Chapter III: Holy Days

There exists, perhaps, no shorter road to the comprehension of a religion as a social product than through the study of its festivals. They are preëminently social in character; they give expression to the feelings of an entire community, whether clan, tribe, or nation; and in their development they are closely associated with the general progress of society. As civilization develops, festivals tend to increase in number, to elaborate their ritual, and to fix more precisely the time and order of their celebration. It becomes the business of a particular class—the priesthood—to establish and maintain a calendar of sacred seasons. We may assume with some confidence that the priestly attitude in such matters has not been entirely disinterested. The holy day, observed with worship, sacrifice, and offerings, must contribute directly to the well-being and prestige of the sacerdotal order.

“The Greeks and the barbarians,” declares an ancient geographer, “have this in common, that they accompany their sacred rites by a festal remission of labour.”[221] In fact most festivals are celebrated as holidays, when men give up secular occupations and devote themselves to religious exercises and relaxation. Festivals, in consequence, assume with advancing culture a great significance from the economic and sociological standpoint. For the peasant and the artisan they provide welcome relief from physical exertion, and for all ranks of society their pageants and processions, their games, feasts, and merry-makings give an outlet to the play instincts of mankind. We must not conclude, however, that the remission of labour accompanying a festival has always been dictated by practical and non-superstitious considerations. It has been already pointed out that in some fairly rude communities abstinence from work is a part of the regular procedure for facing a crisis and the spiritual dangers supposed to characterize such an occasion. The rest is a measure of protection and propitiation, quite as much as the fasts, the sacrifices, and the prayers by which it may be attended. Where ideas of this nature prevail, all labour becomes _tabu_.

As we pass from savagery to barbarism and from animism to polytheism, the notion of taboo, at first vague and indeterminate, tends to differentiate into the twin concepts of impurity and holiness. This differentiation, indeed, is never perfectly accomplished even by peoples which have reached some measure of civilization; and the lower races find still greater difficulty in distinguishing between what is dangerous, because polluted, and what is dangerous, because sacred. The “holy” thing and the “unclean” thing possess alike the mystic potency, the magico-spiritual power, the _mana_ or _orenda_, to employ a terminology which expresses early man’s sense of being ever surrounded by unknown agencies, among which he must walk warily, if he is to walk in safety.[222]

To the primitive mind the sanctity which attaches to the divine chief and king, to such objects of special reverence as bull-roarers, idols, and altars, and also to certain places and shrines, is sufficiently material to be transmissible and to be capable of infecting with its mysterious qualities whatever is done at a particular time. The notion of the transmissibility of holiness might seem of itself to furnish a sufficient reason for abstaining from ordinary occupations on a sacred day: the power that blesses can also blast. In practice, however, this idea appears to mingle quite inextricably with the opposite though related conception that what is holy can be contaminated by contact with the secular and the profane. Furthermore, when holy days come to be definitely consecrated to deities, who at such times are believed to be present among their worshippers, it is easy to see how the belief arises that a god is pleased and flattered by the enforced idleness of his devotees. Abstinence from work then takes its place among other rites as a recognized way of expressing a proper reverence for the divinity; while, conversely, to labour on his holy day implies a disrespectful attitude toward him. These are sentiments reasonably certain of continued development, as priestly influence becomes predominant in any community. “The Lord thy God is a jealous God.”[223]

The consecration of a particular day to a divinity is a common feature of polytheistic cults. Had we definite information concerning the origin and development of the great deities of the higher religions, it would probably appear that in most instances their connection with particular days is a secondary rather than a primary formation. In other words a period dedicated to a god and observed by his worshippers with abstinence from labour may once have been a season of taboo for other and quite different reasons. Some pertinent instances of tabooed days which grew into holy days have already engaged our attention.[224] Thus, in the comparatively well-developed religious system of the Hawaiians the New Year’s festival was consecrated to the god Lono; but the same festival in Fiji was not associated with any particular divinity. Again, the Hawaiians observed in every month four _tabu_ periods, which were severally dedicated to the great gods of the native pantheon, Ku, Hua, Kaloa, and Kane. That these Sabbaths had originally no connection with any divinity and arose in consequence of superstitious beliefs regarding lunar phenomena is a highly probable conclusion, when we recall the numerous taboos attaching to the phases of the moon, for instance, among the Dyak tribes of Borneo. Once more, the attribution of the Bontoc Igorot _tengao_, or rest day, to Lumawig, the only god throughout the Bontoc culture area, cannot be earlier than the emergence of this supreme being from the crowd of spirits in which the native so firmly believes. Lastly, we have seen how, in the case of the Athenian Anthesteria, the attribution of the festival to Dionysus and the cheerful associations with which the fancy of the Greeks invested it represent a comparatively late development.

