ARTIFICIAL PERIODS OF TIME. FEASTS.
In the more fully developed calendar there are not seldom found
periods of time which are reckoned without reference to any of
the factors given by Nature. Such are, for example, our months,
which, though historically arising from the lunar month, are now
only periods of time with a definite number of days, independent of
the moon. Such also is our shifting seven-day week, which, chiefly
through the agency of Mohammedanism, has also been widely extended
among peoples of a lower stage of development. These artificial
periods, arising often from a natural period which for purposes
of the calendar has been detached from its natural basis, belong
to a highly developed stage of time-reckoning. Only among certain
comparatively far-advanced, semi-primitive peoples does an artificial
period of the simplest kind first appear, and then only one, the
market-week, the origin of which it is very easy to understand.
The market-week appears in two widely separated districts--in West
Central Africa, and in certain of the East Indian islands. Among the
Bakongo the markets are four, viz. _konzo_, _nkenge_, _nsona_, and
_nkandu_. These have given their names to the four days that comprise
the Congo week. All the markets held on a certain day all over the
Lower Congo are called _konzo_, all on the next day _nkenge_, etc.
These markets are held at different places, e. g. all the _konzo_
markets are held on different sites from all the markets held on the
three successive days, and are so arranged that one in four will be
within two or three miles of a town, the next day’s market may be ten
miles away from the first town, but near some other town or towns,
the next from 15 to 20 miles, the next perhaps 25 miles away from the
first town. Thus every village has at least one market during the
week within a reasonable distance of its doors. In order to describe
the markets the place-names are sometimes added, e. g. _nsona
Ngungu_. Each market has its special wares[1092]. The Babwende have
the same names[1093]. Three Bantu tribes of the Congo State have the
four-day week, but in certain cases with different names; one of the
days is market-day[1094]. This is a very practical arrangement, which
must gradually have regulated itself. There are also greater markets
which are held every eight days[1095]--a doubling of the period,
therefore. The same is the case among the Edo-speaking peoples, among
whom the week is everywhere a recognised period of time, and is,
properly speaking, 4 days long, this being the interval between the
two markets at any given spot. Occasionally, as in the Ida district,
eight-day markets are found, but the names applied to the intervening
days clearly shew that a four-day week was the primary one. One of
the four days is commonly known as the rest-day, and on this day
men frequently stop at home, though farm-work is not absolutely
forbidden. Women, on the other hand, go to market as usual[1096].
Among the Ibo-speaking peoples the names of the four days are _eke_,
_oye_, _afo_, and _nkwo_. These are the same names as those of the
Bini, but _afo_ and _oye_ are in the inverted order; it is idle
to speculate on the origin of the names[1097]. In Loango the four
days are variously named, but principally they are called _nssona_,
_nduka_, _ntono_, _nsilu_, which names are also often applied to the
open spaces where markets are held on the days in question; _nssona_
corresponds to our Sunday[1098], i. e. it is a day of rest.
The Yoruba have, besides the market-week, a longer one of 16 (or 17)
days. Of these two periods Ellis says:--The Yoruba week consists of
five days, and six of them are supposed to make a lunar month, which
however always begins with the new moon. (This is therefore the
familiar round number.) The days are:--1, _ako-ojo_, the first day,
day of general rest, considered unlucky; the temples are swept and
water is brought in procession for the use of the gods. No business
of importance is ever undertaken on this day. 2, _ojo-awo_, ‘day
of the secret’, sacred to Ifa. 3, _ojo-Ogun_, 4, _ojo-Shango_, 5,
_ojo-Obatula_, i. e. the name of a god, added to the word ‘day’.
Each of these four days is a day of rest for the followers of the
god to which it is dedicated, and for them only, but _ako-ojo_ is a
day of rest for all. Markets are held every fifth day in different
townships, but never on the _ako-ojo_. From this custom has arisen
another mode of computing time, namely by periods of 17 days, called
_eta-di-ogun_ (‘three less than twenty’). This is the outcome of the
Esu societies, the members of which meet every fifth market-day. The
first and fifth market-days are counted in, and thus the number 17 is
obtained. For instance, supposing the second day of a month to be a
market-day, the second market would fall on the 6th, the third on the
10th, the fourth on the 14th, and the fifth on the 18th. The fifth
market-day, on which the members meet, is counted again as the first
of the next series. These clubs are so common that the 17-day period
has become a kind of auxiliary measure of time[1099]. The account
contains an inward contradiction. Ellis enumerates five days and says
that the market is held every fifth day, but when he reckons the
days again below, the periods are four-day periods. We must probably
assume that the word _ako-ojo_ is applied to one of the four days,
denoting it to be a day of rest, and that Ellis, when he says that
the market is held every fifth day, is counting inclusively according
to the linguistic usage of the natives, as the Greeks also did. This
is the opinion of another authority, who writes as follows:--Some say
the Yoruba week is composed of four days, and some of five. This same
mystification recurs in the number of days said to complete one of
their months. Some say there are sixteen and others seventeen days in
a month. The natives rest on the fifth day, that is to say, having
counted four days, they really rest on the first day of the next
week, counting that day as one. So in their next great division of
time they say that they rest on the seventeenth day, which is a great
market-day, and this is, of course, the first day of what is their
second so-called month. Fourteen of these months complete the ancient
Yoruba so-called year of 224 days[1100].
