Rest Days; A Sociological Study 29 



single clay of the year, usually in the last quarter of the moon in 

 November. The appearance of the sea-slugs was the signal for 

 a general feast at those places where they were taken. An in- 

 fluential man ascended the tree and prayed to the spirit of the 

 skv for good crops, fair winds, and so on. Thereupon a tre- 

 mendous clatter, with drumming and shouting, was raised by all 

 the people in their houses for about half an hour. This was fol- 

 lowed by a dead quiet for four days, during which the people 

 feasted on the sea-slug. All this time no work of any kind 

 might be done, not even a leaf plucked or the ofifal removed from 

 the houses. If a noise was made in any house, as by a child 

 crving, a forfeit was at once exacted by the chief. At daylight 

 on the expiry of the fourth night the whole town was in an 

 uproar; men and boys scampered about, knocking with clubs and 

 sticks at the doors of the houses and crying Sinariba. This con- 

 cluded the ceremony. "^^ 



From that treasury of archi Ic custom. The Golden Bough, I 

 take another illustration of a day of abstinence observed by the 

 people of Bali, an island to the east of Java. Generally the 

 period chosen for the expulsion of evil spirits is the day of the 

 " dark " moon in the ninth month. At the appointed time the 

 inhabitants of a village or district gather at the principal temple 

 and after prayers have been recited by the priests, the blast of 

 a horn summons the devils to partake of a meal which has been 

 prepared for them. The people who have stayed at home unite 

 by a deafening knocking on doors and beams, to hasten the 

 departure of the demons from the houses. The fiends then flee 

 to the banquet which has been set out for them; but here the 

 priest receives them with curses which finally drive the spirits 

 from the district. " When the last devil has taken his departure, 

 the uproar is succeeded by a dead silence, which lasts during the 



^' Frazer, The Golden Bought iii. 81 sq.; citing V. S. Exploring Expedi- 

 tion, Ethnography and Philology by H. Hale, pp. 67 sq.; Ch. Wilkes, Nar- 

 rative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 90 sq. On the Palola viridis 

 or sea-slug, cf. Turner, Samoa, p. 206; George Brown, Melancsians and 

 Polynesians, London, igio, pp. 135 sq. 



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