For the Sandwich Islands abundant material exists, more particularly in the work of the native writer, Malo. I give the list commonly found in other authors also[805], together with the explanations which Malo has obtained from old Hawaiians well versed in the calendar, in the first place those of O. K. Kapule of Kaluaha, Molokai, and secondly, in the case of some months, those of Kaunamoa, of whose dwelling-place we are told nothing more than that he was a Hawaiian. 1, ikuwa (January), so named from the frequent occurrence of thunder-storms, wa-wa, ‘to reverberate, to stun the ear’: the noisy month, clamor of ocean, thunder, storm; 2, hina-ia-eleele, from the frequent over-casting and darkening (eleele) of the heavens; 3, welo, because the rays of the sun then begin to shoot forth (welo) more vigorously: the leaves are torn to shreds by the enuhe, a kind of worm; 4, makalii (the Pleiades); 5, ka-elo, so named because the sweet potatoes burst out of the hill, or overflowed the basket; 6, kau-lua, from the coupling together of two canoes (kau-lua): the two stars called kau-lua then rose in the east; 7, nana, from the fact that a canoe then floated (nana, lana) quietly on the calm sea: the young birds then stir and rustle about (nana-na) in their nests and coverts; 8, ikiiki, the hot month (ikiki or ikiiki, ‘hot and stuffy’): ‘hot and sticky’, from being shut up indoors, by weather; 9, kaa-ona, because then the sand-banks begin to shift in the ocean, ona is said to be another word for one, ‘sand’: (dry) sugar-canes, flower-stalks, etc., which have been put away in the top of the house, have now become very dry; 10, hili-na-ehu, from the mists that floated up from the sea; 11, hili-na-ma, because it was necessary to keep the canoes well lashed (hili); 12, welehu, so named from the abundance of ashes (lehu) that were to be found in the fire-places at this time. Malo gives six other lists, two for Hawaii, one each for Molakai, Oahu, Kauai, and Maui. The differences in the order of the months already mentioned are sometimes great, and some new names occur. The former circumstance is doubtless to be explained by the fact that under European influence the native months early passed out of use and were forgotten, and the right order has not been certainly retained in the memory. Some of these explanations are obvious improvisations, in some cases one of the two explanations manifestly shews itself to be the correct one. This proves that the names of the months are so old that the original meaning has been lost. The forgetting of the native months is also responsible for the insufficiency of the information for other islands. Malayan philology might perhaps be able to go farther, if it took up the matter. But where the meaning is clear, it everywhere has reference to the seasons, their occupations and climatic conditions, and to the stars; the Polynesian names of months are in no way different from those of all other primitive or barbaric peoples.
The conclusion to be drawn from our investigation of the names and series of the months is therefore the following. In order that the month may be distinguished from others it is named after an occupation or natural phase which takes place while the month lasts, being described commonly by means of the addition ‘moon of the —’, but not seldom simply by the name of the natural phase or the occupation respectively. Any natural phase or occupation can originally give its name to a month, and hence arises an indefinite number of such terms. When any period of the year is without important natural phases and occupations, the months in this period are not named. At first, therefore, the names of the months are of an occasional, incidental character: the orientation of them follows from the general acquaintance with the phases and occupations of the natural year. As the result of a gradual selection in the daily usage of the names a less unstable, and in the end quite fixed, series of months is formed, which on account of the length of the natural year must comprise 12 to 13 months. The result is a difficulty which formerly was not felt, owing to the fluctuating character of the names of months, for the natural phases and the moons are pushed out of their mutual relationship, and this naturally leads to the question how many months the year includes, i. e. to the necessity of the intercalation. For the moon-month, which begins with the new moon, is a natural unity, which cannot be broken up.
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUSIONS.
Whoever has had patience to read through the material collected in the previous chapter will now no doubt be clear as to the process by which the cycle of months arose. The necessity was felt of distinguishing the months, of marking them. After the fashion of primitive man this was done, not by means of an abstract enumeration, but by some concrete reference. But the relation to a solitary historical event, by which rather more highly civilised peoples denote the years, can hardly, or only in isolated instances, be applied to the month: for the life of primitive peoples is very monotonous, and is not so rich in events which make an impression upon the mind that one of these will occur in every month, and even supposing that such events could be found, the months in a human life are too numerous for it to be possible to keep a series of this nature in mind. A second circumstance also proved decisive. The moon, whose phases always recur with regularity, served better than anything else to determine the date of any future event within a shorter period. The primitive peoples, with their undeveloped faculty of counting, could in this fashion numerically determine only a couple of months before or after the time of the moon that was then visible in the heavens. This is what we must understand by the statement made for the western tribe of the Torres Straits, viz. that they had no division of the year into months or days and never numbered the years, in view of the following statement that they commonly counted time in ‘suns’, i. e. days, and ‘moons’, i. e. months[806]. That is, they numbered two or three months, but had no series of months. The same initial stage is found also on the Australian continent. The natives of Central Australia reckon time by moon-phases, moons, and in the case of a longer period by seasons[807]. The Kakadu of Northern Territory reckon in moons and seasons, otherwise everything is more or less vague with the exception of the present and the immediate past and future[808].
Primitive man does not get very far in this fashion. In accordance with his custom and his whole habits of thought he must have some concrete factor to enable him to conceive of the different moons. This is found in the fact that the moon covers a part of the natural year. Herein lies a connexion which constantly recurs. The moons were therefore distinguished and named with reference to the phenomena of the natural year, to the phases of nature and to the occupations, labours, and conditions determined by them, and further to the risings of the stars. Within the series of from twelve to thirteen moons the month was determined by these means. Or, expressed somewhat differently, seasons and moons were mutually connected.
