, appears to have been the only one in calendrical +use until long after the beginning of the Christian era. It is true that +even in Vedic times the eighth day after the full moon was regarded as +one of the festival days of the month, and that, at least as early as the +rise of Jainism and Buddhism in the sixth century B.C., the eighth day +after new moon was added to the list of holy days.[624] The celebration +of four lunar festivals does not, however, imply the use of a civil week +by the Hindus, any more than in the case of the Persian festivals, which +likewise were adjusted to the phases of the moon.[625] The hebdomadal +cycle in India was entirely a borrowed institution, derived from the +planetary or astrological week, the days of which are named after five +planets and the sun and moon. By the middle of the third century A.D., +the planetary week was well known in the Roman world, and somewhat +later it was introduced as an astrological device into India. Who the +intermediaries were—whether Hindus who visited Mediterranean lands or +learned Greeks who made the voyage to India—it is impossible to say. The +earliest-known genuine instance of a planetary name of a day in India +occurs in an inscription belonging to the year 484 A.D. By the end of +the eighth century there are perhaps ten other inscriptional records, +coming from various parts of India and from Indian settlements in Java, +Cochin-China, and Cambodia, of the assignment of the weekdays to the +planets. After 900 A.D., instances of this practice are more numerous, +indicating that the seven-day week had now become something more than an +astrological device and was generally recognized for civil purposes as a +part of the Hindu calendar.[626] In modern India every day of the week +has its sacred character for the devotees of various gods, Sunday being +especially consecrated to the sun, Monday, to Siva, and Saturday, to the +monkey-god Hanuman.[627] For Hindus, generally, Sunday, Tuesday, and +Saturday are unlucky days, and at such times no important business will +be undertaken or any long journey begun.[628] + +India was the center from which the planetary week of seven days was +first introduced into southeastern Asia—into Ceylon, the Maldive Islands, +Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Cambodia, and Siam.[629] The Brahmanist Chams in +Cambodia and Anam use the planetary weekdays borrowed from Hinduism, but +the Mohammedan Chams sometimes employ the days of the Arabic week and +observe Friday as a Sabbath.[630] The Laotians, who have taken over the +planetary week from the Siamese, are careful, as pious Buddhists, so +to adjust their calendar that Sunday (_van athit_) always falls on the +eighth and fifteenth days of the lunar fortnight.[631] + +The Chinese possess no regular division of the month into weeks, though +a popular cycle, ten days in length, has long been found among them. The +week of seven days is coming into use in commercial centres frequented +by Europeans, where, for Monday, Tuesday, etc., native names meaning +“first day,” “second day,” etc., have been coined. The assertion that +the Chinese from of old have been familiar with the seven-day week +appears to be based on their custom, which is not of extreme antiquity, +of applying the names of the twenty-eight lunar mansions to each day of +the year in rotation, from which circumstance the same four out of the +twenty-eight always fall on Sunday and constitute what has been well +described as a perpetual “Sunday letter.”[632] On the other hand there +is definite evidence that the planetary week was introduced from India +to China, where, however, it seems never to have been employed except +for astrological purposes. A Chinese translation, made in the eighth +century A.D. of an Indian treatise on astrology, apportions the days of +the week among the planets, according to the astrological order. Sunday +in some Chinese almanacs is still called the “day of Mit,” that is, the +day of Mithra, the Persian deity associated with the sun. This “Sunday” +seems formerly to have had a place in the state calendars issued under +imperial auspices at Peking.[633] In this connection it is interesting to +note that the famous Nestorian Monument bears witness to the introduction +of the Christian Sunday into China by Nestorian missionaries from +Persia.[634] But the week of seven days as a calendrical entity never +took root among the Chinese, nor have they ever observed a weekly day of +rest.[635] + +In old Japan, as in China, the week of seven days was unknown. Shortly +after the restoration of the Mikado’s power in 1867-1868 there was +introduced what were called the _ichi-roku_, or holidays on the “ones” +and “sixes” of each month, _i.e._, on the first, sixth, eleventh, +sixteenth, twenty-first, twenty-sixth, and thirty-first days. But this +arrangement, borrowed from the Christian Sunday, did not last long, +and the copy soon gave way to the original. The Japanese now have the +seven-day week with names derived from the Occidental names. Sunday, in +vulgar parlance is called _dontaku_ (a corruption of the Dutch Zontag) +and Saturday, in equally vulgar parlance, is called _han-don_, that is, +“half-Sunday” (because the modern English Saturday half-holiday has made +its way into Japan).[636] On Sunday government offices and schools are +closed. In the cities some of the larger banks and mercantile houses +also suspend their business on Sunday, but as a rule country people, +artisans, and labourers observe no weekly day of rest. By people of the +middle and highest classes Sunday is preëminently a day devoted to social +intercourse, and even Japanese Christians, after attending an early +morning church service, feel themselves free to devote the afternoon and +evening to any form of legitimate recreation or amusement.[637] + +The planetary cycle is not unknown in the Malay Peninsula, though +here employed, as it seems, solely for astrological purposes. For +civil purposes weeks of seven days, marked by the return of Friday, +the Mohammedan Sabbath, are in general use.[638] Curious animistic +superstitions sometimes attach themselves to this day. Thus, the Malays +of the Patani States believe that the spirits have extra power over +mankind on Friday, hence many people will not take shelter under a tree +at any time on this day, lest the spirits sitting in the tree dive down +into them. This precaution especially applies to travellers, whose bodies +are weary and whose souls are therefore weak. Some Malays who have +wooden chests in which they store their finery and treasures dare not, +on Friday, lift the lid of one of these receptacles, because then the +chest’s soul (_semangat_) might escape. Henceforth the chest would become +a dead thing and all luck would desert its owner. Patani fishermen on +Friday always make offerings to the _semangat_ of their boats.[639] + +The seven-day week in the Malay Archipelago exists both as a Hindu +institution of remote origin and also as an outcome of the expansion of +Islam over this region. The Achehnese in northern Sumatra have not only +borrowed the hebdomad from the Mohammedans, but go so far as to make +Friday a day _pantang_ for all agricultural work, _pantang_ being the +native term for taboo.[640] Among the natives of the Kuantan District +the seven weekdays bear names derived from the Arabic.[641] On the +other hand the Batta of Lake Toba possess a calendar derived from Hindu +sources and also a week of seven days, with planetary names clearly +taken from the Sanskrit. But the Batta magicians, who use this cycle for +astrological purposes, do not now recognize its planetary origin; they +know only the sun, the moon, and, possibly, Venus. To the Batta _ari na +pitu_, the seventh day, is an evil day, and he who ventures to begin +any work upon it will surely be visited by some grave misfortune.[642] +In districts of Sumatra where neither Hindu nor Arabic influence has +penetrated, a division into weeks is unknown, the natives counting, +instead, by the days of the moon’s age.[643] In Java the Hindu planetary +week was combined with the still earlier market week of five days in +the eighth and ninth centuries, A.D., and since that time the Arabic +designations of the seven weekdays have also been introduced.[644] A +similar combination of the two cycles, yielding a period of thirty-five +days, occurs in Bali.[645] In Macassar, a former native kingdom of +Celebes, the Mohammedan Sabbath is observed.[646] + +The foregoing pages make it clear that the spread of Mohammedan rule +both in Asia and Africa has introduced the week of seven days into +regions where it had not previously found entrance. The Arabs themselves +adopted the week from the Jews and Christians, presumably at the time of +their conversion to Islam.[647] In the Arabic week the days from Sunday +to Thursday are numbered in their order, Friday is called _al jum‘a_ +“the meeting” (for worship), and Saturday, _as sabt_, “the Sabbath.” On +Friday, according to the rule laid down by Mohammed, the faithful are +to take part in the midday prayer at the mosque and to listen to the +sermon which follows the prayer. Labour is suspended during the service, +but at its close secular vocations, including marketing, are resumed. +The Mohammedean _jum‘a_, unlike the Jewish Sabbath, but like the early +Christian Sunday, is not a day of rest.[648] + +The seven-day week has now been traced over a large part of the globe. It +sometimes exists as a planetary-astrological cycle of pagan derivation; +in other cases its presence is obviously due to Jewish, Christian, or +Mohammedan influence. In no region does the hebdomadal cycle appear as an +independent product of the native culture. The inquiry into its remote +origin and connection with the cult of the number seven takes us back to +the ancient Oriental world. + +It is a familiar fact that many people attach to certain numbers a sacred +or symbolic meaning.[649] Such mystic numbers, unlike those of ordinary +arithmetic, are real categories in which thought naturally rests; +they are not fortuitous counts of objects but are rather subjective +syntheses—_cadres donnés d’avance_—according to which the mind divides +up and parcels out all things visible and invisible. Like names they +may become virtual entities endowed with their own functional power. +The symbolism and superstitions attaching to certain numbers, which we +discover in the records of all archaic civilizations, must be based +on very primitive modes of thinking, since a similar tendency toward +mysticism in the use of numbers appears among half-civilized peoples. +It is a tendency to whose development no bounds can be set, once the +refining ingenuity of the priestly class has begun to elaborate the +concept of the “sacred” as opposed to that of the “profane.” It seems +obvious, therefore, that the systems of sacred numbers, found in ancient +India, Babylonia, Greece, and other cultural areas, incorporate many +items of folk superstition together with the results of much speculative +activity on the part of early organizers of religion. + +It would be hard to find any number in the first decade which has not +been invested, by this or that society, with a mystical significance. +Seven, in particular, has enjoyed a marked importance among many peoples +widely separated in space and time.[650] As a symbolic number it occurs +among the Babylonians, Greeks, and Hindus at the very dawn of their +history; and it still figures prominently in the popular lore of India, +China, and southeastern Asia. Cultural influences emanating from the +Asiatic mainland appear to have introduced the symbolism of seven into +certain parts of Oceania and, notably, into Borneo. Of the Sea Dyak +of Sarawak it is said that, after three, their favourite number is +seven; while among the Malanau, another Sarawak tribe, seven is very +prominent in rites of exorcism.[651] The same number occurs repeatedly +in the legends of the Dusun of British North Borneo, and its mystic +significance may account in part for the curious system of unlucky days +observed by them. The Dusun consider twelve days of the month, beginning +with the seventh and including also the fourteenth and twenty-first, +as distinctly bad for agricultural labour. At such times they refrain +from going to their rice-fields, under penalty of failure of the crop, +but other work than that on the farms may sometimes be performed. The +natives cannot furnish any explanation of the evil quality of these +days.[652] A peculiar observance of the seventh day is found in some +parts of Melanesia. When the first missionaries visited the New Hebrides +and introduced the European week with Sunday as a day of rest, the +natives were much astonished to learn that the whites were also familiar +with their _bugi kai bituki_, or evil day. These Melanesians had never +recognized any time-divisions shorter than the lunar month, but it +had long been a custom among them to mark the seventh day by certain +taboos. The natives would not engage in warfare on the seventh day +after the declaration of hostilities; nor would they attempt to execute +vengeance on the seventh day after the receipt of an insult.[653] The +two prohibitions perhaps represent the broken-down form of a system of +taboos at one time much more extensive. Elsewhere in the Pacific area +(New Guinea, Australia, and Polynesia) seven does not seem to possess any +special significance. + +The mystic qualities of seven are recognized in Africa, but only where +foreign influences have penetrated. Among the Wachaga of German East +Africa the seventh month of the year is most unlucky: houses are not +built, or marriages celebrated, or fields planted, or wars begun, during +this fateful time.[654] The Wagiriama and Wasania, Bantu tribes living in +the southeastern corner of British East Africa, observe the symbolism of +seven in birth, circumcision, and mourning ceremonies.[655] The Akikuyu +attach a very special ill-luck to the seventh day. A herdsman will not +herd his flocks for more than six days, and on the seventh he must be +relieved by another man. One who has been away on a journey for six days +will not return to his village on the seventh; sooner than do so he will +go and sleep at the house of a neighbour a short distance away. Were this +rule broken, he would certainly be struck down by some serious illness, +and a medicine-man would have to be called in to remove the curse. “This +belief,” we are told, “makes it easy for the missionaries to explain to +the Akikuyu the force of the Christian observance of the Sabbath.”[656] +Seven is also one of the unlucky numbers of the Nandi.[657] The seven-day +periods kept as Sabbaths by some of the Baganda and the seven-day +week with three days marked by taboos, found among the Rendile and +Burkeneji, have been previously noticed.[658] In some parts of Abyssinia +and Somaliland we find not only a week of seven days but also cycles +of seven months and seven years, with seven as a distinctively holy +number.[659] In west Africa, besides the adoption of a seven-day week +as the result of Mohammedan influence, there is also a symbolic use of +seven in native folktales,[660] thus providing an instructive parallel +to the same feature in European stories. The frequent occurrence of the +symbolic seven in the magic and astrology of north African peoples must +also be attributed to the spread of Islam from the Mediterranean to the +Sudan.[661] + +If the cult of seven in the Pacific area and Africa appears clearly as +a borrowed institution, no other explanation than that of independent +origination can account for the fact that some American Indian tribes +also ascribe a peculiar sanctity to this number. In the opinion of most +Americanists the symbolism of seven is here an outgrowth of cosmical +conceptions of the four cardinal points, reinforced by conceptions of +a central, an upper, and a lower world. Seven is thus the most sacred +number because it represents all the regions of the cosmos.[662] This +explanation cannot be safely applied outside the American area. + +The antiquity of the symbolism of seven in the Old World is attested by +its appearance as a sacred number in the earliest literary records of +India, Greece, and Babylonia. Numerous references to seven occur in the +_Rig-Veda_, where, however, it enjoys less importance than three.[663] +Periods of seven days and seven years are frequently mentioned in the +_Odyssey_.[664] Hesiod includes the seventh day of the month in his list +of holy days (έβδόμη ἱερὸν ἦμαρ), “for on the seventh day Leto bare +Apollo of the golden sword”; and this particular connection with the +seventh day was maintained by the god in the later age of Greek history. +Most of his great festivals began on the seventh day, at which time all +public business appears to have ceased.[665] Many other illustrations +exist of the large symbolic rôle played by the number seven in Greece +at a remote period.[666] Among the Babylonians, as early as the third +millenium B.C., seven appears as a symbolic number in magico-religious +rituals, incantations, exorcisms, and mythological narratives.[667] Thus, +in the Babylonian version of the Deluge myth, periods of seven days’ +duration assume a marked importance: the rain continues for six days and +ceases on the seventh, when the waters begin to subside; and seven days +again intervene before the Babylonian Noah is able to abandon the Ark +and offer sacrifice to the gods for his preservation. The exceptional +importance which this number enjoyed in Babylonia lends credibility to +the theory that here was the centre from which the lore of seven passed +to adjoining regions of western Asia and thence to more distant parts of +the ancient world.[668] + +Some Assyriologists have connected the symbolism of seven with the seven +stars visible to the naked eye which traverse the celestial zodiac. For +the Babylonian astrologers and astronomers these were the sun, the moon, +and the five larger planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. +There can be no question that the separation of the planets from the +fixed stars, one of the enduring contributions which Babylonia has made +to civilization, was the outcome of superstitious notions concerning +the influence of the heavenly bodies on the life of man. The Babylonian +astrologers who watched night by night the stately procession of the +stars across the cloudless skies were animated by no high zeal for +scientific knowledge, but rather by the necessity of drawing from the +celestial phenomena omens of good or ill for king and country. Jupiter +and Venus were probably the first planets to be differentiated, the one +because of his brilliant light, the other because of her two appearances +when she precedes the rising, and follows the setting, sun. Saturn, +Mercury, and Mars seem originally to have been combined under the one +designation Lu-Bat, a term which came to bear the general meaning of +“planet”—doubtless on account of the difficulty involved in observing +their separate courses.[669] We do not know when all five planets were +set off from the fixed stars, or when they were first connected with +the sun and moon to form a group of seven planetary luminaries. As an +eminent Italian astronomer has remarked, both achievements must have +required centuries of close and accurate observations; they do not +belong to a primitive astronomy.[670] Hence we may safely conclude that +the symbolism of seven, reaching into remote Babylonian antiquity, +long preceded the recognition of the seven planets; nay, more, that +the symbolic significance of this number imposed itself on Babylonian +astronomers and astrologers and compelled them to include in it all the +principal stars. + +The differentiation of the planets led naturally to their identification +with the greater deities of the Babylonian pantheon, whose several +names—Nabu, Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk, and Ninib—have come down to us +through the Greeks and Romans in their classical equivalents, Mercury, +Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. It is by no means certain, however, +that at all periods of Babylonian history these were the only deities +which enjoyed planetary affiliations, or that the same gods were +invariably connected with the same planets. The association of planet and +god seems to have been quite artificial and arbitrary; at any rate, the +omen texts do not show any close correspondence between the character +of the deity and the prognostications drawn from the behaviour of his +planet. Furthermore, the cuneiform records contain no indication that the +Babylonians were familiar with what is known as the astrological order +of the planets, the order, that is, in which they appear as regents of +the weekdays in the so-called planetary week of seven days. The oldest +known list of the Babylonian planets dates from about 700 B.C., and +presents the following arrangement: Moon, Sun, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, +Mercury, Mars. The same order is found one hundred and fifty years +later, in astronomical texts belonging to the time of the New Babylonian +Empire.[671] This seems to be nothing more than the sequence according +to which the planets were severally differentiated from the fixed stars. +At all events it is not the astrological sequence, which lies at the +basis of the planetary week. Nor can the origin of the names of the +weekdays be sought in Babylonia. It is true that the Babylonians, like +the Egyptians,[672] ascribed to every day in the month its appropriate +divinity, but absolutely no evidence exists that they ever applied the +names of the seven planetary deities to the days of a septenary cycle. +That step was taken at another time and by another people. + +The planetary week,[673] an institution which has spread eastward +over the Oriental world and westward into Europe, is a product of the +speculations of astrologers and philosophers during the Hellenistic, or +Græco-Oriental, era. The sequence of its days depends ultimately upon the +order of the seven planetary spheres, adopted by Ptolemy in antiquity +and after him by astronomers until the discoveries of Copernicus. If the +planets are grouped according to their distance from the earth, beginning +with the highest and descending to the lowest, we obtain the following +order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. No certain +evidence exists that this arrangement was known at an earlier date than +the second century before our era.[674] The astrological order, which +also begins with Saturn, proceeds next to the fourth planet, or Sun, from +which again the fourth planet (by inclusive reckoning) is the Moon. By +continuing to select every fourth planet thereafter we obtain at length +the regents of the seven weekdays: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, +Jupiter, Venus. + +How, it may be asked, did such an arrangement arise? This question has +been answered for us by the Roman historian, Dio Cassius, who interrupts +his narrative of the victorious campaign of Pompey the Great in Palestine +to furnish a brief account of the planetary week.[675] The institution, +says Dio Cassius, can be explained in two ways. According to the first +explanation the gods are supposed to preside over separate days of the +week, following the “‘principle of the tetrachord’ (which is believed +to constitute the basis of music).”[676] The planetary week would thus +be one expression of the occult relations supposed to exist between +harmonic intervals of music and the seven planetary spheres. Though +the idea that the motions of the planets were regulated by the laws of +musical harmony had great popularity among some of the Greek schools +of philosophy, neo-Pythagorean and neo-Platonist, it is not, however, +to this comparatively refined doctrine of the “music of the spheres” +that we must look for the origin of the planetary sequence.[677] The +second explanation given by Dio Cassius, and also by Vettius Valens, +is connected with the astrological theory of “chronocratories,” which +assigned to the several planets dominion over hours and days as periods +of time. If the day is divided into twenty-four hours and each hour is +ascribed in turn to the several planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, +Venus, Mercury, Moon—then Saturn will preside over the first, eighth, +fifteenth, and twenty-second hours of the first day, the twenty-third +hour will fall to Jupiter, and the twenty-fourth to Mars. The +twenty-fifth hour, or the first hour of the second day, will belong to +the Sun, the first hour of the third day to the Moon, and so on for the +remaining weekdays. The planetary deity found to preside over the first +hour of a day is then supposed to give his name to the entire day. This +scheme, as far as it depends on the recognition of twenty-four hours, is +evidently not of Greek origin, for the mathematical division of the day +into fixed parts did not arise in the Occident, but was due to Oriental +influences.[678] + +The planetary week thus presents itself as a curious amalgam of ideas +derived from different sources. Babylonia, the motherland of divination, +provided the doctrine of the influence of the stars on human destinies; +Greece furnished the mathematical astronomy which grouped the planets +according to their distance from the earth; and upon these foundations +astrologers of the Hellenistic era, familiar with the cult of seven and +with a division of the day into twenty-four hours, built up what was, at +the outset, an entirely pagan institution. + +The seven-day week (ἑβδομάς, _septimana_), in its astrological form, has +had a varied history. It probably first appeared in the star cults of +Mesopotamia and Syria, certainly not before the second century B.C., +passed thence to the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, the meeting-ground +of East and West, and about the age of Augustus gained an entrance into +Occidental lands. The first reasonably certain evidence of its existence +in Italy is found in the so-called _fasti Sabini_, the fragments of a +calendar drawn up between the years 19 B.C.-4 A.D. Here the days of the +seven-day week (indicated by the letters _A_ to _F_) and those of the +old Roman nundinal cycle (indicated by the letters _A_ to _G_) are set +forth in parallel columns for the months of September and October. All +similar calendars of the same period employ only the lettering of the +eight-day Roman week.[679] The earliest evidence for the planetary naming +of the weekdays is found in two inscriptions from Pompeii. Of these, the +first gives all the names of the planetary deities in their Greek form; +the second, the names in their more familiar Latin form, except for the +accidental omission of Wednesday: Saturni, Solis, Lunæ, Martis, Jovis, +Veneris.[680] Indications that the planetary week was known and used +during the second century A.D. occur in both classical literature and +the inscriptions. Dio Cassius,[681] writing early in the third century +(about 210-220 A.D.), declares that the custom of referring the days to +the stars, called planets, had then become quite familiar to the Romans +as well as to the rest of mankind. The accuracy of this statement is +confirmed by his Christian contemporaries, Tertullian and Clement of +Alexandria, who in their writings addressed to the pagans employ the +planetary names of the weekdays.[682] + +The early Christians had at first adopted the Jewish seven-day week with +its numbered weekdays,[683] but by the close of the third century A.D. +this began to give way to the planetary week; and in the fourth and fifth +centuries the pagan designations became generally accepted in the western +half of Christendom.[684] The use of the planetary names by Christians +attests the growing influence of astrological speculations introduced by +converts from paganism. The old beliefs in the power of the stars over +human destinies lived on in Christian communities; the heavenly bodies, +though no longer deities, were still demons capable of affecting the +fate of man. During these same centuries the spread of Oriental solar +worships, especially that of Mithra,[685] in the Roman world, had already +led to the substitution by pagans of _dies Solis_ for _dies Saturni_, +as the first day of the planetary week; and Constantine’s famous edict, +as we have seen, definitely enrolled Sunday among the holidays of the +Roman state religion.[686] The change from Saturn’s Day to Sunday must +have further commended the planetary week in Christian circles, where +the Lord’s Day (_dies dominica_), beginning the week, had long been +observed as that on which Christ, the “Sun of Righteousness,” rose +from the dead.[687] Thus gradually a pagan institution was engrafted on +Christianity. + +The planetary week became familiar to the barbarians of the West before +its adoption by Christianity. Much monumental evidence exists to show +that in Gaul and Roman Germany the planetary order, beginning with +Saturn, was known from the first half of the third century. The same +cycle appears to have been introduced into Roman Britain. In nearly all +Romance countries the planetary names are applied to the weekdays except +the first and seventh, for which the ecclesiastical designations, _dies +dominica_ and _sabbatum_, are retained.[688] In most Germanic languages +Sunday and Monday appear as translations of the Latin forms; Tuesday, +Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday represent equations of classical and +Germanic deities, based on the most obvious points of resemblance between +them;[689] while Saturday, for which no corresponding Germanic god +suggested itself, is a corrupt form of Saturnus.[690] Among the Slavic +peoples, whose week begins with Monday, as the first day after rest, the +planetary names are unknown, the days being numbered in conformity with +the usage of the Greek Church.[691] A similar custom prevails among the +Lithuanians and Esthonians, who appear to have borrowed their week from +the Slavs. Modern Greeks employ the ecclesiastical designations of the +weekdays,[692] but the Finns and Lapps, at the other extremity of Europe, +in adopting the week from the Scandinavians, took over also the planetary +names of the days.[693] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BABYLONIAN “EVIL DAYS” AND THE SHABATTUM + + +It is time to return to Babylonia. We have seen that here the cult of +seven as a symbolic number was long anterior to the recognition of +the seven planets; and, furthermore, that the planetary week, instead +of being an early creation of Babylonian astrology, arose during the +Hellenistic Age from the union of Greek and Oriental speculations. But +for many centuries previously a seven-day week, in which the days were +numbered, not named, had existed as a Jewish institution in western Asia; +and we have still to determine whether this Jewish form of the week was +derived remotely from Babylonia, and according to what conceptions the +assumed Babylonian original was itself developed. + +In the year 1869 the late George Smith, well known as a pioneer student +of Assyriology, discovered among the cuneiform tablets in the British +Museum “a curious religious calendar of the Assyrians, in which every +month is divided into four weeks, and the seventh days, or ‘Sabbaths,’ +are marked out as days on which no work should be undertaken.”[694] Six +years afterward Sir Henry Rawlinson published this calendar in the fourth +volume of his standard collection of cuneiform inscriptions. It appears +to be a transcript of a much more ancient Babylonian original, possibly +belonging to the age of Hammurabi, which had been made by order of +Asshurbanipal and placed in his royal library at Nineveh. The calendar, +which is complete for the thirteenth or intercalary month, called Elul +II, and for Markheshwan, the eighth month of the Babylonian year, takes +up the thirty days in succession and indicates the deity to which each +day is sacred and what sacrifices or precautionary measures are necessary +for each day. All the days are styled “favourable,” an expression which +must indicate a pious hope, not a fact, since the words _ud-khul-gal_ or +_ûmu limnu_ (“the evil day”) are particularly applied to the seventh, +fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days. The second +Elul, being an intercalated month, might be thought to have enjoyed a +special significance, as intercalary months have had elsewhere;[695] +but such a hypothesis will not explain the inclusion of the month of +Markheshwan in the calendar.[696] Hence it is highly probable that at one +time the other months were similarly marked, though as yet there is no +inscriptional evidence for the observance of the five “evil days” in all +the months of the Babylonian year.[697] + +With regard to the reasons which dictated the choice of the seventh, +fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days, two views have been +entertained. It has been held, in the first place, that the “evil +days” were selected as corresponding to the moon’s successive changes; +hence that the seventh day marks the close of the earliest form of the +seven-day week, a week bound up with the lunar phases. According to +another opinion the setting apart of every seventh day was due to the +importance ascribed to seven; hence that the seven-day cycles were not +regarded as quarters of the lunation but rather as periods containing +the symbolic number of seven days, which happened to coincide, roughly, +with a fourth part of the lunar month. The second view would be merely an +amplification of the first, if we assume, with perhaps the majority of +Assyriologists, that the rôle of seven as a symbolic number is ultimately +connected with the moon changing her phases at intervals of approximately +seven days. + +It must be admitted, however, that in the present state of our knowledge +we cannot obtain any satisfactory explanation of the origin of a symbolic +number. As far as seven is concerned, the American evidence, previously +referred to,[698] indicates that cosmical speculations may sometimes +account for its significance; while in the Semitic area, again, one root +of the cult of seven may lie in the observation of the Pleiades and the +early use of Pleiades calendars by the agriculturist.[699] That the +Pleiades number seven stars has been noted even by savage peoples, who +have also observed that each one of three other prominent constellations, +Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Orion, contains seven principal stars. Such +unexplained coincidences may have served to confirm the impression of the +significance of seven in the minds of Babylonian astrologers, even though +the mystic quality of that number was based originally on a different +set of ideas. But it is unnecessary to discuss further what popular +superstitions and priestly speculations gave rise to the symbolism of +seven in ancient Babylonia. + +The month in Babylonia was a lunar month, and the year was a lunisolar +year. Unlike the Egyptians, who passed from moon- to sun-reckonings +before the dawn of history, the Babylonians always retained the +primitive lunar calendar, harmonized with the solar year by the crude +method of intercalating an extra month at the necessary intervals. As +in all lunar calendars the month began with the visible new moon. So +important was this for the determination of the month that _arxu_, the +Babylonian expression for “month,” meant, properly, the beginning of the +month; while Nannar (_nannaru_), one of the names of the moon-god, was +originally applied to the new moon.[700] The length of the month was +reckoned at thirty days as an approximate average of the duration of +the moon’s course, a calculation familiar enough to many half-civilized +peoples.[701] The ideogram for _arxu_ is the number “thirty” enclosed in +the ideogram for “day”; and the ideogram for Sin, the moon-deity, is made +up of that for “god” and of that for “thirty,” which number was sacred +to him. When in late mythological syncretism the goddess Ishtar was +represented as the daughter of Sin, her sacred number became fifteen, and +this, with the determinative of goddess prefixed to it, was often used to +express her name.[702] + +Though the calendar assigned to each month thirty full days, the actual +month must have often included only twenty-nine days, since the reckoning +employed was purely lunar. We may assume, in the absence of definite +statements as to the way of fixing the length of the month, that the +Babylonians at first followed the rough-and-ready method of modern Arabs: +on the twenty-ninth of the month, after the sun has gone down, they look +in the western sky for the faint sickle of the moon; if this is seen, the +new month begins forthwith; if it cannot be seen, the following day is +also included in the old month, which then contains thirty days. By the +middle of the seventh century B.C., and perhaps at an even earlier date, +a more exact means of calculating the length of the month had come into +use. The royal astrologers, who sent regular reports to the king as to +the appearance or non-appearance of the moon at the expected time, appear +to have carefully observed the day of the opposition of the sun and moon +in the middle of the month; when the full-moon day was known, it became +an easy matter to determine how many more days should be counted to the +end of the month.[703] It was not until the third or second century B.C., +when exact astronomical methods had supplanted purely empirical study of +the heavens, that the Babylonians were able to calculate the appearance +of the true new moon. By this time, too, the progress of astronomical +knowledge allowed them to adopt the more accurate calendarizing of the +lunation into months of twenty-nine and thirty days, five of the former, +and seven of the latter, length.[704] + +These details concerning the Babylonian calendar, in all but its latest +form, are enough to indicate that it presents no striking divergence +from the general type of lunar reckonings. The Babylonians, like all +other peoples of the ancient East, based their calculations of time on +the moon. It follows, therefore, that the seven-day periods described +in the Rawlinson calendar were also reckoned from the visible new moon; +indeed, this fact is clearly indicated by the description applied in +that calendar to the first day of the month.[705] We may reasonably +assume that the last day of the month (when the latter actually included +only twenty-nine days) or the last two days of a thirty-day month were +regarded as forming an epagomenal period, interrupting the regular +succession of seven-day cycles. Possibly the Babylonians may have +employed some such device as that found among the negroes of west Africa, +in order that four of their lunar periods should correspond exactly to +the length of the lunation.[706] + +We may next inquire whether additional evidence exists to indicate +that the seven-day periods of the Rawlinson calendar were definitely +associated with successive phases of the moon. It has already been +noticed that very early in the Assyro-Babylonian cultural area there was +in at least occasional use a five-day cycle, called _khamushtu_.[707] +Whether it preceded the hebdomadal cycle or afterwards supplanted it +(perhaps as forming a closer divisor of the lunation), or whether the +two periods may not have existed more or less contemporaneously, are +matters concerning which the cuneiform records tell us nothing. They do +tell us, however, that a five-day period, possibly to be identified with +the _khamushtu_, was closely associated with the successive appearances +of the moon, as in a text where the first five days of the month are +spoken of as those of the crescent moon, the next five, as those of the +half-moon (“kidney”), and the five following days as those of the full or +nearly full moon.[708] A similar association with the moon’s course is +set forth in the case of a seven-day period in a text which specifically +indicates the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days +as those of Sin, the moon-god.[709] Another text connects several days +of the month with the moon’s course in the following order: first day, +new moon; seventh day, moon as “kidney” (half-moon); fifteenth day, +full moon.[710] Finally, in the fifth tablet of the Babylonian _Epic of +Creation_, a work which in its original form is traced to the close of +the third millennium B.C., it is told how the god Marduk, having created +and set in order the heavenly bodies, then placed the moon in the sky to +make known the days and divide the month with her phases. Although this +interesting production, in its present mutilated state, mentions only the +seventh and fourteenth days, we are entitled to believe that the original +text also referred to the twenty-first and twenty-eighth days of the +month.[711] + +The cuneiform evidence thus makes it reasonably certain that the cycles +of seven days’ duration found in the Rawlinson calendar were regarded as +divisions of the lunar month. This conclusion does not require us to hold +that these cycles originated in the quartering of the lunation. Their +choice may conceivably have been dictated in the first instance by the +desire to apply the prevailing symbolism of seven to periods of time; +while only later, and as a secondary development, were they brought into +connection with the phases of the moon. In either case the seven-day +periods can be only loosely and inaccurately described as “weeks.” +Nothing in the cuneiform records indicates that the Babylonians ever +employed them for civil purposes. These periods seem to have had solely +a religious significance, as was true also of the four divisions of the +month, similarly connected with the lunar phases, in the sacred calendars +of both Buddhism and Zoroastrianism.[712] What we have disclosed in +Babylonia is, not the week itself, but the material out of which such an +institution might be formed. + +Each septenary period in the calendar for Elul II and Markheshwan closed +with an unnamed “evil day.” The symbolism of seven cannot in itself +account for the unlucky quality attaching to this seventh day. Seven to +the Babylonians bore no unlucky character. It stood, rather, for the +notion of completeness or totality, appearing in prayers, incantations, +and exorcisms to indicate the sum total of the gods or spirits recognized +by the worshipper; sometimes marking the length of the period during +which such important actions as the dedication of a temple or the +mourning for a death must be performed; and often, again, assuming a +mythological rôle, as in the seven gates of the underworld, the seven +names of the goddess Ishtar, and the periods of seven days’ duration +found in the Babylonian Deluge narrative.[713] In these and many other +instances seven appears as a symbolic, but not as a portentous, number. +Assuming, however, that the seven-day periods of the Rawlinson calendar +were associated with successive phases of the moon—whether originally or +secondarily does not matter—it is clear that the seventh day, marking +the critical or transition point in each phase, would possess a special +importance. In fact, the negative or prohibitive regulations enforced +among the Babylonians on the “evil days” bear a close resemblance to the +taboos which many other peoples have observed at the changes of the moon. + +Recent students of Semitic magic have shown that the Sumerians and their +successors, the Babylonians and Assyrians, were familiar with the idea +of taboo; the term _mamit_, which appears frequently in magical texts, +is exactly equivalent to _tabu_, since it refers to that state of ritual +impurity or ceremonial uncleanness attending certain circumstances or +actions.[714] A great part of the so-called _Shurpu_ series[715] deals +with the methods of removing the condition of _mamit_ into which a man +may have wittingly or unwittingly fallen. The murderer, the adulterer, +or the thief became _mamit_ in consequence of his breach of ordinary +social morality, but equally cursed was the unlucky person who ran up +against another who was under a taboo, slept on his bed, ate out of his +plate, or drank from his cup. A man might be contaminated by putting his +foot in some unclean water, by treading in some libation that had been +poured forth, by touching a bewitched woman, and even by seeing one of +unwashed hands. The third tablet of the _Shurpu_ series enumerates no +less than one hundred and sixty-three taboos, including “those which come +from the family, old or young, friend or neighbour, rich or poor; oven, +bellows, pots and cups, bed or couch, chariot or weapons. To drink out of +an unclean vessel, to sit in the sun, to root up plants in the desert, +to cut reeds in a thicket, to slay the young of beasts, to pray with +unclean hands, and a host of other common actions, might under certain +conditions bring a _tapu_ on the man.” Such tabooed acts placed the man +under an interdiction; if he fell sick, he knew that his sufferings were +due to the hostility of some supernatural power; and a professional +exorcist would be called in to drive away by magical words, prayers, +and rites the divine curse clinging to his person.[716] It seems to be +clear, then, that the taboos observed on the “evil days” represented to +the Babylonians only a particular application of an ancient and generally +accepted superstition. + +The calendar for Elul II contains specific directions for the observance +of the five “evil days,” in each case the same except for differences in +the names of the deities.[717] The regulations for the seventh day read +as follows: + +“An evil day. The shepherd of great peoples shall not eat flesh cooked +upon the coals, or bread of the oven.[718] The garment of his body he +shall not change, he shall not put on clean [garments]. He shall not +bring an offering. The king shall not ride in his chariot. He shall not +speak as a ruler (?). The priest shall not give a decision in the secret +place. The physician shall not lay his hand on a patient. To issue a +malediction it [the day] is not suitable.[719] At night the king shall +bring his gift before Marduk and Ishtar, he shall offer a sacrifice. The +lifting up of his hands will then be pleasing to god.” + +It is clear that the rules for the seventh day prescribe a season of +abstinence affecting many royal activities. The “shepherd of great +peoples” must not eat any food which has been cooked with fire; he must +not change his clothes; and he must not offer a sacrifice until the end +of the day. The king is not to speak in public; and he is even forbidden +to travel. The Babylonian monarch who observed all these taboos five +times a month would have been as strictly secluded as was the Hawaiian +ruler, who, likewise, during the four monthly _tabu_ periods retired to +the inner precincts of his temple.[720] + +The Babylonian regulations have been interpreted as survivals from +ancient times, when priest-kings were accredited with a divine or +supernatural nature, and hence were subjected to numberless restrictions +designed to prevent any impairment of their sanctity and magical +power.[721] A consideration of the evidence yielded by primitive +societies suggests, however, that the Babylonian regulations may have +been connected originally with taboos imposed on the entire community. +In Hawaii, where the lunar phases were observed as _tabu_ periods, the +prohibitions affecting the king represented only an intensification of +the communal taboos, to be explained by the extreme sanctity attached +to the Hawaiian ruler. In Assam, where the _genna_ institution enjoys a +vigorous life, we find that, besides the prohibitions communally observed +at critical times, the _khullakpa_, or priest-chief, is surrounded by +many elaborate taboos. Their purpose is “to protect the man who acts on +behalf of the whole subdivision or village on the occasions of general +_genna_, from any accident which might impair his power.” He is subject +to various food restrictions, must content himself with only one wife, +and must even separate himself from her on the eve of a general _genna_. +In one group the headman may not eat in a strange village, nor, +whatever the provocation, may he utter a word of abuse. The violation +of any one of these taboos is thought to bring misfortune on the entire +village.[722] It is not wholly speculative to suggest that, were the +natives of Assam to discard their communal taboos as burdensome, the +special regulations affecting the _khullakpa_ might survive, in deference +to old tradition, and might even be increased in severity, if that +individual should grow in authority and holiness. The situation would +then furnish a very close analogy to what existed in ancient Babylonia. +The regulations concerning the “evil days,” it may be noted, did not +pertain to the king alone. We may reasonably assume that “the shepherd +of great peoples” and the king mentioned further on in the calendar are +one and the same; but the record also describes certain rules imposed +on the priest and on the physician, both important functionaries among +the Babylonians. It seems also evident that the day was regarded as +unsuitable for any one to lay a curse or ban; according to another, and +possibly more accurate, rendering, unsuitable for all business. These +considerations increase the probability that at one time some taboos on +the seventh day were observed by the entire community.[723] + +It is questionable, however, whether in late historic times there was any +general abstention from work and other activities on the “evil days.” +The Babylonians were a highly organized commercial and manufacturing +people who would have found such regulations burdensome to the highest +degree. Taboos once generally observed may have been gradually relaxed +and at last abandoned, just as modern Jews are now neglecting the +observance of the Sabbath. The practice might have been kept up, however, +by the king and the priests as the special guardians of conservative +institutions.[724] + +The cuneiform records contain a term _shabattum_, which has been +generally accepted as the phonetic equivalent of the Hebrew _shabbāthôn_, +perhaps an intensive form of _shabbāth_ or Sabbath, referring to a +Sabbath of particular solemnity.[725] _Shabattum_, a word which has +been found as yet only five or six times in Assyro-Babylonian documents, +occurs in a lexicographical tablet containing the equation _shabbattu(m) += ûm nûkh libbi_.[726] The accepted translation of the latter expression +is “day of rest of (or for) the heart” (_s.c._, “of the angered gods”). +Various scholars in England and Germany, intent on discovering Babylonian +parallels for all Hebrew institutions, have therefore explained +_shabattum_ and its equivalent phrase by the five “evil days” found +in the calendar already noticed. This identification was based on the +observation that these seemed also to be penitential days, when by +special observances the gods must be appeased and their anger averted. +The Hebrew Sabbath would therefore represent an institution directly +derived from the Babylonian regulations for the “evil days.”[727] + +Until recently, however, Assyriology has sounded no certain note +concerning the etymology and significance of the term _shabattum_. Thus, +Delitzsch holds that “the only meaning that may be justifiably assumed +is ‘ending (of work), cessation, keeping holiday from work.’”[728] As +the result of linguistic analysis Hirschfeld concludes, on the contrary, +that “the idea of resting for religious reasons after a certain spell +of working days is far too complicated to be the original meaning of a +primitive root.”[729] Jastrow, again, points out that _ûm nûkh libbi_, +with which _shabattum_ has been equated, was a standing expression for +the pacification of a deity’s anger. It occurs frequently in Babylonian +religious literature, where it is more particularly used in hymns +addressed by penitentials to some god who has shown his ill-will toward +them. _Shabattum_ implies, therefore, a day of propitiation, and the +idea of rest involved refers to gods and not to men—a refraining from +or cessation of divine anger.[730] Zimmern suggests that _shabattum_ +may be derived from the verb _shabâtu_, with the sense of “discontinue” +or “desist,” applied to the anger of the gods.[731] Pinches, on the +contrary, believes that the word comes from the Sumerian _shabat_, which +probably had no connection with the Semitic verb _shabâtu_.[732] Nielsen +goes still further afield for a satisfactory explanation, and considers +_shabat_ a term taken over from the Arabic _thabat_, from a root meaning +“rest,” applied to the lunar phases.[733] As the outcome of extensive +philological study Hehn argues that _shabattum_ meant originally +“fulness,” “completeness,” the notion of rest being later and entirely +secondary.[734] Still another interpretation makes _shabattum_ equivalent +to “day of lament.”[735] Finally, in a brief, though highly suggestive +study, Professor Toy holds that the root idea in the Babylonian +expression was that of abstinence, though _shabattum_ might also have +been regarded as a day of propitiation because of the restrictions +attached to it.[736] + +These conflicting interpretations scarcely made for confidence in the +results of a purely philological analysis. Recent discoveries, however, +have thrown new light on the problem. A lexicographical tablet from the +library of the Assyrian king Asshurbanipal gives the names attached to +several days of the Babylonian month; and among these is the designation +_shabattum_, applied to the fifteenth day.[737] Still more recently a +similar use of _shabattum_ has been found in a text which contains an +account of the moon’s course during the month. Reference is here made to +the first appearance of the new moon, its ash-grey light until about the +seventh day thereafter, its opposition with the sun on the fourteenth +day, its aspects on the twenty-first, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth +days, and finally its disappearance on the thirtieth day, being the time +of conjunction with the sun. In this description, which for minuteness +recalls the Polynesian naming of the nights from successive aspects of +the moon,[738] the fifteenth day again appears as _shabattum_.[739] + +It is clear that the Babylonians recognized, with many other peoples, the +two most prominent stages of the lunation, new moon and full moon, and +described them by particular names, _nannaru_ and _shabattum_. Evidence +exists, moreover, showing that these two days from very early times were +observed as festivals, particularly in the cities of Ur and Harran. Here +were the chief seats of the cult of Sin, the moon-god, always one of the +most important members of the Babylonian pantheon and anciently enjoying +precedence over Shamash, the sun-god.[740] Certain cuneiform tablets, +all written down during the time of the Fourth Dynasty of Ur and dating, +therefore, from the third millennium B.C., distinctly refer to sacrifices +which were made to the divine kings of Ur on the new-moon day and on the +fifteenth of the month.[741] At Harran, where the cult of Sin continued +to flourish under the Roman Empire and into the early Middle Ages, four +sacrificial days were observed every month, and of these at least two +were determined by the conjunction and opposition of the moon.[742] +Outside the Babylonian cultural area, but within the general field of +Semitic religion, there is also the interesting evidence yielded by the +inscription of Narnaka, which indicates that as late as the time of the +Ptolemies new moon and full moon were the chief periods of sacrifice +observed by the Phœnicians.[743] + +The choice of the fifteenth day as the _shabbatum_ was obviously +determined by the length of the Babylonian month, which in the earlier +period was regularly taken at thirty days’ duration. We have seen, +however, that, where lunar reckonings are employed and the month begins +at sunset with the visible new moon, the fourteenth day more commonly +coincides with the full of the moon.[744] _Shabattum_ being the technical +expression for the fifteenth day as the time of full moon, it is only +reasonable to conclude that, if not the name, at any rate the observances +belonging to this day would be often transferred to the fourteenth of +the month, or to any other day on which the moon became full. No other +hypothesis will explain the outstanding fact that _shabattum_ was equated +with _ûm nûkh libbi_ as a day for appeasing the anger of the deity. And +if for practical purposes the fourteenth day might be a _shabattum_, +it is not difficult to assume that this was also the case with the +days (seventh, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth, perhaps, also, the +nineteenth), which marked other characteristic stages of the lunation. In +the developed Babylonian cult all these were “evil days,” when the gods +must be propitiated and conciliated. In the primitive faith of Semitic +peoples they were occasions observed with superstitious concern as times +of fasting, cessation of activity, and other forms of abstinence.[745] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HEBREW SABBATH + + +The earliest Biblical references to the Sabbath all indicate that the +institution had long been found among the Hebrews. It appears in the +most ancient documents of the Law, such as the two Decalogues,[746] the +old “Ritual Code,” and the nearly related “Book of the Covenant.”[747] +It is mentioned in the “Books of Kings” during the time of the prophet +Elisha.[748] It is noticed in the prophecies of Amos and Hosea.[749] +The antiquity of the Sabbath is further indicated by the fact that +Hebrew tradition preserved no certain information of its origin. From +the Old Testament we cannot tell whether the Sabbath was hallowed in +remembrance of Jehovah’s rest after the Creation,[750] or whether it was +instituted as a memorial of the escape of the Hebrews from Egypt.[751] +Assuming, with most reputable critics, that the narrative in the first +chapter of Genesis, which divides the work of creation into six days, +is comparatively late, it follows that the Sabbath could not have been +founded as a reminiscence of the completion of the Creation. The author +must have been familiar with the institution of a seven-day week ending +in a Sabbath. Its chief characteristic was then that of a day of rest, +as appears from the fact that, without mentioning the Sabbath by name, +he seeks to glorify it by placing the hallowed character of the seventh +day at the beginning of the world. The sanctity of the seventh day is in +reality antedated, and the priestly writer wished to adjust artificially +the work of creation to it.[752] + +An old and still common theory derives the Sabbath institution from the +worship of Saturn, after which planet the first day of the astrological +week received its designation.[753] The theory is untenable for more than +one reason. In the first place the Hebrews did not name their weekdays +after the planets, but indicated them by ordinal numbers. In the second +place Saturn’s Day began the planetary week, while the Jewish Sabbath was +regarded as the last day of the seven, a suitable position for a rest +day. And in the third place neither the Hebrews nor any other Oriental +people ever worshipped the planet Saturn as god and observed his day as +a festival. It is true that, besides Venus, another planet familiar to +the Hebrews may be recognized in the Old Testament under the name Kewan, +the Assyrian designation of Saturn.[754] This name appears in a passage +of Amos, where the prophet has been supposed to be referring to an early +worship of Saturn by the Israelites during the period of their sojourn in +the Wilderness.[755] But a single Old Testament text, both corrupt and +obscure, can scarcely be cited as proving that Saturn was ever recognized +by the Israelites as a distinct god. If it be held that Amos had in mind +the Hebrews of his own time, the passage in question can only refer to +the adoption by them of astrological notions derived from Babylonia. +These imported superstitions eventually led Jewish rabbis to call Saturn +_Shabbti_, “the star of the Sabbath,” which, however, is not a naming of +the day after the planet, but a naming of the planet after the day. It +was not until the first century of our era, when the planetary week had +become an established institution, that the Jewish Sabbath seems always +to have corresponded to Saturn’s Day.[756] + +The association of the Sabbath Day with Saturday was probably one +reason why Saturn, a planet in Babylonian astrological schemes regarded +as beneficent rather than malefic, should have come to assume in late +classical times the rôle of an unlucky star (_sidus tristissimum_, +_stella iniquissima_). The oldest reference to Saturday is found in a +verse by the poet Tibullus (d. 19 B.C.), who apparently identifies +Saturn’s Day with the supposed inauspicious Jewish Sabbath, when he gives +as one of his excuses for not quitting Rome the bad omens which detained +him “on the sacred day of Saturn.”[757] Ovid mentions “foreign Sabbaths” +along with the anniversary of the day of the battle of the Allia—_dies +Alliensis_—as unlucky occasions.[758] Frontinus, a Roman military officer +and tactician (d. about 103 A.D.), says that Vespasian defeated the Jews +by attacking them on Saturn’s Day, when it was unlawful for them to do +anything. Dio Cassius also speaks of the Jews having dedicated to their +god the day called the day of Saturn, “on which, among many other most +peculiar actions, they undertake no serious occupation.”[759] + +The Hebrews manifested so little originality in cultural matters and +borrowed so heavily from their neighbours that it becomes a natural +inquiry whether the Sabbath, with the seven-day week, may not have arisen +outside of Israel. Writing in the seventeenth century the learned John +Spencer argued that Egypt was the original home of the institution, +since in various Old Testament passages the Sabbath is declared to have +been established to commemorate the exodus from Egypt.[760] But the +Egyptians, as we have seen, divided their months into decades, and no +evidence exists that they ever employed for civil purposes any shorter +division of the month.[761] A second hypothesis, which makes the week +and the Sabbath a direct importation from Babylonia, is likewise without +warrant in the light of existing information.[762] The same may be said +of the theory that the Sabbath was first taken over from Babylonia +by the agricultural inhabitants of Canaan, from whom, in turn, the +Israelites borrowed an institution which would have no meaning to a +nomadic people.[763] But the opinion, so frequently expressed, that the +Sabbath cannot be very primitive, since it “presupposes agriculture and +a tolerably hard-pressed working-day life,”[764] betrays an imperfect +acquaintance with popular superstition. The brief prohibitions of work +found in the Pentateuch cannot be separated, by any subtleties of +exegesis, from the numerous other taboos with which the institution was +invested. The rest on the Sabbath is only one of the forms of abstinence +in connection with lunar changes; and, if the Sabbath began as a festival +at new moon and full moon, it may well have been observed by the +Israelites before their contact with Canaanitish culture. The ancient +dwellers in the Arabian wilderness, who celebrated new moon and full moon +as seasons of abstinence and rest, little dreamed that in their senseless +custom lay the roots of a social institution, which, on the whole, has +contributed to human welfare in past ages and promises an even greater +measure of benefit to humanity in all future times. + +To a shepherd people in tropical or semi-tropical lands the moon appears +as a gentle guardian, bringing restful coolness after the day with its +withering heat, and dispelling with her kindly beams the thick darkness +which may cloak a lurking foe. “This,” writes an intrepid traveller, “is +the planet of way for the way-faring Semitic race. The moon is indeed a +watch-light of the night in the nomad wilderness; they are glad in her +shining upon the great upland, they may sleep then in some assurance from +their enemies.”[765] To the Israelites, as to the ancient Egyptians, the +moon was preëminently the “wanderer,” by whose movements the earliest +calendars were framed.[766] One of the Hebrew names for “month” is +_yérah_, from _yārēaḥ_, “moon”; it is called, also _ḥodesh_, which +means new moon. One of the most magnificent of the _Psalms_ declares +that Jehovah “appointed the moon for the seasons”;[767] all the Jewish +festivals were determined by the moon. At the same time there is no +Biblical testimony to indicate that the Israelites ever conceived of +the moon as a divinity and addressed to that luminary specific acts of +worship. It was only toward the end of the Hebrew monarchy, when the +Chosen People were giving themselves over to astrology, divination, and +the worship of the heavenly bodies, that clear evidence of a moon-cult +appears in the Old Testament, where it encounters the denunciation of the +prophets, the prohibitions of the Law, and the repressive measures of a +reforming king.[768] + +The evidence is quite conclusive that of the lunar phases it was +especially the new moon and the full moon which first aroused the +attention of the Semitic nomads and evoked feelings of delight and +veneration. Even to-day “the first appearing of the virgin moon is always +greeted with a religious emotion in the deserts of Arabia.”[769] When the +Bedouin and Fellahin of modern Palestine first see the lunar crescent +they exclaim, “God’s new moon has appeared in his exaltedness. May it +be for us a blessed new moon.”[770] Modern Jewish ritual prescribes a +special service for the new-moon day, including the recital of psalms of +joy. So familiar an expression as Hallelujah, “praise Jehovah” (Jahweh), +is a verbal form of the onomatopoetic stem _hilâl_, meaning “new moon,” +“crescent,” with the addition of the divine name.[771] The Hebrew month, +as among other peoples who count by lunations, began when the silvery +crescent was first discerned in the evening twilight. In later Judaism, +as soon as the moon’s appearance was proved by credible witnesses before +the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, the feast of the new moon was held, and +messengers were sent abroad to announce the opening of the new month. The +celebration of the festival would seem, at least occasionally, to have +lasted two days, an arrangement obviously dictated by the inability to +determine beforehand on which of two successive days the moon might be +expected to appear.[772] + +The new-moon festival was considered an exceptional solemnity as early +as the time of Saul. The twentieth chapter of the _First Book of Samuel_ +records a conversation between David and Jonathan in which the former +says, “Behold, to-morrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit +at meat with the king.” It appears from this chapter that the first +two days of the month were marked by feasts at which all members of +the household were expected to be present, unless prevented by some +ceremonial uncleanness.[773] The occasion was also observed by compulsory +abstinence from all servile work.[774] In the time of Elisha the new +moon seems to have been one of the favourite occasions for consulting +the prophets, a circumstance which could be explained if the day were +marked by a cessation of the usual occupations.[775] There are other +reasons, presently to be given, for believing that until the Exile, or +later, the new moon was a general rest day; and such it still remains for +Jewish women, whose conservative instincts have thus preserved a memorial +of its ancient observance.[776] + +Full moon, as well as new moon, enjoyed a religious significance to +the early Hebrews. Two great agricultural festivals, one marking the +commencement of the barley harvest, the other, the close of the fruit +harvest, must have been celebrated at about the time of full moon, +for, when the sacred calendar was framed in post-Exilic times, they +were definitely fixed at the middle of the month.[777] The Passover, +observed on the fourteenth day of the first month (Nisan), was followed +on the fifteenth day by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, occupying seven +days.[778] The Feast of Tabernacles began on the fifteenth of the seventh +month (Tishri) and likewise continued for seven days.[779] The religious +importance of these two festivals is indicated by the injunction to keep +the first and last days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread as times of +“holy convocation,” when no “servile work” might be done,[780] and by the +significant expression _shabbāthôn_ (“solemn rest”), which is used in +reference to the beginning and end of the Feast of Tabernacles, that is, +to the fifteenth and twenty-second of the month Tishri.[781] Furthermore, +the Pentateuchal codes contain a passage, the meaning of which was in +dispute several centuries before the Christian era, where the word +“Sabbath” appears to be used in a sense precisely the same as that of +the Babylonian _shabattum_, referring to the fifteenth day of the month. +In the twenty-third chapter of _Leviticus_ it is prescribed that on “the +morrow after the Sabbath” the sheaf of the first-fruits of the harvest is +to be brought to the priest, who shall wave it before Jehovah, and that, +counting from “the morrow after the Sabbath,” fifty days are to elapse +before the commencement of the Feast of Weeks.[782] As Professor Jastrow +has clearly shown, the word “Sabbath” is here used, not in its later +sense of a seventh day of rest, but as a survival of the old designation +of the Sabbath as the full-moon day. “The two references in _Leviticus_ +stand out as solitary sign-posts of an abandoned road.”[783] + +In some of the older parts of the Bible, and especially in the earlier +prophetical compositions, the new moon and the Sabbath are repeatedly +mentioned together. In the pathetic narrative which describes how the +Shunammite woman went to seek Elisha that the prophet might restore her +son to life, her husband asks, “‘Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day? +It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.’”[784] The prophet Hosea, promising +that the people’s unfaithfulness shall be punished, cries out wrathfully, +“I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feasts, her new moons, +and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.”[785] Amos rebukes the +oppressors of his people “that would swallow up the needy, and cause the +poor of the land to fail, saying ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we +may sell grain? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the +ephah small and the shekel great?’”[786] Isaiah condemns the formalism +of the ancient faith in striking words: “Bring no more vain oblations; +incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and Sabbath, the calling +of assemblies—I cannot bear iniquity with the solemn meeting.”[787] +Elsewhere, in the same work appears the prophecy: “And it shall come to +pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, +shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah.”[788] + +This remarkable association of the Sabbath with the day of new moon +had been previously noticed by such acute critics as Wellhausen and +Robertson Smith, who were unable to offer a satisfactory solution of +the problem thus presented.[789] When, however, the cuneiform records +disclosed the fact that the Babylonian _shabattum_ fell on the fifteenth +(or fourteenth) day of the month and referred to the day of the full +moon, it became clear that in these Biblical passages we have another +survival of what must have been the primary meaning of the Hebrew term +_shabbāth_.[790] As late, then, as the eighth century B.C., popular +phraseology retained a lingering trace of the original collocation of +the new-moon and full-moon days as festival occasions characterized by +abstinence from secular activities. How long-lived were the old ideas is +further illustrated by the provision in Ezekiel’s reforming legislation +that the inner eastern gate of the new Temple at Jerusalem should be shut +during the six working days, but should be opened on the Sabbath and on +the new-moon day for the religious assemblage of the people.[791] That +the term _shabbāth_, the designation of the full-moon day, should have +come to be applied to every seventh day of the month seems to be quite in +accord with both Babylonian and Hebrew usage, which, as we have seen, led +the month itself to be called after the new-moon day.[792] + +The Hebrew seven-day week, ending with the Sabbath, presented so obvious +a resemblance to the Babylonian septenary period, which closed with an +“evil day,” that scholars have felt themselves compelled to seek its +origin in Babylonia. The two institutions, nevertheless, show important +differences. The Babylonian cycle, as far as we know, was never employed +as a chronological unit; the Hebrew week was a true civil week, a +definite and well-understood period of time. The Babylonian cycle seems +not to have been dissociated from the lunation;[793] the Hebrew week was +a periodic week, running unfettered from month to month and from year +to year. The Babylonian “evil day” was an unnamed unlucky day, observed +by the king, by priests, and by physicians, but not certainly by the +people at large; the Hebrew Sabbath was a named holy day, dedicated to +the worship of the national god and kept by the entire community as a +festival. These real divergencies make it certain that the Hebrew week +and Sabbath, in the form in which we know them, could not have been taken +over without change from Babylonia. The celebration of new-moon and +full-moon festivals, which both Babylonians and Hebrews appear to have +derived from a common Semitic antiquity, underwent, in fact, a radically +unlike evolution among the two kindred peoples. To dissever the week +from the lunar month, to employ it as a recognized calendrical unit, +and to fix upon one day of that week for the exercises of religion were +momentous innovations, which, until evidence to the contrary is found, +must be attributed to the Hebrew people alone. + +In his able treatise Meinhold has argued that until the age of Ezekiel +the Hebrews employed no weeks at all. He then supposes that continuous +seven-day weeks were introduced, largely through Ezekiel’s reforming +influence, and hence that the Sabbath as the last day of the periodic +week was a post-Exilic institution.[794] Critics have pointed out that +it is highly improbable that so far-reaching a change should have +occurred without being recorded; moreover, that the acceptance of such +a hypothesis makes it necessary to assume that all places in the Old +Testament where the Sabbath is mentioned as the seventh day are either +of Ezekiel’s time or later. But the problem is simplified if we hold +that the Hebrews employed lunar seven-day weeks, perhaps for several +centuries preceding the Exile; weeks, that is, which ended with special +observances on the seventh day but none the less were tied to the moon’s +course. The change from such cycles to those unconnected with the +lunation would not have involved so abrupt and sudden a departure from +the previous system of time reckoning as that from a bipartite division +of the lunar month to a week which ran continuously through the months +and the years.[795] + +The establishment of a periodic week ending in a Sabbath observed every +seventh day was doubtless responsible for the gradual obsolescence of +the new-moon festival as a period of general abstinence, since with +continuous weeks the new-moon day and the Sabbath Day would from time +to time coincide. This seems to be a more natural explanation than that +which regards the complete ignoring of the new-moon festival in the “Book +of the Covenant” and in the Deuteronomic legislation as a deliberate act, +designed to wean the people away from an observance to which heathenish +superstitions were attached. The day of new moon never lost, indeed, its +significance in Jewish ritual, for, when all the great festivals were +definitely fixed to certain days, the new moon, as marking the beginning +of the month, continued to hold a leading place in the sacred calendar. +The Priestly Code prescribed special offerings for the new-moon day, and +in Ezekiel’s legislation the sacrifices marking it exceeded in importance +those for the Sabbath.[796] The ancient character of this festival as a +season of compulsory abstinence from labour survived in its observance as +a rest day by Jewish women, perhaps also in the provision of the law of +_Leviticus_ that the first day of the seventh month, beginning the new +year, should be a “solemn rest,” “a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a +holy convocation.”[797] + +The Sabbath is described in the Pentateuchal codes as an agricultural +institution. It appears there as a day of rest from farm labour, to +be observed not only by the householder and his family, but also by +the slaves, the cattle, and the stranger within the gates. In what is +generally considered the earlier form of the Decalogue the keeping of the +Sabbath is prescribed, “that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may +rest as well as thou”; or, as expressed in another passage, “that thine +ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thine handmaid, and the +sojourner may be refreshed.”[798] From this commandment one might draw +the conclusion that in pre-Exilic times the Sabbath enjoyed a purely +humanitarian character as a season of repose for man and beast. The +omission of any similar statement in the later form of the Decalogue, +where the prohibition of Sabbath labour is based solely upon Jehovah’s +rest on the seventh day,[799] would then be explained as the outcome of +the priestly desire to exalt the Sabbath as a religious festival at the +expense of its more humane and social aspects. The further requirement +that even in the busiest seasons of the year no plea of necessity might +be accepted in mitigation of the strict rule of Sabbath observance—“in +ploughing time and in harvest thou shalt rest”[800]—also would be taken +as evidence of the growing rigour of ecclesiastical ordinances. + +Properly considered, however, this priestly attitude toward the Sabbath +was not a radical departure but rather an intensification of the austere +significance attached from the earliest times to the new-moon and +full-moon days. The Pentateuchal codes contain, in fact, a number of +Sabbatarian regulations which are meaningless, except when elucidated +from the comparative standpoint as taboos. The rule requiring every one +to remain indoors on the Sabbath: “Abide ye every man in his place, +let no man go out of his place on the seventh day,”[801] is identical +with the numerous rules which impose seclusion on tabooed or unlucky +occasions, as a means of avoiding physical contact with supernatural and +invisible powers of evil. + +The prohibition: “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations +upon the Sabbath Day,”[802] which in another passage[803] is amplified +into the rule requiring all cooking to be done on the preceding day, may +be first compared with the taboos observed by “the shepherd of great +peoples” in Babylonia. On four “evil days” he was not to eat roasted meat +or baked bread, and on the nineteenth day he might eat nothing which had +been touched by fire.[804] In a remarkable calendar of the unlucky days +observed by the Egyptians we find an extensive series of regulations +regarding the use of fire. On the fifth of the month of Athyr, fire +might not be looked at and, if it went out, it might not be rekindled. +On the eleventh of Tybi no one might approach a fire-place, for, said +the scribe, on that day the god Ra had once burst into flame to devour +his enemies, and the effects of his metamorphosis were felt on every +anniversary of the day. These taboos, which reach back into a remote +period of Egyptian history, are still found among the peasants of Thebes +and the Saîd, who, on certain days of the year, refuse to kindle a fire, +and on others avoid approaching the flame, even of a candle or a lamp, +and the most timid do not smoke.[805] In Hawaii, as we have seen, during +the four _tabu_ seasons in each lunar month, “every fire and light was +extinguished.” The same regulation is attached to periods of abstinence +elsewhere in the aboriginal world.[806] + +Some of these taboos relating to fire may reflect primitive man’s fear +of a mysterious element which had not yet been completely tamed and +harnessed to human use; but the fact that among various peoples all +fires are put out after a death indicates a more probable origin of +the prohibition in the fear of attracting evil spirits or influences. +In Morocco, when a person has died in the morning, “no fire is made in +the whole village until he is buried, and in some parts of the country +the inmates of a house or tent where a death has occurred, abstain from +making fire for two or three days.”[807] Similar customs are found in +Polynesia, Borneo, the East Indies, Burma, and various parts of Africa; +they were practised by Persians and Greeks in antiquity; and they still +survive among the peasants of Calabria and the Scottish Highlanders.[808] +It is hardly possible to urge that the putting-out of fires on such +occasions is always a necessary result of the widespread custom of +fasting after a death and until the corpse is buried; as a matter of fact +we find that fires may be extinguished when there is no fasting, and also +that the fast is often restricted to the daytime, when evil spirits, and +in particular the ghost of the dead man, are presumed to be unable to see. + +But, as Professor Westermarck has so ably shown, the widespread custom of +fasting is itself often to be explained as due to the desire to prevent +pollution.[809] Under certain circumstances to partake of food may +cause defilement; hence fasting is only one of the numerous precautions +necessary to avoid contamination. These ideas find expression in the +rules which, like those prescribing the cessation of labour after a +death, require mourners to abstain from eating food infected with +the death pollution. Fasting may also be enjoined on other critical +occasions, such as an eclipse of the sun or the moon, or during a +thunderstorm; and we have seen that it characterizes some of the tabooed +days previously considered.[810] Such well-established facts suggest +that in the earliest period fasting may have also marked the Hebrew +Sabbath.[811] This hypothesis seems first to have been advanced by the +“judicious” Hooker, who observes that “it may be a question, whether in +some sort they [the Jews] did not always fast on the Sabbath.”[812] He +instances a statement of Josephus that the sixth hour or noon was the +time when “our laws require us to go to dinner on Sabbath-days.”[813] +Various pagan writers also refer to the Sabbath as a day of fasting.[814] +Such a notion may have arisen from a misunderstanding of the Biblical +rule forbidding cooking on the Sabbath, or, perhaps, from a confusion +of this festival with the great fast on the Day of Atonement, which +was a _shabbāth shabbāthôn_, a “Sabbath of solemn rest.”[815] Yet it +seems difficult to understand the rule forbidding fasting at new moon +and on the seventh day,[816] except as a reference to a custom formerly +observed but in later times regarded as an illegitimate rite. Since the +Sabbath fell, originally, at the middle of the month, it may be that +the new-moon and full-moon days were once marked by both cessation of +labour and abstinence from food. The foregoing pages have supplied too +many instances of the transformation of fasts into feasts for such an +explanation to be dismissed as an idle conjecture.[817] + +When the notion of a weekly Sabbath was extended, after the Captivity, +to the Sabbatical Year, the seventh year was to be a “Sabbath of solemn +rest” (_shabbāth shabbāthôn_) for the land, not because of the advantage +of allowing soil to lie fallow at regular intervals, but because the land +itself was consecrated as “a Sabbath unto Jehovah.”[818] The regulation +does not imply that, as a consequence of a fallow year, the land will +produce better harvests on the succeeding year. It is expressly said that +the year before the Sabbatical Year is the one to be conspicuous for its +fruitfulness: “Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth +year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years.”[819] The rule +requiring that the produce of the soil should be devoted to the poor and +to the cattle[820] perhaps indicates a partial triumph of the utilitarian +spirit. During the Jubilee, at the end of seven times seven years, “Ye +shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor +gather the grapes in it of the undressed vines,”[821] a regulation which +can be explained only as the outcome of the sabbatarian observances +attached to the seventh day and the seventh year. + +In the Hawaiian Islands and west Africa any one who broke a sabbatarian +taboo suffered death. Among the early Israelites the Sabbath-breaker +was threatened with a similar penalty: “Every one that profaneth it +shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that +soul shall be cut off from among his people.”[822] We are not informed +how frequently this stern ordinance was enforced; the case of the +wood-gatherer on the Sabbath, who, by direction of Moses, acting on a +direct revelation from Jehovah, was stoned to death outside the camp, is +the only instance of capital punishment for Sabbath desecration which has +found its way into the Scriptures as we now have them.[823] The instance +is an instructive one, as revealing the strong sense of group-welfare and +hatred of the non-conformist, characteristic of a religion which had not +yet outrun clan and tribal limitations. + +The Old Testament affords evidence that the Hebrews kept the Sabbath +with varying degrees of rigour in different places and at different +times. Under the later prophets a movement appears to have begun toward +a stricter observance of the day, as is seen in the effort of Jeremiah +to prevent burden-bearing on the Sabbath, and in Ezekiel’s constant +insistence on the profanation of the Sabbath in his catalogue of the sins +of the Israelites.[824] But more than a century after these prophets, +in the age of Nehemiah, the people of Judea made wine and gathered the +harvest on the Sabbath. All manner of burdens were brought into Jerusalem +on that day, and the inhabitants bought and sold with the men of +Tyre.[825] These practices indicate that the Sabbath bade fair to become +a social institution, divorced from supernatural sanctions. + +It is doubtless true that the Exile tended to augment the religious +importance of the Sabbath, since even in heathen lands it could be +observed by a people who now had neither state nor temple. In the Exilic +literature great significance is ascribed to the Sabbath,[826] and in +post-Exilic law it is regarded as a sign between Jehovah and the children +of Israel that Jehovah is their God. It is impossible, however, to follow +those critics who assume that the rigour of the sabbatarian observances +after the Exile forms an entirely new development, and that the priestly +Sabbath represents something very different from the Sabbath of the “Book +of the Covenant” or of _Deuteronomy_.[827] The increased significance +of the institution led naturally to a revival of the old taboos with +which the day had been always invested, taboos which otherwise might +have been expected to disappear with advancing culture and the decay of +supernaturalism. Closer contact with Assyria and Babylonia, from the +eighth to the sixth century B.C., also may have helped to revitalize +the older superstitions and to give to the Sabbath once more an austere +character.[828] The day, in fact, seems never wholly to have lost +all traces of its severe and sombre origin in a period of taboo; it +is significant in this connection that, while the Hebrews had their +favourable and unfavourable days, as the expression _yôm tôb_ (“good +day”) for holy days shows, the Sabbath is never so described.[829] + +The later history of the Sabbath as a _tabu_ day culminates in the +exaggerations of pharisaic Judaism and the extraordinary micrology of +the rabbinical enactments.[830] The _Mishna_ enumerates no less than +thirty-nine principal classes of prohibited actions. Some of these +are regarded as belonging to as ancient a period as any of the taboos +found in the Old Testament; the majority, however, represent only an +elaboration of the scriptural precepts. Two entire works are devoted +to the provisions for Sabbath observance. The first treatise, called +_Shabbāth_, is chiefly remarkable as an illustration of the subtle +refinements and distinctions of which the rabbis were capable. Thus, the +prohibitions to tie or untie a knot being regarded as too general, it was +necessary to define the species of knot referred to. A camel-driver’s +knot and a boat-man’s knot rendered the man who tied or untied them a +Sabbath-breaker; but Rabbi Meir said, “A knot which a man can untie with +one hand only, he does not become guilty by untying.” Rabbi Jehudah, +still more liberal of mind, laid down the rule that any knot which was +not intended to be permanent might be lawfully tied. The second treatise, +_Ērūbim_, was intended to alleviate the extreme rigour of some of the +enactments in the former work. Thus, the limits of a “Sabbath Day’s +journey” having been fixed at two thousand cubits, the rabbis conceded +that one who before the Sabbath had deposited food for two meals at the +boundary thereby removed his habitation from the town and made that place +his new domicile. When the Sabbath came, he was at liberty to proceed +two thousand cubits beyond it, though he lost the right to walk the same +distance in the opposite direction. As is well known, literal obedience +of the Sabbath regulations was sometimes carried to such an extreme +as to prove a source of great hardship, danger, and even death to its +devotees.[831] + +These legal fictions, these casuistical elaborations of the simple +ordinances of the Pentateuch concerning the Sabbath, may be paralleled +by the growth of pontifical regulations at Rome relating to what might +and what might not be done on public ferial days.[832] Like the Roman +_feriæ_, also, the Hebrew Sabbath affords an instance of what seems to +be a very general, perhaps universal, tendency of the human mind to +dwell with special emphasis on the festive aspects of a holy season, and +by some subtle alchemy of the spirit to convert what was once a day of +gloom and anxiety into a day of gladness and good cheer. The post-Exilic +prophet, the so-called second Isaiah, when he urges his people to “call +the Sabbath a delight”[833] presents it, indeed, as a festival “holy to +Jehovah,” but capable, nevertheless, of contributing to man’s physical +and mental refreshment. And in later Judaism the strict observance of +the Sabbath rest did not by any means preclude abstinence from bodily +pleasures. Fasting, as we have seen, was forbidden on that day; three +substantial meals were to be “enjoyed,” so Jewish theologians declared; +and the New Testament itself contains evidence that Pharisees of the +strictest type gave sumptuous entertainments on the Sabbath.[834] In +fact, various Christian Fathers were persuaded that the Jews observed the +Sabbath as a day of violent excess, and converts to Christianity were +cautioned against applying to the Lord’s Day the _luxus sabbatarius_. +“The Jews in our time,” says St. Augustine, “observe their Sabbath by a +kind of bodily rest, languid and luxurious. They abstain from labour and +give themselves up to trifles, and, though God ordained the Sabbath, they +spend it in actions which God forbids. Our rest is from evil works, their +rest is from good works; for it is better to plough than to dance.”[835] +We may believe that such criticisms had slight justification in the real +nature of the Jewish observance, little more, perhaps, than Plutarch’s +quaint notion that the Sabbath must bear some relation to Dionysus, for, +said Plutarch, when the Jews keep the Sabbath, they invite one another +to potations till all are drunk.[836] It is more satisfying to turn +to hundreds of Jewish hymns where the Sabbath is hailed “as a day of +rest and joy, of pleasure and delight, a day in which man enjoys some +presentiment of the pure bliss and happiness which are stored up for +the righteous in the world to come, and to which such tender names were +applied as the ‘Queen Sabbath,’ the ‘Bride Sabbath,’ and the ‘Holy, dear, +beloved Sabbath.’”[837] + +The Jewish Sabbath appears to have been first brought to the attention +of the Romans as early as the last century of the republic, when +Pompey’s sweeping campaigns in the East led to the establishment of +Roman dominion over Syria and Judea. References to the institution in +Tibullus, Horace, and Ovid indicate that its peculiar character as a day +of rest was then generally understood.[838] Their contemporary, Philo, +the Hellenistic Jew of Alexandria, declared that the seventh day was the +festival, not of one city or one country, but of all the earth, “the +birthday of the world,”[839] and Josephus could write that there was +no city among the Greeks or the barbarians where the festival of the +Sabbath was not celebrated.[840] These statements, though exaggerated, +bear witness to the success of that Jewish propaganda which, at the +very time when the preaching of Christianity began, carried this other +Oriental faith throughout the ancient world. The great commercial cities +of the Mediterranean became seats of thriving Jewish communities where +pagan proselytes adopted Jewish customs, including the observance of the +Sabbath.[841] + +The Jewish seven-day week with its numerical indications of the days was +adopted by the early Christians, to whom the planetary week, bearing the +names of pagan deities, could scarcely prove attractive.[842] Friday +and Saturday continued to have the designations παρασκευή and σάββατον, +respectively, but Sunday, which by Jewish custom was called “the first +day” after the Sabbath, eventually received the designation ἡ κυριακὴ +ἡμέρα (_dies dominica_), the Lord’s Day.[843] The New Testament contains +unambiguous evidence that from a very early period “the first day of the +week” was observed by Christians as a day of assembly for the “breaking +of bread” and perhaps for the collection of free-will offerings.[844] +The author of the _Epistle of Barnabas_, toward the end of the first +century, speaks of keeping the “eighth day” for rejoicing, and justifies +its observance as a celebration of the resurrection of Christ.[845] The +_Didache_, or _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, a work which belongs to +the early part of the second century, enjoins meetings “on the Lord’s own +day” (κατὰ κυριακὴν δὲ Κυρίου), for the breaking of bread and giving +thanks.[846] Eusebius of Cæsarea, in his _Ecclesiastical History_, +preserves a fragment of a letter of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth (175 +A.D.), to Soter, Bishop of Rome, in which the former says, “To-day we +passed the Lord’s holy day, when we read your epistle”; and the same +historian also mentions the fact that Melito, Bishop of Sardis (170 +A.D.), had written among other works a treatise on the Lord’s Day.[847] +Justin Martyr, writing about the middle of the second century, describes +how, “on the day called Sunday” (τῇ τοῦ Ἡλίου λεγομένη ἡμέρα), all +town and country Christians were wont to assemble for instruction in +the holy writings, and for prayer, the distribution of bread and wine, +and the collection of alms. The name Sunday commemorates, according to +Justin, the first day of creation and the resurrection of Christ from +the darkness of the grave.[848] Justin’s use of this nomenclature, in a +work addressed to the pagans, witnesses to the spread of Oriental solar +worship throughout the Roman Empire, leading to the substitution of the +day of Sun for Saturn’s Day, as the beginning of the planetary week. As +we have learned, the Christians themselves adopted eventually the pagan +designation of the first day of the week.[849] + +Though Jesus regarded the Sabbath as still binding on his followers, +his teaching that it was a social institution designed for practical +benefit to mankind, and not as a fetish, brought him repeatedly into +conflict with the Pharisees, and called forth those utterances which +have been so strangely neglected by sabbatarians in after ages: “For the +Son of man is lord of the Sabbath”; “The Sabbath was made for man, and +not man for the Sabbath”; “My Father worketh [on it] even until now, +and I work.”[850] Jewish Christians appear at first to have continued +the observance of the Sabbath, but this practice met the unqualified +condemnation of St. Paul;[851] and one of the _Epistles_ of St. Ignatius, +who suffered martyrdom about 107 A.D., refers to Christians as “no longer +observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day +(μηκέτι σαββατίζοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ κυριακὴν ζῶντες), on which also our life +has sprung up again by Him and by His death.”[852] However, the Jewish +element in the churches of the East was strong enough to secure the +ecclesiastical recognition of Saturday as a holy day. It long continued +to be observed like Sunday, by religious assemblies and feasting, though +not by any compulsory cessation of the ordinary occupations.[853] +Tertullian was the first Church Father to declare that Christians +ought to abstain on Sunday from secular duties and occupations, lest +they should “give place to the Devil.”[854] Tertullian’s statement has +sometimes been understood to indicate a Sabbatarian spirit on the part of +its author; properly considered, however, it means only that Christians +should so carefully observe the duties peculiar to the Lord’s Day as to +neglect, if necessary, their worldly business on that day. Other Church +Fathers of the third century, including Origen and Cyprian, made no +reference to Sunday as a day of abstinence from labour. The earliest +Sunday law, the edict issued by Constantine in 321 A.D., bore no relation +to Christianity.[855] What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as +a Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees, during the +fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with increasing stringency +abstinence from labour on Sunday. The view that the Christian Lord’s Day +is but the Jewish Sabbath transferred from the seventh to the first day +of the week found occasional expression in both the law and the theology +of the Middle Ages, and culminated in the sabbatarian excesses of +English and Scottish Puritanism.[856] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +UNLUCKY DAYS + + +The observance of lucky and unlucky days is a familiar phenomenon in +primitive society and among peoples of archaic civilization. Under +the attenuated form of a survival, the superstition still lingers in +civilized and Christian lands. The reasons for the assignment of a good +or an evil character to certain days are usually quite obscure; and even +where explanations are provided, these are, as a rule, explanations +after the event. The attempt to provide a satisfactory origin for them +insensibly widens out into an effort to account for the genesis of the +great body of popular and anonymous superstitions. + +Probably the commonest source of the belief in unlucky days is to be +sought in that erroneous association of ideas which underlies so much of +savage magic and savage religion. If an event, fortunate or unfortunate, +has taken place on a certain day, the notion easily arises that all +actions performed on the recurrence of the day will have a similarly +favourable or unfavourable issue. Among the Tshi of west Africa, the +most unlucky day is the anniversary of the Saturday on which Osai Tutu +was slain in an ambush near Acromanti in 1731.[857] In modern Macedonia +the superlative ill-luck attending Tuesday is explained by some as due +to the fact—historically true—that Constantinople was taken by the +Turks on this day of the week.[858] The _dies religiosi_, or unlucky +days, of the Roman calendar included the anniversary of the battle of +the Allia, _dies Alliensis_ (July 18), when the republic had suffered +grave misfortune. The same date was also observed as the anniversary of +the destruction of the Fabii at the Cremera, 477 B.C.[859] After the +assassination of Julius Cæsar a decree was made that the Ides of March +(March 15) should be called _parricidium_, and henceforth should be +observed as an unlucky day.[860] The superstitions which in Christian +times have gathered about Friday—at once a holy and an unlucky day—are +connected with it as the anniversary of Christ’s Passion. In the Middle +Ages people were accustomed to date on Friday all the unfortunate events +of religious tradition and history. On that day Adam sinned and was +driven from Paradise, Cain killed his brother Abel, John the Baptist was +beheaded, and Herod slew the Holy Innocents. It was also the day of the +Deluge, the Confusion of Tongues, and the infliction of the Plagues upon +Egypt. Synchronisms of this sort had a great attraction to the mediæval +mind, and numerous lists of them are preserved in old manuscripts.[861] +There is a Jewish superstition, reaching back to the Talmud, that it +is lucky to begin an undertaking on Tuesday, because, in describing +the third day of creation, it is said, “God saw that it was good.” +Contrariwise, it is unlucky to commence anything of importance on Monday, +as to which day nothing at all is said.[862] Where such conceptions are +rife, they readily lend themselves to divination and astrology, and under +the fostering care of practitioners of magical arts may develop into +elaborate augural codes. + +The observation of natural phenomena sometimes accounts for the unlucky +character ascribed to particular occasions. We have already noted many +superstitious observances connected with the phases of the moon, her +monthly disappearance from the heavens, and her occasional eclipse +by the earth. A further illustration of the same subject is found in +the astrological doctrine of the moon stations. The old Babylonian +astronomers, one of whose duties it was to make very careful observations +of the moon, noticed that at each lunation she appears to pass by the +same star-groups. It was natural, therefore, to associate the moon with +the conspicuous stars and constellations in the vicinity of the moon’s +path. The names which they received were in time extended to the lunar +days themselves; and this apparent connection between the two became +the principal basis of astrological forecasts for each day of the +sidereal month.[863] The fact is well known that Babylonian astrology +and astronomy—for the two were scarcely distinguishable in the earlier +period—exerted great influence on the neighbouring peoples of Asia; and +hence it has been generally assumed that the lunar mansions, reckoned +at twenty-seven or twenty-eight in number, which we find among the +Hindus and Chinese, and the augural calendars connected therewith, were +derived ultimately from Babylonia.[864] In modern India the _nakshatra_, +as they are called, “are consulted at births, marriages, and on all +occasions of family rejoicing, distress, or calamity. No one undertakes +a journey or any important matter except on days which the aspect of +the _nakshatra_ renders lucky and auspicious.”[865] Among the Persians +and Arabs the lunar stations have long been employed for astrological +purposes.[866] The Arabs carried them to Madagascar, where they gave +rise to an elaborate distinction of days lucky and unlucky. Some days +were considered absolutely bad; others were absolutely good; others were +indifferent. Again, some days were not regarded as good in general, +though still good enough for special purposes; one being excellent for +a house-warming, another for marking out the ground for a new town, and +still another was lucky to be born on, but bad for business. Some days +had a special peculiarity of their own, for instance, children born on a +certain day usually became dumb. The character of a day, according to the +Malagasy astrologers, depended, in short, on what one of the twenty-eight +lunar stations it represented.[867] + +The conception of unluckiness may be deduced _a priori_ from the +assumed critical nature of certain periods, such as epagomenal months +and days. The thirteenth month, which many peoples employing lunar +calculations find it necessary to intercalate at more or less regular +intervals, is sometimes regarded as unlucky.[868] Again, the eleven +or twelve days by which the solar year exceeds the lunar year assumed +among various Indo-European peoples a portentous and often unfavourable +significance.[869] The celebration of the Twelve Nights, in the sense +of the Twelve Nights and Days, as a festival before or after the winter +solstice, has been assigned to the Aryans of the Vedic age in India on +the strength of certain passages in the _Rig-Veda_, where the three +Ribhus, generally regarded as the personified seasonal deities who +divided up the year, are described as sleeping during these days “in +the house of the sun.”[870] The prophetic character of the Twelve Days +appears to be indicated by their characterization in various Brahmanical +writings as an “image of the coming year.”[871] Some eminent scholars +have thought that the Twelve Days represent an ancient method of +adjusting the lunar year to the solar year, as practised by the early +Aryans before the custom arose of inserting a thirteenth month, to which +reference is also made in the _Rig-Veda_.[872] This opinion, though not +free from difficulties, is strongly supported by numerous parallels to +the Indian evidence found in European folklore of the Twelve Days.[873] + +Throughout Europe from east to west the Twelve Days, usually reckoned +from Christmas to Epiphany, are prolific in popular superstitions and +customs. At this time the souls of the dead, sometimes under animal +form, return to the earth and revisit the living; witches and demons +swarm in the mischief-laden air; werewolves roam about, and the Wild +Huntsman rides in the heavens. Most of the ceremonies performed during +the Twelve Days have a distinctly pagan cast, such as the constant fire +on the domestic hearth, the village bonfires, and the lighted candles; +while others, such as the sprinkling of the houses with holy water and +the marking of the cross on the doors, have only a thin veneer of +Christianity. To a certain extent the Twelve Days thus form the modern +European representative of those seasons devoted to the expulsion of +ghosts and evil spirits which are observed by peoples of the lower +culture.[874] A further resemblance exists in the distinctly unlucky +character often assigned to the Twelve Days. In Macedonia no marriages +are solemnized during their continuance.[875] In various parts of Germany +they are kept as rest days, when the most important household occupations +and even those on the farm are omitted. The housewife must not spin, +weave lace, or engage in her usual tasks of washing and baking; and the +farmer must not thresh grain. Certain foods, especially peas and other +legumes, are carefully avoided; and no meat is eaten. It is not wise to +lend anything out of the house or to remove refuse and sweepings. One +ought not to be short of anything at this time, else one will be short +of everything during the ensuing year. Certain animals, particularly +associated with witches, should not be called by their right names; +hence, you must refer to the fox as “Mr. Long-tail,” and to the mouse as +“Floor-runner.” During these fateful days perfect quiet is essential: +no table must be pushed about and no doors slammed, otherwise the house +will be struck by lightning. In this period dreams and other prognostics +are most to be relied on and are most carefully investigated. Everywhere +in Germany it is believed that the weather of the Twelve Days determines +what will be experienced during the following twelve months, so that they +form, in effect, a meteorological calendar for the new year.[876] This +last superstition, however, is not confined to Germany, being met, for +instance, in modern Brittany. In most parts of that country the Twelve +Days, here reckoned from the first of January, are popularly termed +_gour-deziou_, “male days,” an expression which must be understood as +meaning supplementary or additional days.[877] A superstitious avoidance +of certain kinds of work during the Twelve Days may still be found in +remote districts of the British Isles. In Shropshire horses are not set +to the plough at this time and no spinning is done.[878] In Aberdeenshire +people believe that all work ought, if possible, to be finished before +Christmas Day. Between this time and New Year’s Eve no bread is baked and +no clothes are washed, and the spinning-wheel must be carried from one +side of the house to the other.[879] The Twelve Days over and above the +year were called in Wales “days of days” (_dyddian dyddon_). “They are +free days, and let any one come from any place he may, he will be free, +and exposed to no weapon or stroke, since there can be no court and law +of country on those days.”[880] + +The solar year, superseding the lunar year of three hundred and +fifty-four days, seems to have been generally assumed in the first +instance at the round number of three hundred and sixty days, the earth’s +periodical course around the sun being taken as a multiple of the moon’s +course around the earth. In ancient Mexico, where a solar calendar came +into use, the three hundred and sixty days were divided into eighteen +periods, each of twenty days. As their total did not round out the solar +year it became necessary to add five days at the end of the year; and +these possessed an unfavourable character. They were called _nemontemi_, +“the superfluous, supplementary days,” with the secondary significance +of “the useless days,” as being consecrated to no deity and employed +for no civic business. That they were considered sinister and unlucky +is evident from the abstinence that characterized them. Nothing of any +importance was done on the _nemontemi_. The house was not swept, no legal +case was tried, and any person so unfortunate as to be born on one of +these days was destined to a poor and miserable life. At the same time, +the _nemontemi_ possessed a prophetic power for the whole year. “They +were careful,” says Father Sahagun, “during these fatal days not to +fall asleep during the day, not to quarrel together, not to trip or to +fall, because they said that if any of these things befell them, they +would continue to befall them thence forevermore.”[881] Among the Mayas +of Yucatan the same abstinence prevailed on the five _xma kaba kin_, +the “days without names.” On these days “men left the house as seldom +as possible, did not wash or comb themselves, and took special care +not to undertake any menial or difficult task, doubtless because they +lived in the conviction that they would be forced to keep on doing it +through the whole ensuing year. The Mexicans were more passive in regard +to these days, inasmuch as they merely took care to avoid conjuring up +mischief for the coming year, while the Mayas did things more thoroughly. +During these days, so portentous for the entire year, they banished +the evil which might threaten them. They prepared a clay image of the +demon of evil, Uuayayab, that is, _u-uayab-haab_ (‘by whom the year is +poisoned’), confronted it with the deity who had supreme power during the +year in question, and then carried it out of the village in the direction +of that cardinal point to which the new year belonged.”[882] + +It is an impressive testimony to the essential unity of primitive +culture that in a far distant quarter of the globe an almost identical +superstition existed. The Egyptian solar calendar, like the Mexican, +was based on a year of three hundred and sixty days, but in Egypt these +were grouped into twelve equal months of thirty days each, leaving five +supplementary days to be added at the end of the twelfth month—“the five +days over and above the year” (_haru duaït hiru ronpit_), as they were +styled.[883] Their great antiquity is indicated by another designation, +“little month,” applied to them; and, in fact, a notice of the epagomenal +days occurs in the _Pyramid Texts_ belonging to the Sixth Dynasty, where +they are referred to as the “five additional days” on which the gods were +born.[884] Later monumental records show that the deities associated +respectively with these days were the five members of the Osirian +cycle, Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.[885] The evidence of the +_Leiden Papyrus_, setting forth the ceremonies requisite for epagomenal +days, indicates that they enjoyed exceptional importance because of +their position at the end of the year. As religious festivals they were +consecrated to the dead. Furthermore, they bore a distinctly ominous or +unlucky character, and many were the prayers and magical formulas to be +recited by the pious worshipper in order to secure divine protection +against the malefic influences supposed to characterize them. To +positive rites of prayer and sacrifice the worshipper must add cessation +of all activity: “during the five days at the end of the year do no +work; abstain from everything”—so runs the priestly text.[886] These +precautions taken, he might look forward to a happy New Year. + +The conquest of Egypt in the sixth century B.C. by the Achæmenian +kings seems to have introduced a knowledge of the excellencies of the +Egyptian solar reckoning to the Persians. Their five epagomenal days +were called the Gāthā-days, each being sacred to one of the five great +divisions of the _Gāthās_, or Zoroastrian hymns. A Persian calendar of +late date (1687 A.D.) gives the first day as lucky, and the third as +unlucky.[887] It is significant that among the Persians, as in ancient +Egypt, the epagomenal days particularly belonged to the dead, to whom +sacrifices were regularly offered at this time, as well as during the +first five days of the new year.[888] The Armenians also had their five +supplementary days—_aweleach_—intercalated after the twelfth month, an +arrangement doubtless borrowed from the Persians, but these days do not +appear to have been marked by any special observances.[889] The latest +attempt to introduce the use of epagomenal days dates from the time of +the French Revolution. In their desire to abolish a chronological system +bound up with the Christian religion the bold innovators of the National +Convention set aside in 1793 the Gregorian calendar, establishing a +Republican calendar in which the seven-day week was replaced by the +decade and the year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, +according to the old Egyptian arrangement. Five intercalary days, +popularly called _sansculottides_, came at the end of the year (six +days at the end of every fourth year); they were dedicated to Virtue, +Genius, Labour, Opinion, and Reward; and were observed as holidays. But +this calendar, which John Quincy Adams described as an “incongruous +composition of profound learning and superficial frivolity, of irreligion +and morality, of delicate imagination and coarse vulgarity,” had a short +life. In 1802 the week of seven days returned into general use, and three +years later an edict of Napoleon ordered the restoration of the Gregorian +calendar.[890] In our own time, however, serious proposals have been +made looking toward the reformation of the present awkward calendar, and +among them is the suggestion that we adopt the ancient Egyptian system of +months and epagomenal days. + +It has been repeatedly noticed in the preceding pages that oftentimes +no clear line of demarcation can be drawn between days _tabu_ and days +considered “unlucky.” Both may involve ideas of contagion, the sanctity +or pollution attaching to the one being conceived as scarcely less +transmissible than the vaguer “unluckiness” which belongs to certain +periods and affects everything done during their continuance. How +some of the so-called unlucky days, still lingering in contemporary +civilization, have descended from the holy days of antiquity is aptly +illustrated by the superstitions relating to the certain days of March +and of August, as observed at the present time in southeastern Europe. +In Macedonia the peasants during the first three days and the last +three days of these two months do not plant; they cut no tree or vine, +for fear lest it should wither; they do not bathe in the sea, or their +bodies would swell; and they even refrain from washing clothes.[891] +In various parts of Greece and the Ægean it is considered necessary to +abstain from particular kinds of work on certain days of August, and +occasionally of March. During the first five days of August the people +of Epirus do not wash clothes or go into the fields to work. In Crete +the period is longer, for here on the first six and last six days of +August clothes are not washed and grapes are not gathered.[892] In Cos +on the first three days of August the women do no work (for it would +not prosper) and wash no clothes (for these would soon wear out). The +eleven days which follow are supposed to foreshadow the weather during +the succeeding eleven months: as the fourth day is, so will September +be; the fifth day prognosticates the weather for October, and so on. +The fifteenth of August is celebrated as the Feast of the Assumption, +closing a fortnight’s strict fast.[893] The Cypriotes observe the +first three or six days of August as times when no trees are cut or +peeled to obtain resin, when the use of water for washing clothes or +the body is forbidden, and when no one travels by water. The severity +of the regulations has led to the days being called the “evil days of +August.”[894] All these taboos thus show much similarity, relating in +particular to abstention from work which has to do with water or with +vines and trees. From this fact it becomes a plausible inference that the +unlucky days were originally sacred to the tree-nymphs and water-nymphs, +whose festivals were celebrated in pagan antiquity. At the present time +the days are associated with the _drymais_, mysterious spirits supposed +to be abroad on them, and probably to be identified with the dryads +(δρύαδες) of classic mythology. + +The likeness between tabooed days as periods of abstinence and some +unlucky days may be further illustrated by much ethnographic evidence +drawn from different cultural areas. The Maori, we are told, endeavour to +determine by divination whether the day set for a journey is favourable +or unfavourable. The fisherman is hopeless of making a catch on an +unfavourable day. At such a time “no dress will be commenced, no seine +cast, no fish-hook baited, no ground turned up, seed sown, distant +visit made, flax cut or dressed, timber cut, canoe formed, or even food +partaken of.”[895] The Batta of Sumatra possess elaborate calendars of +days favourable, unfavourable, and of a doubtful character; and these +are regularly consulted by the Batta magician in order that his clients +may know when to commence any important undertaking, such as sowing +and harvesting, house-building, erection of a new village, removal +to another village, preparation of sacrifices at birth, name-giving, +burial, betrothal, and marriage, and all other great occasions. A day +may be wholly unlucky for one thing, but not for another; for instance, +a day which could not safely be used for the celebration of a sacrifice +might still be used for the inauguration of agricultural labour. On the +other hand, there are certain days, indicated in the calendars, when all +activity ceases, except the entertainment of relatives and indispensable +harvest work. If a man should meet with misfortune on one of these fatal +days, a sacrifice must be offered to the supernatural power supposed to +be responsible for the visitation. The Batta calendar in its existing +form is derived from India, but the people seem formerly to have +possessed their own rude calendar, which was used to determine the lucky +and unlucky days in a lunar month. Even at the present time the calendar +is not employed for the fixation of dates in the European sense, but only +in the service of popular superstition.[896] + +The Mohammedan Malays of the Malay Peninsula possess a number of +divinatory calendars, one specifying seven unlucky days in every month, a +second, twelve other most inauspicious days in every year, while a third +gives all the days of the year classified under the heads lucky, somewhat +unlucky, most unlucky, and neutral.[897] Chinese popular calendars set +forth a similar classification of the days of the month as very lucky, +neither lucky nor unlucky, unlucky, and very unlucky.[898] Furthermore, +the first, fifth, and ninth months are considered unfavourable by the +Chinese, who will not marry or change houses during these months.[899] +In Korea the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth days of each month +are called “broken days.” At such times the people avoid any new +undertakings.[900] The old Japanese are said to have held five yearly +festivals or holidays, “purposely laid on those days, which, by reason +of their imparity, are judged to be the most unfortunate.” These were +New Year’s Day, the third day of the third month, the fifth of the fifth +month, the seventh of the seventh month, and the ninth of the ninth +month.[901] In modern Japan the cheap popular calendars, circulating +among the lower classes, contain indications for every day of a cycle of +six days. Of these, the first is described as good during the forenoon +for urgent business, such as lawsuits and petitions, but not good after +midday. The second is good in the forenoon and in the evening, but not +in the afternoon. The first half of the third day is bad, and no urgent +business should be undertaken at such a time; the afternoon, however, is +lucky. Nothing done on the fourth day will prosper. The fifth day is very +lucky for anything, especially removals or journeys. With the exception +of the noon-tide hour the whole of the sixth day is unlucky. This cycle +used in divination flourishes side by side with the week of seven +days.[902] + +The Tibetans are great astrologers. In every monastery there is at +least one divining lama whose business it is to determine propitious +and unpropitious times. Calendars exist for all the days of the month, +some being described as “good,” others as “middling,” others as “bad,” +while one is referred to as “not very good,” and still another as “the +worst.” Among the causes of the luck or unluck attaching to certain days +the Tibetans are inclined to lay stress on the periodical migrations of +the spirits inhabiting the regions above the earth. It seems that the +two kinds of spirits, good and evil, shift their abodes, to some extent +every day and also contemporaneously with the phases of the moon, the +commencement of a new season, and so on. Their migrations are performed +with unequal velocity; hence, the combination of spirits varies for every +day. If the good spirits are more numerous than the evil spirits on a +particular day, the time will be favourable for any undertaking; and +_vice versa_. This belief, we are told, offers a wide field of intrigue +to the lamas, who alone are able to decide what have been the actual +movements of the spirits.[903] + +The Toda, who dwell in permanent villages on the plateaus of the Nilgiri +Hills in southeastern India, have a remarkable system of rest days +deserving to be described at some length. The social organization of +this interesting people consists of two endogamous divisions, called +Teivaliol and Tartharol. Each of these primary sections is composed of +intermarrying clans, and each clan possesses a group of villages in +common. At the present time Toda interests, both economic and religious, +centre about their buffaloes. The daily life of the Toda men is largely +devoted to the care of these animals and to labour in the dairies. The +buffalo is a sacred animal; the dairy itself is almost a temple; and the +dairyman is only one remove from a priest. Toda religious rites seem +to be, in fact, little more than the arrangements which a pastoral and +communistic people have made for the provision and care of an article +of food. According to Dr. Rivers, whose careful studies are a model +of anthropological investigation, nearly every Toda ceremony has its +appointed day or days. The choice of these “is often dependent on another +Toda institution, the sacred day, either of the village or of the dairy. +Every clan has certain days of the week on which people are restricted +from following many of their ordinary occupations, although they are +not the occasions of any special ceremonies. These sacred days are the +_madnol_, or village day, and the _palinol_, or dairy day.”[904] + +Each Toda village has its _madnol_, but, in general, where there are +several villages of the same clan, the _madnol_ is the same for the whole +clan. There are at least eight prohibitions characterizing the observance +of this sacred day. Feasts may not be given at such a time, funeral +ceremonies may not be performed, people may not bathe or cut their +nails, and men may not shave. Clothes are not to be washed, the house +is not to be cleansed, and, though the ordinary meals may be prepared, +rice and milk must not be cooked together. Other regulations forbid the +dairyman to leave the village, the buffaloes to be taken from one place +to another, or the people to migrate from one village to another.[905] +Though not all work is prohibited, the regulations are extensive enough +to affect most of the customary occupations. Among the Teivaliol, one of +the two endogamous divisions of the Toda people, the _madnol_ is the only +sacred day of the week. With the other division, called Tartharol, there +is also a dairy day, or _palinol_, the regulations for which have much +the same character as for the _madnol_. + +Toda ingenuity has devised recognized methods of evading the rules for +the holy days, and so of avoiding the inconvenience which might otherwise +be entailed on the people. The rule that nothing may be taken from the +village on the _madnol_ would prevent any purchases from outsiders being +made on the holy day, since money would have to pass out of the village +in payment. The Toda avoid this awkward consequence by the simple device +of taking money beyond the village limits on the day before the _madnol_ +and burying it in some spot where it can be found when wanted. The rule +forbidding Toda women to leave the village on the _madnol_ is evaded +in a curious fashion. A woman will depart from the settlement before +daybreak, will remain outside till the sun is up, and will then return +to her home, for breakfast and the performance of any necessary work. +During this time she is regarded as ceremonially absent from the village, +hence her actual departure later in the day for another village is not +considered to be a desecration of the _madnol_. With these possibilities +of evasion open to the pious Toda, it follows that the regulations are +seldom broken, in the letter if not in the spirit. When a breach of +them does occur, the culprit may be obliged to perform a propitiatory +sacrifice similar to that which follows the commission of various +other ceremonial sins. “It seemed quite clear, however, that this only +happened if some misfortune should befall the offender, his family, or +his buffaloes. It would seem that a man might habitually and notoriously +desecrate the _madnol_, but no steps would be taken by himself or the +community so long as things went well with the man. If he should become +ill or if his buffaloes should suffer in any way, he would consult the +diviners and they would then certainly find that his misfortunes were due +to his infringement of the laws connected with the sacred days.”[906] + +There is much variety in the days observed as the _madnol_ or the +_palinol_ of the different villages and clans. The most frequent days +appear to be Wednesday and Friday, which are sacred in six clans. Sunday +is sacred in five clans, Monday and Tuesday in three, Thursday in two. In +no clan does Saturday appear to be kept as a holy day.[907] + +The origin of these sacred days among the Toda is very obscure. Dr. +Rivers first suggests the possibility of the institution of _madnol_ and +_palinol_ having grown out of the belief in unlucky days. The code of +rules prescribing what might and what might not be done would then be +only an elaboration of the common superstition which restricts activity +at such unlucky periods. But there are several difficulties in the way of +this view. It is extremely doubtful whether the Toda has any such belief +in days lucky and unlucky,[908] and if he has, the idea is probably a +recent importation from the Hindus, among whom the superstition is very +prevalent. Again, the distinction between _madnol_ and _palinol_ is one +which cannot be satisfactorily explained by such a hypothesis. Finally, +the different clans of the Toda have different sacred days, whereas +one would expect lucky and unlucky days to be the same for the entire +community. This seems especially reasonable when it is considered that +the sacred days, by restricting intercourse between the different clans, +produce much inconvenience, which, of course, is increased by the fact +that the different clans have different _madnol_. Whatever be the origin +of these Toda rules, there is, writes Dr. Rivers, “little doubt that when +at the present time a given act is done or not done on a given day, the +action is not based on a belief in lucky or unlucky days, but, as nearly +always among the Toda, on custom prescribing that the act shall or shall +not be done on that day.”[909] + +The question may be raised whether the resemblance of the Toda _madnol_ +to the Hebrew Sabbath is not accounted for by supposing the former +institution to have been founded on ideas borrowed from Christians or +Jews. If this has been the case, it is certain that the borrowing took +place very long ago. In studying the origin and history of the Toda we +have no record that reaches back more than three centuries. From various +close resemblances between the Toda customs and those of the people of +Malabar, Dr. Rivers thinks it probable that the Toda at one time lived in +Malabar, migrating thence to the Nilgiri Hills. Both Christians and Jews +were well established in Malabar more than a thousand years ago. If the +Toda left Malabar before these settlements of foreigners were made, then +Jewish or Christian influences can be excluded; if the migration took +place subsequently, then they may have contributed to the development of +the Toda institution.[910] + +In spite of these considerations, Dr. Rivers is inclined to consider the +Toda _madnol_ as substantially a native institution, which may help to +explain the origin of the Hebrew Sabbath. “In a busier community than +that of the Toda, the existence of different _madnol_ for different +clans of the community would soon become a serious obstacle to carrying +on the business of life, and such a community would probably agree that +all clans should have the same holy day. At present the _madnol_ is +undoubtedly more sacred than the other sacred days, and if the latter +were then to be neglected, we should have a community in which various +activities were prohibited on one day of the week, and the institution so +arising would differ very little from the Hebrew Sabbath. It is possible +that the Toda show in an early stage the institution of a Sabbath in +which the whole community has not yet settled on a single and joint holy +day.”[911] The fact that the Toda employ the seven-day week, which must +be entirely a borrowed institution with them, suggests, however, that +the prohibitions attaching to certain days of that week were ultimately +derived from foreign sources.[912] + +Another curious instance of communal rest days is found among the Siah +Posh Kafirs, a primitive Aryan people dwelling in the northeastern part +of Afghanistan, between Chitral and the Hindu-Kush. They seem formerly +to have occupied a more extended area about the headwaters of the Indus. +The conversion of the surrounding tribes, first to Buddhism and later to +Mohammedanism, has further served to isolate them. With the Afghans on +the west their enmity is deadly and unceasing, but their relations with +their eastern neighbours admit of friendly intercourse. It is on this +side, therefore, that we must look for the introduction into Kafiristan +of Indian cultural elements, among which is the seven-day week.[913] +On certain weekdays the Siah Posh Kafirs rest from work. Young and old +gather in large buildings erected in the centre of the villages and here +they dance all night, to the music of flutes and trumpets, and sing songs +in honour of the gods.[914] According to a later and fuller account, the +Kafir rest days are called _agar_; in some districts they occur every +Thursday, in other districts, every Saturday, but only during the months +from April to September, when field work is in progress. The _agar_ +appear to be rigorously observed by the male inhabitants of a village, +but the women, who stop their field-work on these days, do not scruple +to engage in other coolie labour during their continuance. “I failed,” +writes our authority, “to discover anything concerning the origin of +these _agar_. Their observance may have become a national custom, the +origin of which is as difficult to determine as the Sabbaths of other +ancient peoples. As the Kám people were averse to starting on a journey +on the _agar_ days, and as all the women left their field-work altogether +on those occasions, it is possible that the _agar_ was originally +considered an unlucky day.”[915] + +Perhaps no people have subjected themselves to more irksome restrictions +on unlucky days than the natives of Madagascar. In this island systems of +taboo are widespread and elaborate, even at the present time. The term +_fady_ (or _tabu_), used for all objects and persons tabooed, is likewise +applied by the Malagasy to unfavourable days and months, the quality +of such periods as dangerous or unlucky being considered transmissible +to beings and actions.[916] By the Hova, a people of remote, perhaps +prehistoric, Malay origin, now occupying the central tableland of +Madagascar, only twelve days in the month were regarded as lucky. The +first days of some months possessed a most disastrous character, and +children born on them were usually put to death. The same cruel practice +was found among other tribes, such as the Bara and Tanala, leading, in +the latter case, to the destruction of at least one-fourth of all the +infants born.[917] The Tanala consider one of the months, called _faosa_, +extremely unlucky. “No one works in that month, no one changes his place +of abode or goes about. If any one happens to be in the fields when the +month comes in, there he remains.”[918] The Sihanaka keep Tuesday as an +unlucky day on which no work is allowed in the fields. Each Sihanaka +family, in addition, inherits a special unlucky day in each week, when it +is not permissible to go outside the house.[919] The Sakalava likewise +abstain from all business and remain strictly in seclusion on their +unlucky days, which belong both to families and to individuals.[920] +Among the Betsimisaraka each person has his unlucky day when he does not +work; in fact, he can do nothing at this time except eat, drink, sleep, +and dress his hair. Since the introduction of Christianity the day kept +in this strict fashion is Sunday.[921] + +These accounts of lucky and unlucky days observed by half-civilized +peoples at the present time throw light on the references to the same +superstition found in the records of archaic civilizations. For Egypt +we have the evidence of several ancient calendars preserved in papyrus +manuscripts. The first of these dates from the Twelfth Dynasty (about +2000 B.C.) and includes all the days of the month, eighteen being defined +as “good,” nine as “bad,” and three (the sixteenth, twenty-second, and +twenty-third), as “half-good” and “half-bad.” The primitive character +of this calendar is indicated by the fact that the same prognostics are +attached to the same days of the month throughout the year. The second +calendar, dating from about 1000 B.C., is more complicated, since the +prognostics of the several days are unlike in the different months, while +each day is itself divided into three parts, lucky, unlucky, and neutral. +Neither calendar contains mention of the five epagomenal days.[922] + +The third and best-known of these Egyptian calendars is the _Papyrus +Sallier IV_, which in its present form belongs to about 1200 B.C. but +is based on much earlier documents.[923] Parts of the manuscript at the +beginning and end have been lost, so that it now contains prognostics +for only two hundred and thirty-five days of the year. This interesting +production of ancient though misdirected learning divides the hours +between the rising and the setting of the sun into three periods, +each of which is ruled by its particular influence. Some days were +good throughout the three periods, some were wholly bad, others were +critical—_dubium sed in malum vergens_—while others again presented +combinations of these three characteristics. The following are typical +regulations, arranged according to the order of the Egyptian months.[924] +22 Thoth: eat no fish and light no oil lamp. 23 Thoth: put no incense +on the fire; kill no animals, domestic or wild; eat neither a goose nor +a goat. A child born on this day will amount to nothing. 26 Thoth: do +nothing on this day. 4 Paophi: do not go out of the house. 5 Paophi: +do not go out of the house; do not have intercourse with a woman. 22 +Paophi: do not wash and do not approach a stream. 19 Athyr: light no +fire. 6 Mechir: do no work. 13 Pharmuthi: do not go anywhere. In the +calendar as a whole the most frequent injunctions relate to quitting +the house, travelling, sailing, and undertaking any kind of work. Next +in number are the prohibitions of loud talking, singing, and sexual +intercourse. There are also prohibitions of drinking, bathing, and +killing or eating certain animals, besides others directed against +the use of fire and lights. It is clear that in this curious treatise +we have a systematization of popular taboos relating to the lucky or +unlucky character of certain days. The fact that it was used as a +boy’s schoolbook indicates how priestly influence had erected into a +pseudo-science the uncouth and childish superstitions of the multitude. +The calendar itself presents evidence that the priests had begun to +rationalize the taboos, for the prohibitions are often accompanied by a +summary of the motives which justified them, usually legendary episodes +of the gods. For instance, the regulation for the twenty-sixth of +Thoth—“do absolutely nothing”—is explained by a reference to the terrific +combat between Horus and his uncle Set, which occurred on this ill-omened +day.[925] + +The Babylonian augural calendar for the intercalated month of Elul and +for Markheshwan is not the only example of omen literature to be found in +the cuneiform records. We possess a document, preserved in great part, +which includes every day in the year, either specifying its nature as +favourable or unfavourable or adding other indications with regard to its +character. A note like “hostility,” appended to the twenty-first day of +the second month, is a warning that the gods are out of humour on that +day; the twenty-third day, described as “heart not good,” is explained +by the contrast “heart glad” on the following day. Not content with a +simple distinction of favourableness and unfavourableness, the calendar +also deals with days “wholly favourable” and “half favourable.” Still +other days are noted as those portending “distress,” “trouble,” “tears,” +“injury,” “darkness,” “moon obscured,” and the like. The precautions +and prohibitions set forth for unlucky days include, among many others, +the familiar taboos of eating specified foods, such as swine’s flesh, +beef, dates, and fish, sexual intercourse, buying and selling, wearing +bright garments, travelling, holding law courts, and so on. The calendar +contains a number of references to the king and may, very probably, have +served the priests in their instructions to the monarch. As Professor +Jastrow remarks, the belief in lucky and unlucky days has a distinctly +popular flavour, making it probable that the priests embodied in their +lists many of the notions that arose among the people, and gave to these +an official sanction.[926] + +The Greeks of Hesiod’s time possessed an elaborate calendar of lucky and +unlucky days.[927] “Sometimes a day is a stepmother, sometimes a mother,” +Hesiod remarks pithily. What ancient regulations for the observance of +tabooed periods are embodied in the calendar is problematical. Many of +the prohibitions with which the first part of the poem concludes are, +however, thoroughly primitive taboos.[928] Hesiod does not mention +any days when labour is to be entirely abandoned. We may assume, +perhaps, that at the period when the Hesiodic poems were composed the +rationalizing temper of the Greeks had gotten somewhat the better of +their superstitious fears. In the Hesiodic list, as in the Egyptian +and Babylonian calendars, the notion appears that not only whole days +but even parts of days have an individual character, working for good +or evil. The middle ninth (the nineteenth) is said to be “a better day +toward afternoon.” The “fourth which followeth the twentieth of the +month is the best at dawn, but it is worse toward afternoon.” Hesiod +does not distinguish the months as lucky or unlucky, and the days which +possess either of these attributes are the same for every month. He +gives no explanation for their luckiness or unluckiness, though traces +of a rationalizing process are perhaps observable in the directions +regarding the “fifths” (presumably the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth +days), which are specially unlucky “because on the fifth men say the +Erinyes attended the birth of Oath (Horkos), whom Strife bare to punish +perjurers.” The seventh again is lucky, “for on that day Leto bare Apollo +of the Golden Sword.”[929] The Hesiodic injunctions did not cease to be +observed in the later classical epoch and exercised great influence on +civil and political life. The superstitions relating to unlucky days only +gained a firmer foothold, under the influence of Babylonian and Egyptian +doctrines, in passing from Greece to Rome and from Rome to western +Europe.[930] + +During the Middle Ages perhaps the most widespread observance of unlucky +days had to do with those which went under the significant name of _dies +Ægyptiaci_. The prohibitions marking them—not to build a house, not to +buy or sell, not to cut hair, beard, and nails, and so on—possessed, +however, no character specifically Egyptian. The mediæval belief was that +these days received their designation because on one of them the plagues +had been sent to devastate the land of Egypt, and on another Pharaoh and +his host had been swallowed up in the Red Sea. As early as the fourth +century A.D. Christian writers refer to “Egyptian days” as times feared +and avoided by both pagans and converts to Christianity.[931] About +this period the superstition gained admittance to the state calendars. +In the _fasti Philocali_ (354 A.D.), twenty-five _dies Ægyptiaci_ are +reckoned, two in each month except January, which contains three.[932] +A mediæval French manuscript, dating from the reign of St. Louis, +includes twenty-four such days, but another manuscript, of the fourteenth +century, enumerates thirty days of the year as very dangerous, when it +is necessary to abstain from buying and selling, building, and planting. +Still another manuscript, of the fifteenth century, reckons thirty-one +wholly evil days, while certain hours of other days also possess +dangerous qualities.[933] In the seventeenth century J. B. Thiers, the +learned curé of Vibraie, notices the “Egyptian days” in his extensive +list of the superstitious beliefs regarding certain times and seasons, +prevalent in his age but condemned by theologians (St. Thomas Aquinas), +popes (Nicholas I), and Church synods and councils.[934] Anglo-Saxon +calendars mention about twenty-four “Egyptian days” in the year, when +it is dangerous, if not fatal, to begin an enterprise or to travel. A +manuscript calendar, dating from the reign of Henry VI, gives a list of +thirty-two such days. After the Reformation the old unlucky days appear +to have abated much of their malevolence, and to have left behind them +only a general superstition against fishermen starting out to fish, or +seamen to take a voyage, or landsmen a journey, or domestic servants to +enter a new place—on a Friday.[935] + + + + +CONCLUSION + + +It is fairly obvious that the observance of tabooed and unlucky days +must be included among the many superstitions which have retarded the +progress of mankind. They hinder individual initiative and tend to +prevent the undertaking of lengthy enterprises which may be interrupted +by the recurrence of an unfavourable period. Their extensive development +compels fitful, intermittent labour, rather than a steady and continuous +occupation. The Burman, for example, “is so fettered by his horoscope and +the lucky and unlucky days for him recorded therein, which are taught +him in rhymes from childhood, that the character has been given him by +strangers of alternate idleness and energy. But both are enforced by +the numerous days and seasons when he may not work without disaster to +himself. Unlucky days cause him so much fear that he will resort to all +sorts of excuses to avoid business on them. Similarly, on lucky days he +will work beyond his strength, because he is assured of success.”[936] +Again, it is said that Europeans in India usually fail to realize the +great influence which ideas of lucky and unlucky days exert on the +conduct of the people. Superstitious avoidance of unpropitious occasions +will often explain the failure of the natives to obey a court summons +or to keep their appointments with government officers.[937] These +remarks, by keen observers, are capable of a wide application to various +primitive races. The belief in unfavourable seasons may even directly +affect political and social progress, where, as in modern Ashanti and in +ancient Rome, assemblies could not be held, or courts of justice stand +open, or armies engage the enemy, when the unlucky day came round. It +is equally obvious that all such beliefs play into the hands of the +astrologer and magician, tending further to strengthen the bonds with +which superstition enchains its votaries. + +From the economic point of view it deserves to be pointed out how the +extensive development of tabooed and unlucky days seriously limits +production and thus lowers the efficiency of labour. In Hawaii the +seasons of strict abstinence regularly observed during eight months of +the year reached a total of seventy-two days, while from time to time +still other _tabu_ days were appointed by the priests.[938] In Ashanti +an old writer calculated that there were only from one hundred and fifty +to one hundred and sixty days in the year during which business of +any importance could be safely undertaken.[939] Few peoples have more +holidays than the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Their religious festivals +occupy more than half the year. It is a noteworthy fact, however, that +the Hopi celebrate their longest and most important ceremonies during +the months from harvest time to planting, when there is little work +to be done. “Although the Pueblo farmer may thoroughly believe in his +ceremonial system as efficacious, his human nature is too practical to +consume the precious planting time with elaborate ceremonials.”[940] +In modern China and Korea so many festivals in honour of deities are +observed as holidays that they take the place, to a certain extent, of +the Sabbath institution.[941] Among the ancient Egyptians the unlucky +days varied in number according to the different months, six, for +instance, occurring in Paophi, seven each in Choiak and Phamenoth, and +five in Pharmuthi. It may be reckoned that “popular superstition rendered +useless about one-fifth of the year.”[942] The Athenian festivals are +estimated to have occupied from fifty to sixty days of the year. The +irregular distribution of these holidays throughout the months, and +especially their congestion in spring and autumn, must have caused much +interference with the routine of daily life.[943] In some city-states the +festivals were more numerous: at Tarentum, in the days of its prosperity, +the people are said to have had more holidays than working days.[944] + +In the old Roman calendar, out of three hundred and fifty-five days, +nearly one-third (one hundred and nine) were marked as _nefasti_, that +is, as unlawful for judicial and political business. These days belonged +wholly to the gods, while eleven more days of the year were shared by +the divine and the human inhabitants of the city.[945] We know on the +evidence of Cicero that in the last century of the republic the numerous +days when courts could not sit had become a resource on which a wealthy +criminal could speculate as a means of delaying and evading justice; +while Suetonius enumerates among the praiseworthy reforms of Augustus +the cutting-down of non-judicial days by thirty, “in order that crimes +might not escape punishment or business be impeded by delay.”[946] Of the +_dies nefasti_ sixty-one, including the Ides of every month, the Kalends +of three months, and the Nones of July, were numbered in the republican +calendar among the public festivals—_feriæ publicæ_—on which the state +expected the citizens to abstain, as far as possible, from their private +business and labour.[947] But the number of rest days observed really +reached a larger total, when we remember that, besides the extraordinary +_feriæ_, proclaimed from time to time, there was a marked tendency during +the last two centuries of the republic to extend over several days +festivals to which originally only one day had been allotted. This was +for the purpose of giving time for an elaborate programme of public games +(_ludi_), consisting of chariot-races, stage plays, and other forms of +popular amusement. As the Roman passion for holidays and their attendant +spectacles increased, we find the number of days devoted to them rising +from sixty-six in the reign of Augustus to eighty-seven in that of +Tiberius, and, under Marcus Aurelius, to a hundred and thirty-five. By +the middle of the fourth century their number had reached one hundred +and seventy-five.[948] For the lower classes at Rome the gladiatorial +combats, chariot-races, and dramatic shows formed the chief pleasure of +life. The once-sovereign people of Rome became a lazy, worthless rabble, +fed by the state and amused with the games. Of them it was well said +by an ancient satirist that they wanted only two things to make them +happy—“bread and the games of the circus.”[949] + +Many of the holy days in the religious calendar of Christendom were +borrowed, as is well known, from the public festivals of ancient +paganism. This must be the chief reason for the observance of so many +non-working days during the Middle Ages. Their number was largely reduced +in Protestant Europe as the result of the Reformation, which did away +with the majority of saints’ days. In Catholic countries, however, there +is still an excessive amount of time devoted to religious celebrations. +Mexico, for instance, is described as “a land of holidays. Counting +Sundays, there are one hundred and thirty-one in the Mexican calendar, +and it is asserted that more than half of the people observe them all.... +On certain of these days all Mexico takes to the festival, and it usually +requires from one to three days for the _peons_ to sober up and get back +to regular work again.”[950] The Greek Church, as a celebrated traveller +and historian once pointed out, requires her followers to observe so +many holy days “as practically to shorten the lives of the people very +materially. I believe that one-third of the number of days in the year +are ‘kept holy,’ or rather, _kept stupid_, in honour of the saints: no +great portion of the time thus set apart is spent in religious exercises +and the people don’t betake themselves to any animating pastimes, +which might serve to strengthen the frame, or invigorate the mind, or +exalt the taste.”[951] In Russia commercial and educational progress +is hindered by the multitude of saints’ days. “The _dies nefas_, when +work is tabooed, becomes a serious handicap in the race of modern life. +These saints’ days, together with the Sundays, rob the Russian of nearly +one-third of his time, for they leave him only about two hundred and +fifty days for work. He would sooner work on a Sunday than on a saint’s +day.”[952] In eastern Galicia, where a calendar is in use which permits +the observance of the religious festivals of both the Roman and the Greek +churches, the number of holidays or non-working days is considerably in +excess of one hundred, rising in some districts to one hundred and fifty, +and in others reaching the amazing total of two hundred.[953] To what +extremes the practice of abstaining from labour on holy days may extend +is further illustrated in Abyssinia, where the numerous fasts and feasts +are so strictly kept as to render about six months of the year prohibited +for any secular employments.[954] + +Human nature, it has been said, is always ready for the shift from +fast to feast, from Sabbath to Saturnalia. To the student of primitive +religion and sociology nothing is more interesting than the contemplation +of that unconscious though beneficent process which has converted +institutions, based partly or wholly on a belief in the imaginary and +the supernatural, into institutions resting on the rock of reason and +promoting human welfare. Though the origin of tabooed and unlucky days +must be sought in gross superstition, sooner or later they acquire a +secular character and may then be perpetuated as holidays, long after +their earlier significance has disappeared. The transition, with all +its subtle and manifold results on the organization of society, may +be followed under our own eyes. The passage of the holy day into +the holiday, beginning in the lower culture, promises to reach its +culmination in the secularizing of all the great festivals of the +Christian year. This evolutionary movement, whether for weal or woe, +at least provides a singularly instructive illustration of the close +relations between religion and social progress, which must ever impress +the inquirer into the early history of mankind. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[1] _Leviathan_, chap. xi. + +[2] For the leading facts relating to the institution of taboo see Sir +J. G. Frazer, “Taboo,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_,⁹ xxiii, 15-18; _idem_, +_Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, London, 1911; N. W. Thomas, “Taboo,” +_Encyclopædia Britannica_,¹¹ xxvi, 337-341; L. Marillier, “Tabou,” _La +grande encyclopédie_, xxx, 848 _sq._; A. Bros, _La religion des peuples +non-civilisés_, Paris, 1907, pp. 185-213; C. H. Toy, _Introduction to the +History of Religions_, Boston, 1913, pp. 239-264. + +[3] A list of the equivalents of tabu in the languages of Polynesia +and Melanesia will be found in William Churchill, _The Polynesian +Wanderings_, Washington, 1911, pp. 263 sq. + +[4] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders_,² +London, 1856, p. 101. + +[5] E. Tregear, _The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, Wellington +(N.Z.), 1891, p. 472. + +[6] William Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, London, 1859, iv, 385. + +[7] The proper term for “prohibit” was _rahui_ (_ibid._, iv, 386). + +[8] R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, Oxford, 1891, p. 215. In the +Banks Islands and in the New Hebrides the word _rongo_ is employed to +indicate the naturally holy character which certain objects may possess, +quite independently of any human sanction or prohibition (_ibid._, p. +181). + +[9] R. H. Nassau, _Fetichism in West Africa_, London, 1904, p. 80. + +[10] A. van Gennep, _Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar_, Paris, 1904, pp. +12 _sqq._, 23. + +[11] As Sir James Frazer has pointed out (_Encyclopædia Britannica_,⁹ +xxiii, 18), the Greeks usually discriminated the two ideas, ἁγνός being +devoted to the sense of “sacred” and ἐναγής to that of “unclean” or +“accursed.” The two words, of course, have no connection, ἁγνός being +related to Skt. _yaj-_, “sacrifice” and ἐναγής to Skt. _āgas-_, “sin” (E. +Boisacq, _Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque_, Heidelberg and +Paris, 1907, pt. i, 7, 9). Among the Romans _sacer_ always continued to +retain the double meaning; it may be closely rendered by _tabu_. Compare +Servius on Vergil, _Æneis_, iii, 75. The late W. Robertson Smith referred +to the fact that the Hebrew _ṭāmē_ “is not the ordinary word for things +physically foul; it is a ritual term and corresponds exactly to the +idea of taboo” (_Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_,² London, 1903, +p. 309). For a list of Biblical passages containing _ṭāmē_ see Brown, +Driver, and Briggs, _A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament_, +Boston, 1906, p. 379. + +[12] The notion of transmissibility has been especially developed by such +writers as A. E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, London, 1902, _passim_, +Hubert and Mauss, “Esquisse d’une théorie générale de la magie,” _L’année +sociologique_, 1904, vii, 108 sqq.; F. B. Jevons, _An Introduction to the +History of Religion_,⁴ London, 1908, pp. 59-68, and R. R. Marett, _The +Threshold of Religion_,² London, 1914, pp. 99-121. + +[13] On the general belief in the omnipresence of demons and their action +in causing human ills see Sir J. G. Frazer, _The Scapegoat_, London, +1913, pp. 72-108. + +[14] J. S. Polack, _Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders_, London, +1840, i, 234. + +[15] Hose and McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, London, 1912, i, +26. + +[16] C. W. Hobley, “Kikuyu Customs and Beliefs. _Thahu_ and +its Connection with Circumcision Rites,” _Journal of the Royal +Anthropological Institute_, 1910, xl, 428. + +[17] R. C. Thompson, _The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_, London, +1904, ii, pp. xxxix _sqq._ + +[18] For an extensive presentation of the ethnographic evidence see Sir +J. G. Frazer, _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, London, 1911, pp. +131-223; _idem_, _Balder the Beautiful_, London, 1913, i, 22-100, ii, +225-278. The whole subject is most suggestively treated by Professor A. +van Gennep, _Les rites de passage_, Paris, 1909. + +[19] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv, 387 sqq. + +[20] _Idem_, _Narrative of a Tour through Hawaii or Owhyhee_, London, +1826, p. 366; _idem_, _Polynesian Researches_, iv, 387 _sq._; J. J. +Jarves, _History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands_,² Boston, 1843, p. +57. + +[21] Ellis, _Narrative_, pp. 366 _sq._; compare _idem_, _Polynesian +Researches_, iv, 388. + +[22] H. T. Cheever, _The Island World of the Pacific_, Glasgow [1851], +p. 63. + +[23] Ellis, _Narrative_, p. 368; Hiram Bingham, _A Residence of +Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands_, Hartford, 1849, pp. 177 +_sq._ Describing his experiences at Kihoro, the missionary Ellis could +not restrain his admiration of the conduct of the native converts on +Sunday: “No athletic sports were seen on the beach; no noise of playful +children shouting as they gambolled in the surf, nor distant sound of +the cloth-beating mallet was heard through the day; no persons were seen +carrying burdens in or out of the village, nor any canoes passing across +the bay. It could not but be viewed as the dawn of a bright sabbatic +day for the dark shores of Hawaii” (_Polynesian Researches_, iv, 408). +For similar statements see C. S. Stewart, _A Visit to the South Seas_, +London, 1832, pp. 277 _sqq._, 302 _sq._ + +[24] Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_, +Philadelphia, 1845, ii, 13. “The _tabu_ system,” wrote an early +missionary, “making sacred certain times, persons, and places, and +containing many restrictions and prohibitions, may easily be interpreted +as a relic, much changed and corrupted, from the ancient ceremonial +observances of the Jews” (Sheldon Dibble, _History of the Sandwich +Islands_, Lahainaluna, 1843, p. 27). The resemblances between the +Polynesian institution and certain customs recorded in the Old Testament +impressed another early writer, who refers to taboo as “ce singulier +usage, en partie politique, au moins dans quelques-uns de ses effets, +mais éminemment religieux dans son origine, non moins que l’interdit des +Hébreux, avec lequel il avait des rapports frappans, qui n’ont point +encore été signalés, quoique méritant assurément toute l’attention du +philosophe et du moraliste” (J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux îles du grand +océan_, Paris, 1837, ii, 6). + +[25] W. D. Alexander, _A Brief History of the Hawaiian People_, New York, +1899, p. 55. The author’s work is based largely on unpublished Hawaiian +manuscripts and the early archives of the government. + +[26] Alexander, _op. cit._, pp. 56 _sq._ Elsewhere this excellent +authority describes the Hawaiian prayers as in some measure magical +incantations, which, to secure the desired effect, required to be +repeated without the slightest mistake. “During the most important class +of prayers, called _aha_, it was necessary that absolute silence should +be preserved, as the least noise would break the spell and destroy the +whole effect of the charm” (_ibid._, p. 50). A similar precaution, as is +well known, characterized the ritual of a Roman sacrifice. + +[27] For additional data on this subject see Jarves, _op. cit._, pp. +51 _sq._, and David Malo, _Hawaiian Antiquities_, Honolulu, 1903, pp. +210-248. The latter work, translated from the Hawaiian by N. B. Emerson, +is an exceptionally valuable repository of native lore. + +[28] Alexander, _op. cit._, pp. 59 _sqq._; Malo, _op. cit._, pp. +186-210. This New Year’s festival with its accompanying taboo is also +referred to in an early work entitled _Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde to the +Sandwich Islands in the Years 1824-1825_, London, 1826, pp. 11 _sq._ +According to A. Fornander (_An Account of the Polynesian Race_, London, +1878, i, 119 _sq._) the Hawaiian year consisted of twelve 30-day months +with five additional _tabu_ days intercalated at the end of Welehu. If +this statement be correct, the Hawaiian epagomenal days would furnish +a remarkable parallel to those of the ancient Mexicans and Egyptians +(below, pp. 279 _sqq._). But the best authorities agree that the Hawaiian +year was strictly lunar, with months of 29 and 30 days in alternation and +an occasional intercalary month. + +[29] Alexander, _op. cit._, pp. 52 _sq._, 62 _sq._ + +[30] _Ibid._, pp. 50 _sqq._; Dibble, _op. cit._, 25 _sq._; Malo, _op. +cit._, p. 56. The latter authority, a native writer intimately versed +in Hawaiian antiquities, declares that the seasons of taboo were not +observed during the four _makahiki_ months of the year, when the regular +religious services were suspended for games and ceremonies in honour of +the god Lono. The same point is made by Judge Fornander (_op. cit._, i, +123 _n._²), whose information was derived from the Hon. S. M. Kamakau, an +intelligent Hawaiian, born and brought up under the heathen _régime_. On +these Hawaiian Sabbaths see below, pp. 88, 188, 233, 258, 303. + +[31] J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux îles du grand océan_, Paris, 1837, +i, 516 _sq._ See further Mathias G— [Garcia] (_Lettres sur les îles +Marquises_, Paris, 1843, p. 210), who refers to the first day of fishing +as “un jour de silence et de repos, _tapu_ pour ceux qui restent à la +maison.” + +[32] William Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, London, 1835, p. 85. + +[33] James Cowan, _The Maoris of New Zealand_, Melbourne and London, +1910, pp. 116 _sq._ The _kumara_ crop was sacred, all persons engaged +in its cultivation were temporarily tabooed, and the offering of the +first-fruits of the _kumara_ formed a very solemn religious ceremony (E. +Tregear, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1890, xix, 110). +Compare Richard Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, London, 1855, p. 57. + +[34] E. Tregear, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1890, +xix, 110. No food might be cooked on the day before a war-party set out +(_ibid._, p. 108). Mr. Tregear, an excellent authority, declares that in +New Zealand “there were no long periods of silence such as the kings of +Hawaii laid on their people by proclaiming _tapu_” (_ibid._, p. 122). +Another writer assures us that the Maori “had no days more sacred than +others” (Taylor, _op. cit._, p. 92). Yet in one part of New Zealand it +was customary to celebrate the new year with a _karakia_, or magical +incantation and prayer; in another place there was a _karakia_ when +the new moon appeared; and in still another place “the most sacred day +of the year was that appointed for hair-cutting; the people assembled +from all the neighbouring parts, often more than a thousand in number; +the operation being commenced with _karakia_, the operator and his +obsidian (substitute for scissors) being thus rendered peculiarly sacred” +(_ibid._, p. 93). + +[35] John Martin, _An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands ... +from the Extensive Communications of Mr. William Mariner_, Boston, 1820, +pp. 381-385. Mariner passed four years among the Tonga Islanders as the +adopted son of the king Finow. His picturesque, but apparently reliable, +narrative describes the natives in their aboriginal state before the +arrival of Christian missionaries. + +[36] Not only was all work prohibited at the time of the _inachi_, +but even any one’s appearance abroad, unless for the purposes of the +ceremony, was interdicted (Martin-Mariner, _op. cit._, p. 383 _n._²). +The Tongans observed a like restriction after a death. When a corpse was +being taken to the burying-ground, all persons in the roadway or the +adjacent fields were obliged to keep out of sight, under pain of becoming +tabooed. Those who showed themselves at such a time were generally killed +on the spot (_ibid._, pp. 243 _sq._, 394). + +[37] This Samoan religious system has been fully described by Sir J. G. +Frazer, who believes that it exhibits “what seems to be the passage of +pure totemism into a religion of anthropomorphic gods with animal and +vegetable attributes, like the deities of ancient Greece” (_Totemism and +Exogamy_, London, 1910, ii, 152). + +[38] George Turner, _Samoa_, London, 1884, pp. 29 _sq._ + +[39] _Ibid._, p. 60. + +[40] _Ibid._, pp. 26 _sq._, 41, 44, 47, 49, 53, 57. + +[41] Turner, _Samoa_, p. 269. + +[42] _Ibid._, p. 279. + +[43] J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western +Pacific_, London, 1853, pp. 245 _sq._ + +[44] Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, London, 1908, p. 114. + +[45] _U.S. Exploring Expedition_, Philadelphia, 1846, vi, 67 _sq._ +(_Ethnography and Philology_, by H. Hale). + +[46] Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_, +Philadelphia, 1845, iii, 90 _sq._ This festival bore the name of _tambo +nalanga_ (_ibid._, iii, 342). + +[47] In Samoa the second half of the year was called the _palolo_ season, +from the appearance of this singular worm for three days in the course of +a year. If the last quarter of the moon is late in October, the _palolo_ +is found the day before, the day of, and the day after that quarter. +Should the last quarter of the moon be early in October, the worm does +not come till the last quarter of the November moon (Turner, _Samoa_, p. +207). The _palolo_, it may be noted, is not an entire animal, but only +the “propagation-body” of a sea-annelid (apparently _Eunice Viridis_ +Gray), which lives in holes in the coral stone and comes to the surface +for the act of fertilization. It is found in various parts of Polynesia, +including Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga, and also in Melanesia (New Hebrides and +Banks Islands). See A. Krämer, _Die Samoa-Inseln_, Stuttgart, 1903, ii, +399-406, and B. Friedländer, “Notes on the _palōlo_,” _Journal of the +Polynesian Society_, 1898, vii, 44-46. + +[48] L. Fison, “The _nanga_, or Sacred Stone Enclosure, of Wainimala, +Fiji,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1885, xiv, 18. The +solemn rite of initiation into the _nanga_ was always celebrated at the +time of the New Year’s festival, late in October or early in November. +This Fijian festival, called _solevu ni vilavou_, corresponded to the +Tahitian and Hawaiian _makahiki_ (A. B. Joske, “The _nanga_ of Viti +Levu,” _Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, 1889, ii, 259). On the +_nanga_ see further H. Webster, “Totem Clans and Secret Associations +in Australia and Melanesia,” _Journal of the Royal Anthropological +Institute_, 1911, xli, 506 _sq._ + +[49] S. P. Smith, in _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, 1892, i, 40. + +[50] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv, 387. + +[51] W. T. Pritchard, _Polynesian Reminiscences_, London, 1866, pp. +149 _sq._; George Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_, London, 1861, +p. 229; _idem_, _Samoa_, p. 146. See also A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in +Oceanien_, Berlin, 1883, p. 55. + +[52] For an interesting description of the regulations imposed on the +fishermen themselves see W. H. Furness, 3d., _The Island of Stone Money_, +Philadelphia, 1910, pp. 38 _sq._ On taboos observed by hunters and +fishers, generally, see Frazer, _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. +190-223. + +[53] F. W. Christian, _The Caroline Islands_, London, 1899, p. 290. + +[54] A close observer, G. A. J. van der Sande, did not notice any special +rest days among the natives with whom he came in contact, and whose +customs he has so fully described (_Nova Guinea_, Leiden, 1907, iii, 270). + +[55] C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_, Cambridge, +1910, p. 275. + +[56] Quoted in Turner, _Samoa_, p. 349. The custom mentioned in the text +must now be obsolete. It is not referred to in Dr. Seligmann’s exhaustive +account of the Koita and Motu tribes. + +[57] It would seem that among the Bornean tribes, generally, the chief +is responsible for the proper observation of the omens and for the +regulation of taboos affecting an entire community. Compare Hose and +McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, London, 1912, i, 65. + +[58] W. H. Furness, 3d., _The Home-life of Borneo Head-hunters_, +Philadelphia, 1902, pp. 160-169. + +[59] _Permantong_ is the term used by the Kayan of the Baram District; +among the Kayan in the valley of the Kapuas River, Dutch Borneo, the +word is _pantang_, the regular Malay equivalent of _tabu_. Both these +forms are possibly derived from the Malay _hantu_, a word meaning +demon or evil spirit, with the prefix _per_ and the affix _an_. The +Malay word in full would thus be _per-hantu-an_, meaning “possessed by +spirits” or “bewitched.” _Lali_ is probably a pure Kayan word and means +both “prohibited” and “sacred” (Furness, _op. cit._, p. 160; A. W. +Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_, Leiden, 1904-1907, i, 109). According +to Messrs. Hose and McDougall _malan_ and _parit_ are the proper Kayan +words for taboo, though _lali_ and _tulah_ are used as their _lingua +franca_ equivalents. _Malan_ applies to acts involving risks to the +entire community, _parit_ to those involving risk to the individual +committing the forbidden act (_Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, i, 14 _n._¹). + +[60] On these omen animals see further Sir Spenser St. John, _Life in the +Forests of the Far East_, London, 1862, i, 191 _sqq._; J. Perham, in H. +L. Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, London, 1896, +i, 191-201; A. C. Haddon, _Head-hunters_, London, 1901, pp. 384 _sqq._; +E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo_, London, +1911, pp. 47 _sq._, 152 _sqq._, 298; Hose and McDougall, _op. cit._, ii, +51-114 (with some interesting parallels between the modern Kayan and the +Roman auspices). Compare W. D. Wallis, “Divination and Omens in Borneo +and in Ancient Rome,” _Classical Journal_, 1914, ix, 272-274. + +[61] Furness, _op. cit._, p. 161. + +[62] Furness, _op. cit._, pp. 162 _sq._ + +[63] Furness, _op. cit._, pp. 164 _sq._ + +[64] This period of seclusion is employed by the Kayan in various games +and masquerades, which, if they have a recreative value, possess as +well a religious or magical meaning in the minds of the people. During +the sowing festival the men play at spinning tops, the youths engage in +athletic sports, and maskers, disguised by wooden helmets and bandages +of banana leaves, simulate the actions of evil spirits. On the magical +significance of games in primitive agriculture, see Sir J. G. Frazer, +_Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, London, 1912, i, 92-112. + +[65] A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_, Leiden, 1904-1907, i, 166 +_sqq._ + +[66] Nieuwenhuis, _op. cit._, i, 107. + +[67] The Kayan call the full moon the “evil moon” and at this time build +neither houses nor boats, and do not go forth on the search for omens +(_ibid._, i, 415). + +[68] Translated by Dr. Nieuwenhuis as “sitzen, nicht arbeiten.” + +[69] A. W. Nieuwenhuis, “Religiöse Zeremonien beim Häuserbau der +Bahau-Dajak am obern Mahakam in Borneo,” _Verhandlungen des II +internationalen Kongresses für allgemeine Religionsgeschichte_, Basel, +1905, pp. 107-119; compare _idem_, _Quer durch Borneo_, ii, 174. + +[70] “At certain seasons of the moon, just before and just after the +full, the [Sea] Dyaks do not work at their farms; and what with bad +omens, sounds, signs, adverse dreams, and deaths, two-thirds of their +time is not spent in farm labour” (Charles Brooke, _Ten Years in +Sarawak_, London, 1866, i, 149). + +[71] Leo Nyuak, “Religious Rites and Customs of the Iban or Dyaks +of Sarawak,” translated from the Dyak by the Very Rev. Edm. Dunn, +_Anthropos_, 1906, i, 410 _sq._ + +[72] _Ibid._, i, 176. + +[73] _Ibid._, i, 181. + +[74] _Ibid._, i, 416 _sq._ + +[75] Betara, otherwise _petara_, is the ordinary Sea Dyak name for deity. +The word is incorrectly translated as “Great Spirit”; in general belief +there are many _petara_. These gods, it may be noted, are separated by no +distinct line of demarcation from the thousands of _antu_, or spirits, +with which the Dyak has peopled his universe. See J. Perham, “_Petara_, +or Sea Dyak Gods,” _Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic +Society_, 1881, no. 8; H. L. Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British +North Borneo_, London, 1896, i, 168-182. + +[76] Brooke Low, in Roth, _op. cit._, i, 401. See also _idem_, in +_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1893, xxii, 24. Many +primitive peoples are accustomed to trace a direct connection between +sexual sins and the welfare of the crops. As Sir James Frazer has shown, +this superstition has undoubtedly contributed to a stricter observance of +the rules of sexual morality, both among the married and the unmarried. +See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, London, 1911, ii, 104-119. + +[77] Sir Hugh Low, _Sarawak_, London, 1848, pp. 260-262. See also Sir +Spenser St. John, _Life in the Forests of the Far East_, London, 1862, i, +175 _sqq._ According to this writer _porikh_ is the Land Dyak expression +equivalent to _pamali_. + +[78] William Chalmers, in Roth, _op. cit._, i, 401. + +[79] Mrs. S. B. Scott, “Harvest Festivals of the Land Dyaks,” _Journal of +the American Oriental Society_, 1908, xxix, 236-280. + +[80] Mrs. S. B. Scott, “Harvest Festivals of the Land Dyaks,” _Journal of +the American Oriental Society_, 1908, xxix, 244 _sqq._ + +[81] St. John, _op. cit._, i, 163. + +[82] _Ibid._, i, 160. The Sea Dyak make an interesting distinction +between _mali_ and _penti_, the former absolutely forbidding certain +kinds of work to a person under the ban, the latter allowing it to +be undertaken, if started by some one not subject to the taboo. For +instance, though both parents are _penti_ during the wife’s pregnancy, +the expectant mother may engage in basket-making and mat-weaving, +provided some other woman begins the work for her; and the husband may +dig a trench or erect a post, if the hands of others are first set to the +task. Taboos of this sort prevail until the child cuts its first teeth +(F. W. Leggatt, in Roth, _op. cit._, i, 98). + +[83] Sir Hugh Low observes that among the Land Dyak the favourite +remedies for the cure of internal diseases are turmeric and spices, taken +in huge quantities; “but for anything at all serious, recourse is had to +the _pamali_, both in medical and surgical cases” (_Sarawak_, p. 308). + +[84] St. John, _op. cit._, i, 175 _sq._ (Land Dyak). Mr. Charles Hose +declares that at such times the inhabitants of a Kayan communal house +may taboo their private rooms to the other inmates. Small fines are +imposed for infringing the rule, if the act is unintentional, but when +a man forces his way into a tabooed house, a serious quarrel, ending in +bloodshed, may result (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1894, +xxiii, 170). “It is an old custom among the Iban for a stranger, before +climbing the ladder of a house, to ask in a loud voice whether there is +no taboo” (L. Nyuak, in _Anthropos_, 1906, i, 175). + +[85] The Murik on the Baram River, a community of hardworking farmers, +in addition to the communal taboos observed by them at sowing, also keep +a _lemalli_ of seven days, when the paddy crop is about to be harvested. +“For the first three days of this no one stirs out of the house, no +work is done, and no sexual intercourse is allowed” (R. S. Douglas, in +_Sarawak Museum Journal_, 1911, i, 146 _sqq._). + +[86] See below, p. 165. + +[87] The _elpanam_ consists of several large structures, which serve as +a guest-house for strangers and as a town-hall for feasts and public +gatherings. The institution is found under different names in many of the +East Indian islands, and even more widely. See H. Webster, _Primitive +Secret Societies_, New York, 1908, pp. 8 _sqq._ + +[88] V. Solomon, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, +xxxii, 215 _sq._ See also C. B. Kloss, _In the Andamans and Nicobars_, +London, 1903, pp. 293 _sqq._ + +[89] V. Solomon, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, +xxxii, 210; Kloss, _op. cit._, pp. 297 _sq._ Another kiala festival, also +followed by alternate periods of rest and work, appears to be observed in +connection with fishing (Kloss, _op. cit._, p. 295). + +[90] R. van Eck, in _Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië_, 1879, n.s., +viii, 58 _sqq._ Van Eck’s account is reproduced by J. Jacobs, _Eenigen +tijd onder de Baliërs_, Batavia, 1883, pp. 190 _sqq._ + +[91] R. Friederich, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1877, +n.s., ix, 77. On the _petara_ see above, p. 35 _n._² + +[92] F. Krämer, “Der Götzendienst der Niasser,” _Tijdschrift voor +indische taal- land- en volkenkunde_, 1890, xxxiii, 486 _sqq._ + +[93] Hinlopen and Severin, _ibid._, 1855, iii, 329 _sq._ + +[94] A. Maass, “_Ta-kä-käi-käi tabu_,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, +1905, xxxvii, 155 _sq._ The greater part of this valuable article is +concerned with the analogies between the taboo system in the Mentawi +Islands and related systems in Indonesia and Polynesia. + +[95] W. A. Pickering, _Pioneering in Formosa_, London, 1898, p. 71. + +[96] W. Joest, in _Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für +Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte_, 1882, p. (62) (bound with +_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, vol. xiv). + +[97] G. Taylor, in _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_, 1889, +n.s., xi, 233; _idem_, “Folklore of Aboriginal Formosa,” _Folk-lore +Journal_, 1887, v, 150. + +[98] J. P. Finley and William Churchill, _The Subanu_, Washington, 1913, +pp. 31 _sq._ + +[99] The word is also spelled _tengau_ and translated “holiday.” See W. +C. Clapp, “A Vocabulary of the Igorot Language,” _Bureau of Science, +Division of Ethnology, Publications_, Manila, 1908, v, 198. + +[100] A. E. Jenks, “The Bontoc Igorot,” _Ethnological Survey +Publications_, Manila, 1905, i, 205 _sqq._ + +[101] From a letter to the author, dated December 10, 1910. In a second +letter, under date March 8, 1911, Professor Jenks writes, “I believe +the rest days are first for the purpose of having time for religious +observances—this fact necessitated the rest. I never proved this point, +however.” + +[102] Jenks, _op. cit._, p. 213. + +[103] “It is safe to say that one feast is held daily in Bontoc by +some family to appease or win the good will of some _anito_ [ancestral +spirit]” (Jenks, _op. cit._, p. 198). + +[104] Some, if not all, of the Igorot peoples of northern Luzon are +familiar with the idea of taboo as applied to individuals or to families +at certain critical times. The Ibaloi Igorot equivalent of taboo is +_pidiu_. A man, while in the peculiarly solemn condition of _pidiu_, +“must not bathe, must not admit visitors into his house, and must not +work, travel, etc.,” under penalty of punishment by the _making_, or +departed souls, for transgression of the regulations (O. Scheerer, “The +Nabaloi Dialect,” _Ethnological Survey Publications_, Manila, 1905, ii, +167). But these prohibitions do not seem to be socialized. + +[105] T. C. Hodson, “The _genna_ amongst the Tribes of Assam,” _Journal +of the Anthropological Institute_, 1906, xxxvi, 92-103; _idem_, “Some +Nāga Customs and Superstitions,” _Folklore_, 1910, xxi, 296-312; _idem_, +“Genna,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_,¹¹ xi, 596; _idem_, _The Nāga Tribes +of Manipur_, London, 1911, pp. 164-186. + +[106] “The word _genna_ is used in two ways: (1) it may mean practically +a holiday—_i.e._, a man will say, ‘My village is doing _genna_ to-day,’ +by which he means that, owing either to the occurrence of a village +festival or some such unusual occurrence ... his people are observing a +holiday; (2) _genna_ means anything forbidden” (A. W. Davis, in _Census +of India, 1891, Assam_, i, 249). + +[107] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 167 _sq._ Among some of the Manipuri +Naga the various _genna_ are marked by rope-pulling contests, when the +women and girls have a tug-of-war with the men. This is described as a +means of taking omens for the future of the crops (_ibid._, p. 168). +The Naga ceremonial is a serious business, but among the Meithei, the +Hinduised neighbours of the Naga, the tug-of-war has dwindled into a +mere pastime (Hodson, in _Folklore_, 1910, xxi, 300). On the magical +significance of the games played by the Kayan of Borneo during their +periods of seclusion, see above, p. 31 _n._¹ + +[108] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 166 _sq._, 175. + +[109] _Ibid._, pp. 109, 167, 175. + +[110] _Ibid._, pp. 166 _sq._, 173. + +[111] _Ibid._, pp. 151 _sq._, 174. According to another account the +festival occurs on the night of the December new moon. The shades of +the dead are supposed to visit the living at this time (S. E. Peal, in +_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1898, xxx, 355). + +[112] Hodson, _op. cit._, pp. 109, 144, 173, 175 _sq._ The Naga west of +the Doyang River are said to have a _genna_ also at the annual ceremony +of making new fire for the village. The fire, produced by friction, is +first used in burning down the jungle before the sowing of the crops (W. +Crooke, _Natives of Northern India_, London, 1907, p. 45; E. T. Dalton, +_Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, Calcutta, 1872, p. 43). The Angami +Naga mark by a three days’ _genna_ the first full moon of the lunar year +(D. Prain, in _Revue coloniale internationale_, 1887, v, 489). + +[113] John Butler, in _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, 1875, +n.s., xlv, i, 316. This observer describes the _kennie_ as a system of +taboo, “singularly similar to that in vogue among the savages inhabiting +the Pacific islands.” + +[114] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, p. 167, citing C. A. Soppitt, _Account of +the Kachcha Nāgas_, p. 10. + +[115] Hodson, _op. cit._, p. 141. The _khullakpa_, also called +_gennabura_, or “authorizer of _genna_,” is himself subject to a number +of vexatious restrictions designed to prevent any impairment of the +efficiency of his sacred office. On these taboos see below, pp. 233 _sq._ +It is worthy of note that the _khullakpa_ enjoys a good deal of indirect +authority because of his power to close a village and declare a _genna_. +An individual who violated any of the taboos imposed by him would be +obliged to pay a fine, the proceeds being used to provide a substantial +repast for the village elders (Hodson, in _Journal of the Anthropological +Institute_, 1901, xxxi, 307). + +[116] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 177, 180. The Naga of eastern Assam +strictly taboo a house where tattooing is being done (W. H. Furness, 3d., +in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, xxxii, 466). + +[117] T. C. Hodson, _The Meitheis_, London, 1908, p. 118. It is +significant that the Moirang, a more or less backward and isolated +Meithei tribe, still keep up something like a system of communal _genna_ +connected with agricultural operations (_ibid._, p. 119). + +[118] P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_, London, 1907, p. 158. + +[119] A. Playfair, _The Garos_, London, 1909, p. 114; see below, p. 57 +_n._¹ + +[120] Edward Stack, _The Mikirs_, edited by Sir Charles Lyall, London, +1908, p. 43. + +[121] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, p. 20. The Mishmi have household _genna_ +whenever the members of a family are visited by illness or misfortune of +any kind. Possibly there are also village rites of the same nature. See +R. Wilcox, in _Selections from the Records of the Bengal Government_, +Calcutta, 1855, no. 23, p. 64. + +[122] J. Shakespear, _The Lushei Kuki Clans_, London, 1912, p. 69. + +[123] _Ibid._, pp. 72 _sq._, 75, 78, 80, 87; C. A. Soppitt, _A Short +Account of the Kuki-Lushai Tribes_, Shillong, 1887, p. 19. + +[124] T. H. Lewin, _The Hill Tracts of Chittagong_, Calcutta, 1869, p. +78. Captain Lewin’s interesting work was republished under the title +_Wild Races of South-eastern India_ (London, 1870), where the reference +to the _khang_ will be found on pp. 196 _sq._ + +[125] Lewin, _Hill Tracts_, p. 94; _idem_, _Wild Races_, p. 236 (Mro). + +[126] R. F. St. Andrew St. John, in _Journal of the Anthropological +Institute_, 1873, ii, 240. + +[127] B. S. Carey and H. N. Tuck, _The Chin Hills_, Rangoon, 1896, i, 198. + +[128] _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States_, edited by Scott and +Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. i, vol. i, pp. 425 _sq._ + +[129] A. R. McMahon, _The Karens of the Golden Chersonese_, London, 1876, +p. 292. + +[130] Sir R. C. Temple, “Burma,” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion +and Ethics_, iii, 37. Similarly, the Yabim of German New Guinea require +all the inhabitants of a village to remain at home on the morning after +the birth of a child. This is regarded as a necessary precaution, if the +fruits of the fields and gardens are not to be spoiled by the noxious +influences emanating from a woman in childbed (K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten +über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und den Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, xiii, 87). + +[131] R. G. Woodthorpe, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1897, xxvi, 27 _sqq._; Sir J. G. Scott, “Buddhism in the Shan States,” +_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1911, n.s., xliii, 931. On taboos +affecting intercourse with strangers see, in general, Frazer, _Taboo and +the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 101-116. + +[132] _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States_, pt. i, vol. i, p. +515. + +[133] S. R. Clarke, _Among the Tribes in South-west China_, London, 1911, +p. 63. + +[134] For instances of “magical telepathy” in hunting, fishing, and +warfare see Frazer, _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i, +119-134. + +[135] As Messrs. Hose and McDougall judiciously observe, the cult of +omen-birds found among the Kayan of Borneo, though it hampers their +undertakings at almost every turn and might seem to be wholly foolish +and detrimental, has really “two great practical advantages: namely, it +inspires confidence, and it promotes discipline and a strong sense of +collective unity and responsibility. It is not improbable, then, that +the advantages of this seemingly senseless cult outweigh its drawbacks, +which, in the shape of endless delays and changes of plans, are by no +means small” (_Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, i, 170 _n._¹). + +[136] On the sociological conception of crisis see W. I. Thomas, _Source +Book for Social Origins_, Chicago, 1909, pp. 16 _sqq._; R. R. Marett, +_The Threshold of Religion_,² London, 1914, pp. 198 _sqq._ + +[137] On the primitive ideas of death see particularly R. Hertz, +“Contribution à une étude sur la représentation collective de la morte,” +_L’année sociologique_, 1905-1906, x, 48-137; E. S. Hartland, “Death +and Disposal of the Dead (Introductory),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, iv, 411-444; W. H. R. Rivers, “The Primitive +Conception of Death,” _Hibbert Journal_, 1912, x, 393-407; Sir J. G. +Frazer, _The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead_, London, +1913, i, 31-58; A. van Gennep, _Les rites de passage_, Paris, 1909, +pp. 209-236; L. Lévy-Bruhl, _Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés +inférieures_, Paris, 1910, pp. 321-330, 352-396. For a useful collection +of ethnographic evidence see E. Samter, _Geburt, Hochzeit, und Tod_, +Leipzig, 1911. + +[138] A. E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, London, 1902, pp. 95 _sqq._; L. +R. Farnell, _The Evolution of Religion_, London, 1905, pp. 96 _sqq._; E. +Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, London, +1906-1908, ii, 535 _sqq._ + +[139] On the sociological aspects of these and other superstitions see +H. Webster, “Influence of Superstition on the Evolution of Property +Rights,” _American Journal of Sociology_, 1910, xv, 794-805; H. Berkusky, +“Der Einfluss abergläubischer Vorstellungen auf das wirtschaftliche und +soziale Leben der Naturvölker,” _Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft_, +1913, n.s., iv, 489-498, 567-584. + +[140] Above, pp. 24, 25, 26. + +[141] H. O. Forbes, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1884, +xiii, 420. + +[142] A. Maass, “_Ta-kä-käi-käi tabu_,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, +1905, xxxvii, 155; J. G. F. Riedel, _ibid._, 1885, xvii, 69. + +[143] J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes +en Papua_, The Hague, 1886, pp. 168 (Seranglao and Gorong archipelagoes), +197 (Watubela Islands), 223 (Kei Islands), 341 (Babar Archipelago), 414 +(Keisar Island). + +[144] D. C. Worcester, in _Philippine Journal of Science_, 1906, i, 844. +Compare F. C. Cole, in _American Anthropologist_, 1909, n.s., xi, 337 +(Tenguian). + +[145] C. B. Kloss, _In the Andamans and Nicobars_, London, 1903, pp. 303 +_sqq._ + +[146] Annandale and Robinson, _Fasciculi Malayensis_, London, 1903-1904, +i, 83. + +[147] Brooke Low, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1892, +xxi, 122; _idem_, in Roth, _Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, +i, 155. + +[148] L. Nyuak, in _Anthropos_, 1906, i, 413. + +[149] E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo_, +London, 1911, p. 139. + +[150] Above, p. 36. + +[151] De Crespigny, in _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_, +1858, ii, 348. + +[152] Hose and McDougall, _op. cit._, ii, 37 _sq._ The Kayan on the +Mahakam River require all those who have been polluted by taking part in +burial ceremonies to undergo a two days’ _melo_, or ceremonial abstention +from work (Nieuwenhuis, _op. cit._, ii, 119). + +[153] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 99, 174, 177. + +[154] Hodson, _op. cit._, pp. 100, 152, 166, 174. Compare _idem_, +“Mortuary Ritual and Eschatological Beliefs among the Hill Tribes of +Assam,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1909, xii, 449. + +[155] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, p. 88. “We find among the Naga tribes +that, if a woman died in childbirth (an event of rare occurrence), the +child was never allowed to live, because they believed it to be an evil +spirit, a disembodied ghost, incarnated in the mother whose death it +had caused” (_idem_, “Some Nāga Customs and Superstitions,” _Folklore_, +1910, xxi, 301). Among the Kabui Naga not only does the death of a woman +in childbirth necessitate a five days’ village _genna_, but the same +period of restriction is also imposed after the death of a child dying in +infancy (J. Shakespear, “Customs at Death among the Manipuris and Cognate +Clans,” _Folklore_, 1912, xxiii, 466 _sqq._). + +[156] P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_, London, 1907, p. 143. + +[157] R. F. St. Andrew St. John, in _Journal of the Anthropological +Institute_, 1873, ii, 240. + +[158] A. Coussot and H. Ruel, _Douze mois chez les sauvages du Laos_, +Paris, 1898, p. 205; A. Cabaton, “Indo-China (Savage Races),” Hastings’s +_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, vii, 232. + +[159] F. Fawcett, in _Folklore_, 1912, xxiii, 42. + +[160] A. K. Iyer, _The Cochin Tribes and Castes_, Madras, 1909, i, 265. + +[161] C. H. Rao, in _Anthropos_, 1909, iv, 181. + +[162] H. Hosten, “Pahāria Burial Customs (British Sikkim),” _Anthropos_, +1909, iv, 673, 675. + +[163] S. C. Das, _Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet_, London, 1902, p. +256. + +[164] Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, London, 1904, p. 253; Farewell, +in W. F. W. Owen, _Narrative of Voyages to explore the Shores of +Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar_, London, 1833, ii, 397. A Kafir chief, +on succeeding to power, is said to have declared a taboo of all field +work for an entire year and to have put to death every woman who became +pregnant during this period (_Globus_, 1889, lvi, 62). + +[165] Joseph Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country_, London, +1857, p. 216. + +[166] E. Casalis, _Les Bassoutos_, Paris, 1859, p. 275. + +[167] P. Kollmann, _Der Nordwesten unserer ostafrikanischen Kolonie_, +Berlin, 1898, p. 77. + +[168] W. S. Routledge and Katherine Routledge, _With a Prehistoric +People_, London, 1910, p. 172. + +[169] R. Lasch, “Die Ursache und Bedeutung der Erdbeben im Volksglauben +und Volksbrauch,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1902, v, 236-257, +369-383; B. Struck, “African Ideas on the Subject of Earthquakes,” +_Journal of the African Society_, 1909, viii, 398-411. + +[170] A. C. Hollis, _The Nandi_, Oxford, 1908, pp. 17, 20, 100. The +rules imposed by Nandi custom on persons ceremonially unclean include +abstinence from work. For instance, after Nandi girls have been operated +upon at puberty, they must stay in their mothers’ huts in complete +seclusion for a month or more. After recovering from the effects of the +operation, they may be married. But if no husbands appear, the girls +continue to live in a secluded state for several weeks longer. If they go +abroad, they must always wear long masks and veils; they must not stand +near anybody or call a person by name; they may not enter a cornfield or +a cattle-kraal; and they may do no work. Again, a Nandi bride, for an +entire month after her marriage, is waited on by the bridegroom’s mother, +since it is unlawful for a bride during this period to perform labour. +Similarly, a Nandi mother, after the birth of a child, is unclean and +may not do any housework for a month (_ibid._, pp. 59 _sq._, 63 _sqq._). +Among the Habbe of the western Sudan a man, whose wife is menstruating, +dares not undertake any journey, hunt, or sow (L. Desplagnes, _Le plateau +central nigérien_, Paris, 1904, p. 227). + +[171] C. W. Hobley, _Eastern Uganda_, London, 1902, p. 28 (_Occasional +Papers of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, no. 1). + +[172] Sir H. H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_, London, 1902, ii, +176 _sqq._ + +[173] W. Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, Schaffhausen, 1864, p. 528 +(Barea and Kunama). + +[174] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, ii, 283. + +[175] H. E. Standing, “Malagasy _fady_,” _Antananarivo Annual_, 1883, no. +7, p. 74. Compare A. Grandidier, _ibid._, 1891, no. 15, p. 316; A. van +Gennep, _Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar_, Paris, 1904, pp. 100 _sqq._, +203. + +[176] Thomas Gage, _A New Survey of the West-Indies_,⁴ London, 1699, p. +160. + +[177] C. MacCauley, in _Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, +p. 521. + +[178] Hans Egede, _A Description of Greenland_, London, 1745, pp. 149 +_sq._ + +[179] F. Boas, in _Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural +History_, 1901, xv, 121 _sq._ With these regulations may be compared +the restrictions which, among the Kwakiutl of British Columbia, are +imposed on a man who has eaten human flesh as a ceremonial rite and who, +therefore, is considered unclean. He must not approach his wife for an +entire year, nor is he allowed either to gamble or to work during this +time (Boas, “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the +Kwakiutl Indians,” _Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895_, pp. 537 +_sq._). + +[180] F. Boas, in _Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. +427, 613 _sq._; compare _idem_, “Die Sagen der Baffin-Land Eskimos,” +_Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie, +und Urgeschichte_, 1885, p. (164) (bound with _Zeitschrift für +Ethnologie_, vol. xvii). These Eskimo observe like restrictions after the +capture of whales, seals, and walruses, which form their principal food +supply. + +[181] H. W. Elliott, _Our Arctic Province_, New York, 1887, p. 389. + +[182] E. W. Nelson, in _Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of +American Ethnology_, p. 319. + +[183] _Ibid._, p. 312. Similarly, a hunter who has participated in the +capture of a whale is not allowed to do any work for the next four days, +that being the time during which the ghost of the whale is supposed to +stay with its body (_ibid._, p. 438). + +[184] J. Murdock, in _Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, p. +424. The Alaskan Eskimo are now being rapidly converted to Christianity +or, rather, are accepting as many of the Christian teachings as can be +assimilated by them to their old pagan observances. The missionary they +regard as a shaman and his prohibitions, especially those relating to +Sunday observance, they treat as so many new taboos to be added to their +long catalogue of restrictions. “An Eskimo who is a great admirer of the +white people (and some Eskimo are not) said to me once that some Eskimo +foolishly maintained that white men were less intelligent than Eskimo +are. But he said that he had a crushing reply to those who made this +statement. He would say to them: ‘Our wise men have taboos on food and +drink, they have taboos on clothing and methods of travel, on words and +thoughts; but until the white man came did we ever hear of Sunday? Did +the wisest of us ever think of the fact that a _day_ might be taboo?’” +(V. Stefánsson, “On Christianizing the Eskimo,” _Harper’s Magazine_, +1913, cxxvii, 674; _idem_, _My Life with the Eskimo_, New York, 1913, p. +412; compare pp. 36 _sq._, 89 _sqq._, 374 _sq._, 416 _sqq._) + +[185] W. Bogoras, in _Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History_, +xi, 521. + +[186] W. Jochelson, _ibid._, x, 104 _sq._ + +[187] W. G. Sumner, “The Yakuts,” abridged from the Russian of +Sieroshevski, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1901, xxxi, 107. + +[188] W. H. Bennett, in Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, +iv, 499. + +[189] A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_,³ edited by +E. H. Meyer, Berlin, 1900, p. 461. + +[190] George Henderson, _Survivals in Belief among the Celts_, Glasgow, +1911, p. 296 (Isle of Iriskay). + +[191] On feasts of All Souls, in general, see Sir J. G. Frazer, _Adonis, +Attis, Osiris_,³ London, 1914, ii, 51-83; on the public expulsion of +evils see _idem_, _The Scapegoat_, London, 1913, pp. 109-169. Compare +also P. Sartori, _Die Speisung der Toten_, Dortmund, 1903, pp. 48-55. + +[192] Above, pp. 13, 21 _sq._, 31, 40 _sqq._, 51, 57. + +[193] E. Casalis, _Les Bassoutos_, Paris, 1859, p. 275. The king of the +Matabele was obliged to abstain from food and drink on the new moon +following the beginning of the Matabele year. The late ruler, Lobengula, +compromised this self-denying ordinance by drinking beer only out of a +bottle. During the new-moon day “he was supposed to have communication +with the spirits of his ancestors, and he abstained altogether from +business” (L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_, London, 1900, p. +156). + +[194] J. F. Cunningham, _Uganda and its Peoples_, London, 1905, pp. +12 _sq._ The Bahima demons, a numerous company, are mostly identified +with the various maladies from which the natives suffer. See Sir H. H. +Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_, London, 1902, ii, 631 _sq._ + +[195] C. Velten, _Sitten und Gebräuche der Suaheli_, Göttingen, 1903, p. +342. + +[196] Soury-Lavergne and de la Devèze, “La fête nationale du _fandroana_ +en Imerina, Madagascar,” _Anthropos_, 1913, viii, 308. + +[197] A. B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, London, 1887, pp. 227 +_sq._ + +[198] “Extracts from Diary of the late Rev. John Martin, Wesleyan +Missionary in West Africa, 1843-1848,” _Man_, 1912, xii, 138 _sq._ +Compare A. J. N. Tremearne, _The Tailed Head-hunters of Nigeria_, London, +1912, pp. 202 _sq._ + +[199] A. B. Ellis, _The Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, London, 1894, pp. 107 +_sq._ + +[200] See H. Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_, New York, 1908, pp. +104 _sq._ + +[201] Mrs. R. B. Batty, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1889, xix, 160. + +[202] Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, pp. 110 _sq._ The Oro rites are +attributed by Ellis to the _ogboni_ society, but it is probable that the +term “Oro” is also applied to other secret associations of Yorubaland. + +[203] R. E. Dennett, _Nigerian Studies_, London, 1910, pp. 41 _sq._, +quoting Adesola in the _Nigerian Chronicle_. + +[204] J. B. Walker, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1877, +vi, 121 _sq._ + +[205] T. J. Hutchinson, _Impressions of Western Africa_, London, 1858, +pp. 141 _sq._ + +[206] Scholium on Lucian, _Timon_, 43. + +[207] Plato, _Leges_, vii, 800; Lucian, _Pseudologistes_, 12; Plutarch, +_De EI apud Delphos_, 20; _idem_, _De defectu oraculorum_, 14; _idem_, +_Vita Alexandri_, 14; Hesychius, _s.v._ ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι (ed. M. Schmidt, +Jena, 1867, col. 211). + +[208] E. Rhode, _Psyche_,⁶ Tübingen, 1910, p. 235; P. Stengel, _Die +griechischen Sakralaltertümer_, Munich, 1890, p. 156 (with references to +the classical authorities). The fifth day of every Athenian month was +regarded as unpropitious, and hence was not dedicated to any divinity. A +superstitious avoidance of the “fifths” of the month can be traced back +to Hesiod (_Opera et dies_, 802 _sqq._). + +[209] Compare Hesychius, _s.v._ μιαροὶ ἡμέραι (ed. Schmidt, col. 1045): +“the polluted days of the month of Anthesterion, on which days they +think that the souls of the departed are sent up from the nether world.” +Photius, _s.v._ μιαρὰ ἡμέρα (ed. S. A. Naber, Leiden, 1864-1865, i, 423), +says that on the second day the people used to chew buckthorn and anoint +their doors with pitch. See Frazer’s note (_The Scapegoat_, p. 153 _n._¹) +on the widespread use of buckthorn and pitch as prophylactics against +ghosts and evil influences. + +[210] On the Anthesteria, from an anthropological standpoint, see +particularly Miss Jane E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek +Religion_, Cambridge, 1903, pp. 32 _sqq._, 49 _sqq._ Dr. L. R. Farnell +thinks that only in the ritual for the third and final day of the +Anthesteria have we a genuine ceremony of ghost-riddance, this day +falling so near the Dionysiac celebration as to become attached to the +latter as a mournful finale (_The Cults of the Greek States_, Oxford, +1906-1910, v, 215 _sqq._). But, on this view, it is difficult to see +why the second day, the Choes, should have been expressly mentioned as +“polluted” (μιαρά), and why the first day, the Pithoigia, should have +been described as “totally unlucky” (ἐς τὸ πᾶν άποφράς). + +[211] Festus, _De verborum significatione_, ed. C. O. Müller, Leipzig, +1839, p. 156; Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i, 16, 24. The _dies religiosi_ +were sometimes confused, even by the ancients, with the _dies nefasti_ +(compare Gellius, _Noctes Atticæ_, iv, 9, 5), which were days marked +in the calendar as occasions when the prætor’s court was not open and +assemblies (_comitia_) could not lawfully meet. But not all _dies +religiosi_ were observed as non-comitial and non-judicial days. It +seems, indeed, that the priestly authorities who drew up the calendar +did not wish to recognize these products of popular superstition by +incorporating all of them, under the guise of _dies nefasti_, in the +Roman state religion. On the _dies religiosi_, also described as _dies +atri_ or _dies vitiosi_, see G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_, +Munich, 1902, pp. 376 _sq._; W. W. Fowler, _The Religious Experience of +the Roman People_, London, 1911, pp. 38 _sqq._; T. Mommsen, in _Corpus +inscriptionum Latinarum_, i, pt. i,² 296. + +[212] Gellius, _op. cit._, iv, 9, 5; Varro, _De lingua Latina_, vi, 29 +_sq._; Ovid, _Fasti_, v, 419-486; W. W. Fowler, _The Roman Festivals of +the Period of the Republic_, London, 1899, pp. 106 _sqq._, 306 _sqq._ The +first eight days of the Parentalia belonged only to the sphere of family +worship, but the ninth day (Feb. 21) was also a public celebration, known +as the Feralia. The Lemuria, at least in historic times, was not a state +festival, but a purely domestic affair. + +[213] Varro, _ap._ Macrobius, _op. cit._, i, 16, 18; Festus, _op. cit._, +p. 156. Compare Fowler, “Mundus Patet,” _Journal of Roman Studies_, 1912, +ii, 25-33. + +[214] Both expressions are commonly derived from the Babylonian +_shabattum_; see below, p. 235. + +[215] _Leviticus_, xvi, 31, xxiii, 26-32; compare _Numbers_, xxix, 7. + +[216] _Leviticus_, xxv, 9; _Ezekiel_, xl, 1. + +[217] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 23-25; _Numbers_, xxix, 1-7. It has been +suggested that the first ten days of the seventh month were epagomenal, +bridging the gap, as it were, between the old lunar year of 355 days and +the solar year (J. Wellhausen, _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_,³ +Berlin, 1905, p. 105 _n._²; see below, p. 247 _n._²). In the ritual of +the Jewish church they are described as days of “penitence.” + +[218] See Sir J. G. Frazer, _The Scapegoat_, London, 1913, pp. 170 _sqq._ + +[219] On the relation of the Hebrew _kipper_, or atonement, to the +Assyrian _kuppuru_ and the connection of both with ideas of taboo, see R. +C. Thompson, _The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_, London, 1904, +ii, pp. 1 _sqq._ It is unnecessary to accept his conclusion that the +Hebrew ceremony was directly borrowed from Babylonia. The view advanced +in the text as to the antiquity of the Atonement rite may now claim the +support of Professor Grimme, who sees in this ceremony one of the oldest +elements of the Law and finds the prototype of Azazel in the hairy demons +which were believed to haunt the wilderness of northern Arabia. See H. +Grimme, “Das Alter des israelitischen Versöhnungstages,” _Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft_, 1911, xiv, 130-142. + +[220] E. Westermarck, “The Popular Ritual of the Great Feast in Morocco,” +_Folklore_, 1911, xxii, 157 _sq._, 180 _sqq._ + +[221] Strabo, _Geographica_, x, 3, 9. + +[222] The best study of holiness in its relation to the concept of taboo +is still that of W. Robertson Smith (_The Religion of the Semites_,² +London, 1894, chaps. iv-v). See further N. Söderblom, “Holiness (General +and Primitive),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, vi, +731-741. + +[223] “In economic theory,” writes Dr. Thorstein Veblen, “sacred holidays +are obviously to be construed as a season of vicarious leisure performed +for the divinity or saint in whose name the _tabu_ is imposed and to +whose good repute the abstention from useful effort on those days is +conceived to inure. The characteristic feature of all such seasons of +devout vicarious leisure is a more or less rigid _tabu_ on all activity +that is of human use.... Sacred holidays, and holidays generally, are of +the nature of a tribute levied on the body of the people. The tribute is +paid in vicarious leisure, and the honourific effect which emerges is +imputed to the person or the fact for whose good repute the holiday has +been instituted. Such a tithe of vicarious leisure is a perquisite of all +members of the preternatural leisure class and is indispensable to their +good fame. _Un saint qu’on ne chôme pas_ is indeed a saint fallen on evil +days” (_The Theory of the Leisure Class_, New York, 1899, pp. 309 _sq._). + +[224] Above, pp. 13, 15, 47, 49, 79. + +[225] J. W. Breeks, _An Account of the Primitive Tribes and Monuments of +the Nīlagiris_, London, 1873, p. 44. + +[226] P. Dehon, in _Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, 1906, i, +no. 1, p. 144. + +[227] W. Crooke, _Natives of Northern India_, London, 1907, p. 232. + +[228] C. K. Menon, “Some Agricultural Ceremonies in Malabar,” Madras +Government Museum, _Bulletin_, 1906, v, 104 _sq._ + +[229] Henry Whitehead, “The Village Deities of Southern India,” Madras +Government Museum, _Bulletin_, 1907, v, 128 _sq._ The whole subject of +these Dravidian festivals has now been carefully investigated by my +former pupil Mr. W. T. Elmore. See his monograph “Dravidian Gods in +Modern Hinduism,” _University Studies_, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1915, xv, +1-152. + +[230] Several of the Hindu festivals are accompanied by prayer, fasting, +bathing, and oblation. One of the minor ceremonies during the month +of February is intended to “avert smallpox.” See E. W. Hopkins, _The +Religions of India_, Boston, 1895, p. 452 _n._²; H. H. Wilson, _Essays +and Lectures chiefly on the Religions of the Hindus_, London, 1862, ii, +209 _sq._ + +[231] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 21; _Numbers_, xxviii, 26. + +[232] The ethnographic evidence relating to first-fruits has been +very fully collected by Sir J. G. Frazer (_Spirits of the Corn and +of the Wild_, London, 1912, ii, 48-137). See also J. A. MacCulloch, +“First-fruits (Introductory and Primitive),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, vi, 41-45; E. N. Fallaize, “Harvest,” _ibid._, vi, +520-525. + +[233] On the Tongan _inachi_ see above, pp. 18 _sq._ + +[234] Below, pp. 250 _sq._ + +[235] Plato, _Leges_, ii, 653. + +[236] E. E. Sikes, “Folk-lore in the ‘Works and Days’ of Hesiod,” +_Classical Review_, 1893, vii, 390. The Hesiodic injunction (_Opera et +dies_, 742-743): + + μηδ’ ἀπὸ πεντόζοιο θεῶν ἐν δαιτὶ θαλείῃ + αὖον ἀπὸ χλωροῦ τάμνειν αἴθωνι σιδήρῳ + +stripped of its metaphorical setting, means simply, “Do not cut your +nails with iron on a joyous festival of the gods.” This taboo may be +compared with the rule observed by the Flaminica Dialis at Rome, who, +during the celebration of the festival called the Vestalia, might not cut +her hair or nails (Ovid, _Fasti_, vi, 225-226). The Roman antiquarian, +Pliny the Elder, refers to the belief that it is ominous to pare the +nails on market days (_nundinæ_), but to cut the hair on the 17th +and 29th days of the month is a preventive of baldness and headache +(_Historia naturalis_, xxviii, 5). These pagan superstitions have passed +into modern European folklore, being widely current, for example, in +England (W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties +of England and the Borders_, London, 1879, pp. 17 _sq._), as in the +familiar lines: + + “Better a child had ne’er been born + Then cut his nails on a Sunday morn!” + +Or, as another old English rhyme runs: + + “Sunday shaven, Sunday shorn, + Better hadst thou ne’er been born!” + +In certain parts of Ireland people will not shave on Sunday (G. H. +Kinahan, in _Folk-lore Record_, 1881, iv, 105). Besides Sunday, Friday is +often considered an unlucky day for cutting hair or nails, and sometimes +a distinction is made between the two days, as in Northumberland, where +it is unlucky to cut hair on a Friday or to pare nails on a Sunday +(_Denham Tracts_, ed. J. Hardy, ii, 343). In Macedonia Wednesday and +Friday are the two days when the nails should not be cut, while Sunday +is unpropitious for bathing (G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folk-lore_, +Cambridge, 1903, p. 190). Similar taboos are found outside of Europe. +The Egyptians hold Saturday to be particularly unfavourable for shaving +and cutting the nails (E. W. Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern +Egyptians_,⁵ London, 1871, i, 331), while the Jews in Jerusalem think +that the nails should be cut early in the week, so that they may not +start growing on the Sabbath (Miss A. Goodrich-Freer, in _Folklore_, +1904, xv, 187). These superstitions may rest ultimately on the notion +that such acts as hair-cutting, shaving, and nail-paring are ritually +unclean, and hence that their performance on a sacred day would defile +the festival. See in general on this subject, E. E. Sikes, “Hair and +Nails,” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, vi, 474-476. + +[237] Plutarch, _Alcibiades_, 34; Xenophon, _Hellenica_, i, 4, 12; +Pollux, _Onomasticon_, viii, 141. + +[238] Compare Miss Jane E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek +Religion_, Cambridge, 1903, pp. 114 _sqq._ + +[239] Varro, _De lingua Latina_, vi, 32; Ovid, _Fasti_, vi, 219 _sqq._, +707 _sqq._; Festus, _De verborum significatione_, ed. C. O. Müller, p. +250; Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, pp. 145 _sqq._ + +[240] In addition to the Parentalia, Lemuria, and Vestalia, the occasions +on which the Salii performed their dances in March and October (Ovid, +_Fasti_, iii, 393 _sqq._; Livy, xxxvii, 33; Suetonius, _Otho_, 8) and the +two days succeeding the _feriæ Latinæ_ (Cicero, _Ad Qu. frat._, ii, 4, 2) +were included among the _dies religiosi_. + +[241] See G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_, Munich, 1902, pp. +365-381; _idem_, in Pauly-Wissowa’s _Real-Encyclopädie der classischen +Altertumswissenschaft_, vi, coll. 2211-2213; A. S. Wilkins, in Smith, +Wayte, and Marindin’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_,³ +ii, 836-838; and especially C. Jullian, in Daremberg and Saglio’s +_Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines_, iv, 1042-1066. The +plural form _feriæ_ indicates that the festival day recurs periodically; +compare the similar usage as respects _nundinæ_ (below, p. 120). _Feriæ_ +seems to have been first written _fesiæ_, whence the word _festus_. On +the derivation of _feriæ_ see A. Walde, _Lateinisches etymologisches +Wörterbuch_,² Heidelberg, 1910, pp. 270 _sq._ + +[242] Above, pp. 25, 38 _sq._, 43 _sq._, 53. + +[243] Festus, _De verborum significatione: denicales feriæ colebantur, +cum hominis mortui causa familia purgabatur_ (ed. Müller, p. 70); compare +Cicero, _De legibus_, ii, 22, 55. It was not lawful to bury a corpse on a +public holiday, doubtless through fear of polluting the sacredness of the +occasion. See Columella, _De re rustica_, ii, 22, 5. + +[244] Cato, _De agri cultura_, 138. Compare the Mosaic injunction +relating to the Sabbath (_Deuteronomy_, v, 14). + +[245] Ovid, _Fasti_, i, 664 _sq._: + + _Pagus agat festum: pagum lustrate, coloni;_ + _Et date paganis ennua liba focis._ + +Some ancient authorities (Varro, _De lingua Latina_, vi, 26; Macrobius, +_Saturnalia_, i, 16, 6) appear to distinguish the Paganalia from the +_feriæ sementivæ_. On this festival see Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, pp. +294 _sqq._; _idem_, _The Religious Experience of the Roman People_, +London, 1911, pp. 61 _sq._ + +[246] Macrobius, _op. cit._, i, 16, 8. On the taboos affecting the +Flamen and Flaminica see F. B. Jevons, _Plutarch’s Romane Questions_, +London, 1892, pp. lxxiii _sqq._; Sir J. G. Frazer, _Taboo and the Perils +of the Soul_, pp. 13 _sq._ The Flamen was in a condition of permanent +taboo—_Dialis cotidie feriatus est_ (Gellius, _Noctes Atticæ_, x, 15, 16). + +[247] Appian, _Bellum civile_, i, 55; Plutarch, _Sulla_, 8; Dio Cassius, +xxxviii, 6. + +[248] Cicero, _De legibus_, ii, 8, 19; compare ii, 12, 29; _idem_, _De +divinatione_, i, 45, 102. + +[249] Macrobius, _op. cit._, i, 16, 9: _Pollux ferias, si ... opus +aliquod fieret_; Festus, _s.v._ _præciamitatores: ut homines se ab opere +abstinerent, quia his opus facientem videre irreligiosum erat_ (ed. +Müller, p. 248). + +[250] Macrobius, _op. cit._, i, 16, 10. + +[251] _Ibid._, i, 16, 11; compare _Matthew_, xii, 11; _Luke_, xiv, 5. + +[252] Cato, _De agri cultura_, ii, 4. + +[253] Vergil, _Georgica_, i, 268-272, with the commentary of Servius. An +entire chapter of Columella’s treatise on husbandry (_De re rustica_, ii, +22) is devoted to a discussion of what may and what may not be done by a +farmer on ferial days. The pontifical law in such matters was as minute, +tyrannical, and absurd as the rabbinical ordinances relating to the +proper observance of the Sabbath. See below, p. 263. + +[254] Livy, i, 31, iii, 5, vii, 28, xxi, 62, xxv, 7, xxxiv, 55, xxxv, 40, +xli, 21, xlii, 2; Suetonius, _Divus Claudius_, 22. Many more instances +are given by Julius Obsequens in his curious work, _De prodigiis_, 22, +33, 54, 58, 68, 104, 111. + +[255] Gellius, _Noctes Atticæ_, ii, 24, 11; compare Horace, _Carmina_, +ii, 3, 6-9. + +[256] The Indians of Cape Flattery, state of Washington, are said to keep +the month of August as a period of repose when no berries are picked +and no fish are taken from the sea, except occasionally by children (J. +G. Swan, in _Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge_, xvi, no. 220, +p. 91). Perhaps the practice was consciously designed to establish a +“close season,” though this is probably attributing too much foresight +to the Indian. The fish or berries may have been considered unfit for +eating in August. After gathering the yam harvest the Bini of Benin +keep the first month of the dry season as a time of idleness (R. E. +Dennett, _At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind_, London, 1906, p. 216). +Here a period of rest is observed by an agricultural people because they +have no special labour to perform. Among the Akikuyu of British East +Africa there are three months in the year when little or no work is +done, since the crops are then ripening (K. R. Dundas, in _Man_, 1909, +ix, 38). The Yuchi Indians, now in the state of Oklahoma, keep autumn +as “a period of combined rest, hunting, and enjoyment.” The winter, +also, is passed in idleness and recreation (F. G. Speck, _Ethnology of +the Yuchi Indians_, Philadelphia, 1909, p. 67). Dr. C. G. Seligmann +has sent to me, in manuscript, some curious information regarding a +division of time observed by the Sinaugolo, a hill-tribe to the east of +Port Moresby, British New Guinea. It seems that long ago, according to +Sinaugolo tradition, the people had to labour incessantly and enjoyed no +opportunity to celebrate their dances and other festive ceremonies. So +they instituted what was called the _kaba_ period as a relaxation from +the hard work of ordinary life. During this period, which recurred every +other year or oftener, the Sinaugolo danced and held their most important +feasts. The division of time into _kaba_ and _dauka_ (specially devoted +to labour) has now lapsed. + +[257] _The Evolution of the Aryan_, translated by A. Drucker, London, +1897, p. 117. + +[258] On primitive markets see Karl Andree, _Geographie des Welthandels_, +Stuttgart, 1867, i, 40-81; C. Köhne, “Markt-, Kaufmanns- und Handelsrecht +in primitiven Kulturverhältnissen,” _Zeitschrift für vergleichende +Rechtswissenschaft_, 1895, xi, 196-220; R. Lasch, “Das Marktwesen auf den +primitiven Kulturstufen,” _Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft_, 1906, +ix, 619-627, 700-715, 764-782; H. Schurtz, _Das afrikanische Gewerbe_, +Leipzig, 1900, pp. 115-122; P. J. Hamilton Grierson, _The Silent Trade_, +Edinburgh, 1903, pp. 54-62; H. L. Roth, “Trading in Early Days,” +_Bankfield Museum Notes_, Halifax (Eng.), 1908, no. 5, pp. 23 _sqq._; +N. W. Thomas, “The Market in African Law and Custom,” _Journal of the +Society of Comparative Legislation_, 1908, n.s., no. 19, pp. 90-106. + +[259] Some observers use ambiguous language, when referring to the +length—four, five, six days, etc.—of market weeks. Throughout this +chapter I have regularly translated by “every fifth day” such expressions +as “tous les cinq jours,” “de cinq en cinq jours,” “alle fünf Tage,” +“einmal in fünf Tagen,” and “einmaal in de vijf dagen.” + +[260] A. W. Howitt, _The Native Tribes of South-east Australia_, London, +1904, pp. 714 _sqq._ On Australian barter see G. C. Wheeler, _The Tribe +and Intertribal Relations in Australia_, London, 1910, pp. 93-97. + +[261] A. C. Haddon, _Head-hunters, Black, White, and Brown_, London, +1901, pp. 265, 269. + +[262] James Chalmers, in Chalmers and Gill, _Work and Adventure in New +Guinea_, London, 1885, pp. 40 sq. Compare M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, +Berlin, 1899, p. 335. Sir William MacGregor observes that the institution +of the Sabbath, as a day of rest, “is not quite new to the Papuan, +but ... the Papuan Sabbath of Keapara [Kerepunu] exceeds the Hebrew +in dividing time into weeks of three days. The great majority of the +tribes, however, do not seem to have a regular week, and work or rest +capriciously” (_British New Guinea_, London, 1897, pp. 44 _sq._). See +above, p. 26 _n._¹ + +[263] C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_, +Cambridge, 1910, pp. 48, 94 (Koita). + +[264] J. S. A. van Dissel, in _Tijdschrift van het koninklijk +nederlandsch aardrijkskundig genootschap_, 1904, second series, xxi, 644. + +[265] J. Graf Pfeil, _Studien und Beobachtungen aus der Südsee_, +Brunswick, 1899, p. 116. + +[266] J. J. Atkinson, in _Folklore_, 1903, xiv, 245. Mr. Atkinson in +this passage probably has in mind the European week introduced into New +Caledonia by the French. + +[267] Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, London, 1908, p. 288; Wilkes, +_Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_, iii, 300 _sq._ (Somu-Somu, +in the Fiji group); J. J. Jarves, _History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich +Islands_,² Boston, 1843, p. 77. + +[268] P. Sarasin and F. Sarasin, _Reisen in Celebes_, Wiesbaden, 1905, +ii, 324. + +[269] W. Marsden, _The History of Sumatra_,³ London, 1811, pp. 379 _sq._; +F. Junghuhn, _Die Battaländer auf Sumatra_, Berlin, 1847, pp. 227 _sq._; +J. v. Brenner, _Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras_, Würzburg, 1894, p. +291; B. Hagen, in _Petermanns Mitteilungen_, 1883, xxix, 173 (Batta of +Lake Toba); W. Volz, _Nord-Sumatra_, Berlin, 1909, i, 267. + +[270] Sir T. S. Raffles, _History of Java_,² London, 1830, i, 531; P. J. +Veth, _Java_,² Haarlem, 1907, iv, 296 _sqq._ The names of the days in +the _pasar_ were considered to bear a mystical relation to colours and +the divisions of the horizon, the first day (white, east), the second +(red, south), the third (yellow, west), the fourth (black, north), and +the fifth day a mixed colour, and _focus_, or centre. See John Crawfurd, +_History of the Indian Archipelago_, Edinburgh, 1820, i, 289 _sq._ These +fancies must be explained by the colour symbolism which so frequently +attaches to the cardinal points. + +[271] R. Friederich, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1878, +n.s., x, 88 _sqq._; compare _ibid._, 1876, n.s., viii, 198. + +[272] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, London, 1900, pp. 545 _sq._ + +[273] J. Richard, _Histoire naturelle, civile, et politique du Tonquin_, +Paris, 1778, i, 151. + +[274] Lillian J. Curtis, _The Laos of North Siam_, Philadelphia, 1903, p. +132. + +[275] Mrs. Leslie Milne, _The Shans at Home_, London, 1910, p. 132. + +[276] C. E. D. Black, in _Geographical Journal_, 1895, vi, 30 (Shan +of Upper Burma). Compare also _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan +States_, edited by Scott and Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. i, vol. i, p. +536 (Shan of Lower Burma). + +[277] R. G. Woodthorpe, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1897, xxvi, 19. + +[278] P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_, London, 1907, p. 189. According to +C. Becker (_Anthropos_, 1909, iv, 894) the market is called _jeu duh_. + +[279] Gurdon, _op. cit._, p. 190. Compare Sir J. D. Hooker (_Himalayan +Journals_, London, 1891, p. 487), who attributes the fourth-day markets +to the Khasi generally. + +[280] J. L. Krapf, _Travels, Researches, and Missionary Labours_, London, +1867, pp. 82, 365. + +[281] W. W. A. Fitzgerald, _Travels in the Coastlands of British East +Africa_, London, 1898, p. 111, quoting W. E. Taylor, _Vocabulary of the +Giryama Language_, London, 1897. The name applied to the first day of +the week—_jumwa_—is directly taken from the Arabic _al jum‘a_ (Friday, +the Mohammedan day of worship), from which circumstance it may be +concluded that the Wagiriama observe _jumwa_ both as a market day and a +rest day. Similarly, the name of the weekly market held at Antananarivo, +the capital of Madagascar, is _zoma_, or Friday (_Antananarivo Annual_, +1889-1892, iv, 372). + +[282] K. R. Dundas, in _Man_, 1909, ix, 38. + +[283] W. S. Routledge and Katherine Routledge, _With a Prehistoric +People_, London, 1910, pp. 105 _sq._ + +[284] A. Widenmann, in _Petermanns Mitteilungen_, 1899, Ergänzungsheft, +no. 129, p. 69; M. Merker, _ibid._, 1902, no. 138, p. 25; G. Volkens, +_Der Kilimandscharo_, Berlin, 1897, p. 239; B. Gutmann, “Feldbausitten +und Wachstumsbräuche der Wadschagga,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1913, +xlv, 502. + +[285] Horace Waller, editor, _The Last Journals of David Livingstone in +Central Africa_, New York, 1875, p. 367. See also V. L. Cameron, _Across +Africa_, London, 1877, ii, 3. + +[286] E. Torday, in _Mitteilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in +Wien_, 1911, xli, 192. + +[287] H. v. Wissmann _et al._, _Im Innern Afrikas_,³ Leipzig, 1891, p. +252. + +[288] H. v. Wissmann, _My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa_, +London, 1891, p. 125. + +[289] Torday and Joyce, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1906, xxxvi, 44. Each day of the Bayaka week bears a name, the last being +_pungu_, or market day (_ibid._, p. 47). + +[290] Torday and Joyce, _ibid._, 1905, xxxv, 413. The Bambala year +consists of thirteen lunar months, each divided into seven weeks of four +days, the last day of each week being _pika_, or market day. + +[291] Torday and Joyce, _ibid._, 1906, xxxvi, 291. + +[292] Sir H. H. Johnston, _The River Congo_, London, 1884, p. 455. + +[293] H. H. Bentley, _Pioneering on the Congo_, London, 1900, i, 399 _sq._ + +[294] J. K. Tuckey, _Narrative of an Expedition to explore the River +Zaire_, New York, 1818, p. 238. + +[295] E. Pechuël-Loesche, in _Die Loango-Expedition_, dritte Abteilung, +erste Hälfte, Stuttgart, 1907, p. 139. See also A. Bastian, _Die deutsche +Expedition an der Loango-Küste_, Jena, 1874, i, 209. + +[296] R. E. Dennett, _At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind_, London, 1906, +pp. 64, 140; _idem_, _Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort_, London, 1898, +pp. 8, 137. Among the lower Congo tribes, generally, the dead are buried +only on two of the four weekdays (J. H. Weeks, in _Folklore_, 1909, xx, +61; compare _idem_, _Among the Primitive Bakongo_, Philadelphia, 1914, p. +249). + +[297] L. B. Proyart, _Histoire de Loango, Kakongo, et autres royaumes +d’Afrique_, Paris, 1776, p. 116. A still earlier reference to this +African Sabbath will be found in G. A. Cavazzi da Montecuccoli, +_Istorica descrizione de’ tre regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola_, Bologna, +1687, p. 24. For further details relating to markets and market weeks +among the lower Congo peoples see Herbert Ward, _Five Years with the +Congo Cannibals_, London, 1890, p. 59; J. H. Weeks, _Congo Life and +Folklore_, London, 1911, pp. 227 _sq._; H. Nipperdey, “Zur Bedeutung +der Wochen-Märkte am Congo,” _Revue coloniale internationale_, 1887, +v, 205-214; A. Thonnar, _Essai sur le système économique des primitifs +d’après les populations de l’état indépendant du Congo_, Brussels, +1901, pp. 82-114; A. Cureau, _Les sociétés primitives de l’Afrique +équatoriale_, Paris, 1912, pp. 295 _sqq._ + +[298] F. Hutter, _Wanderungen und Forschungen im Nord-Hinterland von +Kamerun_, Brunswick, 1902, pp. 266, 360; compare Preuss, in _Deutsches +Kolonialblatt_, 1898, ix, 456. + +[299] W. F. Daniell, in _Journal of the Ethnological Society_, 1848, i, +222 _sq._ + +[300] A. G. Leonard, _The Lower Niger and its Tribes_, London, 1906, +pp. 305, 375; William Allen, _Narrative of the Expedition sent by Her +Majesty’s Government to the River Niger in 1841_, London, 1848, i, 398; +N. W. Thomas, _Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of +Nigeria_, London, 1913, i, 127. Seven weeks are here counted to the month +of twenty-eight days (W. F. Baikie, _Narrative of an Exploring Voyage_, +London, 1856, p. 316). An early missionary to west Africa observes +that among the Ibo, Igara, and other Nigerian tribes the week consists +of four days, viz. _eke_, a market day and unlucky for the _ata_, or +chief, to see strangers, _ede_, a lucky or good day, _afo_, an unlucky +day, and _uko_, a lucky day. Besides these days of good and evil omen +the Mohammedans have made the natives believe that Friday is an unlucky +day to undertake any work of importance (S. A. Crowther, in _The Church +Missionary Intelligencer_, 1865, n.s., i, 55). + +[301] J. Parkinson, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1906, +xxxvi, 317. + +[302] N. W. Thomas, _Anthropological Report on the Edo-speaking Peoples +of Nigeria_, London, 1910, i, 18 _sq._ That the eight-day week of +the Bini has developed from a more ancient four-day week is also the +opinion of R. E. Dennett (_At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind_, pp. +214, 364). The Bini week has been stated to consist of five days (Cyril +Punch, quoted in H. L. Roth, _Great Benin_, Halifax [Eng.], 1903, p. 52 +_n._¹), but this is certainly an error. An early traveller among the +Bini declares that their Sabbath “happens every fifth day, which is very +solemnly observed by the great with the slaughter of cows, sheep, and +goats, whilst the commonalty kill dogs, cats, and chickens, or whatever +their money will reach to. And of whatever is killed, large portions +are distributed to the necessitous, in order to enable them, as every +person is obliged to celebrate this festival” (David van Nyendael, “A +Description of Rio Formosa, or the River of Benin,” in W. Bosman, _A New +and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea_, London, 1705, p. 456). + +[303] A. B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, London, 1887, pp. 89, 93. +On the Gold Coast white seems to be the special colour appropriate for +holy or festive days. On a man’s birthday, which is sacred to his _kra_, +or tenanting spirit, he abstains from work, puts white clay on his face, +and dons a white cloth (_ibid._, p. 156). On the Tshi holy days, observed +by families or private persons only, see further Bosman, _op. cit._, +p. 153; W. Hutton, _A Voyage to Africa_, London, 1821, p. 166 _n._* +(Ashanti); E. Perregaux, _Chez les Achanti_, Neuchâtel, 1906, p. 272; J. +Parkinson, in _Man_, 1911, xi, 2 (Appolonians). + +[304] Ellis, _The Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, London, 1894, p. 145. + +[305] _Ibid._, p. 149. + +[306] Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, pp. 220 _sq._ Beecham declares that +were the fishermen to go out to sea on this day, “the fetish would be +angry and spoil their fishing” (_Ashantee and the Gold Coast_, London, +1841, p. 186). Compare also Bosman, _op. cit._, p. 160; Miss Mary H. +Kingsley, _West African Studies_,² London, 1901, p. 145. + +[307] Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, pp. 220, 304. + +[308] _Idem_, _The Ewe-speaking Peoples_, London, 1890, pp. 41, 79. + +[309] _Ako-ojo_, “First Day”; _ojo-awo_, “Day of the Secret,” sacred +to Ifa; _ojo-ogun_, “Day of Ogun,” the god of iron; _ojo-shango_, “Day +of Shango,” the god of thunder; _ojo-obatala_, “Obatala’s Day.” A holy +day is called _ose_ (_se_, to disallow), and because each holy day +recurs weekly, _ose_ has also come to mean the week of five days (Ellis, +_Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, pp. 145 _sq._). According to an earlier writer +_osse_ (_ose_), or holy day, comes from a word signifying silence. This +expression was transferred to the Christian Sunday, with which the +Yoruba became familiar after the year 1822, when many of them emigrated +to Sierra Leone (Miss Sarah Tucker, _Abbeokuta; or Sunrise within the +Tropics_,² London, 1853, p. 37 _n._*). Whether the Yoruba week really +consists of five days seems open to grave doubt. Bishop James Johnson, a +native African, substantiates Ellis by giving the names of the five days +(quoted in Dennett, _At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind_, p. 245), and +also speaks of “every fifth day, which is the close of a week of _oses_, +or worshipping days” (_ibid._, p. 251). But Mr. Dennett himself, in his +latest work, cites three native informants in favour of a week of four +days. Moreover, Shango’s (Jakuta’s) Day is described by Mr. Dennett as +the Yoruba “Sunday.” The first day of the week is Ogun’s Day, the other +weekdays following in the order given by Ellis. It is to be noted that +Ogun’s Day, the first, fifth, ninth, and so on, is the regular market +day. The god Ogun in some parts of Yorubaland has taken the place of +another deity, Odudua, whom Mr. Dennett found to be universally regarded +as the originator of the system of weekdays (_Nigerian Studies_, +London, 1910, pp. 72-80). A five-day week has been noted among the +Jebu of southeastern Yorubaland (D’Avezac, in _Mémoires de la société +ethnologique_, 1845, ii, pt. ii, 81), and Burton refers to the same +institution among the Egba, by whom the terminal day is called _ose_ (R. +F. Burton, _Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains_, London, 1863, i, 205). + +[310] Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, p. 145. + +[311] F. E. Forbes, _Dahomey and the Dahomans_, London, 1851, p. 181. +For every fourth day as the market day at Whydah see P. E. Isert, _Neue +Reise nach Guinea und den Caribäischen Inseln in Amerika_, Berlin, 1790, +p. 132. Bosman (_op. cit._, p. 352) makes the Fida (Whyda) market recur +every third day. A great market every sixth day is said to be held in the +district about the town of Ardrah (Allada), Dahomey (John Adams, _Remarks +on the Country extending from Cape Palmas to the River Congo_, London, +1823, p. 88). + +[312] Four-day weeks: R. Plehn, _Beiträge zur Völkerkunde des +Togo-Gebietes_, Halle, 1898, p. 9; J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_, Berlin, +1906, p. 311 (Ho); five-day weeks: R. Plehn, in _Mitteilungen von +Forschungsreisenden und Gelehrten aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten_, +1896, ix, 123; six-day weeks: von Zech, _ibid._, 1898, xi, 128; +Christaller, in _Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft für +Thüringen_, 1890, viii, 121; L. Conradt, in _Petermanns Mitteilungen_, +1896, xlii, 15 (Adele). The Akposo, who have a week of five days, keep +the fifth day sacred to their creator-god, Uwolowo, whose name it bears. +The other gods are worshipped on the second day of the week, a time when +no work may be done (F. Müller, in _Anthropos_, 1907, ii, 201). + +[313] A. Mischlich, in _Mitteilungen von Forschungsreisenden und +Gelehrten aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten_, 1896, ix, 83. + +[314] E. Henrici, _Lehrbuch der Ephe-Sprache_, Stuttgart, 1891, pp. 59 +_sq._ The names of the seven weekdays in the Ewe and Tshi languages are +almost identical. See the lists in Henrici, _op. cit._, pp. 59 _sq._, and +Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 218. The Ewe have borrowed from the +Tshi not only the names of the weekdays but also the custom of giving to +private persons names derived from those of the weekdays (Henrici, _op. +cit._, p. 60). + +[315] Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, pp. 146 _sq._; _idem_, +_Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 218. + +[316] Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, p. 147. For the names of the Ga +weekdays, see _ibid._, p. 143. An early writer, whose observations were +confined to Akkra on the Gold Coast, speaks of _haughbah_ (_ho-gba_) as +one of the two sacred days of the seven-day week. It is compulsory for +all ranks and sexes, but is especially observed by the women. “Under the +supposition that some malign potency pervades the surrounding country on +this day, more particularly directed against the pregnant women, their +daily avocations are restricted within the walls of their domiciles, no +egress being tolerated either for the purposes of travelling or other +exterior occupations. Not many people, therefore, presume to violate +these injunctions by issuing forth early in the forenoon, and none resort +to their familiar haunts in the markets or public thoroughfares, until +the prohibition has been withdrawn, by the well-known sign of a declining +sun” (W. F. Daniell, in _Journal of the Ethnological Society_, 1856, iv, +23). + +[317] R. A. Freeman, _Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jáman_, +Westminster, 1898, p. 176 (market every fourth day among the Gaman, a +Tshi-speaking people); M. Monnier, _France noire_, Paris, 1894, p. 209 +(market every fifth day in Kong); L. G. Binger, _Du Niger au golfe de +Guinée_, Paris, 1892, i, 370 (market every fifth day among the Diulasu); +L. Desplagnes, _Le plateau central nigérien_, Paris, 1907, p. 377 (market +every sixth day among the Habbe). A market every ninth day is described +as being held at Bocqua in Northern Nigeria (R. Lander and J. Lander, +_Journal of an Expedition to explore the Course and Termination of the +Niger_, London, 1832, iii, 73, 82). For a general account of markets +among the Nigerian peoples see A. Hovelacque, _Les nègres de l’Afrique +sus-équatoriale_, Paris, 1889, pp. 355 _sqq._ + +[318] A. Mischlich, _Lehrbuch der hausanischen Sprache_, Berlin, 1902, p. +127 (Hausa); J. S. Gallieni, _Voyage au Soudan français, Haut-Niger, et +pays de Segou_, Paris, 1885, p. 436 (Segu); R. Callié, _Travels through +Central Africa to Timbuctoo_, London, 1830, i, 323, 346 (Mandingo); +A. Hacquard, _Monographie de Tombouctou_, Paris, 1900, p. 55; O. +Lenz, _Timbuktu_, Leipzig, 1884, i, 154. The Bali market is said to +be held every seventh day, _i.e._, on Friday. Here, again, Mohammedan +influence is to be suspected (F. Hutter, _Wanderungen und Forschungen im +Nord-Hinterland von Kamerun_, Brunswick, 1902, p. 361). + +[319] C. van Overbergh, _Les Mayombe_, Brussels, 1907, p. 353; A. de +Calonne Beaufaict, _Études Bakango_, Liége, 1912, p. 79; J. H. Weeks, +_Among the Primitive Bakongo_, Philadelphia, 1914, pp. 248 _sq._ Some +of the Galla tribes have been so far affected by Arabic influences as +to hold their markets every seventh day (P. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie +Nordost-Afrikas. Die materielle Kultur der Danâkil, Galla, und Somâl_, +Berlin, 1893, p. 313). + +[320] Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 217. So also B. Cruickshank +(_Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast of Africa_, London, 1853, ii, 189 +_sq._). + +[321] No evidence for markets has been discovered among the Bantu tribes +south of the Zambesi. The absence of markets elsewhere is sometimes +specifically noted by our authorities; see F. Thonner, _Im afrikanischen +Urwald_, Berlin, 1898, p. 33 (Mondunga, on the Dua River, Belgian Congo); +J. Maes, in _Anthropos_, 1913, viii, 357 (Mongelima, on the Aruwimi +River, Belgian Congo); A. J. N. Tremearne, _The Tailed Head-hunters of +Nigeria_, London, 1912, p. 245 (Kagoro and other pagan tribes of Northern +Nigeria). + +[322] Above, pp. 107, 109, 111. + +[323] D. F. S. Clavigero, _Storia antica del Messico_, Cesena, 1780, ii, +62, 163; B. de Sahagun, _Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España_, +transl. Jourdanet and Siméon, Paris, 1880, pp. lxxiii, 290 _sq._; A. +von Humboldt, _Vues des Cordillères_, Paris, 1816, ii, 340; G. Brühl, +_Die Culturvölker Alt-Amerikas_, New York, 1887, p. 234; J. Kohler, “Das +Recht der Azteken,” _Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft_, +1895, xi, 75, 87; E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, +Oxford, 1892-1899, ii, 359. A greater market or fair was sometimes held +once in every cycle of twenty days, that is, on every fourth ordinary +market day. Eighteen market months were included in the solar year. How +such “months” may arise is illustrated by a Yoruba mode of computing +time by periods of seventeen days, that being the number of days in four +market weeks, when the first and fifth days of each cycle are counted in +(Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, pp. 149 _sq._). + +[324] Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique +et de l’Amérique-Centrale_, Paris, 1858, iii, 464. + +[325] A. von Humboldt, _op. cit._, i, 340, ii, 227; Brühl, _op. cit._, p. +239; compare p. 326, where a market every fourth day is stated to have +been held in Turmequé. In Sorotoca the market took place every eighth day +(_ibid._). But authentic details concerning the Chibcha calendar are not +to be had. According to von Humboldt (_op. cit._, ii, 244) ten of the +Muysca “weeks” formed a lunation called _suna_. The _suna_ began, not at +new moon, but at full moon. + +[326] Garcilasso de la Vega, _Comentarios reales de los Incas_, pt. i, +bk. vi, ch. 35; C. R. Markham, _First Part of the Royal Commentaries +of the Yncas_, London, 1871, ii, 206. It is an old error, for which +Garcilasso de la Vega (_op. cit._, pt. i, bk. ii, ch. 23) appears to be +responsible, that the Peruvians had a week of seven days, following the +successive phases of the moon. But Acosta, who visited Peru soon after +the Spanish conquest of that country, is better informed and says clearly +that neither Peruvians nor Mexicans had a seven-day week (J. de Acosta, +_Historia de las Indias_, bk. vi, ch. 3; _The Natural and Moral History +of the Indies_, edited by C. R. Markham, London, 1880, ii, 396). + +[327] See G. E. Marindin, in Smith, Wayte, and Marindin’s _Dictionary of +Greek and Roman Antiquities_,³ ii, 251 _sq._; M. Besnier, in Daremberg, +Saglio, and Pottier’s _Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines_, +vii, 120-122; E. Huschke, _Das alte römische Jahr und seine Tage_, +Breslau, 1869, pp. 288-312; R. Flex, _Die älteste Monatseinteilung der +Römer_, Jena, 1880, pp. 16 _sqq._; and especially P. Huvelin, _Essai +historique sur le droit des marchés et des foires_, Paris, 1897, pp. +84-99. According to the Roman system of inclusive reckoning—which +may be compared with that sometimes employed in Yorubaland (p. 119 +_n._¹)—the market fell on the ninth day, as the derivation of the word +_nundinæ_ (from _novem_) indicates. It has been suggested by H. Diels +(_Sibyllinische Blätter_, Berlin, 1890, p. 41 _n._¹) that the choice of +the ninth day was influenced by the symbolism attaching to the number +nine among the Romans, as among other Indo-European peoples; compare the +Nones, or the ninth day before the Ides, and the nine days’ festivals +(_novemdiales feriæ_). Probably, however, the Roman market week consisted +originally of four days only, and later was doubled to form the cycle +employed in historic times. The nundinal days were not named, but were +indicated in the calendars by letters of the alphabet from A to H. + +[328] Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i, 16, 32 _sq._; Dionysius +Halicarnassensis, _Antiquitates Romanæ_, ii, 28, vii, 58; compare Varro, +_De re rustica_, ii, præf. Cicero attributes the institution of markets +to Numa (_De republica_, ii, 14, 27). + +[329] _Tertiis nundinis partis secanto (Tabula_ iii, 6, in Gellius, +_Noctes Atticæ_, xx, i, 49). + +[330] Macrobius, _op. cit._, i, 16, 30; Pliny, _Historia naturalis_, +xviii, 3. I accept the view that the _lex Hortensia_ converted the +_nundinæ_ into _dies fasti non comitiales_, that is, forbade comitial +meetings on these dates, though allowing judicial business to be done +thereon. For this explanation see G. W. Botsford, _The Roman Assemblies_, +New York, 1909, pp. 139, 315, 471; Marquardt-Wissowa, _Römische +Staatsverwaltung_, Leipzig, 1885, iii,² 290. It has been maintained that +toward the end of the republican period the prohibition referred to was +no longer observed (P. Groebe, in Drumann-Groebe, _Geschichte Roms_,² +Berlin, 1899-1906, iii, 779). + +[331] Above, pp. 94 _sqq._ + +[332] Macrobius, _op. cit._, i, 16, 30. According to Plutarch +(_Quæstiones Romanæ_, 42), the _nundinæ_ were consecrated to Saturn. + +[333] _Omnes judices urbanæque plebes et cunctarum artium officia +venerabili die Solis quiescant_ (_Codex Justinianus_, iii, 12, 3). +The prohibition of holding court on Sunday was relaxed by Constantine +in the same year so far as to permit such legal proceedings as the +emancipation and manumission of slaves to take place at this time (_Codex +Theodosianus_, ii, 8, 1). Eusebius (_Vita Constantini_, iv, 18-20) tells +us that the emperor forbade all military exercises on Sunday. + +[334] Above, p. 98. + +[335] _Provisione etiam pietatis su[a]e nundinas die Solis perpeti anno +constituit_ (_Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_, iii, no. 4121, p. 523). +Markets were held on Sunday in many parts of Europe until late in the +Middle Ages, in spite of numerous edicts, ecclesiastical and civil, +forbidding the practice (Huvelin, _op. cit._, pp. 46, 156 _sq._). + +[336] The date of the obsolescence of the _nundinæ_ is not definitely +known. The _fasti Philocali_ (354 A.D.) marks the days of the seven-day +week by the letters A-G, and gives side by side the old nundinal letters +A-H (_Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_, i, pt. i,² 256 _sqq._). This +arrangement had probably become a feature of the state calendar since the +Sunday legislation of Constantine. + +[337] P. Ehrenreich, _Die allgemeine Mythologie und ihre ethnologischen +Grundlagen_, Leipzig, 1910, pp. 114-127; S. Arrhenius, “Über den Ursprung +des Gestirnkultus,” _Scientia_, 1911, ix, pp. 424 _sqq._, Sir J. G. +Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_,³ London, 1914, ii, 140-150; E. J. +Payne, _History of the New World called America_, Oxford, 1892-1899, i, +547 _sqq._; W. H. Roscher, _Über Selene und Verwandtes_, Leipzig, 1890, +pp. 1-16, and _Nachträge_, Leipzig, 1895, pp. 1-19. For the ideas of +civilized children relating to the moon see J. W. Slaughter, “The Moon in +Childhood and Folklore,” _American Journal of Psychology_, 1902, xiii, +294-318; G. S. Hall, “Note on Moon Fancies,” _ibid._, 1903, xiv, 88-91. + +[338] Albîrûnî, _India_, translated by C. E. Sachau, London, 1888, i, 346 +_sq._ Compare the fine passage in Apuleius (_Metamorphoses_, xi, 1). + +[339] Spix and Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_, Munich, 1823-1831, i, 381, +iii, 1186. + +[340] K. Weule, _Native Life in East Africa_, London, 1909, p. 188. On +the other hand, children of the Bageshu, a Bantu people of British East +Africa, are expected to take part in new-moon dances, since it is thought +that they derive benefit from the moon (J. Roscoe, in _Journal of the +Anthropological Institute_, 1909, xxxix, 193). A Baganda mother believes +that her child will grow strong and healthy, if it is shown the first +new moon after its birth (_idem_, _The Baganda_, London, 1911, p. 58). +Similarly, it is said that in the island of Kiriwina, the largest of the +Trobriand group to the east of New Guinea, a mother always presents her +child to the first new moon after its birth, in order that it may grow +fast and talk soon (George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, London, +1910, p. 37). + +[341] Plutarch, _Quæstiones conviviales_, iii, 10, 3. + +[342] A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_,³ edited by +E. H. Meyer, Berlin, 1900, p. 391 (Oldenburg). + +[343] W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography_, _Bulletin_, 1903, no. +5, p. 7. + +[344] W. H. I. Bleek and Lucy C. Lloyd, _Specimens of Bushman Folk-lore_, +London, 1911, pp. 67 _sq._ + +[345] W. Bogoras, in _Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History_, +xi, 306. + +[346] C. M. Doughty, _Travels in Arabia Deserta_, Cambridge, 1888, i, 444. + +[347] _Psalms_, cxxi, 6. Another Biblical passage (_Hosea_, v, 7), +possibly referring to the moon, is most obscure. + +[348] _Matthew_, iv, 24, xvii, 15. The Greek verb used here is +σεληνιάζομαι. + +[349] E. Combe, _Histoire du culte de Sin en Babylonie et en Assyrie_, +Paris, 1908, pp. 36 _sqq._ + +[350] _Quæstiones conviviales_, iii, 10, 3. + +[351] P. Sébillot, _Le folk-lore de France_, Paris, 1904-1907, i, 45. + +[352] Wuttke-Meyer, _op. cit._, p. 301. + +[353] _Ibid._, p. 59. In Voigtland, central Germany, the assaults of +witches are especially looked for and dreaded on Mondays (R. Eisel, +_Sagenbuch des Voigtlandes_, Gera, 1871, p. 210). + +[354] Fanny D. Bergen, _Current Superstitions_, Boston, 1896, p. 120. + +[355] For the belief that impregnation can be accomplished by the sun, +see Sir J. G. Frazer, _Balder the Beautiful_, London, 1913, i, 74 _sqq._ + +[356] Mrs. K. L. Parker, _The Euahlayi Tribe_, London, 1905, pp. 50, 64, +98. + +[357] C. G. Seligmann, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological +Expedition to Torres Straits_, v, 206 _sq._ The word for moon, _ganumi_, +is sometimes used as a synonym of _nanamud_, the proper expression +for menstrual blood (_ibid._). Compare A. Hunt, in _Journal of the +Anthropological Institute_, 1899, xxviii, 11. + +[358] C. G. Seligmann, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1902, xxxii, 303 _sq._ (Sinaugolo of the Rigo District); E. Beardmore, +_ibid._, 1890, xix, 460 (Mawatta of the Daudai District); A. Baessler, +_Neue Südsee Bilder_, Berlin, 1900, p. 383 (Santa Cruz Islands). + +[359] E. Best, “Notes on Procreation among the Maori People of New +Zealand,” _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, 1905, xiv, 210 _sq._ + +[360] C. W. Hobley, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1903, +xxxiii, 358. + +[361] J. Roscoe, _ibid._, 1901, xxxi, 121. + +[362] Thomas Winterbottom, _An Account of the Native Africans in the +Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone_, London, 1803, ii, 206 (Mandingo, Susu, +etc.). + +[363] Hans Egede, _A Description of Greenland_, London, 1745, p. 205. + +[364] W. B. Grubb, _An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_, London, 1911, +p. 139. + +[365] P. J. de Arriaga, _Extirpación de la idolatria del Piru_, Lima, +1621, p. 32. + +[366] H. Brugsch, _Religion und Mythologie der alten Ägypter_, Leipzig, +1885, p. 335. The sacred bull Apis, which the Egyptians regarded as an +image of the soul of Osiris, a god often identified with the moon, was +supposed to be born of a virgin cow impregnated by a divine influence +emanating from the moon (Plutarch, _Quæstiones conviviales_, viii, 1, +3; _idem_, _De Iside et Osiride_, 43). On the discovery of an Apis the +Egyptians kept a holiday (Herodotus, iii, 28). + +[367] W. H. Roscher, “Aphrodite,” in Roscher’s _Ausführliches Lexikon der +griechischen und römischen Mythologie_, i, coll. 390 _sq._ + +[368] L. H. Gray, in _Spiegel Memorial Volume_, Bombay, 1908, pp. +160-168. Râkâ and Sînîvalî, two of the Vedic goddesses identified +with the lunar phases, seem to have been associated with childbirth +(_Rig-Veda_, ii, 32; transl. H. Grassmann, i, 41). + +[369] Plutarch, _Quæstiones conviviales_, iii, 10, 3; _idem_, _Quæstiones +Romanæ_, 77. See further, W. H. Roscher, _Juno und Hera_, Leipzig, 1875, +pp. 40-59; _idem_, _Über Selene und Verwandtes_, pp. 55-61; _idem_, +“Mondgöttin,” _Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen +Mythologie_, ii, coll. 3150 _sqq._ + +[370] Sébillot, _op. cit._, i, 41. + +[371] E. H. Man, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1883, +xii, 337; Sheldon Dibble, _History of the Sandwich Islands_, Lahainaluna, +1843, p. 109; N. B. Dennys, _The Folk-lore of China_, London, 1876, p. +118; M. Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, Boston, 1898, +p. 358. + +[372] H. A. Hazen, “The Origin and Value of Weather Lore,” _Journal +of American Folk-lore_, 1900, xiii, 191-198; E. G. Dexter, _Weather +Influences_, New York, 1904, pp. 10-26. + +[373] Payne, _op. cit._, i, 547 _sq._; Sir E. B. Tylor, _Primitive +Culture_,⁴ London, 1903, i, 130; W. G. Black, _Folk-medicine_, London, +1883, pp. 124 _sqq._; A. E. Crawley, “Dew,” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, iv, 698-701. + +[374] Roscher, _Über Selene und Verwandtes_, pp. 49 _sqq._, 61-67. The +New Zealanders believed that it was in the night that everything grew (R. +Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, London, 1855, p. 175). The single Old Testament +passage which may possibly embody a like conception is _Deuteronomy_, +xxxiii, 14: “and for the precious things put forth by the moon.” See W. +von Baudissin, _Jahve et Moloch_, Leipzig, 1874, p. 24. + +[375] For many illustrations see Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_,³ ii, +131 _sqq._; J. Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, London, 1883, ii, 708-716. + +[376] Gellius, _Noctes Atticæ_, xx, 8: _Eadem autem ipsa, quæ crescente +luna gliscunt, deficiente contra defiunt_. + +[377] _The Todas_, London, 1906, p. 411. + +[378] E. H. Man, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1883, +xii, 152 _sq._ It is also said of the Andamanese that they do no work, +except what is noiseless, between dawn and sunrise (_ibid._). + +[379] Peter Dobell, _Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia_, London, 1830, +ii, 16. + +[380] Joannes de Plano Carpini, in R. Hakluyt, _The Principal +Navigations, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation_, i, 141 +_sq._ (Glasgow reprint, 1903-1905). + +[381] Mungo Park, _Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa_, London, +1816, i, 266. + +[382] L. G. Binger, _Du Niger au golfe de Guinée_, Paris, 1892, ii, 116. + +[383] A. C. Hollis, _The Nandi_, Oxford, 1908, pp. 52, 60, 71. + +[384] J. Sibree, “Malagasy Folk-lore and Popular Superstitions,” +_Folk-lore Record_, 1879, ii, 32. + +[385] _De bello Gallico_, i, 50. + +[386] _Germania_, 11. The rule of the Spartans never to march out to war +before the full moon (Herodotus, vi, 106; Pausanias, i, 28, 4) prevented +them from sending aid to the Athenians at the time of the battle of +Marathon. Though the Spartans always knew how to make use of their +religious scruples, during their festivals they really did ostentatiously +abstain from expeditions which might have been profitable to them. See A. +Holm, _History of Greece_, London, 1895, ii, 26, referring to Thucydides, +iv, 5, v, 75. + +[387] Kuhn and Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen, und Gebräuche_, +Leipzig, 1848, p. 457. + +[388] The Rev. John Grant, in Sir John Sinclair’s _The Statistical +Account of Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1794, xii, 457. See also Charles Rogers, +_Familiar Illustrations of Scottish Character_,² London, 1865, p. 172 (as +to Orkney). In the Calendar of Coligny, the most important of the Celtic +inscriptions of ancient Gaul, the lunation is divided into two parts by +the full moon, and nearly all the important activities of the month are +crowded into the first fortnight, apparently because of the ill luck +associated with a waning moon. See Sir John Rhŷs, “The Coligny Calendar,” +_Proceedings of the British Academy_, 1909-1910, pp. 221, 265. It has +been pointed out that most of the Greek festivals known to us fell in the +first half of the month, and especially on the twelfth day. “Zugrunde +liegt die weit verbreitete Vorstellung, dass alles, was gedeihen und +zunehmen soll, während des zunehmenden Mondes vorgenommen werden soll” +(M. P. Nilsson in _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1911, xiv, 441 +_sq._). + +[389] J. T. Bent, _The Cyclades_, London, 1885, p. 438. + +[390] John Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_, edited by J. +Britten, London, 1881, p. 85. + +[391] On the superstitions attaching to eclipses, generally, see R. +Lasch, “Die Finsternisse in der Mythologie und im religiösen Brauch der +Völker,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1900, iii, 97-152. + +[392] W. E. H. Barrett, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1911, xli, 35. + +[393] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 166 _sq._ See above, pp. 50 _sq._ + +[394] Rivers, _op. cit._, pp. 580, 592. + +[395] _Madras Weekly Mail_, 15th October, 1908, quoted by Edgar Thurston, +_Omens and Superstitions of Southern India_, London and Leipzig, 1912, p. +44. + +[396] R. G. Chaube, “Some of the Most Popular Beliefs and Superstitions +of the Hindus of Northern India,” _Journal of the Anthropological Society +of Bombay_, v, 326. + +[397] W. Crooke, _The Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_,² +Westminster, 1896, i, 21 _sqq._; compare _idem_, _Natives of Northern +India_, London, 1907, p. 203. See also H. G. Rose, “Hindu Pregnancy +Observances in the Punjab,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1905, xxxv, 277 _sq._ + +[398] John Barrow, _Travels in China_, London, 1804, p. 287. + +[399] Thucydides, vii, 50; Plutarch, _Nicias_, 23. + +[400] J. Buxtorf, _Synagoga Judaica_,³ Basel, 1680, p. 477: _Defectum +lunæ pro pessimo habent signo, quod aliquid mali et inauspicati ab +hostibus et inimicis suis portendat. Ideo ejusmodi die animas vulgo +jejunio affligunt et ab hostibus suis a Deo defendi postulant._ + +[401] Above, p. 134. During a solar eclipse Swabian peasants totally +abandon their usual occupations and shut up their cattle in the stalls +(A. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_, Freiburg-i.-B., 1861-1862, +i, 189). In Ober-Pfalz and Bohemia at such a time it is believed to be +dangerous to eat anything or even to go outside the house, unless one’s +mouth is securely covered with a cloth (Wuttke-Meyer, _op. cit._, p. 302). + +[402] C. W. Hobley, _Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African Tribes_, +Cambridge, 1910, p. 53. + +[403] W. S. Routledge and Katherine Routledge, _With a Prehistoric +People_, London, 1910, p. 284. + +[404] W. W. A. Fitzgerald, _Travels in the Coastlands of British East +Africa_, London, 1898, p. 111, quoting W. E. Taylor, _Vocabulary of the +Giryama Language_, London, 1897. The name of these rest days—_jumwa_—is +Arabic; see above, p. 107 _n._² + +[405] P. B. Du Chaillu, _In African Forest and Jungle_, New York, 1903, +pp. 96 _sq._ + +[406] Horace Waller, editor, _The Last Journals of David Livingstone in +Central Africa_, New York, 1875, p. 273. + +[407] J. Y. Gibson, _The Story of the Zulus_, London, 1911, p. 175. + +[408] Gengnagel, “Volksglaube und Wahrsagerei an der Westküste Indiens,” +_Ausland_, 1891, lxiv, 871 _sq._ Another observer declares that if a cow +calves on the new-moon day, her milk, it is believed, will kill the owner +(P. Kershasp, “Some Superstitions prevailing among the Canarese-speaking +People of Southern India,” _Journal of the Anthropological Society of +Bombay_, vii, 84). + +[409] R. B. Bainbridge, in _Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, +1907, ii, 50. + +[410] J. Wilson, in _Indian Antiquary_, 1897, xxvi, 308 (from _Punjab +Notes and Queries_, 1883). + +[411] M. Jastrow, _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia +and Assyria_, New York, 1911, pp. 214, 333 _sqq._; _idem_, _Die Religion +Babyloniens und Assyriens_, Giessen, 1905-1912, i, 440, ii, 510 _sqq._ +Compare L. W. King, _Babylonian Magic and Sorcery_, London, 1896, pp. 5 +_sq._ + +[412] I. Goldziher, in _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1910, xiii, 44 +_n._⁴ For the Abyssinian beliefs see E. Littmann, _ibid._, 1908, xi, 314 +_sq._ + +[413] E. Rhode, _Psyche_,⁶ Tübingen, 1910, i, 234 _n._¹, 269 _n._²; +E. Caillemer, in Daremberg and Saglio’s _Dictionnaire des antiquités +grecques et romaines_, i, 332. G. F. Schoemann denies that the ἀσέλινοι +were truly ill-omened, since there are instances of popular assemblies +being fixed for these days (_Griechische Alterthümer_,⁴ edited by J. H. +Lipsius, Berlin, 1897-1902, ii, 457 _n._⁴). It would seem, however, that +the Athenians, like the Romans, sometimes distinguished between days +popularly considered unlucky and those officially recognized as such in +the state calendars. Friday is for us a most unlucky day, but, excepting +Good Friday, it is not a _dies non_. + +[414] Roscher, _Über Selene und Verwandtes_, pp. 46 _sqq._ The interlunar +days were selected by the ancients for the celebration of the sacred +marriages of the gods and goddesses and, particularly, of the sun and +moon. At least from the time of Thales the conjunction of the two +luminaries was indicated by the same term σύνοδος (_coitus_) which was +applied to the act of procreation (_ibid._, pp. 76 _sqq._). + +[415] T. F. T. Dyer, _English Folklore_, London, 1878, p. 41; Thomas +Hardy, _The Return of the Native_, London, 1895, p. 29. + +[416] H. A. Hazen, in _Journal of American Folk-lore_, 1900, xiii, 192. +American folklore contains the injunction never to kill cattle or pigs, +or even wild game, by the “dark of the moon”; it is most unlucky, and the +meat will come to no good (Bergen, _Current Superstitions_, p. 121). + +[417] W. Smythe and F. Lowe, _Narrative of a Journey from Lima to Para_, +London, 1836, p. 230. + +[418] Father G. Boscana, “Chinigchinich,” in _Life in California by an +American_, New York, 1846, pp. 298 _sq._ + +[419] Jonathan Carver, _Travels through the Interior Parts of North +America_,³ London, 1781, pp. 250, 252. + +[420] W. Bartram, in _Transactions of the American Ethnological Society_, +1853, iii, pt. i, 26. + +[421] Merolla, “Voyage to Congo,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, +xvi, 273. + +[422] Mungo Park, _op. cit._, i, 265. + +[423] G. W. Stow, _The Native Races of South Africa_, London, 1905, p. +112. For further examples of new-moon and full-moon celebrations see P. +Kolben, _The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope_, London, 1731, i, +96 (Hottentots); J. Bonwick, _Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians_, +London, 1870, pp. 186 _sqq._; Seligmann, _Melanesians of British New +Guinea_, p. 193 (Koita); Carl Ribbe, _Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen +der Salomo-Inseln_, Dresden, 1903, p. 163 (Shortland Island); Taylor, +_Te Ika A Maui_, p. 93 (Maori); Turner, _Samoa_, p. 67; A. E. Jenks, in +_Ethnological Survey Publications_, i, 206 (Bontoc Igorot of Luzon); V. +Solomon, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, xxxii, 213 +(Nicobarese); W. Bogoras, in _Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural +History_, xi, 378 (Chukchi); J. v. Klaproth, _Reise in den Kaukasus und +nach Georgien_, Halle, 1814, ii, 602 (Osetes); A. von Humboldt, _Vues des +Cordillères_, Paris, 1816, ii, 244 (Muysca of Colombia). + +[424] Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_,³ ii, 140. + +[425] The vice of seeking particularistic explanations of widespread +social phenomena is illustrated by Nielsen, who, with misdirected +ingenuity, has argued that the early Semites founded their Sabbaths +on the observation that the moon (conceived as a divinity) rests +four times in a lunation. Days on which the deity rested were to be +likewise observed by his worshippers as days of rest (D. Nielsen, _Die +altarabische Mondreligion und die mosaische Überlieferung_, Strassburg, +1904, pp. 63 _sqq._). It is true that the moon looks full for a day or +two before and for a day or two after she is full; similarly, the changes +in her form at the beginning of a lunation are scarcely perceptible. +The moon, therefore, might be said to “rest” at these two periods. But +neither astronomical science nor untutored observation lends any support +to the idea that the moon “rests” at the close of each and every phase. +Such a hypothesis, were it true, would not account for the other forms +of abstinence, in addition to the cessation of labour, which occur in +connection with the moon’s changes. And, as we shall see, the observance +of lunar taboos may be quite dissociated from true moon-worship and +probably long antedates the latter cult. + +[426] Above, pp. 14 _sq._, 20, 32 _and_ _n._², 34 and _n._¹, 37, 52 _n._¹ + +[427] Lieutenant Farewell, in W. F. W. Owen, _Narrative of Voyages to +explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar_, London, 1833, ii, +397; compare Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, London, 1904, p. 110. + +[428] G. W. Stow, _The Native Races of South Africa_, London, 1905, p. +414. + +[429] _Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa_,²⁵ New York, +1870, p. 255. + +[430] John Campbell, _Travels in South Africa_, London, 1822, ii, 205. + +[431] L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_, London, 1900, pp. 85 _sq._ + +[432] _Ibid._, p. 295. + +[433] J. F. Cunningham, _Uganda and its Peoples_, London, 1905, p. 294. + +[434] Above, p. 136. + +[435] Hobley, _op. cit._, p. 104. + +[436] John Roscoe, _The Baganda_, London, 1911, pp. 297, 299, 428; +_idem_, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, xxxii, 76. + +[437] Roscoe, _Baganda_, pp. 320 _sqq._; _idem_, “Python Worship in +Uganda,” _Man_, 1909, ix, 88 _sqq._ + +[438] _Idem_, _Baganda_, pp. 249 _sq._ + +[439] Mrs. A. B. Fisher, _Twilight Tales of the Black Baganda_, London +[1912], pp. 37 _sq._ + +[440] J. H. Speke, _Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile_, +Edinburgh, 1863, p. 523. + +[441] _Ibid._, p. 259. According to Speke this custom is also observed by +the king of Uganda, who, on the first day after the appearance of the new +moon, examines and arranges his _mapembe_, or fetishes (_ibid._, p. 372). + +[442] The Mendi of the hinterland of Sierra Leone are said to hold a +new-moon festival and at it to abstain from all work, “alleging that +if they infringed this rule corn and rice would grow red, the new moon +being a ‘day of blood.’” Ellis, who cites this instance without giving +his authority, adds the further fact that the Mendi recognize no weeks +(_Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, p. 146). + +[443] _Ibid._ Ellis presented his arguments more fully in an article “On +the Origin of Weeks and Sabbaths,” _Popular Science Monthly_, 1895, xlvi, +329-343. + +[444] W. Crooke, _The Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_,² +Westminster, 1896, i, 23. + +[445] Gengnagel, “Volksglaube und Wahrsagerei an der Westküste Indiens,” +_Ausland_, 1891, lxiv, 871 _sq._ + +[446] F. Jagor, in _Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für +Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte_, 1876, p. (201) (bound with +_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, vol. viii). + +[447] Thurston, _Omens and Superstitions of Southern India_, p. 22. + +[448] _Rig-Veda_, i, 9, 1, i, 94, 4 (transl. H. Grassmann, ii, 8, +95); _Atharva-Veda_, vii, 79, 3, vii, 80, 1-4 (transl. W. D. Whitney, +pp. 444-446); Martin Haug, _The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rig-Veda_, +Bombay, 1863, ii, 5; A. Weber, “Zur Kenntnis des vedische Opferrituals,” +_Indische Studien_, 1868, x, 329 _sqq._; H. Zimmer, _Altindisches +Leben_, Berlin, 1879, pp. 364 _sq._; A. Hillebrandt, _Das altindische +Neu- und Vollmondsopfer_, Jena, 1879; _idem_, in Bühler’s _Grundriss der +indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde_, Strassburg, 1901, ii, pt. +ii, pp. 75 _sq._ The new-moon day was called _darśa_, the day of the full +moon, _pūrṇamāsa_. + +[449] The first day was called _upavasatha_, a fasting or fast day +(compare Sanskrit _upa_, an adverbial adjunct, signifying to refrain +from, abstain, hence, to fast). The second day’s ceremony was known as +the _darśapūrṇamāsa_ sacrifice. + +[450] _Satapatha-Brâhmana_, i, 1, 1, 1 _sqq._ (_Sacred Books of the +East_, xii, 1 _sq._; compare also 374 _sq._). + +[451] A. Hillebrandt, _Vedische Mythologie_, Breslau, 1891-1899, i, 267 +_sqq._, 313, 366 _sqq._; ii, 209-240. + +[452] A. Bergaigne, _La religion védique_, Paris, 1878, i, 157 _sqq._; +A. A. Macdonell, _Vedic Mythology_, Strassburg, 1897, pp. 112 _sqq._; +E. W. Hopkins, _The Religions of India_, Boston, 1895, pp. 112 _sqq._; +J. Muir, _Original Sanskrit Texts_,³ London, 1884, v, 270 _sq._ Compare +_Satapatha-Brâhmana_, i, 6, 4, 5 _sqq._ (_S. B. E._, xii, 176 _sqq._). + +[453] _Grihya-sûtra of Gobhila_, i, 5, 1-26 (_S. B. E._, xxx, 25-28). + +[454] _Institutes of Vishnu_, xlvii, 3 (_S. B. E._, vii, 152). + +[455] _Laws of Manu_, xi, 217 _sqq._ (_S. B. E._, xxv, 474 _sq._). + +[456] _Ibid._, iv, 128 (_S. B. E._, xxv, 149). + +[457] _Vishńu Puráńa_, iii, 11 (the translation by H. H. Wilson, edited +by F. Hall, London, 1865, iii, 132 _sq._). + +[458] _Ibid._, ii, 6 (Wilson-Hall, ii, 219). + +[459] J. A. Dubois, _Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies_,³ Oxford, +1906, p. 270. + +[460] _Laws of Manu_, iv, 113 _sq._ (_S. B. E._, xxv, 147). + +[461] _Ibid._, iv, 101 _sqq._ (_S. B. E._, xxv, 144 _sqq._). + +[462] Gautama, xvi, 22, 35-37 (_S. B. E._, ii, 258 _sqq._). Compare +Âpastamba, i, 3, 9, 28: “at the new moon (he shall not study) for two +days and nights” (_S. B. E._, ii, 36). + +[463] _Vishńu Puráńa_, iii, 12 (Wilson-Hall, iii, 143). + +[464] Sir M. Monier-Williams, _Brāhmanism and Hindūism_,⁴ New York, 1891, +p. 433. + +[465] H. H. Wilson, “The Religious Festivals of the Hindus,” in _Essays +and Lectures chiefly on the Religion of the Hindus_, edited by R. Rost, +London, 1862, ii, 194. + +[466] H. H. Wilson, “The Religious Festivals of the Hindus,” in _Essays +and Lectures chiefly on the Religion of the Hindus_, edited by R. Rost, +London, 1862, ii, 197. + +[467] _Ibid._, p. 199. + +[468] _Sûtrakṛtâṅga_, ii, 7, 17; compare, ii, 2, 76 (_S. B. E._, xlv, 428 +_sq._, 383). + +[469] _Uttarâdhyayana_, v, 23; compare ix, 42 (_S. B. E._, xlv, 23, 39). + +[470] H. Jacobi, _Gaina Sûtras_, Oxford, 1895, pp. xix, 23 _n._² (_S. B. +E._, vol. xlv). + +[471] Margaret Stevenson, “Festivals and Fasts (Jain),” Hastings’s +_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, v, 875 _sq._ + +[472] H. Kern, _Der Buddhismus und seine Geschichte in Indien_, Leipzig, +1884, ii, 256 _sqq._; _idem_, _Manual of Indian Buddhism_, Strassburg, +1896, pp. 99 _sq._; R. C. Childers, _A Dictionary of the Pali Language_, +London, 1875, _s.v._ _uposatha_. + +[473] _Mahâvagga_, ii, 1, 1-4 (_S. B. E._, xiii, 239 _sq._; compare p. x). + +[474] _Ibid._, ii, 1, 4 (_S. B. E._, xiii, 240). This rule is to be +understood as requiring an assembly to be held on the fourteenth _or_ the +fifteenth of each half-month, according as the month had twenty-nine or +thirty days. In other words an _uposatha_ service on the fourteenth day +of a short month was to be followed by a celebration on the fifteenth +of the following long month. Compare _ibid._, ii, 34, 1. The important +word “half,” which has been inserted above, was omitted by an unfortunate +oversight in the translation of this passage from the _Mahâvagga_, as +given in the _Sacred Books of the East_. It appears, however, in Mr. H. +C. Warren’s rendering of the same passage (_Buddhism in Translations_, +Cambridge [Mass.], 1909, p. 404). + +[475] _Sutta Nipâta_, ii, 14, 26 (_S. B. E._, x, pt. ii, 66). + +[476] The eighth day of the waning moon (_áṣṭakā_) is distinctly +mentioned in the Vedas, as forming with new moon and full moon the +regular festival periods. Compare _Atharva-Veda_, xv, 16, 2 (transl. +W. D. Whitney, p. 790); Zimmer, _op. cit._, p. 365; H. Oldenberg, _Die +Religion des Veda_, Berlin, 1894, p. 439. Of these, the full-moon +day seems to have enjoyed most importance (Oldenberg, _loc. cit._), +and similarly in Buddhism. Compare _Mahâ-Sudassana Sutta_, i, 11: +“On the Sabbath day, on the day of full moon” (_S. B. E._, xi, 251 +_sq._). Elsewhere the _uposatha_ service is referred particularly to +the fifteenth day of the month, “it being full moon” (_Sutta Nipâta_, +iii, 12), prœm. (_S. B. E._, x, pt. ii, 131 _sq._). In very early +times the Hindus had named and deified as goddesses the four phases +of the moon. See _Rig-Veda_, ii, 32 (transl. H. Grassmann, i, 41); +_Satapatha-Brâhmana_, ix, 5, 1, 38 (_S. B. E._, xliii, 264); C. Lassen, +_Indische Alterthumskunde_,² Leipzig and London, 1867-1874, i, 986. + +[477] _Mahâvagga_, ii, 4, 1-2 (_S. B. E._, xiii, 246 _sq._). The +_patimokkha_ is one of the oldest parts of the Buddhist canonical +compositions. The Pali version has been translated in full by Professors +Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (_S. B. E._, vol. xiii) and the part +for monks, by J. F. Dickson (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, +1876, n.s., viii, 62-130). For a description of these ceremonies as +witnessed March 27, 1893, at the Malwatta monastery in Kandy see E. M. +Bowden, “The _uposatha_ and _upasampadâ_ Ceremonies,” _ibid._, 1893, +n.s., xxv, 159-161. Mr. Bowden notes that at the Malwatta monastery the +_uposatha_ service is held more frequently on the day which precedes the +new and the full moon than on the new and full-moon days. + +[478] _Sutta Nipâta_, ii, 14, 19-26 (_S. B. E._, x, pt. ii, 65 _sqq._). +See also T. W. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, London, 1890, pp. 137 _sqq._; +Childers, _op. cit._, _s.v._ _sīlaṁ_. The prohibition of drinking +intoxicating liquors was directed against the ancient _soma_ sacrifice on +the second day of the _upavasatha_ ceremony. See _Satapatha-Brâhmana_, 1, +6, 4, 5 _sqq._ (_S. B. E._, xii, 176 _sqq._). On the other hand the last +precept is identical with one of the regulations for the _upavasatha_, +where the celebrant is distinctly enjoined to sleep on the ground (or a +shake-down of grass, a blanket). See _Satapatha-Brâhmana_, i, 1, 1, 11 +(_S. B. E._, xii, 6). + +[479] Mahony, in _Asiatic Researches_, 1803, vii, 40 _sq._; Edward Upham, +_Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon_, London, 1833, iii, 161 _sqq._; +R. S. Hardy, _Eastern Monachism_, London, 1850, pp. 236 _sqq._; _idem_, +_Manual of Buddhism_,² London, 1880, pp. 22, 50, 52; C. F. Köppen, _Die +Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung_, Berlin, 1857-1859, i, 563 +_sq._; D. J. Gogerly, “The Laws of the Buddhist Priesthood,” _Journal +of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1858-1859, iii, +253-261. By the Kandian, who occupy the interior of Ceylon, not only the +_poya_ days, but all unlucky days (_vitti_) as well, are observed with +abstinence from agricultural labour (P. Kehelpannala, in _Journal of the +Anthropological Institute_, 1896, xxv, 108). + +[480] Michael Symes, _An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava_, +London, 1800, p. 335. See further Hiram Cox, _Journal of a Residence in +the Burman Empire_, London, 1821, p. 241; Sangermano, _A Description of +the Burmese Empire_, translated by W. Tandy, Rome, 1833, p. 92; C. J. F. +S. Forbes, _British Burma_, London, 1878, pp. 169 _sqq._ + +[481] Shway Yoe [Sir J. G. Scott], _The Burman: his Life and Notions_,³ +London, 1910, pp. 217-220. The Tungthu of Tenasserim have borrowed these +“duty days” from the Burmese (_Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan +States_, edited by Scott and Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. i, vol. i, p. +558). + +[482] F. H. Turpin, _Histoire civile et naturelle du royaume de Siam_, +Paris, 1771, i, 45 _sq._ The “fourth day” of the moon must here be +counted from the astronomical new moon. The _uposatha_ in Siam, as in +Ceylon and Burma, falls regularly on the eighth and fifteenth days of the +waxing moon and on the eighth and fourteenth or fifteenth days of the +waning moon. + +[483] J. B. Pallegoix, _Description du royaume Thai ou Siam_, Paris, +1854, i, 249. + +[484] John Crawfurd, _Journal of an Embassy_, London, 1830, ii, 75; Sir +John Bowring, _The Kingdom and People of Siam_, London, 1857, i, 158. + +[485] J. G. D. Campbell, _Siam in the Twentieth Century_, London, 1904, +p. 224 _n._¹; G. E. Gerini, “Festivals and Fasts (Siamese),” Hastings’s +_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, v, 885. + +[486] J. Moura, _Le royaume de Cambodge_, Paris, 1883, i, 321. The Malays +of the Malacca Peninsula regard the fourteenth and fifteenth days of each +lunar month as unlucky. On these two days no work in the rice fields +is allowed, a prohibition which only increases the native tendency to +laziness (C. O. Blagden, “Notes on the Folk-lore and Popular Religion +of the Malays,” _Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic +Society_, 1896, no. 29, p. 6). + +[487] E. Schlaginweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, Leipzig and London, 1863, p. +237. + +[488] L. A. Waddell, _The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism_, London, 1895, +p. 501; W. W. Rockhill, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1891, +n.s., xxiii, 207 _n._³ + +[489] Marco Polo refers to five days or four days or three days in each +month when the lamas or clergy of Tibetan Buddhism shed no blood and +abstain from animal food (Sir Henry Yule, _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_,³ +London, 1903, i, 220, 223). Compare N. Prejevalsky, _Mongolia_, London, +1876, i, 65. + +[490] Köppen, _op. cit._, i, 564. + +[491] P. S. Pallas, _Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des russischen +Reichs_, Frankfort, 1776, i, 295. + +[492] Joseph Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_,² London, 1893, p. 206. In +Buddhist monasteries the _patimokkha_ is regularly recited at new moon +and full moon. The ceremony is known as _posadha_ (J. J. M. de Groot, +“Buddhism in China,” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, +iii, 554). + +[493] J. H. Gray, _China_, London, 1878, i, 263 _n._¹; C. Pitou, _La +Chine_, Lausanne and Paris [1902], pp. 27 _sqq._ See also W. Grube, +_Religion und Kultus der Chinesen_, Leipzig, 1910, p. 66; J. D. Ball, +_The Celestial and his Religions_, Hongkong, 1906, p. 25; J. Edkins, +_Religion in China_,² London, 1878, pp. 48 _sq._ + +[494] E. Kaempfer, _History of Japan_, ii, 21 _sq._ (Glasgow reprint, +1906). + +[495] R. Friederich, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1876, +n.s., viii, 197 _sq._ Most priests also observe with prayer and fasting +every fifth day (_kaliwon_) of the Javanese five-day market week, which +has been introduced into Bali (Friederich, _loc. cit._). + +[496] E. H. Man, in _Indian Antiquary_, 1897, xxvi, 269 _n._³⁰ According +to this account the Nicobarese do not observe new-moon ceremonies. Other +authorities, however, refer to sacrifices and celebrations at this +time. See V. Solomon, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1902, xxxii, 204, 213; W. Svoboda, in _Internationales Archiv für +Ethnographie_, 1893, vi, 22. + +[497] Above, pp. 40 _sqq._ + +[498] _Yasna_, i, 8 (so also _ibid._, ii, 8; compare _Yast_ vii, 4). See +L. H. Gray, “Festivals and Feasts (Iranian),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia +of Religion and Ethics_, v, 872; L. H. Mills, in _Sacred Books of the +East_, xxxi, 198, 205; W. Geiger, _Civilization of the Eastern Irānians_, +London, 1885, i, 146 _n._¹ The term _vishaptatha_, here translated “the +intervening seventh” refers to the seventh day between the new moon (on +the 1st) and the full moon (on the 15th), that is, to the 8th day of the +month (E. Bartholomae, _Altiranisches Wörterbuch_, Strassburg, 1904, col. +1472). The theories as to the meaning of _vishaptatha_, advanced by J. +Darmesteter, have not won the acceptance of scholars (_Sacred Books of +the East_, xxiii, 90 _n._⁵; _Le Zend-Avesta_, Paris, 1892-1893, i, 12 +_n._³⁴). + +[499] R. Roth, “Der Kalender des Avesta und die sogenannten _gahanbâr_,” +_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, 1880, xxxiv, +710; L. H. Gray, “Der iranische Kalender,” Geiger and Kuhn’s _Grundriss +der iranischen Philologie_, ii, 675 _sq._ There is extant a Pehlevi +tract, said to have been composed in Persia during the fourth century +A.D., which mentions among other matters five days in every month, +namely, the 1st, 7th, 14th, 22d, and 30th, as times to be observed by +abstinence from all worldly business. The manuscript sets forth in +detail the peculiar virtues of all the days of one of the Zoroastrian +months. “Some are best for beginning a journey or voyage, others for +the regulation of matters of domestic economy, some again for social +gatherings and festivities, and others again for the pursuit of learning, +while not a few are reserved for rest and pious contemplation.” These +precepts are no longer observed; in fact, their very existence is unknown +to most Parsis at the present day. See D. F. Karaka, _History of the +Parsis_, London, 1884, i, 132 _sqq._ + +[500] _Pyramid Texts_, § 521 (= Teti, l. 12); compare _ibid._, § 1453 (= +Pepi, l. 657 = Mernere, ll. 763-764). Professor J. H. Breasted of the +University of Chicago has very kindly furnished me with a translation of +these passages, based on the monumental edition of the texts prepared by +K. Sethe (_Die altägyptischen Pyramidentexte_, Leipzig, 1908-1910). + +[501] _The Book of the Dead_ (Theban Recension), chs. cxxxv, cxl (_The +Chapters of Coming Forth by Day_, translated by E. A. W. Budge, London, +1898, pp. 218, 230). See also H. Brugsch, “Über die Hieroglyphe des +Neumondes und ihre verschiedenen Bedeutungen,” _Zeitschrift der deutschen +morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, 1856, x, 676. + +[502] J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Chicago, 1906, i, +285. See further E. Mahler, _Études sur le calendrier égyptien_, Paris, +1907, p. 128; _idem_, in _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen +Gesellschaft_, 1908, lxii, 35. + +[503] Breasted, _op. cit._, ii, 184; for an earlier translation see S. +Birch, in _Records of the Past_, ii, 43. + +[504] H. Brugsch, _Thesaurus inscriptionum Ægyptiacarum_, Leipzig, +1883-1891, pt. i, 30 _sqq._, 49 _sqq._; _idem_, _Die Ägyptologie_, +Leipzig, 1891, pp. 332 _sq._ + +[505] Brugsch, _Thesaurus_, pt. i, 52; _idem_, _Ägyptologie_, p. 332. + +[506] Compare _idem_, _Ägyptologie_, p. 334; E. Meyer, “Ägyptische +Chronologie,” _Abhandlungen der königlich-preussischen Akademie der +Wissenschaften_, 1904, p. 7. + +[507] Herodotus, ii, 47; Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_, 8, 43, 52; +Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_,³ ii, 129-131; Budge, _Osiris and the +Egyptian Resurrection_, i, 384-396. + +[508] J. Meursius, _Græcia feriata, sive de festis Græcorum_, Lugduni +Batavorum, 1619, pp. 210-214; F. G. Welcker, _Griechische Götterlehre_, +Göttingen, 1857, i, 554 _sq._; W. H. Roscher, _Über Selene und +Verwandtes_, pp. 110 _sq._; _idem_, in _Philologus_, 1898, lvii, 216, +218; E. Saglio, “Noumenia,” Daremberg and Saglio’s _Dictionnaire des +antiquités grecques et romaines_, iv, 108. The word νουμηνία occasionally +was used in the sense of the true or astronomical new moon (Thucydides, +ii, 28). + +[509] _Odyssey_, xxi, 258 _sq._: νῦν μὲν γὰρ κατὰ δῆμον ἑορτὴ τοῖο θεοῖο +ἁγνή· τίς δέ κε τόξα τιταίνοιτ’; Compare _ibid._, xiv, 158-162, xx, 156, +276-278. + +[510] _Opera et dies_, 770. + +[511] Aristophanes, _Nubes_, 615-619; _idem_, _Acharnenses_, 999; +_idem_, _Vespæ_, 96; Demosthenes, _Adv. Aristogiton_, i, 99; Athenæus, +_Deipnosophistæ_, xii, 76; Plutarch, _Quæstiones Romanæ_, 25; _idem_, _De +vitando ære alieno_, 2; Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, ii, 16; Theophrastus, +_Characteres_, 14; Lucian, _Icaromenippus_, 13; _idem_, _Lexiphanes_, 6. + +[512] Aristophanes, _Vespæ_, 171; _idem_, _Equites_, 43 _sq._; Alciphron, +_Epistolæ_, iii, 38; Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, ii, 129; Proclus, on +Hesiod, _Opera et dies_, 780; Suidas, _s.v._ νουμηνία (ed. G. Bernhardy, +Halle, 1853, ii, 1010). + +[513] _Hymni Homerici_, xxxii, 11; Plutarch, _De gloria Atheniensis_, +7; _idem_, _Dion_, 23. Hesiod (_op. cit._, 819, compare 794 _sqq._) +describes the 14th of the month as “above all a holy day” (περὶ πάντων +ἱερὸν ἦμαρ). + +[514] Above, p. 130. + +[515] Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i, 15, 9. + +[516] Ovid, _Fasti_, i, 47; Plutarch, _Quæstiones Romanæ_, 24; Vergil, +_Bucolica_, i, 43 _sq._; Horace, _Carmina_, iii, 23, 1 _sq._ + +[517] Macrobius, _op. cit._, i, 15, 15; Ovid, _op. cit._, i, 48 _sq._; +Lydus, _De mensibus_, iii, 7. + +[518] Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_, p. 369; compare T. +Mommsen, in _Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_, i, pt. i,² 297. + +[519] Above, pp. 80 _sq._, 94. + +[520] Varro, _De lingua Latina_, 29; Ovid, _Fasti_, i, 59 _sq._; Livy, +vi, 1; Plutarch, _Quæstiones Romanæ_, 25; Gellius, _Noctes Atticæ_, iv, +9, 5; Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i, 16, 18. These days were also described +as _atri vel vitiosi_. The greater number of them were available for +judicial business, but not for meetings of the assemblies (_dies fasti +non comitiales_). Many Romans also regarded as ominous the fourth day +before the Kalends, Nones, and Ides; according to one account because +the battle of Cannæ took place on the fourth day before the Nones of the +month Sextilis (Gellius, _op. cit._, v, 17, 3). + +[521] Verrius Flaccus, _ap._ Gellius, _op. cit._, v, 17; Macrobius, _op. +cit._, i, 16, 21. + +[522] On this point I am happy to find myself in agreement with Dr. W. +Warde Fowler, who also regards the traditional explanation of the _dies +postriduani_ as an ætiological myth. “The fact that the authorities +of the state had made one or two days _religiosi_ as anniversaries of +disasters, supplied a handy explanation for a number of other _dies +religiosi_ of which the true explanation had been entirely lost; but that +there was such a true explanation, resting on very primitive beliefs, I +have very little doubt” (_The Religious Experience of the Roman People_, +London, 1911, p. 40). Dr. Fowler in a letter (under date Dec. 9, 1911) +tells me that he regards as “quite probable” the suggestion in the +text that these days were originally tabooed in consequence of lunar +superstitions attaching to them. + +[523] _Geographica_, iii, 4, 16. + +[524] _Germania_, 9, 11. + +[525] Isidorus Hispalensis, _Etymologiæ sive origines_, v, 33. + +[526] J. K. Fotheringham, “Calendar (Introductory),” Hastings’s +_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, iii, 61-64; F. K. Ginzel, +_Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, Leipzig, +1906-1911, ii, 121-159; E. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_, +Erster Band, Erste Hälfte, Berlin, 1907, pp. 231-243; R. Schram, +“Jahrform und Zeitrechnung verschiedener Völker,” _Mitteilungen der +kaiserlich-königlichen geographischen Gesellschaft in Wien_, 1884, xxvii, +481-498; M. Hubert, “Étude sommaire de la représentation du temps dans +la religion et la magie,” in Hubert and Mauss, _Mélanges d’histoire des +religions_, Paris, 1909, pp. 189-229. + +[527] The lunar or synodic month, determined by the synodic revolution +of the moon, is the time between two successive conjunctions of that +luminary with the sun, and may be measured from new moon to new moon +or from full to full. It varies about thirteen hours by reason of +eccentricities of the moon’s orbit and of that of the earth about the +sun, but its mean value is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3 seconds. +The length of the “light month,” or period of the moon’s visibility, +though commonly taken at three days, is a variable quantity. It is the +usual practice to assume that the moon becomes visible on the first +evening when she is more than thirty hours old at sunset. Her mean age +when first seen is, therefore, 30 hours + 24/2 hours = 1 day, 18 hours. +See J. K. Fotheringham, “On the Smallest Visible Phase of the Moon,” +_Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society_, 1910, lxx, 527-531. + +[528] E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, Oxford, +1892-1899, ii, 329, 331; E. Förstemann, in _Bulletin of the Bureau of +American Ethnology_, 1904, no. 28, p. 523 (Maya pre-solar calendar). + +[529] Horapollo, _Hieroglyphica_, i, 4; compare H. Brugsch, in +_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, 1856, x, +676; C. R. Lepsius, _Die Chronologie der Ägypter_, Berlin, 1849, i, +156 _sq._, 219; E. Meyer, “Ägyptische Chronologie,” _Abhandlungen der +königlich-preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_, Berlin, 1904, pp. +5 _sqq._ Papyri discovered by Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie at Kahun, +belonging to the age of Sesostris III, show that a lunar year of three +hundred and fifty-five days was still recognized as late as the Twelfth +Dynasty. These papyri relate to the temple revenues, which the priests, +with characteristic religious conservatism, were accustomed to reckon +according to lunar months (seven of thirty days and five of twenty-nine +days). See L. Borchardt, in _Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache_, 1899, +xxxvii, 92-95. + +[530] Below, pp. 226, 247. + +[531] O. Schrader, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, +translated by F. B. Jevons, London, 1890, p. 306; _idem_, _Reallexikon +der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, Strassburg, 1901, p. 547. + +[532] R. Andree, “Die Plejaden im Mythus und in ihrer Beziehung zum +Jahresbeginn und Landbau,” _Globus_, 1893, lxiv, 362-366; Sir J. G. +Frazer, _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, London, 1912, i, 307-319; +E. Förstemann, “The Pleiades among the Mayas,” _Bulletin of the Bureau of +American Ethnology_, 1904, no. 28, pp. 523 _sq._ + +[533] The lunar year of twelve synodic months consists, exactly, of 354 +days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, and 36 seconds. The Maori have a legend to the +effect that their ancient year contained ten months only, until a certain +teacher, full of divine wisdom, instructed them to make their year +twelve months long (E. Tregear, _The Maori Race_, Wanganui [N.Z.], 1904, +p. 143). The Chinese have a similar tradition of a ten-month year (H. +A. Giles, _A Glossary of References on Subjects connected with the Far +East_,³ Shanghai, 1900, p. 183). The Roman “year of Romulus” consisted +of ten months and (commonly) three hundred and four days (Censorinus, +_De die natali_, xx, 2-3; Lydus, _De mensibus_, i, 16). Sceptical modern +historians are inclined to dismiss the Roman tradition as a mere figment +of the imagination. + +[534] The thirteenth month is referred to in the _Rig-Veda_ (i, 25, +8; transl. H. Grassmann, ii, 25) as the “later-born month”; compare +_Atharva-Veda_, v, 6, 4, xiii, 3, 8 (transl. W. D. Whitney, pp. 230, +729). This intercalary month bears a distinctly unfavourable character, +being regarded as unfit for any religious undertaking (Haug, _Aitareya +Brahmanam_, ii, 26). Among the Loango negroes the thirteenth month, +inserted every three years, is likewise regarded as an evil time (E. +Pechuël-Loesche, _op. cit._, pp. 138 _sq._). + +[535] The old Roman arrangement of the months, though based on the +lunar year, is _sui generis_. Four of the twelve months, viz., March, +May, July, and October, had thirty-one days, and the rest twenty-nine +days, except February, which had twenty-eight days. All the months thus +had an odd number of days, save February, which was specially devoted +to purificatory ceremonies and the cult of the dead. This peculiar +arrangement appears to have been based on an old belief that odd numbers +are of good omen, even numbers, of ill omen (T. Mommsen, _Die römische +Chronologie bis auf Cæsar_, Berlin, 1858, p. 13; Marquardt-Wissowa, +_Römische Staatsverwaltung_, iii,² 284). The superstition, alluded to +by Vergil in a famous line—_Numero deus impare gaudet_ (_Bucolica_, +viii, 75)—is supposed to have been derived from Pythagorean speculations +regarding the cosmic properties of numbers. It may better be considered +a genuinely Italian notion, since like beliefs are found in the folklore +of other peoples, notably the old Arabs and the modern Hindus. See I. +Goldziher, in _Globus_, 1901, lxxx, 31; Crooke, _Popular Religion and +Folk-lore of Northern India_,² ii, 51. The choice of 355 days, rather +than 354 days, as the length of the Roman lunar year, was undoubtedly +determined by the prevalence of the same superstition (Censorinus, _De +die natali_, xx, 4). + +[536] This custom explains the widespread practice of beginning the civil +day at sunset or, more accurately, in the interval between the going-down +of the sun and complete darkness. The necessities of a calendar system +requiring that the first day of the month should be counted from the same +moment that the month itself is supposed to begin, it follows that the +other days of the month must also be calculated from evening to evening. +The noctidiurnal cycle is widespread throughout the lower culture, being +found, generally, among the North American Indians, the Melanesians and +Polynesians, and in Africa. The same cycle obtained among many peoples +of archaic civilization. The Babylonian day began with the evening, and +this is still the custom among the Arabs and throughout the Mohammedan +world. Modern Jewish communities, in beginning their ritual day in the +evening, retain a practice illustrated by several Old Testament passages +(_Genesis_, i, 5; _Psalms_, lv, 17). Various festivals and fasts, such +as the Sabbath, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, +were so arranged as to begin and end with the evening. Among most of +the Indo-Germanic peoples the civil day, or nycthemeron, commenced at +sunset; and the practice, which still survives in Iceland, was not +abandoned in Italy and some other parts of Europe until about a century +ago. Our English words “fortnight” and “sennight” are reminiscent of +this ancient custom. See G. A. Wilken, “Het tellen bij nachten bij de +volken van het maleisch-polynesische ras,” _Bijdragen tot de taal- land- +en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, 1886, fifth series, pt. i, +378-392; A. Fischer, “‘Tag und Nacht’ im arabischen und die semitische +Tagesberechnung,” _Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Klasse +der königlichsächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, 1909, xxvii, +741-758; O. Schrader, _Reallexikon_, p. 845; S. Reinach, “Die,” in +Daremberg and Saglio, _op. cit._, iii, 168 _sq._, G. Bilfinger, _Der +bürgerliche Tag_, Stuttgart, 1888. + +[537] Rivers, _Todas_, pp. 590 _sqq._ + +[538] J. Sechefo, “The Twelve Lunar Months among the Basuto,” +_Anthropos_, 1909, iv, 931 _sqq._ + +[539] Below, pp. 184, 226 _sq._, 248 _sq._ + +[540] James Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, Melbourne, 1881, p. xcix. + +[541] S. Gason, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1895, +xxiv, 174. + +[542] Spencer and Gillen, _The Native Tribes of Central Australia_, +London, 1897, pp. 25, 564 _sq._ + +[543] B. Hagen, _Unter den Papua’s_, Wiesbaden, 1899, p. 244. + +[544] George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, London, 1910, p. 332. + +[545] V. de Rochas, _La Nouvelle-Calédonie_, Paris, 1862, p. 191. + +[546] Nieuwenhuis, _op. cit._, i, 317. + +[547] C. Bock, _Head-hunters of Borneo_,² London, 1882, p. 212. + +[548] William Marsden, _The History of Sumatra_,³ London, 1811, p. 194; +compare B. Hagen, _Die Orang Kubu auf Sumatra_, Frankfurt-a.-M., 1908, p. +154. + +[549] E. Modigliani, _Un viaggio a Nias_, Milan, 1890, pp. 4, 484; A. +Maass, _Bei liebenswürdigen Wilden_, Berlin, 1902, p. 93. + +[550] E. H. Man, in _Indian Antiquary_, 1897, xxvi, 270 _sq._ + +[551] _Idem_, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1883, xii, +337. + +[552] A. E. Jenks, in _Ethnological Survey Publications_, Manila, 1905, +i, 219; O. Scheerer, _ibid._, ii, 158. + +[553] F. W. Christian, _The Caroline Islands_, London, 1899, pp. 387 +_sq._, 392 _sqq._; M. Girschner, in _Baessler-Archiv_, 1911, ii, 175 _sq._ + +[554] The Maori counted twenty-eight “nights” of the moon, including: +1. _noni hope_, the moon is in the _reinga_, or underworld; 4. _he oho +ata_, the moon is visible; 5. _ouenuku_, it begins to rise a little way; +6. _maweti_, it rises still higher; 14. _he atua_, full; 19. _he ohika_, +the moon begins to wane; 24. _tanagaroa a roto_, it sinks into the sea; +28. _he o mutu_, it disappears (Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 177). To +the Society Islanders the fifteenth day was _omarae_, or the moon with +a round and full face; the thirtieth day, _oterieo_, was the time when +the moon dies or is changed (Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i, 87 +_sq._). In the Hervey group several of the moon nights were sacred to the +gods. The twenty-eighth day was called _mauri_—ghost; the twenty-ninth, +_omutu_—ended; the thirtieth, _otire o avaiki_—lost in the depths of +_avaiki_, or Hades (W. W. Gill, _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, +London, 1876, p. 318). For a table of the days of the moon’s age in the +Maori, Moriori, Hawaiian, Tahitian, Marquesan, and Rarotongan languages +see Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 666. + +[555] Hollis, _Nandi_, pp. 95 _sq._ + +[556] Dennett, _At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind_, p. 186. + +[557] J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_, Berlin, 1906, p. 556; L. Schultze, +_Aus Namaland und Kalahari_, Jena, 1907, p. 370. The Hottentots now use +the European week (Schultze, _op. cit._, p. 372). + +[558] F. Krause, _In den Wildnissen Brasiliens_, Leipzig, 1911, p. 339. + +[559] C. Thomas, “Calendar,” _Handbook of American Indians_, pt. i, 189 +(_Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, no. 30). + +[560] _Koran_, ii, 185. Even at the present time the south Arabians +determine the day of the month by observation of the moon’s phases, the +first quarter being called, for example, the seventh day, and the last +quarter, the twenty-first day (Nielsen, _Altarabische Mondreligion_, p. +85, referring to Dr. Glaser’s observations). + +[561] The mean age of the moon when first seen being 30 hours + 24/2 +hours = 1 day, 18 hours (above, p. 174 _n._¹), and the mean age of the +moon when full being (29 days, 12 + hours)/2 = 14 days, 18 hours, it +follows that the mean interval between the first appearance of the moon +and the full of the moon is about 13 days. “In other words the moon +becomes full on an average at the end of the thirteenth day and the +beginning of the fourteenth night. Hence, where the days are reckoned +from sunset, we should expect the fourteenth day of the month to be +regarded as the day of the full moon. And it is in fact one of the days +most commonly so regarded. The fifteenth is a date obtained more simply. +Fifteen is half thirty and, as the middle of the month, should be the +date of full moon. In calendars based on calculations the month is +frequently reckoned from the actual new moon, and in these the fifteenth +is more correct than the fourteenth for the mean date of full moon.” It +should be noted, also, that, as a general rule, the nearer the autumnal +equinox, the later the first appearance of the moon and the shorter +the interval between the visible new moon and full moon. If the first +appearance is late, as it often is in September, the moon might be full +on the night following the eleventh day. See J. K. Fotheringham, in +_Proceedings of the British Academy_, 1909-1910, pp. 283, 286. + +[562] R. Thurnwald, _Forschungen auf den Salomo-Inseln und dem Bismarck +Archipel_, Berlin, 1912-1913, i, 330 _sq._ + +[563] E. Tregear, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1890, +xix, 114. + +[564] L. H. Gray, “Calendar (Polynesian),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, iii, 130; J. v. Brenner, _Besuch bei den Kannibalen +Sumatras_, Würzburg, 1894, p. 233; R. Friederich, in _Journal of the +Royal Asiatic Society_, 1878, n.s., x, 93 _sq._; Modigliani, _op. cit._, +p. 464. + +[565] A. Weber, in _Indische Studien_, 1853, ii, 166 _n._*; H. Zimmer, +_Altindisches Leben_, Berlin, 1879, p. 364; G. Thibaut, “Astronomie, +Astrologie, und Mathematik,” Bühler’s _Grundriss der indo-arischen +Philologie und Altertumskunde_, iii, pt. ix, 12. This lunar fortnight of +the Hindus attracted the attention of the Romans, and Quintus Curtius +speaks of it as a noteworthy fact (_Historiæ Alexandri Magni_, viii, 9). +References to it are also found in mediæval literature; compare Albîrûnî, +_op. cit._, i, 359. + +[566] G. E. Balfour, _The Cyclopædia of India_,³ ii, 981; Sewell and +Dikshit, _The Indian Calendar_, London, 1896, p. 4. + +[567] Childers, _Dictionary of the Pali Language_, _s.v._ _parācadasí_; +A. Cabaton, in Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, iii, 136 +(as to the Siamese); Shway Yoe, _The Burman_,³ p. 550; A. Cabaton, in +Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, iii, 113 _sq._ (as to +the Cambodians, Chams, and Laotians); H. Vámbéry, _Die primitive Cultur +des turko-tatarischen Volkes_, Leipzig, 1879, p. 160; Carl Hiekisch, _Die +Tungusen_, St. Petersburg, 1879, p. 94. In Tibet the fifteenth day of the +lunar month receives a special name (A. Csoma de Körös, _A Grammar of the +Tibetan Language_, Calcutta, 1834, p. 157). + +[568] _Yašt_, vii, 2 (_S. B. E._, xxiii, 89). + +[569] _Odyssey_, xiv, 162; xix, 307: τοῦ μὲν φθίνοντος μηνός, τοῦ +δ’ ἱσταμένοιο; Hesiod, _Opera et dies_, 780: μηνὸς δ’ ἱσταμένου +τριςκαιδεκάτην. + +[570] G. F. Unger, “Zeitrechnung der Griechen und Römer,” Iwan von +Müller’s _Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, i, 563. +However, evidence is not wanting for the observance of the fourteenth +day, and even of the sixteenth day, as that of the full moon. See A. +Mommsen, _Chronologie_, Leipzig, 1883, pp. 99 _sqq._ + +[571] The Greeks never knew the exact mean measurement of a lunation and, +owing to their neglect of the odd minutes and seconds in the lunar month, +they were obliged occasionally to intercalate an additional day. From a +passage in Aristophanes it would appear that this pious duty to the gods +was not always performed (_Nubes_, 610 _sqq._). + +[572] T. Mommsen, _Römische Chronologie_, pp. 13 _sq._, 215 _sq._; +Marquardt-Wissowa, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, iii,² 282 _sq._ + +[573] Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i, 15, 10; Varro, _De lingua Latina_, vi, +27. + +[574] The _nonæ_, or Nones, were so called because, by the Roman +inclusive reckoning, they fell on the ninth day (_nonus_) before the +Ides (Varro, _loc. cit._). Plutarch’s derivation from _novus_, new +or young, referring to the waxing moon, is without justification +(_Quæstiones Romanæ_, 24). On the etymology of _idus_ see Walde, +_Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch_,² p. 375. The Romans had no +name, corresponding to _nonæ_, for the last quarter of the moon. It has +been argued, therefore, that the Nones never marked the first quarter and +that they were introduced, quite artificially, during the regal period +(R. Flex, _Die älteste Monatseinteilung der Römer_, Jena, 1880, pp. 5 +_sq._, 24 _sqq._, 36, 42). + +[575] Tacitus, _Germania_, 11: _cum aut inchoatur luna aut impletur_. + +[576] J. Loth, “L’année celtique d’après les textes irlandais, gallois, +bretons, et le calendrier de Coligny,” _Revue celtique_, 1904, xxv, 131; +R. Thurneysen, “Die Namen der Wochentage in den keltischen Dialecten,” +_Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 191. + +[577] The long inscription, engraved on a bronze tablet, which forms the +Calendar of Coligny, was discovered in 1897 near the city of Lyons. See +S. de Ricci, “Le calendrier gaulois de Coligny,” _Revue celtique_, 1898, +xix, 213-223; R. Thurneysen, “Der Kalender von Coligny,” _Zeitschrift für +celtische Philologie_, 1899, ii, 523-544; Sir John Rhŷs, “The Coligny +Calendar,” _Proceedings of the British Academy_, 1909-1910, pp. 207 _sqq._ + +[578] Loth, _loc. cit._; Rhŷs, _Celtic Heathendom_,³ London, 1898, pp. +360 _sq._ + +[579] Horapollo, _Hieroglyphica_, i, 4; Brugsch, _Ägyptologie_, p. +331; E. Mahler, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1901, n.s., +xxxiii, 55 _sqq._ Mahler’s hypothesis that the Egyptians looked upon the +full moon as the completion of the lunation is not improbable; there +are several passages in the Vedas where the full moon is indicated as +the end of the month and at the same time as the beginning of the next +month (Thibaut, _op. cit._, p. 12). The evidence yielded by the Calendar +of Coligny has been thought to imply that originally the Sequani of +Gaul counted the months from full moon to full moon (R. Thurneysen, in +_Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie_, 1899, ii, 526). The Melanesians +of New Georgia do not seem to calculate long periods of time at all: “one +full moon to another is as far as they usually go” (B. T. Somerville, in +_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1897, xxvi, 404). + +[580] Payne, _op. cit._, ii, 310, 323 _sqq._, 355 _sqq._; J. de Acosta, +_op. cit._, bk. vi, ch. 2 (ed. C. R. Markham, ii, 393); H. H. Bancroft, +_The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America_, ii, 515 _sq._ +For other and less plausible reasons leading to the choice of the number +thirteen, see C. P. Bowditch, _The Numeration, Calendar Systems, and +Astronomical Knowledge of the Mayas_, Cambridge (Mass.), 1910, pp. 266 +_sq._ + +[581] V. Restrepo, _Los Chibchas antes de la conquista española_, Bogota, +1895, p. 162; Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._, pt. i, bk. ii, ch. 23 +(transl. C. R. Markham, i, 181). + +[582] Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, pp. 143 _sq._ The Benin tribes +are said to employ the same method of reckoning. + +[583] _Idem_, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, pp. 215 _sq._ The Ga tribes have +an exactly similar mode of measuring time, though their names for the +days of the week are not the same as those used by the Tshi. With both +the Tshi and Ga the full moon marks the commencement of the third week of +7⅜ days and, with the Yoruba, the commencement of the fourth week of 5 +days, in each case marking the lapse of half a month. + +[584] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, London, 1855, p. 177. When the Maori +adopted the European week, they gave native names to three of the +weekdays. Sunday they called “the week,” _te wiki_, because on that day +the week began, Saturday was _te ra horoi_, or washing and cleaning-up +day, a name derived from their observation of European customs at that +time, and Friday was _te ra oka_, or bleeding day, so named because the +missionaries killed their pigs on Friday in order to be able to cut them +up on Saturday and dispose of them before Sunday. The remaining weekdays +had naturalized names, viz., _manei_, _turei_, _wenerei_, and _tairei_ +(_ibid._, pp. 176 _sq._). + +[585] Malo, _Hawaiian Antiquities_, p. 54; N. B. Emerson, in _ibid._, p. +200; Fornander, _Account of the Polynesian Race_, i, 120 _sq._ On the +Hawaiian Sabbaths see above, pp. 14 _sq._, 88. + +[586] Christian, _Caroline Islands_, p. 394. + +[587] _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States_, edited by Scott +and Hardiman, pt. i, vol. i, p. 434; H. J. Wehrli, _Beitrag zur +Ethnologie der Chingpaw (Kachin) von Ober-Burma_, Leiden, 1904, p. 68 +(_Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, vol. xvi, Supplement). + +[588] A. Cabaton, “Calendar (Indo-Chinese),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, iii, 110. + +[589] T. L. Bullock and L. H. Gray, “Calendar (Chinese),” _ibid._, iii, +83. The names of the three decades are said to be _shang_, _chung_, and +_hea_ (Robert Morrison, _A View of China for Philological Purposes_, +Macao, 1817, p. 104). + +[590] E. W. Clement, “Calendar (Japanese),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, iii, 115. + +[591] Fitzgerald, _op. cit._, p. 111. + +[592] De Faria, in Astley’s _A New General Collection of Voyages and +Travels_, London, 1746, iii, 397. The eighth day of the new moon was +considered most unlucky by the Sofalese. No one on that day was allowed +to attend court or even speak to the king (_ibid._). + +[593] E. Torday, in _Mitteilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in +Wien_, 1911, xli, 200. + +[594] Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, p. 144. The first period, called +_adai_, is considered lucky; the second, called _ajamfo_, is unlucky; +while _adim_, the third period, has a neutral character (John Beecham, +_Ashantee and the Gold Coast_, London, 1841, p. 187). An old writer +asserts that the negroes living inland from the Gold Coast count in +every month the “great fortunate time,” nineteen days in length, and the +“lesser fortunate time,” of seven days’ duration. Between these periods +come seven ill or unfortunate days which serve as “a sort of vacation to +them, for then they do not travel, till their land, or undertake anything +of consequence, but remain altogether idle” (W. Bosman, _A New and +Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea_, London, 1705, p. 160). + +[595] Above, pp. 119 _sq._ + +[596] Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, in _Twenty-third Annual Report of the Bureau +of American Ethnology_, p. 108. It is only right to add that Dr. J. W. +Fewkes, an eminent authority on the Pueblo Indians, expressed to me +in conversation (July, 1912) his doubts as to the correctness of Mrs. +Stevenson’s statement. + +[597] Lepsius, _Chronologie der Ägypter_, i, 131 _sqq._; Brugsch, +_Thesaurus_, pt. i, 488 _sqq._; _idem_, _Ägyptologie_, p. 364. On the +astrological connection between the thirty-six decades of the twelve +months and certain constellations see G. Daressy, “Une ancienne liste des +décans égyptiens,” _Annales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte_, 1900, +i, 79-90. The old and once popular theory, based upon a misunderstanding +of certain passages in classical writers (Herodotus, ii, 82; Dio Cassius, +xxxvii, 19), that the Egyptians originally possessed a week of seven days +has now been entirely abandoned. For some monumental evidence, dating +from the Twenty-second Dynasty, which may possibly refer to an hebdomadal +cycle then used in astronomical speculations, see G. Daressy, “La semaine +des Égyptiens,” _Annales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte_, 1909, x, +21-23, 180-182. + +[598] Pollux, _Onomasticon_, i, 63; G. F. Unger, in Iwan von Müller’s +_Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, i, 563 _sqq._; M. P. +Nilsson, “_Die älteste griechische Zeitrechnung, Apollo und der Orient_,” +_Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1911, xiv, 432 _sq._ + +[599] Hesiod, _Opera et dies_, 765 _sqq._; compare A. W. Mair, _Hesiod_, +Oxford, 1908, pp. 165 _sq._; A. Mommsen, _Chronologie_, Leipzig, 1883, p. +43. + +[600] E. Curtius, _History of Greece_, New York, 1871, ii, 58; C. +E. Ruelle, “Calendarium,” Daremberg and Saglio’s _Dictionnaire des +antiquités grecques et romaines_, ii, 832. + +[601] W. H. Roscher, “Die enneadischen und hebdomadischen +Fristen und Wochen der ältesten Griechen,” _Abhandlungen der +philologisch-historischen Klasse der königlichsächsischen Gesellschaft +der Wissenschaften_, Leipzig, 1903, xxi, no. 4, pp. 14 _sqq._; _idem_, +“Die Sieben- und Neunzahl im Kultus und Mythus der Griechen,” _ibid._, +1904, xxiv, no. 1, pp. 54, 69, 83. + +[602] K. Simrock, _Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie_,⁹ Bonn, 1887, p. +156; E. Siecke, _Die Liebesgeschichte des Himmels_, Strassburg, 1892, +pp. 47 _sqq._; K. Weinhold, “Die mystische Neunzahl bei den Deutschen,” +_Abhandlungen der königlich-preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_, +Berlin, 1897, pp. 40 _sqq._ + +[603] R. Thurneysen, “Die Namen der Wochentage in den keltischen +Dialecten,” _Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 191. J. +Loth, however, regards the Celtic periods as having been employed as +ordinary weeks (“L’année celtique d’après les textes irlandais, gallois, +bretons, et le calendrier de Coligny,” _Revue celtique_, 1904, xxv, 136). +He accepts Roscher’s theory of the sidereal month having furnished the +basis for such nine-day periods as are found among the Celts, and argues +that subsequently, when the sidereal month had been abandoned for the +synodic month, the nine-day periods became artificial units, independent +of any connection with the moon. But so strange a transition as that +from the sidereal to the synodic month cannot be supported by any Celtic +evidence and has no analogy among other peoples. For another theory see +Sir John Rhŷs, _Celtic Heathendom_,³ London, 1898, pp. 361-366. + +[604] Above, pp. 106, 109 _sqq._, 119 _n._³, 120 _sq._ The theory +advanced by Theodor Mommsen that the Roman _nundinum_ originally +represented a quadripartite division of the lunation (_Römische +Chronologie_, pp. 240 _sq._) was afterwards abandoned by its author +(_Römisches Staatsrecht_, iii, 373). Compare also R. Flex, _Die älteste +Monatseinteilung der Römer_, Jena, 1880, pp. 18 _sqq._ + +[605] E. Littmann, “Sternensagen und Astrologisches aus Nordabessinien,” +_Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1908, xi, 302 _sq._, 319. In order to +adapt the _‘sāmĕn_ to the imported hebdomadal cycle, Sunday is counted +twice. + +[606] Above, pp. 114 _and_ _n._³, 116 _n._¹ + +[607] A. Henry, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1903, +xxxiii, 105. The Muhso, a Lao hill tribe, “have a twelfth-day Sabbath +or sacred day, not very definitely marked” (Daniel McGilvary, _A Half +Century among the Siamese and the Lāo_, New York [1912], p. 323). Did +this “Sabbath” originate as a market day, which at first recurred every +sixth day? + +[608] E. Gottschling, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, +1905, xxxv, 382. + +[609] Above, pp. 103 _sqq._, 108, 110, 113 _and_ _n._⁶, 114 _and_ _n._³, +116 _n._¹ + +[610] _The Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, edited by Grenfell and Hunt, London, +1903, pt. iii, 126-137. + +[611] The data relating to the _khamushtu_ are found in some Cappadocian +tablets discovered by Golénischeff and others in mounds not far from +Kaisariyeh. This city was a colony of Assyria and the last outpost of +Assyrian power in the northwest. The tablets are in Babylonian cuneiform +script belonging to the age of Hammurabi. Professor A. H. Sayce in 1897 +was the first to show that the term _khamushtu_ in these documents +represented a continuous succession of five-day periods; and Professor +Hugo Winckler later made, independently, the same discovery. See Sayce, +in _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, 1897, xix, 288; +_idem_, in _Babyloniaca_, 1907, ii, 1-45; Winckler, _Altorientalische +Forschungen_, Leipzig, 1898-1900, ii, 91 _sqq._, 354 _sqq._ + +[612] For references to the cuneiform evidence see P. Jensen, “Die +siebentägige Woche in Babylon und Nineveh,” _Zeitschrift für deutsche +Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 150 _sq._; W. Muss-Arnolt, in _Journal of +Biblical Literature_, xi, 94; A. Jeremias, _The Old Testament in the +Light of the Ancient East_, London, 1911, i, 65. + +[613] G. Vígfússon, _An Icelandic-English Dictionary_, Oxford, 1874, +_s.v._ _fimt_; Vígfússon and Powell, _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, Oxford, +1883, i, pp. cxx, 428; F. B. Gummere, _Germanic Origins_, New York, 1892, +p. 418; T. F. Troels-Lund, _Livsbelysning_, Copenhagen, 1904, pp. 13, +198. For the translation of this last reference I am indebted to Mr. N. +H. Debel. + +[614] The Stseelis, an Indian tribe of British Columbia, have a singular +tradition that their ancestors used to observe a kind of Sabbath ceremony +long before the coming of the whites. The people assembled every seventh +day for dancing and praying. It is impossible to explain this tradition +apart from European influence at some remote time (C. Hill-Tout, in +_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1904, xxxiv, 329). + +[615] L. Dahle, “The Influence of the Arabs on the Malagasy Language,” +_Antananarivo Annual_, 1875-1878, i, 205. In addition to the Arabic +seven-day week with its numbered weekdays, the Malagasy also use, for +astrological purposes, the planetary designations of the weekdays. Of +these, three are good or lucky days, three are unlucky, and one has +a neutral character. See J. Sibree, “Divination among the Malagasy,” +_Folklore_, 1892, iii, 220 _sq._ + +[616] Soury-Lavergne and de la Devèze, in _Anthropos_, 1913, viii, 310 +_n._⁴; James Sibree, _The Great African Island_, London, 1880, p. 281. + +[617] O. Kersten, editor, _Baron Carl Claus von der Decken’s Reisen in +Ost-Afrika_, Leipzig, 1869, i, 101. + +[618] M. Merker, _Die Masai_,² Berlin, 1910, pp. 157 _sq._, 327 _sq._; +compare Sir Charles Eliot, in A. C. Hollis, _The Masai_, Oxford, 1905, p. +xiv. + +[619] C. W. Hobley, _Ethnology of the A-Kamba and Other East African +Tribes_, Cambridge, 1910, p. 163. + +[620] J. L. Krapf, _Travels, Researches, and Missionary Labours_, London, +1867, p. 82. + +[621] J. W. C. Kirk, _A Grammar of the Somali Language_, Cambridge, 1905, +p. 134; P. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas. Die geistige +Kultur der Danâkil, Galla, und Somâl_, Berlin, 1896, p. 224. + +[622] F. J. Bieber, in _Revue des études ethnographiques et +sociologiques_, 1909, ii, 38, 63. + +[623] Above, pp. 115 _sqq._ For further instances see Anne Raffenel, +_Nouveau voyage dans le pays des nègres_, Paris, 1856, i, 350 (Bambara); +H. Gaden, in _Revue d’ethnographie et de sociologie_, 1912, iii, 52 +(Toucouleur and Mohammedan Peul of Senegal). Among the Vey of Liberia the +week of seven days must be due to Christian influence (J. Büttikofer, +_Reisebilder aus Liberia_, Leiden, 1890, ii, 317). + +[624] Above, p. 157 _and_ _n._² + +[625] Above, p. 166. + +[626] J. F. Fleet, “The Use of the Planetary Names of the Days of the +Week in India,” _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1912, n.s., xliv, +1039-1046. For lists of the more common planetary names of the weekdays, +as now found in India, see Sewell and Dikshit, _The Indian Calendar_, +London, 1896, p. 2. The celebrated astronomical work in Sanskrit, known +as the _Sûrya-Siddhânta_, contains two references to the planetary +week (i, 51-52, xii, 78-79; transl. Burgess-Whitney, in _Journal of +the American Oriental Society_, 1860, v, 175-178, 396), and in the +_Hitōpadēśa_ (ed. Johnson, p. 16, l. 411) there is an interesting passage +which, as A. W. von Schlegel was the first to point out (_Indische +Bibliothek_, 1827, ii, 178), refers to Sunday as a sacred day. + +[627] Sir M. Monier-Williams, _Brāhmanism and Hindūism_,⁴ New York, 1891, +p. 433; W. Crooke, _Natives of Northern India_, London, 1907, p. 226; +_idem_, _The Tribes and Castes of the North-western Provinces and Oudh_, +Calcutta, 1896, iii, 112. + +[628] J. A. Dubois, _Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies_,³ Oxford, +1906, p. 382. + +[629] R. Percival, _An Account of the Island of Ceylon_, London, 1803, p. +187; H. C. P. Bell, _The Máldive Islands_, Colombo, 1883, p. 119; B. H. +Hodgson, _Essays on the Languages, Literature, and Religion of Nepál and +Tibet_, London, 1874, p. 8; E. Schlaginweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, Leipzig +and London, 1863, 289; Shway Yoe, _The Burman_,³ London, 1910, pp. 550 +_sq._; E. Aymonier, _Le Cambodge_, Paris, 1900-1904, i, 42, ii, 19; De +la Loubère, _A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam_, London, +1693, ii, 168. + +[630] A. Cabaton, in Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, +iii, 113, 345, 450. On the other hand a week of seven days, found in +central Asia, has been borrowed from Persia, as its name _hafta_ from the +Persian _heft_, “seven,” indicates (H. Vámbéry, _Die primitive Cultur +des turko-tatarischen Volkes_, Leipzig, 1879, p. 160). In northern Asia, +again, the Russian advance has begun to lead to the use of the seven-day +week by native tribes, such as the Yukaghir of northeastern Siberia (W. +Jochelson, in _Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History_, xiii, +42). + +[631] Tournier, _Notice sur le Laos français_, Hanoi, 1900, p. 188. + +[632] Robert Morrison, _A View of China for Philological Purposes_, +Macao, 1817, pp. 52, 102; _idem_, _A Grammar of the Chinese Language_, +Serampore, 1815, p. 54. + +[633] A. Wylie, “On the Knowledge of the Weekly Sabbath in China,” +_Chinese Researches_, Shanghai, 1897, pt. ii, 86-101; J. Edkins, _Chinese +Buddhism_,² London, 1893, p. 211. + +[634] The Nestorian Monument was set up in 781 A.D. in the department or +prefecture of Hsî-an, province of Shen-hsî, northwestern China. At the +end of the inscription on it we read: “Erected in the second year of the +period Chien-chung of the great T’ang dynasty, the year-star being in +Tso-yo, on the seventh day of the first month, being Sunday.” See James +Legge, _The Nestorian Monument of Hsî-an Fu in Shen-hsî, China_, London, +1888, p. 29. A replica of this monument, which is a limestone block ten +feet in height and of two tons’ weight, was taken to the United States +in 1908 and now rests in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. +See F. V. Holm, “The Holm Nestorian Expedition to Sian, MCMVII,” _Open +Court_, 1909, xxiii, 18-28. + +[635] “Some persons,” writes an experienced observer of the Chinese, +“have expressed their surprise that the unceasing round of toil which +the Chinese labourer pursues has not rendered him more degraded. It is +usually said that a weekly rest is necessary for the continuance of +the powers of body and mind in man in their full activity, and that +decrepitude and insanity would oftener result were it not for this +relaxation.... Yet, in China, people who apparently tax themselves +uninterruptedly to the utmost stretch of body and mind, live in health to +old age.... Nothing like a seventh day of rest, or religious respect to +that interval of time, is known among the Chinese, but they do not, as a +people, exercise their minds to the intensity, or upon the high subjects, +common among western nations, and this perhaps is one reason why their +yearly toil produces no disastrous effects” (S. W. Williams, _The Middle +Kingdom_,² New York, 1883, i, 809 _sq._). + +[636] B. H. Chamberlain, _Things Japanese_,² London, 1891, pp. 418 _sq._ + +[637] Arthur Lloyd, _Every-day Japan_, London, 1909, pp. 371 _sq._ + +[638] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, London, 1900, pp. 548 _sq._, 554. + +[639] Annandale and Robinson, _Fasciculi Malayensis_, London, 1903-1904, +i, 80 _sq._, 100; ii, 30, 55. + +[640] C. S. Hurgronje, _The Achehnese_, Leiden, 1906, i, 236, 261. + +[641] A. Maass, _Durch Zentral-Sumatra_, Berlin, 1910, p. 513. + +[642] J. Winkler, “Der Kalender der Toba-Bataks auf Sumatra,” +_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1913, xlv, 441 _sqq._ + +[643] W. Marsden, _The History of Sumatra_³, London, 1811, p. 194. + +[644] E. Metzger, “Über die Zeitrechnung der Javanen”, _Deutsche +Rundschau für Geographie und Statistik_, 1887, ix, 311; P. J. Veth, +Java,², Haarlem, 1907, iv, 297 _sq._ A recent observer points out that, +although the life of a Javanese village is never intensely laborious, +it is, in a sense, a life of continuous labour, “for the Javanese does +not feel compelled to abstain from labour entirely upon any day of the +week—not even on a Friday—to satisfy his religious beliefs. He works +as long as he needs to work; but only too often only just so long. His +village holidays are numerous” (A. Cabaton, _Java, Sumatra, and the Other +Islands of the Dutch East Indies_, London and Leipzig, 1911, pp. 125 +_sq._). + +[645] R. Friederich, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1878, +n.s., x, 89, 93. + +[646] _An Historical Description of the Kingdom of Macasar_, London, +1701, p. 149. + +[647] T. Nöldeke, “Die Namen der Wochentage bei den Semiten,” +_Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 162; J. Wellhausen, +_Reste arabischen Heidentums_,² Berlin, 1897, p. 142. + +[648] _Koran_, lxii, 9 _sq._ (_S. B. E._, ix, 283); T. P. Hughes, +_Dictionary of Islam_, London, 1885, pp. 131, 666; _idem_, “The Mosque +Life of the Muslim,” _Open Court_, 1906, xx, 335; T. W. Juynboll, +“Djum‘a,” _The Encyclopædia of Islām_, i, 1061 _sq._ + +[649] See in general L. Lévy-Bruhl, _Les fonctions mentales dans les +sociétés inférieures_, Paris, 1910, pp. 235-257; D. G. Brinton, “The +Origin of Sacred Numbers,” _American Anthropologist_, 1894, vii, +168-173; _idem_, _The Myths of the New World_,³ Philadelphia, 1896, pp. +83-119; W. J. McGee, “Primitive Numbers,” _Nineteenth Annual Report +of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, pt. ii, 821-852; W. Schultz, +“Gesetze der Zahlenverschiebung im Mythus und in mythenhaltiger +Überlieferung,” _Mitteilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in +Wien_, 1910, xl, 101-150; R. Hirzel, “Über Rundzahlen,” _Berichte +über die Verhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Klasse der +königlichsächsischen Gesellschaft_, Leipzig, 1885, xxxvii, 1-74; E. +Kautzsch, “Zahlen,” in Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck’s _Realencyklopädie für +protestantische Theologie und Kirche_,³ xx, 598-607; A. Bergaigne, _La +religion védique_, Paris, 1883, ii, 114-156; E. W. Hopkins, “The Holy +Numbers of the _Rig-Veda_,” in _Oriental Studies_, Boston, 1894, pp. +141-159; E. Wölfflin, “Zur Zahlensymbolik,” _Archiv für lateinische +Lexikographie und Grammatik_, 1895, ix, 33-353; I. Goldziher, “Über +Zahlenaberglauben im Islam,” _Globus_, 1901, lxxx, 31-32. For collections +of the evidence relating to the sacredness of certain numbers see +B. Stade, “Die Dreizahl im Alten Testament,” _Zeitschrift für die +alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, 1906, xxvi, 124 _sqq._; H. Usener, +“Dreiheit,” _Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_, 1903, n.s., lviii, 1-47, +161-208, 321-362; Anne W. Buckland, “Four as a Sacred Number,” _Journal +of the Anthropological Institute_, 1896, xxv, 96-102; F. X. Kugler, “Die +Symbolik der Neunzahl bei den Babyloniern,” in _Assyriologische und +archäologische Studien Hermann v. Hilprecht gewidmet_, Leipzig, 1909, pp. +304-309; A. Kaegi, “Die Neunzahl bei den Ostariern,” in _Philologische +Abhandlungen für Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler_, Zürich, 1891, pp. 50-70; K. +Weinhold, “Die mystische Neunzahl bei den Deutschen,” _Abhandlungen der +königlich-preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_, Berlin, 1897, pp. +1-61; Edgar Thurston, “The Number Seven in Southern India,” in _Essays +and Studies presented to William Ridgeway_, Cambridge, 1913, pp· 353-364; +W. H. Roscher, “Die enneadischen und hebdomadischen Fristen und Wochen +der ältesten Griechen,” _Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen +Klasse der königlichsächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, +Leipzig, 1903, xxi, no. 4; _idem_, “Die Sieben- und Neunzahl im Kultus +und Mythus der Griechen,” _ibid._, 1904, xxiv, no. I; _idem_, “Die +Hebdomadenlehren der griechischen Philosophen und Ärzte,” _ibid._, 1904, +xxiv, no. 6; _idem_, “Enneadische Studien,” _ibid._, 1907, xxvi, no. i; +_idem_, “Die Zahl 40 im Glauben, Brauch, und Schrifttum der Semiten,” +_ibid._, 1909, xxvii, no. 4; _idem_, “Über Alter, Ursprung, und Bedeutung +der hippokratischen Schrift von der Siebenzahl,” _ibid._, 1911, xxviii, +no. 5; _idem_, “Die Tessarakontaden und Tessarakontadenlehren der +Griechen und anderer Völker,” _Berichte über die Verhandlungen_, etc., +Leipzig, 1909, lxi, 17-206. + +[650] For a large collection of evidence see F. von Andrian, +“Die Siebenzahl im Geistesleben der Völker,” _Mitteilungen der +anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien_, 1901, xxxi, 225-274. + +[651] Brooke Low, in H. L. Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British +North Borneo_, London, 1906, i, 231; Hose and McDougall, _The Pagan +Tribes of Borneo_, London, 1912, ii, 134 _sq._ + +[652] I. H. N. Evans, “Notes on the Religious Beliefs, Superstitions, +Ceremonies, and Tabus of the Dusuns,” _Journal of the Royal +Anthropological Institute_, 1912, xlii, 394 _sq._ + +[653] Suas, “Le septième jour aux Nouvelles Hébrides, Océanie,” +_Anthropos_, 1912, vii, 1057; compare _ibid._, 50 _n._¹ + +[654] M. Merker, in _Petermanns Mitteilungen_, 1902, Ergänzungsheft, no. +138, p. 25. + +[655] W. E. H. Barrett, in _Journal of the Royal Anthropological +Institute_, 1911, xli, 22, 31 _sq._, 34. + +[656] C. W. Hobley, _ibid._, 1910, xl, 439 _sq._ Seven among the +Akikuyu is of all numbers the most unlucky in divination (Routledge and +Routledge, _With a Prehistoric People_, pp. 264, 274). + +[657] Hollis, _Nandi_, p. 89. + +[658] Above, pp. 145 _sq._, 198 _sq._ + +[659] Above, p. 199. + +[660] E. Dayrell, _Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa_, +London, 1910, nos. xxx-xxxii, xxxiv, xxxviii, etc. + +[661] E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du nord_, Algiers, +1909, pp. 184 _sqq._ + +[662] The Zuñi priests preserve a ceremonial diagram of the seven +“Ancient Spaces,” or primeval cosmogonic areas, representing north, +east, south, west, the zenith, the nadir, and the middle. The observer +is always supposed to stand in the central space. For illustrations of +the seven-cult among the American Indians see J. W. Powell, in F. H. +Cushing, _Zuñi Folk Tales_, New York, 1901, pp. xii _sq._; S. Hagar, +“Cherokee Star-lore,” in _Boas Anniversary Volume_, New York, 1906, p. +361; J. O. Dorsey, in _Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, +p. 397 (Osage, Kansa, Omaha, Dakota, and Ponka tribes); Jean L’Heureux, +in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1886, xv, 303 (Blackfoot); +D. G. Brinton, _The Lenâpé and their Legends_, Philadelphia, 1885, pp. +139 _sq._ + +[663] E. W. Hopkins, “The Holy Numbers of the _Rig-Veda_,” in _Oriental +Studies_, Boston, 1894, pp. 141, 144 _sq._; compare A. Bergaigne, _La +religion védique_, Paris, 1883, ii, 123, 127. + +[664] _Odyssey_, x, 81, xii, 399, xiv, 252, 288, xv, 477. + +[665] _Opera et dies_, 770 _sq._; Herodotus, vi, 57; Æschylus, _Septem +contra Thebas_, 800; Plutarch, _Quæstiones conviviales_, viii, 1, 2; +Lydus, _De mensibus_, ii, 12. The seventh day of each month was a holiday +for Greek children, in remembrance of Apollo’s birth on the seventh of +Thargelion (Lucian, _Pseudologistes_, 16). The first and twentieth of +the month were also consecrated to Apollo, who received in consequence +the cult titles Ἑβδομαγέτης, Νεομήνιος and Εἰκάδιος. According to +Plutarch (_Dion_, 23), a festival of Apollo was also celebrated on the +fifteenth of the month. On the seventh day in Greece see, further, L. +R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, Oxford, 1906-1910, iv, 258 +_sq._; _idem_, _Greece and Babylon_, London, 1911, p. 295; O. Gruppe, +_Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte_, Munich, 1906, ii, 939 +_sqq._; M. P. Nilsson, “Die älteste griechische Zeitrechnung, Apollo und +der Orient,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1911, xiv, 442 _sqq._ + +[666] See the exhaustive collection of the evidence, both literary and +inscriptional, in Roscher, “Fristen und Wochen,” pp. 41-68; _idem_, +“Sieben- und Neunzahl,” pp. 4-53; _idem_, “Hebdomadenlehren,” pp. 7-23. +Some students have seen in this sanctity of seven the results of early +intercourse with the Orient through Phœnician channels (V. Bérard, in +_Revue de l’histoire des religions_, 1899, xxxix, 426 _sq._; compare +A. Thumb, “Die Namen der Wochentage im Griechischen,” _Zeitschrift +für deutsche Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 163 _sq._). The theory of the +diffusion of the cult of seven from the East might now be strengthened by +substituting Cretan for Phœnician intermediaries. Nilsson argues that the +seven-cult, together with the worship of Apollo, reached Greece by way +of Asia Minor, “eine Etappe auf dem Wege nach Babylonien” (_Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft_, 1911, xiv, 447 _sq._). + +[667] J. Hehn, _Siebenzahl und Sabbat bei den Babyloniern und im Alten +Testament_, Leipzig, 1907, pp. 4-44; P. Jensen, _Die Kosmologie der +Babylonier_, Strassburg, 1890, pp. 170-184. + +[668] The predominance of seven among the Hebrews, if not wholly +explained by borrowing from Babylonia, may reasonably be assumed to have +been much influenced by Babylonian conceptions. On the Hebrew cult of +this number see Hehn, _Siebenzahl und Sabbat_, pp. 77-90; O. Zöckler, +“Siebenzahl, heilige,” in Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck’s _Realencyklopädie +für protestantische Theologie und Kirche_,³ xviii, 310-317. + +[669] M. Jastrow, _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia +and Assyria_, New York, 1911, pp. 217 _sqq._; _idem_, _Die Religion +Babyloniens und Assyriens_, Giessen, 1905-1912, ii, 446 _sq._, 663 _sqq._ + +[670] G. Schiaparelli, _Astronomy in the Old Testament_, Oxford, 1905, +pp. 134 _sq._ The fact that by the Babylonians Venus, as a morning star, +was considered masculine and as an evening star, feminine (F. X. Kugler, +_Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel_, Münster-i.-W., 1907-1910, ii, 19 +_sq._) must point back to a time when the different appearances of that +heavenly body at morning and evening were regarded as those of different +planets. Such was also the opinion of the early Greeks, who held the +morning star, Ἑωσφόρος, and Ἕσπερος, the evening star, to be different +bodies. Their identity was not recognized until the time of Pythagoras +in the sixth century B.C. (W. H. Roscher, “Planeten,” _Ausführliches +Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie_, iii, col. 2521). +Similar misconceptions are found among primitive peoples. Of the Maori +it has been said: “Tawera is their Lucifer and Merimeri their Hesperus, +and under these two names the beauty of the planet Venus is frequently +celebrated in their poetry” (E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions +of the New Zealanders_,² p. 219). Additional evidence is found among +the aborigines of Sumatra (Marsden, _op. cit._, p. 194), the Hottentots +(Schultze, _op. cit._, p. 367), and the Cherokee Indians (Hagar, in _Boas +Anniversary Volume_, p. 357). + +[671] Kugler, _op. cit._, i, 13; compare F. Boll, “Zur babylonischen +Planetenordnung,” _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, 1911, xxv, 373. Between +400 B.C. and the opening of the Christian era the order is the same, +except that Mercury and Saturn exchange places. + +[672] Herodotus, ii, 82. + +[673] The history of the planetary week has been treated with exhaustive +learning by E. Schürer, “Die siebentägige Woche im Gebrauche der +christlichen Kirche der ersten Jahrhunderte,” _Zeitschrift für die +neutestamentliche Wissenschaft_, 1905, vi, 1-66. A very valuable survey +is that by F. Boll, “Hebdomas,” in Pauly-Wissowa’s _Real-Encyclopädie +der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_, vii, coll. 2547-2578. Among the +earlier discussions those by J. C. H(are), “On the Names of the Days of +the Week,” _Philological Museum_, 1832, i, 1-73, and E. Schrader, “Der +babylonische Ursprung der siebentägigen Woche,” _Theologische Studien und +Kritiken_, 1874, xlvii, 343-353, hold an honourable place. See further +W. H. Roscher, “Planeten,” _Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen +und römischen Mythologie_, iii, coll. 2518-2539; A. Bouché-Leclercq, +_L’astrologie grecque_, Paris, 1899, pp. 476-484; Jensen, Nöldeke, _et +al._, “Geschichte der Namen der Wochentage,” _Zeitschrift für deutsche +Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 150-193; O. Schrader, “Woche,” _Reallexikon +der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, Strassburg, 1901, pp. 959-965; +W. Lotz, “Woche,” in Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck’s _Realencyklopädie +für protestantische Theologie und Kirche_,³ xxi, 409-414; F. Rühl, +_Chronologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit_, Berlin, 1897, pp. 49-63; +F. K. Ginzel, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, +Leipzig, 1906-1911, index, _s.v._ “Woche.” The word “week” in various +Germanic languages has the general meaning of “change” (Anglo-Saxon +_wice_, Old Frisian _wike_, Old Norse _vika_, Danish _uge_, Old High +German _wecha_, Gothic _wiko_, etc.). See F. L. K. Weigand, _Deutsches +Wörterbuch_,⁵ Giessen, 1910, ii, 1279. The Latin _vicis_, “change,” +“turn” (a genitive form) is a related expression. See Walde, _op. cit._, +p. 833. + +[674] The reverse order, beginning with the Moon and ending with Saturn, +is attributed to Pythagoras by Pliny the Elder (_Historia naturalis_, +ii, 22) and by Censorinus (_De die natali_, xiii, 3); and according +to Macrobius it was adopted by Archimedes in the third century B.C. +(_Commentarium in somnium Scipionis_, i, 19, 2, ii, 3, 13). But the +statements of these late writers on the subject may be safely disregarded. + +[675] _Historia Romana_, xxxvii, 18 _sq._ There is also extant a still +earlier explanation of the planetary sequence by Vettius Valens, an +astrologer of the age of the Antonines. The one provided by Plutarch, +in the seventh chapter of the fourth book of his _Symposiacs_, has been +lost. Dio Cassius attributes the origin of the planetary week to the +Egyptians; Lydus, a Byzantine antiquarian of the fifth century A.D., +hesitates between the Egyptians and the Babylonians (_De mensibus_, ii, +31). + +[676] This arrangement—διὰ τεσσάρων—may be illustrated by means of the +heptagram. Let the circumference of a circle be divided into seven equal +arcs and the signs of the planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, +Mercury, Moon—be placed at the points of division. If these points +are connected by a series of continuous chords, then, beginning with +Saturn, the lines of the chords will lead successively to the signs of +the planets in the astrological order. The figure of a seven-branched +star, inscribed in a circle, is an ancient device; indeed, the heptagram +appears on a clay tablet recently unearthed at Nippur in Babylonia (H. V. +Hilprecht, _Explorations in Bible Lands_, Philadelphia, 1903, p. 530), +but in this case quite without any indication of its use. + +[677] As a matter of fact the gamut, or scale of seven notes comprised +within the interval of an octave, rests on no fundamental laws of +acoustic phenomena but is itself a product of the all-pervading symbolism +of seven. This system of musical numeration has spread from Greece as +far east as India and China. See J. Combarieu, _La musique et la magie_, +Paris, 1909, pp. 176-200. + +[678] Herodotus (ii, 109) says explicitly that the Greeks learned from +the Babylonians to divide the day into twelve parts. This statement +agrees with the evidence from the cuneiform records, which show that it +was the Babylonian custom to divide the nycthemeron, or cycle of night +and day, into twelve _kaspu_, corresponding to two of our equinoctial +hours. On the other hand the Egyptians from very early times were +familiar with a division into twenty-four hours, twelve for the night +and twelve for the natural day. It is not improbable, therefore, that +the astrological use of the twenty-four hours was remotely derived +from Egypt. On the entire subject of hour deities see W. Gundel, +“Stundengötter,” _Hessische Blätter für Volkskunde_, 1913, xii, 100-131. + +[679] _Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_, i, pt. i,² 220; G. Gundermann, +“Die Namen der Wochentage bei den Römern,” _Zeitschrift für deutsche +Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 177. + +[680] A. Mau, in _Bullettino dell’ instituto di corrispondenza +archeologica_, 1881, p. 30; _Atti della reale accademia dei lincei, +anno 1901, Serie v, classe di scienze morali_, etc., _ix, Notizie degli +scavi_, p. 330. + +[681] _Historia Romana_, xxxvii, 18. + +[682] Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 16; _idem_, _Ad nationes_, i, 13; +Clement, _Stromata_, vii, 12, 75; compare Justin Martyr, _Apologia +prima_, 67. + +[683] The Jews indicated each weekday by its numerical name, as the first +day, the second day, and so on; compare _Exodus_, xvi, 5, 22; _Matthew_, +xxviii, 1; _Mark_, xvi, 2; _Luke_, xxiv, 1; _John_, xx, 1; _Acts_, xx, +7; 1 _Corinthians_, xvi, 2. The sixth day, preceding the Sabbath, came +eventually to be called by Hellenistic Jews ἡ παρασκευή, or “preparation” +for the Sabbath; compare _Matthew_, xxvii, 62; _Mark_, xv, 42; _Luke_, +xxiii, 54; _John_, xix, 31. + +[684] The oldest dated Christian inscription to employ a planetary +designation belongs to the year 269 A.D. (_Inscriptiones Christianæ urbis +Romæ_, ed. De Rossi, 1861, i, no. 11). + +[685] According to the testimony of Celsus, as quoted by Origen (_Contra +Celsum_, vi, 21), the seven planets played an important rôle in the +Mithraic mysteries. The chief position was naturally assigned to the sun, +from which circumstance Cumont concludes, not only that the planetary +week was known to Mithraism, but also that the _dies Solis_ “était +évidemment le plus sacré de l’hebdomade pour les fidèles de Mithra, et, +comme les Chrétiens, ils devaient sanctifier le dimanche et non pas +le sabbat.” See F. Cumont, _Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux +mystères de Mithra_, Brussels, 1896-1899, i, 118 _sq._, ii, 31. + +[686] Above, pp. 122 _sq._ + +[687] Below, p. 268. + +[688] Italian _domenica_, _sabbato_; Spanish _domingo_, _sabado_; French +_dimanche_, _samedi_, etc. But the heathen names of even these two days +continued for a long time in popular use, as is evident from the words +of Gregory of Tours: _Ecce enim dies Solis adest, sic enim barbaries +vocitare diem dominicam consueta est_ (_Historia Francorum_, iii, 15). +The other weekdays (Monday to Friday) in the calendar of the Roman Church +follow the Jewish usage in being numbered, not named: _feria secunda_, +_feria tertia_, _feria quarta_, _feria quinta_, and _feria sexta_ +(Isidore of Seville, _Etymologiæ sive origines_, v, 30). In Portugal the +influence of the Church was strong enough to secure the general adoption +of this mode of reckoning, instead of the planetary sequence; and here +Monday is still called _feira segunda_, Tuesday, _feira terça_, etc. +It is curious to find the old Roman term for a holy day thus employed +to refer to the weekdays that are particularly devoted to secular +occupations. The origin of the practice has not been satisfactorily +explained. + +[689] Tiu (Mars), Woden (Mercurius), Thor (Jupiter), Frija (Venus). The +special observance of Thursday as a holy day reflects the commanding +place occupied by Thor in Germanic paganism. His worship on that day is +referred to in documents of the early Middle Ages as a superstition to be +eradicated (_nullus diem Jovis in otio observet_, etc.), but the modern +Esthonians still consider Thursday as holier than Sunday and in Sweden, +as late as the nineteenth century, the day was generally considered +sacred. See J. Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, London, 1882, i, 191; O. +Montelius, “The Sun-god’s Axe and Thor’s Hammer,” _Folklore_, 1910, xxi, +77. + +[690] The Scandinavian name for Saturday, “bath-day” or “wash-day” (Old +Norse _laugardagr_), arose from the custom of taking a bath at the end of +the week (De la Saussaye, _The Religion of the Teutons_, Boston, 1902, p. +379; P. B. Du Chaillu, _The Land of the Midnight Sun_, New York, 1881, +ii, 205 _sqq._). + +[691] In Slavic antiquity Friday, or some day corresponding to it, +appears to have been consecrated to a female divinity, whose personality, +after the introduction of Christianity, became merged into that of St. +Prascovia. “As she is supposed to wander about the houses of the peasants +on her holy day, and to be offended if she finds certain kinds of work +going on, they are (or at least they used to be) frequently suspended +on Fridays. It is a sin, says a time-honoured tradition, for a woman to +sew or spin, or weave, or buck linen on a Friday, and similarly for a +man to plait bast shoes, twine cords, and the like. Spinning and weaving +are especially obnoxious to ‘Mother Friday,’ for the dust and refuse +thus produced injure her eyes.” The peasants believe that any work begun +on Friday is sure to go wrong (W. R. S. Ralston, _Russian Folktales_, +London, 1873, pp. 198 _sq._). + +[692] In Thessaly and Macedonia Saturday (σάββατον) is considered +inauspicious for beginning any undertaking. This taboo on the day has +been considered as perhaps a reminiscence of the Jewish Sabbath (Sir +Rennell Rodd, _The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece_, London, 1892, p. +159). According to Mr. G. F. Abbott, the Macedonians believe it unlucky +to finish any work on a Saturday; the end of the week being associated +in some way with the end of the owner’s life. “People born on a Saturday +(hence called Σαββατιανοί or Sabbatarians) are believed to enjoy the +doubtful privilege of seeing ghosts and phantasms, and of possessing +great influence over vampires” (_Macedonian Folklore_, Cambridge, 1903, +pp. 191, 221). + +[693] On the week among European peoples see further E. Maass, _Die +Tagesgötter im Rom und den Provinzen_, Berlin, 1902; A. Thumb, “Die +albanesischen Wochentage,” _Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung_, +1901, i, 173-175; R. Thurneysen, “Die Namen der Wochentagen in den +keltischen Dialecten,” _ibid._, pp. 186-191; W. Meyer-Lübke, “Die Namen +der Wochentage im Romanischen,” _ibid._, pp. 192 _sq._; C. L. Rochholz, +_Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, Berlin, 1867, ii, 9-63; K. A. Oberle, +_Überreste germanischen Heidentums im Christentum_, Baden-Baden, 1883, +pp. 13-40; Grimm, _op. cit._, i, 122-130. + +[694] G. Smith, _Assyrian Discoveries_,⁷ London, 1883, p. 12; compare +_idem_, _The Assyrian Eponym Canon_, London, 1875, pp. 19 _sq._ + +[695] Above, p. 177 _n._² + +[696] The first edition (1875) of the fourth volume of Rawlinson’s +_Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_ contained only a calendar for +the month of Elul II, but in the second edition (1891) of this volume +there was added, from a number of fragments, a calendar for the month of +Markheshwan. + +[697] The difficulty which arises in respect to the nineteenth day has +been solved to the satisfaction of most Assyriologists by the suggestion +that the nineteenth day was regarded as seven times the seventh day +(_i.e._, the forty-ninth from the first of the preceding month). This, +of course, would not be strictly true, when the preceding month had +only twenty-nine days, but it seems that the early Babylonian month was +conventionally taken at thirty days’ duration. + +[698] Above, pp. 210 _sq._ + +[699] Compare H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader, _Die Keilinschriften und das +Alte Testament_,³ Berlin, 1903, pp. 620 _sq._ The possible influence +of Pleiades cults has been worked out with much ingenuity by H. Grimme +(_Das israelitische Pfingstfest und der Plejadenkult_, Paderborn, 1907), +who discerns in the duration of the Hebrew Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, +as well as in the rites which marked that agricultural festival, the +predominance of a septenary division based on the observation of these +seven stars. + +[700] W. Muss-Arnolt, “The Names of the Assyro-Babylonian Months and +their Regents,” _Journal of Biblical Literature_, 1892, xi, 73; E. Combe, +_Histoire du culte de Sin en Babylonie et en Assyrie_, Paris, 1908, pp. +8, 13. + +[701] Above, p. 178. + +[702] W. Muss-Arnolt, in _Journal of Biblical Literature_, 1892, xi, 72 +_sqq._, 82 _sqq._, 90; E. Meyer, “Astarte,” in Roscher’s _Ausführliches +Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie_, i, col. 649. + +[703] R. C. Thompson, _The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of +Nineveh and Babylon_, London, 1900, ii, pp. xviii _sqq._, xxvi. + +[704] Epping and Strassmeier, _Astronomisches aus Babylon_, +Freiburg-i.-B., 1889, p. 179; F. X. Kugler, _Die babylonische +Mondrechnung_, Freiburg-i.-B., 1900, pp. 49, 201; F. H. Weissbach, “Zum +babylonischen Kalender,” in _Assyriologische und archäologische Studien +Hermann v. Hilprecht gewidmet_, Leipzig, 1909, p. 281. + +[705] Rawlinson, _op. cit._, iv,² pl. 32, col. 1, ll. 1-2; W. Lotz, +_Quæstiones de historia Sabbati_, Leipzig, 1883, p. 39. + +[706] Above, pp. 187 _sq._ + +[707] Above, p. 195. + +[708] Rawlinson, _op. cit._, iii, 55, no. 3, ll. 17-26; P. Jensen, “Die +siebentägige Woche in Babylon und Nineveh,” _Zeitschrift für deutsche +Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 150. + +[709] Rawlinson, _op. cit._, iii, 64, 18 b; Jensen, in _Zeitschrift +für deutsche Wortforschung_, 1901, i, 152; Zimmern, in Schrader, +_Keilinschriften_,³ p. 621 _n._⁵ + +[710] _Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum_, +pt. xxv, pl. 50 (K. 170); F. Hommel, “Calendar (Babylonian),” Hastings’s +_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, iii, 76. + +[711] _Enuma elish_, v, ll. 12-18 (transl. L. W. King, _The Seven Tablets +of Creation_, London, 1902, i, 78, 81): + + “The Moon-god he caused to shine forth, the night he entrusted to him. + He appointed him, a being of the night, to determine the days; + Every month without ceasing with the crown he covered (?) him, (saying): + ‘At the beginning of the month, when thou shinest upon the land, + Thou commandest the horns to determine six days + And on the seventh day to [divide] the crown + On the fourteenth day thou shalt stand opposite, the half[...].’” + +For other translations see P. Jensen, _Die Kosmologie der Babylonier_, +Strassburg, 1890, pp. 288 _sqq._; W. Muss-Arnolt, in R. F. Harper, +_Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_, New York, 1901, p. 296. + +[712] Above, pp. 157, 165 _sq._ + +[713] Above, p. 212. + +[714] C. Fossey, _La magie assyrienne_, Paris, 1902, pp. 52, 58. + +[715] See H. Zimmern, _Die Beschwörungstafeln s̆urpu_, Leipzig, 1896. + +[716] R. C. Thompson, _The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_, London, +1904, ii, pp. xxxix _sqq._ + +[717] H. C. Rawlinson, _The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_, +London, 1891, iv,² pl. 32-33. The complete text was first translated +by A. H. Sayce (“A Babylonian Saints’ Calendar,” _Records of the +Past_, London, 1876, vii, 157-170) and shortly thereafter by W. Lotz +(_Quæstiones de historia Sabbati_, Leipzig, 1883, pp. 39-49). The +passage relating to the seventh day has been many times rendered by +Assyriologists, not without variations in the result. I have used the +version in the scholarly work of R. W. Rogers, _Cuneiform Parallels to +the Old Testament_, New York, 1912, p. 189. + +[718] The nineteenth day would seem to be particularly tabooed, for then +the “shepherd of great peoples” is forbidden to eat “anything which the +fire has touched.” + +[719] Most Assyriologists (Jeremias, Delitzsch, Lagrange, Pinches, Clay) +make this sentence read: “The day is unsuitable for any business,” a +translation which, if correct, converts the seventh day into a veritable +Sabbath. To this translation Professor Morris Jastrow now adds the great +weight of his authority, pointing out that we must read _ana epasch la +na-ṭu_, “‘für Arbeit (oder Ausführung) nicht geignet’ ... und nicht, +wie man früher annahm, _epesch arrati_, ‘zum Fluchen,’ was ja ein +eigentümliches Verbot wäre” (_Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens_, +Giessen, 1905-1912, ii, 533 _n._¹). + +[720] Above, p. 15. + +[721] For much evidence as to the sacredness of chiefs and kings and as +to the accompanying taboos, see Sir J. G. Frazer, _Taboo and the Perils +of the Soul_, London, 1911, pp. 1-17; _idem_, _Psyche’s Task_,² London, +1913, pp. 6-19. + +[722] T. C. Hodson, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1906, +xxxvi, 98; _idem_, in _Folklore_, 1910, xxi, 298; _idem_, _Nāga Tribes of +Manipur_, pp. 102, 141 _sq._ + +[723] For further discussions of the “evil days” see M. J. Lagrange, +_Études sur les religions sémitiques_,² Paris, 1905, pp. 291 _sqq._; J. +Hehn, _Siebenzahl und Sabbat bei den Babyloniern und im Alten Testament_, +Leipzig, 1907, pp. 106-109; J. Meinhold, _Sabbat und Woche im Alten +Testament_, Göttingen, 1905, pp. 15 _sqq._; F. Bohn, _Der Sabbat im Alten +Testament_, Gütersloh, 1903, pp. 39-43. + +[724] Some painstaking efforts have been made to discover whether during +historic times there was any general observance in Babylonia of the “evil +days.” W. Lotz (_op. cit._, p. 66), from an examination of 540 dated +contract tablets belonging to different months, found that the average of +the number of transactions on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days was 18, +which would be also the average for each day of the month. The 19th day, +however, had only one contract to its credit. Schiaparelli (_op. cit._, +p. 132 _n._¹) examined about 400 dated documents from the archives of +the Babylonian business firm, Egibi and Sons, and showed that there was +a real abstention from business only on the 19th day, when no contracts +were concluded. The same investigator (_op. cit._, pp. 175 _sqq._) also +classified according to the day of the month 2764 dates on contract +tablets belonging to the period 604-449 B.C. and found again that, while +the transactions for the 7th, 14th, and 21st days were considerably +above the average (94) and those for the 28th day only slightly below +it, the 19th day registered but 12 transactions. It is true that these +statistics deal with a late period of Babylonian history and include the +reigns of several Persian kings. By this time the general observance +of the custom may have been in decay. The figures, moreover, do not +distinguish the sort of business done on the “evil days.” Many of the +documents are temple records, having to do with offerings, receipts of +salaries by priests, etc., and such business may not have been regarded +as a violation of the prohibitions in question (C. H. W. Johns, “The +Babylonian Sabbath,” _Expository Times_, 1906, xvii, 566 _sq._). For +Assyria, during the period 720-606 B.C., 365 dated documents indicate +no marked cessation of business on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days. +“They were not kept with puritan respect for the Sabbath, if Sabbaths +they really were.” Only 2 contracts, however, were made on the 19th, +and for one of these the date is doubtful (_idem_, _Assyrian Deeds and +Documents_, London, 1901, ii, 40 _sq._). Finally, out of 356 dated +documents of the Hammurabi era, only 2 were dated on the 19th and only +26 on the four other “evil days” (_idem_, in _Expository Times_, 1906, +xvii, 566 _sq._). It would seem, accordingly, that at this earlier period +(about 2000 B.C.) there was a sabbatic observance of all five days, and +especially of the 19th day. + +[725] _Shabbāthôn_ occurs all together ten times in the Old Testament, +where it is applied to New Year’s Day, the Day of Atonement (above, pp. +82 _sq._), the first and eighth days of the Feast of Tabernacles, and +also to the Sabbatical Year (_Leviticus_, xxv, 4) and to the Sabbath +Day proper (_Exodus_, xvi, 23, xxxi, 15, xxxv, 2; _Leviticus_, xxiii, +3). Professor Morris Jastrow thinks that _shabbāthôn_ is mistranslated +as “solemn rest” and that in fact it is merely an adjectival formation +meaning “sabbatical” or “Sabbath-like.” The word “belongs to a period +prior to the development of a Sabbath institution, celebrated every +seventh day without any reference to the phases of the moon” (_American +Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_, 1914, xxx, 97 _n._⁷). + +[726] Rawlinson, _op. cit._, ii, pl. 32, no. i, 16 a-b (_Cuneiform +Texts_, pt. xviii, pl. 23, 17 [K. 4397]). The discovery of this +important equation was made by W. H. Boscawen; see A. H. Sayce, in +_Academy_, 1875, viii, 555. _Shabattu(m)_ here and elsewhere can be read +_shapattu(m)_, without, however, affecting the sense (P. Jensen, in +_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, 1900, xiv, 182; H. Zimmern, in Schrader, +_Keilinschriften_,³ p. 592 _n._⁵). + +[727] A. H. Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the +Monuments_, London, 1895, p. 74; _idem_, _The Religions of Ancient Egypt +and Babylonia_, Edinburgh, 1902, p. 476; F. Delitzsch, _Babel and Bible_, +London, 1903, p. 41. The purely conjectural character of this procedure +was long ago pointed out by Francis Brown in his article, “The Sabbath in +the Cuneiform Records,” _Presbyterian Review_, 1882, iii, 693. Compare +also A. T. Clay, _Amurru_, Philadelphia, 1909, pp. 55 _sqq._ + +[728] _Babel and Bible_, p. 99. + +[729] H. Hirschfeld, “Remarks on the Etymology of Šabbāth,” _Journal of +the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1896, n.s., xxviii, 357. + +[730] M. Jastrow, “The Original Character of the Hebrew Sabbath,” +_American Journal of Theology_, 1898, ii, 316 _sq._, 351; compare _idem_, +_Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions_, New York, 1914, pp. 134, 149. + +[731] H. Zimmern, in Schrader, _Keilinschriften_,³ p. 593. In one +cuneiform list (Rawlinson, _op. cit._, v, pl. 28, l. e-f) the verb +_shabâtu_ is equated with _gamâru_, which is thought to mean “be +complete,” “be full,” “cease,” though in some other syllabaries it +apparently has the sense of “pacify.” In the light of the meaning now +assigned to _shabattum_ both translations appear to be intelligible and +harmonious. + +[732] T. G. Pinches, _The Old Testament_, London, 1902, p. 327. + +[733] D. Nielsen, _Die altarabische Mondreligion_, pp. 87 _sq._ + +[734] J. Hehn, _Siebenzahl und Sabbat_, p. 98. + +[735] S. Langdon, “The Derivation of _Šabattu_ and Other Notes,” +_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, 1908, lxii, 30. + +[736] C. H. Toy, “The Earliest Form of the Hebrew Sabbath,” _Journal +of Biblical Literature_, 1899, xviii, 190 _sqq._; compare _idem_, +_Introduction to the History of Religions_, Boston, 1913, p. 251. + +[737] The text (K. 6012 + K. 10,684) forms a part of the British Museum +collection of cuneiform tablets. A portion of the text was published by +Rawlinson (_op. cit._, iii, pl. 56, no. 4) and additions to it, as well +as duplicate Babylonian fragments, were subsequently identified by Dr. +Pinches, to whom, accordingly, full credit for this important discovery +should be ascribed. See T. G. Pinches, “_Šapattu_, the Babylonian +Sabbath,” _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, 1904, +xxvi, 51-56. H. Zimmern, however, had previously pointed out that, +according to the Rawlinson text, the fifteenth day of a thirty-day month +might have borne the designation _shabattum_ (Zimmern, in Schrader, +_Keilinschriften_,³ p. 593 _n._³); compare his comments on Pinches’s +discoveries (_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, +1904, lviii, 199-202, 458-460). + +[738] Above, p. 181 _n._⁷ + +[739] The text (K. 2164 + 2195 + 3510) has been edited with a translation +and commentary by E. Weidener, “Zur babylonischen Astronomie,” +_Babyloniaca_, 1911, vi, 8 _sqq._ It should be observed that it belongs +to the same series as the text (K. 170) in which the fifteenth day is +expressly described as the day of full moon (above, p. 229). Professor A. +H. Sayce has published a table of lunar longitudes (K. 490) which shows +how many degrees the moon advances during the first fifteen days of the +month and how many degrees it retrogrades during the second half of the +month (_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, 1887, ii, 337-340). + +[740] Combe, _Histoire du culte de Sin_, pp. 46 _sqq._, 86 _sq._; +Jastrow, _Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens_, i, 66 _sq._, 72 _sqq._ + +[741] H. Radau, _Early Babylonian History_, New York, 1900, pp. 314 _sq._ +The text on the statue of Gudea, a chief, or _patesi_, of Lagash (_c._ +2350 B.C.), bears record of a rest day which has been interpreted as a +full-moon day, therefore as a _shabattum_: “No one was struck with the +whip, the mother corrected not her child, the householder, the overseer, +the labourer ... the work of their hands ceased. In the graves of the +city ... no corpse was buried. The Kalû played no psalm, uttered no +dirge, the wailing women let no dirge be heard. In the realm of Lagash +no man who had a lawsuit went to the hall of justice.” See A. Jeremias, +_The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East_, London, 1911, i, +203; compare H. Winckler, _Religionsgeschichtlicher und geschichtlicher +Orient_, Leipzig, 1906, p. 61. Professor Morris Jastrow holds, however, +that this passage from the inscription of Gudea has no reference to the +full moon (_American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_, 1914, +xxx, 98 _n._²). + +[742] D. Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_, St. Petersburg, +1856, ii, 8, 94 _sqq._, translating the _Fihrist_ (ix, i, 5) of Ibn +al-Nadīm. On the Harranians see in general D. S. Margoliouth, in +Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, vi, 519 _sq._ It is +curious to find a Moslem tradition, current about 830 A.D., that “Abraham +lived with his people four-score years and ten in the land of Harran, +worshipping none other than Al Ozza, an idol famous in that land and +adored by the men of Harran, under the name of the Moon, which same +custom prevails among them to the present day” (Sir William Muir, _The +Apology of Al Kindy_,² London, 1887, p. 17). + +[743] W. F. von Landau, _Beiträge zur Altertumskunde des Orients_, +Leipzig, 1899, ii, 46 _sq._; compare _idem_, _Die phönizischen +Inschriften_, Leipzig, 1907, p. 22 (_Der alte Orient_, viii, 3). + +[744] Above, p. 182 _n._⁷ There are numerous reports by Babylonian +astrologers according to which any one of five days, from the twelfth to +the sixteenth of the month, might be taken as the exact time when the +moon became full, depending, of course, upon how early or how late was +the visible new moon (Kugler, _Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel_, ii, +14 _sq._). + +[745] The Rev. C. H. C. Johns has pointed out that in Babylonian +calendars many days are indicated as _nubattu_, a term signifying rest, +pause, and especially a god’s connubial rest with his consort goddess. +“The observance of such days was a bar to attending even to important +diplomatic business or setting out on a journey.... It is quite possible +that _shabattum_ and _nubattum_ are from the same root and originally +denoted much the same thing—a pause, abstention, from whatever cause or +for ceremonial purposes” (_Encyclopædia Britannica_,¹¹ xxiii, 961 _sq._). +A calendar of the intercalary month of Elul cites the 3d, 7th, and 16th +days as the _nubattu_ of Marduk and his consort Sarpanit (Lagrange, _op. +cit._, p. 284 _n._⁶; Schrader, _Keilinschriften_,³ p. 371). + +[746] The form of the Fourth Commandment in the First Decalogue +(_Exodus_, xx, 8), “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy,” indicates +not the institution of a new day but the sanctioning of an old one. In +the Second Decalogue (_Deuteronomy_, v, 12), the commandment reads: +“Observe the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.” The word “holy” in these +injunctions has the force of “set apart ritually,” “separated from common +use,” _i.e._, taboo. + +[747] _Exodus_, xxxiv, 21, xxiii, 12. + +[748] 2 _Kings_, iv, 23. This is perhaps the earliest historical +reference to the Sabbath. + +[749] _Amos_, viii, 5; _Hosea_, ii, 11. + +[750] _Genesis_, ii, 2-3; _Exodus_, xx, 11. + +[751] _Deuteronomy_, v. 15; compare _Nehemiah_, ix, 14; _Ezekiel_, xx, +12. The principal Old Testament references to the Sabbath have been +grouped in their assumed historical order by E. G. King, “The Sabbath +in the Light of the Higher Criticism,” _Expository Times_, 1906, xvii, +438-443. + +[752] M. Jastrow, “The Original Character of the Hebrew Sabbath,” +_American Journal of Theology_, 1898, ii, 313 _sq._; S. R. Driver, _The +Book of Genesis_,⁵ London, 1906, p. 35. Canon Cheyne suggests that +the priestly writer in _Genesis_, ii, 2 _sqq._ appears to accept the +anthropomorphic view which finds such frequent expression in Oriental +antiquity. Things on earth correspond to things in heaven; if God +“rested” on the seventh day, man ought to do likewise (_Traditions and +Beliefs of Ancient Israel_, London, 1907, p. 70). Later Hebrew writers +carry this idea of correspondence so far as to require the angels to +observe all the Jewish festivals (H. P. Smith, _The Religion of Israel_, +New York, 1914, p. 229). + +[753] F. Baur, “Der hebräische Sabbat und die Nationalfeste des +mosaischen Cultus,” _Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie_, 1832, iii, 145 +_sqq._; A. Kuenen, _The Religion of Israel_, London, 1873, i, 262 _sqq._; +Paul de Lagarde, editor, _Psalterium iuxta Hebræos Hieronymi_, Leipzig, +1874, 158 _sqq._ + +[754] Schiaparelli, _Astronomy in the Old Testament_, pp. 48 _sq._; P. +Jensen, “Astronomy,” _Jewish Encyclopedia_, ii, 246. + +[755] _Amos_, v, 26; W. R. Harper, _A Critical and Exegetical Commentary +on Amos and Hosea_, New York, 1905, pp. 137 _sqq._; K. Budde, _The +Religion of Israel to the Exile_, New York, 1899, pp. 67 _sqq._ + +[756] J. Fürst, _Kultur- und Literaturgeschichte der Juden in Asien_, +Leipzig, 1849, pt. i, 40; W. Nowack, _Lehrbuch der hebräischen +Archäologie_, Strassburg, 1894, ii, 142 _sq._; E. Schürer, in +_Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft_, 1905, vi, 6 _sq._, +19. There is a Talmudic story which tells how Moses, having arranged +with Pharaoh for a day of rest to be observed by the Hebrews in Egypt, +was asked what day he thought most suitable for the purpose. Moses +answered, “The seventh day, sacred to Saturn; work done upon this day +never prospers” (Jeremias, _The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient +East_, i, 202; Delitzsch, _Babel and Bible_, p. 102). + +[757] _Saturni aut sacram me tenuisse diem_ (_Elegiæ_, i, 3, 18). + +[758] Ovid, _Remedium amoris_, 220; compare _idem_, _Ars amatoria_, i, +415-416; Horace, _Satiræ_, i, 9, 69-70; Persius, _Satiræ_, v, 184. + +[759] Frontinus, _Strategematica_, ii, 1, 17; Dio Cassius, _Historia +Romana_, xxxvii, 17. Tacitus (_Historiæ_, v, 4) thinks that the Jewish +Sabbath may be an observance in honour of Saturn, though he gives an +alternative explanation, connecting the day with the escape from Egyptian +bondage. For other evidence from classical writers see P. Lejay, “Le +sabbat juif et les poètes latins,” _Revue d’histoire et de littérature +religieuses_, 1903, viii, 305-335; T. Reinach, _Textes d’auteurs grecs et +romains relatifs au judaïsme_, Paris, 1895, pp. 104, 243, 266, 287; M. +Wolff, “Het oordeel der hellenensch-romeinsche schrijvers over oorsprong, +naam, en viering van der Sabbat,” _Theologisch Tijdschrift_, 1910, xliv, +162-172. + +[760] J. Spencer, _De legibus Hebræorum ritualibus et earum rationibus_, +Cambridge, 1727, i, 67 _sqq._ (bk. i, ch. v, sect. viii). + +[761] Above, p. 191. + +[762] Below, pp. 253 _sq._ + +[763] Nowack, _op. cit._, ii, 144; R. Smend, _Lehrbuch der +alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte_, Freiburg-i.-B., 1899, pp. 160 +_sq._; A. F. von Gall, “Die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft und die +keilinschriftliche Forschung,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1902, +v, 321. + +[764] J. Wellhausen, _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_,⁶ Berlin, 1905, +p. 109; W. E. Addis, _Documents of the Hexateuch_, London, 1892, i, 139; +_idem_, _Hebrew Religion to the Establishment of Judaism under Ezra_, +London, 1906, p. 85. + +[765] C. M. Doughty, _Travels in Arabia Deserta_, Cambridge, 1888, i, 366. + +[766] The Hebrew lunisolar year consisted of twelve months, adjusted to +the solar year by the intercalation of a thirteenth month. The name of +the latter is first met in the _Mishna_, where it is styled the “second +Adar.” The months consisted of 29 days (hence called “defective” months), +or of 30 days (“full” months), but there seems to have been no uniform +sequence of long and short months. The regulation of the month was +probably at first in the hands of the priests and later was committed +to the Sanhedrin. A solar year of 364 days, _i.e._, 52 complete weeks, +is found in two pseudographia which date probably from Maccabæan times +(_Book of Enoch_ and _Book of Jubilees_), but it is hardly likely that +solar reckonings were then in general use. On this subject consult S. +Poznanśki, “Calendar (Jewish),” in Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion +and Ethics_, iii, 117 _sqq._ + +[767] _Psalms_, civ, 19. Compare _Ecclesiasticus_, xliii, 6-8: “He +made the moon also to serve in her season for a declaration of times, +and a sign of the world. From the moon is the sign of feasts, a light +that decreaseth in her perfection. The month is called after her name, +increasing wonderfully in her changing.” + +[768] _Jeremiah_, viii, 2; _Zephaniah_, i, 5; _Deuteronomy_, xvii, 3; 2 +_Kings_, xxiii, 5; G. W. Gilmore, “Moon,” _New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia +of Religious Knowledge_, vii, 493. That no trace of the cult of Sin, the +Babylonian moon-god, is discoverable in the Old Testament, even in the +name Sinai, is the opinion of the latest investigator of this subject. +See E. Combe, _Histoire du culte de Sin_, Paris, 1908, pp. 157 _sqq._ +The custom of kissing the hand to the moon (_Job_, xxxi, 26 _sq._) may +have meant to the Hebrews little more than it does to us. Orthodox Jewish +mothers are said still to teach their sons to take off their caps to the +new moon. + +[769] Doughty, _op. cit._, ii, 305 _sq._; compare D. Nielsen, _Die +altarabische Mondreligion und die mosaische Überlieferung_, Strassburg, +1904, p. 50. For the Abyssinian customs see E. Littmann, in _Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft_, 1908, xi, 313 _sq._ + +[770] Mrs. H. H. Spoer, in _Folklore_, 1910, xxi, 289. + +[771] M. Jastrow, _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia +and Assyria_, New York, 1911, pp. 214 _n._³, 336 _n._²; F. Hommel, _Der +Gestirndienst der alten Araber und die altisraelitische Überlieferung_, +Munich, 1901, p. 28. + +[772] 1 _Samuel_, xx, 27-28; compare _Judith_, viii, 6. On the new-moon +festival see Nowack, _op. cit._, ii, 138 _sqq._; Wellhausen, _op. cit._, +pp. 107 _sqq._; I. Benzinger, _Hebräische Archäologie_,² Tübingen, +1907, pp. 388 _sq._; G. Förster, “Die Neumondfeier im Alten Testament,” +_Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie_, 1906, xlix, 1-17; B. +Stade, _Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments_, Tübingen, 1905, i, 176 +_sqq._; A. Dillmann, _Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus_,³ edited by V. +Ryssel, Leipzig, 1897, pp. 634 _sqq._ See also “New Moon” in Hastings’s +_Dictionary of the Bible_, _Jewish Encyclopedia_, and _Encyclopædia +Biblica_. + +[773] 1 _Samuel_, xx, 5-6, 24-29. + +[774] _Ibid._, xx, 18-19. In verse 19 the Hebrew expression _beyom +hama ‘aseh_, rendered in the Authorized Version (margin) “in the day +of the business,” appears in the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, +and the Jewish Aramaic Targum as the designation of a working day, in +distinction from the festival day of the new moon. The Douai version of +the Scriptures translates accordingly, “in the day when it is lawful +to work.” Professor H. P. Smith holds that, owing to the corruption of +the text, the particular day here intended is no longer intelligible +(_A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel_, New +York, 1899, pp. 190 _sq._). He has, however, overlooked the fact, that, +as my friend and pupil Rabbi Jacob Singer points out to me, the same +expression _sheset yeme hama ‘aseh_ is found in _Ezekiel_ (xlvi, 1) as +the designation of “the six working days” of the week; see Brown, Driver, +and Briggs, _A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament_, Boston, +1906, p. 795. + +[775] 2 _Kings_, iv, 23. Some Biblical references indicate that on the +first day of the month the prophets were supposed to be most under the +influence of their divine afflatus; compare _Ezekiel_, xxvi, 1, xxix, 17, +xxxi, 1, xxxii, 1; _Haggai_, i, 1. + +[776] John Allen, _Modern Judaism_,² London, 1830, pp. 390 _sq._; H. G. +F. Löwe, _Schulchan Aruch, oder die vier jüdischen Gesetzbücher_, Vienna, +1896, i, 91; M. Friedmann, in _Jewish Quarterly Review_, 1891, iii, 712; +Israel Abrahams, _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_, London, 1896, p. 374. + +[777] That the Old Testament thus contains indirect evidence of the +celebration of full-moon day by the early Hebrews was long ago recognized +by the learned commentator, August Dillmann. “Von einer Feier des +Vollmondes zeigt sich bei den Israeliten keine Spur.... Jedoch war er +dadurch bevorzugt, dass an ihm das grosse Frühlings- und Herbstfest +begann” (_Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus_,³ p. 635). A passage in one +of the _Psalms_ (lxxxi, 3): “Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the +full moon, on our feast-day,” probably refers to new moon in the seventh +month, or New Year’s Day (_Leviticus_, xxiii, 24), and to the first day +of the Feast of Tabernacles, which began on the fifteenth of the same +month (_ibid._, xxiii, 39). + +[778] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 5-6; _Exodus_, xii, 6 _sqq._; _Numbers_, +xxviii, 16-17. + +[779] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 33-36, 39; _Numbers_, xxix, 12. + +[780] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 6-8; _Exodus_, xii, 16; _Numbers_, xxviii, 18, +25. + +[781] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 39; _Numbers_, xxix, 12, 35. + +[782] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 11, 15. + +[783] M. Jastrow, “‘The Day after the Sabbath,’” _American Journal of +Semitic Languages and Literatures_, 1914, xxx, 104. + +[784] 2 _Kings_, iv, 23. This passage, incidentally, affords proof that +at the time it was written the legal length of a “Sabbath Day’s journey” +had not been determined, for from Shunem to Elisha’s abode on Carmel was +a distance of some thirty to forty kilometres (R. Kittel, _Die Bücher der +Könige_, Göttingen, 1900, p. 200). + +[785] _Hosea_, ii, 13 (A. V. v. 11). + +[786] _Amos_, viii, 4-5. + +[787] _Isaiah_, i, 13. + +[788] _Ibid._, lxvi, 23; compare _Colossians_, ii, 16. + +[789] Wellhausen, _Prolegomena_,⁶ pp. 108 _sq._; Smith, “Sabbath,” +_Encyclopædia Britannica_,⁹ xxi, 126. + +[790] This pregnant suggestion was first made by H. Zimmern in his +comments on the discovery by T. G. Pinches (_Zeitschrift der deutschen +morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, 1904, lvii, 202 _and_ _n._¹). The +hypothesis of the original identity of Sabbath and full-moon day was +subsequently elaborated by J. Meinhold (_Sabbat und Woche im Alten +Testament_, Göttingen, 1905), whose main conclusions have been accepted +by K. Marti (_Religion of the Old Testament_, London, 1907, pp. 150 +_sq._) and T. K. Cheyne (_Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel_, +London, 1907, p. 69). See also E. Mahler, “Der Sabbat,” _Zeitschrift +der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, 1908, lxii, 40, 46 _sq._; +M. Jastrow, _Hebrew and Baylonian Traditions_, New York, 1914, pp. 154 +_sqq._, 185. + +[791] _Ezekiel_, xlvi, 1-3. + +[792] Above, pp. 226, 247. _Shabbāth_ also appears several times in the +Old Testament in the general sense of “week,” the name of the principal +weekday being used as the designation of the entire cycle of seven days. +Compare _Leviticus_, xxiii, 15, xxv, 8. + +[793] H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader, _Keilinschriften_,³ p. 594; compare A. +H. McNeile, _The Book of Exodus_, London, 1908, p. 122. + +[794] Johannes Meinhold, _Sabbat und Woche im Alten Testament_, +Göttingen, 1905, pp. 10 _sqq._; compare _idem_, “Die Entstehung des +Sabbats,” _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, 1909, +xxix, 81-112. + +[795] The march of the Israelitish host around Jericho on seven +successive days, one of which must have been the Sabbath, if that +institution as a weekly rest day was then known to them, would have been +a profanation of the Sabbath according to later ideas. See _Joshua_, vi, +4, 14-15; compare Tertullian, _Adversus Judæos_, 4. But this account +may contain a reminiscence of a period of Hebrew history when the week, +either lunar or periodic, had not become established in Israel. + +[796] _Numbers_, xxviii, 11-15; _Ezekiel_, xlvi, 4-6; compare 1 +_Chronicles_, xxiii, 31; 2 _Chronicles_, ii, 4, viii, 13, xxxi, 3; +_Ezra_, iii, 5; _Nehemiah_, x, 33. + +[797] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 24; compare _Numbers_, xxix, 1; _Nehemiah_, +viii, 2, 9-12. But see above, p. 82. + +[798] _Deuteronomy_, v, 14; _Exodus_, xxiii, 12. + +[799] _Exodus_, xx, 8-11. + +[800] _Ibid._, xxxiv, 21. + +[801] _Exodus_, xvi, 29. On this text Dositheus, the founder of an +ascetic Samaritan sect, is said to have based the requirement that, in +whatever habit, place, or posture the Sabbath found a man, in this he +was to continue till the close of the sacred festival; if he was found +sitting, he must sit still all the day, or, if reclining, he must lie +down all the day (Origen, _De principiis_, iv, 1, 17). S. Reinach wittily +compares the Dosithean injunction to the practice of various animals, +which, when in danger and unable to flee, _fait le mort_ (“Le sabbat +hébraïque,” _Cultes, mythes, et religions_, Paris, 1906-1912, ii, 444). +For some mediæval stories illustrating the rule of absolute repose on the +Sabbath, see R. Basset, “L’observation du sabbat,” _Revue des traditions +populaires_, 1893, viii, 250-254. + +[802] _Exodus_, xxxv, 3. + +[803] _Ibid._, xvi, 23. The rules forbidding the lighting of fires +and cooking on the Sabbath were very strictly observed by the Essenes +(Josephus, _Bellum Judaicum_, ii, 8). In the _Mishna_ (_Shabbāth_, iv, 1) +the prohibition to bake and boil on the Sabbath is interpreted to mean +that food may be kept hot on the Sabbath, provided its existing heat is +not increased, which would be “boiling.” Hence the food must be put only +into such substances as would maintain but not increase the heat. The +prohibition to kindle a fire on the Sabbath was naturally extended to +one of extinguishing a fire, as well as lights and lamps (_ibid._, xvi, +6). In mediæval times Rabbi Solomon ben Adret had a lock affixed to his +stove, and kept the key over the Sabbath to prevent his too-considerate +housemaid from lighting a fire on Saturdays (I. Abrahams, _Jewish Life +in the Middle Ages_, London, 1896, p. 83). On the modern Jewish custom +of kindling lights at the arrival and departure of the Sabbath see M. +Friedmann, “The Sabbath Light,” _Jewish Quarterly Review_, 1891, iii, +707-721. + +[804] Above, p. 232 _and_ _n._³ + +[805] F. J. Chabas, _Le calendrier des jours fastes et néfastes de +l’année égyptienne_, Chalon-s.-S., 1870, pp. 46, 68; Sir G. Maspero, _New +Light on Ancient Egypt_,² London, 1909, pp. 130 _sq._ + +[806] Above, pp. 9, 12, 15, 16, 20, 41, etc. + +[807] E. Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, ii, +305. + +[808] For a collection of the ethnographic evidence, see Sir J. G. +Frazer, “On Certain Burial Customs as Illustrative of the Primitive +Theory of the Soul,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1885, +xv, 90; _idem_, _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, London, +1911, ii, 267 _n._⁴; E. S. Hartland, “Death and Disposal of the Dead +(Introductory and Primitive),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and +Ethics_, iv, 439. + +[809] E. Westermarck, “The Principles of Fasting,” _Folklore_, 1908, +xviii, 397 _sqq._; _idem_, _Moral Ideas_, ii, 293 _sqq._ + +[810] Above, pp. 15, 17, 39, 44, etc. + +[811] Compare M. Jastrow, in _American Journal of Theology_, 1898, ii, +324 _sqq._; Westermarck, _op. cit._, ii, 310 _sq._ + +[812] _Ecclesiastical Polity_, v, 72. + +[813] _De vita sua_, 54. + +[814] Suetonius, _Divus Augustus_, 76; Strabo, _Geographica_, xvi, 2, 40; +Martial, _Epigrammata_, iv, 4; Justin, xxxvi, 2. Justin speaks of the +Sabbath as having been consecrated as a fast day to commemorate a seven +days’ fast of the Israelites in the deserts of Arabia. + +[815] Above, pp. 81 _sqq._ + +[816] _Judith_, viii, 6; _Schulchan Aruch_, i, 91 _sq._ + +[817] The Talmud (_Tractate Pesachim_, 105 a) indicates that some +superstitions attached to the afternoon of the Sabbath as a dangerous +time for the consumption of food. During the early Middle Ages Jews in +northern France, Lorraine, and Germany, but not in Provence, Narbonne, +or Spain, refrained from eating and drinking on Sabbath afternoons. See +D. Kaufmann, “Was the Custom of Fasting on Sabbath Afternoon Part of the +Early Anglo-Jewish Ritual?” _Jewish Quarterly Review_, 1894, vi, 754-756. + +[818] _Leviticus_, xxv, 4. This law was occasionally productive of great +distress (1 _Maccabees_, vi, 48, 53; compare Josephus, _Antiquitates +Judaicæ_, xiv, 16, 2). + +[819] _Leviticus_, xxv, 21. + +[820] _Exodus_, xxiii, 11. + +[821] _Leviticus_, xxv, 11. Whether the Jubilee was celebrated after +forty-eight years or after forty-nine years is a problem incapable of +solution from the Old Testament evidence. As Schiaparelli has well shown +(_Astronomy in the Old Testament_, pp. 146 _sqq._), the twenty-fifth +chapter of _Leviticus_ combines two systems of rules which are not only +different but actually irreconcilable with each other, the septennial +system of the Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee system of fifty years. + +[822] _Exodus_, xxxi, 14; for a similar regulation see _ibid._, xxxv, 2. + +[823] _Numbers_, xv, 32-36. The comments of Philo Judæus on this passage +are interesting, if not illuminating (_Vita Mosis_, iii, 27-28). + +[824] _Jeremiah_, xvii, 19-27; _Ezekiel_, xx, 13, 16, 21, 24, xxii, 8, +26, xxiii, 38. + +[825] _Nehemiah_, x, 31, xiii, 15-16. The use of the Sabbath Day for +marketing is paralleled by the Mohammedan observance of _jum‘a_ (above, +p. 206). + +[826] _Isaiah_, lvi, 2 _sq._, lviii, 13. + +[827] T. K. Cheyne, _Jewish Religious Life after the Exile_, New York, +1898, p. 66; C. G. Montefiore, _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of +Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews_,² London, +1893, pp. 229 _sq._, 338 _sq._; Wellhausen, _Prolegomena_,⁶ p. 110; W. R. +Smith, “Sabbath,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_,⁹ xxi, 124; K. Marti, _Das +Dodekapropheton_, Tübingen, 1904, p. 26. + +[828] Compare E. G. Hirsch; “Sabbath,” in _Jewish Encyclopedia_, x, 590; +Bohn, _Der Sabbat im Alten Testament_, pp. 8 _sqq._, 89 _sqq._ + +[829] M. Jastrow, in _American Journal of Theology_, 1898, ii, 324 _n._⁴⁷ +_idem_, _Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions_, p. 162. The Old Testament +contains at least one reference to a lucky day (1 _Samuel_, xxv, 8). +Among modern Jews no marriages are celebrated during the period between +Passover and Pentecost. The origin of the superstition is unknown, but +its antiquity may be judged from the fact that in the 8th century A.D. +the rabbis themselves were unable to account for it (Abrahams, _op. +cit._, p. 184). By the Romans May was considered an unlucky month for +marriage, a belief which Ovid (_Fasti_, v, 489-490) connects with the +celebration of the Lemuria in May. Compare Plutarch, _Quæstiones Romanæ_, +86. The superstition, as is well known, has descended to our own time. + +[830] The principal regulations in the _Mishna_ are well summarized by E. +Schürer, _History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ_, div. ii, +vol. ii, 96-105. For the rigorous rules observed by the Covenanters of +Damascus, a Jewish sect whose history has been only lately recovered, see +G. F. Moore, in _Harvard Theological Review_, 1911, iv, 346 _sq._ + +[831] 1 _Maccabees_, ii, 31 _sqq._; 2 _Maccabees_, v, 25-26, vi, 11, +viii, 26; Josephus, _Antiquitates Judaicæ_, xii, 62. Plutarch refers +to the Jews who allowed their enemies to rear scaling ladders and make +themselves masters of their walls, and “so lay still until they were +caught like so many trout in the dragnet of their own superstition” (_De +superstitione_, 8). + +[832] Above, pp. 97 _sq._ + +[833] _Isaiah_, lviii, 13. + +[834] _Luke_, xiv, 1-24. + +[835] Augustine, _In comm. ad Psalm. xcii_ (_Nicene and Post-Nicene +Fathers of the Christian Church_, viii, 453). This passage, with others +in a similar strain, from St. Chrysostom, Prudentius, and Theodoret, +is adduced by the learned ecclesiastical historian Joseph Bingham +(_Antiquities of the Christian Church_, London, 1838-1840, vii, 32 +_sqq._). + +[836] Plutarch, _Quæstiones conviviales_, iv, 6, 2. + +[837] S. Schechter, in _Jewish Quarterly Review_, 1891, iii, 763; compare +_idem_, _Studies in Judaism_, New York, 1896, pp. 244 _sqq._, and Israel +Abrahams, _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_, London, 1896, p. 12, 24, +373 _sq._ See further J. Mann, “The Observance of the Sabbath and the +Festivals in the First Two Centuries of the Current Era, according to +Philo, Josephus, the New Testament, and the Rabbinic Sources,” _Jewish +Review_, 1914, iv, 433-456. + +[838] Above, pp. 244 _sq._ + +[839] _De opificio mundi_, 30; compare _idem_, _Vita Mosis_, ii, 4. + +[840] _Contra Apionem_, ii, 40. + +[841] Compare Juvenal, _Satiræ_, xiv, 105-106 (with J. B. Mayor’s +commentary); Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 16; _idem_, _Ad nationes_, i, 13. + +[842] Above, p. 220. + +[843] In the New Testament such phrases as ἐν δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων +(_Acts_, xx, 7) and κατὰ μίαν σαββάτου (1 _Corinthians_, xvi, 2; compare +_Matthew_, xxviii, 1; _Mark_, xvi, 2; _Luke_, xxiv, 1; _John_, xx, 1, 19) +refer to Sunday as “the first day of the week.” An equivalent expression, +πρώτῃ σαββάτου, is also found (_Mark_, xvi, 9). The designation of Sunday +as the Lord’s Day—ἡ κυριακὴ ἡμέρα—occurs in a single New Testament +passage (_Revelation_, i, 10). Some critics hold that the author of +the _Apocalypse_ was referring here, not to Sunday but to the day of +Judgment, called elsewhere ἡ ἡμέρα ἡ μεγάλη “the great day” (_ibid._, vi, +17, xvi, 14). + +[844] _Acts_, xx, 7; 1 _Corinthians_, xvi, 2; compare _John_, xx, 26. + +[845] _Epistola Barnabæ_, 15; compare Justin Martyr, _Dialogus cum +Tryphone_, 138; Tertullian, _De idolatria_, 14. The “eighth day” might +seem to be a natural designation for the day following the Sabbath, the +seventh day; more probably, however, it is to be explained by the ancient +practice of inclusive reckoning. + +[846] _Didache_, xiv, 1. The testimony of Pliny the Younger (_Epistolæ_, +x, 98) makes it evident that as early as the year 111 A.D. the Christians +of Asia Minor were accustomed to hold religious assemblies on a fixed day +(_stato die_), which can hardly have been other than the first day of the +week. + +[847] Eusebius, _Historia ecclesiastica_, iv, 23, 11, iv, 26, 2. + +[848] _Apologia prima_, 67. Tertullian, who found it necessary to answer +the objection that Christians worshipped the sun, declares, “Indeed, they +made Sunday a day of joy, but for other reasons than to adore the sun, +which was no part of their religion” (_Apologeticus_, 16; compare _Ad +nationes_, i, 13). + +[849] Above, pp. 220 _sq._ On the early history of the Christian Sunday +see A. Barry, “Lord’s Day,” Smith and Cheetham’s _Dictionary of Christian +Antiquities_, ii, 1042-1053; G. A. Deissmann, “Lord’s Day,” _Encyclopædia +Biblica_, iii, coll. 2813-2816; O. Zöckler, “Sonntagsfeier,” Herzog, +Plitt, and Hauck’s _Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und +Kirche_,³ xviii, 521-529; T. Zahn, “Geschichte des Sonntags vornehmlich +in der alten Kirche,” in _Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche_,² +Erlangen, 1898, pp. 160-208, 351-376; J. A. Hessey, _Sunday_,⁵ London, +1889, pp. 40-49. + +[850] _Matthew_, xii, 8; _Mark_, ii, 27; _John_, v, 17. + +[851] _Colossians_, ii, 16; compare _Romans_, xiv, 5; _Galatians_, iv, +10-11. + +[852] _Epistola ad Magnesios_, 9. The longer recension of this passage, +though an interpolation of much later date, expresses the same antagonism +toward sabbatizing: “But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a +spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation +of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things +prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a +prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing, and plaudits which have +no sense in them” (_Ante-Nicene Fathers_, i, 62 _sq._). + +[853] _Constitutiones Apostolicæ_, ii, 59, 1, vii, 23, 2, viii, 33, 1; +_Concilium Laodicenum_, can. 16 (Labbe-Mansi, _Sacrorum conciliorum +collectio_, ii, 567); Socrates, _Historia ecclesiastica_, vi, 8. The +church council held at Laodicea in 363 A.D. anathematized as Judaizers +those who refrained from work on Saturday (_Concilium Laodicenum_, can. +29; Labbe-Mansi, _op. cit._, ii, 580). The anathema did not penetrate +to the ancient Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, where Saturday is still +strictly observed. “The ox and the ass are at rest. Agricultural pursuits +are suspended. Household avocations must be laid aside, and the spirit +of idleness reigns throughout the day.... When, a few years ago, one +daring spirit presumed, in advance of the age, to burst the fetters of +superstition, his majesty the king of Shoa, stimulated by the advice of +besotted monks, delegated his wardens throughout the land, and issued +a proclamation, that whoso disturbed the original dreamy stillness of +the Jewish Sabbath should forfeit his property to the royal treasury, +and be consigned to the state dungeon” (W. C. Harris, _The Highlands +of Ethiopia_, New York [1843], p. 272). The Celts kept Saturday as a +day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday (A. Bellesheim, +_History of the Catholic Church in Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1887-1890, i, +86). + +[854] _De oratione_, 23: _Omni anxietatis habitu et officio cavere +debemus, differentes etiam negotia, ne quem diabolo locum demus_. +Tertullian, however, elsewhere rejects the implication that Christians +should be sabbatizers, “we, to whom these Sabbaths belong not, nor the +new moons, nor the feast days once beloved of God” (_De idolatria_, 14); +compare _idem_, _Apologeticus_, 16; _idem_, _Ad nationes_, i, 13; _idem_, +_Adversus Judæos_, 4; Augustine, _De spiritu et littera_, 24. + +[855] Above, pp. 122 _sq._ + +[856] For the history of Sunday legislation see E. V. Neale, _Feasts +and Fasts_, London, 1845; R. E. Prime, “Sunday Legislation,” _New +Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge_, xi, 146-151; J. +Gairdiner, “Sundays, Ancient and Modern,” in Gairdiner and Spedding, +_Studies in English History_, Edinburgh, 1881, pp. 286-315; Hans +[Johannes] Meinhold, _Sabbat und Sonntag_, Leipzig, 1909, pp. 65-103; +Alice M. Earle, _The Sabbath in Puritan New England_, New York, 1891, pp. +245-258. + +[857] Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, pp. 219 _sq._ + +[858] G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_, Cambridge, 1903, p. 189. In +Greece and Albania, also, Tuesday is an unlucky day for every sort of +enterprise (Miss Mary Hamilton, _Greek Saints and their Festivals_, +Edinburgh, 1910, p. 190). + +[859] Livy, vi, 1; Tacitus, _Historiæ_, ii, 91; Suetonius, _Vitellius_, +11. Compare Ovid (_Fasti_, i, 49-50): + + _Omen ab eventu est; illis nam Roma diebus,_ + _Damna sub adverso Marte tristia tulit._ + +[860] Suetonius, _Divus Julius_, 88. + +[861] See “La recommandation du vendredi,” _Mélusine_, 1888-1889, iv, +104, 133 _sqq._, 205 _sq._ However, the Friday superstition may ante-date +Christianity. In Macedonia it is believed that ablutions on Friday are +dangerous, especially for women in childbed (Abbott, _op. cit._, p. 190). +The Brahmans of India share the Friday superstition, saying that “on this +day no business must be commenced” (Buchanan, in _Asiatick Researches_, +vi, 172). Among the Parsis Tuesday and Friday are inauspicious days, +generally avoided for betrothals, marriages, and other happy occasions. +Many persons will not begin an important work or start on a distant +journey on these days (J. J. Modi, “Omens among the Parsees,” _Journal +of the Anthropological Society of Bombay_, i, 294). All over Burma +Friday is unlucky. “Don’t go on Friday” is a current saying (L. Vossion, +“_Nat_-worship among the Burmese,” _Journal of American Folk-lore_, 1892, +iv, 112). For Russian superstitions relating to Friday see above, p. 222 +_n._² + +[862] J. Jacobs, “Superstition,” _Jewish Encyclopedia_, xi, 599. + +[863] The sidereal month, determined by the moon’s revolution from any +star back to the same star, has a mean length of 27 days, 7 hours, 43 +minutes, and 11 seconds. The least duration is 27 days, 4 hours, and the +greatest, about 7 hours longer. + +[864] F. K. Ginzel (_Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen +Chronologie_, Leipzig, 1906-1911, i, 70 _sqq._) provides a useful survey, +with bibliographies, of the lengthy discussions relating to the origin +and diffusion of the moon-stations. See also W. D. Whitney, “On the Lunar +Zodiac of India, Arabia, and China,” in his _Oriental and Linguistic +Studies_, second series, New York, 1874, pp. 341-421. + +[865] Sir M. Monier-Williams, _Brāhmanism and Hindūism_,⁴ New York, +1891, pp. 345 _sq._; compare J. A. Dubois, _Hindu Manners, Customs, and +Ceremonies_,³ Oxford, 1906, p. 382. + +[866] L. H. Gray, “The Parsī-Persian _Burj-Nāmah_, or Book of Omens from +the Moon,” _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, 1910, xx, 337 +_sqq._; A. de C. Motylinski, _Les mansions lunaires des Arabes_, Algiers, +1899. + +[867] J. Sibree, “Divination among the Malagasy,” _Folklore_, 1892, iii, +220 _sq._ In Madagascar the names of the separate days in the month have +been taken directly from the Arabic names for the twenty-eight lunar +mansions. It thus appears that these names have both astrological and +chronological value (G. Ferrand, “Note sur le calendrier malgache et +le _fandruana_,” _Revue des études ethnographiques et sociologiques_, +1908, i, 95). Among the northern Abyssinians lucky and unlucky days are +likewise determined by the lunar stations, though only six or seven +are reckoned, each containing from two to seven days (E. Littmann, +“Sternensagen und Astrologisches aus Nordabessinien,” _Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft_, 1908, xi, 301 _sq._). + +[868] Above, p. 177 _n._² + +[869] According to A. Jeremias no evidence exists for the recognition of +twelve intercalary days in the ancient Oriental world (_Das Alter der +babylonischen Astronomie_, Leipzig, 1909, p. 42 _n._¹). However, the +Babylonian New Year’s festival of Zagmuk, which occupied the first eleven +days of the spring month of Nisan, has been compared with the Twelve Days +of Indo-European antiquity (H. Winckler, _Altorientalische Forschungen_, +Leipzig, 1898, ii, i, 182). What relation, if any, the Babylonian Zagmuk +bore to the Babylo-Persian Sacæa and the Hebrew Purim is still a subject +of controversy. See the full presentation of the evidence in Sir J. G. +Frazer, _The Scapegoat_, London, 1913, pp. 354-407. The Babylonian _Epic +of Gilgamesh_, recorded on twelve cuneiform tablets, has been plausibly +interpreted as a solar myth, recounting the sun’s annual course during +the twelve months. Now, a relationship undoubtedly exists between at +least three tablets of the poem and the corresponding months of the +year, notably in the case of the eleventh tablet, in which the story of +the Deluge is told, and the eleventh month, which by the Babylonians +was termed the “month of rain” (M. Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia and +Assyria_, pp. 484, 510). It is curious, therefore, to find that in the +Hebrew narrative of the Flood the waters cover the earth for the period +of a year and eleven days, apparently, here, a lunar year of 354 days +plus eleven days (_Genesis_, vii, 11, viii, 14). + +[870] _Rig-Veda_, i, 161, 11, 13, iv, 33, 7; compare _Atharva-Veda_, iv, +11, 11 (transl. W. D. Whitney, p. 166). + +[871] _Kāṭhaka_, 7, 5; _Taittirīya-brāhmaṇa_, 1, 1, 9, 10; H. Zimmer, +_Altindisches Leben_, Berlin, 1879, p. 367. + +[872] A. Weber, “Zwei vedische Texte über Omina und Portenta,” +_Philologische und historische Abhandlungen der königlichen Akademie +der Wissenschaften zu Berlin_, 1858, pp. 388 _sq._; _idem_, _Indische +Studien_, 1868, x, 242 _sq._, 1885, xvii, 223 _sqq._, 1898, xviii, 45; +_idem_, “Vedische Beiträge,” _Sitzungsberichte der königlich-preussischen +Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin_, 1898, pp. 559 _sqq._ Compare +A. Ludwig, _Der Rigveda_, Prague, 1883, vi, 232; A. Kaegi, _The +Rigveda_, Boston, 1886, p. 37; Zimmer, _op. cit._, pp. 366 _sq._ For +contrary opinions see O. Schrader, _Reallexikon der indogermanischen +Altertumskunde_, pp. 391 _sq._; G. Thibaut, in Bühler’s _Grundriss der +indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde_, iii, pt. ix, 9 _sq._ + +[873] J. Lippert, _Christentum, Volksglaube, und Volksbrauch_, Berlin, +1882, pp. 680-685; C. A. Miles, _Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, +Christian and Pagan_, London, 1912, pp. 238-246; Frazer, _The Scapegoat_, +pp. 313-345. + +[874] Above, pp. 74 _sqq._ + +[875] G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_, Cambridge, 1903, p. 75. + +[876] A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_,³ edited +by E. H. Meyer, Berlin, 1900, pp. 63 _sqq._ See also K. Weinhold, +_Weihnacht-Spiele und Lieder aus Süddeutschland und Schlesien_, Gräz, +1853, pp. 11 _sq._; K. A. Oberle, _Überreste germanischen Heidentums +im Christentum_, Baden-Baden, 1883, pp. 63 _sq._; E. H. Meyer, +_Indogermanische Mythen_, Berlin, 1887, ii, 526 _sqq._ + +[877] J. Loth, “Les douze jours supplémentaires (_gour-deziou_) des +Bretons, et les douze jours des Germains et des Indous,” _Revue +celtique_, 1903, xxiv, 310-312. + +[878] Miss C. S. Burne, editor, _Shropshire Folk-lore_, London, 1883, p. +403. + +[879] W. Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-east of Scotland_, +London, 1881, p. 156; _idem_, in _Folk-lore Record_, 1884, ii, 332. + +[880] John Williams ab Ithel, _Barddas_, Llandovery, 1862-1874, i, 424 +_sq._ + +[881] E. Seler, “The Mexican Chronology,” _Bulletin of the Bureau of +American Ethnology_, no. 28, p. 16. The passage quoted above is from +Seler’s translation of the Aztec text of Sahagun, which is more complete +than the latter’s Spanish version (_Historia general de las cosas de +Nueva España_, ii, 37; transl. Jourdanet and Siméon, Paris, 1880, pp. 50, +77, 164, 283, 291). Other Spanish authorities refer to the _nemontemi_ +as days when the people did nothing but receive and return visits +(Clavigero, _Storia antica del Messico_, vi, 24; Acosta, _Historia de las +Indias_, vi, 2). + +[882] E. Seler, in _Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, no. +28, pp. 16 _sq._; compare _idem_, in Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion +and Ethics_, iii, 308. The principal authority for the Maya custom is +Diego de Landa, _Relación de las cosas de Yucatan_, ch. xxxv (transl. +Brasseur de Bourbourg, pp. 211 _sqq._). + +[883] These five days thus inserted between the “small year” and the +“large year” did not interrupt the regular sequence of the three decades +into which the Egyptian month was divided; see above, p. 191. + +[884] Pepi, 2, l. 754. A still earlier reference is found in an +inscription belonging to the time of the Fifth Dynasty (K. Sethe, +_Urkunden des alten Reichs_, Leipzig, 1903, i, 24). + +[885] H. Brugsch, “Die fünf Epagomenen in einem hieratischen Papyrus zu +Leiden,” _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, 1852, +v, 254-258; compare _idem_, _Die Ägyptologie_, Leipzig, 1891, p. 362; C. +R. Lepsius, _Die Chronologie der Ägypter_, Berlin, 1849, i, 145 _sqq._ +The chief classical references to the epagomenal days are Herodotus, ii, +4; Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_, 12; and Diodorus Siculus, i, 13, 4. + +[886] F. J. Chabas, _Le calendrier des jours fastes et néfastes de +l’année égyptienne_, Chalon-s.-S., 1870, pp. 102-107. In the _Leiden +Papyrus_ (i. 346) only the first, third, and fifth days are marked with +the same sign as unlucky, but the observances prescribed relate to all +five days. Plutarch (_op. cit._, 12) refers to the third day, that of Set +or Tryphon, as inauspicious for Egyptian kings, who did no business on +it and took no care of their persons till nightfall. The parallel to the +royal observance of the Babylonian “evil days” is instructive (above, pp. +232 _sq._). + +[887] L. H. Gray, “Calendar (Persian),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, iii, 129; _idem_, “Divination (Persian),” _ibid._, +iv, 819. + +[888] F. Justi, _Geschichte des alten Persiens_, Berlin, 1879, p. 79. + +[889] F. Macler, “Calendar (Armenian),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, iii, 70. + +[890] J. Levering, in _Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and +Sciences_, 1873, viii, 348-364; “Calendrier républicain,” _La grande +encyclopédie_, viii, 908-910. + +[891] Abbott, _op. cit._, pp. 21, 63. The Macedonians observe the same +restrictions on the Wednesdays and Fridays of these two months. + +[892] Miss Mary Hamilton, _Greek Saints and their Festivals_, Edinburgh, +1910, pp. 187 _sq._ + +[893] W. H. D. Rouse, “Folklore from the Southern Sporades,” _Folklore_, +1899, x, 179. + +[894] J. C. Lawson, _Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion_, +Cambridge, 1910, pp. 152 _sq._ + +[895] J. S. Polack, _Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders_, London, +1840, i, 256. + +[896] J. Winkler, “Der Kalender der Toba-Bataks auf Sumatra,” +_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1913, xlv, 436-447. Among the Batta +dwelling inland from the Bay of Tapanuli the priest or magician, whose +duty it is to announce propitious days, is a most important functionary +in every village. The people “will not engage in any undertaking, however +trifling, or make the smallest alteration in their domestic economy, +without first consulting him” (Burton and Ward, in _Memoirs of the Royal +Asiatic Society_, 1827, i, 500). + +[897] W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, London, 1900, p. 549. + +[898] N. B. Dennys, _The Folk-lore of China_, London, 1876, pp. 30 _sq._ +In China there is also the state almanac, which is annually prepared +at Pekin under the direction of a bureau attached to the Board of +Rites. By making it a penal offence to issue a counterfeit or pirated +edition of this almanac, the government astrologers have monopolized the +management of the superstitions of the people in regard to the fortunate +or unfortunate conjunction of each day and hour. “No one ventures to be +without an almanac, lest he be liable to the greatest misfortunes, and +run the imminent hazard of undertaking important events on black-balled +days” (S. W. Williams, _The Middle Kingdom_,² New York, 1883, ii, 79 +_sq._). + +[899] H. A. Giles, _A Glossary of References on Subjects connected with +the Far East_,³ Shanghai, 1900, p. 183. + +[900] W. E. Griffis, _Corea, the Hermit Nation_,³ New York, 1889, p. 298. + +[901] E. Kaempfer, _History of Japan_, ii, 22 (Glasgow reprint, 1906). + +[902] A. Lloyd, “Death and Disposal of the Dead (Japanese),” Hastings’s +_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, iv, 486 _n._¹ + +[903] E. Schlaginweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, Leipzig and London, 1863, pp. +293 _sqq._ + +[904] W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_, London, 1906, p. 405. + +[905] _Ibid._, pp. 405 _sq._ + +[906] Rivers, _Todas_, p. 407. + +[907] _Ibid._, p. 408. + +[908] See _ibid._, p. 411, for a reference to certain restrictions which +may have arisen out of a belief in unlucky days. W. R. King (_Journal of +Anthropology_, 1870, i, 33 _sq._) expressly attributes this superstition +to the Toda. + +[909] Rivers, _Todas_, pp. 410 _sq._ + +[910] Rivers, _Todas_, pp. 459, 695 _sqq._, 710 _sq._ + +[911] _Ibid._, pp. 411 _sq._ + +[912] These Toda taboos suggest at once the Jewish sabbatarian +regulations and the methods of evading or mitigating them devised by +the rabbis (above, p. 264). Until the present day the Bene-Israel, a +body of Jews domiciled for many centuries in the Bombay Presidency, have +preserved the old Hebrew fasts and festivals, though under Indian names +and with Indian features superadded. Their habit of observing Saturday +as a Sabbath and of giving their oxen rest from the oil-mills on that +day has gained for them among their Hindu neighbours the name of “the +Saturday oil-men” (J. H. Lord, “Bene-Israel,” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics_, ii, 470 _sq._). + +[913] The week of seven days, with names derived from the Sanskrit, +appears to have been introduced by the Shins into Dardistan and western +Kashmir. See J. Biddulf, _Tribes of the Hindoo-Koosh_, Calcutta, 1880, p. +93; G. W. Leitner, _The Hunza and Nagyr Handbook_,² Woking, 1893, p. 16. + +[914] H. Roskoschny, _Afghanistan und seine Nachbarländer_, Leipzig, +1885, i, 174. + +[915] Sir G. S. Robertson, _The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush_, London, 1896, +pp. 579 _sq._ + +[916] A. van Gennep, _Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar_, Paris, 1904, p. +199. The Malagasy belief in lucky and unlucky days, as determined by the +moon stations (above, p. 275), appears to be a direct importation from +the Arabs superimposed on an earlier and thoroughly native observance of +tabooed seasons. The Malagasy have also taken over from Islam the week of +seven days (above, p. 197). + +[917] J. Sibree, “Malagasy Folk-lore and Popular Superstitions,” +_Folk-lore Record_, 1879, ii, 30-33. The custom still exists among the +Masikoro, an inland branch of the Sakalava tribe. Many Vezo (coast +Sakalava) families continue to expose a child born on an unlucky day, but +it is afterwards rescued and brought up by the relatives as their own. +“Such a child is, however, looked upon with some suspicion as to what +will be its character, because of its having been born on an unlucky day. +It is thought that it may bring some calamity upon the family, or may +itself be miserable or unfortunate in one way or another, when grown up. +It is a very common opinion that bad conduct is only the result of being +born on an unlucky day” (A. Walen, in _Antananarivo Annual_, 1883, no. 7, +pp. 51 _sq._). + +[918] J. Sibree, _loc. cit._ + +[919] A. van Gennep, _op. cit._, p. 203; _Antananarivo Annual_, 1891, no. +15, pp. 302 _sq._ + +[920] V. Noel, in _Bulletin de la société de géographie_, 1843, second +series, xx, 71. + +[921] A. van Gennep, _op. cit._, pp. 202 _sq._ + +[922] The two manuscripts (both in the British Museum) have been +edited, respectively, by F. L. Griffith (_Hieratic Papyri from Kahun +and Gurob_, London, 1898, pl. 25 text, p. 62; and E. A. W. Budge, +_Facsimiles of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri_, London, 1911, pls. 31-32). +See further W. Wreszinski, “Tagewählerei im alten Ägypten,” _Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft_, 1913, xvi, 86-100. + +[923] The text was published in _Select Papyri in the Hieratic +Character_, London, 1844, pt. i, pls. 144-168, and was translated by +F. J. Chabas (_Le calendrier des jours fastes et néfastes de l’année +égyptienne_, Chalon-s.-S., 1870). The work of Chabas was masterly, but it +has now become antiquated by the progress of Egyptology. F. Bohn (_Der +Sabbat im Alten Testament_, Gütersloh, 1903, pp. 57-62) gives a revised +and corrected version of numerous passages, based on the studies of +Professor Sethe, and Wreszinski (_loc. cit._) translates directly from +the Egyptian text. For discussions of this important document see Sir G. +Maspero, _Études égyptiennes_, Paris, 1886, i, 29 _sq._; _idem_, _Les +contes populaires de l’Égypte ancienne_,³ Paris, 1905, pp. xlix-lii; +_idem_, _New Light on Ancient Egypt_,² London, 1909, pp. 128-136; +A. Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, London, 1894, pp. 351 _sq._; A. +Wiedemann, _The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, London, 1897, pp. 263 +_sqq._; E. A. W. Budge, _Egyptian Magic_,² London, 1901, pp. 224 _sqq._; +G. Foucart, “Calendar (Egyptian),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion +and Ethics_, iii, 100 _sq._ + +[924] W. Wreszinski, in _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1913, xvi, 89 +_sqq._ + +[925] Chabas, _op. cit._, 28; Wreszinski, in _Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft_, 1913, xvi, 92 _sq._ + +[926] Rawlinson, _Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_, v, pls. 48, +49; Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, pp. 379 _sqq._, Bohn, +_Der Sabbat im Alten Testament_, pp. 55 _sqq._ A Babylonian tablet (K. +98), published by Professor Sayce (_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, 1887, +ii, 333-335), gives a list of days on which it was fortunate to undertake +such operations as “staking the canal,” “thinning the plantation,” and +“sinking the foundations of a house.” Still another text, published +by Dr. Stephen Langdon (_Expositor_, 1909, xxii, 156), contains the +injunction that on the fifth day of Nisan “he who fears Marduk or +Sarpanit shall not go out to work.” On the Babylonian _nubattu_ see +above, p. 241 _n._¹ + +[927] _Opera et dies_, 765-828. On the Hesiodic calendar see E. E. Sikes, +“Folk-lore in the Works and Days of Hesiod,” _Classical Review_, 1893, +vii, 389-394, and the Addenda to Professor A. W. Mair’s admirable version +of Hesiod, Oxford, 1908, pp. 162-166. For a full analysis of the calendar +see A. Mommsen, _Chronologie_, Leipzig, 1883, pp. 39-46. + +[928] _Opera et dies_, 724-764. + +[929] _Ibid._, 810, 820, 802 _sqq._, 770. + +[930] The Vergilian calendar (_Georgica_, i, 276 _sqq._) is obviously +an imitation of Hesiod’s, but it may be presumed that Vergil, with his +intimate knowledge of the farmer’s life, incorporated in his catalogue of +lucky and unlucky days some of the peasant lore of ancient Italy. + +[931] Augustine, _In comm. ad Pauli ep. ad Galatas_, 4; Ambrose, _Epist._ +i, 23; compare Marinus, _Vita Procli_, 19. + +[932] _Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_, i, pt. i,² 256, 297, with T. +Mommsen’s commentary. The anonymous author of the _Versus de diebus +Ægyptiacis_ (_Poetæ latini minores_, ed. A. Baehrens, v, 354-356) reduces +their number to twenty-four: + + _Bis deni binique dies scribuntur in anno,_ + _In quibus una solet mortalibus hora timeri._ + +[933] L. Moland, “Calendrier français du treizième siècle,” _Revue +archéologique_, 1862, n.s., v, 103 _sq._ + +[934] J. B. Thiers, _Traité des superstitions_,⁴ Paris, 1741, i, 291 +_sq._ See further Karl Meyer, _Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters_, Basel, +1884, p. 210; Du Cange, _Glossarium mediæ et infimæ latinitatis_, ed. +Favre, iii, 106 _sq._ + +[935] Chambers’s _Book of Days_, i, 42. See also O. Cockayne, _Leechdoms, +Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England_, London, 1866, iii, 150-197, +and John Aubrey’s quaint essay on “Day-fatality; or, Some Observations of +Days Lucky and Unlucky” (_Miscellanies upon Various Subjects_, London, +1784, pp. 3-36). Some rules concerning “perilous days” are reprinted by +Sir Lawrence Gomme from a fifteenth century manuscript (_Folklore_, 1913, +xxiv, 121-123). + +[936] Sir R. C. Temple, “Burma,” in Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion +and Ethics_, iii, 29; compare Shway Yoe [Sir J. G. Scott], _The Burman, +his Life and Notions_,³ London, 1910, pp. 383-389. On the unlucky days +observed in Upper Burma see _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan +States_, edited by Scott and Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. i, vol. ii, 48 +_sqq._ + +[937] W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_,² +Westminster, 1896, ii, 52 _sq._ + +[938] D. Malo, _Hawaiian Antiquities_, Honolulu, 1903, p. 56. + +[939] J. Dupuis, _Journal of a Residence in Ashantee_, London, 1824, 213 +_n._*; compare John Beecham, _Ashantee and the Gold Coast_, London, 1841, +p. 188. + +[940] J. W. Fewkes, “Tusayan _Katcinas_,” _Fifteenth Annual Report of the +Bureau of American Ethnology_, Washington, 1897, p. 255. The Hopi furnish +one of the few instances of compulsory rest days to be found among the +American Indians. They hold a mid-winter festival, called the _soyáluña_, +at the time of the winter solstice. “December is regarded as a sacred +month; no work is performed in it, and few games are allowed. It is the +month of the return of the sun and the gods, and bears the same name as +July, in which they depart” (J. W. Fewkes, “The Winter Solstice Ceremony +at Walpi,” _American Anthropologist_, 1898, xi, 69). + +[941] J. H. Gray, _China_, London, 1878, i, 249; W. E. Griffis, _Corea, +the Hermit Nation_,³ New York, 1889, p. 295. According to one account +the shops in China are shut and all business suspended only on the first +three days of the year, though these and numerous other festivals, both +general and local, are common occasions for relaxation and merry-making +(S. W. Williams, _The Middle Kingdom_,³ New York, 1883, i, 809). + +[942] Maspero, _New Light on Ancient Egypt_,² p. 135. + +[943] G. F. Schoemann, _Griechische Alterthümer_,⁴ edited by J. H. +Lipsius, Berlin, 1897-1902, ii, 458 _sq._; compare Plato, _Leges_, ii, +653; Thucydides, ii, 38. + +[944] Strabo, _Geographica_, vi, 3, 4. + +[945] This calculation assumes 109 _dies nefasti_, 192 _dies fasti +et comitiales_, on which assemblies might meet, 43 _dies fasti non +comitiales_, available for judicial business but not for meetings of +the assemblies, 8 _dies intercisi_, or days partly _fasti_ and partly +_nefasti_, and 3 _dies fissi_ (Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_, +pp. 368 _sq._). + +[946] Cicero, _In Verrem_, i, 10; Suetonius, _Divus Augustus_, 32. It +has been already noticed (above, p. 97) that Roman consuls sometimes +instituted extraordinary _feriæ_ for the purpose of blocking legislation +by their rivals, ferial days being included in the _dies nefasti_. + +[947] Above, pp. 94 _sqq._, 170. + +[948] L. Friedländer, _Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire_, +London, 1908, ii, 11 _sq._; W. W. Fowler, _Social Life at Rome in the +Age of Cicero_, New York, 1909, pp. 287 _sqq._ Though the ancients were +careful to distinguish the _feriæ_ from the _ludi_ (compare Gellius, +_Noctes Atticæ_, ii, 24, 11: _Diebus ludorum et feriis quibusdam_), yet +in late republican and imperial times the joyous aspects of the _feriæ_ +had become so prominent that nearly all of them were converted into +_ludi_. + +[949] _Panem et circenses_ (Juvenal, x, 81). + +[950] W. J. Showalter, in _National Geographic Magazine_, 1914, xxv, 493. + +[951] A. W. Kinglake, _Eothen_, chap. v. + +[952] W. F. Adeney, _The Greek and Eastern Churches_, New York, 1908, p. +433. + +[953] L. Caro, _Auswanderung und Auswanderungspolitik in Osterreich_, +Leipzig, 1909, p. 56. + +[954] W. C. Harris, _The Highlands of Ethiopia_, New York [1843], p. 280. + + + + +INDEX + + + Aberdeenshire, 279. + + Abonsam, a Gold Coast demon, 77. + + Abor, the, 54. + + Abraham, 240 _n._¹ + + Abyssinia, 70, 139 _n._², 193 _sq._, 199, 210, 270 _n._, 307. + + Achehnese of Sumatra, 204. + + Adams, J. Q., on the French Revolutionary calendar, 283. + + Afar, the, 199. + + _Affirah-bi_, a Gold Coast festival of the dead, 76, 77. + + Afghanistan, 293. + + _Agar_, the rest days of the Siah Posh Kafirs, 293 _sq._ + + Ἅγιος, Greek term for taboo, 3 _and n._⁵ + + _Aha_, Hawaiian prayers, 11, 12 _and n._², 13. + + Ahanta of the Gold Coast, 190 _and n._⁴ + + Akamba of British East Africa, 136, 145. + + Akikuyu of British East Africa, 6, 68, 101 _n._¹, 107, 136, 209 _sq._ + + Akposo of Togo, 115 _n._ + + Alaska, 72 _sq._, 73 _n._² + + Albania, 272. + + Alcibiades, 92 _sq._ + + Allia, battle of the, 171, 245, 273. + + _Amau_, the Kayan omen animals, 28 _and n._¹ + + Amos, the prophet, 244, 252. + + _Anahulu_, the Hawaiian, 188. + + Anam, 189, 201. + + Andaman Islanders, the, 132, 181. + + Animals, used in divination, 27, 28 _and n._¹, 59 _n._²; + rest days for, 95 _sq._, 138. + + Animistic sanctions of taboos, 5 _sq._ + + _Anito_, ancestral spirits of the Bontoc Igorot, 48 _n._² + + _Anoiila_, the Nicobarese term for rest day, 40, 165. + + Anthesteria, Athenian festival of the, 79 _sq._, 88. + + _Antu_, Bornean spirits, 35 _n._² + + Apis, sacred Egyptian bull, 129 _n._⁶ + + Apollo, 169, 211 _and n._⁴, 212 _n._¹, 299. + + Ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι, Greek unlucky days, 79 _sq._, 84, 92 _sq._, 139 + _and n._³, 140. + + Arabs, lunar superstitions of the, 126, 139, 248; + calendar of the, 175, 179 _n._¹, 182 _n._⁶, 226 _sq._; + their preference for odd numbers, 178 _n._¹; + their adoption of the seven-day week, 206; + lunar mansions of the, 275. + + Arakan, 55, 66. + + Arizona, 303. + + Armenia, 282 _sq._ + + Artemis, 130. + + Aryans of ancient India, lunar festivals of the, 149 _sqq._; + their epagomenal days, 276 _sq._ + + Ἀσέλινοι, the Athenian, 139 _and n._³ + + Ashanti, 303. + + Assam, 49 _sqq._, 53 _sqq._, 65 _sq._, 89, 106, 233 _sq._ + + Asshurbanipal, Assyrian king, 223, 238. + + Astrology, 191 _n._¹, 194 _sq._, 197 _n._², 202, 204, 205, 210, 213 + _sqq._, 216 _sqq._, 220, 244, 274 _sq._, 286 _n._³, 287 _sq._, + 303. + + _Atenoux_, 185. + + Athene, 92, 93. + + Athenian festivals, 79 _sq._, 88, 91 _sqq._, 169 _sq._, 304. + + Atonement, Day of, 81 _sqq._, 93, 179 _n._¹, 235 _n._², 260. + + _Atua_, Polynesian spirits, 5, 8. + + August, unlucky days of, in Greek lands, 284. + + Augustine, St., 265. + + Augustus, Roman emperor, 100, 219, 305. + + Aurelius, Marcus, 305. + + Auspices, Maori, 17. + + Australia, 26, 128, 180, 183. + + Azazel, a bad angel or demon, 82, 83 _n._¹ + + + Babylonians, the, their conception of taboo, 6, 231 _sq._; + their superstitions relating to the moon, 126, 138 _sq._; + their five-day period, or _khamushtu_, 195 _and n._², 228; + cult of seven among the, 212 _sqq._, 225, 229 _sqq._; + the seven planets and planetary deities of the, 213 _sqq._; + their division of the nycthemeron into twelve _kaspu_, 218 _n._¹; + their “evil days,” 223 _sqq._, 230, 231, 232 _sqq._, 236, 241, 254, + 257 _sq._, 282 _n._¹; + seven-day cycles of the, 224 _sq._, 227 _sqq._; + lunar month of the, 226 _sqq._; + the _shabattum_, 235 _sqq._, 239, 240 _sq._; + new-moon and full-moon days observed by the, 239 _sq._; + their unlucky days, 241 _n._¹, 297 _sq._; + the Hebrew week and Sabbath not directly borrowed from the, 246; + their lunar mansions, 274 _sq._ + + Badaga of the Madras Presidency, 149. + + Baffin Land, 71 _sq._ + + Baganda of Uganda, 129, 145 _sq._ + + Bahima of Uganda, 75 _sq._, 76 _n._¹, 147. + + Bahuana of Belgian Congo, 108. + + Bakuba of Belgian Congo, 108. + + Bali, island of, 41 _sqq._, 105, 165 _and n._¹, 183, 205. + + _Balubale_, Bahima demons, 76 _and n._¹ + + Bambala of Belgian Congo, 108 _and n._⁶ + + Banyoro of Uganda, 146 _sq._ + + Bapiri of British South Africa, 144. + + Barotse of British South Africa, 145. + + Barter, Australian, 103. + + Basoga of Uganda, 69 _sq._ + + Basuto of British South Africa, 68, 75 _and n._², 179. + + Bathing prohibited during a tabooed or unlucky period, 1, 9, 31, 39, + 49 _n._¹, 70, 92 _n._, 155, 273 _n._³, 289, 297. + + Batta of Sumatra, 105, 205, 285 _sq._ + + Bawenda of British South Africa, 194. + + Bayaka of Belgian Congo, 108 _and n._⁵ + + Baziba of Uganda, 145. + + Bechuana of British South Africa, 68, 144 _sq._ + + Belgian Congo, 105 _sq._, 117 _n._¹, 190. + + Bengal, 88 _sq._, 137. + + Benin, 101 _n._¹, 111, 112 _and n._¹, 182, 187 _n._¹ + + Bhaskara Saptami, Hindu festival of, 153 _sq._ + + Bhutan, the Buddhist Sabbath in, 163. + + Bini of Benin, 101 _n._¹, 111, 112 _and n._¹, 182, 187 _n._¹ + + Bodily attentions not permitted during a tabooed or unlucky period, + 1, 9, 31, 39, 49 _n._¹, 70, 71, 92 _n._, 151, 155, 232, 233, 282 + _n._¹, 289, 300. + _See also_ Bathing. + + Bohemia, 135 _n._⁷ + + _Book of the Dead_, the, 167. + + Borneo, 6, 26 _sqq._, 65, 88, 180, 208 _sq._ + + Boscawen, W. H., 236 _n._¹ + + Bowditch Island. _See_ Fakaofo. + + Brazil, 125, 182. + + Breasted, J. H., 167 _n._¹ + + British Columbia, 71 _n._⁴, 197 _n._¹ + + —— East Africa, 6, 68 _sq._, 107, 128, 134, 136, 145, 181 _sq._, 189 + _sq._, 198 _sq._, 209 _sq._ + + —— New Guinea, 26 _and n._³, 101 _n._¹, 103 _sq._ + + —— North Borneo, 65, 208 _sq._ + + —— South Africa, 67 _sq._, 137, 144 _sq._, 182, 194, 214 _n._ + + Brittany, 130, 279. + + _Bubuk_, the Land Dyak name of full moon, 37. + + Buddha, the, 156, 157, 158, 161. + + Buddhism, observance of the _uposatha_ in, 155 _sqq._ + + Buriat of Siberia, 132. + + Burkeneji of British East Africa, 198 _sq._ + + Burma, tabooed days observed in, 55 _sqq._, 66; + the Buddhist Sabbath in, 159 _sqq._; + divisions of the month employed in, 184, 189; + the seven-day week in, 201; + unlucky days observed in, 273 _n._³, 302. + + Bushmen of British South Africa, 126, 141 _sq._, 147. + + Bushongo. _See_ Bakuba. + + _Buta_, Balinese evil spirits, 42. + + + Calabar (Old), 78, 111. + + Calendar, the, 13 _n._¹, 47, 75, 82 _n._², 118, 148, 166, 173 _sqq._, + 226 _sqq._, 248 _sq._, 253 _sqq._, 279, 281, 282 _sq._ + + Cambodia, 162, 184 _n._², 200, 201. + + Canaanites, the Sabbath not borrowed from the, 246. + + Cannæ, battle of, 171 _n._¹ + + Cardinal points, colour symbolism of the, 105 _n._² + + Caroline Islands, the, 24 _sq._, 181, 188 _sq._ + + Cato the Elder, on Roman holidays, 95 _sq._, 98. + + Celebes, 104, 205. + + Celtiberians, lunar festivals of the, 172. + + Celts, lunar festivals of the, 172; + their calendar, 185 _sq._; + nine-day cycles of the, 193 _and n._² + + Central America, 118, 119, 174, 280 _sq._ + + Ceylon, 155, 158, 159 _and n._¹, 184, 201. + + Chams, the, 184 _n._², 201. + + Cherokee Indians, the, 141, 214 _n._ + + Cheyne, T. K., 243 _n._¹ + + Chibcha. _See_ Muysca. + + Chiefs and kings, death of, necessitates communal abstinence, 25, 26, + 63, 65, 67, 68, 69 _sq._; + responsible for the observance of communal taboos, 27 _n._¹, 45, 68 + _n._¹; + subject to various restrictions, 233 _sq._ + + Childbirth, taboos imposed in connection with, 4, 7, 25, 38 _and + n._³, 44, 53, 56, 57 _n._¹, 66 _and n._², 69 _n._²; + the moon associated with, 127 _sqq._ + + Chinese, lunar superstitions of the, 135, 164; + lunar festivals observed by the, 163 _sq._; + their tradition of a ten-month year, 177 _n._¹; + their lunar decades, 189 _and n._⁴; + the planetary week known to the, 202; + their lunar mansions, 202, 274; + observe no rest days, 203 _and n._¹, 303 _sq._; + unlucky days of the, 286 _and n._³, 287. + + Chingpaw. _See_ Kachin. + + Chronocratories, astrological theory of, 217 _sq._ + + Chukchi of Siberia, 73, 126. + + Cicero, on Roman holidays, 97, 304 _sq._ + + Claudius, Roman emperor, 100. + + Cochin-China, 189, 200. + + Coligny, Calendar of, 133 _n._⁵, 185 _and n._⁴, 186 _n._¹ + + Colombia, 119 _and n._³, 186. + + Comets, taboos imposed in connection with, 51. + + Congo Free State. _See_ Belgian Congo. + + Constantine, edict of, relating to Sunday, 122 _sq._, 270. + + Cooking not allowed during a tabooed or unlucky period, 10, 15, 16, + 42, 155, 232 _and n._³, 233, 257 _and n._³, 258, 260. + + Copernicus, 216. + + Cos, island of, 284. + + Courts and public offices not open during a tabooed or unlucky + period, 67, 79, 80, 122 _and n._³, 155, 164, 169, 203, 211, 239 + _n._⁴, 279, 280, 298, 303, 305. + + _Couvade_, custom of the, 58 _sq._ + + Covenanters of Damascus, the, 263 _n._³ + + Creation myth, the Babylonian, 229; + the Hebrew, 242 _sq._ + + Creek Indians, the, 141. + + Cremera, battle of the, 273. + + Crete, 284. + + Crisis, sociological conception of, 60 _sq._, 86. + + Cumont, Franz, 220 _n._³ + + Cyclades, the, 134. + + Cyprian, 270. + + Cyprus, 284. + + + Dahomey, 114 _and n._² + + Dakota Indians, the, 141. + + Dalai Lama, tabooed days observed after the death of the, 67. + + Danakil, the, 199. + + Darmesteter, J., 166 _n._ + + David, 245. + + Dead, festivals of the, 51 _and n._⁴, 74 _sqq._, 79 _sqq._ + + Death, taboos observed after a, 7, 19 _n._, 24, 25, 26, 34, 36, 38, + 39, 43, 44, 51, 60, 63 _sqq._, 84, 95 _and n._², 258 _sq._; + primitive ideas of, 62 _sq._ + + Debel, N. H., 196 _n._¹ + + Decade, the, 188 _sqq._, 198, 245, 281 _n._² + + Decalogues, the, 242 _and n._¹, 256. + + Deluge myth, the Babylonian, 212, 230; + the Hebrew, 276 _n._² + + Demons, punish the violators of taboos, 5 _sq._, 8, 28, 31 _sqq._, 40 + _sqq._, 48, 49 _n._¹, 51; + expulsion of, 22, 40 _sqq._, 56, 74 _sqq._, 278. + + Dendera, temple of, 168. + + Dew, the moon believed to be the source of, 131 _and n._² + + Diana, 130. + + Dichomenia, the Greek full-moon day, 170 _and n._², 184 _and n._⁵ + + Dieri of South Australia, 180. + + _Dies Ægyptiaci_, 299 _sqq._ + + _—— Alliensis_, 245, 273. + + _—— atri._ See _Dies religiosi_. + + _—— dominica_, the Lord’s Day, 220 _sq._, 267. + + _—— feriati._ See _Feriæ_. + + _—— nefasti_, 80 _n._², 304 _sq._ + + _—— postriduani_, 170 _sq._ + + _—— religiosi_, Roman unlucky days, 80 _and n._², 81, 84, 93 _sq._, + 94 _n._², 170 _sq._, 171 _n._³, 273. + + _—— Saturni._ _See_ Saturday. + + _—— Solis._ _See_ Sunday. + + _—— vitiosi._ See _Dies religiosi_. + + Diffusion of cultural elements, 39 _sq._, 58, 84, 196. + + Dio Cassius, on the origin of the planetary week, 216 _sqq._; + on the Hebrew Sabbath, 245. + + Dionysus, 79, 88, 266. + + Diulasu, the, 116 _n._¹ + + Divination, 17, 27, 28 _sqq._, 48, 50 _n._¹, 285 _sqq._ + + Dositheus, observance of the Sabbath by, 257 _n._¹ + + Dravidians of India, 66 _sq._, 88 _sqq._, 137 _sq._, 148 _sq._ + + Durga, Hindu goddess, 153. + + Dusun of British North Borneo, 65, 208 _sq._ + + Dutch Borneo, 26 _n._¹, 31 _sqq._, 180. + + —— New Guinea, 104. + + _Du-zang_, the Tibetan Sabbath, 162 _sq._ + + + Earthquakes, taboos imposed in connection with, 42, 43, 50, 60, 69, + 99 _sq._, 152. + + Eclipses, taboos imposed in connection with, 42, 50 _sq._, 99, 134 + _sq._, 152, 153, 259. + + Edo. _See_ Bini. + + _Egbo_, a secret society of Old Calabar, 78, 111. + + Egungun, a Slave Coast deity, 77. + + “Egyptian days.” See _Dies Ægyptiaci_. + + Egyptians, superstitions of the, relating to the moon, 129 _and n._⁶; + their lunar festivals, 166 _sqq._; + solar year of the, 166, 174, 281; + their ideas as to the full moon, 186 _and n._¹; + ten-day week of the, 191 _and n._¹, 245, 281 _n._²; + astrological cycles of the, 191 _n._¹, 194 _sq._; + the division of the nycthemeron into twenty-four hours known to + the, 218 _n._¹; + their unlucky days, 258, 282, 295 _sqq._, 304; + epagomenal days of the, 281 _sq._ + + Elisha, 249, 251. + + Ellis, A. B., on the origin of weeks and Sabbaths, 115, 148 and _n._² + + Ellis, William, 10 _n._³ + + Elmore, W. T., 90 _n._¹ + + _Elpanam_, the men’s house in the Nicobar Islands, 40 _and n._², 41. + + Elul II, Babylonian intercalary month, 224, 232, 241 _n._¹, 297. + + England, lunar superstitions in, 134, 135, 140; + unlucky days observed in, 279, 300 _sq._ + + Ennead, the, 192 _sq._ + + Epagomenal days, Hawaiian, 13 _n._²; + Hebrew, 82 _n._², 276 _n._²; + early Aryan, 276 _sq._; + European folklore of the Twelve Days, 277 _sqq._; + Mexican and Maya, 279 _sqq._; + Egyptian, 281 _sq._; + Persian, 282; + Armenian, 282 _sq._; + of the French Revolutionary calendar, 283. + + _Epic of Creation_, the Babylonian, 229. + + Epirus, 284. + + Erronan. _See_ Futuna. + + Eskimo, the, 71 _sqq._, 129. + + Essenes, the, 257 _n._³ + + Esthonians, the, 222. + + Euahlayi of New South Wales, 128. + + “Evil Days,” the Babylonian, 223 _sqq._, 230, 231, 232 _sqq._, 236, + 241, 254, 257 _sq._, 282 _n._¹ + + Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, tabooed days observed by + the, 112, 113, 114, 115. + + Ezekiel, 253, 254, 255, 262. + + + _Fady_, Malagasy term for taboo, 3, 70, 294. + + Fakaofo (Bowditch Island), 20 _sq._ + + _Fakil_, a Bontoc Igorot festival, 48. + + _Fandroana_, a Malagasy festival, 76. + + Farming, restrictions on, during a tabooed or unlucky period, 16 + _sq._, 17 _n._¹, 21, 23, 27 _sqq._, 37, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47 _sq._, + 49 _sq._, 54, 55, 57 _sq._, 64, 65, 67, 68 _sqq._, 89, 96, 98, + 103, 109, 110, 113, 137, 144, 148 _sq._, 159 _n._¹, 162 _n._⁴, + 190 _n._⁴, 194, 204, 208 _sq._, 256, 284, 285, 293, 295, 300. + + Farnell, L. R., 80 _n._¹ + + Fasting practised during a tabooed or unlucky period, 1, 15, 16, 17, + 32, 39, 43, 44, 58, 62, 67, 68, 75 _n._², 81, 89, 134, 135, 143, + 146, 149 _sqq._, 155, 158, 159, 160, 162, 163 _n._², 198, 233, + 259 _sq._, 278, 285, 298. + + _Fasti Philocali_, the, 123 _n._³, 300. + + _—— Sabini_, the, 219. + + Feast of Weeks, Hebrew, 90, 225 _n._², 251. + + Fe’e, Samoan war-god, 19 _sq._ + + Feralia, Roman festival of the, 81 _n._¹ + + _Feriæ_, the Roman, 94 _sqq._, 122 _sq._, 170, 221 _n._², 264 _sq._, + 305 _and n._³ + + _—— denicales_, 95 _and n._² + + _—— imperativæ_, 98 _sqq._ + + _—— sementivæ_, 96 _and n._¹ + + Festivals, Polynesian, 11 _sqq._; + Bornean, 30 _sq._, 37 _sq._; + in the Nicobar Islands, 40 _sq._, 41 _n._²; + in Bali, 41 _sqq._; + in the Mentawi Islands, 43 _sq._; + in the Philippines, 45 _sqq._; + in Manipur, 49 _sqq._; + in Assam, 53 _sqq._; + in Burma, 55 _sqq._; + in Africa, 75 _sqq._, 112 _sqq._; + ancient Greek, 79 _sq._, 88, 91 _sqq_, 133 _n._⁵, 169 _sq._, 211, + 304; + ancient Roman, 80 _sq._, 93 _sqq._, 121 _sqq._, 170, 304 _sqq._; + Jewish, 82, 276 _n._²; + Mohammedan, 83; + characteristics of, 85; + accompanied by the remission of labour, 85 _sqq._; + consecrated to divinities, 87 _sq._; + of the Dravidian peoples of India, 88 _sqq._; + Hebrew, 90 _sq._, 248 _sqq._; + ancient Aryan, in India, 149 _sqq._; + modern Brahmanic, 153 _sq._, 165; + Jain, 154 _sq._; + Buddhist, 155 _sqq._; + Chinese, 163 _sq._, 303 _sq._; + Iranian, 165 _sq._; + Egyptian, 166 _sqq._; + Babylonian, 239 _sq._; + Phœnician, 240; + Christian, 267 _sqq._, 306 _sq._; + Hopi Indian, 303. + + Fewkes, J. W., on the Zuñi decades, 191 _n._ + + Fiji Islands, the, 21 _sqq._, 88. + + _Fimt_, the Scandinavian, 195 _sq._ + + Finns, the, 222. + + Fires and lights extinguished during a tabooed or unlucky period, 1, + 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 20, 39, 41, 71, 257 _and n._³, 258 _sq._, + 296, 297. + + First-fruits, ceremony of, in New Zealand, 17 _n._¹; + in the Tonga Islands, 18 _and n._², 19; + in the Fiji Islands, 23; + the Hebrew Day of, 90 _sq._; + the Athenian Plynteria, 92 _sq._; + the Roman Vestalia, 93 _sq._ + + Fishermen subject to taboos, 14, 25 _n._¹ + + Fishing, restrictions on, during a tabooed period, 13, 14 _sqq._, 25 + _and n._¹, 26 _and n._³, 50, 64, 67, 113 _and n._³, 155, 161, + 285, 301. + + Flamen Dialis, restrictions imposed on the, 96 _and n._³ + + Flaminica Dialis, 92 _n._, 96, 122. + + Florida, state of, 71. + + Food taboos. _See_ Fasting. + + Formosa, 44. + + Fowler, W. W., on the _dies postriduani_, 171 _n._³ + + France, lunar superstitions in, 126 _sq._, 130; + unlucky days observed in mediæval, 300. + + Frazer, J. G., 2 _n._¹, 3 _n._⁵, 5, 19 _n._¹, 25 _n._², 31 _n._¹, + 36 _n._, 57 _n._², 59 _n._¹, 74 _n._⁶, 79 _n._⁴, 90 _n._⁴, 127 + _n._⁵, 131 _n._³, 277 _n._⁴ + + French Equatorial Africa, 3. + + Friday, an unlucky day, 92 _n._, 139 _n._³, 222 _n._², 273 _and n._³, + 301; + as the Mohammedan Sabbath, 107 _n._², 111 _n._³, 115, 116 _sq._, + 197, 199, 201, 204, 205 _sq._, 262 _n._² + + Frontinus, 245. + + Full moon, 32 _and n._², 34 _and n._¹, 37, 52 _n._¹, 133 _and n._³, + 134, 142 _sq._, 146 _sq._, 148 _sqq._, 179, 180, 181 _n._⁷, 182 + _n._⁷, 183, 184 _sq._, 186 _n._¹, 229, 238 _sqq._, 240 _n._³, + 246, 250 _sqq._, 254, 257, 260. + + Futuna (Erronan), island of, 24. + + + Galicia, saints’ days observed in, 307. + + Galla, the, 116 _n._³, 199. + + Gaman, the, 116 _n._¹ + + Games played during a tabooed period, 13, 20, 31 _n._¹, 50 _n._¹ + + Gamut, origin and diffusion of the, 217 _n._² + + Garo of Assam, 54. + + Ga-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, tabooed days observed by the, + 112, 115; + their lunar weeks, 187 _and n._² + + Gāthā-days, the Persian, 282. + + Gaul, ancient, 186 _n._¹, 221. + + Genesia, Athenian festival of the, 79. + + _Genna_ (_kennie_), the Naga term for rest day, 49 _and n._³, 52 _n._² + + _Gennabura._ See _Khullakpa_. + + German East Africa, 68, 76, 107, 197, 209. + + —— New Guinea, 57 _n._¹, 180. + + Germanic languages, names of the week days in, 221 _sq._ + + Germans, ancient, observance of new moon and full moon by the, 133, + 172, 185; + cycles of nine days used by the, 193. + + Germany, abstinence from work after a death observed in, 74; + lunar superstitions in, 126, 127, 133, 135 _n._⁷; + unlucky days observed in, 127, 278 _sq._ + + _Gilgamesh, Epic of_, 276 _n._² + + Gold Coast of west Africa, 76 _sq._, 112, 113, 115, 187, 190 _and n._⁴ + + _Gour-deziou_, the, in Brittany, 279. + + Greek Church, saints’ days in the calendar of the, 306 _sq._ + + Greeks, ancient, unlucky days of the, 79 _sq._, 84, 92 _sq._, 139 + _sq._; + festivals of the, 79 _sq._, 88, 91 _sqq._, 133 _n._⁵, 169 _sq._, + 211, 304; + their superstitions relating to the moon, 126, 129 _sq._, 133 + _n._³, 139 _sq._; + their lunar calendar, 169, 184; + lunar decades of the, 191 _sq._; + cycles of nine days and nine years used by the, 192 _sq._; + cult of seven among the, 211 _sq._ + + Greenland, 71, 129. + + Grimme, H., on the Day of Atonement, 83 _n._¹; + on Pleiades cults among the Hebrews, 225 _n._² + + Gudea, the inscription of, 239 _n._⁴ + + + Habbe of the Sudan, 69 _n._², 116 _n._¹ + + Hair-cutting, superstitions relating to, 9, 18 _n._, 53, 92 _n._, + 151, 300. + + Halmahera, island of, 63 _sq._ + + Hammurabi, Babylonian king, 223, 235 _n._¹ + + Hannibal, 99. + + Hanuman, Hindu monkey-god, 201. + + _Haoma_, 129. + + Harran, city of, 239, 240 _and n._¹ + + _Haughbah_, a tabooed day on the Gold Coast, 115 _n._⁴ + + Hawaiian Islanders, tabooed days observed by the, 8 _sqq._, 24, 88, + 188, 233, 258, 303; + their calendar, 13 _n._², 188. + + Hebdomad. _See_ Seven-day week. + + Hebrews, the, their Sabbath, 10 _n._⁴, 91, 96 _n._¹, 98 _n._⁴, 104 + _n._, 109, 122, 148, 179 _n._¹, 235, 236 _and n._, 242 _sqq._, + 291 _sq._; + the Day of Atonement, 81 _sqq._, 93, 179 _n._¹, 235 _n._², 260; + their agricultural festivals, 90 _sq._, 250 _sq._; + cult of seven among the, 212 _n._³; + their seven-day week, 243, 245 _sq._, 253 _sqq._, 267; + new-moon and full-moon festivals of the, 248 _sqq._ + _See also_ Jews. + + _Heiau_, Hawaiian temple, 9, 12, 15. + + Heptagram, the, 217 _n._¹ + + Hera, 130, 169, 170. + + Hervey Islands, the, 181 _n._⁷ + + Hesiod, 169, 170 _n._², 192, 211, 298 _sq._ + + _Hiang_, a Formosan term for rest day, 44. + + Ho of Togo, 182. + + Hobbes, Thomas, on the origin of religion, 1. + + Holiness, the conception of, 86 _and n._¹, 242 _n._¹ + + Holy days. _See_ Festivals. + + —— water, Hawaiian, 11. + + Hooker, Richard, 259 _sq._ + + Hopi Indians of Arizona, festivals of the, 303 _and n._³ + + Horace, 266. + + Hosea, the prophet, 252. + + Hottentots of British South Africa, 182, 214 _n._ + + Hours, division of the nycthemeron into, 218 _and n._¹ + + House-building, taboos imposed in connection with, 32 _sq._, 34, 39, + 43, 44, 45, 55, 209, 285, 299, 300. + + Hova of Madagascar, 132 _sq._, 294. + + _Hrilh_, the Lushei term for taboo, 55. + + Hua, Hawaiian deity, 15, 88. + + Huahine, island of, 9. + + Humphrey Island. _See_ Manahiki. + + Hunting, restrictions on, during a tabooed period, 50, 72 _and n._¹, + 73 _n._¹, 74, 155, 161 _sq._ + + + Iban (Sea Dyak) of Borneo, 33 _sqq._, 65, 208. + + Ibo of Southern Nigeria, 111 _and n._³ + + Ides, the, 170, 171, 184 _sq._, 185 _n._¹, 305. + + Ignatius, St., 269 _and n._³ + + Igorot of Luzon, 46 _sqq._, 88, 181. + + Ihering, R. von, on the origin of periodic rest days, 102. + + Impregnation believed to be accomplished by the moon, 127 _sqq._ + + _Inachi_, the Tonga ceremony of first-fruits, 18 _and n._², 93. + + Inclusive reckoning, practice of, 119 _n._¹, 120 _n._², 267 _n._⁵ + + India, tabooed days after a death observed in, 66 _sq._; + Dravidian village festivals, 88 _sqq._; + Dravidian lunar superstitions, 132, 134 _sq._, 148 _sq._; + the ancient Aryan _upavasatha_, 149 _sqq._; + Hindu festival of Bhaskara Saptami, 153 _sq._; + Hindu bipartite division of the month, 183 _sq._; + the seven-day week in, 199 _sqq._; + symbolism of seven in, 211; + the lunar mansions in, 275; + the Twelve Days in, 276 _sq._; + unlucky days observed in, 291, 302. + + Indians, North American, 141, 182, 197, 210, 211 _and n._¹ + + Indo-China, 66, 105 _sq._, 184, 189, 200. + + Innuit of Alaska, 72. + + _Interlunium_, the, as a tabooed period, 136 _sqq._ + + Iranians, lunar superstitions of the, 129; + their lunar festivals, 165 _sq._, 200; + their bipartite division of the month, 184. + _See also_ Persians. + + Isaiah, 252, 265. + + Ishtar, Babylonian goddess, 129, 226, 230, 232. + + Isidore of Seville, 172. + + Italy, introduction of the planetary week into, 219. + + + Jainism, observance of the _posaha_ in, 154 _sq._ + + Jaluo of British East Africa, 128. + + Japan, the Buddhist Sabbath in, 164; + the lunar decade in, 189; + the seven-day week in, 203 _sq._; + rest days observed in, _ib._; + unlucky days observed in, 287. + + Jastrow, Morris, on the observance of the seventh day in Babylonia, + 232 _n._⁴; + on the meaning of _shabbāthôn_, 236 _n._; + on the meaning of _shabattum_, 237; + on the inscription of Gudea, 240 _n._; + on the original significance of the word “Sabbath,” 251; + on Babylonian unlucky days, 298. + + Java, 104, 105 _and n._², 183, 200, 205 _and n._⁴ + + Jehovah, 91, 242, 247, 248, 256, 260, 261, 262. + + Jenks, A. E., on the rest days observed by the Bontoc Igorot, 47 _n._² + + Jeremiah, 262. + + Jericho, 255 _n._¹ + + Jesus, words of, relating to the observance of the Sabbath, 269. + + Jews, taboos after a death observed by the, 74; + celebration of New Year’s Day by the, 82; + their superstitions relating to the moon, 126 _and n._⁶, 135 _and + n._⁶; + neglect of the Sabbath by modern, 235; + unlucky days of the, 263 _n._², 273 _sq._ + _See also_ Hebrews. + + Johns, C. H. W., on the observance of the Babylonian “evil days,” 235 + _n._¹; + on the Babylonian _nubattu_, 241 _n._¹ + + Jonathan, 249. + + Josephus, 260. + + Jubilee, the Hebrew, 261 _and n._³ + + _Jum‘a, al_, the Mohammedan Sabbath, 107 _n._², 111 _n._³, 115, 116 + _sq._, 197, 199, 201, 204 _sqq._, 262 _n._² + + Juno, 130, 170. + + Jupiter, the Roman _nundinæ_ consecrated to, 122; + the Ides consecrated to, 170; + the planet, 213. + + Justin, Roman historian, on the origin of the Sabbath, 260 _n._³ + + Justin Martyr, 268. + + + Kachin (Chingpaw), 56, 189. + + Kaffa, 199. + + Kafiristan, 293 _sq._ + + Kagoro of northern Nigeria, 117 _n._¹ + + Kalends, the, 170, 171, 184, 305. + + Kalmucks, the _uposatha_ observance of the, 163. + + Kaloa, Hawaiian deity, 15, 88, 188. + + _Kamata._ See _Kambata_. + + Kamataraya, a Kota deity, 88. + + _Kambata_, a Kota festival, 88. + + Kamehameha II, Hawaiian king, 9. + + Kamerun, 110 _sq._ + + Kanarese-speaking peoples of southern India, their village festivals, + 89 _sq._; + observance of the _interlunium_ by the, 137 _and n._³; + tabooed days of the, 148 _sq._ + + Kandian of Ceylon, 159 _n._¹ + + Kane, Hawaiian deity, 15, 88, 188. + + _Kapu._ See _Tabu_. + + Karaja of Brazil, 182. + + _Karakia_, Maori magical incantation and prayer, 17 _n._² + + Karen of Burma, 56 _sq._ + + Kasuba of the Madras Presidency, 67. + + Kataharayan of Malabar, 67. + + _Kataphang_, a Nicobarese festival, 40 _sq._ + + Kavirondo of British East Africa, 69. + + Kayan of Borneo, 6, 26 _sqq._, 65 _and n._⁶, 180. + + _Kennie._ See _Genna_. + + Kerepunu of British New Guinea, rest day observed by the, 103 _and + n._⁴, 104. + + Kewan, Assyrian designation of the planet Saturn, 244. + + _Khamushtu_, the Assyro-Babylonian, 195 _and n._², 228. + + _Khang_, the Mro term for rest day, 55. + + Khasi of Assam, 54, 66, 106. + + Khnumhotep II, an Egyptian local ruler, inscription of, 167. + + _Khullakpa_ (_gennabura_), the secular and religious head of a Naga + community, 52 _sq._, 53 _n._¹, 233 _sq._ + + _Kiala_, a Nicobarese festival, 41 _and n._² + + Kiriwina, island of, 125 _n._³ + + Koita of British New Guinea, 26 _and n._³ + + _Kopus_, a Bontoc Igorot festival, 48. + + _Koran_, the, 182. + + Korava of the Madras Presidency, 149. + + Korea, 287, 303 _sq._ + + Koryak of Siberia, 73 _sq._ + + Kota of the Madras Presidency, 88. + + Ku, Hawaiian deity, 15, 88. + + Kuki. _See_ Lushei. + + _Kumara_, the, 16 _sq._, 17 _n._¹ + + Kwakiutl of British Columbia, ceremonial cannibalism among the, 71 + _n._⁴ + + + Labour, remission of, during a tabooed or unlucky period. _See_ Rest + days. + + _Lali_, a Kayan term for taboo, 27 _and n._³ + + Lalu. _See_ Muhso. + + Land Dyak of Sarawak, 36 _sq._, 65. + + Lao of Siam, 66, 105, 184 _n._², 194 _n._³, 201. + + Laodicea, church council of, 269 _n._⁴ + + Laotians. _See_ Lao. + + Lapps, the, 222. + + _La tabu_, Hawaiian designation of Sunday, 10. + + _Laws of Manu_, the, 151, 152. + + Lemuria, Roman festival of the, 80, 81 _and n._¹, 94 _and n._², 263 + _n._² + + Lengua Indians of Paraguay, the, 129. + + _Lex Hortensia_, the, 121 _and n._³ + + Liberia, 199 _n._⁵ + + Lithuanians, the, 222. + + Loango, market days kept in, 109 _sq._; + the thirteenth month considered unlucky in, 177 _n._² + + Lobengula, a Matabele king, 75 _n._² + + Lolo, the, 194. + + Lono, Hawaiian deity, 13, 15 _n._¹, 88. + + Lotz, W., 232 _n._², 235 _n._¹ + + _Luakini_, chief temple in the Hawaiian Islands, consecration of a, + 11 _sqq._ + + Lu-Bat, the Babylonian term, 213. + + _Ludi_, the Roman, 305 _and n._³, 306. + + Lumawig, supreme god of the Bontoc Igorot, 47, 48 _sq._, 88. + + _Lumingu_, 109. + + Lunar fortnights, 182 _sqq._, 239, 255. + + —— mansions, the, 202, 274 _sq._, 294 _n._¹ + + —— weeks, 187 _sq._, 253 _sqq._ + + Lunation, beginning of the, at full moon, 119 _n._³, 186 _n._¹; + length of the, 174 _n._¹, 178; + division of the, into two fortnights, 182 _sqq._, 239, 255. + + Lushei (Kuki), the, 54 _sq._ + + _Luxus sabbatarius_, the, 265. + + Luzon, 46 _sqq._, 64, 88, 181. + + + Macassar, 205. + + Macedonia, unlucky days observed in, 222 _n._³, 272, 278. + + Madagascar, 3, 70, 76, 107 _n._², 132 _sq._, 197, 275 _and n._⁴ + + _Madnol_, the Toda, 289 _sqq._ + + Madras Presidency, the, 66 _sq._, 88, 89, 132, 134, 149, 288 _sqq._ + + Magicians, 34, 68, 285, 286 _n._¹, 287 _sq._ + + _Makahiki_, the Hawaiian New Year’s festival, 13 _and n._², 15 _n._¹, + 23 _n._¹ + + _Making_, ancestral spirits of the Ibaloi Igorot, 49 _n._¹ + + Makololo of British South Africa, 144. + + Malabar, 66 _sq._, 89, 291 _sq._ + + Malagasy, their conception of taboo, 3; + tabooed days observed by the, 70, 76; + the seven-day week of the, 107 _n._², 197 _and n._²; + their lunar superstitions, 132 _sq._; + their lucky and unlucky days, 275, 294 _sq._ + + Malanau of Sarawak, 208. + + Malay Peninsula, 64, 105, 204, 286. + + Maldive Islands, the, 201. + + _Mamit_, the Babylonian term for taboo, 6, 231. + + _Mana_, magical power, 5, 17, 86. + + Manahiki (Humphrey Island), 21. + + Mandingo of the Sudan, 132, 141. + + Manipur, tabooed days observed in, 49 _sqq._, 65 _sq._ + + _Manitou_, 5. + + Manyema of Belgian Congo, 108. + + Maori of New Zealand, 16 _sq._, 17 _n._², 128, 177 _n._¹, 181 _n._⁷, + 183, 188 _and n._¹, 214 _n._, 285. + + _Marang_, the Garo term for taboo, 54. + + March, unlucky days of, in Greek lands, 284. + + Marduk, Babylonian god, 214, 229, 232, 241 _n._¹ + + Mariner, William, 18 _n._¹ + + Markets, rise of, 103, 117; + characteristic features of, among semi-civilized peoples, 105, 107, + 108. + _See also_ Market days. + + Market days, observance of, in New Guinea and Melanesia, 103 _sq._; + in Celebes, Sumatra, and Java, 104 _sq._; + in Tonkin, Siam, Burma, and Assam, 105 _sq._, 194 _n._³; + in Africa, 106 _sqq._; + in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Peru, 118 _sqq._; + in ancient Rome, 120 _sqq._; + restrictions attending, not connected with lunar superstitions, 148. + + —— weeks, length of, 117 _sq._; + origin of, 118, 148, 187, 193. + _See also_ Market days. + + Markheshwan, the eighth month of the Babylonian year, 224 _and n._², + 297. + + Marquesas Islands, the, 15 _sq._, 16 _n._¹ + + Marriages not celebrated during a tabooed or unlucky period, 67, 80, + 81, 137, 171, 209, 263 _n._², 273 _n._³, 278, 285, 286. + + Masai, the seven-day week of the, 197 _sq._ + + Matabele of South Africa, restrictions observed by the king of the, + 75 _n._² + + May, an unlucky month for marriage, 263 _n._² + + Mayas of Yucatan, 174, 280 _sq._ + + _Mbaki._ See _Nanga_. + + _Mbalolo_, 22. + + _Mbure_, the men’s house in the Fiji Islands, 22. + + Mechoacan, tabooed days observed after the death of a ruler of, 70 + _sq._ + + Medicine, practice of, by the Land Dyak of Borneo, 38 _n._⁴ + + Meinhold, J., 253 _n._⁶, 254. + + Meithei of Manipur, 54 _and n._¹ + + Mekeo District of British New Guinea, 103. + + _Melo_, a Kayan term for rest day, 32 _and n._³, 33, 65 _n._⁶ + + Mendi of Sierra Leone, 148 _n._¹ + + Men’s house, the, 22, 40 _and n._² + + Menstruation, superstitions relating to, 69 _n._², 125; + supposed connection of the moon with, 127 _sqq._ + + Mentawi Islands, the, 43 _sq._, 44 _n._¹, 181. + + Mexicans, market days kept by the, 118, 119 _and n._¹; + calendar of the, 174, 186 _and n._², 279 _sq._; + unlucky days of the, 280; + saints’ days observed by the modern, 306. + + Miao (Miao-tse), the, 57. + + Middle Ages, observance of unlucky days during the, 273, 299 _sqq._ + + Mikir of Assam, 54. + + Mindanao, 45 _sq._ + + Mishmi, the, 54 _and n._⁵ + + _Mishna_, the, 263 _sq._ + + Missionaries, observance of Sunday introduced by, 10 _and n._³, 73 + _n._², 75, 188 _n._¹, 209, 210, 295. + + Mithra, a Persian deity, 202, 220 _and n._³ + + Mohammed, 175, 206. + + Molucca Islands, the, 64 _and n._² + + Mommsen, Theodor, on the Roman _nundinum_, 193 _n._³ + + Monday, an unlucky day in Germany, 127 _and n._³; + in India, consecrated to Siva, 201; + the first day of the week in Slavic countries, 222; + an unlucky day among the Jews, 274. + + Mondunga of Belgian Congo, 117 _n._¹ + + Mongelima of Belgian Congo, 117 _n._¹ + + Mongolia, the Buddhist Sabbath in, 163. + + Month, the lunar, 13 _n._², 156 _n._³, 166, 169, 170, 173 _sqq._, 226 + _sqq._, 247; + intercalation of a thirteenth, 177 _and n._², 224, 247 _n._², 276; + beginning of the, 178 _sq._, 226 _sq._, 248 _sq._; + division of the, by the waxing and waning moon, 182 _sqq._; + the sidereal, 274 _n._² + + Moon, tabooed or unlucky periods observed in connection with changes + of the, 14 _sq._, 20, 32 _and n._², 34 _and n._¹, 37, 52 _n._¹, + 60, 88, 131 _sqq._, 143 _sqq._, 146 _sq._, 149 _sqq._, 224 _sq._, + 233, 241, 246, 256 _sqq._; + eclipses of the, marked by taboos, 42, 50 _sq._, 134 _sq._; + supposed deleterious influence of the, 125 _sqq._; + associated with impregnation and childbirth, 127 _sqq._; + influence of, on the tides, 130; + supposed influence of, on the growth of vegetation, 130 _sq._; + doctrine of lunar sympathy, 131 _sqq._; + superstitions relating to the _interlunium_, 136 _sqq._; + as the measure of time, 173 _sqq._; + day of the new, how calculated, 174 _n._¹, 179, 184, 226 _sq._, 248 + _sq._; + phases of the, closely observed by savage and barbarous peoples, + 180 _sqq._, 238 _sq._; + day of the full, how calculated, 182 _n._⁷, 227; + division of the lunation into two periods, 182 _sqq._, 239, 255; + importance of the, to the early Hebrews, 246 _sq._; + Hebrew cult of the, 247, 248 _n._¹ + _See also_ Full moon, Lunar mansions, _and_ New moon. + + Moonshine, supposed noxious influence of, 125 _sqq._ + + Morocco, 70, 83, 258. + + Moses, 244 _n._³, 261. + + Motu of British New Guinea, 26 _and n._³ + + Mpongwe of French Equatorial Africa, their conception of taboo, 3. + + Mro, the, 55. + + Muhso (Lalu), the, 57, 194 _n._³ + + _Mundus patet_, 81. + + Muppan of Malabar, 66 _sq._ + + Music, astrological notions relating to, 217 _and n._² + + Muysca of Colombia, market days kept by the, 119 _and n._³ + + + Naga of Manipur, tabooed days observed by the, 49 _sqq._, 65 _sq._, + 134, 234. + + Nail-paring, superstitions relating to, 91 _n._⁴, 151, 300. + + _Nakshatra_, the Hindu, 275. + + _Namungba_, the Meithei term for taboo, 54. + + _Na na ai_, the Kachin term for rest day, 56. + + Nandi of British East Africa, 68 _sq._, 69 _n._², 132, 181 _sq._, 210. + + _Nanga_, a secret association in Fiji, 23 _and n._¹ + + Nannar, a Babylonian moon-god, 226. + + _Nannaru_, Babylonian name of new-moon day, 226, 239. + + Narnaka, inscription of, 240. + + Nehemiah, 262. + + _Nemontemi_, the, Mexican epagomenal days, 280 _and n._¹ + + Nepal, 155, 201. + + Nestorian Monument, the, 202 _and n._³ + + New Britain, 180. + + —— Caledonia, 104 _and n._⁴, 180. + + —— Georgia, island of, 186 _n._¹ + + —— Hebrides, the, 209. + + —— Mexico, 190. + + —— South Wales, 128. + + —— Zealand, 16 _sq._, 17 _n._², 128, 177 _n._¹, 181 _n._⁷, 183, 188 + _and n._¹, 214 _n._, 285. + + New moon, 18 _n._, 20, 37, 125 _and n._³, 132, 133, 136 _sq._, 140 + _sqq._, 174 _n._¹, 179, 180, 181 _n._⁷, 184 _sq._, 186, 187, 226 + _sqq._, 238 _sqq._, 246, 248 _sqq._, 253, 254, 255 _sq._, 260. + + New Year’s festival, Hawaiian, 13 _and_ _n._², 88; + Maori, 17 _n._²; + Fijian, 22 _and n._², 23 _n._¹; + Kayan, 31; + Balinese, 42 _sq._; + Muhso, 57; + Hebrew, 82, 235 _n._², 256; + Babylonian, 276 _n._² + + _Ngoma_, Akikuyu ancestral spirits, 6. + + Nias, island of, 43, 181, 183. + + Nicobar Islands, the, 40 _sq._, 64, 165 _and n._², 181. + + Nielsen, D., 143 _n._¹, 237. + + Nigeria (Northern), 116 _n._¹, 117 _n._¹; + (Southern), 78, 101 _n._¹, 111 _sq._, 182, 187 _n._¹ + + Nine as a symbolic number, 120 _n._² + + Nineteenth day of the month, observance of the, in Babylonia, 224 + _and n._³, 232 _n._³, 235 _n._¹, 257 _sq._ + + _Niu_, casting the, a Maori method of divination, 17. + + _Noa_, 14. + + Nones, the, 120 _n._², 170, 171, 185 _and n._¹, 305. + + Northern Territory of South Australia, 180. + + Noumenia, the Greek new-moon day, 169 _sq._, 184. + + _Novemdiales feriæ_, 99, 120 _n._² + + _Nubattu_, the Babylonian, 241 _n._¹ + + Numa, 94 _sq._, 121 _n._¹ + + Numbers, prejudice against even, 94, 178 _n._¹, 185; + symbolism of, 120 _n._², 206 _sqq._ + + _Nundinæ_, Roman market days, 92 _n._, 94 _n._³, 120 _sqq._ + + _Nundinum_, Roman market week, 120, 122, 193 _and n._³, 219. + + Nycthemeron, the, 179 _n._¹, 218 _n._¹ + + + Octad, the, 193 _sq._ + + _Odyssey_, the, 169, 211. + + _Ogboni_, a Yoruba secret society, 78 _n._² + + Ogun, a Yoruba god, 114 _n._ + + Omens, Kayan, 28 _sq._, 31 _sq._; + Iban, 33 _sq._; + Bontoc Igorot, 48; + Naga, 50 _n._¹ + + Ominous animals, cult of, in Borneo, 27, 28 _sq._, 32, 34, 59 _n._² + + _Orenda_, 5, 86. + + Origen, 270. + + Ornaments not worn during a tabooed or unlucky period, 63, 65, 67, 70. + + Oro, a Slave Coast deity, 78 _and n._² + + _Orunda_, the Mpongwe term for taboo, 3. + + Osiris, identified with the moon, 129 _n._⁶, 168 _sq._ + + Ovid, 245, 263 _n._², 266. + + + _Padi_, or rice, taboos affecting the cultivation of, in Borneo, 27 + _sqq._, 37, 39 _n._² + + Paganalia, Roman festival of the, 96 _and n._¹ + + Pagi Islands, the, 43. + + Paharia of British Sikkim, 67. + + _Palolo_ worm, the, 22 _and n._³ + + _Pamali_, a Land Dyak term for taboo, 36 _sq._, 37 _n._¹ + + _Pantang_, the Malay term for taboo, 27 _n._³, 204. + + _Papyrus Sallier IV_, the, 296 _and n._¹, 297. + + Paraguay, 129. + + Parentalia, Roman festival of the, 80, 81 _and n._¹, 94 _n._² + + Parsis, lucky and unlucky days of the, 166 _n._¹, 273 _n._³ + + _Pasar_, Javanese market week, 105, 165 _n._¹ + + Passover, the, 250. + + Patani States of the Malay Peninsula, 64, 204. + + _Patimokkha_, the disciplinary and penal code of Buddhism, 157 _and + n._³, 163 _and n._⁵ + + Paul, St., 269. + + Pentad, the, 194 _sqq._ + + Perfumes and unguents not used during a tabooed or unlucky period, 1, + 152, 155, 158. + + _Permantong_, a Kayan term for taboo, 27 _and n._³ + + Persians, the seven-day week of the, 201 _n._⁴; + lunar mansions of the, 275; + their epagomenal days, 282. + _See also_ Iranians. + + Peruvians, market days kept by the, 119 _sq._; + the seven-day week unknown to the, 120 _n._¹; + their lunar superstitions, 129, 141; + calendar of the, 174, 186, 190. + + _Petara_, Sea Dyak gods, 35 _n._², 42 _sq._ + + Pharisees, the, 265, 269. + + Philippine Islands, the, 44 _sqq._, 64, 88. + + Philo Judæus, 261 _n._⁵, 266. + + Phœnicians, the, 212 _n._¹, 240. + + _Pidiu_, the Ibaloi Igorot term for taboo, 49 _n._¹ + + Pinches, T. G., on the meaning of _shabattum_, 237, 238 _n._⁴ + + _Pitara._ See _Petara_. + + Planetary or astrological week, in India, 200, 292; + in southeastern Asia, 201; + in China, 202 _sq._; + in Japan, 203 _sq._; + in the Malay Peninsula, 204; + in Sumatra, Java, and Bali, 205; + origin of the, 215 _sqq._; + introduction of the, into the Occident, 219; + adopted by Christianity, 220 _sq._; + its diffusion in Europe, 221 _sq._; + in Afghanistan, 293. + + Planets, differentiation of the, from the fixed stars, 213; + identification of the, with deities of the Babylonian pantheon, 214 + _sq._; + the planetary week, 215 _sqq._; + in Mithraism, 220 _n._³ + + Plato, on festival days, 91. + + Pleiades calendars, 176 _sq._, 225 _and n._² + + Pliny the Younger, 268 _n._¹ + + Plutarch, 264 _n._¹, 266. + + Plynteria, Athenian festival of the, 92 _sq._ + + _Pomali_, a Malay term for taboo, 64. + + Pompeii, inscriptions from, relating to the planetary week, 219. + + Pompey the Great, 216, 266. + + _Porikh._ See _Pamali_. + + Portugal, names of the weekdays in, 221 _n._² + + Portuguese East Africa, 190. + + _Posadha_, the, in China, 163 _n._⁵ + + _Posaha_, the Jain, 154 _sq._ + + _Poya_ days, observed in Ceylon, 158, 159 _and n._¹ + + Prascovia, St., 222 _n._² + + Prayer, nature of Hawaiian, 12 _n._² + + Pre-animistic sanctions of taboos, 4 _sq._, 75, 83. + + Ptolemy, Greek astronomer, 216. + + Puberty, taboos imposed on the attainment of, 7, 69 _n._²; + initiation at, among the Fijians, 23 _and n._¹, 24; + among the Yao, 125. + + Pula, the, 194. + + _Punän_, the term for taboo in the Mentawi Islands, 43 _sq._ + + Punjab, the, 137 _sq._ + + Purim, Hebrew festival of, 276 _n._² + + _Pyramid Texts_, the, 166 _sq._, 281. + + Python, cult of the, in Uganda, 146. + + + Ra, Egyptian god, 258. + + Radama I, Malagasy king, 197. + + Ratu-mai-Mbulu, a Fijian deity, 21. + + Reformation, the, 301, 306. + + Reinach, S., 257 _n._¹ + + Rendile of British East Africa, 198 _sq._ + + Rest days, characteristics of primitive, 1; + connection of, with the institution of taboo, 1 _sq._; + in Hawaii, 9 _sqq._, 88, 188, 233, 303; + in the Society Islands and the Marquesas Islands, 15 _sq._, 16 + _n._¹; + among the Maori, 16 _sq._, 17 _n._²; + in the Tonga Islands, 18 _and n._², 19; + in Samoa, 19 _sq._; + in New Guinea, 26 _and n._¹; + among the Kayan of Borneo, 27 _sqq._; + among the Iban or Sea Dyak, 33 _sqq._; + among the Land Dyak, 36 _sqq._; + in the Nicobar Islands, 40 _sq._, 165; + in Bali, 41 _sqq._; + in the Mentawi Islands, 43 _sq._; + in the Philippines, 44 _sqq._; + in Manipur, 49 _sqq._; + in Assam, 53 _sqq._; + in Burma, 55 _sqq._; + among the aborigines of southwestern China, 57 _sq._, 194; + a characteristic feature of Indo-Chinese culture, 58; + compared with the _couvade_, 58 _sq._; + psychological and sociological aspects of, 59 _sq._; + mark critical epochs in the communal life, 60 _sq._; + observed after a death, 62 _sqq._, 84; + observance of, in Africa, during seasons of ghost-riddance and + demon-riddance, 74 _sqq._; + observed in connection with the proceedings of west African secret + societies, 77 _sq._; + the Greek ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι as, 79 _sq._, 84, 92 _sq._, 139 _sq._; + the Roman _dies religiosi_ as, 80 _sq._, 84, 93 _sq._, 170 _sq._, + 273; + the Hebrew Day of Atonement and Feast of Trumpets as, 81 _sqq._; + the Mohammedan Feast of Sacrifices, 83; + festivals observed as, 85 _sqq._; + among the Dravidian peoples of India, 88 _sqq._; + the Hebrew Day of First-fruits, 90 _sq._; + Greek festivals as, 91 _sqq._, 169 _sq._, 211 _sq._, 304; + Roman festivals as, 93 _sqq._, 121 _sq._, 170, 304 _sqq._; + observed in connection with agricultural operations, 101 _and + n._¹, 102; + market days as, 103 _sq._, 104 _n._, 109 _sqq._, 118, 119 _sqq._; + observed in connection with the waning moon, 131 _sqq._; + observed during lunar eclipses, 134 _sq._; + observed during the _interlunium_, 136 _sqq._; + observed at changes of the moon, 143; + lunar days as, in Africa, 144 _sqq._; + lunar taboos in modern India, 148 _sq._; + the ancient Aryan _upavasatha_ as a Sabbath, 149 _sqq._; + sabbatarian character of lunar days in Brahmanism, 151 _sqq._; + the Jain _posaha_, 154 _sq._; + the Buddhist Sabbath, or _uposatha_, 155 _sqq._; + diffusion of the Buddhist Sabbath, 158 _sqq._; + new moon and full moon as, among the Greeks and Romans, 169 _sq._; + the _dies postriduani_, 170 _sq._; + in Madagascar and eastern Africa, 197 _sqq._; + of the American Indians, 197 _n._¹, 303 _n._³; + not observed by the Chinese, 203 _and n._¹, 303 _sq._; + in Japan, 203 _sq._; + not observed by the Javanese, 205 _n._⁴; + in Islam, 205 _sq._; + seventh days observed as, 208 _sqq._; + in Christianity, 220 _sqq._, 269 _sqq._, 306 _sqq._; + in Mithraism, 220 _n._³; + the Babylonian “evil days” as, 223, 232 _sqq._, 235 _n._¹, 236, + 241, 254; + the Hebrew Sabbath, 242 _sqq._; + the Christian Sunday, 267 _sqq._; + unlucky days observed as, 272 _sqq._; + social and economic significance of, 302 _sqq._ + + _Rex sacrorum_, the Roman, 97, 170. + + _Rig-Veda_, the, 177 _n._², 276, 277. + + Rivers, W. H. R., on the lunar superstitions of the Toda, 132; + on their sacred days, 288 _sqq._ + + Roman Church, names of the weekdays in the calendar of the, 221 _n._² + + Romance countries, names of the weekdays in, 221 _and n._² + + Romans, ancient, unlucky days of the, 80 _and n._², 81, 84, 93 _sq._, + 94 _n._², 170 _sq._, 171 _n._³, 273; + festivals of the, 80 _sq._, 93 _sqq._, 121 _sqq._, 170, 304 _sqq._; + their market week and market days, 92 _n._, 94 _n._³, 120 _sqq._, + 193 _and n._³, 219; + their lunar calendar, 170, 184 _sq._ + + Romulus, 94, 121, 177 _n._¹ + + _Rongker_, the Mikir term for rest day, 54. + + Roro-speaking peoples of British New Guinea, 26. + + Russia, Friday an unlucky day in, 222 _n._²; + saints’ days observed in, 307. + + + Sabbatarian regulations, penalties for disobedience of, 10, 20, 46 + _sq._, 113, 160, 161, 261 _sq._, 290; + how evaded, 264, 289 _sq._, 293 _n._³ + + Sabbath, the Hebrew, 10 _n._⁴, 91, 96 _n._¹, 98 _n._⁴, 104 _n._, 109, + 122, 148, 179 _n._¹, 235, 236 _and n._, 242 _sqq._, 291 _sq._, + 304. + + —— Day’s journey, length of a, 251 _n._⁵, 264. + + Sabbatical Year, the Hebrew, 236 _n._, 260 _sqq._ + + _Sacer_, the Latin term for taboo, 3 _and n._⁵ + + Saints’ days, observance of, 306 _sq._ + + Samoa, village deities of, 19 _sq._; + tabooed days observed in, 19 _sq._, 24. + + Sanhedrin, the, 247 _n._², 248. + + _Sansculottides_, the, 283. + + Saoria of Bengal, 137. + + Sarawak, 27 _sqq._, 33 _sqq._, 65, 208. + + _Sarhul_, a Uraon festival, 89. + + Sarpanit, Babylonian goddess, 241 _n._¹ + + Saturday, an unlucky day, 92 _n._, 201, 222 _n._³, 244 _n._³, 245; + names applied to, 188 _n._¹, 221, 222 _and n._²; + change from, to Sunday, as the first day of the planetary week, 220 + _sq._, 268; + Saturn’s Day and, 243 _sqq._; + ecclesiastical recognition of, as a holy day, 269 _and n._⁴ + + Saturn, supposed consecration of the _nundinæ_ to, 122 _n._²; + the planet, 213, 243 _sqq._ + _See also_ Saturday. + + Sayce, A. H., on the _khamushtu_, 195 _n._² + + Scapegoat, the Hebrew, 81 _sqq._ + + Schiaparelli, G., 213, 235 _n._¹, 261 _n._³ + + Scotland, abstinence from work after a death observed in, 74; + lunar superstitions in, 133; + observance of Saturday in, 270 _n._; + unlucky days observed in, 279. + + Sea Dyak. _See_ Iban. + + Seclusion necessary during a tabooed or unlucky period, 1, 9, 10, + 12, 15, 20, 22, 26, 28 _sq._, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 44, 53, 56, 58 + _sq._, 64, 65, 69 _n._², 71, 74, 78, 115 _n._⁴, 147, 232 _sq._, + 257, 280, 295, 296, 297. + _See also_ Strangers, exclusion of. + + Secret societies, in Fiji, 23 _and n._¹, 24; + in west Africa, 77 _sq._, 111. + + Selene, 130, 139 _sq._ + + Seligmann, C. G., 26 _n._³, 101 _n._¹ + + Seminoles of Florida, 71. + + _Sepi_, the Balinese term for rest day, 42. + + Sequani of Gaul, 186 _n._¹ + + Servius Tullius, 121. + + Seven, as a symbolic number, 208 _sqq._, 225 _and n._², 229 _sqq._ + + Seven-day week, the, in New Caledonia, 104 _and n._⁴; + in the island of Bali, 105; + in the Malay Peninsula, 105, 204; + among the Guinea and Sudanese negroes, 115 _sqq._, 199; + not known to the Peruvians, 120 _n._¹; + in Sumatra, 180; + in New Zealand, 188 _n._¹; + in Indo-China, 189; + unknown to the Egyptians, 191 _n._¹, 245 _sq._; + Abyssinian, 194 _n._¹; + origin and diffusion of the, 196 _sq._; + in Madagascar and eastern Africa, 197 _sq._; + in India, 199 _sqq._, 292; + in southeastern Asia, 201; + in central and northern Asia, 201 _n._⁴; + in China, 202 _sq._; + in Japan, 203 _sq._; + in the Malay Archipelago, 204 _sq._; + of the Arabs, 205 _sq._; + the planetary or astrological, 215 _sqq._; + in Babylonia, 224 _sq._, 227 _sqq._, 253 _sq._; + of the Hebrews, 253 _sqq._; + of the early Christians, 267; + of the Toda, 292; + in Afghanistan, 293. + _See also_ Planetary or astrological week. + + Seventh day, the, 205, 208 _sqq._, 224, 232 _sq._, 243, 244 _n._³, + 299. + + Sexual intercourse, prohibited during a tabooed or unlucky period, + 10, 15, 39 _and n._², 58, 110, 134, 146, 151, 152, 155, 158, 233, + 296 _sq._, 298; + effect of illicit, on the crops, 36 _n._ + + _Shabattum_, Babylonian name of full-moon day, 81 _n._³, 235 _sqq._, + 251. + + _Shabbāth_, original meaning of the Hebrew term, 251, 252, 253; + used in the general sense of “week,” 253 _n._² + + _—— shabbāthôn_, the Hebrew, 81 _and n._³, 82, 251, 260. + + _Shabbāthôn_, the Hebrew, 235 _and n._² + + _Shabbti_, Jewish designation of the planet Saturn, 244. + + Shamash, Babylonian sun-god, 239. + + Shan of Burma, 105 _sq._ + + Shaving, superstitions relating to, 92 _n._ + + _Shib’a_, Jewish period of strict mourning after a death, 74. + + Shropshire, 279. + + Siam, tabooed days observed in, 66; + market days kept in, 105, 194 _n._³; + the Buddhist Sabbath in, 161 _sq._; + bipartite division of the month employed in, 184; + the seven-day week in, 201. + + Siberia, 73 _sq._, 126, 132, 201 _n._⁴ + + Sickness, taboos imposed in connection with, 24, 25, 34 _sq._, 36, + 38, 39, 42, 43 _sqq._, 51, 60. + + Sierra Leone, 148 _n._¹ + + Sikkim, 67. + + Silence observed during a tabooed or unlucky period, 1, 9 _sq._, 11, + 12 _and n._², 14, 16 _n._¹, 20, 21, 22, 26, 41, 42, 44, 62, 67, + 77, 151, 278, 297. + + Sin, a Babylonian moon-god, 126, 129, 139, 226, 228 _sq._, 239, 240, + 248 _n._¹ + + Sinaugolo of British New Guinea, a division of time formerly observed + by the, 101 _n._¹ + + Singer, Jacob, 249 _n._³ + + Slave Coast of west Africa, 77 _sq._, 112, 113 _sq._, 187. + + Slavic peoples, names of the weekdays among, 222. + + Smith, H. P., 249 _n._³ + + Smith, W. R., 4 _n._, 86 _n._¹, 252. + + Society Islands, the, 9, 15 _sq._, 181 _n._⁷ + + Sofalese of Portuguese East Africa, 190 _and n._² + + _Solevu ni vilavou_, a Fijian New Year’s festival, 23 _n._¹ + + _Soma_, the intoxicating juice of the moon-plant, 150 _sq._, 158 _n._¹ + + Somali, the, 199, 210. + + South Australia, 180. + + _Soyáluña_, a Hopi Indian festival, 303 _n._³ + + Spartans, religious scruples of the, 133 _n._³ + + Spencer, John, on the origin of the Sabbath in Egypt, 245. + + Spirits. _See_ Demons. + + Strabo, on festival days, 85. + + Strangers, exclusion of, during a tabooed or unlucky period, 1, 20, + 24, 27, 29 _sq._, 35, 36, 37, 39 _n._¹, 42 _sq._, 44, 45 _sq._, + 49 _n._¹, 50, 55, 56, 57 _and n._², 66. + + Stseelis of British Columbia, 197 _n._¹ + + Subanu of Mindanao, 45 _sq._ + + Sudan, the, 69 _n._², 116 _n._¹, 132, 141. + + Sulla, 100. + + Sumatra, 104 _sq._, 180 _sq._, 183, 204 _sq._, 214 _n._, 285 _sq._ + + Sun, worship of the, in modern India, 153 _sq._ + + Sunday, observance of, by native converts to Christianity, 10 _and + n._³, 73 _n._², 75, 114 _n._, 188 _n._¹, 209, 210, 295; + an unlucky day, 92 _n._, 137, 201; + legislation of Constantine relating to, 122 _sq._, 220; + markets held on, during the Middle Ages, 123 _and n._²; + in Siam, 162; + in India, 200 _n._³, 201; + among the Lao, 201; + in China, 202 _and n._³; + in Japan, 203 _sq._; + becomes the first day of the planetary week, 220 _sq._, 268; + how named by the early Christians, 267 _and n._³; + how observed by the early Christians, 267 _sq._; + comes to be regarded as a rest day, 269 _sqq._ + + —— legislation, 122 _sq._, 270 _sq._ + + Sundyak. _See_ Dusun. + + Superstition, sociological aspects of, 63 _n._², 302, 307 _sq._ + + _Sutta Nipâta_, the, 157. + + Swaheli of German East Africa, 76, 197. + + + Tabernacles, Hebrew Feast of, 236 _n._, 250, 251. + + Taboo, derivation of the word, 2; + ideas involved in, 2 _sq._; + definition of, 3; + conception of, widely diffused, _ib._; + how classified, 4; + pre-animistic character of, 4 _sq._; + supported by animistic sanctions, 5 _sq._; + conceptions of abstinence and propitiation involved in, 6 _sq._; + social aspects of, 7, 25, 38 _sq._, 59 _sq._, 95; + holiness and, 86 _and n._¹ + + _Tabu_, the Polynesian conception of, 2 _and n._²; + compared with the Hebrew conception, 10 _n._⁴; + compared with the Babylonian _mamit_, 231. + + Tacitus, on the origin of the Sabbath, 245 _n._³ + + Tahiti, observance of Sunday in, 10. + + _Tambo nalanga_, a Fijian New Year’s festival, 22 _and n._² + + _Tambu_, the Melanesian term for taboo, 3. + + _Ṭāmē_, the Hebrew term for taboo, 4 _n._ + + Tamil-speaking peoples of southern India, village festivals of the, + 89 _sq._ + + _Tapu._ See _Tabu_. + + Tarentum, festivals of ancient, 304. + + Tashi Lama, tabooed days observed after the death of the, 67. + + Tatars, the, 132. + + Tattooing, superstitions relating to, 53 _n._² + + Telugu-speaking peoples of southern India, village festivals of the, + 89 _sq._ + + Tenasserim, 161 _n._¹ + + _Tengao_ (_tengau_), the Bontoc Igorot term for rest day, 46 _and + n._², 88. + + _Tengau._ See _Tengao_. + + Tertullian, on the proper observance of Sunday, 268 _n._³, 269, 270 + _and n._¹ + + _Thahu_, the Akikuyu term for taboo, 6. + + Thessaly, unlucky days observed in, 222 _n._³ + + Thor, 221 _n._³ + + Thothmes III, inscription of, 167 _sq._ + + Thursday, observance of, as a holy day, 221 _n._³ + + Tiberius, Roman emperor, 305. + + Tibet, tabooed days observed in, 67; + the Buddhist Sabbath in, 162 _sq._; + the seven-day week in, 201; + unlucky days observed in, 287 _sq._ + + Tibullus, 244 _sq._, 266. + + Tides, influence of the moon on the, 130. + + Timor, island of, 63. + + Tippera, the, 55. + + Titi Usi, Samoan village deity, 20. + + Toda of the Madras Presidency, beliefs of, relating to the moon, 132, + 134; + their reckoning of the lunation, 179; + their sacred days, 288 _sqq._ + + Tofoke of Belgian Congo, 190. + + Togo, 114 _and n._³, 115, 182. + + _Toh_, the Kayan spirits, 6. + + Tonga Islands, the, 18 _and n._², 19. + + Tonkin, 105, 189. + + Tooitonga, Tonga divine chief, 18, 19. + + Torres Straits, islands of, 128 _and n._² + + Toy, C. H., on the meaning of _shabattum_, 238. + + Trading not allowed during a tabooed or unlucky period, 42, 43, 67, + 71, 151, 155, 159, 300. + + Travel prohibited during a tabooed or unlucky period, 7, 20, 21, 26, + 49 _n._¹, 64, 68, 83, 115 _n._⁴, 136, 151, 171, 190 _n._⁴, 198, + 201, 210, 232, 233, 241 _n._¹, 273 _n._³, 275, 285, 289, 293, + 297, 298, 301. + + Trumpets, Hebrew Feast of, 82. + + Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, tabooed days observed by + the, 112, 113, 115; + their lunar weeks, 187 _and n._²; + unlucky days of the, 272. + + Tuesday, an unlucky day, 201, 272 _and n._²; + a lucky day, 273 _sq._ + + Tuhoe of New Zealand, beliefs of the, relating to the moon, 128. + + Tui Tokelau, Polynesian divinity, 20 _sq._ + + Tullus Hostilius, Roman king, 99. + + Tungthu of Tenasserim, 161 _n._¹ + + Twelve Days, the, of the early Aryans, 276 _sq._; + in European folklore, 277 _sqq._ + + + _Ubone_, or duty days, observed in Burma, 159 _sqq._, 161 _n._¹ + + _Ucharal_, a festival celebrated in Malabar, 89. + + Uganda, 69 _sq._, 75 _sq._, 129, 145 _sqq._, 147 _n._³ + + _Ûm nûkh libbi_, 236, 241. + + Union Islands, the, 20 _sq._ + + United States, the, lunar superstitions in, 127, 140 _n._³ + + Unleavened Bread, Hebrew Feast of, 179 _n._¹, 250, 251. + + Unlucky days, of the ancient Greeks, 79 _and n._³, 80 _and n._¹, 84, + 92 _sq._, 139 _and n._³, 140; + of the ancient Romans, 80 _sq._, 84, 93 _sq._, 170 _sq._, 273; + African, 111 _n._³, 190 _n._², 190 _n._³, 272; + German, 127, 278 _sq._; + in Ceylon, 159 _n._¹; + in the Malay Peninsula, 162 _n._⁴, 286; + Persian, 166 _n._¹, 282; + Malagasy, 197 _n._², 275, 294 _sq._; + Hindu, 201, 275; + Russian, 222 _n._²; + modern Greek, 222 _n._³, 272 _n._², 284 _sq._; + Babylonian, 241 _n._¹, 297 _sq._; + Egyptian, 258, 282, 295 _sqq._, 304; + Hebrew, 263 _and n._²; + origin of beliefs in, 272, 274, 276, 283; + Macedonian, 272, 273 _n._³, 278, 284 _and n._¹; + mediæval superstitions concerning, 273, 299 _sqq._; + Burmese, 273 _n._³, 302; + Abyssinian, 276 _n._; + in the British Isles, 279; + Mexican, 279 _sq._; + Maya, 280 _sq._; + Maori, 285; + in Sumatra, 285 _sq._; + Chinese, 286 _sq._; + Korean, 287; + Japanese, _ib._; + Tibetan, 287 _sq._; + Toda, 290 _sq._; + of the Siah Posh Kafirs, 293 _sq._; + in the Hesiodic calendar, 298 _sq._; + social and economic aspects of, 302 _sqq._ + + _Upavasatha_, observance of the, in ancient India, 149 _sqq._, 156. + + _Uposatha_, the Buddhist Sabbath, 155 _sqq._; + diffusion of the, in southeastern Asia, 158 _sqq._ + + Ur, city of, 239. + + Uraon of Bengal, 88 _sq._ + + + Veblen, Thorstein, on sacred holidays, 87 _n._¹ + + Vedas, the, not to be read on certain occasions, 152 _sq._ + + Venus, the planet, 205, 213, 214 _n._¹, 243. + + Vergil, on Roman holy days, 98; + his calendar of lucky and unlucky days, 299 _n._² + + Vespasian, Roman emperor, 245. + + Vestalia, Roman festival of the, 92 _n._, 93 _sq._ + + Vey of Liberia, 199 _n._⁵ + + Victoria, 180. + + Village gods, Samoan, 19 _and n._¹, 20. + + _Vishaptatha_, 166 _n._ + + _Vishnu Purana_, the, 151 _sq._, 152. + + + Wa, the Wild, 57. + + Wachaga of German East Africa, 107, 209. + + Wagiriama of British East Africa, 107 _and n._², 136 _and n._³, 189 + _sq._, 209. + + Wahuma. _See_ Bahima. + + _Wakanda_, 5. + + Wales, unlucky days observed in, 279. + + Wanika of British East Africa, 107. + + _Wan phra_, the Siamese Sabbath, 161 _sq._ + + Warfare not engaged in during a tabooed or unlucky period, 21, 22, + 33, 34, 80, 81, 132, 133 _and n._³, 137, 171, 209, 303. + + Wasania of British East Africa, 134, 209. + + Wednesday, an unlucky day, 92 _n._ + + Weekdays, names of the, in Java, 105; + in Africa, 109, 111, 112, 113 _n._⁶, 115 _n._²; + in New Zealand, 188 _n._¹; + of the planetary sequence, 219; + in European languages, 221 _sq._; + among the early Christians, 267 _and n._³ + + Weeks, three-day, 103 _sq._, 105, 107, 108, 110, 119 _and n._³; + four-day, 105, 106 _sq._, 108, 109 _sq._, 111 _sq._, 114 _and n._², + 116 _n._¹, 119 _n._³; + five-day, 103, 104, 105 _sq._, 108, 110, 112 _n._¹, 113 _and n._⁶, + 114 _and n._³, 116 _n._¹, 118 _sq._, 165 _n._¹, 187 _and n._², + 194 _sqq._; + six-day, 114 _and n._², 115 _n._, 116 _n._¹, 194; + seven-day, 104 _and n._⁴, 105, 115 _sqq._, 120 _n._¹, 122, 180, 187 + _and n._², 189, 194 _n._¹, 196 _sq._, 197 _sqq._, 199 _n._⁵, 215 + _sqq._, 224 _sq._, 227 _sqq._, 253 _sqq._, 267; + eight-day, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112 _n._¹, 119 _n._³, 120 _sqq._, + 193 _sq._; + nine-day, 116 _n._¹, 192, 193 _and n._²; + ten-day, 110, 119 _sq._, 188 _sqq._ + _See also_ Lunar weeks _and_ Market weeks. + + Wellhausen, Julius, 82 _n._², 252. + + Westermarck, Edward, 259. + + White, the colour appropriate for sacred days observed on the Gold + Coast, 112 _and n._² + + Winckler, Hugo, on the _khamushtu_, 195 _n._² + + Women, restrictions on, during a tabooed or unlucky period, 15, 22, + 41, 78, 83, 89, 115 _n._⁴, 194. + + + _Ya_, the Arakanese term for rest day, 55. + + Yabim of German New Guinea, 57 _n._¹ + + Yakut of Siberia, 74. + + Yap, island of, 24 _sq._, 189. + + Year, the lunar, 13 _n._², 82 _n._², 174, 175, 176 _sqq._, 226, 247 + _n._²; + beginning of the new, 75; + the solar, 82 _n._², 166, 174, 177 _sq._, 247 _n._², 279 _sqq._ + + Yoruba-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, tabooed days observed by + the, 77 _sq._, 112, 113 _sq._; + their lunar weeks, 187 _and n._² + + Yucatan, 174, 280 _sq._ + + Yuchi Indians, the, 101 _n._¹ + + Yukaghir of Siberia, 201 _n._⁴ + + + Zagmuk, Babylonian festival of, 276 _n._² + + Zimmern, H., 237, 238 _n._⁴, 252 _n._⁶ + + Zulu of British South Africa, 67 _sq._, 137, 144. + + Zuñi Indians of New Mexico, 190 _and n._⁶, 211 _n._¹ + + +Printed in the United States of America. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79292 *** diff --git a/79292-h/79292-h.htm b/79292-h/79292-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38aef78 --- /dev/null +++ b/79292-h/79292-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,17503 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Rest days: a study in early law and morality | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +a { + text-decoration: none; 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+} + +.poetry .verse { + padding-left: 3em; +} + +.poetry .indent0 { + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.right { + text-align: right; +} + +.smaller { + font-size: 80%; +} + +.smcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; +} + +.allsmcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; + text-transform: lowercase; +} + +.titlepage { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 3em; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.transnote { + background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + text-align: center; + font-size: smaller; + padding: 0.5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker img { + max-width: 100%; + width: auto; + height: auto; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry { + display: block; + margin-left: 1.5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 5%; +} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp100 {width: 100%;} + </style> + </head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79292 ***</div> + +<main> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[i]</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage larger">REST DAYS</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[ii]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="macmillan" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/macmillan.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p class="center">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br> +<span class="smaller">NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS<br> +ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">MACMILLAN & CO., Limited</span><br> +<span class="smaller">LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA<br> +MELBOURNE</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.</span><br> +<span class="smaller">TORONTO</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage larger">REST DAYS</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><i>A Study in Early Law and Morality</i></p> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br> +<span class="smcap">HUTTON WEBSTER, Ph.D.</span><br> +<span class="smaller">PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA<br> +AUTHOR OF “PRIMITIVE SECRET SOCIETIES”</span></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The study of their own species is doubtless the most interesting +and important that can claim the attention of mankind; and this +science, like all others, it is impossible to improve by abstract +speculation, merely. A regular series of authenticated facts is +what alone can enable us to rise towards a perfect knowledge in +it.”—<span class="smcap">William Marsden</span>, <i>The History of Sumatra</i>, +London, 1811, Preface.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="gothic">New York</span><br> +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br> +<span class="smaller">1916</span></p> + +<p class="center smaller"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage smaller"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1916,<br> +By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</span></p> + +<p class="center smaller">Set up and printed. Published May, 1916.</p> + +<p class="titlepage smaller"><span class="gothic">Norwood Press</span><br> +J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.<br> +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="gothic">To</span><br> +MY WIFE</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2> + +</div> + +<p>What perhaps might be described as the first edition of +this work appeared in 1911 in the <i>University Studies</i> of the +University of Nebraska. The title of the original monograph +has been retained for the present volume, in which +the same line of argument is followed and the same conclusions +are reached. After a lapse of nearly five years I have +not felt the necessity of modifying, to any essential degree, +the results of the earlier investigation. The book, then, +differs from its predecessor chiefly in providing a more +extensive collection of the relevant data.</p> + +<p>Although much has been written on the Jewish Sabbath +and the Christian Sunday, and on the assumed Babylonian +prototype of these institutions, little inquiry has hitherto +been made into the rest days so commonly observed outside +the Semitic area in antiquity and later ages. The principal +reason for this neglect of the comparative aspects of +the subject must doubtless be found in the still imperfect +appreciation of the fact that the great institutions of modern +civilization have their roots in the beliefs and customs, and +often in the superstitions, of savage and barbarian society. +It will be the task of social anthropology, by an impressive +accumulation of evidence, to make this truth a commonplace +of popular knowledge.</p> + +<p>Among the friends and correspondents who have aided +me by criticisms and suggestions I wish particularly to mention +Dr. Crawford H. Toy, now Professor Emeritus in +Harvard University, and Dr. Louis H. Gray, now Assistant +Editor of Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>. +Mr. G. D. Swezey, Professor of Astronomy in the University +of Nebraska, was good enough to help me in some +troublesome details relating to the calendar. The late +Walter Kendall Jewett, formerly University Librarian, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>the kindest and most genial of men, put at my disposal +many books which otherwise would have been difficult of +access. To my honoured colleague, Professor George +Elliott Howard, I owe the inspiration, reaching back to +undergraduate days, which comes from association with one +whose devotion to scholarly ideals is matched only by his +enthusiasm for social service. Finally, I must acknowledge +my obligation to Chancellor Samuel Avery, whose interest +in the book has made possible its publication at this time.</p> + +<p class="right">HUTTON WEBSTER.</p> + +<p class="hanging"><span class="smcap">Lincoln, Nebraska</span>,<br> +February, 1916.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ERRATA">ERRATA</h2> + +</div> + +<p><a href="#Page_80">Page 80</a>, note 2, <i>read</i>: p. 156; Macrobius, <i>Satur-</i></p> + +<p><a href="#Page_92">Page 92</a>, note, <i>read</i>: αὖον ἀπὸ χλωροῦ τάμνειν αἴθωνι +σιδήρῳ</p> + +<div class="transnote"> +<p class="center">Transcriber’s Note: The errata have been corrected.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> + +</div> + +<nav> + + +<table> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">INTRODUCTION</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Observance of days of abstinence and quiescence not unknown + in the lower culture, p. <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.—Probable + origin of the sabbatarian regulations in primitive taboos, pp. + <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.—<i>Tabu</i> in + Polynesia and equivalent customs in other parts of the world, pp. + <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.—Classification + of taboos, p. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.—Characteristics of taboos, + pp. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.—Their + animistic sanctions, pp. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a + href="#Page_6">6</a>.—Reasons for imposing taboos which necessitate + abstinence and quiescence, pp. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a + href="#Page_7">7</a>.—Connection of communal taboos with those + observed by individuals, p. <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER I<br> + <span class="smcap">Tabooed Days at Critical Epochs</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The institution of taboo in the Hawaiian Islands, pp. <a + href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.—Observance + there of tabooed days, pp. <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a + href="#Page_10">10</a>.—Likeness between the Hawaiian Sabbaths + and the sabbatarian regulations introduced by missionaries, p. + <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.—Communal taboos imposed when a chief + temple was consecrated, pp. <a href="#Page_11">11-13</a>; at + the time of the celebration of the New Year’s festival, p. <a + href="#Page_13">13</a>; and in connection with the taking of certain + fish, p. <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.—The four regular <i>tabu</i> + periods in the Hawaiian month, pp. <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, + <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.—Tabooed days observed in the + Society Islands, the Marquesas Islands, and New Zealand, pp. + <a href="#Page_15">15-17</a>.—In the Tonga Islands a period of + taboo imposed at the time of the first-fruits’ sacrifice, pp. + <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.—Days kept + sacred to certain gods in Samoa and other parts of Polynesia, + pp. <a href="#Page_19">19-21</a>.—Tabooed days of the Fijians, + pp. <a href="#Page_21">21-24</a>.—Other instances of communal + rest days in Polynesia, pp. <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a + href="#Page_25">25</a>.—General significance of the Polynesian + evidence, p. <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.—Tabooed days not + unknown in New Guinea, p. <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.—Tabooed + days in Borneo, pp. <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a + href="#Page_27">27</a>.—Those observed by the Kayan of + Sarawak and Dutch Borneo, pp. <a href="#Page_27">27-33</a>; + by the Iban or Sea Dyak, pp. <a href="#Page_33">33-35</a>; + and by the Land Dyak, pp. <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a + href="#Page_37">37</a>.—General significance of the Bornean + evidence, pp. <a href="#Page_37">37-39</a>.—Observance of seasons + of communal repose confined to the Indonesian population of Borneo, + pp. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.—Tabooed + days in the Nicobar Islands, pp. <a href="#Page_40">40</a>,<span + class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span> <a href="#Page_41">41</a>; + in Bali and Nias, pp. <a href="#Page_41">41-43</a>; in the Mentawi + Islands, pp. <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>; + in Formosa, p. <a href="#Page_44">44</a>; and in the + Philippine Archipelago, pp. <a href="#Page_44">44-49</a>.—The + <i>genna</i> among the Naga tribes of Manipur, pp. <a + href="#Page_49">49-53</a>.—<i>Genna</i> customs among other peoples + of Assam, pp. <a href="#Page_53">53-55</a>.—Customs allied to the + <i>genna</i> in Burma, pp. <a href="#Page_55">55-58</a>.—Indo-China + probably the centre of diffusion of the <i>genna</i>, p. <a + href="#Page_58">58</a>.—Resemblance of communal rest days to the + practice of the <i>couvade</i>, pp. <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a + href="#Page_59">59</a>.—Psychological and sociological aspects + of these communal regulations, pp. <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a + href="#Page_60">60</a>.—Days of abstinence and quiescence mark + crises in the community life, pp. <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a + href="#Page_61">61</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER II<br> + <span class="smcap">Tabooed Days after a Death and on Related Occasions</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Prohibition of work and other forms of activity a common + regulation following a death, p. <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.—The + animistic explanation of this taboo, pp. <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, + <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.—Belief in the pollution of death, p. <a + href="#Page_63">63</a>.—Many instances of communal taboos imposing + abstinence and quiescence to be found among semi-civilized peoples + in various parts of the world: in the East Indian Archipelago, pp. + <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>; among the + tribes of Borneo, p. <a href="#Page_65">65</a>; in Assam, pp. <a + href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>; in India and + Tibet, pp. <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>; + throughout Africa, pp. <a href="#Page_67">67-70</a>; in + Madagascar, p. <a href="#Page_70">70</a>; in North America, + especially among the Eskimo, pp. <a href="#Page_70">70-73</a>; + and among some Siberian tribes, pp. <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, + <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.—Survivals of such taboos in + the funeral observances of civilized peoples, p. <a + href="#Page_74">74</a>.—Similar regulations imposed in connection + with feasts of the dead and ceremonies of demon-expulsion, pp. <a + href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.—The evidence + from Africa, pp. <a href="#Page_75">75-78</a>.—Unlucky days + observed by the Athenians in connection with the festivals of the + Genesia and the Anthesteria, pp. <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a + href="#Page_80">80</a>.—Unlucky days observed by the Romans in + connection with the festivals of the Parentalia and the Lemuria, pp. + <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.—The Hebrew + Day of Atonement, pp. <a href="#Page_81">81-83</a>.—The Feast of + Sacrifices in Islam, p. <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.—World-wide + diffusion of the custom of observing tabooed days after a death and + on related occasions, p. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER III<br> + <span class="smcap">Holy Days</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Characteristics of religious festivals, p. <a + href="#Page_85">85</a>.—Festival times often marked by + cessation of labour, pp. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a + href="#Page_86">86</a>.—Origin of the conception of a “holy” day, pp. + <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.—Consecration of + holy days to particular divinities, pp. <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, + <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.—Connection between tabooed days and + holy days, p. <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.—The taboo element + in the festivals observed by Dravidian peoples of<span + class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span> India, pp. <a + href="#Page_88">88-90</a>.—The Hebrew Day of First-fruits, pp. + <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.—Greek holy + days, p. <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.—The Athenian Plynteria, + pp. <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.—The + Roman Vestalia, pp. <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a + href="#Page_94">94</a>.—Ferial days of the Romans as tabooed days, + pp. <a href="#Page_94">94-100</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER IV<br> + <span class="smcap">Market Days</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The observance of periodic rest days confined to + agricultural peoples, pp. <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a + href="#Page_102">102</a>.—Connection of these days with the + institution of the market, pp. <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a + href="#Page_103">103</a>.—The evidence for market weeks and market + days in various parts of the world: in New Guinea and Melanesia, + pp. <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>; + in Celebes, Sumatra, Java, and the Malay Peninsula, pp. <a + href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>; in + Tonkin, Siam, and Assam, pp. <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a + href="#Page_106">106</a>; throughout the central parts of Africa, + pp. <a href="#Page_106">106-108</a>; among the Congo negroes, pp. + <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>; and among + the Guinea negroes, pp. <a href="#Page_110">110-117</a>.—Origin + of the market week in Africa, pp. <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, + <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.—Sabbatarian features of the west + African market day, p. <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.—Market + weeks and market days in ancient Mexico and Peru, pp. <a + href="#Page_118">118-120</a>.—The Roman nundinal day, pp. <a + href="#Page_120">120-123</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER V<br> + <span class="smcap">Lunar Superstitions and Festivals</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Great importance assigned to the moon by primitive peoples, + pp. <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.—The + lunar rays often believed to be deleterious to both children + and adults, pp. <a href="#Page_125">125-127</a>.—The moon + supposed to cause menstruation and impregnation, pp. <a + href="#Page_127">127-130</a>.—Influence of the moon on the tides, + p. <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.—Belief that the moon affects + the growth of vegetation, pp. <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a + href="#Page_131">131</a>.—Doctrine of lunar sympathy, p. <a + href="#Page_131">131</a>.—The waxing moon commonly regarded + as favourable, the waning moon as unfavourable, for business + of various sorts, pp. <a href="#Page_131">131-134</a>.—Lunar + eclipses sometimes marked by a general suspension of activity, + pp. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.—The + <i>interlunium</i> often observed by a cessation of labour, + pp. <a href="#Page_136">136-140</a>.—Ceremonies performed at + new moon, pp. <a href="#Page_140">140-142</a>.—Seasons of + abstinence and restriction at new moon and full moon, p. <a + href="#Page_143">143</a>.—Tabooed days in connection with the + lunar changes found among the Bantu peoples of Africa, pp. <a + href="#Page_144">144-148</a>.—Lunar taboos in modern India, pp. + <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.—The + <i>upavasatha</i> of the Aryans of ancient India, pp. <a + href="#Page_149">149-151</a>.—Sabbatarian observance of lunar days + in post-Vedic times, pp. <a href="#Page_151">151-154</a>.—The + <i>posaha</i> of Jainism, pp. <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, + <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.—The Buddhist Sabbath, or + <i>uposatha</i>, pp. <a href="#Page_155">155-158</a>.—Introduction + of the <i>uposatha</i> into<span class="pagenum" + id="Page_xii">[xii]</span> Ceylon, Burma, Siam, and + Cambodia, pp. <a href="#Page_158">158-162</a>.—The Buddhist + Sabbath in Tibet, Mongolia, China, and Japan, pp. <a + href="#Page_162">162-164</a>.—Lunar days observed in Indonesia, pp. + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.—Lunar + festivals of the ancient Iranians, pp. <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, + <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.—Lunar festivals in ancient Egypt, pp. + <a href="#Page_166">166-169</a>.—The Greek Noumenia and Dichomenia, + pp. <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.—The + Roman Kalends, Nones, and Ides, p. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.—The + <i>dies postriduani</i>, pp. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a + href="#Page_171">171</a>.—Lunar festivals in heathen Europe, p. <a + href="#Page_172">172</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER VI<br> + <span class="smcap">Lunar Calendars and the Week</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Beginnings of the calendar, p. <a + href="#Page_173">173</a>.—The moon as the measure of time, + pp. <a href="#Page_173">173-175</a>.—Popular calendars + based on the moon, pp. <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, + <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.—The lunar year, pp. <a + href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.—Adjustment of + the lunar year to the solar year, pp. <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, + <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.—Calendarizing of the lunation, p. <a + href="#Page_178">178</a>.—Commencement of the lunar month, pp. + <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.—Phases + of the moon often named and used for time-reckonings, pp. <a + href="#Page_180">180-182</a>.—Bipartite division of the lunation, pp. + <a href="#Page_182">182-186</a>.—Shorter divisions of the lunation, + pp. <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.—The + decade, pp. <a href="#Page_188">188-192</a>.—The ennead, pp. <a + href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.—The octad, pp. + <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.—Six-day + weeks, p. <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.—The pentad, pp. + <a href="#Page_194">194-196</a>.—The hebdomad, pp. <a + href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.—Diffusion of + the hebdomadal cycle: in Africa, pp. <a href="#Page_197">197-199</a>; + in India, pp. <a href="#Page_199">199-201</a>; in southeastern + Asia, p. <a href="#Page_201">201</a>; in China and Japan, pp. + <a href="#Page_202">202-204</a>; and in the Malay Peninsula + and the Malay Archipelago, pp. <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a + href="#Page_205">205</a>.—The Arabic week and the Mohammedan Sabbath, + pp. <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.—Mystic + numbers in general, pp. <a href="#Page_206">206-208</a>.—Seven + as a mystic number among semi-civilized peoples, pp. <a + href="#Page_208">208-211</a>.—Symbolism of seven in ancient India, + Greece, and Babylonia, pp. <a href="#Page_211">211-212</a>.—The + seven planets and planetary deities of the Babylonians, pp. + <a href="#Page_213">213-215</a>.—The planetary week, pp. <a + href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.—Theories + of its origin, pp. <a href="#Page_216">216-218</a>.—Spread of the + planetary week in the Roman Empire, pp. <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, + <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.—Adoption of the planetary designations + of the weekdays by the Christians, pp. <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, + <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.—Spread of the planetary week among + Romance, Germanic, and Slavic peoples during the early Middle Ages, + pp. <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER VII<br> + <span class="smcap">The Babylonian “Evil Days” and the Shabattum</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The “evil days” of the months of Elul II and Markheshwan, pp. + <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.—Possible + explanations of the origin of these days, pp. <a + href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.—The<span + class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span> Babylonian lunar + month, p. <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.—Determination of the + beginning of the month, pp. <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, + <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.—Adjustment of septenary + divisions to the lunation, pp. <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, + <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.—Association of septenary + divisions with successive phases of the moon, pp. <a + href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.—The + seven-day cycles in Babylonia not true “weeks,” pp. <a + href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.—Special + significance attached to the seventh day, pp. <a + href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.—Taboo + in Babylonia, pp. <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a + href="#Page_232">232</a>.—Prohibitions observed on the seventh + day, p. <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.—Their connection with + primitive taboos, pp. <a href="#Page_232">232-234</a>.—How far + the seventh day was marked by a general abstention from labour, + pp. <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.—The + term <i>shabattum</i>, pp. <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a + href="#Page_236">236</a>.—Various explanations of its meaning, + pp. <a href="#Page_236">236-238</a>.—<i>Shabattum</i> applied to + the fifteenth day of the month, pp. <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, + <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.—Festival observance of new moon and + full moon by the Babylonians, pp. <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a + href="#Page_240">240</a>.—Probable connection of the <i>shabattum</i> + with the “evil days,” pp. <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a + href="#Page_241">241</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER VIII<br> + <span class="smcap">The Hebrew Sabbath</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The Sabbath an ancient institution, pp. <a + href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.—The + theory of its origin in the worship of Saturn untenable, pp. <a + href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.—Connection of + the Sabbath Day with Saturday, pp. <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a + href="#Page_245">245</a>.—The Sabbath, with the seven-day week, not + borrowed from Egypt or Babylonia, pp. <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, + <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.—Importance of the moon to the + early Hebrews, pp. <a href="#Page_246">246-248</a>.—The + festival of the new moon, pp. <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, + <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.—Observance of the new-moon day + by abstinence from work, pp. <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a + href="#Page_250">250</a>.—Religious significance attached to + the day of full moon, pp. <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a + href="#Page_251">251</a>.—The Sabbath originally the full-moon + day, p. <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.—Early association of new + moon and the Sabbath, pp. <a href="#Page_251">251-253</a>.—The + term <i>shabbath</i> later applied to every seventh day of the + month, p. <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.—Differences between the + Hebrew seven-day week and the septenary cycle of the Babylonians, + pp. <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.—The + Hebrew week probably at first no periodic but connected + with the lunation, pp. <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a + href="#Page_255">255</a>.—Obsolescence of the new-moon day as a + day of rest, p. <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, + <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.—Character of the + Sabbath in pre-Exilic times, p. <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.—Various + sabbatarian regulations to be explained as taboos, pp. <a + href="#Page_256">256-262</a>.—Revival in post-Exilic times + of the austere significance attached to the Sabbath, pp. <a + href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.—Strict + observance of the Sabbath rest according to the rules of + pharisaic Judaism, pp. <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a + href="#Page_264">264</a>.—The Sabbath as a day of gladness and + good cheer, pp. <a href="#Page_264">264-266</a>.—Introduction of + the Sabbath into the Roman world, pp. <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, + <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.—The Lord’s Day as observed by the + early<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span> Christians, + pp. <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.—Their + adoption of the pagan designation Sunday, p. <a + href="#Page_268">268</a>.—Ecclesiastical recognition of Saturday as a + holy day, p. <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.—The Lord’s Day not at first + marked by abstinence from labour, pp. <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, + <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.—Beginning of Sunday legislation, pp. <a + href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER IX<br> + <span class="smcap">Unlucky Days</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The belief in unlucky days frequently a result of erroneous + association of ideas, pp. <a href="#Page_272">272-274</a>.—The + observation of natural phenomena sometimes accounts for the unlucky + character attached to certain times, pp. <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, + <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.—The conception of unluckiness sometimes + deduced from the assumed critical nature of certain periods, such + as epagomenal months and days, p. <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.—The + Twelve Days in ancient India, pp. <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, + <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.—European folklore of the Twelve + Days, pp. <a href="#Page_277">277-279</a>.—Unlucky character of + the five supplementary days in the Mexican and Maya calendars, + pp. <a href="#Page_279">279-281</a>.—The five supplementary + days among the ancient Egyptians, Persians, and Armenians, pp. + <a href="#Page_281">281-283</a>.—Epagomenal days in the French + Republican calendar, p. <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.—Some + unlucky days observed in southeastern Europe probably + derived from the holy days of classical antiquity, pp. <a + href="#Page_283">283-285</a>.—Likeness between tabooed days + and the unlucky days observed in southeastern Asia, pp. <a + href="#Page_285">285-288</a>.—The Toda rest days, pp. <a + href="#Page_288">288-292</a>.—Rest days of the Siah Posh Kafirs, pp. + <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.—Unlucky + days among the Malagasy, pp. <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a + href="#Page_295">295</a>.—Egyptian calendars of lucky and unlucky + days, pp. <a href="#Page_295">295-297</a>.—A Babylonian calendar, + pp. <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.—The + Hesiodic calendar, pp. <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a + href="#Page_299">299</a>.—Unlucky days observed during the + Middle Ages, pp. <a href="#Page_299">299-301</a>.—Decline + of the superstition after the Reformation, p. <a + href="#Page_301">301</a>.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CONCLUSION</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The observance of tabooed and unlucky days exerts a + hampering influence on social and economic progress, pp. <a + href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.—Non-working + days in Hawaii, in Ashanti, and among the Hopi Indians + of Arizona, p. <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.—The numerous + religious festivals held in modern China and Korea and in + ancient Egypt and Greece, pp. <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a + href="#Page_304">304</a>.—Excessive development of Roman festivals, + pp. <a href="#Page_304">304-306</a>.—Holy days in the religious + calendar of Christendom, pp. <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a + href="#Page_307">307</a>.—Passage of the holy day into the holiday, + pp. <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</td> + </tr> +</table> +</nav> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> + +<h1>REST DAYS</h1> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</h2> + +</div> + +<p>The custom of refraining from labour on certain +occasions is by no means unknown to peoples in the +lower stages of culture. Associated practices include +the discontinuance of public gatherings, the closing of +the house or of the village against all strangers, the +extinguishing of lights, and fasting, either partial or +complete. Bright and gay dresses may be laid aside, +bathing and anointing given up, and songs, dances, +and loud noises forbidden. Under these conditions +the cessation of labour merges into a cessation of all +the usual activities. The day of rest becomes a day +of abstinence and quiescence.</p> + +<p>It might be thought that such observances, especially +those which impose a period of rest, have a rationalistic +basis and arise from man’s need of relaxation and idleness +as a relief from daily toil and the harsh conditions +of existence. Yet for the vast proportion of the rest +days observed by primitive peoples it would be rash +to assume an origin in considerations of practical +utility. A survey of the evidence to be submitted +indicates that the sabbatarian regulations have arisen +chiefly, if not wholly, as pure superstitions, the product +of an all-too-logical intellect or of a disordered fancy. +In the last analysis they are based primarily on fear, +that “fear of things invisible,” which Hobbes, foreshadowing +modern anthropological theories, regarded +as “the natural seed of religion.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> They find their +clearest expression in the “taboos,” or prohibitions, +first noticed among the natives of the South Seas, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>but now known to exist in many other regions of the +aboriginal world.⁠<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>“Taboo,” from the Polynesian <i>tabu</i>, is one of the +few words which the languages of the Pacific have +contributed to our English speech. <i>Tabu</i> appears to +be, properly, the Tonga term, <i>tapu</i>, the word as found +in Samoa, the Marquesas Islands, the Society Islands, +and New Zealand, and <i>kapu</i>, the Hawaiian expression.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +The etymology of <i>tapu</i> is uncertain, though an attempt +has been made to derive it from <i>ta</i>, to mark, and <i>pu</i>, +an adverb of intensity. The compound <i>tapu</i> would +then mean “marked thoroughly,” and would come to +signify “sacred” in a secondary sense, since sacred +things and places were commonly indicated in a particular +manner.⁠<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The word <i>tapua’i</i> means “to abstain +from all work, games, etc.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>⁠—a translation which indicates +how intimately the idea of abstinence was +associated with the notion of <i>tapu</i>.</p> + +<p>In all the Polynesian languages <i>tapu</i> or <i>tabu</i> appears +to have been employed with an adjectival meaning, +referring to something holy, sacred, and inviolable, or +to something polluted and accursed. The word, we +learn, did not imply any moral quality, but expressed +“a connection with the gods, or a separation from +ordinary purposes, and exclusive appropriation to +persons or things considered sacred; sometimes it +means devoted as by a vow.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> In a derivative sense +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span><i>tabu</i> came naturally to signify “forbidden” or “prohibited”;⁠<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +and this is the most general meaning of +the word in its anglicized form. But in anthropological +usage the term “taboo” refers, not to all negative regulations +or prohibitions, but to those only which are +supported by a supernatural sanction and the violation +of which is visited with a supernatural punishment.</p> + +<p>The progress of comparative research has shown that +conceptions very similar to the Polynesian <i>tabu</i> have a +wide prevalence in the lower culture and even among +peoples of archaic civilization. The Melanesian <i>tambu</i>, +though never signifying any inherent holiness or awfulness, +does refer to the sacred and unapproachable character +which things may possess when solemnly cursed +in the name of a powerful ghost or spirit.⁠<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Among +the natives of the Gabun colony of French Equatorial +Africa <i>orunda</i> meant, originally, “prohibited from human +use.” Under missionary hands the word developed +into its related sense of “sacred to spiritual +use,” and in the Mpongwe Scriptures <i>orunda</i> serves +as the translation of our word “holy.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> The Malagasy +equivalent of <i>tabu</i> is <i>fady</i>, which means, primarily, +“dangerous,” but which has the derivative meanings +<i>sacré</i>, “prohibited,” “ill-omened,” “unlucky.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Anthropologically, +it is no far cry from such expressions +to the Greek ἅγιος or to the Latin <i>sacer</i>, since each of +these terms conveys the twin ideas of sanctity and +pollution.⁠<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span></p> + +<p>It is convenient to distinguish between taboos which +are artificially imposed and those which follow inevitably +as the consequence of particular acts or as the +outcome of certain situations. Thus, a chief may set +a taboo over the common crops until harvest time, or +a private individual may protect his own property +through the use of the same supernatural machinery: +these are prohibitions analogous to the laws of an advanced +society, though supported by sanctions both +human and divine. On the other hand, new-born +children with their mothers, strangers, manslayers, and +mourners are frequently subjected to taboos which +exist in the social consciousness rather as well-defined +customs of anonymous origin than as specific ordinances +laid down by some superior authority. In +both cases, however, it is legitimate to suppose that a +reason has always existed for the ascription of the <i>tabu</i> +character to persons and things—although an explanation +may not now be forthcoming and although the +ideas on which the practice was once based may have +become obscure or meaningless with the lapse of time.</p> + +<p>A comparative study of the taboos observed by primitive +peoples indicates that originally things or persons +are tabooed because they are considered dangerous, +mysterious, abnormal, uncanny, “awful”—because +they are felt to be potent for weal or woe in the life of +man. Primitive psychology, refining these ideas and +applying them to different classes of phenomena, produces +the cognate notions of pollution and sanctity. +The corpse is unclean; the shedder of human blood +is likewise unclean; but the chief or king, who belongs +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>to a superior order of beings, is sacrosanct or holy. +These characteristics are easily regarded as infectious, +as capable of transmission, not alone by physical contact, +but also by sight and mere proximity. It is +probably true that, in using such expressions as “contagion” +and “infection,” we are resorting to a refined +terminology to express what must be really simpler +in the thought of the savage. Living in a mental +stage where distinctions of cause and effect are not +clearly drawn, where a rigid distinction of the natural +and the supernatural can scarcely be said to exist at +all, he finds no difficulty in imagining an universe in +which all things have power, after their kind, a power +for good or a power for ill—in other words, have +<i>mana</i>. This now-familiar Melanesian term, like the +Algonkin <i>manitou</i>, the Iroquoian <i>orenda</i>, and the +Siouan <i>wakanda</i>, may be said to express early man’s +sense of those ever-present, though vague and impersonal, +forces immanent in nature.⁠<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>At the same time the fact must be recognized that +the majority of taboos are now supported by animistic +beliefs of a much more precise character. The penalty +for the infraction of a taboo is generally death or some +physical ailment supposed to be inflicted by the offended +spirits or demons.⁠<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The Polynesian <i>atua</i>, by entering +the body of any impious person, caused disease or +“intestinal embarrassment”: the culprit forthwith +swelled up and died. The same demonic beings, if +angered, might visit entire tribes with an epidemic, +or send down lightning and fire from heaven, or bring +about the unsuccessful issue of a war.⁠<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> Among the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>Kayan and other pagan tribes of Borneo the minor +spirits, or <i>toh</i>, play a considerable part in the regulation +of conduct. They are the powers that bring +misfortunes upon an entire house or village when any +member of it ignores taboos or otherwise violates +tribal customs, without performing the propitiatory +rites demanded by the occasion. “Thus on them, +rather than on the gods, are founded the effective +sanctions of prohibitive rules of conduct.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Among +the Akikuyu of British East Africa, who possess a most +elaborate system of taboos, it is a general belief that +any one in the condition of <i>thahu</i> becomes emaciated +and ill or breaks out in eruptions and boils. If the +<i>thahu</i> is not removed, the patient will die. “In many +cases this undoubtedly happens by the process of auto-suggestion, +as it never occurs to the Kikuyu mind to be +skeptical in a matter of this kind. It is said that the +<i>thahu</i> condition is caused by the <i>ngoma</i>, or spirits of +departed ancestors, but the process does not seem to +have been analyzed any further.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> The Babylonians, +again, appear to have entertained very definite conceptions +of taboo, and conceptions, equally definite, +of the evil spirits which vexed the soul and body of +one who had infringed a <i>mamit</i>, or prohibition with a +supernatural penalty.⁠<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> With the progress of religious +conceptions the punishment of the taboo-breaker +may come to be regarded as an important function +of the tribal or national god, whose chief concern is the +maintenance of the customary moral rules.</p> + +<p>Since persons, objects, and even actions are all +liable to infection, prudence dictates a variety of precautions: +the dangerous individual or thing is removed +to a safe distance; or is carefully isolated; or is subjected +to a series of insulating regulations. The entire +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>community is interested in such proceedings, +and on certain occasions may itself be placed under a +rigid quarantine. When this happens, a period of +abstinence and quiescence is regarded as the surest +means of avoiding dangers felt to threaten each and +every member of the social group. Nor will the procedure +greatly differ where distinctly animistic ideas +prevail, and when the impending danger is specifically +attributed to the action of spiritual beings or of gods. +In the latter case, it is true, the idea of propitiation +becomes increasingly prominent, since it is often felt +to be necessary to appease by various rites and ceremonies +the supernatural powers responsible for the +visitation. The two conceptions of abstinence and +propitiation are not, indeed, always sharply distinguishable +in concrete cases, and with advancing culture +they tend to become more and more closely +conjoined.</p> + +<p>It is highly probable that the origin of some of the +communal regulations is to be sought in the taboos +observed by persons at such great and critical seasons +as birth, puberty, marriage, and death.⁠<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Comparative +studies have indicated how numerous are the prohibitions +which attach to these times of high solemnity +and significance; and it is reasonable to suppose that, +with the deepening sense of social solidarity, observances +once confined to the individual alone, or to his +immediate connections, would often pass over into rites +performed by the community at large. Some evidence +tending to substantiate this opinion will be presented +incidentally as the investigation proceeds.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br> +<span class="smaller">TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>Our knowledge of taboo within the Polynesian area +rests chiefly on the vague and unsatisfactory accounts +by early missionaries, who were unable to describe +much more than its exterior aspects, its origin and inner +significance having quite escaped their consideration. +Fundamentally, the system of taboos formed a religious +institution, if religion be understood in its broadest +sense as a recognition of the supernatural. The +Polynesian belief that the violator of a taboo would be +punished by the offended <i>atua</i>, or spirits, readily lent +itself to priestcraft and statecraft and so became in the +hands of the ruling classes an <i>instrumentum regni</i>, a +powerful engine of social and political control. In +Hawaii, where the superstitions in question reached +their most elaborate and grotesque development, communal +taboos could be imposed only by the priests, +although this action was often taken at the instance +of the civil authorities. Police officers were even +appointed to make sure that all prohibitions were +strictly observed. For every breach of the rules the +death penalty was inflicted, unless the delinquent had +some very powerful friends who themselves were either +priests or chiefs.</p> + +<p>The range of these Hawaiian taboos, as extended for +reasons of state or religion, was very wide. We are +told that idols, temples, the persons and names of the +king and his family, the persons of the priests, and the +houses and clothes of the king and priests were always +<i>tabu</i>. Certain much-prized articles of food, besides +almost everything offered in sacrifice, were reserved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>by taboos for gods and men; hence women, except in +cases of particular indulgence, were restricted from using +them. Sometimes an entire island or district was +tabooed and no one was allowed to approach it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The institution of taboo also included regulations +for the special observance of certain times and seasons. +Their duration was various, and apparently much +longer in remote ages than in the period immediately +preceding the arrival of the missionaries. In Hawaii, +before the reign of Kamehameha II, forty days was the +usual length of time. There were also periods of ten +days and of five days, and sometimes of only one day. +Tradition declares, however, that once a taboo was in +force for thirty years and that during this time the +men were not allowed to trim their beards. A tabooed +period kept for five years is also mentioned. Elsewhere +in the South Seas less extensive periods prevailed, +the longest known being at Huahine, one of the Society +Islands, where a season of abstinence is said to have +lasted for ten or twelve years.⁠<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The observance of such taboos varied according as +they were common or strict. When a common season +prevailed, the men were required only to abstain +from their usual duties and to attend at the <i>heiau</i>, or +temple, where prayers were offered every morning and +evening. During a period strictly tabooed the regulations +had a sterner character, and in consequence a +general gloom and silence pervaded the whole district +or island. Every fire and light was extinguished; +canoes were not launched; no person bathed; and no +one was to be seen out of doors, save those whose presence +was required at the temple. Even the lower +creation felt the force of the law: “no dog must bark, +no pig must grunt, no cock must crow—or the <i>tabu</i> +would be broken, and fail to accomplish the object +designed. On these occasions they tied up the mouths +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>of the dogs and pigs, and put the fowls under a calabash, +or fastened a piece of cloth over their eyes.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> +From another account we learn that any one found in +a canoe on a <i>tabu</i> day incurred the death penalty, and +that the same Draconian punishment was meted out +to the individual who indulged in carnal pleasures +or made only a noise at such a time.⁠<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The sabbatarian regulations introduced by Christian +missionaries among their Hawaiian adherents +presented no sharp contrast to the rigours of the old dispensation. +The natives even called Sunday <i>la tabu</i>, +“the tabooed day.” No food was cooked on that +day, the meals being all prepared on the previous +Saturday; no fires were kindled; and no canoes +were paddled. The people neither fished nor tilled the +soil and, if on a journey, they halted until the sacred +day was over.⁠<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> In Tahiti, also, the Sunday rest was +rigidly maintained. On that day no canoes were +launched, and no person was seen abroad except on the +road to church or when returning from divine service. +The success of the missionaries in introducing this +strict observance of Sunday was, we learn, “ascribed +by themselves in a great degree to its analogy to the +taboo days of heathen times.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span></p> + +<p>Communal taboos were observed by the Hawaiian +Islanders generally in connection with important religious +ceremonies. Of these, one of the most elaborate +was the consecration of a <i>luakini</i>, or chief temple. The +rites, which were often performed just before a war +in order to insure victory, occupied ten or more days. +After a solemn purification of the island or district all +the people were summoned to divine service, during +which a priest sprinkled them with holy water, <i>i.e.</i>, +salt water mixed with a little turmeric, some moss, and +a bunch of a sacred fern. “The next thing in order was +to bring down the principal idol, called the <i>hakuohia</i>, +from the forest. A great procession was formed, consisting +of the king, the <i>hakuohia</i> priest, and a crowd of +attendants carrying idols and various offerings, and +leading a human victim. The tree had been selected +and the axe consecrated the day before. On arriving +at the tree, the priest recited the appropriate <i>aha</i> +[prayer] amid dead silence, after which the king pronounced +the <i>amama</i> [spell], and killed the hog with a +single blow. The priest inquired whether any sound +of man or beast or bird or cricket had been heard during +the <i>aha</i>, and if not, it was a good omen. The +doomed man was then brought forward, and offered +to the god by the king, after which his body was buried +at the foot of the tree. The consecrated hog was baked +in an oven on the spot, while the tree was cut down, +trimmed, and covered with <i>ieie</i> vines. After the company +had feasted, a procession was formed with the +feather-gods in front, followed by the chiefs and people +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>with <i>pala</i> fern, <i>ohia</i>-branches, etc., and others carrying +the new idol.... The inhabitants remained indoors, +for it was death to meet the procession, and all fires +were strictly forbidden. The images were finally +carried to the <i>heiau</i>, where they were deposited with +shoutings and beating of drums.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Following this +rite came a long series of services at the <i>heiau</i>. The +night of the great <i>aha</i> “was the most solemn and critical +of all. The omens were carefully observed, and prayers +were offered in every house for the success of the +coming <i>aha</i>, and for auspicious weather, that there +might be no wind or rain, no thunder or lightning, no +high surf, and no sound of man or beast to mar the +ceremonies. If the sky was clear and everything +favourable, between midnight and morning the king +and high-priest entered the small house, called <i>waiea</i>, +to perform the great <i>aha</i> (<i>hulahula</i>), while the congregation +sat in front of the <i>mana</i> house, listening and +watching in profound silence. The king stood listening +intently and holding a pig, while the high-priest, +clad in white <i>kapa</i>, and holding a <i>lama</i> rod wound with +<i>aloa</i> (white <i>kapa</i>), recited the long prayer. At its +close the king killed the pig with a single blow, and +offered it up with a short prayer to the four great +gods. The priests then asked the king whether the +<i>aha</i> was perfect, and whether he had heard the voice +of man or dog or mouse or fowl, or anything else during +the prayer. If not, he tapped the large drum as +a signal that it was over, and they both went out to +question the assembly outside. If no one had heard +a sound during the ceremony, the high-priest congratulated +the king, and predicted for him victory and long +life. The people then raised loud shouts of <i>Lele wale +ka aha e!</i> which were repeated by all who heard them, +and so the news travelled far and wide.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> Such were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>some of the ceremonies at the dedication of an important +temple.⁠<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Communal taboos also marked the celebration by +the Hawaiians of the great <i>makahiki</i>, or New Year’s +festival, sacred to the god Lono. On the twenty-third +of the month Welehu, which nearly corresponded to +November, Lono’s image was decorated and, when +night came on, all the people went to bathe in the sea. +This rite of purification having been accomplished, +men and women donned new clothing in preparation +for the festival which began at sunrise on the morrow. +During the four days of its continuance no fishing, no +bathing, no pounding of <i>kapa</i>, and no beating of +drums or blowing of conchs was permitted. Land +and sky and sea were <i>tabu</i> to Lono, and only feasting +and games were allowed. The high-priest was +blindfolded and remained in seclusion. On the fifth +day the bandage was removed from his eyes and canoes +were allowed to put to sea. On the sixth day the <i>tabu</i> +season began again and continued for about twenty +days longer. The festivities at length drew to a close, +the ornaments of Lono’s image were packed up and +deposited in the temple for use another year, and all +restrictions on fishing and farming were taken off—<i>noa +ka makahiki</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span></p> + +<p>In old Hawaii, as in the other Polynesian islands, +fishing formed one of the chief means of livelihood +and ranked next to agriculture in importance. The +fishermen, who composed almost a distinct class, +observed many religious rites peculiar to themselves. +For instance, a man would not venture to use a new +net or to build and launch a new canoe, without prayer +and sacrifice to his gods. Communal regulations relating +to fishing were imposed twice a year in connection +with two sacred fish, the <i>aku</i>, or bonito, and the <i>opelu</i>. +Each was <i>tabu</i> by turns for six months. In Hinaiaelee +(July) the taboo began on the first night of the month, +at which time no fire might be kindled, and no sound +of man or beast or fowl might break the profound silence. +The following morning the high-priest repaired +to the house of Ku-ula, the god of fishermen, to offer +a pig and to recite the great <i>aha</i>, as during a dedication. +Meanwhile a man was sent to the woods to +gather <i>pala</i> fern. All that day a solemn rest was observed +on shore. Next morning the head fisherman, +wearing a white <i>malo</i>, or girdle, took the sacred fern +and a new net in his canoe and put to sea. After +prayers to his tutelary deities and to Ku the fisherman +proceeded to cast the net. If he and his crew made a +haul of <i>opelu</i>, they paddled joyfully for the shore and +presented the fish to the high-priest, who sent some to +the king and placed the rest on the altar in the temple. +Next day the <i>opelu</i> became <i>noa</i>, or free to all, but the +<i>aku</i> in its turn was prohibited to human use for six +months, and was not to be eaten on pain of death.⁠<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Hawaiian religious system included a remarkable +approximation to the institution of a weekly +Sabbath. In every lunar month there were four tabu +periods, dedicated severally to the four great gods of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>the native pantheon. The first was that of Ku, from +the third to the sixth night; the second, that of Hua, +at full moon, including the fourteenth and fifteenth +nights; the third, that of Kaloa, on the twenty-fourth +and twenty-fifth nights; and the fourth, that of Kane, +on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth nights. +During these <i>tabu</i> periods a devout king generally +remained in the <i>heiau</i>, busy with prayer and sacrifice. +Women at such times were forbidden to enter canoes, +and sexual intercourse was also prohibited.⁠<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The occasions when seasons of communal abstinence +and quiescence were enforced in the Society Islands, +the Marquesas Islands, Samoa, and New Zealand were +not always the same as in the Hawaiian group. Divergencies +of custom might well be expected among the +widely scattered divisions of the Polynesian race. +But, if such rites as those for the dedication of a temple +or for the observance of four <i>tabu</i> periods in every +month were confined to the Hawaiians, some other +ceremonies, notably those connected with fishing, +were much alike throughout the entire Pacific area.</p> + +<p>In the Society and the Marquesas islands the bonito +fishing in November or December opened with a ceremony +removing the prohibition which had previously +rested on the capture of that fish. A strict taboo of +all activity marked the first day of the proceedings: +no one could approach the seashore, or make a fire, or +cook food, or even eat before the going-down of the +sun. The customary employments of the men in +canoe-building and house-building, of the women in +the preparation of cloths, mats, and thread, were abandoned; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>“in a word, all work was forbidden; it was a +day of silence and of devotion.” Meanwhile the priests +remained in the <i>marai</i>, or temple, engaged in prayer; +and their assistants prepared an altar to receive the +first-fruits of the fishing. At nightfall the single canoe +which had gone forth to the fishing returned with the +catch of bonito. Several of the largest fish were +placed on the altar, and the others were entirely consumed +in a blazing fire before the altar. The fish +caught on this day belonged to the gods and those on +the following day to the high-priest; but on the third +day fishing was opened to all.⁠<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Among the Maori +of New Zealand the preparations for mackerel fishing +included the observance of various taboos. Every +one concerned in making or mending nets, the ground +where the nets were made, and the river, on the banks +of which the work went on, were in a state of sacredness. +Nobody might walk over the ground, no canoe might +pass up and down the river, no fire might be made +within a prescribed distance, and no food might be +prepared, until the holy season came to an end.⁠<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> In +this instance only fishermen and their assistants appear +to have been subject to the restrictions. The Maori, +however, observed communal taboos in connection +with the planting of the <i>kumara</i>, or sweet potato, +formerly the most important agricultural product of +New Zealand and the chief reliance of the natives for +food. An old chief of Mokoia Island, Lake Rotorua, +has described how, when the time to plant <i>kumara</i> +arrived, the priests went forth to the woods for branches +of the sacred <i>mapau</i> tree. “On that day and the day +following, everything was <i>tapu</i>. The people fasted and +did no cooking. The waters of the lake were <i>tapu</i>; +no canoes were allowed to put out and no fishing was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>done.” The priests took the <i>mapau</i> twigs to the stone +image of the <i>kumara</i>-god (still kept on the island), +and laying them on the idol, prayed for an abundant +harvest. In the evening they went to the gardens +and stuck the branches in the earth. The skull of a +tribal chief of <i>ariki</i> rank was disinterred and placed +beside the <i>mapau</i> sticks, in order that the <i>mana</i>, or +magical power of the dead chieftain, might guard the +plantation and assist in securing a bountiful harvest.⁠<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Still another critical epoch when the Maori subjected +themselves to communal taboos occurred at the beginning +of a war. Hostilities having been decided on, +the first thing necessary was to take the auspices by +casting the <i>niu</i>. One of the leading priests procured +a quantity of fern-stalks, some of which represented +spears, and the remainder, warriors. The warrior-sticks +were stuck in a mat and a fern-stalk was hurled +at each one. If the missile fell on the left side of the +warrior-stick, this was a sign that the person whom it +represented would fall in battle, if on the right side, +that he would live. A similar procedure was enacted +with sticks named for enemies, and for the men, women, +and children who were to be left at home. On the +completion of the <i>niu</i> ceremony, the priests lifted the +taboo which had rested over the settlement, a taboo +imposing abstinence from food, but not, apparently, +from work.⁠<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p> + +<p>The sacrifice of first-fruits seems to have formed a +regular part of the religious system of the Polynesian +peoples, for we possess specific references to it among +the Hawaiians, the Samoans, the New Zealanders, +the natives of the Society Islands, and those of the +Tonga Islands. In the latter group the ceremony, +called <i>inachi</i>, generally took place about October. +It was observed with scrupulous care, since the people +believed that to neglect it would bring upon them the +vengeance of the gods. We are fortunate in possessing +a detailed description of the ceremony by an eye-witness +of it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> According to William Mariner the +word <i>inachi</i> referred to that portion of the fruits of +the earth and of other eatables which was offered to +the god in the person of the divine chief Tooitonga, +an allotment made once a year, just before the yam +crop had arrived at maturity. On the day before the +ceremony the first-fruits of the yam season were dug +up, ornamented with ribbons, and dyed red, in preparation +for the procession on the morrow. “The sun +has scarcely set when the sound of the conch begins +again to echo through the island, increasing as the +night advances. At the <i>mooa</i> [capital] and all the +plantations the voices of men and women are heard +singing <i>Nófo, óooa tegger gnaoóe, óooa gnaoóe</i>, ‘Rest +thou, doing no work; thou shalt not work.’⁠<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> This +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>increases till midnight, men generally singing the first +part of the sentence, and the women the last, to produce +a more pleasing effect: it then subsides for three +or four hours, and again increases as the sun rises. +Nobody, however, is seen stirring out in the public +roads till about eight o’clock, when the people from +all quarters of the island are seen advancing towards +the <i>mooa</i>, and canoes from all the other islands landing +their men; so that all the inhabitants of Tonga seem +approaching by sea and land, singing and sounding +the conch. At the <i>mooa</i> itself the universal bustle +of preparation is seen and heard; and the different +processions entering from various quarters, of men +and women, all dressed up in new <i>gnatoos</i>, ornamented +with red ribbons and wreaths of flowers, and the men +armed with spears and clubs, betoken the importance +of the ceremony about to be performed.” The proceedings +consisted in the solemn presentation of the +first-fruits to the divine chief at the grave of his predecessor, +and closed with a feast and dance. Then the +people returned to their homes, perfectly assured of +the protection of the gods.</p> + +<p>The natives of Samoa possessed a remarkably complex +pantheon of household and village gods, the recipients +of prayer and sacrifice, and, in the case of the +village gods, honoured with temples, priests, and annual +festivals. The Samoans had also war-gods, who in +character resembled the other deities, since they were +supposed to be incarnate in animals or embodied in +inanimate objects.⁠<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> One of these militant divinities +was the cuttle-fish (<i>fe’e</i>), said to have been imported +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>from Fiji. In one place Fe’e was a general village +god whose province was not confined to war. “The +month of May was sacred to his worship. No traveller +was then allowed to pass through the village by the +public road; nor was any canoe allowed in the lagoon +off that part of the settlement. There was great +feasting, too, on these occasions, and also games, club +exercise, spear-throwing, wrestling, etc.... In another +district three months were sacred to the worship +of Fe’e. During that time any one passing along the +road, or in the lagoon, would be beaten, if not killed, +for insulting the god. For the first month torches and +all other lights were forbidden, as the god was about +and did not wish to be seen. White turbans were +also forbidden during the festivities, and confined to +war. At this time, also, all unsightly burdens—such +as a log of firewood on the shoulder—were forbidden, +lest it should be considered by the god as a mockery of +his <i>tentacula</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> Another village god, who rejoiced +in the name of Titi Usi, or Glittering Leaf Girdle, +received worship at the new moon. “At that time +all work was suspended for a day or two. The cocoanut-leaf +blinds were kept down, and the people sat +still in their houses. Any one walking in front of the +house risked a beating. After prayer and feasting +a man went about and blew a shell-trumpet as a sign +to all that the ceremonies were over, and that the usual +routine of village and family life might be resumed.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> +The festivals of the other village deities of Samoa seem +not to have been marked by compulsory cessation of +activity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The observance of regular periods consecrated to +the gods has been noticed in some other parts of Polynesia. +At Fakaofo, or Bowditch Island, in the Union +group, the month of May was devoted to the worship +of the great god Tui Tokelau. All work was then +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>laid aside. The people assembled from the three islands +of the group to enjoy feasting and dancing. They +prayed to their divinity for life, health, and a plentiful +supply of fish and cocoanuts.⁠<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> In tiny Manahiki, +or Humphrey Island, the natives had special days for +worship, every three or four months. At such times +heaps of food were collected in the place of public +assembly, and the king, who was high-priest as well, +prayed for food and life and health in behalf of his +people.⁠<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> We are told, also, that when the god Ratu-mai-Mbulu +visited the Fiji Islands, the inhabitants +lived very quietly for an entire month, lest they should +disturb the deity in his task of making the fruit-trees +blossom and bear fruit. During this Lenten season +the natives did not plant or build or sail on the ocean +or go to war. The priests announced the time of the +god’s advent and departure.⁠<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> According to a later +account Ratu-mai-Mbulu (Lord from Hades) was +probably a deity of foreign extraction. “Through +him the earth gives her increase. In December he +comes forth from Mbulu, and pours sap into the fruit-trees, +and pushes the young yam shoots through the +soil. Throughout that moon it is <i>tabu</i> to beat the drum, +to sound the conch-shell, to dance, to plant, to fight, +or to sing at sea, lest Ratu-mai-Mbulu be disturbed, +and quit the earth before his work is completed. At +the end of the month the priest sounds the consecrated +shell; the people raise a great shout, carrying the good +news from village to village; and pleasure and toil +are again free to all.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The descriptions of Polynesian customs by early +observers, though frequently the only accounts we +possess, are sometimes very brief and obscure. These +remarks apply to a curious ceremony annually performed +by some Fijian tribes. The time of its celebration +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>was determined by the appearance of a certain +sea-slug, which swarms out in dense shoals from +the coral reefs on a single day of the year, usually in +November during the last quarter of the moon. The +arrival of the sea-slugs furnished the signal for a general +feast at those places where they were taken. +Hostilities were suspended between rival communities +for four days, and a taboo was laid to prevent noise +or disturbance during this period. No labour might +be done and no person might be seen outside his house. +“In Ovolau the ceremony begins by a man ascending +a tree and praying for fine weather and winds throughout +the year. Thereupon a tremendous clatter, with +drumming and shouting, is raised by all the people +inside of the houses for about half an hour, and then +a dead quiet ensues for four days, during which they +are feasting on the <i>mbalolo</i>. If in any dwelling a noise +is made, as by a child crying, a forfeit (<i>ori</i>) is immediately +exacted by the chief.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> According to another +account the rule requiring quiescence was so strictly +observed that not even a leaf might be plucked or the +offal removed from the houses. During these four +days the men lived in their special club-house (<i>mbure</i>), +and the women and children remained shut up in the +family abodes. At daylight, on the expiry of the fourth +night, the whole town was in an uproar; and men +and boys scampered about, knocking with sticks at +the doors of the dwellings and crying <i>Sinariba</i>. This +concluded the ceremony.⁠<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> It would seem that these +accounts refer to a Fijian New Year’s festival, which, +like that of the Hawaiians, was held in November for +a period of four days, and was marked by communal +taboos imposing abstinence and quiescence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span></p> + +<p>The western tribes of Viti Levu, largest of the Fiji +Islands, in traditions, language, and physical type are +recognized as distinctly Melanesian. In former days +these tribes possessed a secret association known as +<i>nanga</i>, or <i>mbaki</i>, which closely resembled the secret +societies so common in the Melanesian Archipelago. +It is highly probable, therefore, that, at least in its +known form, the <i>nanga</i> was a late importation into +the island of Viti Levu. Initiation into the <i>nanga</i> +was supposed to bring the youth of the tribe into +relations with the ancestral spirits, who were represented, +at the time of the ceremonies, by the elders +and by some of the middle-aged men. The sanctuary +and lodge of the association formed the earthly dwelling-place +of the spirits; it was a tabernacle as holy +to these Fijians as was the structure in the Wilderness +to the Israelites; there the first-fruits of the +yam harvest were solemnly presented to the ancestors; +and there the young men of Viti Levu were +introduced to the mysteries of the tribe. When the +<i>nanga</i> enclosure was being raised for the initiatory +performances, the people suspended all other work. +Not even food-planting might be done at such a time. +“If any impious person transgressed this law, ‘he +would only plant evil to himself and to his kinsfolk.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>In this instance there was no attribution of the sacred +period to any particular divinity, though all the ceremonies +connected with the <i>nanga</i> were supposed to +be directed by the ancestral spirits.</p> + +<p>The scanty records of aboriginal Polynesian society +also contain some passing references to the observance +of communal rest days on certain occasions when +the social consciousness had been deeply moved by +untoward and disastrous events. In Futuna, or Erronan, +an island which lies close to the dividing line +between Polynesia and Melanesia, the custom of taboo +is said to be very common. “They go so far as to +<i>tapu</i> the day—<i>e.g.</i>, to interdict all work in order to +please the gods, or to avert the hurricanes.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> In +Hawaii a <i>tabu</i> period was declared during the sickness +of chiefs.⁠<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> In Samoa the death of a chief of high rank +was followed by the suspension of all work in the +settlement for from ten to thirty days, until the funeral +ceremonies were performed. During this time no +stranger might approach the stricken village; a luckless +wayfarer, pushing in by accident, would have been +promptly clubbed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> This Samoan regulation, as we +shall see, is only a particular instance of a widespread +primitive custom. Communal rest days are still +observed in some parts of Micronesia, as on the island +of Yap, one of the Carolines. Here two aged “wizards,” +before whom all important questions come for +decision, have the power of imposing taboos on an +entire village. The periods of seclusion have been +known to last for six months. The critical epochs, +when such interdicts are enforced, occur during a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>time of drought, famine, or sickness, after a death of +a chief or famous man, and before a fishing expedition.⁠<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> +“In short, any great public event is thus celebrated, +and, in fact, there is always a <i>tabu</i> in full swing somewhere +or other, to the great disgust of the traders, who +only see in these enforced holidays an excuse for idling, +drunkenness and debauchery.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The accounts preserved in the older literature relating +to Polynesia thus make it evident that communal +taboos occurred at critical, or especially important, +seasons. The prohibitions were negative in character, +required a period of abstinence sometimes verging +upon complete quiescence, and were closely connected +with the aristocratic and theocratic organization of +Polynesian society. At the same time the communal +regulations, artificially created, are to be assimilated +to those which rested upon individuals alone and arose +spontaneously as a result of various circumstances. +Every description of aboriginal culture, from Hawaii +to New Zealand, contains numerous references to the +network of taboos which invested private life. All +persons dangerously ill, all mothers at childbirth, together +with their infants, all persons who handled a +corpse or assisted at a funeral, were deemed unclean +and hence were subjected to a rigid quarantine, a protective +measure necessary for the safety of the social +group. If we assume that the individual taboos represent +the earlier phase of the institution, then the communal +taboos may be regarded as merely an extension +to the body politic of these simpler and more rudimentary +customs. The probability of such a transition +will be strengthened by a consideration of the +tabooed days found among some other primitive +peoples.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p> + +<p>Seasons of communal abstinence are not found in +Australia, and only faint indications of them exist +within the Melanesian area, that great island group +which extends from New Guinea to the Fiji Archipelago. +In New Guinea itself a few instances of the custom +under consideration have been noted, all within the +British possessions there.⁠<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> Among the Roro-speaking +tribes, inhabiting the strip of coast from Cape Possession +in the west to Kabadi in the east, it is said that +an entire village will mourn for a chief or influential +man “by abstaining from fishing, hunting, and pot-making, +and by reducing garden-work to a minimum.” +The period of mourning lasts from six to ten days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> In +the neighbourhood of Port Moresby are the Motu and +Koita tribes, some of whose customs were described, +many years ago, by a native missionary who long laboured +in New Guinea. Among these tribes, we are +told, “fishing work lays the people under a number of +restrictions. There must be no talking; any one causing +another to speak prevents his getting any fish. +If the fishermen are going on a turtle expedition, all +must be still throughout the village. None go about +among the houses, or on the public road. All go up +to their houses and sit still. No sound of a voice, or +chopping firewood, or any movement is allowed, until +it is supposed that the fishing party is clear of the +lagoon, and out into the deep ocean, and then the +villagers resume their usual occupation.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> These +taboos in connection with fishing closely resemble +the regulations so common in Polynesia.</p> + +<p>The Indonesian inhabitants of Borneo are divided +into a large number of tribes, among which the Kayan, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>the Sea Dyak, and the Land Dyak are perhaps the +best known. All these peoples till the soil and live +in long communal houses situated on the banks of the +rivers. Though now spread over a wide area in Borneo, +the different tribes possess in common many social and +religious customs, notably the cult of omen animals, +together with the observance of numerous taboos which +are regularly enforced at the time of rice (<i>padi</i>) planting +and harvesting, sometimes also at mid-harvest.⁠<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> +The taboos found among the Kayan on the Baram +River, Sarawak, have been well described by a recent +traveller, whose picturesque narrative deserves an +extended notice.⁠<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> “During the days devoted to search +for omens in reference to the sites of the rice-fields, +and also again in reference to the planting, the Kayan +refrain from their usual daily occupations, and neither +leave their houses themselves nor allow strangers to +enter. These days of seclusion are termed <i>permantong +padi</i>, or <i>lali padi</i>, and correspond very closely to taboo +elsewhere.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The rude agricultural methods of the Kayan start +with the preliminary process of clearing a site in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>dense jungle. The work is extremely tedious and if, +after all the heavy labour, the crops should fail or be +destroyed by monkeys, birds, or beetles, the entire +household feels that some act has been committed +whereby the displeasure of the spirits is aroused. +Accordingly, before beginning so arduous a task, it +is essential to take omens from the actions of certain +birds, mammals, and reptiles, called <i>amau</i>, which are +supposed to be in the confidence of the spirits.⁠<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> A +patch of jungle having been tentatively selected, the +work begins with the removal of the dense undergrowth. +During this preliminary stage, while the labour is less +heavy than it will be later, when trees must be felled, +the household is not as yet under a taboo. Each +person, nevertheless, keeps a sharp eye for evil omens. +Should a native on the way to the clearing see any +one of four ominous animals, a certain species of snake, +a deer, a civet cat, or a rain-bird, the site will be at +once abandoned, regardless of the work already done +there. Wilfully to ignore such a warning “not only +compromises the abundance and quality of the crops, +but also the health, or even the life, of the whole household.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>If no evil omens are observed for three days, the +Kayan workers feel sufficiently encouraged to proceed +to the next stage of felling the heavy timber on the +site, which has now been stripped of its underbrush. +Then ensues an elaborate series of auguries. While +the various families making up the household of a +communal dwelling remain secluded on the long veranda, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>or in their small private rooms, sitting very still +all day and smoking and talking, two hawk-men +are off in the forest looking for a hawk, called <i>niho</i>. +Three days must be devoted to this search: if the hawk +is seen on the first day, but not on the two days following, +the omen is unfavourable. The people will +continue the preparation of the soil, but they expect +poor crops, a result pretty certain to follow their half-hearted +and discouraged labours. On the second day +the search is continued, and if the hawk is seen, the +omen is favourable, but not completely so. If the +third day’s search again reveals a hawk, the two men +return at once to the house and spread the good news. +Every one now watches the actions of the hawk. +“Should he sail away out of sight without once flapping +his wings all are delighted; it means that the +clearing of the jungle may now continue prosperously, +and that neither attack of enemies nor accident to the +workers need be feared. Should the hawk flap his +wings, it follows that some men, in felling the jungle, +will be badly cut by their axes or perhaps crushed under +falling trees. All instantly avert their eyes from the +flapping hawk, lest the bird should recognize them in +the fields and select them as victims.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>There now occurs a brief respite of the <i>lali</i> observance, +and the people may leave their houses. But +the same formalities must be observed by the natives +while search is made for four other ominous animals. +In each case there is a period of seclusion and abstinence +lasting for three days. These are all the omens +that must be consulted before the heavy timber may +be felled, the ground burned over, and the rice planted.</p> + +<p>Such are the various taboos which affect the inmates +of a communal house or village, before the crop is +started. Other regulations concern outsiders. From +the hour when the real labour of felling the jungle +begins and until the seed-planting is completed, no +stranger may enter house or field. Should a neighbour, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>by accident or necessity, come within the tabooed +district, he must atone for the trespass by making a +small payment, called <i>usut</i>. It consists, ordinarily, +of a few beads or an iron implement. These objects +are placed in a basket and hung up in the rice-field +till they rust away or disappear. It is a special duty +of the women to see that this <i>usut</i> is paid.</p> + +<p>The <i>lali</i> ordinances of the Kayan are not confined to +the time of seed-planting. Once more, when the crop +is all harvested, the house is closed to strangers. For +eight days no one may go away on an expedition or +return to the village from abroad. Another season +of restriction follows during the period when the rice +is being stored in the granaries. “But as soon as this +harvesting is over, a general feast is prepared, and merriment +of all sorts makes up for the weariness of the +long day’s work. The women don every stitch of +their finery and every bead to their name; some even +assume men’s clothes, and carry shield, spear, and +<i>parang</i>. In the evening all join in a long procession +round the house; guests are invited to participate in +the festivities, and ‘jest and youthful jollity’ rule the +hour; the brimming cup passes freely, and to the +harmonious strains of the <i>kaluri</i> the women ‘trip it as +they go,’ or leap in war-dances in imitation of the +men.” After this festival there follows yet another +period of taboo, ten days in length, when no one is +allowed to do a stroke of any work that resembles the +cultivation of rice: “should any restless creature +express a desire for active work, he is scoffed at and +scorned as a spoil-sport and kill-joy.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>These customs of the Kayan of Sarawak are significant +as showing how for a Bornean community the +whole period of farming, from the initial task of selecting +a site to the final storing of the rice in the granaries, +is supposed to be subject to supernatural influences. +Planting and harvesting are critical times, when every +precaution must be taken to win the approval, and to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>thwart the ill will, of the spirits which affect the tribal +life. If we turn, now, to the Kayan on the Mendalam +River in Dutch Borneo, we shall find here also a community +of primitive farmers who depend mainly on +the rice crop for subsistence, and by whom all agricultural +operations have been invested with a religious +significance. Without the consent of the spirits no +farm work may be undertaken; without a strict regimen +of sacrifices and taboos their aid cannot be secured +for the growth and maturity of the crops. A traveller, +who has described in detail the agricultural rites of +the Kayan, tells us that the sowing festival lasts several +weeks and that during this period certain communal +regulations are enforced. On the first day of the +festival every one, save the very old and the very young, +must refrain from bathing; then for eight successive +days no work may be done and no intercourse may be +held with neighbouring communities. The custom of +excluding strangers at this time has a purely religious +meaning: the presence of strangers, so the Kayan +believe, would frighten or annoy the spirits and consequently +endanger the welfare of the crops.⁠<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> Following +the rites at sowing come those which inaugurate the +hoeing of the fields, and finally the New Year’s festival, +eight days in duration, when the harvest has been +safely garnered and the long period of labour and anxiety +is at an end.⁠<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>But the critical occasions demanding the observance +of taboos are not confined by the Kayan to agricultural +occupations. Every important undertaking may be +commenced only when favourable omens have been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>vouchsafed by the good spirits, and when the spirits +of evil intent have been pacified by many acts of +abstinence. These aborigines, for example, entertain +the belief that house-building, which necessarily involves +the cutting-down of many trees, is a dangerous +occupation, because it arouses the animosity of the +tree-spirits. Hence some Kayan villages, after the +erection of a communal house, observe a period of +penance for an entire year. The Ulu-Ayar Dyak +on the Mandai River, when they use the valuable +ironwood as timber, feel it necessary, in consequence, +to deny themselves various dainties for three years.⁠<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> +To the Kayan on the Mahakam River in Dutch Borneo, +the building of a chiefs house, in which task all take +part by contributing either materials or labour, forms +a matter of great moment. Dr. Nieuwenhuis, who +witnessed the ceremonies on such an occasion, tells us +that the regulations enforced begin with the collection +of materials for the new dwelling. Nothing may be +done at full moon, a time when important business is +always suspended.⁠<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> During the search for satisfactory +trees and while these are being turned into piles, planks, +and shingles, watch is kept for spirit-warnings as +revealed by the flight and cries of the ominous birds. +Work on the house always terminates at nightfall, +when birds are silent. Important stages in the construction +of the house, such as the sinking of the piles +and the placing of the finely carved wooden figureheads +at the two ends of the ridgepole, are signalized +by appropriate sacrifices to the spirits. When a sufficient +quantity of shingles has been prepared for covering +the roof, another offering, consisting of a fat pig +and two chickens, is made to the spirits. Then follows +a rest period, called <i>melo</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> two days in length. +During this time a strip of rattan is stretched around +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>the house to indicate that no one may enter it. While +the house is being shingled, any untoward event will +interrupt the progress of the work. For instance, +should a man tumble off the roof, it would be necessary +to perform another sacrifice and to declare a <i>melo</i> lasting +eight days. Thus anxiously and seriously does the +Kayan conduct himself in all the crises of his tribal +life.⁠<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Among the most numerous and powerful of the Bornean +tribes are the Iban, or Sea Dyak, who occupy +much of the country between the Baram River in +Sarawak and the Kapuas River in Dutch Borneo. +Throughout this extensive district the Iban use the +same language and possess substantially uniform customs. +A Christianized native, who has given to us a +remarkably intimate description of the religious observances +of his people, thus sets forth the omens and incidents +which require abstention from work.</p> + +<p>“When at night the Iban dreams of insult, anger, or +that he has been bitten by a snake, crushed by a falling +tree, waylaid by a ghost, chased by a crocodile, +the following day he rests from all work: to go abroad +or about his work after such dreams would cause him +to be wounded, hurt by falling wood, or shot by an +arrow from the evil spirits’ blowpipe. On the frequent +recurrence of such dreams the medicine-man is +called in, who rubs the patient’s body with a charm +which makes him invisible to the evil spirits. This +ceremony is called <i>bedinding</i>, <i>i.e.</i>, the shielding.... +To dream of being enveloped by a swarm of bees, of +being overwhelmed by falling earth, that the waist-cloth +has rotted away, or of eating rice from a winnowing-fan, +will deter the Iban from going on the warpath, +for they tell of defeat and of being overpowered +by the enemy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span></p> + +<p>“To hear the cry of a bird of evil omen on first waking +in the morning, or on rising up from the morning +meal, prevents the Iban from going to his work on +that day.... When the Iban is setting out to his +work and has descended the ladder leading from his +house, if the note of a bird of any kind is heard at the +same time as his foot first touches the ground, he must +turn back. The cry of the <i>kikeh senabong</i>, gazelle, or +deer, heard on the path, will cause him to give up work +for that day. The same happens if these omens are +heard as he enters the field; arrives at the <i>pankalan</i>, +<i>i.e.</i>, ‘resting place’; when commencing his work; whilst +sharpening his chopper, or after the midday meal.</p> + +<p>“The news of a death occurring in the neighbourhood +or at a distance, the time of full moon,⁠<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> the performance +of ceremonies over the sick by the medicine-man, a +sacrifice to the spirits, are incidents that require all +the villagers to rest from work. Likewise, if some of +the villagers attend a feast in a neighbouring village, +those that remain behind must rest from work lest they +should incur the anger of the guardian spirits of those +attending the feast.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>But these are not all the circumstances under which +an Iban community subjects itself to the rule of abstinence. +Rice-planting here, as among the Kayan, +necessitates certain rest periods, each of three days’ +duration.⁠<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> While a village is under construction, +weaving the native cloth, settling quarrels, and going +on the warpath are forbidden; to break this taboo +would cause a death in the village.⁠<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> When rumours are +abroad of cholera, smallpox, or fever, another season +of seclusion is imposed. The entrance to the village +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>is railed off, and no one is allowed either ingress or +egress for three days, during which time all rest from +work. Meanwhile the village elders have prepared +an offering to the evil spirit of the epidemic. This +sacrifice, together with a winnowing-fan on which is +the figure of man drawn in chalk, is placed in a shed +near the village. The evil spirit, it is thought, will +stop to observe the chalk-drawing and thus will be led +to discover the food which has been left in the shed. +Having satisfied his hunger, he will not seek to enter +the village.⁠<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> The general character of these taboos +as propitiatory rites is further illustrated by some of +the customs relating to agriculture. When the forest +land has been fully cleared and left to dry, sun and +wind become of vital consequence to the Iban, for, if +the people are unable to burn the immense mass of +timber and brush-wood in the jungle, famine stares +them in the face during the year to come. “If it pour +with rain day after day and week after week, and there +is no promise of continued fine weather, they are apt +to imagine that some impurity has defiled the tribe +and that the face of the Great Spirit is hid from them. +So the elders of the people get to work to find it out, +and adjudicate on all cases of incest and bigamy, and +purify the earth with the blood of pigs. Prayers are +offered to Betara⁠<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> from one end of the country to the +other; for the space of three days the villages are +tabooed, and all labour is discontinued; the inhabitants +remain at home and strangers are not admitted. +But if the weather is warm and dry, the farms are +ready in a very few days for the burning.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span></p> + +<p>The seasons of communal abstinence found among +the Land Dyak, who dwell in the southwestern part of +Sarawak, differ only in minor details from those of +other Bornean tribes. There are three principal occasions +when the Land Dyak subject themselves to +<i>pamali</i>, or taboo:</p> + +<p>“The first, <i>pamali mati</i>, is on a house, and on everything +in it for twelve days after the decease of any person +belonging to it: during this time, no one who is not +an inhabitant of the dwelling can enter it, nor are the +persons usually residing in it allowed to speak to such, +nor can anything, on any pretence whatever, be removed +from it, until the twelve days of the prohibition +be expired: its conclusion is marked by the death of +a fowl or pig, according to the circumstances of the +family.</p> + +<p>“The <i>pamali peniakit</i> is undertaken by a whole +village during any sickness which prevails generally +amongst the members of the tribe; it is marked by a +pig slain, and a feast being made in order to propitiate +the divinity who has sent the malady among them; +in its severest form it is of eight days’ continuance, +and during this period everything in the village is at +a standstill, the inhabitants shutting themselves up +from all intercourse with strangers.... The <i>pamali +peniakit</i> is also undertaken by individuals when any +member of the family is sick; thus parents often put +themselves under its regulations, fondly hoping that +by denying themselves for a time the pleasures of intercourse +with their fellow creatures, they will prevail +upon the malignant spirit, which is supposed to have +shed its withering influence over their offspring, to +restore it to its wonted health and strength.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p> + +<p>“The <i>pamali omar</i>, or taboo on the farms, occurs +immediately after the whole of the seed is sown: it +lasts four days, and during that period, no person of +the tribe enters any of the plantations on any account; +a pig and feast are, according to their practice, also +necessary. The proper observance of these various +forms of <i>pamali</i> is probably amongst the most ancient +of their customs, and was practised by their tribes +previously to the introduction of the Hindu religion.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> +From another authority we learn that the Land Dyak +recognize a variety of incidents, more or less inimical +to the operations of farming, which suffice to impose +taboos. “If the basket in which the paddy is put as it +is cut during harvesting be upset, that farm must rest +for a day, and a fowl must be killed, or all their paddy +will go rotten. If a tree falls across the farm-path, +a fowl must be killed on the spot, and the path be disused +for one day, or some one will meet with an accident +on it.... At full moon, and on the third day +after it (called <i>bubuk</i>), no farm work may be done, +unless it is wished that the paddy should be devoured +by blight and mildew. In some tribes the unlucky +days are those of the new and full moon, and its first +and third quarters.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In the course of an excellent study of the Land +Dyak festivals,⁠<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> Mrs. S. B. Scott argues that they are +far more effective as social observances when accompanied +by the various taboos. The change of occupations +heightens the sacredness of the feast, and also +enables all the inhabitants of a village to join in the +long, elaborate ritual. At the same time the closed +house prevents intrusion and secures the presence of +every member of the community. Furthermore, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>prospect of feasting, drinking, and general excitement +gives an added zest to the labours of the Dyak farmers. +The mid-harvest festival, when this is celebrated, affords +a much needed rest from the heavy work of harvesting; +and the last and greatest of the festivals +comes as a natural period of relaxation after the long +strain of toil and frugality is suddenly relaxed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>That in actual practice the Land Dyak observances +have this outcome, it is impossible to deny. Yet it +must be noticed that similar regulations are in force +on other and quite different occasions. As we have +just seen, the Land Dyak place an interdict, twelve +days in length, upon a house in which any one has died; +the same event also causes a general banning of the +village for one day only.⁠<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> Childbirth imposes a taboo +of eight days’ duration on a Land Dyak family;⁠<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> +in this case the regulation does not appear to be extended +to the community at large. Sickness is another +event which puts a family under the ban;⁠<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> when the +sickness assumes an epidemic form and threatens the +general well-being, the rule of abstinence must be +observed by every one in the village. Such evidence +from the Land Dyak customs, confirmed as it is by +the facts relating to the customs of other Bornean +tribes, clearly illustrates the passage of individual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>taboos, based on gross superstition, into community +ordinances which may sometimes have a real justification +in their social usefulness.</p> + +<p>These Bornean regulations disclose a fairly consistent +effort to adjust the length of the communal taboo +to the importance of the event which it commemorates. +Thus, house-building imposes a shorter season of abstinence +than does planting or sowing; a single death +in the village may require the cessation of activity by +the inhabitants for only one day; but an epidemic +sickness may necessitate a three days’ rest, as among the +Iban, or even eight days’ rest, as among the Land Dyak. +The restrictions themselves appear to be substantially +the same in all instances: the inhabitants “remain in +their houses, in order to eat, drink, and sleep; but +their eating must be moderate, and often consists of +nothing but rice and salt.... People under interdict +may not bathe, touch fire, or employ themselves about +their ordinary occupations.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> To these prohibitions +should be added that of sexual intercourse, a taboo +specifically mentioned for one Bornean tribe, and +probably found among others.⁠<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The close resemblances, even in details, between the +communal taboos observed in different parts of Borneo +must, unquestionably, be attributed to a long-continued +process of diffusion among the various Indonesian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>tribes. These taboos have not been found, at +any rate have not been described, among the nomadic +hunting tribes, which occupy the interior parts of +Borneo and probably represent an aboriginal population. +Though our knowledge of Bornean ethnography +is still very imperfect, there seems to be no +doubt that the present Indonesian inhabitants are +descended from immigrants into the island at no very +remote date. We are justified, therefore, in seeking +a foreign source for various elements of the existing +Bornean culture. In particular, the practice of observing +communal taboos, in its rudiments, if not in its +completely developed form, may reasonably be regarded +as an importation into Borneo, if similar customs are +found to prevail among other Indonesian peoples.</p> + +<p>Between the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal +and the northern coast of Sumatra lies the archipelago +of the Nicobars. The inhabitants appear to be of +Indonesian type, but more or less intermixed with +Malays and with the natives of Burma and Siam. In +spite of the labours of numerous missionaries the Nicobarese +are said to entertain no conception of a Supreme +Being or of a future state. They have, however, a +very lively belief in evil spirits, which seem to be chiefly +the ghosts of the wicked. These malignant beings, +the source of all misfortune and disease, are propitiated +with offerings or driven out by exorcisms. On +such occasions the Nicobarese hold lengthy festivals, +some of which are accompanied by periods of communal +abstinence. The native name for these enforced +rest days or holidays is <i>anoiila</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> Every year the +inhabitants of Kar Nicobar observe the ceremony of +<i>kataphang</i>, at which time the group of buildings, called +the <i>elpanam</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> is cleaned out and purified to the accompaniment +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>of much singing and dancing. When this +preliminary work is done and the rubbish has been cast +into the sea, the doors of the houses in the <i>elpanam</i> are +closed and the people return to their private abodes in +the village. “Silence has now to be observed for a +full month; no fire or light may be seen; no cheroot +may be smoked. Women and children are interdicted +from coming to the <i>elpanam</i>, and, if they have to come +during the night on urgent affairs (to purchase things), +they have to place a light at the entrance of the <i>elpanam</i> +and then come without noise.... The chief +sufferers by this festival are the Burmans, because the +people cannot supply any nuts nor can they work in +making <i>kopra</i>, for the reason that they cannot go into +the jungle to fetch nuts nor can they come to the +<i>elpanam</i>.” The natives believe that during this time +the evil spirits from the jungle visit the <i>elpanam</i>. +When the month is up, a great feast is given to the +spirits and they are sent back to the jungle.