More often the years are reckoned by one of the greater seasons. It is a well-known fact that in Old Norse generally, in Gothic, and often in Old German and Anglo-Saxon time was reckoned in winters. We find traces of the same practice in Greek (χίμαρος, ‘a one-year-old goat’, from the same root as χειμών, winter) and in Latin (bimus, trimus = ‘of two, three years’, from hiems): poets often reckon in hiemes[391]. It is almost the rule among all peoples who live under a climate that has a winter with snow and ice. The Ostiaks reckon in winters, and so do the Eskimos of Greenland[392] and of the Behring Straits[393], and the N. American Indians in general, for instance the Kiowa[394], the Pawnee[395], and the Omaha[396]. The common method of reckoning is not by the season, ‘the cold time’, but by the concrete phenomenon that distinguishes it, viz. the snow. So with the tribes of the N. W. interior[397], the Hupa[398], and the Dakota, who say that a man is so many ‘snows’ old, or that so many ‘snow-seasons’ have passed since an occurrence[399]. The Siciatl of British Columbia reckon either by summers, ‘fine seasons’, or by winters, ‘snows’[400]. For the Algonquin [see p. 93]. In the tropics to reckon by the cold season is rare: the Guarini of Paraguay however reckon in roi, i. e. ‘seasons of coolness’, ‘winters’[401], and the Bakongo occasionally by sivu, the cold season, though more often by mou, ‘season’[402]. The reason for the reckoning of the years in winters is the same as that for the counting of the days in nights. Winter is a time of rest, an undivided whole, which practically becomes equivalent to a single point: it is therefore more convenient for reckoning than summer, which is filled up with many different occupations. In the south of N. America, in the states on the Gulf of Mexico, where the snow is rare and the heat of summer is the dominant feature, the term for year had some reference to this season or to the heat of the sun[403], e. g. among the Seminole of Florida the name for the year was the same as that used for summer[404]. Here the summer is the time of rest, but in Slavonic also time is reckoned in summers (leto = ‘summer’, plural = ‘years’). We may compare here the English expressions ‘a maiden of 18 summers’, etc. The reckoning in springs is only exceptional. The Basuto word selemo means ‘spring, ploughing-time, year’[405]. At the southern end of Lake Nyassa time is reckoned by ‘rains’, i. e. rainy seasons[406].
Ever since the principal food of man has been the produce of fruit-trees or the corn, the fruit- and corn-harvests and the whole period of vegetation in general have been of decisive importance for his well-being. We have already seen how this circumstance has left its mark upon the indications of the seasons, and in the same way the second most important method of counting years is to reckon by harvests or vegetation-periods. The fellahs of Palestine still do this. Their usual method is to reckon from one harvest to another, or, as they put it, ‘from threshing-floor to threshing-floor’[407]. In modern Arabia rents are hardly ever reckoned for a whole year, but only until the next spring, rabi, when the young animals are sold, or, as by the fellahs, until the next threshing-time, bedar, when the farmer can realise upon his corn[408]. The Negrito of Zambales determine the year by the planting or harvesting season, but their minds rarely go back farther than the last season[409]. In Bavaria in the Middle Ages the years used to be reckoned in autumns. The ceremonial reckoning in the Sanskrit ritual texts is in autumns, Sanskrit çarad, ‘autumn’[410]. The subjects of the Incas had a word huata, ‘year’, which as a verb meant ‘attacher’: but the lower classes reckoned in harvests[411]. This is also done in the district around Mombasa[412]. The Arabs sometimes reckon the years as e. g. 40 charif, charif being the time of the date-harvest[413].
