Primitive Time-reckoning / A study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoples

by Martin P. Nilsson

3. THE PRE-MOHAMMEDAN ARABIANS.

The series of months now used by the Arabs is the ancient Meccan series, which, on account of the importance of Mecca as a centre of trade, had acquired a more than local extension and was adopted by Islam. Besides this series others are handed down, partly by Arabian writers, and partly in the Sabean inscriptions: the latter I pass over, since there is no translation of them, so that they are of no use for my purpose[860]. The Meccan series is:—1, safar I, now called muharram, ‘the holy’, a re-naming which, according to an Arabic author, Buchari, first took place under Islam; 2, safar II; 3, rabi I; 4, rabi II; 5, jumada I; 6, jumada II; 7, rajab; 8, sha’ban; 9, ramadan; 10, shawwal; 11, dhu-l-qa’da; 12, dhu-l-hijja. These names, in so far as they are explainable, refer to seasons and festivals. This is best seen from the three pairs of months which form the first half-year. I quote Wellhausen:[861]—“For the season Çafar the Lisan 6, 134 gives abundant examples; it gives a name to plants which grow at that time, animals which are born then, and rains which fall in it. It falls in the autumn. Gumâda often occurs in the old poetry and always refers to the worst winter-cold, the dear time in which the poor must be fed by the rich. Especially favoured is the description of the evil night in Gumâda, when the dogs do not bark, the snakes, which are otherwise out at night-time, remain in their holes, and the traveller eagerly looks out for a friendly fire. The Rabî’ falls, according to the calendar, between Çafar and Gumâda, and therefore in late autumn. But commonly the Rabî’ is the season when, after the autumn and winter rains, the steppe becomes green and the tribes disperse to the pastures, where the camels bring forth their young and the rich milking-season approaches.... The camels are pregnant ‘in the tenth month’, and bring forth their young in February.” This statement is supported by the etymology. Safar comes from a root with the meaning ‘to be empty’. Since two months appear between safar and the cold season, the two months of safar include the end of the dry and the beginning of the rainy season, before a more abundant vegetation has sprung up, and are therefore the worst period of lack of food. The root from which jumada comes has the sense ‘to grow stiff’, which suits the time of the sharp cold. Rabi as a season has a double sense, it is partly used to describe a period in autumn which is often identified with charif, the date-harvest, and partly to describe the pasture-season in spring. The explanation of this fact is doubtless that the word refers to the sprouting vegetation, the pasture-season, partly, indeed, to the vegetation which appears simultaneously with the autumn rains, but partly to the richer pasture which springs up with the increasing heat after the winter rains. Out of these three seasons, according to a familiar precedent, six months are made. They do not exactly cover the winter half of the year, but fall somewhat earlier, since the last month, jumada II, belongs to the cold period. As for the other months, the sense of ramadan, ‘the hot’, is certain, and it alludes to the warm season, in fact to its beginning, since ramadan is the third month after jumada II. The attempted explanations of sha’ban and shawwal are all very uncertain. The other three names refer to festivals. In rajab a festival was celebrated in all holy places, in which sacrifices of camels and sheep were offered up. The root means ‘to fear, to reverence’; the month is therefore called the ‘holy’, or the ‘deaf and dumb’, since the noise of weapons is stilled. The names of the last two months refer to the great pilgrimage to Mecca. Dhu-l-qa’da is ‘the month of sitting’, and the explanation given for the name—that the month was so called because in it no expeditions or predatory excursions took place—is doubtless correct. It is the first month of the holy peace which prevails during the time of pilgrimage. The second month is named from the feast of pilgrims itself, dhu-l-hijja.

CHAPTER IX.
CALENDAR REGULATION. 1. THE INTERCALATION.

The circumstance that the lunar months are among almost all peoples named from the phases of Nature involves the necessity of an agreement between the two really incommensurable periods given by the sun and the moon. This problem is the central point of the older scientific chronology. We shall now investigate more closely how the problem has arisen, and what has been its development among the primitive peoples.

Where there is only a series of less than twelve months, the problem of calendar regulation does not exist. The series is begun on the appearance of the signs from which the first month is named, and is continued from that point until the end. The vacant period serves, unconsciously of course, to bring lunar reckoning and solar year into agreement. Nevertheless the months can be fixed in a more accurate fashion. The Eskimos of Greenland, for instance, mark the winter solstice by the position of the sun, and then begin to count the moons, and continue doing so until the moon can no longer be observed in the bright summer nights[862]. The Lower Thompson Indians in British Columbia counted up to ten or sometimes eleven months, the remainder of the year being called the autumn or late fall. This indefinite period of unnamed months enabled them to bring the lunar and solar year into harmony. Also the Shuswap and the Lillooet in the same country counted eleven months and then the ‘fall-time’, which was the balance of the year[863].

Among most peoples, however, a series of months covering the whole year has arisen, and this series has more often 13 than 12 months. Here the difficulties first begin. If a new moon falls on a certain day of the solar year, in the following year a new moon will occur about 11 days before or 19 days after this day, and in the year after that about 21 days before or 9 days after it. Since the natural phases are bound up with the solar year, they get out of place in relation to the moon. The situation is still further complicated by the fact that the phases of Nature, and with them the occupations, vary somewhat according to the peculiarities of the climate in different years. Hence doubt arises, and the accustomed order of succession of the months is broken. And this is not a mere theoretical piece of reasoning: primitive peoples are not seldom in perplexity as to which month they are to count. Of the Dakota it is said that they often have heated debates as to which moon it is. The raccoons do not come out of their winter holes at the same time every winter, the conditions which cause inflammation of the eyes do not appear at the same time every spring, the geese lay their eggs at a slightly different period according to the character of the year. Twelve moons do not bring them back to the same point in the season as that from which their reckoning began; and therefore towards the end of the winter there is dispute among the Dakota as to the correct current date[864]. If the people has a thirteenth month, the matter is no better. Of the Pawnee, who had an intercalary month, it is stated that they sometimes became inextricably involved in reckoning, and were obliged to have recourse to objects about them to rectify their computations. Councils have been known to be disturbed, or even broken up, in consequence of irreconcilable differences of opinion as to the correctness of their calculation[865]. The same is reported of the Caffres. Their months are named e. g. from the first cry of the cuckoo, the flowering of the erythusia, the dust in the dry season, midwinter, and since all these phenomena may appear at somewhat different dates, even the Caffre astrologers do not know what moon they are really in. The first appearance of the Pleiades just before sunrise always rectifies the confusion[866]. Even peoples who have a developed, astronomically regulated, lunisolar calendar sometimes have recourse to the natural phases in order to rectify it. In Bali not only were the stars observed but also the flowering of certain plants, or even the date when the white ants got their wings, in order to rectify the lunar calendar[867]. The months of the Bataks of Sumatra are regulated by the constellation Scorpio[868]: the magicians, who control the calendar, are not certain as to the position of the months, but look for general points of reference in the phenomena of Nature. Thus, for instance, the dates of certain migratory birds are known: they come in the fourth and go in the first month. In the third month a black flying-ant is accustomed to appear in great numbers. The presence of the bird of prey lali piuan makes known the sixth and seventh months. The bird sosoit sings in the eleventh month, and the turtle-dove is silent in the eighth. The west monsoon proclaims the third, storms are very frequent in the eleventh and twelfth[869].

