UNLUCKY DAYS
The observance of lucky and unlucky days is a familiar phenomenon in
primitive society and among peoples of archaic civilization. Under
the attenuated form of a survival, the superstition still lingers in
civilized and Christian lands. The reasons for the assignment of a good
or an evil character to certain days are usually quite obscure; and even
where explanations are provided, these are, as a rule, explanations
after the event. The attempt to provide a satisfactory origin for them
insensibly widens out into an effort to account for the genesis of the
great body of popular and anonymous superstitions.
Probably the commonest source of the belief in unlucky days is to be
sought in that erroneous association of ideas which underlies so much of
savage magic and savage religion. If an event, fortunate or unfortunate,
has taken place on a certain day, the notion easily arises that all
actions performed on the recurrence of the day will have a similarly
favourable or unfavourable issue. Among the Tshi of west Africa, the
most unlucky day is the anniversary of the Saturday on which Osai Tutu
was slain in an ambush near Acromanti in 1731.[857] In modern Macedonia
the superlative ill-luck attending Tuesday is explained by some as due
to the fact—historically true—that Constantinople was taken by the
Turks on this day of the week.[858] The _dies religiosi_, or unlucky
days, of the Roman calendar included the anniversary of the battle of
the Allia, _dies Alliensis_ (July 18), when the republic had suffered
grave misfortune. The same date was also observed as the anniversary of
the destruction of the Fabii at the Cremera, 477 B.C.[859] After the
assassination of Julius Cæsar a decree was made that the Ides of March
(March 15) should be called _parricidium_, and henceforth should be
observed as an unlucky day.[860] The superstitions which in Christian
times have gathered about Friday—at once a holy and an unlucky day—are
connected with it as the anniversary of Christ’s Passion. In the Middle
Ages people were accustomed to date on Friday all the unfortunate events
of religious tradition and history. On that day Adam sinned and was
driven from Paradise, Cain killed his brother Abel, John the Baptist was
beheaded, and Herod slew the Holy Innocents. It was also the day of the
Deluge, the Confusion of Tongues, and the infliction of the Plagues upon
Egypt. Synchronisms of this sort had a great attraction to the mediæval
mind, and numerous lists of them are preserved in old manuscripts.[861]
There is a Jewish superstition, reaching back to the Talmud, that it
is lucky to begin an undertaking on Tuesday, because, in describing
the third day of creation, it is said, “God saw that it was good.”
Contrariwise, it is unlucky to commence anything of importance on Monday,
as to which day nothing at all is said.[862] Where such conceptions are
rife, they readily lend themselves to divination and astrology, and under
the fostering care of practitioners of magical arts may develop into
elaborate augural codes.
The observation of natural phenomena sometimes accounts for the unlucky
character ascribed to particular occasions. We have already noted many
superstitious observances connected with the phases of the moon, her
monthly disappearance from the heavens, and her occasional eclipse
by the earth. A further illustration of the same subject is found in
the astrological doctrine of the moon stations. The old Babylonian
astronomers, one of whose duties it was to make very careful observations
of the moon, noticed that at each lunation she appears to pass by the
same star-groups. It was natural, therefore, to associate the moon with
the conspicuous stars and constellations in the vicinity of the moon’s
path. The names which they received were in time extended to the lunar
days themselves; and this apparent connection between the two became
the principal basis of astrological forecasts for each day of the
sidereal month.[863] The fact is well known that Babylonian astrology
and astronomy—for the two were scarcely distinguishable in the earlier
period—exerted great influence on the neighbouring peoples of Asia; and
hence it has been generally assumed that the lunar mansions, reckoned
at twenty-seven or twenty-eight in number, which we find among the
Hindus and Chinese, and the augural calendars connected therewith, were
derived ultimately from Babylonia.[864] In modern India the _nakshatra_,
as they are called, “are consulted at births, marriages, and on all
occasions of family rejoicing, distress, or calamity. No one undertakes
a journey or any important matter except on days which the aspect of
the _nakshatra_ renders lucky and auspicious.”[865] Among the Persians
and Arabs the lunar stations have long been employed for astrological
purposes.[866] The Arabs carried them to Madagascar, where they gave
rise to an elaborate distinction of days lucky and unlucky. Some days
were considered absolutely bad; others were absolutely good; others were
indifferent. Again, some days were not regarded as good in general,
though still good enough for special purposes; one being excellent for
a house-warming, another for marking out the ground for a new town, and
still another was lucky to be born on, but bad for business. Some days
had a special peculiarity of their own, for instance, children born on a
certain day usually became dumb. The character of a day, according to the
Malagasy astrologers, depended, in short, on what one of the twenty-eight
lunar stations it represented.[867]
The conception of unluckiness may be deduced _a priori_ from the
assumed critical nature of certain periods, such as epagomenal months
and days. The thirteenth month, which many peoples employing lunar
calculations find it necessary to intercalate at more or less regular
intervals, is sometimes regarded as unlucky.[868] Again, the eleven
or twelve days by which the solar year exceeds the lunar year assumed
among various Indo-European peoples a portentous and often unfavourable
significance.[869] The celebration of the Twelve Nights, in the sense
of the Twelve Nights and Days, as a festival before or after the winter
solstice, has been assigned to the Aryans of the Vedic age in India on
the strength of certain passages in the _Rig-Veda_, where the three
Ribhus, generally regarded as the personified seasonal deities who
divided up the year, are described as sleeping during these days “in
the house of the sun.”[870] The prophetic character of the Twelve Days
appears to be indicated by their characterization in various Brahmanical
writings as an “image of the coming year.”[871] Some eminent scholars
have thought that the Twelve Days represent an ancient method of
adjusting the lunar year to the solar year, as practised by the early
Aryans before the custom arose of inserting a thirteenth month, to which
reference is also made in the _Rig-Veda_.[872] This opinion, though not
free from difficulties, is strongly supported by numerous parallels to
the Indian evidence found in European folklore of the Twelve Days.[873]
Throughout Europe from east to west the Twelve Days, usually reckoned
from Christmas to Epiphany, are prolific in popular superstitions and
customs. At this time the souls of the dead, sometimes under animal
form, return to the earth and revisit the living; witches and demons
swarm in the mischief-laden air; werewolves roam about, and the Wild
Huntsman rides in the heavens. Most of the ceremonies performed during
the Twelve Days have a distinctly pagan cast, such as the constant fire
on the domestic hearth, the village bonfires, and the lighted candles;
while others, such as the sprinkling of the houses with holy water and
the marking of the cross on the doors, have only a thin veneer of
Christianity. To a certain extent the Twelve Days thus form the modern
European representative of those seasons devoted to the expulsion of
ghosts and evil spirits which are observed by peoples of the lower
culture.[874] A further resemblance exists in the distinctly unlucky
character often assigned to the Twelve Days. In Macedonia no marriages
are solemnized during their continuance.[875] In various parts of Germany
they are kept as rest days, when the most important household occupations
and even those on the farm are omitted. The housewife must not spin,
weave lace, or engage in her usual tasks of washing and baking; and the
farmer must not thresh grain. Certain foods, especially peas and other
legumes, are carefully avoided; and no meat is eaten. It is not wise to
lend anything out of the house or to remove refuse and sweepings. One
ought not to be short of anything at this time, else one will be short
of everything during the ensuing year. Certain animals, particularly
associated with witches, should not be called by their right names;
hence, you must refer to the fox as “Mr. Long-tail,” and to the mouse as
“Floor-runner.” During these fateful days perfect quiet is essential:
no table must be pushed about and no doors slammed, otherwise the house
will be struck by lightning. In this period dreams and other prognostics
are most to be relied on and are most carefully investigated. Everywhere
in Germany it is believed that the weather of the Twelve Days determines
what will be experienced during the following twelve months, so that they
form, in effect, a meteorological calendar for the new year.[876] This
last superstition, however, is not confined to Germany, being met, for
instance, in modern Brittany. In most parts of that country the Twelve
Days, here reckoned from the first of January, are popularly termed
_gour-deziou_, “male days,” an expression which must be understood as
meaning supplementary or additional days.[877] A superstitious avoidance
of certain kinds of work during the Twelve Days may still be found in
remote districts of the British Isles. In Shropshire horses are not set
to the plough at this time and no spinning is done.[878] In Aberdeenshire
people believe that all work ought, if possible, to be finished before
Christmas Day. Between this time and New Year’s Eve no bread is baked and
no clothes are washed, and the spinning-wheel must be carried from one
side of the house to the other.[879] The Twelve Days over and above the
year were called in Wales “days of days” (_dyddian dyddon_). “They are
free days, and let any one come from any place he may, he will be free,
and exposed to no weapon or stroke, since there can be no court and law
of country on those days.”[880]
The solar year, superseding the lunar year of three hundred and
fifty-four days, seems to have been generally assumed in the first
instance at the round number of three hundred and sixty days, the earth’s
periodical course around the sun being taken as a multiple of the moon’s
course around the earth. In ancient Mexico, where a solar calendar came
into use, the three hundred and sixty days were divided into eighteen
periods, each of twenty days. As their total did not round out the solar
year it became necessary to add five days at the end of the year; and
these possessed an unfavourable character. They were called _nemontemi_,
“the superfluous, supplementary days,” with the secondary significance
of “the useless days,” as being consecrated to no deity and employed
for no civic business. That they were considered sinister and unlucky
is evident from the abstinence that characterized them. Nothing of any
importance was done on the _nemontemi_. The house was not swept, no legal
case was tried, and any person so unfortunate as to be born on one of
these days was destined to a poor and miserable life. At the same time,
the _nemontemi_ possessed a prophetic power for the whole year. “They
were careful,” says Father Sahagun, “during these fatal days not to
fall asleep during the day, not to quarrel together, not to trip or to
fall, because they said that if any of these things befell them, they
would continue to befall them thence forevermore.”[881] Among the Mayas
of Yucatan the same abstinence prevailed on the five _xma kaba kin_,
the “days without names.” On these days “men left the house as seldom
as possible, did not wash or comb themselves, and took special care
not to undertake any menial or difficult task, doubtless because they
lived in the conviction that they would be forced to keep on doing it
through the whole ensuing year. The Mexicans were more passive in regard
to these days, inasmuch as they merely took care to avoid conjuring up
mischief for the coming year, while the Mayas did things more thoroughly.
During these days, so portentous for the entire year, they banished
the evil which might threaten them. They prepared a clay image of the
demon of evil, Uuayayab, that is, _u-uayab-haab_ (‘by whom the year is
poisoned’), confronted it with the deity who had supreme power during the
year in question, and then carried it out of the village in the direction
of that cardinal point to which the new year belonged.”[882]
It is an impressive testimony to the essential unity of primitive
culture that in a far distant quarter of the globe an almost identical
superstition existed. The Egyptian solar calendar, like the Mexican,
was based on a year of three hundred and sixty days, but in Egypt these
were grouped into twelve equal months of thirty days each, leaving five
supplementary days to be added at the end of the twelfth month—“the five
days over and above the year” (_haru duaït hiru ronpit_), as they were
styled.[883] Their great antiquity is indicated by another designation,
“little month,” applied to them; and, in fact, a notice of the epagomenal
days occurs in the _Pyramid Texts_ belonging to the Sixth Dynasty, where
they are referred to as the “five additional days” on which the gods were
born.[884] Later monumental records show that the deities associated
respectively with these days were the five members of the Osirian
cycle, Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.[885] The evidence of the
_Leiden Papyrus_, setting forth the ceremonies requisite for epagomenal
days, indicates that they enjoyed exceptional importance because of
their position at the end of the year. As religious festivals they were
consecrated to the dead. Furthermore, they bore a distinctly ominous or
unlucky character, and many were the prayers and magical formulas to be
recited by the pious worshipper in order to secure divine protection
against the malefic influences supposed to characterize them. To
positive rites of prayer and sacrifice the worshipper must add cessation
of all activity: “during the five days at the end of the year do no
work; abstain from everything”—so runs the priestly text.[886] These
precautions taken, he might look forward to a happy New Year.