But there are also periods of time of other durations. The Adeli of
the hinterland of Togo divide the lunar month into five weeks of six
days[1101]; unfortunately the brief account tells us nothing of the
nature of this six-day week. The Tshi-speaking peoples usually reckon
time in periods of 40 or 42 days, every fortieth or forty-second day
being a festival termed the great _adae_, 18 or 20 days after which
is the little _adae_. The great _adae_ is always celebrated on a
Sunday, and the little _adae_ on a Wednesday[1102]. Once again the
statements are not clear. If the last condition must be absolutely
fulfilled, the period of the great _adae_ must always embrace 42
days and the little _adae_ must fall 18 days after it. The natives
consider the number 40 particularly lucky and always endeavour to
connect it with some important event[1103]. The probable explanation
is that 40 is used as a round number instead of 42. But among the
Edo-speaking peoples also, at one point in Northern Nigeria, a
twenty-day month seems to be used[1104]. The former mode of reckoning
is connected with the seven-day week adopted by the Tshi-speaking
peoples, though this, in order that it may cover the lunar month, is
reckoned in a curious fashion so that each week consists of 7 days
9 hours; each so-called day is therefore somewhat longer than the
natural day and consequently also begins at a different hour of the
natural day. Hence the two _adae_ also begin at different hours of
the day. The same curious reckoning is found among the Gã-tribes.
This mode of computation is a far from primitive refinement, the
real object of which is the fitting of the seven-day week into
the lunar month, the natural day however being abandoned. There
is connected with it a strong day-superstition. The first day of
the ‘week’ is rest-day, and that on which the new moon falls is
an absolute rest-day, the following being days of rest only for
certain trades, e. g. the second for the fishermen, the third for the
agriculturalists[1105]. It is clear that the only period which can
pass as native is the four-day market-week, with its development the
16-day period, and perhaps also the too little known 6-day week.
In Java, Bali, and Sumatra there is a five-day market-week called
_pasar_, in Bali also a four-day _tjaturwara_[1106]; alongside of
these the seven-day week is in use. But wherever among heathen
tribes a ‘week’ is spoken of, this is always the market-week[1107].
In Java and Bali the _pasar_-week is combined with the 7-day week
in divisions of 35 days. Six of these periods form a _wuku_, a kind
of year of 210 days. Besides these there are still other divisions,
which are of importance for the sooth-sayers. The non-Islamite
Lampong of Sumatra combine the _pasar_-week with the lunar month,
which is counted as 30 days[1108]. We have here nothing to do with
the highly developed time-reckoning of those peoples that drew up
their systems under Indian and Islamite influence. This five-day week
has a very extensive use in Further India: we meet it in Tonkin,
in the Lao states of northern Siam, in Upper Burma among the Shan;
further in Celebes and in certain parts of New Guinea. In the Malay
Peninsula there is a five-day period for the determination of lucky
and unlucky days. In other parts of New Guinea and in the Gazelle
Peninsula of New Pommern the market takes place every third day.
Of market-days in Polynesia there are unfortunately only uncertain
accounts[1109].
In ancient Mexico a market was held every fifth day at every
important place, just as in Africa on different days in neighbouring
districts; the day was a rest-day, and with the market games and
amusements were associated. This five-day market-week appears also in
other parts of Central America. The Muysca of Bogota in Columbia, on
the other hand, held markets every third, and the Inca peoples every
tenth, day, when the country-folk ceased from labour, assembled in
the towns, and engaged in traffic and games[1110]. These three- and
ten-day periods are said to be brought into connexion with the month;
if this statement be correct, they are not continuous periods, and
the market-day must sometimes have been pushed out of place in order
to secure the agreement with the moon; but the certainty cannot be
ascertained.
The market-week exists therefore, as we should expect, only among
peoples with a more fully developed commerce and trade. The rule
attains greater importance for the time-reckoning only when, as
in the East Indies, it is introduced into an already existing
calendarial system. In Africa larger divisions of time have arisen
on the basis of it, and in one case, that of the Yoruba, the
agricultural year has been thus divided. The market-weeks, however,
may also occur independently, alongside of the calendar, like the
Roman _nundinae_, which were held every eighth day and took their
name (from _novem_) from the inclusive reckoning.