Many peoples slip over the difficulties, they do not properly know of how many moons the year consists: such peoples are the Dyaks[870], the Warumbi of Central Africa[871], the Ibo-speaking peoples[872], the Algonquin[873]. But if a definite series of months is established, without a vacant interval such as occurs in the case of some peoples, the number of months naturally becomes 12 or 13. Even in this case the people sometimes let matters go as they will, as is reported of the Yukaghir. The people having been christianised, says our authority, it is now difficult to say whether the ancient Yukaghir made some adjustment by adding a month to accommodate their lunar year to the solar one. It seems to me, from the answers which I received from the Yukaghir to my inquiries, that this point did not interest them. Generally a month is the time from one new moon to another, but it did not matter to them whether twelve such months made up a full cycle of the year or not. When it was necessary they simply ignored some of the names of months, being far ahead[874]. The Koryak have twelve lunar months, and the first one begins at the time of the winter solstice and corresponds to our December. Yet they are very little troubled by the fact that in the interval between two winter solstices an extra new moon may occur[875]. The very perplexity described above implies a great advance, viz. the recognition of the difficulties, which is the first stage towards mastering them.

Therefore every now and again some month must be left out or a month added. This necessity, at first not recognised, or not clearly so, is the chief cause of the above-mentioned disagreement in the reckoning of the months[876]. For when the counting is performed in accordance with the series only, it soon happens (apart from the climatic variations of the years already mentioned) that the months deviate from the natural phases from which they are named. The arguments in the dispute as to which month it really is are based on the condition of the phases of nature: the result is a correction of the counting, i. e. the months are pushed forwards or backwards according to circumstances, i. e. the month which should have followed is left out, or a month is added to the series. Thus an intercalation comes about without it being suspected what is really done. In general the whole process is not even so conscious as the desire for theoretical exactness has led me to represent in using the example of the Dakota. The series and the number of months were from the beginning unstable, and the natural conditions have brought it about that this characteristic has been preserved in at least one particular, viz. that in certain cases a month could be passed over. Let us, for the sake of clearness, take a fictitious example from Swedish conditions. As a rule the rye-harvest falls at the beginning of August, the oat-harvest at the end of August and beginning of September, the potato-harvest at the end of September. These occupations might very well be distributed among three months named after them. But a year would sometimes come in which the oat-harvest took place about at the interval between two moons, the rye-harvest at the beginning of the first moon, and the potato-harvest at the end of the second moon. There would therefore be no place for a month of the oat-harvest, it must simply be omitted. That this is the case among the primitive peoples is proved by the fact that many, in fact most, of them have a series of thirteen months of which one must according to circumstances be passed over in certain years.

Experience teaches the peoples who have only a twelve-month series that this is not sufficient: so we are told of the Mandan and Minnetaree that they have generally recognised that the year has more than twelve months[877]. When the intercalary month, as among certain Indians, is named ‘the lost month’[878], this points to the fact that it is an addition to a twelve-month series, just as in Babylonia, where the same method of expression recurs[879]. The Masai have twelve months[880]. The great rains cease with loo-’n-gokwa, which is named from the evening setting of the Pleiades. Should the rains still continue at the beginning of the following month, the Masai say:—“We have forgotten, this is loo-’n-gokwa.” Should the hot season not be over at the beginning of the month following ol-oiborare, they say:—“We have forgotten, this is ol-oiborare”[881]. It is clear that if through the dead reckoning the months are advanced in relation to the seasons, one month will be repeated, i. e. intercalated. The preceding month is forgotten.

Thus the necessity for modifying the series of months is felt, and in response to this an empirical intercalation arises. When this intercalation is left to itself, conflicting opinions, as we have already seen, arise as to it. An end is made to these disputes and order is established when the decision is placed in the hands of definite persons. This was done among the Jews, the regulation of whose calendar affords a particularly plain example of this empirical intercalation, which, out of religious conservatism, they kept until well into the post-Christian period, in fact until the necessities of the Dispersion compelled, from the second century, a mitigation of the original rules, and finally at an uncertain period, perhaps not until medieval times, led to a calculated regulation. According to the Talmud the appearance of the crescent of the new moon was determined by deposition before a court of justice of three members. After that the beginning of the month was signalised in the country in earlier times by fires, later by couriers. A suitable intercalation was absolutely necessary for the celebration of the feasts, since at the Feast of the Passover on the 14th of Nisan the first-fruits of the corn were offered, and the two other great feasts were also of an agrarian character. For this purpose the court of justice visited the fields. If they saw that the crops were not yet ripe at the Passover time, and that the fruits also were not so far advanced as they were accustomed to be at this time of the year, they intercalated a month in accordance with these two signs: if only one of these signs was to be observed the decision was made to depend on other minor circumstances[882]. By way of example I give an official document of Rabbi Gamaliel II, issued to the inhabitants of Judaea, Galilaea, and the Dispersion at the date 90–110 A. D.[883]. “We make known to you that the lambs are small and the young of the birds are tender and the time of the corn-harvest has not yet come, so that it seems right to me and my brothers to add to this year thirty days.” The intercalary month was the last month of the year, Adar. On rare occasions Nisan, when it had begun, was altered into Adar II. Here the intercalation took place in the interests of the religious cult, but the cult on its side was dependent on the natural phenomena. The intercalation is of the same empirical order as that which we have met among the primitive peoples. It is only that the development of the ecclesiastical laws has led to a judicial procedure, and the task of determining the intercalation has been handed over to a committee of the Sanhedrin.

There exists a possibility of a somewhat different development among peoples who originally had less than twelve months and also counted a vacant interval: it is conceivable that the unnamed months may be named, until at last twelve months have names and the vacant interval remains only as an intercalary month. This seems to be the case among the Central Eskimos; they have a ‘sunless’ month, which covers the time when the sun does not appear and when there is also hardly any twilight: it is said to be of indeterminate length. After an interval of a few years this month is left out, if new moon and winter solstice coincide[884]. When the intercalary month has thus arisen, its position in the year is fixed. One other example of this method may exist. The author who gives the list of the months of the Kwakiutl of the Island of Vancouver, beginning with March, inserts between the tenth and eleventh months the winter solstice, and says that the solstice moons are called by a name which probably means ‘split both ways’, and adds that the readjustment is made in midwinter[885]. Unfortunately the author does not tell us how the readjustment is made, whether the winter solstice moon or some other moon is the intercalary month. If the former be the case, the explanation is given by the above.

There is rarely any rule for the position of the intercalary month. Where the sources simply enumerate a thirteen-month series, it is to be presumed that no fixed position for the intercalary month exists. But such a month can be found, since naturally a month named from a natural phase of less importance will be omitted, or an additional month inserted, at a time when there is little work going on, and when consequently little attention is paid to the time-reckoning. So it is said of the Pawnee that the intercalary month was usually put in after the summer months[886]. On the Society Islands the month corresponding to our March or our July was commonly omitted[887].

The first regulation of the calendar is therefore roughly empirical, and in fact is nothing but an occasional and arbitrary deviation, necessitated by the natural phases, from the existing series of months. The natural phases, however, as we saw in chapter IV, are determined in more accurate fashion by the stars, and particularly by their risings and settings. Consequently the months also can be named from stars, and a considerable number of such names of months was found in the lists of chapter VII. This phenomenon has hitherto been only briefly touched upon; for the regulation of the calendar it is of supreme importance, since the risings and settings of the stars accurately determine the date, so that the fluctuation of the natural phases is excluded. Where only one month is named after a star and determined by it, the series of months is immovably fixed.

