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.