The conquest of Egypt in the sixth century B.C. by the Achæmenian
kings seems to have introduced a knowledge of the excellencies of the
Egyptian solar reckoning to the Persians. Their five epagomenal days
were called the Gāthā-days, each being sacred to one of the five great
divisions of the _Gāthās_, or Zoroastrian hymns. A Persian calendar of
late date (1687 A.D.) gives the first day as lucky, and the third as
unlucky.[887] It is significant that among the Persians, as in ancient
Egypt, the epagomenal days particularly belonged to the dead, to whom
sacrifices were regularly offered at this time, as well as during the
first five days of the new year.[888] The Armenians also had their five
supplementary days—_aweleach_—intercalated after the twelfth month, an
arrangement doubtless borrowed from the Persians, but these days do not
appear to have been marked by any special observances.[889] The latest
attempt to introduce the use of epagomenal days dates from the time of
the French Revolution. In their desire to abolish a chronological system
bound up with the Christian religion the bold innovators of the National
Convention set aside in 1793 the Gregorian calendar, establishing a
Republican calendar in which the seven-day week was replaced by the
decade and the year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each,
according to the old Egyptian arrangement. Five intercalary days,
popularly called _sansculottides_, came at the end of the year (six
days at the end of every fourth year); they were dedicated to Virtue,
Genius, Labour, Opinion, and Reward; and were observed as holidays. But
this calendar, which John Quincy Adams described as an “incongruous
composition of profound learning and superficial frivolity, of irreligion
and morality, of delicate imagination and coarse vulgarity,” had a short
life. In 1802 the week of seven days returned into general use, and three
years later an edict of Napoleon ordered the restoration of the Gregorian
calendar.[890] In our own time, however, serious proposals have been
made looking toward the reformation of the present awkward calendar, and
among them is the suggestion that we adopt the ancient Egyptian system of
months and epagomenal days.
It has been repeatedly noticed in the preceding pages that oftentimes
no clear line of demarcation can be drawn between days _tabu_ and days
considered “unlucky.” Both may involve ideas of contagion, the sanctity
or pollution attaching to the one being conceived as scarcely less
transmissible than the vaguer “unluckiness” which belongs to certain
periods and affects everything done during their continuance. How
some of the so-called unlucky days, still lingering in contemporary
civilization, have descended from the holy days of antiquity is aptly
illustrated by the superstitions relating to the certain days of March
and of August, as observed at the present time in southeastern Europe.
In Macedonia the peasants during the first three days and the last
three days of these two months do not plant; they cut no tree or vine,
for fear lest it should wither; they do not bathe in the sea, or their
bodies would swell; and they even refrain from washing clothes.[891]
In various parts of Greece and the Ægean it is considered necessary to
abstain from particular kinds of work on certain days of August, and
occasionally of March. During the first five days of August the people
of Epirus do not wash clothes or go into the fields to work. In Crete
the period is longer, for here on the first six and last six days of
August clothes are not washed and grapes are not gathered.[892] In Cos
on the first three days of August the women do no work (for it would
not prosper) and wash no clothes (for these would soon wear out). The
eleven days which follow are supposed to foreshadow the weather during
the succeeding eleven months: as the fourth day is, so will September
be; the fifth day prognosticates the weather for October, and so on.
The fifteenth of August is celebrated as the Feast of the Assumption,
closing a fortnight’s strict fast.[893] The Cypriotes observe the
first three or six days of August as times when no trees are cut or
peeled to obtain resin, when the use of water for washing clothes or
the body is forbidden, and when no one travels by water. The severity
of the regulations has led to the days being called the “evil days of
August.”[894] All these taboos thus show much similarity, relating in
particular to abstention from work which has to do with water or with
vines and trees. From this fact it becomes a plausible inference that the
unlucky days were originally sacred to the tree-nymphs and water-nymphs,
whose festivals were celebrated in pagan antiquity. At the present time
the days are associated with the _drymais_, mysterious spirits supposed
to be abroad on them, and probably to be identified with the dryads
(δρύαδες) of classic mythology.
The likeness between tabooed days as periods of abstinence and some
unlucky days may be further illustrated by much ethnographic evidence
drawn from different cultural areas. The Maori, we are told, endeavour to
determine by divination whether the day set for a journey is favourable
or unfavourable. The fisherman is hopeless of making a catch on an
unfavourable day. At such a time “no dress will be commenced, no seine
cast, no fish-hook baited, no ground turned up, seed sown, distant
visit made, flax cut or dressed, timber cut, canoe formed, or even food
partaken of.”[895] The Batta of Sumatra possess elaborate calendars of
days favourable, unfavourable, and of a doubtful character; and these
are regularly consulted by the Batta magician in order that his clients
may know when to commence any important undertaking, such as sowing
and harvesting, house-building, erection of a new village, removal
to another village, preparation of sacrifices at birth, name-giving,
burial, betrothal, and marriage, and all other great occasions. A day
may be wholly unlucky for one thing, but not for another; for instance,
a day which could not safely be used for the celebration of a sacrifice
might still be used for the inauguration of agricultural labour. On the
other hand, there are certain days, indicated in the calendars, when all
activity ceases, except the entertainment of relatives and indispensable
harvest work. If a man should meet with misfortune on one of these fatal
days, a sacrifice must be offered to the supernatural power supposed to
be responsible for the visitation. The Batta calendar in its existing
form is derived from India, but the people seem formerly to have
possessed their own rude calendar, which was used to determine the lucky
and unlucky days in a lunar month. Even at the present time the calendar
is not employed for the fixation of dates in the European sense, but only
in the service of popular superstition.[896]
The Mohammedan Malays of the Malay Peninsula possess a number of
divinatory calendars, one specifying seven unlucky days in every month, a
second, twelve other most inauspicious days in every year, while a third
gives all the days of the year classified under the heads lucky, somewhat
unlucky, most unlucky, and neutral.[897] Chinese popular calendars set
forth a similar classification of the days of the month as very lucky,
neither lucky nor unlucky, unlucky, and very unlucky.[898] Furthermore,
the first, fifth, and ninth months are considered unfavourable by the
Chinese, who will not marry or change houses during these months.[899]
In Korea the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth days of each month
are called “broken days.” At such times the people avoid any new
undertakings.[900] The old Japanese are said to have held five yearly
festivals or holidays, “purposely laid on those days, which, by reason
of their imparity, are judged to be the most unfortunate.” These were
New Year’s Day, the third day of the third month, the fifth of the fifth
month, the seventh of the seventh month, and the ninth of the ninth
month.[901] In modern Japan the cheap popular calendars, circulating
among the lower classes, contain indications for every day of a cycle of
six days. Of these, the first is described as good during the forenoon
for urgent business, such as lawsuits and petitions, but not good after
midday. The second is good in the forenoon and in the evening, but not
in the afternoon. The first half of the third day is bad, and no urgent
business should be undertaken at such a time; the afternoon, however, is
lucky. Nothing done on the fourth day will prosper. The fifth day is very
lucky for anything, especially removals or journeys. With the exception
of the noon-tide hour the whole of the sixth day is unlucky. This cycle
used in divination flourishes side by side with the week of seven
days.[902]
The Tibetans are great astrologers. In every monastery there is at
least one divining lama whose business it is to determine propitious
and unpropitious times. Calendars exist for all the days of the month,
some being described as “good,” others as “middling,” others as “bad,”
while one is referred to as “not very good,” and still another as “the
worst.” Among the causes of the luck or unluck attaching to certain days
the Tibetans are inclined to lay stress on the periodical migrations of
the spirits inhabiting the regions above the earth. It seems that the
two kinds of spirits, good and evil, shift their abodes, to some extent
every day and also contemporaneously with the phases of the moon, the
commencement of a new season, and so on. Their migrations are performed
with unequal velocity; hence, the combination of spirits varies for every
day. If the good spirits are more numerous than the evil spirits on a
particular day, the time will be favourable for any undertaking; and
_vice versa_. This belief, we are told, offers a wide field of intrigue
to the lamas, who alone are able to decide what have been the actual
movements of the spirits.[903]
The Toda, who dwell in permanent villages on the plateaus of the Nilgiri
Hills in southeastern India, have a remarkable system of rest days
deserving to be described at some length. The social organization of
this interesting people consists of two endogamous divisions, called
Teivaliol and Tartharol. Each of these primary sections is composed of
intermarrying clans, and each clan possesses a group of villages in
common. At the present time Toda interests, both economic and religious,
centre about their buffaloes. The daily life of the Toda men is largely
devoted to the care of these animals and to labour in the dairies. The
buffalo is a sacred animal; the dairy itself is almost a temple; and the
dairyman is only one remove from a priest. Toda religious rites seem
to be, in fact, little more than the arrangements which a pastoral and
communistic people have made for the provision and care of an article
of food. According to Dr. Rivers, whose careful studies are a model
of anthropological investigation, nearly every Toda ceremony has its
appointed day or days. The choice of these “is often dependent on another
Toda institution, the sacred day, either of the village or of the dairy.
Every clan has certain days of the week on which people are restricted
from following many of their ordinary occupations, although they are
not the occasions of any special ceremonies. These sacred days are the
_madnol_, or village day, and the _palinol_, or dairy day.”[904]
Each Toda village has its _madnol_, but, in general, where there are
several villages of the same clan, the _madnol_ is the same for the whole
clan. There are at least eight prohibitions characterizing the observance
of this sacred day. Feasts may not be given at such a time, funeral
ceremonies may not be performed, people may not bathe or cut their
nails, and men may not shave. Clothes are not to be washed, the house
is not to be cleansed, and, though the ordinary meals may be prepared,
rice and milk must not be cooked together. Other regulations forbid the
dairyman to leave the village, the buffaloes to be taken from one place
to another, or the people to migrate from one village to another.[905]
Though not all work is prohibited, the regulations are extensive enough
to affect most of the customary occupations. Among the Teivaliol, one of
the two endogamous divisions of the Toda people, the _madnol_ is the only
sacred day of the week. With the other division, called Tartharol, there
is also a dairy day, or _palinol_, the regulations for which have much
the same character as for the _madnol_.
Toda ingenuity has devised recognized methods of evading the rules for
the holy days, and so of avoiding the inconvenience which might otherwise
be entailed on the people. The rule that nothing may be taken from the
village on the _madnol_ would prevent any purchases from outsiders being
made on the holy day, since money would have to pass out of the village
in payment. The Toda avoid this awkward consequence by the simple device
of taking money beyond the village limits on the day before the _madnol_
and burying it in some spot where it can be found when wanted. The rule
forbidding Toda women to leave the village on the _madnol_ is evaded
in a curious fashion. A woman will depart from the settlement before
daybreak, will remain outside till the sun is up, and will then return
to her home, for breakfast and the performance of any necessary work.
During this time she is regarded as ceremonially absent from the village,
hence her actual departure later in the day for another village is not
considered to be a desecration of the _madnol_. With these possibilities
of evasion open to the pious Toda, it follows that the regulations are
seldom broken, in the letter if not in the spirit. When a breach of
them does occur, the culprit may be obliged to perform a propitiatory
sacrifice similar to that which follows the commission of various
other ceremonial sins. “It seemed quite clear, however, that this only
happened if some misfortune should befall the offender, his family, or
his buffaloes. It would seem that a man might habitually and notoriously
desecrate the _madnol_, but no steps would be taken by himself or the
community so long as things went well with the man. If he should become
ill or if his buffaloes should suffer in any way, he would consult the
diviners and they would then certainly find that his misfortunes were due
to his infringement of the laws connected with the sacred days.”[906]
There is much variety in the days observed as the _madnol_ or the
_palinol_ of the different villages and clans. The most frequent days
appear to be Wednesday and Friday, which are sacred in six clans. Sunday
is sacred in five clans, Monday and Tuesday in three, Thursday in two. In
no clan does Saturday appear to be kept as a holy day.[907]
The origin of these sacred days among the Toda is very obscure. Dr.