If many holy days of polytheistic cults were once tabooed days, it follows that a taboo element may be looked for in various religious celebrations which in outward semblance have only a festive, happy character. Particularly does this seem to be true of the numerous rites observed by the Dravidian peoples of India. The Kota, an aboriginal tribe of the Nilgiri Hills, hold an annual feast, called _kambata_ or _kamata_, in honour of Kamataraya. It lasts about a fortnight. On the second day of the festival no work may be done except digging clay and making pots.[225] The Uraon keep three great feasts during the year. The first, known as _sarhul_, occurs in May. Its object is said to be the celebration of the mystical marriage of the sun-god with the earth-goddess, in order that they may become fruitful and consequently bestow good crops. At the same time the Uraon take care to propitiate all the village spirits, lest the latter should frustrate the efforts of Sun and Earth to increase and multiply. On the eve of the appointed day no one is allowed to plough his fields.[226] In Bengal, Mother Earth is the object of much devotion. The goddess generally manifests herself as the benignant source of all things, the giver of the fruits of the earth. But sometimes she brings disease and hence requires propitiation. The chief festival in her honour occurs at the end of the hot season, when she is supposed to suffer from the impurity common to women. All ploughing, sowing, and other work cease at this time, and Bengali widows refrain from eating cooked rice.[227] A very similar festival, called _ucharal_, is celebrated by the natives of the Malabar coast at the end of January, when Mother Earth has her annual menstruation. For three days at this time the people stop all work, except hunting: the house may not be cleaned; the daily smearing of the floor with cow-dung is discontinued; and even gardens may not be watered.[228] The village rites observed by the Telugu, Kanarese, and Tamil peoples of southern India, in honour of their local deities, though unattended by compulsory abstinence from labour, are clearly of a propitiatory character. In this respect they are analogous to the _genna_ customs in Assam. Usually the people hold no regular festival, but perform their rites of sacrifice only when some great misfortune—an outbreak of cholera, smallpox, cattle disease, or drought—has convinced them that evil spirits are about and active. “I have dignified,” writes the Bishop of Madras, “the periodical sacrifices to the village goddesses by the name of festivals. But the term is a misnomer. There is really nothing of a festal character about them. They are only gloomy and weird rites for the propitiation of angry deities or the driving away of evil spirits, and it is very difficult to detect any traces of a spirit of thankfulness or praise. Even the term worship is hardly correct. The object of all the various rites and ceremonies is not to worship the deity in any true sense of the word, but simply to propitiate and avert its wrath.”[229] The propitiatory feature is not absent from some of the purely Hindu festivals, which in this respect may have been affected by the cults of the aboriginal peoples of India.[230]

One of the Hebrew agricultural festivals described in the Old Testament furnishes an instance of what seem to be ancient taboos surviving in a developed religious ritual. In the post-Exilic calendar the Day of First-fruits, inaugurating the Feast of Weeks, was declared to be a time of “holy convocation,” when no “servile work” was allowable.[231] Now, primitive peoples quite commonly observe various ceremonies in connection with first-fruits, particularly a sacramental eating of them preliminary to general use.[232] With advancing culture this rite tends to be replaced by an act of definite sacrifice of a portion of the first-fruits to the spirits or the gods, who have it in their power to give or to withhold the crops. The rite of first-fruits marks a time of peculiar solemnity, when gratitude to the supernatural powers mingles with fear of the hostile influences which may affect injuriously the grain that lies still ungathered. So critical an epoch is frequently inaugurated by a ceremonial cleansing or purgation of the community; and the rite itself may require fasting and continence on the part of those who celebrate it. In at least one case previously noticed, the ceremonial inbringing of first-fruits formed an occasion for abstaining from all secular activities.[233] Since a like restriction was attached to the Hebrew Day of First-fruits, we may surmise with some probability that abstinence from labour at this time was observed by the early Hebrews as a primitive taboo long before the festival was definitely consecrated to Jehovah. It is difficult to avoid the same conclusion with respect to the sabbatarian rules which invested other agricultural festivals of the Hebrews.[234]

