Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/474

 446 Revieivs.

question of the Sabbath and other Rest-Days by his comparative method. Much has been written on the institution of the Jewish Sabbath, but the question is here for the first time discussed on evidence collected outside the Semitic area. Primitive man had various motives for setting apart certain days of rest. First, a tabu was imposed as a propitiation of his gods, who, it was believed, would be offended if on days set apart for thank-offerings or for intercession, any secular work was carried out. Such days were regarded as evil or unlucky, because work done on them would necessarily be fruitless. Secondly, there was the need for perio- dical inter-tribal fair days, when ordinary labour was interrupted in order to allow the tribesmen to convey their goods to a common market-place on the frontier. Such tabus can best be studied in the Pacific area, and it is probable that the earliest periodic rest- days were those of market-days, the intervals between which would naturally constitute the week. Hence came the Roman 7iiifidinium, an eight-day week, peasants assembling on the market- day, which was marked as a holiday in the schools, and was spent in banqueting. Again, the phases of the moon naturally regulated such periodical rest-days. We read in Homer that the Noumenia was being celebrated at Ithaca on the day of the test of the vow of Odysseus. The simplest way would be to divide the lunar month into two fortnights, as was the case with the Egyptians and Peruvians. This leads to the origin of our week, which is recorded in the cuneiform Babylonian calendar found by George Smith in 1869. The word "Sabbath" probably means "a day of atonement." It is still uncertain whether the Jews borrowed their week bodily from the Babylonians. We hear of Saul holding a new moon festival, when the nobles " sat at meat with the king," and there is good reason to believe that in the days of the Prophets the new moon and the Sabbath were identical. The seven days week, originally a pagan institution, seems to have reached Rome after Pompey's conquests. On all those questions Dr. Hutton Webster has collected a mass of well-arranged information, and the book is now of special value, as the question how far the efficiency of labour depends on periodical rest-days is

claiming special attention.

W. Crook p:.