temporary spiritualistic
_seances_, and that the habit of "trying projects," no doubt universal in
colonial times, had nothing to do with the delusion in question. (See
note, p. 153.)

Ancient popular divination would, as a matter of course, have taken a
ritual character, and been associated especially with particular seasons.
It is therefore more than an accident, that many of these harmless
observations seem especially connected with Halloween. The Day of All
Saints, of which name our English title is a translation, precedes that
of All Souls; for the institution and significance of both the church has
its explanation. Yet this account is not the correct one: these feasts
descend, not from any Christian ecclesiastical ordination, but from an
ancient festival of the dead; they represent the survival of a
celebration which probably consisted in the bestowing on the departed,
after the ingathering of the harvest, his share of the fruits of the
ground, conveyed by direct material administration. That at such a period
spirits of the dead should be supposed to walk the earth, would be a
matter of course; in early time these would be conceived as returning in
order to behold and join the sacred dances of the tribe. Accordingly,
there seem to be indications showing an original association of some of
these usages with the lower world; such may be the significance of the
backward movement, or the inversion of garments, occasionally
recommended. In order to put one's self in connection with the world of
darkness, it is essential to reverse the procedure which is proper for
the realm of light. This principle, appearing in mediaeval magic, could
also be illustrated from savage custom. It can hardly be doubted that the
limitation of such forecasts to the field of choosing partners for life
is but a survival of an older practice, in which divinations of fortune
in other directions also were sought; on the day sacred to the dead, it
may be that the latter, as having power and knowledge, were invoked to
act as illuminators. The stress laid on dreams appears to imply a
practice of evoking spirits, whether of the deceased or of the living.

In the division entitled "Love and Marriage" we are dealing not with
ceremonies, but "signs;" in the former case a voluntary action is implied
in the consulter of fate; in the latter, the subject is passive. The word
"signs" is a popular term for omens of any kind; in this case we cannot
be in error