The Greeks in late classical times appear to have regarded their religious festivals much as we regard our holidays. “The gods,” said Plato, “in pity for the toils which our race is born to undergo have appointed holy festivals, by which men alternate rest and labour.”[235] With this remark, indicating that for the philosophic thinker the process of rationalization had begun, it is interesting to compare the statement of a modern scholar that among the Greeks “the time occupied by the feast of the gods was as sacred, _i.e._, as much subject to taboos, as was the whole of the Jewish Sabbath.”[236] The unlucky days (ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι) observed by the Athenians included the twenty-fifth or twenty-ninth of Thargelion, a day devoted to the celebration of the Plynteria, the washing festival of their patron goddess. On this occasion Athene’s image was borne in procession to the sea, divested of its adornments, and laved in the purifying waters. Plutarch’s biography of Alcibiades contains a significant reference to the ceremony. At the time when that brilliant though shifty Greek returned from exile to his native city, the people were holding the Plynteria, in Athene’s honour. On that day “the Praxiergidæ solemnize their secret rites: they remove all the ornaments from her image and cover it up. Hence the Athenians regard this day as most unlucky, and do no work on it. It seemed as though the goddess were receiving him in no friendly fashion, for she hid her face from his as if to banish him from her sight.” Xenophon, also, referring to the return of Alcibiades at the time of the Plynteria, declares that “none of the Athenians would venture to transact any serious business on this day.” And Pollux informs us that the sanctuaries were roped round at the Plynteria, as at other unlucky times, doubtless to avoid their being tainted with the pollution of the day.[237] The Athenians themselves ascribed the unluckiness of the day of the Plynteria to the fact of Athene’s absence from the city during the festival. It is probable, however, that the Plynteria was at one time a rite of purification preliminary to the bringing-in of the first-fruits, and hence a rite which must have existed long before its ascription to the protecting deity of Athens.[238] So considered, the Plynteria as a rest day affords a close parallel to the Tongan _inachi_ and the Hebrew Day of First-fruits.

With the Plynteria may be profitably compared the better-known Roman festival of the Vestalia. The Athenian ceremonies came in May, the Roman, in June, but they were alike in content. The nine days devoted to the Vestalia were ill-omened (_religiosi_). During their celebration the innermost sanctuary of Vesta, shut all the rest of the year, was opened to the matrons of Rome, who crowded to it barefooted, while the Vestals themselves offered the sacred cakes made of the first ears of corn plucked a month previously. On the ninth day (June 15) the temple was swept and the refuse thrown into the Tiber. Then the _dies religiosi_ came to an end, as soon as the last act of cleansing had been duly performed—_Quando stercus delatum fas_, “When the rubbish has been carried away.”[239]

The Roman religious festivals, of which a few, as we have seen, were celebrated on _dies religiosi_,[240] went collectively under the name of _feriæ_ (_dies feriati_).[241] The public _feriæ_, numbering sixty-one in republican times, were all consecrated to deities of the state cults. As illustrating the Roman prejudice against even numbers as unlucky, it is interesting to note that, with two exceptions, all these older _feriæ_ occurred on days which, reckoning from the beginning of the month, would be denoted by odd numbers. The same superstition required that, where a festival occupied more than one day in a month, there should be an interval of one or three days between the beginning and close of its celebration, as in the case of the Lemuria on the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth of February. The ferial days were of prehistoric origin, though the testimony of tradition assigned them to Romulus and particularly to Numa, the priestly king who was believed to have organized the Roman religion. Considering the great antiquity of the _feriæ_, it becomes a legitimate inquiry how far they resemble the festivals observed in modern times by peoples scarcely inferior in culture to the Romans at the dawn of their history. What likeness, in other words, can be traced between the _feriæ_ and days _tabu_?

