Rest Days; A Sociological Study 145 



VIII. PERIODS OF ABSTINENCE AT UNLUCKY 

 TIMES AND SEASONS 



21. THE CONCEPTION OF UNLUCKINESS 



The observance of lucky and unlucky days is a familiar phe- 

 nomenon in primitive society and among peoples of archaic civili- 

 zation. Under the attenuated form of a survival, the belief still 

 lingers in civilized and Christian lands. The reasons for the 

 assignment of a good and an evil character to certain days are 

 usually quite obscure ; and even where explanations are provided, 

 they are, as a rule, explanations after the event. The attempt to 

 provide a satisfactory origin for them insensibly widens out into 

 an effort to account for the genesis of the great body of popular 

 and anonymous superstitions. 



Probably the commonest source of the belief in lucky and 

 unlucky days is to be sought in that erroneous association of ideas 

 which underlies so much of savage magic and savage religion. 

 If an event, fortunate or unfortunate, has taken place on a certain 

 day, the notion easily arises that all actions performed on the 

 recurrence of the day will have a similarly favorable or unfavor- 

 able issue. Thus among the Tshis of west i\frica days are con- 

 sidered unlucky generally on account of some great calamity 

 having taken place at such dates. Their most unlucky day is the 

 anniversary of the Saturday on which Osai Tutu was slain in an 

 ambush near Acromanti in 1731.^ The dies rcligiosi or unlucky 

 days of the Roman calendar (supra) included the anniversary 

 of the battle of the Allia, dies AUiensis (July 18), when the Re- 

 public had suffered grave misfortune.- After the assassination 

 of Julius Caesar a decree was made that the Ides of March 

 (March 15) should be called parricidimn, henceforth to be ob- 

 served as an unlucky day.-'^ It has usually been supposed that the 



^ Ellis, Tshi-S peaking Peoples, 219 sq. 



^The same date was also observed as the dies Fabiorum (Livy, vi. i). 

 It may be noted that July 18 is sometimes marked C in the calendars, 

 indicating that the day was one on which the coiiiitia might meet. 



* Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 88. 



