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

The king himself also takes charge of the calendar. The Inca observed the solstices in person, and was assisted in so doing by the cleverest of his people; the priests assembled to determine the equinoxes[1180]. The calendar of the Society Islands was fixed by King Pomare and his family[1181]. That the Inca appeared in a priestly office for this purpose is certain; that Pomare did the same is doubtful, since European influence has no doubt been brought to bear upon this case.

The examples just given are not numerous, and this corresponds to the actual state of affairs, since we have here to do with the treatment of a genuine calendarial science by certain peoples,—only at a quite undeveloped stage can questions of the time-reckoning be dealt with in a deliberative assembly—and our researches are concerned with primitive peoples. The end which the calendar-maker has in view is the establishing of an ordered series of days marked out into divisions, the series being kept in place by certain fixed points, and recurring cyclically. First of all the regulation of the lunisolar calendar is his principal task, and it is one which everywhere takes the chief place. For this purpose the calendar-maker must become accurately acquainted with the course of the sun and with the stars. Here the four solstices and equinoxes are distinguished by their recurrence at tolerably regular intervals of time; the stars however cannot of themselves be brought into a system with equal intervals of time, but are only applied to such a system in order to fix it. Hence it follows that the observation of the solstices and equinoxes has, at least in single cases, been erected into a calendric system, but the observation of the stars not so—except in Babylon—although they also are observed, so that they come to be accurately known, and the planets are even discovered, e. g. by the Polynesians. The calendar and practical life become to some degree separated from each other; the first lays the principal emphasis upon the correct ordering of the series of days, which is of especial importance on religious grounds for the selection of days and the fixing of the right day for the religious observances; in practical life, however, the point of chief importance is to determine the times when the various occupations may be begun and sea-voyages undertaken, both of which depend upon the solar year, and for this the stars afford the best aid. Hence it happens that sometimes the reckoning by the stars appears, as one more profanely determined, in a certain opposition to the lunisolar reckoning, which has a more religious character. This happened in ancient Greece, where the stars served for the time-reckoning of sailors and peasants while the lunisolar calendar was developed and extended under sacral influence; the festival calendar, which was regulated and recorded by the moon, became the official civil calendar. It was only later that the stellar calendar was systematically brought under the influence of the fully developed astronomy and of the Julian calendar.

In sailing, the stars afford to the primitive sea-faring peoples the only means of finding their way when the land can no longer be seen. From the necessities of sea-faring the greatly advanced knowledge of the stars possessed by the South Sea peoples has arisen; this is because practical ends are served not by a priestly wisdom, but by a profane. Nevertheless the knowledge of the stars is a secret which is carefully guarded in certain families, and kept from the common people—as is reported of the Marshall Islands[1182]. Among the Moanu of the Admiralty Islands it is the chiefs who are initiated by tradition into the science of the stars[1183]. On the Mortlock Islands, where the science of the stars is very highly developed, there was a special astronomical profession; the knowledge of the stars was a source of respect and influence, it was anxiously concealed, and only communicated to specially chosen individuals[1184]. Only a few can determine the hours of night by the stars. The Tahitian Tupaya, who accompanied Cook on his first voyage, was a man of this kind, specially distinguished for his nautical knowledge of the stars[1185]. The elements of the science, however, seem to have been pretty generally known, and from the Caroline Islands comes a curious account of a general instruction therein. It was first mentioned by the Spanish missionary Cantova in the year 1721, and was later confirmed by Arago. In every settlement there were two houses, in one of which the boys were instructed in the knowledge of the stars, and in the other the girls; only vague ideas were imparted, however. The teacher had a kind of globe of the heavens on which the principal stars were marked, and he pointed out to his pupils the direction which they must follow on their various journeys. One native could also represent on a table by means of grains of maize the constellations known to him[1186]. This is a nautical, non-priestly astronomy, which has really little to do with calendarial matters in general, although as a matter of fact in the Carolines and the Mortlock Islands it has led to the naming of all months from constellations, and therefore to a systematic sidereal regulation of the calendar[1187].

On the other hand the priests also have observed the stars and used their stellar science principally for sooth-saying, as e. g. in Hawaii and in Babylonia. But neither does this lead to any improvement of the calendar, since the religion must keep to the existing lunisolar calendar, although in one case of the most far-reaching importance the astrology arose from it. The improving of the calendar, the object of which must be, after the full development of the lunisolar, to return to the solar calendar, in order that the calendar may be better adapted to the needs of practical life, becomes henceforth the task of the lay scientific astronomer.

