The Wadschagga of Kilimanjaro have likewise twelve months; ten are denoted by numerals; the counting begins at the fifth, and the months are divided into seasons. Nos. 5–8 fall in the season of the great rains, 9 and 10 in the dancing season. In the ninth the people say: ‘It is bright’; the rainy season passes away, and for this reason this month is regarded as the beginning of the year, sacrifices are offered up at the gates of the country, the chief ‘raises the field-stick’, i. e. gives permission for the beginning of the ploughing, after having previously ‘let the year open’ by offering a special sacrifice to the spirits for good fruit and harvest. The name of the following month, iyana, now means ‘a hundred’, but formerly it probably had the sense of ‘ten’. This, the 10th, month is followed by the first; the 1st and the 2nd months fall in the first warm season, the 3rd in the little rainy season. The three months of the great heat are not denoted by numerals. They are interpolated between the 3rd and the 5th months. The first of these is called nsaa: a month known as the fourth is then said to be missing, but our authority conjectures that nsaa is perhaps a mutilated form of an old word for four; the month that follows nsaa is called muru, which is left unexplained, and the next is nsangwe or nsango. Then the 5th month comes again. The name nsangwe is almost everywhere explained by the people as arising from nsana-ngwi, ‘to collect wood for burning’. The supplies of wood for the rainy season are collected. The position of this month immediately before the rainy season misleads them into thus explaining the similar sound. These last two months are clearly to be recognised as interpolations in the original scheme of ten months. But there still exists a name for a thirteenth month, which is of course necessary for the correcting of the lunar year, and which, as the old folks say, was formerly actually counted. But now they say:—“It is a sham month, since it has no companions, no comrades, and therefore it is superfluous. The year has only twelve months.” It is called nkinyambwo. The people say:—“The nkinyambwo is no longer necessary, since the rainy season has now only three months, not four as in olden times.” The practice of beginning an enumeration of the months with the 5th month kusanu arouses the suspicion that this may be the actual beginning of the year. To this the other names of this month also point: ‘on the boundary of the year’, or maraya a kisie, which can now only be translated as ‘the ender of the rain’. But as a matter of fact this month ushers in the rainy season. It has therefore been pushed from its former position in the course of the year after the rainy season to a position before the beginning of the period of greatest rains, and the practice of beginning the enumeration with kusanu is now the sole reminder of a time when kusanu really did introduce the new year at the beginning of the chief ploughing-season. But the first month nsi must once have been one of the starting-points of the counting[777]. That the two months above-mentioned are interpolations does not seem to be correct: for the nkinyambwo shews that the Wadschagga, like so many other peoples, have had thirteen months, one of which was omitted when necessary. The process seems clear from the statements given. When the thirteenth month (probably under Islamite influence) passed out of use, in the now strictly lunar year the months got out of place in reference to the seasons. If the fifth month kusanu keeps the place in reference to the seasons to which its other names point, it falls in the ninth month of the author’s list, kukendu, which, according to natural conditions, is the beginning of the year. That only ten months are numbered and the others named affords independent evidence, and is in keeping with the system of counting in tens. That the two months in question are inserted between the third (or fourth) and the first points to a conventionalising of the system such as is anything but primitive. Here, as always, numbered months shew themselves to be a late phenomenon.
Curious names of months, of a kind which we have hardly met with hitherto, are found in the comparatively highly civilised Hausa states (Kano, Sokoto), where the Arabic and Julian names for the months are also known. 1 (January), wata-n-tshika-n-shekara, or tshiki, ‘month of the filling of the belly’, since much food is eaten, especially at full moon, or wata-n-wauwo, month of the wauwo-game (with torches); 2, wata-n-gani, month of the gani-game; 3, wata-n-takutika, month of the takutika-game, or wata-n-takalufu; 4, ware-ware-n-farin; 5, ware-ware-n-biu; 6, ware-ware-n-aku. Ware-ware is the name of a small bird which builds its nest in a hole in the ground; it is therefore doubtful to which element it belongs. And so it is with these three months, April, May, June, in which no games take place, so that it was not known where to place them; for this reason they are called the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ware-ware. The word also denotes a person who talks now one way, now another, a doubtful person. 7, wata-n-azumi-n-tsofafi, month of the fast of the old people; 8, wata-n-sha rua-n-tsofafi, month of the old people’s water-drinking; 9, wata-n-azumi, month of fasting; 10, wata-n-karama-n-salla, month of the little salla festival; 11, wata-n-bawa-n-salloli, month of the slaves, in this month all (but especially the slaves) have much work for the festival of the following month; 12, wata-n-baba-n-salla, month of the great salla festival, or wata-n-laiya, month of the slaughtering of the lamb. The festivals, especially the salla festivals, do not always take place in the months named after them: the time is determined by the priests in accordance with the position of the moon (wata = ‘moon,’ ‘month’)[778]. This is an artificial system which was probably created with a leaning towards the Arabic months. In Edo too the familiar names of months are borrowed from the ceremonies that take place at different times[779].
