520 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY. 



dancing, and slauglitering of animals. Among the Arabs there 

 is an invocation of the dead, and sacrifices at the tombs of the 

 chiefs once a year. The Eskimos hold religious feasts abont 

 the winter solstice and at New-year's. A yearly celebration 

 of a tradition of a deluge is observed by the Mandan Indians. 

 Among the ancient Phoenicians mourning rites were repeated 

 annually. 



We come now to consider how the more or less artificial sub- 

 divisions of time came to be used for periodical celebrations, and 

 ultimately became fixed holidays. There appear historically ar- 

 bitrary days, such as the three post-natal feast-days given by the 

 Gond mother. On the fifth day after the birth of her child her 

 female friends are feasted, male friends on the twelfth, and both 

 together again on the thirteenth. Such an arrangement of dates 

 is probably determined by the physical state of the mother and 

 some conditioning social customs. It is by division of the lunar 

 month, however, that the development continues among the more 

 civilized peoples. A triple division in Tibet gave their original 

 fast-days the 9th, 19th, and 29th ; the Mongols, having fixed tem- 

 ples far removed, held three successive days, the 14th, 15th, and 

 16th ; those of the Kalmucks are the 8th, 15th, and 30th. But, 

 when the old Hindus, Arabs, and Syrians sacrificed at new and 

 full moons, the beginning was made toward the Jewish Sabbath 

 and our Sunday. The fourfold division of the lunar month by 

 full and quarter moon religious or sacrificial feast-days gave 

 the week and the magic number seven. With the Babylonians, 

 the 7th, 12th, 21st, and 28th days of the month were called days of 

 " sulum," or rest ; certain works being forbidden on these days. 

 This expression was transmitted from the older Accadians. Each 

 of these days was consecrated to a different god, one of whom 

 was the moon. Whether the Congo negroes got their frequent 

 Sunday by a sevenfold division of the month we can not say posi- 

 tively, but it is certainly very significant that every fourth day is 

 with them a general day of rest from work in the fields. 



This process of subdivision is especially interesting to trace in 

 Semitic and Jewish history, for it shows the perfectly natural 

 rather than the supernatural origin of our " day of rest.'' The 

 month is the old sacred division of time common to all the Sem- 

 ites. The Mohammedan and Jewish calendars are still lunar. The 

 Semitic word " ahalla," meaning " to greet the new moon," was 

 used of any festal joy, and became the type of religious festivity 

 in general. " In the old Semitic scriptures the new moon and the 

 Sabbath are almost invariably mentioned together." There were 

 the same occasional feasts which we have found in the life of 

 other barbarous peoples, much the same equinoctial, solstitial, and 

 yearly festivals, so that the jpermanent subdivisions of the lunar 



