THE ORIGIN OF HOLIDAYS. 



517 



we must remember tliat liis feelings connected with, death are liy 

 no means such as ours. Though the pains of separation and loneli- 

 ness have come to be widely differentiated from those joyful, gen- 

 erous feelings connected with the beginnings of domestic life, yet 

 with the savage it was more fear than affection which prompted 

 the propitiation of the ghost of the dead, and a gift of presents for 

 its use in the future world. The Pacific islanders, Asiatic peoples, 

 African tribes, and American Indians, all, in one way or another, 

 feast and sacrifice on occasion of the principal family events. 

 Among the Karens a corpse lies in state three or four days, amid 

 marching around to music of pipes, singing, lamentation, and ath- 

 letic games. The Javanese have religious festivals for marriages, 

 births, circumcision, and for the dead. The Tongans celebrate 

 their chief's marriage by dancing, single combats, boxing, and 

 wrestling. On the birth, of a child the feasting, sham fighting, 

 night-dancing, etc., last for several days among the Samoans.* 

 The principal friends of newly made parents among this same 

 people bring presents on the third day after the birth of the child, 

 according to an invariable rule, by which the husband's relatives 

 bring pigs, canoes, and foreign property, and the wife's relatives 

 bring fine mats and native clothes made by the females. These 

 interchange their gifts and leave the parents as poor as before. 

 The Malagasy's ceremonies, bull-baiting, dancing, singing, beat- 

 ing of drums, etc., at circumcision, last a week or even months. 

 The Hottentots have feasts of eating, drinking, and smoking on 

 the admittance of youth to manhood and womanhood, and on occa- 

 sion of marriages and funerals. On the death of a king of the 

 Congos t no work must be done, the natives stay at home, while 

 the fields remain uncultivated for a month. A king's death 

 among the coast negroes, Ashantees, and Abyssinians, however, 

 is the signal for general lawlessness and plunder. The destruc- 

 tion of property, feasting, and sacrifices at an ordinary funeral 

 often ruin one of these families. The celebrations of the Santals 

 are few and simple : at admission into the family, tribe, and race ; 

 at marriage, divorce, cremation, and the reunion of the dead with 

 their departed fathers. The funeral games of the Kirghiz are 

 racing, wrestling, and trying to catch a coin out of a vessel of sour 

 milk. 



Coming to higher types of men, with more social and political 

 coherence, the number and variety of festivals increase. They 

 cease to be held for domestic events alone, but are extended to 

 such tribal matters as, among the Abipones, councils of war, im- 



* Spencer's " Descriptive Sociology," No. Ill, Table XII, p. 27, " Lowest Kaces, Xegrito 

 Eaces, and Jialayo-Polynesian Races." 



f Spencer'3 '• Descriptive Sociology," No. IV, " African Races," Table XXIV, and 

 page 18. 



