Rest Days; A Sociological Study 57 



The west African evidence which ElHs has gathered would 

 seem to indicate that, aside from the inter-tribal borrowing 

 which has doubtless taken place, certain days are regularly ob- 

 served as periods of rest by the community generally, or by 

 special classes of individuals. The extensive development of the 

 Sabbatarian regulations may be reasonably associated with the 

 extraordinary tangle of general, local and tutelary deities of all 

 sorts found in this part of Africa. If the custom had arisen 

 of honoring a tribal god with a day held generally sacred, it would 

 be but a step to extend the practice to the divinities worshipped 

 by individual families or by particular sections of the community. 



The observance of a general day of rest by the Yorubas, Tshis, 

 and other peoples, is undoubtedly a native institution. Lieu- 

 tenant-Colonel Ellis, who was much impressed with its re- 

 semblance to the Hebrew Sabbath, argues that both were 

 originally lunar festivals, connected with moon worship and cele- 

 brated on the first day of the new moon. " This holy day. before 

 the invention of weeks, recurred monthly, but after the lunar 

 month was subdivided, it recurred weekly, and was held on the 

 first day of the week. . . . That the Jewish Sabbath should come 

 to be called the seventh day, though originally the day of the 

 new moon, and consequently the first day of the lunar month, 

 can be readily understood. When a holy day recurs every 

 seventh day, the day on which it is held is naturally called the 

 seventh day. Thus the Yoruba sabbath, which occurs every 

 fifth day, is called the fifth day of the week, though the mean- 

 ing of the name ako-ojo is first day."*'^ This theory of a common 

 origin for both the west African and the Hebrew rest days fails 

 to elucidate satisfactorily the taboos observed in each instance; 

 and the explanation of the " seventh day," for reasons to be 

 stated later, cannot be accepted. At the same time I am not dis- 

 posed wholly to reject the hypothesis advanced by Ellis for the 

 origin of the weekly holy day in west Africa, In this region, as 



®° Ellis, Yoniba-S peaking Peoples, 146, 148. The author presented his 

 arguments more fully in an article, " On the Origin of Weeks and Sab- 

 baths," Popular Science Monthly, 1895, xlvi. 329-43. 



57 