We have already spoken of the rice-year in the East Indian Archipelago as a combination of the agricultural seasons; the period of vegetation of the rice also serves, although seldom, for the counting of the year. Among the Toradja the time needed for a plant to come to its full development up to maturity is called ta’oe, and santa’oe accordingly means ‘a year ago’. Sampae is the rice-year of six months, but santa’oe has practically the same meaning, since the rice is the most important cultivated plant. In general, however, the word is seldom used as a time-indication, but the years are reckoned by well-known events (on this see [below, pp. 99 ff.]); nevertheless expressions like the following are heard:—santa’oe owi, ‘when last year’s rice-crops still stood on the field’, roeanta’oe owe, ‘two harvests ago’[414]. In the South Sea Islands the bread-fruit is the most important article of food: the people, as we have seen, know a time of abundance of food and a time of scarcity. We are told:—The Malay word for ‘year’ is taun or tahun. In all Polynesian dialects the primary sense of tau is ‘a season’, ‘a period of time’. In the Samoan group tau or tausanga, besides the primary sense of season, has the definite meaning of ‘a period of six months’, and conventionally that of ‘a year’, as on the island of Tonga. Here the word has the further sense of ‘the produce of a year’, and derivatively ‘a year’. In the Society group it simply means ‘season’. In the Hawaiian group, when not applied to the summer season, the word keeps its original sense of ‘an indefinite period of time’, ‘a life-time, an age’, and is never applied to the year: its duration may be more or less than a year, according to circumstances[415]. So far our authority. It seems however to be questionable whether the original sense is not the concrete ‘produce of the seasons’, rather than the abstract ‘period of time’. It is significant that on the Society Islands the bread-fruit season is called te tau, and the names of the other two seasons, te tau miti rahi and te tau poai, are formed by adding to this name[416].
Of great significance are the accurate reports for the Melanesians. They have no conception of the year as a definite period of time. The word tau (a Polynesian loan-word), or niulu, which corresponds most nearly to ‘year’, signifies a season, and so (now) the space of time between recurring seasons. Thus the yam has its tau of five moons, from the planting—when the erythrina is in flower—until the harvest, after the palolo has come and gone. The bread-fruit has its tau during the winter months: bananas and cocoa-nuts have no tau, since they always bear fruit. The notion of the year as the time from yam to yam, from palolo to palolo, has been readily received, but it is very doubtful if such a conception is anywhere purely native[417]. The Melanesians are only interested in the concrete phenomena of the year, and not in time-reckoning as such, and therefore do not in practice combine the period from yam-planting to harvest with that from harvest to planting to form a year. When it is pointed out, however, it is quite clear to them that this is a single period of the variation of the seasons. The Polynesians have themselves noted this fact, and accordingly the sense of the word tau has been extended from ‘season’ to ‘year’.
Whether the conception of the year was known in the Indo-European period is not certain: it is however significant that all the words for ‘year’ of which the etymology is fairly certain either refer to the produce of the year—as ὥρα and its cognates, and also the word ‘year’ itself, Old Scand. ár—or else come from the pars pro toto counting of the year. Thus the Slavonic leto means ‘summer’ and ‘year’. Sanskrit çarad means ‘autumn’: that the corresponding Avestic sared means ‘year’ is explained by the fact that the years were reckoned in autumns. The Greek ἐνιαυτός is unexplained, but in Homer, in the law of Gortyn, and in the inscription of the Labyades it has also the little observed sense of ‘anniversary’[418], which may be the original sense. Further evidence of the lack of an acquaintance with the conception of the year is afforded by the fact that the Germanic peoples render it by periphrases like ‘winter and summer’, etc.[419].
The pars pro toto counting of the year from shorter or longer seasons does not however extend beyond the years immediately following or preceding. It is stated of the tribes living at the southern end of Lake Nyassa that the years are reckoned in ‘rains’ up to three or four years: everything beyond that is kale, ‘some time ago’[420]. In the district around Mombasa, in periods not exceeding five years, the date is usually fixed by the number of harvests which have been gathered[421]. In general the primitive peoples reckon only where an immediate practical interest requires them to do so. The Kiwai Papuans have no word for year, but only for the monsoon periods: they cannot as a rule state how many years have elapsed since a certain event, but only whether it took place recently or long ago[422]. The inhabitants of the islands of the Torres Straits never count years[423]. Individuals belonging to tribes at a low stage of civilisation keep no account of their own age. Among the Waporogo no one can say how old he is[424]. The Edo-speaking tribes have a calendar, but an enquiry as to the age of a man or the number of years since a given event will meet with no answer, or a random one[425]. In Dahomey no negro has the slightest idea of his age[426]. The Hottentots have no interest in their own age, but are interested in that of their cattle, which they reckon by the calving and lambing periods[427]. Few of the Chinhwan of Formosa know their age[428]. The Negritos of Zambales have no idea of their age[429]. No Marquesas Islander, no Oceanian in general, can give either his own age or the time of any event[430]; even the Maoris do not know their age, although they know that the man of forty years is older than the man of thirty[431]. The statements here made obviously refer to the absolute age of a man, not to the relative age; for either it is immediately seen or else easily remembered from childhood who is older and who younger. The Babwende, for instance, never know how old they are, but do know quite well who is the oldest[432]. Since the relative age is thus known, the age of the people and the time of events can be determined by reference to the speaker’s own relative age or to that of someone else. On the same page as that from which the above quotation for the Marquesas Islands is taken, it is stated that in order to determine the time of any event the people indicate how tall a person was, or how long his beard was, at the time when the event took place. The Indians of Pennsylvania temporarily determined an event by referring to their own age at the time of its occurrence[433].