Just as the Pleiades play the most important part in the determination of time from the phases of Nature, so it is also in the naming of the months. The Konyag have a month named from this constellation, which is followed by one named after Orion[888]. Of the Diegueño of S. California it is stated that they divided the year into six months and observed the morning rising of five chief stars. The names of months are given, but unfortunately there is no information as to the sense[889]. The Hottentots and the Herero both have a Pleiades month[890]. On the islands of the Pacific Ocean the practice is carried so far that in some cases every month is described by the rising of a constellation, as is done by the Maoris[891], or even named from stars, as among the inhabitants of Mortlock’s Island[892] and, for most of the months, by tribes of the Torres Straits[893].

This, however, is an exception. Where only one month is named from the rising of a star or brought into connexion with it—in this case the stars in question are usually the Pleiades—the latter furnishes the means of correcting the reckoning of the months, and the intercalary month is consequently introduced, as need arises, before the month in question. The Pleiades month therefore of itself becomes the starting-point of the reckoning of the months, i. e. becomes the beginning of the year. Immediately after the discovery of America it was already reported of certain tribes on the Mexican coast that they began the year at the setting of the Pleiades and divided it into moon-months[894]. In Loango the months are counted from new moons, but Sirius, the rainy star, offers a means of correcting the reckoning sidereally. With the first new moon which sees Sirius rising in the east their new cycle of twelve months begins, and this must run as well as it can until the new year. When the cycle of months and the year do not fit, which happens about every three years, a thirteenth month must be inserted. This is the evil time, when the wandering spirits are at their worst[895]. The Caffres have twelve moon-months with the usual descriptive names: on this account uncertainty often arises as to which month it really is. The confusion is always rectified by the morning rising of the Pleiades, and the reckoning goes on smoothly for a time, until the months once more get out of place and it becomes necessary to refer again to the stars in order to correct them[896]. In Bali the Pleiades and Orion are observed for the purpose of correcting the calendar of moons by intercalation: thus the month kartika is doubled, or the month asada is prolonged until the Pleiades appear at sunset. Moreover certain natural phenomena are observed[897]. In New Zealand, where all months were described by stars, the year began with the new moon following on the rising of the winter star puanga (Rigel)[898]; the thirteenth month often passed unobserved[899], i. e. served as an intercalary month. Elsewhere we are told that the displacement of the moon-months in relation to the year was rectified through the observation of the rising of the Pleiades and of Orion, and that the most accurate way of calculating the beginning of the year was to observe the first new moon after the morning rising of Rigel[900]. The Papuans limit the year by the constellation of the Serpent, manggouanija; when it appears again in the north, it is a sign that the new year is beginning[901]. The people of Nauru, west of the Gilbert Islands, count by moon-months. The time that elapses until the Great Bear returns to the same spot is reckoned as a year[902]. The last two reports are so condensed that it is impossible to see whether the stars serve for the rectifying of the calendar of moons found among these peoples, or only for the fixing of the beginning of the year, which, as will be shewn below, may be independent of the reckoning of months.

About the regulation of the Hawaiian calendar the authorities are not unanimous. Dibble says (p. 108) that the month welehu completed the year, and the new year began with the following month, makalii. The year varied between 12 and 13 months. Each month had 30 days; however he adds that in practice the number of days varied between 30 and 29. This is the phenomenon familiar in other places, e. g. in Greece, among the Bataks, etc., in which a round number of 30 days is given to the moon-month, the real length of this being a little more than 29½ days. Fornander (I, 119 ff.) states that this variation, though not common, did occur, but asserts that the year of 360 days was rectified by the intercalation of 5 days at the end of the month welehu: these were tabu days, dedicated to the festival of the god Lono. Similarly an old woman of Maui stated that eight months had 30 days and four 31, and that these additional days were called na mahoe, ‘the twins’[903]. This statement cannot be correct, since the month was strictly lunar and must have been wholly disarranged by these intercalary days, as is pointed out by the historian of the Sandwich Islands, W. D. Alexander[904]. This writer also remarks that it is a well-established fact that the ancient Hawaiians intercalated a month about every third year, but that the rule governing the intercalation is unknown. Certainly there was no such rule, but the intercalation was empirically treated, and regulated by the appearance of the Pleiades. Such contradictory statements as the above are due to the influence of the European calendar, owing to which the native calendar has early fallen into disuse. Fornander has probably mistaken a feast for intercalary days.

The treatment of the calendar among the Bataks of Sumatra is of great interest. The calendar indeed originates in India: the days of the months shew the familiar names of planets in corrupted Sanskrit forms, four times repeated and distinguished by various additions. Only the 28th and 29th or the 29th and 30th days, as the case may be, have names of another kind, so as to equalise the number of the days of the moon-month. The week is therefore not shifting but is immovably fitted into the month. The months are regulated by Scorpio, the largest star of which is Antares. The year begins with the new moon at the morning setting of Orion and the contemporary morning rising of Scorpio in May. The full moon fourteen days later then stands in the constellation Scorpio. In the first half of the year the full moon goes farther from Scorpio every month, and in the second half gets nearer and nearer to it. In the Batak calendar, which has 12, sometimes 13, × 30 squares, the sign of Scorpio is registered at the proper day, and the month is decided by it. As a means of control the soothsayer uses a buffalo rib with 12 × 30 holes (four times repeated), and every day he draws a string through one hole in order to keep account of the days. It is clear that the calendar can give no certain help in the establishing of the month, and that the means of control must be directly misleading, since the moon-months vary between 29 and 30 days. For this reason the soothsayer is often uncertain in his reckoning of the months, and refers to the natural phases in order to correct it[905]. Hence in his selection of days he looks not only to the current month, but also to the preceding. Our authority says that the surplus month is no intercalary month in the European sense, although it is likely that to it originally fell the task of equalising the lunar and the solar years. This is indeed the only correct explanation. When, presumably in the twelfth month, a following month is involved in the decision, the thirteenth is also included so that an intercalation takes place. If the thirteenth month is not available, the first is taken, we are told. But an intercalation is necessary all the same: the observation of the natural phases and of the morning rising of Orion serves for the correction. And this can happen just because the people are uncertain in the reckoning, and act according to circumstances. The Batak calendar is a product of decay, and is used exclusively for divination, not as a genuine calendar[906]; but it is of great interest to observe how the soothsayers, since they do not possess the knowledge necessary for a proper management of the calendar, fall back upon primitive methods. It is significant that the indispensable thirteenth month has often been lost: the people do not even understand the difference between the months and the year, and yet they cannot avoid the necessity of the intercalation.

There are two historically important cases of this empirically regulated intercalation of months, which must be dealt with in detail, since they are much debated. The dispute has arisen from a failure to recognise the empirical intercalation and its workings. The one case is that of the old Arabian calendar before Mohammed, the other that of the Babylonian calendar.

The old Arabian names of months depend in great measure, as has been shewn already[907], upon the seasons. Originally therefore the months must have been connected with the solar year, and must have been approximately fixed in their position by the sufficiently familiar empirical method. The same thing is shewn by the naming of the last months from the pilgrimage to Mecca. In pre-Mohammedan times the pilgrimages were at the same time business journeys; trade and cult were, as so often, united, and commercial intercourse was first made really possible when by religious sanction a time of peace was established during which journeys to and fro could be taken in safety. The first month of the peace of God is dhu-l-qa’da, and dhu-l-hijja is the month of the gathering in Mecca: the following month, safar I, was also included in the time of peace, and was therefore called muharram. During all three months there were fairs: in the neighbourhood of Mecca there was a whole succession of them, following upon each other in dhu-l-qa’da and dhu-l-hijja; in safar there was a corn-market in Yemen[908]. The gay life of the great fair of Mecca is described in detail in old Arabic sources; it seems to have drawn the people almost more than the religious ceremonies, and first gave Mecca its real importance. An annual fair is however dependent upon the seasons, both on account of the journeys and for the products bought and sold. Sprenger has already remarked that the winter months are quite unsuitable for merchants’ journeys to Syria, and that in the late summer it was not to be expected that corn which had been cut at the beginning of March should be taken in to the markets[909]. Because of the markets that were held in them, the months must also have had a fixed position in the solar year. This importance of Mecca explains why the Meccan months became so wide-spread. The two names dhu-l-qa’da and dhu-l-hijja are formed with dhu, differently from the others, and were coined at Mecca. This leads to the conclusion that these names were innovations occasioned by the business intercourse of that city.

