The reckoning in weeks was once common to all Scandinavia. The Lapps have special names for every week of the year, borrowed from festivals and saints’ days falling within the weeks; they have therefore taken from the Scandinavians the reckoning in weeks and adapted it to the uses of a primitive time-reckoning. From the same source they have also derived the special significance of the summer night (April 14, Tiburtius) and of the winter night (Oct. 14, Calixtus), from which also two weeks are named. The system is better preserved in certain parts of South Sweden[337]. The people count in räppar, quarter-years—in Öland they are called trettingar, thirteenths, i. e. 13 weeks—beginning with the räppadagar: these are Lady Day, Midsummer Day, Michaelmas Day, and Christmas Day, old style. Just as in Iceland, they reckon backwards, not however in the same quarters as there, but in the quarters before Midsummer and Christmas: in the other two quarters they count forwards. In northern Scania I have met with a relic of the same type of reckoning, the ‘number of weeks’ (ugetalet), which begins on April 6 (Lady Day, old style), and is reckoned backwards as far as the thirteenth week. The duration of both rural occupations and natural phenomena is determined in so many weeks. As the starting-point of this reckoning in weeks the four great festivals which come nearest to the four points of the solstices and equinoxes are chosen. There can be no doubt that these have made their appearance under the influence of the Christian calendar instead of the four Old Scandinavian points of division of the year. The people call Calixtus’ day (Oct. 14) the first day of winter, and Tiburtius’ day (April 14) the first day of summer; many rune-staves have this division of the year, and almost all describe the former by a tree without leaves, the latter by a tree in leaf. They fall in the same weeks as the initial days of winter and summer in Iceland, which vary there on account of the peculiar arrangement of the calendar. In Scandinavia, however, they have been transformed into fixed days under the influence of the Julian calendar.
It is a natural conclusion that the reckoning in weeks had its origin in the use of the rune-staff. Since the week-day letters on these are repeated the whole year through, the weeks offered an easy means of reckoning. This conclusion is certainly correct, but still we may venture to ask why the week-day letters were admitted into the national calendar by the North especially, and why the reckoning in weeks should be adopted in popular use only there. The reason can only be that the counting in weeks was already in use before the rune-staff was introduced. This mode of counting, which in Iceland had been developed into a curious form of year, was in Scandinavia adapted to the Julian calendar and remained bound up with this. The leap-week was therefore unnecessary. The old basis is however still preserved in the points of departure, the summer and winter nights. It is the same system as the Icelandic, built up on the week and the year, but differently modified: the idea of any borrowing cannot be entertained. The basis of this calendar, therefore, was once common to all Scandinavia, and the calendar must go back to heathen times.
Under the influence of the popular lay astrology the week was early spread among the Germanic peoples: on it and on an approximate knowledge of the length of the year, such as could easily be acquired in the lively intercourse with Christian lands during the Viking period, the system of the Icelandic calendar is built up. An indigenous element however appears, the half-year reckoning, and indeed the great probability is that the limitation of the half-year to a fixed number of days was first achieved as a result of this systematising of the calendar. Winter and summer, like all natural seasons, had at first no fixed limits. The quarters arose in the course of the reckoning, the people counting forwards in the first half of the half-year and backwards in the other half. The middle points of the half-year, mid-winter and midsummer, fell where both reckonings met. This agrees with the popular objection to high numbers. The Germanic tribes of the south, in accordance with their milder climate, commonly reckoned five months for winter. In the north the dead season is longer, about six months, and this fact has contributed to the half-year reckoning which, as has already been remarked, is widely characteristic of northern peoples. That the limits between both seasons were unstable and could be moved forward according to circumstances is in my opinion shewn by the names of the initial days of the half-year—sumarmál (plural) and vetrnaetr, ‘the winter nights’. Where a definitely determined day is in question the plural is out of place: it is used to describe a period, for instance jol (plur.) denotes Christmas-time[338].
