Primitive Time-reckoning / A study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoples

by Martin P. Nilsson

It is a very wide-spread idea that things which are to prosper and grow should be undertaken during the time of the waxing moon, and that anything begun when the moon is on the wane will dwindle and die. Hence the proper time for a festival is the bright half of the moon, and especially the time at which the moon has attained her full shape. It is not only on account of the fair light which costs them nothing that the negroes dance on the nights of full moon. In Dahomey the festivals take place at the full of the moon, and the days are determined by the native government[1135]. In Burma all religious festivals with the exception of the New Year festival, the date of which is regulated in a special manner, take place at the time of full moon[1136]. Throughout Australia, Tasmania, and Melanesia the festivals begin either at full or new moon[1137].

In regard to the Israelitish festivals, the antiquity and great importance of the new moon festival has already been pointed out[1138]. The Jews here follow a wide-spread custom. Whether they, like many other peoples, also preferred the time of full moon for their festivals, is a more difficult question. A fixed day for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread and for the Feast of Tabernacles is first prescribed during and after the Exile, the last-named on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the Feast of Unleavened Bread on the fifteenth day of the first month, and the Passover on the evening of the day before (the fourteenth of the first month)[1139]. The only other information we have from ancient times as to the date of the Feast of Tabernacles is contained in the earlier name ‘Feast of Vintage’; it was celebrated after the conclusion of the fruit-harvest and vintage. In regard to the Feast of Unleavened Bread—since it is with this chiefly that we have to do, not with the preliminary Feast of the Passover associated with it, which was a feast of a different nature—the order of the Yahwist runs ‘at the time appointed in the month Abib’[1140]; as a motive is adduced the fact that the Jews came out from Egypt in this month. The Deuteronomist[1141] transfers this to the preliminary festival. The time therefore, like that of the Feast of Vintage, is determined by an event in agriculture, but at the same time by the moon. Linguistically chodesh can here mean ‘new moon’; in that case we could also translate ‘at the time appointed after the new moon of Abib’; but since the sense ‘month’ is so old and the original sense ‘new moon’ appears unequivocally only where monthly new moon festivals are in question[1142], it seems reasonable to translate the word here simply by ‘month’. Now it is often stated that the festive seasons both of the Unleavened Bread and of the Feast of Vintage were regulated purely by natural circumstances: the former was celebrated when the first ears ripened, and the latter when the fruit-harvest was at an end, each according to local conditions. But the Feast of Vintage at least was a general festival even in Canaanitish days[1143], and moed properly means ‘determined, appointed time’. It was therefore not accidental circumstances but a rule that in early times called the people together to the festival. Chronological regulation is proved by the name of the festival of harvest (chag haq-qazir), ‘Feast of Weeks’, chag shabuot in the Yahwist[1144]. The regulation by the weeks, however, is late and artificial in comparison with that by the moon.

Now if we know what part was played by the time of full moon in the festivals of other peoples, and indeed for the agrarian peoples also, in spite of the differences in date resulting from the observation of the time of full moon, it seems always probable that the regulation of post-exilian times for the fifteenth originated in an old tradition in accordance with which the time of full moon was specially favoured for the feast. Earlier the date was not so accurately observed; the time of full moon was prescribed so that those who were prevented from celebrating the Feast of the Passover at the proper time might do so on the fourteenth of the following month[1145]. Unfortunately the date of the passage in I Kings (XII, 32), according to which Jeroboam celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles on the 15th day of the eighth month, is doubtful; if the passage is old, it affords valuable evidence that the time of full moon was the proper time for holding agrarian festivals[1146].

Among the Greeks all the ancient festivals with the exception of the feasts of Apollo, which always took place on the seventh of the month, were concentrated in the period shortly before and during full moon[1147]. The selection of days is organically connected with the lunar reckoning, and the superstition of days has arisen independently among different peoples. As an example the sacrifices of the Toba Batak of Sumatra may serve. At the felling of a tree for house-building sacrifices must be offered during the waxing moon; this is in general the favourable time, since everything undertaken then increases with the moon. The huntsman sacrifices to his god at noon-tide about the time of new moon, the fisherman at noon while the moon is waxing; before a military expedition a certain sacrifice is offered (preferably in the early morning) at the time of full moon, and another at the waxing moon[1148].

