lOO Hutton Webster 



Similarly, the south Arabians determine the day of the month 

 by observation of the moon's phases, the first quarter being called, 

 for example, the 7th day, the last quarter, the 21st day.^" Of 

 the American Indians it is said generally that the '' alternations of 

 day and night and the changes of the moon and the seasons 

 formed the bases of their [calendar] systems."^* 



When new moon and full moon are recognized as supplying 

 the two-fold division of the month, it is a natural step, if shorter 

 cycles are desired, to find them by quartering the lunation, a 

 subdivision rendered both obvious and easy by the two half 

 moons. We still speak of the " quarters " of the moon. The 

 length of a lunation being approximately 29^ days, a fourth of 

 this period occupies about yY^ days. In such a matter it is 

 necessary to employ round numbers ; the Roman nundinal period 

 of eight days (supra) probably expresses one method of calen- 

 darizing the quarter of a lunation, the seven-day week the other 

 and more accurate division. It is scarcely an argument against 

 the natural origin of the hebdomadal cycle to urge that because 

 seven days do not form an exact division of the lunar month, 

 that period could not have been chosen with such a purpose in 

 view.^** No other number will divide the lunation without a 

 remainder. Accordingly, the first method of reckoning the seven- 

 day week (as of all other cycles) was to commence with new 

 moon and count successively seven, fourteen, twenty-one, and 

 twenty-eight days, either leaving over as epagomenal, one or two 

 days at the end, or resolving the difficulty by beginning the weeks 

 at different hours of the day, the somewhat complicated device 

 of certain primitive peoples (supra). Such lunar weeks are true 

 divisions of the lunar month. 



The history of the seven-day week introduces a variety of 



" Nielsen, Die altarabische Mondreligion, 85, referring to Dr. Glaser's 

 observations. 



'^^ Thomas, "Calendar," Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 no. 30, part i. p. 189. No civil weeks have been discovered among even 

 the most advanced of the American tribes. 



™ F. Ruhl, Chronologie des Mittelaltcrs uiid der Neuzeit, Berlin, 1897, 

 p. 50. 



100 