With the two opening days of the calendar and the one division in the middle are often combined the three great sacrificial feasts, the autumn festival at the winter nights, the Yule festival at mid-winter, and the spring festival at the summer nights. It is true that the first of these festivals, which was celebrated at the beginning of a period of rest after the completion of the harvest and agricultural labour, denoted, as such festivals often do, the conclusion of the old year and the beginning of the new. That it was fixed for a definite day cannot be demonstrated any more than that the festival of victory in spring, celebrated before the Vikings went forth on their voyages, fell exactly on the summer night. On the contrary the time probably varied according to circumstances: the expression of Snorre lacks calendarial accuracy and remains indefinite:—“They should sacrifice against the winter to get a good year, and at mid-winter sacrifice for germination; the third sacrifice in summer, and this was a sacrifice of victory”[339]. In historical times the Yule festival is regulated by the Christian calendar; Snorre says that in heathen times it was celebrated at the hökku night, but of this we have no certain knowledge. Things happened as in the Middle Ages and later: after a calendar has arisen the festivals are regulated by this, but they are not calendar-festivals, and in reconstructing the scheme of the calendar from the festivals very great caution must be exercised.
Our conclusion is that the Germanic seasons, like the seasons in general, were not in themselves definitely limited divisions of time, and that alongside of the greater seasons smaller ones arose without there being any numerical determination of the relationship between the two. Seasons only become divisions consisting of a definite number of days when in the regulation of the calendar they are taken over as calendar divisions, as winter and summer were in Scandinavia. Where a calendar has arisen directly out of the seasons, the divisions, like the seasons, are of varying length[340]. This also shews that the Germanic seasons first attained a definite number of days through the calendar-regulation introduced from abroad. Further, when a calendar existed, the beginning of the seasons could be given with reference to this: the day varied according to circumstances, but the choice was limited in this manner, viz. that only a popular festival or saint’s day was appropriate as a distinguishing day. Here also, therefore, the calendar was the starting-point for the regulation of the seasons. A division of the year in the more accurate sense also first arose through the regulation of the calendar, since, owing to the method of calculation, the middle days of the half-year divisions became distinguishing days in the calendar. When the calendar came, the old festivals were also regulated by it.
By way of supplement two or three curious exceptional cases may be noted. A completely isolated instance is offered by the Bangala of the Upper Congo, who count in lunar months, and, since there is no dry season, reckon for longer periods by the rise of the rivers[341]. In the monsoon districts however it is frequently a peculiarity to distinguish the seasons by the winds. Of Sumatra it is reported:—The principal seasons are named after the quarters of the heavens from which the wind blows. At the time when we were in Taluk, April to mid-June, the south monsoon was blowing; the east, the west, and the north monsoons also come under consideration for the seasons. Moreover the people also distinguish a dry and a rainy period. The seasons 4. tahun djin, 5. tahun wou, 6. tahun sai were regarded as falling within the rainy period, while the dry season set in with 1. t. ali, and continued with 2. t. dal awal, and 3. t. dal akhir. In the two seasons 7. t. ha and 8. t. ‘am dry and wet weather alternate[342]. In New Britain (Bismarck Archipelago), between the two greater seasons of the south-east and the north-west monsoons, each consisting of 5 months, there were two smaller intermediate seasons of one month each, the period of variable winds and the period of calm[343]. In Songa (Vellalavella), one of the Solomon Islands, various seasons are distinguished according to the direction of the wind:—the time of the west wind, nanano; the time of the almond-ripening, tovarauru (the time of the north wind); rari, the time of the south wind—during this period calm prevails at night but there is wind in the day-time; sassa nanamo, time of the east wind; mbule, time of calm, lasting about a month. After mbule follow tovaruru, lasting about 2 months, and sassa nanamo, one month. In Lambutjo the matter is still further complicated. The following winds are distinguished:—south wind, west wind, good wind at the time of almond-ripening, lasting about one month. Further the east wind, strong or quite weak with squalls, not good. Three months afterwards comes the west wind, lasting about 2–3 months. After the east wind a south-west wind, very strong, at that time one cannot sail on the sea: it often comes 5 months after the east wind. After the south-west wind a SE wind, lasting only 1–2 weeks. Then strong E wind, lasting 1–2 months, during which time navigation in canoes is impossible. Then again a time of ‘clear water’, i. e. calm, lasting two months. After this, S wind, NW wind, and NE wind. Each of these lasts only a short time, altogether they occupy 3–4 months. Then begins a lighter E wind, lasting 3–4 weeks. Then about one month of light W wind, then again stronger E wind for 1–2 months. Afterwards S wind for 1½-2 months, lighter SE wind for 1–2 weeks, and then again stronger E wind for 2–3 months. At the time of the west wind there is much rain, at the time of the east wind much sunshine[344]. It is very interesting to see how accurately primitive peoples observe Nature, but these are not indications of time. On the Gazelle Peninsula it has been observed that when the SE monsoon blows the sun comes up in the east, and when the NW monsoon blows it rises in the south: the wind comes from the opposite direction to that in which the sun rises[345].