⁠<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> Another +Nicobar festival is that of <i>kiala</i>. The word means, +properly, “to take food.” The <i>kiala</i> is celebrated with +much feasting, to which the inhabitants of neighbouring +communities come as guests. At midday a cry of +supplication is heard from each building: “Let our +house be enriched with plenty of food. Let us have +many eatable things from other villages. Let there +come new women to our villages. Let us be happy.” +Then follow in regular sequence a day of rest—<i>anoiila</i>—a +day of pig-hunting in the jungle, a second +<i>anoiila</i>, and a second day of pig-hunting. One more +rest day ends the festival.⁠<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> The exact meaning of these +observances is difficult to make out.</p> + +<p>Very similar customs have been found among the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>people of Bali, an island to the east of Java. When +the Balinese are confronted by some real or imaginary +danger, such as an epidemic, an earthquake, or a lunar +eclipse, they at once take measures to drive away the +evil spirits, or <i>buta</i>, which have caused the ominous +event. This praiseworthy object is supposed to be +accomplished partly by verbal commands “go away! +go away!” addressed to the <i>buta</i>, partly by means of +an unearthly uproar of shouting and knocking. Then +follow two days of absolute silence, the stillness of the +grave. During this period, known as <i>sepi</i>, no one +ventures out of doors and no strangers are admitted +to the village. Even the usual domestic work, including +cooking, is discontinued. The interdict against +all activity is lifted on the third day, but even then +work in the rice-fields and buying and selling in the +market are forbidden. The evil spirits, it is believed, +would like to return at once to their old haunts, hence +they must be led to think that Bali is not Bali, but +some uninhabited island.⁠<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> This period of quiescence +is clearly a means of avoiding contact with the ghostly +powers. The reason given for abstaining from activity—to +make the spirits suppose that Bali is not Bali—may +be taken as a naïve effort to explain a custom +no longer understood. The Balinese have also a +New Year’s festival, which shows the influence of +Buddhism in the date chosen for its observance, the +first five weeks of the Buddhist year. “At this time +the gods are supposed to dwell on the earth, and the +<i>pitara</i> especially return to the bosoms of their families; +hence the constant offerings and the incessant games +and amusements, which are regarded as necessary less +for the living generation than for the <i>pitara</i> and gods +sojourning among them; hence also the cessation +from work and the disinclination to intercourse with +foreigners during this period. Trade and foreigners +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>are not agreeable to the <i>pitara</i>, who desire to see the +old institutions and usages faithfully preserved.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In the island of Nias, lying off the western coast of +Sumatra, the news of an epidemic sickness will cause +a quarantine to be established in every community, +not only against the inhabitants of the infected village, +but against all strangers without discrimination. The +quarantine lasts for eight days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> Probably this taboo +is observed on other occasions, as seems to be the case +with the inhabitants of the Pagi Islands, which form +the southern extension of the Mentawi group. These +islanders are scarcely above the level of culture reached +by Bornean tribes: they live in large communal +houses, practise tattooing assiduously, and worship +the evil spirits which manifest their power in thunder +and lightning, earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods. +The natives, at certain times, are said to remain in +their villages and to exclude all strangers. During +this period of separation from the world they may +neither give nor receive anything, they must refrain +from eating certain articles of food, and they may not +engage in trade.⁠<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> A very competent observer, who +has made a special study of the taboo system in the +Mentawi Islands, describes the seasons of restriction +found there under the name of <i>punän</i>. The “great” +<i>punän</i> arises from any circumstance which vitally +affects the welfare of a community: when a chief +erects a house for himself, when a village is visited by +an epidemic, or when a cocoanut-palm is overthrown +by some <i>force majeure</i>. Similarly, the inauguration +of a superior chief or the choice of a priest requires +the imposition of a “great” <i>punän</i>. The same propitiatory +usage becomes necessary when a villager has +been killed by a crocodile. The “little” <i>punän</i> relates +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>rather to individuals and to families. Many are the +occasions when it is imposed—at house-building, at +the setting-out of a garden, at boat-making, and when +a native leaves his village to settle elsewhere. The +“little” <i>punän</i> is especially obligatory for women +during pregnancy, at birth, and for eight months +thereafter. It occurs also as an accompaniment of +marriage, when there is sickness in a family, and when +some member of the household has died. All crises +in the communal and individual life of the Mentawi +Islanders are thus kept as periods of restriction; in +some cases, however, these rest days have become to +all intents and purposes festivals and holidays.⁠<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The wild and little-known aborigines of Formosa, +who are probably of Indonesian origin, appear to possess +similar customs. Of them it is said, generally, +that “great fasts are held after a sickness or when any +of the tribe have been killed. At such times they will +be silent, and will only eat sufficient food to maintain +life.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> Another traveller refers to these communal +fast days under the native name of <i>hiang</i>, and adds +the further fact that at such times strangers are excluded +from the village.⁠<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> A very intelligent observer, +describing the superstitions of the Peiwan, mentions +a curious custom according to which “one who has +unpleasant dreams must confine himself to his house +for the day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> This very scanty information will +doubtless be supplemented by much more evidence, +when the Formosan tribes have been scientifically +studied.</p> + +<p>The Philippine Archipelago contains a great number +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>of Indonesian tribes, among which are the Subanu of +Mindanao, a mountain people occupying the interior +portions of the Zamboanga District, where they have +taken refuge from the raids of their hereditary enemies, +the Moros and Filipinos. The Subanu are described +as a suspicious and superstitious people with a pronounced +belief in spirits—both good and evil. Ceremonies +of propitiation accompany all important undertakings, +such as the clearing of a new plantation, +the building of a house, the beginning of a journey, +hunting, and the harvesting of the crops. Festivals +are held to propitiate these spirits, or to celebrate some +event in which an entire settlement is interested. +From the following account it would seem that the +custom of communal abstinence is frequently observed +by the Subanu. “In contending against the difficulties +of their settlement life the Subanu have gradually +adopted an effective quarantine service against the +spread of infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, +and cholera. Upon the appearance of the first case +among any of the settlement families, the <i>timuai</i> +[communal chief] orders the establishment of the signals +of quarantine, and these are quickly provided. Fences +of poles and split bamboo, or <i>bejuco</i>, are erected across +the main trails leading to the houses of the settlement. +On these fences are placed, in fixed positions, carved +imitations of war weapons, such as spears, <i>kampilan</i>, +<i>barong</i>, and <i>pira</i>, pointed outward to warn the approaching +stranger or visitor to remain away. It is a notice +that death will be visited upon the person who attempts +to enter the settlement while the scourge of disease +prevails.... Near the signal fences are erected +light wooden stands with offerings of various articles +of food to appease the wrath of the gods and cause +them to assist in extirpating the disease. Small sheds +are also sometimes erected near the stands, under +which guards may be stationed to prevent the food +from being taken by wild animals, birds, and mischievous +persons. But the guards go to sleep and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>food (cooked rice, boiled eggs, fruit, tobacco, betel-nut, +cooked chicken, etc.) disappears, whereupon the +guards report that <i>diuata</i> (god) has accepted the gifts +and will drive away the disease. Superstition and +good sense are strangely but effectively mingled in +this scheme of practical and efficacious quarantine; +and the Subanu stand alone among all the tribes and +peoples of Mindanao in devising and operating such +protective measures.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Another Indonesian people of the Philippines are +the Bontoc Igorot, a non-Christian folk dwelling in +northern Luzon. They are mountain farmers and +live in towns made up of political divisions, or <i>ato</i>, +analogous to the wards of an American city. The +business of each <i>ato</i> is conducted by a council of elders. +These Bontoc Igorot observe a sacred rest day, called +<i>tengao</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> It occurs, on an average, about every ten +days during the year, though not with absolute regularity. +Three men, belonging to what might be described +as a hereditary priesthood, fix the time for +the <i>tengao</i>, as for all other ceremonials of the pueblo. +They then inform the elders of each <i>ato</i>, who, in turn, +make a public announcement on the evening preceding +the day. “The small boys, however, are the +true ‘criers.’ They make more noise in the evening +before the rest day, crying <i>Tĕng-aó! whi tĕng-aó!</i> +(‘Rest day! hurrah! rest day!’) than I have heard +from the pueblo at any other time.” The <i>tengao</i> +appears to be marked by the cessation of agricultural +work, but not by abstinence from all activity. “If +a person goes to labour in the fields on a sacred day—not +having heard the announcement, or in disregard +of it—he is fined for ‘breaking the Sabbath.’” The +lawbreaker has to surrender firewood or rice or a small +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>chicken to the value of about ten cents, or the wage +of two days. The fines are then expended in buying +chickens and pigs for certain religious ceremonies, +known as <i>patay</i>. These rites are performed every +new moon for the general well-being of the pueblo.⁠<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> +We are further told that the rest days are selected in +order that “such intimate, important interests as +agriculture and beneficial weather may be given the +amount of attention they deserve. The people have +no calendar for succeeding ceremonial observances, so +a priesthood has developed to fix such days at the opportune +time when needed. They are sacred because +all petitions are made to Lumawig their god, a living, +spirit, hero, and benefactor.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>There seems to be every reason for supposing that +this remarkable institution of an almost periodic +Sabbath is of native origin. The Bontoc Igorot dwell +in a remote and inaccessible region; and they are a +fairly primitive people whose religious ideas have been +unaffected by either Christianity or Mohammedanism. +The <i>tengao</i> itself is apparently confined to this single +tribe of northern Luzon. At the same time the sacred +rest day does not stand without relation to the other +observances of the Igorot. Like the Bornean tribes +they have a number of agricultural ceremonies, religious +in character, and designed to secure an abundant +harvest. Some of these ceremonies are accompanied +by periods of rest. Every year, on the occasion when +<i>camotes</i> are planted, the pueblo priest kills a chicken +or a pig, and petitions Lumawig for so many <i>camotes</i> +“that the ground will crack and burst open.” This +rite takes place in the fifth period of the Igorot year, +called <i>baliling</i>. A similar rite is performed when +black beans are planted. The end of <i>baliling</i> (about +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>the first of September) is marked by a three days’ +rest, known as <i>kopus</i>. At this time one of the priests +charged with the performance of the <i>patay</i> rite addresses +a short supplication to Lumawig and then solemnly +kills a chicken. It is a critical moment for the people +of the pueblo. Should the gall of the fowl be found +white or whitish, this means that disaster will overtake +the community. But a gall with a dark green +colour implies that the spirit enemies of Bontoc are not +revengeful and that the pueblo will enjoy prosperity. +Another occasion when the Igorot rests from labour +comes at the <i>fakil</i> ceremony for rain. It occurs four +times each year, on four succeeding days, and is performed +by four different priests. There is the usual +sacrifice of a pig by the priest, and each night, just +before this rite takes place, all the people cry <i>I-tĕng-aó +ta-ko nan fa-kilʹ!</i>, an expression meaning, “Rest +day! We observe the ceremony for rain!”⁠<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> These +and other instances cited by Professor Jenks indicate +clearly that the Igorot festivals are intended to propitiate +evil-minded spirits and to secure material +blessings from Lumawig, the supreme being.⁠<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> The +evidence from Borneo and other regions suggests +that here in Luzon the rest accompanying some of the +festivals has likewise a propitiatory character, quite +as much as the prayers and sacrifices. The same +interpretation would accordingly apply to the <i>tengao</i>, +though that day seems now to be regarded in some +degree as a holiday. Furthermore, the conjecture is +plausible that the <i>tengao</i> in its earlier form was not a +periodic but an occasional observance, called forth +only by particular emergencies in the communal life. +The present form of this institution gives evidence of +a tendency, doubtless directed by the Igorot priesthood, +to calendarize seasons of taboo at definite and +regular intervals. And the dedication of this “Sabbath” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>to Lumawig may be only a natural outcome of +the preëminence assigned to that supreme god, who +stands out in such bold relief against the crowd of +ancestral spirits, good and bad, investing the Igorot +world.⁠<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The foregoing examples suffice to show how numerous +are the occasions on which the natives of Indonesia +subject themselves to the rule of abstinence. Assuming, +with modern ethnographers, that the Indonesian +peoples represent an admixture in various proportions +of primitive Indian and southern Mongolian stocks, +we need not be surprised to discover that in certain +parts of southeastern Asia, and notably among the +Tibeto-Burman tribes of Assam and Burma, there +flourishes a system of communal regulations strikingly +similar to those which have just been described.</p> + +<p>The Naga tribes, who are said to resemble more +closely the natives of the Indian Archipelago than +any of the other peoples occupying the hills of Assam, +apply the name <i>genna</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> + to their system of taboos.⁠<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> +The following description refers particularly to the +Naga of Manipur. Here, as in Borneo, the regular +communal taboos are for the most part connected +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>with the crops. Every stage of the rice cultivation +is marked by a village <i>genna</i>, the duration of which +varies. Thus, among the Mao Naga the rice-sowing +necessitates a ten days’ <i>genna</i>, the transplanting of +the rice calls for only one day of restriction, the beginning +of the harvest for four days, and the harvest +home for ten days. At such times the village gates +are shut and neither egress nor ingress is allowed. +“Among all these tribes from the day of the first crop +<i>genna</i> to the final harvest home all other forms of industry +and activity are forbidden. All hunting, fishing, +tree- and grass-cutting, all weaving, pot-making, salt-working, +games of all kinds, bugling, dancing, all +trades are strictly forbidden—are <i>genna</i>—lest the +grain in the ear be lost.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>It is obvious that some of these taboos tend, indirectly, +to produce beneficial effects. The prohibition +of all labour, except agricultural, during the season of +rice-planting and harvesting permits the inhabitants +of a village to devote their time and attention solely +to the care of the crops. And the practical result +of the taboo against hunting is to provide a much-needed +close season for wild animals, “for these sportsmen +spare not the game.” It is equally obvious, +however, that the regulations in question have had no +utilitarian origin. Identical taboos are imposed on +a great variety of other occasions. A rain-compelling +ceremony, when the headman works magic for the +benefit of the entire village, is accompanied by a <i>genna</i>. +General <i>genna</i> are also proclaimed after the occurrence +of unusual phenomena, such as earthquakes, eclipses +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>of the sun or moon, and the appearance of comets. +These events are attributed to supernatural activity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> +The destruction of a village by fire occasions a general +<i>genna</i>, sometimes for three days, before any steps are +taken to rebuild the houses. Such an event indicates +that spirits inimical to the people are about and active; +consequently the mere sight of the burning of a neighbouring +village is enough to require the imposition of +a <i>genna</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> The outbreak of epidemic sickness necessitates +a <i>genna</i>, the purpose of which is clearly prophylactic. +Animal sacrifices of a propitiatory nature are +made at such times. Some of the Mao Naga even +hold a regular village <i>genna</i>, as a means of preventing +all sickness during the year, while the Kabui Naga +observe an annual <i>genna</i> in order to protect themselves +from being hurt by bamboos. The occurrence of +mysterious cases of death requires a <i>genna</i>, for the +purpose of separating the living as soon as possible +from the dangerous dead; in the Mao group it is customary +to hold a village <i>genna</i> when a villager dies, +irrespective of the immediate cause of his decease.⁠<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> +All the Naga communities hold a <i>genna</i> devoted to the +praiseworthy object of finally laying to rest the ghosts +of those who have died during the preceding year. The +rite takes place at the time of cold weather, after the +crops have been reaped. At this annual festival, +“they restore to the living those of their members +who have been in jeopardy of the contagion of death.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> +Communal <i>genna</i> are also enforced in connection with +the first death in the year of any domestic animals; +on the return to the village of a party of warriors with +human heads taken in a foray; when a python—a +serpent closely associated with sickness—is killed and +eaten; during the deliberations of the village council; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>and also when a man rashly allows his private or secret +name to be mentioned in public.⁠<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> We may agree +with an early writer, who, commenting on these practices +among the Angami Naga, remarks that there is +“no end to the reasons on which a <i>kennie</i> must or may +be declared, and as it consists of a general holiday +when no work is done, this Angami Sabbath appears +to be rather a popular institution.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>A survey of these Naga ordinances indicates that +here in Assam they have much the same purpose as in +other regions: they are protective and conciliatory; +to a certain extent they are even compelling, in so far +as the observance of the taboos is supposed to prevent +the evil spirits from inflicting further harm. The +coercive quality of a <i>genna</i> is also illustrated by the +idea that, while the ill effects of an interruption of a +village ceremony are sometimes irremediable, there are +other cases where a repetition of the rite is enough to +avert all disastrous consequences.⁠<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> It is to be observed, +furthermore, that all <i>genna</i> are declared and supervised +by the <i>khullakpa</i>, the secular and religious head of the +village. He acts in a representative capacity, whenever +a rite is to be performed which requires the whole +force of the community behind it, a force which operates +through him. “These village <i>genna</i>,” declares +Mr. Hodson, “seem in many cases to be inspired by +the belief that man, <i>the man</i>, the <i>khullakpa</i>, when fortified +by the whole strength and will of the village, is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>able to control and constrain forces which are beyond +his control if unaided. He relies on coöperative +strength.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In addition to the village <i>genna</i> the Naga are subject +to numerous regulations which affect individuals or +families only, and do not extend to the community +at large. Household <i>genna</i> are occasioned by such +events as the birth of children or of domesticated +animals, the first hair-cutting and ear-piercing, the +naming of children, and finally the death of domesticated +animals in the house. The restrictions apply to +all who are normally inmates of the house, and to any +others, such as midwives, who may be temporarily +members of the family. The duration of these <i>genna</i> +varies not only from tribe to tribe but also from village +to village. The Mayang Khong Naga, in particular, +have worked out an elaborate scale for <i>genna</i> +following the birth of domestic animals. “When a +cow calves, the <i>genna</i> lasts for five days; when a sow +litters, three days’ <i>genna</i> is necessary; while when a +bitch has pups, or a cat has kittens, two days are +ample. A hen hatching out a brood of chickens brings +on a <i>genna</i> of one day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> Such observances may +be said to mark the acme of the Naga taboo system, +or, from another point of view, to reduce it to an absurdity.</p> + +<p>The <i>genna</i> custom, which seems to have attained +its most complicated and grotesque development +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>among the Naga, prevails, or in the past has prevailed, +throughout a wide area of Assam. The Hinduised +Meithei of Manipur, whose affinity to the wild hill +tribes such as the Naga and Kuki is admitted, no longer +possess the custom itself, though preserving the memory +of it in their word <i>namungba</i>, or taboo.⁠<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> General +seasons of restriction seem to be unknown among the +Khasi, who inhabit the Khasi and Jaintia hills, except +in a single instance.⁠<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> Their neighbours on the west, +the Garo, a people of Tibeto-Burman stock, have the +equivalent of <i>genna</i> in the word <i>marang</i>, conveying +the ideas of “unlucky” and “unlawful.” But the +Garo custom itself is scarcely socialized: the taboos +relate to individuals, and in only one case extend +to the community at large. This is the prohibition +for any one in a village to labour in the fields on the day +when a child is born. It is believed that should a farm +be visited at such a time the crop would be cursed and +blighted.⁠<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Another Tibeto-Burman people, the Mikir, +who dwell in the Mikir Hills to the northwest of Manipur, +have individual taboos of various kinds and, in +addition, a compulsory village festival called <i>rongker</i>. +It is held annually at the beginning of cultivation. +At this time the gods are invoked for good crops, good +health, and preservation from tigers. There is no +music or dancing during the festival.⁠<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> The <i>genna</i> +exists among the Mishmi and Abor on the frontiers of +northeastern Assam and Tibet.⁠<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> The Lushei (sometimes +called Kuki) of the Lushei Hills to the south of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>Manipur have a well-developed system of taboo, here +known as <i>hrilh</i>. Persons subject to <i>hrilh</i> “must do +no work, except necessary household tasks, and must +not leave a prescribed area.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> These restrictions +sometimes affect households only, sometimes entire +villages. They are communally imposed in connection +with the sacrifice performed before a large hunting +party starts out, at the harvest festival, when an epidemic +sickness rages, and on other occasions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> West +of the Lushei dwell the Tippera and Mro tribes, among +whom the communal taboo observed in consequence +of an epidemic goes under the name of <i>khang</i>. “The +quarantine is inaugurated and declared with a certain +degree of ceremony. A sacrifice is offered, and the +village is encircled with a fresh-spun white thread. +The blood of the animal sacrificed is then sprinkled +about the village, and a general sweeping and cleansing +takes place, the houses and gates being decorated with +green boughs. They attach great importance to the +quarantine being kept unbroken. It generally lasts +three days, and during that time no one is allowed to +enter or leave the village. I have known several +murders committed, owing to persons persisting in +breaking the <i>khang</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> The same communal taboo is +observed when a village is being built, and regularly +in July, when the rice requires cultivation.⁠<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> These +tribes formerly lived in the Arakan Hills of Lower +Burma, where identical regulations, known as <i>ya</i>, are +also enforced.⁠<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The <i>genna</i> custom may be traced in various parts +of Burma. From the Naga, Lushei, and other tribes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>of Assam the ethnical transition is unbroken to the +Chin, who occupy the Chindwin valley and the hills +to the west. Probably these aborigines are not unfamiliar +with the <i>genna</i> as a device to avoid a visitation +by demonic powers identified with smallpox, cholera, +and other diseases. We are told that once, when +cholera broke out among some Chin on a visit to Rangoon, +they spent the day hiding under the bushes so +that the cholera-spirit might not find them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> The +Kachin (Chingpaw) on the upper Irawadi River, a +people generally regarded as closely akin to the Chin +on the one hand and to the Karen on the other, recognize +six occasions during the year, when no one is +supposed to do any work. The rest days, numbering +sixteen in all, are known collectively as <i>na na ai</i>, +which may be translated “ceremonial holiday.” They +all occur in connection with agriculture—when the +jungle is fired, before and after seed-planting, while +the crop is ripening, and at harvest—as a means of +securing the good will of the <i>nat</i>, or spirits.⁠<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> Similar +customs are still observed by some of the Karen tribes. +Of the Tsawku Karen it is said that their religion consists +entirely in attempts to appease various malignant +spirits. When the inhabitants of a village or the members +of a household are engaged in ceremonies of propitiation, +“they put up a bow with an arrow ready fitted +to the string, or some other sign to indicate that there +is ‘no admittance,’ or that ‘trespassers will be prosecuted +according to law,’ and these insignia are scrupulously +respected.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> The Sawngtung Karen forbid +any one to leave the village on the day of the birth of +a child in it, and no eggs may be kept in the village +while the fields are being reaped. The Taungthu +Karen believe that giving away anything at all on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>sowing or planting days means blight for the crop.⁠<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> +These superstitions no doubt represent decadent forms +of a once-extensive <i>genna</i> system among the Karen. +The <i>genna</i>, again, has been noticed among the Muhso, +or Lalu, a large tribe which has emigrated from China to +the Shan States. The Muhso close their villages +against strangers for five days during an annual festival, +which begins on the Chinese New Year’s Day. +Bamboo gateways and symbols are erected along the +paths approaching a settlement, in order to warn +possible intruders. If an outsider persists in entering +a village, he is kept a prisoner there till the festival is +over. All his possessions, even his clothes, are taken +away from him and he is returned naked to the world. +In explanation of this conduct the natives say that +the spirits, in whose honour the feast is held, are displeased +at the presence of strangers.⁠<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> The Wild Wa, +a head-hunting tribe on the northeastern frontier of +the Shan States, are said to have no regularly recurrent +festivals, but hold them as often as they are +confronted by “particular dangers or necessities.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> +The Miao (Miao-tse), one of the little-known tribes +of southwestern China, celebrate musical festivals +throughout the year. These seem now to be <i>fêtes</i> +pure and simple, though at one time possessing a +religious character. “If asked why they hold these +festivals, they say that if they failed to do so their +crops would be bad; and yet they do not profess +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>to understand how the harvests are influenced by this +custom.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The <i>genna</i>, either in vigorous activity or in attenuated +survival, has now been traced throughout a wide +area in southeastern Asia, and particularly among +the Tibeto-Burman tribes of Assam and Burma. +Modern ethnographers recognize in the Indo-Chinese +an immigrant population, probably from western China, +which for many centuries has been gradually moving +southward along the course of the great rivers emptying +into the Bay of Bengal. The custom of the <i>genna</i> +appears to be one of the most characteristic features +of Indo-Chinese culture; its presence, therefore, +throughout this area must be explained as the result +of diffusion and not of independent origination. Furthermore, +we have found that in the various Indonesian +islands as far as New Guinea, and especially in Borneo, +customs closely akin to that of the <i>genna</i> also belong +to the native culture. It is likely that the ancestors +of the Polynesians passed through these islands on +their way to the Pacific; if this be so, we can understand +why <i>tabu</i> in Polynesia should present so many +obvious resemblances to <i>lali</i> in Borneo and to <i>genna</i> +in Assam. The student whose primary concern is the +wanderings of peoples cannot neglect such evidence +of extensive diffusion, showing how for ages cultural +elements have been drifting from the interior of Asia +over the Indo-Chinese region and the Indian Archipelago, +and thence into the island world of the Pacific.</p> + +<p>What general conclusions may be drawn from a +comparative survey of these communal taboos in the +several areas under consideration? In the first place +it seems clear that the various negative regulations, +such as those imposing idleness, fasting, and continence, +closely resemble some of the pains and penalties to +which the savage subjects himself on other occasions. +For instance, the well-known custom of the <i>couvade</i> imposes +on the husband, during the pregnancy of his wife +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>or after the birth of the child, a number of restrictions, +which often include abstention from various sorts of +work, and sometimes from all occupations whatsoever. +The practice of the <i>couvade</i> appears to be an outgrowth +of the idea that under special circumstances the close +ties uniting husband and wife engender a mystic sympathy +between them, so that the acts of the one +affect the welfare of the other. Similar ideas underlie +the numerous rules of abstinence observed by hunters, +fishers, and warriors when absent from home, and by +the relatives and friends whom they have left behind.⁠<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> +We cannot always fathom the savage logic which has +generated the numberless regulations observed at such +critical seasons; but they would seem to be particular +expressions of an ancient doctrine—“In quietness +shall be your strength.”</p> + +<p>In the second place it is difficult to avoid the conclusion +that, however vexatious and burdensome may be +the restrictions resting on a primitive community, +these are not without a definite psychological value. +The consciousness that all the omens have been duly +taken and that all taboos have been properly observed +is itself invigorating; the community goes forward, +henceforth, with renewed strength and confidence to +the tasks which lie before it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Finally, it may be pointed out how directly these +communal regulations make for social solidarity. Students +of early society have long recognized the fact +that the institution of taboo, in its individualistic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>aspects, has helped to nurse in man a sense of reverence +and a power of self-restraint greatly needed under +primitive conditions. Such beneficial results are even +more manifest in the case of communal taboos. For, +when the restrictions are violated by any one, there is +always the feeling that misfortune will overtake the +entire social group, and hence a duty devolves on each +man to see that his neighbour obeys the law. Altruism +becomes a coercive process, and social cohesion +is secured by each member of the group making himself +his brother’s keeper. It is desirable to keep in +mind these positive benefits inherent in the taboo system, +since perhaps excessive attention has been directed +to its hampering influence on society.</p> + +<p>In the three regions which have been selected for +close examination—the Hawaiian Islands, Borneo, +and Assam—it thus appears that there are certain +occasions when the normal current of life is interrupted, +and when what may well be called a crisis presents +itself.⁠<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> In general any time of special significance, inaugurating +a new era or marking the transition from +one state to another, any period of storm and stress, +any epoch when untoward events have occurred or +are expected to occur, may be invested with taboos +designed to meet the emergency in the communal life +and to ward off the threatened danger or disaster. +Periods of abstinence are imposed because of such +unusual, and therefore critical, events as a conflagration, +an epidemic sickness, or an earthquake; after +a death; at the changes of the moon; at the end of +the old year and the beginning of the new year; during +a time devoted to the banning of ghosts and demons; +and in connection with such important undertakings +as the commencement of a war, seed-planting, and +harvest, and the celebration of a solemn religious or +magical ceremony. The peoples whom we have just +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>studied have, so to speak, institutionalized their fears, +working out thereby a protective procedure highly +complex and elaborate. But the conceptions which +generated the tabooed day in Polynesia, Indonesia, +and southeastern Asia are not local and confined; +on the contrary they underlie a wide range of social +phenomena.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br> +<span class="smaller">TABOOED DAYS AFTER A DEATH AND +ON RELATED OCCASIONS</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>Among the lower races perhaps the most common +occasion for the suspension of ordinary occupations is +after a death.⁠<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> The prohibition of work at this time +usually forms only one of a number of regulations, +which also impose partial or complete abstinence from +food and place a ban on loud talking, singing, and the +wearing of ornaments and gay clothing. The taboos +are often confined to the family or at most to the relatives +of the deceased; in other cases they affect the +entire community. The explanation of these rules +must sometimes be sought in animistic conceptions. +The soul of the dead man is supposed to remain for a +time with the body in the grave or near the scenes of +the earthly life. Until the funeral ceremonies are +completed, when the ghost is finally “laid” or departs +for the abode of the dead, prudence requires the survivors +to avoid all conspicuous activity, if they would +not attract the unwelcome attentions of the ghost. +A similar period of quiescence may be considered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>necessary when the death is attributed to an evil +spirit, which lurks about its quarry and seeks another +victim.</p> + +<p>But earlier, probably, in development, and certainly +far more general, is the belief in the pollution of death.⁠<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> +Primitive peoples seldom recognize a death as due to +what we should call natural causes. Sickness, and +death following on sickness, when not attributed to the +direct action of an evil spirit or of some malevolent +person who has been practising nefarious magic, are +thought to be due to the contaminating miasma of +death. Death is a mysterious atmospherical poison +which extends its defiling influence far and wide. +Hence we have at least one motive for the very common +custom of destroying the house and personal property +of the deceased. Hence arise the taboos of the corpse, +of persons who have anything to do with the corpse, of +the relatives of the deceased, and of mourners, generally. +An obvious application of such ideas requires +that all activities should be abandoned by the survivors +for some time after a death; and, where the +sense of social solidarity is strong, the notion of abstinence +at so critical a season may be extended to the +entire community.⁠<a id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Communal taboos following a death are not unknown +in Polynesia, Micronesia, and New Guinea,⁠<a id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> +and may be traced elsewhere in the Oceanic area. In +Timor, when a king dies, no work is done for seven +days thereafter.⁠<a id="FNanchor_141" href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> In Halmahera an entire village will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>be tabooed in consequence of the death of one of its +members. Violations of the taboo (<i>pomali</i>) are severely +punished.⁠<a id="FNanchor_142" href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> The practice of intermitting work in a +village until a corpse is buried prevails in many of the +Molucca Islands.⁠<a id="FNanchor_143" href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> Among all the non-Christian tribes +of northern Luzon, “there is no field work in an <i>ato</i> on the +day when an adult person is buried.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_144" href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> The inhabitants +of Kar Nicobar exhibit great fear of ghostly influence +before the funeral ceremonies have been completed. +The corpse of any one who has died in the village is +conveyed at once to the “dead house,” and the inhabitants +proceed to barricade themselves in their houses +and to keep fires burning before the doors. The +houses, canoes, and ground about the village are +covered with palm leaves to prevent the ghost from +entering. Some of the dead man’s pigs are killed, a +few cocoa palms are cut down, and on rare occasions +his house is burnt, or unroofed and left deserted. +“Shaving the head is sometimes indulged in as a sign +of mourning, together with frequent bathing and +abstinence from work.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_145" href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> The Malay fishermen of +the Patani States in the Malay Peninsula observe +various restrictions and prohibitions, the transgression +of which would bring sickness or misfortune. If a +death occurs in a fishing village, no boat from that +village must go to sea on the following day, and no +one must set out on a land journey. The fisherman +or the traveller who disregarded this injunction would +have no luck and would probably meet with some +disaster.⁠<a id="FNanchor_146" href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span></p> + +<p>Periods of abstinence after a death are observed by +many of the tribes of Borneo, in close connection with +the prevailing institution of taboo. When a death +occurs in an Iban village, the inhabitants give up their +outdoor occupations and remain at home, seven days +in the case of a male, three days for a female, and one +day for an infant. During this time the relatives +of the deceased lay aside their ornaments and bright +dresses, assume deep mourning, and abstain from music +and jollity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_147" href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> Another authority declares that after a +death “it is tabooed to work on the farm: at busy times +for three days; at other times for seven days.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_148" href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> In +the case of a chief’s death the natives refrain from work +for a longer period than is usual when a commoner dies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_149" href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> +Similar restrictions are found among the Land Dyak,⁠<a id="FNanchor_150" href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> +the Dusun, or Sundyak, of British North Borneo,⁠<a id="FNanchor_151" href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> +and some other tribes. Members of a Kayan household +observe various mourning ceremonies, and in particular +avoid all music, feasts, and jollifications for a period +which varies in length according to the social standing +of the deceased.⁠<a id="FNanchor_152" href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Among the Naga tribes of Manipur, with the notable +exception of the Mao people by whom a village <i>genna</i> +is held whenever a villager dies, it is not necessary or +usual to perform this communal rite in cases of regular +and non-mysterious death. The <i>genna</i> is then confined +to the clan, that is, to the group of individuals who comprise +the heirs of the deceased.⁠<a id="FNanchor_153" href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> But all cases of death +by sudden illness, by accident, by the hand of an enemy, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>and by wild animals or snakes necessitate general or +village <i>genna</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_154" href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> The same rule prevails when a woman +has died in childbirth.⁠<a id="FNanchor_155" href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> The purpose of these regulations +seems to be that of separating the living as soon +as possible from the dangerous spirits of the dead, or +of avoiding the contagion of death. Among the Khasi +of Assam, who do not observe general seasons of +restriction, clan <i>genna</i> are imposed after a death. The +surviving clansmen are not allowed to work until three +days have elapsed from the time of placing the bones +of the deceased in the clan tomb.⁠<a id="FNanchor_156" href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> In northern Arakan, +Lower Burma, when any native has been killed by a +tiger, crocodile, or other animal, when any woman +resident in the village dies in childbed, or when the +body of a person who died in such a manner is brought +into the village, all intercourse with that village is cut +off until the appearance of the next new moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_157" href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> Similar +regulations exist among the Lao of northern Siam and +among the savage inhabitants of Indo-China.⁠<a id="FNanchor_158" href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Taboos following a death and imposing abstinence +from work are found in various parts of India. Among +the Muppan, a hill-tribe of Wynaad, Malabar, the +relatives of the deceased do no work on the day after +the funeral, and also partially abstain from food. At +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>a subsequent date they perform a final ceremony to +remove every trace of the death pollution and to give +peace to the departed spirit.⁠<a id="FNanchor_159" href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> In former times the +Kataharayan, a fisher folk living on the Malabar coast, +intermitted their fishing for three days after the death +of a prince of Malabar.⁠<a id="FNanchor_160" href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> Among the Kasuba, a forest +tribe inhabiting the Nilgiri Hills in the Madras Presidency, +fear of pollution requires the relatives of the +deceased to abstain from all kinds of work for an entire +day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_161" href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> Far away to the north, among the Paharia of +British Sikkim, the same ideas of pollution prevail. +All persons belonging to the household of the deceased +must observe strict silence during the period of mourning, +and they may eat only one meal a day and that +“half a bellyful.” Under such circumstances, we are +told, work in the fields is impossible.⁠<a id="FNanchor_162" href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> With these +regulations may be compared those observed in Tibet, +where rich and respectable men, when their parents +die, abstain for a year from participating in marriage +ceremonies and festivities, and undertake no lengthy +journeys. Upon the demise of the Dalai Lama or of +the Tashi Lama, all work ceases for seven days, public +offices are closed, and markets are suspended. The +people refrain from amusements and festivities and +from going into groves for pleasure, sport, and love-making. +For thirty days women are forbidden to put +on their jewellery, and neither men nor women may +wear new clothes. Thus the land of Tibet goes into +mourning for the loss of one of its great hierarchs.⁠<a id="FNanchor_163" href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Very similar customs are found within the African +area. They seem to be generally observed by the +Bantu peoples of South Africa. Among all the Zulu +tribes it is the rule that no one labours in the fields on the +day following a death, and that after the death of a chief +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>work of every sort is suspended for six months.⁠<a id="FNanchor_164" href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> “If a +person is struck by lightning, the whole kraal fast and +do not even drink water, until the mediciner has performed +his office.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_165" href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> The Basuto, who form the +eastern branch of the widespread Bechuana people, +abstain from all public work on the day when an +influential person dies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_166" href="#Footnote_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> In Ussindja, a district of German +East Africa, the Sultan Rwoma gave vent to +his sorrow for the loss of a favourite son by forbidding +all agricultural work for six years. Within a few +months, however, famine stared his subjects in the +face, and the grief-stricken father was compelled to +rescind the prohibition.⁠<a id="FNanchor_167" href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> Mourning regulations which +impose abstinence from work have been described +among various tribes of British East Africa occupying +the territory to the east and north of Lake Victoria +Nyanza. The Akikuyu, who observe many restrictions +connected with the corpse, regard the day after +a death as unlucky. “People will not travel, and goats +and sheep will not bear, and all the inhabitants of the +village shave their heads. The women will not go out +for four days. On the next day the sons who have +taken part in the burial do not work.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_168" href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> The taboos +enforced by the Nandi present some curious resemblances +to those which we have met among Indonesian +peoples. The Nandi, probably in former days a +hunting tribe, have now taken to agriculture and raise +large crops of eleusine grain and millet. Their superstitions +invest the process of farming with many restrictions: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>no one while in a plantation may carry a spear +or rest a spear on the earth; thigh-bells must not be +worn; a hide must not be dragged along the ground; +whistling is strictly forbidden. Work is prohibited +for an entire day following an earthquake, a phenomenon +which Nandi speculation, in common with other +savage philosophies, attributes to the movement of +underground spirits.⁠<a id="FNanchor_169" href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> If a hailstorm occurs, if a hoe +breaks, or if a beast of prey seizes a goat, no work must +be done in the fields for the rest of the day and for +twenty-four hours afterwards. It is believed that any +sick person who eats the grain when harvested, or who +drinks beer made from the grain, will die, and that +pregnant women will abort. If the owner of a plantation +dies while his crops are ripening, all the grain +must be eaten and none reserved for sowing; otherwise +the grain will rot in the ground.⁠<a id="FNanchor_170" href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> The Nilotic +Kavirondo do not cultivate their fields for three days +after the death of any one of importance, and for ten +days after the death of a chief.⁠<a id="FNanchor_171" href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> Their neighbours, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>Basoga, sometimes extended the days of mourning for +a deceased chief to two months. It is said that the +crops not infrequently suffered because of the strict +abstention from work in the fields.⁠<a id="FNanchor_172" href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> Certain Abyssinian +tribes refrain from ploughing, sowing, and grinding +grain until a corpse is buried.⁠<a id="FNanchor_173" href="#Footnote_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> Among the Arabs +of Morocco, studied by Professor Westermarck, there is +a prohibition of all work in the village until the funeral +has taken place.⁠<a id="FNanchor_174" href="#Footnote_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The belief in the pollution of death is very strong +among the Malagasy. On the decease of a sovereign +many practices are tabooed (<i>fady</i>) to the common +people, such prohibitions extending to various periods +according to the will of the new ruler. Thus, to sing, +to play music, to clap hands, to laugh boisterously, +to dance, to wear ornaments or brightly coloured garments, +to dress or anoint the hair, to wear a hat, to +cut the nails, to clean the teeth, to bathe, to gaze in a +mirror, and to carry the arms akimbo are all <i>fady</i>. +Such tasks as pottery-making, spinning and weaving, +plaiting of mats, carpentry, and metal-working are +often suspended. Furthermore, no, one is allowed to +lie on a bedstead or to ride in a palanquin or on horse-back, +and every one is expected to shave the head and +uncover the shoulders. Many of these regulations, it +is to be noticed, are also enforced after the death of a +near relative.⁠<a id="FNanchor_175" href="#Footnote_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In the New World the funeral ceremonies of the rulers +of Mechoacan furnish another illustration of the superstition +under discussion. We are told that when a king +was buried all who had participated in the obsequies +washed themselves and went to dinner in the yard of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>the king’s house, “and having dined they wiped their +hands upon certain locks of cotton-wool, hanging down +their heads, and not speaking a word, except it were to +ask for drink.” These purificatory rites were accompanied +by a season of communal abstinence which +lasted five days, “and in all that time no fire was permitted +to be kindled in the city, except in the king’s +house and temples, nor yet any corn was ground, or +market kept, nor durst any go out of their houses.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_176" href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> +Among the Seminoles of Florida on the day of a funeral, +and for three days thereafter, the relatives of the deceased +remained at home and abstained from work. +During this time the dead man was supposed to remain +in his grave. Subsequently he took his departure for +an abode in the skies, and mourning then ceased.⁠<a id="FNanchor_177" href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The restrictions following a death appear to be especially +prominent among the Eskimo tribes, who possess +a well-marked system of taboos. In Greenland we +meet the practice of requiring not only the kindred of +the deceased, but likewise all who have lived in the same +house with him to abstain from certain articles of food +and from work for some time after death.⁠<a id="FNanchor_178" href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> Among the +Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Strait after the +death of any person it is forbidden “to scrape the frost +from the window, to shake the beds or to disturb the +shrubs under the bed, to remove oil-drippings from +under the lamp, to scrape hair from skins, to cut snow +for the purpose of melting it, to work on iron, wood, +stone, or ivory. Furthermore, women are forbidden +to comb their hair, to wash their faces, and to dry their +boots and stockings.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_179" href="#Footnote_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> These Eskimo require the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>relatives of the deceased to shut themselves up in his +hut and mourn his loss for three days. During this +time the inhabitants of a village must not use their +dogs, but must walk to the hunting-ground. For one +day at least they are not allowed to go hunting, and the +women refrain from all work whatsoever. Dr. Boas +notes how in the winter a long space of bad weather +occasions privation, since hunters cannot leave their +huts. “If by chance some one should happen to die +during this time, famine is inevitable, for a strict law +forbids the performance of any kind of work during the +days of mourning.” During these three days the soul +of the deceased is supposed to be still with the body, +not having yet gone to the home of the goddess Sedna +in the underworld.⁠<a id="FNanchor_180" href="#Footnote_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> According to one account the +Innuit, from the head of Bristol Bay to the Arctic, +require the survivors to refrain from work for twenty +days after a death in the family.⁠<a id="FNanchor_181" href="#Footnote_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> This is probably +too broad a statement and does not allow for minor +divergencies of custom throughout so extensive an +area. On the lower Kuskokwim River the Alaskan +villagers abstain from work on the day of a death, +and, in many instances, on the day following such an +event. None of the relatives of the deceased may perform +any labour during the period, four or five days in +length, when the shade is believed to remain with the +body.⁠<a id="FNanchor_182" href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> The rule requiring no work in a village on the +day when a person dies prevails among the Bering +Strait Eskimo. Relatives of the deceased must abstain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>from activity during the three following days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_183" href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> +One observer tells of a Point Barrow woman who +declined to sew on clothing, even at his house, because +there was a dead man in the village who had not yet +been carried to the cemetery. She feared that “he +would see her.” But after consultation with her husband +she concluded that it was possible to protect +herself from “him” by tracing with a snow-knife a +circle about herself on the floor. Within this area +she did the sewing required, being very careful to keep +all her work inside it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_184" href="#Footnote_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Remarkably similar customs prevail among some of +the Asiatic Eskimo, and incidentally reinforce the +argument for the transmission of cultural elements +between northwestern America and northeastern Asia. +The Reindeer Chukchi forbid any kind of woman’s +work with needle and scraper during the period of the +funeral ceremonies. This rule refers to all the houses +of the camp or village, and even to other settlements +in the vicinity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_185" href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> The Koryak stopped all work in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>settlement before the last rites to the dead. No one +went hunting or sealing, no one went to fetch wood, +and the women did no sewing. At the present time +this rule is so far abrogated as to apply only to those +in the house where the body lies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_186" href="#Footnote_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> Among the Yakut, +when a man dies, the members of his household may +not execute any work until after the next full moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_187" href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Taboos of this nature are not confined to savage and +barbarous communities, since the fear of the death pollution +has been felt by various civilized peoples and has +found expression in their funeral ceremonies. Thus, +we learn that in Rabbinical times and among some +modern Jews, during the <i>shib‘a</i>, or seven days of +strict mourning, “the relatives abstain from work and +remain at home, sitting on the floor or on a low bench, +reading the <i>Book of Job</i>, and receiving visits of condolence. +Bereaved children should abstain for a +year from music and recreation.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_188" href="#Footnote_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> Outcroppings of +the same belief occasionally manifest themselves among +the folk of Europe. German peasants abstain from all +work, except what is absolutely necessary, before the +funeral,⁠<a id="FNanchor_189" href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> and the Scotch think that “it is not right to +spin if there be a corpse in the same township.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_190" href="#Footnote_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> +This latter instance furnishes a close parallel to the +Eskimo superstition.</p> + +<p>Feasts of the dead, the primitive All Souls’ days, are +sometimes occasions for abstinence from work. The +same custom may be observed at times devoted to the +public and ceremonial expulsion of ghosts and demons +from the community.⁠<a id="FNanchor_191" href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> Here, as elsewhere, we may +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>well raise the query whether such proceedings have +always existed with the particular meaning now assigned +to them; or whether in many instances they may not +hark back to a “pre-animistic” epoch when the evil +influences, instead of being personified under the form +of spirits, were more vaguely regarded as some mysterious +and infectious contamination.</p> + +<p>Rites for commemorating kindly spirits or for expelling +those of evil intent were doubtless first performed +at irregular intervals, as the supposed need for them +arose. They tend, however, to be massed and assigned +to particular times, thus meeting a demand for order +and precision. Their celebration usually takes place +at a period which coincides with well-marked changes +of the seasons, or with one of the great epochs of the +agricultural year, as sowing or harvest. They have a +particular and appropriate association with the end of +the old year or with the beginning of the new year, a +time which, by many primitive peoples, is itself fixed +with reference to seasonal changes or to agricultural +operations.</p> + +<p>Ceremonies of ghost-riddance and demon-riddance, +accompanied by communal abstinence, have already +been noted in Polynesia, Indonesia, and southeastern +Asia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_192" href="#Footnote_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> They are not unknown in Africa. The Basuto, +who do no work on the day when an influential man +dies, also observe as holidays the times of sacrifice or of +great purification. “Hence it is,” writes a French +missionary, “that the law relative to the repose of the +seventh day, so far from finding any objection in the +minds of the natives, appears to them very natural, +and perhaps even more fundamental, than it seems to +certain Christians.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_193" href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> The Bahima, a Bantu-speaking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>tribe of Ankole, a district which lies immediately to +the west of Lake Victoria Nyanza, set apart one day +each month for festival purposes. It is then that the +Bahima seek to appease certain ghastly, shrivelled +demons who, though they expend most of their fury +on one another, frequent the kraals and occasionally +take a native by the arm and shake him mercilessly. +These demons are called <i>balubale</i>. Their placation is +said to consist chiefly of drum-beating and beer-drinking. +“There is no work on <i>balubale</i> day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_194" href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> On the +next-to-the-last day of the year the Swaheli of German +East Africa observe an ancient custom, which probably +antedates Mohammedan influence in this part of Africa. +They parch some millet and pour it, together with ashes, +on the corners of their houses as a prophylactic against +the evil spirits supposed to be particularly troublesome +at this time. Swaheli school-children enjoy a holiday +on the last two days of the year and New Year’s Day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_195" href="#Footnote_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> +The great national <i>fête</i> of the <i>fandroana</i>, marking the +commencement of the Malagasy year, occurs at the new +moon of the month Alahamady, and the first days of +this month are regarded as very unlucky for commoners, +who therefore abstain from all activity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_196" href="#Footnote_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> We may +conjecture that this festival, though traditionally +established only about three centuries ago, in its present +form incorporates observances connected with the new +year as a critical season. Some of the Gold Coast +tribes of west Africa hold a festival toward the end of +August, called <i>affirah-bi</i>, when there is a general remembrance +of the dead. No work may be done during this +festival, which lasts eight days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_197" href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> The Guinea negroes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>would seem also to perform annual rites for the expulsion +of evil spirits. The ceremony of demon-riddance, +formerly held at Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast, +was intended to drive the devil Abonsam out of the +town by means of an unearthly uproar of shouts, +screams, beating of sticks, rattling of pans, and firing +of guns, in which all the inhabitants joined. “The +custom is preceded by four weeks’ dead silence; no +gun is allowed to be fired, no drum to be beaten, no +palaver to be made between man and man. If, during +these weeks, two natives should disagree and make a +noise in the town, they are immediately taken before +the king and fined heavily. If a dog or pig, sheep or +goat be found at large in the street, it may be killed, or +taken by any one, the former owner not being allowed +to demand any compensation. This silence is designed +to deceive Abonsam, that, being off his guard, he may +be taken by surprise and frightened out of the place. +If any one die during the silence, his relatives are not +allowed to weep until the four weeks have been completed.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_198" href="#Footnote_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Yoruba tribes of the Slave Coast celebrate every +June an All Souls’ festival lasting seven days. It +resembles the <i>affirah-bi</i> rites, but the ceremony is held +in honour of Egungun, who is supposed to have risen +from the dead and after whom a powerful secret society +has been named.⁠<a id="FNanchor_199" href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> Since in west Africa, as in some other +parts of the world, secret societies are intimately related +to the cult of the dead,⁠<a id="FNanchor_200" href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> it may be that the tabooed days, +observed when these organizations hold their ceremonies, +were once connected with feasts of the dead or +expulsion of ghosts. The belief may also exist that the +god of the secret society affects with his holiness the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>day of his public appearance, and so makes it unfit +for business. However, the taboos seem now to be +maintained chiefly as a means of securing the respectful +attention of non-initiates, particularly women. The +presence in Yoruba towns of the bugbear god Oro +compels women to seclude themselves from seven +o’clock in the evening until five o’clock in the morning.⁠<a id="FNanchor_201" href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> +On the great feast days of Oro women must remain +indoors from daybreak till noon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_202" href="#Footnote_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> A native writer +points out that these Oro confinements, as they may +be called, are declared in times of political crisis, when +a new law or other measure of importance is under +consideration, and whenever a sacrifice is offered in +behalf of the community. The streets are then cleared +of all unseemly traffic and of women, in order to permit +the god and his followers to appear abroad without +danger of contamination.⁠<a id="FNanchor_203" href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> Again, in Old Calabar, +when the great <i>egbo</i> society visits a community, all +business is suspended, all doors are shut, and absolute +silence prevails. On the departure of the god and his +attendant mummers, the town-bell is rung in a peculiar +way to indicate that normal occupations may be now +resumed. The cessation of business on the occasion +of these visits of <i>egbo</i> may last a day, but frequently +extends to two or three days. In the latter case, +however, the strict rule of seclusion is relaxed for an +hour or more to permit the holding of the daily market.⁠<a id="FNanchor_204" href="#Footnote_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> +During an <i>egbo</i> visitation it would be death for any one +not a member of the order to venture forth; even +members themselves, if their grade is lower than that +which controls the proceedings for the day, would be +severely whipped.⁠<a id="FNanchor_205" href="#Footnote_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span></p> + +<p>The festivals of the dead, observed in classical antiquity, +were marked by taboos. Among the Greeks +the rites took place on the so-called ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι, +unlucky days accompanied by complete idleness and +cessation of business. “At such times no one would +address any one else, friends avoided all intercourse +with one another, and even sanctuaries were not used.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_206" href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> +Ancient authorities also refer to these days as times when +magistrates suspended their functions, when courts were +closed, when sacrifices were not offered and oracular +responses were not delivered, and when people refrained +from any business which it was hoped would have a +prosperous outcome.⁠<a id="FNanchor_207" href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> At Athens the festival of the +Genesia, an annual commemoration of the dead, occurred +on the fifth of Boëdromion, a day which was +included among the ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι.⁠<a id="FNanchor_208" href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> Three more +unlucky days were the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth +of Anthesterion, when the Athenians celebrated the +festival of the Anthesteria. Though in outward semblance +only a brilliant ceremony in honour of Dionysus, +the Anthesteria had also a sombre significance as the +time when the shades of the dead issued from the +underworld and walked the streets.⁠<a id="FNanchor_209" href="#Footnote_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> Ropes were +fastened round the temples to keep out the wandering +ghosts, and the people smeared their houses with pitch +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>to catch any rash intruders into the dwellings of living +men. For the entertainment of the unseen guests +during their short stay pots of boiled food were everywhere +placed in the streets; but at the end of the +festival the souls were roughly bidden to depart. The +Anthesteria, in substance, thus formed one of those +numerous ceremonies for the riddance of ghosts by +means of feasting and placation which have so wide a +diffusion in the lower culture.⁠<a id="FNanchor_210" href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Corresponding to the Greek ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι were +the Roman <i>dies religiosi</i>, true days of abstinence, when +it was unlucky to begin a journey or to undertake any +important business. During their continuance temples +and law courts were, or ought to be, closed, magistrates +laid aside the insignia of office, armies did not march, +and no marriages took place.⁠<a id="FNanchor_211" href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> Among the <i>dies religiosi</i> +were those on which the Romans celebrated two festivals +of the dead, the so-called Parentalia in February, +the last month of the old Roman year, and the Lemuria +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>in May. The February celebration, from the thirteenth +to the twenty-first of that month, has been taken to +embody all that was least superstitious and fearful in +the generally terrifying worship of the dead. The +Lemuria (May 9, 11, 13), had rather an opposite character +and probably represents the more ancient rite +for the expulsion of the ghosts of the dead.⁠<a id="FNanchor_212" href="#Footnote_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> The three +days in the Roman year, August 24, October 5, and +November 8, when the door of the Lower World was +unclosed for the spirits of the dead to come forth—<i>quibus +mundus patet</i>—were also <i>religiosi</i>, or unlucky. +“When the <i>mundus</i> is open,” said Varro, “the gate of +the doleful underworld gods is open; therefore, it is +not proper on those days for a battle to be fought, +troops to be levied, the army to march forth, a ship to +set sail, or a man to marry.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_213" href="#Footnote_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>To the Hebrews the Day of Atonement was a <i>shabbāth +shabbāthôn</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_214" href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> the holiest of rest days, “a Sabbath of +solemn rest,” when “no manner of work” might be performed. +The transgressor of this regulation was threatened +with death: “Whoever doeth any work at all on +that same day, I will destroy from among his people.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_215" href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> +A similar punishment was prescribed for one who did +not fast on that day; the expression “to afflict your +souls” (<i>‘innā nephesh</i>) was considered by late theologians +to be a synonym for fasting, and as a matter of +fact the Atonement fast was the only one enjoined by +the Law. On the Day of Atonement a goat, laden +with the sins of the people, was sent forth into the wilderness, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>where it was sacrificed to Azazel, a bad angel +or demon. In the later centuries of Jewish history +this rite took on a more spiritual character, as the +ceremonial aspects of sin and atonement became increasingly +prominent.</p> + +<p>The Day of Atonement has been usually considered +a very late institution, unknown in the time of Zechariah +and even in the age of Nehemiah not employed for +the special purpose of a national humiliation. What +seems more probable is that the Day of Atonement was +taken over and adopted into the Priestly Code of post-Exilic +Judaism from a popular and primitive ceremony +of sin-riddance, doubtless of high antiquity. It is +to be observed that the fast was held on the tenth day +of the seventh month, a day which appears to have +marked, originally, the beginning of the new year.⁠<a id="FNanchor_216" href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> +This would have been an appropriate time for an annual +ceremony of purification, since the new year is so frequently +observed with ceremonies of a cathartic or +apotropaic character. Even in late Old Testament +ritual, New Year’s Day, celebrated as the Feast of +Trumpets on the first day of the seventh month, was +also a <i>shabbāth shabbāthôn</i>, a time of “solemn rest” +and of “holy convocation.” No toilsome work might +then be performed; trumpets were to be blown, perhaps +to indicate its solemnity, and special sacrifices +were to be offered.⁠<a id="FNanchor_217" href="#Footnote_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> Moreover, certain features of the +Atonement ceremony, especially that of the sin-laden +goat, which has so many parallels among the lower +races,⁠<a id="FNanchor_218" href="#Footnote_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> strengthen the probability that the ritual for the +day represents an elaboration of earlier and simpler +customs familiar in pre-Exilic times. If this be true, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>it is not unreasonable to suppose that the “Sabbath of +solemn rest” forms likewise a survival from a still ruder +past, when sin was conceived so materially as a contaminating +influence that common prudence dictated +abstinence from work and other activities at a critical +season devoted to the driving-out of evil.⁠<a id="FNanchor_219" href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Ideas of this sort live long in the minds of men. +The greatest of Mohammedan festivals, the so-called +Feast of Sacrifices, is now celebrated as a means of +securing moral purification and blessing. But the +ceremony rests on a heathen basis, and its principal +feature, an animal sacrifice, was borrowed by Islam from +Arabian paganism. An eminent authority, who has +noticed the striking prevalence of cathartic ceremonies +at the Great Feast, suggests that its primary object +may have been to expel evils which were supposed to +threaten the people at the time of the year when the +sacrifice occurred. “Throughout Morocco the first +day of the feast is kept as a holiday, both by men and +women, and so is generally the second day also, which +in some places is regarded as a particularly dangerous +time. I am told that anybody who should work on that +day would have some grave misfortune—robbers would +kill him at night, or some of his children or animals +would die, or he would be struck with blindness—and +travelling on that day is likewise supposed to be accompanied +with danger. But labour is also suspended on +other days of the feast, especially by the women.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_220" href="#Footnote_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span></p> + +<p>The evidence presented in this chapter raises once +more the perplexing and much-debated problem of the +diffusion of culture. The custom of keeping tabooed +days after a death may be properly described as world-wide, +since it exists in all the continents. And the +observance as Sabbaths of periods devoted to the propitiation +or expulsion of spirits, though less common, +has been also traced among many half-civilized tribes +of Oceania, Asia, and Africa, as well as in classic Greece +and Rome. Within contiguous areas, for example, in +Borneo and the adjoining islands, or among related +peoples, such as the American and Asiatic Eskimo, it +is reasonable to ascribe the uniformity of custom to +long-continued borrowing. Again, the close resemblance +between the Greek and the Roman superstitions +relating to unlucky days—the ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι and the +<i>dies religiosi</i>—is satisfactorily accounted for by the +hypothesis of a common inheritance from prehistoric +antiquity. But where tabooed days are observed for +the same reasons by unrelated peoples, who, as far as +our knowledge reaches, have never been in cultural contact, +the student is obliged to conclude that the beliefs +underlying the custom in question have not been +narrowly limited but belong to the general stock of +primitive ideas. In such cases the doctrine of the +fundamental unity of the human mind seems alone to +be capable of explaining the astonishing similarity of +its products at different times and in different parts of +the world.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br> +<span class="smaller">HOLY DAYS</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>There exists, perhaps, no shorter road to the comprehension +of a religion as a social product than through +the study of its festivals. They are preëminently social +in character; they give expression to the feelings of +an entire community, whether clan, tribe, or nation; +and in their development they are closely associated +with the general progress of society. As civilization +develops, festivals tend to increase in number, to elaborate +their ritual, and to fix more precisely the time and +order of their celebration. It becomes the business of a +particular class—the priesthood—to establish and +maintain a calendar of sacred seasons. We may +assume with some confidence that the priestly attitude +in such matters has not been entirely disinterested. +The holy day, observed with worship, sacrifice, and +offerings, must contribute directly to the well-being +and prestige of the sacerdotal order.</p> + +<p>“The Greeks and the barbarians,” declares an ancient +geographer, “have this in common, that they accompany +their sacred rites by a festal remission of +labour.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_221" href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> In fact most festivals are celebrated as +holidays, when men give up secular occupations and +devote themselves to religious exercises and relaxation. +Festivals, in consequence, assume with advancing +culture a great significance from the economic and +sociological standpoint. For the peasant and the +artisan they provide welcome relief from physical exertion, +and for all ranks of society their pageants and +processions, their games, feasts, and merry-makings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>give an outlet to the play instincts of mankind. We +must not conclude, however, that the remission of +labour accompanying a festival has always been dictated +by practical and non-superstitious considerations. +It has been already pointed out that in some fairly +rude communities abstinence from work is a part of the +regular procedure for facing a crisis and the spiritual +dangers supposed to characterize such an occasion. +The rest is a measure of protection and propitiation, +quite as much as the fasts, the sacrifices, and the +prayers by which it may be attended. Where ideas +of this nature prevail, all labour becomes <i>tabu</i>.</p> + +<p>As we pass from savagery to barbarism and from +animism to polytheism, the notion of taboo, at first +vague and indeterminate, tends to differentiate into +the twin concepts of impurity and holiness. This +differentiation, indeed, is never perfectly accomplished +even by peoples which have reached some measure of +civilization; and the lower races find still greater difficulty +in distinguishing between what is dangerous, +because polluted, and what is dangerous, because +sacred. The “holy” thing and the “unclean” +thing possess alike the mystic potency, the magico-spiritual +power, the <i>mana</i> or <i>orenda</i>, to employ a +terminology which expresses early man’s sense of being +ever surrounded by unknown agencies, among which he +must walk warily, if he is to walk in safety.⁠<a id="FNanchor_222" href="#Footnote_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>To the primitive mind the sanctity which attaches to +the divine chief and king, to such objects of special +reverence as bull-roarers, idols, and altars, and also to +certain places and shrines, is sufficiently material to be +transmissible and to be capable of infecting with its +mysterious qualities whatever is done at a particular +time. The notion of the transmissibility of holiness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>might seem of itself to furnish a sufficient reason for +abstaining from ordinary occupations on a sacred day: +the power that blesses can also blast. In practice, +however, this idea appears to mingle quite inextricably +with the opposite though related conception that what +is holy can be contaminated by contact with the secular +and the profane. Furthermore, when holy days come +to be definitely consecrated to deities, who at such +times are believed to be present among their worshippers, +it is easy to see how the belief arises that a god +is pleased and flattered by the enforced idleness of his +devotees. Abstinence from work then takes its place +among other rites as a recognized way of expressing a +proper reverence for the divinity; while, conversely, +to labour on his holy day implies a disrespectful attitude +toward him. These are sentiments reasonably +certain of continued development, as priestly influence +becomes predominant in any community. “The Lord +thy God is a jealous God.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_223" href="#Footnote_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The consecration of a particular day to a divinity is a +common feature of polytheistic cults. Had we definite +information concerning the origin and development +of the great deities of the higher religions, it would +probably appear that in most instances their connection +with particular days is a secondary rather than a primary +formation. In other words a period dedicated +to a god and observed by his worshippers with abstinence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>from labour may once have been a season of +taboo for other and quite different reasons. Some pertinent +instances of tabooed days which grew into holy +days have already engaged our attention.⁠<a id="FNanchor_224" href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> Thus, in the +comparatively well-developed religious system of the +Hawaiians the New Year’s festival was consecrated to +the god Lono; but the same festival in Fiji was not +associated with any particular divinity. Again, the +Hawaiians observed in every month four <i>tabu</i> periods, +which were severally dedicated to the great gods of the +native pantheon, Ku, Hua, Kaloa, and Kane. That +these Sabbaths had originally no connection with any +divinity and arose in consequence of superstitious beliefs +regarding lunar phenomena is a highly probable conclusion, +when we recall the numerous taboos attaching to the +phases of the moon, for instance, among the Dyak tribes +of Borneo. Once more, the attribution of the Bontoc +Igorot <i>tengao</i>, or rest day, to Lumawig, the only god +throughout the Bontoc culture area, cannot be earlier +than the emergence of this supreme being from the +crowd of spirits in which the native so firmly believes. +Lastly, we have seen how, in the case of the Athenian +Anthesteria, the attribution of the festival to Dionysus +and the cheerful associations with which the fancy of +the Greeks invested it represent a comparatively late +development.</p> + +<p>If many holy days of polytheistic cults were once +tabooed days, it follows that a taboo element may be +looked for in various religious celebrations which in outward +semblance have only a festive, happy character. +Particularly does this seem to be true of the numerous +rites observed by the Dravidian peoples of India. +The Kota, an aboriginal tribe of the Nilgiri Hills, hold +an annual feast, called <i>kambata</i> or <i>kamata</i>, in honour of +Kamataraya. It lasts about a fortnight. On the +second day of the festival no work may be done except +digging clay and making pots.⁠<a id="FNanchor_225" href="#Footnote_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> The Uraon keep three +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>great feasts during the year. The first, known as +<i>sarhul</i>, occurs in May. Its object is said to be the +celebration of the mystical marriage of the sun-god +with the earth-goddess, in order that they may become +fruitful and consequently bestow good crops. At the +same time the Uraon take care to propitiate all the +village spirits, lest the latter should frustrate the efforts +of Sun and Earth to increase and multiply. On the +eve of the appointed day no one is allowed to plough +his fields.⁠<a id="FNanchor_226" href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> In Bengal, Mother Earth is the object of +much devotion. The goddess generally manifests herself +as the benignant source of all things, the giver of the +fruits of the earth. But sometimes she brings disease +and hence requires propitiation. The chief festival +in her honour occurs at the end of the hot season, when +she is supposed to suffer from the impurity common +to women. All ploughing, sowing, and other work +cease at this time, and Bengali widows refrain from +eating cooked rice.⁠<a id="FNanchor_227" href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> A very similar festival, called +<i>ucharal</i>, is celebrated by the natives of the Malabar +coast at the end of January, when Mother Earth has +her annual menstruation. For three days at this time +the people stop all work, except hunting: the house +may not be cleaned; the daily smearing of the floor +with cow-dung is discontinued; and even gardens may +not be watered.⁠<a id="FNanchor_228" href="#Footnote_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> The village rites observed by the +Telugu, Kanarese, and Tamil peoples of southern India, +in honour of their local deities, though unattended by +compulsory abstinence from labour, are clearly of a +propitiatory character. In this respect they are analogous +to the <i>genna</i> customs in Assam. Usually the +people hold no regular festival, but perform their rites +of sacrifice only when some great misfortune—an outbreak +of cholera, smallpox, cattle disease, or drought—has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>convinced them that evil spirits are about and +active. “I have dignified,” writes the Bishop of +Madras, “the periodical sacrifices to the village goddesses +by the name of festivals. But the term is a +misnomer. There is really nothing of a festal character +about them. They are only gloomy and weird +rites for the propitiation of angry deities or the driving +away of evil spirits, and it is very difficult to detect +any traces of a spirit of thankfulness or praise. Even +the term worship is hardly correct. The object of +all the various rites and ceremonies is not to worship +the deity in any true sense of the word, but simply +to propitiate and avert its wrath.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_229" href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> The propitiatory +feature is not absent from some of the purely Hindu +festivals, which in this respect may have been affected +by the cults of the aboriginal peoples of India.⁠<a id="FNanchor_230" href="#Footnote_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>One of the Hebrew agricultural festivals described +in the Old Testament furnishes an instance of what +seem to be ancient taboos surviving in a developed religious +ritual. In the post-Exilic calendar the Day +of First-fruits, inaugurating the Feast of Weeks, was +declared to be a time of “holy convocation,” when no +“servile work” was allowable.⁠<a id="FNanchor_231" href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> Now, primitive peoples +quite commonly observe various ceremonies in connection +with first-fruits, particularly a sacramental eating +of them preliminary to general use.⁠<a id="FNanchor_232" href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> With advancing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>culture this rite tends to be replaced by an act of +definite sacrifice of a portion of the first-fruits to the +spirits or the gods, who have it in their power to give +or to withhold the crops. The rite of first-fruits marks +a time of peculiar solemnity, when gratitude to the +supernatural powers mingles with fear of the hostile +influences which may affect injuriously the grain that +lies still ungathered. So critical an epoch is frequently +inaugurated by a ceremonial cleansing or purgation of +the community; and the rite itself may require fasting +and continence on the part of those who celebrate it. +In at least one case previously noticed, the ceremonial +inbringing of first-fruits formed an occasion for abstaining +from all secular activities.⁠<a id="FNanchor_233" href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> Since a like restriction +was attached to the Hebrew Day of First-fruits, +we may surmise with some probability that +abstinence from labour at this time was observed by +the early Hebrews as a primitive taboo long before the +festival was definitely consecrated to Jehovah. It is +difficult to avoid the same conclusion with respect +to the sabbatarian rules which invested other agricultural +festivals of the Hebrews.⁠<a id="FNanchor_234" href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Greeks in late classical times appear to have +regarded their religious festivals much as we regard our +holidays. “The gods,” said Plato, “in pity for the toils +which our race is born to undergo have appointed holy +festivals, by which men alternate rest and labour.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_235" href="#Footnote_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> +With this remark, indicating that for the philosophic +thinker the process of rationalization had begun, it is +interesting to compare the statement of a modern +scholar that among the Greeks “the time occupied by +the feast of the gods was as sacred, <i>i.e.</i>, as much subject +to taboos, as was the whole of the Jewish Sabbath.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_236" href="#Footnote_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>The unlucky days (ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι) observed by the +Athenians included the twenty-fifth or twenty-ninth +of Thargelion, a day devoted to the celebration of the +Plynteria, the washing festival of their patron goddess. +On this occasion Athene’s image was borne in procession +to the sea, divested of its adornments, and laved +in the purifying waters. Plutarch’s biography of +Alcibiades contains a significant reference to the ceremony. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>At the time when that brilliant though shifty +Greek returned from exile to his native city, the people +were holding the Plynteria, in Athene’s honour. On +that day “the Praxiergidæ solemnize their secret rites: +they remove all the ornaments from her image and cover +it up. Hence the Athenians regard this day as most +unlucky, and do no work on it. It seemed as though +the goddess were receiving him in no friendly fashion, +for she hid her face from his as if to banish him from +her sight.” Xenophon, also, referring to the return +of Alcibiades at the time of the Plynteria, declares that +“none of the Athenians would venture to transact +any serious business on this day.” And Pollux informs +us that the sanctuaries were roped round at the Plynteria, +as at other unlucky times, doubtless to avoid +their being tainted with the pollution of the day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_237" href="#Footnote_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> +The Athenians themselves ascribed the unluckiness of +the day of the Plynteria to the fact of Athene’s absence +from the city during the festival. It is probable, however, +that the Plynteria was at one time a rite of purification +preliminary to the bringing-in of the first-fruits, +and hence a rite which must have existed long before +its ascription to the protecting deity of Athens.⁠<a id="FNanchor_238" href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> So +considered, the Plynteria as a rest day affords a close +parallel to the Tongan <i>inachi</i> and the Hebrew Day of +First-fruits.</p> + +<p>With the Plynteria may be profitably compared the +better-known Roman festival of the Vestalia. The +Athenian ceremonies came in May, the Roman, in +June, but they were alike in content. The nine days +devoted to the Vestalia were ill-omened (<i>religiosi</i>). +During their celebration the innermost sanctuary of +Vesta, shut all the rest of the year, was opened to the +matrons of Rome, who crowded to it barefooted, while +the Vestals themselves offered the sacred cakes made +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>of the first ears of corn plucked a month previously. +On the ninth day (June 15) the temple was swept and +the refuse thrown into the Tiber. Then the <i>dies +religiosi</i> came to an end, as soon as the last act of cleansing +had been duly performed—<i>Quando stercus delatum +fas</i>, “When the rubbish has been carried away.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_239" href="#Footnote_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Roman religious festivals, of which a few, as we +have seen, were celebrated on <i>dies religiosi</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_240" href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> went collectively +under the name of <i>feriæ</i> (<i>dies feriati</i>).⁠<a id="FNanchor_241" href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> The +public <i>feriæ</i>, numbering sixty-one in republican times, +were all consecrated to deities of the state cults. As +illustrating the Roman prejudice against even numbers +as unlucky, it is interesting to note that, with two +exceptions, all these older <i>feriæ</i> occurred on days which, +reckoning from the beginning of the month, would be +denoted by odd numbers. The same superstition +required that, where a festival occupied more than one +day in a month, there should be an interval of one or +three days between the beginning and close of its celebration, +as in the case of the Lemuria on the ninth, +eleventh, and thirteenth of February. The ferial +days were of prehistoric origin, though the testimony +of tradition assigned them to Romulus and particularly +to Numa, the priestly king who was believed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>to have organized the Roman religion. Considering the +great antiquity of the <i>feriæ</i>, it becomes a legitimate +inquiry how far they resemble the festivals observed +in modern times by peoples scarcely inferior in culture +to the Romans at the dawn of their history. What +likeness, in other words, can be traced between the +<i>feriæ</i> and days <i>tabu</i>?</p> + +<p>The ancients made a fundamental distinction between +public and private <i>feriæ</i>. The former included all +festivals which were celebrated by the community at +large, the latter, those which appertained to individuals, +families, <i>gentes</i>, sacred colleges, and other social groups +within the body politic. Since the Roman state +religion was based on the religion of the family and the +<i>gens</i>, we are entitled to believe that the <i>feriæ privatæ</i> +provided the model for the <i>feriæ publicæ</i>; and this view +is confirmed by numerous analogies elsewhere.⁠<a id="FNanchor_242" href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> The +festivals observed by <i>gentes</i> are little known and appear +to have become obsolete at an early date; the family +festivals, on the other hand, flourished throughout antiquity. +All important epochs in the life of a Roman +housefather and his children—birth, naming, assumption +of the <i>toga virilis</i>, marriage, and death—were kept +as ferial days. The <i>feriæ denicales</i> are especially noteworthy, +for they show that the Romans shared the +superstitious notions of many primitive peoples concerning +the noxious influence of death. These ceremonies, +which took place a few days after the funeral, +were for the purpose of purifying the house and its +inmates from the death contagion.⁠<a id="FNanchor_243" href="#Footnote_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> Abstinence from +labour formed a special feature of all family festivals: +they were rest days for both man and beast. As that +model economist, Cato the Elder, remarked, “For +mules, horses, and asses there are no other holidays +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>than those of the family.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_244" href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> However, we must +probably include, as an exception to Cato’s statement, +the festival of the Paganalia, or <i>feriæ sementivæ</i>, which +came in January after the seed had been sown. During +this time the plough rested by command of the gods, +and not the farmer only, but also his slaves and animal +servants, enjoyed holiday idleness. The festival had +a distinctly prophylactic character, being marked by +prayers, offerings, and other rites designed to ward off +evil influences from the crops.⁠<a id="FNanchor_245" href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> The Paganalia, as its +name indicates, was an old village rite which survived +into historic times and became incorporated in the +public <i>feriæ</i> of the Roman city. But before turning to +this division of our subject it may be pointed out that +among the private <i>feriæ</i> were also included those which +were observed by individuals only, as a means of removing +the taint of some impurity which rested upon them. +A man who had pronounced accidentally the names of +certain mysterious divinities was expected to celebrate +a private festival as a means of expiation (<i>ferias observabat</i>). +The Flaminica, or wife of the Flamen Dialis, +who with her husband was subject to many restrictions, +became tabooed—<i>feriata</i>—if she heard thunder, +and might not engage in her religious duties until she +had performed an act of lustration (<i>donec placasset +deos</i>).⁠<a id="FNanchor_246" href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The public <i>feriæ</i> were also occasions for abstinence, +purification, and propitiation. On the calendars they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>are marked <i>nefasti</i>, indicating that at such times all +political and judicial business must be suspended. +In the later period of the Roman Republic unscrupulous +consuls sometimes put this regulation to a base use +by ordering special <i>feriæ</i> for all comitial days, so as to +stave off legislation by their rivals.⁠<a id="FNanchor_247" href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> The gods, on +ferial days, demanded the service of men by visits to +the temples and by prayers and sacrifices. Hence +the <i>feriæ</i> formed public holidays, when even slaves +enjoyed a cessation of toil. “Let contentions of every +kind cease on the sacred festivals, and let servants +enjoy them with a remission of labour; for this purpose +they were appointed at certain seasons.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_248" href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> These +words of Cicero reflect, however, not the original purpose +of the <i>feriæ</i> but only the interpretation put upon +them by a rationalistic thinker in a sophisticated age. +We may assume with confidence that the ferial days +were not established as a boon to the labourer. The +regulations enforced on the <i>feriæ</i> indicate how, in Roman +belief, it was essential that their holiness should not be +polluted by unseemly activity. The <i>rex sacrorum</i> and +<i>flamines</i>, whose lives were passed in an odour of sanctity, +were not allowed even to see any work being done during +the celebration of <i>feriæ</i>; hence, when these officials +went out, heralds preceded them to enjoin the people +from working in their presence. An accidental neglect +of such admonitions was punished with a fine and +atonement was made by the sacrifice of a pig. An +intentional disobedience constituted a crime beyond +the power of atonement.⁠<a id="FNanchor_249" href="#Footnote_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In the later centuries of the republic, with the decay +of supernaturalism, questions began to be raised as +to what kinds of work might legitimately be done on +the public <i>feriæ</i>. The pontiff Umbro declared that it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>was no violation of them for a person to do any work +which had reference to the gods, or the offering of +sacrifices—<i>ad deos pertinens sacrorumve causa</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_250" href="#Footnote_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> All +labour was likewise allowable which was necessary to +supply the urgent wants of life. The pontiff Scævola +held that any work might be done, if suffering and +injury were caused by its neglect or delay—<i>licet quod +prætermissum noceret</i>. If a house threatened to tumble +down on a ferial day, the inhabitants might take the +requisite measures to repair it at this time. And +should a man’s oxe fall into a pit, he might employ workmen +to lift it out without polluting the <i>feriæ</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_251" href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> Cato +thought that on holidays a farmer might repair ditches, +pave the public roads, and make everything neat and +clean about his premises.⁠<a id="FNanchor_252" href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> Vergil, writing when this +rationalistic movement had culminated, asserts that +“even on holy days some work is permitted by the laws +of God and man. The strictest worshipper has never +scrupled to drain the fields, plant a hedge to protect a +crop, set snares for birds, fire the brambles, or wash his +bleating sheep for health’s sake in the stream.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_253" href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> Such +interpretations indicate that in late classical antiquity +the burdens of the old tabooed days were being gradually +lifted, and their observance adjusted to the social +and economic needs of a progressive community.</p> + +<p>Corresponding to the private <i>feriæ</i> observed by individuals +on special occasions were those public holidays +which had to be kept by the community at large, in +consequence of some unusual and terrifying event. +Certain natural phenomena resulted in the cessation of +all activity by the people and the institution of extraordinary +festivals (<i>feriæ imperativæ</i>). These were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>decreed by the magistrates, acting on the advice of the +priests and with the consent of the Senate. Festivals +of this sort were anonymous; they were dedicated +neither to god nor goddess—<i>sive deo sive deæ</i>—for +the divine author of the portent was obviously unknown. +Numerous instances of the celebration of extraordinary +<i>feriæ</i> are noticed by classical historians, especially by +Livy. During the reign of Tullus Hostilius, the third +of Rome’s legendary kings, a rain of stones on the Alban +Mount led to the institution of a nine days’ festival. +Shortly after the establishment of the republic an aurora +borealis so terrified the people that they kept a three +days’ festival. About half a century after the sack +of Rome by the Gauls a rain of stones, accompanied by +an obscuration of the sun, made it necessary for the +Senate to appoint a dictator whose special business it +was to appease the supernatural powers by appointing +holidays and performing ceremonies. When Hannibal +was in Italy, threatening the life of the Roman commonwealth, +Heaven seemed to multiply portents, and +Livy particularly mentions two occasions when a +shower of stones provoked compulsory holidays for the +usual period (<i>novemdiales feriæ</i>). Earthquakes always +aroused superstitious fears and made it necessary to +celebrate propitiatory <i>feriæ</i>. In the year 193 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> the +frequent earthquakes led to the institution of so many +festivals that all public business was blocked; the +Senate could not meet and the consuls were constantly +employed in rites of propitiation. Under these circumstances, +so Livy tells us, the people grew weary, +not only of the earthquakes but also of the <i>feriæ</i> appointed +to expiate them, and an edict was passed that, +whenever <i>feriæ</i> were ordered to be observed on a certain +day, in consequence of an earthquake, no fresh disturbance +of the sort was to be reported on that same +day. Only a year after the publication of this amusing +edict the Romans were terrified by earthquake shocks +which lasted for thirty-eight days, a period which was +marked by a total cessation of business. And more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>than two hundred years later the emperor Claudius, +when an earthquake happened at Rome, never failed +to appoint holidays for sacred rites. Similar ceremonies, +<i>pro valetudine populi</i>, were sometimes performed +to drive away a devastating pestilence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_254" href="#Footnote_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>To the ancient Romans the celebration of ferial days +thus provided an appropriate and effectual method of +meeting a crisis. Like the tabooed days observed in +Polynesia, Indonesia, and southeastern Asia at the +present time, the <i>feriæ</i> were occasions for the propitiation +of supernatural and hostile powers. As such they +must have been, originally, periods of gloom and not of +joy. That subsequently, when superstition had in +some measure relaxed its grip, they became festive occasions, +celebrated so luxuriously that both Sulla and +Augustus felt themselves obliged to promulgate laws +restricting expenditures in connection with them,⁠<a id="FNanchor_255" href="#Footnote_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> may +be taken as only another instance of man’s ineradicable +tendency to convert his fast days into feast days.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br> +<span class="smaller">MARKET DAYS</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>Rest days, more or less regular in occurrence and +following at short intervals after periods of continuous +labour, are frequently observed by primitive agriculturists. +Sabbaths of this sort seem to be unknown +among migratory hunting and fishing peoples or among +nomadic pastoral tribes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_256" href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> A wandering hunter requires +no regular day of rest, since his life passes in alternations +of continuous labour, while following the chase, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>and of almost uninterrupted idleness, after a successful +hunt. For the shepherd there can be no relaxation +of the diurnal duties, for every morning the cattle +must be driven abroad to pasture, they must be watched +and watered, and at night they must be milked. And, +as Rudolf von Ihering has suggested, the shepherd, +compared with the farmer, scarcely needs a regular +rest day; his occupation causes him so little continuous +exertion that he can pursue it all the year round +without any injury to his health. A farmer, however, +is benefited by a period of rest recurring more or less +regularly, and, though agricultural pursuits are dependent +on the seasons and weather, he is usually +able to postpone his work for a brief period without +serious loss. It might be argued, therefore, that the +change from pastoral to agricultural life would itself +be sufficient to call into existence the institution of a +periodic rest day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_257" href="#Footnote_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> The evidence to be submitted +suggests, however, that the connection of the rest day +with the farmer’s pursuits is secondary, rather than +direct, and is due to the obvious fact that the Sabbath +institution implies a settled life, a more or less developed +form of social organization and government, and something +approaching a calendar system.</p> + +<p>The greater number of periodic rest days observed +by agricultural peoples in the lower stages of culture +are associated with the institution of the market.⁠<a id="FNanchor_258" href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> +Days on which markets regularly take place are not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>infrequently characterized by sabbatarian regulations. +It is necessary, therefore, to present in some detail the +evidence for market weeks and market days in various +parts of the world.⁠<a id="FNanchor_259" href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Some Australian tribes have established trade centres, +where there are periodical meetings for the purpose +of exchanging the products and manufactures of neighbouring +communities. More or less bartering occurs +also in connection with great tribal convocations, especially +those for the initiation ceremonies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_260" href="#Footnote_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> Necessarily, +such gatherings take place at infrequent intervals. +The beginnings of regular markets may, however, be +traced in certain parts of New Guinea and among some +of the Melanesian Islands. The natives of the Mekeo +District of British New Guinea are said to hold markets, +every fifth day at Mawaia and Mohu (on the banks +of the Angabunga River), and at other intervals elsewhere. +Women from several villages will assemble +at some appointed place, usually on the boundary +between two tribes, and there will exchange their products +for commodities from other localities. The bartering +lies entirely in the hands of the women, who, +however, are accompanied by a few armed men acting +as a guard.⁠<a id="FNanchor_261" href="#Footnote_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> The Kerepunu of Hood Peninsula, to +the east of Port Moresby, are described by a missionary +who knew them well as most industrious farmers: +every morning men, women, and children go to work +in the fields and return only at nightfall. “They have +a rule, to which they strictly adhere all the year round, +of working for two days and resting the third.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_262" href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>Kerepunu rest day may have originated in a practice, +now lapsed, of holding a market every third day, since +there is evidence for the former existence of markets +in the neighbourhood of Port Moresby.⁠<a id="FNanchor_263" href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> The natives +of Patipi and Roembatti, on the MacCluer Gulf in the +extreme western part of Dutch New Guinea, have +markets, which as a rule recur every fifth day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_264" href="#Footnote_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> In +the Gazelle Peninsula, Bismarck Archipelago, markets +at which the women buy and sell take place every third +day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_265" href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> In New Caledonia, where each tribe is divided +into sea-folk and bush-folk, the former being cocoa-tree +planters and fishers, the latter being yam-growers, +there is said to be a lively market conducted each week +by the women. “The ladies [<i>sic</i>] of each section of +the tribe sit down in rows with their produce before +them, and barter is transacted in dances, with a good +deal of manœuvring.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_266" href="#Footnote_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> In some parts of old Polynesia +markets were held at stated periods, but, unfortunately, +no record seems to have been made of the +time intervals in popular use.⁠<a id="FNanchor_267" href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Markets take place in Celebes,⁠<a id="FNanchor_268" href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> Sumatra, and Java, +usually every fifth day, but sometimes at shorter intervals. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>Among the Batta of Sumatra a market occurs +every third, fourth, or fifth day, according to a regular +succession and in a designated place, until the round +of participating villages has been made. At Batta +markets all hostilities are suspended, and it is sometimes +required that every man who carries a musket in the +market place shall put a green bough in the muzzle, +as a token of his peaceful intentions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_269" href="#Footnote_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> The Javanese +<i>pasar</i>, or market week, consisted of five days—<i>lege</i> +(or <i>manis</i>), <i>pahing</i> (or <i>pa</i>), <i>pon</i>, <i>wage</i>, and <i>kaliwon</i>. +The principal use of the Javanese week was to determine +the markets or fairs held in the important towns.⁠<a id="FNanchor_270" href="#Footnote_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The <i>pasar</i> spread from Java to the island of Bali, +where it is employed in combination with the week of +seven days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_271" href="#Footnote_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> In the Malay Peninsula, side by side +with the ordinary seven-day week, there is a popular +cycle of five days used for the determination of lucky +and unlucky days. The names of the days are those of +Hindu divinities, but the cycle itself is probably of +Javanese origin.⁠<a id="FNanchor_272" href="#Footnote_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Markets recurring every fifth day are found among +the Indo-Chinese, as in Tonkin⁠<a id="FNanchor_273" href="#Footnote_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> and the various Lao +states of northern Siam.⁠<a id="FNanchor_274" href="#Footnote_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> Among the Shan all work +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>ceases on market days, except what is necessarily +involved in buying and selling. Every native tries +to be in his own village when the market takes place +there, not only to trade but also to exchange news and +gossip. The centre of the village becomes a forum, +where every subject is fully discussed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_275" href="#Footnote_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> “The Shan +is a born trader, and the great feature of life in this +country is the bazaar, which is held on every fifth day +at all the chief villages of the states.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_276" href="#Footnote_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> Another +traveller tells us that on the first three of the five days +constituting the Shan market week small bazaars are +held in different parts of the country, but no trading +takes place anywhere on the fourth day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_277" href="#Footnote_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> The Khasi +of Assam have a great market every eighth day, from +which circumstance they have developed a week of +eight days. “The reason of the eight-day week is +because the markets are usually held every eighth day. +The names of the days of the week are not those of +planets, but of places where the principal markets +are held, or used to be held, in the Khasi and Jaintia +hills.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_278" href="#Footnote_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> It may be regarded as certain that this eight-day +period arose from a doubling of an earlier four-day +cycle, as has been the case among certain African +peoples. Even now in the Wár country, lying to the +south of the Khasi and Jaintia District, markets are +usually held every fourth day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_279" href="#Footnote_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Throughout the central parts of Africa, from the +British and German possessions in the east to those of +the Portuguese and French in the west, there are numerous +market places where neighbouring communities +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>meet regularly to exchange their productions. Usually +every fourth day is a market day, observed with the +cessation of ordinary occupations, and by the Wanika +of British East Africa, according to missionary testimony, +with feasting and carousing.⁠<a id="FNanchor_280" href="#Footnote_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> In the same part +of British East Africa the Wagiriama possess a week of +four days, each with its name.⁠<a id="FNanchor_281" href="#Footnote_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> Among the Akikuyu, +who employ thirty-day months beginning with new +moon, there is a week of four days, the latter being +indicated by the names of the different markets held +on them. Each market is held on the fourth day of +the cycle, and no two markets in the same neighbourhood +occur on the same day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_282" href="#Footnote_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> The Akikuyu market +places in populous districts are often not more than +seven miles apart. The site chosen for a market is +usually a hill-top, sufficiently open and accessible to +accommodate the natives who may assemble there to +the number of four or five thousand. All in all the +market forms a very important feature of Akikuyu +society.⁠<a id="FNanchor_283" href="#Footnote_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> The Wachaga of German East Africa, who +dwell on the southern slopes of mighty Kilimanjaro, +the highest mountain in Africa, hold a daily market, +so ordered as to recur every third day in one of three +neighbouring settlements. The days of this three-day +week are separately named, and hence the Wachaga +always know where the market is to be held. The +markets, which are said to be very ancient, are visited +only by women.⁠<a id="FNanchor_284" href="#Footnote_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> The English missionary, David +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>Livingstone, has described the markets held by the +Manyema, who occupy part of the territory between +Lake Tanganyika and the Congo. As many as three +thousand people, chiefly women, may sometimes be +seen in the <i>chitoka</i>, or market place. The market is +held to-day in one locality, to-morrow in another, and +so on till the cycle of four days is completed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_285" href="#Footnote_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> Among +the natives on the lower Lomami River, near the equator, +markets are described as recurring every third +day,⁠<a id="FNanchor_286" href="#Footnote_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> and among the Bakuba (Bushongo), who occupy +the valley of the Sankuru River, every fifth day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_287" href="#Footnote_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> The +Baluba, whose territory lies between the Sankuru and +Kasai rivers, hold important markets. A German +explorer who was present at one of them described the +market place as neutral ground, where even members +of hostile tribes might appear without danger. The +chief, in whose honour this primitive fair was held, +kept peace and order, assisted by half a dozen stalwart +guards carrying broad axes on their shoulders. Whenever +any dispute arose, these policemen were immediately +on the scene of action.⁠<a id="FNanchor_288" href="#Footnote_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> The four-day market +week is found among various tribes, such as the Bayaka,⁠<a id="FNanchor_289" href="#Footnote_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> +Bambala,⁠<a id="FNanchor_290" href="#Footnote_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> and Bahuana,⁠<a id="FNanchor_291" href="#Footnote_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> + occupying the region between +the Loange and Kwango rivers, tributaries of the +Kasai.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span></p> + +<p>The market week (<i>lumingu</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_292" href="#Footnote_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a>⁠), four days in length, +appears to be generally diffused among the peoples on +both banks of the lower Congo. A missionary, long +resident in this part of Africa, tells us that here the +week consists of four days, named <i>nkandu</i>, <i>konzo</i>, +<i>nkenge</i>, and <i>nsona</i> in the cataract region. The markets +are designated after the days of the week and the towns +near which they are held. For instance, the Manyama +market is known as <i>nsona a Manyama</i>, because it is +held on <i>nsona</i> day. The great trade markets, however, +usually occur every eighth day, for the convenience of +traders and to insure a good attendance. At the +smaller, local markets, held every fourth day, exchanges +are limited to goats, fowls, and foodstuffs. Every +one wants to increase the attendance at these local +markets; hence it may be declared a penal offence for +a woman to go to her farm on the market day. “In +some parts another day of the short week is declared +to be an unlucky day for farming operations. This is +no lingering trace of the idea of a Sabbath, for the day +fixed is most arbitrary, two adjacent villages avoiding +different days, while in others the women will work +any day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_293" href="#Footnote_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> An early explorer, referring to the custom +of observing <i>nsona</i> as a rest day, declares that +“on this day they refrain from working in the plantations, +under the superstitious notion that the crop +would fail; they, however, perform any other kind of +work.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_294" href="#Footnote_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> In Loango, where the natives have a month +of twenty-eight days reckoned from new moon, seven +weeks are counted to the month. The four weekdays +are called, respectively, <i>nsona</i>, <i>nduka</i>, <i>ntono</i>, and +<i>nsilu</i>, the first being regarded as a day of rest.⁠<a id="FNanchor_295" href="#Footnote_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> Another +writer describes <i>sona</i> (<i>nsona</i>) as the men’s day +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>of rest, but the women’s market day, when the latter +buy and sell in the market. At this time it is regarded +as wrong for husbands to have intercourse with their +wives. On another day, <i>ntona</i> (<i>ntono</i>), the women +may not plant, and burials take place.⁠<a id="FNanchor_296" href="#Footnote_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> With these +accounts it is interesting to compare the statement of +an old writer, according to whom the Loango negroes +“never work above three days in succession; the fourth +is for them a general rest day, during which they are +not allowed to engage in tillage. The men, who repose +habitually, work still less on that day. They +walk, sport, and go to market. The missionaries have +been unable to procure from the negroes any explanation +of this period of four days, which forms their +week.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_297" href="#Footnote_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The market is a well-developed institution among +the semi-civilized negroes about the Gulf of Guinea. +In this part of Africa the sabbatarian character of the +market day is specially pronounced. Markets every +third, fifth, eighth, or tenth day have been noticed +in the interior districts of Kamerun. Market days +are observed with abstinence from work of every sort, +including farm labour; indeed, says an observer, +they may be considered the Sundays of the native +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>calendar.⁠<a id="FNanchor_298" href="#Footnote_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> In Old Calabar the week consists of eight +days. The weekdays are named from peculiar rites +of the <i>egbo</i> secret society performed thereon, or from +the markets which occur on them. That the week +here originally contained four days only is obvious +from the circumstance that the names applied to the +second group of four days are the same as those which +the four days of the first group receive, except for being +preceded in each case by the adjective “little.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_299" href="#Footnote_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> +The Ibo and other tribes of the Niger Delta (Southern +Nigeria) observe <i>eke</i>, the first day of the four-day week, +as the appropriate time for abstaining from toilsome +labour and for marketing. Natives are forbidden +to climb a cocoanut tree on <i>eke</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_300" href="#Footnote_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> Among the Asaba +people, a branch of the powerful Ibo tribe, there seems +not to be any communal regulation respecting the +observance of <i>eke</i>: “the days for rest, for public market, +and for work vary with the individual according to the +particular governing <i>juju</i> [fetish] as determined by the +medicine man.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_301" href="#Footnote_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> Among the Edo, or Bini, of Southern +Nigeria the week is everywhere a recognized period +of time. It is, properly speaking, four days in length, +this being the interval between the two markets in any +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>given locality. Occasionally, as in the Ida District, +markets are found every eighth day, “but the names +applied to the intervening days clearly show that a +four-day week was the primary one.” One of the four +days is commonly known as the rest day, when men +often stay at home—though farm work is not absolutely +forbidden—and when women go to the market.⁠<a id="FNanchor_302" href="#Footnote_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The excellent studies of the late Lieutenant-Colonel +Ellis, supplemented by later accounts, furnish a considerable +amount of information regarding the rest +days observed by the Yoruba-speaking and Ewe-speaking +peoples of the Slave Coast and by the Tshi-speaking +and Ga-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast. +Some of these African Sabbaths are kept only by families +or by the inhabitants of a single locality. Among +the Tshi, for example, on the day sacred to the tutelary +deity of a family all its members wear white or light-coloured +clothes, mark themselves with white clay, and +abstain from work. The day sacred to the tutelary +deity of a town is celebrated in the same manner.⁠<a id="FNanchor_303" href="#Footnote_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span></p> + +<p>In this part of west Africa particular days of the week +are assigned to the gods worshipped by different classes +of the community. The Yoruba keep the first day of +the week as a general Sabbath, but each of the remaining +days is a period of rest only for the followers of +the god to which it is dedicated.⁠<a id="FNanchor_304" href="#Footnote_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> For the adherents +of a god to violate the day sacred to him is a serious +offence, punishable with a fine, and in former times, +with death. The notion prevails that, if the honour +of the god is not vindicated by his followers, all will +suffer for the neglect. “The Sabbath-breaker is, in +fact, killed by the other worshippers of the god from +motives of self-protection.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_305" href="#Footnote_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> While the first day of the +Tshi week is a general Sabbath, <i>bna-da</i>, the second day, +is the fishermen’s holiday. Any fisherman who ventures +forth on this day is fined and his catch thrown +into the sea. In former times he would have been put +to death.⁠<a id="FNanchor_306" href="#Footnote_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> The fifth day, <i>iffi-da</i>, of the Tshi week is +the regular rest day for farmers.⁠<a id="FNanchor_307" href="#Footnote_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> Similarly, among +the Ewe every tribal deity, with one exception, has a +sacred day, observed by his followers to the accompaniment +of much eating, drinking, and dancing.⁠<a id="FNanchor_308" href="#Footnote_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>All these west African peoples divide the month into +weeks and keep one weekday as a general Sabbath. +Among the Yoruba, whose week is said to consist of +five days,⁠<a id="FNanchor_309" href="#Footnote_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> the first day (<i>ako-ojo</i>) “is considered unlucky, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>and no business of importance is ever undertaken +on it. On this day all the temples are swept +out, and water, for the use of the gods, is brought in +procession.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_310" href="#Footnote_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> The Ewe of Dahomey are said to observe +every fourth day as a holiday, “not kept holy, +but devoted to the will of the working classes; in short, +a sort of remuneration to the slave for the three days’ +labour.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_311" href="#Footnote_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> Weeks of four, five, and six days, usually +ending in a general market day which is also a rest day, +have been observed in various parts of Togo.⁠<a id="FNanchor_312" href="#Footnote_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span></p> + +<p>The week of seven days is not unknown to the Guinea +negroes. Its presence in the hinterland of Togo is +clearly due to the influence of Islam; in fact, the market +day here recurs on Friday, the Mohammedan +Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_313" href="#Footnote_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> Some of the Ewe peoples nearer the Slave +Coast also use a seven-day cycle, which appears to +have been borrowed by them from their neighbours, +the Tshi tribes of the Gold Coast.⁠<a id="FNanchor_314" href="#Footnote_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> The Tshi keep +<i>adjwo-da</i>, the first day of their seven-day week, as a +general Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_315" href="#Footnote_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> The Ga of the Gold Coast, who also +have the seven-day week, observe the first day as a +communal Sabbath. Its name, <i>dsu</i>, means “purification,” +a term which seems also to have been used +as a title of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_316" href="#Footnote_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span></p> + +<p>Although market weeks of varying length have been +reported among some of the other Sudanese negroes +south of the Niger,⁠<a id="FNanchor_317" href="#Footnote_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> it is clear that the Mohammedan +advance in this region has brought with it the week of +seven days and the custom of holding a market every +seventh day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_318" href="#Footnote_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> Similarly, in other parts of Africa, as +on the lower Congo, the European week of seven days +has taken the place of the shorter native cycles, with +the result that, where earlier the market came every +fourth day, at present it recurs every seventh day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_319" href="#Footnote_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> +These facts make it practically certain that the seven-day +week, found among the Ewe, Tshi, and Ga, was +originally taken over from Islam. Lieutenant-Colonel +Ellis, indeed, regarded it as a purely African institution,⁠<a id="FNanchor_320" href="#Footnote_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> +but he himself pointed out that Mohammedan +states were formed to the north of the forest country +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>of the Gold Coast as early as the eleventh century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, +and that the period since then has been long enough +to allow the new mode of reckoning to become known +throughout the entire country. The Tshi, who seem +to have moved from the Sudan interior to the coast +districts at no very remote period, doubtless took with +them their septenary mode of reckoning, which, as we +have seen, they communicated to the Ewe and the Ga.</p> + +<p>The market, with its accompaniments, the market +week and the market day, has thus been shown to +prevail throughout equatorial Africa, on the Guinea +coast, and in the basin of the Niger and the Nile.⁠<a id="FNanchor_321" href="#Footnote_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> +The wide diffusion of this institution is doubtless in +large measure the outcome of borrowing from tribe to +tribe. A market, however, tends naturally to come +into existence whenever neighbouring peoples have +goods to exchange and the willingness to exchange +them. The market place is originally in some neutral +district on the tribal borders, where all hostilities must +cease. In process of time the increasing friendliness +between communities makes it possible for the market +to be held in the different settlements according to a +definite and well-known sequence. With the regular +market is inseparably connected the market week, the +length of which varies from three to ten days. The +shorter intervals of three, four, and five days reflect +the simple economy of primitive life, since the market +must recur with sufficient frequency to permit neighbouring +communities, who keep on hand no large stocks +of food and other necessaries, to obtain them from one +another. The longer cycles of six, eight, and ten days, +much less common, apparently arise by doubling the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>earlier period, whenever it is desired to hold a great +market for the produce of a wide area. That the +recurrence of the market determines the length of the +week is made obvious by the practice of naming the +several weekdays from the markets that take place on +them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_322" href="#Footnote_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> Thus there comes into existence a definite +and recognized cycle of time, shorter than the lunar +month and in origin unconnected with it, a true periodic +week, running continuously from month to month +and from year to year.</p> + +<p>A market day is necessarily more or less of a rest +day. Those who attend a market must abandon for +the time being their usual occupations. It is also a +holiday, affording opportunities for social intercourse, +sports, and amusements of all sorts. Such seems to +be the character of most of the market days found in +southeastern Asia and the adjacent islands, as well as +in some parts of Africa. On the lower Congo, however, +the market day sometimes bears an unlucky character, +and a distinct tendency exists to attach various restrictions +to it. In the Guinea region the market day +often, though not always, coincides with the general +day of rest observed by an entire community. As +such it may be consecrated to a god. The same practice, +we have seen, prevails in respect to the holy days +of individuals, families, towns, and particular classes +of the community. This extensive development of +sabbatarian regulations appears to be peculiar to west +Africa.</p> + +<p>The market week and the market day, though apparently +unknown to the ruder tribes of America, formed +a feature of those more advanced civilizations which +were developed in the valleys of Mexico and Central +America, and on the lofty tablelands of Colombia and +Peru. Each important pueblo of Mexico held a market +(<i>tianguiztli</i>) every fifth day, it being provided that +neighbouring pueblos should observe different days, +in order to secure a regular sequence of markets. All +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>adults were obliged by law to resort to the <i>tianguiztli</i>, +and severe penalties were imposed on those who exchanged +commodities anywhere but at the appointed +place and at the appointed time. The market days of +old Mexico thus appear as compulsory holidays, when +the people relinquished their usual occupations and +assembled in great numbers, not only to buy and sell, +but also, as we are told, to engage in games and festivities.⁠<a id="FNanchor_323" href="#Footnote_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> +The five-day market week also existed in +various parts of Central America.⁠<a id="FNanchor_324" href="#Footnote_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> In the Colombian +Andes, among the Muysca (Chibcha) of Bogota, who +had attained a degree of civilization far in advance of +that reached by the other aborigines of Colombia, +regular markets took place, apparently every third +day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_325" href="#Footnote_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> If the Muysca week consisted only of three +days, that of the Peruvians extended to ten days, ending +in a holiday which was also a market day. The +institution was attributed to the Apu-Ccapac-Ynca, +whose beneficent activities gained for him the appellation +of Pachacutec, “Reformer of the World.” To +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>an old chronicler, himself of Ynca blood, this Peruvian +Sabbath appeared to be devised solely for utilitarian +ends. “In order that labour might not be so continuous +as to become oppressive, the Ynca ordained that +there should be three holidays every month, in which +the people should divert themselves with various games. +He also commanded that there should be three fairs +every month, when the labourers in the field should +come to market and hear anything that the Ynca or his +council might have ordained. They called these +assemblies <i>catu</i>, and they took place on the holidays.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_326" href="#Footnote_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> +Considering how frequently eight and ten-day weeks +have arisen by doubling periods of four and five days, +respectively, it seems not unlikely that the Peruvian +decade grew out of an earlier market week of five days +similar to the Mexican institution.</p> + +<p>Another important instance of the market week and +the market day in archaic civilizations is that of the +Roman <i>nundinum</i> and <i>nundinæ</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_327" href="#Footnote_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> The nundinal cycle, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>eight days in length, began (or closed) with a day +when the peasants came to Rome for purposes of +trade. The nundinal day, however, was more than a +market day. At this time the ordinary occupations +were interrupted; school-children enjoyed a holiday; +and sumptuous banquets celebrated the festive +occasion.</p> + +<p>The origin and early development of the <i>nundinæ</i> +are veiled in obscurity. The institution enjoyed a +high antiquity, tradition ascribing it now to Romulus, +now to Servius Tullius, and now to the first consuls.⁠<a id="FNanchor_328" href="#Footnote_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> +In historic times the <i>nundinæ</i> present themselves as +the market days and holidays of a laborious peasantry; +it may be questioned, indeed, whether they were ever +anything else. It seems probable that, at least from +the middle of the fifth century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, the <i>nundinæ</i> could +be used for the settlement of judicial business, as is +indicated by a passage in the Twelve Tables referring +to them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_329" href="#Footnote_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> Furthermore, there is reason to believe +that, until the passage of the Hortensian law in 287 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, +the nundinal days were available for meetings of the +public assemblies. This unfortunate piece of legislation +effectually debarred the rural voters from participation +in law-making on the very occasions when the +largest number of them would naturally be in the capital +city.⁠<a id="FNanchor_330" href="#Footnote_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> The classical writers were uncertain whether +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>the <i>nundinæ</i> should properly be included among the +ferial days, that is, among the days which belonged to +gods and not to men.⁠<a id="FNanchor_331" href="#Footnote_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> In Varro’s time the pontiffs +held that the <i>nundinæ</i> were not <i>feriatæ</i>, but many +writers, cited by Macrobius, maintained the contrary +opinion. The <i>nundinæ</i> certainly never became public +festivals in the technical sense, though they were dedicated +to Jupiter, to whom the Flaminica Dialis sacrificed +a bull on their recurrence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_332" href="#Footnote_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> In this consecration +to a deity the <i>nundinæ</i> further resembled some of the +west African market days.</p> + +<p>The Roman <i>nundinum</i> and <i>nundinæ</i> have much +historic interest. The eight-day cycle, as a periodic +week unconnected with the lunar month, presented a +close parallel to the Jewish week of seven days. Further +parallels existed in the absence of names for the weekdays, +Roman and Jewish, and in the special observance +of one day of each week by abstention from the +customary occupations. It is scarcely surprising to +find, therefore, that the Roman <i>nundinæ</i>, together with +the <i>feriæ</i>, contributed to the development of the Christian +Sunday. The earliest Sunday law is the brief +edict of Constantine (321 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>), enacting that magistrates, +city people, and artisans were to rest “on the +venerable day of the Sun.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_333" href="#Footnote_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> This legislation by +Constantine probably bore no relation to Christianity; +it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in his +capacity of Pontifex Maximus, was only adding the +day of the Sun, the worship of which was then firmly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>established in the Roman Empire, to the other ferial +days of the sacred calendar. Much significance must +be attached to that part of Constantine’s edict permitting +agricultural labour on Sunday, “since it frequently +happens that the sowing of grain and planting of vines +cannot be so advantageously performed on any other +day.” In this particular the emperor was following +the long-accepted rule as to the observance of the +<i>feriæ</i> in country districts.⁠<a id="FNanchor_334" href="#Footnote_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> Another regulation of +Constantine’s, expressly appointing markets to be held +on Sunday, doubtless represents an effort to assimilate +the old Roman nundinal day to the new weekly Sunday.⁠<a id="FNanchor_335" href="#Footnote_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> +With the final triumph of Christianity over +paganism the old <i>feriæ</i> and the <i>nundinæ</i> were abolished, +Sunday, with the other Christian festivals, being substituted +in their place.⁠<a id="FNanchor_336" href="#Footnote_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a>⁠</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br> +<span class="smaller">LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>There is good reason for believing that among many +primitive peoples the moon, rather than the sun, the +planets, or any of the constellations, first excited the +imagination and aroused feelings of superstitious awe +or of religious veneration. The worship of the moon +is widespread; and in various mythologies that luminary, +often conceived as masculine, plays the most +important part among the heavenly bodies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_337" href="#Footnote_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> “That +the moon has certain effects on moist substances, that +they are apparently subject to her influences, that, for +instance, increase and decrease in ebb and flow develop +periodically and parallel with the moon’s phases, all +this is well known to the inhabitants of seashores and +seafaring people. Likewise physicians are well aware +that she affects the <i>humores</i> of sick people, and that +the fever-days revolve parallel with the moon’s course. +Physical scholars know that the life of animals and +plants depends upon the moon, and experimentalists +know that she influences marrow and brain, eggs and +the sediments of wine in casks and jugs, that she excites +the minds of people who sleep in full moonlight, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>that she affects (?) linen clothes which are exposed to +it. Peasants know how the moon acts upon fields of +cucumbers, melons, cotton, etc., and even make the +times for the various kinds of sowing, planting, and +grafting, and for the covering of the cattle depend +upon the course of the moon. Lastly, astronomers +know that meteorologic occurrences depend upon the +various phases through which the moon passes in her +revolutions.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_338" href="#Footnote_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> This succinct statement, by a learned +Mohammedan of the eleventh century, of the reasons +which led early philosophers to attach a special significance +to the moon, may well serve as a text for elucidation +and illustration.</p> + +<p>It is a widespread and ancient belief, found among +peoples in all stages of culture, that the lunar rays are +deleterious, especially to little children. Some Brazilian +Indians, for instance, believe that the moon makes +babies ill; hence mothers, immediately after delivery, +will hide themselves and their infants in the thickest +part of the forest, in order to prevent the moonlight +from falling on them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_339" href="#Footnote_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> Yao boys, when undergoing +initiation into manhood, are told to avoid not only a +menstruating woman but also the sight of the new moon, +since both are dangerous.⁠<a id="FNanchor_340" href="#Footnote_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> Greek nurses took special +pains never to show their charges to the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_341" href="#Footnote_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> In +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>modern Germany it is an injunction of peasant folklore +never to point out the moon to young children.⁠<a id="FNanchor_342" href="#Footnote_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Moonshine may also be deemed injurious to adults. +Certain Queensland aborigines will not stare long at +the moon, for by doing so a heavy rain is likely to result.⁠<a id="FNanchor_343" href="#Footnote_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> +The Bushmen of South Africa avoid looking at the +moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_344" href="#Footnote_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> The Chukchi of northeastern Siberia believe +that a man who looks too long at the moon may be +bereft of his wits, or may be carried away altogether. +The moon, think the Chukchi, has a lasso with which he +catches the unlucky starer.⁠<a id="FNanchor_345" href="#Footnote_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> When an English traveller +in Arabia was noticed gazing at the radiant desert +moon, the Bedouin said, “Look not so fixedly on him; +it is not wholesome.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_346" href="#Footnote_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a> The same idea seems to have +found expression in one of the most beautiful of the +<i>Psalms</i>: “The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the +moon by night.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_347" href="#Footnote_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> Two New Testament passages +illustrate the belief that epilepsy may be caused by the +lunar rays.⁠<a id="FNanchor_348" href="#Footnote_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> Similarly, the Babylonians believed that +Sin, the moon-god, could provoke leprosy, dropsy, +and, above all, fever, which, like the lunar phases, +has its periods of growth, culmination, and decline.⁠<a id="FNanchor_349" href="#Footnote_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> +Plutarch refers to the assumed fact that those who +sleep abroad under the beams of the moon are not +easily wakened, but seem stupid and senseless.⁠<a id="FNanchor_350" href="#Footnote_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> This +fear of the noxious influences of moonshine may be +traced from classical times to the present day. French +peasants consider it dangerous to sleep in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>moonlight.⁠<a id="FNanchor_351" href="#Footnote_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> German peasants subject themselves to a long +list of restrictions: no work, and especially no spinning, +must be done in the moonlight, for the spun yarn +would not hold, or the spinner would be spinning for +her child a hangman’s halter or the linen of a shroud; +no waggon or tools should be left exposed to the moonshine, +for they would soon be broken; washed clothes +should not be hung out to dry in the moonlight, for he +who wore them would become moonstruck; one who +sews by moonlight sews his own graveclothes; water +from a spring or well in which the moon shines should +not be drunk, since this would be to absorb the evil +influences of the moon; one should never look long +at the moon, under penalty of getting a goitre; the +lunar rays should never penetrate into the kitchen, +or otherwise the maid would break many dishes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_352" href="#Footnote_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> +So numerous, indeed, are these lunar superstitions +that throughout Germany Monday, as partaking of +the qualities of the moon from which it is named, is +generally an unlucky day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_353" href="#Footnote_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> In various parts of the +United States the belief prevails that it is dangerous +to sleep with the moon shining on the face. If fish +are exposed to moonshine, they will spoil.⁠<a id="FNanchor_354" href="#Footnote_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Various peoples have noticed that monthly periodicity +belongs to women and moon alike, and, joining +these observations, have supposed that the lunar +changes cause menstruation, or that the first appearance +of the menses is the result of defloration induced +by the moon. As a natural outcome of such beliefs +the moon is credited with the power of impregnation +and is associated with childbirth.⁠<a id="FNanchor_355" href="#Footnote_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> Such superstitions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>are widespread. In the native legends of the Euahlayi, +a tribe of New South Wales, Bahloo, the moon, is a +very important personage. He it is who creates the +girl babies. Euahlayi mothers are very careful not to +look at the full moon or to let their babies do so, for +an attack of thrush, an affection common in newly +born children, would be the result. Bahloo has also +a spiteful way of punishing a woman who stares at +him by sending to her the dreaded twins.⁠<a id="FNanchor_356" href="#Footnote_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> In Saibai +and Yam, two islands in Torres Straits, it is believed +that the moon, in the shape of a man, embraces a girl +when she is full-grown, and that the halo around the +moon represents her blood. This story is also told on +the neighbouring coast of British New Guinea.⁠<a id="FNanchor_357" href="#Footnote_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> Here, +as well as in some parts of Melanesia, natives ascribe +menstruation to the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_358" href="#Footnote_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> The Tuhoe, a Maori +tribe, believe that the moon is the permanent (or true) +husband of all women, because the latter menstruate +when the moon appears. “According to the knowledge +of our ancestors and elders,” say the Tuhoe, “the +marriage of man and wife is a matter of no moment, +the moon is the real husband.” And the women themselves, +on seeing the new moon, say, “The <i>tane</i> (husband) +of all women in the world has appeared.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_359" href="#Footnote_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> The +Jaluo, a tribe of Nilotic stock living in the district of +Kavirondo, British East Africa, ascribe menstruation +to the influence of the new moon and believe that +women can become pregnant only at this time.⁠<a id="FNanchor_360" href="#Footnote_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>Baganda suppose that menstruation is caused by the +moon, either when new or waning.⁠<a id="FNanchor_361" href="#Footnote_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a> Similar beliefs +are entertained by the negroes of the western Sudan, +who commonly give to this female function the name +of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_362" href="#Footnote_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> The Greenlanders believe that the +moon, conceived as a masculine divinity, possesses the +power of impregnation; as a consequence young girls +are afraid to look long at this luminary, “imagining +they might get a child by the bargain.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_363" href="#Footnote_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> The Lengua +Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco associate the moon +with marriage. Young girls will address the moon +with the appeal “Moon, moon, I want to get married.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_364" href="#Footnote_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> +Indian women in Peru are said to have prayed to the +moon to give them an easy delivery.⁠<a id="FNanchor_365" href="#Footnote_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> In old Egyptian +belief the moon was supposed to make women fruitful, +and the waxing moon to develop the germ in the +mother’s body.⁠<a id="FNanchor_366" href="#Footnote_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a> The association of human fertility +with the moon may perhaps explain why Ishtar, the +mother-goddess of Babylonian mythology, came to +be regarded as a daughter of Sin, the moon-god. In +this capacity she presided over childbirth.⁠<a id="FNanchor_367" href="#Footnote_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> The Iranian +peoples supposed that the moon contained a bull +whose semen was another form of <i>haoma</i>, the intoxicating +decoction of the moon-plant.⁠<a id="FNanchor_368" href="#Footnote_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> The position of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>Hera as a goddess of marriage and childbirth has been +explained by the assumption that she played an ancient +rôle as a moon-deity. Artemis, with whom Selene, +or the divine personification of the moon, came to +be identified, was regularly associated with childbirth. +The Roman Juno was connected with the moon as +Juno-Lucina, it being held that she aided women +during confinement. Ancient mythologers found it +easy to identify the Italian Diana, originally a goddess +who looked after women in their time of peril, with +the Greek Artemis, who had the same functions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_369" href="#Footnote_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> +Modern French folklore still contains references to +the idea that the moon can cause impregnation; in +Basse-Bretagne, for example, it is thought that a young +woman who exposes her person to the lunar rays may +conceive and bear a child.⁠<a id="FNanchor_370" href="#Footnote_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The influence of the moon on the tides furnishes +another element of mystery in the lunar phenomena. +So primitive a people as the Andaman Islanders habitually +refer tidal movements to the action of the moon; +and the same connection between things lunar and +things terrestrial has been recognized by other peoples, +such as the Hawaiians, the ancient Babylonians, and +the modern Chinese.⁠<a id="FNanchor_371" href="#Footnote_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a> That changes in the moon are +associated with weather changes as cause and effect +is an ancient superstition not yet obsolete in rural +communities.⁠<a id="FNanchor_372" href="#Footnote_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Comparative studies have shown how very general +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>is the belief that the moon exerts great influence on +growth, particularly on the growth of vegetation, and +on all human life and activity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_373" href="#Footnote_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> For this opinion there +appear to have been two principal causes. Observation +showed that moisture in the air and soil are favourable +to organic growth and, further, that atmospheric +moisture is greater at night than during the day. It +was reasonable to suppose the moon itself to be the +source of dew and moisture, especially when it was +also noticed that the dew is heaviest on cloudless +nights. These beliefs were entertained by the ancients, +who attributed heat to the sun, but moisture to the +moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_374" href="#Footnote_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Another fallacy has had an even greater part in +generating these lunar fancies. The apparent growth +of the moon in the first half of the lunation is associated +with the ripening of plants and fruits, the increase +of animals, and hence with the prosperous issue of +human undertakings. From this doctrine of lunar +sympathy have arisen numerous rules for the guidance +of shepherds and husbandmen, which had a wide prevalence +in antiquity and still survive with almost undiminished +vigour among the superstitious classes of +to-day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_375" href="#Footnote_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The doctrine of lunar sympathy, by a natural extension, +may also account for the common belief that +“the same things which grow with the waxing, dwindle +with the waning, moon,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_376" href="#Footnote_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> and therefore that all business +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>done in the latter half of a lunation is doomed to +failure. The Toda appear to regard the first half of +the month as the auspicious time for their numerous +ceremonies. “I met with no case,” says Dr. Rivers, +“in which any ceremony was appointed for the period +of the full moon or for the second half of the moon’s +period.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_377" href="#Footnote_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> The Andaman Islanders abstain from work +during the first few evenings of the third quarter of +the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_378" href="#Footnote_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> The Buriat are said never to undertake +anything of importance between the full and the new +moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_379" href="#Footnote_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> The Tatars, according to the account of an +Italian friar who in the thirteenth century made an +adventurous journey to Mongolia, began any new +enterprise “at new moon, or when the moon is full.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_380" href="#Footnote_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> +The Mandingo paid great attention to the changes of +the moon and thought it “very unlucky to begin a +journey or any other work of consequence in the last +quarter.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_381" href="#Footnote_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> Of the Sudanese negroes, generally, it +is said that they are much influenced in their undertakings +by the appearance of the new moon. For +instance, a journey which has been decided upon during +the last quarter of the moon is always postponed +until the new moon. No chief would presume to lead +out his tribesmen on a war party before the appearance +of the crescent.⁠<a id="FNanchor_382" href="#Footnote_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> The Nandi celebrate their very +important circumcision festival, as well as all marriage +ceremonies, during the waxing moon, but perform +their mourning rites during the waning moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_383" href="#Footnote_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> +The Hova and other tribes of Madagascar regard the +waning of the moon as “an unfavourable time for any +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>important undertaking.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_384" href="#Footnote_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> Similar beliefs were entertained +by the early Germans, who, according to Cæsar, +despaired of victory if they engaged in battle before +the new moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_385" href="#Footnote_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> Tacitus, with fuller knowledge, declares +that the Germans considered the new moon and +the full moon as the most auspicious seasons for beginning +any enterprise.⁠<a id="FNanchor_386" href="#Footnote_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> This superstition seems still to +linger in some districts of Germany, where it is commonly +held that any work begun when the moon is on +the increase is sure to succeed, and that the full moon +brings everything to perfection; whereas business +undertaken during the waning moon is doomed to +failure.⁠<a id="FNanchor_387" href="#Footnote_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> A like belief was that of the Scottish Highlanders, +to whom the moon in her increase, full growth, +and wane was “the emblem of a rising, flourishing, and +declining fortune. At the last period of her revolution +they carefully avoid to engage in any business of importance; +but the first and the middle they seize with +avidity, presaging the most auspicious issue to their +undertakings.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_388" href="#Footnote_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> On the other hand the people of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>Thermià (Kythnos), one of the Cyclades, believe that +you should never do any work, if you can help it, on +the days preceding full moon, while for grafting, planting, +cutting trees, and bleaching clothes those days are +best which follow the full moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_389" href="#Footnote_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> And an English +antiquarian of the seventeenth century declares that, +according to the rules of astrology, “it is not good to +undertake any business of importance in the new of +the moon; and not better just at the full of the moon; +but worst of all in an eclipse.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_390" href="#Footnote_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Eclipses of the moon are sometimes considered unfavourable +for work, and may also be accompanied by +fasting and other forms of abstinence. During such +times of uncanny and terrifying darkness it is thought +to be wise to avoid every sort of activity, as well as +the consumption of food which may be tainted with +mysterious evil.⁠<a id="FNanchor_391" href="#Footnote_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> Among the Wasania, a tribe of +British East Africa, no cohabitation takes place during +an eclipse.⁠<a id="FNanchor_392" href="#Footnote_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> Lunar and solar eclipses are among the +phenomena which require a Naga community to declare +a <i>genna</i> and give up its ordinary occupations.⁠<a id="FNanchor_393" href="#Footnote_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> +When the Toda know that an eclipse is about to occur, +they abstain from meat and drink; when it is over, +they have a feast and eat a special food prepared on +all ceremonial occasions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_394" href="#Footnote_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> In southern India it is a +common custom, when an eclipse occurs, for the people +to retire into their houses and remain behind closed +doors. “The time is in all respects inauspicious, and +no work begun or completed during this period can +meet with success; indeed, so great is the dread, that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>no one would think of initiating any important work +at this time.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_395" href="#Footnote_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> The natives of northern India are +said to consider it a great crime to partake of food, +drink water, or answer the calls of nature during an +eclipse.⁠<a id="FNanchor_396" href="#Footnote_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a> Such a period is considered most unlucky for +commencing any business of importance. A pregnant +woman will do no work during an eclipse, as otherwise +her child would be deformed. Among high-caste +Hindus no food which has been in the house during +an eclipse of the sun or the moon may be eaten. It +must be given away, and all earthen vessels in use in +the house at the time must be broken.⁠<a id="FNanchor_397" href="#Footnote_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> The Chinese +formerly observed lunar eclipses by a general suspension +of business.⁠<a id="FNanchor_398" href="#Footnote_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a> The fatal delay which led to the +destruction of the Athenian fleet and army before +Syracuse was the result of a lunar eclipse, as interpreted +by the soothsayers and the incompetent, superstitious +Nicias.⁠<a id="FNanchor_399" href="#Footnote_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> Among the Jews there were formerly many +who abstained from food on the day of an eclipse of the +moon, a portent which they regarded as evil.⁠<a id="FNanchor_400" href="#Footnote_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> This +belief, as has been noted, prevailed in England at least +as late as the seventeenth century.⁠<a id="FNanchor_401" href="#Footnote_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span></p> + +<p>Various peoples have supposed that the moon, during +the period of her invisibility, descends to the underworld. +This conception has played a noteworthy part +in generating superstitions concerning tabooed and +unlucky days. The Akamba, a tribe of British East +Africa, believe that on the day which completes the +month no child is born and no domestic animal gives +birth. One of the Akamba clans is called <i>mu-mwei</i> +(<i>mwei</i> signifying moon), and by the members of this +clan no house may be swept on the last day of the +month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_402" href="#Footnote_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> The Akikuyu, a tribe related to the Akamba, +regard the moon as the sun’s wife, and suppose that +when the moon comes to maturity the sun fights with +her and kills her. While she is “dead,” as the natives +say, no journeys are undertaken, no sacrifices are +offered, and no sheep are killed. It is further considered +that goats and sheep will not bear on the day +after the disappearance of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_403" href="#Footnote_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> The Wagiriama +keep as Sabbaths the odd days at the end of the month, +before the appearance of the new moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_404" href="#Footnote_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> Some tribes +of equatorial Africa believe that the new moon is especially +ill-humoured and hungry on the day when she +emerges from darkness. “She looks down over our +country,” the natives declare, “and seeks whom she +can devour, and we poor black men are very much +afraid of her on that account, and we hide ourselves +from her sight on that night.” People who die between +new and full moon are said to be those whom the +new moon saw at this fateful time, in spite of all the +precautions they took.⁠<a id="FNanchor_405" href="#Footnote_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> The missionary, David Livingstone, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>while sojourning at Lake Nyassa, discovered +that the natives in this region regarded the <i>interlunium</i> +as distinctly unlucky. On one occasion his men delayed +an expedition till they had seen the new moon. +We must have the new moon, they said, for a lucky +starting.⁠<a id="FNanchor_406" href="#Footnote_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a> The “dark day” of the moon was considered +by the Zulu as inauspicious for engaging in battle.⁠<a id="FNanchor_407" href="#Footnote_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>A superstitious attitude toward the <i>interlunium</i> +appears to be very prevalent among the Dravidian +peoples of India. The Kanarese of Hyderabad and +Mysore do not work in the fields on the last day of +the month. If a child is born at this time, they believe +that some one in the family will die. If a cow or a +buffalo has a calf at such a time, it must be sold. On +the evening before new moon no one may eat cooked +food. The new moon is consecrated to the dead.⁠<a id="FNanchor_408" href="#Footnote_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> +The Saoria of the Rajmahal Hills, who regard Sunday +as unlucky and do not work in the fields, pay visits, +or get married on this day, observe much the same +restrictions during the period of the moon’s invisibility. +Marriages will not be fruitful if consummated +during the dark of the moon, and in general the time +is associated with bad luck and sickness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_409" href="#Footnote_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> The same +belief is found elsewhere in northern India, sometimes +with beneficial results, as appears from the following +description, which applies to the district of Rohtak. +“To-day (29th November, 1883), in passing through +the Jât and Ahîr villages in Rohtak, I noticed that no +work was being done at the wells or in the fields, and +that the peasants, usually so hard at work, were idling +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>in the village instead. On inquiring the reason, I +was told that to-day was the <i>amâwas</i>, the last day of +the moon, and that on this day of the month the bullocks +are always given a rest. The men themselves +do any work that is to be done without using the cattle, +but no one yokes his bullocks in the plough or at +the well, or, if he can help it, in the cart. I noticed +that some of the peasants were busy making thorn-fences, +or doing other light work, but no bullocks were +at work anywhere, and as there is little to be done at +this season without their help, the custom practically +gave the men a rest also, and the unusual idleness gave +the villages a sort of Sunday look. The bullocks are +given this rest once a month, on the last day of the +moon, and also on the <i>makar kâ sankrânt</i>, which comes +about January, when the sun enters into the sign of +Capricorn (<i>makar</i>), and on the <i>dîwâlî</i> and <i>gôrdhan</i> +(the day after the <i>dîwâlî</i>) in the middle of Kârtik +(October). Except on these fifteen days it is lawful +for a man to yoke his cattle on all other days of the +year, but these particular days are strictly a Sabbath +for the cattle, and no one thinks of yoking them on +these days. If any one did, it would be a sin (<i>pâp</i>), +and his fellows would at once stop him. There is no +such Sabbath for man, and it is not thought wrong +(<i>pâp</i>) for a man to work on any day of the year, though, +of course, there are many holidays (<i>têohâr</i>), on which +little work is done.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_410" href="#Footnote_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>These superstitions relating to the dark of the moon +have not been confined to the natives of Africa and the +aborigines of India. They meet us among peoples +of archaic civilization and they survive among the +peasantry of European lands. To the Babylonians, +who paid particular attention to all lunar phenomena, +the disappearance of the moon at the end of the month +occasioned much anxiety. The day when the moon +could no longer be seen in the heavens was called the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>“day of sorrow” (<i>ûm bubbuli</i>, literally, the “day of the +snatching away”). The absence of the moon was +reckoned at three days, and during this time prayers +were recited and solemn expiatory rites were prescribed, +primarily for the king, who, as the representative of +his people, had to take special care not to provoke the +gods to anger at so critical a season. We still have +one of the prayers recited by the ruler in his sanctuary +and addressed to the moon-god Sin. The thirtieth +day of the month is here described as the god’s “holy +day” or “festival.” The prayer concludes with an +allusion to an eclipse, from which it appears that the +Babylonians, knowing neither the cause nor nature of +such a phenomenon, supposed that, unless the gods +were pacified during the moon’s temporary obscuration, +there would follow the more terrifying portent +of an eclipse.⁠<a id="FNanchor_411" href="#Footnote_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a> Modern Arabs consider the last day +or last three days of the month to be unfavourable for +any sort of undertaking.⁠<a id="FNanchor_412" href="#Footnote_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> By the Athenians these +three days were called ἀσέλινοι, because on them the +moonlight was extinguished. They were classed with +the other unlucky days (ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι) of popular +superstition. During the ἀσέλινοι it was necessary +to sacrifice to the underworld gods in order to +avoid their anger.⁠<a id="FNanchor_413" href="#Footnote_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> Selene at this time was supposed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>to descend to the underworld and the abode of shades; +hence the moon came to be associated with Persephone.⁠<a id="FNanchor_414" href="#Footnote_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> +The Romans do not appear to have marked the <i>interlunium</i> +or <i>intermenstruum</i> by any special observances. +European folklore, however, still preserves traces of +the ancient superstition, as in the Cornish belief that +a child, so unfortunate as to be born at this time, will +never live to attain the age of puberty. Hence the +saying, “No moon, no man.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_415" href="#Footnote_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a> Similar beliefs would +seem to survive in the very common idea that the three +days before the new moon are especially unlucky and +likely to be attended by storms and winds.⁠<a id="FNanchor_416" href="#Footnote_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>We may well believe that the different appearances +of the moon were the first celestial phenomena observed +with any degree of continuous attention by primitive +man. Not only are the phases of the moon marked +by striking variations in her form and in the amount +of light she radiates, but from night to night she follows +a regular path through the sky, changing her elevation +above the horizon and appearing to occupy at her +successive phases different quarters of the heavens. +Such phenomena present elements of mystery not +found in the sun’s prosaic course. A survey of the +anthropological evidence appears to indicate, as might +indeed be expected, that of the lunar phases it is particularly +the new moon which awakens interest and attention. +The first appearance of that luminary in the +western sky after sunset is often hailed with various +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>ceremonial observances. The Indians of the Ucayali +River in Peru are said to greet the appearance of the new +moon with great joy. They make long speeches to her, +accompanied with vehement gesticulations, imploring +her protection and begging that she invigorate their +bodies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_417" href="#Footnote_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> Certain tribes of southern California, afterwards +gathered into the Mission of San Juan Capistrano, +celebrated the new moon with dances, saying, +“As the moon dieth and cometh to life again, so we +also, having to die, will again live.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_418" href="#Footnote_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> The Dakota +and other Plains Indians, when the moon does not +shine, “say the moon is dead; and some call the three +last days of it the naked days. The moon’s first +appearance they term its coming to life again.” At +this time they stretch forth their hands toward the +moon and repeat joyful expressions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_419" href="#Footnote_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> The Creek and +Cherokee Indians, according to an early writer, “assemble +and feast at the appearance of the new moon, +when they seem to be in great mirth and gladness, but, +I believe, make no offerings to that planet.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_420" href="#Footnote_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> Similar +observances have been noted in various parts of +Africa. An old traveller recites how, at the appearance +of every new moon, the Congo negroes, “fall on their +knees, or else cry out, standing and clapping their hands, +‘So may I renew my life as thou art renewed.’” But if +the sky was clouded, they did nothing, believing that the +moon had lost its virtue.⁠<a id="FNanchor_421" href="#Footnote_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> The Mandingo, on the first +appearance of the new moon, “which they look upon to +be newly created,” say a short prayer.⁠<a id="FNanchor_422" href="#Footnote_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> The Bushmen +had their special seasons of merry-making, when the +dance was never neglected. “Dancing began with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>new moon, as an expression of joy that the dark nights +had ended, and was continued at the full moon, that they +might avail themselves of the delicious coolness after the +heat of the day, and the brilliancy of the moonlight in +this portion of the southern hemisphere.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_423" href="#Footnote_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>It has been suggested that in many cases the ceremonies +at new moon have a magical aspect. On this +theory the first appearance of the luminary, with its +promise of growth and increase, would be greeted +with rites intended to renew and strengthen, by means +of sympathetic magic, the life of man.⁠<a id="FNanchor_424" href="#Footnote_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> Though it is +true that in process of time ideas of a magico-religious +character may attach themselves to lunar phenomena, +and especially to new moon, there seems to be little +reason for assuming them to be original and primary. +Most of the foregoing examples, indeed, may be more +simply interpreted as a naïve expression of man’s +delight at the return of the moon to the world, after +an absence at once mysterious and portentous. Still +less necessary is the assumption, so commonly made, +that all lunar ceremonies are acts of worship addressed +to the moon as a divinity. Religious festivals appear +in the first instance to be fixed at new moon or full +moon because these are the two most striking periods +of the lunation and mark, respectively, the beginning +and middle of the lunar month.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span></p> + +<p>Among many peoples in both the lower and the +higher culture the time of new moon and full moon, +much less commonly of each half moon, forms a season +of restriction and abstinence. The lunar day is sometimes +a holy day dedicated to a god, who may be identified +with the moon itself. Instances of this sort are +to be correlated with the general course of religious +development, involving, as it does, the emergence of +polytheistic cults and the schematization of the ritual. +But under more primitive conditions the lunar day is a +tabooed day, quite independent of any association +with a deity. It seems idle to seek a particularistic +explanation for the taboos observed on such an occasion. +We have already noticed the sympathetic influence +which the waxing and waning of the moon is supposed +to exert on human activities. Furthermore, +we have seen that the new moon, rising as it were from +the dead, is thought to be pregnant with meaning for +the life of man. Her very newness is an element of +interest; her contrasts, in shape, size, and position in +the heavens, to the old moon further deepen the impression +of her significance; and her function of inaugurating +the month not only gives to her a special place +in primitive calendar systems but also invests her +with the emotional importance belonging to the commencement +of any new period. These ideas of lunar +influence are naturally extended to the full moon, +which, as will be shown, is commonly regarded as +marking the division of the lunar month into two equal +parts, and in some instances to the half moons, as +indicating the other prominent stages in a lunation. +The phases of the moon thus come to be considered +critical times and to be marked not only by religious +exercises but also by fasting and cessation of the customary +occupations.⁠<a id="FNanchor_425" href="#Footnote_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p> + +<p>Lunar taboos, involving abstinence and quiescence, +are commonly observed in Polynesia and Indonesia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_426" href="#Footnote_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> +Various African peoples likewise entertain pronounced +beliefs regarding the unfavourable influence of the +moon’s changes on human activities. The Zulu welcome +the first appearance of the new moon with demonstrations +of joy, but on the day following they abstain +from all labour, “thinking if anything is sown on those +days they can never reap the benefits thereof.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_427" href="#Footnote_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> The +Bapiri, a tribe of the Bechuana stock, stay at home at +new moon and do not go out to the fields. “They +believe that if they should set about their labour at +such a season, the millet would remain in the ground +without sprouting, or that the ear would fail to fill, +or that it would be destroyed by rust.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_428" href="#Footnote_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> Of another +Bechuana tribe, the Makololo, in the neighbourhood of +the Leeambye River, Livingstone remarks, “There is +no stated day of rest in any part of this country except +the day after the appearance of the new moon, and the +people then refrain only from going to their gardens.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_429" href="#Footnote_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> +An earlier writer, referring to the Bechuana, says that +when the new moon appears, “all must cease from work, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>and keep what is called in England a holiday.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_430" href="#Footnote_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a> To +the north of the Bechuana, in the upper basin of the +Zambesi, live the Barotse, by whom the new moon is +made an occasion for great festivities. “It is a general +holiday; men of all ranks sing and dance, while the +women assemble apart and give vent to strident howls +of their own.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_431" href="#Footnote_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> Similarly, among all the people from +Nyassaland to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika the first +night of the new moon is a public festival, sometimes +celebrated by a dance in which the men alone participate.⁠<a id="FNanchor_432" href="#Footnote_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> +The Baziba, who dwell to the west and southwest +of Lake Victoria Nyanza, are said to be one of +the few tribes in this part of Africa having “a recognized +day of rest, independently of the Christians’ +Sabbath. The two first days of every moon are universal +holidays.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_433" href="#Footnote_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>A superstitious observance of the new-moon day is +found among some of the tribes and peoples occupying +British East Africa. The Akamba, whose beliefs +regarding the <i>interlunium</i> have been already mentioned,⁠<a id="FNanchor_434" href="#Footnote_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> +also consider it very unlucky to move cattle +or livestock of any kind from one place or another, or +even to give presents of any stock, during the first +four days of the new moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_435" href="#Footnote_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> Well-marked Sabbaths +are kept by some sections of the Baganda, the great +tribe, or rather nation, occupying Uganda. At the +temple estate of the god Mukasa, the most important +Baganda deity, there was a week’s rest, <i>bwerende</i>, on +the appearance of each new moon; no special gatherings +were held during this period, but the people did +the minimum of work, even the cutting of firewood +being forbidden. All preparations for the festival +were made beforehand, in order that the women should +not be obliged to perform any labour other than +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>cooking.