Rest Days; A Sociological Study 157 



which has converted institutions based partly or wholly on a 

 belief in the imaginary and the supernatural into institutions rest- 

 ing on the rock of reason and subserving human welfare. 

 Though the origin of tabooed and unlucky days must be sought 

 in gross superstition, sooner or later they acquire a social signifi- 

 cance and may then be perpetuated as the primitive holidays long 

 after their earlier meaning has faded away. 



The extent to which the day of abstinence provides an inter- 

 mission of labor may be illustrated from various regions. In 

 Ashanti, an old writer calculates that there are only a hundred 

 and fifty to a hundred and sixty days in the year during which 

 business of any importance can be safely undertaken. ^ In 

 ancient Egypt the number of unlucky days varied according to 

 the months. Thus there were six in Paophi, seven in Khoiak 

 and Phamenot, five in Pharmouti. It may be reckoned " that 

 popular superstition rendered useless about one-fifth of the 

 year."^ In the old Roman calendar out of three hundred and 

 fifty-five days, at least a hundred and eight were completely 

 nefasti when no judicial or political business could be lawfully 

 transacted.* In the Julian calendar the total number of days 

 available for secular business had fallen to two hundred and 

 thirty-nine out of three hundred and sixty-five. Of the dies 

 nefasti, on which the state expected the citizens so far as possible 

 to intermit their own private business and labor, nearly a half 

 were celebrated as public feriae, or festivals of the gods (supra). 

 As the Roman passion for holidays and their attendant games 

 and spectacles increased, we find the number of days given over 

 to such amusements rising from sixty-six in the reign of Augus- 

 tus to eighty-seven in that of Tiberius, and under Marcus Aure- 

 lius to a hundred and thirty-five. By the middle of the fourth 



* Beecham, Ashantee and the Gold Coast, 188. 

 ^ Maspero, Nezv Light on Ancient Egypt* 135. 



* This calculation assumes 191 dies fasti et comitiales, on which the 

 public assemblies might meet, 45 dies fasti non comitiales, available for 

 judicial business though not for political gatherings, 108 dies nefasti, 3 

 dies fissi, 11 dies iiitercissi (Mouimsen, in Corpus Inscriptionuin Latinarum, 

 Berlin, 1893, vol i. pt. i.^ 296). Wissowa (Religion und Kiiltus der Romer, 

 368 sq.) reckons 109 dies nefasti, ig2 comitial days, and 43 dies fasti non 

 comitiales. 