For the purpose of determining the time of the peace of God and of the gathering in Mecca unity must prevail as to the position of the months, and for this the above-mentioned occasional correction of the position is quite inadequate. Mohammed prescribed the strictly lunar year: by this means the time of every month was definitely fixed, but in about 33 years the months would pass through the circle of a whole solar year. The question is whether before Mohammed an ordered intercalation, which he abolished, or the lunar year existed. For although it lies in the nature of things that the market should originally be connected with a definite time of the year, it cannot of course be denied that later, when the fairs had already attained this predominating position, the date could be fixed by reference to the purely lunar year. It is certain that in the years just before the prescription of the lunar year by Mohammed the months were inverted in relation to the year, so that the spring months fell in autumn and the autumn months came in the spring[910].

The passage in the Koran 9, 36 ff. is often adduced as evidence that Mohammed abolished the intercalation:—“Truly the number of the months with God is twelve months in the book of God, on the day when He created the heavens and the earth. Of these four (i. e. rajab, dhu-l-qa’da, dhu-l-hijja, muharram) are holy. This is the right religion. Be not unjust therein towards yourselves, but fight against the heathen without distinction, since they make no distinction in fighting against you, and know that God is on the side of the faithful. The nasî is in truth an addition to unbelief (or, in unbelief), in which the unbelievers go astray. They allow it one year, and one year they explain it as unlawful, in order to equalise (bring into agreement) the number of that (i. e. the months) which God has commanded to keep holy. But they declare lawful what God has forbidden.” It is claimed that the emphasis laid upon the fact that there are twelve months is directed against the intercalation, but this is no proof. The sense depends entirely upon what is implied by nasî. Etymologically the word is derived from nasaa, ‘to push aside, away’.

On this point there has been from the earliest days of Arabic literature a dispute which has been still further complicated by modern hypotheses[911]. According to one view nasî is the intercalation of a month, which served to bring the months into agreement with the solar year[912]. Some authors have even attempted to establish an intercalary cycle, and it has been asserted that the intercalation was borrowed from the Jews. This opinion may be left out of account, since the cycles differ among themselves and are therefore invented, while the intercalation was governed by a hereditary nasî-controller from the tribe of Kinâna, who was called the qalammas, i. e. ‘Sea of Wisdom’. If the intercalation is controlled by a central authority, as e. g. in Babylonia, an intercalary cycle is unnecessary: the central authority supplies its place. According to the other view the nasî consists in the transferring of the holy character of one month to another, e. g. the declaring of muharram as free and the pronouncing of safar as holy instead of it. This view is based on the supposition that the Arabs found a time of peace lasting for three successive months burdensome, and in order to be able to make predatory excursions in a holy month, and yet keep the number of holy months unchanged, they made another month holy instead. The treatment e. g. of the karneios by the Argives and of the daisios by Alexander the Great[913] was very similar. Therefore, it is maintained, before Mohammed the year was a purely lunar one, and Mohammed only forbade the disarrangement of the holy period. These authorities also ascribe the right of changing the holy month to the qalammas, who at the end of the feast of pilgrims in dhu-l-hijja rose and in an address to the assembly arranged the re-distribution. A third view, according to which the feast of pilgrims was held eleven days later every year, until after a cycle of 33 years it came back again to the same month, is certainly incorrect, since the feast was connected with the phases of the moon. The theory is extracted from the comparison between the lunar and the solar years[914].

Several sources give the words in which the qalammas made known the re-distribution: they are affected by later views but must contain a kernel of truth, since they shew difficulties which are not even noticed by the authorities. According to Kalby the expression runs simply:—“The safar of this year is declared holy”, or “free”; according to Ibn Ishaq:—“O God, I declare one of the two months called safar, namely the first, to be free, and I postpone the other till next year.” What is meant by postponing safar II until the next year is unexplained and unexplainable. Since the year begins with safar I, and the proclamation takes place in dhu-l-hijja, safar II already belongs to the next year. Safar II is in itself not holy, so that here there can be no question of a changing of the holy character of the month. But if by the expression safar safar I is understood, matters become clear. Safar I is doubled: I a is an intercalary month, and therefore not holy, and belongs as a thirteenth month to the current year; I b begins the new year and is holy. “I remove safar (viz. I b) to next year” is an incorrect but intelligible way of saying that the new year begins with this month. In the Qâmûs the expressions runs:—“O God, I am authorised to move the months or to leave them in their places and confirm them, and none can blame me or put me to my defence. O God, I declare the first safar to be free, and the second holy. The same do I determine in respect of the two rajab, namely rajab and sha’ban.” The first sentence, if authentic, doubtless refers to an intercalation, since the words are ‘move the months’, and not ‘the holy character of the months’; but we can hardly insist so far upon the expression. The last sentence is more conclusive. It shews, namely, that not only was safar I shifted to safar II, but at the same time rajab was moved to sha’ban. This is a system, not an incidental expedient to render possible a military expedition in a holy month. Later authorities add that the holy character of safar was moved to rabi I, and that the process went on from month to month until every month in the year had at one time or another been declared holy. How this is to be understood is shewn by the oldest report which has been handed down to us. It comes from Modjahid, who was born in the year 21 of the Hegira. “The heathen were accustomed in every month of the lunar year to go on pilgrimages for only two years.” It must be realised that in the course of a cycle of 33 years a month of the lunar year will coincide two to three times, according to the series, with one and the same month of the lunisolar year, and that the months of the Mohammedan lunar year and of the old Arabian lunisolar year, which must once have existed, have the same names. Modjahid’s statement can only be understood thus: that the heathen pilgrimage was re-arranged every third year in relation to the Mohammedan lunar months—two years is a rough approximation for ‘sometimes two, sometimes three years’—because it was to be kept in place in regard to the solar year. But the pilgrimage took place in a definite month, and therefore the months also belonged to a lunisolar year. If the months of the lunisolar year are compared with those of the lunar year confusion results, since both series have the same names. Let us take, for example, a sentence of the distinguished chronologist Albiruni, who represents the opinion that nasî means the intercalation of a month: “The first intercalation applied to muharram, in consequence safar was called muharram, rabi I was called safar, and so on; and in this way all the names of all the months were changed. The second intercalation applied to safar; in consequence the next following month (rabi I, the original rabi II)[915] was called safar, and this went on till the intercalation had passed through all twelve months and returned to muharram.” When other writers, not so well trained in chronology, say that the hallowing of the month was transferred from muharram to safar and from safar to rabi I, this means that, according to the year, the safar or rabi I of the lunar year corresponds to the muharram of the lunisolar year. When in the speech of the qalammas, safar I and rajab are simultaneously shifted to the month following in each case, this involves the shifting of the whole series of months. A genuine intercalation therefore takes place. The term nasî, ‘to push aside’, resembles the world-wide description of the intercalation of the month. Safar I is ‘forgotten’, but upon this it follows that not this month is holy, but the following one, which is now also called safar I but corresponds to safar II of the strictly lunar year. The sanctity or non-sanctity of the months was for the people the all-important point, and the qalammas, who was a religious authority, was obliged to refer to it. Hence he declared the month as free and the following month as holy without expressing himself, as we should have wished, in the technical terms of chronology. The people understood him: if the month after dhu-l-hijja was free, it followed that not this month but the next was holy, the month with which the new year began, safar I. The intercalation therefore involves a transference of the sanctity of the month following the feast of pilgrims to the next but one after the feast. Hence has arisen the misunderstanding that the nasî consisted only in a transference of the sanctity of the months.