⁠<a id="FNanchor_436" href="#Footnote_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> In Budu, a district of Uganda, there is a curious +worship of the python, conducted by members of the +Heart clan. The sacred snake, which bears the title +of Selwanga, is kept in a temple and receives worship +at the new moon. When this appears, the people +repair to the shrine of the python and make their +offerings. No work may be done on the estate for +seven days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_437" href="#Footnote_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> Again, the principal chief of the district +of Singo, who was shield-bearer to the king of the +Baganda, “had to observe a taboo each full moon, +namely, to abstain from food from noon of the day of +the full moon until the following morning, and also to +live apart from his wives during that time. ‘It is +full moon, the Mukwenda may not eat,’ was a saying +among the people.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_438" href="#Footnote_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a> The Banyoro, a Bantu people +related to the Baganda, who inhabit the country to +the northwest of Uganda, performed every full moon a +ceremony which has been thus described: “In the +afternoon all the drums in the place were beaten, and +everybody shouted, as no one dared keep silent for +fear of offending the moon. The king posted men at +the cross-roads and seized every one who passed along. +These unfortunate folk were brought in to him and +offered as a propitiatory sacrifice for the whole country +to the evil spirits. The hair of the victims was put +into cow horns and their blood was poured on to it, +the horns being then kept by different people as charms +against sickness and trouble. After this the king appeared +swathed in barkcloths, taking up his position +in his council hall, his subjects coming to do obeisance +to him. A dead silence prevailed, for no one was allowed +to even cough in his presence.... As the +full moon rose the feasting began, and the drinking +and dancing continued till dawn. The king’s chief +wife had to sit by her intoxicated spouse and pinch +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>his arm or bite his finger, to prevent sleep; for a man +to slumber during full moon brought disaster to the +household.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_439" href="#Footnote_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> New moon, as well as full moon, seems +to have been observed by the Banyoro, for Speke found +the palace of the king of Unyoro shut up, because the +new moon had been seen for the first time on the preceding +evening.⁠<a id="FNanchor_440" href="#Footnote_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> The same explorer describes a like +custom found among the Bahima, or Wahuma, of +Ankole, a region lying to the southwest of Uganda. +“On the first appearance of the new moon every month, +the king shuts himself up, contemplating and arranging +his magic horns—the horns of wild animals stuffed +with charm-powder—for two or three days. These +may be counted his Sundays or church festivals which +he dedicates to devotion.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_441" href="#Footnote_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>New-moon and full-moon festivals, accompanied +by abstinence from secular activities, are thus seen to +form a common feature of native life in southern and +eastern Africa. The custom of keeping them as rest +days is apparently confined to Bantu peoples, who +arose from a mixture of Hamites with the true negroes. +No sabbatarian regulations are discoverable among the +Bushmen, representing the aborigines of southern Africa, +or among the non-Bantu tribes of eastern Africa. +It may be argued, therefore, that these African Sabbaths +are of foreign parentage, being derived remotely +from Hamitic and Himyaritic (Semitic) immigrants +into Africa. The argument is strengthened by the +fact that lunar festivals may be traced to a remote +antiquity, both in Egypt and in western Asia. In any +case, however, they must have been much modified +with their transmission from tribe to tribe and from +century to century.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span></p> + +<p>None of the natives of southern and eastern Africa +who observe new moon and full moon as seasons of +abstinence appear to be familiar with the market week +and the market day. On the other hand, in central +and western Africa, where markets are so generally +found and where the market day is kept as a holiday, +lunar festivals accompanied by a cessation of labour +are very rare.⁠<a id="FNanchor_442" href="#Footnote_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a> Lieutenant-Colonel Ellis, who was +much impressed with the resemblance of the west-African +rest day to the Hebrew Sabbath, supposed +that both were once lunar festivals, connected with +moon-worship and celebrated on the first day of the +new moon. “This holy day, before the invention of +weeks, recurred monthly, but after the lunar month +was divided, it recurred weekly, and was held on the +first day of the week.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_443" href="#Footnote_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> His theory, however plausible +at first sight, breaks down when we remember +that the keeping of moon-days as Sabbaths does not +necessarily imply worship of the moon as a deity; that +full moon, as well as new moon, may be observed +festively with abstinence from labour; and, finally, +that the market week did not arise as a subdivision of +the month, but was in origin quite independent of the +lunation. The restrictions attending market days have +nothing to do with superstitions relating to the moon.</p> + +<p>Lunar taboos are not unknown in modern India. +The natives of northern India regard the new moon as +an unfavourable time for undertaking important business.⁠<a id="FNanchor_444" href="#Footnote_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> +The Kanarese, whose customs and beliefs +relating to the last day of the lunar month have already +been noticed, do not plough their fields at new +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>moon and full moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_445" href="#Footnote_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a> The Badaga of the Nilgiri +Hills in southeastern India think that children born +on the day of the new moon, the full moon, or any one +of the three days immediately preceding the full moon, +will be unfortunate throughout life.⁠<a id="FNanchor_446" href="#Footnote_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> The Korava +regard the day after new moon as unlucky for starting +out from home.⁠<a id="FNanchor_447" href="#Footnote_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> Similar superstitions are doubtless +to be found among other Dravidian peoples.</p> + +<p>The Aryans of ancient India observed two sacred +periods in every month, new moon and full moon, +with sacrifices to the gods.⁠<a id="FNanchor_448" href="#Footnote_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> The simpler forms of the +rite were gradually extended into an elaborate ritual. +Every Brahmanical householder was required to perform +two half-monthly sacrifices for a period of thirty +years, after he had set up a home of his own. According +to some authorities these sacrifices were obligatory +for the rest of his life. The ceremony usually occupied +the greater part of two consecutive days. While the +first day was to be chiefly occupied with preparatory +rites and the taking of the vow of abstinence (<i>vrata</i>) +by the sacrificer and his wife, the second day was reserved +for the performance of the main ceremony.⁠<a id="FNanchor_449" href="#Footnote_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> +Since it was permitted to compress the two days’ rites +of the full-moon sacrifice into a single day, the conjecture +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>is plausible that originally only one day was +assigned to the observances of abstinence and sacrifice.⁠<a id="FNanchor_450" href="#Footnote_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a> +The ritualistic requirements for this ceremony +do not expressly include the cessation of labour by the +Brahmanical householder and his family. It might +be argued, therefore, that the new-moon and full-moon +observances were not originally dictated by a +superstitious regard for the lunar phases. The fasting +on the <i>upavasatha</i> day would then be merely a rite +preliminary to the sacrifice on the following day; and +the association of the two ceremonies with new and +full moon would mean only that these two divisions +of a lunar month were selected as convenient and conspicuous +periods for the performance of religious duties. +But the evidence at our disposal enables us to attach a +deeper significance to the ancient Aryan rite.</p> + +<p>In the first place it is well known that the <i>upavasatha</i> +was a fast preparatory to the offering of the “moon +plant,” the intoxicating <i>soma</i>, whose personification +and deification are assigned to a date earlier than that +of the Vedas themselves. A very competent scholar, +after pointing out that in Vedic literature the moon +takes a much higher rank than the sun, being regarded +as the creator and ruler of the world, has argued that +everywhere in the <i>Rig-Veda soma</i> and the moon are +identified, and that the terrestrial plant is merely a +symbolic representation of the luminary. According +to this view the moon-god as Soma forms the centre +of Vedic religion.⁠<a id="FNanchor_451" href="#Footnote_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> The theory, thus unequivocally +stated, has not won wide acceptance; according to +the commoner view Soma as a god is ordinarily celebrated +in the Vedic hymns only as a personification +of the beverage; and his identification with the moon +is to be explained as a secondary mythological formation. +Certain instances of such identification are met +in a few of the latest hymns of the <i>Rig-Veda</i>; and in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span><i>Atharva-Veda</i> Soma several times means the moon. +Post-Vedic writings regularly refer to Soma as the +moon, which, when drunk by the gods, begins to wane.⁠<a id="FNanchor_452" href="#Footnote_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In the second place the two half-monthly sacrifices +were characterized by restrictions which can best be +described as taboos. The Brahmanical householder +was obliged to abstain from certain kinds of food, especially +meat, and from sexual intercourse. He might +not cut hair, beard, or nails. He should sleep, not on +a bed, but on the ground. The directions for the ceremonies, +as given in the <i>Grihya-sûtra of Gobhila</i>, further +require the worshipper not to set out on a journey; if +he is away from home even at a distant place, to return +to his house; not to sell goods (though he may buy them +from others); and to speak as little as possible.⁠<a id="FNanchor_453" href="#Footnote_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a> It +is obvious that the scrupulous observance of all these +regulations would convert the <i>upavasatha</i> day into a +Sabbath, marked, not only by fasting, but also by the +cessation of most secular activities.</p> + +<p>In post-Vedic times the sabbatarian quality of lunar +days becomes increasingly prominent. In the <i>Institutes +of Vishnu</i> the new moon is mentioned as a +penitential fast day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_454" href="#Footnote_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> A variety of lunar penances is +prescribed in the <i>Laws of Manu</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_455" href="#Footnote_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a> The same lawbook +sets forth that “on the (night of) new moon and the +eighth (lunar day), and also on the (night of) full +moon and the fourteenth (lunar day), let a Brahman +who has finished his student’s course be always (as) +a student, even in season,” that is, let him remain +chaste.⁠<a id="FNanchor_456" href="#Footnote_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a> According to the <i>Vishnu Purana</i>, a relatively +late production of Brahmanical thought, there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>are “certain days on which unguents, flesh, and women +are unlawful, as the eighth and fourteenth lunar days, +new moon and full moon, and the entrance of the sun +into a new sign. On these occasions the wise will +restrain their appetites, and occupy themselves in the +worship of the gods, as enjoined by holy writ, in meditation, +and in prayer; and he who behaves differently +will fall into a hell where ordure will be his food.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_457" href="#Footnote_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a> +It is also said that he who attends to secular affairs +on the days of the <i>parvans</i> (new moon and full moon) +will be punished hereafter in a hell of blood.⁠<a id="FNanchor_458" href="#Footnote_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> For +modern Brahmans the new-moon and full-moon days +are regularly fast days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_459" href="#Footnote_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>With the development of the complex ritual of +Brahmanism holy and unlucky days became almost +identical with days when the sacred books should not +be read. The code of Manu requires a learned Brahman +not to recite the Veda on the new-moon day, or on the +fourteenth and eighth days of each half-month, or +on the full-moon day. It is said that “the new-moon +day destroys the teacher, the fourteenth day the pupil, +the eighth and full-moon days destroy all remembrance +of the Veda; let him therefore avoid reading on those +days.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_460" href="#Footnote_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> This injunction, moreover, is repeated for a +great variety of other critical occasions: during a +heavy thunderstorm; during an eclipse; and when +an earthquake occurs. A like prohibition is enforced +after events causing pollution; a Brahman, for example, +should not read the Veda in a village through +which a corpse has been taken, or near a burning-ground.⁠<a id="FNanchor_461" href="#Footnote_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> +Similar prohibitions are set forth at great +length in the lawbook of Gautama. The Veda ought +not to be studied and recited when there is a thunderstorm, +an earthquake, an eclipse or a fall of meteors; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>on the day of the new moon (on the latter occasion +reading may be interrupted for two days); on the full +moon of three months of the year, and so forth.⁠<a id="FNanchor_462" href="#Footnote_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> In +the <i>Vishnu Purana</i> we read that “on the days called +<i>parvans</i>, on periods of impurity, upon unseasonable +thunder, at the occurrence of eclipses or atmospheric +portents, a wise man must desist from the study of the +Vedas.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_463" href="#Footnote_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> Some of these taboos have endured till +the present time, the eighth day of each fortnight, held +sacred to the goddess Durga, being a period when no +study is allowable for a pious Hindu.⁠<a id="FNanchor_464" href="#Footnote_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Vedic ceremonies at new moon and full moon +appear to have influenced the Hindu festival of Bhaskara +Saptami, which takes place on the twenty-second +of the month Magha, the seventh day of the light +fortnight (4th of February). “This day is in an especial +degree sacred to the sun. Abstinence is to be +practised on the day preceding; and in the morning +before sunrise, or at the first appearance of dawn, +bathing is to be performed until sunrise; a rigid fast +is to be observed throughout the day, worship is to be +offered the sun, presents are to be made to the Brahmans, +and in the evening the worshipper is to hold a +family feast; one of the observances of the day is +abstinence from study, neither teacher nor scholar +being allowed to open a book.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_465" href="#Footnote_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a> For the proper +observance of the festival it is also necessary that the +sun should be worshipped in his own temple, with +prayers and offerings on the sixth day, during which +abstinence is to be practised, and at night the worshipper +should sleep on the ground. In upper India +the festival day is also called Achala Saptami, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>fixed or immovable seventh, or Jayanti Saptami, the +victorious seventh, and so forth. “Whatever the +designation, the worship of the sun is the prominent +ceremony of the seventh of the light half of Magha. +The same may be said, however, of the seventh lunar +day throughout the year, chiefly of one seventh in each +fortnight, that of the moon’s increase; but also of the +seventh day of the moon’s wane.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_466" href="#Footnote_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a> The religious +books declare that whoever worships the sun on the +seventh day of the moon’s increase, with fasting and +offerings of white oblations, as white flowers and the +like, and whoever fasts on the seventh of the moon’s +wane and offers to the sun red flowers and articles of a +red colour, is purified from all iniquity and goes after +death to the solar sphere. “The worship of the sun, +on the seventh of the dark fortnight, seems to have +gone out of use, but that on the seventh of the light +fortnight is strongly recommended in various authorities, +beginning with this seventh of Magha and continuing +throughout the year.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_467" href="#Footnote_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> The selection of the +seventh day of each fortnight as the time of the festival +may have been due to the symbolic significance of +that number, while the choice of the sun as the object +of adoration doubtless reflects the commanding position +which that luminary assumed in post-Vedic times. +The close resemblance between these Hindu ceremonies +of sun-worship and those prescribed in the Vedas for +the observance of new moon and full moon suggests, +however, that there has been a partial fusion of the +two festivals.</p> + +<p>The Vedic observance of new moon and full moon +survived in the ritual of both Jainism and Buddhism, +the two great monastic sects which arose in the sixth +century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> out of the bosom of Brahmanism. The +Jain ceremony, known as <i>posaha</i>, is declared to have +been specially instituted for those who said that “we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>cannot, submitting to the tonsure, renounce the life +of a householder and enter the monastic state, but we +shall strictly observe the <i>posaha</i> on the fourteenth and +eighth days of each fortnight (on the new-moon and) +full-moon days.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_468" href="#Footnote_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> The faithful householder “should +never neglect the <i>posaha</i> fast in both fortnights, not +even for a single night.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_469" href="#Footnote_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a> In the Jain scriptures, the +<i>posaha</i> is further defined as the observance of a fast +or the eating once only on the two holy days of each +fortnight, “after having given up bathing, unguents, +ornaments, company of women, odours, incense, lights, +etc., and assumed renunciation as an ornament.” The +<i>posaha</i> is thus distinguished by the four abstinences +from food, bodily attentions, sexual intercourse, and +daily work.⁠<a id="FNanchor_470" href="#Footnote_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a> The keeping of the <i>posaha</i> at the present +day is especially connected with the holy fast of Pajjusaṇa +at the close of the Jain religious year. The +observance of the rite at other times by laymen appears +to be dying out.⁠<a id="FNanchor_471" href="#Footnote_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Buddhist Sabbath, or <i>uposatha</i>, like the Jain +<i>posaha</i>, owed its existence remotely to the Vedic lunar +rites. As celebrated anciently in India and in modern +times in Nepal and Ceylon, the <i>uposatha</i> falls on the +day of the new moon, on the day of the full moon, and +on the two days which are eighth from new and full +moon. The <i>uposatha</i> is marked not only by fasting +but also by abstinence from secular activities: during +its continuance buying and selling, work and business, +hunting and fishing are forbidden, and all schools and +courts of justice are closed. Whoever observes the +<i>uposatha</i> rigidly must abstain from food between sunrise +and sunset. Since no cooking is allowed to taint +the sanctity of the <i>uposatha</i>, the pious Buddhist prepares +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>his evening meal in the early morning before the +sun appears.⁠<a id="FNanchor_472" href="#Footnote_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The <i>uposatha</i>, as contrasted with the <i>upavasatha</i>, is +a ceremony attached to all four of the lunar phases, +instead of to two only; moreover, it is a rest day as +well as a fast day. How may it be shown that the +Buddhist institution forms a natural outgrowth of +the earlier Brahmanical rite?</p> + +<p>The origin of the custom of observing four days in +the lunar month as <i>uposatha</i> is involved in some obscurity. +According to Buddhist tradition the monks of +non-Buddhistic sects were accustomed to assemble +at the middle and close of every half-month for the +purpose of proclaiming their teachings. The Buddhists +also adopted the custom of these periodical meetings +on the fourteenth or fifteenth and eighth day of +each half-month, a custom by them attributed to the +Buddha himself.⁠<a id="FNanchor_473" href="#Footnote_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> There seems to be not the slightest +ground for supposing that the number of Buddhist +Sabbaths was originally two, but was afterwards increased +to four in every month. The words of the +canon are: “I prescribe that you assemble on the +fourteenth, fifteenth, and eighth day of each [half] +month.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_474" href="#Footnote_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a> In the <i>Dhammika Sutta</i> the wording is: +“Then having with a believing mind kept abstinence +(<i>uposatha</i>) on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and eighth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>days of the half-month,” etc.⁠<a id="FNanchor_475" href="#Footnote_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> When Buddhism arose, +the custom of keeping the eighth day of each lunar +fortnight, in addition to new moon and full moon, +appears to have been well-established in both Brahmanism +and the non-Buddhistic sects, a circumstance +which led to the adoption of all four periods by +Buddhists as well.⁠<a id="FNanchor_476" href="#Footnote_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a> Two of these days (at new moon +and full moon) are devoted to the special ceremony of +reading, in an assembly of at least four monks, the <i>patimokkha</i>, +or the disciplinary and penal code of Buddhism, +according to the regulation laid down by the Buddha.⁠<a id="FNanchor_477" href="#Footnote_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In the <i>Sutta Nipâta</i>, a collection of seventy didactic +poems belonging to the Pitakas, or sacred books of the +southern Buddhists, Eight Precepts or Moral Commandments +are enumerated. Five of these are binding +on every Buddhist, whether mendicant or layman, +but the remaining three are not obligatory for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>laity. The precepts are: (1) not to destroy life; (2) +not to commit theft; (3) not to tell lies; (4) not to +drink intoxicating liquors; (5) not to indulge in unlawful +sexual intercourse; (6) not to eat unseasonable +food at night; (7) not to wear garlands or use perfumes; +and (8) not to sleep on a raised couch.⁠<a id="FNanchor_478" href="#Footnote_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> These +precepts are said to constitute the eight-fold fast, or +<i>uposatha</i>, declared by the Buddha. Their special +observance on the <i>uposatha</i> day is inculcated, and to +break any of them on that day is considered highly +irreligious. Instead of observing lunar taboos, the +Buddhists were to keep the <i>uposatha</i> by a special fulfillment +of the moral law, with clean garments and with +clean minds; one of the many instances in which the +founder of Buddhism gave a spiritual meaning to an +earlier superstitious rite. That the <i>uposatha</i>, marked +as it was by fasting, avoidance of sexual intercourse, and +refraining from wearing wreaths and using perfumes, +should have come to be regarded as a rest day seems +to be only the natural result of its observance as a season +of abstinence. The <i>uposatha</i> is thus discovered +among the earliest institutions of Buddhism; in its +origin it could have owed nothing to Jewish or Christian +influence; in its diffusion throughout southeastern +Asia it appears to have remained unaffected by the +influence of Islam. If these conclusions be accepted, +the Buddhist Sabbath dates back, remotely, to taboos +observed at changes of the moon.</p> + +<p>Buddhism was early introduced into Ceylon. The +Sabbath still observed there by the Sinhalese falls on +the four <i>poya</i> days of the month, the days of the changes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_479" href="#Footnote_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> Missionaries from Ceylon carried the +new faith to Burma, at least as early as the fifth century +<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> According to an old traveller the “eighth +day of the increasing moon, the fifteenth or full moon, +the eighth of the decreasing moon, and the last day of +the moon, are religiously observed by Birmans (<i>sic</i>) as +sacred festivals. On these hebdomadal holidays no +public business is transacted in the Rhoom: mercantile +dealings are suspended; handicraft is forbidden; and +the strictly pious take no sustenance between the rising +and the setting of the sun; but the latter instance +of self-denial is not very common, and, as I understood, +is rarely practised, except in the metropolis, +where the appearance of sanctity is sometimes assumed +as a ladder by which the crafty attempt to climb to +promotion.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_480" href="#Footnote_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a> According to a more recent and sympathetic +account there are “four <i>ubone</i>, or duty days, +in every lunar month, on which all good Burmans are +expected to go and worship at the pagodas. These +are the eighth of the crescent, the full moon, the eighth +of the waning, and the change, of which the second and +the fourth are the more sacred. As the monks have +nothing to do with looking after the spiritual state of +the people, it is entirely a matter to be settled by one’s +self whether any particular worship day is to be observed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>or not. If you conclude that strict religious +observances are only necessary for your spiritual well-being +on the day of the full moon, or at any rate that +you may leave out the eighth of the crescent and waning +moon, then the <i>ubone</i> does not concern you at all, +and you may proceed about your ordinary business +without being considered a reprobate. The very +devout may go to the pagoda on all the four sacred +days of the month; but if you choose to omit one or +several, or substitute an ordinary day for that provided +by religious custom, there is no one to take you +to task for it. Were a Burman never to go to the pagoda +at all, or fail to do so for any considerable time, +he would indeed soon get a very bad character among +his neighbours, and might even be formally excommunicated +by the <i>yahan</i>. There is, however, practically +no constraint save the force of public opinion. But +the duties of worship are so light, and so dependent in +their details upon yourself, and there is so much amusement +to be got out of a visit to the pagoda on an <i>ubone</i>, +that few, even of the most worldly-minded, miss any +great number of the appointed days, and a special +festival is always carefully observed.... It must +not, however, be supposed that all the people take this +easy-going and frivolous view of duty days. Diligent +seekers after <i>kutho</i> behave very differently. They do +not merely limit themselves to the customary forms of +worship and offerings. They sleep little, or not at +all, the night before; telling their beads instead, and +reading good books, some of the discourses of the +Buddha, or portions of the greater <i>zat</i>. All necessary +business is transacted the day previous to the <i>ubone</i>, +and neighbours are exhorted to observe the festival +properly. After one simple dish in the morning, they +eat nothing for the rest of the day; or perhaps on certain +occasions do not break their fast till after midday, +a custom very general on the first day of Lent. +Instead of staying in the noisy <i>zayat</i>, where the assembled +people are talking of light matters, laughing and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>diverting themselves, they retire to a <i>tazaung</i> on the +pagoda platform or to some place shaded by trees; +there they finger the hundred and eight beads of their +rosary, muttering, ‘All is transient, sorrowful, and +vain; the Lord, the Law, the Assembly; the three +precious things’; and meditate on the example of the +Lord Buddha and the excellence of his Law. To vary +the monotony of this performance, they go for an hour +or two to one of the monasteries to talk with the prior +or some learned brother, or perhaps to hear him read +and expound one of the <i>jataka</i>, or birth-stories. So the +duty day passes. By sunset most of the worshippers +are making their way back to their homes; but a +few zealous spirits remain all night in the <i>zayat</i>, and +only return with daylight on the following morning. +This simple round of celebration is repeated four times +in every lunar month, with here and there a feast day +of some particular shrine thrown in, when the only +difference is that there is greater ceremony and a more +or less large influx of strangers, according to the sanctity +of the pagoda.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_481" href="#Footnote_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Siamese Sabbath (<i>wan phra</i>) was also an institution +introduced by Buddhist missionaries. An old +writer describes it as follows: “Their Sunday, called +by them <i>vampra</i>, is always the fourth day of the moon; +in each month they have two great ones, at the new +and full moon, and two less solemn, on the seventh +and twenty-first. This day does not exempt them +from labour, since only fishing is forbidden to them. +Those who transgress this prohibition pay a fine and +are thrown into prison, as having profaned the sanctity +of the day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_482" href="#Footnote_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> A later writer declares that hunting +is also forbidden, and adds that on these days one cannot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>find fresh fish and meat in the shops.⁠<a id="FNanchor_483" href="#Footnote_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> In former +times the temples were crowded with worshippers, +who brought their offerings and listened to the hymns, +prayers, and moral discourses addressed to them by +the Buddhist priests.⁠<a id="FNanchor_484" href="#Footnote_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a> But we are told that now a +majority of the temples stand empty on the <i>wan phra</i>, +and what worshippers there are consist invariably +of women. Since the adoption of the solar calendar +in 1889 the <i>wan phra</i> has been superseded to a large +extent for civil purposes by Sunday.⁠<a id="FNanchor_485" href="#Footnote_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a> The Buddhist +Sabbath is also found in Cambodia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_486" href="#Footnote_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In some districts of Tibet the monthly Buddhist +festivals (<i>du-zang</i>) are four in number, following the +successive phases of the moon. In other parts of the +country only three festivals are celebrated—at new +moon, first quarter, and full moon. On these days +no animal food ought to be eaten and no animal killed; +those who break this rule are threatened with severe +punishment in a future existence. “To abstain from +worldly occupations is, however, not enacted, and as +the Buddhist laymen in the Himalaya and western +Tibet are not very fond of passing the whole day in +prayers and in the temples, these holy days are not +particularly marked in the habits of the population.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_487" href="#Footnote_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a> +As elsewhere in Buddhist lands the new-moon and full-moon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>Sabbaths are of most importance, since on these +occasions the <i>patimokkha</i> is recited in the monasteries, +accompanied by a public confession of sins.⁠<a id="FNanchor_488" href="#Footnote_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a> However, +in Tibet there appears never to have been much +uniformity as to the times for the observance of the +<i>uposatha</i>, the practice varying with different provinces +and sects.⁠<a id="FNanchor_489" href="#Footnote_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a> In Bhutan, where Buddhism was introduced +by missionaries from Tibet, the eighth, fourteenth, +twenty-fourth, and thirtieth of the month are +said to be the holy days, while the Mongolians have the +thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, the three days +being brought together perhaps because of the great +distance which separates the monasteries from the +temple.⁠<a id="FNanchor_490" href="#Footnote_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> Among the Kalmucks on the Volga, to the +north of the Caspian, the <i>uposatha</i> is generally observed +thrice a month—the eighth day after new moon, the +fifteenth, and the thirtieth.⁠<a id="FNanchor_491" href="#Footnote_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The <i>uposatha</i> is not unknown among the Buddhists +of China. The Chinese <i>Ts’ing-kwei</i>, or “Regulations +of the Priesthood,” a Buddhist document, enumerates, +among others, four festivals to be kept each month, at +new moon and full moon, and on the eighth and twenty-third +days. These are called <i>kin-ming sï-chai</i>, “the +four feasts illustriously decreed”; they may be regarded +as a variant of the <i>uposatha</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_492" href="#Footnote_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> Among non-Buddhists +there is another custom of observing on +the new and full moon of each month a ceremony, +anciently in honour of the moon, but now particularly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>addressed to various deities, especially the gods of +wealth. It was formerly the rule to sacrifice a bullock +to the moon at this time. During the festival the +courts of justice and <i>yaman</i>, or government residences, +are closed. Offerings are made in the Confucian temples, +and even the family gods receive their meed of +worship. The householder on this day enjoys a better +meal than usual, without, however, intermitting his +ordinary occupations.⁠<a id="FNanchor_493" href="#Footnote_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a> There is no reason to believe +that this Chinese festival owes anything to contact +with Buddhism. Its independent origin, in connection +with an early cult of the moon and perhaps at a +remote period with various lunar taboos, becomes, +therefore, something more than a conjecture.</p> + +<p>The Buddhist Sabbath penetrated to Japan. An +old writer tells us that in Japan there are three monthly +holidays connected with the moon, though now immovable +feasts. “The first is called <i>isitatz</i>, and is the +first day of each month. It deserves rather to be called +a day of compliments and mutual civilities, than a +church or Sunday.” The second holiday is on the +fifteenth of each month, “being the day of the full +moon. The gods of the country have a greater share +in the visits the Japanese make on this day, than their +friends and relations.” The third festival occurs on +the twenty-eighth of each month, “being the day of +the new moon, or the last day of the decreasing moon. +Not near so much regard is had to this, than there is +to either of the two former, and the Sintos [Shinto] +temples are very little crowded on it. There is a +greater concourse of people on this day at the Budsos +[Buddhist] temples, it being one of the monthly holidays +sacred to Amida.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_494" href="#Footnote_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Buddhism and Brahmanism, spreading beyond the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>confines of continental Asia, carried the custom of +keeping lunar festivals into some parts of Indonesia. +In Bali, where the <i>padanda</i>, or Brahmans, have preserved +many features of the old Vedic religion, fasts +and sacrifices are still obligatory on the householder at +new moon and full moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_495" href="#Footnote_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a> In Kar Nicobar Buddhist +influence from Burma is seen in the custom of observing +a rest day on the seventh day of the moon, at full +moon, and on the twenty-second day of the moon, but +only during seven lunar months of the year.⁠<a id="FNanchor_496" href="#Footnote_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a> The +Nicobarese have given to this imported Buddhist +Sabbath their native name <i>anoiila</i>, which is regularly +applied to the rest days or holidays observed by them +on various critical occasions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_497" href="#Footnote_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>We pass now from the lunar festivals found in ancient +and modern India and in those countries of southeastern +Asia which have been long affected by the cultural influence +of India to similar observances among peoples +of archaic civilization. The ancient Iranians appear +to have celebrated four lunar days in each month, +for the oldest part of the Avesta contains the following +passage: “I dedicate, I perform (the sacrifice) for the +month (gods), the time-divisions of Asa, for the between-moon +[<i>i.e.</i>, the new moon], ... for the full +moon, and for the intervening seventh(s),” in other +words, for the first, eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-third +days, which were all dedicated to Ahura Mazda.⁠<a id="FNanchor_498" href="#Footnote_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>The choice of these four lunar days was due to the +division of the Avesta thirty-day month into two unequal +parts, containing fourteen and sixteen days, respectively, +and to the further subdivision of each part +so as to form two groups of seven days and two of +eight days. This arrangement had the practical advantage +of permitting a quadripartite division of the +month without a remainder. There is no evidence +that the four groups formed civil weeks, or that the +first day of each group was observed as a Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_499" href="#Footnote_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Although the Egyptians had abandoned the old +lunar year and lunar month, perhaps as early as the +beginning of the fourth millenium <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, the people +continued for many centuries to observe as festivals +the first and fifteenth days of the month. In the earlier +calendar these would have coincided with the two significant +epochs of the lunation, namely, new moon and +full moon. The “monthly feasts” and the “half-monthly +feasts” are mentioned in the very ancient +texts preserved in the pyramids at Sakkara of kings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>of the Sixth Dynasty.⁠<a id="FNanchor_500" href="#Footnote_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a> They are referred to in the +<i>Book of the Dead</i>, in the directions requiring special +chapters of that work to be recited on the first day of +the month, apparently when it coincides with new +moon, and on the last day of the sixth month of the +Egyptian year, when that day coincides with the full +moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_501" href="#Footnote_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a> That they were practised under the Twelfth +Dynasty appears clearly from the well-known inscription +of Khnumhotep II, cut on the walls of the chapel +chamber in his tomb at Benihasan. Khnumhotep +II, a local ruler of the sixteenth nome in Upper Egypt, +sets forth in this inscription a somewhat vainglorious +account of his buildings and his piety. Among other +things he says, “I endowed him [the mortuary priest] +with fields and peasants; I commanded the mortuary +offering of bread, beer, oxen, and geese, at every feast +of the necropolis: at the feast of the first of the year, of +New Year’s Day, of the great year, of the little year, +of the last of the year, the great feast, at the great +Rekeh, at the little Rekeh, at the feast of the five intercalary +days, at —— ——, at the twelve monthly +feasts, at the twelve mid-monthly feasts; every feast of +the happy living, and of the dead.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_502" href="#Footnote_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> Again, there is +an explicit reference to new-moon festivals under the +Thirteenth Dynasty in a celebrated inscription placed +by Thothmes III (1501-1447 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>) on the walls of the +great temple of Amon at Karnak. This inscription +describes the numerous campaigns made by the Egyptian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>king in Syria. The account of the battle of +Megiddo opens as follows: “Year 23, first (month) of +the third season (ninth month), on the twenty-first +day, the day of the feast of the new moon, corresponding +to the royal coronation, early in the morning, behold, +command was given to the entire army to move.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_503" href="#Footnote_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a> +The significance of this lunar festival is further set +forth in the inscriptions on the ceiling of the pronaos of +the temple of Dendera, where the phases of the moon are +portrayed together with other astronomical matters. +The thirty days of the month are here given their +eponymic names and are arranged in two divisions, +according as they belong to the decreasing or to the +increasing moon. Four lunar days are brought into +special prominence as associated with the chief phases +of the moon, viz., 1st lunar day = “festival of new +moon”; 7th lunar day = “festival of the first quarter”; +15th lunar day = “festival of the fifteenth,” +and 23d lunar day = “festival of the third quarter.” +In this inscription full moon on the fifteenth of the lunar +month, repeatedly mentioned in poetical terms as “the +eye of the moon,” seems to have been regarded as the +most significant of the lunar phases.⁠<a id="FNanchor_504" href="#Footnote_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a> The oldest +traces of this important list of lunar days belong to the +Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties; the latest +date from Ptolemaic and Roman times.⁠<a id="FNanchor_505" href="#Footnote_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a> The evidence, +then, fully warrants the conclusion that from the earliest +period the Egyptians included the celebrations at +new moon and full moon among the most important +of their religious ceremonies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_506" href="#Footnote_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a> In late classical times +the lunar festivals appear to have been consecrated to +Osiris, whose identification with the moon is reasonably +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>certain.⁠<a id="FNanchor_507" href="#Footnote_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> But to what extent, if any, they were +accompanied by the imposition of taboos remains +problematical.</p> + +<p>The evidence for lunar rites among the Greeks must +be pieced together from scattered references in the +classical writers. The day of the visible new moon +(νουμηνία), marking the beginning of the lunar month, +appears to have been ceremonially observed throughout +the Greek world.⁠<a id="FNanchor_508" href="#Footnote_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a> The Noumenia was particularly +associated with Apollo and also with Hera, a goddess +who seems to have had an ancient rôle as a moon deity. +The antiquity of the Noumenia may be judged from +the references to it in the <i>Odyssey</i>, where no other +general festival than that of Apollo is mentioned. In +the island of Ithaca a feast of Apollo on the new-moon +day was in progress at the time of the trial of Odysseus’s +bow. Is it not the holy day of Apollo, ask the suitors? +Who on such a day could stretch the bow?⁠<a id="FNanchor_509" href="#Footnote_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> The first +of the month is holy, declares Hesiod.⁠<a id="FNanchor_510" href="#Footnote_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a> In Athens, +and doubtless in other Greek cities, the Noumenia continued +to be in historic times a day of repose, when all +public activities, except of a religious character, were +intermitted.⁠<a id="FNanchor_511" href="#Footnote_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> Private business, however, was not suspended +on the Noumenia; the markets, especially +those for the purchase of slaves, were then particularly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>frequented; the time was regarded as the most favourable +for marriage; and in the homes there was much +feasting and good cheer.⁠<a id="FNanchor_512" href="#Footnote_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a> The Dichomenia (διχομηνία), +or full-moon day, appears also to have been a regular +monthly festival in Greece, though of lesser importance +than the Noumenia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_513" href="#Footnote_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Roman month was originally lunar, and at +all periods was divided by the real or imaginary phases +of the moon. The Kalends, or day of the visible new +moon, were sacred to Juno, a goddess, who, like the +Greek Hera, was particularly associated with the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_514" href="#Footnote_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a> +On the Kalends one of the pontiffs performed a sacrifice, +with the assistance of the <i>rex sacrorum</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_515" href="#Footnote_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a> Pious +Romans also celebrated the new-moon day with offerings +and prayers to the family gods.⁠<a id="FNanchor_516" href="#Footnote_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> The Ides, or +day of the full moon, were consecrated to Jupiter, but +the Nones, which may originally have marked the +moon’s first quarter, were not sacred to any deity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_517" href="#Footnote_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a> +The Kalends of March, June, and October, the Nones +of July, and the Ides of all the months were numbered +among the <i>feriæ publicæ</i>, or sacred festivals attended +by a compulsory remission of labour, of the Roman +state religion.⁠<a id="FNanchor_518" href="#Footnote_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The taboos which at Rome invested the lunar phases +appear to have lingered into the historic age under yet +another guise. Among the unlucky days (<i>dies religiosi</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_519" href="#Footnote_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a>⁠) +of the Roman calendar were those following +the Kalends, Nones, and Ides. The thirty-six <i>dies +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>postriduani</i> were regarded as unsuitable for many purposes, +both public and private: for battles, levies, +sacred rites, journeys, and marriages.⁠<a id="FNanchor_520" href="#Footnote_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> We are told +that they owed their unlucky quality to a pronouncement +of the Senate and pontiffs, in consequence of the +grave defeat of the Allia on the 18th of Quinctilis +(July). According to the story preserved by Gellius +one of the senators publicly declared that on the day +following the Ides the Roman commander had performed +sacred rites with a view to engaging the Gauls, +only to experience an overwhelming defeat two days +later. Many other senators called to mind that on +sundry occasions, when sacrifices on the day following +the Kalends, Nones, or Ides had been performed to +secure the favour of the gods in battle, not victory but +disaster followed. In consequence these days were +declared unfit for public sacrifices.⁠<a id="FNanchor_521" href="#Footnote_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a> It is obvious +that this traditional explanation of the <i>dies postriduani</i> +must be far from the real truth. Unlucky days +are not generated in such an artificial fashion or on so +wholesale a scale. We may with some confidence +regard the prohibitions accompanying these days as +real survivals of primitive taboos at new moon, first +quarter, and full moon, their assumed historic significance +being only the conscious fiction of a later and +more sophisticated age.⁠<a id="FNanchor_522" href="#Footnote_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span></p> + +<p>The scanty records on which we must rely for our +knowledge of the heathen inhabitants of central and +northern Europe, before they came into contact with +Rome and Christianity, furnish no certain evidence +that they celebrated lunar festivals. According to +Strabo the Celtiberians and their neighbours to the +north sacrificed every full moon to a nameless god, the +ceremony taking place at night and being accompanied +by dancing.⁠<a id="FNanchor_523" href="#Footnote_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a> Again, Tacitus, who mentions the custom +of the Germans of holding their assemblies on +“fixed days” (<i>certi dies</i>), either at the new moon or the +full moon, also refers to the <i>certi dies</i> on which they +think it lawful to propitiate Mercury, their chief god, +with human sacrifices.⁠<a id="FNanchor_524" href="#Footnote_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a> Such statements may mean +much or little. Having traced lunar festivals among +the Aryans of India, the Iranians, the Greeks, and the +Romans, it might reasonably be supposed that the +Celts and Germans were also familiar with them.</p> + +<p>But the festive observance of the two great epochs +of the lunation was by no means confined in antiquity +to Indo-Germanic peoples. The Chinese and Egyptian +festivals at new moon and full moon reach back into +the past as far as the historical eye can follow them; +while in Semitic lands, as we shall learn, the same rites +occupied a most conspicuous place in the religious +calendar. Not unjust was the remark of Isidore of +Seville, a famous scholar of the Middle Ages, that the +ancients, just as the Hebrews, were accustomed to +celebrate the beginnings of all the months—<i>apud +veteres enim omnium mensium principia colebantur, +sicut et apud Hebræos</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_525" href="#Footnote_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a>⁠</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br> +<span class="smaller">LUNAR CALENDARS AND THE WEEK</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>The calendar forms one of the most important of +social institutions and registers in its gradual improvement +from age to age the onward march of culture. +The first attempts at calendar-making were naturally +of the rudest sort, for they were based on the untutored +experience and observation of common men. With +the progress of society the regulation of calendrical +matters tended to fall into the hands of the sacerdotal +class, partly because priests alone enjoyed the leisure +necessary for prolonged researches, but chiefly because +the calendar, on which depends the orderly sequence of +holy days and festivals, was itself an affair of religion.⁠<a id="FNanchor_526" href="#Footnote_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>It is clear that the alternations of night and day +must have furnished man with his most elementary +conceptions of the passage of time. A longer cycle was +naturally suggested by the lunar phenomena, so striking, +so obvious, and marked by stages so readily determined. +A survey of the anthropological data indicates +that among savage and barbarous peoples the +moon is the measure of time, and that the period of a +lunation furnishes the customary unit for longer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>reckonings.⁠<a id="FNanchor_527" href="#Footnote_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a> Lunar months are general throughout Australia, +Melanesia, Polynesia, Africa, and America, +wherever primitive calendars have not been supplanted +by more refined calculations borrowed from advanced +peoples. The computation of time by moons naturally +formed the basis of those early calendars which were +framed by peoples just rising into civilization. In +Mexico and Yucatan the year of twelve moon-months +preceded the introduction of the solar year; and the +ancient Peruvians, in some respects so advanced, always +continued to reckon by the succession of lunations.⁠<a id="FNanchor_528" href="#Footnote_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> +There can be no doubt that the solar calendar +in use among the Egyptians at the very dawn of their +history had been preceded by a more primitive reckoning +of the year in lunations. It is enough to point +out in this connection that the Egyptians regularly +employed the figure of a crescent moon as the hieroglyph +for “month.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_529" href="#Footnote_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a> The calendars of Semitic peoples, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>notably those of the Babylonians and Hebrews, +were based on the moon;⁠<a id="FNanchor_530" href="#Footnote_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a> and the prophet Mohammed, +when enjoining on his followers the observance +of the pure lunar year, in place of the lunisolar +year used by the Arabians before the Hegira, was in +reality reverting to a still more primitive mode of +counting time. Lunisolar calendars, in which the +primary unit is the lunation, were known, long before +the Christian era, to every civilization in the Old +World from the Roman in the west to the Chinese in +the east. Linguistic researches indicate that in most, +if not all, Indo-European languages, the names for moon +and month originally coincided.⁠<a id="FNanchor_531" href="#Footnote_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a> In Max Müller’s +poetical language the moon was “the golden hand on +the dark dial of heaven.”</p> + +<p>The need of observing the moons, apart from religious +or superstitious reasons, was no doubt mainly +connected with economic considerations. To the savage +it is of supreme importance to be able to anticipate +the different periods of the year which bring with them +different supplies of natural food; and for this purpose +the moons afford a convenient basis of reckoning. +Hence we find that very generally among primitive +peoples the moons are named after the moulting, migrating, +and pairing of animals, or after the budding, +blossoming, and ripening of the fruits of the earth. +Again, most shepherd tribes reckon time by moons. +In the pastoral stage it is probable that the necessity +of calculating the various periods of gestation and the +proper time for breeding, so that young animals might +be brought into the world at seasons most favourable +to their health and maintenance, contributed to the +observation of the moon and to the formation of lunar +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>calendars. If the desirability of observing the successive +moons was felt by frugivorous and pastoral peoples, +it will be readily seen how the introduction of +agricultural operations, often accompanied by religious +ceremonies and festivals, rendered definite and clearly +marked divisions of time a matter of the greatest moment. +It is therefore probable that rude popular +calendars based on the moon were in use long before +more accurate observations were made by primitive +astronomers. There is much evidence for the practice +of naming the moon-months after the different agricultural +operations, such as planting and harvesting, +which occur in them. Among the Chinese, Japanese, +Babylonians, Hebrews, Celts, Germans, and Slavs, +the early epithets of some or all of the months are +connected with agriculture and the farmer’s life. And +the Roman Aprilis, Maius, and Junius, from which our +own month-names have been taken, are believed to +have been originally seasonal designations, referring +to the sprouting, growth, and maturity of vegetation.</p> + +<p>A lunar month does not necessarily imply a lunar +year. Of not a few savage and half-civilized peoples +it is expressly said that they have but vague notions +of a year as a fixed period of time, and that they can +refer to events more than a few months past only as +happening after some noteworthy event, such as a +flood, a drought, an earthquake, a comet, or the death +of a chief. The foundation of yearly reckonings must +be sought in the observation of rhythmical natural +phenomena—the alternation of the seasons, the recurrence +of periodical winds, the varying length of day as +determined by the sun’s elevation, and especially the +rising and setting of the Pleiades.⁠<a id="FNanchor_532" href="#Footnote_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> In order to adapt +the same moons to the same seasons as they successively +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>occurred, or to the course of the sun, or to the +rising and setting of the Pleiades, the number of moons +was usually taken at twelve, giving the lunar year of +three hundred and fifty-four days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_533" href="#Footnote_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>It is unnecessary in this connection to discuss fully +the various methods which have been employed to +adjust the pure lunar year of twelve synodic months +to the seasonal or solar year. Some primitive peoples +adopt the expedient of counting thirteen lunations to +the year. A more common and accurate procedure is +to intercalate the thirteenth month, usually in every +second or third year. Familiar illustrations are furnished +by the Hindus, Babylonians, Jews, and Greeks +in antiquity; among modern peoples, by the natives +of Burma, Siam, China, and Japan.⁠<a id="FNanchor_534" href="#Footnote_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a> The methods of +intercalation employed are historically numerous, the +details are often obscure, and in no instance were the +results wholly successful. The difficulties arising from +such attempts to coördinate incoördinable quantities +must have been the prime cause of the adoption of +calendars in which the month, instead of denoting the +moon’s synodic revolution, received an arbitrary number +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>of days approaching the twelfth part of a solar +year.</p> + +<p>The period of a lunation seems to have been generally +estimated, in the first instance, at thirty days, a calculation +found in the lunar calendars of many half-civilized +peoples, and still employed at the present day +on all occasions when absolute accuracy is not considered +necessary. Indeed, if lunations be used, it is more +exact to count by thirty days than by twenty-nine. +When the moon’s synodic revolution came to be more +accurately measured by calculating an average from +the number of days comprised in several successive +lunations, the true length (about twenty-nine and one-half +days) could be conveniently calendarized only by +periods of twenty-nine and thirty days in alternation. +Such vacillating months were used by the Hawaiians +and the New Zealanders; they were familiar to the +Jews, the later Babylonians, and the Greeks; and they +are still found throughout the Mohammedan world, +and among various peoples of southeastern Asia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_535" href="#Footnote_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>People who reckon by moons naturally begin their +lunar month with the first appearance of the luminous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>crescent in the western sky.⁠<a id="FNanchor_536" href="#Footnote_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a> The real moon being +invisible for two or three days, various expedients are +adopted in order to secure regularity in lunar reckonings. +Thus, the Toda keep a record of the number of +days from new moon to full moon and from that to the +next new moon. The full moon is counted as being +on the fifteenth day after the new moon, and the new +moon as being on the sixteenth day after the full moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_537" href="#Footnote_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a> +The Basuto begin their month on the day when the +new moon is visible, though they count two more days +when the moon cannot be seen at all in the heavens.⁠<a id="FNanchor_538" href="#Footnote_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> +Still other devices were employed in antiquity by the +Babylonians, Hebrews, and Romans.⁠<a id="FNanchor_539" href="#Footnote_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span></p> + +<p>The lunar month, which in rude communities provides +a satisfactory chronological unit, does not meet +the needs of an advancing society. Shorter periods +become desirable, and these may be found in the +division of the lunation. There is much evidence +that primitive peoples watch the lunar phases with +keen interest, often name them, and sometimes use +them for the purpose of reckoning time. The natives +of Victoria are said to employ ordinal numbers only +in numbering the days of the month for making appointments. +As their months are marked by the reappearance +of the moon, their ordinal numbers do not go +beyond twenty-eight.⁠<a id="FNanchor_540" href="#Footnote_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a> The Dieri and related tribes +of South Australia reckon by lunar phases; “when +anticipating a grand ceremony they refer to the first +or last quarter of the moon.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_541" href="#Footnote_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a> The central Australians, +who regard the moon as a male deity, have +distinct names applied to new moon, first quarter, full +moon, and last quarter.⁠<a id="FNanchor_542" href="#Footnote_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> In German New Guinea +the phases of the moon are employed for all time-units +greater than a day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_543" href="#Footnote_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> The natives of New Britain are +close observers of the phases of the moon (<i>kalang</i>) and +have separate terms for them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_544" href="#Footnote_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a> The New Caledonians +count by lunar months, “each divided into four weeks, +following the four phases of the moon.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_545" href="#Footnote_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a> The Kayan +on the Mendalam River in Dutch Borneo name eight +phases of the waxing and waning moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_546" href="#Footnote_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> The Dyak +tribes on the Mahakam and Barito rivers in Dutch +Borneo “reckon their time by the full moon, half +moon, and new moon.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_547" href="#Footnote_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a> In those parts of Sumatra +where the seven-day week has not been introduced, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>it is a common practice to calculate by the days of +the moon’s age.⁠<a id="FNanchor_548" href="#Footnote_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> The very primitive peoples occupying +Nias and the Mentawi Islands off the western coast +of Sumatra distinguish four phases of the moon and +give to them appropriate names.⁠<a id="FNanchor_549" href="#Footnote_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a> Not only do the +Nicobarese possess terms to denote the chief phases +of the lunation, but they are also able to indicate any +particular day in the lunar month with perfect clearness, +since each day has its particular name.⁠<a id="FNanchor_550" href="#Footnote_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> The +Andaman Islanders, possessing no extended enumeration, +do not count the moons in the year, but nevertheless +employ appropriate words to designate the +lunar phases.⁠<a id="FNanchor_551" href="#Footnote_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a> The Bontoc and Ibaloi Igorot have +noted and named eight phases of the moon; these, +however, are said to be seldom used for counting time.⁠<a id="FNanchor_552" href="#Footnote_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a> +Throughout the Caroline Islands (Yap, Lamotrek, +Ponape, Uleai) the successive days of the month receive +names indicating the moon’s age.⁠<a id="FNanchor_553" href="#Footnote_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a> In Polynesia every +night in the month had its distinct name derived from +the changing aspects of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_554" href="#Footnote_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a> The Nandi of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>British East Africa similarly designate the successive +nights of a lunar month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_555" href="#Footnote_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a> The Bini of Southern +Nigeria even appoint special persons to observe the +changes of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_556" href="#Footnote_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a> The Ho tribes of Togo and the +Hottentots of South Africa employ separate terms for +all the lunar phases.⁠<a id="FNanchor_557" href="#Footnote_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> In South America the Karaja +of Brazil, in addition to noting and naming the four +most conspicuous phases of the moon, also distinguish +a fifth phase, which occurs between first quarter and +full moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_558" href="#Footnote_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a> Of the North American Indians it has +been said, generally, that the “alternations of day and +night and the changes of the moon and the seasons +formed the basis of their [calendar] systems.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_559" href="#Footnote_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a> In +the words of the <i>Koran</i> the phases of the moon are +“indications of time for men.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_560" href="#Footnote_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Since new moon and full moon are the most conspicuous +lunar phases, it has been a common practice to +recognize two periods in the lunation, as marked by the +waxing and the waning moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_561" href="#Footnote_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a> This two-fold division +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>of the month does not seem to be employed for calendrical +purposes by the Australian aborigines, but in some +parts of Melanesia the two halves of the lunation +receive appropriate names and the full moon itself +bears a particular designation.⁠<a id="FNanchor_562" href="#Footnote_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a> The Maori of New +Zealand, who sometimes “divide the month into halves +or fortnights by ‘moon-growing’ and ‘moon-lessening,’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_563" href="#Footnote_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> +are the only Polynesian people to adopt this +mode of reckoning. It is met, also, in Malaysia (Java, +Sumatra, Bali, Nias, etc.), but only where Indian culture +has penetrated.⁠<a id="FNanchor_564" href="#Footnote_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The division of the month into two parts is found +among most Indo-European peoples. In India the +recognition of the “light” and “dark” halves of the +month goes back to Vedic antiquity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_565" href="#Footnote_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a> Modern Hindus +divide the month into two fortnights, the days of which +are reckoned continuously as those of the increasing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>or decreasing moon. The full-moon day (<i>amavus</i>) is +held in great sanctity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_566" href="#Footnote_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a> Like customs prevail in Ceylon, +Burma, Siam, Indo-China, and other parts of +Asia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_567" href="#Footnote_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> The bipartite division of the month was familiar +to the ancient Persians⁠<a id="FNanchor_568" href="#Footnote_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a> + and to the early Greeks.⁠<a id="FNanchor_569" href="#Footnote_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> +The fifteenth of the month was regularly called by +the Greeks the full-moon day (Dichomenia, διχομηνία) +even after the introduction of the sequence of twenty-nine +day and thirty-day months.⁠<a id="FNanchor_570" href="#Footnote_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> In “hollow” months +of twenty-nine days the full moon, of course, would +fall on the fourteenth day, except when an extra day +was intercalated every thirty-two or thirty-three +months.⁠<a id="FNanchor_571" href="#Footnote_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a> The Roman <i>kalendæ</i> and <i>idus</i> corresponded +to the Greek νουμηνία and διχομηνία.⁠<a id="FNanchor_572" href="#Footnote_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> The Kalends +were so named because in early times the pontiffs had +been accustomed to make a public announcement +(<i>calare</i>) whether five or seven days should be reckoned +from new moon to the first quarter.⁠<a id="FNanchor_573" href="#Footnote_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a> The Ides thus +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>fell on the thirteenth or fifteenth day of the month, +according as the Nones occurred on the fifth or seventh +day. The Roman belief in the virtue of odd numbers +doubtless explains this choice of dates for both Nones +and Ides.⁠<a id="FNanchor_574" href="#Footnote_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a> Among the ancient Germans new moon and +full moon appear as the most prominent lunar phases.⁠<a id="FNanchor_575" href="#Footnote_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> +The division of the lunation into two parts, the first +of fifteen days, the second of fourteen or fifteen days, +according as the month had twenty-nine or thirty days, +is clearly indicated for the Celtic peoples.⁠<a id="FNanchor_576" href="#Footnote_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> In the +Calendar of Coligny the days of each half-month are +numbered consecutively, following what must have +been the old Indo-European practice. The second +half of the month is always preceded by the title <i>atenoux</i>, +doubtless indicating full moon, and variously translated +“great night” or “renewal.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_577" href="#Footnote_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a> That this Gallic +calendar presents no exceptional custom is obvious +from the constant occurrence in the literature of the +insular Celts of such expressions as the Welsh <i>pythewnos</i>, +a fortnight (literally “a fifteen night”), and the Irish +<i>cóicthiges</i>, which has the same meaning.⁠<a id="FNanchor_578" href="#Footnote_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a> With these +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>terms may be compared our English “fortnight” (O. E. +<i>feówertȳne niht</i>).</p> + +<p>The bipartite division of the month may be traced +even more widely. It was recognized by the Egyptians, +who appear to have counted the days by the decreasing +and increasing moon and to have regarded the full +moon (<i>mḥ</i>) as the most important of the lunar phases.⁠<a id="FNanchor_579" href="#Footnote_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a> +For Semitic peoples, notably the Babylonians and +Hebrews, new moon and full moon enjoyed significance +not only as religious festivals but also as the most +conspicuous periods of the lunation. A primitive +cycle of thirteen days used for ritual purposes by the +ancient Mexicans may have been originally suggested +by the number of months in the lunar year, but the +choice of this number seems also to have been affected +by the recognition of thirteen visible stages of the +moon’s increase (<i>mextozoliztli</i>, the moon’s waking) and +thirteen visible stages of her decrease (<i>mecochiliztli</i>, +the moon’s sleep).⁠<a id="FNanchor_580" href="#Footnote_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a> In both Colombia and Peru the +half-months were reckoned by the waxing and the +waning of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_581" href="#Footnote_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span></p> + +<p>From the division of the month into two fortnights, +at once the simplest, earliest, and most widespread +form of the week, we pass to the consideration of those +shorter cycles of time which are found in various parts +of the world. It might appear at first sight that all +civil weeks of five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten days +would likewise have a natural origin in divisions, either +of the true lunation or of the conventional month. +But the evidence which has been presented for the +existence of market weeks shows that these arose quite +independently of the lunar month, and that only at a +subsequent period, when they came into general use +for calendrical purposes, were they adjusted to the +length of the moon’s monthly course. Some interesting +examples of this process of adjustment may be +studied among the negroes of west Africa. Thus, the +Yoruba week consists of five days, and six of them are +supposed to make a lunar month. As a matter of +fact, since the first day of the first week always commences +with the appearance of the new moon, the month +really contains five weeks of five days’ duration, and +one of four days and a half, approximately.⁠<a id="FNanchor_582" href="#Footnote_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a> Again, +the Tshi tribes of the Gold Coast, having chosen seven-day +weeks, find it necessary to begin them at different +hours of the day. Some of their weeks, termed <i>n’ehsŭn</i>, +“It is seven,” may have eight days and six nights, others +the reverse, and others seven days and nights, with a +fractional part of a day or night.⁠<a id="FNanchor_583" href="#Footnote_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> Such are the expedients +adopted by some semi-civilized peoples, whose +months are strictly lunar, to avoid the difficulty presented +by the fact that the length of the lunation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>(twenty-nine and a half days) does not permit of subdivision +into exactly equal parts.</p> + +<p>One of the most common forms of the week is the +decade. When not based on the institution of the +market, it seems reasonable to suppose that this cycle +was originally suggested by the increase, culmination, +and decrease of the moon, as shown by the waxing +crescent, the more or less full disk, and the waning +crescent. If it be held that the arrangement by decades +was based rather on denary arithmetic, we may +at least feel confident that it would not have been chosen +except for its close approximation to the length of the +lunar month. As a matter of fact, such a sequence +represents the true course of the lunation in days more +correctly than a nine-day, or an eight-day, or even a +seven-day week. A division of the month into decades +is definitely attributed to the Maori of New Zealand, +who doubtless were obliged to count only nine days in +the third and last decade of every other month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_584" href="#Footnote_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a> The +arrangement of the four Hawaiian <i>tabu</i> periods, of +which the first three came at intervals of ten days, argues +strongly in favour of a division of time into decades, +or <i>anahulu</i>. This term, though now obsolete, occurs +frequently in ancient legends and songs as a measure +of time comprising ten days. The fourth monthly +<i>tabu</i> period, sacred to the god Kane, was celebrated on +the twenty-seventh of the month, only three days +after the festival of Kaloa, from which circumstance +it has been plausibly regarded as of later introduction +than the others.⁠<a id="FNanchor_585" href="#Footnote_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a> A curious division of the month into +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>three parts prevails in some of the Caroline Islands. +In Yap, for instance, the thirty-day month is divided +into <i>pul</i>, or new moon, lasting thirteen days, <i>botrau</i>, +or full moon, lasting nine days, and <i>lumor</i>, or darkness, +continuing to the end of the month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_586" href="#Footnote_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a> Lunar decades +are found in southeastern Asia. The Chingpaw or +Kachin of Upper Burma, whose primitive year consists +of twelve lunar months uncorrected by intercalation +and arbitrarily adjusted to the successive seasons, recognize +three divisions of the month, each of ten days’ +duration. The first, called <i>shitta pyaw</i>, includes ten +days of the waxing moon; the last, called <i>shitta si</i>, +includes ten days of the waning moon. The intervening +period bears no special name, though the full moon +itself is called <i>shitta lai</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_587" href="#Footnote_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> The peoples of French Indo-China +(Cochin-China, Anam, and Tonkin) regularly +divide the month into three decades, but this arrangement +is now being gradually superseded by the European +week of seven days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_588" href="#Footnote_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a> Probably the Indo-Chinese +custom was borrowed from the Chinese, among whom +it has long been a common practice to speak of anything +as happening in the first, middle, or last decade of any +particular month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_589" href="#Footnote_589" class="fnanchor">[589]</a> A similar system has not yet become +obsolete in Japan, where the ten-day periods are +known as the upper, middle, and lower decades.⁠<a id="FNanchor_590" href="#Footnote_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a> +Various African peoples use the ten-day cycle. Among +the Wagiriama of British East Africa the three decades +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>(<i>makumi</i>) exist side by side with the market week four +days in length.⁠<a id="FNanchor_591" href="#Footnote_591" class="fnanchor">[591]</a> The Sofalese of Portuguese East +Africa are said to have divided the month into three +periods each of ten days, the first day of the first week +being the festival of the new moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_592" href="#Footnote_592" class="fnanchor">[592]</a> Among the +Tofoke, a Congo tribe, the lunar month consists of +three parts, reckoned, respectively, from new moon +to the increasing half moon, from this to the decreasing +half moon, and thence to the end of the month. Each +of these phases bears a distinct name.⁠<a id="FNanchor_593" href="#Footnote_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a> The Ahanta +of the Gold Coast divide the lunar month into three +periods, two of ten days’ duration, and the third lasting +till the next new moon appears, that is, for about +nine days and a half.⁠<a id="FNanchor_594" href="#Footnote_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a> These decades seem to be quite +independent of the market weeks, sometimes ten days +long, which are also found in Africa. On the other +hand the Peruvian decades, previously noticed, were +clearly connected with the institution of the market.⁠<a id="FNanchor_595" href="#Footnote_595" class="fnanchor">[595]</a> +The sole instance of a week discoverable among the Indians +of North America is found among the Zuñi of northeastern +New Mexico, a Pueblo tribe leading a sedentary +existence and in many respects advanced in culture. By +the Zuñi “the month is divided into three parts, each +part being called <i>topĭnta as temla</i>, ‘one ten.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_596" href="#Footnote_596" class="fnanchor">[596]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span></p> + +<p>A ten-day week was employed in antiquity by the +Egyptians. The hieroglyphic expression meaning “the +ten days” is found in inscriptions belonging to the +age of the Pyramid-builders. The names applied to +each of the three decades—<i>hati</i>, that of the beginning, +<i>abi</i>, that of the middle, and <i>pahu</i>, that of the end—are +perhaps somewhat less ancient, the earliest definite +use of these appellations being found in the time of the +Tenth Dynasty. The decades ran continuously from +month to month. Since the Egyptian year consisted +of three hundred and sixty-five days, it was necessary, +however, in alternate years to begin the reckoning of +the decades on the sixth, instead of on the first, of the +month. According to an inscription dating from the +time of the Third Dynasty, the first day of each decade +was marked by sacrifices, and later records contain +frequent instances of a religious observance of this +day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_597" href="#Footnote_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Greek decades betray in their names, μὴν +ἱστάμενος (waxing), μεσῶν (central), and φθίνων +(waning), an association with the moon. The days of +the last decade were usually counted backward; in +“hollow” months, the day corresponding to the twenty-ninth +of “full” months was omitted, so that the decade +really contained only nine days. By the Athenians +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>the last day of the third decade was styled ἕνη καὶ νέα +(“old and new moon”), as being the day which belonged +in part to the preceding (theoretical) month of twenty-nine +and a half days and in part to the following month. +No clearer illustration could be afforded of lunar weeks +adjusted to the lunar month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_598" href="#Footnote_598" class="fnanchor">[598]</a> The Greek arrangement +by decades must have been very old. Unknown +to Homer, it appears in Hesiod’s <i>Works and Days</i> side +by side with the still earlier division of the month into +two parts determined by full moon. Hesiod, who tells +his Bœotian farmer to avoid the thirteenth of the waxing +month for the commencement of sowing, and who +declares that the fourth, whether of the waning or of +the waxing month, is “a very fateful day,” also uses +such expressions as the “first sixth,” “first ninth,” +“middle third,” “middle fourth,” and “the fourth +which follows the twentieth of the month.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_599" href="#Footnote_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a> This +unequivocal evidence for the use of the decades as +early as the middle of the eighth century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> seems to +dispose of the theory⁠<a id="FNanchor_600" href="#Footnote_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a> that they were an importation +from Egypt.</p> + +<p>The evidence for the existence of weeks of nine days +is very obscure. They are found in west Africa, but +only as market weeks unconnected with the lunation. +Efforts have been made to discover traces of such +periods among various Indo-Germanic peoples, particularly +the Greeks of the Homeric and pre-Homeric +age.⁠<a id="FNanchor_601" href="#Footnote_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a> There are, indeed, numerous illustrations in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>older literature of cycles of nine days (as also of nine +years), but no evidence at all that these were ever +employed for civil purposes as regular divisions of +the month. The same remark applies to the so-called +weeks of nine days among the ancient Germans,⁠<a id="FNanchor_602" href="#Footnote_602" class="fnanchor">[602]</a> and +to the frequent mention in old Irish and Welsh texts +of periods of three days and nights and of nine days +and nights.⁠<a id="FNanchor_603" href="#Footnote_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Market weeks, eight days in length, which seem to +have developed from earlier periods of four days, are +found in Assam, in certain parts of Africa, perhaps at +one time among the Indians of Colombia, and in antiquity +among the Romans.⁠<a id="FNanchor_604" href="#Footnote_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a> Such market weeks are +independent of the moon and run unfettered through +the months and years. On the other hand a week of +eight days, called <i>‘sāmĕn</i>, which exists among the +northern Abyssinians, is clearly adjusted to the length +of the lunation. Every month consists, theoretically, +of four weeks, of which the first two are those of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>increasing moon and the last two those of the decreasing +moon. In practice, however, the people are compelled +to count only six days in their fourth and last +week.⁠<a id="FNanchor_605" href="#Footnote_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a> This Abyssinian cycle possibly may have originated +as a market week, since elsewhere in Africa +market weeks of four or more days have been adjusted, +somewhat artificially, to the length of the lunation.</p> + +<p>Six-day weeks, connected with the market and probably +derived from an earlier week of three days’ duration, +are found in Africa.⁠<a id="FNanchor_606" href="#Footnote_606" class="fnanchor">[606]</a> There are also a few instances +of the same cycle where a connection with the +market does not certainly appear. The Lolo, Pula, +and other aboriginal tribes of southwestern China +keep a “Sabbath,” as a rule every sixth day. No +ploughing may take place at this time, and in some +places the women are not allowed even to sew or wash +clothes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_607" href="#Footnote_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a> The Bawenda, who occupy the northeast +corner of the Transvaal, are said also to use a week +of six days, though only three of these are separately +named.⁠<a id="FNanchor_608" href="#Footnote_608" class="fnanchor">[608]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The numerous five-day weeks found in the Malay +Archipelago, southeastern Asia, and Africa all exist in +connection with the market.⁠<a id="FNanchor_609" href="#Footnote_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a> On the other hand this +cycle seems to be sometimes independent of the market. +An Egyptian calendar, belonging to the second century +<span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> but probably based on much older material, +divides the year for astrological purposes into weeks +of five days, each week corresponding to the sixth part +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>of one of the signs or constellations of the zodiac. +The calendar also gives the name of the presiding +deity of each sign, together with the omens, portents, +and favourable or unfavourable characteristics that +belong to it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_610" href="#Footnote_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a> A five-day period, <i>khamushtu</i>, employed +as a sixth of the month, appears to have been familiar +to the Assyro-Babylonians in the third millenium <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> +We do not know how far the <i>khamushtu</i> entered into +the civil life of the Mesopotamian peoples, but from the +circumstance that this system of computing short +time-intervals was used in mercantile and monetary +transactions it may be surmised that we here have to +do with a very ancient form of the market week.⁠<a id="FNanchor_611" href="#Footnote_611" class="fnanchor">[611]</a> +Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform texts also contain +traces of five-day periods associated with the successive +changes of the moon and dedicated to various divinities; +but it is not certain that these later cycles were +derived from the <i>khamushtu</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_612" href="#Footnote_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a> The whole subject is +obscure and may well await future discoveries for its +complete elucidation. Finally, there is evidence that +the old Scandinavian peoples employed time-intervals +of five days, of which six were counted to the month. +Here, again, we are at a loss to determine how far this +pentad, called <i>fimt</i>, was regularly used as a civil week +in heathen times. After the introduction of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>hebdomadal cycle into northern lands, the term survived +as a standing phrase in Norse laws and popular +sayings.⁠<a id="FNanchor_613" href="#Footnote_613" class="fnanchor">[613]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The preceding pages have presented much evidence +to show how carefully primitive peoples watch the +changes of the moon and describe them by appropriate +names. The four lunar phases provide, indeed, an +obvious means of calculating the passage of time; and +they are often used for this purpose in the absence of +any recognized calendrical unit shorter than the lunar +month. The length of the lunation being approximately +twenty-nine and a half days, a single phase +occupies about seven and three-eighths days, which +must be calendarized as seven days, since it is necessary +to employ a round number. It is not a valid argument +against the natural origin of the hebdomadal +cycle to urge that seven does not form an exact division +of the lunar month. No other number will divide +the lunation without a remainder. However, the +hebdomad furnishes a less satisfactory time-unit than +the decade, the former falling short of a quarter of +the month by more than nine hours, the latter exceeding +a third of the lunation by rather less than four +hours. This circumstance may account for the otherwise +remarkable fact that, while the ten-day lunar +week is found in many parts of the world, the week of +seven days occurs in the lower culture and among peoples +of archaic civilization only as a borrowed institution, +which can be traced ultimately to Semitic +lands and Semitic antiquity.</p> + +<p>The prevalence of the seven-day week throughout +the world furnishes a most impressive instance of the +diffusion of a cultural element. Its introduction into +the Pacific area during the nineteenth century and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>among the aborigines of America as the result of their +contact with European civilization is well known.⁠<a id="FNanchor_614" href="#Footnote_614" class="fnanchor">[614]</a> +In Africa it has been spread by Judaism, Christianity, +and Islam; in southeastern Asia and the Malay Archipelago +the original disseminators were Hindus, followed +later by Arabs and Europeans. This imported +week has sometimes provided a cycle of time shorter +than the lunar month, where none existed before; in +other cases it has supplanted a native cycle usually +associated with the market. Together with the week +has often gone the Jewish, Christian or Mohammedan +rest day.</p> + +<p>In Madagascar and along the east coast of Africa +Arab influence, continuing for many centuries, naturally +left its impress on the calendar. The names of the +Malagasy weekdays are of Arabic origin.⁠<a id="FNanchor_615" href="#Footnote_615" class="fnanchor">[615]</a> Previous +to the introduction of Christianity under Radama I +(1810-1828) no rest day was communally observed, +though each god had a sacred day when those who were +its special votaries abstained from work.⁠<a id="FNanchor_616" href="#Footnote_616" class="fnanchor">[616]</a> The Swaheli, +who occupy the coast lands north and south of +Zanzibar, use a seven-day week, beginning with Friday, +the Mohammedan Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_617" href="#Footnote_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a> Some peculiar arrangements +are found among the Masai of eastern equatorial +Africa, a warlike race clearly distinguished by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>language, customs, and appearance from the Bantu +peoples. The Masai seem to be connected with the +so-called Nilotic group, and their ancient home has +been placed in the region between Lake Rudolf and +the Nile. At the present time they dwell much farther +south both in British and German territory. The +Masai count time by moon months, generally taken at +thirty days in length. The month does not begin +with the visible new moon, but on the fourth day +thereafter. In addition they have a week of seven +days, each one separately named. The seventh day, +which ends, and does not begin, the week, is called +<i>essubat ’n oloṅ</i>, “the good day.” According to Masai +tradition this week in remote times began on the new-moon +day, but now it is reckoned continuously without +regard to the lunation. Furthermore, the Masai +appear to have once divided the months into decades, +as is still indicated by their expression, <i>ne̱gera</i>, applied +to the tenth, twentieth, and thirtieth days. This +term comes from a verbal form meaning “to be silent.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_618" href="#Footnote_618" class="fnanchor">[618]</a> +There can be little question that the Masai seven-day +week was borrowed from Jewish or Christian sources, +while the decade arrangement may have been affected +remotely by cultural contact with peoples influenced +by ancient Egypt. Most of the interior tribes of +British East Africa recognize no subdivision of the +lunar month. But among the Rendile and Burkeneji, +who inhabit the steppes east of Lake Rudolf, we find +a week of seven days. Three of these days are marked +by restrictions. The first day, <i>hahat</i>, is a fast day, +at which time animals cannot be slaughtered for food. +On the second day, <i>hura hakhan</i> (<i>hura</i> in the Rendile +language means sun), no work may be done, except +the slaughtering of food animals. On the fifth day, +<i>ser hakhan</i>, people will not travel, move their grazing +grounds, or make cattle-medicine. The natives are +unable to identify the particular days of their week +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>with those of the European cycle.⁠<a id="FNanchor_619" href="#Footnote_619" class="fnanchor">[619]</a> Many of the +Galla tribes between Shoa, a kingdom of southern +Abyssinia, and the Tana River of British East Africa, +are said to show great respect for Saturday and Sunday, +and on these days do not work in the fields. Here we +may legitimately assume Jewish and Christian influences +from Abyssinia, especially since the nomadic +Galla of equatorial Africa do not seem to keep any +special rest days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_620" href="#Footnote_620" class="fnanchor">[620]</a> Other eastern Hamitic peoples, +the Somali, Afar, and Danakil, use the seven-day week +with Arabic names and observe Friday, the Mohammedan +Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_621" href="#Footnote_621" class="fnanchor">[621]</a> The seven-day week found among +the natives of Kaffa, a region of eastern Africa on the +borderland between the British and Italian spheres +of influence, appears to have been introduced a few +centuries ago by Christian immigrants from Amhara, +the central province of Abyssinia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_622" href="#Footnote_622" class="fnanchor">[622]</a> The spread of +Islam among the Sudanese and Guinea negroes has +resulted in the introduction of the hebdomadal cycle +and of the custom of holding markets on the seventh +day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_623" href="#Footnote_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The seven-day week in India has a long history. +The original division of the Hindu lunar month was, +as we have seen, into two equal parts, determined by +the waxing and the waning moon. This arrangement, +which still prevails in India, appears to have been the +only one in calendrical use until long after the beginning +of the Christian era. It is true that even in Vedic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>times the eighth day after the full moon was regarded +as one of the festival days of the month, and that, at +least as early as the rise of Jainism and Buddhism in +the sixth century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, the eighth day after new moon +was added to the list of holy days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_624" href="#Footnote_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a> The celebration +of four lunar festivals does not, however, imply the use +of a civil week by the Hindus, any more than in the +case of the Persian festivals, which likewise were adjusted +to the phases of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_625" href="#Footnote_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> The hebdomadal +cycle in India was entirely a borrowed institution, +derived from the planetary or astrological week, the +days of which are named after five planets and the sun +and moon. By the middle of the third century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, +the planetary week was well known in the Roman +world, and somewhat later it was introduced as an +astrological device into India. Who the intermediaries +were—whether Hindus who visited Mediterranean +lands or learned Greeks who made the voyage to +India—it is impossible to say. The earliest-known +genuine instance of a planetary name of a day in India +occurs in an inscription belonging to the year 484 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> +By the end of the eighth century there are perhaps ten +other inscriptional records, coming from various parts +of India and from Indian settlements in Java, Cochin-China, +and Cambodia, of the assignment of the weekdays +to the planets. After 900 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, instances of this +practice are more numerous, indicating that the seven-day +week had now become something more than an +astrological device and was generally recognized for +civil purposes as a part of the Hindu calendar.⁠<a id="FNanchor_626" href="#Footnote_626" class="fnanchor">[626]</a> In +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>modern India every day of the week has its sacred +character for the devotees of various gods, Sunday +being especially consecrated to the sun, Monday, to +Siva, and Saturday, to the monkey-god Hanuman.⁠<a id="FNanchor_627" href="#Footnote_627" class="fnanchor">[627]</a> +For Hindus, generally, Sunday, Tuesday, and Saturday +are unlucky days, and at such times no important +business will be undertaken or any long journey begun.⁠<a id="FNanchor_628" href="#Footnote_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>India was the center from which the planetary week +of seven days was first introduced into southeastern +Asia—into Ceylon, the Maldive Islands, Nepal, +Tibet, Burma, Cambodia, and Siam.⁠<a id="FNanchor_629" href="#Footnote_629" class="fnanchor">[629]</a> The Brahmanist +Chams in Cambodia and Anam use the planetary +weekdays borrowed from Hinduism, but the +Mohammedan Chams sometimes employ the days of +the Arabic week and observe Friday as a Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_630" href="#Footnote_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a> +The Laotians, who have taken over the planetary +week from the Siamese, are careful, as pious Buddhists, +so to adjust their calendar that Sunday (<i>van athit</i>) +always falls on the eighth and fifteenth days of the +lunar fortnight.⁠<a id="FNanchor_631" href="#Footnote_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span></p> + +<p>The Chinese possess no regular division of the month +into weeks, though a popular cycle, ten days in length, +has long been found among them. The week of seven +days is coming into use in commercial centres frequented +by Europeans, where, for Monday, Tuesday, +etc., native names meaning “first day,” “second day,” +etc., have been coined. The assertion that the Chinese +from of old have been familiar with the seven-day +week appears to be based on their custom, which is +not of extreme antiquity, of applying the names of the +twenty-eight lunar mansions to each day of the year +in rotation, from which circumstance the same four +out of the twenty-eight always fall on Sunday and +constitute what has been well described as a perpetual +“Sunday letter.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_632" href="#Footnote_632" class="fnanchor">[632]</a> On the other hand there is definite +evidence that the planetary week was introduced from +India to China, where, however, it seems never to +have been employed except for astrological purposes. +A Chinese translation, made in the eighth century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> +of an Indian treatise on astrology, apportions the days +of the week among the planets, according to the astrological +order. Sunday in some Chinese almanacs +is still called the “day of Mit,” that is, the day of +Mithra, the Persian deity associated with the sun. +This “Sunday” seems formerly to have had a place +in the state calendars issued under imperial auspices at +Peking.⁠<a id="FNanchor_633" href="#Footnote_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a> In this connection it is interesting to note +that the famous Nestorian Monument bears witness +to the introduction of the Christian Sunday into China +by Nestorian missionaries from Persia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_634" href="#Footnote_634" class="fnanchor">[634]</a> But the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>week of seven days as a calendrical entity never took +root among the Chinese, nor have they ever observed +a weekly day of rest.⁠<a id="FNanchor_635" href="#Footnote_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In old Japan, as in China, the week of seven days +was unknown. Shortly after the restoration of the +Mikado’s power in 1867-1868 there was introduced +what were called the <i>ichi-roku</i>, or holidays on the +“ones” and “sixes” of each month, <i>i.e.</i>, on the first, +sixth, eleventh, sixteenth, twenty-first, twenty-sixth, +and thirty-first days. But this arrangement, borrowed +from the Christian Sunday, did not last long, and the +copy soon gave way to the original. The Japanese +now have the seven-day week with names derived +from the Occidental names. Sunday, in vulgar parlance +is called <i>dontaku</i> (a corruption of the Dutch Zontag) +and Saturday, in equally vulgar parlance, is called +<i>han-don</i>, that is, “half-Sunday” (because the modern +English Saturday half-holiday has made its way into +Japan).⁠<a id="FNanchor_636" href="#Footnote_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a> On Sunday government offices and schools +are closed. In the cities some of the larger banks and +mercantile houses also suspend their business on Sunday, +but as a rule country people, artisans, and labourers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>observe no weekly day of rest. By people of the +middle and highest classes Sunday is preëminently a +day devoted to social intercourse, and even Japanese +Christians, after attending an early morning church +service, feel themselves free to devote the afternoon +and evening to any form of legitimate recreation or +amusement.⁠<a id="FNanchor_637" href="#Footnote_637" class="fnanchor">[637]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The planetary cycle is not unknown in the Malay +Peninsula, though here employed, as it seems, solely +for astrological purposes. For civil purposes weeks of +seven days, marked by the return of Friday, the Mohammedan +Sabbath, are in general use.⁠<a id="FNanchor_638" href="#Footnote_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a> Curious +animistic superstitions sometimes attach themselves +to this day. Thus, the Malays of the Patani States +believe that the spirits have extra power over mankind +on Friday, hence many people will not take shelter +under a tree at any time on this day, lest the spirits +sitting in the tree dive down into them. This precaution +especially applies to travellers, whose bodies are +weary and whose souls are therefore weak. Some +Malays who have wooden chests in which they store +their finery and treasures dare not, on Friday, lift +the lid of one of these receptacles, because then the +chest’s soul (<i>semangat</i>) might escape. Henceforth the +chest would become a dead thing and all luck would +desert its owner. Patani fishermen on Friday always +make offerings to the <i>semangat</i> of their boats.⁠<a id="FNanchor_639" href="#Footnote_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The seven-day week in the Malay Archipelago +exists both as a Hindu institution of remote origin +and also as an outcome of the expansion of Islam over +this region. The Achehnese in northern Sumatra +have not only borrowed the hebdomad from the Mohammedans, +but go so far as to make Friday a day +<i>pantang</i> for all agricultural work, <i>pantang</i> being the +native term for taboo.⁠<a id="FNanchor_640" href="#Footnote_640" class="fnanchor">[640]</a> Among the natives of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>Kuantan District the seven weekdays bear names +derived from the Arabic.⁠<a id="FNanchor_641" href="#Footnote_641" class="fnanchor">[641]</a> On the other hand the +Batta of Lake Toba possess a calendar derived from +Hindu sources and also a week of seven days, with +planetary names clearly taken from the Sanskrit. +But the Batta magicians, who use this cycle for astrological +purposes, do not now recognize its planetary +origin; they know only the sun, the moon, and, possibly, +Venus. To the Batta <i>ari na pitu</i>, the seventh +day, is an evil day, and he who ventures to begin any +work upon it will surely be visited by some grave misfortune.⁠<a id="FNanchor_642" href="#Footnote_642" class="fnanchor">[642]</a> +In districts of Sumatra where neither Hindu +nor Arabic influence has penetrated, a division into +weeks is unknown, the natives counting, instead, by +the days of the moon’s age.⁠<a id="FNanchor_643" href="#Footnote_643" class="fnanchor">[643]</a> In Java the Hindu +planetary week was combined with the still earlier +market week of five days in the eighth and ninth +centuries, <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, and since that time the Arabic designations +of the seven weekdays have also been introduced.⁠<a id="FNanchor_644" href="#Footnote_644" class="fnanchor">[644]</a> +A similar combination of the two cycles, +yielding a period of thirty-five days, occurs in Bali.⁠<a id="FNanchor_645" href="#Footnote_645" class="fnanchor">[645]</a> +In Macassar, a former native kingdom of Celebes, the +Mohammedan Sabbath is observed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_646" href="#Footnote_646" class="fnanchor">[646]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The foregoing pages make it clear that the spread +of Mohammedan rule both in Asia and Africa has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>introduced the week of seven days into regions where +it had not previously found entrance. The Arabs +themselves adopted the week from the Jews and Christians, +presumably at the time of their conversion to +Islam.⁠<a id="FNanchor_647" href="#Footnote_647" class="fnanchor">[647]</a> In the Arabic week the days from Sunday +to Thursday are numbered in their order, Friday is +called <i>al jum‘a</i> “the meeting” (for worship), and Saturday, +<i>as sabt</i>, “the Sabbath.” On Friday, according +to the rule laid down by Mohammed, the faithful are +to take part in the midday prayer at the mosque and +to listen to the sermon which follows the prayer. +Labour is suspended during the service, but at its +close secular vocations, including marketing, are resumed. +The Mohammedean <i>jum‘a</i>, unlike the Jewish +Sabbath, but like the early Christian Sunday, is not a +day of rest.⁠<a id="FNanchor_648" href="#Footnote_648" class="fnanchor">[648]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The seven-day week has now been traced over a +large part of the globe. It sometimes exists as a +planetary-astrological cycle of pagan derivation; in +other cases its presence is obviously due to Jewish, +Christian, or Mohammedan influence. In no region +does the hebdomadal cycle appear as an independent +product of the native culture. The inquiry into its +remote origin and connection with the cult of the number +seven takes us back to the ancient Oriental world.</p> + +<p>It is a familiar fact that many people attach to certain +numbers a sacred or symbolic meaning.⁠<a id="FNanchor_649" href="#Footnote_649" class="fnanchor">[649]</a> Such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>mystic numbers, unlike those of ordinary arithmetic, +are real categories in which thought naturally rests; +they are not fortuitous counts of objects but are +rather subjective syntheses—<i>cadres donnés d’avance</i>—according +to which the mind divides up and parcels +out all things visible and invisible. Like names they +may become virtual entities endowed with their own +functional power. The symbolism and superstitions +attaching to certain numbers, which we discover in +the records of all archaic civilizations, must be based +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>on very primitive modes of thinking, since a similar +tendency toward mysticism in the use of numbers +appears among half-civilized peoples. It is a tendency +to whose development no bounds can be set, once the +refining ingenuity of the priestly class has begun to +elaborate the concept of the “sacred” as opposed to +that of the “profane.” It seems obvious, therefore, +that the systems of sacred numbers, found in ancient +India, Babylonia, Greece, and other cultural areas, +incorporate many items of folk superstition together +with the results of much speculative activity on the +part of early organizers of religion.</p> + +<p>It would be hard to find any number in the first +decade which has not been invested, by this or that +society, with a mystical significance. Seven, in particular, +has enjoyed a marked importance among many +peoples widely separated in space and time.⁠<a id="FNanchor_650" href="#Footnote_650" class="fnanchor">[650]</a> As a +symbolic number it occurs among the Babylonians, +Greeks, and Hindus at the very dawn of their history; +and it still figures prominently in the popular lore of +India, China, and southeastern Asia. Cultural influences +emanating from the Asiatic mainland appear +to have introduced the symbolism of seven into certain +parts of Oceania and, notably, into Borneo. Of +the Sea Dyak of Sarawak it is said that, after three, +their favourite number is seven; while among the +Malanau, another Sarawak tribe, seven is very prominent +in rites of exorcism.⁠<a id="FNanchor_651" href="#Footnote_651" class="fnanchor">[651]</a> The same number occurs +repeatedly in the legends of the Dusun of British North +Borneo, and its mystic significance may account in +part for the curious system of unlucky days observed +by them. The Dusun consider twelve days of the +month, beginning with the seventh and including also +the fourteenth and twenty-first, as distinctly bad for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>agricultural labour. At such times they refrain from +going to their rice-fields, under penalty of failure of +the crop, but other work than that on the farms may +sometimes be performed. The natives cannot furnish +any explanation of the evil quality of these days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_652" href="#Footnote_652" class="fnanchor">[652]</a> +A peculiar observance of the seventh day is found in +some parts of Melanesia. When the first missionaries +visited the New Hebrides and introduced the European +week with Sunday as a day of rest, the natives were +much astonished to learn that the whites were also +familiar with their <i>bugi kai bituki</i>, or evil day. These +Melanesians had never recognized any time-divisions +shorter than the lunar month, but it had long been a custom +among them to mark the seventh day by certain +taboos. The natives would not engage in warfare on the +seventh day after the declaration of hostilities; nor would +they attempt to execute vengeance on the seventh day +after the receipt of an insult.⁠<a id="FNanchor_653" href="#Footnote_653" class="fnanchor">[653]</a> The two prohibitions +perhaps represent the broken-down form of a system of +taboos at one time much more extensive. Elsewhere in +the Pacific area (New Guinea, Australia, and Polynesia) +seven does not seem to possess any special significance.</p> + +<p>The mystic qualities of seven are recognized in +Africa, but only where foreign influences have penetrated. +Among the Wachaga of German East Africa +the seventh month of the year is most unlucky: houses +are not built, or marriages celebrated, or fields planted, +or wars begun, during this fateful time.⁠<a id="FNanchor_654" href="#Footnote_654" class="fnanchor">[654]</a> The Wagiriama +and Wasania, Bantu tribes living in the southeastern +corner of British East Africa, observe the +symbolism of seven in birth, circumcision, and mourning +ceremonies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_655" href="#Footnote_655" class="fnanchor">[655]</a> The Akikuyu attach a very special +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>ill-luck to the seventh day. A herdsman will not herd +his flocks for more than six days, and on the seventh +he must be relieved by another man. One who has +been away on a journey for six days will not return to +his village on the seventh; sooner than do so he will +go and sleep at the house of a neighbour a short distance +away. Were this rule broken, he would certainly +be struck down by some serious illness, and a +medicine-man would have to be called in to remove +the curse. “This belief,” we are told, “makes it easy +for the missionaries to explain to the Akikuyu the force +of the Christian observance of the Sabbath.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_656" href="#Footnote_656" class="fnanchor">[656]</a> Seven +is also one of the unlucky numbers of the Nandi.⁠<a id="FNanchor_657" href="#Footnote_657" class="fnanchor">[657]</a> +The seven-day periods kept as Sabbaths by some of +the Baganda and the seven-day week with three days +marked by taboos, found among the Rendile and +Burkeneji, have been previously noticed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_658" href="#Footnote_658" class="fnanchor">[658]</a> In some +parts of Abyssinia and Somaliland we find not only a +week of seven days but also cycles of seven months and +seven years, with seven as a distinctively holy number.⁠<a id="FNanchor_659" href="#Footnote_659" class="fnanchor">[659]</a> +In west Africa, besides the adoption of a seven-day +week as the result of Mohammedan influence, +there is also a symbolic use of seven in native folktales,⁠<a id="FNanchor_660" href="#Footnote_660" class="fnanchor">[660]</a> +thus providing an instructive parallel to the same +feature in European stories. The frequent occurrence +of the symbolic seven in the magic and astrology of +north African peoples must also be attributed to the +spread of Islam from the Mediterranean to the Sudan.⁠<a id="FNanchor_661" href="#Footnote_661" class="fnanchor">[661]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>If the cult of seven in the Pacific area and Africa +appears clearly as a borrowed institution, no other +explanation than that of independent origination can +account for the fact that some American Indian tribes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>also ascribe a peculiar sanctity to this number. In +the opinion of most Americanists the symbolism of +seven is here an outgrowth of cosmical conceptions of +the four cardinal points, reinforced by conceptions of a +central, an upper, and a lower world. Seven is thus +the most sacred number because it represents all the +regions of the cosmos.⁠<a id="FNanchor_662" href="#Footnote_662" class="fnanchor">[662]</a> This explanation cannot be +safely applied outside the American area.</p> + +<p>The antiquity of the symbolism of seven in the Old +World is attested by its appearance as a sacred number +in the earliest literary records of India, Greece, +and Babylonia. Numerous references to seven occur +in the <i>Rig-Veda</i>, where, however, it enjoys less importance +than three.⁠<a id="FNanchor_663" href="#Footnote_663" class="fnanchor">[663]</a> Periods of seven days and seven +years are frequently mentioned in the <i>Odyssey</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_664" href="#Footnote_664" class="fnanchor">[664]</a> Hesiod +includes the seventh day of the month in his list of +holy days (έβδόμη ἱερὸν ἦμαρ), “for on the seventh +day Leto bare Apollo of the golden sword”; and this +particular connection with the seventh day was maintained +by the god in the later age of Greek history. +Most of his great festivals began on the seventh day, +at which time all public business appears to have +ceased.⁠<a id="FNanchor_665" href="#Footnote_665" class="fnanchor">[665]</a> Many other illustrations exist of the large +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>symbolic rôle played by the number seven in Greece +at a remote period.⁠<a id="FNanchor_666" href="#Footnote_666" class="fnanchor">[666]</a> Among the Babylonians, as +early as the third millenium <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, seven appears as a +symbolic number in magico-religious rituals, incantations, +exorcisms, and mythological narratives.⁠<a id="FNanchor_667" href="#Footnote_667" class="fnanchor">[667]</a> Thus, +in the Babylonian version of the Deluge myth, periods +of seven days’ duration assume a marked importance: +the rain continues for six days and ceases on the seventh, +when the waters begin to subside; and seven days again +intervene before the Babylonian Noah is able to abandon +the Ark and offer sacrifice to the gods for his +preservation. The exceptional importance which this +number enjoyed in Babylonia lends credibility to the +theory that here was the centre from which the lore of +seven passed to adjoining regions of western Asia and +thence to more distant parts of the ancient world.⁠<a id="FNanchor_668" href="#Footnote_668" class="fnanchor">[668]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span></p> + +<p>Some Assyriologists have connected the symbolism +of seven with the seven stars visible to the naked eye +which traverse the celestial zodiac. For the Babylonian +astrologers and astronomers these were the sun, +the moon, and the five larger planets, Mercury, Venus, +Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. There can be no question +that the separation of the planets from the fixed stars, +one of the enduring contributions which Babylonia +has made to civilization, was the outcome of superstitious +notions concerning the influence of the heavenly +bodies on the life of man. The Babylonian astrologers +who watched night by night the stately procession of +the stars across the cloudless skies were animated by +no high zeal for scientific knowledge, but rather by +the necessity of drawing from the celestial phenomena +omens of good or ill for king and country. Jupiter +and Venus were probably the first planets to be differentiated, +the one because of his brilliant light, the +other because of her two appearances when she precedes +the rising, and follows the setting, sun. Saturn, +Mercury, and Mars seem originally to have been combined +under the one designation Lu-Bat, a term which +came to bear the general meaning of “planet”—doubtless +on account of the difficulty involved in observing +their separate courses.⁠<a id="FNanchor_669" href="#Footnote_669" class="fnanchor">[669]</a> We do not know when all +five planets were set off from the fixed stars, or when +they were first connected with the sun and moon to +form a group of seven planetary luminaries. As an +eminent Italian astronomer has remarked, both achievements +must have required centuries of close and accurate +observations; they do not belong to a primitive +astronomy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_670" href="#Footnote_670" class="fnanchor">[670]</a> Hence we may safely conclude that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>symbolism of seven, reaching into remote Babylonian +antiquity, long preceded the recognition of the seven +planets; nay, more, that the symbolic significance of +this number imposed itself on Babylonian astronomers +and astrologers and compelled them to include in it +all the principal stars.</p> + +<p>The differentiation of the planets led naturally to +their identification with the greater deities of the +Babylonian pantheon, whose several names—Nabu, +Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk, and Ninib—have come down +to us through the Greeks and Romans in their classical +equivalents, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. +It is by no means certain, however, that at +all periods of Babylonian history these were the only +deities which enjoyed planetary affiliations, or that +the same gods were invariably connected with the +same planets. The association of planet and god seems +to have been quite artificial and arbitrary; at any +rate, the omen texts do not show any close correspondence +between the character of the deity and the prognostications +drawn from the behaviour of his planet. +Furthermore, the cuneiform records contain no indication +that the Babylonians were familiar with what is +known as the astrological order of the planets, the order, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>that is, in which they appear as regents of the weekdays +in the so-called planetary week of seven days. +The oldest known list of the Babylonian planets dates +from about 700 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, and presents the following arrangement: +Moon, Sun, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, +Mars. The same order is found one hundred and +fifty years later, in astronomical texts belonging to +the time of the New Babylonian Empire.⁠<a id="FNanchor_671" href="#Footnote_671" class="fnanchor">[671]</a> This +seems to be nothing more than the sequence according +to which the planets were severally differentiated from +the fixed stars. At all events it is not the astrological +sequence, which lies at the basis of the planetary week. +Nor can the origin of the names of the weekdays be +sought in Babylonia. It is true that the Babylonians, +like the Egyptians,⁠<a id="FNanchor_672" href="#Footnote_672" class="fnanchor">[672]</a> ascribed to every day in the month +its appropriate divinity, but absolutely no evidence exists +that they ever applied the names of the seven planetary +deities to the days of a septenary cycle. That step was +taken at another time and by another people.</p> + +<p>The planetary week,⁠<a id="FNanchor_673" href="#Footnote_673" class="fnanchor">[673]</a> an institution which has spread +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>eastward over the Oriental world and westward into +Europe, is a product of the speculations of astrologers +and philosophers during the Hellenistic, or Græco-Oriental, +era. The sequence of its days depends ultimately +upon the order of the seven planetary spheres, +adopted by Ptolemy in antiquity and after him by +astronomers until the discoveries of Copernicus. If +the planets are grouped according to their distance +from the earth, beginning with the highest and descending +to the lowest, we obtain the following order: Saturn, +Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. +No certain evidence exists that this arrangement was +known at an earlier date than the second century +before our era.⁠<a id="FNanchor_674" href="#Footnote_674" class="fnanchor">[674]</a> The astrological order, which also +begins with Saturn, proceeds next to the fourth planet, +or Sun, from which again the fourth planet (by inclusive +reckoning) is the Moon. By continuing to select +every fourth planet thereafter we obtain at length the +regents of the seven weekdays: Saturn, Sun, Moon, +Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus.</p> + +<p>How, it may be asked, did such an arrangement +arise? This question has been answered for us by the +Roman historian, Dio Cassius, who interrupts his +narrative of the victorious campaign of Pompey the +Great in Palestine to furnish a brief account of the +planetary week.⁠<a id="FNanchor_675" href="#Footnote_675" class="fnanchor">[675]</a> The institution, says Dio Cassius, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>can be explained in two ways. According to the first +explanation the gods are supposed to preside over +separate days of the week, following the “‘principle of +the tetrachord’ (which is believed to constitute the +basis of music).”⁠<a id="FNanchor_676" href="#Footnote_676" class="fnanchor">[676]</a> The planetary week would thus +be one expression of the occult relations supposed to +exist between harmonic intervals of music and the +seven planetary spheres. Though the idea that the +motions of the planets were regulated by the laws of +musical harmony had great popularity among some of +the Greek schools of philosophy, neo-Pythagorean +and neo-Platonist, it is not, however, to this comparatively +refined doctrine of the “music of the spheres” +that we must look for the origin of the planetary sequence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_677" href="#Footnote_677" class="fnanchor">[677]</a> +The second explanation given by Dio Cassius, +and also by Vettius Valens, is connected with the +astrological theory of “chronocratories,” which assigned +to the several planets dominion over hours and +days as periods of time. If the day is divided into +twenty-four hours and each hour is ascribed in turn +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>to the several planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, +Venus, Mercury, Moon—then Saturn will preside +over the first, eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-second hours +of the first day, the twenty-third hour will fall to +Jupiter, and the twenty-fourth to Mars. The twenty-fifth +hour, or the first hour of the second day, will +belong to the Sun, the first hour of the third day to the +Moon, and so on for the remaining weekdays. The +planetary deity found to preside over the first hour of +a day is then supposed to give his name to the entire +day. This scheme, as far as it depends on the recognition +of twenty-four hours, is evidently not of Greek +origin, for the mathematical division of the day into +fixed parts did not arise in the Occident, but was due +to Oriental influences.⁠<a id="FNanchor_678" href="#Footnote_678" class="fnanchor">[678]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The planetary week thus presents itself as a curious +amalgam of ideas derived from different sources. +Babylonia, the motherland of divination, provided +the doctrine of the influence of the stars on human +destinies; Greece furnished the mathematical astronomy +which grouped the planets according to their +distance from the earth; and upon these foundations +astrologers of the Hellenistic era, familiar with the +cult of seven and with a division of the day into twenty-four +hours, built up what was, at the outset, an entirely +pagan institution.</p> + +<p>The seven-day week (ἑβδομάς, <i>septimana</i>), in its +astrological form, has had a varied history. It probably +first appeared in the star cults of Mesopotamia +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>and Syria, certainly not before the second century +<span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, passed thence to the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, +the meeting-ground of East and West, and +about the age of Augustus gained an entrance into +Occidental lands. The first reasonably certain evidence +of its existence in Italy is found in the so-called +<i>fasti Sabini</i>, the fragments of a calendar drawn up +between the years 19 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>-4 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> Here the days of +the seven-day week (indicated by the letters <i>A</i> to <i>F</i>) +and those of the old Roman nundinal cycle (indicated +by the letters <i>A</i> to <i>G</i>) are set forth in parallel columns +for the months of September and October. All similar +calendars of the same period employ only the lettering +of the eight-day Roman week.⁠<a id="FNanchor_679" href="#Footnote_679" class="fnanchor">[679]</a> The earliest evidence +for the planetary naming of the weekdays is found +in two inscriptions from Pompeii. Of these, the first +gives all the names of the planetary deities in their +Greek form; the second, the names in their more +familiar Latin form, except for the accidental omission +of Wednesday: Saturni, Solis, Lunæ, Martis, Jovis, +Veneris.⁠<a id="FNanchor_680" href="#Footnote_680" class="fnanchor">[680]</a> Indications that the planetary week was +known and used during the second century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> occur +in both classical literature and the inscriptions. Dio +Cassius,⁠<a id="FNanchor_681" href="#Footnote_681" class="fnanchor">[681]</a> writing early in the third century (about +210-220 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>), declares that the custom of referring +the days to the stars, called planets, had then become +quite familiar to the Romans as well as to the rest of +mankind. The accuracy of this statement is confirmed +by his Christian contemporaries, Tertullian and Clement +of Alexandria, who in their writings addressed to +the pagans employ the planetary names of the weekdays.⁠<a id="FNanchor_682" href="#Footnote_682" class="fnanchor">[682]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span></p> + +<p>The early Christians had at first adopted the Jewish +seven-day week with its numbered weekdays,⁠<a id="FNanchor_683" href="#Footnote_683" class="fnanchor">[683]</a> but by +the close of the third century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> this began to give +way to the planetary week; and in the fourth and fifth +centuries the pagan designations became generally +accepted in the western half of Christendom.⁠<a id="FNanchor_684" href="#Footnote_684" class="fnanchor">[684]</a> The +use of the planetary names by Christians attests the +growing influence of astrological speculations introduced +by converts from paganism. The old beliefs +in the power of the stars over human destinies lived +on in Christian communities; the heavenly bodies, +though no longer deities, were still demons capable of +affecting the fate of man. During these same centuries +the spread of Oriental solar worships, especially that +of Mithra,⁠<a id="FNanchor_685" href="#Footnote_685" class="fnanchor">[685]</a> in the Roman world, had already led to the +substitution by pagans of <i>dies Solis</i> for <i>dies Saturni</i>, +as the first day of the planetary week; and Constantine’s +famous edict, as we have seen, definitely enrolled +Sunday among the holidays of the Roman state religion.⁠<a id="FNanchor_686" href="#Footnote_686" class="fnanchor">[686]</a> +The change from Saturn’s Day to Sunday +must have further commended the planetary week +in Christian circles, where the Lord’s Day (<i>dies dominica</i>), +beginning the week, had long been observed as +that on which Christ, the “Sun of Righteousness,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>rose from the dead.⁠<a id="FNanchor_687" href="#Footnote_687" class="fnanchor">[687]</a> Thus gradually a pagan institution +was engrafted on Christianity.</p> + +<p>The planetary week became familiar to the barbarians +of the West before its adoption by Christianity. +Much monumental evidence exists to show that in Gaul +and Roman Germany the planetary order, beginning +with Saturn, was known from the first half of the third +century. The same cycle appears to have been introduced +into Roman Britain. In nearly all Romance +countries the planetary names are applied to the weekdays +except the first and seventh, for which the ecclesiastical +designations, <i>dies dominica</i> and <i>sabbatum</i>, are +retained.⁠<a id="FNanchor_688" href="#Footnote_688" class="fnanchor">[688]</a> In most Germanic languages Sunday and +Monday appear as translations of the Latin forms; +Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday represent +equations of classical and Germanic deities, based +on the most obvious points of resemblance between +them;⁠<a id="FNanchor_689" href="#Footnote_689" class="fnanchor">[689]</a> while Saturday, for which no corresponding +Germanic god suggested itself, is a corrupt form of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>Saturnus.⁠<a id="FNanchor_690" href="#Footnote_690" class="fnanchor">[690]</a> Among the Slavic peoples, whose week +begins with Monday, as the first day after rest, the +planetary names are unknown, the days being numbered +in conformity with the usage of the Greek +Church.⁠<a id="FNanchor_691" href="#Footnote_691" class="fnanchor">[691]</a> A similar custom prevails among the Lithuanians +and Esthonians, who appear to have borrowed +their week from the Slavs. Modern Greeks employ +the ecclesiastical designations of the weekdays,⁠<a id="FNanchor_692" href="#Footnote_692" class="fnanchor">[692]</a> but +the Finns and Lapps, at the other extremity of Europe, +in adopting the week from the Scandinavians, took over +also the planetary names of the days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_693" href="#Footnote_693" class="fnanchor">[693]</a>⁠</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br> +<span class="smaller">THE BABYLONIAN “EVIL DAYS” AND THE SHABATTUM</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>It is time to return to Babylonia. We have seen +that here the cult of seven as a symbolic number +was long anterior to the recognition of the seven planets; +and, furthermore, that the planetary week, +instead of being an early creation of Babylonian astrology, +arose during the Hellenistic Age from the union +of Greek and Oriental speculations. But for many +centuries previously a seven-day week, in which the +days were numbered, not named, had existed as a +Jewish institution in western Asia; and we have still +to determine whether this Jewish form of the week was +derived remotely from Babylonia, and according to +what conceptions the assumed Babylonian original +was itself developed.</p> + +<p>In the year 1869 the late George Smith, well known +as a pioneer student of Assyriology, discovered among +the cuneiform tablets in the British Museum “a curious +religious calendar of the Assyrians, in which every +month is divided into four weeks, and the seventh +days, or ‘Sabbaths,’ are marked out as days on which +no work should be undertaken.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_694" href="#Footnote_694" class="fnanchor">[694]</a> Six years afterward +Sir Henry Rawlinson published this calendar in +the fourth volume of his standard collection of cuneiform +inscriptions. It appears to be a transcript of a +much more ancient Babylonian original, possibly +belonging to the age of Hammurabi, which had been +made by order of Asshurbanipal and placed in his +royal library at Nineveh. The calendar, which is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>complete for the thirteenth or intercalary month, +called Elul II, and for Markheshwan, the eighth month +of the Babylonian year, takes up the thirty days in +succession and indicates the deity to which each day +is sacred and what sacrifices or precautionary measures +are necessary for each day. All the days are styled +“favourable,” an expression which must indicate a +pious hope, not a fact, since the words <i>ud-khul-gal</i> or +<i>ûmu limnu</i> (“the evil day”) are particularly applied +to the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, +and twenty-eighth days. The second Elul, being an +intercalated month, might be thought to have enjoyed +a special significance, as intercalary months have +had elsewhere;⁠<a id="FNanchor_695" href="#Footnote_695" class="fnanchor">[695]</a> but such a hypothesis will not explain +the inclusion of the month of Markheshwan in +the calendar.⁠<a id="FNanchor_696" href="#Footnote_696" class="fnanchor">[696]</a> Hence it is highly probable that at one +time the other months were similarly marked, though +as yet there is no inscriptional evidence for the observance +of the five “evil days” in all the months of the +Babylonian year.⁠<a id="FNanchor_697" href="#Footnote_697" class="fnanchor">[697]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>With regard to the reasons which dictated the choice +of the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth +days, two views have been entertained. It has +been held, in the first place, that the “evil days” were +selected as corresponding to the moon’s successive +changes; hence that the seventh day marks the close +of the earliest form of the seven-day week, a week +bound up with the lunar phases. According to another +opinion the setting apart of every seventh day +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>was due to the importance ascribed to seven; hence +that the seven-day cycles were not regarded as quarters +of the lunation but rather as periods containing the +symbolic number of seven days, which happened to +coincide, roughly, with a fourth part of the lunar +month. The second view would be merely an amplification +of the first, if we assume, with perhaps the +majority of Assyriologists, that the rôle of seven as a +symbolic number is ultimately connected with the +moon changing her phases at intervals of approximately +seven days.</p> + +<p>It must be admitted, however, that in the present +state of our knowledge we cannot obtain any satisfactory +explanation of the origin of a symbolic number. +As far as seven is concerned, the American evidence, +previously referred to,⁠<a id="FNanchor_698" href="#Footnote_698" class="fnanchor">[698]</a> indicates that cosmical speculations +may sometimes account for its significance; while +in the Semitic area, again, one root of the cult of seven +may lie in the observation of the Pleiades and the early +use of Pleiades calendars by the agriculturist.⁠<a id="FNanchor_699" href="#Footnote_699" class="fnanchor">[699]</a> That +the Pleiades number seven stars has been noted even +by savage peoples, who have also observed that each +one of three other prominent constellations, Ursa +Major, Ursa Minor, and Orion, contains seven principal +stars. Such unexplained coincidences may have +served to confirm the impression of the significance of +seven in the minds of Babylonian astrologers, even +though the mystic quality of that number was based +originally on a different set of ideas. But it is unnecessary +to discuss further what popular superstitions and +priestly speculations gave rise to the symbolism of +seven in ancient Babylonia.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span></p> + +<p>The month in Babylonia was a lunar month, and the +year was a lunisolar year. Unlike the Egyptians, who +passed from moon- to sun-reckonings before the dawn +of history, the Babylonians always retained the primitive +lunar calendar, harmonized with the solar year by +the crude method of intercalating an extra month at +the necessary intervals. As in all lunar calendars +the month began with the visible new moon. So important +was this for the determination of the month +that <i>arxu</i>, the Babylonian expression for “month,” +meant, properly, the beginning of the month; while +Nannar (<i>nannaru</i>), one of the names of the moon-god, +was originally applied to the new moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_700" href="#Footnote_700" class="fnanchor">[700]</a> The length +of the month was reckoned at thirty days as an approximate +average of the duration of the moon’s course, a +calculation familiar enough to many half-civilized +peoples.⁠<a id="FNanchor_701" href="#Footnote_701" class="fnanchor">[701]</a> The ideogram for <i>arxu</i> is the number +“thirty” enclosed in the ideogram for “day”; and the +ideogram for Sin, the moon-deity, is made up of that +for “god” and of that for “thirty,” which number was +sacred to him. When in late mythological syncretism +the goddess Ishtar was represented as the daughter of +Sin, her sacred number became fifteen, and this, with +the determinative of goddess prefixed to it, was often +used to express her name.⁠<a id="FNanchor_702" href="#Footnote_702" class="fnanchor">[702]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Though the calendar assigned to each month thirty +full days, the actual month must have often included +only twenty-nine days, since the reckoning employed +was purely lunar. We may assume, in the absence of +definite statements as to the way of fixing the length +of the month, that the Babylonians at first followed the +rough-and-ready method of modern Arabs: on the +twenty-ninth of the month, after the sun has gone +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>down, they look in the western sky for the faint sickle +of the moon; if this is seen, the new month begins +forthwith; if it cannot be seen, the following day is +also included in the old month, which then contains +thirty days. By the middle of the seventh century +<span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, and perhaps at an even earlier date, a more exact +means of calculating the length of the month had come +into use. The royal astrologers, who sent regular +reports to the king as to the appearance or non-appearance +of the moon at the expected time, appear to have +carefully observed the day of the opposition of the sun +and moon in the middle of the month; when the full-moon +day was known, it became an easy matter to +determine how many more days should be counted to +the end of the month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_703" href="#Footnote_703" class="fnanchor">[703]</a> It was not until the third or +second century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, when exact astronomical methods +had supplanted purely empirical study of the heavens, +that the Babylonians were able to calculate the +appearance of the true new moon. By this time, +too, the progress of astronomical knowledge allowed +them to adopt the more accurate calendarizing of +the lunation into months of twenty-nine and thirty +days, five of the former, and seven of the latter, +length.⁠<a id="FNanchor_704" href="#Footnote_704" class="fnanchor">[704]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>These details concerning the Babylonian calendar, +in all but its latest form, are enough to indicate that it +presents no striking divergence from the general type +of lunar reckonings. The Babylonians, like all other +peoples of the ancient East, based their calculations +of time on the moon. It follows, therefore, that the +seven-day periods described in the Rawlinson calendar +were also reckoned from the visible new moon; indeed, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>this fact is clearly indicated by the description applied +in that calendar to the first day of the month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_705" href="#Footnote_705" class="fnanchor">[705]</a> We +may reasonably assume that the last day of the month +(when the latter actually included only twenty-nine +days) or the last two days of a thirty-day month were +regarded as forming an epagomenal period, interrupting +the regular succession of seven-day cycles. Possibly +the Babylonians may have employed some such device +as that found among the negroes of west Africa, in +order that four of their lunar periods should correspond +exactly to the length of the lunation.⁠<a id="FNanchor_706" href="#Footnote_706" class="fnanchor">[706]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>We may next inquire whether additional evidence +exists to indicate that the seven-day periods of the +Rawlinson calendar were definitely associated with +successive phases of the moon. It has already been +noticed that very early in the Assyro-Babylonian cultural +area there was in at least occasional use a five-day +cycle, called <i>khamushtu</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_707" href="#Footnote_707" class="fnanchor">[707]</a> Whether it preceded +the hebdomadal cycle or afterwards supplanted it +(perhaps as forming a closer divisor of the lunation), +or whether the two periods may not have existed +more or less contemporaneously, are matters concerning +which the cuneiform records tell us nothing. They +do tell us, however, that a five-day period, possibly +to be identified with the <i>khamushtu</i>, was closely associated +with the successive appearances of the moon, +as in a text where the first five days of the month +are spoken of as those of the crescent moon, the next +five, as those of the half-moon (“kidney”), and the +five following days as those of the full or nearly full +moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_708" href="#Footnote_708" class="fnanchor">[708]</a> A similar association with the moon’s course +is set forth in the case of a seven-day period in a text +which specifically indicates the seventh, fourteenth, +twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days as those of Sin, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>the moon-god.⁠<a id="FNanchor_709" href="#Footnote_709" class="fnanchor">[709]</a> Another text connects several days +of the month with the moon’s course in the following +order: first day, new moon; seventh day, moon as +“kidney” (half-moon); fifteenth day, full moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_710" href="#Footnote_710" class="fnanchor">[710]</a> +Finally, in the fifth tablet of the Babylonian <i>Epic of +Creation</i>, a work which in its original form is traced +to the close of the third millennium <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, it is told how +the god Marduk, having created and set in order the +heavenly bodies, then placed the moon in the sky to +make known the days and divide the month with her +phases. Although this interesting production, in its +present mutilated state, mentions only the seventh +and fourteenth days, we are entitled to believe that the +original text also referred to the twenty-first and +twenty-eighth days of the month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_711" href="#Footnote_711" class="fnanchor">[711]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The cuneiform evidence thus makes it reasonably +certain that the cycles of seven days’ duration found +in the Rawlinson calendar were regarded as divisions +of the lunar month. This conclusion does not require +us to hold that these cycles originated in the quartering +of the lunation. Their choice may conceivably +have been dictated in the first instance by the desire +to apply the prevailing symbolism of seven to periods +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>of time; while only later, and as a secondary development, +were they brought into connection with the phases +of the moon. In either case the seven-day periods can +be only loosely and inaccurately described as “weeks.” +Nothing in the cuneiform records indicates that the +Babylonians ever employed them for civil purposes. +These periods seem to have had solely a religious significance, +as was true also of the four divisions of the +month, similarly connected with the lunar phases, +in the sacred calendars of both Buddhism and Zoroastrianism.⁠<a id="FNanchor_712" href="#Footnote_712" class="fnanchor">[712]</a> +What we have disclosed in Babylonia is, +not the week itself, but the material out of which such +an institution might be formed.</p> + +<p>Each septenary period in the calendar for Elul II +and Markheshwan closed with an unnamed “evil +day.” The symbolism of seven cannot in itself account +for the unlucky quality attaching to this seventh +day. Seven to the Babylonians bore no unlucky +character. It stood, rather, for the notion of completeness +or totality, appearing in prayers, incantations, +and exorcisms to indicate the sum total of the gods or +spirits recognized by the worshipper; sometimes marking +the length of the period during which such important +actions as the dedication of a temple or the mourning +for a death must be performed; and often, again, +assuming a mythological rôle, as in the seven gates of +the underworld, the seven names of the goddess Ishtar, +and the periods of seven days’ duration found in the +Babylonian Deluge narrative.⁠<a id="FNanchor_713" href="#Footnote_713" class="fnanchor">[713]</a> In these and many +other instances seven appears as a symbolic, but not +as a portentous, number. Assuming, however, that +the seven-day periods of the Rawlinson calendar were +associated with successive phases of the moon—whether +originally or secondarily does not matter—it +is clear that the seventh day, marking the critical +or transition point in each phase, would possess a +special importance. In fact, the negative or prohibitive +regulations enforced among the Babylonians on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>the “evil days” bear a close resemblance to the taboos +which many other peoples have observed at the changes +of the moon.</p> + +<p>Recent students of Semitic magic have shown that +the Sumerians and their successors, the Babylonians +and Assyrians, were familiar with the idea of taboo; +the term <i>mamit</i>, which appears frequently in magical +texts, is exactly equivalent to <i>tabu</i>, since it refers to +that state of ritual impurity or ceremonial uncleanness +attending certain circumstances or actions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_714" href="#Footnote_714" class="fnanchor">[714]</a> A great +part of the so-called <i>Shurpu</i> series⁠<a id="FNanchor_715" href="#Footnote_715" class="fnanchor">[715]</a> deals with the +methods of removing the condition of <i>mamit</i> into which +a man may have wittingly or unwittingly fallen. The +murderer, the adulterer, or the thief became <i>mamit</i> +in consequence of his breach of ordinary social morality, +but equally cursed was the unlucky person who ran +up against another who was under a taboo, slept on his +bed, ate out of his plate, or drank from his cup. A +man might be contaminated by putting his foot in +some unclean water, by treading in some libation that +had been poured forth, by touching a bewitched +woman, and even by seeing one of unwashed hands. +The third tablet of the <i>Shurpu</i> series enumerates no +less than one hundred and sixty-three taboos, including +“those which come from the family, old or young, +friend or neighbour, rich or poor; oven, bellows, pots +and cups, bed or couch, chariot or weapons. To +drink out of an unclean vessel, to sit in the sun, to root +up plants in the desert, to cut reeds in a thicket, to +slay the young of beasts, to pray with unclean hands, +and a host of other common actions, might under +certain conditions bring a <i>tapu</i> on the man.” Such +tabooed acts placed the man under an interdiction; +if he fell sick, he knew that his sufferings were due to +the hostility of some supernatural power; and a professional +exorcist would be called in to drive away by +magical words, prayers, and rites the divine curse +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>clinging to his person.⁠<a id="FNanchor_716" href="#Footnote_716" class="fnanchor">[716]</a> It seems to be clear, then, +that the taboos observed on the “evil days” represented +to the Babylonians only a particular application +of an ancient and generally accepted superstition.</p> + +<p>The calendar for Elul II contains specific directions +for the observance of the five “evil days,” in each case +the same except for differences in the names of the deities.⁠<a id="FNanchor_717" href="#Footnote_717" class="fnanchor">[717]</a> +The regulations for the seventh day read as +follows:</p> + +<p>“An evil day. The shepherd of great peoples shall +not eat flesh cooked upon the coals, or bread of the +oven.⁠<a id="FNanchor_718" href="#Footnote_718" class="fnanchor">[718]</a> The garment of his body he shall not change, +he shall not put on clean [garments]. He shall not +bring an offering. The king shall not ride in his chariot. +He shall not speak as a ruler (?). The priest shall +not give a decision in the secret place. The physician +shall not lay his hand on a patient. To issue a malediction +it [the day] is not suitable.⁠<a id="FNanchor_719" href="#Footnote_719" class="fnanchor">[719]</a> At night the king +shall bring his gift before Marduk and Ishtar, he shall +offer a sacrifice. The lifting up of his hands will then +be pleasing to god.”</p> + +<p>It is clear that the rules for the seventh day prescribe +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>a season of abstinence affecting many royal activities. +The “shepherd of great peoples” must not +eat any food which has been cooked with fire; he +must not change his clothes; and he must not offer +a sacrifice until the end of the day. The king is not +to speak in public; and he is even forbidden to travel. +The Babylonian monarch who observed all these +taboos five times a month would have been as strictly +secluded as was the Hawaiian ruler, who, likewise, +during the four monthly <i>tabu</i> periods retired to the +inner precincts of his temple.⁠<a id="FNanchor_720" href="#Footnote_720" class="fnanchor">[720]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Babylonian regulations have been interpreted +as survivals from ancient times, when priest-kings +were accredited with a divine or supernatural nature, +and hence were subjected to numberless restrictions +designed to prevent any impairment of their sanctity +and magical power.⁠<a id="FNanchor_721" href="#Footnote_721" class="fnanchor">[721]</a> A consideration of the evidence +yielded by primitive societies suggests, however, that +the Babylonian regulations may have been connected +originally with taboos imposed on the entire community. +In Hawaii, where the lunar phases were observed as +<i>tabu</i> periods, the prohibitions affecting the king represented +only an intensification of the communal taboos, +to be explained by the extreme sanctity attached to +the Hawaiian ruler. In Assam, where the <i>genna</i> +institution enjoys a vigorous life, we find that, besides +the prohibitions communally observed at critical times, +the <i>khullakpa</i>, or priest-chief, is surrounded by many +elaborate taboos. Their purpose is “to protect the +man who acts on behalf of the whole subdivision or +village on the occasions of general <i>genna</i>, from any +accident which might impair his power.” He is subject +to various food restrictions, must content himself +with only one wife, and must even separate himself +from her on the eve of a general <i>genna</i>. In one group +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>the headman may not eat in a strange village, nor, +whatever the provocation, may he utter a word of +abuse. The violation of any one of these taboos is +thought to bring misfortune on the entire village.⁠<a id="FNanchor_722" href="#Footnote_722" class="fnanchor">[722]</a> +It is not wholly speculative to suggest that, were the +natives of Assam to discard their communal taboos as +burdensome, the special regulations affecting the <i>khullakpa</i> +might survive, in deference to old tradition, and +might even be increased in severity, if that individual +should grow in authority and holiness. The situation +would then furnish a very close analogy to what +existed in ancient Babylonia. The regulations concerning +the “evil days,” it may be noted, did not pertain +to the king alone. We may reasonably assume that +“the shepherd of great peoples” and the king mentioned +further on in the calendar are one and the same; but +the record also describes certain rules imposed on the +priest and on the physician, both important functionaries +among the Babylonians. It seems also evident +that the day was regarded as unsuitable for any one to +lay a curse or ban; according to another, and possibly +more accurate, rendering, unsuitable for all business. +These considerations increase the probability that at +one time some taboos on the seventh day were observed +by the entire community.⁠<a id="FNanchor_723" href="#Footnote_723" class="fnanchor">[723]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>It is questionable, however, whether in late historic +times there was any general abstention from work and +other activities on the “evil days.” The Babylonians +were a highly organized commercial and manufacturing +people who would have found such regulations burdensome +to the highest degree. Taboos once generally +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>observed may have been gradually relaxed and at last +abandoned, just as modern Jews are now neglecting the +observance of the Sabbath. The practice might have +been kept up, however, by the king and the priests as +the special guardians of conservative institutions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_724" href="#Footnote_724" class="fnanchor">[724]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The cuneiform records contain a term <i>shabattum</i>, +which has been generally accepted as the phonetic +equivalent of the Hebrew <i>shabbāthôn</i>, perhaps an intensive +form of <i>shabbāth</i> or Sabbath, referring to a +Sabbath of particular solemnity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_725" href="#Footnote_725" class="fnanchor">[725]</a> <i>Shabattum</i>, a word +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>which has been found as yet only five or six times in +Assyro-Babylonian documents, occurs in a lexicographical +tablet containing the equation <i>shabbattu(m) = +ûm nûkh libbi</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_726" href="#Footnote_726" class="fnanchor">[726]</a> The accepted translation of the latter +expression is “day of rest of (or for) the heart” (<i>s.c.</i>, +“of the angered gods”). Various scholars in England +and Germany, intent on discovering Babylonian +parallels for all Hebrew institutions, have therefore +explained <i>shabattum</i> and its equivalent phrase by the +five “evil days” found in the calendar already +noticed. This identification was based on the observation +that these seemed also to be penitential days, +when by special observances the gods must be appeased +and their anger averted. The Hebrew Sabbath +would therefore represent an institution directly +derived from the Babylonian regulations for the “evil +days.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_727" href="#Footnote_727" class="fnanchor">[727]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Until recently, however, Assyriology has sounded +no certain note concerning the etymology and significance +of the term <i>shabattum</i>. Thus, Delitzsch holds +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>that “the only meaning that may be justifiably assumed +is ‘ending (of work), cessation, keeping holiday from +work.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_728" href="#Footnote_728" class="fnanchor">[728]</a> As the result of linguistic analysis +Hirschfeld concludes, on the contrary, that “the idea +of resting for religious reasons after a certain spell of +working days is far too complicated to be the original +meaning of a primitive root.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_729" href="#Footnote_729" class="fnanchor">[729]</a> Jastrow, again, points +out that <i>ûm nûkh libbi</i>, with which <i>shabattum</i> has been +equated, was a standing expression for the pacification +of a deity’s anger. It occurs frequently in Babylonian +religious literature, where it is more particularly used +in hymns addressed by penitentials to some god who +has shown his ill-will toward them. <i>Shabattum</i> implies, +therefore, a day of propitiation, and the idea of rest +involved refers to gods and not to men—a refraining +from or cessation of divine anger.⁠<a id="FNanchor_730" href="#Footnote_730" class="fnanchor">[730]</a> Zimmern suggests +that <i>shabattum</i> may be derived from the verb +<i>shabâtu</i>, with the sense of “discontinue” or “desist,” +applied to the anger of the gods.⁠<a id="FNanchor_731" href="#Footnote_731" class="fnanchor">[731]</a> Pinches, on the +contrary, believes that the word comes from the Sumerian +<i>shabat</i>, which probably had no connection with +the Semitic verb <i>shabâtu</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_732" href="#Footnote_732" class="fnanchor">[732]</a> Nielsen goes still further +afield for a satisfactory explanation, and considers +<i>shabat</i> a term taken over from the Arabic <i>thabat</i>, +from a root meaning “rest,” applied to the lunar +phases.⁠<a id="FNanchor_733" href="#Footnote_733" class="fnanchor">[733]</a> As the outcome of extensive philological +study Hehn argues that <i>shabattum</i> meant originally +“fulness,” “completeness,” the notion of rest being +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>later and entirely secondary.⁠<a id="FNanchor_734" href="#Footnote_734" class="fnanchor">[734]</a> Still another interpretation +makes <i>shabattum</i> equivalent to “day of lament.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_735" href="#Footnote_735" class="fnanchor">[735]</a> +Finally, in a brief, though highly suggestive study, +Professor Toy holds that the root idea in the Babylonian +expression was that of abstinence, though +<i>shabattum</i> might also have been regarded as a day of +propitiation because of the restrictions attached to it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_736" href="#Footnote_736" class="fnanchor">[736]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>These conflicting interpretations scarcely made for +confidence in the results of a purely philological analysis. +Recent discoveries, however, have thrown new +light on the problem. A lexicographical tablet from +the library of the Assyrian king Asshurbanipal gives +the names attached to several days of the Babylonian +month; and among these is the designation <i>shabattum</i>, +applied to the fifteenth day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_737" href="#Footnote_737" class="fnanchor">[737]</a> Still more recently a +similar use of <i>shabattum</i> has been found in a text which +contains an account of the moon’s course during the +month. Reference is here made to the first appearance +of the new moon, its ash-grey light until about +the seventh day thereafter, its opposition with the sun +on the fourteenth day, its aspects on the twenty-first, +twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth days, and finally its +disappearance on the thirtieth day, being the time of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>conjunction with the sun. In this description, which +for minuteness recalls the Polynesian naming of the +nights from successive aspects of the moon,⁠<a id="FNanchor_738" href="#Footnote_738" class="fnanchor">[738]</a> the fifteenth +day again appears as <i>shabattum</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_739" href="#Footnote_739" class="fnanchor">[739]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>It is clear that the Babylonians recognized, with +many other peoples, the two most prominent stages +of the lunation, new moon and full moon, and described +them by particular names, <i>nannaru</i> and <i>shabattum</i>. +Evidence exists, moreover, showing that these +two days from very early times were observed as festivals, +particularly in the cities of Ur and Harran. Here +were the chief seats of the cult of Sin, the moon-god, +always one of the most important members of the +Babylonian pantheon and anciently enjoying precedence +over Shamash, the sun-god.⁠<a id="FNanchor_740" href="#Footnote_740" class="fnanchor">[740]</a> Certain cuneiform +tablets, all written down during the time of the Fourth +Dynasty of Ur and dating, therefore, from the third +millennium <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, distinctly refer to sacrifices which were +made to the divine kings of Ur on the new-moon day +and on the fifteenth of the month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_741" href="#Footnote_741" class="fnanchor">[741]</a> At Harran, where +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>the cult of Sin continued to flourish under the Roman +Empire and into the early Middle Ages, four sacrificial +days were observed every month, and of these +at least two were determined by the conjunction and +opposition of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_742" href="#Footnote_742" class="fnanchor">[742]</a> Outside the Babylonian +cultural area, but within the general field of Semitic +religion, there is also the interesting evidence yielded +by the inscription of Narnaka, which indicates that as +late as the time of the Ptolemies new moon and full +moon were the chief periods of sacrifice observed by +the Phœnicians.⁠<a id="FNanchor_743" href="#Footnote_743" class="fnanchor">[743]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The choice of the fifteenth day as the <i>shabbatum</i> was +obviously determined by the length of the Babylonian +month, which in the earlier period was regularly taken +at thirty days’ duration. We have seen, however, +that, where lunar reckonings are employed and the +month begins at sunset with the visible new moon, +the fourteenth day more commonly coincides with +the full of the moon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_744" href="#Footnote_744" class="fnanchor">[744]</a> <i>Shabattum</i> being the technical +expression for the fifteenth day as the time of full +moon, it is only reasonable to conclude that, if not the +name, at any rate the observances belonging to this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>day would be often transferred to the fourteenth of +the month, or to any other day on which the moon +became full. No other hypothesis will explain the +outstanding fact that <i>shabattum</i> was equated with +<i>ûm nûkh libbi</i> as a day for appeasing the anger of the +deity. And if for practical purposes the fourteenth +day might be a <i>shabattum</i>, it is not difficult to assume +that this was also the case with the days (seventh, +twenty-first, and twenty-eighth, perhaps, also, the +nineteenth), which marked other characteristic stages +of the lunation. In the developed Babylonian cult +all these were “evil days,” when the gods must be +propitiated and conciliated. In the primitive faith +of Semitic peoples they were occasions observed with +superstitious concern as times of fasting, cessation of +activity, and other forms of abstinence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_745" href="#Footnote_745" class="fnanchor">[745]</a>⁠</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br> +<span class="smaller">THE HEBREW SABBATH</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>The earliest Biblical references to the Sabbath all +indicate that the institution had long been found +among the Hebrews. It appears in the most ancient +documents of the Law, such as the two Decalogues,⁠<a id="FNanchor_746" href="#Footnote_746" class="fnanchor">[746]</a> +the old “Ritual Code,” and the nearly related “Book +of the Covenant.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_747" href="#Footnote_747" class="fnanchor">[747]</a> It is mentioned in the “Books +of Kings” during the time of the prophet Elisha.⁠<a id="FNanchor_748" href="#Footnote_748" class="fnanchor">[748]</a> +It is noticed in the prophecies of Amos and Hosea.⁠<a id="FNanchor_749" href="#Footnote_749" class="fnanchor">[749]</a> +The antiquity of the Sabbath is further indicated +by the fact that Hebrew tradition preserved no certain +information of its origin. From the Old Testament +we cannot tell whether the Sabbath was hallowed in +remembrance of Jehovah’s rest after the Creation,⁠<a id="FNanchor_750" href="#Footnote_750" class="fnanchor">[750]</a> +or whether it was instituted as a memorial of the escape +of the Hebrews from Egypt.⁠<a id="FNanchor_751" href="#Footnote_751" class="fnanchor">[751]</a> Assuming, with most +reputable critics, that the narrative in the first chapter +of Genesis, which divides the work of creation into six +days, is comparatively late, it follows that the Sabbath +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>could not have been founded as a reminiscence of the +completion of the Creation. The author must have +been familiar with the institution of a seven-day week +ending in a Sabbath. Its chief characteristic was then +that of a day of rest, as appears from the fact that, +without mentioning the Sabbath by name, he seeks +to glorify it by placing the hallowed character of the +seventh day at the beginning of the world. The sanctity +of the seventh day is in reality antedated, and the +priestly writer wished to adjust artificially the work of +creation to it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_752" href="#Footnote_752" class="fnanchor">[752]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>An old and still common theory derives the Sabbath +institution from the worship of Saturn, after +which planet the first day of the astrological week +received its designation.⁠<a id="FNanchor_753" href="#Footnote_753" class="fnanchor">[753]</a> The theory is untenable +for more than one reason. In the first place the Hebrews +did not name their weekdays after the planets, +but indicated them by ordinal numbers. In the second +place Saturn’s Day began the planetary week, while +the Jewish Sabbath was regarded as the last day of +the seven, a suitable position for a rest day. And in +the third place neither the Hebrews nor any other +Oriental people ever worshipped the planet Saturn as +god and observed his day as a festival. It is true that, +besides Venus, another planet familiar to the Hebrews +may be recognized in the Old Testament under the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>name Kewan, the Assyrian designation of Saturn.⁠<a id="FNanchor_754" href="#Footnote_754" class="fnanchor">[754]</a> +This name appears in a passage of Amos, where the +prophet has been supposed to be referring to an early +worship of Saturn by the Israelites during the period +of their sojourn in the Wilderness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_755" href="#Footnote_755" class="fnanchor">[755]</a> But a single Old +Testament text, both corrupt and obscure, can scarcely +be cited as proving that Saturn was ever recognized +by the Israelites as a distinct god. If it be held +that Amos had in mind the Hebrews of his own time, +the passage in question can only refer to the adoption +by them of astrological notions derived from Babylonia. +These imported superstitions eventually led +Jewish rabbis to call Saturn <i>Shabbti</i>, “the star of the +Sabbath,” which, however, is not a naming of the day +after the planet, but a naming of the planet after the +day. It was not until the first century of our era, when +the planetary week had become an established institution, +that the Jewish Sabbath seems always to have +corresponded to Saturn’s Day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_756" href="#Footnote_756" class="fnanchor">[756]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The association of the Sabbath Day with Saturday +was probably one reason why Saturn, a planet in Babylonian +astrological schemes regarded as beneficent +rather than malefic, should have come to assume in +late classical times the rôle of an unlucky star (<i>sidus +tristissimum</i>, <i>stella iniquissima</i>). The oldest reference +to Saturday is found in a verse by the poet Tibullus +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>(d. 19 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>), who apparently identifies Saturn’s +Day with the supposed inauspicious Jewish Sabbath, +when he gives as one of his excuses for not quitting +Rome the bad omens which detained him “on the +sacred day of Saturn.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_757" href="#Footnote_757" class="fnanchor">[757]</a> Ovid mentions “foreign +Sabbaths” along with the anniversary of the day of +the battle of the Allia—<i>dies Alliensis</i>—as unlucky +occasions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_758" href="#Footnote_758" class="fnanchor">[758]</a> Frontinus, a Roman military officer and +tactician (d. about 103 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>), says that Vespasian defeated +the Jews by attacking them on Saturn’s Day, +when it was unlawful for them to do anything. Dio +Cassius also speaks of the Jews having dedicated to +their god the day called the day of Saturn, “on which, +among many other most peculiar actions, they undertake +no serious occupation.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_759" href="#Footnote_759" class="fnanchor">[759]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Hebrews manifested so little originality in cultural +matters and borrowed so heavily from their +neighbours that it becomes a natural inquiry whether +the Sabbath, with the seven-day week, may not have +arisen outside of Israel. Writing in the seventeenth +century the learned John Spencer argued that Egypt +was the original home of the institution, since in various +Old Testament passages the Sabbath is declared to +have been established to commemorate the exodus from +Egypt.⁠<a id="FNanchor_760" href="#Footnote_760" class="fnanchor">[760]</a> But the Egyptians, as we have seen, divided +their months into decades, and no evidence exists +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>that they ever employed for civil purposes any shorter +division of the month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_761" href="#Footnote_761" class="fnanchor">[761]</a> A second hypothesis, which +makes the week and the Sabbath a direct importation +from Babylonia, is likewise without warrant in the +light of existing information.⁠<a id="FNanchor_762" href="#Footnote_762" class="fnanchor">[762]</a> The same may be said +of the theory that the Sabbath was first taken over +from Babylonia by the agricultural inhabitants of Canaan, +from whom, in turn, the Israelites borrowed an +institution which would have no meaning to a nomadic +people.⁠<a id="FNanchor_763" href="#Footnote_763" class="fnanchor">[763]</a> But the opinion, so frequently expressed, +that the Sabbath cannot be very primitive, since it +“presupposes agriculture and a tolerably hard-pressed +working-day life,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_764" href="#Footnote_764" class="fnanchor">[764]</a> betrays an imperfect acquaintance +with popular superstition. The brief prohibitions +of work found in the Pentateuch cannot be separated, +by any subtleties of exegesis, from the numerous other +taboos with which the institution was invested. The +rest on the Sabbath is only one of the forms of abstinence +in connection with lunar changes; and, if the +Sabbath began as a festival at new moon and full moon, +it may well have been observed by the Israelites before +their contact with Canaanitish culture. The ancient +dwellers in the Arabian wilderness, who celebrated new +moon and full moon as seasons of abstinence and rest, +little dreamed that in their senseless custom lay the +roots of a social institution, which, on the whole, has +contributed to human welfare in past ages and promises +an even greater measure of benefit to humanity in +all future times.</p> + +<p>To a shepherd people in tropical or semi-tropical +lands the moon appears as a gentle guardian, bringing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>restful coolness after the day with its withering heat, +and dispelling with her kindly beams the thick darkness +which may cloak a lurking foe. “This,” writes +an intrepid traveller, “is the planet of way for the way-faring +Semitic race. The moon is indeed a watch-light +of the night in the nomad wilderness; they are +glad in her shining upon the great upland, they may +sleep then in some assurance from their enemies.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_765" href="#Footnote_765" class="fnanchor">[765]</a> +To the Israelites, as to the ancient Egyptians, the +moon was preëminently the “wanderer,” by whose +movements the earliest calendars were framed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_766" href="#Footnote_766" class="fnanchor">[766]</a> One +of the Hebrew names for “month” is <i>yérah</i>, from +<i>yārēaḥ</i>, “moon”; it is called, also <i>ḥodesh</i>, which means +new moon. One of the most magnificent of the +<i>Psalms</i> declares that Jehovah “appointed the moon +for the seasons”;⁠<a id="FNanchor_767" href="#Footnote_767" class="fnanchor">[767]</a> all the Jewish festivals were determined +by the moon. At the same time there is no +Biblical testimony to indicate that the Israelites ever +conceived of the moon as a divinity and addressed to +that luminary specific acts of worship. It was only +toward the end of the Hebrew monarchy, when the +Chosen People were giving themselves over to astrology, +divination, and the worship of the heavenly bodies, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>that clear evidence of a moon-cult appears in the Old +Testament, where it encounters the denunciation of the +prophets, the prohibitions of the Law, and the repressive +measures of a reforming king.⁠<a id="FNanchor_768" href="#Footnote_768" class="fnanchor">[768]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The evidence is quite conclusive that of the lunar +phases it was especially the new moon and the full +moon which first aroused the attention of the Semitic +nomads and evoked feelings of delight and veneration. +Even to-day “the first appearing of the virgin moon is +always greeted with a religious emotion in the deserts +of Arabia.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_769" href="#Footnote_769" class="fnanchor">[769]</a> When the Bedouin and Fellahin of +modern Palestine first see the lunar crescent they +exclaim, “God’s new moon has appeared in his exaltedness. +May it be for us a blessed new moon.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_770" href="#Footnote_770" class="fnanchor">[770]</a> Modern +Jewish ritual prescribes a special service for the +new-moon day, including the recital of psalms of joy. +So familiar an expression as Hallelujah, “praise Jehovah” +(Jahweh), is a verbal form of the onomatopoetic +stem <i>hilâl</i>, meaning “new moon,” “crescent,” with the +addition of the divine name.⁠<a id="FNanchor_771" href="#Footnote_771" class="fnanchor">[771]</a> The Hebrew month, +as among other peoples who count by lunations, began +when the silvery crescent was first discerned in the +evening twilight. In later Judaism, as soon as the +moon’s appearance was proved by credible witnesses +before the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, the feast of the new +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>moon was held, and messengers were sent abroad to +announce the opening of the new month. The celebration +of the festival would seem, at least occasionally, +to have lasted two days, an arrangement obviously +dictated by the inability to determine beforehand on +which of two successive days the moon might be expected +to appear.⁠<a id="FNanchor_772" href="#Footnote_772" class="fnanchor">[772]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The new-moon festival was considered an exceptional +solemnity as early as the time of Saul. The twentieth +chapter of the <i>First Book of Samuel</i> records a conversation +between David and Jonathan in which the former +says, “Behold, to-morrow is the new moon, and I +should not fail to sit at meat with the king.” It +appears from this chapter that the first two days of +the month were marked by feasts at which all members +of the household were expected to be present, unless +prevented by some ceremonial uncleanness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_773" href="#Footnote_773" class="fnanchor">[773]</a> The +occasion was also observed by compulsory abstinence +from all servile work.⁠<a id="FNanchor_774" href="#Footnote_774" class="fnanchor">[774]</a> In the time of Elisha the new +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>moon seems to have been one of the favourite occasions +for consulting the prophets, a circumstance which +could be explained if the day were marked by a cessation +of the usual occupations.⁠<a id="FNanchor_775" href="#Footnote_775" class="fnanchor">[775]</a> There are other reasons, +presently to be given, for believing that until the +Exile, or later, the new moon was a general rest day; +and such it still remains for Jewish women, whose conservative +instincts have thus preserved a memorial +of its ancient observance.⁠<a id="FNanchor_776" href="#Footnote_776" class="fnanchor">[776]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Full moon, as well as new moon, enjoyed a religious +significance to the early Hebrews. Two great agricultural +festivals, one marking the commencement of +the barley harvest, the other, the close of the fruit +harvest, must have been celebrated at about the +time of full moon, for, when the sacred calendar was +framed in post-Exilic times, they were definitely fixed +at the middle of the month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_777" href="#Footnote_777" class="fnanchor">[777]</a> The Passover, observed +on the fourteenth day of the first month (Nisan), +was followed on the fifteenth day by the Feast of Unleavened +Bread, occupying seven days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_778" href="#Footnote_778" class="fnanchor">[778]</a> The Feast +of Tabernacles began on the fifteenth of the seventh +month (Tishri) and likewise continued for seven days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_779" href="#Footnote_779" class="fnanchor">[779]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>The religious importance of these two festivals is +indicated by the injunction to keep the first and last +days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread as times of +“holy convocation,” when no “servile work” might be +done,⁠<a id="FNanchor_780" href="#Footnote_780" class="fnanchor">[780]</a> and by the significant expression <i>shabbāthôn</i> +(“solemn rest”), which is used in reference to the beginning +and end of the Feast of Tabernacles, that is, to +the fifteenth and twenty-second of the month Tishri.⁠<a id="FNanchor_781" href="#Footnote_781" class="fnanchor">[781]</a> +Furthermore, the Pentateuchal codes contain a passage, +the meaning of which was in dispute several +centuries before the Christian era, where the word +“Sabbath” appears to be used in a sense precisely +the same as that of the Babylonian <i>shabattum</i>, referring +to the fifteenth day of the month. In the twenty-third +chapter of <i>Leviticus</i> it is prescribed that on “the +morrow after the Sabbath” the sheaf of the first-fruits +of the harvest is to be brought to the priest, who shall +wave it before Jehovah, and that, counting from “the +morrow after the Sabbath,” fifty days are to elapse +before the commencement of the Feast of Weeks.⁠<a id="FNanchor_782" href="#Footnote_782" class="fnanchor">[782]</a> +As Professor Jastrow has clearly shown, the word +“Sabbath” is here used, not in its later sense of a +seventh day of rest, but as a survival of the old designation +of the Sabbath as the full-moon day. “The +two references in <i>Leviticus</i> stand out as solitary sign-posts +of an abandoned road.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_783" href="#Footnote_783" class="fnanchor">[783]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In some of the older parts of the Bible, and especially +in the earlier prophetical compositions, the new +moon and the Sabbath are repeatedly mentioned together. +In the pathetic narrative which describes +how the Shunammite woman went to seek Elisha that +the prophet might restore her son to life, her husband +asks, “‘Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day? It is +neither new moon nor Sabbath.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_784" href="#Footnote_784" class="fnanchor">[784]</a> The prophet +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>Hosea, promising that the people’s unfaithfulness +shall be punished, cries out wrathfully, “I will also +cause all her mirth to cease, her feasts, her new moons, +and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_785" href="#Footnote_785" class="fnanchor">[785]</a> +Amos rebukes the oppressors of his people “that +would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of +the land to fail, saying ‘When will the new moon be +gone, that we may sell grain? and the Sabbath, that +we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and +the shekel great?’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_786" href="#Footnote_786" class="fnanchor">[786]</a> Isaiah condemns the formalism +of the ancient faith in striking words: “Bring no more +vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; +new moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies—I +cannot bear iniquity with the solemn meeting.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_787" href="#Footnote_787" class="fnanchor">[787]</a> +Elsewhere, in the same work appears the prophecy: +“And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to +another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all +flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_788" href="#Footnote_788" class="fnanchor">[788]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>This remarkable association of the Sabbath with the +day of new moon had been previously noticed by such +acute critics as Wellhausen and Robertson Smith, who +were unable to offer a satisfactory solution of the problem +thus presented.⁠<a id="FNanchor_789" href="#Footnote_789" class="fnanchor">[789]</a> When, however, the cuneiform +records disclosed the fact that the Babylonian <i>shabattum</i> +fell on the fifteenth (or fourteenth) day of the month +and referred to the day of the full moon, it became +clear that in these Biblical passages we have another +survival of what must have been the primary meaning of +the Hebrew term <i>shabbāth</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_790" href="#Footnote_790" class="fnanchor">[790]</a> As late, then, as the eighth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, popular phraseology retained a lingering +trace of the original collocation of the new-moon and +full-moon days as festival occasions characterized +by abstinence from secular activities. How long-lived +were the old ideas is further illustrated by the +provision in Ezekiel’s reforming legislation that the +inner eastern gate of the new Temple at Jerusalem +should be shut during the six working days, but should +be opened on the Sabbath and on the new-moon day +for the religious assemblage of the people.⁠<a id="FNanchor_791" href="#Footnote_791" class="fnanchor">[791]</a> That the +term <i>shabbāth</i>, the designation of the full-moon day, +should have come to be applied to every seventh day +of the month seems to be quite in accord with both +Babylonian and Hebrew usage, which, as we have +seen, led the month itself to be called after the new-moon +day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_792" href="#Footnote_792" class="fnanchor">[792]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Hebrew seven-day week, ending with the Sabbath, +presented so obvious a resemblance to the Babylonian +septenary period, which closed with an “evil +day,” that scholars have felt themselves compelled +to seek its origin in Babylonia. The two institutions, +nevertheless, show important differences. The Babylonian +cycle, as far as we know, was never employed +as a chronological unit; the Hebrew week was a true +civil week, a definite and well-understood period of +time. The Babylonian cycle seems not to have been +dissociated from the lunation;⁠<a id="FNanchor_793" href="#Footnote_793" class="fnanchor">[793]</a> the Hebrew week was +a periodic week, running unfettered from month to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>month and from year to year. The Babylonian “evil +day” was an unnamed unlucky day, observed by the +king, by priests, and by physicians, but not certainly +by the people at large; the Hebrew Sabbath was a +named holy day, dedicated to the worship of the national +god and kept by the entire community as a +festival. These real divergencies make it certain that +the Hebrew week and Sabbath, in the form in which +we know them, could not have been taken over without +change from Babylonia. The celebration of new-moon +and full-moon festivals, which both Babylonians +and Hebrews appear to have derived from a common +Semitic antiquity, underwent, in fact, a radically unlike +evolution among the two kindred peoples. To +dissever the week from the lunar month, to employ +it as a recognized calendrical unit, and to fix upon one +day of that week for the exercises of religion were +momentous innovations, which, until evidence to the +contrary is found, must be attributed to the Hebrew +people alone.