The question of the Israelitish sabbath is complicated and has
been much discussed as a point of connexion with the Babylonian
civilisation. In Babylonia one day in the month was called
_shabattu_, and the seventh day was specially distinguished. The
statement that there the seven-day week existed, but as a fixed
subdivision of the month, is often heard, but is an invention. I
borrow the material from Landsberger’s section on the month in
religious worship. A cylinder of Gudea already mentions a festival
of the opening of the month in Lagash, festivals in honour of the
goddesses Bau and Nina are celebrated in special new-moon houses.
At all times, and later too, the day of the new moon is a great
festival-day. At the time of the dynasty of Ur, under the empire of
Khammurabi, and later, sacrifices were offered on the fifteenth day,
the day of full moon. This is called _shabattu_, which word in the
time of Assurbani-pal also denotes the full-moon day without any
religious implication. We also find at the time of the dynasty of
Ur occasional sacrifices on the day of the ‘going to sleep’, i. e.
of the disappearance of the moon. These are the three days marked
out by the great phases of the moon. According to them the month
is divided into two halves. A Babylonian peculiarity is that the
seventh day of the month, as at the time of the dynasty of Ur and
under the empire of Khammurabi, becomes a day of special sacrifices.
It is called _sibutu_, ‘the seventh’, cp. Assyrian _sibittu_, ‘seven’
(fem.). The 1st, the 7th, and the 28th are therefore of religious
importance; for a similar emphasising of the 21st testimony is as
yet lacking; instead of the 14th we have the 15th. Later, after
ancient Babylonian times, the 7th becomes a day of taboo, the number
7 is made an unlucky number, and the schematic series 1, 7, 14, 21,
28, and 19 of the following month is formed (30 + 19 = 49 = 7 × 7).
Hence the 14th is also sometimes designated as the day of full moon.
Thus, for example, in the Creation epic, tablet 5, vv. 12 ff.:--“At
the beginning of the month shine in the land. Beam with thy horns,
to make known six days. On the seventh day halve thy disc. On the
fourteenth day thou shalt reach the half of the monthly (growth);” in
what follows the indications of the days are unfortunately missing.
It is clear that the septenary division has not arisen from the
phases of the moon, but on the contrary the phases of the moon have
been arranged in accordance with the septenary scheme. They might
also be arranged according to a quintuple scheme. Thus the tablet
III R 55, no. 3[1111]:--“Sin at his appearance from the first to
the fifth day, five days, is crescent,--Anu; from the sixth to the
tenth day, five days, he is kidney,--Ea; from the eleventh to the
fifteenth, five days, he covers himself with the shining royal cap.”
It is significant of the phases of the moon that have arisen on
genuinely primitive grounds that, since they are originally concrete,
they do not divide themselves into symmetrical groups of days. Here
the numerical scheme has been at work, and this cannot be referred to
the phases, since these give no other naturally grounded divisions
than the halves of the month.
The derivation of the Israelitish sabbath from Babylonia therefore
offers two difficulties:--1, in regard to the word, Babylonian
_shabattu_ means the day of full moon, in fact the fifteenth day
of the lunar month, and Hebrew _shabbat_, so far as we know, the
seventh day of a period that is shifting in relation to the lunar
month; 2, in regard to the period of time, in Babylonia the septenary
scheme is a fixed division of the lunar month; among the Israelites
it is, so far as we know, shifting, continuous, and independent of
the lunar month.
I have emphasised the phrase ‘so far as we know’ since in reality our
sole knowledge in this direction of the Israelitish times before the
Exile is that a festival and rest-day called the sabbath existed:
of its nature we know nothing. The earliest evidence we have of it
is the story of one of the miracles of Elisha[1112], from which
it appears that the adherents of the prophet were accustomed to
gather round him on this day and at new moon, doubtless since both
were rest-days. In the same way sabbath and new moon are mentioned
together as festival days in Amos VIII, 5, Hosea II, 11, Isaiah I,
13. The writers during and after the Exile are the first to mention
the sabbath as the seventh day of a continuous seven-day week. It has
at that time the character of an ascetic rest-day, where the rest is
not a joy but a duty.
Any further advance can only be made by way of hypothesis. Thus the
sabbath of the times before the Exile was either, as later, the
last day of a seven-day period that was shifting in relation to the
lunar month, or else it was something different. Both statements
are hypotheses. And if it was something different we are driven
to a still further hypothesis in order to decide what it was. The
suggestion most in favour is that it was the day of full moon. The
sabbath is said to be the second principal day of the course of
the moon simply because sabbath and new moon are always mentioned
together in the days before the Exile. But this obviously proves
nothing. It has further been stated that the sabbath must be a fixed
day of the lunar month, since otherwise it would sometimes coincide
with the day of new moon; but evidently the expression ‘new moon and
sabbath’, however formally interpreted, does not in itself exclude
such a coincidence. Further sabbath and _shabattu_ are the same
word, and consequently a second hypothesis is that ‘sabbath’ as
well as _shabattu_ means the day of full moon. The proof is only
binding if the word in itself must mean ‘full moon’; the etymology
however is disputed, so that it gives no help. It is not difficult to
establish a general fundamental sense which will fit in both with the
festival-day of full moon and of the seven-day period.