The tribe of Kinana, to which the qalammas belonged, inhabited the district around Mecca, and the famous tribe of the Koraish, its most distinguished branch, was supreme in Mecca[916]. The calendar regulation therefore took place in the interests of Mecca and its trade, and it is quite ridiculous to say that the sanctity of a month was transferred to another merely in order to render possible a predatory excursion. Besides this would make matters no better, since all the tribes concerned would have to have peace or war in the same months. A shifting of this nature would only be really effectual if it offered a means of surprising an unsuspecting neighbour in time of peace. Probability therefore also points to the view that the nasî was a genuine intercalation carried out by a person appointed for the purpose, so that the dates of the markets and the pilgrimage might be fixed at the proper times of the year. For this no intercalary cycle was employed, any more than elsewhere: the empirical intercalation sufficed, and it was made known to the people at the feast of pilgrims, whence the knowledge spread all over. However the entrusting of such power over the calendar to one individual lends itself only too easily to abuses with a view to ends which have nothing to do with the calendar. The stock example is afforded by the Roman pontifices at the end of the Republic. It is therefore nothing to wonder at that the calendar should have been disorganised during Mohammed’s stay in Mecca. Hence also the attempts at determining the calendar from two or three certainly known dates are vain, for when a system is lacking or is broken up it is impossible to compute a calendar systematically from a couple of dates. Mohammed’s action is thus to be explained:—The misuse of the intercalation had destroyed the dependence of the pilgrimage upon the time of the year: Mohammed wished to create order, and did so in radical fashion by forbidding the intercalation, the misuse of which he saw, but the usefulness of which he failed to recognise.

It has been pointed out above that the Sumerian months completely correspond in character to those of the primitive peoples[917]. The establishing of the months in their definite places followed originally from the reference to the seasons, not from the position in the series of months. The seasons on their part were, as always, brought into relation to the phases of the stars. There is indeed little information as to this point, but what little there is is sufficient to establish it. It is however much to be desired that specialists should pay more attention to the matter and if possible procure more information. The Pleiades are brought into connexion with the annual inundations, which took place about the time of the invisibility of these stars, i. e. between their evening setting and morning rising[918]. The name of the constellation Virgo means ‘root of the sprouting wheat-stalk, or corn’, that of the star Spica ‘proclaimer of the sprouting wheat-stalk’. These names agree with the evening rising of this constellation, which at the date 2,000 B. C. took place about the 28th of February of our modern calendar, and with the morning setting, which took place some 16 days later. Circumstances exclude the ripening, which took place in the second half of April.[919] Consequently the months were also determined by the phases of the stars: among the names of months there is one which points to this fact, ‘the month in which the white star (bar-zag) sinks down from the culmination-point’[920]. The naming of the months from the stars has not been carried through consistently, but each month, just as e. g. among the Maoris, was fixed by one or more risings of stars. There are several lists in which now one, now two, or even three of the fixed stars are assigned to each of the twelve months[921]. In the Creation epic, Tablet V, 4 ff., we read:—“For twelve months he set down three constellations, according to the times of the year fashioned he the groups of stars.” Among the Maoris all the stars suitable to the time in question are used in the fixing of the month: in Babylonia there was probably a gradual limitation to the stars of the ecliptic, i. e. the 12 signs of the zodiac, the number of which points to the fact that they owe their origin to the endeavour to fix the twelve months astronomically[922]. This is an important advance of Babylonian stellar science, that the constellations of the ecliptic should be separated from the others. Weidner, p. 21, inverts matters when he says, with reference to a list in which, instead of the fainter constellations of the zodiac, neighbouring bright stars are given (e. g. Sirius instead of Cancer):—“The system of the paranatellonta is also found already, i. e. the system which allows neighbouring bright stars or constellations to step in instead of less bright constellations of the zodiac. But this is no longer primitive astronomy, it marks rather, as Weissbach has already pointed out with reference to Newcomb-Engelmann, the beginnings of a scientific astronomy.” On the contrary, as the examples from the primitive peoples shew, in the utilising of stars to fix a point of time or a month no notice is originally taken of the position of the star within or without the ecliptic, but the most easily recognisable stars and constellations are naturally preferred, wherever they may be situated. A list of fixed stars which determine months, including also stars situated outside the ecliptic, is primitive; it is out of the question that a constellation outside the ecliptic is referred to instead of a sign of the zodiac in the proper sense—that in which the constellations of the zodiac are to be regarded as the prius. After the signs of the zodiac have been fixed, so that a systematic duodecimal division of the year has been obtained, the stars situated outside the ecliptic are compared with the signs of the zodiac in order to indicate with accuracy to which month they belong, or in other words the system of the paranatellonta is found.

It is indispensable to enter into the all-important question of the intercalation, but here opinions are so directly opposed to one another that Weidner establishes a very accurate 38-year intercalary cycle as early as the time of the dynasty of Ur, while Kugler denies the existence of any intercalary cycle before the year 528 B. C.; Kugler again publishes a document in which an intercalary rule is recognised as dating from a time after 504 B. C.[923], while Weidner regards this as a copy of a much older original. An impartial opinion can only be arrived at by working through the material, and this is impossible for anyone who is not an Assyriologist: I am all the more compelled, therefore, to limit myself to suggestions and to the comparison with primitive conditions[924].

Where surplus months exist, there is no intercalation in the proper sense, although the same name, e. g. the ‘harvest month’, will recur sometimes after 12, sometimes after 13 months, since owing to the fluctuating and unstable nature of the naming of the months the latter are distributed according to circumstances[925]. This covers the difficulty. Such seems to have been the state of affairs in the pre-Sargonic period at Lagash. Certainly Kugler (II, 216) has tried to demonstrate intercalary years: this is possible in the sense given above, but actually very uncertain, since the starting-points for the arrangement of the months are anything but certain[926]. Only the arising of a fixed series of months makes a genuine intercalation possible, since as a rule the general custom is to intercalate a definite month (in Babylonia, at least later, there were two such months, adarru and ululu). The process is either an omission of one month in the series of thirteen, or an intercalation of one month in the series of twelve. The former appears in Lagash in the time of Sargon, the latter in the time of Dungi. We have found that the intercalation among the primitive peoples takes place as need arises. If the series of months is fixed, but the intercalation is neglected, the months must get out of place in relation to the seasons: this can be demonstrated in a couple of cases. So if the translation of the name of the fourth month in the list from Lagash is correct—šu-kul-na, ‘sowing month’—the harvest month, še-kin-kud, is the twelfth, and is therefore at a distance of eight months instead of the five which the natural conditions shew[927]. Further the list at the time of Dungi shews a disarrangement of the months as compared with the Sargonic list, the tenth month having dropped out and the following months being now pushed one place forwards. This difference can be explained either by a neglect of the intercalation, or by the fluctuating nature of the nomenclature: in the latter case there is really no genuine intercalation.