</p> + +<p>In his able treatise Meinhold has argued that until +the age of Ezekiel the Hebrews employed no weeks at +all. He then supposes that continuous seven-day +weeks were introduced, largely through Ezekiel’s +reforming influence, and hence that the Sabbath as the +last day of the periodic week was a post-Exilic institution.⁠<a id="FNanchor_794" href="#Footnote_794" class="fnanchor">[794]</a> +Critics have pointed out that it is highly +improbable that so far-reaching a change should have +occurred without being recorded; moreover, that the +acceptance of such a hypothesis makes it necessary +to assume that all places in the Old Testament where +the Sabbath is mentioned as the seventh day are either +of Ezekiel’s time or later. But the problem is simplified +if we hold that the Hebrews employed lunar +seven-day weeks, perhaps for several centuries preceding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>the Exile; weeks, that is, which ended with special +observances on the seventh day but none the less were +tied to the moon’s course. The change from such +cycles to those unconnected with the lunation would +not have involved so abrupt and sudden a departure +from the previous system of time reckoning as that +from a bipartite division of the lunar month to a week +which ran continuously through the months and the +years.⁠<a id="FNanchor_795" href="#Footnote_795" class="fnanchor">[795]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The establishment of a periodic week ending in a +Sabbath observed every seventh day was doubtless +responsible for the gradual obsolescence of the new-moon +festival as a period of general abstinence, since +with continuous weeks the new-moon day and the Sabbath +Day would from time to time coincide. This +seems to be a more natural explanation than that which +regards the complete ignoring of the new-moon festival +in the “Book of the Covenant” and in the Deuteronomic +legislation as a deliberate act, designed to wean +the people away from an observance to which heathenish +superstitions were attached. The day of new +moon never lost, indeed, its significance in Jewish +ritual, for, when all the great festivals were definitely +fixed to certain days, the new moon, as marking the +beginning of the month, continued to hold a leading +place in the sacred calendar. The Priestly Code prescribed +special offerings for the new-moon day, and in +Ezekiel’s legislation the sacrifices marking it exceeded +in importance those for the Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_796" href="#Footnote_796" class="fnanchor">[796]</a> The ancient +character of this festival as a season of compulsory +abstinence from labour survived in its observance as a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>rest day by Jewish women, perhaps also in the provision +of the law of <i>Leviticus</i> that the first day of the seventh +month, beginning the new year, should be a “solemn +rest,” “a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy +convocation.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_797" href="#Footnote_797" class="fnanchor">[797]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Sabbath is described in the Pentateuchal codes +as an agricultural institution. It appears there as +a day of rest from farm labour, to be observed not +only by the householder and his family, but also by the +slaves, the cattle, and the stranger within the gates. +In what is generally considered the earlier form of the +Decalogue the keeping of the Sabbath is prescribed, +“that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest +as well as thou”; or, as expressed in another passage, +“that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son +of thine handmaid, and the sojourner may be refreshed.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_798" href="#Footnote_798" class="fnanchor">[798]</a> +From this commandment one might draw +the conclusion that in pre-Exilic times the Sabbath +enjoyed a purely humanitarian character as a season +of repose for man and beast. The omission of any +similar statement in the later form of the Decalogue, +where the prohibition of Sabbath labour is based +solely upon Jehovah’s rest on the seventh day,⁠<a id="FNanchor_799" href="#Footnote_799" class="fnanchor">[799]</a> would +then be explained as the outcome of the priestly desire +to exalt the Sabbath as a religious festival at the expense +of its more humane and social aspects. The +further requirement that even in the busiest seasons +of the year no plea of necessity might be accepted in +mitigation of the strict rule of Sabbath observance—“in +ploughing time and in harvest thou shalt rest”⁠<a id="FNanchor_800" href="#Footnote_800" class="fnanchor">[800]</a>⁠—also +would be taken as evidence of the growing rigour +of ecclesiastical ordinances.</p> + +<p>Properly considered, however, this priestly attitude +toward the Sabbath was not a radical departure but +rather an intensification of the austere significance +attached from the earliest times to the new-moon and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>full-moon days. The Pentateuchal codes contain, in +fact, a number of Sabbatarian regulations which are +meaningless, except when elucidated from the comparative +standpoint as taboos. The rule requiring +every one to remain indoors on the Sabbath: “Abide +ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his +place on the seventh day,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_801" href="#Footnote_801" class="fnanchor">[801]</a> is identical with the numerous +rules which impose seclusion on tabooed or unlucky +occasions, as a means of avoiding physical contact +with supernatural and invisible powers of evil.</p> + +<p>The prohibition: “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout +your habitations upon the Sabbath Day,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_802" href="#Footnote_802" class="fnanchor">[802]</a> which in +another passage⁠<a id="FNanchor_803" href="#Footnote_803" class="fnanchor">[803]</a> is amplified into the rule requiring +all cooking to be done on the preceding day, may be +first compared with the taboos observed by “the shepherd +of great peoples” in Babylonia. On four “evil +days” he was not to eat roasted meat or baked bread, +and on the nineteenth day he might eat nothing which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>had been touched by fire.⁠<a id="FNanchor_804" href="#Footnote_804" class="fnanchor">[804]</a> In a remarkable calendar +of the unlucky days observed by the Egyptians we +find an extensive series of regulations regarding the +use of fire. On the fifth of the month of Athyr, fire +might not be looked at and, if it went out, it might not +be rekindled. On the eleventh of Tybi no one might +approach a fire-place, for, said the scribe, on that day +the god Ra had once burst into flame to devour his +enemies, and the effects of his metamorphosis were +felt on every anniversary of the day. These taboos, +which reach back into a remote period of Egyptian +history, are still found among the peasants of Thebes +and the Saîd, who, on certain days of the year, refuse +to kindle a fire, and on others avoid approaching the +flame, even of a candle or a lamp, and the most timid +do not smoke.⁠<a id="FNanchor_805" href="#Footnote_805" class="fnanchor">[805]</a> In Hawaii, as we have seen, during +the four <i>tabu</i> seasons in each lunar month, “every fire +and light was extinguished.” The same regulation is +attached to periods of abstinence elsewhere in the +aboriginal world.⁠<a id="FNanchor_806" href="#Footnote_806" class="fnanchor">[806]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Some of these taboos relating to fire may reflect +primitive man’s fear of a mysterious element which +had not yet been completely tamed and harnessed to +human use; but the fact that among various peoples +all fires are put out after a death indicates a more probable +origin of the prohibition in the fear of attracting +evil spirits or influences. In Morocco, when a person +has died in the morning, “no fire is made in the whole +village until he is buried, and in some parts of the +country the inmates of a house or tent where a death +has occurred, abstain from making fire for two or three +days.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_807" href="#Footnote_807" class="fnanchor">[807]</a> Similar customs are found in Polynesia, +Borneo, the East Indies, Burma, and various parts of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>Africa; they were practised by Persians and Greeks +in antiquity; and they still survive among the peasants +of Calabria and the Scottish Highlanders.⁠<a id="FNanchor_808" href="#Footnote_808" class="fnanchor">[808]</a> It is hardly +possible to urge that the putting-out of fires on such +occasions is always a necessary result of the widespread +custom of fasting after a death and until the corpse is +buried; as a matter of fact we find that fires may be +extinguished when there is no fasting, and also that the +fast is often restricted to the daytime, when evil spirits, +and in particular the ghost of the dead man, are presumed +to be unable to see.</p> + +<p>But, as Professor Westermarck has so ably shown, +the widespread custom of fasting is itself often to be +explained as due to the desire to prevent pollution.⁠<a id="FNanchor_809" href="#Footnote_809" class="fnanchor">[809]</a> +Under certain circumstances to partake of food may +cause defilement; hence fasting is only one of the numerous +precautions necessary to avoid contamination. +These ideas find expression in the rules which, like +those prescribing the cessation of labour after a death, +require mourners to abstain from eating food infected +with the death pollution. Fasting may also be enjoined +on other critical occasions, such as an eclipse +of the sun or the moon, or during a thunderstorm; and +we have seen that it characterizes some of the tabooed +days previously considered.⁠<a id="FNanchor_810" href="#Footnote_810" class="fnanchor">[810]</a> Such well-established +facts suggest that in the earliest period fasting may have +also marked the Hebrew Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_811" href="#Footnote_811" class="fnanchor">[811]</a> This hypothesis +seems first to have been advanced by the “judicious” +Hooker, who observes that “it may be a question, +whether in some sort they [the Jews] did not always +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>fast on the Sabbath.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_812" href="#Footnote_812" class="fnanchor">[812]</a> He instances a statement +of Josephus that the sixth hour or noon was the time +when “our laws require us to go to dinner on Sabbath-days.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_813" href="#Footnote_813" class="fnanchor">[813]</a> +Various pagan writers also refer to the Sabbath +as a day of fasting.⁠<a id="FNanchor_814" href="#Footnote_814" class="fnanchor">[814]</a> Such a notion may have +arisen from a misunderstanding of the Biblical rule +forbidding cooking on the Sabbath, or, perhaps, from +a confusion of this festival with the great fast on the +Day of Atonement, which was a <i>shabbāth shabbāthôn</i>, +a “Sabbath of solemn rest.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_815" href="#Footnote_815" class="fnanchor">[815]</a> Yet it seems difficult +to understand the rule forbidding fasting at new moon +and on the seventh day,⁠<a id="FNanchor_816" href="#Footnote_816" class="fnanchor">[816]</a> except as a reference to a +custom formerly observed but in later times regarded +as an illegitimate rite. Since the Sabbath fell, originally, +at the middle of the month, it may be that the +new-moon and full-moon days were once marked by +both cessation of labour and abstinence from food. +The foregoing pages have supplied too many instances +of the transformation of fasts into feasts for such an +explanation to be dismissed as an idle conjecture.⁠<a id="FNanchor_817" href="#Footnote_817" class="fnanchor">[817]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>When the notion of a weekly Sabbath was extended, +after the Captivity, to the Sabbatical Year, the seventh +year was to be a “Sabbath of solemn rest” (<i>shabbāth +shabbāthôn</i>) for the land, not because of the advantage +of allowing soil to lie fallow at regular intervals, +but because the land itself was consecrated as “a +Sabbath unto Jehovah.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_818" href="#Footnote_818" class="fnanchor">[818]</a> The regulation does not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>imply that, as a consequence of a fallow year, the +land will produce better harvests on the succeeding +year. It is expressly said that the year before the +Sabbatical Year is the one to be conspicuous for its fruitfulness: +“Then I will command my blessing upon +you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for +the three years.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_819" href="#Footnote_819" class="fnanchor">[819]</a> The rule requiring that the produce +of the soil should be devoted to the poor and to the +cattle⁠<a id="FNanchor_820" href="#Footnote_820" class="fnanchor">[820]</a> perhaps indicates a partial triumph of the utilitarian +spirit. During the Jubilee, at the end of seven +times seven years, “Ye shall not sow, neither reap that +which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it +of the undressed vines,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_821" href="#Footnote_821" class="fnanchor">[821]</a> a regulation which can be explained +only as the outcome of the sabbatarian observances +attached to the seventh day and the seventh year.</p> + +<p>In the Hawaiian Islands and west Africa any one +who broke a sabbatarian taboo suffered death. Among +the early Israelites the Sabbath-breaker was threatened +with a similar penalty: “Every one that profaneth it +shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any +work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his +people.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_822" href="#Footnote_822" class="fnanchor">[822]</a> We are not informed how frequently this +stern ordinance was enforced; the case of the wood-gatherer +on the Sabbath, who, by direction of Moses, +acting on a direct revelation from Jehovah, was stoned +to death outside the camp, is the only instance of capital +punishment for Sabbath desecration which has found +its way into the Scriptures as we now have them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_823" href="#Footnote_823" class="fnanchor">[823]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>The instance is an instructive one, as revealing the +strong sense of group-welfare and hatred of the non-conformist, +characteristic of a religion which had +not yet outrun clan and tribal limitations.</p> + +<p>The Old Testament affords evidence that the Hebrews +kept the Sabbath with varying degrees of rigour +in different places and at different times. Under the +later prophets a movement appears to have begun +toward a stricter observance of the day, as is seen in +the effort of Jeremiah to prevent burden-bearing on +the Sabbath, and in Ezekiel’s constant insistence on +the profanation of the Sabbath in his catalogue of the +sins of the Israelites.⁠<a id="FNanchor_824" href="#Footnote_824" class="fnanchor">[824]</a> But more than a century after +these prophets, in the age of Nehemiah, the people of +Judea made wine and gathered the harvest on the +Sabbath. All manner of burdens were brought into +Jerusalem on that day, and the inhabitants bought +and sold with the men of Tyre.⁠<a id="FNanchor_825" href="#Footnote_825" class="fnanchor">[825]</a> These practices +indicate that the Sabbath bade fair to become a social +institution, divorced from supernatural sanctions.</p> + +<p>It is doubtless true that the Exile tended to augment +the religious importance of the Sabbath, since +even in heathen lands it could be observed by a people +who now had neither state nor temple. In the Exilic +literature great significance is ascribed to the Sabbath,⁠<a id="FNanchor_826" href="#Footnote_826" class="fnanchor">[826]</a> +and in post-Exilic law it is regarded as a sign between +Jehovah and the children of Israel that Jehovah is +their God. It is impossible, however, to follow those +critics who assume that the rigour of the sabbatarian observances +after the Exile forms an entirely new development, +and that the priestly Sabbath represents something +very different from the Sabbath of the “Book of +the Covenant” or of <i>Deuteronomy</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_827" href="#Footnote_827" class="fnanchor">[827]</a> The increased +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>significance of the institution led naturally to a revival +of the old taboos with which the day had been always +invested, taboos which otherwise might have been +expected to disappear with advancing culture and the +decay of supernaturalism. Closer contact with Assyria +and Babylonia, from the eighth to the sixth century +<span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, also may have helped to revitalize the older superstitions +and to give to the Sabbath once more an austere +character.⁠<a id="FNanchor_828" href="#Footnote_828" class="fnanchor">[828]</a> The day, in fact, seems never wholly +to have lost all traces of its severe and sombre origin +in a period of taboo; it is significant in this connection +that, while the Hebrews had their favourable +and unfavourable days, as the expression <i>yôm tôb</i> +(“good day”) for holy days shows, the Sabbath is +never so described.⁠<a id="FNanchor_829" href="#Footnote_829" class="fnanchor">[829]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The later history of the Sabbath as a <i>tabu</i> day +culminates in the exaggerations of pharisaic Judaism +and the extraordinary micrology of the rabbinical +enactments.⁠<a id="FNanchor_830" href="#Footnote_830" class="fnanchor">[830]</a> The <i>Mishna</i> enumerates no less than +thirty-nine principal classes of prohibited actions. +Some of these are regarded as belonging to as ancient +a period as any of the taboos found in the Old Testament; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>the majority, however, represent only an elaboration +of the scriptural precepts. Two entire works +are devoted to the provisions for Sabbath observance. +The first treatise, called <i>Shabbāth</i>, is chiefly remarkable +as an illustration of the subtle refinements and +distinctions of which the rabbis were capable. Thus, +the prohibitions to tie or untie a knot being regarded +as too general, it was necessary to define the species +of knot referred to. A camel-driver’s knot and a boat-man’s +knot rendered the man who tied or untied them +a Sabbath-breaker; but Rabbi Meir said, “A knot +which a man can untie with one hand only, he does +not become guilty by untying.” Rabbi Jehudah, +still more liberal of mind, laid down the rule that any +knot which was not intended to be permanent might +be lawfully tied. The second treatise, <i>Ērūbim</i>, was +intended to alleviate the extreme rigour of some of the +enactments in the former work. Thus, the limits of +a “Sabbath Day’s journey” having been fixed at two +thousand cubits, the rabbis conceded that one who +before the Sabbath had deposited food for two meals +at the boundary thereby removed his habitation from +the town and made that place his new domicile. When +the Sabbath came, he was at liberty to proceed two +thousand cubits beyond it, though he lost the right +to walk the same distance in the opposite direction. +As is well known, literal obedience of the Sabbath +regulations was sometimes carried to such an extreme +as to prove a source of great hardship, danger, and +even death to its devotees.⁠<a id="FNanchor_831" href="#Footnote_831" class="fnanchor">[831]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>These legal fictions, these casuistical elaborations +of the simple ordinances of the Pentateuch concerning +the Sabbath, may be paralleled by the growth of pontifical +regulations at Rome relating to what might and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>what might not be done on public ferial days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_832" href="#Footnote_832" class="fnanchor">[832]</a> Like +the Roman <i>feriæ</i>, also, the Hebrew Sabbath affords +an instance of what seems to be a very general, perhaps +universal, tendency of the human mind to dwell with +special emphasis on the festive aspects of a holy season, +and by some subtle alchemy of the spirit to convert +what was once a day of gloom and anxiety into +a day of gladness and good cheer. The post-Exilic +prophet, the so-called second Isaiah, when he urges +his people to “call the Sabbath a delight”⁠<a id="FNanchor_833" href="#Footnote_833" class="fnanchor">[833]</a> presents +it, indeed, as a festival “holy to Jehovah,” but capable, +nevertheless, of contributing to man’s physical and +mental refreshment. And in later Judaism the strict +observance of the Sabbath rest did not by any means +preclude abstinence from bodily pleasures. Fasting, +as we have seen, was forbidden on that day; three +substantial meals were to be “enjoyed,” so Jewish +theologians declared; and the New Testament itself +contains evidence that Pharisees of the strictest type +gave sumptuous entertainments on the Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_834" href="#Footnote_834" class="fnanchor">[834]</a> +In fact, various Christian Fathers were persuaded that +the Jews observed the Sabbath as a day of violent +excess, and converts to Christianity were cautioned +against applying to the Lord’s Day the <i>luxus sabbatarius</i>. +“The Jews in our time,” says St. Augustine, +“observe their Sabbath by a kind of bodily rest, +languid and luxurious. They abstain from labour +and give themselves up to trifles, and, though God +ordained the Sabbath, they spend it in actions which +God forbids. Our rest is from evil works, their rest +is from good works; for it is better to plough than +to dance.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_835" href="#Footnote_835" class="fnanchor">[835]</a> We may believe that such criticisms +had slight justification in the real nature of the Jewish +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>observance, little more, perhaps, than Plutarch’s quaint +notion that the Sabbath must bear some relation to +Dionysus, for, said Plutarch, when the Jews keep the +Sabbath, they invite one another to potations till all +are drunk.⁠<a id="FNanchor_836" href="#Footnote_836" class="fnanchor">[836]</a> It is more satisfying to turn to hundreds +of Jewish hymns where the Sabbath is hailed “as a +day of rest and joy, of pleasure and delight, a day in +which man enjoys some presentiment of the pure bliss +and happiness which are stored up for the righteous +in the world to come, and to which such tender names +were applied as the ‘Queen Sabbath,’ the ‘Bride Sabbath,’ +and the ‘Holy, dear, beloved Sabbath.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_837" href="#Footnote_837" class="fnanchor">[837]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Jewish Sabbath appears to have been first +brought to the attention of the Romans as early as +the last century of the republic, when Pompey’s sweeping +campaigns in the East led to the establishment of +Roman dominion over Syria and Judea. References +to the institution in Tibullus, Horace, and Ovid indicate +that its peculiar character as a day of rest was then +generally understood.⁠<a id="FNanchor_838" href="#Footnote_838" class="fnanchor">[838]</a> Their contemporary, Philo, +the Hellenistic Jew of Alexandria, declared that the +seventh day was the festival, not of one city or one +country, but of all the earth, “the birthday of the +world,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_839" href="#Footnote_839" class="fnanchor">[839]</a> and Josephus could write that there was no +city among the Greeks or the barbarians where the +festival of the Sabbath was not celebrated.⁠<a id="FNanchor_840" href="#Footnote_840" class="fnanchor">[840]</a> These +statements, though exaggerated, bear witness to the +success of that Jewish propaganda which, at the very +time when the preaching of Christianity began, carried +this other Oriental faith throughout the ancient world. +The great commercial cities of the Mediterranean +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>became seats of thriving Jewish communities where +pagan proselytes adopted Jewish customs, including +the observance of the Sabbath.⁠<a id="FNanchor_841" href="#Footnote_841" class="fnanchor">[841]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Jewish seven-day week with its numerical indications +of the days was adopted by the early Christians, +to whom the planetary week, bearing the names +of pagan deities, could scarcely prove attractive.⁠<a id="FNanchor_842" href="#Footnote_842" class="fnanchor">[842]</a> +Friday and Saturday continued to have the designations +παρασκευή and σάββατον, respectively, but Sunday, +which by Jewish custom was called “the first +day” after the Sabbath, eventually received the designation +ἡ κυριακὴ ἡμέρα (<i>dies dominica</i>), the Lord’s +Day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_843" href="#Footnote_843" class="fnanchor">[843]</a> The New Testament contains unambiguous +evidence that from a very early period “the first day +of the week” was observed by Christians as a day of +assembly for the “breaking of bread” and perhaps for +the collection of free-will offerings.⁠<a id="FNanchor_844" href="#Footnote_844" class="fnanchor">[844]</a> The author of +the <i>Epistle of Barnabas</i>, toward the end of the first +century, speaks of keeping the “eighth day” for rejoicing, +and justifies its observance as a celebration of the +resurrection of Christ.⁠<a id="FNanchor_845" href="#Footnote_845" class="fnanchor">[845]</a> The <i>Didache</i>, or <i>Teaching of +the Twelve Apostles</i>, a work which belongs to the early +part of the second century, enjoins meetings “on the +Lord’s own day” (κατὰ κυριακὴν δὲ Κυρίου), for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>breaking of bread and giving thanks.⁠<a id="FNanchor_846" href="#Footnote_846" class="fnanchor">[846]</a> Eusebius of Cæsarea, +in his <i>Ecclesiastical History</i>, preserves a fragment +of a letter of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth (175 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>), +to Soter, Bishop of Rome, in which the former says, +“To-day we passed the Lord’s holy day, when we read +your epistle”; and the same historian also mentions +the fact that Melito, Bishop of Sardis (170 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>), had +written among other works a treatise on the Lord’s +Day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_847" href="#Footnote_847" class="fnanchor">[847]</a> Justin Martyr, writing about the middle of +the second century, describes how, “on the day called +Sunday” (τῇ τοῦ Ἡλίου λεγομένη ἡμέρα), all town +and country Christians were wont to assemble for +instruction in the holy writings, and for prayer, the +distribution of bread and wine, and the collection of +alms. The name Sunday commemorates, according +to Justin, the first day of creation and the resurrection +of Christ from the darkness of the grave.⁠<a id="FNanchor_848" href="#Footnote_848" class="fnanchor">[848]</a> Justin’s +use of this nomenclature, in a work addressed to the +pagans, witnesses to the spread of Oriental solar worship +throughout the Roman Empire, leading to the +substitution of the day of Sun for Saturn’s Day, as +the beginning of the planetary week. As we have +learned, the Christians themselves adopted eventually +the pagan designation of the first day of the week.⁠<a id="FNanchor_849" href="#Footnote_849" class="fnanchor">[849]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span></p> + +<p>Though Jesus regarded the Sabbath as still binding +on his followers, his teaching that it was a social institution +designed for practical benefit to mankind, and +not as a fetish, brought him repeatedly into conflict +with the Pharisees, and called forth those utterances +which have been so strangely neglected by sabbatarians +in after ages: “For the Son of man is lord of +the Sabbath”; “The Sabbath was made for man, and +not man for the Sabbath”; “My Father worketh +[on it] even until now, and I work.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_850" href="#Footnote_850" class="fnanchor">[850]</a> Jewish Christians +appear at first to have continued the observance +of the Sabbath, but this practice met the unqualified +condemnation of St. Paul;⁠<a id="FNanchor_851" href="#Footnote_851" class="fnanchor">[851]</a> and one of the <i>Epistles</i> +of St. Ignatius, who suffered martyrdom about 107 +<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, refers to Christians as “no longer observing the +Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s +Day (μηκέτι σαββατίζοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ κυριακὴν ζῶντες), +on which also our life has sprung up again by +Him and by His death.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_852" href="#Footnote_852" class="fnanchor">[852]</a> However, the Jewish element +in the churches of the East was strong enough +to secure the ecclesiastical recognition of Saturday as +a holy day. It long continued to be observed like +Sunday, by religious assemblies and feasting, though +not by any compulsory cessation of the ordinary occupations.⁠<a id="FNanchor_853" href="#Footnote_853" class="fnanchor">[853]</a> +Tertullian was the first Church Father to +declare that Christians ought to abstain on Sunday +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>from secular duties and occupations, lest they should +“give place to the Devil.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_854" href="#Footnote_854" class="fnanchor">[854]</a> Tertullian’s statement +has sometimes been understood to indicate a Sabbatarian +spirit on the part of its author; properly considered, +however, it means only that Christians should +so carefully observe the duties peculiar to the Lord’s +Day as to neglect, if necessary, their worldly business +on that day. Other Church Fathers of the third +century, including Origen and Cyprian, made no reference +to Sunday as a day of abstinence from labour. +The earliest Sunday law, the edict issued by Constantine +in 321 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, bore no relation to Christianity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_855" href="#Footnote_855" class="fnanchor">[855]</a> +What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended +as a Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial +decrees, during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, +enjoined with increasing stringency abstinence from +labour on Sunday. The view that the Christian Lord’s +Day is but the Jewish Sabbath transferred from the +seventh to the first day of the week found occasional +expression in both the law and the theology of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>Middle Ages, and culminated in the sabbatarian excesses +of English and Scottish Puritanism.⁠<a id="FNanchor_856" href="#Footnote_856" class="fnanchor">[856]</a>⁠</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br> +<span class="smaller">UNLUCKY DAYS</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>The observance of lucky and unlucky days is a +familiar phenomenon in primitive society and among +peoples of archaic civilization. Under the attenuated +form of a survival, the superstition still lingers in civilized +and Christian lands. The reasons for the assignment +of a good or an evil character to certain days are +usually quite obscure; and even where explanations +are provided, these are, as a rule, explanations after +the event. The attempt to provide a satisfactory +origin for them insensibly widens out into an effort +to account for the genesis of the great body of popular +and anonymous superstitions.</p> + +<p>Probably the commonest source of the belief in unlucky +days is to be sought in that erroneous association +of ideas which underlies so much of savage magic +and savage religion. If an event, fortunate or unfortunate, +has taken place on a certain day, the notion easily +arises that all actions performed on the recurrence of +the day will have a similarly favourable or unfavourable +issue. Among the Tshi of west Africa, the most +unlucky day is the anniversary of the Saturday on +which Osai Tutu was slain in an ambush near Acromanti +in 1731.⁠<a id="FNanchor_857" href="#Footnote_857" class="fnanchor">[857]</a> In modern Macedonia the superlative +ill-luck attending Tuesday is explained by some as +due to the fact—historically true—that Constantinople +was taken by the Turks on this day of the week.⁠<a id="FNanchor_858" href="#Footnote_858" class="fnanchor">[858]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>The <i>dies religiosi</i>, or unlucky days, of the Roman calendar +included the anniversary of the battle of the Allia, +<i>dies Alliensis</i> (July 18), when the republic had suffered +grave misfortune. The same date was also observed +as the anniversary of the destruction of the Fabii at +the Cremera, 477 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>⁠<a id="FNanchor_859" href="#Footnote_859" class="fnanchor">[859]</a> After the assassination of +Julius Cæsar a decree was made that the Ides of March +(March 15) should be called <i>parricidium</i>, and henceforth +should be observed as an unlucky day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_860" href="#Footnote_860" class="fnanchor">[860]</a> The +superstitions which in Christian times have gathered +about Friday—at once a holy and an unlucky day—are +connected with it as the anniversary of Christ’s +Passion. In the Middle Ages people were accustomed +to date on Friday all the unfortunate events of religious +tradition and history. On that day Adam sinned +and was driven from Paradise, Cain killed his brother +Abel, John the Baptist was beheaded, and Herod slew +the Holy Innocents. It was also the day of the Deluge, +the Confusion of Tongues, and the infliction of the +Plagues upon Egypt. Synchronisms of this sort had +a great attraction to the mediæval mind, and numerous +lists of them are preserved in old manuscripts.⁠<a id="FNanchor_861" href="#Footnote_861" class="fnanchor">[861]</a> +There is a Jewish superstition, reaching back to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>Talmud, that it is lucky to begin an undertaking on +Tuesday, because, in describing the third day of creation, +it is said, “God saw that it was good.” Contrariwise, +it is unlucky to commence anything of importance +on Monday, as to which day nothing at all +is said.⁠<a id="FNanchor_862" href="#Footnote_862" class="fnanchor">[862]</a> Where such conceptions are rife, they readily +lend themselves to divination and astrology, and under +the fostering care of practitioners of magical arts may +develop into elaborate augural codes.</p> + +<p>The observation of natural phenomena sometimes +accounts for the unlucky character ascribed to particular +occasions. We have already noted many superstitious +observances connected with the phases of the +moon, her monthly disappearance from the heavens, and +her occasional eclipse by the earth. A further illustration +of the same subject is found in the astrological +doctrine of the moon stations. The old Babylonian +astronomers, one of whose duties it was to make very +careful observations of the moon, noticed that at +each lunation she appears to pass by the same star-groups. +It was natural, therefore, to associate the +moon with the conspicuous stars and constellations +in the vicinity of the moon’s path. The names which +they received were in time extended to the lunar +days themselves; and this apparent connection between +the two became the principal basis of astrological +forecasts for each day of the sidereal month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_863" href="#Footnote_863" class="fnanchor">[863]</a> The +fact is well known that Babylonian astrology and +astronomy—for the two were scarcely distinguishable +in the earlier period—exerted great influence +on the neighbouring peoples of Asia; and hence it has +been generally assumed that the lunar mansions, +reckoned at twenty-seven or twenty-eight in number, +which we find among the Hindus and Chinese, and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>augural calendars connected therewith, were derived +ultimately from Babylonia.⁠<a id="FNanchor_864" href="#Footnote_864" class="fnanchor">[864]</a> In modern India the +<i>nakshatra</i>, as they are called, “are consulted at births, +marriages, and on all occasions of family rejoicing, +distress, or calamity. No one undertakes a journey or +any important matter except on days which the aspect +of the <i>nakshatra</i> renders lucky and auspicious.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_865" href="#Footnote_865" class="fnanchor">[865]</a> +Among the Persians and Arabs the lunar stations have +long been employed for astrological purposes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_866" href="#Footnote_866" class="fnanchor">[866]</a> The +Arabs carried them to Madagascar, where they gave +rise to an elaborate distinction of days lucky and unlucky. +Some days were considered absolutely bad; +others were absolutely good; others were indifferent. +Again, some days were not regarded as good in general, +though still good enough for special purposes; +one being excellent for a house-warming, another +for marking out the ground for a new town, and +still another was lucky to be born on, but bad for +business. Some days had a special peculiarity of +their own, for instance, children born on a certain +day usually became dumb. The character of a day, +according to the Malagasy astrologers, depended, in +short, on what one of the twenty-eight lunar stations +it represented.⁠<a id="FNanchor_867" href="#Footnote_867" class="fnanchor">[867]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span></p> + +<p>The conception of unluckiness may be deduced <i>a +priori</i> from the assumed critical nature of certain periods, +such as epagomenal months and days. The +thirteenth month, which many peoples employing +lunar calculations find it necessary to intercalate at +more or less regular intervals, is sometimes regarded +as unlucky.⁠<a id="FNanchor_868" href="#Footnote_868" class="fnanchor">[868]</a> Again, the eleven or twelve days by +which the solar year exceeds the lunar year assumed +among various Indo-European peoples a portentous and +often unfavourable significance.⁠<a id="FNanchor_869" href="#Footnote_869" class="fnanchor">[869]</a> The celebration of +the Twelve Nights, in the sense of the Twelve Nights +and Days, as a festival before or after the winter solstice, +has been assigned to the Aryans of the Vedic +age in India on the strength of certain passages in the +<i>Rig-Veda</i>, where the three Ribhus, generally regarded +as the personified seasonal deities who divided up the +year, are described as sleeping during these days “in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span>the house of the sun.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_870" href="#Footnote_870" class="fnanchor">[870]</a> The prophetic character of +the Twelve Days appears to be indicated by their +characterization in various Brahmanical writings as +an “image of the coming year.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_871" href="#Footnote_871" class="fnanchor">[871]</a> Some eminent +scholars have thought that the Twelve Days represent +an ancient method of adjusting the lunar year to the +solar year, as practised by the early Aryans before the +custom arose of inserting a thirteenth month, to which +reference is also made in the <i>Rig-Veda</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_872" href="#Footnote_872" class="fnanchor">[872]</a> This opinion, +though not free from difficulties, is strongly supported +by numerous parallels to the Indian evidence found in +European folklore of the Twelve Days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_873" href="#Footnote_873" class="fnanchor">[873]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Throughout Europe from east to west the Twelve +Days, usually reckoned from Christmas to Epiphany, +are prolific in popular superstitions and customs. +At this time the souls of the dead, sometimes under +animal form, return to the earth and revisit the living; +witches and demons swarm in the mischief-laden air; +werewolves roam about, and the Wild Huntsman rides +in the heavens. Most of the ceremonies performed +during the Twelve Days have a distinctly pagan cast, +such as the constant fire on the domestic hearth, the +village bonfires, and the lighted candles; while others, +such as the sprinkling of the houses with holy water +and the marking of the cross on the doors, have only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>a thin veneer of Christianity. To a certain extent +the Twelve Days thus form the modern European +representative of those seasons devoted to the expulsion +of ghosts and evil spirits which are observed by +peoples of the lower culture.⁠<a id="FNanchor_874" href="#Footnote_874" class="fnanchor">[874]</a> A further resemblance +exists in the distinctly unlucky character often assigned +to the Twelve Days. In Macedonia no marriages are +solemnized during their continuance.⁠<a id="FNanchor_875" href="#Footnote_875" class="fnanchor">[875]</a> In various parts +of Germany they are kept as rest days, when the most +important household occupations and even those on +the farm are omitted. The housewife must not spin, +weave lace, or engage in her usual tasks of washing +and baking; and the farmer must not thresh grain. +Certain foods, especially peas and other legumes, are +carefully avoided; and no meat is eaten. It is not +wise to lend anything out of the house or to remove +refuse and sweepings. One ought not to be short of +anything at this time, else one will be short of everything +during the ensuing year. Certain animals, +particularly associated with witches, should not be +called by their right names; hence, you must refer to +the fox as “Mr. Long-tail,” and to the mouse as “Floor-runner.” +During these fateful days perfect quiet is +essential: no table must be pushed about and no doors +slammed, otherwise the house will be struck by lightning. +In this period dreams and other prognostics +are most to be relied on and are most carefully investigated. +Everywhere in Germany it is believed that +the weather of the Twelve Days determines what +will be experienced during the following twelve months, +so that they form, in effect, a meteorological calendar +for the new year.⁠<a id="FNanchor_876" href="#Footnote_876" class="fnanchor">[876]</a> This last superstition, however, is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>not confined to Germany, being met, for instance, in +modern Brittany. In most parts of that country the +Twelve Days, here reckoned from the first of January, +are popularly termed <i>gour-deziou</i>, “male days,” an +expression which must be understood as meaning supplementary +or additional days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_877" href="#Footnote_877" class="fnanchor">[877]</a> A superstitious avoidance +of certain kinds of work during the Twelve Days +may still be found in remote districts of the British +Isles. In Shropshire horses are not set to the plough +at this time and no spinning is done.⁠<a id="FNanchor_878" href="#Footnote_878" class="fnanchor">[878]</a> In Aberdeenshire +people believe that all work ought, if possible, to +be finished before Christmas Day. Between this time +and New Year’s Eve no bread is baked and no clothes +are washed, and the spinning-wheel must be carried +from one side of the house to the other.⁠<a id="FNanchor_879" href="#Footnote_879" class="fnanchor">[879]</a> The Twelve +Days over and above the year were called in Wales +“days of days” (<i>dyddian dyddon</i>). “They are free +days, and let any one come from any place he may, +he will be free, and exposed to no weapon or stroke, +since there can be no court and law of country on those +days.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_880" href="#Footnote_880" class="fnanchor">[880]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The solar year, superseding the lunar year of three +hundred and fifty-four days, seems to have been +generally assumed in the first instance at the round +number of three hundred and sixty days, the earth’s +periodical course around the sun being taken as a multiple +of the moon’s course around the earth. In ancient +Mexico, where a solar calendar came into use, the three +hundred and sixty days were divided into eighteen +periods, each of twenty days. As their total did not +round out the solar year it became necessary to add +five days at the end of the year; and these possessed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>an unfavourable character. They were called <i>nemontemi</i>, +“the superfluous, supplementary days,” with +the secondary significance of “the useless days,” as +being consecrated to no deity and employed for no +civic business. That they were considered sinister +and unlucky is evident from the abstinence that characterized +them. Nothing of any importance was +done on the <i>nemontemi</i>. The house was not swept, +no legal case was tried, and any person so unfortunate +as to be born on one of these days was destined to a +poor and miserable life. At the same time, the <i>nemontemi</i> +possessed a prophetic power for the whole year. +“They were careful,” says Father Sahagun, “during +these fatal days not to fall asleep during the day, not +to quarrel together, not to trip or to fall, because they +said that if any of these things befell them, they would +continue to befall them thence forevermore.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_881" href="#Footnote_881" class="fnanchor">[881]</a> Among +the Mayas of Yucatan the same abstinence prevailed +on the five <i>xma kaba kin</i>, the “days without names.” +On these days “men left the house as seldom as possible, +did not wash or comb themselves, and took special +care not to undertake any menial or difficult task, +doubtless because they lived in the conviction that +they would be forced to keep on doing it through +the whole ensuing year. The Mexicans were more +passive in regard to these days, inasmuch as they merely +took care to avoid conjuring up mischief for the coming +year, while the Mayas did things more thoroughly. +During these days, so portentous for the entire year, +they banished the evil which might threaten them. +They prepared a clay image of the demon of evil, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>Uuayayab, that is, <i>u-uayab-haab</i> (‘by whom the year +is poisoned’), confronted it with the deity who had +supreme power during the year in question, and then +carried it out of the village in the direction of that +cardinal point to which the new year belonged.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_882" href="#Footnote_882" class="fnanchor">[882]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>It is an impressive testimony to the essential unity +of primitive culture that in a far distant quarter of the +globe an almost identical superstition existed. The +Egyptian solar calendar, like the Mexican, was based +on a year of three hundred and sixty days, but in Egypt +these were grouped into twelve equal months of thirty +days each, leaving five supplementary days to be added +at the end of the twelfth month—“the five days over +and above the year” (<i>haru duaït hiru ronpit</i>), as they +were styled.⁠<a id="FNanchor_883" href="#Footnote_883" class="fnanchor">[883]</a> Their great antiquity is indicated by +another designation, “little month,” applied to them; +and, in fact, a notice of the epagomenal days occurs +in the <i>Pyramid Texts</i> belonging to the Sixth Dynasty, +where they are referred to as the “five additional days” +on which the gods were born.⁠<a id="FNanchor_884" href="#Footnote_884" class="fnanchor">[884]</a> Later monumental +records show that the deities associated respectively +with these days were the five members of the Osirian +cycle, Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.⁠<a id="FNanchor_885" href="#Footnote_885" class="fnanchor">[885]</a> The +evidence of the <i>Leiden Papyrus</i>, setting forth the ceremonies +requisite for epagomenal days, indicates that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>they enjoyed exceptional importance because of their +position at the end of the year. As religious festivals +they were consecrated to the dead. Furthermore, +they bore a distinctly ominous or unlucky character, +and many were the prayers and magical formulas to +be recited by the pious worshipper in order to secure +divine protection against the malefic influences supposed +to characterize them. To positive rites of prayer +and sacrifice the worshipper must add cessation of +all activity: “during the five days at the end of the +year do no work; abstain from everything”—so +runs the priestly text.⁠<a id="FNanchor_886" href="#Footnote_886" class="fnanchor">[886]</a> These precautions taken, he +might look forward to a happy New Year.</p> + +<p>The conquest of Egypt in the sixth century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> +by the Achæmenian kings seems to have introduced a +knowledge of the excellencies of the Egyptian solar +reckoning to the Persians. Their five epagomenal +days were called the Gāthā-days, each being sacred +to one of the five great divisions of the <i>Gāthās</i>, or +Zoroastrian hymns. A Persian calendar of late date +(1687 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>) gives the first day as lucky, and the third +as unlucky.⁠<a id="FNanchor_887" href="#Footnote_887" class="fnanchor">[887]</a> It is significant that among the Persians, +as in ancient Egypt, the epagomenal days particularly +belonged to the dead, to whom sacrifices were regularly +offered at this time, as well as during the first +five days of the new year.⁠<a id="FNanchor_888" href="#Footnote_888" class="fnanchor">[888]</a> The Armenians also had +their five supplementary days—<i>aweleach</i>—intercalated +after the twelfth month, an arrangement doubtless +borrowed from the Persians, but these days do +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>not appear to have been marked by any special observances.⁠<a id="FNanchor_889" href="#Footnote_889" class="fnanchor">[889]</a> +The latest attempt to introduce the use of +epagomenal days dates from the time of the French +Revolution. In their desire to abolish a chronological +system bound up with the Christian religion the bold +innovators of the National Convention set aside in +1793 the Gregorian calendar, establishing a Republican +calendar in which the seven-day week was replaced +by the decade and the year was divided into twelve +months of thirty days each, according to the old +Egyptian arrangement. Five intercalary days, popularly +called <i>sansculottides</i>, came at the end of the year +(six days at the end of every fourth year); they were +dedicated to Virtue, Genius, Labour, Opinion, and +Reward; and were observed as holidays. But this +calendar, which John Quincy Adams described as an +“incongruous composition of profound learning and +superficial frivolity, of irreligion and morality, of delicate +imagination and coarse vulgarity,” had a short +life. In 1802 the week of seven days returned into +general use, and three years later an edict of Napoleon +ordered the restoration of the Gregorian calendar.⁠<a id="FNanchor_890" href="#Footnote_890" class="fnanchor">[890]</a> +In our own time, however, serious proposals have been +made looking toward the reformation of the present +awkward calendar, and among them is the suggestion +that we adopt the ancient Egyptian system of months +and epagomenal days.</p> + +<p>It has been repeatedly noticed in the preceding pages +that oftentimes no clear line of demarcation can be +drawn between days <i>tabu</i> and days considered “unlucky.” +Both may involve ideas of contagion, the +sanctity or pollution attaching to the one being conceived +as scarcely less transmissible than the vaguer +“unluckiness” which belongs to certain periods and +affects everything done during their continuance. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>How some of the so-called unlucky days, still lingering +in contemporary civilization, have descended from +the holy days of antiquity is aptly illustrated by the +superstitions relating to the certain days of March and +of August, as observed at the present time in southeastern +Europe. In Macedonia the peasants during +the first three days and the last three days of these +two months do not plant; they cut no tree or vine, +for fear lest it should wither; they do not bathe in the +sea, or their bodies would swell; and they even refrain +from washing clothes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_891" href="#Footnote_891" class="fnanchor">[891]</a> In various parts of +Greece and the Ægean it is considered necessary to +abstain from particular kinds of work on certain days +of August, and occasionally of March. During the +first five days of August the people of Epirus do not +wash clothes or go into the fields to work. In Crete +the period is longer, for here on the first six and last +six days of August clothes are not washed and grapes +are not gathered.⁠<a id="FNanchor_892" href="#Footnote_892" class="fnanchor">[892]</a> In Cos on the first three days of +August the women do no work (for it would not prosper) +and wash no clothes (for these would soon wear +out). The eleven days which follow are supposed +to foreshadow the weather during the succeeding eleven +months: as the fourth day is, so will September be; +the fifth day prognosticates the weather for October, +and so on. The fifteenth of August is celebrated as +the Feast of the Assumption, closing a fortnight’s +strict fast.⁠<a id="FNanchor_893" href="#Footnote_893" class="fnanchor">[893]</a> The Cypriotes observe the first three or +six days of August as times when no trees are cut or +peeled to obtain resin, when the use of water for washing +clothes or the body is forbidden, and when no one +travels by water. The severity of the regulations has +led to the days being called the “evil days of August.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_894" href="#Footnote_894" class="fnanchor">[894]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>All these taboos thus show much similarity, relating in +particular to abstention from work which has to do with +water or with vines and trees. From this fact it becomes +a plausible inference that the unlucky days were originally +sacred to the tree-nymphs and water-nymphs, +whose festivals were celebrated in pagan antiquity. +At the present time the days are associated with the +<i>drymais</i>, mysterious spirits supposed to be abroad on +them, and probably to be identified with the dryads +(δρύαδες) of classic mythology.</p> + +<p>The likeness between tabooed days as periods of +abstinence and some unlucky days may be further +illustrated by much ethnographic evidence drawn +from different cultural areas. The Maori, we are +told, endeavour to determine by divination whether +the day set for a journey is favourable or unfavourable. +The fisherman is hopeless of making a catch +on an unfavourable day. At such a time “no dress +will be commenced, no seine cast, no fish-hook baited, +no ground turned up, seed sown, distant visit made, +flax cut or dressed, timber cut, canoe formed, or even +food partaken of.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_895" href="#Footnote_895" class="fnanchor">[895]</a> The Batta of Sumatra possess +elaborate calendars of days favourable, unfavourable, +and of a doubtful character; and these are regularly +consulted by the Batta magician in order that his +clients may know when to commence any important +undertaking, such as sowing and harvesting, house-building, +erection of a new village, removal to another +village, preparation of sacrifices at birth, name-giving, +burial, betrothal, and marriage, and all other great +occasions. A day may be wholly unlucky for one +thing, but not for another; for instance, a day which +could not safely be used for the celebration of a sacrifice +might still be used for the inauguration of agricultural +labour. On the other hand, there are certain +days, indicated in the calendars, when all activity +ceases, except the entertainment of relatives and indispensable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>harvest work. If a man should meet with +misfortune on one of these fatal days, a sacrifice must +be offered to the supernatural power supposed to be +responsible for the visitation. The Batta calendar +in its existing form is derived from India, but the people +seem formerly to have possessed their own rude calendar, +which was used to determine the lucky and unlucky +days in a lunar month. Even at the present +time the calendar is not employed for the fixation of +dates in the European sense, but only in the service of +popular superstition.⁠<a id="FNanchor_896" href="#Footnote_896" class="fnanchor">[896]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Mohammedan Malays of the Malay Peninsula +possess a number of divinatory calendars, one specifying +seven unlucky days in every month, a second, +twelve other most inauspicious days in every year, +while a third gives all the days of the year classified +under the heads lucky, somewhat unlucky, most unlucky, +and neutral.⁠<a id="FNanchor_897" href="#Footnote_897" class="fnanchor">[897]</a> Chinese popular calendars set +forth a similar classification of the days of the month +as very lucky, neither lucky nor unlucky, unlucky, and +very unlucky.⁠<a id="FNanchor_898" href="#Footnote_898" class="fnanchor">[898]</a> Furthermore, the first, fifth, and +ninth months are considered unfavourable by the +Chinese, who will not marry or change houses during +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>these months.⁠<a id="FNanchor_899" href="#Footnote_899" class="fnanchor">[899]</a> In Korea the fifth, fifteenth, and +twenty-fifth days of each month are called “broken +days.” At such times the people avoid any new +undertakings.⁠<a id="FNanchor_900" href="#Footnote_900" class="fnanchor">[900]</a> The old Japanese are said to have +held five yearly festivals or holidays, “purposely laid +on those days, which, by reason of their imparity, +are judged to be the most unfortunate.” These were +New Year’s Day, the third day of the third month, +the fifth of the fifth month, the seventh of the seventh +month, and the ninth of the ninth month.⁠<a id="FNanchor_901" href="#Footnote_901" class="fnanchor">[901]</a> In modern +Japan the cheap popular calendars, circulating among +the lower classes, contain indications for every day of +a cycle of six days. Of these, the first is described +as good during the forenoon for urgent business, such +as lawsuits and petitions, but not good after midday. +The second is good in the forenoon and in the evening, +but not in the afternoon. The first half of the third +day is bad, and no urgent business should be undertaken +at such a time; the afternoon, however, is +lucky. Nothing done on the fourth day will prosper. +The fifth day is very lucky for anything, especially +removals or journeys. With the exception of the noon-tide +hour the whole of the sixth day is unlucky. This +cycle used in divination flourishes side by side with +the week of seven days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_902" href="#Footnote_902" class="fnanchor">[902]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Tibetans are great astrologers. In every monastery +there is at least one divining lama whose business +it is to determine propitious and unpropitious times. +Calendars exist for all the days of the month, some being +described as “good,” others as “middling,” others as +“bad,” while one is referred to as “not very good,” +and still another as “the worst.” Among the causes +of the luck or unluck attaching to certain days the +Tibetans are inclined to lay stress on the periodical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>migrations of the spirits inhabiting the regions above +the earth. It seems that the two kinds of spirits, good +and evil, shift their abodes, to some extent every day +and also contemporaneously with the phases of the +moon, the commencement of a new season, and so on. +Their migrations are performed with unequal velocity; +hence, the combination of spirits varies for every +day. If the good spirits are more numerous than the +evil spirits on a particular day, the time will be favourable +for any undertaking; and <i>vice versa</i>. This belief, +we are told, offers a wide field of intrigue to the lamas, +who alone are able to decide what have been the actual +movements of the spirits.⁠<a id="FNanchor_903" href="#Footnote_903" class="fnanchor">[903]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Toda, who dwell in permanent villages on the +plateaus of the Nilgiri Hills in southeastern India, +have a remarkable system of rest days deserving to be +described at some length. The social organization +of this interesting people consists of two endogamous +divisions, called Teivaliol and Tartharol. Each of +these primary sections is composed of intermarrying +clans, and each clan possesses a group of villages in +common. At the present time Toda interests, both +economic and religious, centre about their buffaloes. +The daily life of the Toda men is largely devoted to the +care of these animals and to labour in the dairies. +The buffalo is a sacred animal; the dairy itself is +almost a temple; and the dairyman is only one remove +from a priest. Toda religious rites seem to be, in fact, +little more than the arrangements which a pastoral +and communistic people have made for the provision +and care of an article of food. According to Dr. +Rivers, whose careful studies are a model of anthropological +investigation, nearly every Toda ceremony has +its appointed day or days. The choice of these “is +often dependent on another Toda institution, the sacred +day, either of the village or of the dairy. Every clan +has certain days of the week on which people are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>restricted from following many of their ordinary occupations, +although they are not the occasions of any +special ceremonies. These sacred days are the <i>madnol</i>, +or village day, and the <i>palinol</i>, or dairy day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_904" href="#Footnote_904" class="fnanchor">[904]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Each Toda village has its <i>madnol</i>, but, in general, +where there are several villages of the same clan, the +<i>madnol</i> is the same for the whole clan. There are at +least eight prohibitions characterizing the observance +of this sacred day. Feasts may not be given at such +a time, funeral ceremonies may not be performed, +people may not bathe or cut their nails, and men may +not shave. Clothes are not to be washed, the house +is not to be cleansed, and, though the ordinary meals +may be prepared, rice and milk must not be cooked +together. Other regulations forbid the dairyman to +leave the village, the buffaloes to be taken from one +place to another, or the people to migrate from one +village to another.⁠<a id="FNanchor_905" href="#Footnote_905" class="fnanchor">[905]</a> Though not all work is prohibited, +the regulations are extensive enough to affect most +of the customary occupations. Among the Teivaliol, +one of the two endogamous divisions of the Toda +people, the <i>madnol</i> is the only sacred day of the week. +With the other division, called Tartharol, there is +also a dairy day, or <i>palinol</i>, the regulations for which +have much the same character as for the <i>madnol</i>.</p> + +<p>Toda ingenuity has devised recognized methods of +evading the rules for the holy days, and so of avoiding +the inconvenience which might otherwise be entailed +on the people. The rule that nothing may be taken +from the village on the <i>madnol</i> would prevent any purchases +from outsiders being made on the holy day, +since money would have to pass out of the village in +payment. The Toda avoid this awkward consequence +by the simple device of taking money beyond the village +limits on the day before the <i>madnol</i> and burying +it in some spot where it can be found when wanted. +The rule forbidding Toda women to leave the village +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>on the <i>madnol</i> is evaded in a curious fashion. A woman +will depart from the settlement before daybreak, will +remain outside till the sun is up, and will then return +to her home, for breakfast and the performance of +any necessary work. During this time she is regarded +as ceremonially absent from the village, hence her +actual departure later in the day for another village +is not considered to be a desecration of the <i>madnol</i>. +With these possibilities of evasion open to the pious +Toda, it follows that the regulations are seldom broken, +in the letter if not in the spirit. When a breach of +them does occur, the culprit may be obliged to perform +a propitiatory sacrifice similar to that which follows +the commission of various other ceremonial sins. +“It seemed quite clear, however, that this only happened +if some misfortune should befall the offender, +his family, or his buffaloes. It would seem that a +man might habitually and notoriously desecrate the +<i>madnol</i>, but no steps would be taken by himself or the +community so long as things went well with the man. +If he should become ill or if his buffaloes should suffer +in any way, he would consult the diviners and they +would then certainly find that his misfortunes were +due to his infringement of the laws connected with the +sacred days.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_906" href="#Footnote_906" class="fnanchor">[906]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>There is much variety in the days observed as the +<i>madnol</i> or the <i>palinol</i> of the different villages and clans. +The most frequent days appear to be Wednesday and +Friday, which are sacred in six clans. Sunday is +sacred in five clans, Monday and Tuesday in three, +Thursday in two. In no clan does Saturday appear +to be kept as a holy day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_907" href="#Footnote_907" class="fnanchor">[907]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The origin of these sacred days among the Toda is +very obscure. Dr. Rivers first suggests the possibility +of the institution of <i>madnol</i> and <i>palinol</i> having grown out +of the belief in unlucky days. The code of rules prescribing +what might and what might not be done would +then be only an elaboration of the common superstition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>which restricts activity at such unlucky periods. +But there are several difficulties in the way of this +view. It is extremely doubtful whether the Toda +has any such belief in days lucky and unlucky,⁠<a id="FNanchor_908" href="#Footnote_908" class="fnanchor">[908]</a> and if +he has, the idea is probably a recent importation from +the Hindus, among whom the superstition is very +prevalent. Again, the distinction between <i>madnol</i> +and <i>palinol</i> is one which cannot be satisfactorily explained +by such a hypothesis. Finally, the different +clans of the Toda have different sacred days, whereas +one would expect lucky and unlucky days to be the +same for the entire community. This seems especially +reasonable when it is considered that the sacred +days, by restricting intercourse between the different +clans, produce much inconvenience, which, of course, +is increased by the fact that the different clans have +different <i>madnol</i>. Whatever be the origin of these +Toda rules, there is, writes Dr. Rivers, “little doubt +that when at the present time a given act is done or +not done on a given day, the action is not based on a +belief in lucky or unlucky days, but, as nearly always +among the Toda, on custom prescribing that the act +shall or shall not be done on that day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_909" href="#Footnote_909" class="fnanchor">[909]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The question may be raised whether the resemblance +of the Toda <i>madnol</i> to the Hebrew Sabbath is not +accounted for by supposing the former institution to +have been founded on ideas borrowed from Christians +or Jews. If this has been the case, it is certain that +the borrowing took place very long ago. In studying +the origin and history of the Toda we have no record +that reaches back more than three centuries. From +various close resemblances between the Toda customs +and those of the people of Malabar, Dr. Rivers thinks +it probable that the Toda at one time lived in Malabar, +migrating thence to the Nilgiri Hills. Both Christians +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>and Jews were well established in Malabar more +than a thousand years ago. If the Toda left Malabar +before these settlements of foreigners were made, +then Jewish or Christian influences can be excluded; +if the migration took place subsequently, then they +may have contributed to the development of the Toda +institution.⁠<a id="FNanchor_910" href="#Footnote_910" class="fnanchor">[910]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In spite of these considerations, Dr. Rivers is inclined +to consider the Toda <i>madnol</i> as substantially a native +institution, which may help to explain the origin of +the Hebrew Sabbath. “In a busier community than +that of the Toda, the existence of different <i>madnol</i> for +different clans of the community would soon become +a serious obstacle to carrying on the business of life, +and such a community would probably agree that all +clans should have the same holy day. At present the +<i>madnol</i> is undoubtedly more sacred than the other +sacred days, and if the latter were then to be neglected, +we should have a community in which various activities +were prohibited on one day of the week, and the +institution so arising would differ very little from the +Hebrew Sabbath. It is possible that the Toda show +in an early stage the institution of a Sabbath in which +the whole community has not yet settled on a single +and joint holy day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_911" href="#Footnote_911" class="fnanchor">[911]</a> The fact that the Toda employ +the seven-day week, which must be entirely a borrowed +institution with them, suggests, however, that the prohibitions +attaching to certain days of that week were +ultimately derived from foreign sources.⁠<a id="FNanchor_912" href="#Footnote_912" class="fnanchor">[912]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span></p> + +<p>Another curious instance of communal rest days +is found among the Siah Posh Kafirs, a primitive +Aryan people dwelling in the northeastern part of +Afghanistan, between Chitral and the Hindu-Kush. +They seem formerly to have occupied a more extended +area about the headwaters of the Indus. The conversion +of the surrounding tribes, first to Buddhism +and later to Mohammedanism, has further served +to isolate them. With the Afghans on the west their +enmity is deadly and unceasing, but their relations +with their eastern neighbours admit of friendly intercourse. +It is on this side, therefore, that we must +look for the introduction into Kafiristan of Indian +cultural elements, among which is the seven-day week.⁠<a id="FNanchor_913" href="#Footnote_913" class="fnanchor">[913]</a> +On certain weekdays the Siah Posh Kafirs rest from +work. Young and old gather in large buildings erected +in the centre of the villages and here they dance all night, +to the music of flutes and trumpets, and sing songs in +honour of the gods.⁠<a id="FNanchor_914" href="#Footnote_914" class="fnanchor">[914]</a> According to a later and fuller +account, the Kafir rest days are called <i>agar</i>; in some +districts they occur every Thursday, in other districts, +every Saturday, but only during the months from +April to September, when field work is in progress. +The <i>agar</i> appear to be rigorously observed by the male +inhabitants of a village, but the women, who stop their +field-work on these days, do not scruple to engage in +other coolie labour during their continuance. “I failed,” +writes our authority, “to discover anything concerning +the origin of these <i>agar</i>. Their observance may have +become a national custom, the origin of which is as +difficult to determine as the Sabbaths of other ancient +peoples. As the Kám people were averse to starting +on a journey on the <i>agar</i> days, and as all the women +left their field-work altogether on those occasions, it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>is possible that the <i>agar</i> was originally considered an +unlucky day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_915" href="#Footnote_915" class="fnanchor">[915]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Perhaps no people have subjected themselves to +more irksome restrictions on unlucky days than the +natives of Madagascar. In this island systems of +taboo are widespread and elaborate, even at the present +time. The term <i>fady</i> (or <i>tabu</i>), used for all objects and +persons tabooed, is likewise applied by the Malagasy +to unfavourable days and months, the quality of such +periods as dangerous or unlucky being considered transmissible +to beings and actions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_916" href="#Footnote_916" class="fnanchor">[916]</a> By the Hova, a people +of remote, perhaps prehistoric, Malay origin, now occupying +the central tableland of Madagascar, only twelve +days in the month were regarded as lucky. The first +days of some months possessed a most disastrous character, +and children born on them were usually put to +death. The same cruel practice was found among other +tribes, such as the Bara and Tanala, leading, in the +latter case, to the destruction of at least one-fourth of +all the infants born.⁠<a id="FNanchor_917" href="#Footnote_917" class="fnanchor">[917]</a> The Tanala consider one of the +months, called <i>faosa</i>, extremely unlucky. “No one +works in that month, no one changes his place of abode +or goes about. If any one happens to be in the fields +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>when the month comes in, there he remains.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_918" href="#Footnote_918" class="fnanchor">[918]</a> The +Sihanaka keep Tuesday as an unlucky day on which +no work is allowed in the fields. Each Sihanaka family, +in addition, inherits a special unlucky day in each +week, when it is not permissible to go outside the house.⁠<a id="FNanchor_919" href="#Footnote_919" class="fnanchor">[919]</a> +The Sakalava likewise abstain from all business and +remain strictly in seclusion on their unlucky days, +which belong both to families and to individuals.⁠<a id="FNanchor_920" href="#Footnote_920" class="fnanchor">[920]</a> +Among the Betsimisaraka each person has his unlucky +day when he does not work; in fact, he can do nothing +at this time except eat, drink, sleep, and dress his hair. +Since the introduction of Christianity the day kept +in this strict fashion is Sunday.⁠<a id="FNanchor_921" href="#Footnote_921" class="fnanchor">[921]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>These accounts of lucky and unlucky days observed +by half-civilized peoples at the present time throw +light on the references to the same superstition found +in the records of archaic civilizations. For Egypt +we have the evidence of several ancient calendars +preserved in papyrus manuscripts. The first of these +dates from the Twelfth Dynasty (about 2000 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>) +and includes all the days of the month, eighteen being +defined as “good,” nine as “bad,” and three (the +sixteenth, twenty-second, and twenty-third), as “half-good” +and “half-bad.” The primitive character of +this calendar is indicated by the fact that the same +prognostics are attached to the same days of the month +throughout the year. The second calendar, dating +from about 1000 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, is more complicated, since the +prognostics of the several days are unlike in the different +months, while each day is itself divided into +three parts, lucky, unlucky, and neutral. Neither +calendar contains mention of the five epagomenal +days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_922" href="#Footnote_922" class="fnanchor">[922]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span></p> + +<p>The third and best-known of these Egyptian calendars +is the <i>Papyrus Sallier IV</i>, which in its present +form belongs to about 1200 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> but is based on much +earlier documents.⁠<a id="FNanchor_923" href="#Footnote_923" class="fnanchor">[923]</a> Parts of the manuscript at the +beginning and end have been lost, so that it now contains +prognostics for only two hundred and thirty-five +days of the year. This interesting production +of ancient though misdirected learning divides the hours +between the rising and the setting of the sun into three +periods, each of which is ruled by its particular influence. +Some days were good throughout the three +periods, some were wholly bad, others were critical—<i>dubium +sed in malum vergens</i>—while others again +presented combinations of these three characteristics. +The following are typical regulations, arranged according +to the order of the Egyptian months.⁠<a id="FNanchor_924" href="#Footnote_924" class="fnanchor">[924]</a> 22 +Thoth: eat no fish and light no oil lamp. 23 Thoth: +put no incense on the fire; kill no animals, domestic +or wild; eat neither a goose nor a goat. A child born +on this day will amount to nothing. 26 Thoth: do +nothing on this day. 4 Paophi: do not go out of the +house. 5 Paophi: do not go out of the house; do +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>not have intercourse with a woman. 22 Paophi: do +not wash and do not approach a stream. 19 Athyr: +light no fire. 6 Mechir: do no work. 13 Pharmuthi: +do not go anywhere. In the calendar as a whole the +most frequent injunctions relate to quitting the house, +travelling, sailing, and undertaking any kind of work. +Next in number are the prohibitions of loud talking, +singing, and sexual intercourse. There are also prohibitions +of drinking, bathing, and killing or eating +certain animals, besides others directed against the +use of fire and lights. It is clear that in this curious +treatise we have a systematization of popular taboos relating +to the lucky or unlucky character of certain days. +The fact that it was used as a boy’s schoolbook indicates +how priestly influence had erected into a pseudo-science +the uncouth and childish superstitions of the multitude. +The calendar itself presents evidence that the priests had +begun to rationalize the taboos, for the prohibitions are +often accompanied by a summary of the motives which +justified them, usually legendary episodes of the gods. +For instance, the regulation for the twenty-sixth of +Thoth—“do absolutely nothing”—is explained by a +reference to the terrific combat between Horus and his +uncle Set, which occurred on this ill-omened day.⁠<a id="FNanchor_925" href="#Footnote_925" class="fnanchor">[925]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Babylonian augural calendar for the intercalated +month of Elul and for Markheshwan is not the +only example of omen literature to be found in the +cuneiform records. We possess a document, preserved +in great part, which includes every day in the year, +either specifying its nature as favourable or unfavourable +or adding other indications with regard to its +character. A note like “hostility,” appended to the +twenty-first day of the second month, is a warning +that the gods are out of humour on that day; the +twenty-third day, described as “heart not good,” is +explained by the contrast “heart glad” on the following +day. Not content with a simple distinction of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>favourableness and unfavourableness, the calendar +also deals with days “wholly favourable” and “half +favourable.” Still other days are noted as those portending +“distress,” “trouble,” “tears,” “injury,” +“darkness,” “moon obscured,” and the like. The precautions +and prohibitions set forth for unlucky days +include, among many others, the familiar taboos of +eating specified foods, such as swine’s flesh, beef, dates, +and fish, sexual intercourse, buying and selling, wearing +bright garments, travelling, holding law courts, and +so on. The calendar contains a number of references +to the king and may, very probably, have served the +priests in their instructions to the monarch. As +Professor Jastrow remarks, the belief in lucky and +unlucky days has a distinctly popular flavour, making +it probable that the priests embodied in their lists +many of the notions that arose among the people, and +gave to these an official sanction.⁠<a id="FNanchor_926" href="#Footnote_926" class="fnanchor">[926]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>The Greeks of Hesiod’s time possessed an elaborate +calendar of lucky and unlucky days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_927" href="#Footnote_927" class="fnanchor">[927]</a> “Sometimes +a day is a stepmother, sometimes a mother,” Hesiod +remarks pithily. What ancient regulations for the +observance of tabooed periods are embodied in the +calendar is problematical. Many of the prohibitions +with which the first part of the poem concludes are, +however, thoroughly primitive taboos.⁠<a id="FNanchor_928" href="#Footnote_928" class="fnanchor">[928]</a> Hesiod does +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span>not mention any days when labour is to be entirely +abandoned. We may assume, perhaps, that at the +period when the Hesiodic poems were composed the +rationalizing temper of the Greeks had gotten somewhat +the better of their superstitious fears. In the +Hesiodic list, as in the Egyptian and Babylonian +calendars, the notion appears that not only whole +days but even parts of days have an individual character, +working for good or evil. The middle ninth (the +nineteenth) is said to be “a better day toward afternoon.” +The “fourth which followeth the twentieth +of the month is the best at dawn, but it is worse toward +afternoon.” Hesiod does not distinguish the months +as lucky or unlucky, and the days which possess either +of these attributes are the same for every month. He +gives no explanation for their luckiness or unluckiness, +though traces of a rationalizing process are perhaps +observable in the directions regarding the “fifths” +(presumably the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth +days), which are specially unlucky “because on the +fifth men say the Erinyes attended the birth of Oath +(Horkos), whom Strife bare to punish perjurers.” +The seventh again is lucky, “for on that day Leto bare +Apollo of the Golden Sword.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_929" href="#Footnote_929" class="fnanchor">[929]</a> The Hesiodic injunctions +did not cease to be observed in the later classical +epoch and exercised great influence on civil and political +life. The superstitions relating to unlucky days +only gained a firmer foothold, under the influence of +Babylonian and Egyptian doctrines, in passing from +Greece to Rome and from Rome to western Europe.⁠<a id="FNanchor_930" href="#Footnote_930" class="fnanchor">[930]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>During the Middle Ages perhaps the most widespread +observance of unlucky days had to do with those which +went under the significant name of <i>dies Ægyptiaci</i>. +The prohibitions marking them—not to build a house, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>not to buy or sell, not to cut hair, beard, and nails, +and so on—possessed, however, no character specifically +Egyptian. The mediæval belief was that these +days received their designation because on one of them +the plagues had been sent to devastate the land +of Egypt, and on another Pharaoh and his host had +been swallowed up in the Red Sea. As early as the +fourth century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> Christian writers refer to “Egyptian +days” as times feared and avoided by both pagans +and converts to Christianity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_931" href="#Footnote_931" class="fnanchor">[931]</a> About this period the +superstition gained admittance to the state calendars. +In the <i>fasti Philocali</i> (354 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>), twenty-five <i>dies Ægyptiaci</i> +are reckoned, two in each month except January, +which contains three.⁠<a id="FNanchor_932" href="#Footnote_932" class="fnanchor">[932]</a> A mediæval French manuscript, +dating from the reign of St. Louis, includes twenty-four +such days, but another manuscript, of the fourteenth +century, enumerates thirty days of the year +as very dangerous, when it is necessary to abstain +from buying and selling, building, and planting. Still +another manuscript, of the fifteenth century, reckons +thirty-one wholly evil days, while certain hours of +other days also possess dangerous qualities.⁠<a id="FNanchor_933" href="#Footnote_933" class="fnanchor">[933]</a> In the +seventeenth century J. B. Thiers, the learned curé of +Vibraie, notices the “Egyptian days” in his extensive +list of the superstitious beliefs regarding certain times +and seasons, prevalent in his age but condemned by +theologians (St. Thomas Aquinas), popes (Nicholas I), +and Church synods and councils.⁠<a id="FNanchor_934" href="#Footnote_934" class="fnanchor">[934]</a> Anglo-Saxon calendars +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>mention about twenty-four “Egyptian days” in +the year, when it is dangerous, if not fatal, to begin an +enterprise or to travel. A manuscript calendar, dating +from the reign of Henry VI, gives a list of thirty-two +such days. After the Reformation the old unlucky +days appear to have abated much of their malevolence, +and to have left behind them only a general +superstition against fishermen starting out to fish, or +seamen to take a voyage, or landsmen a journey, or +domestic servants to enter a new place—on a Friday.⁠<a id="FNanchor_935" href="#Footnote_935" class="fnanchor">[935]</a>⁠</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION</h2> + +</div> + +<p>It is fairly obvious that the observance of tabooed +and unlucky days must be included among the many +superstitions which have retarded the progress of mankind. +They hinder individual initiative and tend to +prevent the undertaking of lengthy enterprises which +may be interrupted by the recurrence of an unfavourable +period. Their extensive development compels +fitful, intermittent labour, rather than a steady and +continuous occupation. The Burman, for example, +“is so fettered by his horoscope and the lucky and +unlucky days for him recorded therein, which are +taught him in rhymes from childhood, that the character +has been given him by strangers of alternate +idleness and energy. But both are enforced by the +numerous days and seasons when he may not work +without disaster to himself. Unlucky days cause him +so much fear that he will resort to all sorts of excuses +to avoid business on them. Similarly, on lucky days +he will work beyond his strength, because he is assured +of success.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_936" href="#Footnote_936" class="fnanchor">[936]</a> Again, it is said that Europeans in +India usually fail to realize the great influence which +ideas of lucky and unlucky days exert on the conduct +of the people. Superstitious avoidance of unpropitious +occasions will often explain the failure of the natives +to obey a court summons or to keep their appointments +with government officers.⁠<a id="FNanchor_937" href="#Footnote_937" class="fnanchor">[937]</a> These remarks, by keen +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>observers, are capable of a wide application to various +primitive races. The belief in unfavourable seasons +may even directly affect political and social progress, +where, as in modern Ashanti and in ancient Rome, +assemblies could not be held, or courts of justice stand +open, or armies engage the enemy, when the unlucky +day came round. It is equally obvious that all such +beliefs play into the hands of the astrologer and magician, +tending further to strengthen the bonds with +which superstition enchains its votaries.</p> + +<p>From the economic point of view it deserves to be +pointed out how the extensive development of tabooed +and unlucky days seriously limits production and thus +lowers the efficiency of labour. In Hawaii the seasons +of strict abstinence regularly observed during eight +months of the year reached a total of seventy-two days, +while from time to time still other <i>tabu</i> days were appointed +by the priests.⁠<a id="FNanchor_938" href="#Footnote_938" class="fnanchor">[938]</a> In Ashanti an old writer +calculated that there were only from one hundred and +fifty to one hundred and sixty days in the year during +which business of any importance could be safely +undertaken.⁠<a id="FNanchor_939" href="#Footnote_939" class="fnanchor">[939]</a> Few peoples have more holidays than +the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Their religious festivals +occupy more than half the year. It is a noteworthy +fact, however, that the Hopi celebrate their longest +and most important ceremonies during the months +from harvest time to planting, when there is little +work to be done. “Although the Pueblo farmer +may thoroughly believe in his ceremonial system as +efficacious, his human nature is too practical to consume +the precious planting time with elaborate ceremonials.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_940" href="#Footnote_940" class="fnanchor">[940]</a> +In modern China and Korea so many +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span>festivals in honour of deities are observed as holidays +that they take the place, to a certain extent, of the +Sabbath institution.⁠<a id="FNanchor_941" href="#Footnote_941" class="fnanchor">[941]</a> Among the ancient Egyptians +the unlucky days varied in number according to the +different months, six, for instance, occurring in Paophi, +seven each in Choiak and Phamenoth, and five in +Pharmuthi. It may be reckoned that “popular superstition +rendered useless about one-fifth of the year.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_942" href="#Footnote_942" class="fnanchor">[942]</a> +The Athenian festivals are estimated to have occupied +from fifty to sixty days of the year. The irregular +distribution of these holidays throughout the months, +and especially their congestion in spring and autumn, +must have caused much interference with the routine +of daily life.⁠<a id="FNanchor_943" href="#Footnote_943" class="fnanchor">[943]</a> In some city-states the festivals were +more numerous: at Tarentum, in the days of its prosperity, +the people are said to have had more holidays +than working days.⁠<a id="FNanchor_944" href="#Footnote_944" class="fnanchor">[944]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>In the old Roman calendar, out of three hundred +and fifty-five days, nearly one-third (one hundred and +nine) were marked as <i>nefasti</i>, that is, as unlawful for +judicial and political business. These days belonged +wholly to the gods, while eleven more days of the year +were shared by the divine and the human inhabitants +of the city.⁠<a id="FNanchor_945" href="#Footnote_945" class="fnanchor">[945]</a> We know on the evidence of Cicero that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span>in the last century of the republic the numerous days +when courts could not sit had become a resource on +which a wealthy criminal could speculate as a means +of delaying and evading justice; while Suetonius +enumerates among the praiseworthy reforms of Augustus +the cutting-down of non-judicial days by thirty, +“in order that crimes might not escape punishment +or business be impeded by delay.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_946" href="#Footnote_946" class="fnanchor">[946]</a> Of the <i>dies +nefasti</i> sixty-one, including the Ides of every month, +the Kalends of three months, and the Nones of July, +were numbered in the republican calendar among the +public festivals—<i>feriæ publicæ</i>—on which the state +expected the citizens to abstain, as far as possible, +from their private business and labour.⁠<a id="FNanchor_947" href="#Footnote_947" class="fnanchor">[947]</a> But the +number of rest days observed really reached a larger +total, when we remember that, besides the extraordinary +<i>feriæ</i>, proclaimed from time to time, there was a +marked tendency during the last two centuries of the +republic to extend over several days festivals to which +originally only one day had been allotted. This was for +the purpose of giving time for an elaborate programme +of public games (<i>ludi</i>), consisting of chariot-races, +stage plays, and other forms of popular amusement. +As the Roman passion for holidays and their attendant +spectacles increased, we find the number of +days devoted to them rising from sixty-six in the reign +of Augustus to eighty-seven in that of Tiberius, and, +under Marcus Aurelius, to a hundred and thirty-five. +By the middle of the fourth century their number +had reached one hundred and seventy-five.⁠<a id="FNanchor_948" href="#Footnote_948" class="fnanchor">[948]</a> For the +lower classes at Rome the gladiatorial combats, chariot-races, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span>and dramatic shows formed the chief pleasure +of life. The once-sovereign people of Rome became a +lazy, worthless rabble, fed by the state and amused +with the games. Of them it was well said by an +ancient satirist that they wanted only two things to +make them happy—“bread and the games of the +circus.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_949" href="#Footnote_949" class="fnanchor">[949]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Many of the holy days in the religious calendar of +Christendom were borrowed, as is well known, from +the public festivals of ancient paganism. This must +be the chief reason for the observance of so many non-working +days during the Middle Ages. Their number +was largely reduced in Protestant Europe as the result +of the Reformation, which did away with the majority +of saints’ days. In Catholic countries, however, there +is still an excessive amount of time devoted to religious +celebrations. Mexico, for instance, is described as “a +land of holidays. Counting Sundays, there are one +hundred and thirty-one in the Mexican calendar, and +it is asserted that more than half of the people observe +them all.... On certain of these days all Mexico +takes to the festival, and it usually requires from one +to three days for the <i>peons</i> to sober up and get back to +regular work again.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_950" href="#Footnote_950" class="fnanchor">[950]</a> The Greek Church, as a celebrated +traveller and historian once pointed out, requires +her followers to observe so many holy days “as practically +to shorten the lives of the people very materially. +I believe that one-third of the number of days in the +year are ‘kept holy,’ or rather, <i>kept stupid</i>, in honour +of the saints: no great portion of the time thus set +apart is spent in religious exercises and the people don’t +betake themselves to any animating pastimes, which +might serve to strengthen the frame, or invigorate the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span>mind, or exalt the taste.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_951" href="#Footnote_951" class="fnanchor">[951]</a> In Russia commercial +and educational progress is hindered by the multitude +of saints’ days. “The <i>dies nefas</i>, when work is tabooed, +becomes a serious handicap in the race of modern life. +These saints’ days, together with the Sundays, rob +the Russian of nearly one-third of his time, for they +leave him only about two hundred and fifty days for +work. He would sooner work on a Sunday than on a +saint’s day.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_952" href="#Footnote_952" class="fnanchor">[952]</a> In eastern Galicia, where a calendar +is in use which permits the observance of the religious +festivals of both the Roman and the Greek churches, +the number of holidays or non-working days is considerably +in excess of one hundred, rising in some +districts to one hundred and fifty, and in others reaching +the amazing total of two hundred.⁠<a id="FNanchor_953" href="#Footnote_953" class="fnanchor">[953]</a> To what +extremes the practice of abstaining from labour on +holy days may extend is further illustrated in Abyssinia, +where the numerous fasts and feasts are so +strictly kept as to render about six months of the year +prohibited for any secular employments.⁠<a id="FNanchor_954" href="#Footnote_954" class="fnanchor">[954]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Human nature, it has been said, is always ready for +the shift from fast to feast, from Sabbath to Saturnalia. +To the student of primitive religion and sociology nothing +is more interesting than the contemplation of that +unconscious though beneficent process which has converted +institutions, based partly or wholly on a belief in +the imaginary and the supernatural, into institutions +resting on the rock of reason and promoting human +welfare. Though the origin of tabooed and unlucky +days must be sought in gross superstition, sooner or +later they acquire a secular character and may then +be perpetuated as holidays, long after their earlier +significance has disappeared. The transition, with +all its subtle and manifold results on the organization +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span>of society, may be followed under our own eyes. The +passage of the holy day into the holiday, beginning in +the lower culture, promises to reach its culmination in +the secularizing of all the great festivals of the Christian +year. This evolutionary movement, whether for +weal or woe, at least provides a singularly instructive +illustration of the close relations between religion +and social progress, which must ever impress the inquirer +into the early history of mankind.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>Leviathan</i>, chap. xi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> For the leading facts relating to the institution of taboo +see Sir J. G. Frazer, “Taboo,” <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>,⁹ xxiii, +15-18; <i>idem</i>, <i>Taboo and the Perils of the Soul</i>, London, +1911; N. W. Thomas, “Taboo,” <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>,¹¹ xxvi, +337-341; L. Marillier, “Tabou,” <i>La grande encyclopédie</i>, xxx, +848 <i>sq.</i>; A. Bros, <i>La religion des peuples non-civilisés</i>, +Paris, 1907, pp. 185-213; C. H. Toy, <i>Introduction to the History of +Religions</i>, Boston, 1913, pp. 239-264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> A list of the equivalents of tabu in the languages of +Polynesia and Melanesia will be found in William Churchill, <i>The +Polynesian Wanderings</i>, Washington, 1911, pp. 263 sq.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> E. Shortland, <i>Traditions and Superstitions of the New +Zealanders</i>,² London, 1856, p. 101.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> E. Tregear, <i>The Maori-Polynesian Comparative +Dictionary</i>, Wellington (N.Z.), 1891, p. 472.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> William Ellis, <i>Polynesian Researches</i>, London, 1859, +iv, 385.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> The proper term for “prohibit” was <i>rahui</i> +(<i>ibid.</i>, iv, 386).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> R. H. Codrington, <i>The Melanesians</i>, Oxford, 1891, p. +215. In the Banks Islands and in the New Hebrides the word <i>rongo</i> +is employed to indicate the naturally holy character which certain +objects may possess, quite independently of any human sanction or +prohibition (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 181).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> R. H. Nassau, <i>Fetichism in West Africa</i>, London, 1904, +p. 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> A. van Gennep, <i>Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar</i>, +Paris, 1904, pp. 12 <i>sqq.</i>, 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> As Sir James Frazer has pointed out (<i>Encyclopædia +Britannica</i>,⁹ xxiii, 18), the Greeks usually discriminated the two +ideas, ἁγνός being devoted to the sense of “sacred” and ἐναγής to that of +“unclean” or “accursed.” The two words, of course, have no connection, +ἁγνός being related to Skt. <i>yaj-</i>, “sacrifice” and ἐναγής to +Skt. <i>āgas-</i>, “sin” (E. Boisacq, <i>Dictionnaire étymologique de +la langue grecque</i>, Heidelberg and Paris, 1907, pt. i, 7, 9). Among +the Romans <i>sacer</i> always continued to retain the double meaning; +it may be closely rendered by <i>tabu</i>. Compare Servius on Vergil, +<i>Æneis</i>, iii, 75. The late W. Robertson Smith referred to the +fact that the Hebrew <i>ṭāmē</i> “is not the ordinary word for things +physically foul; it is a ritual term and corresponds exactly to the idea +of taboo” (<i>Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia</i>,² London, 1903, +p. 309). For a list of Biblical passages containing <i>ṭāmē</i> see +Brown, Driver, and Briggs, <i>A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old +Testament</i>, Boston, 1906, p. 379.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> The notion of transmissibility has been especially +developed by such writers as A. E. Crawley, <i>The Mystic Rose</i>, +London, 1902, <i>passim</i>, Hubert and Mauss, “Esquisse d’une théorie +générale de la magie,” <i>L’année sociologique</i>, 1904, vii, 108 sqq.; +F. B. Jevons, <i>An Introduction to the History of Religion</i>,⁴ London, +1908, pp. 59-68, and R. R. Marett, <i>The Threshold of Religion</i>,² +London, 1914, pp. 99-121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> On the general belief in the omnipresence of demons +and their action in causing human ills see Sir J. G. Frazer, <i>The +Scapegoat</i>, London, 1913, pp. 72-108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> J. S. Polack, <i>Manners and Customs of the New +Zealanders</i>, London, 1840, i, 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> Hose and McDougall, <i>The Pagan Tribes of Borneo</i>, +London, 1912, i, 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> C. W. Hobley, “Kikuyu Customs and Beliefs. <i>Thahu</i> +and its Connection with Circumcision Rites,” <i>Journal of the Royal +Anthropological Institute</i>, 1910, xl, 428.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> R. C. Thompson, <i>The Devils and Evil Spirits of +Babylonia</i>, London, 1904, ii, pp. xxxix <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> For an extensive presentation of the ethnographic evidence +see Sir J. G. Frazer, <i>Taboo and the Perils of the Soul</i>, London, +1911, pp. 131-223; <i>idem</i>, <i>Balder the Beautiful</i>, London, +1913, i, 22-100, ii, 225-278. The whole subject is most suggestively +treated by Professor A. van Gennep, <i>Les rites de passage</i>, Paris, +1909.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Ellis, <i>Polynesian Researches</i>, iv, 387 sqq.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> <i>Idem</i>, <i>Narrative of a Tour through Hawaii +or Owhyhee</i>, London, 1826, p. 366; <i>idem</i>, <i>Polynesian +Researches</i>, iv, 387 <i>sq.</i>; J. J. Jarves, <i>History of the +Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands</i>,² Boston, 1843, p. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Ellis, <i>Narrative</i>, pp. 366 <i>sq.</i>; compare +<i>idem</i>, <i>Polynesian Researches</i>, iv, 388.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> H. T. Cheever, <i>The Island World of the Pacific</i>, +Glasgow [1851], p. 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> Ellis, <i>Narrative</i>, p. 368; Hiram Bingham, <i>A +Residence of Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands</i>, Hartford, +1849, pp. 177 <i>sq.</i> Describing his experiences at Kihoro, the +missionary Ellis could not restrain his admiration of the conduct of the +native converts on Sunday: “No athletic sports were seen on the beach; +no noise of playful children shouting as they gambolled in the surf, nor +distant sound of the cloth-beating mallet was heard through the day; no +persons were seen carrying burdens in or out of the village, nor any +canoes passing across the bay. It could not but be viewed as the dawn +of a bright sabbatic day for the dark shores of Hawaii” (<i>Polynesian +Researches</i>, iv, 408). For similar statements see C. S. Stewart, <i>A +Visit to the South Seas</i>, London, 1832, pp. 277 <i>sqq.</i>, 302 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> Charles Wilkes, <i>Narrative of the U.S. Exploring +Expedition</i>, Philadelphia, 1845, ii, 13. “The <i>tabu</i> system,” +wrote an early missionary, “making sacred certain times, persons, and +places, and containing many restrictions and prohibitions, may easily +be interpreted as a relic, much changed and corrupted, from the ancient +ceremonial observances of the Jews” (Sheldon Dibble, <i>History of +the Sandwich Islands</i>, Lahainaluna, 1843, p. 27). The resemblances +between the Polynesian institution and certain customs recorded in the +Old Testament impressed another early writer, who refers to taboo as +“ce singulier usage, en partie politique, au moins dans quelques-uns +de ses effets, mais éminemment religieux dans son origine, non moins +que l’interdit des Hébreux, avec lequel il avait des rapports frappans, +qui n’ont point encore été signalés, quoique méritant assurément toute +l’attention du philosophe et du moraliste” (J. A. Moerenhout, <i>Voyages +aux îles du grand océan</i>, Paris, 1837, ii, 6).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> W. D. Alexander, <i>A Brief History of the Hawaiian +People</i>, New York, 1899, p. 55. The author’s work is based largely +on unpublished Hawaiian manuscripts and the early archives of the +government.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> Alexander, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 56 <i>sq.</i> Elsewhere +this excellent authority describes the Hawaiian prayers as in some +measure magical incantations, which, to secure the desired effect, +required to be repeated without the slightest mistake. “During the most +important class of prayers, called <i>aha</i>, it was necessary that +absolute silence should be preserved, as the least noise would break the +spell and destroy the whole effect of the charm” (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 50). A +similar precaution, as is well known, characterized the ritual of a Roman +sacrifice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> For additional data on this subject see Jarves, <i>op. +cit.</i>, pp. 51 <i>sq.</i>, and David Malo, <i>Hawaiian Antiquities</i>, +Honolulu, 1903, pp. 210-248. The latter work, translated from the +Hawaiian by N. B. Emerson, is an exceptionally valuable repository of +native lore.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Alexander, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 59 <i>sqq.</i>; Malo, +<i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 186-210. This New Year’s festival with its +accompanying taboo is also referred to in an early work entitled +<i>Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands in the Years +1824-1825</i>, London, 1826, pp. 11 <i>sq.</i> According to A. Fornander +(<i>An Account of the Polynesian Race</i>, London, 1878, i, 119 +<i>sq.</i>) the Hawaiian year consisted of twelve 30-day months with +five additional <i>tabu</i> days intercalated at the end of Welehu. If +this statement be correct, the Hawaiian epagomenal days would furnish +a remarkable parallel to those of the ancient Mexicans and Egyptians +(below, pp. <a href="#Page_279">279</a> <i>sqq.</i>). But the best authorities agree that the +Hawaiian year was strictly lunar, with months of 29 and 30 days in +alternation and an occasional intercalary month.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> Alexander, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 52 <i>sq.</i>, 62 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 50 <i>sqq.</i>; Dibble, <i>op. cit.</i>, +25 <i>sq.</i>; Malo, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 56. The latter authority, a +native writer intimately versed in Hawaiian antiquities, declares that +the seasons of taboo were not observed during the four <i>makahiki</i> +months of the year, when the regular religious services were suspended +for games and ceremonies in honour of the god Lono. The same point is +made by Judge Fornander (<i>op. cit.</i>, i, 123 <i>n.</i>²), whose +information was derived from the Hon. S. M. Kamakau, an intelligent +Hawaiian, born and brought up under the heathen <i>régime</i>. On these +Hawaiian Sabbaths see below, pp. <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, +<a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, +<a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> J. A. Moerenhout, <i>Voyages aux îles du grand océan</i>, +Paris, 1837, i, 516 <i>sq.</i> See further Mathias G— [Garcia] +(<i>Lettres sur les îles Marquises</i>, Paris, 1843, p. 210), who +refers to the first day of fishing as “un jour de silence et de repos, +<i>tapu</i> pour ceux qui restent à la maison.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> William Yate, <i>An Account of New Zealand</i>, London, +1835, p. 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> James Cowan, <i>The Maoris of New Zealand</i>, Melbourne +and London, 1910, pp. 116 <i>sq.</i> The <i>kumara</i> crop was sacred, +all persons engaged in its cultivation were temporarily tabooed, and the +offering of the first-fruits of the <i>kumara</i> formed a very solemn +religious ceremony (E. Tregear, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1890, xix, 110). Compare Richard Taylor, <i>Te Ika A +Maui</i>, London, 1855, p. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> E. Tregear, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1890, xix, 110. No food might be cooked on the day before +a war-party set out (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 108). Mr. Tregear, an excellent +authority, declares that in New Zealand “there were no long periods of +silence such as the kings of Hawaii laid on their people by proclaiming +<i>tapu</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 122). Another writer assures us that the +Maori “had no days more sacred than others” (Taylor, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. +92). Yet in one part of New Zealand it was customary to celebrate the new +year with a <i>karakia</i>, or magical incantation and prayer; in another +place there was a <i>karakia</i> when the new moon appeared; and in +still another place “the most sacred day of the year was that appointed +for hair-cutting; the people assembled from all the neighbouring parts, +often more than a thousand in number; the operation being commenced with +<i>karakia</i>, the operator and his obsidian (substitute for scissors) +being thus rendered peculiarly sacred” (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 93).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> John Martin, <i>An Account of the Natives of the Tonga +Islands ... from the Extensive Communications of Mr. William Mariner</i>, +Boston, 1820, pp. 381-385. Mariner passed four years among the Tonga +Islanders as the adopted son of the king Finow. His picturesque, but +apparently reliable, narrative describes the natives in their aboriginal +state before the arrival of Christian missionaries.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> Not only was all work prohibited at the time of the +<i>inachi</i>, but even any one’s appearance abroad, unless for the +purposes of the ceremony, was interdicted (Martin-Mariner, <i>op. +cit.</i>, p. 383 <i>n.</i>²). The Tongans observed a like restriction +after a death. When a corpse was being taken to the burying-ground, all +persons in the roadway or the adjacent fields were obliged to keep out +of sight, under pain of becoming tabooed. Those who showed themselves +at such a time were generally killed on the spot (<i>ibid.</i>, pp. 243 +<i>sq.</i>, 394).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> This Samoan religious system has been fully described by +Sir J. G. Frazer, who believes that it exhibits “what seems to be the +passage of pure totemism into a religion of anthropomorphic gods with +animal and vegetable attributes, like the deities of ancient Greece” +(<i>Totemism and Exogamy</i>, London, 1910, ii, 152).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> George Turner, <i>Samoa</i>, London, 1884, pp. 29 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 26 <i>sq.</i>, 41, 44, 47, 49, 53, 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> Turner, <i>Samoa</i>, p. 269.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> J. E. Erskine, <i>Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of +the Western Pacific</i>, London, 1853, pp. 245 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> Basil Thomson, <i>The Fijians</i>, London, 1908, p. 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> <i>U.S. Exploring Expedition</i>, Philadelphia, 1846, vi, +67 <i>sq.</i> (<i>Ethnography and Philology</i>, by H. Hale).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> Charles Wilkes, <i>Narrative of the U.S. Exploring +Expedition</i>, Philadelphia, 1845, iii, 90 <i>sq.</i> This festival bore +the name of <i>tambo nalanga</i> (<i>ibid.</i>, iii, 342).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> In Samoa the second half of the year was called the +<i>palolo</i> season, from the appearance of this singular worm for +three days in the course of a year. If the last quarter of the moon is +late in October, the <i>palolo</i> is found the day before, the day of, +and the day after that quarter. Should the last quarter of the moon be +early in October, the worm does not come till the last quarter of the +November moon (Turner, <i>Samoa</i>, p. 207). The <i>palolo</i>, it may +be noted, is not an entire animal, but only the “propagation-body” of a +sea-annelid (apparently <i>Eunice Viridis</i> Gray), which lives in holes +in the coral stone and comes to the surface for the act of fertilization. +It is found in various parts of Polynesia, including Samoa, Fiji, and +Tonga, and also in Melanesia (New Hebrides and Banks Islands). See A. +Krämer, <i>Die Samoa-Inseln</i>, Stuttgart, 1903, ii, 399-406, and B. +Friedländer, “Notes on the <i>palōlo</i>,” <i>Journal of the Polynesian +Society</i>, 1898, vii, 44-46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> L. Fison, “The <i>nanga</i>, or Sacred Stone Enclosure, +of Wainimala, Fiji,” <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, +1885, xiv, 18. The solemn rite of initiation into the <i>nanga</i> +was always celebrated at the time of the New Year’s festival, late in +October or early in November. This Fijian festival, called <i>solevu ni +vilavou</i>, corresponded to the Tahitian and Hawaiian <i>makahiki</i> +(A. B. Joske, “The <i>nanga</i> of Viti Levu,” <i>Internationales Archiv +für Ethnographie</i>, 1889, ii, 259). On the <i>nanga</i> see further +H. Webster, “Totem Clans and Secret Associations in Australia and +Melanesia,” <i>Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute</i>, 1911, +xli, 506 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> S. P. Smith, in <i>Journal of the Polynesian Society</i>, +1892, i, 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Ellis, <i>Polynesian Researches</i>, iv, 387.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> W. T. Pritchard, <i>Polynesian Reminiscences</i>, +London, 1866, pp. 149 <i>sq.</i>; George Turner, <i>Nineteen Years in +Polynesia</i>, London, 1861, p. 229; <i>idem</i>, <i>Samoa</i>, p. 146. +See also A. Bastian, <i>Inselgruppen in Oceanien</i>, Berlin, 1883, p. +55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> For an interesting description of the regulations imposed +on the fishermen themselves see W. H. Furness, 3d., <i>The Island of +Stone Money</i>, Philadelphia, 1910, pp. 38 <i>sq.</i> On taboos observed +by hunters and fishers, generally, see Frazer, <i>Taboo and the Perils of +the Soul</i>, pp. 190-223.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> F. W. Christian, <i>The Caroline Islands</i>, London, 1899, +p. 290.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> A close observer, G. A. J. van der Sande, did not notice +any special rest days among the natives with whom he came in contact, +and whose customs he has so fully described (<i>Nova Guinea</i>, Leiden, +1907, iii, 270).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> C. G. Seligmann, <i>The Melanesians of British New +Guinea</i>, Cambridge, 1910, p. 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Quoted in Turner, <i>Samoa</i>, p. 349. The custom +mentioned in the text must now be obsolete. It is not referred to in Dr. +Seligmann’s exhaustive account of the Koita and Motu tribes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> It would seem that among the Bornean tribes, generally, +the chief is responsible for the proper observation of the omens and for +the regulation of taboos affecting an entire community. Compare Hose and +McDougall, <i>The Pagan Tribes of Borneo</i>, London, 1912, i, 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> W. H. Furness, 3d., <i>The Home-life of Borneo +Head-hunters</i>, Philadelphia, 1902, pp. 160-169.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> <i>Permantong</i> is the term used by the Kayan of the +Baram District; among the Kayan in the valley of the Kapuas River, +Dutch Borneo, the word is <i>pantang</i>, the regular Malay equivalent +of <i>tabu</i>. Both these forms are possibly derived from the Malay +<i>hantu</i>, a word meaning demon or evil spirit, with the prefix +<i>per</i> and the affix <i>an</i>. The Malay word in full would thus +be <i>per-hantu-an</i>, meaning “possessed by spirits” or “bewitched.” +<i>Lali</i> is probably a pure Kayan word and means both “prohibited” +and “sacred” (Furness, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 160; A. W. Nieuwenhuis, +<i>Quer durch Borneo</i>, Leiden, 1904-1907, i, 109). According to +Messrs. Hose and McDougall <i>malan</i> and <i>parit</i> are the proper +Kayan words for taboo, though <i>lali</i> and <i>tulah</i> are used as +their <i>lingua franca</i> equivalents. <i>Malan</i> applies to acts +involving risks to the entire community, <i>parit</i> to those involving +risk to the individual committing the forbidden act (<i>Pagan Tribes of +Borneo</i>, i, 14 <i>n.</i>¹).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> On these omen animals see further Sir Spenser St. John, +<i>Life in the Forests of the Far East</i>, London, 1862, i, 191 +<i>sqq.</i>; J. Perham, in H. L. Roth, <i>The Natives of Sarawak and +British North Borneo</i>, London, 1896, i, 191-201; A. C. Haddon, +<i>Head-hunters</i>, London, 1901, pp. 384 <i>sqq.</i>; E. H. Gomes, +<i>Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo</i>, London, 1911, pp. +47 <i>sq.</i>, 152 <i>sqq.</i>, 298; Hose and McDougall, <i>op. cit.</i>, +ii, 51-114 (with some interesting parallels between the modern Kayan +and the Roman auspices). Compare W. D. Wallis, “Divination and Omens in +Borneo and in Ancient Rome,” <i>Classical Journal</i>, 1914, ix, 272-274.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> Furness, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 161.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> Furness, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 162 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> Furness, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 164 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> This period of seclusion is employed by the Kayan in +various games and masquerades, which, if they have a recreative value, +possess as well a religious or magical meaning in the minds of the +people. During the sowing festival the men play at spinning tops, the +youths engage in athletic sports, and maskers, disguised by wooden +helmets and bandages of banana leaves, simulate the actions of evil +spirits. On the magical significance of games in primitive agriculture, +see Sir J. G. Frazer, <i>Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild</i>, London, +1912, i, 92-112.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> A. W. Nieuwenhuis, <i>Quer durch Borneo</i>, Leiden, +1904-1907, i, 166 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> Nieuwenhuis, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 107.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> The Kayan call the full moon the “evil moon” and at this +time build neither houses nor boats, and do not go forth on the search +for omens (<i>ibid.</i>, i, 415).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> Translated by Dr. Nieuwenhuis as “sitzen, nicht arbeiten.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> A. W. Nieuwenhuis, “Religiöse Zeremonien beim Häuserbau +der Bahau-Dajak am obern Mahakam in Borneo,” <i>Verhandlungen des II +internationalen Kongresses für allgemeine Religionsgeschichte</i>, Basel, +1905, pp. 107-119; compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Quer durch Borneo</i>, ii, +174.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> “At certain seasons of the moon, just before and just +after the full, the [Sea] Dyaks do not work at their farms; and what +with bad omens, sounds, signs, adverse dreams, and deaths, two-thirds of +their time is not spent in farm labour” (Charles Brooke, <i>Ten Years in +Sarawak</i>, London, 1866, i, 149).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> Leo Nyuak, “Religious Rites and Customs of the Iban or +Dyaks of Sarawak,” translated from the Dyak by the Very Rev. Edm. Dunn, +<i>Anthropos</i>, 1906, i, 410 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, i, 176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, i, 181.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, i, 416 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> Betara, otherwise <i>petara</i>, is the ordinary Sea Dyak +name for deity. The word is incorrectly translated as “Great Spirit”; in +general belief there are many <i>petara</i>. These gods, it may be noted, +are separated by no distinct line of demarcation from the thousands of +<i>antu</i>, or spirits, with which the Dyak has peopled his universe. +See J. Perham, “<i>Petara</i>, or Sea Dyak Gods,” <i>Journal of the +Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society</i>, 1881, no. 8; H. L. Roth, +<i>The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo</i>, London, 1896, i, +168-182.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> Brooke Low, in Roth, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 401. See also +<i>idem</i>, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1893, +xxii, 24. Many primitive peoples are accustomed to trace a direct +connection between sexual sins and the welfare of the crops. As Sir +James Frazer has shown, this superstition has undoubtedly contributed to +a stricter observance of the rules of sexual morality, both among the +married and the unmarried. See <i>The Magic Art and the Evolution of +Kings</i>, London, 1911, ii, 104-119.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> Sir Hugh Low, <i>Sarawak</i>, London, 1848, pp. 260-262. +See also Sir Spenser St. John, <i>Life in the Forests of the Far +East</i>, London, 1862, i, 175 <i>sqq.</i> According to this writer +<i>porikh</i> is the Land Dyak expression equivalent to <i>pamali</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> William Chalmers, in Roth, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 401.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> Mrs. S. B. Scott, “Harvest Festivals of the Land Dyaks,” +<i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, 1908, xxix, 236-280.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> Mrs. S. B. Scott, “Harvest Festivals of the Land Dyaks,” +<i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, 1908, xxix, 244 +<i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> St. John, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, i, 160. The Sea Dyak make an interesting +distinction between <i>mali</i> and <i>penti</i>, the former absolutely +forbidding certain kinds of work to a person under the ban, the latter +allowing it to be undertaken, if started by some one not subject to the +taboo. For instance, though both parents are <i>penti</i> during the +wife’s pregnancy, the expectant mother may engage in basket-making and +mat-weaving, provided some other woman begins the work for her; and the +husband may dig a trench or erect a post, if the hands of others are +first set to the task. Taboos of this sort prevail until the child cuts +its first teeth (F. W. Leggatt, in Roth, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 98).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> Sir Hugh Low observes that among the Land Dyak the +favourite remedies for the cure of internal diseases are turmeric and +spices, taken in huge quantities; “but for anything at all serious, +recourse is had to the <i>pamali</i>, both in medical and surgical cases” +(<i>Sarawak</i>, p. 308).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> St. John, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 175 <i>sq.</i> (Land Dyak). +Mr. Charles Hose declares that at such times the inhabitants of a Kayan +communal house may taboo their private rooms to the other inmates. Small +fines are imposed for infringing the rule, if the act is unintentional, +but when a man forces his way into a tabooed house, a serious quarrel, +ending in bloodshed, may result (<i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1894, xxiii, 170). “It is an old custom among the Iban for +a stranger, before climbing the ladder of a house, to ask in a loud voice +whether there is no taboo” (L. Nyuak, in <i>Anthropos</i>, 1906, i, 175).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> The Murik on the Baram River, a community of hardworking +farmers, in addition to the communal taboos observed by them at sowing, +also keep a <i>lemalli</i> of seven days, when the paddy crop is about +to be harvested. “For the first three days of this no one stirs out of +the house, no work is done, and no sexual intercourse is allowed” (R. S. +Douglas, in <i>Sarawak Museum Journal</i>, 1911, i, 146 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> See below, p. <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> The <i>elpanam</i> consists of several large structures, +which serve as a guest-house for strangers and as a town-hall for feasts +and public gatherings. The institution is found under different names in +many of the East Indian islands, and even more widely. See H. Webster, +<i>Primitive Secret Societies</i>, New York, 1908, pp. 8 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> V. Solomon, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1902, xxxii, 215 <i>sq.</i> See also C. B. Kloss, <i>In +the Andamans and Nicobars</i>, London, 1903, pp. 293 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> V. Solomon, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1902, xxxii, 210; Kloss, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 297 +<i>sq.</i> Another kiala festival, also followed by alternate periods of +rest and work, appears to be observed in connection with fishing (Kloss, +<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 295).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> R. van Eck, in <i>Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië</i>, +1879, n.s., viii, 58 <i>sqq.</i> Van Eck’s account is reproduced by J. +Jacobs, <i>Eenigen tijd onder de Baliërs</i>, Batavia, 1883, pp. 190 +<i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> R. Friederich, in <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic +Society</i>, 1877, n.s., ix, 77. On the <i>petara</i> see above, p. <a href="#Page_35">35</a> +<i>n.</i>²</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> F. Krämer, “Der Götzendienst der Niasser,” <i>Tijdschrift +voor indische taal- land- en volkenkunde</i>, 1890, xxxiii, 486 +<i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> Hinlopen and Severin, <i>ibid.</i>, 1855, iii, 329 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> A. Maass, “<i>Ta-kä-käi-käi tabu</i>,” <i>Zeitschrift für +Ethnologie</i>, 1905, xxxvii, 155 <i>sq.</i> The greater part of this +valuable article is concerned with the analogies between the taboo system +in the Mentawi Islands and related systems in Indonesia and Polynesia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> W. A. Pickering, <i>Pioneering in Formosa</i>, London, +1898, p. 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> W. Joest, in <i>Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für +Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte</i>, 1882, p. (62) (bound +with <i>Zeitschrift für Ethnologie</i>, vol. xiv).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> G. Taylor, in <i>Proceedings of the Royal Geographical +Society</i>, 1889, n.s., xi, 233; <i>idem</i>, “Folklore of Aboriginal +Formosa,” <i>Folk-lore Journal</i>, 1887, v, 150.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> J. P. Finley and William Churchill, <i>The Subanu</i>, +Washington, 1913, pp. 31 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> The word is also spelled <i>tengau</i> and translated +“holiday.” See W. C. Clapp, “A Vocabulary of the Igorot Language,” +<i>Bureau of Science, Division of Ethnology, Publications</i>, Manila, +1908, v, 198.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> A. E. Jenks, “The Bontoc Igorot,” <i>Ethnological Survey +Publications</i>, Manila, 1905, i, 205 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> From a letter to the author, dated December 10, 1910. +In a second letter, under date March 8, 1911, Professor Jenks writes, +“I believe the rest days are first for the purpose of having time for +religious observances—this fact necessitated the rest. I never proved +this point, however.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> Jenks, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 213.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> “It is safe to say that one feast is held daily in Bontoc +by some family to appease or win the good will of some <i>anito</i> +[ancestral spirit]” (Jenks, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 198).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> Some, if not all, of the Igorot peoples of northern +Luzon are familiar with the idea of taboo as applied to individuals or +to families at certain critical times. The Ibaloi Igorot equivalent of +taboo is <i>pidiu</i>. A man, while in the peculiarly solemn condition +of <i>pidiu</i>, “must not bathe, must not admit visitors into his +house, and must not work, travel, etc.,” under penalty of punishment +by the <i>making</i>, or departed souls, for transgression of the +regulations (O. Scheerer, “The Nabaloi Dialect,” <i>Ethnological Survey +Publications</i>, Manila, 1905, ii, 167). But these prohibitions do not +seem to be socialized.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> T. C. Hodson, “The <i>genna</i> amongst the Tribes +of Assam,” <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1906, +xxxvi, 92-103; <i>idem</i>, “Some Nāga Customs and Superstitions,” +<i>Folklore</i>, 1910, xxi, 296-312; <i>idem</i>, “Genna,” +<i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>,¹¹ xi, 596; <i>idem</i>, <i>The Nāga +Tribes of Manipur</i>, London, 1911, pp. 164-186.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> “The word <i>genna</i> is used in two ways: (1) it may +mean practically a holiday—<i>i.e.</i>, a man will say, ‘My village +is doing <i>genna</i> to-day,’ by which he means that, owing either to +the occurrence of a village festival or some such unusual occurrence +... his people are observing a holiday; (2) <i>genna</i> means anything +forbidden” (A. W. Davis, in <i>Census of India, 1891, Assam</i>, i, 249).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> Hodson, <i>Nāga Tribes</i>, pp. 167 <i>sq.</i> Among some +of the Manipuri Naga the various <i>genna</i> are marked by rope-pulling +contests, when the women and girls have a tug-of-war with the men. This +is described as a means of taking omens for the future of the crops +(<i>ibid.</i>, p. 168). The Naga ceremonial is a serious business, but +among the Meithei, the Hinduised neighbours of the Naga, the tug-of-war +has dwindled into a mere pastime (Hodson, in <i>Folklore</i>, 1910, xxi, +300). On the magical significance of the games played by the Kayan of +Borneo during their periods of seclusion, see above, p. <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> Hodson, <i>Nāga Tribes</i>, pp. 166 <i>sq.</i>, 175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 109, 167, 175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 166 <i>sq.</i>, 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 151 <i>sq.</i>, 174. According to +another account the festival occurs on the night of the December new +moon. The shades of the dead are supposed to visit the living at this +time (S. E. Peal, in <i>Zeitschrift für Ethnologie</i>, 1898, xxx, 355).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> Hodson, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 109, 144, 173, 175 <i>sq.</i> +The Naga west of the Doyang River are said to have a <i>genna</i> also +at the annual ceremony of making new fire for the village. The fire, +produced by friction, is first used in burning down the jungle before +the sowing of the crops (W. Crooke, <i>Natives of Northern India</i>, +London, 1907, p. 45; E. T. Dalton, <i>Descriptive Ethnology of +Bengal</i>, Calcutta, 1872, p. 43). The Angami Naga mark by a three days’ +<i>genna</i> the first full moon of the lunar year (D. Prain, in <i>Revue +coloniale internationale</i>, 1887, v, 489).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">[113]</a> John Butler, in <i>Journal of the Asiatic Society of +Bengal</i>, 1875, n.s., xlv, i, 316. This observer describes the +<i>kennie</i> as a system of taboo, “singularly similar to that in vogue +among the savages inhabiting the Pacific islands.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">[114]</a> Hodson, <i>Nāga Tribes</i>, p. 167, citing C. A. Soppitt, +<i>Account of the Kachcha Nāgas</i>, p. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">[115]</a> Hodson, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 141. The <i>khullakpa</i>, +also called <i>gennabura</i>, or “authorizer of <i>genna</i>,” is himself +subject to a number of vexatious restrictions designed to prevent any +impairment of the efficiency of his sacred office. On these taboos see +below, pp. <a href="#Page_233">233</a> <i>sq.</i> It is worthy of note that the <i>khullakpa</i> +enjoys a good deal of indirect authority because of his power to close a +village and declare a <i>genna</i>. An individual who violated any of the +taboos imposed by him would be obliged to pay a fine, the proceeds being +used to provide a substantial repast for the village elders (Hodson, in +<i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1901, xxxi, 307).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">[116]</a> Hodson, <i>Nāga Tribes</i>, pp. 177, 180. The Naga of +eastern Assam strictly taboo a house where tattooing is being done (W. H. +Furness, 3d., in <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1902, +xxxii, 466).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">[117]</a> T. C. Hodson, <i>The Meitheis</i>, London, 1908, p. +118. It is significant that the Moirang, a more or less backward and +isolated Meithei tribe, still keep up something like a system of communal +<i>genna</i> connected with agricultural operations (<i>ibid.</i>, p. +119).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">[118]</a> P. R. T. Gurdon, <i>The Khasis</i>, London, 1907, p. 158.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">[119]</a> A. Playfair, <i>The Garos</i>, London, 1909, p. 114; see +below, p. <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">[120]</a> Edward Stack, <i>The Mikirs</i>, edited by Sir Charles +Lyall, London, 1908, p. 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">[121]</a> Hodson, <i>Nāga Tribes</i>, p. 20. The Mishmi have +household <i>genna</i> whenever the members of a family are visited by +illness or misfortune of any kind. Possibly there are also village rites +of the same nature. See R. Wilcox, in <i>Selections from the Records of +the Bengal Government</i>, Calcutta, 1855, no. 23, p. 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">[122]</a> J. Shakespear, <i>The Lushei Kuki Clans</i>, London, 1912, +p. 69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">[123]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 72 <i>sq.</i>, 75, 78, 80, 87; C. A. +Soppitt, <i>A Short Account of the Kuki-Lushai Tribes</i>, Shillong, +1887, p. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">[124]</a> T. H. Lewin, <i>The Hill Tracts of Chittagong</i>, +Calcutta, 1869, p. 78. Captain Lewin’s interesting work was republished +under the title <i>Wild Races of South-eastern India</i> (London, +1870), where the reference to the <i>khang</i> will be found on pp. 196 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">[125]</a> Lewin, <i>Hill Tracts</i>, p. 94; <i>idem</i>, <i>Wild +Races</i>, p. 236 (Mro).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">[126]</a> R. F. St. Andrew St. John, in <i>Journal of the +Anthropological Institute</i>, 1873, ii, 240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">[127]</a> B. S. Carey and H. N. Tuck, <i>The Chin Hills</i>, +Rangoon, 1896, i, 198.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">[128]</a> <i>Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States</i>, +edited by Scott and Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. i, vol. i, pp. 425 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">[129]</a> A. R. McMahon, <i>The Karens of the Golden Chersonese</i>, +London, 1876, p. 292.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">[130]</a> Sir R. C. Temple, “Burma,” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia +of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 37. Similarly, the Yabim of German +New Guinea require all the inhabitants of a village to remain at +home on the morning after the birth of a child. This is regarded as +a necessary precaution, if the fruits of the fields and gardens are +not to be spoiled by the noxious influences emanating from a woman in +childbed (K. Vetter, in <i>Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und den +Bismarck-Archipel</i>, 1897, xiii, 87).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">[131]</a> R. G. Woodthorpe, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1897, xxvi, 27 <i>sqq.</i>; Sir J. G. Scott, “Buddhism +in the Shan States,” <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society</i>, 1911, +n.s., xliii, 931. On taboos affecting intercourse with strangers see, in +general, Frazer, <i>Taboo and the Perils of the Soul</i>, pp. 101-116.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">[132]</a> <i>Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States</i>, pt. +i, vol. i, p. 515.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="label">[133]</a> S. R. Clarke, <i>Among the Tribes in South-west China</i>, +London, 1911, p. 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="label">[134]</a> For instances of “magical telepathy” in hunting, fishing, +and warfare see Frazer, <i>The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings</i>, +i, 119-134.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="label">[135]</a> As Messrs. Hose and McDougall judiciously observe, the +cult of omen-birds found among the Kayan of Borneo, though it hampers +their undertakings at almost every turn and might seem to be wholly +foolish and detrimental, has really “two great practical advantages: +namely, it inspires confidence, and it promotes discipline and a strong +sense of collective unity and responsibility. It is not improbable, +then, that the advantages of this seemingly senseless cult outweigh +its drawbacks, which, in the shape of endless delays and changes of +plans, are by no means small” (<i>Pagan Tribes of Borneo</i>, i, 170 +<i>n.</i>¹).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="label">[136]</a> On the sociological conception of crisis see W. I. Thomas, +<i>Source Book for Social Origins</i>, Chicago, 1909, pp. 16 <i>sqq.</i>; +R. R. Marett, <i>The Threshold of Religion</i>,² London, 1914, pp. 198 +<i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="label">[137]</a> On the primitive ideas of death see particularly R. Hertz, +“Contribution à une étude sur la représentation collective de la morte,” +<i>L’année sociologique</i>, 1905-1906, x, 48-137; E. S. Hartland, “Death +and Disposal of the Dead (Introductory),” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics</i>, iv, 411-444; W. H. R. Rivers, “The Primitive +Conception of Death,” <i>Hibbert Journal</i>, 1912, x, 393-407; Sir J. +G. Frazer, <i>The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead</i>, +London, 1913, i, 31-58; A. van Gennep, <i>Les rites de passage</i>, +Paris, 1909, pp. 209-236; L. Lévy-Bruhl, <i>Les fonctions mentales dans +les sociétés inférieures</i>, Paris, 1910, pp. 321-330, 352-396. For a +useful collection of ethnographic evidence see E. Samter, <i>Geburt, +Hochzeit, und Tod</i>, Leipzig, 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_138" href="#FNanchor_138" class="label">[138]</a> A. E. Crawley, <i>The Mystic Rose</i>, London, 1902, pp. +95 <i>sqq.</i>; L. R. Farnell, <i>The Evolution of Religion</i>, London, +1905, pp. 96 <i>sqq.</i>; E. Westermarck, <i>The Origin and Development +of the Moral Ideas</i>, London, 1906-1908, ii, 535 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_139" href="#FNanchor_139" class="label">[139]</a> On the sociological aspects of these and other +superstitions see H. Webster, “Influence of Superstition on the Evolution +of Property Rights,” <i>American Journal of Sociology</i>, 1910, xv, +794-805; H. Berkusky, “Der Einfluss abergläubischer Vorstellungen auf das +wirtschaftliche und soziale Leben der Naturvölker,” <i>Zeitschrift für +Socialwissenschaft</i>, 1913, n.s., iv, 489-498, 567-584.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_140" href="#FNanchor_140" class="label">[140]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, +<a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_141" href="#FNanchor_141" class="label">[141]</a> H. O. Forbes, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1884, xiii, 420.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_142" href="#FNanchor_142" class="label">[142]</a> A. Maass, “<i>Ta-kä-käi-käi tabu</i>,” <i>Zeitschrift für +Ethnologie</i>, 1905, xxxvii, 155; J. G. F. Riedel, <i>ibid.</i>, 1885, +xvii, 69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_143" href="#FNanchor_143" class="label">[143]</a> J. G. F. Riedel, <i>De sluik- en kroesharige rassen +tusschen Selebes en Papua</i>, The Hague, 1886, pp. 168 (Seranglao and +Gorong archipelagoes), 197 (Watubela Islands), 223 (Kei Islands), 341 +(Babar Archipelago), 414 (Keisar Island).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_144" href="#FNanchor_144" class="label">[144]</a> D. C. Worcester, in <i>Philippine Journal of Science</i>, +1906, i, 844. Compare F. C. Cole, in <i>American Anthropologist</i>, +1909, n.s., xi, 337 (Tenguian).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_145" href="#FNanchor_145" class="label">[145]</a> C. B. Kloss, <i>In the Andamans and Nicobars</i>, London, +1903, pp. 303 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_146" href="#FNanchor_146" class="label">[146]</a> Annandale and Robinson, <i>Fasciculi Malayensis</i>, +London, 1903-1904, i, 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_147" href="#FNanchor_147" class="label">[147]</a> Brooke Low, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1892, xxi, 122; <i>idem</i>, in Roth, <i>Natives of +Sarawak and British North Borneo</i>, i, 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_148" href="#FNanchor_148" class="label">[148]</a> L. Nyuak, in <i>Anthropos</i>, 1906, i, 413.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_149" href="#FNanchor_149" class="label">[149]</a> E. H. Gomes, <i>Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of +Borneo</i>, London, 1911, p. 139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_150" href="#FNanchor_150" class="label">[150]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_151" href="#FNanchor_151" class="label">[151]</a> De Crespigny, in <i>Proceedings of the Royal Geographical +Society</i>, 1858, ii, 348.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_152" href="#FNanchor_152" class="label">[152]</a> Hose and McDougall, <i>op. cit.</i>, ii, 37 <i>sq.</i> The +Kayan on the Mahakam River require all those who have been polluted by +taking part in burial ceremonies to undergo a two days’ <i>melo</i>, or +ceremonial abstention from work (Nieuwenhuis, <i>op. cit.</i>, ii, 119).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_153" href="#FNanchor_153" class="label">[153]</a> Hodson, <i>Nāga Tribes</i>, pp. 99, 174, 177.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_154" href="#FNanchor_154" class="label">[154]</a> Hodson, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 100, 152, 166, 174. Compare +<i>idem</i>, “Mortuary Ritual and Eschatological Beliefs among the Hill +Tribes of Assam,” <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1909, xii, +449.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_155" href="#FNanchor_155" class="label">[155]</a> Hodson, <i>Nāga Tribes</i>, p. 88. “We find among the Naga +tribes that, if a woman died in childbirth (an event of rare occurrence), +the child was never allowed to live, because they believed it to be an +evil spirit, a disembodied ghost, incarnated in the mother whose death +it had caused” (<i>idem</i>, “Some Nāga Customs and Superstitions,” +<i>Folklore</i>, 1910, xxi, 301). Among the Kabui Naga not only does +the death of a woman in childbirth necessitate a five days’ village +<i>genna</i>, but the same period of restriction is also imposed after +the death of a child dying in infancy (J. Shakespear, “Customs at Death +among the Manipuris and Cognate Clans,” <i>Folklore</i>, 1912, xxiii, +466 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_156" href="#FNanchor_156" class="label">[156]</a> P. R. T. Gurdon, <i>The Khasis</i>, London, 1907, p. 143.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_157" href="#FNanchor_157" class="label">[157]</a> R. F. St. Andrew St. John, in <i>Journal of the +Anthropological Institute</i>, 1873, ii, 240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_158" href="#FNanchor_158" class="label">[158]</a> A. Coussot and H. Ruel, <i>Douze mois chez les sauvages du +Laos</i>, Paris, 1898, p. 205; A. Cabaton, “Indo-China (Savage Races),” +Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, vii, 232.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_159" href="#FNanchor_159" class="label">[159]</a> F. Fawcett, in <i>Folklore</i>, 1912, xxiii, 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_160" href="#FNanchor_160" class="label">[160]</a> A. K. Iyer, <i>The Cochin Tribes and Castes</i>, Madras, +1909, i, 265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_161" href="#FNanchor_161" class="label">[161]</a> C. H. Rao, in <i>Anthropos</i>, 1909, iv, 181.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_162" href="#FNanchor_162" class="label">[162]</a> H. Hosten, “Pahāria Burial Customs (British Sikkim),” +<i>Anthropos</i>, 1909, iv, 673, 675.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_163" href="#FNanchor_163" class="label">[163]</a> S. C. Das, <i>Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet</i>, +London, 1902, p. 256.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_164" href="#FNanchor_164" class="label">[164]</a> Dudley Kidd, <i>The Essential Kafir</i>, London, 1904, p. +253; Farewell, in W. F. W. Owen, <i>Narrative of Voyages to explore the +Shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar</i>, London, 1833, ii, 397. A +Kafir chief, on succeeding to power, is said to have declared a taboo of +all field work for an entire year and to have put to death every woman +who became pregnant during this period (<i>Globus</i>, 1889, lvi, 62).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_165" href="#FNanchor_165" class="label">[165]</a> Joseph Shooter, <i>The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu +Country</i>, London, 1857, p. 216.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_166" href="#FNanchor_166" class="label">[166]</a> E. Casalis, <i>Les Bassoutos</i>, Paris, 1859, p. 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_167" href="#FNanchor_167" class="label">[167]</a> P. Kollmann, <i>Der Nordwesten unserer ostafrikanischen +Kolonie</i>, Berlin, 1898, p. 77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_168" href="#FNanchor_168" class="label">[168]</a> W. S. Routledge and Katherine Routledge, <i>With a +Prehistoric People</i>, London, 1910, p. 172.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_169" href="#FNanchor_169" class="label">[169]</a> R. Lasch, “Die Ursache und Bedeutung der Erdbeben im +Volksglauben und Volksbrauch,” <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, +1902, v, 236-257, 369-383; B. Struck, “African Ideas on the Subject of +Earthquakes,” <i>Journal of the African Society</i>, 1909, viii, 398-411.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_170" href="#FNanchor_170" class="label">[170]</a> A. C. Hollis, <i>The Nandi</i>, Oxford, 1908, pp. 17, +20, 100. The rules imposed by Nandi custom on persons ceremonially +unclean include abstinence from work. For instance, after Nandi girls +have been operated upon at puberty, they must stay in their mothers’ +huts in complete seclusion for a month or more. After recovering from +the effects of the operation, they may be married. But if no husbands +appear, the girls continue to live in a secluded state for several weeks +longer. If they go abroad, they must always wear long masks and veils; +they must not stand near anybody or call a person by name; they may not +enter a cornfield or a cattle-kraal; and they may do no work. Again, a +Nandi bride, for an entire month after her marriage, is waited on by the +bridegroom’s mother, since it is unlawful for a bride during this period +to perform labour. Similarly, a Nandi mother, after the birth of a child, +is unclean and may not do any housework for a month (<i>ibid.</i>, pp. 59 +<i>sq.</i>, 63 <i>sqq.</i>). Among the Habbe of the western Sudan a man, +whose wife is menstruating, dares not undertake any journey, hunt, or sow +(L. Desplagnes, <i>Le plateau central nigérien</i>, Paris, 1904, p. 227).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_171" href="#FNanchor_171" class="label">[171]</a> C. W. Hobley, <i>Eastern Uganda</i>, London, 1902, p. 28 +(<i>Occasional Papers of the Royal Anthropological Institute</i>, no. 1).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_172" href="#FNanchor_172" class="label">[172]</a> Sir H. H. Johnston, <i>The Uganda Protectorate</i>, +London, 1902, ii, 176 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_173" href="#FNanchor_173" class="label">[173]</a> W. Munzinger, <i>Ostafrikanische Studien</i>, +Schaffhausen, 1864, p. 528 (Barea and Kunama).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_174" href="#FNanchor_174" class="label">[174]</a> Westermarck, <i>Origin and Development of the Moral +Ideas</i>, ii, 283.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_175" href="#FNanchor_175" class="label">[175]</a> H. E. Standing, “Malagasy <i>fady</i>,” <i>Antananarivo +Annual</i>, 1883, no. 7, p. 74. Compare A. Grandidier, <i>ibid.</i>, +1891, no. 15, p. 316; A. van Gennep, <i>Tabou et totémisme à +Madagascar</i>, Paris, 1904, pp. 100 <i>sqq.</i>, 203.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_176" href="#FNanchor_176" class="label">[176]</a> Thomas Gage, <i>A New Survey of the West-Indies</i>,⁴ +London, 1699, p. 160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_177" href="#FNanchor_177" class="label">[177]</a> C. MacCauley, in <i>Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of +Ethnology</i>, p. 521.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_178" href="#FNanchor_178" class="label">[178]</a> Hans Egede, <i>A Description of Greenland</i>, London, +1745, pp. 149 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_179" href="#FNanchor_179" class="label">[179]</a> F. Boas, in <i>Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural +History</i>, 1901, xv, 121 <i>sq.</i> With these regulations may be +compared the restrictions which, among the Kwakiutl of British Columbia, +are imposed on a man who has eaten human flesh as a ceremonial rite and +who, therefore, is considered unclean. He must not approach his wife for +an entire year, nor is he allowed either to gamble or to work during this +time (Boas, “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the +Kwakiutl Indians,” <i>Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895</i>, +pp. 537 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_180" href="#FNanchor_180" class="label">[180]</a> F. Boas, in <i>Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of +Ethnology</i>, pp. 427, 613 <i>sq.</i>; compare <i>idem</i>, “Die Sagen +der Baffin-Land Eskimos,” <i>Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für +Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte</i>, 1885, p. (164) (bound +with <i>Zeitschrift für Ethnologie</i>, vol. xvii). These Eskimo observe +like restrictions after the capture of whales, seals, and walruses, which +form their principal food supply.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_181" href="#FNanchor_181" class="label">[181]</a> H. W. Elliott, <i>Our Arctic Province</i>, New York, 1887, +p. 389.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_182" href="#FNanchor_182" class="label">[182]</a> E. W. Nelson, in <i>Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau +of American Ethnology</i>, p. 319.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_183" href="#FNanchor_183" class="label">[183]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 312. Similarly, a hunter who has +participated in the capture of a whale is not allowed to do any work for +the next four days, that being the time during which the ghost of the +whale is supposed to stay with its body (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 438).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_184" href="#FNanchor_184" class="label">[184]</a> J. Murdock, in <i>Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of +Ethnology</i>, p. 424. The Alaskan Eskimo are now being rapidly converted +to Christianity or, rather, are accepting as many of the Christian +teachings as can be assimilated by them to their old pagan observances. +The missionary they regard as a shaman and his prohibitions, especially +those relating to Sunday observance, they treat as so many new taboos +to be added to their long catalogue of restrictions. “An Eskimo who is +a great admirer of the white people (and some Eskimo are not) said to +me once that some Eskimo foolishly maintained that white men were less +intelligent than Eskimo are. But he said that he had a crushing reply +to those who made this statement. He would say to them: ‘Our wise men +have taboos on food and drink, they have taboos on clothing and methods +of travel, on words and thoughts; but until the white man came did we +ever hear of Sunday? Did the wisest of us ever think of the fact that +a <i>day</i> might be taboo?’” (V. Stefánsson, “On Christianizing the +Eskimo,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, 1913, cxxvii, 674; <i>idem</i>, +<i>My Life with the Eskimo</i>, New York, 1913, p. 412; compare pp. 36 +<i>sq.</i>, 89 <i>sqq.</i>, 374 <i>sq.</i>, 416 <i>sqq.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_185" href="#FNanchor_185" class="label">[185]</a> W. Bogoras, in <i>Memoirs of the American Museum of +Natural History</i>, xi, 521.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_186" href="#FNanchor_186" class="label">[186]</a> W. Jochelson, <i>ibid.</i>, x, 104 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_187" href="#FNanchor_187" class="label">[187]</a> W. G. Sumner, “The Yakuts,” abridged from the Russian of +Sieroshevski, <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1901, +xxxi, 107.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_188" href="#FNanchor_188" class="label">[188]</a> W. H. Bennett, in Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion +and Ethics</i>, iv, 499.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_189" href="#FNanchor_189" class="label">[189]</a> A. Wuttke, <i>Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der +Gegenwart</i>,³ edited by E. H. Meyer, Berlin, 1900, p. 461.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_190" href="#FNanchor_190" class="label">[190]</a> George Henderson, <i>Survivals in Belief among the +Celts</i>, Glasgow, 1911, p. 296 (Isle of Iriskay).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_191" href="#FNanchor_191" class="label">[191]</a> On feasts of All Souls, in general, see Sir J. G. Frazer, +<i>Adonis, Attis, Osiris</i>,³ London, 1914, ii, 51-83; on the public +expulsion of evils see <i>idem</i>, <i>The Scapegoat</i>, London, 1913, +pp. 109-169. Compare also P. Sartori, <i>Die Speisung der Toten</i>, +Dortmund, 1903, pp. 48-55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_192" href="#FNanchor_192" class="label">[192]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, +<a href="#Page_21">21</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, +<a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, +<a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_193" href="#FNanchor_193" class="label">[193]</a> E. Casalis, <i>Les Bassoutos</i>, Paris, 1859, p. 275. +The king of the Matabele was obliged to abstain from food and drink on +the new moon following the beginning of the Matabele year. The late +ruler, Lobengula, compromised this self-denying ordinance by drinking +beer only out of a bottle. During the new-moon day “he was supposed to +have communication with the spirits of his ancestors, and he abstained +altogether from business” (L. Decle, <i>Three Years in Savage Africa</i>, +London, 1900, p. 156).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_194" href="#FNanchor_194" class="label">[194]</a> J. F. Cunningham, <i>Uganda and its Peoples</i>, London, +1905, pp. 12 <i>sq.</i> The Bahima demons, a numerous company, are mostly +identified with the various maladies from which the natives suffer. See +Sir H. H. Johnston, <i>The Uganda Protectorate</i>, London, 1902, ii, 631 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_195" href="#FNanchor_195" class="label">[195]</a> C. Velten, <i>Sitten und Gebräuche der Suaheli</i>, +Göttingen, 1903, p. 342.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_196" href="#FNanchor_196" class="label">[196]</a> Soury-Lavergne and de la Devèze, “La fête nationale du +<i>fandroana</i> en Imerina, Madagascar,” <i>Anthropos</i>, 1913, viii, +308.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_197" href="#FNanchor_197" class="label">[197]</a> A. B. Ellis, <i>The Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, London, +1887, pp. 227 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_198" href="#FNanchor_198" class="label">[198]</a> “Extracts from Diary of the late Rev. John Martin, +Wesleyan Missionary in West Africa, 1843-1848,” <i>Man</i>, 1912, xii, +138 <i>sq.</i> Compare A. J. N. Tremearne, <i>The Tailed Head-hunters of +Nigeria</i>, London, 1912, pp. 202 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_199" href="#FNanchor_199" class="label">[199]</a> A. B. Ellis, <i>The Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, London, +1894, pp. 107 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_200" href="#FNanchor_200" class="label">[200]</a> See H. Webster, <i>Primitive Secret Societies</i>, New +York, 1908, pp. 104 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_201" href="#FNanchor_201" class="label">[201]</a> Mrs. R. B. Batty, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1889, xix, 160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_202" href="#FNanchor_202" class="label">[202]</a> Ellis, <i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 110 <i>sq.</i> +The Oro rites are attributed by Ellis to the <i>ogboni</i> society, +but it is probable that the term “Oro” is also applied to other secret +associations of Yorubaland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_203" href="#FNanchor_203" class="label">[203]</a> R. E. Dennett, <i>Nigerian Studies</i>, London, 1910, pp. +41 <i>sq.</i>, quoting Adesola in the <i>Nigerian Chronicle</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_204" href="#FNanchor_204" class="label">[204]</a> J. B. Walker, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1877, vi, 121 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_205" href="#FNanchor_205" class="label">[205]</a> T. J. Hutchinson, <i>Impressions of Western Africa</i>, +London, 1858, pp. 141 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_206" href="#FNanchor_206" class="label">[206]</a> Scholium on Lucian, <i>Timon</i>, 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_207" href="#FNanchor_207" class="label">[207]</a> Plato, <i>Leges</i>, vii, 800; Lucian, +<i>Pseudologistes</i>, 12; Plutarch, <i>De EI apud Delphos</i>, 20; +<i>idem</i>, <i>De defectu oraculorum</i>, 14; <i>idem</i>, <i>Vita +Alexandri</i>, 14; Hesychius, <i>s.v.</i> ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι (ed. M. +Schmidt, Jena, 1867, col. 211).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_208" href="#FNanchor_208" class="label">[208]</a> E. Rhode, <i>Psyche</i>,⁶ Tübingen, 1910, p. 235; P. +Stengel, <i>Die griechischen Sakralaltertümer</i>, Munich, 1890, p. 156 +(with references to the classical authorities). The fifth day of every +Athenian month was regarded as unpropitious, and hence was not dedicated +to any divinity. A superstitious avoidance of the “fifths” of the month +can be traced back to Hesiod (<i>Opera et dies</i>, 802 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_209" href="#FNanchor_209" class="label">[209]</a> Compare Hesychius, <i>s.v.</i> μιαροὶ ἡμέραι (ed. Schmidt, +col. 1045): “the polluted days of the month of Anthesterion, on which +days they think that the souls of the departed are sent up from the +nether world.” Photius, <i>s.v.</i> μιαρὰ ἡμέρα (ed. S. A. Naber, Leiden, +1864-1865, i, 423), says that on the second day the people used to chew +buckthorn and anoint their doors with pitch. See Frazer’s note (<i>The +Scapegoat</i>, p. 153 <i>n.</i>¹) on the widespread use of buckthorn and +pitch as prophylactics against ghosts and evil influences.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_210" href="#FNanchor_210" class="label">[210]</a> On the Anthesteria, from an anthropological standpoint, +see particularly Miss Jane E. Harrison, <i>Prolegomena to the Study of +Greek Religion</i>, Cambridge, 1903, pp. 32 <i>sqq.</i>, 49 <i>sqq.</i> +Dr. L. R. Farnell thinks that only in the ritual for the third and final +day of the Anthesteria have we a genuine ceremony of ghost-riddance, +this day falling so near the Dionysiac celebration as to become +attached to the latter as a mournful finale (<i>The Cults of the Greek +States</i>, Oxford, 1906-1910, v, 215 <i>sqq.</i>). But, on this view, +it is difficult to see why the second day, the Choes, should have been +expressly mentioned as “polluted” (μιαρά), and why the first day, the +Pithoigia, should have been described as “totally unlucky” (ἐς τὸ πᾶν +άποφράς).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_211" href="#FNanchor_211" class="label">[211]</a> Festus, <i>De verborum significatione</i>, ed. C. O. +Müller, Leipzig, 1839, p. 156; Macrobius, <i>Saturnalia</i>, i, 16, 24. +The <i>dies religiosi</i> were sometimes confused, even by the ancients, +with the <i>dies nefasti</i> (compare Gellius, <i>Noctes Atticæ</i>, +iv, 9, 5), which were days marked in the calendar as occasions when +the prætor’s court was not open and assemblies (<i>comitia</i>) could +not lawfully meet. But not all <i>dies religiosi</i> were observed as +non-comitial and non-judicial days. It seems, indeed, that the priestly +authorities who drew up the calendar did not wish to recognize these +products of popular superstition by incorporating all of them, under the +guise of <i>dies nefasti</i>, in the Roman state religion. On the <i>dies +religiosi</i>, also described as <i>dies atri</i> or <i>dies vitiosi</i>, +see G. Wissowa, <i>Religion und Kultus der Römer</i>, Munich, 1902, pp. +376 <i>sq.</i>; W. W. Fowler, <i>The Religious Experience of the Roman +People</i>, London, 1911, pp. 38 <i>sqq.</i>; T. Mommsen, in <i>Corpus +inscriptionum Latinarum</i>, i, pt. i,² 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_212" href="#FNanchor_212" class="label">[212]</a> Gellius, <i>op. cit.</i>, iv, 9, 5; Varro, <i>De lingua +Latina</i>, vi, 29 <i>sq.</i>; Ovid, <i>Fasti</i>, v, 419-486; W. W. +Fowler, <i>The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic</i>, London, +1899, pp. 106 <i>sqq.</i>, 306 <i>sqq.</i> The first eight days of the +Parentalia belonged only to the sphere of family worship, but the ninth +day (Feb. 21) was also a public celebration, known as the Feralia. The +Lemuria, at least in historic times, was not a state festival, but a +purely domestic affair.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_213" href="#FNanchor_213" class="label">[213]</a> Varro, <i>ap.</i> Macrobius, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 16, +18; Festus, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 156. Compare Fowler, “Mundus Patet,” +<i>Journal of Roman Studies</i>, 1912, ii, 25-33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_214" href="#FNanchor_214" class="label">[214]</a> Both expressions are commonly derived from the Babylonian +<i>shabattum</i>; see below, p. <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_215" href="#FNanchor_215" class="label">[215]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xvi, 31, xxiii, 26-32; compare +<i>Numbers</i>, xxix, 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_216" href="#FNanchor_216" class="label">[216]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxv, 9; <i>Ezekiel</i>, xl, 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_217" href="#FNanchor_217" class="label">[217]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 23-25; <i>Numbers</i>, xxix, +1-7. It has been suggested that the first ten days of the seventh month +were epagomenal, bridging the gap, as it were, between the old lunar +year of 355 days and the solar year (J. Wellhausen, <i>Prolegomena zur +Geschichte Israels</i>,³ Berlin, 1905, p. 105 <i>n.</i>²; see below, p. +<a href="#Page_247">247</a> <i>n.</i>²). In the ritual of the Jewish +church they are described as days of “penitence.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_218" href="#FNanchor_218" class="label">[218]</a> See Sir J. G. Frazer, <i>The Scapegoat</i>, London, 1913, +pp. 170 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_219" href="#FNanchor_219" class="label">[219]</a> On the relation of the Hebrew <i>kipper</i>, or +atonement, to the Assyrian <i>kuppuru</i> and the connection of both +with ideas of taboo, see R. C. Thompson, <i>The Devils and Evil +Spirits of Babylonia</i>, London, 1904, ii, pp. 1 <i>sqq.</i> It is +unnecessary to accept his conclusion that the Hebrew ceremony was +directly borrowed from Babylonia. The view advanced in the text as +to the antiquity of the Atonement rite may now claim the support of +Professor Grimme, who sees in this ceremony one of the oldest elements +of the Law and finds the prototype of Azazel in the hairy demons which +were believed to haunt the wilderness of northern Arabia. See H. +Grimme, “Das Alter des israelitischen Versöhnungstages,” <i>Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1911, xiv, 130-142.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_220" href="#FNanchor_220" class="label">[220]</a> E. Westermarck, “The Popular Ritual of the Great Feast in +Morocco,” <i>Folklore</i>, 1911, xxii, 157 <i>sq.</i>, 180 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_221" href="#FNanchor_221" class="label">[221]</a> Strabo, <i>Geographica</i>, x, 3, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_222" href="#FNanchor_222" class="label">[222]</a> The best study of holiness in its relation to the concept +of taboo is still that of W. Robertson Smith (<i>The Religion of the +Semites</i>,² London, 1894, chaps. iv-v). See further N. Söderblom, +“Holiness (General and Primitive),” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of +Religion and Ethics</i>, vi, 731-741.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_223" href="#FNanchor_223" class="label">[223]</a> “In economic theory,” writes Dr. Thorstein Veblen, +“sacred holidays are obviously to be construed as a season of vicarious +leisure performed for the divinity or saint in whose name the <i>tabu</i> +is imposed and to whose good repute the abstention from useful effort on +those days is conceived to inure. The characteristic feature of all such +seasons of devout vicarious leisure is a more or less rigid <i>tabu</i> +on all activity that is of human use.... Sacred holidays, and holidays +generally, are of the nature of a tribute levied on the body of the +people. The tribute is paid in vicarious leisure, and the honourific +effect which emerges is imputed to the person or the fact for whose good +repute the holiday has been instituted. Such a tithe of vicarious leisure +is a perquisite of all members of the preternatural leisure class and +is indispensable to their good fame. <i>Un saint qu’on ne chôme pas</i> +is indeed a saint fallen on evil days” (<i>The Theory of the Leisure +Class</i>, New York, 1899, pp. 309 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_224" href="#FNanchor_224" class="label">[224]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, +<a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_225" href="#FNanchor_225" class="label">[225]</a> J. W. Breeks, <i>An Account of the Primitive Tribes and +Monuments of the Nīlagiris</i>, London, 1873, p. 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_226" href="#FNanchor_226" class="label">[226]</a> P. Dehon, in <i>Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of +Bengal</i>, 1906, i, no. 1, p. 144.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_227" href="#FNanchor_227" class="label">[227]</a> W. Crooke, <i>Natives of Northern India</i>, London, 1907, +p. 232.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_228" href="#FNanchor_228" class="label">[228]</a> C. K. Menon, “Some Agricultural Ceremonies in Malabar,” +Madras Government Museum, <i>Bulletin</i>, 1906, v, 104 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_229" href="#FNanchor_229" class="label">[229]</a> Henry Whitehead, “The Village Deities of Southern India,” +Madras Government Museum, <i>Bulletin</i>, 1907, v, 128 <i>sq.</i> +The whole subject of these Dravidian festivals has now been carefully +investigated by my former pupil Mr. W. T. Elmore. See his monograph +“Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism,” <i>University Studies</i>, Lincoln, +Nebraska, 1915, xv, 1-152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_230" href="#FNanchor_230" class="label">[230]</a> Several of the Hindu festivals are accompanied by prayer, +fasting, bathing, and oblation. One of the minor ceremonies during the +month of February is intended to “avert smallpox.” See E. W. Hopkins, +<i>The Religions of India</i>, Boston, 1895, p. 452 <i>n.</i>²; H. +H. Wilson, <i>Essays and Lectures chiefly on the Religions of the +Hindus</i>, London, 1862, ii, 209 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_231" href="#FNanchor_231" class="label">[231]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 21; <i>Numbers</i>, xxviii, 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_232" href="#FNanchor_232" class="label">[232]</a> The ethnographic evidence relating to first-fruits has +been very fully collected by Sir J. G. Frazer (<i>Spirits of the Corn and +of the Wild</i>, London, 1912, ii, 48-137). See also J. A. MacCulloch, +“First-fruits (Introductory and Primitive),” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia +of Religion and Ethics</i>, vi, 41-45; E. N. Fallaize, “Harvest,” +<i>ibid.</i>, vi, 520-525.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_233" href="#FNanchor_233" class="label">[233]</a> On the Tongan <i>inachi</i> see above, pp. <a href="#Page_18">18</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_234" href="#FNanchor_234" class="label">[234]</a> Below, pp. <a href="#Page_250">250</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_235" href="#FNanchor_235" class="label">[235]</a> Plato, <i>Leges</i>, ii, 653.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_236" href="#FNanchor_236" class="label">[236]</a> E. E. Sikes, “Folk-lore in the ‘Works and Days’ of +Hesiod,” <i>Classical Review</i>, 1893, vii, 390. The Hesiodic injunction +(<i>Opera et dies</i>, 742-743):</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">μηδ’ ἀπὸ πεντόζοιο θεῶν ἐν δαιτὶ θαλείῃ</div> + <div class="verse indent0">αὖον ἀπὸ χλωροῦ τάμνειν αἴθωνι σιδήρῳ</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">stripped of its metaphorical setting, means simply, “Do not cut your +nails with iron on a joyous festival of the gods.” This taboo may be +compared with the rule observed by the Flaminica Dialis at Rome, who, +during the celebration of the festival called the Vestalia, might not +cut her hair or nails (Ovid, <i>Fasti</i>, vi, 225-226). The Roman +antiquarian, Pliny the Elder, refers to the belief that it is ominous +to pare the nails on market days (<i>nundinæ</i>), but to cut the hair +on the 17th and 29th days of the month is a preventive of baldness +and headache (<i>Historia naturalis</i>, xxviii, 5). These pagan +superstitions have passed into modern European folklore, being widely +current, for example, in England (W. Henderson, <i>Notes on the Folk-lore +of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders</i>, London, 1879, +pp. 17 <i>sq.</i>), as in the familiar lines:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Better a child had ne’er been born</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Then cut his nails on a Sunday morn!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Or, as another old English rhyme runs:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Sunday shaven, Sunday shorn,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Better hadst thou ne’er been born!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">In certain parts of Ireland people will not shave on Sunday (G. H. +Kinahan, in <i>Folk-lore Record</i>, 1881, iv, 105). Besides Sunday, +Friday is often considered an unlucky day for cutting hair or nails, +and sometimes a distinction is made between the two days, as in +Northumberland, where it is unlucky to cut hair on a Friday or to pare +nails on a Sunday (<i>Denham Tracts</i>, ed. J. Hardy, ii, 343). In +Macedonia Wednesday and Friday are the two days when the nails should +not be cut, while Sunday is unpropitious for bathing (G. F. Abbott, +<i>Macedonian Folk-lore</i>, Cambridge, 1903, p. 190). Similar taboos are +found outside of Europe. The Egyptians hold Saturday to be particularly +unfavourable for shaving and cutting the nails (E. W. Lane, <i>Manners +and Customs of the Modern Egyptians</i>,⁵ London, 1871, i, 331), while +the Jews in Jerusalem think that the nails should be cut early in +the week, so that they may not start growing on the Sabbath (Miss A. +Goodrich-Freer, in <i>Folklore</i>, 1904, xv, 187). These superstitions +may rest ultimately on the notion that such acts as hair-cutting, +shaving, and nail-paring are ritually unclean, and hence that their +performance on a sacred day would defile the festival. See in general on +this subject, E. E. Sikes, “Hair and Nails,” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia +of Religion and Ethics</i>, vi, 474-476.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_237" href="#FNanchor_237" class="label">[237]</a> Plutarch, <i>Alcibiades</i>, 34; Xenophon, +<i>Hellenica</i>, i, 4, 12; Pollux, <i>Onomasticon</i>, viii, 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_238" href="#FNanchor_238" class="label">[238]</a> Compare Miss Jane E. Harrison, <i>Prolegomena to the Study +of Greek Religion</i>, Cambridge, 1903, pp. 114 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_239" href="#FNanchor_239" class="label">[239]</a> Varro, <i>De lingua Latina</i>, vi, 32; Ovid, +<i>Fasti</i>, vi, 219 <i>sqq.</i>, 707 <i>sqq.</i>; Festus, <i>De +verborum significatione</i>, ed. C. O. Müller, p. 250; Fowler, <i>Roman +Festivals</i>, pp. 145 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_240" href="#FNanchor_240" class="label">[240]</a> In addition to the Parentalia, Lemuria, and Vestalia, the +occasions on which the Salii performed their dances in March and October +(Ovid, <i>Fasti</i>, iii, 393 <i>sqq.</i>; Livy, xxxvii, 33; Suetonius, +<i>Otho</i>, 8) and the two days succeeding the <i>feriæ Latinæ</i> +(Cicero, <i>Ad Qu. frat.</i>, ii, 4, 2) were included among the <i>dies +religiosi</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_241" href="#FNanchor_241" class="label">[241]</a> See G. Wissowa, <i>Religion und Kultus der Römer</i>, +Munich, 1902, pp. 365-381; <i>idem</i>, in Pauly-Wissowa’s +<i>Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft</i>, vi, coll. +2211-2213; A. S. Wilkins, in Smith, Wayte, and Marindin’s <i>Dictionary +of Greek and Roman Antiquities</i>,³ ii, 836-838; and especially C. +Jullian, in Daremberg and Saglio’s <i>Dictionnaire des antiquités +grecques et romaines</i>, iv, 1042-1066. The plural form <i>feriæ</i> +indicates that the festival day recurs periodically; compare the similar +usage as respects <i>nundinæ</i> (below, p. <a href="#Page_120">120</a>). <i>Feriæ</i> seems to +have been first written <i>fesiæ</i>, whence the word <i>festus</i>. +On the derivation of <i>feriæ</i> see A. Walde, <i>Lateinisches +etymologisches Wörterbuch</i>,² Heidelberg, 1910, pp. 270 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_242" href="#FNanchor_242" class="label">[242]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a> <i>sq.</i>, +<a href="#Page_43">43</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_243" href="#FNanchor_243" class="label">[243]</a> Festus, <i>De verborum significatione: denicales feriæ +colebantur, cum hominis mortui causa familia purgabatur</i> (ed. Müller, +p. 70); compare Cicero, <i>De legibus</i>, ii, 22, 55. It was not lawful +to bury a corpse on a public holiday, doubtless through fear of polluting +the sacredness of the occasion. See Columella, <i>De re rustica</i>, ii, +22, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_244" href="#FNanchor_244" class="label">[244]</a> Cato, <i>De agri cultura</i>, 138. Compare the Mosaic +injunction relating to the Sabbath (<i>Deuteronomy</i>, v, 14).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_245" href="#FNanchor_245" class="label">[245]</a> Ovid, <i>Fasti</i>, i, 664 <i>sq.</i>:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pagus agat festum: pagum lustrate, coloni;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Et date paganis ennua liba focis.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Some ancient authorities (Varro, <i>De lingua Latina</i>, vi, 26; +Macrobius, <i>Saturnalia</i>, i, 16, 6) appear to distinguish the +Paganalia from the <i>feriæ sementivæ</i>. On this festival see Fowler, +<i>Roman Festivals</i>, pp. 294 <i>sqq.</i>; <i>idem</i>, <i>The +Religious Experience of the Roman People</i>, London, 1911, pp. 61 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_246" href="#FNanchor_246" class="label">[246]</a> Macrobius, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 16, 8. On the taboos +affecting the Flamen and Flaminica see F. B. Jevons, <i>Plutarch’s Romane +Questions</i>, London, 1892, pp. lxxiii <i>sqq.</i>; Sir J. G. Frazer, +<i>Taboo and the Perils of the Soul</i>, pp. 13 <i>sq.</i> The Flamen was +in a condition of permanent taboo—<i>Dialis cotidie feriatus est</i> +(Gellius, <i>Noctes Atticæ</i>, x, 15, 16).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_247" href="#FNanchor_247" class="label">[247]</a> Appian, <i>Bellum civile</i>, i, 55; Plutarch, +<i>Sulla</i>, 8; Dio Cassius, xxxviii, 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_248" href="#FNanchor_248" class="label">[248]</a> Cicero, <i>De legibus</i>, ii, 8, 19; compare ii, 12, 29; +<i>idem</i>, <i>De divinatione</i>, i, 45, 102.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_249" href="#FNanchor_249" class="label">[249]</a> Macrobius, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 16, 9: <i>Pollux ferias, +si ... opus aliquod fieret</i>; Festus, <i>s.v.</i> <i>præciamitatores: +ut homines se ab opere abstinerent, quia his opus facientem videre +irreligiosum erat</i> (ed. Müller, p. 248).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_250" href="#FNanchor_250" class="label">[250]</a> Macrobius, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 16, 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_251" href="#FNanchor_251" class="label">[251]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, i, 16, 11; compare <i>Matthew</i>, xii, 11; +<i>Luke</i>, xiv, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_252" href="#FNanchor_252" class="label">[252]</a> Cato, <i>De agri cultura</i>, ii, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_253" href="#FNanchor_253" class="label">[253]</a> Vergil, <i>Georgica</i>, i, 268-272, with the commentary +of Servius. An entire chapter of Columella’s treatise on husbandry +(<i>De re rustica</i>, ii, 22) is devoted to a discussion of what may +and what may not be done by a farmer on ferial days. The pontifical law +in such matters was as minute, tyrannical, and absurd as the rabbinical +ordinances relating to the proper observance of the Sabbath. See below, +p. <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_254" href="#FNanchor_254" class="label">[254]</a> Livy, i, 31, iii, 5, vii, 28, xxi, 62, xxv, 7, xxxiv, 55, +xxxv, 40, xli, 21, xlii, 2; Suetonius, <i>Divus Claudius</i>, 22. Many +more instances are given by Julius Obsequens in his curious work, <i>De +prodigiis</i>, 22, 33, 54, 58, 68, 104, 111.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_255" href="#FNanchor_255" class="label">[255]</a> Gellius, <i>Noctes Atticæ</i>, ii, 24, 11; compare Horace, +<i>Carmina</i>, ii, 3, 6-9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_256" href="#FNanchor_256" class="label">[256]</a> The Indians of Cape Flattery, state of Washington, are +said to keep the month of August as a period of repose when no berries +are picked and no fish are taken from the sea, except occasionally by +children (J. G. Swan, in <i>Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge</i>, +xvi, no. 220, p. 91). Perhaps the practice was consciously designed to +establish a “close season,” though this is probably attributing too much +foresight to the Indian. The fish or berries may have been considered +unfit for eating in August. After gathering the yam harvest the Bini of +Benin keep the first month of the dry season as a time of idleness (R. +E. Dennett, <i>At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind</i>, London, 1906, p. +216). Here a period of rest is observed by an agricultural people because +they have no special labour to perform. Among the Akikuyu of British East +Africa there are three months in the year when little or no work is done, +since the crops are then ripening (K. R. Dundas, in <i>Man</i>, 1909, +ix, 38). The Yuchi Indians, now in the state of Oklahoma, keep autumn +as “a period of combined rest, hunting, and enjoyment.” The winter, +also, is passed in idleness and recreation (F. G. Speck, <i>Ethnology of +the Yuchi Indians</i>, Philadelphia, 1909, p. 67). Dr. C. G. Seligmann +has sent to me, in manuscript, some curious information regarding a +division of time observed by the Sinaugolo, a hill-tribe to the east of +Port Moresby, British New Guinea. It seems that long ago, according to +Sinaugolo tradition, the people had to labour incessantly and enjoyed no +opportunity to celebrate their dances and other festive ceremonies. So +they instituted what was called the <i>kaba</i> period as a relaxation +from the hard work of ordinary life. During this period, which recurred +every other year or oftener, the Sinaugolo danced and held their most +important feasts. The division of time into <i>kaba</i> and <i>dauka</i> +(specially devoted to labour) has now lapsed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_257" href="#FNanchor_257" class="label">[257]</a> <i>The Evolution of the Aryan</i>, translated by A. +Drucker, London, 1897, p. 117.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_258" href="#FNanchor_258" class="label">[258]</a> On primitive markets see Karl Andree, <i>Geographie des +Welthandels</i>, Stuttgart, 1867, i, 40-81; C. Köhne, “Markt-, Kaufmanns- +und Handelsrecht in primitiven Kulturverhältnissen,” <i>Zeitschrift +für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft</i>, 1895, xi, 196-220; R. Lasch, +“Das Marktwesen auf den primitiven Kulturstufen,” <i>Zeitschrift +für Socialwissenschaft</i>, 1906, ix, 619-627, 700-715, 764-782; H. +Schurtz, <i>Das afrikanische Gewerbe</i>, Leipzig, 1900, pp. 115-122; +P. J. Hamilton Grierson, <i>The Silent Trade</i>, Edinburgh, 1903, +pp. 54-62; H. L. Roth, “Trading in Early Days,” <i>Bankfield Museum +Notes</i>, Halifax (Eng.), 1908, no. 5, pp. 23 <i>sqq.</i>; N. W. Thomas, +“The Market in African Law and Custom,” <i>Journal of the Society of +Comparative Legislation</i>, 1908, n.s., no. 19, pp. 90-106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_259" href="#FNanchor_259" class="label">[259]</a> Some observers use ambiguous language, when referring to +the length—four, five, six days, etc.—of market weeks. Throughout this +chapter I have regularly translated by “every fifth day” such expressions +as “tous les cinq jours,” “de cinq en cinq jours,” “alle fünf Tage,” +“einmal in fünf Tagen,” and “einmaal in de vijf dagen.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_260" href="#FNanchor_260" class="label">[260]</a> A. W. Howitt, <i>The Native Tribes of South-east +Australia</i>, London, 1904, pp. 714 <i>sqq.</i> On Australian barter see +G. C. Wheeler, <i>The Tribe and Intertribal Relations in Australia</i>, +London, 1910, pp. 93-97.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_261" href="#FNanchor_261" class="label">[261]</a> A. C. Haddon, <i>Head-hunters, Black, White, and +Brown</i>, London, 1901, pp. 265, 269.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_262" href="#FNanchor_262" class="label">[262]</a> James Chalmers, in Chalmers and Gill, <i>Work and +Adventure in New Guinea</i>, London, 1885, pp. 40 sq. Compare M. Krieger, +<i>Neu-Guinea</i>, Berlin, 1899, p. 335. Sir William MacGregor observes +that the institution of the Sabbath, as a day of rest, “is not quite new +to the Papuan, but ... the Papuan Sabbath of Keapara [Kerepunu] exceeds +the Hebrew in dividing time into weeks of three days. The great majority +of the tribes, however, do not seem to have a regular week, and work +or rest capriciously” (<i>British New Guinea</i>, London, 1897, pp. 44 +<i>sq.</i>). See above, p. <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_263" href="#FNanchor_263" class="label">[263]</a> C. G. Seligmann, <i>The Melanesians of British New +Guinea</i>, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 48, 94 (Koita).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_264" href="#FNanchor_264" class="label">[264]</a> J. S. A. van Dissel, in <i>Tijdschrift van het koninklijk +nederlandsch aardrijkskundig genootschap</i>, 1904, second series, xxi, +644.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_265" href="#FNanchor_265" class="label">[265]</a> J. Graf Pfeil, <i>Studien und Beobachtungen aus der +Südsee</i>, Brunswick, 1899, p. 116.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_266" href="#FNanchor_266" class="label">[266]</a> J. J. Atkinson, in <i>Folklore</i>, 1903, xiv, 245. +Mr. Atkinson in this passage probably has in mind the European week +introduced into New Caledonia by the French.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_267" href="#FNanchor_267" class="label">[267]</a> Basil Thomson, <i>The Fijians</i>, London, 1908, p. 288; +Wilkes, <i>Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition</i>, iii, 300 +<i>sq.</i> (Somu-Somu, in the Fiji group); J. J. Jarves, <i>History of +the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands</i>,² Boston, 1843, p. 77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_268" href="#FNanchor_268" class="label">[268]</a> P. Sarasin and F. Sarasin, <i>Reisen in Celebes</i>, +Wiesbaden, 1905, ii, 324.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_269" href="#FNanchor_269" class="label">[269]</a> W. Marsden, <i>The History of Sumatra</i>,³ London, 1811, +pp. 379 <i>sq.</i>; F. Junghuhn, <i>Die Battaländer auf Sumatra</i>, +Berlin, 1847, pp. 227 <i>sq.</i>; J. v. Brenner, <i>Besuch bei +den Kannibalen Sumatras</i>, Würzburg, 1894, p. 291; B. Hagen, in +<i>Petermanns Mitteilungen</i>, 1883, xxix, 173 (Batta of Lake Toba); W. +Volz, <i>Nord-Sumatra</i>, Berlin, 1909, i, 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_270" href="#FNanchor_270" class="label">[270]</a> Sir T. S. Raffles, <i>History of Java</i>,² London, 1830, +i, 531; P. J. Veth, <i>Java</i>,² Haarlem, 1907, iv, 296 <i>sqq.</i> +The names of the days in the <i>pasar</i> were considered to bear a +mystical relation to colours and the divisions of the horizon, the +first day (white, east), the second (red, south), the third (yellow, +west), the fourth (black, north), and the fifth day a mixed colour, and +<i>focus</i>, or centre. See John Crawfurd, <i>History of the Indian +Archipelago</i>, Edinburgh, 1820, i, 289 <i>sq.</i> These fancies must +be explained by the colour symbolism which so frequently attaches to the +cardinal points.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_271" href="#FNanchor_271" class="label">[271]</a> R. Friederich, in <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic +Society</i>, 1878, n.s., x, 88 <i>sqq.</i>; compare <i>ibid.</i>, 1876, +n.s., viii, 198.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_272" href="#FNanchor_272" class="label">[272]</a> W. W. Skeat, <i>Malay Magic</i>, London, 1900, pp. 545 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_273" href="#FNanchor_273" class="label">[273]</a> J. Richard, <i>Histoire naturelle, civile, et politique du +Tonquin</i>, Paris, 1778, i, 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_274" href="#FNanchor_274" class="label">[274]</a> Lillian J. Curtis, <i>The Laos of North Siam</i>, +Philadelphia, 1903, p. 132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_275" href="#FNanchor_275" class="label">[275]</a> Mrs. Leslie Milne, <i>The Shans at Home</i>, London, 1910, +p. 132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_276" href="#FNanchor_276" class="label">[276]</a> C. E. D. Black, in <i>Geographical Journal</i>, 1895, vi, +30 (Shan of Upper Burma). Compare also <i>Gazetteer of Upper Burma and +the Shan States</i>, edited by Scott and Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. i, +vol. i, p. 536 (Shan of Lower Burma).