Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/85

Rh for bearers. It became the standard of their warring and wandering life.

In addition to what has been called the ark or tribal fetich, the mystery-bag that each Indian had is to be compared with the Israelite teraph, which was a family or tutelary fetich independent of the national worship, and later was the subject of frequent denunciation. It was probably made of carved wood, and was often carried on the person, but was generally held as a household god or domestic oracle. The teraphim markedly resembled the Roman penates.

This comparison is explanatory of the statement that neither the Israelites nor the Indians worshiped idols. Its truth depends upon what is considered to be an idol. If the definition is limited to the human form the assertion is true, because their religion was not anthropomorphic; but fetiches were certainly the objects of worship, the recrudescent forms of which, appearing even in civilization, have been amulets, lucky-stones, pieces of wood and charms.

Sabbath.—It is not possible, in discussing the Israelites, to neglect the institution of the Sabbath. The four quarters of the moon made an obvious division of the month, and wherever the new moon and full moon are made religious occasions there comes a cycle of fourteen or fifteen days, of which the week of seven or eight days forms half. It is significant that in the older parts of the Hebrew Scriptures the new moon and the Sabbath are almost invariably mentioned together. Among the Israelites, and perhaps among the Canaanites, joy on the new moon became the type of religious festivity in general. There is an indication that in old times the feast of the new moon lasted two days, so that an approximation to regular recurrence of the subdivisions constituting the week was gained. The Babylonians and Assyrians had an institution dividing the month into four parts, by which, on the days assigned, labor was forbidden; but originally the Israelites' abstinence from labor was only incidental to their not working at the same time that they were feasting. While they were nomads, with only intermittent work, they had no occasion for a fixed day of rest.

The new moons were at least as important as the Sabbath until the seventh century before Christ. When the local sacrifices were abolished and the rites and feasts were limited to the central altar, which practically could be visited only at rare intervals, the general festival of the new moon ceased. The Sabbath did not, but became an institution of law divorced from ritual. The connection between the week of seven days and the work of creation is now recognized as secondary. The original sketch of the decalogue probably did not contain any allusion to the creation, and it