At the time of Dungi and his successors we have documentary evidence for a number of years with intercalation.[928] At this date Kugler stoutly denies and Weidner supports the existence of an intercalary cycle. Weidner says:—“If we denote Dungi 39 (the 39th year of his reign) by I, the following years are proved by documents to contain intercalary months:—II, V, XI, XIV, XVI, XVIII, XX, XXIII, XXVI, XXIX, XXXII, XXXV, XXXVIII. But between Dungi 43 and 49 there is at least one more leap-year to be added, most probably Dungi 46, i. e. VIII. For the period of 38 years we should then have 14 intercalary months attested. This is therefore an intercalary system that works quite well. A 19-year intercalary cycle however it cannot be, since in that case, corresponding to the former part, the years XXI, XXIV, etc. in the latter would have to be leap-years. We have therefore to assume a 38-year intercalary cycle, which in perfection far surpasses that of 19 years. It is the half of the well-known 76-year cycle of Callippus.” The conclusion is unwarrantable from the premises. For the intercalation which takes place just as need arises keeps the months firmly in their place in the solar year, and attains the same result as an intercalary cycle. A period of 76 Indian years will contain just as many months as a Callippean cycle. The only conclusive factor therefore is the periodicity, and this is not proved. Through an accident of tradition the leap-years are known for a period of 38 years, and it is obvious that during these 38 years an empirical intercalation, regularly carried out, kept the lunisolar year in order. The evidence that even under the Hammurabi dynasty no intercalary cycle existed is given by Kugler[929].

But there is also direct evidence that the intercalation took place empirically, i. e. as need arose. Ungnad has shewn this from a comparison of the known leap-years. Best known of all is the letter of Hammurabi to Siniddinam:—“Since the year has a deficiency, let the previous month be entered as Elul II. And instead of bringing the taxes on the 25th Tishritu to Babylon, let them be brought to Babylon on the 25th Elul II”[930]. For the empirical correcting of the position of months the stars are used among the primitive peoples, and so also in Babylonia. A tablet in the British Museum[931] gives the following injunction:—“The constellation dilgan rises heliacally in the month nisan. As often as this constellation remains invisible, its month shall be forgotten”. The same injunction is given in regard to other constellations from which months are named. The expression that the month Nisan is to be ‘forgotten’ reminds one of the description of the intercalary month as the ‘lost’ or ‘forgotten’ month among certain tribes of N. American Indians, and of the expression of the Masai. The forgotten month is not the intercalary month in our sense, i. e. not the second of two months that have arisen by doubling; it is the first. This month must be passed over, not counted, forgotten, its name must be transferred to the following month, so that the year may run properly. The establishing of the months by means of phases of the stars is so abundantly demonstrated for primitive peoples in the preceding pages that no words need be wasted in describing the method of its carrying out. It is a method that works perfectly well but is entirely empirical, and where recourse is had to this method we know that the regulation by a definite intercalary cycle does not exist. With a more extended development of the method a still better result can be obtained, and this is the direction that the Babylonians have taken. The regulation runs:—“If on the first day of the month nisannu the constellation of the Pleiades and the moon are together, the year shall be an ordinary one. If on the third day of the month nisannu the constellation of the Pleiades and the moon stand together, the year shall be a full one (i. e. a leap-year)”[932]. The meaning and effect of this rule are explained by Schiaparelli. But this too is an empirical rule, aimed at an empirical, not a cyclical, intercalation. Where an intercalary cycle exists, no such rule is needed.

Since by the letter of Hammurabi it is indisputably established that the intercalation took place not in years previously determined but at the command of the king, those who in spite of this would maintain the existence of an intercalary cycle hold to the assertion that the 27-year intercalary period was not a strictly fixed but a free cycle. In other words the intercalation rule only runs:—“Within a period of 27 years 10 intercalary months are to be inserted, but the choice of the leap-years is left open to the astronomer”[933]. But this is nothing less than an abandonment of the intercalary cycle. The purpose of such a cycle is to render it possible to compute the calendar beforehand for any number of years to come, and this purpose is frustrated by a regulation of this kind. It only says that in x years y intercalary months occur: this is not a rule for intercalation but an empirical observation, which readily results from a proper treatment of the empirical intercalation. Such observations must have been made by the Babylonians. In a tablet published by Kugler it is said of Saturn and of the fixed star kak-si-di, respectively, “ ... the period of the visibility of Sirius amounts to 27 years. Turn back and consider day after day,” according to Weidner, p. 73; according to Kugler I, 47 the inscription runs, “Day by day ... shalt thou see (the same phenomena as 59, or 27, years before).” Both Kugler and Weidner find here a 27-year intercalary cycle regulated by the star; the former places it before 533 B. C., the latter at a considerably earlier period. But in accordance with what has here been said about the empirical regulation of the intercalation by phases of the stars it follows that there is no intercalation at all, but only the empirical verification of the fact that the new moon and Sirius come back after 27 years into the same mutual relationship: this will actually be the result with an accurate treatment of the intercalation based on the observation of this constellation.

Under these circumstances it would have been an easy matter to establish an intercalary cycle, but the demand for this is an affair of practical life: astronomy is concerned only with the calculation. The failure to observe this fact has led the discussion astray. The calendar is of course the most conservative of all human things; centuries after the establishment of very accurate calculations of the course of the moon and the introduction of a good intercalary cycle, the Jews adhered to the empirical observation of the new moon, and we know how difficult it is in modern times to introduce any improvement into the calendar. Because in Babylon there was a central government which could arrange the intercalation in proper fashion, the lunisolar year was kept in order, and in practical life there was no necessity to be able to calculate months and days for several years in advance. The empirical intercalation worked well, and there was no need to replace it by an intercalary cycle. The latter is indeed a simplification undertaken on practical grounds, an intercalating rule being substituted for the immediate astronomical observation: astronomy is concerned only with the calculation and with the further refinement of the rule. In so far as I am able to pronounce upon the material Kugler is right: no cyclically regulated intercalation existed before the Persian period; but from this it is in no way possible to arrive at any decision as to the position of the Babylonian astronomy. The regulation of the months by the phases of the stars was a suggestive problem for the astronomers, and it led to the recognition of the periodicity of the phenomena. This is the prius, not the desired establishment of an intercalary cycle.

A second means of fixing the months in their position in the solar year is afforded by the regulation by the solstices and equinoxes; but since, as will be shown in the following chapter, the observation of these is difficult and is seldom undertaken, a regulation of this nature is correspondingly rare. It can be demonstrated for the Eskimos[934], the Kwakiutl[935], and the Hopi, whose 13 ‘sun-points’ doubtless correspond to the 13 months[936]. Of the Basuto it is said that an attempt is made to determine the time of sowing from the moon, but that the people commonly go wrong in their reckoning, and after much dispute are obliged to fall back upon the climatic conditions and the state of the vegetation as more certain marks for the time of sowing. Intelligent chiefs, however, rectify the calendar (i. e. the moon-months) by the summer solstice, which they call the summer house of the sun[937].

The risings and settings of the stars, as has been shewn above, are brought into relation with the seasons. There is a possibility of bringing these sidereally determined seasons into a system. Thus the year of the Luiseño Indians of S. California consists of 2 × 8 divisions, which are determined by the morning rising of certain stars[938]. This is however an isolated case, since the reckoning by months has penetrated almost everywhere, and both seasons and risings of stars are brought into connexion with this. The most complete example is seen in the months of the Maoris[939]. Moreover the creation of such a system was not possible among the primitive peoples, since for the purpose of determining time they were only accustomed to observe a few stars, principally the Pleiades. On the other hand the observation of the stars plays a great part in another matter not necessarily connected with the reckoning of the months, viz. the beginning of the year, and to this we shall now turn our attention.