CHAPTER XV.
CONCLUSION.

1. SUMMARY OF RESULTS.

The concrete nature of the time-indications. Any genuine system of time-reckoning must admit of numerical treatment, i. e. it must consist of divisions of which the length is strictly limited and which, when they belong to the same order, are as far as possible of the same length. A numerical conception is abstract and not primitive; even the power of counting is little developed among primitive peoples in general, and among the lowest peoples it is extremely limited. Counting is abstract, the primitive man clings to the concrete phenomena of the outer world. In matters of chronology, therefore, he finds his way not by counting but by referring to the concrete phenomena the recurrence of which in definite succession experience has taught him to expect. The first time-indications are therefore not numerical but concrete. Their character clearly appears e. g. when ‘a sun’ is said for ‘day’, and ‘a sleep’ for ‘night’; the hours of day are denoted by the concrete phenomena of the twilight, dawn, sunrise, etc., and the equally concrete position of the sun or the occupations of the day. The lunar month is usually called ‘a moon’, and its days are denoted by the phases and position of the moon. The year is originally neither a period of time nor the circle of the seasons (which is first gradually developed under the influence of agriculture in particular), but the produce of the year: e. g. it embraces the time between sowing and harvest, and is often not a complete year in our sense. Only gradually does the year develop into the period of time that elapses between a season and the recurrence of the same season, or more rarely between a phase of a star and the return of the same phase. From the latter period the genuine solar year has arisen. The seasons are composed of occupations and of climatic and other natural phenomena, and still preserve this concrete relationship and are therefore not definitely limited in duration. This relationship is also extended to the moons, which for their determination are not numbered but are brought into connexion with a natural phase and named accordingly, so that the twelve to thirteen months of the year can be fixed as regards position and succession. Even the Julian months, as they were introduced among less cultivated peoples such as the ancient Germans, the Slavs, etc., could not keep their names, since these had no intelligible meaning or reference to a concrete phenomenon; in order to provide for this the months were re-christened with indigenous names which are of the same kind as those given by the primitive peoples to their lunar months. Or else, but much more seldom, the Latin name acquired the concrete significance of a season. The years also are not numbered, but are named from an important event, so that their succession follows from the historical succession of events, a method of denoting the year which prevailed throughout antiquity in the limmu, archon, and consular years, etc.

Discontinuous and ‘aoristic’ time-indications. The starting-point for the time-reckoning is therefore afforded by the concrete phenomena of the heavens and of surrounding natural objects, and the succession of these, fixed as it is by experience, serves as a guide in the chronological sequence. These phenomena extend over periods which are very dissimilar to one another and are individually of varying length; they cross and overlap in some cases, in others they leave gaps. The time-indications are not directly connected with each other, but this connexion is achieved by the phenomena in question. Hence the indications are not circumscribed by one another, but the phenomena as such are regarded. The latter are not conceived of as divisions of time of a definite length; they do not appear as parts of a larger whole, limited on both sides by their connexion with other divisions of time. The conception of continuity, the immediate fusion of the chronological phenomena into one another, is lacking: the time-indications are discontinuous. We may speak, although not quite correctly, of a discontinuous time-reckoning. We think, for example, of the abundant sub-division of the times of day in the morning and evening, and the small number of sub-divisions in the night and day-time, of the many very unequal seasons which encroach upon one another and overlap. General measures for shorter periods of time are therefore not given by the time-indications proper, but are derived from actions or occupations, e. g. the time needed to traverse a well-known piece of road. When a systematising of these time-indications takes place, e. g. in the matter of the seasons, where only those of practical importance are rendered prominent and are circumscribed, there arise divisions of very unequal length, which are hardly suitable for a genuine time-reckoning.

The times of day are often given by reference to the position of the sun. In northern countries, where the length of the daily course of the sun varies so greatly, points on the horizon are sought out as an aid. Both these methods of indicating the times of day may seem to afford a foundation for a continuous reckoning, but this is not the case, since they always refer only to the position of the sun at the immediate moment: they are—to adopt a grammatical term—‘aoristic’. The discontinuity is further shewn in the fact that it is only later and in an imperfect fashion that the complete day and the year are joined together in continuous circles. Day and night were combined so late into the period of the complete day of 24 hours that most languages are without a proper word to express this idea. In the same way the reckoning was often long carried out in half-years, winters and summers, or the years were of shorter duration than the solar year (agricultural years, etc.).