Rivers first suggests the possibility of the institution of _madnol_ and
_palinol_ having grown out of the belief in unlucky days. The code of
rules prescribing what might and what might not be done would then be
only an elaboration of the common superstition which restricts activity
at such unlucky periods. But there are several difficulties in the way of
this view. It is extremely doubtful whether the Toda has any such belief
in days lucky and unlucky,[908] and if he has, the idea is probably a
recent importation from the Hindus, among whom the superstition is very
prevalent. Again, the distinction between _madnol_ and _palinol_ is one
which cannot be satisfactorily explained by such a hypothesis. Finally,
the different clans of the Toda have different sacred days, whereas
one would expect lucky and unlucky days to be the same for the entire
community. This seems especially reasonable when it is considered that
the sacred days, by restricting intercourse between the different clans,
produce much inconvenience, which, of course, is increased by the fact
that the different clans have different _madnol_. Whatever be the origin
of these Toda rules, there is, writes Dr. Rivers, “little doubt that when
at the present time a given act is done or not done on a given day, the
action is not based on a belief in lucky or unlucky days, but, as nearly
always among the Toda, on custom prescribing that the act shall or shall
not be done on that day.”[909]
The question may be raised whether the resemblance of the Toda _madnol_
to the Hebrew Sabbath is not accounted for by supposing the former
institution to have been founded on ideas borrowed from Christians or
Jews. If this has been the case, it is certain that the borrowing took
place very long ago. In studying the origin and history of the Toda we
have no record that reaches back more than three centuries. From various
close resemblances between the Toda customs and those of the people of
Malabar, Dr. Rivers thinks it probable that the Toda at one time lived in
Malabar, migrating thence to the Nilgiri Hills. Both Christians and Jews
were well established in Malabar more than a thousand years ago. If the
Toda left Malabar before these settlements of foreigners were made, then
Jewish or Christian influences can be excluded; if the migration took
place subsequently, then they may have contributed to the development of
the Toda institution.[910]
In spite of these considerations, Dr. Rivers is inclined to consider the
Toda _madnol_ as substantially a native institution, which may help to
explain the origin of the Hebrew Sabbath. “In a busier community than
that of the Toda, the existence of different _madnol_ for different
clans of the community would soon become a serious obstacle to carrying
on the business of life, and such a community would probably agree that
all clans should have the same holy day. At present the _madnol_ is
undoubtedly more sacred than the other sacred days, and if the latter
were then to be neglected, we should have a community in which various
activities were prohibited on one day of the week, and the institution so
arising would differ very little from the Hebrew Sabbath. It is possible
that the Toda show in an early stage the institution of a Sabbath in
which the whole community has not yet settled on a single and joint holy
day.”[911] The fact that the Toda employ the seven-day week, which must
be entirely a borrowed institution with them, suggests, however, that
the prohibitions attaching to certain days of that week were ultimately
derived from foreign sources.[912]
Another curious instance of communal rest days is found among the Siah
Posh Kafirs, a primitive Aryan people dwelling in the northeastern part
of Afghanistan, between Chitral and the Hindu-Kush. They seem formerly
to have occupied a more extended area about the headwaters of the Indus.
The conversion of the surrounding tribes, first to Buddhism and later to
Mohammedanism, has further served to isolate them. With the Afghans on
the west their enmity is deadly and unceasing, but their relations with
their eastern neighbours admit of friendly intercourse. It is on this
side, therefore, that we must look for the introduction into Kafiristan
of Indian cultural elements, among which is the seven-day week.[913]
On certain weekdays the Siah Posh Kafirs rest from work. Young and old
gather in large buildings erected in the centre of the villages and here
they dance all night, to the music of flutes and trumpets, and sing songs
in honour of the gods.[914] According to a later and fuller account, the
Kafir rest days are called _agar_; in some districts they occur every
Thursday, in other districts, every Saturday, but only during the months
from April to September, when field work is in progress. The _agar_
appear to be rigorously observed by the male inhabitants of a village,
but the women, who stop their field-work on these days, do not scruple
to engage in other coolie labour during their continuance. “I failed,”
writes our authority, “to discover anything concerning the origin of
these _agar_. Their observance may have become a national custom, the
origin of which is as difficult to determine as the Sabbaths of other
ancient peoples. As the Kám people were averse to starting on a journey
on the _agar_ days, and as all the women left their field-work altogether
on those occasions, it is possible that the _agar_ was originally
considered an unlucky day.”[915]
Perhaps no people have subjected themselves to more irksome restrictions
on unlucky days than the natives of Madagascar. In this island systems of
taboo are widespread and elaborate, even at the present time. The term
_fady_ (or _tabu_), used for all objects and persons tabooed, is likewise
applied by the Malagasy to unfavourable days and months, the quality
of such periods as dangerous or unlucky being considered transmissible
to beings and actions.[916] By the Hova, a people of remote, perhaps
prehistoric, Malay origin, now occupying the central tableland of
Madagascar, only twelve days in the month were regarded as lucky. The
first days of some months possessed a most disastrous character, and
children born on them were usually put to death. The same cruel practice
was found among other tribes, such as the Bara and Tanala, leading, in
the latter case, to the destruction of at least one-fourth of all the
infants born.[917] The Tanala consider one of the months, called _faosa_,
extremely unlucky. “No one works in that month, no one changes his place
of abode or goes about. If any one happens to be in the fields when the
month comes in, there he remains.”[918] The Sihanaka keep Tuesday as an
unlucky day on which no work is allowed in the fields. Each Sihanaka
family, in addition, inherits a special unlucky day in each week, when it
is not permissible to go outside the house.[919] The Sakalava likewise
abstain from all business and remain strictly in seclusion on their
unlucky days, which belong both to families and to individuals.[920]
Among the Betsimisaraka each person has his unlucky day when he does not
work; in fact, he can do nothing at this time except eat, drink, sleep,
and dress his hair. Since the introduction of Christianity the day kept
in this strict fashion is Sunday.[921]
These accounts of lucky and unlucky days observed by half-civilized
peoples at the present time throw light on the references to the same
superstition found in the records of archaic civilizations. For Egypt
we have the evidence of several ancient calendars preserved in papyrus
manuscripts. The first of these dates from the Twelfth Dynasty (about
2000 B.C.) and includes all the days of the month, eighteen being defined
as “good,” nine as “bad,” and three (the sixteenth, twenty-second, and
twenty-third), as “half-good” and “half-bad.” The primitive character
of this calendar is indicated by the fact that the same prognostics are
attached to the same days of the month throughout the year. The second
calendar, dating from about 1000 B.C., is more complicated, since the
prognostics of the several days are unlike in the different months, while
each day is itself divided into three parts, lucky, unlucky, and neutral.
Neither calendar contains mention of the five epagomenal days.[922]
The third and best-known of these Egyptian calendars is the _Papyrus
Sallier IV_, which in its present form belongs to about 1200 B.C. but
is based on much earlier documents.[923] Parts of the manuscript at the
beginning and end have been lost, so that it now contains prognostics
for only two hundred and thirty-five days of the year. This interesting
production of ancient though misdirected learning divides the hours
between the rising and the setting of the sun into three periods,
each of which is ruled by its particular influence. Some days were
good throughout the three periods, some were wholly bad, others were
critical—_dubium sed in malum vergens_—while others again presented
combinations of these three characteristics. The following are typical
regulations, arranged according to the order of the Egyptian months.[924]
22 Thoth: eat no fish and light no oil lamp. 23 Thoth: put no incense
on the fire; kill no animals, domestic or wild; eat neither a goose nor
a goat. A child born on this day will amount to nothing. 26 Thoth: do
nothing on this day. 4 Paophi: do not go out of the house. 5 Paophi:
do not go out of the house; do not have intercourse with a woman. 22
Paophi: do not wash and do not approach a stream. 19 Athyr: light no
fire. 6 Mechir: do no work. 13 Pharmuthi: do not go anywhere. In the
calendar as a whole the most frequent injunctions relate to quitting
the house, travelling, sailing, and undertaking any kind of work. Next
in number are the prohibitions of loud talking, singing, and sexual
intercourse. There are also prohibitions of drinking, bathing, and
killing or eating certain animals, besides others directed against
the use of fire and lights. It is clear that in this curious treatise
we have a systematization of popular taboos relating to the lucky or
unlucky character of certain days. The fact that it was used as a
boy’s schoolbook indicates how priestly influence had erected into a
pseudo-science the uncouth and childish superstitions of the multitude.
The calendar itself presents evidence that the priests had begun to
rationalize the taboos, for the prohibitions are often accompanied by a
summary of the motives which justified them, usually legendary episodes
of the gods. For instance, the regulation for the twenty-sixth of
Thoth—“do absolutely nothing”—is explained by a reference to the terrific
combat between Horus and his uncle Set, which occurred on this ill-omened
day.[925]
The Babylonian augural calendar for the intercalated month of Elul and
for Markheshwan is not the only example of omen literature to be found in
the cuneiform records. We possess a document, preserved in great part,
which includes every day in the year, either specifying its nature as
favourable or unfavourable or adding other indications with regard to its
character. A note like “hostility,” appended to the twenty-first day of
the second month, is a warning that the gods are out of humour on that
day; the twenty-third day, described as “heart not good,” is explained
by the contrast “heart glad” on the following day. Not content with a
simple distinction of favourableness and unfavourableness, the calendar
also deals with days “wholly favourable” and “half favourable.” Still
other days are noted as those portending “distress,” “trouble,” “tears,”
“injury,” “darkness,” “moon obscured,” and the like. The precautions
and prohibitions set forth for unlucky days include, among many others,
the familiar taboos of eating specified foods, such as swine’s flesh,
beef, dates, and fish, sexual intercourse, buying and selling, wearing
bright garments, travelling, holding law courts, and so on. The calendar
contains a number of references to the king and may, very probably, have
served the priests in their instructions to the monarch. As Professor
Jastrow remarks, the belief in lucky and unlucky days has a distinctly
popular flavour, making it probable that the priests embodied in their
lists many of the notions that arose among the people, and gave to these
an official sanction.[926]
The Greeks of Hesiod’s time possessed an elaborate calendar of lucky and
unlucky days.[927] “Sometimes a day is a stepmother, sometimes a mother,”
Hesiod remarks pithily. What ancient regulations for the observance of
tabooed periods are embodied in the calendar is problematical. Many of
the prohibitions with which the first part of the poem concludes are,
however, thoroughly primitive taboos.[928] Hesiod does not mention
any days when labour is to be entirely abandoned. We may assume,
perhaps, that at the period when the Hesiodic poems were composed the
rationalizing temper of the Greeks had gotten somewhat the better of
their superstitious fears. In the Hesiodic list, as in the Egyptian
and Babylonian calendars, the notion appears that not only whole days
but even parts of days have an individual character, working for good
or evil. The middle ninth (the nineteenth) is said to be “a better day
toward afternoon.” The “fourth which followeth the twentieth of the
month is the best at dawn, but it is worse toward afternoon.” Hesiod
does not distinguish the months as lucky or unlucky, and the days which
possess either of these attributes are the same for every month. He
gives no explanation for their luckiness or unluckiness, though traces
of a rationalizing process are perhaps observable in the directions
regarding the “fifths” (presumably the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth
days), which are specially unlucky “because on the fifth men say the
Erinyes attended the birth of Oath (Horkos), whom Strife bare to punish
perjurers.” The seventh again is lucky, “for on that day Leto bare Apollo
of the Golden Sword.”[929] The Hesiodic injunctions did not cease to be
observed in the later classical epoch and exercised great influence on
civil and political life. The superstitions relating to unlucky days only
gained a firmer foothold, under the influence of Babylonian and Egyptian
doctrines, in passing from Greece to Rome and from Rome to western
Europe.[930]
During the Middle Ages perhaps the most widespread observance of unlucky
days had to do with those which went under the significant name of _dies
Ægyptiaci_. The prohibitions marking them—not to build a house, not to
buy or sell, not to cut hair, beard, and nails, and so on—possessed,
however, no character specifically Egyptian. The mediæval belief was that
these days received their designation because on one of them the plagues
had been sent to devastate the land of Egypt, and on another Pharaoh and
his host had been swallowed up in the Red Sea. As early as the fourth
century A.D. Christian writers refer to “Egyptian days” as times feared
and avoided by both pagans and converts to Christianity.[931] About
this period the superstition gained admittance to the state calendars.
In the _fasti Philocali_ (354 A.D.), twenty-five _dies Ægyptiaci_ are
reckoned, two in each month except January, which contains three.[932]
A mediæval French manuscript, dating from the reign of St. Louis,
includes twenty-four such days, but another manuscript, of the fourteenth
century, enumerates thirty days of the year as very dangerous, when it
is necessary to abstain from buying and selling, building, and planting.
Still another manuscript, of the fifteenth century, reckons thirty-one
wholly evil days, while certain hours of other days also possess
dangerous qualities.[933] In the seventeenth century J. B. Thiers, the
learned curé of Vibraie, notices the “Egyptian days” in his extensive
list of the superstitious beliefs regarding certain times and seasons,
prevalent in his age but condemned by theologians (St. Thomas Aquinas),
popes (Nicholas I), and Church synods and councils.[934] Anglo-Saxon
calendars mention about twenty-four “Egyptian days” in the year, when
it is dangerous, if not fatal, to begin an enterprise or to travel. A
manuscript calendar, dating from the reign of Henry VI, gives a list of
thirty-two such days. After the Reformation the old unlucky days appear
to have abated much of their malevolence, and to have left behind them
only a general superstition against fishermen starting out to fish, or
seamen to take a voyage, or landsmen a journey, or domestic servants to
enter a new place—on a Friday.[935]
CONCLUSION
It is fairly obvious that the observance of tabooed and unlucky days
must be included among the many superstitions which have retarded the
progress of mankind. They hinder individual initiative and tend to
prevent the undertaking of lengthy enterprises which may be interrupted
by the recurrence of an unfavourable period. Their extensive development
compels fitful, intermittent labour, rather than a steady and continuous
occupation. The Burman, for example, “is so fettered by his horoscope and
the lucky and unlucky days for him recorded therein, which are taught
him in rhymes from childhood, that the character has been given him by
strangers of alternate idleness and energy. But both are enforced by
the numerous days and seasons when he may not work without disaster to
himself. Unlucky days cause him so much fear that he will resort to all
sorts of excuses to avoid business on them. Similarly, on lucky days he
will work beyond his strength, because he is assured of success.”[936]
Again, it is said that Europeans in India usually fail to realize the
great influence which ideas of lucky and unlucky days exert on the
conduct of the people. Superstitious avoidance of unpropitious occasions
will often explain the failure of the natives to obey a court summons
or to keep their appointments with government officers.[937] These
remarks, by keen observers, are capable of a wide application to various
primitive races. The belief in unfavourable seasons may even directly
affect political and social progress, where, as in modern Ashanti and in
ancient Rome, assemblies could not be held, or courts of justice stand
open, or armies engage the enemy, when the unlucky day came round. It
is equally obvious that all such beliefs play into the hands of the
astrologer and magician, tending further to strengthen the bonds with
which superstition enchains its votaries.
