these observances at both seasons.  New Year’s Day, on which the rites are celebrated, is called Ashur; it is the tenth day of Moharram, the first month of the Mohammedan calendar.  On that day bonfires are kindled in Tunis and also at Merrakech and among some tribes of the neighbourhood.[558] At Demnat, in the Great Atlas mountains, people kindle a large bonfire on New Year’s Eve and leap to and fro over the flames, uttering words which imply that by these leaps they think to purify themselves from all kinds of evil.  At Aglu, in the province of Sus, the fire is lighted at three different points by an unmarried girl, and when it has died down the young men leap over the glowing embers, saying, “We shook on you, O Lady Ashur, fleas, and lice, and the illnesses of the heart, as also those of the bones; we shall pass through you again next year and the following years with safety and health.”  Both at Aglu and Glawi, in the Great Atlas, smaller fires are also kindled, over which the animals are driven.  At Demnat girls who wish to marry wash themselves in water which has been boiled over the New Year fire; and in Dukkala people use the ashes of that fire to rub sore eyes with.  New Year fires appear to be commonly kindled among the Berbers who inhabit the western portion of the Great Atlas, and also among the Arabic-speaking tribes of the plains; but Dr. Westermarck found no traces of such fires among the Arabic-speaking mountaineers of Northern Morocco and the Berbers of the Rif province.  Further, it should be observed that water ceremonies like those which are practised at Midsummer are very commonly observed in Morocco at the New Year, that is, on the tenth day of the first month.  On the morning of that day (Ashur) all water or, according to some people, only spring water is endowed with a magical virtue (baraka), especially before sunrise.  Hence at that time the people bathe and pour water over each other; in some places they also sprinkle their animals, tents, or rooms.  In Dukkala some of the New Year water is preserved at home till New Year’s Day (Ashur) of next year; some of it is kept to be used as medicine, some of it is poured on the place where the corn is threshed, and some is used to water the money which is to be buried in the ground; for the people think that the earth-spirits will not be able to steal the buried treasures which have thus been sanctified with the holy water.[559]

[The Midsummer festival in Morocco seems to be of Berber origin.]

Thus the rites of fire and water which are observed in Morocco at Midsummer and New Year appear to be identical in character and intention, and it seems certain that the duplication of the rites is due to a conflict between two calendars, namely the old Julian calendar of the Romans, which was based on the sun, and the newer Mohammedan calendar of the Arabs, which is based on the moon.  For not only was the Julian calendar in use throughout the whole of Northern Africa