[606]. Sometimes the changes in the moon are minutely observed. The Nandi describe every day of the month by the appearance of the moon or by its relation to occupations.[989] Natural observation in some cases divided the lunar month into four parts: the Buddhist uposatha days are the four days in the lunar month when the moon is full or new or halfway between the two;[990] in Hawaii the 3d-6th, 14th-15th, 24th-25th, 27th-28th days of every month were taboo periods;[991] the Babylonians had five such periods in certain months (four periods with one period intercalated). But, though the quartering of the lunation may seem to us the most natural division of the month, in actual practice it is rather the exception.[992] The simplest division, indeed, is that into two parts, determined by new moon and full moon (Cambodia, Siam; cf. the Mexican period of thirteen days). The division into three periods of ten days each (Egypt, Greece, Annam, Japan) ignores lunar phases and seeks a convenient and symmetrical arrangement. With this decimal system is perhaps connected the division of the month into six periods of five days each (Yoruba, Java, Sumatra, and perhaps Babylonia). The Romans had a somewhat irregular official division of the first half of the month into three parts (Kalends, Nones, Ides) corresponding in a general way to lunar phases, and also commercial periods of eight days (nundinae), perhaps of similar origin. A seven-day division is found in Ashantiland (and perhaps in Peru), and in Java there is reported a division of a year into thirty periods of seven days each.
[607]. It appears, then, that in several communities there has been a division of the month in the interests of convenience, without regard to lunar phases; that in several cases a seven-day week has been fallen upon; and that of the phases of the moon new moon and full moon have been most frequently looked to as chronological marks. The new moon, apart from its function of indicating the beginning of the lunar month, has also by many tribes been hailed with joy as a friend restored to life after seeming extinction.[993] The full moon, while it has not entered so intimately into the emotional life of man, has played an important part by marking the division of the month into two equal parts.
[608]. The Hebrew sabbath. Taboo days are days of abstinence from work, set apart as seasons of rest.[994] Such was the original form of the Hebrew sabbath—it is described in the earlier Old Testament notices simply as a day on which ordinary work was unlawful.[995] The history of its precise origin and development is, however, by no means clear. Theories that derive it from the cult of some particular deity or regard it as primarily a day for placating a supernatural Power[996] may be set aside. It may be assumed that it is an early institution somehow connected with the moon, and a definite indication of origin appears to be furnished by the fact that in a Babylonian inscription the term shabattu[997] is used for the full moon. The identification of Hebrew sabbath with full moon is favored by the collocation of new moon and sabbath in early Old Testament documents[998] as days on which trading was unlawful. These, obviously, were the two chief taboo days of the month; the fact that new moon stands first is doubtless due to its position in the month.
[609]. It is uncertain whether the Babylonian full-moon day was ritually particularly important, and it is not clear how the Hebrews came to invest this day, if it was their sabbath, with peculiar significance. In the earlier legal documents it is merely a restrictive period—man and beast are to rest from toil;[999] in later codes religious motives for the observance of the day are introduced—first, gratitude to Yahweh for the rescue of the nation from Egyptian bondage, and then respect for the fact that Yahweh worked in creating the world six days and stopped work on the seventh day.[1000] In the sixth century we find the sabbath elevated to the position of specific sign of Yahweh's protective relation to the people, and still later it is regarded as a day of joyous obedience to divine law.[1001] Thus, the process of moralization of the day was probably a long-continued one.[1002]
[610]. In the various experimental divisions of the month, as we have seen, a week of seven days has been approached independently in several places (Babylonia, Hawaii, Java, Ashantiland). The basis of this division is doubtless the quartering of the lunation, and it has been reënforced, probably, by considerations of convenience—seven is an intermediate number, six days of work and one of abstinence and rest (holiday) commends itself as a practical arrangement. It appears among the Hebrews as early as the eighth century B.C.;[1003] it may have been derived from or suggested by Babylonian usage, or it may have been an ancient Hebrew custom—data on this point are lacking. In any case the Jewish genius for religious organization seized on the seven-day scheme and wove it into the system of worship. A more important step taken by the Jews was the ignoring of lunar phases (except, of course, new moon as the beginning of the month) and reckoning the week and the seventh day (the sabbath) in a continuous line. We have noted cases in which lunar phases were ignored, but this Jewish arrangement appears to be unique, and its simplicity and convenience have commended it to the world.