On the ground of the researches here carried out, however, we may
put a question a satisfactory answer to which is demanded by the
hypothesis just mentioned:--How is it possible for a period which
forms a fixed subdivision of the lunar month to become detached from
the moon and be made into an independent period shifting in relation
to the lunar month? And there will still be a preliminary question to
get rid of, viz. how has the septenary period arisen from the day of
full moon, the 15th day of the month? The answer will be, I suppose,
that the 14th, not the 15th, was taken as the day of full moon and
that Babylonian influence introduced the septenary division, so that
the name of one of the septenary days, the 14th, has been carried
over to the rest. But since in the legislation of the Exile the great
festivals were appointed for the 15th, it is clear that this day,
and not the 14th, was at that time taken as the day of full moon.
The question whether any late Babylonian speculation in numbers may
have exercised a determinative influence upon the Jewish legislation
must be decided by experts. From the unsatisfactory answer to the
preliminary question I return to the main question. A shifting
reckoning of this kind can only be understood chronologically as a
breaking away from the concrete phenomena of Nature, an incomplete
calculation being established instead of the empirical observation,
as was the case, for instance, with the Egyptian shifting year, put
in place of the solar year, and bringing with it months of thirty
days in the place of lunar months. Now the Israelites have always had
the lunar month. That a day determined by the moon should be detached
from the living lunar month and made into a shifting seven-day
week is quite incomprehensible and entirely without analogy. The
Babylonian septenary days do not help us here, since they always
remained days of the lunar month. In the light of the foregoing
investigations into primitive chronology such a process would be a
sheer miracle.
It remains therefore to regard the creation of the seven-day week
as an act of pure volition on the part of the makers of the refined
exilian legislation, who took the name of the ancient sabbath, a
festival-day of uncertain position, and applied it to the seventh
day of a shifting period. And this is equally difficult either to
prove or disprove. It is seldom found that a new creation proceeds
entirely from nothing, and no analogy to the shifting seven-day
period is anywhere to be met with--except in one case to be mentioned
presently, the market-week. Especially in matters chronological
would it appear that the Jewish legislation did not radically break
with antiquity, but systematised and cultivated already existing
tendencies, if we may judge by the few points of departure handed
down from the earlier period; hence the numbered months, hence
the fixing of the great festivals on the day of full moon. We are
speaking here not of the changed religious character of the sabbath,
but of the chronological question. If therefore fundamental grounds
are lacking for the creation of a shifting seven-day period by the
legislation of the Exile, we must cling to the other hypothesis, viz.
that in pre-exilian times also the sabbath was the seventh day of a
shifting period, which the legislation has transformed in its own
fashion.
But if the shifting sabbath is old, the question arises whether
analogous periods exist in primitive time-reckoning. Certainly
they do, and they are periods of a quite definite nature,--the
market-weeks. There are market-weeks of three, four, five, six,
eight, and ten days: that seven does not appear in any example must
therefore be an accident. The market-week is spread over the whole
earth at a more advanced stage of civilisation. The market-day is
a rest-day, since the people go to the market: since they rest and
gather together it is therefore a festival day. So also with the
Roman _nundinae_, on which no public meetings were held and the
schools were closed. The dispute of Roman scholars as to whether
the _nundinae_ were religious festival-days or business-days is
significant[1113]. Since the market-day is a day of rest, however,
it is also, as in West Africa, made a taboo day on which work is
forbidden. The connexion between the market and religion is universal
and appears particularly clearly in heathen Arabia[1114]. It is
true that no market-day is attested for ancient Canaan, but even in
pre-Israelitish times the land was already covered with towns, so
that the conditions for regular markets were the same as in ancient
Greece and Rome. From post-Biblical times at least three great annual
markets are known; one was held at the terebinth of Hebron, which was
at the same time the object of a cult. In Midrash it is allowed to
visit a heathen yearly market at the half-holidays of the Passover
and of the feast of Tabernacles[1115]. Since the day was a rest-day,
the command for rest might gradually, through a new interpretation,
be applied to the original purpose of the market, viz. trade. In
Amos VIII, 5 the traders complain:--“When will the new moon be gone,
that we may sell corn? And the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?
