Note 28 — Chapter I · TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS

Alexander, op. cit., pp. 59 sqq.; Malo, op. cit., pp. 186-210. This New Year’s festival with its accompanying taboo is also referred to in an early work entitled Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands in the Years 1824-1825, London, 1826, pp. 11 sq. According to A. Fornander (An Account of the Polynesian Race, London, 1878, i, 119 sq.) the Hawaiian year consisted of twelve 30-day months with five additional tabu days intercalated at the end of Welehu. If this statement be correct, the Hawaiian epagomenal days would furnish a remarkable parallel to those of the ancient Mexicans and Egyptians (below, pp. 279 sqq.). But the best authorities agree that the Hawaiian year was strictly lunar, with months of 29 and 30 days in alternation and an occasional intercalary month.