Madagascar has a comparatively highly developed civilisation in which various influences cross. The Merina have the Arabic months. The history of the native calendar is said to be very complicated: Grandidier in a detailed discussion seeks to prove that the Malgassian year, which is commonly held to be a lunar year, is a solar or lunisolar one, and on the strength of certain resemblances in the names of the months derives the calendar from S. India. I give the principal data. Grandidier says that one reason for believing that the Malgassian calendar is a solar one is the fact that it is in reality agricultural. In 1638 Cauche says that the Malgassi divide their year into 4 seasons and 12 lunar months, with some intercalary days. The year is for them the time which elapses between two phases of the vegetation; for greater convenience they divide it into twelve lunar months, without caring much about the number of days composing these months, as is rightly said of the Antandroy by Vacher[780], who gives the following list, which is almost identical with that compiled by Grandidier himself in the south-east, at Iavibola, in 1866. The months have names and epithets: the latter are explained. 1, millet is cut; 2, winter begins; 3, the beans flower; 4, the tamarinds of the north are ripe; 5, the leaves fall; 6, tamarinds and beans are ripe; 7, the Cythere-tree flowers; 8, the bulls seek the shade of the sakoa; 9, the guinea-fowls sleep; 10, the rain rots the ropes (with which the calves are fastened); 11, the gourds flower; 12, the grains of the fano are ripe. Rowlands[781] had already remarked that the Betsileo months depend more upon the time of the sowing and reaping of the rice and upon the flowering of certain plants than upon the phases of the moon, and that the agreement with the months of the Merina (i. e. the Arabic months) is only approximate. The same applies to the calendar of the Sakalava, the Bara, the Tanala, and the Sihanaka, which is identical with that of the Betsileo. What is here said about the calendars of the peoples of the south and the centre of the island is also true of the calendars of the northern and eastern peoples[782]. To me it seems as though we have here a series of months of the ordinary type, in which the months are named and at the same time fixed with reference to the seasons, although I do not presume to decide upon the complicated question of the Malgassian calendar. There remains one possibility, viz. that the ‘months’ are seasons with no relation to the moon, but this possibility does not seem to have been seriously considered by those who can make use of the sources, which are only to be got at with extreme difficulty.
Among the primitive peoples of the East Asiatic peninsula the seasons of the agricultural year are very much employed; in comparison with them the moon-month plays no important part. Moreover Indian and Islamite influences have penetrated deeply: the calendar in use arises from these. The facts are well illustrated by a notice from the Malay Peninsula. There are three ways of reckoning the months, (1) the Arabian, 29 and 30 days alternately, (2) the Persian, 30 days, and (3) that of Rum, 31 days; the first is the common method. Some few, with greater accuracy, calculate their year at 354 days 8 hours, intercalating every 3 years 24 hours, or one day, to make up the deficiency, and 33 days for the difference between the solar and the lunar years. But the majority of the lower classes estimate their year by the fruit seasons and by their crops of rice only. Many, however, obstinately adhere to the lunar month and plant their paddy at the annual return of the lunar month[783]. The Guru of Sumatra know a division of the year into twelve months of 30 days each; the months, with the exception of the last two, are denoted by numbers[784]. They are therefore calendar months, not moon-months, and are a foreign acquisition. Among the Kayan the month, or, as they say, the moon, plays a greater part than the year: of the latter hardly anyone knows properly how many moons it contains. Commonly they reckon 1 to 2 moons for the sowing, five for the time which the rice needs to ripen, 2 to 3 for the harvest, and three up to the next sowing. The different months have no special names among the Bahau[785]. The time-reckoning of Sumatra, Java, and Bali shews a prevailing foreign (Indian or Islamite) influence. It is to be noted that among many peoples the first ten months are numbered, while the last two have names. In Bali these two names are Sanskrit words[786].
