148 Hiitton Webster 



vorable or unfavorable. The fisherman is hopeless of making a 

 catch on an unfavorable day. At such times "no dress will be 

 commenced, no seine cast, no fish-hook baited, no ground turned 

 up, seed sown, distant visit made, flax cut or dressed, timber cut, 

 canoe formed, or even food partaken of."^ It is scarcely neces- 

 sary to point out that these unfavorable days of the Maori differ 

 in no essential respect from the tabu days observed elsewhere 

 wathin the Polynesian region. Like the latter they constitute a 

 season of restriction, abstinence, and rest. The Malagasy un- 

 lucky days, as they have been commonly described, furnish an 

 instance even more apt. The native term fady (or tabu) used 

 for all objects and persons tabooed, is likewise applied to unfa- 

 vorable days and months, the quality of such periods as dangerous 

 or unlucky being thought transmissible to beings and actions.^" 

 Among the Tanala one of the months called faosa is considered 

 extremely unlucky. " No one works in that month, no one changes 

 his place of abode or goes about. If any one happens to be in 

 the fields when the month comes in there he remains. "^^ The 

 Sihanaka keep Tuesday as an unlucky day when no work is 

 allowed in the fields. In addition each family or tribe inherits a 

 special unlucky day in each week when it is not permissible to 

 show oneself outside the house. The Sakalava likewise abstain 

 from all business and remain strictly in seclusion on their unlucky 

 days, which belong both to families and to individuals. Among 

 the Betsimisaraka, Saturday was so unlucky that one could do 

 nothing then except eat, drink, sleep and dress the hair. Since 



*J. S. Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, London, 

 1840, i. 256. 



" Cf. A. van Gennep, Tabou et totemisme a Madagascar, Paris, 1904, pp. 

 199 sqq. The Malagasy belief in lucky and unlucky days as determined 

 by the lunar stations (supra) appears to be a direct importation from the 

 Arabs superimposed on an earlier and thoroughly native observance of 

 tabooed seasons. Similarly, the Malagasy have taken over the planetary 

 week with all its astrological significance (supra). 



" Sibree, in Folk-Lore Record, 1879, ii. ^2; citing Antananarivo Annual, 

 no. 2, p. 100. 



148 



