is subject in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for June,
1895:--

"In dealing with the origination of actions or customs in which is
involved what Dr. Fewkes calls the ceremonial circuit,[158-1] it is
difficult to determine the value of the factor, whether it be large or
small, that is due to the greater convenience of moving in a right-handed
direction. Occasionally the dextral circuit is followed in cases in which
it is evidently less convenient than the sinistral would be, as in
dealing cards in all ordinary games. Also, who can tell just how large or
small an element may depend upon the tradition that the left hand in
itself is uncanny without reference to the sun's apparent motion? There
certainly is a general feeling of wide distribution that to be
left-handed is unfortunate. Dr. Fewkes's careful and valuable researches
among the Moki Indians of Arizona, however, show without doubt that they
in their religious rites make the circuits sinistrally, _i.e._, contrary
to the apparent course of the sun, or, as physicists say,
contra-clockwise. The Mokis also are careful to stir medicines according
to the sinistral circuit. But doubtless instances go to show that among
Asiatic and European peoples the general belief or feeling is that the
dextral circuit--_i.e._, clockwise, or with the apparent motion of the
sun--is the correct and auspicious direction."

"As contra-sunwise notions were thought to be of ill omen or to be able
to work in supernatural ways, so it came to be believed that to reverse
other acts--as, for instance, reading the Bible or repeating the Lord's
Prayer backward--might produce powerful counter-charms. The negroes in
the Southern States often resort to both of these latter practices to lay
disturbing ghosts. In the ring games of our school children they always
move sunwise, though whether because of convenience or from some
forgotten reason who can say?"

"In New Harbor, Newfoundland, it is customary, in getting off small
boats, especially when gunning or sealing, to take pains to start from
east to west, and, when the wind will permit, the same custom is observed
in getting large schooners under way. So, too, in the Western Isles, off
the coast of Scotland, boats at starting are, or at any rate used to be,
rowed in a sunwise course to insure a lucky voyage."

"It will be noticed that in several of these cures, as well as in some of
the charms already cited, no rule is given as to the direction to be