For Timor two lists of moon-months are given, the one from Bibiçuçu, the other from Samoro. The names are in some cases the same, they are not translated and perhaps cannot be explained, but they indicate the occupations of the months. 1, funu, leet ali, about October, vater, maize, is planted and mountain rice sown; 2, fahi, the fields are weeded; 3, naru, ‘the great month’, the maize flowers, heavy rain; 4, fotan, tora, the former word probably a corruption of the Malay potong, the cutting or harvest month: the maize is housed and a harvest sacrifice offered; 5, madauk, harvest of the mountain-rice; 6, wani, honey and wax are collected; 7, uhi, uhi böot, probably a corruption of ubi, sweet potato, these are now dug up and collected; 8, madai böot, uhi kiik, fogs and heavy rain; 9, madai kiik, lakubutik, little rain: during both these months little work can be done; 10, lakubutik böot, madai, still showers; 11, lakubutik kiik, funu, very hot, only in this month is gold sought for; 12, leet, leet manuluk, hot: the grass is burnt off and the ground prepared for maize-planting[787]. It is interesting to note how the names have departed from a common foundation: two names (funu, madai) denote different months. Note also the pairs of months in both lists.
The Kiwai Papuans, who are well acquainted with the stars, have a very interesting list of months, compiled from names of stars and, as it seems, of natural objects. Accurate information about this list has very kindly been personally communicated to me by Landtman[788]. The year is divided into two parts in accordance with the monsoons[789]. The time of the S. E. monsoon (uro) embraces the months:—1, keke (Achernar, our April); 2, utiamo (the Pleiades); 3, sengerai (Orion); 4, koidjugubo (Capella, Sirius, and Canopus together); 5, wapi; 6, hopukoruho; 7, abu; and 8, tagai (Crux). In the transitional period comes 9, karongo (Antares). The time of the N. W. monsoon (hurama) includes:—10, naramu-dubu (Vega); 11, nirira-dubu (Altair); 12, goibaru; 13, korubutu. Each month, in the language of the natives called ‘moon’, is connected with a definite constellation, as is shewn above, and it is to be presumed that this constellation is properly the one that is to sink down to the western horizon during the month in question. Perfect accuracy does not however prevail in this nomenclature, but several adaptations have been made. (This is natural and necessary, on account of the dislocation of the lunar months with regard to the solar year). Even in the matter of the succession of the months different statements were made, this no doubt being due to the fact that all the natives were not equally masters of the calendar. The statements fluctuate as to whether karongo is the last month of the uro or the first of the hurama. (The fluctuation is natural, since this month falls in the time of transition between the two). In any case this month, like keke, the first of the uro, comes to have a special meaning. It seems to be somewhat uncertain whether koidjugubo exists as the name of a special month or whether the word only denotes a constellation related to the months wapi, hopukoruho, and abu. The time of the koidjugubo is that in which the S. E. monsoon blows hardest. The corresponding middle month in hurama is goibaru. Baidamu (‘the Shark’), the Great Bear, is also related to a certain period during the S. E. monsoon, particularly to hopukoruho, in which according to certain statements the head sets, and to abu, in which the back fin and the tail set. The setting of each of the various parts of the body of the Shark in the west is accompanied by storms and rain, which arise in the period of the S. E. monsoon. When the Shark is no longer to be seen at evening, and after both its eyes have emerged in the east at morning, the period of the tagai-karongo begins, in which the sea-turtles are caught, and the time of the N. W. monsoon is at hand. The turtles are caught more particularly during the time of their copulation, and this begins in abu, occasionally in tagai, reaches its height in karongo, and finishes in naramu-dubu. The planting of tubers also takes place in definite months. Unfortunately the meaning of the names that do not refer to constellations is not in all cases clear. Wapi in one Torres Straits dialect is said to mean ‘fish’, and the name is said to refer to the fact that this time is especially favourable for fishing, since the fish are then particularly stupid and easy to catch with the fish-spear. Hopukoruho is the name of an earth-wasp: colonies of these insects dig holes in the ground. (Do they appear in particularly great numbers in this month?). Hopu means ‘earth’, and koruho ‘to eat’. This month is held to be especially dangerous: men are exposed to sickness and death and are bitten by serpents, the canoes suffer shipwreck. It is also expressly stated that the name of the month refers to death and burial. The sense of abu is quite uncertain. Abu means ‘ford’ in a creek: the name may perhaps refer to the beginning of the transition to the period of the following monsoon. (Or does it refer to the fact that the fords at the end of the dry season are particularly easy to pass?). The sense of goibaru is also quite uncertain, even, as it appears, among the natives. (No statement as to the meaning of karubuti is given). Karongo, according to the meaning of the word, is said to refer to the transition from hurama to uro. Koidjugubo means ‘great constellation’.
