in the earliest
times, held toward the summer solstice, at the time of the first wheat and
barley harvest. In Babylonia, as in primitive Europe, there were only two
seasons; the festival of Tammuz, coming at the end of winter and the
beginning of summer, was a fast followed by a feast, a time of mourning
for winter, of rejoicing for summer. It is part of the primitive function
of sacred ritual to be symbolical of natural processes, a mysterious
representation of natural processes with the object of bringing them
about.[146] The Tammuz festival was an appeal to the powers of Nature to
exhibit their generative functions; its erotic character is indicated not
only by the well-known fact that the priestesses of Ishtar (the Kadishtu,
or "holy ones") were prostitutes, but by the statements in Babylonian
legends concerning the state of the earth during Ishtar's winter absence,
when the bull, the ass, and man ceased to reproduce. It is evident that
the return of spring, coincident with the Tammuz festival, was regarded as
the period for the return of the reproductive instinct even in man.[147]
So that along this line also we are led back to a great procreative
festival.

Thus the great spring festivals were held between March and June,
frequently culminating in a great orgy on Midsummer's Eve. The next great
season of festivals in Europe was in autumn. The beginning of August was a
great festival in Celtic lands, and the echoes of it, Rhys remarks, have
not yet died out in Wales.[148] The beginning of November, both in Celtic
and Teutonic countries, was a period of bonfires.[149] In Germanic
countries especially there was a great festival at the time. The Germanic
year began at Martinmas (November 11th), and the great festival of the
year was then held. It is the oldest Germanic festival on record, and
retained its importance even in the Middle Ages. There was feasting all
night, and the cattle that were to be killed were devoted to the gods; the
goose was associated with this festival.[150] These autumn festivals
culminated in the great festival of the winter solstice which we have
perpetuated in the celebrations of Christmas and New Year. Thus, while
the two great primitive culminating festivals of spring and autumn
correspond exactly (as we shall see) with the seasons of maximum
fecundation, even in the Europe of to-day, the earlier spring (March)
and--though less closely--autumn (November) festivals correspond with the
peri