The ancients made a fundamental distinction between public and private _feriæ_. The former included all festivals which were celebrated by the community at large, the latter, those which appertained to individuals, families, _gentes_, sacred colleges, and other social groups within the body politic. Since the Roman state religion was based on the religion of the family and the _gens_, we are entitled to believe that the _feriæ privatæ_ provided the model for the _feriæ publicæ_; and this view is confirmed by numerous analogies elsewhere.[242] The festivals observed by _gentes_ are little known and appear to have become obsolete at an early date; the family festivals, on the other hand, flourished throughout antiquity. All important epochs in the life of a Roman housefather and his children—birth, naming, assumption of the _toga virilis_, marriage, and death—were kept as ferial days. The _feriæ denicales_ are especially noteworthy, for they show that the Romans shared the superstitious notions of many primitive peoples concerning the noxious influence of death. These ceremonies, which took place a few days after the funeral, were for the purpose of purifying the house and its inmates from the death contagion.[243] Abstinence from labour formed a special feature of all family festivals: they were rest days for both man and beast. As that model economist, Cato the Elder, remarked, “For mules, horses, and asses there are no other holidays than those of the family.”[244] However, we must probably include, as an exception to Cato’s statement, the festival of the Paganalia, or _feriæ sementivæ_, which came in January after the seed had been sown. During this time the plough rested by command of the gods, and not the farmer only, but also his slaves and animal servants, enjoyed holiday idleness. The festival had a distinctly prophylactic character, being marked by prayers, offerings, and other rites designed to ward off evil influences from the crops.[245] The Paganalia, as its name indicates, was an old village rite which survived into historic times and became incorporated in the public _feriæ_ of the Roman city. But before turning to this division of our subject it may be pointed out that among the private _feriæ_ were also included those which were observed by individuals only, as a means of removing the taint of some impurity which rested upon them. A man who had pronounced accidentally the names of certain mysterious divinities was expected to celebrate a private festival as a means of expiation (_ferias observabat_). The Flaminica, or wife of the Flamen Dialis, who with her husband was subject to many restrictions, became tabooed—_feriata_—if she heard thunder, and might not engage in her religious duties until she had performed an act of lustration (_donec placasset deos_).[246]

The public _feriæ_ were also occasions for abstinence, purification, and propitiation. On the calendars they are marked _nefasti_, indicating that at such times all political and judicial business must be suspended. In the later period of the Roman Republic unscrupulous consuls sometimes put this regulation to a base use by ordering special _feriæ_ for all comitial days, so as to stave off legislation by their rivals.[247] The gods, on ferial days, demanded the service of men by visits to the temples and by prayers and sacrifices. Hence the _feriæ_ formed public holidays, when even slaves enjoyed a cessation of toil. “Let contentions of every kind cease on the sacred festivals, and let servants enjoy them with a remission of labour; for this purpose they were appointed at certain seasons.”[248] These words of Cicero reflect, however, not the original purpose of the _feriæ_ but only the interpretation put upon them by a rationalistic thinker in a sophisticated age. We may assume with confidence that the ferial days were not established as a boon to the labourer. The regulations enforced on the _feriæ_ indicate how, in Roman belief, it was essential that their holiness should not be polluted by unseemly activity. The _rex sacrorum_ and _flamines_, whose lives were passed in an odour of sanctity, were not allowed even to see any work being done during the celebration of _feriæ_; hence, when these officials went out, heralds preceded them to enjoin the people from working in their presence. An accidental neglect of such admonitions was punished with a fine and atonement was made by the sacrifice of a pig. An intentional disobedience constituted a crime beyond the power of atonement.[249]