CHAPTER III.
THE YEAR.
Following the practice of my authorities I have often in the foregoing pages made use of the expression that the year is ‘divided’ into so many parts. From a genetic stand-point this expression is incorrect, because the time-indications, which relate to a concrete phenomenon of Nature, are older than the year, and, since they are connected only with the single phenomenon, are discontinuous or even indefinite. Only through their union does the complete year arise. Every natural year however offers on the whole the same phenomena following one another in definite succession, and thus the circle of the year has its prototype in Nature herself. Nevertheless the uniting of the different seasons into a complete year only takes place gradually by means of a selection, systematising, and regulation of the seasons. It must be carried out according to a principle—we shall see that this is as a rule the lunar reckoning—but the occupations of agriculture also serve as a handle. The present chapter will shew how the uniting of the seasons into the year is only a late and incomplete development, how originally the year does not exist as a numerical quantity, the pars pro toto counting being resorted to, and finally how the years are not reckoned as members of an era but are distinguished and fixed by concrete events.
The difficulty of struggling through to the conception of the year is exemplified by certain peoples who know two seasons but reckon in half-years without joining them together. Naturally this happens in the rare case in which there is very little difference—or none at all—between the two halves of the year. Thus of the Akikuyu of British East Africa it is reported:—The equatorial year has no winter or summer. Its passage is marked by two wet seasons, which occur in what are our spring and autumn. The planting is done in all cases at the first commencement of the rains, and harvesting as soon as the crop has ripened after the cessation of the rain. There are therefore two seed-times and two harvests in twelve months, and when the native speaks of a year he means six months[346]. This is very natural, since by ‘year’ a vegetation-period is often to be understood: the half-year reckoning however also appears where a difference between the two seasons does exist. In Rotuma or Granville Island the inhabitants reckon in periods of six months or moons. The west monsoon, which blows from October to April, doubtless serves to distinguish these seasons: otherwise the difference between the seasons is hardly perceptible, the island lying near the equator. The half-years each contain six months, to which the same names are given in both halves[347]. The people of the Nicobars reckon in monsoon half-years, shom-en-yuh, the SW monsoon, sho-hong, blowing from May to October, and the NE monsoon, ful, from November to April, so that two of these form one of our years[348]. The half-years are also said to contain seven months each[349]: in reality they must vary between 6 and 7 months, as the year varies between 12 and 13. In New Britain (Bismarck Archipelago) there are monsoon years of five months: the two intervening periods of the variable winds and of the calms, each lasting one month, are not counted[350]. It is said that the Benua-Jahun of the Malay Peninsula have no other division of the year than the natural one of the north and south monsoons, each of which they call a ‘wind-year’, satahun angni; however a word for year, sa taun, is also ascribed to them[351]. In Bali the year is divided into two seasons or monsoons, each of which includes six months; since the months of both halves have the same names it is evident that originally only half-years existed[352]. The greatest unit of time among the Orang Kubu of Sumatra is the six-month mussim (season), which is of Malay origin[353]. The Samoans have a name for a period of twelve months, but they formerly reckoned years of six months (tau-sanga); each of these corresponded to one of the two six-month periods, the palolo or rainy season and the monsoon season[354]. The Moanu of the Admiralty Island name the division of the year according to the position of the sun. When it stands north of the equator, the season in question is named morai in paiin (sun of war), since wars are chiefly fought in this season. When it stands over the equator, the season is called morai in houas (sun of friendship), the season of friendship and mutual visits. When the sun turns towards the south, the cooler season begins[355]. Of the Kiwai Papuans of the islands in the delta of the Fly River in New Guinea, Torres Straits, Landtman writes to me that he cannot say if the people are clear whether they reckon in years or in half-years[356]. The former supposition is really only supported by the fact that they are aware that the same natural conditions recur after the lapse of the two half-years. There is no word for year. On the whole it may be said that they count only the months, and hardly conceive of so great a unit as the year, nor even (at least not everywhere) of the half-year, although there may be a hint of this in special cases.