From these indications of relative ages there arises of itself a familiar chronological expedient usually found at the point where history begins, viz. the reckoning by generations, which is common e. g. among the Polynesians[434] and in the older Greek historians. Among the Masai an elaborate system for classifying ages has exceptionally developed. The circumcision takes place in four-year periods with intervals of three and a half years. The circumcisions are known alternately as ‘right-hand’ and ‘left-hand’. Those who have been circumcised at the same time have a special name, such as ‘those who fight openly or by day’, ‘those who are not driven away’, etc.; one ‘right-hand’ and one ‘left-hand’ period combine to form a generation. The ‘those-who-fight-openly’ period is a ‘right-hand’ period, and those who belong to it were circumcised in 1851–5; the ‘those-who-are-not-driven-away’ period is a ‘left-hand’, and its members were circumcised in 1859–63. The two periods or ages together form a generation composed of persons born from 1834–1850. Each age has three divisions, first those known as ‘the big ostrich feathers’, secondly those called ‘the helpers’, and thirdly those known as ‘our fleet runners’[435]. It is evident that an excellent basis for the determination of relative time is hereby given. With time-reckoning per se the system is not concerned.
Common bases for reckoning are afforded by important and striking events which have been impressed upon everyone and are present to all men’s minds: through their relation to the age of some person they serve as a guide to the chronology. The Aino, for example, do not count the days, but always refer to events; if it is asked how old anyone is, the answer will be that he was born after the catching of the very big fish, or perhaps in the year when there was so much snow[436]. Here once more we see how concrete time-indications always precede the abstract numerical counting of time. And where numbers are known they are not willingly used, but the year is referred to as one distinguished by a certain noteworthy event, instead of being regarded as a member of a series. From a year of this kind the natives can only reckon for a few years at most in either direction. Where there are many such noteworthy years the time-relationship is so far recognised that the succession of the events is known, and perhaps in certain cases also forms the basis of calculation.
In the neighbourhood of Mombasa wars, famines, the arrival of white men form epochs of this kind: it is impossible to detect the age of any adult[437]. It is mentioned that the Toradja of the Dutch East Indies sometimes reckon nearly approaching events or events of recent occurrence by the rice-sowing: dates at a more distant past are indicated by mentioning events of most note, such as the death of a great man, an epidemic of small-pox, an important military expedition, a conclusion of peace, the payment of a tax, etc. The people do not reckon their own age, but count that of their children, saying: “When he was born I had my rice-field there, the next year there”, and so on[438]. It is amusing and at the same time instructive to note that precisely the same mode of reckoning was found in Scania at the beginning of the last century. It was a very common thing, says a well-known authority on the folk-lore of this district, for a peasant, when asked how old e. g. his little girl was, to give some such answer as: “She must be four years old, for she is the same age as my brown mare, and she was born when our southern field was a grazing meadow”[439].
The Batak of Sumatra think that a small-pox epidemic returns at intervals of from nine to twelve years, and make use of this belief in reckoning time. On questioning a chief, says a traveller, how old his house was, I was told: “It has existed only for two small-pox epidemics”, by which he meant that it was somewhat more than 24 years old[440]. In Borneo there have occurred two eclipses of the sun during the last half-century. The first of these served as a fixed date in relation to which other events were dated[441].