From the economic point of view it deserves to be pointed out how the
extensive development of tabooed and unlucky days seriously limits
production and thus lowers the efficiency of labour. In Hawaii the
seasons of strict abstinence regularly observed during eight months of
the year reached a total of seventy-two days, while from time to time
still other _tabu_ days were appointed by the priests.[938] In Ashanti
an old writer calculated that there were only from one hundred and fifty
to one hundred and sixty days in the year during which business of
any importance could be safely undertaken.[939] Few peoples have more
holidays than the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Their religious festivals
occupy more than half the year. It is a noteworthy fact, however, that
the Hopi celebrate their longest and most important ceremonies during
the months from harvest time to planting, when there is little work
to be done. “Although the Pueblo farmer may thoroughly believe in his
ceremonial system as efficacious, his human nature is too practical to
consume the precious planting time with elaborate ceremonials.”[940]
In modern China and Korea so many festivals in honour of deities are
observed as holidays that they take the place, to a certain extent, of
the Sabbath institution.[941] Among the ancient Egyptians the unlucky
days varied in number according to the different months, six, for
instance, occurring in Paophi, seven each in Choiak and Phamenoth, and
five in Pharmuthi. It may be reckoned that “popular superstition rendered
useless about one-fifth of the year.”[942] The Athenian festivals are
estimated to have occupied from fifty to sixty days of the year. The
irregular distribution of these holidays throughout the months, and
especially their congestion in spring and autumn, must have caused much
interference with the routine of daily life.[943] In some city-states the
festivals were more numerous: at Tarentum, in the days of its prosperity,
the people are said to have had more holidays than working days.[944]
In the old Roman calendar, out of three hundred and fifty-five days,
nearly one-third (one hundred and nine) were marked as _nefasti_, that
is, as unlawful for judicial and political business. These days belonged
wholly to the gods, while eleven more days of the year were shared by
the divine and the human inhabitants of the city.[945] We know on the
evidence of Cicero that in the last century of the republic the numerous
days when courts could not sit had become a resource on which a wealthy
criminal could speculate as a means of delaying and evading justice;
while Suetonius enumerates among the praiseworthy reforms of Augustus
the cutting-down of non-judicial days by thirty, “in order that crimes
might not escape punishment or business be impeded by delay.”[946] Of the
_dies nefasti_ sixty-one, including the Ides of every month, the Kalends
of three months, and the Nones of July, were numbered in the republican
calendar among the public festivals—_feriæ publicæ_—on which the state
expected the citizens to abstain, as far as possible, from their private
business and labour.[947] But the number of rest days observed really
reached a larger total, when we remember that, besides the extraordinary
_feriæ_, proclaimed from time to time, there was a marked tendency during
the last two centuries of the republic to extend over several days
festivals to which originally only one day had been allotted. This was
for the purpose of giving time for an elaborate programme of public games
(_ludi_), consisting of chariot-races, stage plays, and other forms of
popular amusement. As the Roman passion for holidays and their attendant
spectacles increased, we find the number of days devoted to them rising
from sixty-six in the reign of Augustus to eighty-seven in that of
Tiberius, and, under Marcus Aurelius, to a hundred and thirty-five. By
the middle of the fourth century their number had reached one hundred
and seventy-five.[948] For the lower classes at Rome the gladiatorial
combats, chariot-races, and dramatic shows formed the chief pleasure of
life. The once-sovereign people of Rome became a lazy, worthless rabble,
fed by the state and amused with the games. Of them it was well said
by an ancient satirist that they wanted only two things to make them
happy—“bread and the games of the circus.”[949]
Many of the holy days in the religious calendar of Christendom were
borrowed, as is well known, from the public festivals of ancient
paganism. This must be the chief reason for the observance of so many
non-working days during the Middle Ages. Their number was largely reduced
in Protestant Europe as the result of the Reformation, which did away
with the majority of saints’ days. In Catholic countries, however, there
is still an excessive amount of time devoted to religious celebrations.
Mexico, for instance, is described as “a land of holidays. Counting
Sundays, there are one hundred and thirty-one in the Mexican calendar,
and it is asserted that more than half of the people observe them all....
On certain of these days all Mexico takes to the festival, and it usually
requires from one to three days for the _peons_ to sober up and get back
to regular work again.”[950] The Greek Church, as a celebrated traveller
and historian once pointed out, requires her followers to observe so
many holy days “as practically to shorten the lives of the people very
materially. I believe that one-third of the number of days in the year
are ‘kept holy,’ or rather, _kept stupid_, in honour of the saints: no
great portion of the time thus set apart is spent in religious exercises
and the people don’t betake themselves to any animating pastimes,
which might serve to strengthen the frame, or invigorate the mind, or
exalt the taste.”[951] In Russia commercial and educational progress
is hindered by the multitude of saints’ days. “The _dies nefas_, when
work is tabooed, becomes a serious handicap in the race of modern life.
These saints’ days, together with the Sundays, rob the Russian of nearly
one-third of his time, for they leave him only about two hundred and
fifty days for work. He would sooner work on a Sunday than on a saint’s
day.”[952] In eastern Galicia, where a calendar is in use which permits
the observance of the religious festivals of both the Roman and the Greek
churches, the number of holidays or non-working days is considerably in
excess of one hundred, rising in some districts to one hundred and fifty,
and in others reaching the amazing total of two hundred.[953] To what
extremes the practice of abstaining from labour on holy days may extend
is further illustrated in Abyssinia, where the numerous fasts and feasts
are so strictly kept as to render about six months of the year prohibited
for any secular employments.[954]
Human nature, it has been said, is always ready for the shift from
fast to feast, from Sabbath to Saturnalia. To the student of primitive
religion and sociology nothing is more interesting than the contemplation
of that unconscious though beneficent process which has converted
institutions, based partly or wholly on a belief in the imaginary and
the supernatural, into institutions resting on the rock of reason and
promoting human welfare. Though the origin of tabooed and unlucky days
must be sought in gross superstition, sooner or later they acquire a
secular character and may then be perpetuated as holidays, long after
their earlier significance has disappeared. The transition, with all
its subtle and manifold results on the organization of society, may
be followed under our own eyes. The passage of the holy day into
the holiday, beginning in the lower culture, promises to reach its
culmination in the secularizing of all the great festivals of the
Christian year. This evolutionary movement, whether for weal or woe,
at least provides a singularly instructive illustration of the close
relations between religion and social progress, which must ever impress
the inquirer into the early history of mankind.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Leviathan_, chap. xi.
[2] For the leading facts relating to the institution of taboo see Sir
J. G. Frazer, “Taboo,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_,⁹ xxiii, 15-18; _idem_,
_Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, London, 1911; N. W. Thomas, “Taboo,”
_Encyclopædia Britannica_,¹¹ xxvi, 337-341; L. Marillier, “Tabou,” _La
grande encyclopédie_, xxx, 848 _sq._; A. Bros, _La religion des peuples
non-civilisés_, Paris, 1907, pp. 185-213; C. H. Toy, _Introduction to the
History of Religions_, Boston, 1913, pp. 239-264.
[3] A list of the equivalents of tabu in the languages of Polynesia
and Melanesia will be found in William Churchill, _The Polynesian
Wanderings_, Washington, 1911, pp. 263 sq.
[4] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders_,²
London, 1856, p. 101.
[5] E. Tregear, _The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, Wellington
(N.Z.), 1891, p. 472.
[6] William Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, London, 1859, iv, 385.
[7] The proper term for “prohibit” was _rahui_ (_ibid._, iv, 386).
[8] R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, Oxford, 1891, p. 215. In the
Banks Islands and in the New Hebrides the word _rongo_ is employed to
indicate the naturally holy character which certain objects may possess,
quite independently of any human sanction or prohibition (_ibid._, p.
181).
[9] R. H. Nassau, _Fetichism in West Africa_, London, 1904, p. 80.
[10] A. van Gennep, _Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar_, Paris, 1904, pp.
12 _sqq._, 23.
[11] As Sir James Frazer has pointed out (_Encyclopædia Britannica_,⁹
xxiii, 18), the Greeks usually discriminated the two ideas, ἁγνός being
devoted to the sense of “sacred” and ἐναγής to that of “unclean” or
“accursed.” The two words, of course, have no connection, ἁγνός being
related to Skt. _yaj-_, “sacrifice” and ἐναγής to Skt. _āgas-_, “sin” (E.
Boisacq, _Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque_, Heidelberg and
Paris, 1907, pt. i, 7, 9). Among the Romans _sacer_ always continued to
retain the double meaning; it may be closely rendered by _tabu_. Compare
Servius on Vergil, _Æneis_, iii, 75. The late W. Robertson Smith referred
to the fact that the Hebrew _ṭāmē_ “is not the ordinary word for things
physically foul; it is a ritual term and corresponds exactly to the
idea of taboo” (_Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_,² London, 1903,
p. 309). For a list of Biblical passages containing _ṭāmē_ see Brown,
Driver, and Briggs, _A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament_,
Boston, 1906, p. 379.
[12] The notion of transmissibility has been especially developed by such
writers as A. E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, London, 1902, _passim_,
Hubert and Mauss, “Esquisse d’une théorie générale de la magie,” _L’année
sociologique_, 1904, vii, 108 sqq.; F. B. Jevons, _An Introduction to the
History of Religion_,⁴ London, 1908, pp. 59-68, and R. R. Marett, _The
Threshold of Religion_,² London, 1914, pp. 99-121.
[13] On the general belief in the omnipresence of demons and their action
in causing human ills see Sir J. G. Frazer, _The Scapegoat_, London,
1913, pp. 72-108.
[14] J. S. Polack, _Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders_, London,
1840, i, 234.
[15] Hose and McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, London, 1912, i,
26.
[16] C. W. Hobley, “Kikuyu Customs and Beliefs. _Thahu_ and
its Connection with Circumcision Rites,” _Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute_, 1910, xl, 428.
[17] R. C. Thompson, _The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_, London,
1904, ii, pp. xxxix _sqq._
[18] For an extensive presentation of the ethnographic evidence see Sir
J. G. Frazer, _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, London, 1911, pp.
131-223; _idem_, _Balder the Beautiful_, London, 1913, i, 22-100, ii,
225-278. The whole subject is most suggestively treated by Professor A.
van Gennep, _Les rites de passage_, Paris, 1909.
[19] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv, 387 sqq.
[20] _Idem_, _Narrative of a Tour through Hawaii or Owhyhee_, London,
1826, p. 366; _idem_, _Polynesian Researches_, iv, 387 _sq._; J. J.
Jarves, _History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands_,² Boston, 1843, p.
57.
[21] Ellis, _Narrative_, pp. 366 _sq._; compare _idem_, _Polynesian
Researches_, iv, 388.
[22] H. T. Cheever, _The Island World of the Pacific_, Glasgow [1851],
p. 63.
[23] Ellis, _Narrative_, p. 368; Hiram Bingham, _A Residence of
Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands_, Hartford, 1849, pp. 177
_sq._ Describing his experiences at Kihoro, the missionary Ellis could
not restrain his admiration of the conduct of the native converts on
Sunday: “No athletic sports were seen on the beach; no noise of playful
children shouting as they gambolled in the surf, nor distant sound of
the cloth-beating mallet was heard through the day; no persons were seen
carrying burdens in or out of the village, nor any canoes passing across
the bay. It could not but be viewed as the dawn of a bright sabbatic
day for the dark shores of Hawaii” (_Polynesian Researches_, iv, 408).
