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]