74 Hut ton Webster 



the guardian spirits of those attending the feast."^*^ That the time 

 of full moon is a time of crisis, associated in the native mind with 

 various other critical occasions when it is thought necessary to 

 propitiate the spirits with abstinence, could scarcely be better illus- 

 trated than by the above quotation. 



Various African peoples have similar beliefs regarding the 

 unfavorable influence of lunar changes on human occupations. 

 The Zulus welcome the first appearance of the new moon with 

 demonstrations of joy, but on the day following they abstain 

 from all labor, "thinking that if anything is sown on those days 

 they can never reap the benefit thereof. "°' Of certain Bechuana 

 tribes in the neighborhood of the Leeambye river, Livingstone 

 remarks : " There is no stated day of rest in any part of this coun- 

 try except the day after the appearance of the new moon, and the 

 people then refrain only from going to their gardens. "*^^ Among 

 the Baganda there is great rejoicing at the appearance of the new 

 moon. A feast for seven days takes place when no work is done. 

 Previously, firewood and other things are gathered and stored in 

 order that the women need not go out to gather it or do any 

 work other than cooking.^** In Budu, a district of Uganda, there 

 is a curious cult of the python conducted by the members of a 

 single clan. The sacred snake is kept in a temple where the 

 people gather when the new moon appears to make their offerings 

 and hold a seven days' feast. Throughout this period no work 

 may be performed. ^° The Mendi of Sierra Leone hold a new 



^'Leo Nyuak, "Religious Rites and Customs of the Iban or D3-aks of 

 Sarawak," translated from the Dyak by the Very Rev. Edm. Dunn, An- 

 thropos, 1906, i. 410 sq. 



" Frazer, Adonis, Atfis, Osiris i^ 364; citing Fairweather, in W. F. 

 Owen's Narrative of Voyages, etc., ii. 396. Cf. also Dudley Kidd, The 

 Essential Kafir, London, 1904, p. no. 



^^ Missionary Travels and Rescarches-in South Africa, New York, 1870, 

 p. 255. An earlier writer says of the Bechuanas generally that when the 

 new moon appears, " all must cease from work, and keep what is called in 

 England a holiday " (John Campbell, Travels in South Africa, London, 

 1822, ii. 205). 



""Roscoe, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1902, xxxii. 76. 



'^ Idem, "Python Worship in Uganda," Man, 1909, ix. 88 sqq. 



74 