For similar statements see C. S. Stewart, _A Visit to the South Seas_,
London, 1832, pp. 277 _sqq._, 302 _sq._
[24] Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_,
Philadelphia, 1845, ii, 13. “The _tabu_ system,” wrote an early
missionary, “making sacred certain times, persons, and places, and
containing many restrictions and prohibitions, may easily be interpreted
as a relic, much changed and corrupted, from the ancient ceremonial
observances of the Jews” (Sheldon Dibble, _History of the Sandwich
Islands_, Lahainaluna, 1843, p. 27). The resemblances between the
Polynesian institution and certain customs recorded in the Old Testament
impressed another early writer, who refers to taboo as “ce singulier
usage, en partie politique, au moins dans quelques-uns de ses effets,
mais éminemment religieux dans son origine, non moins que l’interdit des
Hébreux, avec lequel il avait des rapports frappans, qui n’ont point
encore été signalés, quoique méritant assurément toute l’attention du
philosophe et du moraliste” (J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux îles du grand
océan_, Paris, 1837, ii, 6).
[25] W. D. Alexander, _A Brief History of the Hawaiian People_, New York,
1899, p. 55. The author’s work is based largely on unpublished Hawaiian
manuscripts and the early archives of the government.
[26] Alexander, _op. cit._, pp. 56 _sq._ Elsewhere this excellent
authority describes the Hawaiian prayers as in some measure magical
incantations, which, to secure the desired effect, required to be
repeated without the slightest mistake. “During the most important class
of prayers, called _aha_, it was necessary that absolute silence should
be preserved, as the least noise would break the spell and destroy the
whole effect of the charm” (_ibid._, p. 50). A similar precaution, as is
well known, characterized the ritual of a Roman sacrifice.
[27] For additional data on this subject see Jarves, _op. cit._, pp.
51 _sq._, and David Malo, _Hawaiian Antiquities_, Honolulu, 1903, pp.
210-248. The latter work, translated from the Hawaiian by N. B. Emerson,
is an exceptionally valuable repository of native lore.
[28] Alexander, _op. cit._, pp. 59 _sqq._; Malo, _op. cit._, pp.
186-210. This New Year’s festival with its accompanying taboo is also
referred to in an early work entitled _Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde to the
Sandwich Islands in the Years 1824-1825_, London, 1826, pp. 11 _sq._
According to A. Fornander (_An Account of the Polynesian Race_, London,
1878, i, 119 _sq._) the Hawaiian year consisted of twelve 30-day months
with five additional _tabu_ days intercalated at the end of Welehu. If
this statement be correct, the Hawaiian epagomenal days would furnish
a remarkable parallel to those of the ancient Mexicans and Egyptians
(below, pp. 279 _sqq._). But the best authorities agree that the Hawaiian
year was strictly lunar, with months of 29 and 30 days in alternation and
an occasional intercalary month.
[29] Alexander, _op. cit._, pp. 52 _sq._, 62 _sq._
[30] _Ibid._, pp. 50 _sqq._; Dibble, _op. cit._, 25 _sq._; Malo, _op.
cit._, p. 56. The latter authority, a native writer intimately versed
in Hawaiian antiquities, declares that the seasons of taboo were not
observed during the four _makahiki_ months of the year, when the regular
religious services were suspended for games and ceremonies in honour of
the god Lono. The same point is made by Judge Fornander (_op. cit._, i,
123 _n._²), whose information was derived from the Hon. S. M. Kamakau, an
intelligent Hawaiian, born and brought up under the heathen _régime_. On
these Hawaiian Sabbaths see below, pp. 88, 188, 233, 258, 303.
[31] J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux îles du grand océan_, Paris, 1837,
i, 516 _sq._ See further Mathias G— [Garcia] (_Lettres sur les îles
Marquises_, Paris, 1843, p. 210), who refers to the first day of fishing
as “un jour de silence et de repos, _tapu_ pour ceux qui restent à la
maison.”
[32] William Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, London, 1835, p. 85.
[33] James Cowan, _The Maoris of New Zealand_, Melbourne and London,
1910, pp. 116 _sq._ The _kumara_ crop was sacred, all persons engaged
in its cultivation were temporarily tabooed, and the offering of the
first-fruits of the _kumara_ formed a very solemn religious ceremony (E.
Tregear, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1890, xix, 110).
Compare Richard Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, London, 1855, p. 57.
[34] E. Tregear, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1890,
xix, 110. No food might be cooked on the day before a war-party set out
(_ibid._, p. 108). Mr. Tregear, an excellent authority, declares that in
New Zealand “there were no long periods of silence such as the kings of
Hawaii laid on their people by proclaiming _tapu_” (_ibid._, p. 122).
Another writer assures us that the Maori “had no days more sacred than
others” (Taylor, _op. cit._, p. 92). Yet in one part of New Zealand it
was customary to celebrate the new year with a _karakia_, or magical
incantation and prayer; in another place there was a _karakia_ when
the new moon appeared; and in still another place “the most sacred day
of the year was that appointed for hair-cutting; the people assembled
from all the neighbouring parts, often more than a thousand in number;
the operation being commenced with _karakia_, the operator and his
obsidian (substitute for scissors) being thus rendered peculiarly sacred”
(_ibid._, p. 93).
[35] John Martin, _An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands ...
from the Extensive Communications of Mr. William Mariner_, Boston, 1820,
pp. 381-385. Mariner passed four years among the Tonga Islanders as the
adopted son of the king Finow. His picturesque, but apparently reliable,
narrative describes the natives in their aboriginal state before the
arrival of Christian missionaries.
[36] Not only was all work prohibited at the time of the _inachi_,
but even any one’s appearance abroad, unless for the purposes of the
ceremony, was interdicted (Martin-Mariner, _op. cit._, p. 383 _n._²).
The Tongans observed a like restriction after a death. When a corpse was
being taken to the burying-ground, all persons in the roadway or the
adjacent fields were obliged to keep out of sight, under pain of becoming
tabooed. Those who showed themselves at such a time were generally killed
on the spot (_ibid._, pp. 243 _sq._, 394).
[37] This Samoan religious system has been fully described by Sir J. G.
Frazer, who believes that it exhibits “what seems to be the passage of
pure totemism into a religion of anthropomorphic gods with animal and
vegetable attributes, like the deities of ancient Greece” (_Totemism and
Exogamy_, London, 1910, ii, 152).
[38] George Turner, _Samoa_, London, 1884, pp. 29 _sq._
[39] _Ibid._, p. 60.
[40] _Ibid._, pp. 26 _sq._, 41, 44, 47, 49, 53, 57.
[41] Turner, _Samoa_, p. 269.
[42] _Ibid._, p. 279.
[43] J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western
Pacific_, London, 1853, pp. 245 _sq._
[44] Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, London, 1908, p. 114.
[45] _U.S. Exploring Expedition_, Philadelphia, 1846, vi, 67 _sq._
(_Ethnography and Philology_, by H. Hale).
[46] Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_,
Philadelphia, 1845, iii, 90 _sq._ This festival bore the name of _tambo
nalanga_ (_ibid._, iii, 342).
[47] In Samoa the second half of the year was called the _palolo_ season,
from the appearance of this singular worm for three days in the course of
a year. If the last quarter of the moon is late in October, the _palolo_
is found the day before, the day of, and the day after that quarter.
Should the last quarter of the moon be early in October, the worm does
not come till the last quarter of the November moon (Turner, _Samoa_, p.
207). The _palolo_, it may be noted, is not an entire animal, but only
the “propagation-body” of a sea-annelid (apparently _Eunice Viridis_
Gray), which lives in holes in the coral stone and comes to the surface
for the act of fertilization. It is found in various parts of Polynesia,
including Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga, and also in Melanesia (New Hebrides and
Banks Islands). See A. Krämer, _Die Samoa-Inseln_, Stuttgart, 1903, ii,
399-406, and B. Friedländer, “Notes on the _palōlo_,” _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, 1898, vii, 44-46.
[48] L. Fison, “The _nanga_, or Sacred Stone Enclosure, of Wainimala,
Fiji,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1885, xiv, 18. The
solemn rite of initiation into the _nanga_ was always celebrated at the
time of the New Year’s festival, late in October or early in November.
This Fijian festival, called _solevu ni vilavou_, corresponded to the
Tahitian and Hawaiian _makahiki_ (A. B. Joske, “The _nanga_ of Viti
Levu,” _Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, 1889, ii, 259). On the
_nanga_ see further H. Webster, “Totem Clans and Secret Associations
in Australia and Melanesia,” _Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute_, 1911, xli, 506 _sq._
[49] S. P. Smith, in _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, 1892, i, 40.
[50] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv, 387.
[51] W. T. Pritchard, _Polynesian Reminiscences_, London, 1866, pp.
149 _sq._; George Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_, London, 1861,
p. 229; _idem_, _Samoa_, p. 146. See also A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in
Oceanien_, Berlin, 1883, p. 55.
[52] For an interesting description of the regulations imposed on the
fishermen themselves see W. H. Furness, 3d., _The Island of Stone Money_,
Philadelphia, 1910, pp. 38 _sq._ On taboos observed by hunters and
fishers, generally, see Frazer, _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp.
190-223.
[53] F. W. Christian, _The Caroline Islands_, London, 1899, p. 290.
[54] A close observer, G. A. J. van der Sande, did not notice any special
rest days among the natives with whom he came in contact, and whose
customs he has so fully described (_Nova Guinea_, Leiden, 1907, iii, 270).
[55] C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_, Cambridge,
1910, p. 275.
[56] Quoted in Turner, _Samoa_, p. 349. The custom mentioned in the text
must now be obsolete. It is not referred to in Dr. Seligmann’s exhaustive
account of the Koita and Motu tribes.
[57] It would seem that among the Bornean tribes, generally, the chief
is responsible for the proper observation of the omens and for the
regulation of taboos affecting an entire community. Compare Hose and
McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, London, 1912, i, 65.
[58] W. H. Furness, 3d., _The Home-life of Borneo Head-hunters_,
Philadelphia, 1902, pp. 160-169.
[59] _Permantong_ is the term used by the Kayan of the Baram District;
among the Kayan in the valley of the Kapuas River, Dutch Borneo, the
word is _pantang_, the regular Malay equivalent of _tabu_. Both these
forms are possibly derived from the Malay _hantu_, a word meaning
demon or evil spirit, with the prefix _per_ and the affix _an_. The
Malay word in full would thus be _per-hantu-an_, meaning “possessed by
spirits” or “bewitched.” _Lali_ is probably a pure Kayan word and means
both “prohibited” and “sacred” (Furness, _op. cit._, p. 160; A. W.
Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_, Leiden, 1904-1907, i, 109). According
to Messrs. Hose and McDougall _malan_ and _parit_ are the proper Kayan
words for taboo, though _lali_ and _tulah_ are used as their _lingua
franca_ equivalents. _Malan_ applies to acts involving risks to the
entire community, _parit_ to those involving risk to the individual
committing the forbidden act (_Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, i, 14 _n._¹).
[60] On these omen animals see further Sir Spenser St. John, _Life in the
Forests of the Far East_, London, 1862, i, 191 _sqq._; J. Perham, in H.
L. Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, London, 1896,
i, 191-201; A. C. Haddon, _Head-hunters_, London, 1901, pp. 384 _sqq._;
E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo_, London,
1911, pp. 47 _sq._, 152 _sqq._, 298; Hose and McDougall, _op. cit._, ii,
51-114 (with some interesting parallels between the modern Kayan and the
Roman auspices). Compare W. D. Wallis, “Divination and Omens in Borneo
and in Ancient Rome,” _Classical Journal_, 1914, ix, 272-274.
[61] Furness, _op. cit._, p. 161.
[62] Furness, _op. cit._, pp. 162 _sq._
[63] Furness, _op. cit._, pp. 164 _sq._
[64] This period of seclusion is employed by the Kayan in various games
and masquerades, which, if they have a recreative value, possess as
well a religious or magical meaning in the minds of the people. During
the sowing festival the men play at spinning tops, the youths engage in
athletic sports, and maskers, disguised by wooden helmets and bandages
of banana leaves, simulate the actions of evil spirits. On the magical
significance of games in primitive agriculture, see Sir J. G. Frazer,
_Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, London, 1912, i, 92-112.
[65] A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_, Leiden, 1904-1907, i, 166
_sqq._
[66] Nieuwenhuis, _op. cit._, i, 107.
[67] The Kayan call the full moon the “evil moon” and at this time build
neither houses nor boats, and do not go forth on the search for omens
(_ibid._, i, 415).
[68] Translated by Dr. Nieuwenhuis as “sitzen, nicht arbeiten.”
[69] A. W. Nieuwenhuis, “Religiöse Zeremonien beim Häuserbau der
Bahau-Dajak am obern Mahakam in Borneo,” _Verhandlungen des II
internationalen Kongresses für allgemeine Religionsgeschichte_, Basel,
1905, pp. 107-119; compare _idem_, _Quer durch Borneo_, ii, 174.
