It will be well to begin our investigation with the natural divisions of the year. The changing seasons give several divisions one or other of which, according to preference, can be chosen as the beginning of the year. But this is not the case among the agricultural peoples. Their year falls into two parts, the period of vegetation and the time of rest intervening between the harvest and the resumption of ploughing. There are therefore two natural main divisions, the beginning of labour and the conclusion of the period of vegetation, the harvest. Both occur as the beginning of the year, the former however more rarely, as when among the Wadschagga ‘the raising of the plough-stick’ is also the ‘opening of the year’[942]. More frequently the harvest and the great festival associated with it form the turning-point of the year. Probably however we should rather speak of an end than of a beginning of the year, as is remarked by one writer in regard to the Dyaks of south-east Borneo:--For them the rice-harvest is a principal division of the year (_njelo_). In September, at the completion of the harvest, the year is at an end. A definite beginning, a New Year’s Day, is unknown among them[943]. However when the year is reckoned continuously, beginning and end practically coincide. In the literature of comparative religion festivals of this nature are a much-discussed problem which cannot be gone into here, since it transgresses the limits of this investigation. I shall give only a few selected examples in order to make clear the relationship with the beginning of the year. Among the Carolina Indians the feast of the first-fruits or harvest was the most splendid of all: it appears to have ended the old year and begun the new. It began in August when the corn-harvest was completely over. As a preliminary all the inhabitants provided themselves with new clothes, new pots, pans, and other household utensils, and then collected all their old clothes and other worn-out things, swept and cleaned their houses, places of assemblage, and the whole town, and threw clothes and refuse, together with all the remaining supplies of food (corn etc.), on to a heap, to which they afterwards set fire. After this they took physic, and fasted for three days, and a general amnesty was proclaimed. On the fourth morning the chief priest kindled fire with pieces of wood at the public meeting-place, by which means every house in the town was then provided with fire. Then the women went to the harvest-field, fetched new corn, prepared it, and brought it with pomp to the meeting-place, where the whole populace was assembled in new clothes. Eating went on, especially among the men, and at night they danced. The festival lasted three days, and on the four following days visits were paid to neighbouring towns[944]. The New Year festival of the Konkau of California is a funeral rite which has undergone transformation. The ‘Dance for the Dead’ took place at the