CHAPTER X.
CALENDAR REGULATION. 2. BEGINNING OF THE YEAR.

The question of the beginning of the year presents some difficulties, since it is for the most part quite uncertain what meaning is to be attached to the phrase ‘beginning of the year’. For us the new year is the great division in the calendar, and one which is emphasised by a special festival day and by various rites. This is an inheritance from ancient Rome; in particular the extremely wide-spread and popular astrology has powerfully contributed to the importance of New Year’s Day[940]. In ancient Greece the New Year’s Day was of no great importance: its position varied greatly in each of the small states; it was little more than the day on which the annually changing officials entered upon their terms of office. In the case of the primitive peoples the new year need not in itself be regarded as a very important division of the calendar: it has however become so among more highly developed peoples. For instance, the enumeration of the seasons or the months must begin somewhere; for this reason a beginning of the year must be supposed, but it is not therefore certain that the new year acquires any special importance. Of the inhabitants of the Torres Straits Islands Rivers says that when asked about the seasons they more than once began their list with surlal, and he is of the opinion that the beginning of this season is for them practically the beginning of a new year[941]. Of the Kiwai Papuans Landtman writes to me:—The year has no beginning, since there is no term to describe this, and it cannot be said that one season more than another marks an occasion of greater importance. The people begin their list of months sometimes with keke, the first month of the dry season, sometimes with karongo, which marks the transitional period between the dry and the rainy seasons.

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 end of August; from evening until daybreak the people danced around a fire, into which food, strings of shell-money, and other small articles were thrown. Our authority does not know how the date was fixed, but the festival marked the new year, and this opportunity was taken to wipe out all old debts and settle accounts for the year that was to come[945]. Among the Amazulu the feast of the first-fruits is called the ‘New Year’. Medicine staffs are everywhere set up in order to prevent ‘heaven’ from entering. At the end of the year new staffs are set up instead of the old ones; then the people know that the old heaven of the year has passed away with the year that is ended: the new year has its own heaven[946]. In the neighbourhood of Mombasa the new year is celebrated with fair regularity in September, after the maize-harvest; for a whole week there is dancing day and night[947]. Among the Thonga there are several feasts of the first-fruits, luma. When the Caffre corn, mabele, is ripe, the wife of the chief grinds the first grains reaped, and cooks them. The chief eats a little and offers some to the spirits of his ancestors with the words: “Here is the new year come”, and prays for fruitfulness. At the ripening of the Caffre plum, from which a drink is extracted, some of the drink is poured out on to the graves of dead chiefs with the words:—“This is the new year. Let us not fight! Let us eat in peace!” Among the Nkuma the ceremony of the first-fruits is performed with a special kind of pumpkin, and is called ‘eating the new year’[948]. On the Lower Niger, among the Owu-Waji, the year is terminated by the feast of roasted yams, which also serves as a public announcement that the labours of the field are to be resumed. Homage is paid to Ifejioku, god of the harvest, in token of gratitude for a good and fruitful year[949]. On the Society Islands a festival was celebrated with a great banquet, and this was called ‘the ripening or consummation of the year’[950]. The greatest feast of the Dyaks is dangei, the celebration of the new rice-year after the harvest; but if the harvest fails, the festival is suspended[951]. Among the Yoruba odun means year, an annual festival celebrated in October and the time between two such festivals[952].

The new year is equivalent to the new harvest, the new supplies of food which through the raising of the taboo are blessed and made accessible. Where there are several fruits which ripen at different times there may be several ‘new year festivals’, as among the Thonga, but usually there is one principal sowing-time and consequently only one festival. A festival of this nature forms the great division of the year, and this fact is emphasised by the ceremonies which aim at clearing away everything old and beginning again. In this way the change of the year acquires great significance, but this is not universally the case.

More rarely some other natural phenomenon gives rise to the celebration of the change of the year, e. g. the appearance of the palolo, the favourite delicacy of Samoa: but since the palolo appears at different times near different islands, the turn of the year varies accordingly[953].

A festival of this nature is originally not a calendar festival, and only on account of its special significance does it become of importance for the calendar: it is not a universal phenomenon. In different districts the position of the beginning of the year varies greatly. Among the North American Indians many tribes began the year at the spring equinox, others in the autumn, the Hopi with the ‘new fire’ in November, the Takulli in January[954]. The Kiowa began the year at the commencement of winter, which was signalised by the first snow-fall, or according to other statements a month earlier, with the first cold, the Pawnee with winter, the Teton-Sioux and the Cheyenne immediately before the winter[955], the Klamath and Modok in August, after the wokash-harvest[956], the Chocktaw of Louisiana in December[957], the Natchez in March, when they celebrated a great festival[958]. As a rule the Thompson Indians of British Columbia count their moons beginning at the rutting-season of the deer in November, but some begin with the end of the rutting-season at the end of November: others, particularly Shamans, with the rutting-season of the big-horn sheep. Many peoples of the Lytton band begin when the ground-hogs go into their winter dens. Many of the Lower Thompsons begin with the rutting-season of the mountain-goats. Some moons are called by numbers only, but those following the tenth moon are not numbered[959]. The Shuswap in the same country connected the year with the same moon as the Thompson Indians, although most of them entered their winter houses a month earlier[960]. Among the Hudson Bay Eskimos the year begins when the sun has reached its lowest position at the winter solstice[961]. The first month of the Koryak of N. E. Asia begins at the time of the winter solstice, and corresponds to our December[962]. It has already been mentioned that the East Greenlanders also began to count their months at the winter solstice, but later at the morning rising of Altair[963]. It will be seen that the beginning of the year has no common position marked out by Nature, although we may perhaps say that it usually falls somewhere during the period of rest, while the peculiar natural conditions under which the Eskimos live make it easy to understand why their year should be begun with the eagerly awaited return of the sun. Among many peoples little attention seems to have been paid to the matter, since no special prominence is given to the beginning of the year, although lists of months are given. But where these lists exist, and it is desired to enumerate the months, a beginning must be made somewhere, and a fixed initial month very easily arises.

The dispute already touched upon[964] as to the beginning of the Israelitish year is very characteristic of the matter in hand[965]. It is easy to understand why no unity has been arrived at, since the conception of the beginning of the year is fluctuating and capable of many interpretations. When in the oldest codes of the law it is said of the feast of in-gathering (namely of fruit, wine, and oil) that it is to be celebrated at the end of the year or that it marks the ‘turning’ of the year[966], Dillman is right in describing this year as an economic one. From the very beginning the feast is a feast of the end of the year[967]. Only as the agricultural year is extended into a complete year does it become a feast of the turn, and finally of the beginning, of the year.