[611]. Lucky and unlucky days. The malefic influences emanating from various objects and resident in the air attached themselves to certain days, and out of the vast mass of experiences in every community there grew up systems of days when things might or might not be done with safety and advantage. There were the great occasions, economic and astronomical, referred to above, and there were particular occurrences, such as a death or a defeat, that stamped a day as unlucky. There are many such beliefs, the origin of which is lost in a remote antiquity. The ancient civilized nations had their codes of luck. Egypt had a long list of unlucky days.[1004] In Babylonia onerous restrictions were imposed on kings, seers, and physicians on certain days (the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, 28th) of the sixth and eighth months[1005] (and perhaps of other months). A brief list of days favorable and unfavorable to work is given by Hesiod.[1006] The Roman dies nefasti, properly 'irreligious days,' were inauspicious, unlucky.[1007] Similar lists of lucky and unlucky days are found among existing tribes,[1008] and the popular luck codes in Christian communities are numerous and elaborate.[1009] These have done, and still do, great harm by substituting irrational for rational rules of conduct.
[612]. In many of the cases cited above and in many totemistic regulations there are prohibitions of particular sorts of food. Such prohibitions, very numerous, are found in all grades of civilization.[1010] They have arisen from various causes—climatic conditions, hygienic beliefs, religious conceptions (as, for example, the recognition of the sacred character of certain animals, and the connection of certain foods with supernatural beings and ceremonies[1011]), sometimes, perhaps, from accidental experiences; the history of most of the particular usages escapes us. The fundamental principle involved is the identity of the food with him who eats it—when it is charged with supernatural power (by its own sacredness, or by its connection with a sacred person, or by ecclesiastical decree) it becomes malefic to an unauthorized person who partakes of it.
[613]. A peculiar form of prohibition of foods appears when a society is divided into groups that are kept apart from one another by social and religious traditions that have hardened into civic rules. In such cases the diet of every group may be regulated by law, and it may become dangerous and abhorrent for a superior to eat what has been touched by an inferior. The best example of this sort of organization is the Hindu system of castes, which has a marked and unhappy effect on the life of the people.[1012] All such arbitrary social divisions yield gradually to the influence of education and civic freedom, and this appears to be the tendency in India at the present day.
[614]. Punishment of violation of taboo. Where the hostile power is inherent in an object, punishment is supposed to follow violation automatically—through contact the malefic influence passes into the man's body and works destruction. Many experiences seem to the savage to establish the certainty of such a result. Fervid belief, moreover, produced by long tradition, acts powerfully on the imagination, and in taboo-ridden communities thus often brings about the bodily ill called for by the theory: a man who ate of food that he found on the roadside, learning afterwards that it belonged to a chief, fell ill and died in a few hours.[1013] When taboo regulations have been taken up into the civil law,[1014] punishment for violations is inflicted by the civil authorities. The tendency to make taboo a part of the civil law, and to subordinate the former to the latter, increases with the advance of knowledge and political organization; and one result of this movement is that great personages are sometimes permitted to violate with impunity taboos imposed by inferiors. The native theory in such cases doubtless is that the great man's mana overcomes the taboo infection; but at bottom, we may surmise, lies the sense of the dominance of civil authority.
[615]. The chief's mana, however, sometimes comes into play as a means of relief. A man who has inadvertently (or perhaps, in some instances, purposely) violated a taboo may escape punishment by touching some part of a chief's body. Here the innate potency of the superior man expels or destroys the taboo force that has entered the inferior—another example of how the primitive theory of taboo is modified by conceptions of social rank and authority.