Rest Days; A Sociological Study 99 



view of the analogies elsewhere, that this connection with the 

 lunar phases is secondary and hence less ancient than the division 

 into five-day periods. The cuneiform texts of a much later 

 period also contain traces of the hamustu which Jensen thinks 

 was then a periodic week running unbroken through the year. 

 In that case the hamustu had become disassociated from the 

 moon and the lunar month. The entire subject is obscure and 

 may well await future discoveries for its complete elucidation.^* 



14. THE HEBDOMADAL CYCLE 



In the preceding pages much evidence has been presented to 

 show how carefully various primitive races watch the changes 

 of the moon and describe them by appropriate names (supra). 

 The lunar phases form an easy means of calculating the passage 

 of time ; and we often find them employed for chronological pur- 

 poses where civil weeks are unknown. Thus the natives of 

 Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, New Guinea, employ for all time units 

 greater than a day, the phases of the moon.^^ The Dayaks of 

 Borneo, who have no true weeks, are nevertheless said " to reckon 

 their time by the full moon, half-moon, and new moon."^^ 



'^^ In the Mall Vast, 4, occurs the statement: "We sacrifice unto the new 

 moon, the full moons, and the Vishaptathas." According to the editor 

 (Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, xxiii. 90 n.°), new moon and 

 full moon are not used here with their usual signilicance, but the passage 

 refers to the division of the month into six parts of five days, the first 

 part forming new moon, the second a period answering, in a measure, to 

 first quarter, and the third, which belonged to full moon, being called the 

 Vishaptatha. If this interpretation be correct the Persians at the time the 

 Yasts were written recognized a sori of 5-day week, which may show 

 Babylonian influence. Cf. Mali Vast, 2 : " For fifteen days does the moon 

 wax; for fifteen days does the moon wane." The Avesta month consisted 

 of thirty days, the first, eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-third, being dedicated 

 to Ahuramazda (W. Geiger, Civilisation of the Eastern Iranians, London, 

 1885, i. 146 n}). 



" B. Hagen, L'nter den Papua's, Wiesbaden, 1899, p. 244. 



°° C. Bock, Hcad-Hunters of Borneo," London, 1882, p. 212. The Bontoc 

 Igorot " seldom count time by the phases of the moon " (Jenks, op. cit., 

 i. 219). 



99 