For the Melanesians well developed series of months are given: the very instructive statement of Codrington will be found in the next chapter.[790] For the Carolines two lists of names are given, from Lamotrek and from Yap[791]; but they are of no use to us, since they only give twelve names without any explanation. But the list for the Mortlock Islands, a group included in the Carolines, is of great interest, since every month is named after a constellation and therefore is also regulated by it. The names are:—1, yis, Leo; 2, soropuel, Corvus; 3, aramoi, Arcturus; 4, tumur, Scorpio; 5, mei-sik, ν, ξ, ο Herculis; 6, meilap, Aquila; 7, sota, Equuleus; 8, la, Pegasus; 9, ku, Aries; 10, mariher, the Pleiades; 11, un-allual, elluel, Aldebaran and Orion; 12, mau, Sirius[792]. The same system, with names in some cases the same, is given for the southernmost group of the Carolines, the St. David’s Islands[793]. The months of the Fijians, beginning at February, are:—1, sese-ni-ngasau lailai; 2, s.-n.-n.-levu; 3, vulai-mbotambota; 4, v.-kelikeli; 5, v.-were-were; 6, kawakatangare; 7, kawawaka-lailai; 8, k.-levu; 9, mbalolo-lailai; 10, m.-levu; 11, nunga-lailai; 12, n.-levu[794]. The names are not explained, but from the glossary[795] we learn that vula means ‘moon’ and ‘month’, se-ni-ngasau ‘flower of the reed’, mbota ‘to share out, distribute’, keli ‘to dig’, were ‘to till the ground’, kawa ‘offspring, posterity’, waka ‘root’, nunga is the name of a fish, mbalolo is the familiar palolo, which is a favourite delicacy all over Polynesia, levu = ‘big’, lailai = ‘little’. In so far as the meaning of the names is to be perceived, therefore, they relate to the business of agriculture and fishing. Here also we meet the already familiar phenomenon in which several months have the same name, and are distinguished by the addition of ‘big’ and ‘little’.
For the Polynesians many series of months are reported: some of these have 13, others 12 months. The Maoris of New Zealand count 13, and are distinguished from all others in only numbering, not naming, the first ten. According to H. Williams the months are counted from the beginning of the kumara-planting, and are only denoted by numbers; in the tenth month the harvest takes place, and also the feast of the dead, ha-hunga, which for this reason also serves as a designation of the year, but after that no further months are counted, up to the first[796]. This last statement must be regarded with suspicion, since other sources give not indeed numbers but names for the last three months and the points of reference. As an example of the nomenclature I give marama-to-ke-ngahuru, ‘the tenth month’. The eleventh has the same name with the addition of hauhake kumare, to dig up, harvest kumara; the twelfth and thirteenth are called respectively ko-te-paengwawa and ko-te-tahi-o-pipiri, which names are unfortunately not translated. Pipiri recurs as the name of a month in the Society Islands and Tahiti; there it is said that the name refers to a certain thriftiness or stinginess, perhaps in the supply of fruit[797]. But the numbering of the names of the New Zealand months is certainly a later phenomenon, since the cognate tribes everywhere have proper names, nor do the months on this account lose their connexion with the phenomena of Nature. Although they were not named from the latter, they were regulated by them. Each moon is distinguished by the rising of stars, the flowering of certain plants, the arrival of migratory birds, etc. I give a list of these points of reference, beginning at June: unfortunately the names of stars are not identified by our authority. 1, puanga, the great winter star, rises early in the morning, and also denotes the beginning of winter: matariki, tapuapua, wakaahu te ra o tainu are also in the ascendant; 2, wakaau, waakaahu nuku, w. rangi, w. papa, w. kerekere, kopu, tautoru; 3, taka-pou-poto, mangere, kaiwaka, spring begins, the karaka and hou flower; 4, taka-pou-tawahi, it begins to be warm, cultivation commences, the kowai, kotuku tuku, and rangiora trees flower, a rainy month; 5, kumara is planted, the tawera is ripe, the cuckoo, koekoea, arrives, the windy month, corresponding with our March, hence the name te rakihi, the noisy or windy period; 6, te wakumu, the rewarewa flowers; 7, nga tapuae, the rata flowers; 8, uruao rangawhenua, rehu is the great summer star, the star rangewhenua, an ancestor, is said to rule the days, and uruao the nights of this month, the karaka flowers; 9, rehua, ko ruruau, the dry and scarce month; 10, rehua, matiti (indicates the autumn), ngahuru, the harvest month for the kumara; 11, te kahui-rua-mahu, the days grow cold, the cuckoo leaves; 12, kai waka, patu-tahi matariki, the winter-star koero is the chief star of this month; 13, tahi ngungu, the grumbling month, little food, bad weather, smoky houses, watery eyes, constant quarrels[798]. There are some descriptions of the months which also seem to be their names. Taylor’s statement that the twelfth month often passes unnoticed deserves attention.
