[214]. The new moon of the first month marks the beginning of the year, and new year's day is celebrated, particularly in the more advanced communities, with special observances. The Hindu pongol and similar festivals are seasons of merriment, with giving of presents, and religious exercises.[402] Though these occasions now include agricultural epochs, we may recognize in them an interest in the beginning of a new era in life. A like character attaches to the celebration of the Japanese new year's day.[403] Of Assyrian observances of the day little is known, but at Babylon it was celebrated with great pomp, and with it was connected the conception of the determination of human fortunes for the year by Marduk, the chief deity of the city.[404] The late Old Testament ritual makes it a taboo day (first day of the seventh month, September-October); no servile work is to be done, trumpets are to be blown (apparently to mark its solemnity), and a special sacrifice is to be offered;[405] in post-Biblical times the feature of the divine assignment of fates (probably adopted from the Babylonians) appears. The old Roman religious year began with the kalends of March, when the sacred fire of Vesta was renewed, a procedure obviously intended to introduce a new era; on the later civil new year's day (kalends of January) presents were exchanged,[406] a custom everywhere relatively late, a feature in the gradual secularization of ceremonies.
[215]. Solar festivals, as such, are less prominent than the lunar in religious ritual. Though the sun was a great god widely worshiped, it was little used in the construction of early calendars. Primitive astronomy knew hardly anything of solstices and equinoxes, and where these are noted in the more advanced rituals, they appear to be attachments to observances founded on other considerations—so the Roman Saturnalia, celebrated near the winter solstice, and apparently the plebeian festival of the summer solstice attached to the worship of Fortuna; and the same thing is probably true of the Semitic and Greek festivals that occurred near the equinoxes and solstices.[407]
[216]. Elaborate solstitial ceremonies are practiced by the North American Pueblos.[408] A well-developed solar system of festivals existed in Peru, where the sun was the central object of worship; equinoxes and solstices were observed with great ceremonies, and especially at the summer solstice the rising of the sun was hailed with popular rejoicing as a sign that the favor of the deity would be extended to the nation.[409] Similar ceremonies may have existed in Mexico and elsewhere, but in general, as is remarked above, the astronomical feature at solar epochs yielded to other associations. Occasional festivals occur in connection with the worship of stars (especially the morning star);[410] the Pleiades are objects of observation among some low tribes, and in some cases (Society Islands, Tahiti, Hawaii, New Zealand) the year began with the rising of these stars, but apparently no festivals are dedicated to them.[411] In the later theistic development various deities are brought into connection with heavenly bodies, and their cults absorb earlier observances.[412]
[217]. Socially the agricultural festivals are the most important of the early festival ceremonies;[413] they unite the people in public observances, thus furthering the communal life, and they satisfy the popular demand for amusement. Doubtless under any social conditions gatherings for merrymaking would have arisen, but, by reason of the constitution of early society, they necessarily assume a religious character. Whether for planting or for reaping, the local god must be considered; it is he whose aid must be invoked for coming crops, and he must be thanked for successful seasons. The festivals occur at various times in the year among various peoples, but the tone of merriment is the predominant one—it is only in a few cases that a touch of seriousness or sadness is found. Early festal calendars are largely agricultural. In Greece, Rome, and Peru there was a succession of festivals, connected with planting and reaping, running substantially through the year; other ceremonies, of course, stood side by side with them, but these were relatively few.
[218]. Joyous festivals occur especially at the time of the ripening of crops and harvest. The old Canaanite autumn feasts, adopted by the Hebrews, were seasons of good cheer.[414] In Greece the Panathenæa fell in July-August, the Thesmophoria in October, and the Anthesteria in February,—all agricultural, with joyous features;[415] of the similar Roman festivals the Feriæ Latinæ fell in April, the Feriæ Jovi in August, the Saturnalia in December, and with these should perhaps be included the Ambarvalia (in May) and the festival of the horse sacrifice (in October).[416] Other ceremonies of this nature occur in India, New Zealand, Torres Straits islands, and in the old Peruvian cult.
[219]. Popular festivities easily pass into license; examples are the Roman Saturnalia and the Hindu Holi[417]; the harvest festival of the Hos of Northeastern India is a debauch,[418] and with it is connected the expulsion of evil spirits—an example of the coalescence of festivals. A peculiar feature in certain of these ceremonies is the exchange of places between masters and servants; this abandonment of ordinary social distinctions is an expression of the desire for freedom from all restraints, and is found in carnivals generally (in the Saturnalia and elsewhere).[419]
[220]. Ceremonies of a serious character occur in connection with the eating of the first fruits of the year. In developed cults (as in the Hebrew) the deity is recognized as the giver by the presentation of a portion of the new crop.[420] In very early cults there are other procedures, the origin and significance of which are not always clear. So far as the ceremonial eating, a preliminary to general use, is concerned, this may be understood as a recognition, more or less distinct, of some supernatural Power to whom (or to which) the supply of food is due. The obscurest form of such recognition is found among the Australian Arunta.[421] The Nandi practice is clearer—the god is invoked to bless the grain.[422] In the Creek Puskita (Busk) there is perhaps a worship of the sun as the source of fertility.[423] Probably the element of recognition of extrahuman power (the object being to secure its favor) is to be found in all first-fruits ceremonies. A natural result of this recognition is that it is unlawful (that is, dangerous) to partake of the new food till it has been properly offered to the deity. The ceremonial features (such as the choice of the persons to make the offering) are simply the carrying over of general social arrangements into religious observances—the ministrant is the father of the family, or the chief of the tribe, or the priest or other elected person, according to the particular local customs.
[221]. The sadness or gloom that sometimes attaches to these ceremonies has been variously explained, and is due doubtless to various orders of ideas; it comes probably from the coalescence of other cults with the agricultural cults proper. The remembrance of ancestors is not unnatural at such a time, and sorrow may be expressed for their death; such is perhaps the case in the Nandi usage mentioned above—the women sorrowfully take home baskets of elusine grain, and the bits that drop in the house are left to the souls of the deceased. Sorrow appears also in other agricultural seasons, as in the Roman Vestalia (in June) and the Greek Thesmophoria (in the autumn), in which cases more likely it is connected with the fear of evil influences.[424] So the great tribal purification of the Creeks, at the beginning of a new year, naturally coincides with the gathering of the new crop.
[222]. A further extension of the conception of the sacredness of food (whether or not of the first eating) appears in the Mexican custom (in May and December) of making dough images of gods, the eating of which sanctifies the worshiper;[425] here the god dwells in the bread of which he is the giver.
[223]. In addition to the astral and agricultural festivals above described there has been the observance of long periods to which a religious significance was sometimes attached. The Egyptian Sothis period[426] (of 1461 years), the Greek period of eight years (oktaeteris), and the Mexican period of fifty-two years were calendary—attempts to harmonize the lunar and solar years; in Mexico the new cycle introduced a new religious era—a great ceremony was held in which domestic fires were rekindled from the sacred fires. The Hebrew jubilee period (of fifty years), apparently a late development from the sabbatical year, was intended, among other things, to maintain the division of landed property among the people—all alienated land was to return finally to its original owner—participation in the blessings bestowed by the national deity being conditioned on having a share in the land, of which he was held to be the proprietor; the proposed arrangement turned out, however, owing to changed social conditions, to be impracticable.