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.