making the ephah small,” etc., but the command for the absolute
sabbath’s rest was certainly not carried out at that time, nor yet
in the time of Jeremiah[1116]; after the overthrow of the Jewish
monarchy the trade of the markets on the sabbath revived, if indeed
it had ever perished. Nehemiah, three centuries after Amos, has to
give the injunction:--“ ... and if the peoples of the land bring
ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not
buy of them on the sabbath, or on a holy day[1117],” and the breach
of this law is sternly reprimanded:--“In those days saw I in Judah
some treading wine-presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves,
and lading asses therewith; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all
manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sabbath
day.... There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought in fish,
and all manner of ware, and sold on the sabbath unto the children of
Judah, and in Jerusalem.” Nehemiah reproves the nobles:--“Did not
your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us,
and upon this city?”, and he has the gates shut and guarded when
it grows dark before the sabbath. When, notwithstanding this, the
merchants once or twice encamped outside the walls on the sabbath, he
drove them away with threats[1118]. At this time work was performed
and trade carried on on the sabbath, though certainly it does not
follow that the sabbath was the principal market-day of the week:
we are speaking of a large town, where no doubt there was a market
every day. But it would be quite in keeping if in smaller matters the
sabbath had once been the proper market-day.
The work of Webster culminates in an attempt to explain the sabbath.
The author brings together abundant material for the practice of
assigning certain taboos to certain days, partly notable days in the
experience of human life, such as birth, death, etc., and partly
those regularly recurring days which are dependent on superstitious
and religious ideas. Among these days are found both the market-day
and the days of the principal phases of the moon,--the day of new
moon, in a lesser degree the day of full moon, and further also
the days of the darkness, of the moon’s invisibility. He rightly
distinguishes the continuous Israelitish week from the ‘unlucky days’
of the Babylonians, but is nevertheless of the opinion that the
sabbath is really the day of full moon, which in this character was
overlaid with certain taboos and has become independent of the moon.
How this separation was effected, Webster does not explain: he merely
makes the statement. He has not felt the decisive difficulty, which
lies just in this point, because he has not attacked the problem
from its chronological side. There is no reason to suppose that the
day of full moon could become detached from the genuine lunar month,
and such a process would seem still more strange since the day of
new moon remained a genuine new-moon day. On the other hand the
development of market and rest-day into a day of taboo is everywhere
natural, and is attested in the above examples from Africa; this
taboo character was emphasised and inculcated by the late Jewish and
exilian legislation in opposition to the old festive merry-making.
The new-moon day, which had fallen out of the scheme, was at the same
time rejected and proscribed. The suggestion that the sabbath arose
from the market-day is certainly only a hypothesis, since a definite
market-day is not demonstrated for Canaan; but it has the advantage
of remaining within the limits of primitive time-reckoning, which
knows no other continuous periods than the market-weeks.
* * * * *
Festivals and time-reckoning are from the beginning inseparably
bound together. Some of the former have already been dealt with, e.
g. the festivals of the new moon, the full moon, and the beginning
and end of the year. It remains briefly to sketch the development of
this connexion and to illustrate it with a few examples. A detailed
discussion would lead us too far away from the main theme into the
domain of the history of religion. How many pages have been written
about the New Year festival alone!
The connexion between festivals and time-reckoning is grounded
in the fact that both are originally dependent on the phases of
Nature. Festivals are already held at definite times of the year
by peoples who know nothing of a proper time-reckoning, e. g. the
much-discussed Intichiuma ceremonies of the aborigines of Australia.
They are closely associated with the breeding of the animals and
the flowering of the plants with which each totem is respectively
identified, and as the object of the ceremony is to increase the
number of the totemic animal or plant, it is most naturally held
at a certain season. In Central Australia the seasons are limited,
so far as the breeding of animals and the flowering of plants is
concerned, to two--a dry one of uncertain and often great length,
and a rainy one of short duration and often irregular occurrence.
The latter is followed by an increase in animal life and exuberance
of plant growth. In the case of many of the totems it is just when
there is promise of approach of the good season that it is customary
to hold the ceremony. The exact time is fixed by the _alatunja_ (the
chief of the local group)[1119]. The ripening of a plant which is an
important article of food is often accompanied by certain ceremonies
by which the eating of the fruit is first made lawful. These
so-called sacrifices of the first-fruits, which have been touched
upon above[1120], are therefore dependent upon a definite natural
phase, and there may be several of them in the course of the year.