Of Tonga it is noted that the names of the months are scarcely known to any except those who work on the plantations: the order of their succession is not quite clear. The months are often grouped in pairs, mooa meaning the first, mooi the second. 1, liha-mooa, 2, l.-mooi, liha means ‘nit’, but is not connected by the author with the name of the month; 3, vy-mooa, 4, vy-mooi, vy = ‘watery’, ‘rainy’; 5, hilinga gele-gele: hilinga is said to be a corruption of hilianga, ‘end, termination’, gele-gele = ‘dig’, because in this month they cease digging the ground for planting yams; 6, tanoo manga, tanoo = ‘to overwhelm, to bury’, manga = anything open, diverging, fork-shaped; 7, oolooenga; 8, hilinga mea, ‘the end of things’, the month in which the principal agricultural work of the season is finished; 9, fucca afoo moooi, moooi = ‘to live, recover’; 10, fucca afoo mote, mote = ‘to die, wither’; 11, oolooagi mote, oolooagi = ‘the first’; 12, fooa fenike anga; 13, mahina tow, mahina = ‘moon’, tow = the end of anything[799]. On the Society Islands the people were not unanimous as to the beginning of the year, nor as to the names of the months, each island having a computation peculiar to itself. The series of months adopted by King Pomare and the reigning family was:—1, avarehu, the new moon that appears about the summer (viz. our winter) solstice at Tahiti; 2, faaahu, the season of plenty; 3, pipiri; 4, taaoa, the season of scarcity begins; 5, aununu; 6, apaapa; 7, paroro mua; 8, paroro muri; 9, muriaha; 10, hiaia; 11, tema, the season of scarcity ends; 12, te-eri, the young bread-fruit begins to flower; 13, te-tai, the bread-fruit is nearly ripe. Another computation commenced the year at the month apaapa, about the middle of May, and gave different names to several of the months[800]. Another older list gives the following series from Tahiti:—1, o-porori-o-mua, March, the first hunger or scarcity; 2, o-porori-o-muri, ‘the last scarcity’, which agrees to some extent with the facts, since the bread-fruit is scarcest just when it is ripening, as at that time it is used for mahei, sour dough; 3, mureha; 4, uhi-eya, has certainly a reference to catching fish with a hook; 5, hurri-ama; 6, tauwa; 7, hurri-erre-erre; 8, o-te-ari, probably so called from the young cocoa-nuts, which just then are very numerous; 9, o-te-tai, contains an allusion to the sea; 10, wa-rehu; 11, wä-ahau, refers to the cloth made from the mulberry bark; 12, pipirri, refers to a certain thriftiness or stinginess, perhaps in the supply of fruit; 13, e-u-nunu[801]. For the Marquesas Islands (Futuhiwa) I know only a bare enumeration of 13 names of months[802].
For Samoa there is more information. I give von Bülow’s list:—1 (Oct.-Nov.), palolo or taumafa mua, ‘there is for the first time abundance for all’: bananas, bread-fruit, and taro are ripe, the month provides much fish; 2, toe taumafa, ‘there is once more abundance’, the harvest is still not ended; 3, utuvamua, ‘it is uninterrupted’, new crops of other fruit have not yet appeared; 4, toe utuva, ‘still uninterrupted’; 5, faaafu, ‘the leaves of the yam plant get dry’, i. e. the root is ripe; 6, lo, ‘the staff for the harvest of the bread-fruit’, sc. ‘is brought into play’; 7, aununu, ‘the making of the arrowroot into starch’, the root is now ripe; 8, oloumanu, ‘the cage of the birds’ (is prepared), in which to tame the wild pigeons caught in nets, after some of their wing-feathers have been removed; 9, palolo-mua, the first palolo fishing: the appearance of the palolo formerly took place in various months, since there are still islands in which palolo is found in the last quarter of every month; 10, toe palolo or palolomoli, ‘repeated last palolo fishing’, from the fishing at the end of the year in October or the end of September, according to the island; 11, mulifa, ‘the banana-pole’ (is hewn down), i. e. the bananas are ripe; 12, lotuaga, ‘the lo is laid to rest’, i. e. the bread-fruit harvest is over[803]. All the lists agree in giving only twelve months: the seasons are two in number. For the Bowditch Island a list of twelve names is given without explanation; the names are in a great measure the same as the Samoan. The author adds:—It seems as though vainoa, month no. 9, is the leapmonth, but there was no name for the eleventh month, corresponding to our March[804].