In the later centuries of the republic, with the decay of supernaturalism, questions began to be raised as to what kinds of work might legitimately be done on the public _feriæ_. The pontiff Umbro declared that it was no violation of them for a person to do any work which had reference to the gods, or the offering of sacrifices—_ad deos pertinens sacrorumve causa_.[250] All labour was likewise allowable which was necessary to supply the urgent wants of life. The pontiff Scævola held that any work might be done, if suffering and injury were caused by its neglect or delay—_licet quod prætermissum noceret_. If a house threatened to tumble down on a ferial day, the inhabitants might take the requisite measures to repair it at this time. And should a man’s oxe fall into a pit, he might employ workmen to lift it out without polluting the _feriæ_.[251] Cato thought that on holidays a farmer might repair ditches, pave the public roads, and make everything neat and clean about his premises.[252] Vergil, writing when this rationalistic movement had culminated, asserts that “even on holy days some work is permitted by the laws of God and man. The strictest worshipper has never scrupled to drain the fields, plant a hedge to protect a crop, set snares for birds, fire the brambles, or wash his bleating sheep for health’s sake in the stream.”[253] Such interpretations indicate that in late classical antiquity the burdens of the old tabooed days were being gradually lifted, and their observance adjusted to the social and economic needs of a progressive community.

Corresponding to the private _feriæ_ observed by individuals on special occasions were those public holidays which had to be kept by the community at large, in consequence of some unusual and terrifying event. Certain natural phenomena resulted in the cessation of all activity by the people and the institution of extraordinary festivals (_feriæ imperativæ_). These were decreed by the magistrates, acting on the advice of the priests and with the consent of the Senate. Festivals of this sort were anonymous; they were dedicated neither to god nor goddess—_sive deo sive deæ_—for the divine author of the portent was obviously unknown. Numerous instances of the celebration of extraordinary _feriæ_ are noticed by classical historians, especially by Livy. During the reign of Tullus Hostilius, the third of Rome’s legendary kings, a rain of stones on the Alban Mount led to the institution of a nine days’ festival. Shortly after the establishment of the republic an aurora borealis so terrified the people that they kept a three days’ festival. About half a century after the sack of Rome by the Gauls a rain of stones, accompanied by an obscuration of the sun, made it necessary for the Senate to appoint a dictator whose special business it was to appease the supernatural powers by appointing holidays and performing ceremonies. When Hannibal was in Italy, threatening the life of the Roman commonwealth, Heaven seemed to multiply portents, and Livy particularly mentions two occasions when a shower of stones provoked compulsory holidays for the usual period (_novemdiales feriæ_). Earthquakes always aroused superstitious fears and made it necessary to celebrate propitiatory _feriæ_. In the year 193 B.C. the frequent earthquakes led to the institution of so many festivals that all public business was blocked; the Senate could not meet and the consuls were constantly employed in rites of propitiation. Under these circumstances, so Livy tells us, the people grew weary, not only of the earthquakes but also of the _feriæ_ appointed to expiate them, and an edict was passed that, whenever _feriæ_ were ordered to be observed on a certain day, in consequence of an earthquake, no fresh disturbance of the sort was to be reported on that same day. Only a year after the publication of this amusing edict the Romans were terrified by earthquake shocks which lasted for thirty-eight days, a period which was marked by a total cessation of business. And more than two hundred years later the emperor Claudius, when an earthquake happened at Rome, never failed to appoint holidays for sacred rites. Similar ceremonies, _pro valetudine populi_, were sometimes performed to drive away a devastating pestilence.[254]

To the ancient Romans the celebration of ferial days thus provided an appropriate and effectual method of meeting a crisis. Like the tabooed days observed in Polynesia, Indonesia, and southeastern Asia at the present time, the _feriæ_ were occasions for the propitiation of supernatural and hostile powers. As such they must have been, originally, periods of gloom and not of joy. That subsequently, when superstition had in some measure relaxed its grip, they became festive occasions, celebrated so luxuriously that both Sulla and Augustus felt themselves obliged to promulgate laws restricting expenditures in connection with them,[255] may be taken as only another instance of man’s ineradicable tendency to convert his fast days into feast days.