At seed-time a festival is celebrated in order to secure the good
growth of the seed. The Bahau of Borneo, who have the agricultural
year[1121], celebrate two great festivals, one at the sowing
(_tugal_, from _nugal_, ‘to sow’), and one after harvest, the
festival of the new rice-year, _dangei_, which however is not held
if the harvest has failed; it is the climax of the year. At both
festivals the people gorge themselves to the full, rice being given
even to the animals. But during the period of growth also the plants
need protection and blessing, various plants require and obtain
different festivals, so that a cycle of agricultural festivals
arises[1122]. The southern tribes of the Malay Peninsula celebrate
three great agricultural festivals in the year, one after the
transplanting of the young rice-plants, another after the formation
of the fruit, and a third after the harvest[1123]. As an example of
a fully developed festival-cycle of this kind I give the festivals
of the Bontoc Igorot, with which should be compared the section on
the agricultural year of this tribe[1124]. After the conclusion of
the time when rice-seed is put in the germinating beds, _pa-chog_,
the festival _po-chang_ is held, after the transplanting of the
rice the festival _chaka_ (held on Feb. 10 in 1903), and after that
an unexplained festival _su-wat_; on the day on which the first
‘fruit-heads’ have shown themselves on the growing rice there is the
festival _ke-eng_, and on the following day _tot-o-lod_; _sa-fo-sab_,
before the beginning of harvest, introduces the harvest. At the
end of the rice-harvest and the beginning of the period called
_li-pas_ (‘no more rice-harvest’) _lislis_ is celebrated; at the
time of the planting of camotes _loskod_; in the same division of
the year, called _bali-ling_, the festival _o-ki-ad_, when black
beans are planted. Finally at the end of this division we have
_ko-pus_, a three day’s rest, just before the work of rice-culture
is begun again[1125]. An African example from the neighbourhood of
the Lower Niger will shew how in this agrarian festival-cycle other
feasts arise which may in part be older. The cycle consists of the
following festivals:--1, sacrifices and adoration to the great
spirit or creator, always made in anticipation of the new crop, to
ensure that it is good; 2, communion of first-fruits, a festival to
the house-hold gods; 3, communion of the new yam; 4, the feast of
hunters; 5, _ofala_, a celebration to Ofo, god of justice and right,
in honour of the public appearance of the king; 6, the _crumbo_, or
remnants of yam, reserved for the king only; 7, the feast of roast
yam at the close of the year, the termination of this marking the end
of the native year and the feast also serving as a form of public
notice that farming has to recommence. This is a festival in honour
of Ifejioku, god of the crops, as a token of gratitude on the part of
the community for a fruitful and prosperous year. It is usual for the
king to give a month’s notice before each ceremony takes place[1126].
A pastoral people may also have a well-developed festival-cycle
marking the points of the year which are important for their herds.
I quote as an example the main festivals of the Reindeer Koryak
of Eastern Siberia. There is a ceremony on the Return of the Herd
from the summer pastures, when the first snow covers the ground. In
spring, when the fawning period is over and the reindeer have lost
their antlers, the fawn festival is celebrated. The fire in the house
is put out and a new one started by means of the sacred fire-board.
Some tribes pile up the antlers of the slaughtered reindeer. Other
festivals are observed:--1, when the sun marks the approach of summer
after the winter solstice: a sacrifice is then offered to the sun; 2,
in the month of March, when the does commence to fawn: a sacrifice is
offered to The-One-on-High; 3, in spring, when the grass commences
to sprout and the leaves appear on the trees; 4, when mosquitoes
put in their appearance--reindeer are then slain as an offering to
The-One-on-High, lest the mosquitoes scatter the herd[1127].
Here the development is simple and clear, but not so among many
peoples where agriculture or the raising of cattle does not occupy so
important a place. The Maidu of northern California have four seasons
and four festivals founded by the hero Oankoitupeh:--‘the open air
festival’ in the spring, ‘the dry season festival’ about the first of
July, ‘the burning to the dead’ about the first of September[1128],
and ‘the winter festival’ about the last of December[1129]. The
connexion with the seasons is clear, but we do not even know whether
the names are of genuine native origin. This example clearly shews
that the great difficulty lies in the fact that the real nature of
the festivals is unknown. But often where detailed accounts of a
festival exist, the original reason for it becomes obscured in the
course of the development, so that the original connexion between
festival and season cannot be established. This is especially the
case with peoples among whom the religious life has had an especially
strong development.
A phenomenon peculiar to the peoples of the far North is that the
winter is the time of the festivals. The summer is the good season,
when supplies for the winter must be collected; it is therefore a
very busy time, when each family has to work for itself and has no
leisure for festivals. The winter is the time of rest, in which
the people live on the supplies already collected; they naturally
crowd closer together, and have much leisure, which is used for
religious ceremonies and for games. Hence the winter is the time
of the religious ceremonies among the Eskimos, the Tlinkit, and
other Indians of N. W. America[1130], and hence the Yule festival
celebrated in the winter becomes the greatest festival of the
Scandinavian peoples[1131].
When a festival takes place, people assemble together who often have
to come long distances. We have spoken above[1132] of the devices
adopted in order to ensure that the day of an appointed non-periodic
festival shall not be missed. Periodically recurring festivals, which
are connected with a natural phase or some occupation, particularly
if this is agricultural, are determined as to time, but not
accurately. Hence it is already found among the Central Australians
that the exact day is fixed by the chief. Such festivals, appointed
within certain limits assigned by Nature, are found also among
peoples with a fixed calendar, e. g. the Roman _feriae conceptivae_.
