Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/618

* FESTIVALS. 562 FESTIVALS. stalled as vicegerent of the god during the year. According to Berosus and Strabo the Sacaea had a Dionysiac character, and among the enjoyments it furnished was the crowning of a condemned criminal as mock king. For five days he had full license, and then was disrobed, scourged, and impaled. The five days are probably the hu- mustu or intercalary days. At certain Ishtar feasts women sacrificed their virginity or offered themselves for the benefit of the goddess, ac- cording to Greek writers. A special significance seems to have been attached to the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th days of the month, according to an ancient calendar, and the term shabattum is explained in a lexical tablet as "day of the rest of the heart." It is therefore possible that the Sabbath is of Babylonian origin as a day when the heart of the gods was pacified by sacri- fice. Whether it was observed by the ancient Canaanites and Phoenicians cannot be determined. (See Sabbath.) The clearest testimony concern- ing their festivals is found in the Hebrew records, since it was from these Semitic peoples that the invaders borrowed the agricultural festivals. The license that prevailed at the Ashtaroth and Adonis festivals is vouched for by many wit- nesses. While South Arabian inscriptions are begin- ning to clear up the history of the peninsula be- fore Mohammed (see Min^eans; Sab.eans), we are still dependent upon Islamic writers for our knowledge of the festivals that were kept in that period. In spite of their misapprehensions, it is possible to discern the fact that the great festi- vals of the Muslim calendar are adaptations of pagan feasts, and even the manner of celebration is certainly a continuation of the old traditions. The great feast of ancient Arabia was in the spring, in the month called Rajab, during which, on account of this festival, cessation of hostilities between the tribes was ordained. This sacred season was originally fixed at the beginning of the summer, but the ignorance of astronomy in the earliest time, and the insistence upon a lunar year, caused the months to recede from year to year. At this time the firstlings were offered. Muharram was the first winter month, and its beginning marked the New Year with a festival at the autumnal equinox. The first ten days of the month are considered sacred by the Shiites and observed in commemoration of the martyr- dom of Hosein. (See Mohammedan Sects; Hasan and Hosein.) The tenth of the month is generally observed throughoul the Muslim world. The birthday of the Prophet in the third month is kept, and the 27th of the seventh month in commemoration of his supposed miraculous ascent to heaven. The first three days of Sha- wual. the tenth month, constitute the 'minor fes- tival.' it follows immediately upon the end of the fast of Ramadan (the ninth month I. and is a time of general rejoicing after the rigors of this season. (See RAMADAN.) (In the tenth of Dhu'l lliji.ili (the <l;u of the sacrifice at Mecca; sec IIa.i.ii begins the 'great festival.' lasting three or four days. The departure and return of tin- pilgrimage an' also occasions of ceremony I rejoicing. Many other days have a local observance in honor of some great man or event. The method of keeping :i Mohammedan holiday varies greatly. Public processions arc often a prominent feature. Friday (el-Jumah) is fre- quently called the Mohammedan Sunday. It is the great day for public gathering at the mosque, but has no other point of resemblance to the Christian holy day. Before their invasion of Palestine, the Hebrew tribes seem to have had one important annual festival, the Passover (q.v. ). This Pesach, or leap-feast, so called probably from the gamboling of the young, was celebrated about the time of the vernal equinox, apparently by each household offering the firstlings of its flocks and herds. The recipients of these sacrifices may have been the household gods (Elohim), as even after the set- tlement in Palestine, when the people lived in houses and no longer in tents, they seem to have smeared the blood upon the threshold and the door-posts, where these guardian spirits were conceived to have their abode. It is probable that the festival of the new moon was also celebrated in this period; and the Feast of Sheep-Shearing may be of equal antiquity (I. Sam. xxv., 2; II. Sam. xiii. 23). When the different tribes had settled down to agriculture, they naturally learned of their new neighbors how to celebrate properly the harvest feasts, until then unknown to them. The great agricultural feasts were three in number. At the Feast of Unleavened Bread (called Hag ham-mazzoth, from hag, a dance, a pilgrimage, a festival, and mazzoth, cakes) the first-fruits of the barley harvest were presented to the local Baal or to Jehovah. Seven weeks later the Feast of Weeks was observed {Hag shabu'oth or Hag haq-qasir; shabu'oth, weeks; qasir, harvest) when the wheat crop had been gathered in. The time between these two feasts was a single festive season. In the autumn the Feast of Tabernacles came (Hag has-sukkoth or Hag asiph : sukkoth, booths, tents; asiph, gather- ing, harvest ) . "the ingathering at the year's end." This was on the occasion of the vintage and the olive-gathering. Its name was derived from the custom of living in groves and gardens in huts made of boughs. These booths were the scene of much merriment. Sacred dances were an impor- tant feature. At Shiloh the young maidens per- formed choral dances in the vineyards (Judges xxi., 19 sqq.). Eli's suspicion of Hannah shows how freely the wine was used even by women on these occasions (I. Sam. i. 14). The denuncia- tions of the pre-exilic prophets reveal the essen- tially Dionysiac and licentious character of these festivals at the great shrines. To such an extent were drunken orgies and sexual indulgences char- acteristic features of these feasts, that men like Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah declared the sacrificial system and the temple cult con- trary to the will of Jehovah. Concerning some early festivals our information is very scanty. Thus the Jephthah festival in Gilead, at which a virgin apparently was sacrificed, may have been either in honor of a virgin goddess, or more prob- ably of the divinity who opens the womb, in order to insure the fertility of the tribe (Judges xi. ■nil. The centralization of the cult in Jerusalem ami the attempted abolition of all sanctuaries outside of the capital in the reign of Josiah I B I 637-608) had a tendency at once to onohanco the importance of the great festivals and 1" check the moral abuses associated with the rural feasts. But the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the independent statehood of Judah naturally caused a revival of the local cults. That even some of tin- features mosl vehemently denounced by the prophets still continued in the fifth and