[70] “At certain seasons of the moon, just before and just after the
full, the [Sea] Dyaks do not work at their farms; and what with bad
omens, sounds, signs, adverse dreams, and deaths, two-thirds of their
time is not spent in farm labour” (Charles Brooke, _Ten Years in
Sarawak_, London, 1866, i, 149).
[71] Leo Nyuak, “Religious Rites and Customs of the Iban or Dyaks
of Sarawak,” translated from the Dyak by the Very Rev. Edm. Dunn,
_Anthropos_, 1906, i, 410 _sq._
[72] _Ibid._, i, 176.
[73] _Ibid._, i, 181.
[74] _Ibid._, i, 416 _sq._
[75] Betara, otherwise _petara_, is the ordinary Sea Dyak name for deity.
The word is incorrectly translated as “Great Spirit”; in general belief
there are many _petara_. These gods, it may be noted, are separated by no
distinct line of demarcation from the thousands of _antu_, or spirits,
with which the Dyak has peopled his universe. See J. Perham, “_Petara_,
or Sea Dyak Gods,” _Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society_, 1881, no. 8; H. L. Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British
North Borneo_, London, 1896, i, 168-182.
[76] Brooke Low, in Roth, _op. cit._, i, 401. See also _idem_, in
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1893, xxii, 24. Many
primitive peoples are accustomed to trace a direct connection between
sexual sins and the welfare of the crops. As Sir James Frazer has shown,
this superstition has undoubtedly contributed to a stricter observance of
the rules of sexual morality, both among the married and the unmarried.
See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, London, 1911, ii, 104-119.
[77] Sir Hugh Low, _Sarawak_, London, 1848, pp. 260-262. See also Sir
Spenser St. John, _Life in the Forests of the Far East_, London, 1862, i,
175 _sqq._ According to this writer _porikh_ is the Land Dyak expression
equivalent to _pamali_.
[78] William Chalmers, in Roth, _op. cit._, i, 401.
[79] Mrs. S. B. Scott, “Harvest Festivals of the Land Dyaks,” _Journal of
the American Oriental Society_, 1908, xxix, 236-280.
[80] Mrs. S. B. Scott, “Harvest Festivals of the Land Dyaks,” _Journal of
the American Oriental Society_, 1908, xxix, 244 _sqq._
[81] St. John, _op. cit._, i, 163.
[82] _Ibid._, i, 160. The Sea Dyak make an interesting distinction
between _mali_ and _penti_, the former absolutely forbidding certain
kinds of work to a person under the ban, the latter allowing it to
be undertaken, if started by some one not subject to the taboo. For
instance, though both parents are _penti_ during the wife’s pregnancy,
the expectant mother may engage in basket-making and mat-weaving,
provided some other woman begins the work for her; and the husband may
dig a trench or erect a post, if the hands of others are first set to the
task. Taboos of this sort prevail until the child cuts its first teeth
(F. W. Leggatt, in Roth, _op. cit._, i, 98).
[83] Sir Hugh Low observes that among the Land Dyak the favourite
remedies for the cure of internal diseases are turmeric and spices, taken
in huge quantities; “but for anything at all serious, recourse is had to
the _pamali_, both in medical and surgical cases” (_Sarawak_, p. 308).
[84] St. John, _op. cit._, i, 175 _sq._ (Land Dyak). Mr. Charles Hose
declares that at such times the inhabitants of a Kayan communal house
may taboo their private rooms to the other inmates. Small fines are
imposed for infringing the rule, if the act is unintentional, but when
a man forces his way into a tabooed house, a serious quarrel, ending in
bloodshed, may result (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1894,
xxiii, 170). “It is an old custom among the Iban for a stranger, before
climbing the ladder of a house, to ask in a loud voice whether there is
no taboo” (L. Nyuak, in _Anthropos_, 1906, i, 175).
[85] The Murik on the Baram River, a community of hardworking farmers,
in addition to the communal taboos observed by them at sowing, also keep
a _lemalli_ of seven days, when the paddy crop is about to be harvested.
“For the first three days of this no one stirs out of the house, no
work is done, and no sexual intercourse is allowed” (R. S. Douglas, in
_Sarawak Museum Journal_, 1911, i, 146 _sqq._).
[86] See below, p. 165.
[87] The _elpanam_ consists of several large structures, which serve as
a guest-house for strangers and as a town-hall for feasts and public
gatherings. The institution is found under different names in many of the
East Indian islands, and even more widely. See H. Webster, _Primitive
Secret Societies_, New York, 1908, pp. 8 _sqq._
[88] V. Solomon, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902,
xxxii, 215 _sq._ See also C. B. Kloss, _In the Andamans and Nicobars_,
London, 1903, pp. 293 _sqq._
[89] V. Solomon, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902,
xxxii, 210; Kloss, _op. cit._, pp. 297 _sq._ Another kiala festival, also
followed by alternate periods of rest and work, appears to be observed in
connection with fishing (Kloss, _op. cit._, p. 295).
[90] R. van Eck, in _Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië_, 1879, n.s.,
viii, 58 _sqq._ Van Eck’s account is reproduced by J. Jacobs, _Eenigen
tijd onder de Baliërs_, Batavia, 1883, pp. 190 _sqq._
[91] R. Friederich, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1877,
n.s., ix, 77. On the _petara_ see above, p. 35 _n._²
[92] F. Krämer, “Der Götzendienst der Niasser,” _Tijdschrift voor
indische taal- land- en volkenkunde_, 1890, xxxiii, 486 _sqq._
[93] Hinlopen and Severin, _ibid._, 1855, iii, 329 _sq._
[94] A. Maass, “_Ta-kä-käi-käi tabu_,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_,
1905, xxxvii, 155 _sq._ The greater part of this valuable article is
concerned with the analogies between the taboo system in the Mentawi
Islands and related systems in Indonesia and Polynesia.
[95] W. A. Pickering, _Pioneering in Formosa_, London, 1898, p. 71.
[96] W. Joest, in _Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für
Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte_, 1882, p. (62) (bound with
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, vol. xiv).
[97] G. Taylor, in _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_, 1889,
n.s., xi, 233; _idem_, “Folklore of Aboriginal Formosa,” _Folk-lore
Journal_, 1887, v, 150.
[98] J. P. Finley and William Churchill, _The Subanu_, Washington, 1913,
pp. 31 _sq._
[99] The word is also spelled _tengau_ and translated “holiday.” See W.
C. Clapp, “A Vocabulary of the Igorot Language,” _Bureau of Science,
Division of Ethnology, Publications_, Manila, 1908, v, 198.
[100] A. E. Jenks, “The Bontoc Igorot,” _Ethnological Survey
Publications_, Manila, 1905, i, 205 _sqq._
[101] From a letter to the author, dated December 10, 1910. In a second
letter, under date March 8, 1911, Professor Jenks writes, “I believe
the rest days are first for the purpose of having time for religious
observances—this fact necessitated the rest. I never proved this point,
however.”
[102] Jenks, _op. cit._, p. 213.
[103] “It is safe to say that one feast is held daily in Bontoc by
some family to appease or win the good will of some _anito_ [ancestral
spirit]” (Jenks, _op. cit._, p. 198).
[104] Some, if not all, of the Igorot peoples of northern Luzon are
familiar with the idea of taboo as applied to individuals or to families
at certain critical times. The Ibaloi Igorot equivalent of taboo is
_pidiu_. A man, while in the peculiarly solemn condition of _pidiu_,
“must not bathe, must not admit visitors into his house, and must not
work, travel, etc.,” under penalty of punishment by the _making_, or
departed souls, for transgression of the regulations (O. Scheerer, “The
Nabaloi Dialect,” _Ethnological Survey Publications_, Manila, 1905, ii,
167). But these prohibitions do not seem to be socialized.
[105] T. C. Hodson, “The _genna_ amongst the Tribes of Assam,” _Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_, 1906, xxxvi, 92-103; _idem_, “Some
Nāga Customs and Superstitions,” _Folklore_, 1910, xxi, 296-312; _idem_,
“Genna,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_,¹¹ xi, 596; _idem_, _The Nāga Tribes
of Manipur_, London, 1911, pp. 164-186.
[106] “The word _genna_ is used in two ways: (1) it may mean practically
a holiday—_i.e._, a man will say, ‘My village is doing _genna_ to-day,’
by which he means that, owing either to the occurrence of a village
festival or some such unusual occurrence ... his people are observing a
holiday; (2) _genna_ means anything forbidden” (A. W. Davis, in _Census
of India, 1891, Assam_, i, 249).
[107] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 167 _sq._ Among some of the Manipuri
Naga the various _genna_ are marked by rope-pulling contests, when the
women and girls have a tug-of-war with the men. This is described as a
means of taking omens for the future of the crops (_ibid._, p. 168).
The Naga ceremonial is a serious business, but among the Meithei, the
Hinduised neighbours of the Naga, the tug-of-war has dwindled into a
mere pastime (Hodson, in _Folklore_, 1910, xxi, 300). On the magical
significance of the games played by the Kayan of Borneo during their
periods of seclusion, see above, p. 31 _n._¹
[108] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 166 _sq._, 175.
[109] _Ibid._, pp. 109, 167, 175.
[110] _Ibid._, pp. 166 _sq._, 173.
[111] _Ibid._, pp. 151 _sq._, 174. According to another account the
festival occurs on the night of the December new moon. The shades of
the dead are supposed to visit the living at this time (S. E. Peal, in
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1898, xxx, 355).
[112] Hodson, _op. cit._, pp. 109, 144, 173, 175 _sq._ The Naga west of
the Doyang River are said to have a _genna_ also at the annual ceremony
of making new fire for the village. The fire, produced by friction, is
first used in burning down the jungle before the sowing of the crops (W.
Crooke, _Natives of Northern India_, London, 1907, p. 45; E. T. Dalton,
_Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, Calcutta, 1872, p. 43). The Angami
Naga mark by a three days’ _genna_ the first full moon of the lunar year
(D. Prain, in _Revue coloniale internationale_, 1887, v, 489).
[113] John Butler, in _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, 1875,
n.s., xlv, i, 316. This observer describes the _kennie_ as a system of
taboo, “singularly similar to that in vogue among the savages inhabiting
the Pacific islands.”
[114] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, p. 167, citing C. A. Soppitt, _Account of
the Kachcha Nāgas_, p. 10.
[115] Hodson, _op. cit._, p. 141. The _khullakpa_, also called
_gennabura_, or “authorizer of _genna_,” is himself subject to a number
of vexatious restrictions designed to prevent any impairment of the
efficiency of his sacred office. On these taboos see below, pp. 233 _sq._
It is worthy of note that the _khullakpa_ enjoys a good deal of indirect
authority because of his power to close a village and declare a _genna_.
An individual who violated any of the taboos imposed by him would be
obliged to pay a fine, the proceeds being used to provide a substantial
repast for the village elders (Hodson, in _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, 1901, xxxi, 307).
[116] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 177, 180. The Naga of eastern Assam
strictly taboo a house where tattooing is being done (W. H. Furness, 3d.,
in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, xxxii, 466).
[117] T. C. Hodson, _The Meitheis_, London, 1908, p. 118. It is
significant that the Moirang, a more or less backward and isolated
Meithei tribe, still keep up something like a system of communal _genna_
connected with agricultural operations (_ibid._, p. 119).
[118] P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_, London, 1907, p. 158.
[119] A. Playfair, _The Garos_, London, 1909, p. 114; see below, p. 57
_n._¹
[120] Edward Stack, _The Mikirs_, edited by Sir Charles Lyall, London,
1908, p. 43.
[121] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, p. 20. The Mishmi have household _genna_
whenever the members of a family are visited by illness or misfortune of
any kind. Possibly there are also village rites of the same nature. See
R. Wilcox, in _Selections from the Records of the Bengal Government_,
Calcutta, 1855, no. 23, p. 64.
[122] J. Shakespear, _The Lushei Kuki Clans_, London, 1912, p. 69.
[123] _Ibid._, pp. 72 _sq._, 75, 78, 80, 87; C. A. Soppitt, _A Short
Account of the Kuki-Lushai Tribes_, Shillong, 1887, p. 19.
[124] T. H. Lewin, _The Hill Tracts of Chittagong_, Calcutta, 1869, p.
78. Captain Lewin’s interesting work was republished under the title
_Wild Races of South-eastern India_ (London, 1870), where the reference
to the _khang_ will be found on pp. 196 _sq._
[125] Lewin, _Hill Tracts_, p. 94; _idem_, _Wild Races_, p. 236 (Mro).