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_277" href="#FNanchor_277" class="label">[277]</a> R. G. Woodthorpe, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1897, xxvi, 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_278" href="#FNanchor_278" class="label">[278]</a> P. R. T. Gurdon, <i>The Khasis</i>, London, 1907, p. 189. +According to C. Becker (<i>Anthropos</i>, 1909, iv, 894) the market is +called <i>jeu duh</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_279" href="#FNanchor_279" class="label">[279]</a> Gurdon, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 190. Compare Sir J. D. Hooker +(<i>Himalayan Journals</i>, London, 1891, p. 487), who attributes the +fourth-day markets to the Khasi generally.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_280" href="#FNanchor_280" class="label">[280]</a> J. L. Krapf, <i>Travels, Researches, and Missionary +Labours</i>, London, 1867, pp. 82, 365.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_281" href="#FNanchor_281" class="label">[281]</a> W. W. A. Fitzgerald, <i>Travels in the Coastlands of +British East Africa</i>, London, 1898, p. 111, quoting W. E. Taylor, +<i>Vocabulary of the Giryama Language</i>, London, 1897. The name +applied to the first day of the week—<i>jumwa</i>—is directly taken +from the Arabic <i>al jum‘a</i> (Friday, the Mohammedan day of worship), +from which circumstance it may be concluded that the Wagiriama observe +<i>jumwa</i> both as a market day and a rest day. Similarly, the name of +the weekly market held at Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, is +<i>zoma</i>, or Friday (<i>Antananarivo Annual</i>, 1889-1892, iv, 372).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_282" href="#FNanchor_282" class="label">[282]</a> K. R. Dundas, in <i>Man</i>, 1909, ix, 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_283" href="#FNanchor_283" class="label">[283]</a> W. S. Routledge and Katherine Routledge, <i>With a +Prehistoric People</i>, London, 1910, pp. 105 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_284" href="#FNanchor_284" class="label">[284]</a> A. Widenmann, in <i>Petermanns Mitteilungen</i>, 1899, +Ergänzungsheft, no. 129, p. 69; M. Merker, <i>ibid.</i>, 1902, no. +138, p. 25; G. Volkens, <i>Der Kilimandscharo</i>, Berlin, 1897, p. +239; B. Gutmann, “Feldbausitten und Wachstumsbräuche der Wadschagga,” +<i>Zeitschrift für Ethnologie</i>, 1913, xlv, 502.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_285" href="#FNanchor_285" class="label">[285]</a> Horace Waller, editor, <i>The Last Journals of David +Livingstone in Central Africa</i>, New York, 1875, p. 367. See also V. L. +Cameron, <i>Across Africa</i>, London, 1877, ii, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_286" href="#FNanchor_286" class="label">[286]</a> E. Torday, in <i>Mitteilungen der anthropologischen +Gesellschaft in Wien</i>, 1911, xli, 192.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_287" href="#FNanchor_287" class="label">[287]</a> H. v. Wissmann <i>et al.</i>, <i>Im Innern Afrikas</i>,³ +Leipzig, 1891, p. 252.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_288" href="#FNanchor_288" class="label">[288]</a> H. v. Wissmann, <i>My Second Journey through Equatorial +Africa</i>, London, 1891, p. 125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_289" href="#FNanchor_289" class="label">[289]</a> Torday and Joyce, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1906, xxxvi, 44. Each day of the Bayaka week bears a name, +the last being <i>pungu</i>, or market day (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 47).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_290" href="#FNanchor_290" class="label">[290]</a> Torday and Joyce, <i>ibid.</i>, 1905, xxxv, 413. The +Bambala year consists of thirteen lunar months, each divided into seven +weeks of four days, the last day of each week being <i>pika</i>, or +market day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_291" href="#FNanchor_291" class="label">[291]</a> Torday and Joyce, <i>ibid.</i>, 1906, xxxvi, 291.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_292" href="#FNanchor_292" class="label">[292]</a> Sir H. H. Johnston, <i>The River Congo</i>, London, 1884, +p. 455.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_293" href="#FNanchor_293" class="label">[293]</a> H. H. Bentley, <i>Pioneering on the Congo</i>, London, +1900, i, 399 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_294" href="#FNanchor_294" class="label">[294]</a> J. K. Tuckey, <i>Narrative of an Expedition to explore the +River Zaire</i>, New York, 1818, p. 238.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_295" href="#FNanchor_295" class="label">[295]</a> E. Pechuël-Loesche, in <i>Die Loango-Expedition</i>, +dritte Abteilung, erste Hälfte, Stuttgart, 1907, p. 139. See also A. +Bastian, <i>Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste</i>, Jena, 1874, +i, 209.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_296" href="#FNanchor_296" class="label">[296]</a> R. E. Dennett, <i>At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind</i>, +London, 1906, pp. 64, 140; <i>idem</i>, <i>Notes on the Folklore of +the Fjort</i>, London, 1898, pp. 8, 137. Among the lower Congo tribes, +generally, the dead are buried only on two of the four weekdays (J. H. +Weeks, in <i>Folklore</i>, 1909, xx, 61; compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Among +the Primitive Bakongo</i>, Philadelphia, 1914, p. 249).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_297" href="#FNanchor_297" class="label">[297]</a> L. B. Proyart, <i>Histoire de Loango, Kakongo, et autres +royaumes d’Afrique</i>, Paris, 1776, p. 116. A still earlier reference +to this African Sabbath will be found in G. A. Cavazzi da Montecuccoli, +<i>Istorica descrizione de’ tre regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola</i>, +Bologna, 1687, p. 24. For further details relating to markets and +market weeks among the lower Congo peoples see Herbert Ward, <i>Five +Years with the Congo Cannibals</i>, London, 1890, p. 59; J. H. Weeks, +<i>Congo Life and Folklore</i>, London, 1911, pp. 227 <i>sq.</i>; H. +Nipperdey, “Zur Bedeutung der Wochen-Märkte am Congo,” <i>Revue coloniale +internationale</i>, 1887, v, 205-214; A. Thonnar, <i>Essai sur le système +économique des primitifs d’après les populations de l’état indépendant +du Congo</i>, Brussels, 1901, pp. 82-114; A. Cureau, <i>Les sociétés +primitives de l’Afrique équatoriale</i>, Paris, 1912, pp. 295 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_298" href="#FNanchor_298" class="label">[298]</a> F. Hutter, <i>Wanderungen und Forschungen im +Nord-Hinterland von Kamerun</i>, Brunswick, 1902, pp. 266, 360; compare +Preuss, in <i>Deutsches Kolonialblatt</i>, 1898, ix, 456.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_299" href="#FNanchor_299" class="label">[299]</a> W. F. Daniell, in <i>Journal of the Ethnological +Society</i>, 1848, i, 222 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_300" href="#FNanchor_300" class="label">[300]</a> A. G. Leonard, <i>The Lower Niger and its Tribes</i>, +London, 1906, pp. 305, 375; William Allen, <i>Narrative of the Expedition +sent by Her Majesty’s Government to the River Niger in 1841</i>, London, +1848, i, 398; N. W. Thomas, <i>Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking +Peoples of Nigeria</i>, London, 1913, i, 127. Seven weeks are here +counted to the month of twenty-eight days (W. F. Baikie, <i>Narrative +of an Exploring Voyage</i>, London, 1856, p. 316). An early missionary +to west Africa observes that among the Ibo, Igara, and other Nigerian +tribes the week consists of four days, viz. <i>eke</i>, a market day and +unlucky for the <i>ata</i>, or chief, to see strangers, <i>ede</i>, a +lucky or good day, <i>afo</i>, an unlucky day, and <i>uko</i>, a lucky +day. Besides these days of good and evil omen the Mohammedans have +made the natives believe that Friday is an unlucky day to undertake +any work of importance (S. A. Crowther, in <i>The Church Missionary +Intelligencer</i>, 1865, n.s., i, 55).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_301" href="#FNanchor_301" class="label">[301]</a> J. Parkinson, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1906, xxxvi, 317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_302" href="#FNanchor_302" class="label">[302]</a> N. W. Thomas, <i>Anthropological Report on the +Edo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria</i>, London, 1910, i, 18 <i>sq.</i> +That the eight-day week of the Bini has developed from a more ancient +four-day week is also the opinion of R. E. Dennett (<i>At the Back of +the Black Man’s Mind</i>, pp. 214, 364). The Bini week has been stated +to consist of five days (Cyril Punch, quoted in H. L. Roth, <i>Great +Benin</i>, Halifax [Eng.], 1903, p. 52 <i>n.</i>¹), but this is certainly +an error. An early traveller among the Bini declares that their Sabbath +“happens every fifth day, which is very solemnly observed by the great +with the slaughter of cows, sheep, and goats, whilst the commonalty kill +dogs, cats, and chickens, or whatever their money will reach to. And of +whatever is killed, large portions are distributed to the necessitous, +in order to enable them, as every person is obliged to celebrate this +festival” (David van Nyendael, “A Description of Rio Formosa, or the +River of Benin,” in W. Bosman, <i>A New and Accurate Description of the +Coast of Guinea</i>, London, 1705, p. 456).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_303" href="#FNanchor_303" class="label">[303]</a> A. B. Ellis, <i>The Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, London, +1887, pp. 89, 93. On the Gold Coast white seems to be the special colour +appropriate for holy or festive days. On a man’s birthday, which is +sacred to his <i>kra</i>, or tenanting spirit, he abstains from work, +puts white clay on his face, and dons a white cloth (<i>ibid.</i>, p. +156). On the Tshi holy days, observed by families or private persons +only, see further Bosman, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 153; W. Hutton, <i>A Voyage +to Africa</i>, London, 1821, p. 166 <i>n.</i>* (Ashanti); E. Perregaux, +<i>Chez les Achanti</i>, Neuchâtel, 1906, p. 272; J. Parkinson, in +<i>Man</i>, 1911, xi, 2 (Appolonians).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_304" href="#FNanchor_304" class="label">[304]</a> Ellis, <i>The Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, London, 1894, +p. 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_305" href="#FNanchor_305" class="label">[305]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 149.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_306" href="#FNanchor_306" class="label">[306]</a> Ellis, <i>Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 220 <i>sq.</i> +Beecham declares that were the fishermen to go out to sea on this day, +“the fetish would be angry and spoil their fishing” (<i>Ashantee and +the Gold Coast</i>, London, 1841, p. 186). Compare also Bosman, <i>op. +cit.</i>, p. 160; Miss Mary H. Kingsley, <i>West African Studies</i>,² +London, 1901, p. 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_307" href="#FNanchor_307" class="label">[307]</a> Ellis, <i>Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 220, 304.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_308" href="#FNanchor_308" class="label">[308]</a> <i>Idem</i>, <i>The Ewe-speaking Peoples</i>, London, +1890, pp. 41, 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_309" href="#FNanchor_309" class="label">[309]</a> <i>Ako-ojo</i>, “First Day”; <i>ojo-awo</i>, “Day of +the Secret,” sacred to Ifa; <i>ojo-ogun</i>, “Day of Ogun,” the god +of iron; <i>ojo-shango</i>, “Day of Shango,” the god of thunder; +<i>ojo-obatala</i>, “Obatala’s Day.” A holy day is called <i>ose</i> +(<i>se</i>, to disallow), and because each holy day recurs weekly, +<i>ose</i> has also come to mean the week of five days (Ellis, +<i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 145 <i>sq.</i>). According to an +earlier writer <i>osse</i> (<i>ose</i>), or holy day, comes from a word +signifying silence. This expression was transferred to the Christian +Sunday, with which the Yoruba became familiar after the year 1822, when +many of them emigrated to Sierra Leone (Miss Sarah Tucker, <i>Abbeokuta; +or Sunrise within the Tropics</i>,² London, 1853, p. 37 <i>n.</i>*). +Whether the Yoruba week really consists of five days seems open to grave +doubt. Bishop James Johnson, a native African, substantiates Ellis +by giving the names of the five days (quoted in Dennett, <i>At the +Back of the Black Man’s Mind</i>, p. 245), and also speaks of “every +fifth day, which is the close of a week of <i>oses</i>, or worshipping +days” (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 251). But Mr. Dennett himself, in his latest +work, cites three native informants in favour of a week of four days. +Moreover, Shango’s (Jakuta’s) Day is described by Mr. Dennett as the +Yoruba “Sunday.” The first day of the week is Ogun’s Day, the other +weekdays following in the order given by Ellis. It is to be noted that +Ogun’s Day, the first, fifth, ninth, and so on, is the regular market +day. The god Ogun in some parts of Yorubaland has taken the place of +another deity, Odudua, whom Mr. Dennett found to be universally regarded +as the originator of the system of weekdays (<i>Nigerian Studies</i>, +London, 1910, pp. 72-80). A five-day week has been noted among the Jebu +of southeastern Yorubaland (D’Avezac, in <i>Mémoires de la société +ethnologique</i>, 1845, ii, pt. ii, 81), and Burton refers to the same +institution among the Egba, by whom the terminal day is called <i>ose</i> +(R. F. Burton, <i>Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains</i>, London, 1863, +i, 205).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_310" href="#FNanchor_310" class="label">[310]</a> Ellis, <i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, p. 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_311" href="#FNanchor_311" class="label">[311]</a> F. E. Forbes, <i>Dahomey and the Dahomans</i>, London, +1851, p. 181. For every fourth day as the market day at Whydah see P. +E. Isert, <i>Neue Reise nach Guinea und den Caribäischen Inseln in +Amerika</i>, Berlin, 1790, p. 132. Bosman (<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 352) makes +the Fida (Whyda) market recur every third day. A great market every sixth +day is said to be held in the district about the town of Ardrah (Allada), +Dahomey (John Adams, <i>Remarks on the Country extending from Cape Palmas +to the River Congo</i>, London, 1823, p. 88).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_312" href="#FNanchor_312" class="label">[312]</a> Four-day weeks: R. Plehn, <i>Beiträge zur Völkerkunde +des Togo-Gebietes</i>, Halle, 1898, p. 9; J. Spieth, <i>Die +Ewe-Stämme</i>, Berlin, 1906, p. 311 (Ho); five-day weeks: R. Plehn, in +<i>Mitteilungen von Forschungsreisenden und Gelehrten aus den deutschen +Schutzgebieten</i>, 1896, ix, 123; six-day weeks: von Zech, <i>ibid.</i>, +1898, xi, 128; Christaller, in <i>Mitteilungen der geographischen +Gesellschaft für Thüringen</i>, 1890, viii, 121; L. Conradt, in +<i>Petermanns Mitteilungen</i>, 1896, xlii, 15 (Adele). The Akposo, who +have a week of five days, keep the fifth day sacred to their creator-god, +Uwolowo, whose name it bears. The other gods are worshipped on the +second day of the week, a time when no work may be done (F. Müller, in +<i>Anthropos</i>, 1907, ii, 201).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_313" href="#FNanchor_313" class="label">[313]</a> A. Mischlich, in <i>Mitteilungen von Forschungsreisenden +und Gelehrten aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten</i>, 1896, ix, 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_314" href="#FNanchor_314" class="label">[314]</a> E. Henrici, <i>Lehrbuch der Ephe-Sprache</i>, Stuttgart, +1891, pp. 59 <i>sq.</i> The names of the seven weekdays in the Ewe and +Tshi languages are almost identical. See the lists in Henrici, <i>op. +cit.</i>, pp. 59 <i>sq.</i>, and Ellis, <i>Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, +p. 218. The Ewe have borrowed from the Tshi not only the names of the +weekdays but also the custom of giving to private persons names derived +from those of the weekdays (Henrici, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 60).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_315" href="#FNanchor_315" class="label">[315]</a> Ellis, <i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 146 <i>sq.</i>; +<i>idem</i>, <i>Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, p. 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_316" href="#FNanchor_316" class="label">[316]</a> Ellis, <i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, p. 147. For the +names of the Ga weekdays, see <i>ibid.</i>, p. 143. An early writer, +whose observations were confined to Akkra on the Gold Coast, speaks +of <i>haughbah</i> (<i>ho-gba</i>) as one of the two sacred days of +the seven-day week. It is compulsory for all ranks and sexes, but is +especially observed by the women. “Under the supposition that some malign +potency pervades the surrounding country on this day, more particularly +directed against the pregnant women, their daily avocations are +restricted within the walls of their domiciles, no egress being tolerated +either for the purposes of travelling or other exterior occupations. Not +many people, therefore, presume to violate these injunctions by issuing +forth early in the forenoon, and none resort to their familiar haunts +in the markets or public thoroughfares, until the prohibition has been +withdrawn, by the well-known sign of a declining sun” (W. F. Daniell, in +<i>Journal of the Ethnological Society</i>, 1856, iv, 23).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_317" href="#FNanchor_317" class="label">[317]</a> R. A. Freeman, <i>Travels and Life in Ashanti and +Jáman</i>, Westminster, 1898, p. 176 (market every fourth day among the +Gaman, a Tshi-speaking people); M. Monnier, <i>France noire</i>, Paris, +1894, p. 209 (market every fifth day in Kong); L. G. Binger, <i>Du Niger +au golfe de Guinée</i>, Paris, 1892, i, 370 (market every fifth day among +the Diulasu); L. Desplagnes, <i>Le plateau central nigérien</i>, Paris, +1907, p. 377 (market every sixth day among the Habbe). A market every +ninth day is described as being held at Bocqua in Northern Nigeria (R. +Lander and J. Lander, <i>Journal of an Expedition to explore the Course +and Termination of the Niger</i>, London, 1832, iii, 73, 82). For a +general account of markets among the Nigerian peoples see A. Hovelacque, +<i>Les nègres de l’Afrique sus-équatoriale</i>, Paris, 1889, pp. 355 +<i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_318" href="#FNanchor_318" class="label">[318]</a> A. Mischlich, <i>Lehrbuch der hausanischen Sprache</i>, +Berlin, 1902, p. 127 (Hausa); J. S. Gallieni, <i>Voyage au Soudan +français, Haut-Niger, et pays de Segou</i>, Paris, 1885, p. 436 +(Segu); R. Callié, <i>Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo</i>, +London, 1830, i, 323, 346 (Mandingo); A. Hacquard, <i>Monographie de +Tombouctou</i>, Paris, 1900, p. 55; O. Lenz, <i>Timbuktu</i>, Leipzig, +1884, i, 154. The Bali market is said to be held every seventh day, +<i>i.e.</i>, on Friday. Here, again, Mohammedan influence is to be +suspected (F. Hutter, <i>Wanderungen und Forschungen im Nord-Hinterland +von Kamerun</i>, Brunswick, 1902, p. 361).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_319" href="#FNanchor_319" class="label">[319]</a> C. van Overbergh, <i>Les Mayombe</i>, Brussels, 1907, p. +353; A. de Calonne Beaufaict, <i>Études Bakango</i>, Liége, 1912, p. 79; +J. H. Weeks, <i>Among the Primitive Bakongo</i>, Philadelphia, 1914, +pp. 248 <i>sq.</i> Some of the Galla tribes have been so far affected +by Arabic influences as to hold their markets every seventh day (P. +Paulitschke, <i>Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas. Die materielle Kultur der +Danâkil, Galla, und Somâl</i>, Berlin, 1893, p. 313).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_320" href="#FNanchor_320" class="label">[320]</a> Ellis, <i>Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, p. 217. So also B. +Cruickshank (<i>Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast of Africa</i>, London, +1853, ii, 189 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_321" href="#FNanchor_321" class="label">[321]</a> No evidence for markets has been discovered among the +Bantu tribes south of the Zambesi. The absence of markets elsewhere is +sometimes specifically noted by our authorities; see F. Thonner, <i>Im +afrikanischen Urwald</i>, Berlin, 1898, p. 33 (Mondunga, on the Dua +River, Belgian Congo); J. Maes, in <i>Anthropos</i>, 1913, viii, 357 +(Mongelima, on the Aruwimi River, Belgian Congo); A. J. N. Tremearne, +<i>The Tailed Head-hunters of Nigeria</i>, London, 1912, p. 245 (Kagoro +and other pagan tribes of Northern Nigeria).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_322" href="#FNanchor_322" class="label">[322]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_323" href="#FNanchor_323" class="label">[323]</a> D. F. S. Clavigero, <i>Storia antica del Messico</i>, +Cesena, 1780, ii, 62, 163; B. de Sahagun, <i>Historia general de las +cosas de Nueva España</i>, transl. Jourdanet and Siméon, Paris, 1880, pp. +lxxiii, 290 <i>sq.</i>; A. von Humboldt, <i>Vues des Cordillères</i>, +Paris, 1816, ii, 340; G. Brühl, <i>Die Culturvölker Alt-Amerikas</i>, New +York, 1887, p. 234; J. Kohler, “Das Recht der Azteken,” <i>Zeitschrift +für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft</i>, 1895, xi, 75, 87; E. J. Payne, +<i>History of the New World called America</i>, Oxford, 1892-1899, ii, +359. A greater market or fair was sometimes held once in every cycle +of twenty days, that is, on every fourth ordinary market day. Eighteen +market months were included in the solar year. How such “months” may +arise is illustrated by a Yoruba mode of computing time by periods of +seventeen days, that being the number of days in four market weeks, +when the first and fifth days of each cycle are counted in (Ellis, +<i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 149 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_324" href="#FNanchor_324" class="label">[324]</a> Brasseur de Bourbourg, <i>Histoire des nations civilisées +du Mexique et de l’Amérique-Centrale</i>, Paris, 1858, iii, 464.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_325" href="#FNanchor_325" class="label">[325]</a> A. von Humboldt, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 340, ii, 227; Brühl, +<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 239; compare p. 326, where a market every fourth day +is stated to have been held in Turmequé. In Sorotoca the market took +place every eighth day (<i>ibid.</i>). But authentic details concerning +the Chibcha calendar are not to be had. According to von Humboldt (<i>op. +cit.</i>, ii, 244) ten of the Muysca “weeks” formed a lunation called +<i>suna</i>. The <i>suna</i> began, not at new moon, but at full moon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_326" href="#FNanchor_326" class="label">[326]</a> Garcilasso de la Vega, <i>Comentarios reales de los +Incas</i>, pt. i, bk. vi, ch. 35; C. R. Markham, <i>First Part of the +Royal Commentaries of the Yncas</i>, London, 1871, ii, 206. It is an +old error, for which Garcilasso de la Vega (<i>op. cit.</i>, pt. i, bk. +ii, ch. 23) appears to be responsible, that the Peruvians had a week of +seven days, following the successive phases of the moon. But Acosta, who +visited Peru soon after the Spanish conquest of that country, is better +informed and says clearly that neither Peruvians nor Mexicans had a +seven-day week (J. de Acosta, <i>Historia de las Indias</i>, bk. vi, ch. +3; <i>The Natural and Moral History of the Indies</i>, edited by C. R. +Markham, London, 1880, ii, 396).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_327" href="#FNanchor_327" class="label">[327]</a> See G. E. Marindin, in Smith, Wayte, and Marindin’s +<i>Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities</i>,³ ii, 251 <i>sq.</i>; +M. Besnier, in Daremberg, Saglio, and Pottier’s <i>Dictionnaire des +antiquités grecques et romaines</i>, vii, 120-122; E. Huschke, <i>Das +alte römische Jahr und seine Tage</i>, Breslau, 1869, pp. 288-312; R. +Flex, <i>Die älteste Monatseinteilung der Römer</i>, Jena, 1880, pp. +16 <i>sqq.</i>; and especially P. Huvelin, <i>Essai historique sur le +droit des marchés et des foires</i>, Paris, 1897, pp. 84-99. According +to the Roman system of inclusive reckoning—which may be compared with +that sometimes employed in Yorubaland (p. <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>n.</i>¹)—the market +fell on the ninth day, as the derivation of the word <i>nundinæ</i> +(from <i>novem</i>) indicates. It has been suggested by H. Diels +(<i>Sibyllinische Blätter</i>, Berlin, 1890, p. 41 <i>n.</i>¹) that the +choice of the ninth day was influenced by the symbolism attaching to +the number nine among the Romans, as among other Indo-European peoples; +compare the Nones, or the ninth day before the Ides, and the nine days’ +festivals (<i>novemdiales feriæ</i>). Probably, however, the Roman market +week consisted originally of four days only, and later was doubled to +form the cycle employed in historic times. The nundinal days were not +named, but were indicated in the calendars by letters of the alphabet +from A to H.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_328" href="#FNanchor_328" class="label">[328]</a> Macrobius, <i>Saturnalia</i>, i, 16, 32 <i>sq.</i>; +Dionysius Halicarnassensis, <i>Antiquitates Romanæ</i>, ii, 28, vii, 58; +compare Varro, <i>De re rustica</i>, ii, præf. Cicero attributes the +institution of markets to Numa (<i>De republica</i>, ii, 14, 27).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_329" href="#FNanchor_329" class="label">[329]</a> <i>Tertiis nundinis partis secanto (Tabula</i> iii, 6, in +Gellius, <i>Noctes Atticæ</i>, xx, i, 49).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_330" href="#FNanchor_330" class="label">[330]</a> Macrobius, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 16, 30; Pliny, <i>Historia +naturalis</i>, xviii, 3. I accept the view that the <i>lex Hortensia</i> +converted the <i>nundinæ</i> into <i>dies fasti non comitiales</i>, +that is, forbade comitial meetings on these dates, though allowing +judicial business to be done thereon. For this explanation see G. W. +Botsford, <i>The Roman Assemblies</i>, New York, 1909, pp. 139, 315, +471; Marquardt-Wissowa, <i>Römische Staatsverwaltung</i>, Leipzig, 1885, +iii,² 290. It has been maintained that toward the end of the republican +period the prohibition referred to was no longer observed (P. Groebe, in +Drumann-Groebe, <i>Geschichte Roms</i>,² Berlin, 1899-1906, iii, 779).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_331" href="#FNanchor_331" class="label">[331]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_332" href="#FNanchor_332" class="label">[332]</a> Macrobius, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 16, 30. According to +Plutarch (<i>Quæstiones Romanæ</i>, 42), the <i>nundinæ</i> were +consecrated to Saturn.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_333" href="#FNanchor_333" class="label">[333]</a> <i>Omnes judices urbanæque plebes et cunctarum artium +officia venerabili die Solis quiescant</i> (<i>Codex Justinianus</i>, +iii, 12, 3). The prohibition of holding court on Sunday was relaxed by +Constantine in the same year so far as to permit such legal proceedings +as the emancipation and manumission of slaves to take place at this time +(<i>Codex Theodosianus</i>, ii, 8, 1). Eusebius (<i>Vita Constantini</i>, +iv, 18-20) tells us that the emperor forbade all military exercises on +Sunday.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_334" href="#FNanchor_334" class="label">[334]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_335" href="#FNanchor_335" class="label">[335]</a> <i>Provisione etiam pietatis su[a]e nundinas die Solis +perpeti anno constituit</i> (<i>Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum</i>, +iii, no. 4121, p. 523). Markets were held on Sunday in many parts of +Europe until late in the Middle Ages, in spite of numerous edicts, +ecclesiastical and civil, forbidding the practice (Huvelin, <i>op. +cit.</i>, pp. 46, 156 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_336" href="#FNanchor_336" class="label">[336]</a> The date of the obsolescence of the <i>nundinæ</i> is not +definitely known. The <i>fasti Philocali</i> (354 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>) marks +the days of the seven-day week by the letters A-G, and gives side by side +the old nundinal letters A-H (<i>Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum</i>, i, +pt. i,² 256 <i>sqq.</i>). This arrangement had probably become a feature +of the state calendar since the Sunday legislation of Constantine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_337" href="#FNanchor_337" class="label">[337]</a> P. Ehrenreich, <i>Die allgemeine Mythologie und ihre +ethnologischen Grundlagen</i>, Leipzig, 1910, pp. 114-127; S. Arrhenius, +“Über den Ursprung des Gestirnkultus,” <i>Scientia</i>, 1911, ix, pp. +424 <i>sqq.</i>, Sir J. G. Frazer, <i>Adonis, Attis, Osiris</i>,³ +London, 1914, ii, 140-150; E. J. Payne, <i>History of the New World +called America</i>, Oxford, 1892-1899, i, 547 <i>sqq.</i>; W. H. +Roscher, <i>Über Selene und Verwandtes</i>, Leipzig, 1890, pp. 1-16, and +<i>Nachträge</i>, Leipzig, 1895, pp. 1-19. For the ideas of civilized +children relating to the moon see J. W. Slaughter, “The Moon in Childhood +and Folklore,” <i>American Journal of Psychology</i>, 1902, xiii, +294-318; G. S. Hall, “Note on Moon Fancies,” <i>ibid.</i>, 1903, xiv, +88-91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_338" href="#FNanchor_338" class="label">[338]</a> Albîrûnî, <i>India</i>, translated by C. E. Sachau, +London, 1888, i, 346 <i>sq.</i> Compare the fine passage in Apuleius +(<i>Metamorphoses</i>, xi, 1).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_339" href="#FNanchor_339" class="label">[339]</a> Spix and Martius, <i>Reise in Brasilien</i>, Munich, +1823-1831, i, 381, iii, 1186.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_340" href="#FNanchor_340" class="label">[340]</a> K. Weule, <i>Native Life in East Africa</i>, London, +1909, p. 188. On the other hand, children of the Bageshu, a Bantu people +of British East Africa, are expected to take part in new-moon dances, +since it is thought that they derive benefit from the moon (J. Roscoe, +in <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1909, xxxix, 193). +A Baganda mother believes that her child will grow strong and healthy, +if it is shown the first new moon after its birth (<i>idem</i>, <i>The +Baganda</i>, London, 1911, p. 58). Similarly, it is said that in the +island of Kiriwina, the largest of the Trobriand group to the east of New +Guinea, a mother always presents her child to the first new moon after +its birth, in order that it may grow fast and talk soon (George Brown, +<i>Melanesians and Polynesians</i>, London, 1910, p. 37).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_341" href="#FNanchor_341" class="label">[341]</a> Plutarch, <i>Quæstiones conviviales</i>, iii, 10, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_342" href="#FNanchor_342" class="label">[342]</a> A. Wuttke, <i>Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der +Gegenwart</i>,³ edited by E. H. Meyer, Berlin, 1900, p. 391 (Oldenburg).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_343" href="#FNanchor_343" class="label">[343]</a> W. E. Roth, <i>North Queensland Ethnography</i>, +<i>Bulletin</i>, 1903, no. 5, p. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_344" href="#FNanchor_344" class="label">[344]</a> W. H. I. Bleek and Lucy C. Lloyd, <i>Specimens of Bushman +Folk-lore</i>, London, 1911, pp. 67 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_345" href="#FNanchor_345" class="label">[345]</a> W. Bogoras, in <i>Memoirs of the American Museum of +Natural History</i>, xi, 306.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_346" href="#FNanchor_346" class="label">[346]</a> C. M. Doughty, <i>Travels in Arabia Deserta</i>, +Cambridge, 1888, i, 444.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_347" href="#FNanchor_347" class="label">[347]</a> <i>Psalms</i>, cxxi, 6. Another Biblical passage +(<i>Hosea</i>, v, 7), possibly referring to the moon, is most obscure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_348" href="#FNanchor_348" class="label">[348]</a> <i>Matthew</i>, iv, 24, xvii, 15. The Greek verb used here +is σεληνιάζομαι.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_349" href="#FNanchor_349" class="label">[349]</a> E. Combe, <i>Histoire du culte de Sin en Babylonie et en +Assyrie</i>, Paris, 1908, pp. 36 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_350" href="#FNanchor_350" class="label">[350]</a> <i>Quæstiones conviviales</i>, iii, 10, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_351" href="#FNanchor_351" class="label">[351]</a> P. Sébillot, <i>Le folk-lore de France</i>, Paris, +1904-1907, i, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_352" href="#FNanchor_352" class="label">[352]</a> Wuttke-Meyer, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 301.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_353" href="#FNanchor_353" class="label">[353]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 59. In Voigtland, central Germany, the +assaults of witches are especially looked for and dreaded on Mondays (R. +Eisel, <i>Sagenbuch des Voigtlandes</i>, Gera, 1871, p. 210).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_354" href="#FNanchor_354" class="label">[354]</a> Fanny D. Bergen, <i>Current Superstitions</i>, Boston, +1896, p. 120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_355" href="#FNanchor_355" class="label">[355]</a> For the belief that impregnation can be accomplished by +the sun, see Sir J. G. Frazer, <i>Balder the Beautiful</i>, London, 1913, +i, 74 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_356" href="#FNanchor_356" class="label">[356]</a> Mrs. K. L. Parker, <i>The Euahlayi Tribe</i>, London, +1905, pp. 50, 64, 98.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_357" href="#FNanchor_357" class="label">[357]</a> C. G. Seligmann, in <i>Reports of the Cambridge +Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits</i>, v, 206 <i>sq.</i> +The word for moon, <i>ganumi</i>, is sometimes used as a synonym of +<i>nanamud</i>, the proper expression for menstrual blood (<i>ibid.</i>). +Compare A. Hunt, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, +1899, xxviii, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_358" href="#FNanchor_358" class="label">[358]</a> C. G. Seligmann, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1902, xxxii, 303 <i>sq.</i> (Sinaugolo of the Rigo +District); E. Beardmore, <i>ibid.</i>, 1890, xix, 460 (Mawatta of the +Daudai District); A. Baessler, <i>Neue Südsee Bilder</i>, Berlin, 1900, +p. 383 (Santa Cruz Islands).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_359" href="#FNanchor_359" class="label">[359]</a> E. Best, “Notes on Procreation among the Maori People of +New Zealand,” <i>Journal of the Polynesian Society</i>, 1905, xiv, 210 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_360" href="#FNanchor_360" class="label">[360]</a> C. W. Hobley, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1903, xxxiii, 358.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_361" href="#FNanchor_361" class="label">[361]</a> J. Roscoe, <i>ibid.</i>, 1901, xxxi, 121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_362" href="#FNanchor_362" class="label">[362]</a> Thomas Winterbottom, <i>An Account of the Native Africans +in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone</i>, London, 1803, ii, 206 +(Mandingo, Susu, etc.).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_363" href="#FNanchor_363" class="label">[363]</a> Hans Egede, <i>A Description of Greenland</i>, London, +1745, p. 205.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_364" href="#FNanchor_364" class="label">[364]</a> W. B. Grubb, <i>An Unknown People in an Unknown Land</i>, +London, 1911, p. 139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_365" href="#FNanchor_365" class="label">[365]</a> P. J. de Arriaga, <i>Extirpación de la idolatria del +Piru</i>, Lima, 1621, p. 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_366" href="#FNanchor_366" class="label">[366]</a> H. Brugsch, <i>Religion und Mythologie der alten +Ägypter</i>, Leipzig, 1885, p. 335. The sacred bull Apis, which the +Egyptians regarded as an image of the soul of Osiris, a god often +identified with the moon, was supposed to be born of a virgin cow +impregnated by a divine influence emanating from the moon (Plutarch, +<i>Quæstiones conviviales</i>, viii, 1, 3; <i>idem</i>, <i>De Iside +et Osiride</i>, 43). On the discovery of an Apis the Egyptians kept a +holiday (Herodotus, iii, 28).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_367" href="#FNanchor_367" class="label">[367]</a> W. H. Roscher, “Aphrodite,” in Roscher’s <i>Ausführliches +Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie</i>, i, coll. 390 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_368" href="#FNanchor_368" class="label">[368]</a> L. H. Gray, in <i>Spiegel Memorial Volume</i>, Bombay, +1908, pp. 160-168. Râkâ and Sînîvalî, two of the Vedic goddesses +identified with the lunar phases, seem to have been associated with +childbirth (<i>Rig-Veda</i>, ii, 32; transl. H. Grassmann, i, 41).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_369" href="#FNanchor_369" class="label">[369]</a> Plutarch, <i>Quæstiones conviviales</i>, iii, 10, 3; +<i>idem</i>, <i>Quæstiones Romanæ</i>, 77. See further, W. H. Roscher, +<i>Juno und Hera</i>, Leipzig, 1875, pp. 40-59; <i>idem</i>, <i>Über +Selene und Verwandtes</i>, pp. 55-61; <i>idem</i>, “Mondgöttin,” +<i>Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie</i>, +ii, coll. 3150 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_370" href="#FNanchor_370" class="label">[370]</a> Sébillot, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_371" href="#FNanchor_371" class="label">[371]</a> E. H. Man, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1883, xii, 337; Sheldon Dibble, <i>History of the Sandwich +Islands</i>, Lahainaluna, 1843, p. 109; N. B. Dennys, <i>The Folk-lore of +China</i>, London, 1876, p. 118; M. Jastrow, <i>The Religion of Babylonia +and Assyria</i>, Boston, 1898, p. 358.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_372" href="#FNanchor_372" class="label">[372]</a> H. A. Hazen, “The Origin and Value of Weather Lore,” +<i>Journal of American Folk-lore</i>, 1900, xiii, 191-198; E. G. Dexter, +<i>Weather Influences</i>, New York, 1904, pp. 10-26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_373" href="#FNanchor_373" class="label">[373]</a> Payne, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 547 <i>sq.</i>; Sir E. B. +Tylor, <i>Primitive Culture</i>,⁴ London, 1903, i, 130; W. G. Black, +<i>Folk-medicine</i>, London, 1883, pp. 124 <i>sqq.</i>; A. E. Crawley, +“Dew,” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iv, +698-701.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_374" href="#FNanchor_374" class="label">[374]</a> Roscher, <i>Über Selene und Verwandtes</i>, pp. 49 +<i>sqq.</i>, 61-67. The New Zealanders believed that it was in the night +that everything grew (R. Taylor, <i>Te Ika A Maui</i>, London, 1855, +p. 175). The single Old Testament passage which may possibly embody a +like conception is <i>Deuteronomy</i>, xxxiii, 14: “and for the precious +things put forth by the moon.” See W. von Baudissin, <i>Jahve et +Moloch</i>, Leipzig, 1874, p. 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_375" href="#FNanchor_375" class="label">[375]</a> For many illustrations see Frazer, <i>Adonis, Attis, +Osiris</i>,³ ii, 131 <i>sqq.</i>; J. Grimm, <i>Teutonic Mythology</i>, +London, 1883, ii, 708-716.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_376" href="#FNanchor_376" class="label">[376]</a> Gellius, <i>Noctes Atticæ</i>, xx, 8: <i>Eadem autem ipsa, +quæ crescente luna gliscunt, deficiente contra defiunt</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_377" href="#FNanchor_377" class="label">[377]</a> <i>The Todas</i>, London, 1906, p. 411.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_378" href="#FNanchor_378" class="label">[378]</a> E. H. Man, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1883, xii, 152 <i>sq.</i> It is also said of the +Andamanese that they do no work, except what is noiseless, between dawn +and sunrise (<i>ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_379" href="#FNanchor_379" class="label">[379]</a> Peter Dobell, <i>Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia</i>, +London, 1830, ii, 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_380" href="#FNanchor_380" class="label">[380]</a> Joannes de Plano Carpini, in R. Hakluyt, <i>The Principal +Navigations, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation</i>, i, +141 <i>sq.</i> (Glasgow reprint, 1903-1905).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_381" href="#FNanchor_381" class="label">[381]</a> Mungo Park, <i>Travels in the Interior Districts of +Africa</i>, London, 1816, i, 266.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_382" href="#FNanchor_382" class="label">[382]</a> L. G. Binger, <i>Du Niger au golfe de Guinée</i>, Paris, +1892, ii, 116.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_383" href="#FNanchor_383" class="label">[383]</a> A. C. Hollis, <i>The Nandi</i>, Oxford, 1908, pp. 52, 60, +71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_384" href="#FNanchor_384" class="label">[384]</a> J. Sibree, “Malagasy Folk-lore and Popular Superstitions,” +<i>Folk-lore Record</i>, 1879, ii, 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_385" href="#FNanchor_385" class="label">[385]</a> <i>De bello Gallico</i>, i, 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_386" href="#FNanchor_386" class="label">[386]</a> <i>Germania</i>, 11. The rule of the Spartans never to +march out to war before the full moon (Herodotus, vi, 106; Pausanias, +i, 28, 4) prevented them from sending aid to the Athenians at the time +of the battle of Marathon. Though the Spartans always knew how to make +use of their religious scruples, during their festivals they really did +ostentatiously abstain from expeditions which might have been profitable +to them. See A. Holm, <i>History of Greece</i>, London, 1895, ii, 26, +referring to Thucydides, iv, 5, v, 75.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_387" href="#FNanchor_387" class="label">[387]</a> Kuhn and Schwartz, <i>Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen, und +Gebräuche</i>, Leipzig, 1848, p. 457.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_388" href="#FNanchor_388" class="label">[388]</a> The Rev. John Grant, in Sir John Sinclair’s <i>The +Statistical Account of Scotland</i>, Edinburgh, 1794, xii, 457. See also +Charles Rogers, <i>Familiar Illustrations of Scottish Character</i>,² +London, 1865, p. 172 (as to Orkney). In the Calendar of Coligny, +the most important of the Celtic inscriptions of ancient Gaul, the +lunation is divided into two parts by the full moon, and nearly all the +important activities of the month are crowded into the first fortnight, +apparently because of the ill luck associated with a waning moon. See +Sir John Rhŷs, “The Coligny Calendar,” <i>Proceedings of the British +Academy</i>, 1909-1910, pp. 221, 265. It has been pointed out that most +of the Greek festivals known to us fell in the first half of the month, +and especially on the twelfth day. “Zugrunde liegt die weit verbreitete +Vorstellung, dass alles, was gedeihen und zunehmen soll, während des +zunehmenden Mondes vorgenommen werden soll” (M. P. Nilsson in <i>Archiv +für Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1911, xiv, 441 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_389" href="#FNanchor_389" class="label">[389]</a> J. T. Bent, <i>The Cyclades</i>, London, 1885, p. 438.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_390" href="#FNanchor_390" class="label">[390]</a> John Aubrey, <i>Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme</i>, +edited by J. Britten, London, 1881, p. 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_391" href="#FNanchor_391" class="label">[391]</a> On the superstitions attaching to eclipses, generally, see +R. Lasch, “Die Finsternisse in der Mythologie und im religiösen Brauch +der Völker,” <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1900, iii, 97-152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_392" href="#FNanchor_392" class="label">[392]</a> W. E. H. Barrett, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1911, xli, 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_393" href="#FNanchor_393" class="label">[393]</a> Hodson, <i>Nāga Tribes</i>, pp. 166 <i>sq.</i> See above, +pp. <a href="#Page_50">50</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_394" href="#FNanchor_394" class="label">[394]</a> Rivers, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 580, 592.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_395" href="#FNanchor_395" class="label">[395]</a> <i>Madras Weekly Mail</i>, 15th October, 1908, quoted by +Edgar Thurston, <i>Omens and Superstitions of Southern India</i>, London +and Leipzig, 1912, p. 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_396" href="#FNanchor_396" class="label">[396]</a> R. G. Chaube, “Some of the Most Popular Beliefs and +Superstitions of the Hindus of Northern India,” <i>Journal of the +Anthropological Society of Bombay</i>, v, 326.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_397" href="#FNanchor_397" class="label">[397]</a> W. Crooke, <i>The Popular Religion and Folk-lore of +Northern India</i>,² Westminster, 1896, i, 21 <i>sqq.</i>; compare +<i>idem</i>, <i>Natives of Northern India</i>, London, 1907, p. 203. See +also H. G. Rose, “Hindu Pregnancy Observances in the Punjab,” <i>Journal +of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1905, xxxv, 277 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_398" href="#FNanchor_398" class="label">[398]</a> John Barrow, <i>Travels in China</i>, London, 1804, p. +287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_399" href="#FNanchor_399" class="label">[399]</a> Thucydides, vii, 50; Plutarch, <i>Nicias</i>, 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_400" href="#FNanchor_400" class="label">[400]</a> J. Buxtorf, <i>Synagoga Judaica</i>,³ Basel, 1680, p. +477: <i>Defectum lunæ pro pessimo habent signo, quod aliquid mali et +inauspicati ab hostibus et inimicis suis portendat. Ideo ejusmodi +die animas vulgo jejunio affligunt et ab hostibus suis a Deo defendi +postulant.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_401" href="#FNanchor_401" class="label">[401]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>. During a solar eclipse Swabian peasants +totally abandon their usual occupations and shut up their cattle +in the stalls (A. Birlinger, <i>Volksthümliches aus Schwaben</i>, +Freiburg-i.-B., 1861-1862, i, 189). In Ober-Pfalz and Bohemia at such +a time it is believed to be dangerous to eat anything or even to go +outside the house, unless one’s mouth is securely covered with a cloth +(Wuttke-Meyer, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 302).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_402" href="#FNanchor_402" class="label">[402]</a> C. W. Hobley, <i>Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East +African Tribes</i>, Cambridge, 1910, p. 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_403" href="#FNanchor_403" class="label">[403]</a> W. S. Routledge and Katherine Routledge, <i>With a +Prehistoric People</i>, London, 1910, p. 284.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_404" href="#FNanchor_404" class="label">[404]</a> W. W. A. Fitzgerald, <i>Travels in the Coastlands of +British East Africa</i>, London, 1898, p. 111, quoting W. E. Taylor, +<i>Vocabulary of the Giryama Language</i>, London, 1897. The name of +these rest days—<i>jumwa</i>—is Arabic; see above, p. <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>n.</i>²</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_405" href="#FNanchor_405" class="label">[405]</a> P. B. Du Chaillu, <i>In African Forest and Jungle</i>, New +York, 1903, pp. 96 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_406" href="#FNanchor_406" class="label">[406]</a> Horace Waller, editor, <i>The Last Journals of David +Livingstone in Central Africa</i>, New York, 1875, p. 273.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_407" href="#FNanchor_407" class="label">[407]</a> J. Y. Gibson, <i>The Story of the Zulus</i>, London, 1911, +p. 175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_408" href="#FNanchor_408" class="label">[408]</a> Gengnagel, “Volksglaube und Wahrsagerei an der Westküste +Indiens,” <i>Ausland</i>, 1891, lxiv, 871 <i>sq.</i> Another observer +declares that if a cow calves on the new-moon day, her milk, it is +believed, will kill the owner (P. Kershasp, “Some Superstitions +prevailing among the Canarese-speaking People of Southern India,” +<i>Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay</i>, vii, 84).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_409" href="#FNanchor_409" class="label">[409]</a> R. B. Bainbridge, in <i>Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of +Bengal</i>, 1907, ii, 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_410" href="#FNanchor_410" class="label">[410]</a> J. Wilson, in <i>Indian Antiquary</i>, 1897, xxvi, 308 +(from <i>Punjab Notes and Queries</i>, 1883).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_411" href="#FNanchor_411" class="label">[411]</a> M. Jastrow, <i>Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice +in Babylonia and Assyria</i>, New York, 1911, pp. 214, 333 <i>sqq.</i>; +<i>idem</i>, <i>Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens</i>, Giessen, +1905-1912, i, 440, ii, 510 <i>sqq.</i> Compare L. W. King, <i>Babylonian +Magic and Sorcery</i>, London, 1896, pp. 5 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_412" href="#FNanchor_412" class="label">[412]</a> I. Goldziher, in <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, +1910, xiii, 44 <i>n.</i>⁴ For the Abyssinian beliefs see E. Littmann, +<i>ibid.</i>, 1908, xi, 314 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_413" href="#FNanchor_413" class="label">[413]</a> E. Rhode, <i>Psyche</i>,⁶ Tübingen, 1910, i, 234 +<i>n.</i>¹, 269 <i>n.</i>²; E. Caillemer, in Daremberg and Saglio’s +<i>Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines</i>, i, 332. G. +F. Schoemann denies that the ἀσέλινοι were truly ill-omened, since +there are instances of popular assemblies being fixed for these days +(<i>Griechische Alterthümer</i>,⁴ edited by J. H. Lipsius, Berlin, +1897-1902, ii, 457 <i>n.</i>⁴). It would seem, however, that the +Athenians, like the Romans, sometimes distinguished between days +popularly considered unlucky and those officially recognized as such in +the state calendars. Friday is for us a most unlucky day, but, excepting +Good Friday, it is not a <i>dies non</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_414" href="#FNanchor_414" class="label">[414]</a> Roscher, <i>Über Selene und Verwandtes</i>, pp. 46 +<i>sqq.</i> The interlunar days were selected by the ancients for the +celebration of the sacred marriages of the gods and goddesses and, +particularly, of the sun and moon. At least from the time of Thales +the conjunction of the two luminaries was indicated by the same term +σύνοδος (<i>coitus</i>) which was applied to the act of procreation +(<i>ibid.</i>, pp. 76 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_415" href="#FNanchor_415" class="label">[415]</a> T. F. T. Dyer, <i>English Folklore</i>, London, 1878, p. +41; Thomas Hardy, <i>The Return of the Native</i>, London, 1895, p. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_416" href="#FNanchor_416" class="label">[416]</a> H. A. Hazen, in <i>Journal of American Folk-lore</i>, +1900, xiii, 192. American folklore contains the injunction never to +kill cattle or pigs, or even wild game, by the “dark of the moon”; it +is most unlucky, and the meat will come to no good (Bergen, <i>Current +Superstitions</i>, p. 121).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_417" href="#FNanchor_417" class="label">[417]</a> W. Smythe and F. Lowe, <i>Narrative of a Journey from Lima +to Para</i>, London, 1836, p. 230.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_418" href="#FNanchor_418" class="label">[418]</a> Father G. Boscana, “Chinigchinich,” in <i>Life in +California by an American</i>, New York, 1846, pp. 298 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_419" href="#FNanchor_419" class="label">[419]</a> Jonathan Carver, <i>Travels through the Interior Parts of +North America</i>,³ London, 1781, pp. 250, 252.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_420" href="#FNanchor_420" class="label">[420]</a> W. Bartram, in <i>Transactions of the American +Ethnological Society</i>, 1853, iii, pt. i, 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_421" href="#FNanchor_421" class="label">[421]</a> Merolla, “Voyage to Congo,” in Pinkerton’s <i>Voyages and +Travels</i>, xvi, 273.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_422" href="#FNanchor_422" class="label">[422]</a> Mungo Park, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_423" href="#FNanchor_423" class="label">[423]</a> G. W. Stow, <i>The Native Races of South Africa</i>, +London, 1905, p. 112. For further examples of new-moon and full-moon +celebrations see P. Kolben, <i>The Present State of the Cape of Good +Hope</i>, London, 1731, i, 96 (Hottentots); J. Bonwick, <i>Daily Life +and Origin of the Tasmanians</i>, London, 1870, pp. 186 <i>sqq.</i>; +Seligmann, <i>Melanesians of British New Guinea</i>, p. 193 (Koita); Carl +Ribbe, <i>Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen der Salomo-Inseln</i>, Dresden, +1903, p. 163 (Shortland Island); Taylor, <i>Te Ika A Maui</i>, p. 93 +(Maori); Turner, <i>Samoa</i>, p. 67; A. E. Jenks, in <i>Ethnological +Survey Publications</i>, i, 206 (Bontoc Igorot of Luzon); V. Solomon, +in <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1902, xxxii, 213 +(Nicobarese); W. Bogoras, in <i>Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural +History</i>, xi, 378 (Chukchi); J. v. Klaproth, <i>Reise in den Kaukasus +und nach Georgien</i>, Halle, 1814, ii, 602 (Osetes); A. von Humboldt, +<i>Vues des Cordillères</i>, Paris, 1816, ii, 244 (Muysca of Colombia).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_424" href="#FNanchor_424" class="label">[424]</a> Frazer, <i>Adonis, Attis, Osiris</i>,³ ii, 140.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_425" href="#FNanchor_425" class="label">[425]</a> The vice of seeking particularistic explanations of +widespread social phenomena is illustrated by Nielsen, who, with +misdirected ingenuity, has argued that the early Semites founded their +Sabbaths on the observation that the moon (conceived as a divinity) +rests four times in a lunation. Days on which the deity rested were to +be likewise observed by his worshippers as days of rest (D. Nielsen, +<i>Die altarabische Mondreligion und die mosaische Überlieferung</i>, +Strassburg, 1904, pp. 63 <i>sqq.</i>). It is true that the moon looks +full for a day or two before and for a day or two after she is full; +similarly, the changes in her form at the beginning of a lunation are +scarcely perceptible. The moon, therefore, might be said to “rest” +at these two periods. But neither astronomical science nor untutored +observation lends any support to the idea that the moon “rests” at the +close of each and every phase. Such a hypothesis, were it true, would not +account for the other forms of abstinence, in addition to the cessation +of labour, which occur in connection with the moon’s changes. And, as we +shall see, the observance of lunar taboos may be quite dissociated from +true moon-worship and probably long antedates the latter cult.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_426" href="#FNanchor_426" class="label">[426]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_14">14</a> <i>sq.</i>, +<a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a> <i>and</i> <i>n.</i>², +<a href="#Page_34">34</a> and <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, +<a href="#Page_52">52</a> <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_427" href="#FNanchor_427" class="label">[427]</a> Lieutenant Farewell, in W. F. W. Owen, <i>Narrative of +Voyages to explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar</i>, +London, 1833, ii, 397; compare Dudley Kidd, <i>The Essential Kafir</i>, +London, 1904, p. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_428" href="#FNanchor_428" class="label">[428]</a> G. W. Stow, <i>The Native Races of South Africa</i>, +London, 1905, p. 414.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_429" href="#FNanchor_429" class="label">[429]</a> <i>Missionary Travels and Researches in South +Africa</i>,²⁵ New York, 1870, p. 255.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_430" href="#FNanchor_430" class="label">[430]</a> John Campbell, <i>Travels in South Africa</i>, London, +1822, ii, 205.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_431" href="#FNanchor_431" class="label">[431]</a> L. Decle, <i>Three Years in Savage Africa</i>, London, +1900, pp. 85 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_432" href="#FNanchor_432" class="label">[432]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 295.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_433" href="#FNanchor_433" class="label">[433]</a> J. F. Cunningham, <i>Uganda and its Peoples</i>, London, +1905, p. 294.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_434" href="#FNanchor_434" class="label">[434]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_435" href="#FNanchor_435" class="label">[435]</a> Hobley, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_436" href="#FNanchor_436" class="label">[436]</a> John Roscoe, <i>The Baganda</i>, London, 1911, pp. +297, 299, 428; <i>idem</i>, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1902, xxxii, 76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_437" href="#FNanchor_437" class="label">[437]</a> Roscoe, <i>Baganda</i>, pp. 320 <i>sqq.</i>; <i>idem</i>, +“Python Worship in Uganda,” <i>Man</i>, 1909, ix, 88 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_438" href="#FNanchor_438" class="label">[438]</a> <i>Idem</i>, <i>Baganda</i>, pp. 249 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_439" href="#FNanchor_439" class="label">[439]</a> Mrs. A. B. Fisher, <i>Twilight Tales of the Black +Baganda</i>, London [1912], pp. 37 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_440" href="#FNanchor_440" class="label">[440]</a> J. H. Speke, <i>Journal of the Discovery of the Source of +the Nile</i>, Edinburgh, 1863, p. 523.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_441" href="#FNanchor_441" class="label">[441]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 259. According to Speke this custom is +also observed by the king of Uganda, who, on the first day after the +appearance of the new moon, examines and arranges his <i>mapembe</i>, or +fetishes (<i>ibid.</i>, p. 372).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_442" href="#FNanchor_442" class="label">[442]</a> The Mendi of the hinterland of Sierra Leone are said to +hold a new-moon festival and at it to abstain from all work, “alleging +that if they infringed this rule corn and rice would grow red, the new +moon being a ‘day of blood.’” Ellis, who cites this instance without +giving his authority, adds the further fact that the Mendi recognize no +weeks (<i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, p. 146).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_443" href="#FNanchor_443" class="label">[443]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> Ellis presented his arguments more fully in +an article “On the Origin of Weeks and Sabbaths,” <i>Popular Science +Monthly</i>, 1895, xlvi, 329-343.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_444" href="#FNanchor_444" class="label">[444]</a> W. Crooke, <i>The Popular Religion and Folk-lore of +Northern India</i>,² Westminster, 1896, i, 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_445" href="#FNanchor_445" class="label">[445]</a> Gengnagel, “Volksglaube und Wahrsagerei an der Westküste +Indiens,” <i>Ausland</i>, 1891, lxiv, 871 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_446" href="#FNanchor_446" class="label">[446]</a> F. Jagor, in <i>Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft +für Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte</i>, 1876, p. (201) +(bound with <i>Zeitschrift für Ethnologie</i>, vol. viii).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_447" href="#FNanchor_447" class="label">[447]</a> Thurston, <i>Omens and Superstitions of Southern +India</i>, p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_448" href="#FNanchor_448" class="label">[448]</a> <i>Rig-Veda</i>, i, 9, 1, i, 94, 4 (transl. H. Grassmann, +ii, 8, 95); <i>Atharva-Veda</i>, vii, 79, 3, vii, 80, 1-4 (transl. W. +D. Whitney, pp. 444-446); Martin Haug, <i>The Aitareya Brahmanam of the +Rig-Veda</i>, Bombay, 1863, ii, 5; A. Weber, “Zur Kenntnis des vedische +Opferrituals,” <i>Indische Studien</i>, 1868, x, 329 <i>sqq.</i>; H. +Zimmer, <i>Altindisches Leben</i>, Berlin, 1879, pp. 364 <i>sq.</i>; +A. Hillebrandt, <i>Das altindische Neu- und Vollmondsopfer</i>, Jena, +1879; <i>idem</i>, in Bühler’s <i>Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie +und Altertumskunde</i>, Strassburg, 1901, ii, pt. ii, pp. 75 <i>sq.</i> +The new-moon day was called <i>darśa</i>, the day of the full moon, +<i>pūrṇamāsa</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_449" href="#FNanchor_449" class="label">[449]</a> The first day was called <i>upavasatha</i>, a fasting or +fast day (compare Sanskrit <i>upa</i>, an adverbial adjunct, signifying +to refrain from, abstain, hence, to fast). The second day’s ceremony was +known as the <i>darśapūrṇamāsa</i> sacrifice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_450" href="#FNanchor_450" class="label">[450]</a> <i>Satapatha-Brâhmana</i>, i, 1, 1, 1 <i>sqq.</i> +(<i>Sacred Books of the East</i>, xii, 1 <i>sq.</i>; compare also 374 +<i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_451" href="#FNanchor_451" class="label">[451]</a> A. Hillebrandt, <i>Vedische Mythologie</i>, Breslau, +1891-1899, i, 267 <i>sqq.</i>, 313, 366 <i>sqq.</i>; ii, 209-240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_452" href="#FNanchor_452" class="label">[452]</a> A. Bergaigne, <i>La religion védique</i>, Paris, +1878, i, 157 <i>sqq.</i>; A. A. Macdonell, <i>Vedic Mythology</i>, +Strassburg, 1897, pp. 112 <i>sqq.</i>; E. W. Hopkins, <i>The Religions +of India</i>, Boston, 1895, pp. 112 <i>sqq.</i>; J. Muir, <i>Original +Sanskrit Texts</i>,³ London, 1884, v, 270 <i>sq.</i> Compare +<i>Satapatha-Brâhmana</i>, i, 6, 4, 5 <i>sqq.</i> (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xii, +176 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_453" href="#FNanchor_453" class="label">[453]</a> <i>Grihya-sûtra of Gobhila</i>, i, 5, 1-26 (<i>S. B. +E.</i>, xxx, 25-28).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_454" href="#FNanchor_454" class="label">[454]</a> <i>Institutes of Vishnu</i>, xlvii, 3 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, +vii, 152).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_455" href="#FNanchor_455" class="label">[455]</a> <i>Laws of Manu</i>, xi, 217 <i>sqq.</i> (<i>S. B. E.</i>, +xxv, 474 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_456" href="#FNanchor_456" class="label">[456]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, iv, 128 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xxv, 149).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_457" href="#FNanchor_457" class="label">[457]</a> <i>Vishńu Puráńa</i>, iii, 11 (the translation by H. H. +Wilson, edited by F. Hall, London, 1865, iii, 132 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_458" href="#FNanchor_458" class="label">[458]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ii, 6 (Wilson-Hall, ii, 219).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_459" href="#FNanchor_459" class="label">[459]</a> J. A. Dubois, <i>Hindu Manners, Customs, and +Ceremonies</i>,³ Oxford, 1906, p. 270.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_460" href="#FNanchor_460" class="label">[460]</a> <i>Laws of Manu</i>, iv, 113 <i>sq.</i> (<i>S. B. E.</i>, +xxv, 147).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_461" href="#FNanchor_461" class="label">[461]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, iv, 101 <i>sqq.</i> (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xxv, +144 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_462" href="#FNanchor_462" class="label">[462]</a> Gautama, xvi, 22, 35-37 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, ii, 258 +<i>sqq.</i>). Compare Âpastamba, i, 3, 9, 28: “at the new moon (he shall +not study) for two days and nights” (<i>S. B. E.</i>, ii, 36).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_463" href="#FNanchor_463" class="label">[463]</a> <i>Vishńu Puráńa</i>, iii, 12 (Wilson-Hall, iii, 143).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_464" href="#FNanchor_464" class="label">[464]</a> Sir M. Monier-Williams, <i>Brāhmanism and Hindūism</i>,⁴ +New York, 1891, p. 433.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_465" href="#FNanchor_465" class="label">[465]</a> H. H. Wilson, “The Religious Festivals of the Hindus,” in +<i>Essays and Lectures chiefly on the Religion of the Hindus</i>, edited +by R. Rost, London, 1862, ii, 194.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_466" href="#FNanchor_466" class="label">[466]</a> H. H. Wilson, “The Religious Festivals of the Hindus,” in +<i>Essays and Lectures chiefly on the Religion of the Hindus</i>, edited +by R. Rost, London, 1862, ii, 197.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_467" href="#FNanchor_467" class="label">[467]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 199.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_468" href="#FNanchor_468" class="label">[468]</a> <i>Sûtrakṛtâṅga</i>, ii, 7, 17; compare, ii, 2, 76 (<i>S. +B. E.</i>, xlv, 428 <i>sq.</i>, 383).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_469" href="#FNanchor_469" class="label">[469]</a> <i>Uttarâdhyayana</i>, v, 23; compare ix, 42 (<i>S. B. +E.</i>, xlv, 23, 39).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_470" href="#FNanchor_470" class="label">[470]</a> H. Jacobi, <i>Gaina Sûtras</i>, Oxford, 1895, pp. xix, 23 +<i>n.</i>² (<i>S. B. E.</i>, vol. xlv).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_471" href="#FNanchor_471" class="label">[471]</a> Margaret Stevenson, “Festivals and Fasts (Jain),” +Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, v, 875 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_472" href="#FNanchor_472" class="label">[472]</a> H. Kern, <i>Der Buddhismus und seine Geschichte in +Indien</i>, Leipzig, 1884, ii, 256 <i>sqq.</i>; <i>idem</i>, <i>Manual of +Indian Buddhism</i>, Strassburg, 1896, pp. 99 <i>sq.</i>; R. C. Childers, +<i>A Dictionary of the Pali Language</i>, London, 1875, <i>s.v.</i> +<i>uposatha</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_473" href="#FNanchor_473" class="label">[473]</a> <i>Mahâvagga</i>, ii, 1, 1-4 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xiii, 239 +<i>sq.</i>; compare p. x).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_474" href="#FNanchor_474" class="label">[474]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ii, 1, 4 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xiii, 240). +This rule is to be understood as requiring an assembly to be held on +the fourteenth <i>or</i> the fifteenth of each half-month, according +as the month had twenty-nine or thirty days. In other words an +<i>uposatha</i> service on the fourteenth day of a short month was to +be followed by a celebration on the fifteenth of the following long +month. Compare <i>ibid.</i>, ii, 34, 1. The important word “half,” which +has been inserted above, was omitted by an unfortunate oversight in +the translation of this passage from the <i>Mahâvagga</i>, as given in +the <i>Sacred Books of the East</i>. It appears, however, in Mr. H. C. +Warren’s rendering of the same passage (<i>Buddhism in Translations</i>, +Cambridge [Mass.], 1909, p. 404).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_475" href="#FNanchor_475" class="label">[475]</a> <i>Sutta Nipâta</i>, ii, 14, 26 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, x, pt. +ii, 66).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_476" href="#FNanchor_476" class="label">[476]</a> The eighth day of the waning moon (<i>áṣṭakā</i>) is +distinctly mentioned in the Vedas, as forming with new moon and full +moon the regular festival periods. Compare <i>Atharva-Veda</i>, xv, 16, +2 (transl. W. D. Whitney, p. 790); Zimmer, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 365; H. +Oldenberg, <i>Die Religion des Veda</i>, Berlin, 1894, p. 439. Of these, +the full-moon day seems to have enjoyed most importance (Oldenberg, +<i>loc. cit.</i>), and similarly in Buddhism. Compare <i>Mahâ-Sudassana +Sutta</i>, i, 11: “On the Sabbath day, on the day of full moon” (<i>S. +B. E.</i>, xi, 251 <i>sq.</i>). Elsewhere the <i>uposatha</i> service +is referred particularly to the fifteenth day of the month, “it being +full moon” (<i>Sutta Nipâta</i>, iii, 12), prœm. (<i>S. B. E.</i>, x, +pt. ii, 131 <i>sq.</i>). In very early times the Hindus had named and +deified as goddesses the four phases of the moon. See <i>Rig-Veda</i>, +ii, 32 (transl. H. Grassmann, i, 41); <i>Satapatha-Brâhmana</i>, +ix, 5, 1, 38 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xliii, 264); C. Lassen, <i>Indische +Alterthumskunde</i>,² Leipzig and London, 1867-1874, i, 986.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_477" href="#FNanchor_477" class="label">[477]</a> <i>Mahâvagga</i>, ii, 4, 1-2 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xiii, 246 +<i>sq.</i>). The <i>patimokkha</i> is one of the oldest parts of the +Buddhist canonical compositions. The Pali version has been translated +in full by Professors Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (<i>S. B. +E.</i>, vol. xiii) and the part for monks, by J. F. Dickson (<i>Journal +of the Royal Asiatic Society</i>, 1876, n.s., viii, 62-130). For a +description of these ceremonies as witnessed March 27, 1893, at the +Malwatta monastery in Kandy see E. M. Bowden, “The <i>uposatha</i> and +<i>upasampadâ</i> Ceremonies,” <i>ibid.</i>, 1893, n.s., xxv, 159-161. +Mr. Bowden notes that at the Malwatta monastery the <i>uposatha</i> +service is held more frequently on the day which precedes the new and the +full moon than on the new and full-moon days.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_478" href="#FNanchor_478" class="label">[478]</a> <i>Sutta Nipâta</i>, ii, 14, 19-26 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, x, +pt. ii, 65 <i>sqq.</i>). See also T. W. Rhys Davids, <i>Buddhism</i>, +London, 1890, pp. 137 <i>sqq.</i>; Childers, <i>op. cit.</i>, <i>s.v.</i> +<i>sīlaṁ</i>. The prohibition of drinking intoxicating liquors was +directed against the ancient <i>soma</i> sacrifice on the second day +of the <i>upavasatha</i> ceremony. See <i>Satapatha-Brâhmana</i>, 1, +6, 4, 5 <i>sqq.</i> (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xii, 176 <i>sqq.</i>). On the +other hand the last precept is identical with one of the regulations +for the <i>upavasatha</i>, where the celebrant is distinctly enjoined +to sleep on the ground (or a shake-down of grass, a blanket). See +<i>Satapatha-Brâhmana</i>, i, 1, 1, 11 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xii, 6).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_479" href="#FNanchor_479" class="label">[479]</a> Mahony, in <i>Asiatic Researches</i>, 1803, vii, +40 <i>sq.</i>; Edward Upham, <i>Sacred and Historical Books of +Ceylon</i>, London, 1833, iii, 161 <i>sqq.</i>; R. S. Hardy, <i>Eastern +Monachism</i>, London, 1850, pp. 236 <i>sqq.</i>; <i>idem</i>, <i>Manual +of Buddhism</i>,² London, 1880, pp. 22, 50, 52; C. F. Köppen, <i>Die +Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung</i>, Berlin, 1857-1859, i, +563 <i>sq.</i>; D. J. Gogerly, “The Laws of the Buddhist Priesthood,” +<i>Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society</i>, +1858-1859, iii, 253-261. By the Kandian, who occupy the interior +of Ceylon, not only the <i>poya</i> days, but all unlucky days +(<i>vitti</i>) as well, are observed with abstinence from agricultural +labour (P. Kehelpannala, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1896, xxv, 108).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_480" href="#FNanchor_480" class="label">[480]</a> Michael Symes, <i>An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom +of Ava</i>, London, 1800, p. 335. See further Hiram Cox, <i>Journal of +a Residence in the Burman Empire</i>, London, 1821, p. 241; Sangermano, +<i>A Description of the Burmese Empire</i>, translated by W. Tandy, Rome, +1833, p. 92; C. J. F. S. Forbes, <i>British Burma</i>, London, 1878, pp. +169 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_481" href="#FNanchor_481" class="label">[481]</a> Shway Yoe [Sir J. G. Scott], <i>The Burman: his Life and +Notions</i>,³ London, 1910, pp. 217-220. The Tungthu of Tenasserim have +borrowed these “duty days” from the Burmese (<i>Gazetteer of Upper Burma +and the Shan States</i>, edited by Scott and Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. +i, vol. i, p. 558).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_482" href="#FNanchor_482" class="label">[482]</a> F. H. Turpin, <i>Histoire civile et naturelle du royaume +de Siam</i>, Paris, 1771, i, 45 <i>sq.</i> The “fourth day” of the moon +must here be counted from the astronomical new moon. The <i>uposatha</i> +in Siam, as in Ceylon and Burma, falls regularly on the eighth and +fifteenth days of the waxing moon and on the eighth and fourteenth or +fifteenth days of the waning moon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_483" href="#FNanchor_483" class="label">[483]</a> J. B. Pallegoix, <i>Description du royaume Thai ou +Siam</i>, Paris, 1854, i, 249.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_484" href="#FNanchor_484" class="label">[484]</a> John Crawfurd, <i>Journal of an Embassy</i>, London, 1830, +ii, 75; Sir John Bowring, <i>The Kingdom and People of Siam</i>, London, +1857, i, 158.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_485" href="#FNanchor_485" class="label">[485]</a> J. G. D. Campbell, <i>Siam in the Twentieth Century</i>, +London, 1904, p. 224 <i>n.</i>¹; G. E. Gerini, “Festivals and Fasts +(Siamese),” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, v, +885.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_486" href="#FNanchor_486" class="label">[486]</a> J. Moura, <i>Le royaume de Cambodge</i>, Paris, 1883, +i, 321. The Malays of the Malacca Peninsula regard the fourteenth and +fifteenth days of each lunar month as unlucky. On these two days no work +in the rice fields is allowed, a prohibition which only increases the +native tendency to laziness (C. O. Blagden, “Notes on the Folk-lore and +Popular Religion of the Malays,” <i>Journal of the Straits Branch of the +Royal Asiatic Society</i>, 1896, no. 29, p. 6).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_487" href="#FNanchor_487" class="label">[487]</a> E. Schlaginweit, <i>Buddhism in Tibet</i>, Leipzig and +London, 1863, p. 237.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_488" href="#FNanchor_488" class="label">[488]</a> L. A. Waddell, <i>The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism</i>, +London, 1895, p. 501; W. W. Rockhill, in <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic +Society</i>, 1891, n.s., xxiii, 207 <i>n.</i>³</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_489" href="#FNanchor_489" class="label">[489]</a> Marco Polo refers to five days or four days or three +days in each month when the lamas or clergy of Tibetan Buddhism shed no +blood and abstain from animal food (Sir Henry Yule, <i>The Book of Ser +Marco Polo</i>,³ London, 1903, i, 220, 223). Compare N. Prejevalsky, +<i>Mongolia</i>, London, 1876, i, 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_490" href="#FNanchor_490" class="label">[490]</a> Köppen, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 564.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_491" href="#FNanchor_491" class="label">[491]</a> P. S. Pallas, <i>Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des +russischen Reichs</i>, Frankfort, 1776, i, 295.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_492" href="#FNanchor_492" class="label">[492]</a> Joseph Edkins, <i>Chinese Buddhism</i>,² London, 1893, p. +206. In Buddhist monasteries the <i>patimokkha</i> is regularly recited +at new moon and full moon. The ceremony is known as <i>posadha</i> (J. J. +M. de Groot, “Buddhism in China,” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion +and Ethics</i>, iii, 554).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_493" href="#FNanchor_493" class="label">[493]</a> J. H. Gray, <i>China</i>, London, 1878, i, 263 <i>n.</i>¹; +C. Pitou, <i>La Chine</i>, Lausanne and Paris [1902], pp. 27 +<i>sqq.</i> See also W. Grube, <i>Religion und Kultus der Chinesen</i>, +Leipzig, 1910, p. 66; J. D. Ball, <i>The Celestial and his Religions</i>, +Hongkong, 1906, p. 25; J. Edkins, <i>Religion in China</i>,² London, +1878, pp. 48 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_494" href="#FNanchor_494" class="label">[494]</a> E. Kaempfer, <i>History of Japan</i>, ii, 21 <i>sq.</i> +(Glasgow reprint, 1906).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_495" href="#FNanchor_495" class="label">[495]</a> R. Friederich, in <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic +Society</i>, 1876, n.s., viii, 197 <i>sq.</i> Most priests also observe +with prayer and fasting every fifth day (<i>kaliwon</i>) of the Javanese +five-day market week, which has been introduced into Bali (Friederich, +<i>loc. cit.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_496" href="#FNanchor_496" class="label">[496]</a> E. H. Man, in <i>Indian Antiquary</i>, 1897, xxvi, 269 +<i>n.</i>³⁰ According to this account the Nicobarese do not observe +new-moon ceremonies. Other authorities, however, refer to sacrifices +and celebrations at this time. See V. Solomon, in <i>Journal of the +Anthropological Institute</i>, 1902, xxxii, 204, 213; W. Svoboda, in +<i>Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie</i>, 1893, vi, 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_497" href="#FNanchor_497" class="label">[497]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_498" href="#FNanchor_498" class="label">[498]</a> <i>Yasna</i>, i, 8 (so also <i>ibid.</i>, ii, 8; compare +<i>Yast</i> vii, 4). See L. H. Gray, “Festivals and Feasts (Iranian),” +Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, v, 872; L. H. +Mills, in <i>Sacred Books of the East</i>, xxxi, 198, 205; W. Geiger, +<i>Civilization of the Eastern Irānians</i>, London, 1885, i, 146 +<i>n.</i>¹ The term <i>vishaptatha</i>, here translated “the intervening +seventh” refers to the seventh day between the new moon (on the 1st) and +the full moon (on the 15th), that is, to the 8th day of the month (E. +Bartholomae, <i>Altiranisches Wörterbuch</i>, Strassburg, 1904, col. +1472). The theories as to the meaning of <i>vishaptatha</i>, advanced by +J. Darmesteter, have not won the acceptance of scholars (<i>Sacred Books +of the East</i>, xxiii, 90 <i>n.</i>⁵; <i>Le Zend-Avesta</i>, Paris, +1892-1893, i, 12 <i>n.</i>³⁴).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_499" href="#FNanchor_499" class="label">[499]</a> R. Roth, “Der Kalender des Avesta und die sogenannten +<i>gahanbâr</i>,” <i>Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen +Gesellschaft</i>, 1880, xxxiv, 710; L. H. Gray, “Der iranische Kalender,” +Geiger and Kuhn’s <i>Grundriss der iranischen Philologie</i>, ii, 675 +<i>sq.</i> There is extant a Pehlevi tract, said to have been composed +in Persia during the fourth century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, which mentions among +other matters five days in every month, namely, the 1st, 7th, 14th, +22d, and 30th, as times to be observed by abstinence from all worldly +business. The manuscript sets forth in detail the peculiar virtues of all +the days of one of the Zoroastrian months. “Some are best for beginning +a journey or voyage, others for the regulation of matters of domestic +economy, some again for social gatherings and festivities, and others +again for the pursuit of learning, while not a few are reserved for rest +and pious contemplation.” These precepts are no longer observed; in fact, +their very existence is unknown to most Parsis at the present day. See D. +F. Karaka, <i>History of the Parsis</i>, London, 1884, i, 132 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_500" href="#FNanchor_500" class="label">[500]</a> <i>Pyramid Texts</i>, § 521 (= Teti, l. 12); compare +<i>ibid.</i>, § 1453 (= Pepi, l. 657 = Mernere, ll. 763-764). Professor +J. H. Breasted of the University of Chicago has very kindly furnished me +with a translation of these passages, based on the monumental edition of +the texts prepared by K. Sethe (<i>Die altägyptischen Pyramidentexte</i>, +Leipzig, 1908-1910).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_501" href="#FNanchor_501" class="label">[501]</a> <i>The Book of the Dead</i> (Theban Recension), chs. +cxxxv, cxl (<i>The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day</i>, translated by +E. A. W. Budge, London, 1898, pp. 218, 230). See also H. Brugsch, “Über +die Hieroglyphe des Neumondes und ihre verschiedenen Bedeutungen,” +<i>Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft</i>, 1856, x, +676.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_502" href="#FNanchor_502" class="label">[502]</a> J. H. Breasted, <i>Ancient Records of Egypt</i>, Chicago, +1906, i, 285. See further E. Mahler, <i>Études sur le calendrier +égyptien</i>, Paris, 1907, p. 128; <i>idem</i>, in <i>Zeitschrift der +deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft</i>, 1908, lxii, 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_503" href="#FNanchor_503" class="label">[503]</a> Breasted, <i>op. cit.</i>, ii, 184; for an earlier +translation see S. Birch, in <i>Records of the Past</i>, ii, 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_504" href="#FNanchor_504" class="label">[504]</a> H. Brugsch, <i>Thesaurus inscriptionum Ægyptiacarum</i>, +Leipzig, 1883-1891, pt. i, 30 <i>sqq.</i>, 49 <i>sqq.</i>; <i>idem</i>, +<i>Die Ägyptologie</i>, Leipzig, 1891, pp. 332 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_505" href="#FNanchor_505" class="label">[505]</a> Brugsch, <i>Thesaurus</i>, pt. i, 52; <i>idem</i>, +<i>Ägyptologie</i>, p. 332.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_506" href="#FNanchor_506" class="label">[506]</a> Compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Ägyptologie</i>, p. 334; E. Meyer, +“Ägyptische Chronologie,” <i>Abhandlungen der königlich-preussischen +Akademie der Wissenschaften</i>, 1904, p. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_507" href="#FNanchor_507" class="label">[507]</a> Herodotus, ii, 47; Plutarch, <i>De Iside et Osiride</i>, +8, 43, 52; Frazer, <i>Adonis, Attis, Osiris</i>,³ ii, 129-131; Budge, +<i>Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection</i>, i, 384-396.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_508" href="#FNanchor_508" class="label">[508]</a> J. Meursius, <i>Græcia feriata, sive de festis +Græcorum</i>, Lugduni Batavorum, 1619, pp. 210-214; F. G. Welcker, +<i>Griechische Götterlehre</i>, Göttingen, 1857, i, 554 <i>sq.</i>; +W. H. Roscher, <i>Über Selene und Verwandtes</i>, pp. 110 <i>sq.</i>; +<i>idem</i>, in <i>Philologus</i>, 1898, lvii, 216, 218; E. Saglio, +“Noumenia,” Daremberg and Saglio’s <i>Dictionnaire des antiquités +grecques et romaines</i>, iv, 108. The word νουμηνία occasionally was +used in the sense of the true or astronomical new moon (Thucydides, ii, +28).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_509" href="#FNanchor_509" class="label">[509]</a> <i>Odyssey</i>, xxi, 258 <i>sq.</i>: νῦν μὲν γὰρ κατὰ +δῆμον ἑορτὴ τοῖο θεοῖο ἁγνή· τίς δέ κε τόξα τιταίνοιτ’; Compare +<i>ibid.</i>, xiv, 158-162, xx, 156, 276-278.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_510" href="#FNanchor_510" class="label">[510]</a> <i>Opera et dies</i>, 770.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_511" href="#FNanchor_511" class="label">[511]</a> Aristophanes, <i>Nubes</i>, 615-619; <i>idem</i>, +<i>Acharnenses</i>, 999; <i>idem</i>, <i>Vespæ</i>, 96; Demosthenes, +<i>Adv. Aristogiton</i>, i, 99; Athenæus, <i>Deipnosophistæ</i>, xii, 76; +Plutarch, <i>Quæstiones Romanæ</i>, 25; <i>idem</i>, <i>De vitando ære +alieno</i>, 2; Porphyry, <i>De abstinentia</i>, ii, 16; Theophrastus, +<i>Characteres</i>, 14; Lucian, <i>Icaromenippus</i>, 13; <i>idem</i>, +<i>Lexiphanes</i>, 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_512" href="#FNanchor_512" class="label">[512]</a> Aristophanes, <i>Vespæ</i>, 171; <i>idem</i>, +<i>Equites</i>, 43 <i>sq.</i>; Alciphron, <i>Epistolæ</i>, iii, 38; +Porphyry, <i>De abstinentia</i>, ii, 129; Proclus, on Hesiod, <i>Opera +et dies</i>, 780; Suidas, <i>s.v.</i> νουμηνία (ed. G. Bernhardy, Halle, +1853, ii, 1010).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_513" href="#FNanchor_513" class="label">[513]</a> <i>Hymni Homerici</i>, xxxii, 11; Plutarch, <i>De gloria +Atheniensis</i>, 7; <i>idem</i>, <i>Dion</i>, 23. Hesiod (<i>op. +cit.</i>, 819, compare 794 <i>sqq.</i>) describes the 14th of the month +as “above all a holy day” (περὶ πάντων ἱερὸν ἦμαρ).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_514" href="#FNanchor_514" class="label">[514]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_515" href="#FNanchor_515" class="label">[515]</a> Macrobius, <i>Saturnalia</i>, i, 15, 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_516" href="#FNanchor_516" class="label">[516]</a> Ovid, <i>Fasti</i>, i, 47; Plutarch, <i>Quæstiones +Romanæ</i>, 24; Vergil, <i>Bucolica</i>, i, 43 <i>sq.</i>; Horace, +<i>Carmina</i>, iii, 23, 1 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_517" href="#FNanchor_517" class="label">[517]</a> Macrobius, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 15, 15; Ovid, <i>op. +cit.</i>, i, 48 <i>sq.</i>; Lydus, <i>De mensibus</i>, iii, 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_518" href="#FNanchor_518" class="label">[518]</a> Wissowa, <i>Religion und Kultus der Römer</i>, p. 369; +compare T. Mommsen, in <i>Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum</i>, i, pt. i,² +297.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_519" href="#FNanchor_519" class="label">[519]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_520" href="#FNanchor_520" class="label">[520]</a> Varro, <i>De lingua Latina</i>, 29; Ovid, <i>Fasti</i>, +i, 59 <i>sq.</i>; Livy, vi, 1; Plutarch, <i>Quæstiones Romanæ</i>, 25; +Gellius, <i>Noctes Atticæ</i>, iv, 9, 5; Macrobius, <i>Saturnalia</i>, +i, 16, 18. These days were also described as <i>atri vel vitiosi</i>. +The greater number of them were available for judicial business, but not +for meetings of the assemblies (<i>dies fasti non comitiales</i>). Many +Romans also regarded as ominous the fourth day before the Kalends, Nones, +and Ides; according to one account because the battle of Cannæ took place +on the fourth day before the Nones of the month Sextilis (Gellius, <i>op. +cit.</i>, v, 17, 3).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_521" href="#FNanchor_521" class="label">[521]</a> Verrius Flaccus, <i>ap.</i> Gellius, <i>op. cit.</i>, v, +17; Macrobius, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 16, 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_522" href="#FNanchor_522" class="label">[522]</a> On this point I am happy to find myself in agreement with +Dr. W. Warde Fowler, who also regards the traditional explanation of +the <i>dies postriduani</i> as an ætiological myth. “The fact that the +authorities of the state had made one or two days <i>religiosi</i> as +anniversaries of disasters, supplied a handy explanation for a number +of other <i>dies religiosi</i> of which the true explanation had been +entirely lost; but that there was such a true explanation, resting on +very primitive beliefs, I have very little doubt” (<i>The Religious +Experience of the Roman People</i>, London, 1911, p. 40). Dr. Fowler in +a letter (under date Dec. 9, 1911) tells me that he regards as “quite +probable” the suggestion in the text that these days were originally +tabooed in consequence of lunar superstitions attaching to them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_523" href="#FNanchor_523" class="label">[523]</a> <i>Geographica</i>, iii, 4, 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_524" href="#FNanchor_524" class="label">[524]</a> <i>Germania</i>, 9, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_525" href="#FNanchor_525" class="label">[525]</a> Isidorus Hispalensis, <i>Etymologiæ sive origines</i>, v, +33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_526" href="#FNanchor_526" class="label">[526]</a> J. K. Fotheringham, “Calendar (Introductory),” Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 61-64; F. K. Ginzel, +<i>Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie</i>, Leipzig, +1906-1911, ii, 121-159; E. Meyer, <i>Geschichte des Altertums</i>, +Erster Band, Erste Hälfte, Berlin, 1907, pp. 231-243; R. Schram, +“Jahrform und Zeitrechnung verschiedener Völker,” <i>Mitteilungen der +kaiserlich-königlichen geographischen Gesellschaft in Wien</i>, 1884, +xxvii, 481-498; M. Hubert, “Étude sommaire de la représentation du +temps dans la religion et la magie,” in Hubert and Mauss, <i>Mélanges +d’histoire des religions</i>, Paris, 1909, pp. 189-229.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_527" href="#FNanchor_527" class="label">[527]</a> The lunar or synodic month, determined by the synodic +revolution of the moon, is the time between two successive conjunctions +of that luminary with the sun, and may be measured from new moon to new +moon or from full to full. It varies about thirteen hours by reason of +eccentricities of the moon’s orbit and of that of the earth about the +sun, but its mean value is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3 seconds. +The length of the “light month,” or period of the moon’s visibility, +though commonly taken at three days, is a variable quantity. It is the +usual practice to assume that the moon becomes visible on the first +evening when she is more than thirty hours old at sunset. Her mean age +when first seen is, therefore, 30 hours + 24/2 hours = 1 day, 18 hours. +See J. K. Fotheringham, “On the Smallest Visible Phase of the Moon,” +<i>Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society</i>, 1910, lxx, +527-531.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_528" href="#FNanchor_528" class="label">[528]</a> E. J. Payne, <i>History of the New World called +America</i>, Oxford, 1892-1899, ii, 329, 331; E. Förstemann, in +<i>Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology</i>, 1904, no. 28, p. 523 +(Maya pre-solar calendar).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_529" href="#FNanchor_529" class="label">[529]</a> Horapollo, <i>Hieroglyphica</i>, i, 4; compare H. Brugsch, +in <i>Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft</i>, +1856, x, 676; C. R. Lepsius, <i>Die Chronologie der Ägypter</i>, +Berlin, 1849, i, 156 <i>sq.</i>, 219; E. Meyer, “Ägyptische +Chronologie,” <i>Abhandlungen der königlich-preussischen Akademie der +Wissenschaften</i>, Berlin, 1904, pp. 5 <i>sqq.</i> Papyri discovered +by Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie at Kahun, belonging to the age of +Sesostris III, show that a lunar year of three hundred and fifty-five +days was still recognized as late as the Twelfth Dynasty. These papyri +relate to the temple revenues, which the priests, with characteristic +religious conservatism, were accustomed to reckon according to lunar +months (seven of thirty days and five of twenty-nine days). See L. +Borchardt, in <i>Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache</i>, 1899, xxxvii, +92-95.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_530" href="#FNanchor_530" class="label">[530]</a> Below, pp. <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_531" href="#FNanchor_531" class="label">[531]</a> O. Schrader, <i>Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan +Peoples</i>, translated by F. B. Jevons, London, 1890, p. 306; +<i>idem</i>, <i>Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde</i>, +Strassburg, 1901, p. 547.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_532" href="#FNanchor_532" class="label">[532]</a> R. Andree, “Die Plejaden im Mythus und in ihrer Beziehung +zum Jahresbeginn und Landbau,” <i>Globus</i>, 1893, lxiv, 362-366; Sir J. +G. Frazer, <i>Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild</i>, London, 1912, i, +307-319; E. Förstemann, “The Pleiades among the Mayas,” <i>Bulletin of +the Bureau of American Ethnology</i>, 1904, no. 28, pp. 523 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_533" href="#FNanchor_533" class="label">[533]</a> The lunar year of twelve synodic months consists, exactly, +of 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, and 36 seconds. The Maori have a +legend to the effect that their ancient year contained ten months only, +until a certain teacher, full of divine wisdom, instructed them to +make their year twelve months long (E. Tregear, <i>The Maori Race</i>, +Wanganui [N.Z.], 1904, p. 143). The Chinese have a similar tradition of +a ten-month year (H. A. Giles, <i>A Glossary of References on Subjects +connected with the Far East</i>,³ Shanghai, 1900, p. 183). The Roman +“year of Romulus” consisted of ten months and (commonly) three hundred +and four days (Censorinus, <i>De die natali</i>, xx, 2-3; Lydus, <i>De +mensibus</i>, i, 16). Sceptical modern historians are inclined to dismiss +the Roman tradition as a mere figment of the imagination.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_534" href="#FNanchor_534" class="label">[534]</a> The thirteenth month is referred to in the <i>Rig-Veda</i> +(i, 25, 8; transl. H. Grassmann, ii, 25) as the “later-born month”; +compare <i>Atharva-Veda</i>, v, 6, 4, xiii, 3, 8 (transl. W. D. Whitney, +pp. 230, 729). This intercalary month bears a distinctly unfavourable +character, being regarded as unfit for any religious undertaking (Haug, +<i>Aitareya Brahmanam</i>, ii, 26). Among the Loango negroes the +thirteenth month, inserted every three years, is likewise regarded as an +evil time (E. Pechuël-Loesche, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 138 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_535" href="#FNanchor_535" class="label">[535]</a> The old Roman arrangement of the months, though based +on the lunar year, is <i>sui generis</i>. Four of the twelve months, +viz., March, May, July, and October, had thirty-one days, and the rest +twenty-nine days, except February, which had twenty-eight days. All +the months thus had an odd number of days, save February, which was +specially devoted to purificatory ceremonies and the cult of the dead. +This peculiar arrangement appears to have been based on an old belief +that odd numbers are of good omen, even numbers, of ill omen (T. Mommsen, +<i>Die römische Chronologie bis auf Cæsar</i>, Berlin, 1858, p. 13; +Marquardt-Wissowa, <i>Römische Staatsverwaltung</i>, iii,² 284). The +superstition, alluded to by Vergil in a famous line—<i>Numero deus +impare gaudet</i> (<i>Bucolica</i>, viii, 75)—is supposed to have been +derived from Pythagorean speculations regarding the cosmic properties of +numbers. It may better be considered a genuinely Italian notion, since +like beliefs are found in the folklore of other peoples, notably the +old Arabs and the modern Hindus. See I. Goldziher, in <i>Globus</i>, +1901, lxxx, 31; Crooke, <i>Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern +India</i>,² ii, 51. The choice of 355 days, rather than 354 days, as +the length of the Roman lunar year, was undoubtedly determined by the +prevalence of the same superstition (Censorinus, <i>De die natali</i>, +xx, 4).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_536" href="#FNanchor_536" class="label">[536]</a> This custom explains the widespread practice of beginning +the civil day at sunset or, more accurately, in the interval between +the going-down of the sun and complete darkness. The necessities of a +calendar system requiring that the first day of the month should be +counted from the same moment that the month itself is supposed to begin, +it follows that the other days of the month must also be calculated from +evening to evening. The noctidiurnal cycle is widespread throughout the +lower culture, being found, generally, among the North American Indians, +the Melanesians and Polynesians, and in Africa. The same cycle obtained +among many peoples of archaic civilization. The Babylonian day began with +the evening, and this is still the custom among the Arabs and throughout +the Mohammedan world. Modern Jewish communities, in beginning their +ritual day in the evening, retain a practice illustrated by several Old +Testament passages (<i>Genesis</i>, i, 5; <i>Psalms</i>, lv, 17). Various +festivals and fasts, such as the Sabbath, the Day of Atonement, and the +Feast of Unleavened Bread, were so arranged as to begin and end with +the evening. Among most of the Indo-Germanic peoples the civil day, or +nycthemeron, commenced at sunset; and the practice, which still survives +in Iceland, was not abandoned in Italy and some other parts of Europe +until about a century ago. Our English words “fortnight” and “sennight” +are reminiscent of this ancient custom. See G. A. Wilken, “Het tellen bij +nachten bij de volken van het maleisch-polynesische ras,” <i>Bijdragen +tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië</i>, +1886, fifth series, pt. i, 378-392; A. Fischer, “‘Tag und Nacht’ +im arabischen und die semitische Tagesberechnung,” <i>Abhandlungen +der philologisch-historischen Klasse der königlichsächsischen +Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften</i>, 1909, xxvii, 741-758; O. Schrader, +<i>Reallexikon</i>, p. 845; S. Reinach, “Die,” in Daremberg and Saglio, +<i>op. cit.</i>, iii, 168 <i>sq.</i>, G. Bilfinger, <i>Der bürgerliche +Tag</i>, Stuttgart, 1888.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_537" href="#FNanchor_537" class="label">[537]</a> Rivers, <i>Todas</i>, pp. 590 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_538" href="#FNanchor_538" class="label">[538]</a> J. Sechefo, “The Twelve Lunar Months among the Basuto,” +<i>Anthropos</i>, 1909, iv, 931 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_539" href="#FNanchor_539" class="label">[539]</a> Below, pp. <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> +<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_540" href="#FNanchor_540" class="label">[540]</a> James Dawson, <i>Australian Aborigines</i>, Melbourne, +1881, p. xcix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_541" href="#FNanchor_541" class="label">[541]</a> S. Gason, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1895, xxiv, 174.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_542" href="#FNanchor_542" class="label">[542]</a> Spencer and Gillen, <i>The Native Tribes of Central +Australia</i>, London, 1897, pp. 25, 564 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_543" href="#FNanchor_543" class="label">[543]</a> B. Hagen, <i>Unter den Papua’s</i>, Wiesbaden, 1899, p. +244.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_544" href="#FNanchor_544" class="label">[544]</a> George Brown, <i>Melanesians and Polynesians</i>, London, +1910, p. 332.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_545" href="#FNanchor_545" class="label">[545]</a> V. de Rochas, <i>La Nouvelle-Calédonie</i>, Paris, 1862, +p. 191.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_546" href="#FNanchor_546" class="label">[546]</a> Nieuwenhuis, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_547" href="#FNanchor_547" class="label">[547]</a> C. Bock, <i>Head-hunters of Borneo</i>,² London, 1882, p. +212.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_548" href="#FNanchor_548" class="label">[548]</a> William Marsden, <i>The History of Sumatra</i>,³ London, +1811, p. 194; compare B. Hagen, <i>Die Orang Kubu auf Sumatra</i>, +Frankfurt-a.-M., 1908, p. 154.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_549" href="#FNanchor_549" class="label">[549]</a> E. Modigliani, <i>Un viaggio a Nias</i>, Milan, 1890, pp. +4, 484; A. Maass, <i>Bei liebenswürdigen Wilden</i>, Berlin, 1902, p. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_550" href="#FNanchor_550" class="label">[550]</a> E. H. Man, in <i>Indian Antiquary</i>, 1897, xxvi, 270 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_551" href="#FNanchor_551" class="label">[551]</a> <i>Idem</i>, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1883, xii, 337.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_552" href="#FNanchor_552" class="label">[552]</a> A. E. Jenks, in <i>Ethnological Survey Publications</i>, +Manila, 1905, i, 219; O. Scheerer, <i>ibid.</i>, ii, 158.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_553" href="#FNanchor_553" class="label">[553]</a> F. W. Christian, <i>The Caroline Islands</i>, +London, 1899, pp. 387 <i>sq.</i>, 392 <i>sqq.</i>; M. Girschner, in +<i>Baessler-Archiv</i>, 1911, ii, 175 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_554" href="#FNanchor_554" class="label">[554]</a> The Maori counted twenty-eight “nights” of the moon, +including: 1. <i>noni hope</i>, the moon is in the <i>reinga</i>, or +underworld; 4. <i>he oho ata</i>, the moon is visible; 5. <i>ouenuku</i>, +it begins to rise a little way; 6. <i>maweti</i>, it rises still higher; +14. <i>he atua</i>, full; 19. <i>he ohika</i>, the moon begins to +wane; 24. <i>tanagaroa a roto</i>, it sinks into the sea; 28. <i>he o +mutu</i>, it disappears (Taylor, <i>Te Ika A Maui</i>, p. 177). To the +Society Islanders the fifteenth day was <i>omarae</i>, or the moon with +a round and full face; the thirtieth day, <i>oterieo</i>, was the time +when the moon dies or is changed (Ellis, <i>Polynesian Researches</i>, +i, 87 <i>sq.</i>). In the Hervey group several of the moon nights were +sacred to the gods. The twenty-eighth day was called <i>mauri</i>—ghost; +the twenty-ninth, <i>omutu</i>—ended; the thirtieth, <i>otire o +avaiki</i>—lost in the depths of <i>avaiki</i>, or Hades (W. W. Gill, +<i>Myths and Songs from the South Pacific</i>, London, 1876, p. 318). +For a table of the days of the moon’s age in the Maori, Moriori, +Hawaiian, Tahitian, Marquesan, and Rarotongan languages see Tregear, +<i>Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary</i>, p. 666.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_555" href="#FNanchor_555" class="label">[555]</a> Hollis, <i>Nandi</i>, pp. 95 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_556" href="#FNanchor_556" class="label">[556]</a> Dennett, <i>At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind</i>, p. +186.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_557" href="#FNanchor_557" class="label">[557]</a> J. Spieth, <i>Die Ewe-Stämme</i>, Berlin, 1906, p. 556; +L. Schultze, <i>Aus Namaland und Kalahari</i>, Jena, 1907, p. 370. The +Hottentots now use the European week (Schultze, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 372).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_558" href="#FNanchor_558" class="label">[558]</a> F. Krause, <i>In den Wildnissen Brasiliens</i>, Leipzig, +1911, p. 339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_559" href="#FNanchor_559" class="label">[559]</a> C. Thomas, “Calendar,” <i>Handbook of American +Indians</i>, pt. i, 189 (<i>Bulletin of the Bureau of American +Ethnology</i>, no. 30).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_560" href="#FNanchor_560" class="label">[560]</a> <i>Koran</i>, ii, 185. Even at the present time the south +Arabians determine the day of the month by observation of the moon’s +phases, the first quarter being called, for example, the seventh day, +and the last quarter, the twenty-first day (Nielsen, <i>Altarabische +Mondreligion</i>, p. 85, referring to Dr. Glaser’s observations).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_561" href="#FNanchor_561" class="label">[561]</a> The mean age of the moon when first seen being 30 hours ++ 24/2 hours = 1 day, 18 hours (above, p. <a href="#Page_174">174</a> <i>n.</i>¹), and the mean +age of the moon when full being (29 days, 12 + hours)/2 = 14 days, 18 +hours, it follows that the mean interval between the first appearance +of the moon and the full of the moon is about 13 days. “In other words +the moon becomes full on an average at the end of the thirteenth day +and the beginning of the fourteenth night. Hence, where the days are +reckoned from sunset, we should expect the fourteenth day of the month +to be regarded as the day of the full moon. And it is in fact one of +the days most commonly so regarded. The fifteenth is a date obtained +more simply. Fifteen is half thirty and, as the middle of the month, +should be the date of full moon. In calendars based on calculations the +month is frequently reckoned from the actual new moon, and in these the +fifteenth is more correct than the fourteenth for the mean date of full +moon.” It should be noted, also, that, as a general rule, the nearer the +autumnal equinox, the later the first appearance of the moon and the +shorter the interval between the visible new moon and full moon. If the +first appearance is late, as it often is in September, the moon might be +full on the night following the eleventh day. See J. K. Fotheringham, in +<i>Proceedings of the British Academy</i>, 1909-1910, pp. 283, 286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_562" href="#FNanchor_562" class="label">[562]</a> R. Thurnwald, <i>Forschungen auf den Salomo-Inseln und dem +Bismarck Archipel</i>, Berlin, 1912-1913, i, 330 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_563" href="#FNanchor_563" class="label">[563]</a> E. Tregear, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1890, xix, 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_564" href="#FNanchor_564" class="label">[564]</a> L. H. Gray, “Calendar (Polynesian),” Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 130; J. v. Brenner, +<i>Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras</i>, Würzburg, 1894, p. 233; R. +Friederich, in <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society</i>, 1878, n.s., +x, 93 <i>sq.</i>; Modigliani, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 464.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_565" href="#FNanchor_565" class="label">[565]</a> A. Weber, in <i>Indische Studien</i>, 1853, ii, 166 +<i>n.</i>*; H. Zimmer, <i>Altindisches Leben</i>, Berlin, 1879, p. +364; G. Thibaut, “Astronomie, Astrologie, und Mathematik,” Bühler’s +<i>Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde</i>, iii, +pt. ix, 12. This lunar fortnight of the Hindus attracted the attention +of the Romans, and Quintus Curtius speaks of it as a noteworthy fact +(<i>Historiæ Alexandri Magni</i>, viii, 9). References to it are also +found in mediæval literature; compare Albîrûnî, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 359.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_566" href="#FNanchor_566" class="label">[566]</a> G. E. Balfour, <i>The Cyclopædia of India</i>,³ ii, 981; +Sewell and Dikshit, <i>The Indian Calendar</i>, London, 1896, p. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_567" href="#FNanchor_567" class="label">[567]</a> Childers, <i>Dictionary of the Pali Language</i>, +<i>s.v.</i> <i>parācadasí</i>; A. Cabaton, in Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia +of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 136 (as to the Siamese); Shway Yoe, +<i>The Burman</i>,³ p. 550; A. Cabaton, in Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia +of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 113 <i>sq.</i> (as to the Cambodians, +Chams, and Laotians); H. Vámbéry, <i>Die primitive Cultur des +turko-tatarischen Volkes</i>, Leipzig, 1879, p. 160; Carl Hiekisch, +<i>Die Tungusen</i>, St. Petersburg, 1879, p. 94. In Tibet the fifteenth +day of the lunar month receives a special name (A. Csoma de Körös, <i>A +Grammar of the Tibetan Language</i>, Calcutta, 1834, p. 157).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_568" href="#FNanchor_568" class="label">[568]</a> <i>Yašt</i>, vii, 2 (<i>S. B. E.</i>, xxiii, 89).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_569" href="#FNanchor_569" class="label">[569]</a> <i>Odyssey</i>, xiv, 162; xix, 307: τοῦ μὲν φθίνοντος +μηνός, τοῦ δ’ ἱσταμένοιο; Hesiod, <i>Opera et dies</i>, 780: μηνὸς δ’ +ἱσταμένου τριςκαιδεκάτην.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_570" href="#FNanchor_570" class="label">[570]</a> G. F. Unger, “Zeitrechnung der Griechen und Römer,” Iwan +von Müller’s <i>Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft</i>, +i, 563. However, evidence is not wanting for the observance of the +fourteenth day, and even of the sixteenth day, as that of the full moon. +See A. Mommsen, <i>Chronologie</i>, Leipzig, 1883, pp. 99 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_571" href="#FNanchor_571" class="label">[571]</a> The Greeks never knew the exact mean measurement of a +lunation and, owing to their neglect of the odd minutes and seconds +in the lunar month, they were obliged occasionally to intercalate an +additional day. From a passage in Aristophanes it would appear that +this pious duty to the gods was not always performed (<i>Nubes</i>, 610 +<i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_572" href="#FNanchor_572" class="label">[572]</a> T. Mommsen, <i>Römische Chronologie</i>, pp. +13 <i>sq.</i>, 215 <i>sq.</i>; Marquardt-Wissowa, <i>Römische +Staatsverwaltung</i>, iii,² 282 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_573" href="#FNanchor_573" class="label">[573]</a> Macrobius, <i>Saturnalia</i>, i, 15, 10; Varro, <i>De +lingua Latina</i>, vi, 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_574" href="#FNanchor_574" class="label">[574]</a> The <i>nonæ</i>, or Nones, were so called because, by the +Roman inclusive reckoning, they fell on the ninth day (<i>nonus</i>) +before the Ides (Varro, <i>loc. cit.</i>). Plutarch’s derivation from +<i>novus</i>, new or young, referring to the waxing moon, is without +justification (<i>Quæstiones Romanæ</i>, 24). On the etymology of +<i>idus</i> see Walde, <i>Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch</i>,² +p. 375. The Romans had no name, corresponding to <i>nonæ</i>, for the +last quarter of the moon. It has been argued, therefore, that the +Nones never marked the first quarter and that they were introduced, +quite artificially, during the regal period (R. Flex, <i>Die älteste +Monatseinteilung der Römer</i>, Jena, 1880, pp. 5 <i>sq.</i>, 24 +<i>sqq.</i>, 36, 42).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_575" href="#FNanchor_575" class="label">[575]</a> Tacitus, <i>Germania</i>, 11: <i>cum aut inchoatur luna +aut impletur</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_576" href="#FNanchor_576" class="label">[576]</a> J. Loth, “L’année celtique d’après les textes irlandais, +gallois, bretons, et le calendrier de Coligny,” <i>Revue celtique</i>, +1904, xxv, 131; R. Thurneysen, “Die Namen der Wochentage in den +keltischen Dialecten,” <i>Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung</i>, +1901, i, 191.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_577" href="#FNanchor_577" class="label">[577]</a> The long inscription, engraved on a bronze tablet, which +forms the Calendar of Coligny, was discovered in 1897 near the city of +Lyons. See S. de Ricci, “Le calendrier gaulois de Coligny,” <i>Revue +celtique</i>, 1898, xix, 213-223; R. Thurneysen, “Der Kalender von +Coligny,” <i>Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie</i>, 1899, ii, 523-544; +Sir John Rhŷs, “The Coligny Calendar,” <i>Proceedings of the British +Academy</i>, 1909-1910, pp. 207 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_578" href="#FNanchor_578" class="label">[578]</a> Loth, <i>loc. cit.</i>; Rhŷs, <i>Celtic Heathendom</i>,³ +London, 1898, pp. 360 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_579" href="#FNanchor_579" class="label">[579]</a> Horapollo, <i>Hieroglyphica</i>, i, 4; Brugsch, +<i>Ägyptologie</i>, p. 331; E. Mahler, in <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic +Society</i>, 1901, n.s., xxxiii, 55 <i>sqq.</i> Mahler’s hypothesis that +the Egyptians looked upon the full moon as the completion of the lunation +is not improbable; there are several passages in the Vedas where the +full moon is indicated as the end of the month and at the same time as +the beginning of the next month (Thibaut, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 12). The +evidence yielded by the Calendar of Coligny has been thought to imply +that originally the Sequani of Gaul counted the months from full moon to +full moon (R. Thurneysen, in <i>Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie</i>, +1899, ii, 526). The Melanesians of New Georgia do not seem to calculate +long periods of time at all: “one full moon to another is as far as they +usually go” (B. T. Somerville, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1897, xxvi, 404).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_580" href="#FNanchor_580" class="label">[580]</a> Payne, <i>op. cit.</i>, ii, 310, 323 <i>sqq.</i>, 355 +<i>sqq.</i>; J. de Acosta, <i>op. cit.</i>, bk. vi, ch. 2 (ed. C. R. +Markham, ii, 393); H. H. Bancroft, <i>The Native Races of the Pacific +States of North America</i>, ii, 515 <i>sq.</i> For other and less +plausible reasons leading to the choice of the number thirteen, see C. P. +Bowditch, <i>The Numeration, Calendar Systems, and Astronomical Knowledge +of the Mayas</i>, Cambridge (Mass.), 1910, pp. 266 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_581" href="#FNanchor_581" class="label">[581]</a> V. Restrepo, <i>Los Chibchas antes de la conquista +española</i>, Bogota, 1895, p. 162; Garcilasso de la Vega, <i>op. +cit.</i>, pt. i, bk. ii, ch. 23 (transl. C. R. Markham, i, 181).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_582" href="#FNanchor_582" class="label">[582]</a> Ellis, <i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 143 <i>sq.</i> +The Benin tribes are said to employ the same method of reckoning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_583" href="#FNanchor_583" class="label">[583]</a> <i>Idem</i>, <i>Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 215 +<i>sq.</i> The Ga tribes have an exactly similar mode of measuring time, +though their names for the days of the week are not the same as those +used by the Tshi. With both the Tshi and Ga the full moon marks the +commencement of the third week of 7⅜ days and, with the Yoruba, the +commencement of the fourth week of 5 days, in each case marking the lapse +of half a month.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_584" href="#FNanchor_584" class="label">[584]</a> R. Taylor, <i>Te Ika A Maui</i>, London, 1855, p. 177. +When the Maori adopted the European week, they gave native names to three +of the weekdays. Sunday they called “the week,” <i>te wiki</i>, because +on that day the week began, Saturday was <i>te ra horoi</i>, or washing +and cleaning-up day, a name derived from their observation of European +customs at that time, and Friday was <i>te ra oka</i>, or bleeding +day, so named because the missionaries killed their pigs on Friday in +order to be able to cut them up on Saturday and dispose of them before +Sunday. The remaining weekdays had naturalized names, viz., <i>manei</i>, +<i>turei</i>, <i>wenerei</i>, and <i>tairei</i> (<i>ibid.</i>, pp. 176 +<i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_585" href="#FNanchor_585" class="label">[585]</a> Malo, <i>Hawaiian Antiquities</i>, p. 54; N. B. Emerson, +in <i>ibid.</i>, p. 200; Fornander, <i>Account of the Polynesian +Race</i>, i, 120 <i>sq.</i> On the Hawaiian Sabbaths see above, pp. <a href="#Page_14">14</a> +<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_586" href="#FNanchor_586" class="label">[586]</a> Christian, <i>Caroline Islands</i>, p. 394.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_587" href="#FNanchor_587" class="label">[587]</a> <i>Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States</i>, +edited by Scott and Hardiman, pt. i, vol. i, p. 434; H. J. Wehrli, +<i>Beitrag zur Ethnologie der Chingpaw (Kachin) von Ober-Burma</i>, +Leiden, 1904, p. 68 (<i>Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie</i>, vol. +xvi, Supplement).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_588" href="#FNanchor_588" class="label">[588]</a> A. Cabaton, “Calendar (Indo-Chinese),” Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_589" href="#FNanchor_589" class="label">[589]</a> T. L. Bullock and L. H. Gray, “Calendar (Chinese),” +<i>ibid.</i>, iii, 83. The names of the three decades are said to be +<i>shang</i>, <i>chung</i>, and <i>hea</i> (Robert Morrison, <i>A View of +China for Philological Purposes</i>, Macao, 1817, p. 104).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_590" href="#FNanchor_590" class="label">[590]</a> E. W. Clement, “Calendar (Japanese),” Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 115.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_591" href="#FNanchor_591" class="label">[591]</a> Fitzgerald, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 111.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_592" href="#FNanchor_592" class="label">[592]</a> De Faria, in Astley’s <i>A New General Collection of +Voyages and Travels</i>, London, 1746, iii, 397. The eighth day of the +new moon was considered most unlucky by the Sofalese. No one on that day +was allowed to attend court or even speak to the king (<i>ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_593" href="#FNanchor_593" class="label">[593]</a> E. Torday, in <i>Mitteilungen der anthropologischen +Gesellschaft in Wien</i>, 1911, xli, 200.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_594" href="#FNanchor_594" class="label">[594]</a> Ellis, <i>Yoruba-speaking Peoples</i>, p. 144. The first +period, called <i>adai</i>, is considered lucky; the second, called +<i>ajamfo</i>, is unlucky; while <i>adim</i>, the third period, has a +neutral character (John Beecham, <i>Ashantee and the Gold Coast</i>, +London, 1841, p. 187). An old writer asserts that the negroes living +inland from the Gold Coast count in every month the “great fortunate +time,” nineteen days in length, and the “lesser fortunate time,” of seven +days’ duration. Between these periods come seven ill or unfortunate +days which serve as “a sort of vacation to them, for then they do not +travel, till their land, or undertake anything of consequence, but remain +altogether idle” (W. Bosman, <i>A New and Accurate Description of the +Coast of Guinea</i>, London, 1705, p. 160).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_595" href="#FNanchor_595" class="label">[595]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_596" href="#FNanchor_596" class="label">[596]</a> Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, in <i>Twenty-third Annual Report +of the Bureau of American Ethnology</i>, p. 108. It is only right to +add that Dr. J. W. Fewkes, an eminent authority on the Pueblo Indians, +expressed to me in conversation (July, 1912) his doubts as to the +correctness of Mrs. Stevenson’s statement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_597" href="#FNanchor_597" class="label">[597]</a> Lepsius, <i>Chronologie der Ägypter</i>, i, 131 +<i>sqq.</i>; Brugsch, <i>Thesaurus</i>, pt. i, 488 <i>sqq.</i>; +<i>idem</i>, <i>Ägyptologie</i>, p. 364. On the astrological connection +between the thirty-six decades of the twelve months and certain +constellations see G. Daressy, “Une ancienne liste des décans égyptiens,” +<i>Annales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte</i>, 1900, i, 79-90. The +old and once popular theory, based upon a misunderstanding of certain +passages in classical writers (Herodotus, ii, 82; Dio Cassius, xxxvii, +19), that the Egyptians originally possessed a week of seven days has now +been entirely abandoned. For some monumental evidence, dating from the +Twenty-second Dynasty, which may possibly refer to an hebdomadal cycle +then used in astronomical speculations, see G. Daressy, “La semaine des +Égyptiens,” <i>Annales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte</i>, 1909, +x, 21-23, 180-182.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_598" href="#FNanchor_598" class="label">[598]</a> Pollux, <i>Onomasticon</i>, i, 63; G. F. Unger, in Iwan +von Müller’s <i>Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft</i>, i, +563 <i>sqq.</i>; M. P. Nilsson, “<i>Die älteste griechische Zeitrechnung, +Apollo und der Orient</i>,” <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, +1911, xiv, 432 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_599" href="#FNanchor_599" class="label">[599]</a> Hesiod, <i>Opera et dies</i>, 765 <i>sqq.</i>; compare A. +W. Mair, <i>Hesiod</i>, Oxford, 1908, pp. 165 <i>sq.</i>; A. Mommsen, +<i>Chronologie</i>, Leipzig, 1883, p. 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_600" href="#FNanchor_600" class="label">[600]</a> E. Curtius, <i>History of Greece</i>, New York, 1871, ii, +58; C. E. Ruelle, “Calendarium,” Daremberg and Saglio’s <i>Dictionnaire +des antiquités grecques et romaines</i>, ii, 832.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_601" href="#FNanchor_601" class="label">[601]</a> W. H. Roscher, “Die enneadischen und hebdomadischen +Fristen und Wochen der ältesten Griechen,” <i>Abhandlungen der +philologisch-historischen Klasse der königlichsächsischen Gesellschaft +der Wissenschaften</i>, Leipzig, 1903, xxi, no. 4, pp. 14 <i>sqq.</i>; +<i>idem</i>, “Die Sieben- und Neunzahl im Kultus und Mythus der +Griechen,” <i>ibid.</i>, 1904, xxiv, no. 1, pp. 54, 69, 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_602" href="#FNanchor_602" class="label">[602]</a> K. Simrock, <i>Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie</i>,⁹ +Bonn, 1887, p. 156; E. Siecke, <i>Die Liebesgeschichte des Himmels</i>, +Strassburg, 1892, pp. 47 <i>sqq.</i>; K. Weinhold, “Die mystische +Neunzahl bei den Deutschen,” <i>Abhandlungen der königlich-preussischen +Akademie der Wissenschaften</i>, Berlin, 1897, pp. 40 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_603" href="#FNanchor_603" class="label">[603]</a> R. Thurneysen, “Die Namen der Wochentage in den keltischen +Dialecten,” <i>Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, 191. +J. Loth, however, regards the Celtic periods as having been employed as +ordinary weeks (“L’année celtique d’après les textes irlandais, gallois, +bretons, et le calendrier de Coligny,” <i>Revue celtique</i>, 1904, xxv, +136). He accepts Roscher’s theory of the sidereal month having furnished +the basis for such nine-day periods as are found among the Celts, and +argues that subsequently, when the sidereal month had been abandoned +for the synodic month, the nine-day periods became artificial units, +independent of any connection with the moon. But so strange a transition +as that from the sidereal to the synodic month cannot be supported by +any Celtic evidence and has no analogy among other peoples. For another +theory see Sir John Rhŷs, <i>Celtic Heathendom</i>,³ London, 1898, pp. +361-366.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_604" href="#FNanchor_604" class="label">[604]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, +<a href="#Page_109">109</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> +<i>sq.</i> The theory advanced by Theodor Mommsen that the Roman +<i>nundinum</i> originally represented a quadripartite division of the +lunation (<i>Römische Chronologie</i>, pp. 240 <i>sq.</i>) was afterwards +abandoned by its author (<i>Römisches Staatsrecht</i>, iii, 373). Compare +also R. Flex, <i>Die älteste Monatseinteilung der Römer</i>, Jena, 1880, +pp. 18 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_605" href="#FNanchor_605" class="label">[605]</a> E. Littmann, “Sternensagen und Astrologisches aus +Nordabessinien,” <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1908, xi, 302 +<i>sq.</i>, 319. In order to adapt the <i>‘sāmĕn</i> to the imported +hebdomadal cycle, Sunday is counted twice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_606" href="#FNanchor_606" class="label">[606]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>and</i> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_607" href="#FNanchor_607" class="label">[607]</a> A. Henry, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1903, xxxiii, 105. The Muhso, a Lao hill tribe, “have a +twelfth-day Sabbath or sacred day, not very definitely marked” (Daniel +McGilvary, <i>A Half Century among the Siamese and the Lāo</i>, New York +[1912], p. 323). Did this “Sabbath” originate as a market day, which at +first recurred every sixth day?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_608" href="#FNanchor_608" class="label">[608]</a> E. Gottschling, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1905, xxxv, 382.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_609" href="#FNanchor_609" class="label">[609]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_103">103</a> <i>sqq.</i>, +<a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> +<i>and</i> <i>n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>and</i> <i>n.</i>³, +<a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_610" href="#FNanchor_610" class="label">[610]</a> <i>The Oxyrhynchus Papyri</i>, edited by Grenfell and +Hunt, London, 1903, pt. iii, 126-137.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_611" href="#FNanchor_611" class="label">[611]</a> The data relating to the <i>khamushtu</i> are found in +some Cappadocian tablets discovered by Golénischeff and others in mounds +not far from Kaisariyeh. This city was a colony of Assyria and the last +outpost of Assyrian power in the northwest. The tablets are in Babylonian +cuneiform script belonging to the age of Hammurabi. Professor A. H. Sayce +in 1897 was the first to show that the term <i>khamushtu</i> in these +documents represented a continuous succession of five-day periods; and +Professor Hugo Winckler later made, independently, the same discovery. +See Sayce, in <i>Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology</i>, +1897, xix, 288; <i>idem</i>, in <i>Babyloniaca</i>, 1907, ii, 1-45; +Winckler, <i>Altorientalische Forschungen</i>, Leipzig, 1898-1900, ii, 91 +<i>sqq.</i>, 354 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_612" href="#FNanchor_612" class="label">[612]</a> For references to the cuneiform evidence see P. Jensen, +“Die siebentägige Woche in Babylon und Nineveh,” <i>Zeitschrift für +deutsche Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, 150 <i>sq.</i>; W. Muss-Arnolt, in +<i>Journal of Biblical Literature</i>, xi, 94; A. Jeremias, <i>The Old +Testament in the Light of the Ancient East</i>, London, 1911, i, 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_613" href="#FNanchor_613" class="label">[613]</a> G. Vígfússon, <i>An Icelandic-English Dictionary</i>, +Oxford, 1874, <i>s.v.</i> <i>fimt</i>; Vígfússon and Powell, <i>Corpus +Poeticum Boreale</i>, Oxford, 1883, i, pp. cxx, 428; F. B. Gummere, +<i>Germanic Origins</i>, New York, 1892, p. 418; T. F. Troels-Lund, +<i>Livsbelysning</i>, Copenhagen, 1904, pp. 13, 198. For the translation +of this last reference I am indebted to Mr. N. H. Debel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_614" href="#FNanchor_614" class="label">[614]</a> The Stseelis, an Indian tribe of British Columbia, have a +singular tradition that their ancestors used to observe a kind of Sabbath +ceremony long before the coming of the whites. The people assembled +every seventh day for dancing and praying. It is impossible to explain +this tradition apart from European influence at some remote time (C. +Hill-Tout, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1904, +xxxiv, 329).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_615" href="#FNanchor_615" class="label">[615]</a> L. Dahle, “The Influence of the Arabs on the Malagasy +Language,” <i>Antananarivo Annual</i>, 1875-1878, i, 205. In addition +to the Arabic seven-day week with its numbered weekdays, the Malagasy +also use, for astrological purposes, the planetary designations of the +weekdays. Of these, three are good or lucky days, three are unlucky, +and one has a neutral character. See J. Sibree, “Divination among the +Malagasy,” <i>Folklore</i>, 1892, iii, 220 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_616" href="#FNanchor_616" class="label">[616]</a> Soury-Lavergne and de la Devèze, in <i>Anthropos</i>, +1913, viii, 310 <i>n.</i>⁴; James Sibree, <i>The Great African +Island</i>, London, 1880, p. 281.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_617" href="#FNanchor_617" class="label">[617]</a> O. Kersten, editor, <i>Baron Carl Claus von der Decken’s +Reisen in Ost-Afrika</i>, Leipzig, 1869, i, 101.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_618" href="#FNanchor_618" class="label">[618]</a> M. Merker, <i>Die Masai</i>,² Berlin, 1910, pp. 157 +<i>sq.</i>, 327 <i>sq.</i>; compare Sir Charles Eliot, in A. C. Hollis, +<i>The Masai</i>, Oxford, 1905, p. xiv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_619" href="#FNanchor_619" class="label">[619]</a> C. W. Hobley, <i>Ethnology of the A-Kamba and Other East +African Tribes</i>, Cambridge, 1910, p. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_620" href="#FNanchor_620" class="label">[620]</a> J. L. Krapf, <i>Travels, Researches, and Missionary +Labours</i>, London, 1867, p. 82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_621" href="#FNanchor_621" class="label">[621]</a> J. W. C. Kirk, <i>A Grammar of the Somali Language</i>, +Cambridge, 1905, p. 134; P. Paulitschke, <i>Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas. +Die geistige Kultur der Danâkil, Galla, und Somâl</i>, Berlin, 1896, p. +224.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_622" href="#FNanchor_622" class="label">[622]</a> F. J. Bieber, in <i>Revue des études ethnographiques et +sociologiques</i>, 1909, ii, 38, 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_623" href="#FNanchor_623" class="label">[623]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>sqq.</i> For further instances see Anne +Raffenel, <i>Nouveau voyage dans le pays des nègres</i>, Paris, 1856, i, +350 (Bambara); H. Gaden, in <i>Revue d’ethnographie et de sociologie</i>, +1912, iii, 52 (Toucouleur and Mohammedan Peul of Senegal). Among the Vey +of Liberia the week of seven days must be due to Christian influence (J. +Büttikofer, <i>Reisebilder aus Liberia</i>, Leiden, 1890, ii, 317).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_624" href="#FNanchor_624" class="label">[624]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_157">157</a> <i>and</i> <i>n.</i>²</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_625" href="#FNanchor_625" class="label">[625]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_626" href="#FNanchor_626" class="label">[626]</a> J. F. Fleet, “The Use of the Planetary Names of the Days +of the Week in India,” <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society</i>, 1912, +n.s., xliv, 1039-1046. For lists of the more common planetary names of +the weekdays, as now found in India, see Sewell and Dikshit, <i>The +Indian Calendar</i>, London, 1896, p. 2. The celebrated astronomical work +in Sanskrit, known as the <i>Sûrya-Siddhânta</i>, contains two references +to the planetary week (i, 51-52, xii, 78-79; transl. Burgess-Whitney, in +<i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, 1860, v, 175-178, 396), +and in the <i>Hitōpadēśa</i> (ed. Johnson, p. 16, l. 411) there is an +interesting passage which, as A. W. von Schlegel was the first to point +out (<i>Indische Bibliothek</i>, 1827, ii, 178), refers to Sunday as a +sacred day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_627" href="#FNanchor_627" class="label">[627]</a> Sir M. Monier-Williams, <i>Brāhmanism and Hindūism</i>,⁴ +New York, 1891, p. 433; W. Crooke, <i>Natives of Northern India</i>, +London, 1907, p. 226; <i>idem</i>, <i>The Tribes and Castes of the +North-western Provinces and Oudh</i>, Calcutta, 1896, iii, 112.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_628" href="#FNanchor_628" class="label">[628]</a> J. A. Dubois, <i>Hindu Manners, Customs, and +Ceremonies</i>,³ Oxford, 1906, p. 382.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_629" href="#FNanchor_629" class="label">[629]</a> R. Percival, <i>An Account of the Island of Ceylon</i>, +London, 1803, p. 187; H. C. P. Bell, <i>The Máldive Islands</i>, Colombo, +1883, p. 119; B. H. Hodgson, <i>Essays on the Languages, Literature, and +Religion of Nepál and Tibet</i>, London, 1874, p. 8; E. Schlaginweit, +<i>Buddhism in Tibet</i>, Leipzig and London, 1863, 289; Shway Yoe, +<i>The Burman</i>,³ London, 1910, pp. 550 <i>sq.</i>; E. Aymonier, <i>Le +Cambodge</i>, Paris, 1900-1904, i, 42, ii, 19; De la Loubère, <i>A New +Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam</i>, London, 1693, ii, 168.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_630" href="#FNanchor_630" class="label">[630]</a> A. Cabaton, in Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion +and Ethics</i>, iii, 113, 345, 450. On the other hand a week of seven +days, found in central Asia, has been borrowed from Persia, as its +name <i>hafta</i> from the Persian <i>heft</i>, “seven,” indicates (H. +Vámbéry, <i>Die primitive Cultur des turko-tatarischen Volkes</i>, +Leipzig, 1879, p. 160). In northern Asia, again, the Russian advance has +begun to lead to the use of the seven-day week by native tribes, such as +the Yukaghir of northeastern Siberia (W. Jochelson, in <i>Memoirs of the +American Museum of Natural History</i>, xiii, 42).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_631" href="#FNanchor_631" class="label">[631]</a> Tournier, <i>Notice sur le Laos français</i>, Hanoi, 1900, +p. 188.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_632" href="#FNanchor_632" class="label">[632]</a> Robert Morrison, <i>A View of China for Philological +Purposes</i>, Macao, 1817, pp. 52, 102; <i>idem</i>, <i>A Grammar of the +Chinese Language</i>, Serampore, 1815, p. 54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_633" href="#FNanchor_633" class="label">[633]</a> A. Wylie, “On the Knowledge of the Weekly Sabbath in +China,” <i>Chinese Researches</i>, Shanghai, 1897, pt. ii, 86-101; J. +Edkins, <i>Chinese Buddhism</i>,² London, 1893, p. 211.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_634" href="#FNanchor_634" class="label">[634]</a> The Nestorian Monument was set up in 781 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> +in the department or prefecture of Hsî-an, province of Shen-hsî, +northwestern China. At the end of the inscription on it we read: “Erected +in the second year of the period Chien-chung of the great T’ang dynasty, +the year-star being in Tso-yo, on the seventh day of the first month, +being Sunday.” See James Legge, <i>The Nestorian Monument of Hsî-an Fu +in Shen-hsî, China</i>, London, 1888, p. 29. A replica of this monument, +which is a limestone block ten feet in height and of two tons’ weight, +was taken to the United States in 1908 and now rests in the Metropolitan +Museum of Art, New York City. See F. V. Holm, “The Holm Nestorian +Expedition to Sian, MCMVII,” <i>Open Court</i>, 1909, xxiii, 18-28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_635" href="#FNanchor_635" class="label">[635]</a> “Some persons,” writes an experienced observer of the +Chinese, “have expressed their surprise that the unceasing round of toil +which the Chinese labourer pursues has not rendered him more degraded. +It is usually said that a weekly rest is necessary for the continuance +of the powers of body and mind in man in their full activity, and that +decrepitude and insanity would oftener result were it not for this +relaxation.... Yet, in China, people who apparently tax themselves +uninterruptedly to the utmost stretch of body and mind, live in health to +old age.... Nothing like a seventh day of rest, or religious respect to +that interval of time, is known among the Chinese, but they do not, as a +people, exercise their minds to the intensity, or upon the high subjects, +common among western nations, and this perhaps is one reason why their +yearly toil produces no disastrous effects” (S. W. Williams, <i>The +Middle Kingdom</i>,² New York, 1883, i, 809 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_636" href="#FNanchor_636" class="label">[636]</a> B. H. Chamberlain, <i>Things Japanese</i>,² London, 1891, +pp. 418 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_637" href="#FNanchor_637" class="label">[637]</a> Arthur Lloyd, <i>Every-day Japan</i>, London, 1909, pp. +371 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_638" href="#FNanchor_638" class="label">[638]</a> W. W. Skeat, <i>Malay Magic</i>, London, 1900, pp. 548 +<i>sq.</i>, 554.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_639" href="#FNanchor_639" class="label">[639]</a> Annandale and Robinson, <i>Fasciculi Malayensis</i>, +London, 1903-1904, i, 80 <i>sq.</i>, 100; ii, 30, 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_640" href="#FNanchor_640" class="label">[640]</a> C. S. Hurgronje, <i>The Achehnese</i>, Leiden, 1906, i, +236, 261.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_641" href="#FNanchor_641" class="label">[641]</a> A. Maass, <i>Durch Zentral-Sumatra</i>, Berlin, 1910, p. +513.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_642" href="#FNanchor_642" class="label">[642]</a> J. Winkler, “Der Kalender der Toba-Bataks auf Sumatra,” +<i>Zeitschrift für Ethnologie</i>, 1913, xlv, 441 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_643" href="#FNanchor_643" class="label">[643]</a> W. Marsden, <i>The History of Sumatra</i>³, London, 1811, +p. 194.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_644" href="#FNanchor_644" class="label">[644]</a> E. Metzger, “Über die Zeitrechnung der Javanen”, +<i>Deutsche Rundschau für Geographie und Statistik</i>, 1887, ix, 311; +P. J. Veth, Java,², Haarlem, 1907, iv, 297 <i>sq.</i> A recent observer +points out that, although the life of a Javanese village is never +intensely laborious, it is, in a sense, a life of continuous labour, “for +the Javanese does not feel compelled to abstain from labour entirely +upon any day of the week—not even on a Friday—to satisfy his religious +beliefs. He works as long as he needs to work; but only too often only +just so long. His village holidays are numerous” (A. Cabaton, <i>Java, +Sumatra, and the Other Islands of the Dutch East Indies</i>, London and +Leipzig, 1911, pp. 125 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_645" href="#FNanchor_645" class="label">[645]</a> R. Friederich, in <i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic +Society</i>, 1878, n.s., x, 89, 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_646" href="#FNanchor_646" class="label">[646]</a> <i>An Historical Description of the Kingdom of +Macasar</i>, London, 1701, p. 149.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_647" href="#FNanchor_647" class="label">[647]</a> T. Nöldeke, “Die Namen der Wochentage bei den Semiten,” +<i>Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, 162; J. +Wellhausen, <i>Reste arabischen Heidentums</i>,² Berlin, 1897, p. 142.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_648" href="#FNanchor_648" class="label">[648]</a> <i>Koran</i>, lxii, 9 <i>sq.</i> (<i>S. B. E.</i>, ix, +283); T. P. Hughes, <i>Dictionary of Islam</i>, London, 1885, pp. 131, +666; <i>idem</i>, “The Mosque Life of the Muslim,” <i>Open Court</i>, +1906, xx, 335; T. W. Juynboll, “Djum‘a,” <i>The Encyclopædia of +Islām</i>, i, 1061 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_649" href="#FNanchor_649" class="label">[649]</a> See in general L. Lévy-Bruhl, <i>Les fonctions mentales +dans les sociétés inférieures</i>, Paris, 1910, pp. 235-257; D. G. +Brinton, “The Origin of Sacred Numbers,” <i>American Anthropologist</i>, +1894, vii, 168-173; <i>idem</i>, <i>The Myths of the New World</i>,³ +Philadelphia, 1896, pp. 83-119; W. J. McGee, “Primitive Numbers,” +<i>Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology</i>, +pt. ii, 821-852; W. Schultz, “Gesetze der Zahlenverschiebung im +Mythus und in mythenhaltiger Überlieferung,” <i>Mitteilungen der +anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien</i>, 1910, xl, 101-150; +R. Hirzel, “Über Rundzahlen,” <i>Berichte über die Verhandlungen +der philologisch-historischen Klasse der königlichsächsischen +Gesellschaft</i>, Leipzig, 1885, xxxvii, 1-74; E. Kautzsch, “Zahlen,” +in Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck’s <i>Realencyklopädie für protestantische +Theologie und Kirche</i>,³ xx, 598-607; A. Bergaigne, <i>La religion +védique</i>, Paris, 1883, ii, 114-156; E. W. Hopkins, “The Holy Numbers +of the <i>Rig-Veda</i>,” in <i>Oriental Studies</i>, Boston, 1894, pp. +141-159; E. Wölfflin, “Zur Zahlensymbolik,” <i>Archiv für lateinische +Lexikographie und Grammatik</i>, 1895, ix, 33-353; I. Goldziher, “Über +Zahlenaberglauben im Islam,” <i>Globus</i>, 1901, lxxx, 31-32. For +collections of the evidence relating to the sacredness of certain numbers +see B. Stade, “Die Dreizahl im Alten Testament,” <i>Zeitschrift für +die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft</i>, 1906, xxvi, 124 <i>sqq.</i>; +H. Usener, “Dreiheit,” <i>Rheinisches Museum für Philologie</i>, +1903, n.s., lviii, 1-47, 161-208, 321-362; Anne W. Buckland, “Four as +a Sacred Number,” <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, +1896, xxv, 96-102; F. X. Kugler, “Die Symbolik der Neunzahl bei den +Babyloniern,” in <i>Assyriologische und archäologische Studien Hermann +v. Hilprecht gewidmet</i>, Leipzig, 1909, pp. 304-309; A. Kaegi, “Die +Neunzahl bei den Ostariern,” in <i>Philologische Abhandlungen für +Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler</i>, Zürich, 1891, pp. 50-70; K. Weinhold, +“Die mystische Neunzahl bei den Deutschen,” <i>Abhandlungen der +königlich-preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften</i>, Berlin, 1897, +pp. 1-61; Edgar Thurston, “The Number Seven in Southern India,” in +<i>Essays and Studies presented to William Ridgeway</i>, Cambridge, +1913, pp· 353-364; W. H. Roscher, “Die enneadischen und hebdomadischen +Fristen und Wochen der ältesten Griechen,” <i>Abhandlungen der +philologisch-historischen Klasse der königlichsächsischen Gesellschaft +der Wissenschaften</i>, Leipzig, 1903, xxi, no. 4; <i>idem</i>, “Die +Sieben- und Neunzahl im Kultus und Mythus der Griechen,” <i>ibid.</i>, +1904, xxiv, no. I; <i>idem</i>, “Die Hebdomadenlehren der griechischen +Philosophen und Ärzte,” <i>ibid.</i>, 1904, xxiv, no. 6; <i>idem</i>, +“Enneadische Studien,” <i>ibid.</i>, 1907, xxvi, no. i; <i>idem</i>, “Die +Zahl 40 im Glauben, Brauch, und Schrifttum der Semiten,” <i>ibid.</i>, +1909, xxvii, no. 4; <i>idem</i>, “Über Alter, Ursprung, und Bedeutung der +hippokratischen Schrift von der Siebenzahl,” <i>ibid.</i>, 1911, xxviii, +no. 5; <i>idem</i>, “Die Tessarakontaden und Tessarakontadenlehren der +Griechen und anderer Völker,” <i>Berichte über die Verhandlungen</i>, +etc., Leipzig, 1909, lxi, 17-206.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_650" href="#FNanchor_650" class="label">[650]</a> For a large collection of evidence see F. von Andrian, +“Die Siebenzahl im Geistesleben der Völker,” <i>Mitteilungen der +anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien</i>, 1901, xxxi, 225-274.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_651" href="#FNanchor_651" class="label">[651]</a> Brooke Low, in H. L. Roth, <i>The Natives of Sarawak and +British North Borneo</i>, London, 1906, i, 231; Hose and McDougall, +<i>The Pagan Tribes of Borneo</i>, London, 1912, ii, 134 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_652" href="#FNanchor_652" class="label">[652]</a> I. H. N. Evans, “Notes on the Religious Beliefs, +Superstitions, Ceremonies, and Tabus of the Dusuns,” <i>Journal of the +Royal Anthropological Institute</i>, 1912, xlii, 394 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_653" href="#FNanchor_653" class="label">[653]</a> Suas, “Le septième jour aux Nouvelles Hébrides, Océanie,” +<i>Anthropos</i>, 1912, vii, 1057; compare <i>ibid.</i>, 50 <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_654" href="#FNanchor_654" class="label">[654]</a> M. Merker, in <i>Petermanns Mitteilungen</i>, 1902, +Ergänzungsheft, no. 138, p. 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_655" href="#FNanchor_655" class="label">[655]</a> W. E. H. Barrett, in <i>Journal of the Royal +Anthropological Institute</i>, 1911, xli, 22, 31 <i>sq.</i>, 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_656" href="#FNanchor_656" class="label">[656]</a> C. W. Hobley, <i>ibid.</i>, 1910, xl, 439 <i>sq.</i> +Seven among the Akikuyu is of all numbers the most unlucky in divination +(Routledge and Routledge, <i>With a Prehistoric People</i>, pp. 264, +274).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_657" href="#FNanchor_657" class="label">[657]</a> Hollis, <i>Nandi</i>, p. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_658" href="#FNanchor_658" class="label">[658]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_145">145</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_659" href="#FNanchor_659" class="label">[659]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_660" href="#FNanchor_660" class="label">[660]</a> E. Dayrell, <i>Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West +Africa</i>, London, 1910, nos. xxx-xxxii, xxxiv, xxxviii, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_661" href="#FNanchor_661" class="label">[661]</a> E. Doutté, <i>Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du +nord</i>, Algiers, 1909, pp. 184 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_662" href="#FNanchor_662" class="label">[662]</a> The Zuñi priests preserve a ceremonial diagram of the +seven “Ancient Spaces,” or primeval cosmogonic areas, representing north, +east, south, west, the zenith, the nadir, and the middle. The observer +is always supposed to stand in the central space. For illustrations of +the seven-cult among the American Indians see J. W. Powell, in F. H. +Cushing, <i>Zuñi Folk Tales</i>, New York, 1901, pp. xii <i>sq.</i>; S. +Hagar, “Cherokee Star-lore,” in <i>Boas Anniversary Volume</i>, New York, +1906, p. 361; J. O. Dorsey, in <i>Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of +Ethnology</i>, p. 397 (Osage, Kansa, Omaha, Dakota, and Ponka tribes); +Jean L’Heureux, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, 1886, +xv, 303 (Blackfoot); D. G. Brinton, <i>The Lenâpé and their Legends</i>, +Philadelphia, 1885, pp. 139 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_663" href="#FNanchor_663" class="label">[663]</a> E. W. Hopkins, “The Holy Numbers of the <i>Rig-Veda</i>,” +in <i>Oriental Studies</i>, Boston, 1894, pp. 141, 144 <i>sq.</i>; +compare A. Bergaigne, <i>La religion védique</i>, Paris, 1883, ii, 123, +127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_664" href="#FNanchor_664" class="label">[664]</a> <i>Odyssey</i>, x, 81, xii, 399, xiv, 252, 288, xv, 477.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_665" href="#FNanchor_665" class="label">[665]</a> <i>Opera et dies</i>, 770 <i>sq.</i>; Herodotus, vi, 57; +Æschylus, <i>Septem contra Thebas</i>, 800; Plutarch, <i>Quæstiones +conviviales</i>, viii, 1, 2; Lydus, <i>De mensibus</i>, ii, 12. +The seventh day of each month was a holiday for Greek children, in +remembrance of Apollo’s birth on the seventh of Thargelion (Lucian, +<i>Pseudologistes</i>, 16). The first and twentieth of the month were +also consecrated to Apollo, who received in consequence the cult titles +Ἑβδομαγέτης, Νεομήνιος and Εἰκάδιος. According to Plutarch (<i>Dion</i>, +23), a festival of Apollo was also celebrated on the fifteenth of the +month. On the seventh day in Greece see, further, L. R. Farnell, <i>The +Cults of the Greek States</i>, Oxford, 1906-1910, iv, 258 <i>sq.</i>; +<i>idem</i>, <i>Greece and Babylon</i>, London, 1911, p. 295; O. Gruppe, +<i>Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte</i>, Munich, 1906, ii, +939 <i>sqq.</i>; M. P. Nilsson, “Die älteste griechische Zeitrechnung, +Apollo und der Orient,” <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1911, +xiv, 442 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_666" href="#FNanchor_666" class="label">[666]</a> See the exhaustive collection of the evidence, both +literary and inscriptional, in Roscher, “Fristen und Wochen,” pp. +41-68; <i>idem</i>, “Sieben- und Neunzahl,” pp. 4-53; <i>idem</i>, +“Hebdomadenlehren,” pp. 7-23. Some students have seen in this sanctity of +seven the results of early intercourse with the Orient through Phœnician +channels (V. Bérard, in <i>Revue de l’histoire des religions</i>, 1899, +xxxix, 426 <i>sq.</i>; compare A. Thumb, “Die Namen der Wochentage im +Griechischen,” <i>Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, +163 <i>sq.</i>). The theory of the diffusion of the cult of seven from +the East might now be strengthened by substituting Cretan for Phœnician +intermediaries. Nilsson argues that the seven-cult, together with the +worship of Apollo, reached Greece by way of Asia Minor, “eine Etappe auf +dem Wege nach Babylonien” (<i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1911, +xiv, 447 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_667" href="#FNanchor_667" class="label">[667]</a> J. Hehn, <i>Siebenzahl und Sabbat bei den Babyloniern +und im Alten Testament</i>, Leipzig, 1907, pp. 4-44; P. Jensen, <i>Die +Kosmologie der Babylonier</i>, Strassburg, 1890, pp. 170-184.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_668" href="#FNanchor_668" class="label">[668]</a> The predominance of seven among the Hebrews, if not +wholly explained by borrowing from Babylonia, may reasonably be assumed +to have been much influenced by Babylonian conceptions. On the Hebrew +cult of this number see Hehn, <i>Siebenzahl und Sabbat</i>, pp. 77-90; +O. Zöckler, “Siebenzahl, heilige,” in Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck’s +<i>Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche</i>,³ xviii, +310-317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_669" href="#FNanchor_669" class="label">[669]</a> M. Jastrow, <i>Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice +in Babylonia and Assyria</i>, New York, 1911, pp. 217 <i>sqq.</i>; +<i>idem</i>, <i>Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens</i>, Giessen, +1905-1912, ii, 446 <i>sq.</i>, 663 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_670" href="#FNanchor_670" class="label">[670]</a> G. Schiaparelli, <i>Astronomy in the Old Testament</i>, +Oxford, 1905, pp. 134 <i>sq.</i> The fact that by the Babylonians Venus, +as a morning star, was considered masculine and as an evening star, +feminine (F. X. Kugler, <i>Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel</i>, +Münster-i.-W., 1907-1910, ii, 19 <i>sq.</i>) must point back to a time +when the different appearances of that heavenly body at morning and +evening were regarded as those of different planets. Such was also +the opinion of the early Greeks, who held the morning star, Ἑωσφόρος, +and Ἕσπερος, the evening star, to be different bodies. Their identity +was not recognized until the time of Pythagoras in the sixth century +<span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> (W. H. Roscher, “Planeten,” <i>Ausführliches Lexikon +der griechischen und römischen Mythologie</i>, iii, col. 2521). +Similar misconceptions are found among primitive peoples. Of the +Maori it has been said: “Tawera is their Lucifer and Merimeri their +Hesperus, and under these two names the beauty of the planet Venus is +frequently celebrated in their poetry” (E. Shortland, <i>Traditions and +Superstitions of the New Zealanders</i>,² p. 219). Additional evidence is +found among the aborigines of Sumatra (Marsden, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 194), +the Hottentots (Schultze, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 367), and the Cherokee +Indians (Hagar, in <i>Boas Anniversary Volume</i>, p. 357).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_671" href="#FNanchor_671" class="label">[671]</a> Kugler, <i>op. cit.</i>, i, 13; compare F. Boll, “Zur +babylonischen Planetenordnung,” <i>Zeitschrift für Assyriologie</i>, +1911, xxv, 373. Between 400 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> and the opening of the +Christian era the order is the same, except that Mercury and Saturn +exchange places.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_672" href="#FNanchor_672" class="label">[672]</a> Herodotus, ii, 82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_673" href="#FNanchor_673" class="label">[673]</a> The history of the planetary week has been treated with +exhaustive learning by E. Schürer, “Die siebentägige Woche im Gebrauche +der christlichen Kirche der ersten Jahrhunderte,” <i>Zeitschrift +für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft</i>, 1905, vi, 1-66. A very +valuable survey is that by F. Boll, “Hebdomas,” in Pauly-Wissowa’s +<i>Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft</i>, vii, +coll. 2547-2578. Among the earlier discussions those by J. C. H(are), +“On the Names of the Days of the Week,” <i>Philological Museum</i>, +1832, i, 1-73, and E. Schrader, “Der babylonische Ursprung der +siebentägigen Woche,” <i>Theologische Studien und Kritiken</i>, 1874, +xlvii, 343-353, hold an honourable place. See further W. H. Roscher, +“Planeten,” <i>Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen +Mythologie</i>, iii, coll. 2518-2539; A. Bouché-Leclercq, <i>L’astrologie +grecque</i>, Paris, 1899, pp. 476-484; Jensen, Nöldeke, <i>et al.</i>, +“Geschichte der Namen der Wochentage,” <i>Zeitschrift für deutsche +Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, 150-193; O. Schrader, “Woche,” <i>Reallexikon +der indogermanischen Altertumskunde</i>, Strassburg, 1901, pp. 959-965; +W. Lotz, “Woche,” in Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck’s <i>Realencyklopädie +für protestantische Theologie und Kirche</i>,³ xxi, 409-414; F. Rühl, +<i>Chronologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit</i>, Berlin, 1897, pp. +49-63; F. K. Ginzel, <i>Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen +Chronologie</i>, Leipzig, 1906-1911, index, <i>s.v.</i> “Woche.” The word +“week” in various Germanic languages has the general meaning of “change” +(Anglo-Saxon <i>wice</i>, Old Frisian <i>wike</i>, Old Norse <i>vika</i>, +Danish <i>uge</i>, Old High German <i>wecha</i>, Gothic <i>wiko</i>, +etc.). See F. L. K. Weigand, <i>Deutsches Wörterbuch</i>,⁵ Giessen, 1910, +ii, 1279. The Latin <i>vicis</i>, “change,” “turn” (a genitive form) is a +related expression. See Walde, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 833.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_674" href="#FNanchor_674" class="label">[674]</a> The reverse order, beginning with the Moon and ending +with Saturn, is attributed to Pythagoras by Pliny the Elder (<i>Historia +naturalis</i>, ii, 22) and by Censorinus (<i>De die natali</i>, xiii, +3); and according to Macrobius it was adopted by Archimedes in the third +century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> (<i>Commentarium in somnium Scipionis</i>, i, 19, +2, ii, 3, 13). But the statements of these late writers on the subject +may be safely disregarded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_675" href="#FNanchor_675" class="label">[675]</a> <i>Historia Romana</i>, xxxvii, 18 <i>sq.</i> There is +also extant a still earlier explanation of the planetary sequence by +Vettius Valens, an astrologer of the age of the Antonines. The one +provided by Plutarch, in the seventh chapter of the fourth book of his +<i>Symposiacs</i>, has been lost. Dio Cassius attributes the origin of +the planetary week to the Egyptians; Lydus, a Byzantine antiquarian of +the fifth century <span class="allsmcap">A.D</span>., hesitates between the Egyptians and the +Babylonians (<i>De mensibus</i>, ii, 31).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_676" href="#FNanchor_676" class="label">[676]</a> This arrangement—διὰ τεσσάρων—may be illustrated by +means of the heptagram. Let the circumference of a circle be divided into +seven equal arcs and the signs of the planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, +Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon—be placed at the points of division. If these +points are connected by a series of continuous chords, then, beginning +with Saturn, the lines of the chords will lead successively to the signs +of the planets in the astrological order. The figure of a seven-branched +star, inscribed in a circle, is an ancient device; indeed, the heptagram +appears on a clay tablet recently unearthed at Nippur in Babylonia (H. +V. Hilprecht, <i>Explorations in Bible Lands</i>, Philadelphia, 1903, p. +530), but in this case quite without any indication of its use.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_677" href="#FNanchor_677" class="label">[677]</a> As a matter of fact the gamut, or scale of seven notes +comprised within the interval of an octave, rests on no fundamental +laws of acoustic phenomena but is itself a product of the all-pervading +symbolism of seven. This system of musical numeration has spread from +Greece as far east as India and China. See J. Combarieu, <i>La musique et +la magie</i>, Paris, 1909, pp. 176-200.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_678" href="#FNanchor_678" class="label">[678]</a> Herodotus (ii, 109) says explicitly that the Greeks +learned from the Babylonians to divide the day into twelve parts. This +statement agrees with the evidence from the cuneiform records, which show +that it was the Babylonian custom to divide the nycthemeron, or cycle +of night and day, into twelve <i>kaspu</i>, corresponding to two of our +equinoctial hours. On the other hand the Egyptians from very early times +were familiar with a division into twenty-four hours, twelve for the +night and twelve for the natural day. It is not improbable, therefore, +that the astrological use of the twenty-four hours was remotely derived +from Egypt. On the entire subject of hour deities see W. Gundel, +“Stundengötter,” <i>Hessische Blätter für Volkskunde</i>, 1913, xii, +100-131.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_679" href="#FNanchor_679" class="label">[679]</a> <i>Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum</i>, i, pt. i,² 220; G. +Gundermann, “Die Namen der Wochentage bei den Römern,” <i>Zeitschrift für +deutsche Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, 177.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_680" href="#FNanchor_680" class="label">[680]</a> A. Mau, in <i>Bullettino dell’ instituto di corrispondenza +archeologica</i>, 1881, p. 30; <i>Atti della reale accademia dei lincei, +anno 1901, Serie v, classe di scienze morali</i>, etc., <i>ix, Notizie +degli scavi</i>, p. 330.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_681" href="#FNanchor_681" class="label">[681]</a> <i>Historia Romana</i>, xxxvii, 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_682" href="#FNanchor_682" class="label">[682]</a> Tertullian, <i>Apologeticus</i>, 16; <i>idem</i>, <i>Ad +nationes</i>, i, 13; Clement, <i>Stromata</i>, vii, 12, 75; compare +Justin Martyr, <i>Apologia prima</i>, 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_683" href="#FNanchor_683" class="label">[683]</a> The Jews indicated each weekday by its numerical name, as +the first day, the second day, and so on; compare <i>Exodus</i>, xvi, 5, +22; <i>Matthew</i>, xxviii, 1; <i>Mark</i>, xvi, 2; <i>Luke</i>, xxiv, +1; <i>John</i>, xx, 1; <i>Acts</i>, xx, 7; 1 <i>Corinthians</i>, xvi, 2. +The sixth day, preceding the Sabbath, came eventually to be called by +Hellenistic Jews ἡ παρασκευή, or “preparation” for the Sabbath; compare +<i>Matthew</i>, xxvii, 62; <i>Mark</i>, xv, 42; <i>Luke</i>, xxiii, 54; +<i>John</i>, xix, 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_684" href="#FNanchor_684" class="label">[684]</a> The oldest dated Christian inscription to employ +a planetary designation belongs to the year 269 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> +(<i>Inscriptiones Christianæ urbis Romæ</i>, ed. De Rossi, 1861, i, no. +11).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_685" href="#FNanchor_685" class="label">[685]</a> According to the testimony of Celsus, as quoted by Origen +(<i>Contra Celsum</i>, vi, 21), the seven planets played an important +rôle in the Mithraic mysteries. The chief position was naturally assigned +to the sun, from which circumstance Cumont concludes, not only that +the planetary week was known to Mithraism, but also that the <i>dies +Solis</i> “était évidemment le plus sacré de l’hebdomade pour les +fidèles de Mithra, et, comme les Chrétiens, ils devaient sanctifier le +dimanche et non pas le sabbat.” See F. Cumont, <i>Textes et monuments +figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra</i>, Brussels, 1896-1899, i, 118 +<i>sq.</i>, ii, 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_686" href="#FNanchor_686" class="label">[686]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_687" href="#FNanchor_687" class="label">[687]</a> Below, p. <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_688" href="#FNanchor_688" class="label">[688]</a> Italian <i>domenica</i>, <i>sabbato</i>; Spanish +<i>domingo</i>, <i>sabado</i>; French <i>dimanche</i>, <i>samedi</i>, +etc. But the heathen names of even these two days continued for a long +time in popular use, as is evident from the words of Gregory of Tours: +<i>Ecce enim dies Solis adest, sic enim barbaries vocitare diem dominicam +consueta est</i> (<i>Historia Francorum</i>, iii, 15). The other weekdays +(Monday to Friday) in the calendar of the Roman Church follow the Jewish +usage in being numbered, not named: <i>feria secunda</i>, <i>feria +tertia</i>, <i>feria quarta</i>, <i>feria quinta</i>, and <i>feria +sexta</i> (Isidore of Seville, <i>Etymologiæ sive origines</i>, v, 30). +In Portugal the influence of the Church was strong enough to secure the +general adoption of this mode of reckoning, instead of the planetary +sequence; and here Monday is still called <i>feira segunda</i>, Tuesday, +<i>feira terça</i>, etc. It is curious to find the old Roman term for a +holy day thus employed to refer to the weekdays that are particularly +devoted to secular occupations. The origin of the practice has not been +satisfactorily explained.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_689" href="#FNanchor_689" class="label">[689]</a> Tiu (Mars), Woden (Mercurius), Thor (Jupiter), Frija +(Venus). The special observance of Thursday as a holy day reflects the +commanding place occupied by Thor in Germanic paganism. His worship +on that day is referred to in documents of the early Middle Ages as a +superstition to be eradicated (<i>nullus diem Jovis in otio observet</i>, +etc.), but the modern Esthonians still consider Thursday as holier than +Sunday and in Sweden, as late as the nineteenth century, the day was +generally considered sacred. See J. Grimm, <i>Teutonic Mythology</i>, +London, 1882, i, 191; O. Montelius, “The Sun-god’s Axe and Thor’s +Hammer,” <i>Folklore</i>, 1910, xxi, 77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_690" href="#FNanchor_690" class="label">[690]</a> The Scandinavian name for Saturday, “bath-day” or +“wash-day” (Old Norse <i>laugardagr</i>), arose from the custom of taking +a bath at the end of the week (De la Saussaye, <i>The Religion of the +Teutons</i>, Boston, 1902, p. 379; P. B. Du Chaillu, <i>The Land of the +Midnight Sun</i>, New York, 1881, ii, 205 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_691" href="#FNanchor_691" class="label">[691]</a> In Slavic antiquity Friday, or some day corresponding +to it, appears to have been consecrated to a female divinity, whose +personality, after the introduction of Christianity, became merged into +that of St. Prascovia. “As she is supposed to wander about the houses of +the peasants on her holy day, and to be offended if she finds certain +kinds of work going on, they are (or at least they used to be) frequently +suspended on Fridays. It is a sin, says a time-honoured tradition, for a +woman to sew or spin, or weave, or buck linen on a Friday, and similarly +for a man to plait bast shoes, twine cords, and the like. Spinning and +weaving are especially obnoxious to ‘Mother Friday,’ for the dust and +refuse thus produced injure her eyes.” The peasants believe that any +work begun on Friday is sure to go wrong (W. R. S. Ralston, <i>Russian +Folktales</i>, London, 1873, pp. 198 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_692" href="#FNanchor_692" class="label">[692]</a> In Thessaly and Macedonia Saturday (σάββατον) is +considered inauspicious for beginning any undertaking. This taboo on the +day has been considered as perhaps a reminiscence of the Jewish Sabbath +(Sir Rennell Rodd, <i>The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece</i>, London, +1892, p. 159). According to Mr. G. F. Abbott, the Macedonians believe +it unlucky to finish any work on a Saturday; the end of the week being +associated in some way with the end of the owner’s life. “People born +on a Saturday (hence called Σαββατιανοί or Sabbatarians) are believed +to enjoy the doubtful privilege of seeing ghosts and phantasms, and of +possessing great influence over vampires” (<i>Macedonian Folklore</i>, +Cambridge, 1903, pp. 191, 221).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_693" href="#FNanchor_693" class="label">[693]</a> On the week among European peoples see further E. +Maass, <i>Die Tagesgötter im Rom und den Provinzen</i>, Berlin, 1902; +A. Thumb, “Die albanesischen Wochentage,” <i>Zeitschrift für deutsche +Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, 173-175; R. Thurneysen, “Die Namen der +Wochentagen in den keltischen Dialecten,” <i>ibid.</i>, pp. 186-191; W. +Meyer-Lübke, “Die Namen der Wochentage im Romanischen,” <i>ibid.</i>, +pp. 192 <i>sq.</i>; C. L. Rochholz, <i>Deutscher Glaube und Brauch</i>, +Berlin, 1867, ii, 9-63; K. A. Oberle, <i>Überreste germanischen +Heidentums im Christentum</i>, Baden-Baden, 1883, pp. 13-40; Grimm, +<i>op. cit.</i>, i, 122-130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_694" href="#FNanchor_694" class="label">[694]</a> G. Smith, <i>Assyrian Discoveries</i>,⁷ London, 1883, p. +12; compare <i>idem</i>, <i>The Assyrian Eponym Canon</i>, London, 1875, +pp. 19 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_695" href="#FNanchor_695" class="label">[695]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>n.</i>²</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_696" href="#FNanchor_696" class="label">[696]</a> The first edition (1875) of the fourth volume of +Rawlinson’s <i>Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia</i> contained only +a calendar for the month of Elul II, but in the second edition (1891) of +this volume there was added, from a number of fragments, a calendar for +the month of Markheshwan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_697" href="#FNanchor_697" class="label">[697]</a> The difficulty which arises in respect to the nineteenth +day has been solved to the satisfaction of most Assyriologists by the +suggestion that the nineteenth day was regarded as seven times the +seventh day (<i>i.e.</i>, the forty-ninth from the first of the preceding +month). This, of course, would not be strictly true, when the preceding +month had only twenty-nine days, but it seems that the early Babylonian +month was conventionally taken at thirty days’ duration.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_698" href="#FNanchor_698" class="label">[698]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_210">210</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_699" href="#FNanchor_699" class="label">[699]</a> Compare H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader, <i>Die Keilinschriften +und das Alte Testament</i>,³ Berlin, 1903, pp. 620 <i>sq.</i> The +possible influence of Pleiades cults has been worked out with much +ingenuity by H. Grimme (<i>Das israelitische Pfingstfest und der +Plejadenkult</i>, Paderborn, 1907), who discerns in the duration of the +Hebrew Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, as well as in the rites which marked +that agricultural festival, the predominance of a septenary division +based on the observation of these seven stars.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_700" href="#FNanchor_700" class="label">[700]</a> W. Muss-Arnolt, “The Names of the Assyro-Babylonian Months +and their Regents,” <i>Journal of Biblical Literature</i>, 1892, xi, 73; +E. Combe, <i>Histoire du culte de Sin en Babylonie et en Assyrie</i>, +Paris, 1908, pp. 8, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_701" href="#FNanchor_701" class="label">[701]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_702" href="#FNanchor_702" class="label">[702]</a> W. Muss-Arnolt, in <i>Journal of Biblical Literature</i>, +1892, xi, 72 <i>sqq.</i>, 82 <i>sqq.</i>, 90; E. Meyer, “Astarte,” +in Roscher’s <i>Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen +Mythologie</i>, i, col. 649.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_703" href="#FNanchor_703" class="label">[703]</a> R. C. Thompson, <i>The Reports of the Magicians and +Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon</i>, London, 1900, ii, pp. xviii +<i>sqq.</i>, xxvi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_704" href="#FNanchor_704" class="label">[704]</a> Epping and Strassmeier, <i>Astronomisches aus Babylon</i>, +Freiburg-i.-B., 1889, p. 179; F. X. Kugler, <i>Die babylonische +Mondrechnung</i>, Freiburg-i.-B., 1900, pp. 49, 201; F. H. Weissbach, +“Zum babylonischen Kalender,” in <i>Assyriologische und archäologische +Studien Hermann v. Hilprecht gewidmet</i>, Leipzig, 1909, p. 281.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_705" href="#FNanchor_705" class="label">[705]</a> Rawlinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, iv,² pl. 32, col. 1, ll. 1-2; +W. Lotz, <i>Quæstiones de historia Sabbati</i>, Leipzig, 1883, p. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_706" href="#FNanchor_706" class="label">[706]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_707" href="#FNanchor_707" class="label">[707]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_708" href="#FNanchor_708" class="label">[708]</a> Rawlinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, iii, 55, no. 3, ll. 17-26; P. +Jensen, “Die siebentägige Woche in Babylon und Nineveh,” <i>Zeitschrift +für deutsche Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, 150.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_709" href="#FNanchor_709" class="label">[709]</a> Rawlinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, iii, 64, 18 b; Jensen, in +<i>Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung</i>, 1901, i, 152; Zimmern, in +Schrader, <i>Keilinschriften</i>,³ p. 621 <i>n.</i>⁵</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_710" href="#FNanchor_710" class="label">[710]</a> <i>Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British +Museum</i>, pt. xxv, pl. 50 (K. 170); F. Hommel, “Calendar (Babylonian),” +Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_711" href="#FNanchor_711" class="label">[711]</a> <i>Enuma elish</i>, v, ll. 12-18 (transl. L. W. King, +<i>The Seven Tablets of Creation</i>, London, 1902, i, 78, 81):</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The Moon-god he caused to shine forth, the night he entrusted to him.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He appointed him, a being of the night, to determine the days;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Every month without ceasing with the crown he covered (?) him, (saying):</div> + <div class="verse indent0">‘At the beginning of the month, when thou shinest upon the land,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou commandest the horns to determine six days</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And on the seventh day to [divide] the crown</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On the fourteenth day thou shalt stand opposite, the half[...].’”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">For other translations see P. Jensen, <i>Die Kosmologie der +Babylonier</i>, Strassburg, 1890, pp. 288 <i>sqq.</i>; W. Muss-Arnolt, in +R. F. Harper, <i>Assyrian and Babylonian Literature</i>, New York, 1901, +p. 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_712" href="#FNanchor_712" class="label">[712]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_713" href="#FNanchor_713" class="label">[713]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_714" href="#FNanchor_714" class="label">[714]</a> C. Fossey, <i>La magie assyrienne</i>, Paris, 1902, pp. +52, 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_715" href="#FNanchor_715" class="label">[715]</a> See H. Zimmern, <i>Die Beschwörungstafeln s̆urpu</i>, +Leipzig, 1896.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_716" href="#FNanchor_716" class="label">[716]</a> R. C. Thompson, <i>The Devils and Evil Spirits of +Babylonia</i>, London, 1904, ii, pp. xxxix <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_717" href="#FNanchor_717" class="label">[717]</a> H. C. Rawlinson, <i>The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western +Asia</i>, London, 1891, iv,² pl. 32-33. The complete text was first +translated by A. H. Sayce (“A Babylonian Saints’ Calendar,” <i>Records of +the Past</i>, London, 1876, vii, 157-170) and shortly thereafter by W. +Lotz (<i>Quæstiones de historia Sabbati</i>, Leipzig, 1883, pp. 39-49). +The passage relating to the seventh day has been many times rendered by +Assyriologists, not without variations in the result. I have used the +version in the scholarly work of R. W. Rogers, <i>Cuneiform Parallels to +the Old Testament</i>, New York, 1912, p. 189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_718" href="#FNanchor_718" class="label">[718]</a> The nineteenth day would seem to be particularly tabooed, +for then the “shepherd of great peoples” is forbidden to eat “anything +which the fire has touched.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_719" href="#FNanchor_719" class="label">[719]</a> Most Assyriologists (Jeremias, Delitzsch, Lagrange, +Pinches, Clay) make this sentence read: “The day is unsuitable for any +business,” a translation which, if correct, converts the seventh day +into a veritable Sabbath. To this translation Professor Morris Jastrow +now adds the great weight of his authority, pointing out that we must +read <i>ana epasch la na-ṭu</i>, “‘für Arbeit (oder Ausführung) nicht +geignet’ ... und nicht, wie man früher annahm, <i>epesch arrati</i>, +‘zum Fluchen,’ was ja ein eigentümliches Verbot wäre” (<i>Die Religion +Babyloniens und Assyriens</i>, Giessen, 1905-1912, ii, 533 <i>n.</i>¹).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_720" href="#FNanchor_720" class="label">[720]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_721" href="#FNanchor_721" class="label">[721]</a> For much evidence as to the sacredness of chiefs and kings +and as to the accompanying taboos, see Sir J. G. Frazer, <i>Taboo and the +Perils of the Soul</i>, London, 1911, pp. 1-17; <i>idem</i>, <i>Psyche’s +Task</i>,² London, 1913, pp. 6-19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_722" href="#FNanchor_722" class="label">[722]</a> T. C. Hodson, in <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Institute</i>, 1906, xxxvi, 98; <i>idem</i>, in <i>Folklore</i>, 1910, +xxi, 298; <i>idem</i>, <i>Nāga Tribes of Manipur</i>, pp. 102, 141 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_723" href="#FNanchor_723" class="label">[723]</a> For further discussions of the “evil days” see M. J. +Lagrange, <i>Études sur les religions sémitiques</i>,² Paris, 1905, pp. +291 <i>sqq.</i>; J. Hehn, <i>Siebenzahl und Sabbat bei den Babyloniern +und im Alten Testament</i>, Leipzig, 1907, pp. 106-109; J. Meinhold, +<i>Sabbat und Woche im Alten Testament</i>, Göttingen, 1905, pp. 15 +<i>sqq.</i>; F. Bohn, <i>Der Sabbat im Alten Testament</i>, Gütersloh, +1903, pp. 39-43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_724" href="#FNanchor_724" class="label">[724]</a> Some painstaking efforts have been made to discover +whether during historic times there was any general observance in +Babylonia of the “evil days.” W. Lotz (<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 66), from an +examination of 540 dated contract tablets belonging to different months, +found that the average of the number of transactions on the 7th, 14th, +21st, and 28th days was 18, which would be also the average for each day +of the month. The 19th day, however, had only one contract to its credit. +Schiaparelli (<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 132 <i>n.</i>¹) examined about 400 +dated documents from the archives of the Babylonian business firm, Egibi +and Sons, and showed that there was a real abstention from business only +on the 19th day, when no contracts were concluded. The same investigator +(<i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 175 <i>sqq.</i>) also classified according to the +day of the month 2764 dates on contract tablets belonging to the period +604-449 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> and found again that, while the transactions for +the 7th, 14th, and 21st days were considerably above the average (94) and +those for the 28th day only slightly below it, the 19th day registered +but 12 transactions. It is true that these statistics deal with a late +period of Babylonian history and include the reigns of several Persian +kings. By this time the general observance of the custom may have been +in decay. The figures, moreover, do not distinguish the sort of business +done on the “evil days.” Many of the documents are temple records, having +to do with offerings, receipts of salaries by priests, etc., and such +business may not have been regarded as a violation of the prohibitions +in question (C. H. W. Johns, “The Babylonian Sabbath,” <i>Expository +Times</i>, 1906, xvii, 566 <i>sq.</i>). For Assyria, during the period +720-606 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, 365 dated documents indicate no marked cessation +of business on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days. “They were not kept +with puritan respect for the Sabbath, if Sabbaths they really were.” +Only 2 contracts, however, were made on the 19th, and for one of these +the date is doubtful (<i>idem</i>, <i>Assyrian Deeds and Documents</i>, +London, 1901, ii, 40 <i>sq.</i>). Finally, out of 356 dated documents of +the Hammurabi era, only 2 were dated on the 19th and only 26 on the four +other “evil days” (<i>idem</i>, in <i>Expository Times</i>, 1906, xvii, +566 <i>sq.</i>). It would seem, accordingly, that at this earlier period +(about 2000 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>) there was a sabbatic observance of all five +days, and especially of the 19th day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_725" href="#FNanchor_725" class="label">[725]</a> <i>Shabbāthôn</i> occurs all together ten times in the Old +Testament, where it is applied to New Year’s Day, the Day of Atonement +(above, pp. <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>sq.</i>), the first and eighth days of the Feast of +Tabernacles, and also to the Sabbatical Year (<i>Leviticus</i>, xxv, 4) +and to the Sabbath Day proper (<i>Exodus</i>, xvi, 23, xxxi, 15, xxxv, +2; <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 3). Professor Morris Jastrow thinks that +<i>shabbāthôn</i> is mistranslated as “solemn rest” and that in fact it +is merely an adjectival formation meaning “sabbatical” or “Sabbath-like.” +The word “belongs to a period prior to the development of a Sabbath +institution, celebrated every seventh day without any reference to +the phases of the moon” (<i>American Journal of Semitic Languages and +Literatures</i>, 1914, xxx, 97 <i>n.</i>⁷).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_726" href="#FNanchor_726" class="label">[726]</a> Rawlinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, ii, pl. 32, no. i, 16 a-b +(<i>Cuneiform Texts</i>, pt. xviii, pl. 23, 17 [K. 4397]). The discovery +of this important equation was made by W. H. Boscawen; see A. H. Sayce, +in <i>Academy</i>, 1875, viii, 555. <i>Shabattu(m)</i> here and elsewhere +can be read <i>shapattu(m)</i>, without, however, affecting the sense +(P. Jensen, in <i>Zeitschrift für Assyriologie</i>, 1900, xiv, 182; H. +Zimmern, in Schrader, <i>Keilinschriften</i>,³ p. 592 <i>n.</i>⁵).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_727" href="#FNanchor_727" class="label">[727]</a> A. H. Sayce, <i>The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of +the Monuments</i>, London, 1895, p. 74; <i>idem</i>, <i>The Religions of +Ancient Egypt and Babylonia</i>, Edinburgh, 1902, p. 476; F. Delitzsch, +<i>Babel and Bible</i>, London, 1903, p. 41. The purely conjectural +character of this procedure was long ago pointed out by Francis Brown +in his article, “The Sabbath in the Cuneiform Records,” <i>Presbyterian +Review</i>, 1882, iii, 693. Compare also A. T. Clay, <i>Amurru</i>, +Philadelphia, 1909, pp. 55 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_728" href="#FNanchor_728" class="label">[728]</a> <i>Babel and Bible</i>, p. 99.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_729" href="#FNanchor_729" class="label">[729]</a> H. Hirschfeld, “Remarks on the Etymology of Šabbāth,” +<i>Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society</i>, 1896, n.s., xxviii, 357.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_730" href="#FNanchor_730" class="label">[730]</a> M. Jastrow, “The Original Character of the Hebrew +Sabbath,” <i>American Journal of Theology</i>, 1898, ii, 316 <i>sq.</i>, +351; compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions</i>, New +York, 1914, pp. 134, 149.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_731" href="#FNanchor_731" class="label">[731]</a> H. Zimmern, in Schrader, <i>Keilinschriften</i>,³ p. 593. +In one cuneiform list (Rawlinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, v, pl. 28, l. e-f) the +verb <i>shabâtu</i> is equated with <i>gamâru</i>, which is thought to +mean “be complete,” “be full,” “cease,” though in some other syllabaries +it apparently has the sense of “pacify.” In the light of the meaning now +assigned to <i>shabattum</i> both translations appear to be intelligible +and harmonious.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_732" href="#FNanchor_732" class="label">[732]</a> T. G. Pinches, <i>The Old Testament</i>, London, 1902, p. +327.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_733" href="#FNanchor_733" class="label">[733]</a> D. Nielsen, <i>Die altarabische Mondreligion</i>, pp. 87 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_734" href="#FNanchor_734" class="label">[734]</a> J. Hehn, <i>Siebenzahl und Sabbat</i>, p. 98.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_735" href="#FNanchor_735" class="label">[735]</a> S. Langdon, “The Derivation of <i>Šabattu</i> and Other +Notes,” <i>Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft</i>, +1908, lxii, 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_736" href="#FNanchor_736" class="label">[736]</a> C. H. Toy, “The Earliest Form of the Hebrew Sabbath,” +<i>Journal of Biblical Literature</i>, 1899, xviii, 190 <i>sqq.</i>; +compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Introduction to the History of Religions</i>, +Boston, 1913, p. 251.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_737" href="#FNanchor_737" class="label">[737]</a> The text (K. 6012 + K. 10,684) forms a part of the +British Museum collection of cuneiform tablets. A portion of the text +was published by Rawlinson (<i>op. cit.</i>, iii, pl. 56, no. 4) and +additions to it, as well as duplicate Babylonian fragments, were +subsequently identified by Dr. Pinches, to whom, accordingly, full credit +for this important discovery should be ascribed. See T. G. Pinches, +“<i>Šapattu</i>, the Babylonian Sabbath,” <i>Proceedings of the Society +of Biblical Archæology</i>, 1904, xxvi, 51-56. H. Zimmern, however, +had previously pointed out that, according to the Rawlinson text, the +fifteenth day of a thirty-day month might have borne the designation +<i>shabattum</i> (Zimmern, in Schrader, <i>Keilinschriften</i>,³ +p. 593 <i>n.</i>³); compare his comments on Pinches’s discoveries +(<i>Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft</i>, 1904, +lviii, 199-202, 458-460).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_738" href="#FNanchor_738" class="label">[738]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_181">181</a> <i>n.</i>⁷</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_739" href="#FNanchor_739" class="label">[739]</a> The text (K. 2164 + 2195 + 3510) has been edited with +a translation and commentary by E. Weidener, “Zur babylonischen +Astronomie,” <i>Babyloniaca</i>, 1911, vi, 8 <i>sqq.</i> It should be +observed that it belongs to the same series as the text (K. 170) in which +the fifteenth day is expressly described as the day of full moon (above, +p. <a href="#Page_229">229</a>). Professor A. H. Sayce has published a table of lunar longitudes +(K. 490) which shows how many degrees the moon advances during the first +fifteen days of the month and how many degrees it retrogrades during the +second half of the month (<i>Zeitschrift für Assyriologie</i>, 1887, ii, +337-340).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_740" href="#FNanchor_740" class="label">[740]</a> Combe, <i>Histoire du culte de Sin</i>, pp. 46 +<i>sqq.</i>, 86 <i>sq.</i>; Jastrow, <i>Religion Babyloniens und +Assyriens</i>, i, 66 <i>sq.</i>, 72 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_741" href="#FNanchor_741" class="label">[741]</a> H. Radau, <i>Early Babylonian History</i>, New York, +1900, pp. 314 <i>sq.</i> The text on the statue of Gudea, a chief, or +<i>patesi</i>, of Lagash (<i>c.</i> 2350 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>), bears record +of a rest day which has been interpreted as a full-moon day, therefore +as a <i>shabattum</i>: “No one was struck with the whip, the mother +corrected not her child, the householder, the overseer, the labourer ... +the work of their hands ceased. In the graves of the city ... no corpse +was buried. The Kalû played no psalm, uttered no dirge, the wailing women +let no dirge be heard. In the realm of Lagash no man who had a lawsuit +went to the hall of justice.” See A. Jeremias, <i>The Old Testament in +the Light of the Ancient East</i>, London, 1911, i, 203; compare H. +Winckler, <i>Religionsgeschichtlicher und geschichtlicher Orient</i>, +Leipzig, 1906, p. 61. Professor Morris Jastrow holds, however, that this +passage from the inscription of Gudea has no reference to the full moon +(<i>American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures</i>, 1914, xxx, +98 <i>n.</i>²).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_742" href="#FNanchor_742" class="label">[742]</a> D. Chwolsohn, <i>Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus</i>, St. +Petersburg, 1856, ii, 8, 94 <i>sqq.</i>, translating the <i>Fihrist</i> +(ix, i, 5) of Ibn al-Nadīm. On the Harranians see in general D. S. +Margoliouth, in Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, +vi, 519 <i>sq.</i> It is curious to find a Moslem tradition, current +about 830 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, that “Abraham lived with his people four-score +years and ten in the land of Harran, worshipping none other than Al Ozza, +an idol famous in that land and adored by the men of Harran, under the +name of the Moon, which same custom prevails among them to the present +day” (Sir William Muir, <i>The Apology of Al Kindy</i>,² London, 1887, p. +17).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_743" href="#FNanchor_743" class="label">[743]</a> W. F. von Landau, <i>Beiträge zur Altertumskunde des +Orients</i>, Leipzig, 1899, ii, 46 <i>sq.</i>; compare <i>idem</i>, +<i>Die phönizischen Inschriften</i>, Leipzig, 1907, p. 22 (<i>Der alte +Orient</i>, viii, 3).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_744" href="#FNanchor_744" class="label">[744]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_182">182</a> <i>n.</i>⁷ There are numerous reports by +Babylonian astrologers according to which any one of five days, from the +twelfth to the sixteenth of the month, might be taken as the exact time +when the moon became full, depending, of course, upon how early or how +late was the visible new moon (Kugler, <i>Sternkunde und Sterndienst in +Babel</i>, ii, 14 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_745" href="#FNanchor_745" class="label">[745]</a> The Rev. C. H. C. Johns has pointed out that in Babylonian +calendars many days are indicated as <i>nubattu</i>, a term signifying +rest, pause, and especially a god’s connubial rest with his consort +goddess. “The observance of such days was a bar to attending even +to important diplomatic business or setting out on a journey.... +It is quite possible that <i>shabattum</i> and <i>nubattum</i> are +from the same root and originally denoted much the same thing—a +pause, abstention, from whatever cause or for ceremonial purposes” +(<i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>,¹¹ xxiii, 961 <i>sq.</i>). A calendar +of the intercalary month of Elul cites the 3d, 7th, and 16th days as +the <i>nubattu</i> of Marduk and his consort Sarpanit (Lagrange, <i>op. +cit.</i>, p. 284 <i>n.</i>⁶; Schrader, <i>Keilinschriften</i>,³ p. 371).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_746" href="#FNanchor_746" class="label">[746]</a> The form of the Fourth Commandment in the First Decalogue +(<i>Exodus</i>, xx, 8), “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy,” +indicates not the institution of a new day but the sanctioning of an old +one. In the Second Decalogue (<i>Deuteronomy</i>, v, 12), the commandment +reads: “Observe the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.” The word “holy” in +these injunctions has the force of “set apart ritually,” “separated from +common use,” <i>i.e.</i>, taboo.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_747" href="#FNanchor_747" class="label">[747]</a> <i>Exodus</i>, xxxiv, 21, xxiii, 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_748" href="#FNanchor_748" class="label">[748]</a> 2 <i>Kings</i>, iv, 23. This is perhaps the earliest +historical reference to the Sabbath.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_749" href="#FNanchor_749" class="label">[749]</a> <i>Amos</i>, viii, 5; <i>Hosea</i>, ii, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_750" href="#FNanchor_750" class="label">[750]</a> <i>Genesis</i>, ii, 2-3; <i>Exodus</i>, xx, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_751" href="#FNanchor_751" class="label">[751]</a> <i>Deuteronomy</i>, v. 15; compare <i>Nehemiah</i>, ix, +14; <i>Ezekiel</i>, xx, 12. The principal Old Testament references to +the Sabbath have been grouped in their assumed historical order by E. G. +King, “The Sabbath in the Light of the Higher Criticism,” <i>Expository +Times</i>, 1906, xvii, 438-443.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_752" href="#FNanchor_752" class="label">[752]</a> M. Jastrow, “The Original Character of the Hebrew +Sabbath,” <i>American Journal of Theology</i>, 1898, ii, 313 <i>sq.</i>; +S. R. Driver, <i>The Book of Genesis</i>,⁵ London, 1906, p. 35. Canon +Cheyne suggests that the priestly writer in <i>Genesis</i>, ii, 2 +<i>sqq.