Unknown column “has” in ‘where clause

I am using laravel 5.7

When I use whereHas to check a relation’s existence, I face with Unknown column "has" in 'where clause Error! Why?

this is my code:

$query->whereHas('departures', function ( $query) {
    $query->whereBetween('depart_date', [date($this->data['departFrom_date']), date($this->data['departTo_date'])]);
});

and this is my model part:

    public function departures()
    {
        return $this->hasMany(CruiseSailingDepartures::class);
    }

Update:

The query was started with:

$query = DB::table('table_name');

Answer

I have found my problem, I was using DB::table('tablename') instead of using the Model (TableName:: ...)

Thanks for all answers