[126] R. F. St. Andrew St. John, in _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, 1873, ii, 240.
[127] B. S. Carey and H. N. Tuck, _The Chin Hills_, Rangoon, 1896, i, 198.
[128] _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States_, edited by Scott and
Hardiman, Rangoon, 1900, pt. i, vol. i, pp. 425 _sq._
[129] A. R. McMahon, _The Karens of the Golden Chersonese_, London, 1876,
p. 292.
[130] Sir R. C. Temple, “Burma,” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion
and Ethics_, iii, 37. Similarly, the Yabim of German New Guinea require
all the inhabitants of a village to remain at home on the morning after
the birth of a child. This is regarded as a necessary precaution, if the
fruits of the fields and gardens are not to be spoiled by the noxious
influences emanating from a woman in childbed (K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten
über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und den Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, xiii, 87).
[131] R. G. Woodthorpe, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
1897, xxvi, 27 _sqq._; Sir J. G. Scott, “Buddhism in the Shan States,”
_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1911, n.s., xliii, 931. On taboos
affecting intercourse with strangers see, in general, Frazer, _Taboo and
the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 101-116.
[132] _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States_, pt. i, vol. i, p.
515.
[133] S. R. Clarke, _Among the Tribes in South-west China_, London, 1911,
p. 63.
[134] For instances of “magical telepathy” in hunting, fishing, and
warfare see Frazer, _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i,
119-134.
[135] As Messrs. Hose and McDougall judiciously observe, the cult of
omen-birds found among the Kayan of Borneo, though it hampers their
undertakings at almost every turn and might seem to be wholly foolish
and detrimental, has really “two great practical advantages: namely, it
inspires confidence, and it promotes discipline and a strong sense of
collective unity and responsibility. It is not improbable, then, that
the advantages of this seemingly senseless cult outweigh its drawbacks,
which, in the shape of endless delays and changes of plans, are by no
means small” (_Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, i, 170 _n._¹).
[136] On the sociological conception of crisis see W. I. Thomas, _Source
Book for Social Origins_, Chicago, 1909, pp. 16 _sqq._; R. R. Marett,
_The Threshold of Religion_,² London, 1914, pp. 198 _sqq._
[137] On the primitive ideas of death see particularly R. Hertz,
“Contribution à une étude sur la représentation collective de la morte,”
_L’année sociologique_, 1905-1906, x, 48-137; E. S. Hartland, “Death
and Disposal of the Dead (Introductory),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of
Religion and Ethics_, iv, 411-444; W. H. R. Rivers, “The Primitive
Conception of Death,” _Hibbert Journal_, 1912, x, 393-407; Sir J. G.
Frazer, _The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead_, London,
1913, i, 31-58; A. van Gennep, _Les rites de passage_, Paris, 1909,
pp. 209-236; L. Lévy-Bruhl, _Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés
inférieures_, Paris, 1910, pp. 321-330, 352-396. For a useful collection
of ethnographic evidence see E. Samter, _Geburt, Hochzeit, und Tod_,
Leipzig, 1911.
[138] A. E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, London, 1902, pp. 95 _sqq._; L.
R. Farnell, _The Evolution of Religion_, London, 1905, pp. 96 _sqq._; E.
Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, London,
1906-1908, ii, 535 _sqq._
[139] On the sociological aspects of these and other superstitions see
H. Webster, “Influence of Superstition on the Evolution of Property
Rights,” _American Journal of Sociology_, 1910, xv, 794-805; H. Berkusky,
“Der Einfluss abergläubischer Vorstellungen auf das wirtschaftliche und
soziale Leben der Naturvölker,” _Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft_,
1913, n.s., iv, 489-498, 567-584.
[140] Above, pp. 24, 25, 26.
[141] H. O. Forbes, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1884,
xiii, 420.
[142] A. Maass, “_Ta-kä-käi-käi tabu_,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_,
1905, xxxvii, 155; J. G. F. Riedel, _ibid._, 1885, xvii, 69.
[143] J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes
en Papua_, The Hague, 1886, pp. 168 (Seranglao and Gorong archipelagoes),
197 (Watubela Islands), 223 (Kei Islands), 341 (Babar Archipelago), 414
(Keisar Island).
[144] D. C. Worcester, in _Philippine Journal of Science_, 1906, i, 844.
Compare F. C. Cole, in _American Anthropologist_, 1909, n.s., xi, 337
(Tenguian).
[145] C. B. Kloss, _In the Andamans and Nicobars_, London, 1903, pp. 303
_sqq._
[146] Annandale and Robinson, _Fasciculi Malayensis_, London, 1903-1904,
i, 83.
[147] Brooke Low, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1892,
xxi, 122; _idem_, in Roth, _Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_,
i, 155.
[148] L. Nyuak, in _Anthropos_, 1906, i, 413.
[149] E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo_,
London, 1911, p. 139.
[150] Above, p. 36.
[151] De Crespigny, in _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_,
1858, ii, 348.
[152] Hose and McDougall, _op. cit._, ii, 37 _sq._ The Kayan on the
Mahakam River require all those who have been polluted by taking part in
burial ceremonies to undergo a two days’ _melo_, or ceremonial abstention
from work (Nieuwenhuis, _op. cit._, ii, 119).
[153] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, pp. 99, 174, 177.
[154] Hodson, _op. cit._, pp. 100, 152, 166, 174. Compare _idem_,
“Mortuary Ritual and Eschatological Beliefs among the Hill Tribes of
Assam,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1909, xii, 449.
[155] Hodson, _Nāga Tribes_, p. 88. “We find among the Naga tribes
that, if a woman died in childbirth (an event of rare occurrence), the
child was never allowed to live, because they believed it to be an evil
spirit, a disembodied ghost, incarnated in the mother whose death it
had caused” (_idem_, “Some Nāga Customs and Superstitions,” _Folklore_,
1910, xxi, 301). Among the Kabui Naga not only does the death of a woman
in childbirth necessitate a five days’ village _genna_, but the same
period of restriction is also imposed after the death of a child dying in
infancy (J. Shakespear, “Customs at Death among the Manipuris and Cognate
Clans,” _Folklore_, 1912, xxiii, 466 _sqq._).
[156] P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_, London, 1907, p. 143.
[157] R. F. St. Andrew St. John, in _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, 1873, ii, 240.
[158] A. Coussot and H. Ruel, _Douze mois chez les sauvages du Laos_,
Paris, 1898, p. 205; A. Cabaton, “Indo-China (Savage Races),” Hastings’s
_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, vii, 232.
[159] F. Fawcett, in _Folklore_, 1912, xxiii, 42.
[160] A. K. Iyer, _The Cochin Tribes and Castes_, Madras, 1909, i, 265.
[161] C. H. Rao, in _Anthropos_, 1909, iv, 181.
[162] H. Hosten, “Pahāria Burial Customs (British Sikkim),” _Anthropos_,
1909, iv, 673, 675.
[163] S. C. Das, _Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet_, London, 1902, p.
256.
[164] Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, London, 1904, p. 253; Farewell,
in W. F. W. Owen, _Narrative of Voyages to explore the Shores of
Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar_, London, 1833, ii, 397. A Kafir chief,
on succeeding to power, is said to have declared a taboo of all field
work for an entire year and to have put to death every woman who became
pregnant during this period (_Globus_, 1889, lvi, 62).
[165] Joseph Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country_, London,
1857, p. 216.
[166] E. Casalis, _Les Bassoutos_, Paris, 1859, p. 275.
[167] P. Kollmann, _Der Nordwesten unserer ostafrikanischen Kolonie_,
Berlin, 1898, p. 77.
[168] W. S. Routledge and Katherine Routledge, _With a Prehistoric
People_, London, 1910, p. 172.
[169] R. Lasch, “Die Ursache und Bedeutung der Erdbeben im Volksglauben
und Volksbrauch,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, 1902, v, 236-257,
369-383; B. Struck, “African Ideas on the Subject of Earthquakes,”
_Journal of the African Society_, 1909, viii, 398-411.
[170] A. C. Hollis, _The Nandi_, Oxford, 1908, pp. 17, 20, 100. The
rules imposed by Nandi custom on persons ceremonially unclean include
abstinence from work. For instance, after Nandi girls have been operated
upon at puberty, they must stay in their mothers’ huts in complete
seclusion for a month or more. After recovering from the effects of the
operation, they may be married. But if no husbands appear, the girls
continue to live in a secluded state for several weeks longer. If they go
abroad, they must always wear long masks and veils; they must not stand
near anybody or call a person by name; they may not enter a cornfield or
a cattle-kraal; and they may do no work. Again, a Nandi bride, for an
entire month after her marriage, is waited on by the bridegroom’s mother,
since it is unlawful for a bride during this period to perform labour.
Similarly, a Nandi mother, after the birth of a child, is unclean and
may not do any housework for a month (_ibid._, pp. 59 _sq._, 63 _sqq._).
Among the Habbe of the western Sudan a man, whose wife is menstruating,
dares not undertake any journey, hunt, or sow (L. Desplagnes, _Le plateau
central nigérien_, Paris, 1904, p. 227).
[171] C. W. Hobley, _Eastern Uganda_, London, 1902, p. 28 (_Occasional
Papers of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, no. 1).
[172] Sir H. H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_, London, 1902, ii,
176 _sqq._
[173] W. Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, Schaffhausen, 1864, p. 528
(Barea and Kunama).
[174] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, ii, 283.
[175] H. E. Standing, “Malagasy _fady_,” _Antananarivo Annual_, 1883, no.
7, p. 74. Compare A. Grandidier, _ibid._, 1891, no. 15, p. 316; A. van
Gennep, _Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar_, Paris, 1904, pp. 100 _sqq._,
203.
[176] Thomas Gage, _A New Survey of the West-Indies_,⁴ London, 1699, p.
160.
[177] C. MacCauley, in _Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_,
p. 521.
[178] Hans Egede, _A Description of Greenland_, London, 1745, pp. 149
_sq._
[179] F. Boas, in _Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural
History_, 1901, xv, 121 _sq._ With these regulations may be compared
the restrictions which, among the Kwakiutl of British Columbia, are
imposed on a man who has eaten human flesh as a ceremonial rite and who,
therefore, is considered unclean. He must not approach his wife for an
entire year, nor is he allowed either to gamble or to work during this
time (Boas, “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the
Kwakiutl Indians,” _Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895_, pp. 537
_sq._).
[180] F. Boas, in _Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp.
427, 613 _sq._; compare _idem_, “Die Sagen der Baffin-Land Eskimos,”
_Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie,
und Urgeschichte_, 1885, p. (164) (bound with _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, vol. xvii). These Eskimo observe like restrictions after the
capture of whales, seals, and walruses, which form their principal food
supply.
[181] H. W. Elliott, _Our Arctic Province_, New York, 1887, p. 389.
[182] E. W. Nelson, in _Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology_, p. 319.
[183] _Ibid._, p. 312. Similarly, a hunter who has participated in the
capture of a whale is not allowed to do any work for the next four days,
that being the time during which the ghost of the whale is supposed to
stay with its body (_ibid._, p. 438).
[184] J. Murdock, in _Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, p.
424. The Alaskan Eskimo are now being rapidly converted to Christianity
or, rather, are accepting as many of the Christian teachings as can be
assimilated by them to their old pagan observances. The missionary they
regard as a shaman and his prohibitions, especially those relating to
Sunday observance, they treat as so many new taboos to be added to their
long catalogue of restrictions. “An Eskimo who is a great admirer of the
white people (and some Eskimo are not) said to me once that some Eskimo
foolishly maintained that white men were less intelligent than Eskimo
are. But he said that he had a crushing reply to those who made this
statement. He would say to them: ‘Our wise men have taboos on food and
drink, they have taboos on clothing and methods of travel, on words and
thoughts; but until the white man came did we ever hear of Sunday? Did
the wisest of us ever think of the fact that a _day_ might be taboo?’”
(V. Stefánsson, “On Christianizing the Eskimo,” _Harper’s Magazine_,
1913, cxxvii, 674; _idem_, _My Life with the Eskimo_, New York, 1913, p.
412; compare pp. 36 _sq._, 89 _sqq._, 374 _sq._, 416 _sqq._)
[185] W. Bogoras, in _Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History_,
xi, 521.
[186] W. Jochelson, _ibid._, x, 104 _sq._
[187] W. G. Sumner, “The Yakuts,” abridged from the Russian of
Sieroshevski, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1901, xxxi, 107.
[188] W. H. Bennett, in Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_,
iv, 499.
[189] A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_,³ edited by
E. H. Meyer, Berlin, 1900, p. 461.
[190] George Henderson, _Survivals in Belief among the Celts_, Glasgow,
1911, p. 296 (Isle of Iriskay).