The beginning of the agricultural year, however, still does not imply a calendar year, though certainly it furnishes occasion for the establishment of the beginning of the year when a calendar arises. Even in the year 600, at least in Gezer, no fixed series of months was known[968], the Canaanitish months not having been universally adopted. The old custom of reckoning the months from an arbitrary and accidental point of departure prevailed and long sufficed. The beginning of the year in autumn was no calendrical division, but only the conclusion of the agricultural year. When a calendar was introduced, it became obvious that this beginning of the year would also be available for the calendar. The calendar now consists of moon-months, its beginning must therefore be a day of new moon. Since the festival of harvest, according to ancient custom, fell at the time of full moon, the festival itself could not serve as the beginning of the year, but only the day of new moon of the month in which it fell. This was the seventh month, and we do in fact find indications that the first day of the seventh month was regarded as New Year’s Day; it was promoted to a feast day and was made known by the blowing of trumpets[969]. The year therefore could be reckoned from this point, and this also was done. On the other hand the numbered months mentioned [above, p. 233], begin in spring with the month in which the Passover is celebrated. The beginning of the year in spring is therefore associated with the numbered months, and is contemporaneous with these: it is nothing but the starting-point of this enumeration of months. The rule for the beginning is given in Exodus XII, 2:—“This month (i. e. the Passover month) shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” This reads like a prescription for a reform of the calendar, when it is remembered that in all places the Feast of the Passover was dated in relation to the month of ears (chodesh ha-abib). That the numbered months did not arise till later we have already seen (p. 234). The systematising tendency which arose at the end of the kingdom of Judah, and became ever stronger during and after the Exile, necessitated a calendar. If this tendency was unrelated to practical life, it was all the more closely bound up with the religious cult. Since people were now accustomed to numbering the months, the novelty consisted in the fixing of a calendarial beginning of the year. This was suggested by the customary succession of the feasts—Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Tabernacles—and was already foreshadowed in the fixing of the date of the Feast of Weeks by counting the weeks from the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This calendar can hardly have become popular, since it must have been supplanted quite early by the Babylonian names of months, and the popular beginning of the year in autumn has prevailed right down to the present day.

These two beginnings to the year existed side by side, at least for some time after the Exile, which is not surprising in view of what has already been said about the beginning of the year. The one is the civil beginning of the year, advanced by the structure of the calendar, the other the beginning of the series of months.

The Jewish calendar therefore arose very late, at the end of the kingdom of Judah; until that time the Jews were content with a chronology which was as primitive as that of many primitive peoples. In matters pertaining to the calendar they have always been very conservative and backward. In later times, too, they did not succeed in grasping the idea of the beginning of the year as a solitary event. König quotes on p. 644 a very significant passage from the Mishna tractate concerning the beginning of the year:—“On the first day of Nisan is the beginning of the year for the kings and for the festivals. On the first day of Elul is the beginning for the tithing of cattle. On the first day of Tishri is the beginning for the years (i. e. the civil calendar), and for the Sabbatic year and the Jubilee years, for the plants and the vegetables. On the first day of the month Shebat is the beginning for the tree-fruit.”—Four New Year’s Days, therefore.

Among the Jews, therefore, ecclesiastical conditions gave rise to a calendarial beginning of the year, which successfully rivalled the beginning given by the agricultural year. There is still another important type of beginning, and this depends once more upon the observation of the stars; cp. [pp. 248 f]. Where the beginning of the agricultural labour is determined by the Pleiades, it evidently follows that they also determine the beginning of the year. It follows further that the year lasts not only to the end of the period of vegetation, but also until the next appearance of the Pleiades, and hence the sidereal year is obtained at once with the greatest accuracy that is possible without scientific observation. This Pleiades year is especially common in South America, where there are no series of months, and in Oceania.

The Lengua Indians of Paraguay connect the rising of the Pleiades with the beginning of spring, and hold feasts during this time[970]. The Guarani of the same country determine the time of sowing by the observation of the Pleiades; it is said that they used to worship this constellation, and they begin their new year at its appearance in May[971]. In the Amazon valley the rising of the Pleiades coincides with the revival of Nature, and hence the people say that everything is renewed by these stars[972]. The Indians of the Orinoco determined the new year by the evening rising of the Pleiades[973]. But still further, the year is called by the name of the Pleiades. Certain tribes of Venezuela reckoned the year by stars, and in fact by the Pleiades. ‘Year’ is tshirke, ‘star’, a year = a star. The word occurs in various forms among most of the Carib tribes; among the neighbouring Caribs tshirika is found many times as a translation of ‘the Pleiades’. The connexion becomes clear in the wide-spread Carib idiom of the Guaianas: in a Galibi dictionary ‘star’ and ‘year’ are given as serica, siricco, the Pleiades as sherick, and we read in brackets: “The return of the Pleiades above the horizon together with the sun forms the solar year of the natives.” Among the island Caribs the Pleiades are called chiric; these people reckon the years in ‘Pleiades’. Among the Arawak wijua means ‘Pleiades’, ‘star’ in general, and ‘year’, since they reckon the year from the point at which they see the Pleiades rise after cock-crow. The Cariay of the Rio Negro call the Pleiades eoünana and the year aurema-anynoa, which seems to be a development of the former word. The Guarani call the Pleiades eishu, ‘bee-hive’, and the year has the same name; in ordinary life however the year is usually known as roi, ‘cold’[974].

The Caffres recognise the time of sowing by the position of the stars, especially the Pleiades, and reckon the new year from the morning rising of the latter[975]. Although the Amazulu call the feast of the first-fruits the new year, they say at the appearance of the Pleiades: “The Pleiades are renewed, the year is renewed”, and they begin to dig[976]. In Bali the appearance of the Pleiades at sunset marks the end of the year[977]. In Bambatana (Solomon Islands) the year is reckoned by the Pleiades[978]. Among the Polynesians the Pleiades year was extremely wide-spread. The inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands had a ten-month year, but were acquainted with a year of twelve months, which they called by the name of the Pleiades, maka-ihi or mata-iti, ‘the little eyes’[979]. On Hervey Island the new year was given by the evening rising of the Pleiades in the middle of December[980]. In the Society Islands there were two seasons named after the Pleiades. The first, matarii i nia, ‘little eyes above’, began at the evening rising of these stars and continued as long as they were visible in the sky in the evening; the other matarii i raro, ‘little eyes under’, began after the evening setting and extended over the time during which the stars were not to be seen in the evening[981].

It follows that a fixed beginning of the year does not exist universally, and therefore is not the general norm. The beginning of the year in our sense is the starting-point of the series of the days of the calendar; among the primitive peoples it is the beginning of any year, whether the complete year or the phenomena of the time of vegetation only. There are several such phenomena appearing side by side, so that there can also be several beginnings to the year, e. g. several feasts of first-fruits, as among the Thonga, the rising of the Pleiades and the feast of the first-fruits among the Amazulu. When one phenomenon of this kind, e. g. the corn-harvest, prevails over the others and is perhaps brought into prominence by the greatest festival of the year, it appears more like our New Year, though the significance of the occasion does not depend, as among ourselves, upon the position of the day in the calendar, but upon the natural conditions. And when a phase of the stars, e. g. of the Pleiades, coincides with the beginning of the agricultural year and the renewal of Nature, the stellar (Pleiades) year is obtained by comprising the time between one rising or setting and the next. By this means we arrive at the pure but undivided solar year. On the other hand the phases of the stars, like the other natural phases, were needed to determine the months, and here the result was more important.

With regard to the intercalation, the equalising of the total number of moon-months and the solar year, the problem first arose when there had been developed a fixed series of months which it was desired to repeat without interruption. Then arose the necessity of introducing an occasional month into the series of twelve months, or omitting one from the series of thirteen, so that the months named from natural phases might remain in their proper places. This difficulty was first of all blended with that arising from the fluctuation of the natural phases due to the varying climatic conditions of different years. The expedient was crudely empirical, the occasional leaping over or addition of a month. Gradually it became the custom to introduce the intercalary month at a definite point; it may also be associated with a so-called ‘vacant period’. Where a month was named from a phase of a certain star, the correction was given automatically by this phase, since this month was fixed. The intercalary month obtained its place before this month, which became the beginning of the year, since the reckoning started with it. By this means was given a lunisolar year which was however empirically regulated by occasional intercalation.

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