FESTIVALS (OF., Fr. festival, from :NIL. festiralis, from Lat. frstirus, festive, from /eaten/. feast), or FeAsTs. Days or seasons set apart for public rejoicing and rest from ordinary labor, at stated intervals, or occasionally for religious pur poses solely, or for the celebration of some per son or event. Originally, all festivals were of religious character, since eating, drinking, and other pleasures connected with them could not be indulged without sharing these enjoyments with the divinities. The earliest of all festivals seem to have been connected with the cult of the dead. At great banquets communion was held with the'departed spirits and offerings were made to them. As clans grew and became scattered, such common meals could only be arranged occa sionally. When the great luminaries began to at tract worship and the ancestral spirits were in some way connected with them, these banquets were held annually or monthly. While purely animistic festivals are still observed in different parts of the world. when food and drink are offered to the dead at their burial-places, in the vast majority of instances the primitive signifi cance has been obscured or wholly obliterated by a superinduced reference to natural phe nomena or historic events. Wandering tribes are greatly attracted by the changing phases of the moon, and the festivals characteristic of the nomadic state are chiefly lunar. When men set tle down to agricultural life, they become depend ent on sunshine and rain; winter and summer, seed-time and harvest. equinoxes and solstices be come the occasions for festivities. With the de velopment of a more complex social organization and the rise of great empires, the interest in national self-preservation becomes acute. and the feasts assume a political character as cele brations of deliverance and victory. Veneration of the great religious leaders who have deeply impressed a people's life leads to the setting apart of certain days in their honor. But what ever new significance is added to an earlier festi val, something of its old character is likely to adhere to it. The god who sleeps during the win ter and is awakened front his slumber at the vernal equinox has much in common with the ancestral spirit to whom new vitality is given by a libation of blood, and it is natural that the cele bration of those mighty beings whose changing fortunes and all too human experiences were seen portrayed in the ceaseless play of nature's forces, should borrow a feature from the banquets in honor of the departed dead. Fellowship with and likeness to the spirits associated with the ele ments of nature are sought in more exacting cultic performances. in solemn mimicry and self-inflicted pains the acts and sufferings of the deity are imitated. Sympathy with flue solar divinity as well as with his mother and his spouse in the loss of generative power and the rectum-1y of reproductive strength is expressed by the worshiper in self-imposed impotence and sterility, or unrestrained sexual abandonment. Songs, shouts. dances and processions, simple scenic representations. and ultimately flue drama are the results of suet] symbolic actions. When historic personalities and events begin to be cele brated. the character of the gods is apt to be transferred to the heroes, and the divine experi ences blend with the human. This the ease with the great religious leaders, whose apotheosis is most natural.
The festivals celebrated by the ancient Toltecs and Aztecs of Mexico, and the Incas of Peru.
while retaining features of ancestor-worship, were for the most part of a solar and lunar char acter. The Nexicans had their chief feasts in Nay, June, and December. The Peruvians, besides the new moons, also celebrated the summer and winter solstices and the equinoxes. The Chinese have a very elaborate system of festivals. Of these the most important is the one celebrated in honor of the dead at the winter solstice. Even the Buddhists of China have their feasts com memorating the birth of Gautania Buddha, his departure from home, and his entrance into Nirvana. The Karens have an annual feast in honor of the departed, while the Nagas of Assam make their offerings to the dead each moon. In Siam the Sth and 15th of every month are con sidered sacred. From the Ya.jur Veda period to the present day numerous feasts have been ob served in India. The Holi at the vernal equinox and the Dasahara in the autumn are mentioned as early as Aitareya Brahmana. In honor of Vishnu, Siva, and Indra, the Ganges, and the goddess Kali. festivals are still held. The ancient Persians had four solar feasts, at the solstices and the equinoxes, an annual funeral feast in February, a celebration of the five intercalary days, and several festivals to which a historic significance was given, as celebrations of vic tories like that of Iran over Turan, and of Feri dun over Zohak. The Fravardigan, or New Year's Feast, had distinctly animistic features. With the Mithra cult its great feast on the 25th of December passed to Asia Minor and the West. The Asianic peoples seem to have had their fes tivals at the equinoxes. Thus the Phrygians cele brated the sleep and the awakening of the sun god in the fall and the spring. The intense wor ship of the mother-goddess in Asia Minor no doubt influenced profoundly the festivals of the Ionian Greeks.
In Greece each demos had its peculiar calen dar. But the iopri, or new-moon feast (Odyssey, xx. 156) was probably kept very generally in earlier times. A harvest festival, and an ancestral feast in honor of Erechtheus also go back to a high antiquity (Iliad. ix. 533; ii. 550). The Athenian calendar which is best known contains one or more festivals each month. In January the Lencea, or wine-press feast in honor of Dionysus was celebrated (see BAccuus) ; in February the Anthesteria of Dionysus, the Diasia of Zeus, and the lesser Eleusinia (see ELEUSINIAN 141YSTER IES) ; in March the Pendia of Zeus, the Elaphe bolia of Artemis, and the greater Dionysia; in April the Munychia of Artemis, and the Del phinia of Apollo; in Nay, the Thargelia of Apollo, and the Plynteria and Callynteria of Athene; in June, the Diipolia of Zeus. and the Scirophoria of Athene; in July, the Crotria of Cronus, and the Panathencra (q.v.) of Athene; in August, the Metageitnia of Apollo; in Septem her, the Boedramia of Apollo, the Yemeseial, and the greater Eleusinia; in October, the Pyanepsia of Apollo, the Osehophoria of Dionysus. the Athencea of Athene, the Thesmophoria of Deme ter, and the Apaturia-; in November, the Maima kterie of Zeus; and in December, the lesser Dionysia. The Nemeseia was an ancestor feast; historic associations clustered about other festi vals, while still others were nature-feasts. Great significance was acquired by the national feasts, of which the games and dramatic performances became the leading attractions. See Isrnmus;