Significantly enough, these are agricultural festivals which, on
account of the change of position of the lunisolar year in relation
to the natural year, could not well be regulated by the former. But
where a calendar exists, this is the given means of regulating the
festival dates so that preparations can be made and the people can
assemble at the right time. In the natural and agricultural years
the festivals are in the proper sense _conceptivae_; the question
is properly to find a means of accurately fixing the day within
the short periods given by Nature. This purpose is served by the
calculation from the moon. The moon herself has her festivals,
especially that of the new moon and, though more seldom, that of
the full moon[1133]. Thus the festival times are regulated by the
moon. In itself any suitable day of the month can be appointed as
a feast-day, but custom and superstition cause certain days to be
preferred. Thus the day of new moon, since it was often already
a feast-day in itself, was bound to be preferred. The Natchez of
Louisiana, for instance, celebrated at each day of new moon a feast
which took its name from the animals and plants which the preceding
month had principally brought forth, but the greatest festival was
that held at the new moon of the first month.[1134]
It is a very wide-spread idea that things which are to prosper and
grow should be undertaken during the time of the waxing moon, and
that anything begun when the moon is on the wane will dwindle and
die. Hence the proper time for a festival is the bright half of the
moon, and especially the time at which the moon has attained her full
shape. It is not only on account of the fair light which costs them
nothing that the negroes dance on the nights of full moon. In Dahomey
the festivals take place at the full of the moon, and the days are
determined by the native government[1135]. In Burma all religious
festivals with the exception of the New Year festival, the date of
which is regulated in a special manner, take place at the time of
full moon[1136]. Throughout Australia, Tasmania, and Melanesia the
festivals begin either at full or new moon[1137].
In regard to the Israelitish festivals, the antiquity and great
importance of the new moon festival has already been pointed
out[1138]. The Jews here follow a wide-spread custom. Whether they,
like many other peoples, also preferred the time of full moon for
their festivals, is a more difficult question. A fixed day for
the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread and for the Feast of
Tabernacles is first prescribed during and after the Exile, the
last-named on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the Feast of
Unleavened Bread on the fifteenth day of the first month, and the
Passover on the evening of the day before (the fourteenth of the
first month)[1139]. The only other information we have from ancient
times as to the date of the Feast of Tabernacles is contained in
the earlier name ‘Feast of Vintage’; it was celebrated after the
conclusion of the fruit-harvest and vintage. In regard to the Feast
of Unleavened Bread--since it is with this chiefly that we have
to do, not with the preliminary Feast of the Passover associated
with it, which was a feast of a different nature--the order of the
Yahwist runs ‘at the time appointed in the month Abib’[1140]; as a
motive is adduced the fact that the Jews came out from Egypt in this
month. The Deuteronomist[1141] transfers this to the preliminary
festival. The time therefore, like that of the Feast of Vintage, is
determined by an event in agriculture, but at the same time by the
moon. Linguistically _chodesh_ can here mean ‘new moon’; in that case
we could also translate ‘at the time appointed after the new moon
of Abib’; but since the sense ‘month’ is so old and the original
sense ‘new moon’ appears unequivocally only where monthly new moon
festivals are in question[1142], it seems reasonable to translate the
word here simply by ‘month’. Now it is often stated that the festive
seasons both of the Unleavened Bread and of the Feast of Vintage were
regulated purely by natural circumstances: the former was celebrated
when the first ears ripened, and the latter when the fruit-harvest
was at an end, each according to local conditions. But the Feast
of Vintage at least was a general festival even in Canaanitish
days[1143], and _moed_ properly means ‘determined, appointed time’.
It was therefore not accidental circumstances but a rule that in
early times called the people together to the festival. Chronological
regulation is proved by the name of the festival of harvest (_chag
haq-qazir_), ‘Feast of Weeks’, _chag shabuot_ in the Yahwist[1144].
The regulation by the weeks, however, is late and artificial in
comparison with that by the moon.
Now if we know what part was played by the time of full moon in the
festivals of other peoples, and indeed for the agrarian peoples
also, in spite of the differences in date resulting from the
observation of the time of full moon, it seems always probable that
the regulation of post-exilian times for the fifteenth originated
in an old tradition in accordance with which the time of full moon
was specially favoured for the feast. Earlier the date was not so
accurately observed; the time of full moon was prescribed so that
those who were prevented from celebrating the Feast of the Passover
at the proper time might do so on the fourteenth of the following
month[1145]. Unfortunately the date of the passage in I Kings (XII,
32), according to which Jeroboam celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles
on the 15th day of the eighth month, is doubtful; if the passage is
old, it affords valuable evidence that the time of full moon was the
proper time for holding agrarian festivals[1146].