</i> appears to accept the anthropomorphic view which finds such +frequent expression in Oriental antiquity. Things on earth correspond to +things in heaven; if God “rested” on the seventh day, man ought to do +likewise (<i>Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel</i>, London, 1907, +p. 70). Later Hebrew writers carry this idea of correspondence so far as +to require the angels to observe all the Jewish festivals (H. P. Smith, +<i>The Religion of Israel</i>, New York, 1914, p. 229).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_753" href="#FNanchor_753" class="label">[753]</a> F. Baur, “Der hebräische Sabbat und die Nationalfeste des +mosaischen Cultus,” <i>Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie</i>, 1832, iii, +145 <i>sqq.</i>; A. Kuenen, <i>The Religion of Israel</i>, London, 1873, +i, 262 <i>sqq.</i>; Paul de Lagarde, editor, <i>Psalterium iuxta Hebræos +Hieronymi</i>, Leipzig, 1874, 158 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_754" href="#FNanchor_754" class="label">[754]</a> Schiaparelli, <i>Astronomy in the Old Testament</i>, pp. +48 <i>sq.</i>; P. Jensen, “Astronomy,” <i>Jewish Encyclopedia</i>, ii, +246.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_755" href="#FNanchor_755" class="label">[755]</a> <i>Amos</i>, v, 26; W. R. Harper, <i>A Critical and +Exegetical Commentary on Amos and Hosea</i>, New York, 1905, pp. 137 +<i>sqq.</i>; K. Budde, <i>The Religion of Israel to the Exile</i>, New +York, 1899, pp. 67 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_756" href="#FNanchor_756" class="label">[756]</a> J. Fürst, <i>Kultur- und Literaturgeschichte der Juden +in Asien</i>, Leipzig, 1849, pt. i, 40; W. Nowack, <i>Lehrbuch der +hebräischen Archäologie</i>, Strassburg, 1894, ii, 142 <i>sq.</i>; E. +Schürer, in <i>Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft</i>, 1905, +vi, 6 <i>sq.</i>, 19. There is a Talmudic story which tells how Moses, +having arranged with Pharaoh for a day of rest to be observed by the +Hebrews in Egypt, was asked what day he thought most suitable for the +purpose. Moses answered, “The seventh day, sacred to Saturn; work done +upon this day never prospers” (Jeremias, <i>The Old Testament in the +Light of the Ancient East</i>, i, 202; Delitzsch, <i>Babel and Bible</i>, +p. 102).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_757" href="#FNanchor_757" class="label">[757]</a> <i>Saturni aut sacram me tenuisse diem</i> (<i>Elegiæ</i>, +i, 3, 18).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_758" href="#FNanchor_758" class="label">[758]</a> Ovid, <i>Remedium amoris</i>, 220; compare <i>idem</i>, +<i>Ars amatoria</i>, i, 415-416; Horace, <i>Satiræ</i>, i, 9, 69-70; +Persius, <i>Satiræ</i>, v, 184.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_759" href="#FNanchor_759" class="label">[759]</a> Frontinus, <i>Strategematica</i>, ii, 1, 17; Dio Cassius, +<i>Historia Romana</i>, xxxvii, 17. Tacitus (<i>Historiæ</i>, v, 4) +thinks that the Jewish Sabbath may be an observance in honour of Saturn, +though he gives an alternative explanation, connecting the day with +the escape from Egyptian bondage. For other evidence from classical +writers see P. Lejay, “Le sabbat juif et les poètes latins,” <i>Revue +d’histoire et de littérature religieuses</i>, 1903, viii, 305-335; T. +Reinach, <i>Textes d’auteurs grecs et romains relatifs au judaïsme</i>, +Paris, 1895, pp. 104, 243, 266, 287; M. Wolff, “Het oordeel der +hellenensch-romeinsche schrijvers over oorsprong, naam, en viering van +der Sabbat,” <i>Theologisch Tijdschrift</i>, 1910, xliv, 162-172.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_760" href="#FNanchor_760" class="label">[760]</a> J. Spencer, <i>De legibus Hebræorum ritualibus et earum +rationibus</i>, Cambridge, 1727, i, 67 <i>sqq.</i> (bk. i, ch. v, sect. +viii).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_761" href="#FNanchor_761" class="label">[761]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_762" href="#FNanchor_762" class="label">[762]</a> Below, pp. <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_763" href="#FNanchor_763" class="label">[763]</a> Nowack, <i>op. cit.</i>, ii, 144; R. Smend, <i>Lehrbuch +der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte</i>, Freiburg-i.-B., +1899, pp. 160 <i>sq.</i>; A. F. von Gall, “Die alttestamentliche +Wissenschaft und die keilinschriftliche Forschung,” <i>Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1902, v, 321.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_764" href="#FNanchor_764" class="label">[764]</a> J. Wellhausen, <i>Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels</i>,⁶ +Berlin, 1905, p. 109; W. E. Addis, <i>Documents of the Hexateuch</i>, +London, 1892, i, 139; <i>idem</i>, <i>Hebrew Religion to the +Establishment of Judaism under Ezra</i>, London, 1906, p. 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_765" href="#FNanchor_765" class="label">[765]</a> C. M. Doughty, <i>Travels in Arabia Deserta</i>, +Cambridge, 1888, i, 366.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_766" href="#FNanchor_766" class="label">[766]</a> The Hebrew lunisolar year consisted of twelve months, +adjusted to the solar year by the intercalation of a thirteenth month. +The name of the latter is first met in the <i>Mishna</i>, where it is +styled the “second Adar.” The months consisted of 29 days (hence called +“defective” months), or of 30 days (“full” months), but there seems to +have been no uniform sequence of long and short months. The regulation +of the month was probably at first in the hands of the priests and later +was committed to the Sanhedrin. A solar year of 364 days, <i>i.e.</i>, 52 +complete weeks, is found in two pseudographia which date probably from +Maccabæan times (<i>Book of Enoch</i> and <i>Book of Jubilees</i>), but +it is hardly likely that solar reckonings were then in general use. On +this subject consult S. Poznanśki, “Calendar (Jewish),” in Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 117 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_767" href="#FNanchor_767" class="label">[767]</a> <i>Psalms</i>, civ, 19. Compare <i>Ecclesiasticus</i>, +xliii, 6-8: “He made the moon also to serve in her season for a +declaration of times, and a sign of the world. From the moon is the sign +of feasts, a light that decreaseth in her perfection. The month is called +after her name, increasing wonderfully in her changing.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_768" href="#FNanchor_768" class="label">[768]</a> <i>Jeremiah</i>, viii, 2; <i>Zephaniah</i>, i, 5; +<i>Deuteronomy</i>, xvii, 3; 2 <i>Kings</i>, xxiii, 5; G. W. Gilmore, +“Moon,” <i>New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge</i>, +vii, 493. That no trace of the cult of Sin, the Babylonian moon-god, is +discoverable in the Old Testament, even in the name Sinai, is the opinion +of the latest investigator of this subject. See E. Combe, <i>Histoire du +culte de Sin</i>, Paris, 1908, pp. 157 <i>sqq.</i> The custom of kissing +the hand to the moon (<i>Job</i>, xxxi, 26 <i>sq.</i>) may have meant to +the Hebrews little more than it does to us. Orthodox Jewish mothers are +said still to teach their sons to take off their caps to the new moon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_769" href="#FNanchor_769" class="label">[769]</a> Doughty, <i>op. cit.</i>, ii, 305 <i>sq.</i>; compare +D. Nielsen, <i>Die altarabische Mondreligion und die mosaische +Überlieferung</i>, Strassburg, 1904, p. 50. For the Abyssinian customs +see E. Littmann, in <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1908, xi, +313 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_770" href="#FNanchor_770" class="label">[770]</a> Mrs. H. H. Spoer, in <i>Folklore</i>, 1910, xxi, 289.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_771" href="#FNanchor_771" class="label">[771]</a> M. Jastrow, <i>Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice +in Babylonia and Assyria</i>, New York, 1911, pp. 214 <i>n.</i>³, 336 +<i>n.</i>²; F. Hommel, <i>Der Gestirndienst der alten Araber und die +altisraelitische Überlieferung</i>, Munich, 1901, p. 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_772" href="#FNanchor_772" class="label">[772]</a> 1 <i>Samuel</i>, xx, 27-28; compare <i>Judith</i>, +viii, 6. On the new-moon festival see Nowack, <i>op. cit.</i>, ii, +138 <i>sqq.</i>; Wellhausen, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 107 <i>sqq.</i>; +I. Benzinger, <i>Hebräische Archäologie</i>,² Tübingen, 1907, pp. +388 <i>sq.</i>; G. Förster, “Die Neumondfeier im Alten Testament,” +<i>Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie</i>, 1906, xlix, 1-17; B. +Stade, <i>Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments</i>, Tübingen, 1905, +i, 176 <i>sqq.</i>; A. Dillmann, <i>Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus</i>,³ +edited by V. Ryssel, Leipzig, 1897, pp. 634 <i>sqq.</i> See also +“New Moon” in Hastings’s <i>Dictionary of the Bible</i>, <i>Jewish +Encyclopedia</i>, and <i>Encyclopædia Biblica</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_773" href="#FNanchor_773" class="label">[773]</a> 1 <i>Samuel</i>, xx, 5-6, 24-29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_774" href="#FNanchor_774" class="label">[774]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, xx, 18-19. In verse 19 the Hebrew expression +<i>beyom hama ‘aseh</i>, rendered in the Authorized Version (margin) “in +the day of the business,” appears in the Greek Septuagint, the Latin +Vulgate, and the Jewish Aramaic Targum as the designation of a working +day, in distinction from the festival day of the new moon. The Douai +version of the Scriptures translates accordingly, “in the day when it +is lawful to work.” Professor H. P. Smith holds that, owing to the +corruption of the text, the particular day here intended is no longer +intelligible (<i>A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books +of Samuel</i>, New York, 1899, pp. 190 <i>sq.</i>). He has, however, +overlooked the fact, that, as my friend and pupil Rabbi Jacob Singer +points out to me, the same expression <i>sheset yeme hama ‘aseh</i> is +found in <i>Ezekiel</i> (xlvi, 1) as the designation of “the six working +days” of the week; see Brown, Driver, and Briggs, <i>A Hebrew and English +Lexicon of the Old Testament</i>, Boston, 1906, p. 795.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_775" href="#FNanchor_775" class="label">[775]</a> 2 <i>Kings</i>, iv, 23. Some Biblical references indicate +that on the first day of the month the prophets were supposed to be most +under the influence of their divine afflatus; compare <i>Ezekiel</i>, +xxvi, 1, xxix, 17, xxxi, 1, xxxii, 1; <i>Haggai</i>, i, 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_776" href="#FNanchor_776" class="label">[776]</a> John Allen, <i>Modern Judaism</i>,² London, 1830, pp. 390 +<i>sq.</i>; H. G. F. Löwe, <i>Schulchan Aruch, oder die vier jüdischen +Gesetzbücher</i>, Vienna, 1896, i, 91; M. Friedmann, in <i>Jewish +Quarterly Review</i>, 1891, iii, 712; Israel Abrahams, <i>Jewish Life in +the Middle Ages</i>, London, 1896, p. 374.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_777" href="#FNanchor_777" class="label">[777]</a> That the Old Testament thus contains indirect evidence +of the celebration of full-moon day by the early Hebrews was long ago +recognized by the learned commentator, August Dillmann. “Von einer Feier +des Vollmondes zeigt sich bei den Israeliten keine Spur.... Jedoch war +er dadurch bevorzugt, dass an ihm das grosse Frühlings- und Herbstfest +begann” (<i>Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus</i>,³ p. 635). A passage in +one of the <i>Psalms</i> (lxxxi, 3): “Blow the trumpet at the new moon, +at the full moon, on our feast-day,” probably refers to new moon in the +seventh month, or New Year’s Day (<i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 24), and to +the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which began on the fifteenth +of the same month (<i>ibid.</i>, xxiii, 39).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_778" href="#FNanchor_778" class="label">[778]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 5-6; <i>Exodus</i>, xii, 6 +<i>sqq.</i>; <i>Numbers</i>, xxviii, 16-17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_779" href="#FNanchor_779" class="label">[779]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 33-36, 39; <i>Numbers</i>, xxix, +12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_780" href="#FNanchor_780" class="label">[780]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 6-8; <i>Exodus</i>, xii, 16; +<i>Numbers</i>, xxviii, 18, 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_781" href="#FNanchor_781" class="label">[781]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 39; <i>Numbers</i>, xxix, 12, 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_782" href="#FNanchor_782" class="label">[782]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 11, 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_783" href="#FNanchor_783" class="label">[783]</a> M. Jastrow, “‘The Day after the Sabbath,’” <i>American +Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures</i>, 1914, xxx, 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_784" href="#FNanchor_784" class="label">[784]</a> 2 <i>Kings</i>, iv, 23. This passage, incidentally, +affords proof that at the time it was written the legal length of +a “Sabbath Day’s journey” had not been determined, for from Shunem +to Elisha’s abode on Carmel was a distance of some thirty to forty +kilometres (R. Kittel, <i>Die Bücher der Könige</i>, Göttingen, 1900, p. +200).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_785" href="#FNanchor_785" class="label">[785]</a> <i>Hosea</i>, ii, 13 (A. V. v. 11).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_786" href="#FNanchor_786" class="label">[786]</a> <i>Amos</i>, viii, 4-5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_787" href="#FNanchor_787" class="label">[787]</a> <i>Isaiah</i>, i, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_788" href="#FNanchor_788" class="label">[788]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, lxvi, 23; compare <i>Colossians</i>, ii, 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_789" href="#FNanchor_789" class="label">[789]</a> Wellhausen, <i>Prolegomena</i>,⁶ pp. 108 <i>sq.</i>; +Smith, “Sabbath,” <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>,⁹ xxi, 126.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_790" href="#FNanchor_790" class="label">[790]</a> This pregnant suggestion was first made by H. Zimmern +in his comments on the discovery by T. G. Pinches (<i>Zeitschrift der +deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft</i>, 1904, lvii, 202 <i>and</i> +<i>n.</i>¹). The hypothesis of the original identity of Sabbath and +full-moon day was subsequently elaborated by J. Meinhold (<i>Sabbat und +Woche im Alten Testament</i>, Göttingen, 1905), whose main conclusions +have been accepted by K. Marti (<i>Religion of the Old Testament</i>, +London, 1907, pp. 150 <i>sq.</i>) and T. K. Cheyne (<i>Traditions +and Beliefs of Ancient Israel</i>, London, 1907, p. 69). See also E. +Mahler, “Der Sabbat,” <i>Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen +Gesellschaft</i>, 1908, lxii, 40, 46 <i>sq.</i>; M. Jastrow, <i>Hebrew +and Baylonian Traditions</i>, New York, 1914, pp. 154 <i>sqq.</i>, 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_791" href="#FNanchor_791" class="label">[791]</a> <i>Ezekiel</i>, xlvi, 1-3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_792" href="#FNanchor_792" class="label">[792]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>. <i>Shabbāth</i> also appears several +times in the Old Testament in the general sense of “week,” the name of +the principal weekday being used as the designation of the entire cycle +of seven days. Compare <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 15, xxv, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_793" href="#FNanchor_793" class="label">[793]</a> H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader, <i>Keilinschriften</i>,³ p. +594; compare A. H. McNeile, <i>The Book of Exodus</i>, London, 1908, p. +122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_794" href="#FNanchor_794" class="label">[794]</a> Johannes Meinhold, <i>Sabbat und Woche im Alten +Testament</i>, Göttingen, 1905, pp. 10 <i>sqq.</i>; compare <i>idem</i>, +“Die Entstehung des Sabbats,” <i>Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche +Wissenschaft</i>, 1909, xxix, 81-112.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_795" href="#FNanchor_795" class="label">[795]</a> The march of the Israelitish host around Jericho on +seven successive days, one of which must have been the Sabbath, if that +institution as a weekly rest day was then known to them, would have been +a profanation of the Sabbath according to later ideas. See <i>Joshua</i>, +vi, 4, 14-15; compare Tertullian, <i>Adversus Judæos</i>, 4. But this +account may contain a reminiscence of a period of Hebrew history when the +week, either lunar or periodic, had not become established in Israel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_796" href="#FNanchor_796" class="label">[796]</a> <i>Numbers</i>, xxviii, 11-15; <i>Ezekiel</i>, xlvi, 4-6; +compare 1 <i>Chronicles</i>, xxiii, 31; 2 <i>Chronicles</i>, ii, 4, viii, +13, xxxi, 3; <i>Ezra</i>, iii, 5; <i>Nehemiah</i>, x, 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_797" href="#FNanchor_797" class="label">[797]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxiii, 24; compare <i>Numbers</i>, xxix, +1; <i>Nehemiah</i>, viii, 2, 9-12. But see above, p. <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_798" href="#FNanchor_798" class="label">[798]</a> <i>Deuteronomy</i>, v, 14; <i>Exodus</i>, xxiii, 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_799" href="#FNanchor_799" class="label">[799]</a> <i>Exodus</i>, xx, 8-11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_800" href="#FNanchor_800" class="label">[800]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, xxxiv, 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_801" href="#FNanchor_801" class="label">[801]</a> <i>Exodus</i>, xvi, 29. On this text Dositheus, the +founder of an ascetic Samaritan sect, is said to have based the +requirement that, in whatever habit, place, or posture the Sabbath found +a man, in this he was to continue till the close of the sacred festival; +if he was found sitting, he must sit still all the day, or, if reclining, +he must lie down all the day (Origen, <i>De principiis</i>, iv, 1, 17). +S. Reinach wittily compares the Dosithean injunction to the practice of +various animals, which, when in danger and unable to flee, <i>fait le +mort</i> (“Le sabbat hébraïque,” <i>Cultes, mythes, et religions</i>, +Paris, 1906-1912, ii, 444). For some mediæval stories illustrating the +rule of absolute repose on the Sabbath, see R. Basset, “L’observation du +sabbat,” <i>Revue des traditions populaires</i>, 1893, viii, 250-254.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_802" href="#FNanchor_802" class="label">[802]</a> <i>Exodus</i>, xxxv, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_803" href="#FNanchor_803" class="label">[803]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, xvi, 23. The rules forbidding the lighting +of fires and cooking on the Sabbath were very strictly observed by the +Essenes (Josephus, <i>Bellum Judaicum</i>, ii, 8). In the <i>Mishna</i> +(<i>Shabbāth</i>, iv, 1) the prohibition to bake and boil on the Sabbath +is interpreted to mean that food may be kept hot on the Sabbath, provided +its existing heat is not increased, which would be “boiling.” Hence the +food must be put only into such substances as would maintain but not +increase the heat. The prohibition to kindle a fire on the Sabbath was +naturally extended to one of extinguishing a fire, as well as lights and +lamps (<i>ibid.</i>, xvi, 6). In mediæval times Rabbi Solomon ben Adret +had a lock affixed to his stove, and kept the key over the Sabbath to +prevent his too-considerate housemaid from lighting a fire on Saturdays +(I. Abrahams, <i>Jewish Life in the Middle Ages</i>, London, 1896, p. +83). On the modern Jewish custom of kindling lights at the arrival and +departure of the Sabbath see M. Friedmann, “The Sabbath Light,” <i>Jewish +Quarterly Review</i>, 1891, iii, 707-721.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_804" href="#FNanchor_804" class="label">[804]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>and</i> <i>n.</i>³</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_805" href="#FNanchor_805" class="label">[805]</a> F. J. Chabas, <i>Le calendrier des jours fastes et +néfastes de l’année égyptienne</i>, Chalon-s.-S., 1870, pp. 46, 68; Sir +G. Maspero, <i>New Light on Ancient Egypt</i>,² London, 1909, pp. 130 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_806" href="#FNanchor_806" class="label">[806]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, +<a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, +<a href="#Page_41">41</a>, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_807" href="#FNanchor_807" class="label">[807]</a> E. Westermarck, <i>Origin and Development of the Moral +Ideas</i>, ii, 305.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_808" href="#FNanchor_808" class="label">[808]</a> For a collection of the ethnographic evidence, see Sir J. +G. Frazer, “On Certain Burial Customs as Illustrative of the Primitive +Theory of the Soul,” <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, +1885, xv, 90; <i>idem</i>, <i>The Magic Art and the Evolution of +Kings</i>, London, 1911, ii, 267 <i>n.</i>⁴; E. S. Hartland, “Death +and Disposal of the Dead (Introductory and Primitive),” Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iv, 439.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_809" href="#FNanchor_809" class="label">[809]</a> E. Westermarck, “The Principles of Fasting,” +<i>Folklore</i>, 1908, xviii, 397 <i>sqq.</i>; <i>idem</i>, <i>Moral +Ideas</i>, ii, 293 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_810" href="#FNanchor_810" class="label">[810]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, +<a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_811" href="#FNanchor_811" class="label">[811]</a> Compare M. Jastrow, in <i>American Journal of +Theology</i>, 1898, ii, 324 <i>sqq.</i>; Westermarck, <i>op. cit.</i>, +ii, 310 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_812" href="#FNanchor_812" class="label">[812]</a> <i>Ecclesiastical Polity</i>, v, 72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_813" href="#FNanchor_813" class="label">[813]</a> <i>De vita sua</i>, 54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_814" href="#FNanchor_814" class="label">[814]</a> Suetonius, <i>Divus Augustus</i>, 76; Strabo, +<i>Geographica</i>, xvi, 2, 40; Martial, <i>Epigrammata</i>, iv, 4; +Justin, xxxvi, 2. Justin speaks of the Sabbath as having been consecrated +as a fast day to commemorate a seven days’ fast of the Israelites in the +deserts of Arabia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_815" href="#FNanchor_815" class="label">[815]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_816" href="#FNanchor_816" class="label">[816]</a> <i>Judith</i>, viii, 6; <i>Schulchan Aruch</i>, i, 91 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_817" href="#FNanchor_817" class="label">[817]</a> The Talmud (<i>Tractate Pesachim</i>, 105 a) indicates +that some superstitions attached to the afternoon of the Sabbath as a +dangerous time for the consumption of food. During the early Middle Ages +Jews in northern France, Lorraine, and Germany, but not in Provence, +Narbonne, or Spain, refrained from eating and drinking on Sabbath +afternoons. See D. Kaufmann, “Was the Custom of Fasting on Sabbath +Afternoon Part of the Early Anglo-Jewish Ritual?” <i>Jewish Quarterly +Review</i>, 1894, vi, 754-756.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_818" href="#FNanchor_818" class="label">[818]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxv, 4. This law was occasionally +productive of great distress (1 <i>Maccabees</i>, vi, 48, 53; compare +Josephus, <i>Antiquitates Judaicæ</i>, xiv, 16, 2).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_819" href="#FNanchor_819" class="label">[819]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxv, 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_820" href="#FNanchor_820" class="label">[820]</a> <i>Exodus</i>, xxiii, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_821" href="#FNanchor_821" class="label">[821]</a> <i>Leviticus</i>, xxv, 11. Whether the Jubilee was +celebrated after forty-eight years or after forty-nine years is a problem +incapable of solution from the Old Testament evidence. As Schiaparelli +has well shown (<i>Astronomy in the Old Testament</i>, pp. 146 +<i>sqq.</i>), the twenty-fifth chapter of <i>Leviticus</i> combines two +systems of rules which are not only different but actually irreconcilable +with each other, the septennial system of the Sabbatical Year and the +Jubilee system of fifty years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_822" href="#FNanchor_822" class="label">[822]</a> <i>Exodus</i>, xxxi, 14; for a similar regulation see +<i>ibid.</i>, xxxv, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_823" href="#FNanchor_823" class="label">[823]</a> <i>Numbers</i>, xv, 32-36. The comments of Philo Judæus +on this passage are interesting, if not illuminating (<i>Vita Mosis</i>, +iii, 27-28).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_824" href="#FNanchor_824" class="label">[824]</a> <i>Jeremiah</i>, xvii, 19-27; <i>Ezekiel</i>, xx, 13, 16, +21, 24, xxii, 8, 26, xxiii, 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_825" href="#FNanchor_825" class="label">[825]</a> <i>Nehemiah</i>, x, 31, xiii, 15-16. The use of the +Sabbath Day for marketing is paralleled by the Mohammedan observance of +<i>jum‘a</i> (above, p. <a href="#Page_206">206</a>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_826" href="#FNanchor_826" class="label">[826]</a> <i>Isaiah</i>, lvi, 2 <i>sq.</i>, lviii, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_827" href="#FNanchor_827" class="label">[827]</a> T. K. Cheyne, <i>Jewish Religious Life after the +Exile</i>, New York, 1898, p. 66; C. G. Montefiore, <i>Lectures on +the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion +of the Ancient Hebrews</i>,² London, 1893, pp. 229 <i>sq.</i>, 338 +<i>sq.</i>; Wellhausen, <i>Prolegomena</i>,⁶ p. 110; W. R. Smith, +“Sabbath,” <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>,⁹ xxi, 124; K. Marti, <i>Das +Dodekapropheton</i>, Tübingen, 1904, p. 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_828" href="#FNanchor_828" class="label">[828]</a> Compare E. G. Hirsch; “Sabbath,” in <i>Jewish +Encyclopedia</i>, x, 590; Bohn, <i>Der Sabbat im Alten Testament</i>, pp. +8 <i>sqq.</i>, 89 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_829" href="#FNanchor_829" class="label">[829]</a> M. Jastrow, in <i>American Journal of Theology</i>, 1898, +ii, 324 <i>n.</i>⁴⁷ <i>idem</i>, <i>Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions</i>, +p. 162. The Old Testament contains at least one reference to a lucky day +(1 <i>Samuel</i>, xxv, 8). Among modern Jews no marriages are celebrated +during the period between Passover and Pentecost. The origin of the +superstition is unknown, but its antiquity may be judged from the fact +that in the 8th century <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> the rabbis themselves were unable +to account for it (Abrahams, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 184). By the Romans +May was considered an unlucky month for marriage, a belief which Ovid +(<i>Fasti</i>, v, 489-490) connects with the celebration of the Lemuria +in May. Compare Plutarch, <i>Quæstiones Romanæ</i>, 86. The superstition, +as is well known, has descended to our own time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_830" href="#FNanchor_830" class="label">[830]</a> The principal regulations in the <i>Mishna</i> are well +summarized by E. Schürer, <i>History of the Jewish People in the Time of +Christ</i>, div. ii, vol. ii, 96-105. For the rigorous rules observed by +the Covenanters of Damascus, a Jewish sect whose history has been only +lately recovered, see G. F. Moore, in <i>Harvard Theological Review</i>, +1911, iv, 346 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_831" href="#FNanchor_831" class="label">[831]</a> 1 <i>Maccabees</i>, ii, 31 <i>sqq.</i>; 2 +<i>Maccabees</i>, v, 25-26, vi, 11, viii, 26; Josephus, <i>Antiquitates +Judaicæ</i>, xii, 62. Plutarch refers to the Jews who allowed their +enemies to rear scaling ladders and make themselves masters of their +walls, and “so lay still until they were caught like so many trout in the +dragnet of their own superstition” (<i>De superstitione</i>, 8).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_832" href="#FNanchor_832" class="label">[832]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_97">97</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_833" href="#FNanchor_833" class="label">[833]</a> <i>Isaiah</i>, lviii, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_834" href="#FNanchor_834" class="label">[834]</a> <i>Luke</i>, xiv, 1-24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_835" href="#FNanchor_835" class="label">[835]</a> Augustine, <i>In comm. ad Psalm. xcii</i> (<i>Nicene +and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church</i>, viii, 453). +This passage, with others in a similar strain, from St. Chrysostom, +Prudentius, and Theodoret, is adduced by the learned ecclesiastical +historian Joseph Bingham (<i>Antiquities of the Christian Church</i>, +London, 1838-1840, vii, 32 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_836" href="#FNanchor_836" class="label">[836]</a> Plutarch, <i>Quæstiones conviviales</i>, iv, 6, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_837" href="#FNanchor_837" class="label">[837]</a> S. Schechter, in <i>Jewish Quarterly Review</i>, 1891, +iii, 763; compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Studies in Judaism</i>, New York, +1896, pp. 244 <i>sqq.</i>, and Israel Abrahams, <i>Jewish Life in the +Middle Ages</i>, London, 1896, p. 12, 24, 373 <i>sq.</i> See further +J. Mann, “The Observance of the Sabbath and the Festivals in the First +Two Centuries of the Current Era, according to Philo, Josephus, the New +Testament, and the Rabbinic Sources,” <i>Jewish Review</i>, 1914, iv, +433-456.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_838" href="#FNanchor_838" class="label">[838]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_244">244</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_839" href="#FNanchor_839" class="label">[839]</a> <i>De opificio mundi</i>, 30; compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Vita +Mosis</i>, ii, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_840" href="#FNanchor_840" class="label">[840]</a> <i>Contra Apionem</i>, ii, 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_841" href="#FNanchor_841" class="label">[841]</a> Compare Juvenal, <i>Satiræ</i>, xiv, 105-106 (with J. B. +Mayor’s commentary); Tertullian, <i>Apologeticus</i>, 16; <i>idem</i>, +<i>Ad nationes</i>, i, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_842" href="#FNanchor_842" class="label">[842]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_843" href="#FNanchor_843" class="label">[843]</a> In the New Testament such phrases as ἐν δὲ μιᾷ +τῶν σαββάτων (<i>Acts</i>, xx, 7) and κατὰ μίαν σαββάτου (1 +<i>Corinthians</i>, xvi, 2; compare <i>Matthew</i>, xxviii, 1; +<i>Mark</i>, xvi, 2; <i>Luke</i>, xxiv, 1; <i>John</i>, xx, 1, 19) refer +to Sunday as “the first day of the week.” An equivalent expression, +πρώτῃ σαββάτου, is also found (<i>Mark</i>, xvi, 9). The designation +of Sunday as the Lord’s Day—ἡ κυριακὴ ἡμέρα—occurs in a single New +Testament passage (<i>Revelation</i>, i, 10). Some critics hold that the +author of the <i>Apocalypse</i> was referring here, not to Sunday but to +the day of Judgment, called elsewhere ἡ ἡμέρα ἡ μεγάλη “the great day” +(<i>ibid.</i>, vi, 17, xvi, 14).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_844" href="#FNanchor_844" class="label">[844]</a> <i>Acts</i>, xx, 7; 1 <i>Corinthians</i>, xvi, 2; compare +<i>John</i>, xx, 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_845" href="#FNanchor_845" class="label">[845]</a> <i>Epistola Barnabæ</i>, 15; compare Justin Martyr, +<i>Dialogus cum Tryphone</i>, 138; Tertullian, <i>De idolatria</i>, 14. +The “eighth day” might seem to be a natural designation for the day +following the Sabbath, the seventh day; more probably, however, it is to +be explained by the ancient practice of inclusive reckoning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_846" href="#FNanchor_846" class="label">[846]</a> <i>Didache</i>, xiv, 1. The testimony of Pliny the Younger +(<i>Epistolæ</i>, x, 98) makes it evident that as early as the year +111 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> the Christians of Asia Minor were accustomed to hold +religious assemblies on a fixed day (<i>stato die</i>), which can hardly +have been other than the first day of the week.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_847" href="#FNanchor_847" class="label">[847]</a> Eusebius, <i>Historia ecclesiastica</i>, iv, 23, 11, iv, +26, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_848" href="#FNanchor_848" class="label">[848]</a> <i>Apologia prima</i>, 67. Tertullian, who found it +necessary to answer the objection that Christians worshipped the +sun, declares, “Indeed, they made Sunday a day of joy, but for other +reasons than to adore the sun, which was no part of their religion” +(<i>Apologeticus</i>, 16; compare <i>Ad nationes</i>, i, 13).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_849" href="#FNanchor_849" class="label">[849]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>sq.</i> On the early history of the +Christian Sunday see A. Barry, “Lord’s Day,” Smith and Cheetham’s +<i>Dictionary of Christian Antiquities</i>, ii, 1042-1053; G. A. +Deissmann, “Lord’s Day,” <i>Encyclopædia Biblica</i>, iii, coll. +2813-2816; O. Zöckler, “Sonntagsfeier,” Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck’s +<i>Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche</i>,³ xviii, +521-529; T. Zahn, “Geschichte des Sonntags vornehmlich in der alten +Kirche,” in <i>Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche</i>,² Erlangen, +1898, pp. 160-208, 351-376; J. A. Hessey, <i>Sunday</i>,⁵ London, 1889, +pp. 40-49.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_850" href="#FNanchor_850" class="label">[850]</a> <i>Matthew</i>, xii, 8; <i>Mark</i>, ii, 27; <i>John</i>, +v, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_851" href="#FNanchor_851" class="label">[851]</a> <i>Colossians</i>, ii, 16; compare <i>Romans</i>, xiv, 5; +<i>Galatians</i>, iv, 10-11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_852" href="#FNanchor_852" class="label">[852]</a> <i>Epistola ad Magnesios</i>, 9. The longer recension of +this passage, though an interpolation of much later date, expresses the +same antagonism toward sabbatizing: “But let every one of you keep the +Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, +not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not +eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and +walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing, and +plaudits which have no sense in them” (<i>Ante-Nicene Fathers</i>, i, 62 +<i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_853" href="#FNanchor_853" class="label">[853]</a> <i>Constitutiones Apostolicæ</i>, ii, 59, 1, vii, 23, +2, viii, 33, 1; <i>Concilium Laodicenum</i>, can. 16 (Labbe-Mansi, +<i>Sacrorum conciliorum collectio</i>, ii, 567); Socrates, <i>Historia +ecclesiastica</i>, vi, 8. The church council held at Laodicea in 363 +<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> anathematized as Judaizers those who refrained from work +on Saturday (<i>Concilium Laodicenum</i>, can. 29; Labbe-Mansi, <i>op. +cit.</i>, ii, 580). The anathema did not penetrate to the ancient +Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, where Saturday is still strictly +observed. “The ox and the ass are at rest. Agricultural pursuits are +suspended. Household avocations must be laid aside, and the spirit +of idleness reigns throughout the day.... When, a few years ago, one +daring spirit presumed, in advance of the age, to burst the fetters of +superstition, his majesty the king of Shoa, stimulated by the advice of +besotted monks, delegated his wardens throughout the land, and issued a +proclamation, that whoso disturbed the original dreamy stillness of the +Jewish Sabbath should forfeit his property to the royal treasury, and +be consigned to the state dungeon” (W. C. Harris, <i>The Highlands of +Ethiopia</i>, New York [1843], p. 272). The Celts kept Saturday as a +day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday (A. Bellesheim, +<i>History of the Catholic Church in Scotland</i>, Edinburgh, 1887-1890, +i, 86).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_854" href="#FNanchor_854" class="label">[854]</a> <i>De oratione</i>, 23: <i>Omni anxietatis habitu et +officio cavere debemus, differentes etiam negotia, ne quem diabolo +locum demus</i>. Tertullian, however, elsewhere rejects the implication +that Christians should be sabbatizers, “we, to whom these Sabbaths +belong not, nor the new moons, nor the feast days once beloved of God” +(<i>De idolatria</i>, 14); compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Apologeticus</i>, +16; <i>idem</i>, <i>Ad nationes</i>, i, 13; <i>idem</i>, <i>Adversus +Judæos</i>, 4; Augustine, <i>De spiritu et littera</i>, 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_855" href="#FNanchor_855" class="label">[855]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_856" href="#FNanchor_856" class="label">[856]</a> For the history of Sunday legislation see E. V. Neale, +<i>Feasts and Fasts</i>, London, 1845; R. E. Prime, “Sunday Legislation,” +<i>New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge</i>, xi, +146-151; J. Gairdiner, “Sundays, Ancient and Modern,” in Gairdiner +and Spedding, <i>Studies in English History</i>, Edinburgh, 1881, pp. +286-315; Hans [Johannes] Meinhold, <i>Sabbat und Sonntag</i>, Leipzig, +1909, pp. 65-103; Alice M. Earle, <i>The Sabbath in Puritan New +England</i>, New York, 1891, pp. 245-258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_857" href="#FNanchor_857" class="label">[857]</a> Ellis, <i>Tshi-speaking Peoples</i>, pp. 219 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_858" href="#FNanchor_858" class="label">[858]</a> G. F. Abbott, <i>Macedonian Folklore</i>, Cambridge, +1903, p. 189. In Greece and Albania, also, Tuesday is an unlucky day for +every sort of enterprise (Miss Mary Hamilton, <i>Greek Saints and their +Festivals</i>, Edinburgh, 1910, p. 190).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_859" href="#FNanchor_859" class="label">[859]</a> Livy, vi, 1; Tacitus, <i>Historiæ</i>, ii, 91; Suetonius, +<i>Vitellius</i>, 11. Compare Ovid (<i>Fasti</i>, i, 49-50):</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Omen ab eventu est; illis nam Roma diebus,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Damna sub adverso Marte tristia tulit.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_860" href="#FNanchor_860" class="label">[860]</a> Suetonius, <i>Divus Julius</i>, 88.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_861" href="#FNanchor_861" class="label">[861]</a> See “La recommandation du vendredi,” <i>Mélusine</i>, +1888-1889, iv, 104, 133 <i>sqq.</i>, 205 <i>sq.</i> However, the Friday +superstition may ante-date Christianity. In Macedonia it is believed +that ablutions on Friday are dangerous, especially for women in childbed +(Abbott, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 190). The Brahmans of India share the +Friday superstition, saying that “on this day no business must be +commenced” (Buchanan, in <i>Asiatick Researches</i>, vi, 172). Among the +Parsis Tuesday and Friday are inauspicious days, generally avoided for +betrothals, marriages, and other happy occasions. Many persons will not +begin an important work or start on a distant journey on these days (J. +J. Modi, “Omens among the Parsees,” <i>Journal of the Anthropological +Society of Bombay</i>, i, 294). All over Burma Friday is unlucky. “Don’t +go on Friday” is a current saying (L. Vossion, “<i>Nat</i>-worship among +the Burmese,” <i>Journal of American Folk-lore</i>, 1892, iv, 112). For +Russian superstitions relating to Friday see above, p. <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>²</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_862" href="#FNanchor_862" class="label">[862]</a> J. Jacobs, “Superstition,” <i>Jewish Encyclopedia</i>, xi, +599.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_863" href="#FNanchor_863" class="label">[863]</a> The sidereal month, determined by the moon’s revolution +from any star back to the same star, has a mean length of 27 days, 7 +hours, 43 minutes, and 11 seconds. The least duration is 27 days, 4 +hours, and the greatest, about 7 hours longer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_864" href="#FNanchor_864" class="label">[864]</a> F. K. Ginzel (<i>Handbuch der mathematischen und +technischen Chronologie</i>, Leipzig, 1906-1911, i, 70 <i>sqq.</i>) +provides a useful survey, with bibliographies, of the lengthy discussions +relating to the origin and diffusion of the moon-stations. See also W. +D. Whitney, “On the Lunar Zodiac of India, Arabia, and China,” in his +<i>Oriental and Linguistic Studies</i>, second series, New York, 1874, +pp. 341-421.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_865" href="#FNanchor_865" class="label">[865]</a> Sir M. Monier-Williams, <i>Brāhmanism and Hindūism</i>,⁴ +New York, 1891, pp. 345 <i>sq.</i>; compare J. A. Dubois, <i>Hindu +Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies</i>,³ Oxford, 1906, p. 382.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_866" href="#FNanchor_866" class="label">[866]</a> L. H. Gray, “The Parsī-Persian <i>Burj-Nāmah</i>, or Book +of Omens from the Moon,” <i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, +1910, xx, 337 <i>sqq.</i>; A. de C. Motylinski, <i>Les mansions lunaires +des Arabes</i>, Algiers, 1899.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_867" href="#FNanchor_867" class="label">[867]</a> J. Sibree, “Divination among the Malagasy,” +<i>Folklore</i>, 1892, iii, 220 <i>sq.</i> In Madagascar the names of +the separate days in the month have been taken directly from the Arabic +names for the twenty-eight lunar mansions. It thus appears that these +names have both astrological and chronological value (G. Ferrand, “Note +sur le calendrier malgache et le <i>fandruana</i>,” <i>Revue des études +ethnographiques et sociologiques</i>, 1908, i, 95). Among the northern +Abyssinians lucky and unlucky days are likewise determined by the lunar +stations, though only six or seven are reckoned, each containing from +two to seven days (E. Littmann, “Sternensagen und Astrologisches aus +Nordabessinien,” <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1908, xi, 301 +<i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_868" href="#FNanchor_868" class="label">[868]</a> Above, p. <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>n.</i>²</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_869" href="#FNanchor_869" class="label">[869]</a> According to A. Jeremias no evidence exists for the +recognition of twelve intercalary days in the ancient Oriental world +(<i>Das Alter der babylonischen Astronomie</i>, Leipzig, 1909, p. 42 +<i>n.</i>¹). However, the Babylonian New Year’s festival of Zagmuk, which +occupied the first eleven days of the spring month of Nisan, has been +compared with the Twelve Days of Indo-European antiquity (H. Winckler, +<i>Altorientalische Forschungen</i>, Leipzig, 1898, ii, i, 182). What +relation, if any, the Babylonian Zagmuk bore to the Babylo-Persian Sacæa +and the Hebrew Purim is still a subject of controversy. See the full +presentation of the evidence in Sir J. G. Frazer, <i>The Scapegoat</i>, +London, 1913, pp. 354-407. The Babylonian <i>Epic of Gilgamesh</i>, +recorded on twelve cuneiform tablets, has been plausibly interpreted as a +solar myth, recounting the sun’s annual course during the twelve months. +Now, a relationship undoubtedly exists between at least three tablets of +the poem and the corresponding months of the year, notably in the case +of the eleventh tablet, in which the story of the Deluge is told, and +the eleventh month, which by the Babylonians was termed the “month of +rain” (M. Jastrow, <i>Religion of Babylonia and Assyria</i>, pp. 484, +510). It is curious, therefore, to find that in the Hebrew narrative +of the Flood the waters cover the earth for the period of a year and +eleven days, apparently, here, a lunar year of 354 days plus eleven days +(<i>Genesis</i>, vii, 11, viii, 14).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_870" href="#FNanchor_870" class="label">[870]</a> <i>Rig-Veda</i>, i, 161, 11, 13, iv, 33, 7; compare +<i>Atharva-Veda</i>, iv, 11, 11 (transl. W. D. Whitney, p. 166).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_871" href="#FNanchor_871" class="label">[871]</a> <i>Kāṭhaka</i>, 7, 5; <i>Taittirīya-brāhmaṇa</i>, 1, 1, 9, +10; H. Zimmer, <i>Altindisches Leben</i>, Berlin, 1879, p. 367.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_872" href="#FNanchor_872" class="label">[872]</a> A. Weber, “Zwei vedische Texte über Omina und Portenta,” +<i>Philologische und historische Abhandlungen der königlichen +Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin</i>, 1858, pp. 388 <i>sq.</i>; +<i>idem</i>, <i>Indische Studien</i>, 1868, x, 242 <i>sq.</i>, 1885, +xvii, 223 <i>sqq.</i>, 1898, xviii, 45; <i>idem</i>, “Vedische +Beiträge,” <i>Sitzungsberichte der königlich-preussischen Akademie der +Wissenschaften zu Berlin</i>, 1898, pp. 559 <i>sqq.</i> Compare A. +Ludwig, <i>Der Rigveda</i>, Prague, 1883, vi, 232; A. Kaegi, <i>The +Rigveda</i>, Boston, 1886, p. 37; Zimmer, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 366 +<i>sq.</i> For contrary opinions see O. Schrader, <i>Reallexikon +der indogermanischen Altertumskunde</i>, pp. 391 <i>sq.</i>; G. +Thibaut, in Bühler’s <i>Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und +Altertumskunde</i>, iii, pt. ix, 9 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_873" href="#FNanchor_873" class="label">[873]</a> J. Lippert, <i>Christentum, Volksglaube, und +Volksbrauch</i>, Berlin, 1882, pp. 680-685; C. A. Miles, <i>Christmas in +Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan</i>, London, 1912, pp. 238-246; +Frazer, <i>The Scapegoat</i>, pp. 313-345.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_874" href="#FNanchor_874" class="label">[874]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_74">74</a> <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_875" href="#FNanchor_875" class="label">[875]</a> G. F. Abbott, <i>Macedonian Folklore</i>, Cambridge, 1903, +p. 75.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_876" href="#FNanchor_876" class="label">[876]</a> A. Wuttke, <i>Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der +Gegenwart</i>,³ edited by E. H. Meyer, Berlin, 1900, pp. 63 <i>sqq.</i> +See also K. Weinhold, <i>Weihnacht-Spiele und Lieder aus Süddeutschland +und Schlesien</i>, Gräz, 1853, pp. 11 <i>sq.</i>; K. A. Oberle, +<i>Überreste germanischen Heidentums im Christentum</i>, Baden-Baden, +1883, pp. 63 <i>sq.</i>; E. H. Meyer, <i>Indogermanische Mythen</i>, +Berlin, 1887, ii, 526 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_877" href="#FNanchor_877" class="label">[877]</a> J. Loth, “Les douze jours supplémentaires +(<i>gour-deziou</i>) des Bretons, et les douze jours des Germains et des +Indous,” <i>Revue celtique</i>, 1903, xxiv, 310-312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_878" href="#FNanchor_878" class="label">[878]</a> Miss C. S. Burne, editor, <i>Shropshire Folk-lore</i>, +London, 1883, p. 403.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_879" href="#FNanchor_879" class="label">[879]</a> W. Gregor, <i>Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-east +of Scotland</i>, London, 1881, p. 156; <i>idem</i>, in <i>Folk-lore +Record</i>, 1884, ii, 332.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_880" href="#FNanchor_880" class="label">[880]</a> John Williams ab Ithel, <i>Barddas</i>, Llandovery, +1862-1874, i, 424 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_881" href="#FNanchor_881" class="label">[881]</a> E. Seler, “The Mexican Chronology,” <i>Bulletin of the +Bureau of American Ethnology</i>, no. 28, p. 16. The passage quoted +above is from Seler’s translation of the Aztec text of Sahagun, which +is more complete than the latter’s Spanish version (<i>Historia general +de las cosas de Nueva España</i>, ii, 37; transl. Jourdanet and Siméon, +Paris, 1880, pp. 50, 77, 164, 283, 291). Other Spanish authorities refer +to the <i>nemontemi</i> as days when the people did nothing but receive +and return visits (Clavigero, <i>Storia antica del Messico</i>, vi, 24; +Acosta, <i>Historia de las Indias</i>, vi, 2).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_882" href="#FNanchor_882" class="label">[882]</a> E. Seler, in <i>Bulletin of the Bureau of American +Ethnology</i>, no. 28, pp. 16 <i>sq.</i>; compare <i>idem</i>, in +Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 308. The +principal authority for the Maya custom is Diego de Landa, <i>Relación de +las cosas de Yucatan</i>, ch. xxxv (transl. Brasseur de Bourbourg, pp. +211 <i>sqq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_883" href="#FNanchor_883" class="label">[883]</a> These five days thus inserted between the “small year” +and the “large year” did not interrupt the regular sequence of the three +decades into which the Egyptian month was divided; see above, p. <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_884" href="#FNanchor_884" class="label">[884]</a> Pepi, 2, l. 754. A still earlier reference is found in +an inscription belonging to the time of the Fifth Dynasty (K. Sethe, +<i>Urkunden des alten Reichs</i>, Leipzig, 1903, i, 24).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_885" href="#FNanchor_885" class="label">[885]</a> H. Brugsch, “Die fünf Epagomenen in einem hieratischen +Papyrus zu Leiden,” <i>Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen +Gesellschaft</i>, 1852, v, 254-258; compare <i>idem</i>, <i>Die +Ägyptologie</i>, Leipzig, 1891, p. 362; C. R. Lepsius, <i>Die Chronologie +der Ägypter</i>, Berlin, 1849, i, 145 <i>sqq.</i> The chief classical +references to the epagomenal days are Herodotus, ii, 4; Plutarch, <i>De +Iside et Osiride</i>, 12; and Diodorus Siculus, i, 13, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_886" href="#FNanchor_886" class="label">[886]</a> F. J. Chabas, <i>Le calendrier des jours fastes et +néfastes de l’année égyptienne</i>, Chalon-s.-S., 1870, pp. 102-107. +In the <i>Leiden Papyrus</i> (i. 346) only the first, third, and fifth +days are marked with the same sign as unlucky, but the observances +prescribed relate to all five days. Plutarch (<i>op. cit.</i>, 12) refers +to the third day, that of Set or Tryphon, as inauspicious for Egyptian +kings, who did no business on it and took no care of their persons till +nightfall. The parallel to the royal observance of the Babylonian “evil +days” is instructive (above, pp. <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_887" href="#FNanchor_887" class="label">[887]</a> L. H. Gray, “Calendar (Persian),” Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 129; <i>idem</i>, +“Divination (Persian),” <i>ibid.</i>, iv, 819.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_888" href="#FNanchor_888" class="label">[888]</a> F. Justi, <i>Geschichte des alten Persiens</i>, Berlin, +1879, p. 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_889" href="#FNanchor_889" class="label">[889]</a> F. Macler, “Calendar (Armenian),” Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_890" href="#FNanchor_890" class="label">[890]</a> J. Levering, in <i>Proceedings of the American Academy of +Arts and Sciences</i>, 1873, viii, 348-364; “Calendrier républicain,” +<i>La grande encyclopédie</i>, viii, 908-910.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_891" href="#FNanchor_891" class="label">[891]</a> Abbott, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 21, 63. The Macedonians +observe the same restrictions on the Wednesdays and Fridays of these two +months.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_892" href="#FNanchor_892" class="label">[892]</a> Miss Mary Hamilton, <i>Greek Saints and their +Festivals</i>, Edinburgh, 1910, pp. 187 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_893" href="#FNanchor_893" class="label">[893]</a> W. H. D. Rouse, “Folklore from the Southern Sporades,” +<i>Folklore</i>, 1899, x, 179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_894" href="#FNanchor_894" class="label">[894]</a> J. C. Lawson, <i>Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek +Religion</i>, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 152 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_895" href="#FNanchor_895" class="label">[895]</a> J. S. Polack, <i>Manners and Customs of the New +Zealanders</i>, London, 1840, i, 256.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_896" href="#FNanchor_896" class="label">[896]</a> J. Winkler, “Der Kalender der Toba-Bataks auf Sumatra,” +<i>Zeitschrift für Ethnologie</i>, 1913, xlv, 436-447. Among the Batta +dwelling inland from the Bay of Tapanuli the priest or magician, whose +duty it is to announce propitious days, is a most important functionary +in every village. The people “will not engage in any undertaking, however +trifling, or make the smallest alteration in their domestic economy, +without first consulting him” (Burton and Ward, in <i>Memoirs of the +Royal Asiatic Society</i>, 1827, i, 500).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_897" href="#FNanchor_897" class="label">[897]</a> W. W. Skeat, <i>Malay Magic</i>, London, 1900, p. 549.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_898" href="#FNanchor_898" class="label">[898]</a> N. B. Dennys, <i>The Folk-lore of China</i>, London, 1876, +pp. 30 <i>sq.</i> In China there is also the state almanac, which is +annually prepared at Pekin under the direction of a bureau attached to +the Board of Rites. By making it a penal offence to issue a counterfeit +or pirated edition of this almanac, the government astrologers have +monopolized the management of the superstitions of the people in regard +to the fortunate or unfortunate conjunction of each day and hour. “No +one ventures to be without an almanac, lest he be liable to the greatest +misfortunes, and run the imminent hazard of undertaking important events +on black-balled days” (S. W. Williams, <i>The Middle Kingdom</i>,² New +York, 1883, ii, 79 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_899" href="#FNanchor_899" class="label">[899]</a> H. A. Giles, <i>A Glossary of References on Subjects +connected with the Far East</i>,³ Shanghai, 1900, p. 183.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_900" href="#FNanchor_900" class="label">[900]</a> W. E. Griffis, <i>Corea, the Hermit Nation</i>,³ New York, +1889, p. 298.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_901" href="#FNanchor_901" class="label">[901]</a> E. Kaempfer, <i>History of Japan</i>, ii, 22 (Glasgow +reprint, 1906).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_902" href="#FNanchor_902" class="label">[902]</a> A. Lloyd, “Death and Disposal of the Dead (Japanese),” +Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iv, 486 <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_903" href="#FNanchor_903" class="label">[903]</a> E. Schlaginweit, <i>Buddhism in Tibet</i>, Leipzig and +London, 1863, pp. 293 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_904" href="#FNanchor_904" class="label">[904]</a> W. H. R. Rivers, <i>The Todas</i>, London, 1906, p. 405.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_905" href="#FNanchor_905" class="label">[905]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 405 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_906" href="#FNanchor_906" class="label">[906]</a> Rivers, <i>Todas</i>, p. 407.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_907" href="#FNanchor_907" class="label">[907]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 408.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_908" href="#FNanchor_908" class="label">[908]</a> See <i>ibid.</i>, p. 411, for a reference to certain +restrictions which may have arisen out of a belief in unlucky days. W. R. +King (<i>Journal of Anthropology</i>, 1870, i, 33 <i>sq.</i>) expressly +attributes this superstition to the Toda.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_909" href="#FNanchor_909" class="label">[909]</a> Rivers, <i>Todas</i>, pp. 410 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_910" href="#FNanchor_910" class="label">[910]</a> Rivers, <i>Todas</i>, pp. 459, 695 <i>sqq.</i>, 710 +<i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_911" href="#FNanchor_911" class="label">[911]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 411 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_912" href="#FNanchor_912" class="label">[912]</a> These Toda taboos suggest at once the Jewish sabbatarian +regulations and the methods of evading or mitigating them devised by +the rabbis (above, p. <a href="#Page_264">264</a>). Until the present day the Bene-Israel, a +body of Jews domiciled for many centuries in the Bombay Presidency, have +preserved the old Hebrew fasts and festivals, though under Indian names +and with Indian features superadded. Their habit of observing Saturday +as a Sabbath and of giving their oxen rest from the oil-mills on that +day has gained for them among their Hindu neighbours the name of “the +Saturday oil-men” (J. H. Lord, “Bene-Israel,” Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia +of Religion and Ethics</i>, ii, 470 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_913" href="#FNanchor_913" class="label">[913]</a> The week of seven days, with names derived from the +Sanskrit, appears to have been introduced by the Shins into Dardistan +and western Kashmir. See J. Biddulf, <i>Tribes of the Hindoo-Koosh</i>, +Calcutta, 1880, p. 93; G. W. Leitner, <i>The Hunza and Nagyr +Handbook</i>,² Woking, 1893, p. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_914" href="#FNanchor_914" class="label">[914]</a> H. Roskoschny, <i>Afghanistan und seine Nachbarländer</i>, +Leipzig, 1885, i, 174.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_915" href="#FNanchor_915" class="label">[915]</a> Sir G. S. Robertson, <i>The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush</i>, +London, 1896, pp. 579 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_916" href="#FNanchor_916" class="label">[916]</a> A. van Gennep, <i>Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar</i>, +Paris, 1904, p. 199. The Malagasy belief in lucky and unlucky days, as +determined by the moon stations (above, p. <a href="#Page_275">275</a>), appears to be a direct +importation from the Arabs superimposed on an earlier and thoroughly +native observance of tabooed seasons. The Malagasy have also taken over +from Islam the week of seven days (above, p. <a href="#Page_197">197</a>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_917" href="#FNanchor_917" class="label">[917]</a> J. Sibree, “Malagasy Folk-lore and Popular Superstitions,” +<i>Folk-lore Record</i>, 1879, ii, 30-33. The custom still exists among +the Masikoro, an inland branch of the Sakalava tribe. Many Vezo (coast +Sakalava) families continue to expose a child born on an unlucky day, but +it is afterwards rescued and brought up by the relatives as their own. +“Such a child is, however, looked upon with some suspicion as to what +will be its character, because of its having been born on an unlucky day. +It is thought that it may bring some calamity upon the family, or may +itself be miserable or unfortunate in one way or another, when grown up. +It is a very common opinion that bad conduct is only the result of being +born on an unlucky day” (A. Walen, in <i>Antananarivo Annual</i>, 1883, +no. 7, pp. 51 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_918" href="#FNanchor_918" class="label">[918]</a> J. Sibree, <i>loc. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_919" href="#FNanchor_919" class="label">[919]</a> A. van Gennep, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 203; <i>Antananarivo +Annual</i>, 1891, no. 15, pp. 302 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_920" href="#FNanchor_920" class="label">[920]</a> V. Noel, in <i>Bulletin de la société de géographie</i>, +1843, second series, xx, 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_921" href="#FNanchor_921" class="label">[921]</a> A. van Gennep, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 202 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_922" href="#FNanchor_922" class="label">[922]</a> The two manuscripts (both in the British Museum) have been +edited, respectively, by F. L. Griffith (<i>Hieratic Papyri from Kahun +and Gurob</i>, London, 1898, pl. 25 text, p. 62; and E. A. W. Budge, +<i>Facsimiles of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri</i>, London, 1911, pls. 31-32). +See further W. Wreszinski, “Tagewählerei im alten Ägypten,” <i>Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1913, xvi, 86-100.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_923" href="#FNanchor_923" class="label">[923]</a> The text was published in <i>Select Papyri in the Hieratic +Character</i>, London, 1844, pt. i, pls. 144-168, and was translated by +F. J. Chabas (<i>Le calendrier des jours fastes et néfastes de l’année +égyptienne</i>, Chalon-s.-S., 1870). The work of Chabas was masterly, +but it has now become antiquated by the progress of Egyptology. F. Bohn +(<i>Der Sabbat im Alten Testament</i>, Gütersloh, 1903, pp. 57-62) gives +a revised and corrected version of numerous passages, based on the +studies of Professor Sethe, and Wreszinski (<i>loc. cit.</i>) translates +directly from the Egyptian text. For discussions of this important +document see Sir G. Maspero, <i>Études égyptiennes</i>, Paris, 1886, +i, 29 <i>sq.</i>; <i>idem</i>, <i>Les contes populaires de l’Égypte +ancienne</i>,³ Paris, 1905, pp. xlix-lii; <i>idem</i>, <i>New Light +on Ancient Egypt</i>,² London, 1909, pp. 128-136; A. Erman, <i>Life +in Ancient Egypt</i>, London, 1894, pp. 351 <i>sq.</i>; A. Wiedemann, +<i>The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians</i>, London, 1897, pp. 263 +<i>sqq.</i>; E. A. W. Budge, <i>Egyptian Magic</i>,² London, 1901, +pp. 224 <i>sqq.</i>; G. Foucart, “Calendar (Egyptian),” Hastings’s +<i>Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 100 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_924" href="#FNanchor_924" class="label">[924]</a> W. Wreszinski, in <i>Archiv für Religionswissenschaft</i>, +1913, xvi, 89 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_925" href="#FNanchor_925" class="label">[925]</a> Chabas, <i>op. cit.</i>, 28; Wreszinski, in <i>Archiv für +Religionswissenschaft</i>, 1913, xvi, 92 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_926" href="#FNanchor_926" class="label">[926]</a> Rawlinson, <i>Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia</i>, +v, pls. 48, 49; Jastrow, <i>Religion of Babylonia and Assyria</i>, pp. +379 <i>sqq.</i>, Bohn, <i>Der Sabbat im Alten Testament</i>, pp. 55 +<i>sqq.</i> A Babylonian tablet (K. 98), published by Professor Sayce +(<i>Zeitschrift für Assyriologie</i>, 1887, ii, 333-335), gives a list of +days on which it was fortunate to undertake such operations as “staking +the canal,” “thinning the plantation,” and “sinking the foundations +of a house.” Still another text, published by Dr. Stephen Langdon +(<i>Expositor</i>, 1909, xxii, 156), contains the injunction that on the +fifth day of Nisan “he who fears Marduk or Sarpanit shall not go out to +work.” On the Babylonian <i>nubattu</i> see above, p. <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_927" href="#FNanchor_927" class="label">[927]</a> <i>Opera et dies</i>, 765-828. On the Hesiodic calendar +see E. E. Sikes, “Folk-lore in the Works and Days of Hesiod,” +<i>Classical Review</i>, 1893, vii, 389-394, and the Addenda to Professor +A. W. Mair’s admirable version of Hesiod, Oxford, 1908, pp. 162-166. +For a full analysis of the calendar see A. Mommsen, <i>Chronologie</i>, +Leipzig, 1883, pp. 39-46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_928" href="#FNanchor_928" class="label">[928]</a> <i>Opera et dies</i>, 724-764.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_929" href="#FNanchor_929" class="label">[929]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 810, 820, 802 <i>sqq.</i>, 770.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_930" href="#FNanchor_930" class="label">[930]</a> The Vergilian calendar (<i>Georgica</i>, i, 276 +<i>sqq.</i>) is obviously an imitation of Hesiod’s, but it may be +presumed that Vergil, with his intimate knowledge of the farmer’s life, +incorporated in his catalogue of lucky and unlucky days some of the +peasant lore of ancient Italy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_931" href="#FNanchor_931" class="label">[931]</a> Augustine, <i>In comm. ad Pauli ep. ad Galatas</i>, 4; +Ambrose, <i>Epist.</i> i, 23; compare Marinus, <i>Vita Procli</i>, 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_932" href="#FNanchor_932" class="label">[932]</a> <i>Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum</i>, i, pt. i,² 256, +297, with T. Mommsen’s commentary. The anonymous author of the <i>Versus +de diebus Ægyptiacis</i> (<i>Poetæ latini minores</i>, ed. A. Baehrens, +v, 354-356) reduces their number to twenty-four:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bis deni binique dies scribuntur in anno,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>In quibus una solet mortalibus hora timeri.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_933" href="#FNanchor_933" class="label">[933]</a> L. Moland, “Calendrier français du treizième siècle,” +<i>Revue archéologique</i>, 1862, n.s., v, 103 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_934" href="#FNanchor_934" class="label">[934]</a> J. B. Thiers, <i>Traité des superstitions</i>,⁴ Paris, +1741, i, 291 <i>sq.</i> See further Karl Meyer, <i>Der Aberglaube des +Mittelalters</i>, Basel, 1884, p. 210; Du Cange, <i>Glossarium mediæ et +infimæ latinitatis</i>, ed. Favre, iii, 106 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_935" href="#FNanchor_935" class="label">[935]</a> Chambers’s <i>Book of Days</i>, i, 42. See also +O. Cockayne, <i>Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early +England</i>, London, 1866, iii, 150-197, and John Aubrey’s quaint essay +on “Day-fatality; or, Some Observations of Days Lucky and Unlucky” +(<i>Miscellanies upon Various Subjects</i>, London, 1784, pp. 3-36). Some +rules concerning “perilous days” are reprinted by Sir Lawrence Gomme from +a fifteenth century manuscript (<i>Folklore</i>, 1913, xxiv, 121-123).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_936" href="#FNanchor_936" class="label">[936]</a> Sir R. C. Temple, “Burma,” in Hastings’s <i>Encyclopædia +of Religion and Ethics</i>, iii, 29; compare Shway Yoe [Sir J. G. Scott], +<i>The Burman, his Life and Notions</i>,³ London, 1910, pp. 383-389. On +the unlucky days observed in Upper Burma see <i>Gazetteer of Upper Burma +and the Shan States</i>, edited by Scott and Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. +i, vol. ii, 48 <i>sqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_937" href="#FNanchor_937" class="label">[937]</a> W. Crooke, <i>Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern +India</i>,² Westminster, 1896, ii, 52 <i>sq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_938" href="#FNanchor_938" class="label">[938]</a> D. Malo, <i>Hawaiian Antiquities</i>, Honolulu, 1903, p. +56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_939" href="#FNanchor_939" class="label">[939]</a> J. Dupuis, <i>Journal of a Residence in Ashantee</i>, +London, 1824, 213 <i>n.</i>*; compare John Beecham, <i>Ashantee and the +Gold Coast</i>, London, 1841, p. 188.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_940" href="#FNanchor_940" class="label">[940]</a> J. W. Fewkes, “Tusayan <i>Katcinas</i>,” <i>Fifteenth +Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology</i>, Washington, 1897, +p. 255. The Hopi furnish one of the few instances of compulsory rest days +to be found among the American Indians. They hold a mid-winter festival, +called the <i>soyáluña</i>, at the time of the winter solstice. “December +is regarded as a sacred month; no work is performed in it, and few games +are allowed. It is the month of the return of the sun and the gods, and +bears the same name as July, in which they depart” (J. W. Fewkes, “The +Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi,” <i>American Anthropologist</i>, 1898, +xi, 69).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_941" href="#FNanchor_941" class="label">[941]</a> J. H. Gray, <i>China</i>, London, 1878, i, 249; W. E. +Griffis, <i>Corea, the Hermit Nation</i>,³ New York, 1889, p. 295. +According to one account the shops in China are shut and all business +suspended only on the first three days of the year, though these and +numerous other festivals, both general and local, are common occasions +for relaxation and merry-making (S. W. Williams, <i>The Middle +Kingdom</i>,³ New York, 1883, i, 809).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_942" href="#FNanchor_942" class="label">[942]</a> Maspero, <i>New Light on Ancient Egypt</i>,² p. 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_943" href="#FNanchor_943" class="label">[943]</a> G. F. Schoemann, <i>Griechische Alterthümer</i>,⁴ edited +by J. H. Lipsius, Berlin, 1897-1902, ii, 458 <i>sq.</i>; compare Plato, +<i>Leges</i>, ii, 653; Thucydides, ii, 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_944" href="#FNanchor_944" class="label">[944]</a> Strabo, <i>Geographica</i>, vi, 3, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_945" href="#FNanchor_945" class="label">[945]</a> This calculation assumes 109 <i>dies nefasti</i>, 192 +<i>dies fasti et comitiales</i>, on which assemblies might meet, 43 +<i>dies fasti non comitiales</i>, available for judicial business but not +for meetings of the assemblies, 8 <i>dies intercisi</i>, or days partly +<i>fasti</i> and partly <i>nefasti</i>, and 3 <i>dies fissi</i> (Wissowa, +<i>Religion und Kultus der Römer</i>, pp. 368 <i>sq.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_946" href="#FNanchor_946" class="label">[946]</a> Cicero, <i>In Verrem</i>, i, 10; Suetonius, <i>Divus +Augustus</i>, 32. It has been already noticed (above, p. <a href="#Page_97">97</a>) that Roman +consuls sometimes instituted extraordinary <i>feriæ</i> for the purpose +of blocking legislation by their rivals, ferial days being included in +the <i>dies nefasti</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_947" href="#FNanchor_947" class="label">[947]</a> Above, pp. <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_948" href="#FNanchor_948" class="label">[948]</a> L. Friedländer, <i>Roman Life and Manners under the Early +Empire</i>, London, 1908, ii, 11 <i>sq.</i>; W. W. Fowler, <i>Social Life +at Rome in the Age of Cicero</i>, New York, 1909, pp. 287 <i>sqq.</i> +Though the ancients were careful to distinguish the <i>feriæ</i> from the +<i>ludi</i> (compare Gellius, <i>Noctes Atticæ</i>, ii, 24, 11: <i>Diebus +ludorum et feriis quibusdam</i>), yet in late republican and imperial +times the joyous aspects of the <i>feriæ</i> had become so prominent that +nearly all of them were converted into <i>ludi</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_949" href="#FNanchor_949" class="label">[949]</a> <i>Panem et circenses</i> (Juvenal, x, 81).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_950" href="#FNanchor_950" class="label">[950]</a> W. J. Showalter, in <i>National Geographic Magazine</i>, +1914, xxv, 493.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_951" href="#FNanchor_951" class="label">[951]</a> A. W. Kinglake, <i>Eothen</i>, chap. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_952" href="#FNanchor_952" class="label">[952]</a> W. F. Adeney, <i>The Greek and Eastern Churches</i>, New +York, 1908, p. 433.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_953" href="#FNanchor_953" class="label">[953]</a> L. Caro, <i>Auswanderung und Auswanderungspolitik in +Osterreich</i>, Leipzig, 1909, p. 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_954" href="#FNanchor_954" class="label">[954]</a> W. C. Harris, <i>The Highlands of Ethiopia</i>, New York +[1843], p. 280.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> + +</div> + +<nav> +<ul> + +<li class="ifrst">Aberdeenshire, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Abonsam, a Gold Coast demon, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Abor, the, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Abraham, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Abyssinia, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_193">193</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, + <a href="#Page_270">270</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Achehnese of Sumatra, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Adams, J. Q., on the French Revolutionary calendar, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Afar, the, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Affirah-bi</i>, a Gold Coast festival of the dead, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Afghanistan, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Agar</i>, the rest days of the Siah Posh Kafirs, <a href="#Page_293">293</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Ἅγιος, Greek term for taboo, <a href="#Page_3">3</a> <i>and n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Aha</i>, Hawaiian prayers, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ahanta of the Gold Coast, <a href="#Page_190">190</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx">Akamba of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Akikuyu of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, + <a href="#Page_209">209</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Akposo of Togo, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Alaska, <a href="#Page_72">72</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Albania, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Alcibiades, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Allia, battle of the, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Amau</i>, the Kayan omen animals, <a href="#Page_28">28</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Amos, the prophet, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Anahulu</i>, the Hawaiian, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Anam, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Andaman Islanders, the, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Animals, used in divination, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_59">59</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">rest days for, <a href="#Page_95">95</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Animistic sanctions of taboos, <a href="#Page_5">5</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Anito</i>, ancestral spirits of the Bontoc Igorot, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Anoiila</i>, the Nicobarese term for rest day, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Anthesteria, Athenian festival of the, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Antu</i>, Bornean spirits, <a href="#Page_35">35</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Apis, sacred Egyptian bull, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> <i>n.</i>⁶</li> + +<li class="indx">Apollo, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_212">212</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι, Greek unlucky days, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> <i>and n.</i>³, + <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Arabs, lunar superstitions of the, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">calendar of the, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_182">182</a> <i>n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their preference for odd numbers, <a href="#Page_178">178</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">their adoption of the seven-day week, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar mansions of the, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Arakan, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Arizona, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Armenia, <a href="#Page_282">282</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Artemis, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Aryans of ancient India, lunar festivals of the, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their epagomenal days, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Ἀσέλινοι, the Athenian, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Ashanti, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Assam, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, + <a href="#Page_233">233</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Asshurbanipal, Assyrian king, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Astrology, <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, + <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, + <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Atenoux</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Athene, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Athenian festivals, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Atonement, Day of, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>², + <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Atua</i>, Polynesian spirits, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">August, unlucky days of, in Greek lands, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Augustine, St., <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Augustus, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Aurelius, Marcus, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span>Auspices, Maori, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Australia, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Azazel, a bad angel or demon, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Babylonians, the, their conception of taboo, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their superstitions relating to the moon, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their five-day period, or <i>khamushtu</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">cult of seven among the, <a href="#Page_212">212</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the seven planets and planetary deities of the, <a href="#Page_213">213</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their division of the nycthemeron into twelve <i>kaspu</i>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">their “evil days,” <a href="#Page_223">223</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>sqq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">seven-day cycles of the, <a href="#Page_224">224</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar month of the, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the <i>shabattum</i>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">new-moon and full-moon days observed by the, <a href="#Page_239">239</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their unlucky days, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_297">297</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Hebrew week and Sabbath not directly borrowed from the, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar mansions, <a href="#Page_274">274</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Badaga of the Madras Presidency, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Baffin Land, <a href="#Page_71">71</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Baganda of Uganda, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Bahima">Bahima of Uganda, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bahuana of Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Bakuba">Bakuba of Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bali, island of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, + <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Balubale</i>, Bahima demons, <a href="#Page_76">76</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Bambala of Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> <i>and n.</i>⁶</li> + +<li class="indx">Banyoro of Uganda, <a href="#Page_146">146</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Bapiri of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Barotse of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Barter, Australian, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Basoga of Uganda, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Basuto of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Bathing">Bathing prohibited during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> + <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, + <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Batta of Sumatra, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Bawenda of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bayaka of Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> <i>and n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx">Baziba of Uganda, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bechuana of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Belgian_Congo">Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bengal, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Benin, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> + <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Bhaskara Saptami, Hindu festival of, <a href="#Page_153">153</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Bhutan, the Buddhist Sabbath in, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Bini">Bini of Benin, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> + <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Bodily attentions not permitted during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, + <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, + <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Bathing">Bathing</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bohemia, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> <i>n.</i>⁷</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Book of the Dead</i>, the, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Borneo, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a> + <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Boscawen, W. H., <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Bowditch Island. <i>See</i> <a href="#Fakaofo">Fakaofo</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Brazil, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Breasted, J. H., <a href="#Page_167">167</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">British Columbia, <a href="#Page_71">71</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">—— East Africa, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, + <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_209">209</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">—— New Guinea, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_103">103</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">—— North Borneo, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">—— South Africa, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, + <a href="#Page_214">214</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Brittany, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Bubuk</i>, the Land Dyak name of full moon, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Buddha, the, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Buddhism, observance of the <i>uposatha</i> in, <a href="#Page_155">155</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Buriat of Siberia, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Burkeneji of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_198">198</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Burma, tabooed days observed in, <a href="#Page_55">55</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Buddhist Sabbath in, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">divisions of the month employed in, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the seven-day week in, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bushmen of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bushongo. <i>See</i> <a href="#Bakuba">Bakuba</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Buta</i>, Balinese evil spirits, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Calabar (Old), <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Calendar, the, <a href="#Page_13">13</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, + <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span>Cambodia, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, + <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Canaanites, the Sabbath not borrowed from the, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cannæ, battle of, <a href="#Page_171">171</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Cardinal points, colour symbolism of the, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Caroline Islands, the, <a href="#Page_24">24</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Cato the Elder, on Roman holidays, <a href="#Page_95">95</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Celebes, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Celtiberians, lunar festivals of the, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Celts, lunar festivals of the, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their calendar, <a href="#Page_185">185</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">nine-day cycles of the, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Central America, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Ceylon, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Chams, the, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cherokee Indians, the, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Cheyne, T. K., <a href="#Page_243">243</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Chibcha. <i>See</i> <a href="#Muysca">Muysca</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Chiefs and kings, death of, necessitates communal abstinence, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, + <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">responsible for the observance of communal taboos, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">subject to various restrictions, <a href="#Page_233">233</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Childbirth, taboos imposed in connection with, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a> <i>and n.</i>³, + <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_69">69</a> + <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">the moon associated with, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Chinese, lunar superstitions of the, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar festivals observed by the, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their tradition of a ten-month year, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar decades, <a href="#Page_189">189</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴;</li> + <li class="isub1">the planetary week known to the, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar mansions, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observe no rest days, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days of the, <a href="#Page_286">286</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Chingpaw. <i>See</i> <a href="#Kachin">Kachin</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Chronocratories, astrological theory of, <a href="#Page_217">217</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Chukchi of Siberia, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cicero, on Roman holidays, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Claudius, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cochin-China, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Coligny, Calendar of, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> <i>n.</i>⁵, <a href="#Page_185">185</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_186">186</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Colombia, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Comets, taboos imposed in connection with, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Congo Free State. <i>See</i> <a href="#Belgian_Congo">Belgian Congo</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Constantine, edict of, relating to Sunday, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cooking not allowed during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, + <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, + <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Copernicus, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cos, island of, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Courts and public offices not open during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> + <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, + <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Couvade</i>, custom of the, <a href="#Page_58">58</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Covenanters of Damascus, the, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Creation myth, the Babylonian, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Hebrew, <a href="#Page_242">242</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Creek Indians, the, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cremera, battle of the, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Crete, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Crisis, sociological conception of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cumont, Franz, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Cyclades, the, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cyprian, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cyprus, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Dahomey, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Dakota Indians, the, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dalai Lama, tabooed days observed after the death of the, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Danakil, the, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Darmesteter, J., <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">David, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dead, festivals of the, <a href="#Page_51">51</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_74">74</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Death, taboos observed after a, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, + <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, + <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_258">258</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">primitive ideas of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Debel, N. H., <a href="#Page_196">196</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Decade, the, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Decalogues, the, <a href="#Page_242">242</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Deluge myth, the Babylonian, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Hebrew, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Demons">Demons, punish the violators of taboos, <a href="#Page_5">5</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>sqq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">expulsion of, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dendera, temple of, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span>Dew, the moon believed to be the source of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Diana, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dichomenia, the Greek full-moon day, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_184">184</a> <i>and n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx">Dieri of South Australia, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Dies_Ægyptiaci"><i>Dies Ægyptiaci</i>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— Alliensis</i>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— atri.</i> See <a href="#Dies_religiosi"><i>Dies religiosi</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— dominica</i>, the Lord’s Day, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— feriati.</i> See <a href="#Feriæ"><i>Feriæ</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— nefasti</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_304">304</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— postriduani</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Dies_religiosi"><i>—— religiosi</i>, Roman unlucky days, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_170">170</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— Saturni.</i> <i>See</i> <a href="#Saturday">Saturday</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— Solis.</i> <i>See</i> <a href="#Sunday">Sunday</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— vitiosi.</i> See <a href="#Dies_religiosi"><i>Dies religiosi</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Diffusion of cultural elements, <a href="#Page_39">39</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dio Cassius, on the origin of the planetary week, <a href="#Page_216">216</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on the Hebrew Sabbath, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dionysus, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Diulasu, the, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Divination, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_285">285</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Dositheus, observance of the Sabbath by, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Dravidians of India, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> + <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Durga, Hindu goddess, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Dusun">Dusun of British North Borneo, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Dutch Borneo, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— New Guinea, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Du-zang</i>, the Tibetan Sabbath, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Earthquakes, taboos imposed in connection with, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, + <a href="#Page_99">99</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Eclipses, taboos imposed in connection with, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Edo. <i>See</i> <a href="#Bini">Bini</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Egbo</i>, a secret society of Old Calabar, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Egungun, a Slave Coast deity, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">“Egyptian days.” See <a href="#Dies_Ægyptiaci"><i>Dies Ægyptiaci</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Egyptians, superstitions of the, relating to the moon, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> <i>and n.</i>⁶;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar festivals, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">solar year of the, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their ideas as to the full moon, <a href="#Page_186">186</a> <i>and n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">ten-day week of the, <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">astrological cycles of the, <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the division of the nycthemeron into twenty-four hours known to the, <a href="#Page_218">218</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">their unlucky days, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">epagomenal days of the, <a href="#Page_281">281</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Elisha, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ellis, A. B., on the origin of weeks and Sabbaths, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> and <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Ellis, William, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Elmore, W. T., <a href="#Page_90">90</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Elpanam</i>, the men’s house in the Nicobar Islands, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Elul II, Babylonian intercalary month, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">England, lunar superstitions in, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Ennead, the, <a href="#Page_192">192</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Epagomenal days, Hawaiian, <a href="#Page_13">13</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hebrew, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">early Aryan, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">European folklore of the Twelve Days, <a href="#Page_277">277</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Mexican and Maya, <a href="#Page_279">279</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Egyptian, <a href="#Page_281">281</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Persian, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Armenian, <a href="#Page_282">282</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the French Revolutionary calendar, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Epic of Creation</i>, the Babylonian, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Epirus, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Erronan. <i>See</i> <a href="#Futuna">Futuna</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Eskimo, the, <a href="#Page_71">71</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Essenes, the, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Esthonians, the, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Euahlayi of New South Wales, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">“Evil Days,” the Babylonian, <a href="#Page_223">223</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>sqq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, tabooed days observed by the, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, + <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ezekiel, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst"><i>Fady</i>, Malagasy term for taboo, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Fakaofo">Fakaofo (Bowditch Island), <a href="#Page_20">20</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Fakil</i>, a Bontoc Igorot festival, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Fandroana</i>, a Malagasy festival, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span>Farming, restrictions on, during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, + <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, + <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, + <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_190">190</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, + <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, + <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Farnell, L. R., <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Fasting">Fasting practised during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, + <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, + <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, + <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Fasti Philocali</i>, the, <a href="#Page_123">123</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— Sabini</i>, the, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Feast of Weeks, Hebrew, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Fe’e, Samoan war-god, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Feralia, Roman festival of the, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Feriæ"><i>Feriæ</i>, the Roman, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>n.</i>², + <a href="#Page_264">264</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— denicales</i>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— imperativæ</i>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— sementivæ</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Festivals">Festivals, Polynesian, <a href="#Page_11">11</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Bornean, <a href="#Page_30">30</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Nicobar Islands, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Bali, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Mentawi Islands, <a href="#Page_43">43</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Philippines, <a href="#Page_45">45</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Manipur, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Assam, <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Burma, <a href="#Page_55">55</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Africa, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ancient Greek, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a> <i>sqq</i>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> <i>n.</i>⁵, + <a href="#Page_169">169</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ancient Roman, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, + <a href="#Page_304">304</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Jewish, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">Mohammedan, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">characteristics of, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">accompanied by the remission of labour, <a href="#Page_85">85</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">consecrated to divinities, <a href="#Page_87">87</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the Dravidian peoples of India, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hebrew, <a href="#Page_90">90</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ancient Aryan, in India, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">modern Brahmanic, <a href="#Page_153">153</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Jain, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Buddhist, <a href="#Page_155">155</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Chinese, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Iranian, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Egyptian, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Babylonian, <a href="#Page_239">239</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Phœnician, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Christian, <a href="#Page_267">267</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hopi Indian, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Fewkes, J. W., on the Zuñi decades, <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Fiji Islands, the, <a href="#Page_21">21</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Fimt</i>, the Scandinavian, <a href="#Page_195">195</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Finns, the, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Fires and lights extinguished during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, + <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, + <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_258">258</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">First-fruits, ceremony of, in New Zealand, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Tonga Islands, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Fiji Islands, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Hebrew Day of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Athenian Plynteria, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Roman Vestalia, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Fishermen subject to taboos, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Fishing, restrictions on, during a tabooed period, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> + <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, + <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Flamen Dialis, restrictions imposed on the, <a href="#Page_96">96</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Flaminica Dialis, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Florida, state of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Food taboos. <i>See</i> <a href="#Fasting">Fasting</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Formosa, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Fowler, W. W., on the <i>dies postriduani</i>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">France, lunar superstitions in, <a href="#Page_126">126</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed in mediæval, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Frazer, J. G., <a href="#Page_2">2</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_3">3</a> <i>n.</i>⁵, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_25">25</a> + <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_36">36</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_59">59</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_74">74</a> <i>n.</i>⁶, + <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_90">90</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> <i>n.</i>⁵, <a href="#Page_131">131</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_277">277</a> + <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx">French Equatorial Africa, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Friday, an unlucky day, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>and n.</i>³, + <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">as the Mohammedan Sabbath, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a> + <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Frontinus, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Full_moon">Full moon, <a href="#Page_32">32</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_34">34</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_133">133</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>sqq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a> <i>n.</i>⁷, <a href="#Page_182">182</a> <i>n.</i>⁷, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> + <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, + <a href="#Page_250">250</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Futuna">Futuna (Erronan), island of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Galicia, saints’ days observed in, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Galla, the, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Gaman, the, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Games played during a tabooed period, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span>Gamut, origin and diffusion of the, <a href="#Page_217">217</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Garo of Assam, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ga-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, tabooed days observed by the, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar weeks, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Gāthā-days, the Persian, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Gaul, ancient, <a href="#Page_186">186</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Genesia, Athenian festival of the, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Genna"><i>Genna</i> (<i>kennie</i>), the Naga term for rest day, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_52">52</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Gennabura.</i> See <a href="#Khullakpa"><i>Khullakpa</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">German East Africa, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— New Guinea, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Germanic languages, names of the week days in, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Germans, ancient, observance of new moon and full moon by the, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">cycles of nine days used by the, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Germany, abstinence from work after a death observed in, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar superstitions in, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> <i>n.</i>⁷;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Gilgamesh, Epic of</i>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Gold Coast of west Africa, <a href="#Page_76">76</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, + <a href="#Page_190">190</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Gour-deziou</i>, the, in Brittany, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Greek Church, saints’ days in the calendar of the, <a href="#Page_306">306</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Greeks, ancient, unlucky days of the, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> + <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">festivals of the, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> <i>n.</i>⁵, + <a href="#Page_169">169</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their superstitions relating to the moon, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> + <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar calendar, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar decades of the, <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">cycles of nine days and nine years used by the, <a href="#Page_192">192</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">cult of seven among the, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Greenland, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Grimme, H., on the Day of Atonement, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Pleiades cults among the Hebrews, <a href="#Page_225">225</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Gudea, the inscription of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a> <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Habbe of the Sudan, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Hair-cutting, superstitions relating to, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, + <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Halmahera, island of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Hammurabi, Babylonian king, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Hannibal, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hanuman, Hindu monkey-god, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Haoma</i>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Harran, city of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Haughbah</i>, a tabooed day on the Gold Coast, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx">Hawaiian Islanders, tabooed days observed by the, <a href="#Page_8">8</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, + <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their calendar, <a href="#Page_13">13</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hebdomad. <i>See</i> <a href="#Seven-day_week">Seven-day week</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Hebrews">Hebrews, the, their Sabbath, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, + <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>and n.</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Day of Atonement, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>², + <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their agricultural festivals, <a href="#Page_90">90</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">cult of seven among the, <a href="#Page_212">212</a> <i>n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">their seven-day week, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">new-moon and full-moon festivals of the, <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Jews">Jews</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Heiau</i>, Hawaiian temple, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Heptagram, the, <a href="#Page_217">217</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Hera, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hervey Islands, the, <a href="#Page_181">181</a> <i>n.</i>⁷</li> + +<li class="indx">Hesiod, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Hiang</i>, a Formosan term for rest day, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ho of Togo, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hobbes, Thomas, on the origin of religion, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Holiness, the conception of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_242">242</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Holy days. <i>See</i> <a href="#Festivals">Festivals</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— water, Hawaiian, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hooker, Richard, <a href="#Page_259">259</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Hopi Indians of Arizona, festivals of the, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Horace, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hosea, the prophet, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hottentots of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Hours, division of the nycthemeron into, <a href="#Page_218">218</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">House-building, taboos imposed in connection with, <a href="#Page_32">32</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, + <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, + <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hova of Madagascar, <a href="#Page_132">132</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Hrilh</i>, the Lushei term for taboo, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hua, Hawaiian deity, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span>Huahine, island of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Humphrey Island. <i>See</i> <a href="#Manahiki">Manahiki</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hunting, restrictions on, during a tabooed period, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, + <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="ifrst" id="Iban">Iban (Sea Dyak) of Borneo, <a href="#Page_33">33</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ibo of Southern Nigeria, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Ides, the, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ignatius, St., <a href="#Page_269">269</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Igorot of Luzon, <a href="#Page_46">46</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ihering, R. von, on the origin of periodic rest days, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Impregnation believed to be accomplished by the moon, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Inachi</i>, the Tonga ceremony of first-fruits, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Inclusive reckoning, practice of, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_267">267</a> <i>n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx">India, tabooed days after a death observed in, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Dravidian village festivals, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Dravidian lunar superstitions, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the ancient Aryan <i>upavasatha</i>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hindu festival of Bhaskara Saptami, <a href="#Page_153">153</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hindu bipartite division of the month, <a href="#Page_183">183</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the seven-day week in, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">symbolism of seven in, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the lunar mansions in, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Twelve Days in, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Indians, North American, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> + <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Indo-China, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Innuit of Alaska, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Interlunium</i>, the, as a tabooed period, <a href="#Page_136">136</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Iranians">Iranians, lunar superstitions of the, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar festivals, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their bipartite division of the month, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Persians">Persians</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Isaiah, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ishtar, Babylonian goddess, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Isidore of Seville, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Italy, introduction of the planetary week into, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Jainism, observance of the <i>posaha</i> in, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Jaluo of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Japan, the Buddhist Sabbath in, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the lunar decade in, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the seven-day week in, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">rest days observed in, <a href="#Page_203"><i>ib.</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Jastrow, Morris, on the observance of the seventh day in Babylonia, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>n.</i>⁴;</li> + <li class="isub1">on the meaning of <i>shabbāthôn</i>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on the meaning of <i>shabattum</i>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on the inscription of Gudea, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on the original significance of the word “Sabbath,” <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Babylonian unlucky days, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Java, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a> + <i>and n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx">Jehovah, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, + <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Jenks, A. E., on the rest days observed by the Bontoc Igorot, <a href="#Page_47">47</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Jeremiah, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Jericho, <a href="#Page_255">255</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Jesus, words of, relating to the observance of the Sabbath, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Jews">Jews, taboos after a death observed by the, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">celebration of New Year’s Day by the, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their superstitions relating to the moon, <a href="#Page_126">126</a> <i>and n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> <i>and n.</i>⁶;</li> + <li class="isub1">neglect of the Sabbath by modern, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days of the, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Hebrews">Hebrews</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Johns, C. H. W., on the observance of the Babylonian “evil days,” <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">on the Babylonian <i>nubattu</i>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Jonathan, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Josephus, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Jubilee, the Hebrew, <a href="#Page_261">261</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Jum‘a, al</i>, the Mohammedan Sabbath, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> + <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Juno, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Jupiter, the Roman <i>nundinæ</i> consecrated to, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Ides consecrated to, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the planet, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Justin, Roman historian, on the origin of the Sabbath, <a href="#Page_260">260</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Justin Martyr, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst" id="Kachin">Kachin (Chingpaw), <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kaffa, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kafiristan, <a href="#Page_293">293</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span>Kagoro of northern Nigeria, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Kalends, the, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kalmucks, the <i>uposatha</i> observance of the, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kaloa, Hawaiian deity, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Kamata.</i> See <a href="#Kambata"><i>Kambata</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kamataraya, a Kota deity, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Kambata"><i>Kambata</i>, a Kota festival, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kamehameha II, Hawaiian king, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kamerun, <a href="#Page_110">110</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Kanarese-speaking peoples of southern India, their village festivals, <a href="#Page_89">89</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observance of the <i>interlunium</i> by the, <a href="#Page_137">137</a> <i>and n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">tabooed days of the, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Kandian of Ceylon, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Kane, Hawaiian deity, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Kapu.</i> See <a href="#Tabu"><i>Tabu</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Karaja of Brazil, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Karakia</i>, Maori magical incantation and prayer, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Karen of Burma, <a href="#Page_56">56</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Kasuba of the Madras Presidency, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kataharayan of Malabar, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Kataphang</i>, a Nicobarese festival, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Kavirondo of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kayan of Borneo, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>and n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Kennie.</i> See <a href="#Genna"><i>Genna</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kerepunu of British New Guinea, rest day observed by the, <a href="#Page_103">103</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kewan, Assyrian designation of the planet Saturn, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Khamushtu</i>, the Assyro-Babylonian, <a href="#Page_195">195</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Khang</i>, the Mro term for rest day, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Khasi of Assam, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Khnumhotep II, an Egyptian local ruler, inscription of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Khullakpa"><i>Khullakpa</i> (<i>gennabura</i>), the secular and religious head of a Naga community, <a href="#Page_52">52</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_233">233</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Kiala</i>, a Nicobarese festival, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Kiriwina, island of, <a href="#Page_125">125</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Koita of British New Guinea, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Kopus</i>, a Bontoc Igorot festival, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Koran</i>, the, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Korava of the Madras Presidency, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Korea, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Koryak of Siberia, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Kota of the Madras Presidency, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ku, Hawaiian deity, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Kuki. <i>See</i> <a href="#Lushei">Lushei</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Kumara</i>, the, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Kwakiutl of British Columbia, ceremonial cannibalism among the, <a href="#Page_71">71</a> <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Labour, remission of, during a tabooed or unlucky period. <i>See</i> <a href="#Rest_days">Rest days</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Lali</i>, a Kayan term for taboo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Lalu. <i>See</i> <a href="#Muhso">Muhso</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Land Dyak of Sarawak, <a href="#Page_36">36</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Lao">Lao of Siam, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>n.</i>³, + <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Laodicea, church council of, <a href="#Page_269">269</a> <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx">Laotians. <i>See</i> <a href="#Lao">Lao</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lapps, the, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>La tabu</i>, Hawaiian designation of Sunday, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Laws of Manu</i>, the, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lemuria, Roman festival of the, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_263">263</a> + <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Lengua Indians of Paraguay, the, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Lex Hortensia</i>, the, <a href="#Page_121">121</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Liberia, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> <i>n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx">Lithuanians, the, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Loango, market days kept in, <a href="#Page_109">109</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the thirteenth month considered unlucky in, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Lobengula, a Matabele king, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Lolo, the, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lono, Hawaiian deity, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lotz, W., <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Luakini</i>, chief temple in the Hawaiian Islands, consecration of a, <a href="#Page_11">11</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Lu-Bat, the Babylonian term, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Ludi</i>, the Roman, <a href="#Page_305">305</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lumawig, supreme god of the Bontoc Igorot, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Lumingu</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lunar fortnights, <a href="#Page_182">182</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Lunar_mansions">—— mansions, the, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Lunar_weeks">—— weeks, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Lunation, beginning of the, at full moon, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_186">186</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">length of the, <a href="#Page_174">174</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">division of the, into two fortnights, <a href="#Page_182">182</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Lushei">Lushei (Kuki), the, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Luxus sabbatarius</i>, the, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Luzon, <a href="#Page_46">46</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>Macassar, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Macedonia, unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Madagascar, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_132">132</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Madnol</i>, the Toda, <a href="#Page_289">289</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Madras Presidency, the, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, + <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Magicians, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Makahiki</i>, the Hawaiian New Year’s festival, <a href="#Page_13">13</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_15">15</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_23">23</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Making</i>, ancestral spirits of the Ibaloi Igorot, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Makololo of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Malabar, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Malagasy, their conception of taboo, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">tabooed days observed by the, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the seven-day week of the, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>and n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar superstitions, <a href="#Page_132">132</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lucky and unlucky days, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Malanau of Sarawak, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Malay Peninsula, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Maldive Islands, the, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Mamit</i>, the Babylonian term for taboo, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Mana</i>, magical power, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Manahiki">Manahiki (Humphrey Island), <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mandingo of the Sudan, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Manipur, tabooed days observed in, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Manitou</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Manyema of Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Maori of New Zealand, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_181">181</a> <i>n.</i>⁷, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_214">214</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Marang</i>, the Garo term for taboo, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">March, unlucky days of, in Greek lands, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Marduk, Babylonian god, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Mariner, William, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Markets, rise of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">characteristic features of, among semi-civilized peoples, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Market_days">Market days</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Market_days">Market days, observance of, in New Guinea and Melanesia, <a href="#Page_103">103</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Celebes, Sumatra, and Java, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Tonkin, Siam, Burma, and Assam, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Africa, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Peru, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in ancient Rome, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">restrictions attending, not connected with lunar superstitions, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Market_weeks">—— weeks, length of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">origin of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Market_days">Market days</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Markheshwan, the eighth month of the Babylonian year, <a href="#Page_224">224</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Marquesas Islands, the, <a href="#Page_15">15</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Marriages not celebrated during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, + <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, + <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Masai, the seven-day week of the, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Matabele of South Africa, restrictions observed by the king of the, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">May, an unlucky month for marriage, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Mayas of Yucatan, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Mbaki.</i> See <a href="#Nanga"><i>Nanga</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Mbalolo</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Mbure</i>, the men’s house in the Fiji Islands, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mechoacan, tabooed days observed after the death of a ruler of, <a href="#Page_70">70</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Medicine, practice of, by the Land Dyak of Borneo, <a href="#Page_38">38</a> <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx">Meinhold, J., <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Meithei of Manipur, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Mekeo District of British New Guinea, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Melo</i>, a Kayan term for rest day, <a href="#Page_32">32</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>n.</i>⁶</li> + +<li class="indx">Mendi of Sierra Leone, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Men’s house, the, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Menstruation, superstitions relating to, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">supposed connection of the moon with, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Mentawi Islands, the, <a href="#Page_43">43</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mexicans, market days kept by the, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>and n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">calendar of the, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_279">279</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days of the, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">saints’ days observed by the modern, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Miao (Miao-tse), the, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Middle Ages, observance of unlucky days during the, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Mikir of Assam, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mindanao, <a href="#Page_45">45</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Mishmi, the, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> <i>and n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Mishna</i>, the, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>Missionaries, observance of Sunday introduced by, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> <i>n.</i>², + <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mithra, a Persian deity, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Mohammed, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Molucca Islands, the, <a href="#Page_64">64</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Mommsen, Theodor, on the Roman <i>nundinum</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Monday, an unlucky day in Germany, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> <i>and n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">in India, consecrated to Siva, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the first day of the week in Slavic countries, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">an unlucky day among the Jews, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mondunga of Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Mongelima of Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Mongolia, the Buddhist Sabbath in, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Month, the lunar, <a href="#Page_13">13</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_156">156</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, + <a href="#Page_173">173</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">intercalation of a thirteenth, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">beginning of the, <a href="#Page_178">178</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">division of the, by the waxing and waning moon, <a href="#Page_182">182</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the sidereal, <a href="#Page_274">274</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Moon, tabooed or unlucky periods observed in connection with changes of the, <a href="#Page_14">14</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a> <i>and n.</i>², + <a href="#Page_34">34</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a> + <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">eclipses of the, marked by taboos, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">supposed deleterious influence of the, <a href="#Page_125">125</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">associated with impregnation and childbirth, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">influence of, on the tides, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">supposed influence of, on the growth of vegetation, <a href="#Page_130">130</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">doctrine of lunar sympathy, <a href="#Page_131">131</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">superstitions relating to the <i>interlunium</i>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">as the measure of time, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">day of the new, how calculated, <a href="#Page_174">174</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">phases of the, closely observed by savage and barbarous peoples, <a href="#Page_180">180</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">day of the full, how calculated, <a href="#Page_182">182</a> <i>n.</i>⁷, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">division of the lunation into two periods, <a href="#Page_182">182</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">importance of the, to the early Hebrews, <a href="#Page_246">246</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hebrew cult of the, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Full_moon">Full moon</a>, <a href="#Lunar_mansions">Lunar mansions</a>, <i>and</i> <a href="#New_moon">New moon</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Moonshine, supposed noxious influence of, <a href="#Page_125">125</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Morocco, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Moses, <a href="#Page_244">244</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Motu of British New Guinea, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Mpongwe of French Equatorial Africa, their conception of taboo, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mro, the, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Muhso">Muhso (Lalu), the, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Mundus patet</i>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Muppan of Malabar, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Music, astrological notions relating to, <a href="#Page_217">217</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Muysca">Muysca of Colombia, market days kept by the, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Naga of Manipur, tabooed days observed by the, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, + <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nail-paring, superstitions relating to, <a href="#Page_91">91</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Nakshatra</i>, the Hindu, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Namungba</i>, the Meithei term for taboo, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Na na ai</i>, the Kachin term for rest day, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nandi of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_68">68</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Nanga"><i>Nanga</i>, a secret association in Fiji, <a href="#Page_23">23</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Nannar, a Babylonian moon-god, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Nannaru</i>, Babylonian name of new-moon day, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Narnaka, inscription of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nehemiah, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Nemontemi</i>, the, Mexican epagomenal days, <a href="#Page_280">280</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Nepal, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nestorian Monument, the, <a href="#Page_202">202</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">New Britain, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— Caledonia, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— Georgia, island of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">—— Hebrides, the, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— Mexico, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— South Wales, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— Zealand, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_181">181</a> + <i>n.</i>⁷, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_214">214</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="New_moon">New moon, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, + <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, + <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a> <i>n.</i>⁷, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> + <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, + <a href="#Page_255">255</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">New Year’s festival, Hawaiian, <a href="#Page_13">13</a> <i>and</i> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span>Maori, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">Fijian, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_23">23</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">Kayan, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Balinese, <a href="#Page_42">42</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Muhso, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hebrew, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Babylonian, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Ngoma</i>, Akikuyu ancestral spirits, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nias, island of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nicobar Islands, the, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nielsen, D., <a href="#Page_143">143</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nigeria (Northern), <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">(Southern), <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> + <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Nine as a symbolic number, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Nineteenth day of the month, observance of the, in Babylonia, <a href="#Page_224">224</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Niu</i>, casting the, a Maori method of divination, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Noa</i>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nones, the, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Northern Territory of South Australia, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Noumenia, the Greek new-moon day, <a href="#Page_169">169</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Novemdiales feriæ</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Nubattu</i>, the Babylonian, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Numa, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Numbers, prejudice against even, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">symbolism of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_206">206</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Nundinæ</i>, Roman market days, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Nundinum</i>, Roman market week, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nycthemeron, the, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_218">218</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Octad, the, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Odyssey</i>, the, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Ogboni</i>, a Yoruba secret society, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Ogun, a Yoruba god, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Omens, Kayan, <a href="#Page_28">28</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Iban, <a href="#Page_33">33</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Bontoc Igorot, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Naga, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Ominous animals, cult of, in Borneo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a> + <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Orenda</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Origen, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ornaments not worn during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Oro, a Slave Coast deity, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Orunda</i>, the Mpongwe term for taboo, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Osiris, identified with the moon, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> <i>n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_168">168</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Ovid, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst"><i>Padi</i>, or rice, taboos affecting the cultivation of, in Borneo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Paganalia, Roman festival of the, <a href="#Page_96">96</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Pagi Islands, the, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Paharia of British Sikkim, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Palolo</i> worm, the, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Pamali"><i>Pamali</i>, a Land Dyak term for taboo, <a href="#Page_36">36</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Pantang</i>, the Malay term for taboo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Papyrus Sallier IV</i>, the, <a href="#Page_296">296</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Paraguay, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Parentalia, Roman festival of the, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Parsis, lucky and unlucky days of the, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Pasar</i>, Javanese market week, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Passover, the, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Patani States of the Malay Peninsula, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Patimokkha</i>, the disciplinary and penal code of Buddhism, <a href="#Page_157">157</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> <i>and n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx">Paul, St., <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pentad, the, <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Perfumes and unguents not used during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, + <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Permantong</i>, a Kayan term for taboo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Persians">Persians, the seven-day week of the, <a href="#Page_201">201</a> <i>n.</i>⁴;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar mansions of the, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their epagomenal days, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Iranians">Iranians</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Peruvians, market days kept by the, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the seven-day week unknown to the, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar superstitions, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">calendar of the, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Petara"><i>Petara</i>, Sea Dyak gods, <a href="#Page_35">35</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_42">42</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Pharisees, the, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Philippine Islands, the, <a href="#Page_44">44</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Philo Judæus, <a href="#Page_261">261</a> <i>n.</i>⁵, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Phœnicians, the, <a href="#Page_212">212</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span><i>Pidiu</i>, the Ibaloi Igorot term for taboo, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Pinches, T. G., on the meaning of <i>shabattum</i>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a> <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Pitara.</i> See <a href="#Petara"><i>Petara</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Planetary_or_astrological_week">Planetary or astrological week, in India, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in southeastern Asia, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in China, <a href="#Page_202">202</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Japan, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Malay Peninsula, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Sumatra, Java, and Bali, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">origin of the, <a href="#Page_215">215</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">introduction of the, into the Occident, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">adopted by Christianity, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">its diffusion in Europe, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Afghanistan, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Planets, differentiation of the, from the fixed stars, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">identification of the, with deities of the Babylonian pantheon, <a href="#Page_214">214</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the planetary week, <a href="#Page_215">215</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Mithraism, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Plato, on festival days, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pleiades calendars, <a href="#Page_176">176</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Pliny the Younger, <a href="#Page_268">268</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Plutarch, <a href="#Page_264">264</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Plynteria, Athenian festival of the, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Pomali</i>, a Malay term for taboo, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pompeii, inscriptions from, relating to the planetary week, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pompey the Great, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Porikh.</i> See <a href="#Pamali"><i>Pamali</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Portugal, names of the weekdays in, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Portuguese East Africa, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Posadha</i>, the, in China, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> <i>n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Posaha</i>, the Jain, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Poya</i> days, observed in Ceylon, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Prascovia, St., <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Prayer, nature of Hawaiian, <a href="#Page_12">12</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Pre-animistic sanctions of taboos, <a href="#Page_4">4</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ptolemy, Greek astronomer, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Puberty, taboos imposed on the attainment of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">initiation at, among the Fijians, <a href="#Page_23">23</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the Yao, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pula, the, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Punän</i>, the term for taboo in the Mentawi Islands, <a href="#Page_43">43</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Punjab, the, <a href="#Page_137">137</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Purim, Hebrew festival of, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Pyramid Texts</i>, the, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Python, cult of the, in Uganda, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Ra, Egyptian god, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Radama I, Malagasy king, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ratu-mai-Mbulu, a Fijian deity, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Reformation, the, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Reinach, S., <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Rendile of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_198">198</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Rest_days">Rest days, characteristics of primitive, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">connection of, with the institution of taboo, <a href="#Page_1">1</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Hawaii, <a href="#Page_9">9</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Society Islands and the Marquesas Islands, <a href="#Page_15">15</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the Maori, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Tonga Islands, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Samoa, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in New Guinea, <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>and n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the Kayan of Borneo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the Iban or Sea Dyak, <a href="#Page_33">33</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the Land Dyak, <a href="#Page_36">36</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Nicobar Islands, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Bali, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Mentawi Islands, <a href="#Page_43">43</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Philippines, <a href="#Page_44">44</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Manipur, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Assam, <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Burma, <a href="#Page_55">55</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the aborigines of southwestern China, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">a characteristic feature of Indo-Chinese culture, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">compared with the <i>couvade</i>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">psychological and sociological aspects of, <a href="#Page_59">59</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">mark critical epochs in the communal life, <a href="#Page_60">60</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observed after a death, <a href="#Page_62">62</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observance of, in Africa, during seasons of ghost-riddance and demon-riddance, <a href="#Page_74">74</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observed in connection with the proceedings of west African secret societies, <a href="#Page_77">77</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Greek ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι as, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Roman <i>dies religiosi</i> as, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Hebrew Day of Atonement and Feast of Trumpets as, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Mohammedan Feast of Sacrifices, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">festivals observed as, <a href="#Page_85">85</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the Dravidian peoples of India, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Hebrew Day of First-fruits, <a href="#Page_90">90</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Greek festivals as, <a href="#Page_91">91</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Roman festivals as, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>observed in connection with agricultural operations, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">market days as, <a href="#Page_103">103</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observed in connection with the waning moon, <a href="#Page_131">131</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observed during lunar eclipses, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observed during the <i>interlunium</i>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observed at changes of the moon, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar days as, in Africa, <a href="#Page_144">144</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar taboos in modern India, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the ancient Aryan <i>upavasatha</i> as a Sabbath, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">sabbatarian character of lunar days in Brahmanism, <a href="#Page_151">151</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Jain <i>posaha</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Buddhist Sabbath, or <i>uposatha</i>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">diffusion of the Buddhist Sabbath, <a href="#Page_158">158</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">new moon and full moon as, among the Greeks and Romans, <a href="#Page_169">169</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the <i>dies postriduani</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Madagascar and eastern Africa, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the American Indians, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> <i>n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">not observed by the Chinese, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Japan, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">not observed by the Javanese, <a href="#Page_205">205</a> <i>n.</i>⁴;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Islam, <a href="#Page_205">205</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">seventh days observed as, <a href="#Page_208">208</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Christianity, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Mithraism, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Babylonian “evil days” as, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, + <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Hebrew Sabbath, <a href="#Page_242">242</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Christian Sunday, <a href="#Page_267">267</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed as, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">social and economic significance of, <a href="#Page_302">302</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Rex sacrorum</i>, the Roman, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Rig-Veda</i>, the, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Rivers, W. H. R., on the lunar superstitions of the Toda, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on their sacred days, <a href="#Page_288">288</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Roman Church, names of the weekdays in the calendar of the, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Romance countries, names of the weekdays in, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Romans, ancient, unlucky days of the, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_170">170</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">festivals of the, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, + <a href="#Page_304">304</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their market week and market days, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> + <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar calendar, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Romulus, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Rongker</i>, the Mikir term for rest day, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Roro-speaking peoples of British New Guinea, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Russia, Friday an unlucky day in, <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">saints’ days observed in, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Sabbatarian regulations, penalties for disobedience of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, + <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">how evaded, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Sabbath, the Hebrew, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, + <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>and n.</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">—— Day’s journey, length of a, <a href="#Page_251">251</a> <i>n.</i>⁵, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sabbatical Year, the Hebrew, <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Sacer</i>, the Latin term for taboo, <a href="#Page_3">3</a> <i>and n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx">Saints’ days, observance of, <a href="#Page_306">306</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Samoa, village deities of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">tabooed days observed in, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sanhedrin, the, <a href="#Page_247">247</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Sansculottides</i>, the, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Saoria of Bengal, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sarawak, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Sarhul</i>, a Uraon festival, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sarpanit, Babylonian goddess, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Saturday">Saturday, an unlucky day, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_244">244</a> <i>n.</i>³, + <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">names applied to, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>and n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">change from, to Sunday, as the first day of the planetary week, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Saturn’s Day and, <a href="#Page_243">243</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ecclesiastical recognition of, as a holy day, <a href="#Page_269">269</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx">Saturn, supposed consecration of the <i>nundinæ</i> to, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">the planet, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Saturday">Saturday</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sayce, A. H., on the <i>khamushtu</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Scapegoat, the Hebrew, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Schiaparelli, G., <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_261">261</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Scotland, abstinence from work after a death observed in, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lunar superstitions in, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">observance of Saturday in, <a href="#Page_270">270</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sea Dyak. <i>See</i> <a href="#Iban">Iban</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>Seclusion necessary during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, + <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, + <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, + <a href="#Page_58">58</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, + <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, + <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Strangers">Strangers, exclusion of</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Secret societies, in Fiji, <a href="#Page_23">23</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in west Africa, <a href="#Page_77">77</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Selene, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Seligmann, C. G., <a href="#Page_26">26</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Seminoles of Florida, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Sepi</i>, the Balinese term for rest day, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sequani of Gaul, <a href="#Page_186">186</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Servius Tullius, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Seven, as a symbolic number, <a href="#Page_208">208</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_229">229</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Seven-day_week">Seven-day week, the, in New Caledonia, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the island of Bali, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Malay Peninsula, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the Guinea and Sudanese negroes, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">not known to the Peruvians, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Sumatra, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in New Zealand, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Indo-China, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unknown to the Egyptians, <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_245">245</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Abyssinian, <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">origin and diffusion of the, <a href="#Page_196">196</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Madagascar and eastern Africa, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in India, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in southeastern Asia, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in central and northern Asia, <a href="#Page_201">201</a> <i>n.</i>⁴;</li> + <li class="isub1">in China, <a href="#Page_202">202</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Japan, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Malay Archipelago, <a href="#Page_204">204</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the Arabs, <a href="#Page_205">205</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the planetary or astrological, <a href="#Page_215">215</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Babylonia, <a href="#Page_224">224</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the Hebrews, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the early Christians, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the Toda, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Afghanistan, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Planetary_or_astrological_week">Planetary or astrological week</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Seventh day, the, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, + <a href="#Page_244">244</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sexual intercourse, prohibited during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a> <i>and n.</i>², + <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, + <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">effect of illicit, on the crops, <a href="#Page_36">36</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Shabattum</i>, Babylonian name of full-moon day, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Shabbāth</i>, original meaning of the Hebrew term, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">used in the general sense of “week,” <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>—— shabbāthôn</i>, the Hebrew, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Shabbāthôn</i>, the Hebrew, <a href="#Page_235">235</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Shabbti</i>, Jewish designation of the planet Saturn, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Shamash, Babylonian sun-god, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Shan of Burma, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Shaving, superstitions relating to, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Shib’a</i>, Jewish period of strict mourning after a death, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Shropshire, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Siam, tabooed days observed in, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">market days kept in, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Buddhist Sabbath in, <a href="#Page_161">161</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">bipartite division of the month employed in, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the seven-day week in, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Siberia, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a> <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="indx">Sickness, taboos imposed in connection with, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, + <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sierra Leone, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Sikkim, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Silence observed during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a> <i>and n.</i>², + <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, + <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, + <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sin, a Babylonian moon-god, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Sinaugolo of British New Guinea, a division of time formerly observed by the, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Singer, Jacob, <a href="#Page_249">249</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Slave Coast of west Africa, <a href="#Page_77">77</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Slavic peoples, names of the weekdays among, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Smith, H. P., <a href="#Page_249">249</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Smith, W. R., <a href="#Page_4">4</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Society Islands, the, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a> <i>n.</i>⁷</li> + +<li class="indx">Sofalese of Portuguese East Africa, <a href="#Page_190">190</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Solevu ni vilavou</i>, a Fijian New Year’s festival, <a href="#Page_23">23</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Soma</i>, the intoxicating juice of the moon-plant, <a href="#Page_150">150</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Somali, the, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">South Australia, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Soyáluña</i>, a Hopi Indian festival, <a href="#Page_303">303</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Spartans, religious scruples of the, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>Spencer, John, on the origin of the Sabbath in Egypt, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Spirits. <i>See</i> <a href="#Demons">Demons</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Strabo, on festival days, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Strangers">Strangers, exclusion of, during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, + <a href="#Page_29">29</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_42">42</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, + <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Stseelis of British Columbia, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Subanu of Mindanao, <a href="#Page_45">45</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Sudan, the, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sulla, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sumatra, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_214">214</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Sun, worship of the, in modern India, <a href="#Page_153">153</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Sunday">Sunday, observance of, by native converts to Christianity, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, + <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">an unlucky day, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">legislation of Constantine relating to, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">markets held on, during the Middle Ages, <a href="#Page_123">123</a> <i>and n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Siam, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in India, <a href="#Page_200">200</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the Lao, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in China, <a href="#Page_202">202</a> <i>and n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Japan, <a href="#Page_203">203</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">becomes the first day of the planetary week, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">how named by the early Christians, <a href="#Page_267">267</a> <i>and n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">how observed by the early Christians, <a href="#Page_267">267</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">comes to be regarded as a rest day, <a href="#Page_269">269</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">—— legislation, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Sundyak. <i>See</i> <a href="#Dusun">Dusun</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Superstition, sociological aspects of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Sutta Nipâta</i>, the, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Swaheli of German East Africa, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Tabernacles, Hebrew Feast of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Taboo, derivation of the word, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ideas involved in, <a href="#Page_2">2</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">definition of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">conception of, widely diffused, <a href="#Page_3"><i>ib.</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">how classified, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">pre-animistic character of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">supported by animistic sanctions, <a href="#Page_5">5</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">conceptions of abstinence and propitiation involved in, <a href="#Page_6">6</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">social aspects of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">holiness and, <a href="#Page_86">86</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Tabu"><i>Tabu</i>, the Polynesian conception of, <a href="#Page_2">2</a> <i>and n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">compared with the Hebrew conception, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> <i>n.</i>⁴;</li> + <li class="isub1">compared with the Babylonian <i>mamit</i>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tacitus, on the origin of the Sabbath, <a href="#Page_245">245</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Tahiti, observance of Sunday in, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Tambo nalanga</i>, a Fijian New Year’s festival, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Tambu</i>, the Melanesian term for taboo, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Ṭāmē</i>, the Hebrew term for taboo, <a href="#Page_4">4</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Tamil-speaking peoples of southern India, village festivals of the, <a href="#Page_89">89</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Tapu.</i> See <a href="#Tabu"><i>Tabu</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tarentum, festivals of ancient, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tashi Lama, tabooed days observed after the death of the, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tatars, the, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tattooing, superstitions relating to, <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Telugu-speaking peoples of southern India, village festivals of the, <a href="#Page_89">89</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Tenasserim, <a href="#Page_161">161</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Tengao"><i>Tengao</i> (<i>tengau</i>), the Bontoc Igorot term for rest day, <a href="#Page_46">46</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Tengau.</i> See <a href="#Tengao"><i>Tengao</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tertullian, on the proper observance of Sunday, <a href="#Page_268">268</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a> <i>and n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Thahu</i>, the Akikuyu term for taboo, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Thessaly, unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Thor, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Thothmes III, inscription of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Thursday, observance of, as a holy day, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Tiberius, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tibet, tabooed days observed in, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Buddhist Sabbath in, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the seven-day week in, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Tibullus, <a href="#Page_244">244</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tides, influence of the moon on the, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Timor, island of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tippera, the, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Titi Usi, Samoan village deity, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Toda of the Madras Presidency, beliefs of, relating to the moon, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their reckoning of the lunation, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their sacred days, <a href="#Page_288">288</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Tofoke of Belgian Congo, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Togo, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span><i>Toh</i>, the Kayan spirits, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tonga Islands, the, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tonkin, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tooitonga, Tonga divine chief, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Torres Straits, islands of, <a href="#Page_128">128</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Toy, C. H., on the meaning of <i>shabattum</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Trading not allowed during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, + <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Travel prohibited during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, + <a href="#Page_49">49</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, + <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, + <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, + <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Trumpets, Hebrew Feast of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, tabooed days observed by the, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar weeks, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>and n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">unlucky days of the, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tuesday, an unlucky day, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> <i>and n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">a lucky day, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Tuhoe of New Zealand, beliefs of the, relating to the moon, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tui Tokelau, Polynesian divinity, <a href="#Page_20">20</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Tullus Hostilius, Roman king, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tungthu of Tenasserim, <a href="#Page_161">161</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Twelve Days, the, of the early Aryans, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in European folklore, <a href="#Page_277">277</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><i>Ubone</i>, or duty days, observed in Burma, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Ucharal</i>, a festival celebrated in Malabar, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Uganda, <a href="#Page_69">69</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a> + <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Ûm nûkh libbi</i>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Union Islands, the, <a href="#Page_20">20</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">United States, the, lunar superstitions in, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> <i>n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Unleavened Bread, Hebrew Feast of, <a href="#Page_179">179</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Unlucky days, of the ancient Greeks, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_139">139</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the ancient Romans, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">African, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_190">190</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_190">190</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">German, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Ceylon, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Malay Peninsula, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Persian, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Malagasy, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hindu, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Russian, <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">modern Greek, <a href="#Page_222">222</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_284">284</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Babylonian, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_297">297</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Egyptian, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Hebrew, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>and n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">origin of beliefs in, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Macedonian, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a> <i>and n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">mediæval superstitions concerning, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Burmese, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Abyssinian, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the British Isles, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Mexican, <a href="#Page_279">279</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Maya, <a href="#Page_280">280</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Maori, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Sumatra, <a href="#Page_285">285</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Chinese, <a href="#Page_286">286</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Korean, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Japanese, <a href="#Page_287"><i>ib.</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Tibetan, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Toda, <a href="#Page_290">290</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the Siah Posh Kafirs, <a href="#Page_293">293</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in the Hesiodic calendar, <a href="#Page_298">298</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">social and economic aspects of, <a href="#Page_302">302</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Upavasatha</i>, observance of the, in ancient India, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Uposatha</i>, the Buddhist Sabbath, <a href="#Page_155">155</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">diffusion of the, in southeastern Asia, <a href="#Page_158">158</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Ur, city of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Uraon of Bengal, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Veblen, Thorstein, on sacred holidays, <a href="#Page_87">87</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Vedas, the, not to be read on certain occasions, <a href="#Page_152">152</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Venus, the planet, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Vergil, on Roman holy days, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his calendar of lucky and unlucky days, <a href="#Page_299">299</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Vespasian, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Vestalia, Roman festival of the, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Vey of Liberia, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> <i>n.</i>⁵</li> + +<li class="indx">Victoria, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Village gods, Samoan, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> <i>and n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Vishaptatha</i>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Vishnu Purana</i>, the, <a href="#Page_151">151</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Wa, the Wild, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Wachaga of German East Africa, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Wagiriama of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_136">136</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_189">189</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Wahuma. <i>See</i> <a href="#Bahima">Bahima</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span><i>Wakanda</i>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Wales, unlucky days observed in, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Wanika of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Wan phra</i>, the Siamese Sabbath, <a href="#Page_161">161</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Warfare not engaged in during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, + <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, + <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Wasania of British East Africa, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Wednesday, an unlucky day, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Weekdays, names of the, in Java, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in Africa, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> + <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">in New Zealand, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>n.</i>¹;</li> + <li class="isub1">of the planetary sequence, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in European languages, <a href="#Page_221">221</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">among the early Christians, <a href="#Page_267">267</a> <i>and n.</i>³</li> + +<li class="indx">Weeks, three-day, <a href="#Page_103">103</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>and n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">four-day, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> + <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>n.</i>³;</li> + <li class="isub1">five-day, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, + <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>and n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>and n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> + <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>sqq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">six-day, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">seven-day, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>and n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>and n.</i>², <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_196">196</a> + <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> <i>n.</i>⁵, <a href="#Page_215">215</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a> <i>sq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_227">227</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">eight-day, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>n.</i>¹, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>n.</i>³, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">nine-day, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>¹, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a> <i>and n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">ten-day, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Lunar_weeks">Lunar weeks</a> <i>and</i> <a href="#Market_weeks">Market weeks</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Wellhausen, Julius, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Westermarck, Edward, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">White, the colour appropriate for sacred days observed on the Gold Coast, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Winckler, Hugo, on the <i>khamushtu</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Women, restrictions on, during a tabooed or unlucky period, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, + <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst"><i>Ya</i>, the Arakanese term for rest day, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Yabim of German New Guinea, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Yakut of Siberia, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Yap, island of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Year, the lunar, <a href="#Page_13">13</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a> + <i>sqq.</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a> <i>n.</i>²;</li> + <li class="isub1">beginning of the new, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the solar, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a> + <i>n.</i>², <a href="#Page_279">279</a> <i>sqq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Yoruba-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, tabooed days observed by the, <a href="#Page_77">77</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> + <i>sq.</i>;</li> + <li class="isub1">their lunar weeks, <a href="#Page_187">187</a> <i>and n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Yucatan, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a> <i>sq.</i></li> + +<li class="indx">Yuchi Indians, the, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> + +<li class="indx">Yukaghir of Siberia, <a href="#Page_201">201</a> <i>n.</i>⁴</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Zagmuk, Babylonian festival of, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> <i>n.</i>²</li> + +<li class="indx">Zimmern, H., <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a> <i>n.</i>⁴, <a href="#Page_252">252</a> <i>n.</i>⁶</li> + +<li class="indx">Zulu of British South Africa, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Zuñi Indians of New Mexico, <a href="#Page_190">190</a> <i>and n.</i>⁶, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> <i>n.</i>¹</li> +</ul> +</nav> + +<p class="titlepage">Printed in the United States of America.</p> + +</main> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79292 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/79292-h/images/cover.jpg b/79292-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe272c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/79292-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/79292-h/images/macmillan.jpg 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