Rest Days; A Sociological Study 89 



arbitrary number of days approaching the twelfth part of a 

 solar year. 



Peoples who reckon by moons naturally begin their lunar 

 month with the first appearance of the luminous crescent in the 

 western sky.2<> The real new moon being invisible during two 

 or three days, various expedients are resorted to for the pur- 

 pose of ensuring regularity in lunar reckonings. Thus the 

 Todas, whose year consists of twelve months each of thirty days, 

 keep a record of the number of days from one new moon to the 

 full moon and from that to the next new moon. The full moon 

 is counted as being on the fifteenth day after the new moon, and 

 the new moon as being on the sixteenth day after the full 

 moon.-^ The Basuto begin their month on the day when the 

 new moon is visible, though they count two more days when 

 the moon cannot be seen at all in the heavens." Among the 

 Romans the day of the new moon, Kalcndae, " the proclaiming 

 day" (calare), was so called because in early times the pontiffs 

 had been accustomed to announce in the presence of the people, 



^ This custom affords the explanation of the widespread practice of 

 beginning the civil day at sunset or, more accurately, in the interval 

 between the going down of the sun and complete darkness. The neces- 

 sities of a calendar system requiring that the first day of the month should 

 be counted from the same moment that the month itself is supposed to 

 begin, it follows that the other days of the month are likewise calculated 

 from evening to evening. The noctidiurnal cycle may be observed among 

 such widely separated peoples as the Maori, the Yorubas of West Africa, 

 and the Malagasy. The Babylonian day began with the evening, and this is 

 still the practice throughout the Mohammedan world. The Jewish com- 

 munities of the present in commencing their ritual day in the evening, 

 retain a practice illustrated by several Old Testament passages (Genesis, 

 i. 5; Psalnis/lv. 17). Various festivals such as the Sabbath and Day of 

 Atonement were so arranged as to begin with and end with the evening. 

 Among most of the Indo-Germanic peoples the civil day or nycthemeron 

 commenced at sunset; and this custom was not abandoned in Italy and 

 some other part's of Europe until about a century ago. Our English words 

 " fortnight " and '' sennight " contain reminiscences of a similar practice. 



^Rivers, op. cit., 590 sqq. 



~J. Sechefo. "The Twelve Lunar Months among the Basuto," 

 Anthropos, 1909, iv. 931 sqq. The author is a native Basuto. 



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