Among the Greeks all the ancient festivals with the exception of
the feasts of Apollo, which always took place on the seventh of the
month, were concentrated in the period shortly before and during
full moon[1147]. The selection of days is organically connected
with the lunar reckoning, and the superstition of days has arisen
independently among different peoples. As an example the sacrifices
of the Toba Batak of Sumatra may serve. At the felling of a tree for
house-building sacrifices must be offered during the waxing moon;
this is in general the favourable time, since everything undertaken
then increases with the moon. The huntsman sacrifices to his god at
noon-tide about the time of new moon, the fisherman at noon while the
moon is waxing; before a military expedition a certain sacrifice is
offered (preferably in the early morning) at the time of full moon,
and another at the waxing moon[1148].
This superstition, which involves the accurate knowledge and
observation of the days, and the injunction, to which great religious
importance is attached, to celebrate the festivals on the proper
days, lead to the result that the time-reckoning, which arose in
the first place from the events and necessities of practical life,
has among certain peoples passed completely under the influence
of religion and has been further developed from ecclesiastical
standpoints in the service of the religious cult.
There are however other ways of exactly fixing a day, viz. by
observation of the stars and of the solstices and equinoxes. The
former method is hardly ever used directly as a means of determining
religious dates, and this fact is very significant for the practical
character of the observation of the stars. No religious ideas
are associated with the phases of the stars, although star-myths
innumerable are related. The reason is not easy to discover. A
contributory factor may be that although the observation of the stars
is wide-spread, it is yet not a matter which concerns every man, and
also that the stars always give only a single point of time and do
not form cyclical periods within the year, though on the other hand
they are intimately connected with the phases of the natural year and
with agriculture. The principal reason may be conjectured to be that
the reckoning of months, on account of its connexion with the popular
festival seasons and with the selection of days, has been from the
beginning chiefly carried out with a view to religious considerations.
It is only among certain peoples that the observation of the
solstices and equinoxes plays any great part, and that consequently
the religious importance of the sun is also great. But the festivals
of the solstices and equinoxes, recurring at regular intervals in the
course of the year, are far from being able to compare with those
of the phases of the moon. It has already been mentioned that the
Eskimos were able accurately to observe the winter solstice[1149].
At this time, about the 22nd of December, they held a festival to
rejoice over the return of the sun and the good hunting weather.
They collected together from all over the country in great parties,
entertained one another in the best possible manner, and when
they had gorged themselves to the full they got up to play and to
dance[1150]. Certain Indian peoples have made quite a special custom
of the observation of the solstices and equinoxes. Thus for instance
did the Inca people, but they had lunar months also, and even the
great festival of the sun in December was regulated by the days of
the lunar month[1151]. The Zuñi determine the festival times by
the observation of thirteen different positions of the sun on the
horizon, but they have also lunar months, five of which are named
from natural phases, and six from colours borrowed from certain
rites[1152]. The ceremonies are therefore still distributed among
the months, and the most obvious explanation is that the observation
of the thirteen positions of the sun really serves to determine the
thirteen months, and with them the times of the rites. The old
Mexican calendar seems to have no connexion with the moon, but in
Ginzel’s opinion this does not exclude the possibility of an earlier
development on the basis of a relationship with the course of the
moon[1153]. In any case the regulation of the festivals by the
positions of the sun is a comparatively isolated separate development
among certain peoples; the regulation by the moon, on the contrary,
is found all over the world.
Because the calendar is principally looked upon as the concern
of religion, the months appear in such close association with
the festivals held in them that it is sometimes found that the
relationship to the phases of Nature falls into the background. Among
peoples who have no names of months, like the Greeks of the Homeric
period, or among those who name only some of them, it may therefore
happen that the months become named from the festivals or perhaps
that such names supersede those which refer to natural phases.
Thus, as has been mentioned above, six months of the Zuñi year are
named from the colours of the prayer-sticks. Of the Inca months one
is named from a moon festival, two from provincial festivals, and
one from the great sun festival; the rest take their names from
the occupations of agriculture[1154]. Of the tribes of Bolivia it
is stated that their knowledge of the calendar is not according to
days, but according to the principal festivals[1155]. In Africa two
examples have been given[1156], those of the Hausa states and the
Edo-speaking peoples. In the Babylonian calendar the names of months
derived from festivals spread more and more, at the expense of names
of other kinds[1157]. The phenomenon is therefore comparatively
rare and is found only among peoples who have a highly developed
religious cult, and even in the examples here given the process is
not consistently carried out.
Consistency is found only in one case, the calendar of ancient
Greece, and is all the more striking since in the hundreds of
varying calendars of the town-states no names which do not refer to
festivals have been with certainty demonstrated; the few calendars
with numbered months are of more recent origin[1158]. The certain
conclusion is that the Greek calendar was entirely regulated from
the point of view of the religious cult. Where on the other hand
the place of the lunisolar year is taken by another reckoning, it
is found that the lunar reckoning is still used in the establishing
of certain festivals, as for instance in Bali[1159], and by the
Christians in the matter of Easter and the festivals depending
thereon.