Originally this grouping together of the months was only incidental. The original state of affairs is well illustrated by the detailed description given by Codrington for the Melanesians:—
“It is impossible to fit the native succession of moons into a solar year, months have their names from what is done and what happens when the moon appears and while it lasts; the same moon has different names. If all the names of moons in use in one language were set in order the periods of time would overlap, and the native year would be artificially made up of 20 or 30 months. The moons and seasons of Mota in the Banks’ Islands may serve as an example. The garden work of the year is the principal guide to the arrangement, the succession of 1, clearing garden ground, uma, 2, cutting down the trees, tara, 3, turning over and piling up the stuff, rakasag, 4, burning it, sing, 5, digging the holes for yams, nur, and planting, riv. Then follows the care of the yam plants till the harvest, after which preparation for the next crop begins again. At the same time the regular winds and calms are observed, the spring of grass, the conspicuous flowering of certain trees, the bursting into leaf of the few deciduous trees. When a certain grass, magoto, springs, the winter, as it must be called, is over; when the erythrina, rara, is in flower, it is the cool season; magoto, therefore, and rara are names of seasons in native use, and answer roughly to summer and winter. The strange and exciting appearance of the palolo, un, sets a wide mark on the seasons. The April moon coincides pretty well with the time of the magoto qaro, the fresh grass; clearing, uma, of gardens goes on, the trade wind is steady. This is followed by the magoto rango, the withered grass; both are months of cutting down trees in the gardens, vule taratara, and in the latter the stuff is burnt. In July the erythrina, rara, begins to flower; this is nago rara, the face of winter; gardens are fenced, it is a moon of planting yams, vule vutvut. Planting continues into August, when the erythrina is in full flower, tur rara, the gaviga, Malay apple, flowering at the same time; the S. E. wind, gauna, blows, the yams begin to shoot and are stuck with reeds. In the next month the erythrina puts out its leaves, it is the end of it, kere rara; the yam vines run up the reeds and are trained, taur, upon them; the reeds are broken and bent over, ruqa, to let them run freely; the ground is kept clear of weeds; the tendrils curl, and the tubers are well formed. Then come the months of calm, when three moons are named from the un, palolo: first the un rig, the little un, or the bitter, un gogona, when at the full moon a few of the annelids appear. It is now the tau matua, the season of maturity; yams can be taken up and eaten, and if the weather is favourable, a second crop is planted. The un lava, the great palolo, follows, when at the full moon for one night the annelids appear on the reefs in swarms; the whole population is on the beach, taking up the un in every vessel and with every contrivance. This is the moon of the yam harvest; the vines are cut, goro, and the tubers very carefully taken up with digging-sticks to be stored. A few un appear at the next moon, the werei, which may be translated ‘the rump of the un’. In this moon they begin again to uma, clear the gardens; the wind blows again from the west, the ganoi, over Vanua Lava. It is now November or December, the togalau-wind blows from the north-west, it is exceedingly hot, fish die in the shallow pools, the reeds shoot up into flower; it is the moon of shooting up, vule wotgoro. The next month is the vusiaru, the wind beats upon the casuarina-trees upon the cliffs, the next again is called tetemavuru, the wind blows hard and drives off flying fragments from the seeded reeds; these are hurricane months. The last in order is the month that beats and rattles, lamasag noronoro, the dry reeds; the wind blows strong and steady, work is begun again, they rakasag, dry the rubbish of their clearings, and make ready the fences for new gardens. By this time the heat is past, the grass begins to spring again, and the winter months return”[809].
According to another report the natives of New Britain (Bismarck Archipelago) are still at the initial stage of the development. They numbered the months of the monsoons, five for each, and gave one month each to the two intervening periods. They had no names for each month, but only for the season. However they had terms for the planting and for the digging-moon, i. e. the harvest[810].
Another example may serve to shew how near to one another lists of months and seasons may under certain circumstances come. The Chukchee divide the year into twelve lunar months or ‘moons’. The year begins with the winter solstice, the time of which is marked pretty accurately. The dark interval between two moons is called ‘moon interval’. The names are:—1, the old-buck month; 2, cold udder (month); 3, genuine udder (month); 4, calving month; 5, water (month); 6, making-leaves month; 7, warm month, or summer month; 8, rubbing-off velvet (antlers) month, or midsummer month; 9, light-frost month; 10, autumn month, or wild-reindeer rutting month; 11, unexplained, perhaps ‘muscles of the back’, since it is believed that the muscles in the back of the reindeer become stronger in winter: also called ‘new-snow cover’; 12, shrinking (days) month. The Koryak have different names in different localities, but most of them call the third and the fourth months respectively the ‘false’ and the ‘true reindeer-birth month’. In ordinary speech, however, the names of months often give place to names of seasons, which are far more numerous than among us. Those most commonly used are:—1, ‘in the extending’, sc. of the days, corresponds approximately to the first month of the year; 2, ‘in the lengthening’, corresponds to the second month; 3, ‘during (the days) growing long’, lasts about six weeks, until the reindeer begin to calve; 4, ‘in the calving-(time)’; 5, ‘in the new summer growing’; 6, ‘in the first summer’; 7, ‘in the second summer’; 8, ‘in the middle summer’; 9, ‘with the fresh air going out’; 10, ‘with the first light frost’; 11, ‘with the new snow’; 12, ‘in the fall’; 13, ‘in the winter’[811]. Certainly these are seasons, and one of them has six weeks, but our authority himself explains a couple of them by a comparison with the moon-month. There are just thirteen of them, which, if the number is more than an accident, is an accurate series of months. In every case the addition of the word ‘moon’ would make the names descriptive of a month. The names in both the lists just given are of a similar nature.