72 Hitttoii Webster 



it is said that on the first appearance of the new moon, " which 

 they look upon to be newly created, they say a short prayer."^^ 

 Some of the foregoing examples may perhaps be more simply 

 interpreted as an expression of man's delight at the reappearance 

 of the luminary which, so generally in savage fancy, is supposed 

 to descend to the underworld during the interval between luna- 

 tions. 



Where the new moon is festively observed it often happens 

 that a similar rite occurs at full moon ; and much less commonly, 

 at each half moon. It seems idle to seek a particularistic ex- 

 planation for such ceremonies. We have already noticed the 

 sympathetic influence which the waxing and waning of the moon 

 is supposed to exert on human activities. Furthermore, it has 

 been shown that the appearance of the new moon is thought to 

 be pregnant with interest and importance for the life of man. 

 These ideas of lunar influence would naturally be extended to 

 the full moon, and later, in some instances, to the half moons, 

 as marking the most prominent stages in a lunation. The feel- 

 ings of fear, of curiosity, of awe and veneration excited by the 

 moon and concentrated on her phases, afiford a sufficient reason 

 for their being regarded as critical times, to be marked, as the 

 following examples show, not only by religious exercises, but also 

 by fasting and the cessation of all normal occupations. °- 



" Mungo Park, " Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa," in Pinker- 

 ton's Voyages and Travels, xvi. 875. 



^'The vice of seeking a particularistic explanation for widespread social 

 phenomena is illustrated by Nielsen, who, with misdirected ingenuity, has 

 argued that the early Semites founded their sabbaths on the observation 

 that the moon (conceived as a divinity) rests four times in a lunation. 

 Days on which the deity rested were to be likewise observed by his 

 worshippers as daj's of rest. (D. Nielsen, Die altarabische Mondrcliglon 

 nnd die rnosaische Uberlicferung, Strassburg, 1904, pp. 63 sqq.) It is true 

 that the moon looks full for a day or two before and for a day or two after 

 she is full ; similarly the changes in her form at the beginning of a luna- 

 tion are scarcely perceptible. The moon, therefore, might be said to 

 " rest " at these two periods. But neither astronomical science nor untu- 

 tored observation lends any support to the idea that the moon " rests " 

 at the close of each and every phase. Such an hypothesis, were it true, 



72 



