ce a nonnatural condition of body and mind, favorable to ecstatic
experiences, and favorable or not, as the case may be, to a genuine
religious life.[392]

+209+. As with other religious observances, so with purificatory
ceremonies the tendency is to mass and organize them--they are made to
occur at regular times and under fixed conditions, as in the Christian
Lent, the Moslem Ramadan, and the Creek Busk. Such arrangements give
orderliness to outward religious life, but are likely to diminish or
destroy spontaneity in observances. Ceremonies of this sort have great
vitality--they are handed on from age to age, the later religion
adopting and modifying and reinterpreting the forms of the earlier. In
such cases the lower conceptions survive in the minds of the masses, and
are moralized by the more spiritual natures, and their influence on
society is therefore of a mixed character.

CEREMONIES CONNECTED WITH SEASONS AND PERIODS

+210+. Some of these have already been mentioned under "Economic
Ceremonies." We may here take a general survey of festivals the times of
whose celebration are determined by the divisions of the year, and thus
constitute calendars.[393] The earliest calendars appear to have been
fixed by observation of the times when it was proper to gather the
various sorts of food--to hunt animals and gather grubs and plants (as
in Central Australia), or this or that species of fish (as in Hawaii).
The year was thus divided according to the necessities of life--seasons
were fixed by experience.

+211+. At a comparatively early period, however, the phases of the moon
attracted attention, and became the basis of calendars. Lunar calendars
are found among savage and half-civilized tribes of various grades of
culture in Polynesia, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and were retained
for a time by most ancient civilized peoples. Later observation included
the movements of the sun; it is only among advanced peoples that
festivals are connected with equinoxes and solstices. The more
scientific calendars gradually absorbed the earlier, and it is probable
that simple ceremonies that were originally neither agricultural nor
astral were taken up into the later systems and reinterpreted.[394]

+212+. When, from observation of climatic conditions and lunar changes,
a general division of the year came to be made into spring, summer,
autumn, and winter, or several similar seasons (sometimes with
intermediate points), festiv