84 Hiitton Webster 



Traces of the ancient superstitions relating to the moon still 

 linger in European culture. The people of Thermia in the Cy- 

 clades, believe it necessary to suspend all work on the days just 

 preceding the full moon.*'' An English antiquarian, previously 

 cited, declares that according to the rules of astrology '* it is not 

 good to undertake any Businesse of importance in the new of the 

 moon; and not better just at the Full of the moon; but worst of 

 all in an Eclipse. . . .''"" 



V. LUNAR CALENDARS 



12. LUNAR MONTHS 



It is sufficiently evident that the alternations of night and day 

 must have furnished man with his most elementary conceptions 

 of the passage of time. A longer cycle was naturally suggested 

 by the lunar phenomena so striking, so obvious, and marked by 

 such easily determinable stages. The need of observing the moons, 

 apart from religious or superstitious reasons, was no doubt mainly 

 connected with economic considerations. To the hunting and 

 frugivorous savage it is of supreme importance to be able to 

 anticipate the dififerent periods of the year which bring with them 

 different supplies of natural food ; and for this purpose the moons 

 afford a convenient basis of reckoning. Hence we find that quite 

 commonly among primitive peoples the moons are named after 

 the molting, migrating and pairing of animals, or after the bud- 

 ding, blossoming and ripening of the fruits of the earth. Again, 

 most shepherd tribes reckon time by moons. In the pastoral stage 

 it is probable that the necessity of calculating the various periods 

 of gestation and the proper time of breeding so that young animals 

 might be brought into the world at seasons most favorable to their 



make women fruitful, and the waxing moon to develop the germ in the 

 mother's body (Brugsch, in Vcrhaiidl. Berliner Gesells. f. Anthrop., Ethnol. 

 u. Urgesch., i8Sg, p. 568. 



'"'J. T. Bent, The Cyclades, London, 1885, p. 438. 



"" Aul)rey, op. cit., 85. 



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