[191] On feasts of All Souls, in general, see Sir J. G. Frazer, _Adonis,
Attis, Osiris_,³ London, 1914, ii, 51-83; on the public expulsion of
evils see _idem_, _The Scapegoat_, London, 1913, pp. 109-169. Compare
also P. Sartori, _Die Speisung der Toten_, Dortmund, 1903, pp. 48-55.
[192] Above, pp. 13, 21 _sq._, 31, 40 _sqq._, 51, 57.
[193] E. Casalis, _Les Bassoutos_, Paris, 1859, p. 275. The king of the
Matabele was obliged to abstain from food and drink on the new moon
following the beginning of the Matabele year. The late ruler, Lobengula,
compromised this self-denying ordinance by drinking beer only out of a
bottle. During the new-moon day “he was supposed to have communication
with the spirits of his ancestors, and he abstained altogether from
business” (L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_, London, 1900, p.
156).
[194] J. F. Cunningham, _Uganda and its Peoples_, London, 1905, pp.
12 _sq._ The Bahima demons, a numerous company, are mostly identified
with the various maladies from which the natives suffer. See Sir H. H.
Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_, London, 1902, ii, 631 _sq._
[195] C. Velten, _Sitten und Gebräuche der Suaheli_, Göttingen, 1903, p.
342.
[196] Soury-Lavergne and de la Devèze, “La fête nationale du _fandroana_
en Imerina, Madagascar,” _Anthropos_, 1913, viii, 308.
[197] A. B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, London, 1887, pp. 227
_sq._
[198] “Extracts from Diary of the late Rev. John Martin, Wesleyan
Missionary in West Africa, 1843-1848,” _Man_, 1912, xii, 138 _sq._
Compare A. J. N. Tremearne, _The Tailed Head-hunters of Nigeria_, London,
1912, pp. 202 _sq._
[199] A. B. Ellis, _The Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, London, 1894, pp. 107
_sq._
[200] See H. Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_, New York, 1908, pp.
104 _sq._
[201] Mrs. R. B. Batty, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
1889, xix, 160.
[202] Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples_, pp. 110 _sq._ The Oro rites are
attributed by Ellis to the _ogboni_ society, but it is probable that the
term “Oro” is also applied to other secret associations of Yorubaland.
[203] R. E. Dennett, _Nigerian Studies_, London, 1910, pp. 41 _sq._,
quoting Adesola in the _Nigerian Chronicle_.
[204] J. B. Walker, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1877,
vi, 121 _sq._
[205] T. J. Hutchinson, _Impressions of Western Africa_, London, 1858,
pp. 141 _sq._
[206] Scholium on Lucian, _Timon_, 43.
[207] Plato, _Leges_, vii, 800; Lucian, _Pseudologistes_, 12; Plutarch,
_De EI apud Delphos_, 20; _idem_, _De defectu oraculorum_, 14; _idem_,
_Vita Alexandri_, 14; Hesychius, _s.v._ ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι (ed. M. Schmidt,
Jena, 1867, col. 211).
[208] E. Rhode, _Psyche_,⁶ Tübingen, 1910, p. 235; P. Stengel, _Die
griechischen Sakralaltertümer_, Munich, 1890, p. 156 (with references to
the classical authorities). The fifth day of every Athenian month was
regarded as unpropitious, and hence was not dedicated to any divinity. A
superstitious avoidance of the “fifths” of the month can be traced back
to Hesiod (_Opera et dies_, 802 _sqq._).
[209] Compare Hesychius, _s.v._ μιαροὶ ἡμέραι (ed. Schmidt, col. 1045):
“the polluted days of the month of Anthesterion, on which days they
think that the souls of the departed are sent up from the nether world.”
Photius, _s.v._ μιαρὰ ἡμέρα (ed. S. A. Naber, Leiden, 1864-1865, i, 423),
says that on the second day the people used to chew buckthorn and anoint
their doors with pitch. See Frazer’s note (_The Scapegoat_, p. 153 _n._¹)
on the widespread use of buckthorn and pitch as prophylactics against
ghosts and evil influences.
[210] On the Anthesteria, from an anthropological standpoint, see
particularly Miss Jane E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek
Religion_, Cambridge, 1903, pp. 32 _sqq._, 49 _sqq._ Dr. L. R. Farnell
thinks that only in the ritual for the third and final day of the
Anthesteria have we a genuine ceremony of ghost-riddance, this day
falling so near the Dionysiac celebration as to become attached to the
latter as a mournful finale (_The Cults of the Greek States_, Oxford,
1906-1910, v, 215 _sqq._). But, on this view, it is difficult to see
why the second day, the Choes, should have been expressly mentioned as
“polluted” (μιαρά), and why the first day, the Pithoigia, should have
been described as “totally unlucky” (ἐς τὸ πᾶν άποφράς).
[211] Festus, _De verborum significatione_, ed. C. O. Müller, Leipzig,
1839, p. 156; Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i, 16, 24. The _dies religiosi_
were sometimes confused, even by the ancients, with the _dies nefasti_
(compare Gellius, _Noctes Atticæ_, iv, 9, 5), which were days marked
in the calendar as occasions when the prætor’s court was not open and
assemblies (_comitia_) could not lawfully meet. But not all _dies
religiosi_ were observed as non-comitial and non-judicial days. It
seems, indeed, that the priestly authorities who drew up the calendar
did not wish to recognize these products of popular superstition by
incorporating all of them, under the guise of _dies nefasti_, in the
Roman state religion. On the _dies religiosi_, also described as _dies
atri_ or _dies vitiosi_, see G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_,
Munich, 1902, pp. 376 _sq._; W. W. Fowler, _The Religious Experience of
the Roman People_, London, 1911, pp. 38 _sqq._; T. Mommsen, in _Corpus
inscriptionum Latinarum_, i, pt. i,² 296.
[212] Gellius, _op. cit._, iv, 9, 5; Varro, _De lingua Latina_, vi, 29
_sq._; Ovid, _Fasti_, v, 419-486; W. W. Fowler, _The Roman Festivals of
the Period of the Republic_, London, 1899, pp. 106 _sqq._, 306 _sqq._ The
first eight days of the Parentalia belonged only to the sphere of family
worship, but the ninth day (Feb. 21) was also a public celebration, known
as the Feralia. The Lemuria, at least in historic times, was not a state
festival, but a purely domestic affair.
[213] Varro, _ap._ Macrobius, _op. cit._, i, 16, 18; Festus, _op. cit._,
p. 156. Compare Fowler, “Mundus Patet,” _Journal of Roman Studies_, 1912,
ii, 25-33.
[214] Both expressions are commonly derived from the Babylonian
_shabattum_; see below, p. 235.
[215] _Leviticus_, xvi, 31, xxiii, 26-32; compare _Numbers_, xxix, 7.
[216] _Leviticus_, xxv, 9; _Ezekiel_, xl, 1.
[217] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 23-25; _Numbers_, xxix, 1-7. It has been
suggested that the first ten days of the seventh month were epagomenal,
bridging the gap, as it were, between the old lunar year of 355 days and
the solar year (J. Wellhausen, _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_,³
Berlin, 1905, p. 105 _n._²; see below, p. 247 _n._²). In the ritual of
the Jewish church they are described as days of “penitence.”
[218] See Sir J. G. Frazer, _The Scapegoat_, London, 1913, pp. 170 _sqq._
[219] On the relation of the Hebrew _kipper_, or atonement, to the
Assyrian _kuppuru_ and the connection of both with ideas of taboo, see R.
C. Thompson, _The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_, London, 1904,
ii, pp. 1 _sqq._ It is unnecessary to accept his conclusion that the
Hebrew ceremony was directly borrowed from Babylonia. The view advanced
in the text as to the antiquity of the Atonement rite may now claim the
support of Professor Grimme, who sees in this ceremony one of the oldest
elements of the Law and finds the prototype of Azazel in the hairy demons
which were believed to haunt the wilderness of northern Arabia. See H.
Grimme, “Das Alter des israelitischen Versöhnungstages,” _Archiv für
Religionswissenschaft_, 1911, xiv, 130-142.
[220] E. Westermarck, “The Popular Ritual of the Great Feast in Morocco,”
_Folklore_, 1911, xxii, 157 _sq._, 180 _sqq._
[221] Strabo, _Geographica_, x, 3, 9.
[222] The best study of holiness in its relation to the concept of taboo
is still that of W. Robertson Smith (_The Religion of the Semites_,²
London, 1894, chaps. iv-v). See further N. Söderblom, “Holiness (General
and Primitive),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, vi,
731-741.
[223] “In economic theory,” writes Dr. Thorstein Veblen, “sacred holidays
are obviously to be construed as a season of vicarious leisure performed
for the divinity or saint in whose name the _tabu_ is imposed and to
whose good repute the abstention from useful effort on those days is
conceived to inure. The characteristic feature of all such seasons of
devout vicarious leisure is a more or less rigid _tabu_ on all activity
that is of human use.... Sacred holidays, and holidays generally, are of
the nature of a tribute levied on the body of the people. The tribute is
paid in vicarious leisure, and the honourific effect which emerges is
imputed to the person or the fact for whose good repute the holiday has
been instituted. Such a tithe of vicarious leisure is a perquisite of all
members of the preternatural leisure class and is indispensable to their
good fame. _Un saint qu’on ne chôme pas_ is indeed a saint fallen on evil
days” (_The Theory of the Leisure Class_, New York, 1899, pp. 309 _sq._).
[224] Above, pp. 13, 15, 47, 49, 79.
[225] J. W. Breeks, _An Account of the Primitive Tribes and Monuments of
the Nīlagiris_, London, 1873, p. 44.
[226] P. Dehon, in _Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, 1906, i,
no. 1, p. 144.
[227] W. Crooke, _Natives of Northern India_, London, 1907, p. 232.
[228] C. K. Menon, “Some Agricultural Ceremonies in Malabar,” Madras
Government Museum, _Bulletin_, 1906, v, 104 _sq._
[229] Henry Whitehead, “The Village Deities of Southern India,” Madras
Government Museum, _Bulletin_, 1907, v, 128 _sq._ The whole subject of
these Dravidian festivals has now been carefully investigated by my
former pupil Mr. W. T. Elmore. See his monograph “Dravidian Gods in
Modern Hinduism,” _University Studies_, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1915, xv,
1-152.
[230] Several of the Hindu festivals are accompanied by prayer, fasting,
bathing, and oblation. One of the minor ceremonies during the month
of February is intended to “avert smallpox.” See E. W. Hopkins, _The
Religions of India_, Boston, 1895, p. 452 _n._²; H. H. Wilson, _Essays
and Lectures chiefly on the Religions of the Hindus_, London, 1862, ii,
209 _sq._
[231] _Leviticus_, xxiii, 21; _Numbers_, xxviii, 26.
[232] The ethnographic evidence relating to first-fruits has been
very fully collected by Sir J. G. Frazer (_Spirits of the Corn and
of the Wild_, London, 1912, ii, 48-137). See also J. A. MacCulloch,
“First-fruits (Introductory and Primitive),” Hastings’s _Encyclopædia of
Religion and Ethics_, vi, 41-45; E. N. Fallaize, “Harvest,” _ibid._, vi,
520-525.
[233] On the Tongan _inachi_ see above, pp. 18 _sq._
[234] Below, pp. 250 _sq._
[235] Plato, _Leges_, ii, 653.
[236] E. E. Sikes, “Folk-lore in the ‘Works and Days’ of Hesiod,”
_Classical Review_, 1893, vii, 390. The Hesiodic injunction (_Opera et
dies_, 742-743):
μηδ’ ἀπὸ πεντόζοιο θεῶν ἐν δαιτὶ θαλείῃ
αὖον ἀπὸ χλωροῦ τάμνειν αἴθωνι σιδήρῳ
stripped of its metaphorical setting, means simply, “Do not cut your
nails with iron on a joyous festival of the gods.” This taboo may be
compared with the rule observed by the Flaminica Dialis at Rome, who,
during the celebration of the festival called the Vestalia, might not cut
her hair or nails (Ovid, _Fasti_, vi, 225-226). The Roman antiquarian,
Pliny the Elder, refers to the belief that it is ominous to pare the
nails on market days (_nundinæ_), but to cut the hair on the 17th
and 29th days of the month is a preventive of baldness and headache
(_Historia naturalis_, xxviii, 5). These pagan superstitions have passed
into modern European folklore, being widely current, for example, in
England (W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties
of England and the Borders_, London, 1879, pp. 17 _sq._), as in the
familiar lines:
“Better a child had ne’er been born
Then cut his nails on a Sunday morn!”
Or, as another old English rhyme runs:
“Sunday shaven, Sunday shorn,
Better hadst thou ne’er been born!”