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]