This superstition, which involves the accurate knowledge and observation of the days, and the injunction, to which great religious importance is attached, to celebrate the festivals on the proper days, lead to the result that the time-reckoning, which arose in the first place from the events and necessities of practical life, has among certain peoples passed completely under the influence of religion and has been further developed from ecclesiastical standpoints in the service of the religious cult.

There are however other ways of exactly fixing a day, viz. by observation of the stars and of the solstices and equinoxes. The former method is hardly ever used directly as a means of determining religious dates, and this fact is very significant for the practical character of the observation of the stars. No religious ideas are associated with the phases of the stars, although star-myths innumerable are related. The reason is not easy to discover. A contributory factor may be that although the observation of the stars is wide-spread, it is yet not a matter which concerns every man, and also that the stars always give only a single point of time and do not form cyclical periods within the year, though on the other hand they are intimately connected with the phases of the natural year and with agriculture. The principal reason may be conjectured to be that the reckoning of months, on account of its connexion with the popular festival seasons and with the selection of days, has been from the beginning chiefly carried out with a view to religious considerations.

It is only among certain peoples that the observation of the solstices and equinoxes plays any great part, and that consequently the religious importance of the sun is also great. But the festivals of the solstices and equinoxes, recurring at regular intervals in the course of the year, are far from being able to compare with those of the phases of the moon. It has already been mentioned that the Eskimos were able accurately to observe the winter solstice[1149]. At this time, about the 22nd of December, they held a festival to rejoice over the return of the sun and the good hunting weather. They collected together from all over the country in great parties, entertained one another in the best possible manner, and when they had gorged themselves to the full they got up to play and to dance[1150]. Certain Indian peoples have made quite a special custom of the observation of the solstices and equinoxes. Thus for instance did the Inca people, but they had lunar months also, and even the great festival of the sun in December was regulated by the days of the lunar month[1151]. The Zuñi determine the festival times by the observation of thirteen different positions of the sun on the horizon, but they have also lunar months, five of which are named from natural phases, and six from colours borrowed from certain rites[1152]. The ceremonies are therefore still distributed among the months, and the most obvious explanation is that the observation of the thirteen positions of the sun really serves to determine the thirteen months, and with them the times of the rites. The old Mexican calendar seems to have no connexion with the moon, but in Ginzel’s opinion this does not exclude the possibility of an earlier development on the basis of a relationship with the course of the moon[1153]. In any case the regulation of the festivals by the positions of the sun is a comparatively isolated separate development among certain peoples; the regulation by the moon, on the contrary, is found all over the world.

Because the calendar is principally looked upon as the concern of religion, the months appear in such close association with the festivals held in them that it is sometimes found that the relationship to the phases of Nature falls into the background. Among peoples who have no names of months, like the Greeks of the Homeric period, or among those who name only some of them, it may therefore happen that the months become named from the festivals or perhaps that such names supersede those which refer to natural phases. Thus, as has been mentioned above, six months of the Zuñi year are named from the colours of the prayer-sticks. Of the Inca months one is named from a moon festival, two from provincial festivals, and one from the great sun festival; the rest take their names from the occupations of agriculture[1154]. Of the tribes of Bolivia it is stated that their knowledge of the calendar is not according to days, but according to the principal festivals[1155]. In Africa two examples have been given[1156], those of the Hausa states and the Edo-speaking peoples. In the Babylonian calendar the names of months derived from festivals spread more and more, at the expense of names of other kinds[1157]. The phenomenon is therefore comparatively rare and is found only among peoples who have a highly developed religious cult, and even in the examples here given the process is not consistently carried out.

Consistency is found only in one case, the calendar of ancient Greece, and is all the more striking since in the hundreds of varying calendars of the town-states no names which do not refer to festivals have been with certainty demonstrated; the few calendars with numbered months are of more recent origin[1158]. The certain conclusion is that the Greek calendar was entirely regulated from the point of view of the religious cult. Where on the other hand the place of the lunisolar year is taken by another reckoning, it is found that the lunar reckoning is still used in the establishing of certain festivals, as for instance in Bali[1159], and by the Christians in the matter of Easter and the festivals depending thereon.