CALENDAR REGULATION. 2. BEGINNING OF THE YEAR.
The question of the beginning of the year presents some difficulties,
since it is for the most part quite uncertain what meaning is to be
attached to the phrase ‘beginning of the year’. For us the new year
is the great division in the calendar, and one which is emphasised by
a special festival day and by various rites. This is an inheritance
from ancient Rome; in particular the extremely wide-spread and
popular astrology has powerfully contributed to the importance of
New Year’s Day[940]. In ancient Greece the New Year’s Day was of
no great importance: its position varied greatly in each of the
small states; it was little more than the day on which the annually
changing officials entered upon their terms of office. In the case of
the primitive peoples the new year need not in itself be regarded as
a very important division of the calendar: it has however become so
among more highly developed peoples. For instance, the enumeration
of the seasons or the months must begin somewhere; for this reason
a beginning of the year must be supposed, but it is not therefore
certain that the new year acquires any special importance. Of the
inhabitants of the Torres Straits Islands Rivers says that when asked
about the seasons they more than once began their list with _surlal_,
and he is of the opinion that the beginning of this season is for
them practically the beginning of a new year[941]. Of the Kiwai
Papuans Landtman writes to me:--The year has no beginning, since
there is no term to describe this, and it cannot be said that one
season more than another marks an occasion of greater importance.
The people begin their list of months sometimes with _keke_, the
first month of the dry season, sometimes with _karongo_, which marks
the transitional period between the dry and the rainy seasons.
It will be well to begin our investigation with the natural divisions
of the year. The changing seasons give several divisions one or other
of which, according to preference, can be chosen as the beginning of
the year. But this is not the case among the agricultural peoples.
Their year falls into two parts, the period of vegetation and the
time of rest intervening between the harvest and the resumption
of ploughing. There are therefore two natural main divisions, the
beginning of labour and the conclusion of the period of vegetation,
the harvest. Both occur as the beginning of the year, the former
however more rarely, as when among the Wadschagga ‘the raising of
the plough-stick’ is also the ‘opening of the year’[942]. More
frequently the harvest and the great festival associated with it form
the turning-point of the year. Probably however we should rather
speak of an end than of a beginning of the year, as is remarked by
one writer in regard to the Dyaks of south-east Borneo:--For them
the rice-harvest is a principal division of the year (_njelo_). In
September, at the completion of the harvest, the year is at an end.
A definite beginning, a New Year’s Day, is unknown among them[943].
However when the year is reckoned continuously, beginning and end
practically coincide.
In the literature of comparative religion festivals of this nature
are a much-discussed problem which cannot be gone into here, since
it transgresses the limits of this investigation. I shall give only
a few selected examples in order to make clear the relationship with
the beginning of the year. Among the Carolina Indians the feast of
the first-fruits or harvest was the most splendid of all: it appears
to have ended the old year and begun the new. It began in August
when the corn-harvest was completely over. As a preliminary all the
inhabitants provided themselves with new clothes, new pots, pans, and
other household utensils, and then collected all their old clothes
and other worn-out things, swept and cleaned their houses, places
of assemblage, and the whole town, and threw clothes and refuse,
together with all the remaining supplies of food (corn etc.), on to a
heap, to which they afterwards set fire. After this they took physic,
and fasted for three days, and a general amnesty was proclaimed.
On the fourth morning the chief priest kindled fire with pieces of
wood at the public meeting-place, by which means every house in
the town was then provided with fire. Then the women went to the
harvest-field, fetched new corn, prepared it, and brought it with
pomp to the meeting-place, where the whole populace was assembled
in new clothes. Eating went on, especially among the men, and at
night they danced. The festival lasted three days, and on the four
following days visits were paid to neighbouring towns[944]. The New
Year festival of the Konkau of California is a funeral rite which has
undergone transformation. The ‘Dance for the Dead’ took place at the
end of August; from evening until daybreak the people danced around
a fire, into which food, strings of shell-money, and other small
articles were thrown. Our authority does not know how the date was
fixed, but the festival marked the new year, and this opportunity was
taken to wipe out all old debts and settle accounts for the year that
was to come[945]. Among the Amazulu the feast of the first-fruits is
called the ‘New Year’. Medicine staffs are everywhere set up in order
to prevent ‘heaven’ from entering. At the end of the year new staffs
are set up instead of the old ones; then the people know that the old
heaven of the year has passed away with the year that is ended: the
new year has its own heaven[946]. In the neighbourhood of Mombasa the
new year is celebrated with fair regularity in September, after the
maize-harvest; for a whole week there is dancing day and night[947].
Among the Thonga there are several feasts of the first-fruits,
_luma_. When the Caffre corn, _mabele_, is ripe, the wife of the
chief grinds the first grains reaped, and cooks them. The chief eats
a little and offers some to the spirits of his ancestors with the
words: “Here is the new year come”, and prays for fruitfulness. At
the ripening of the Caffre plum, from which a drink is extracted,
some of the drink is poured out on to the graves of dead chiefs
with the words:--“This is the new year. Let us not fight! Let us
eat in peace!” Among the Nkuma the ceremony of the first-fruits is
performed with a special kind of pumpkin, and is called ‘eating the
new year’[948]. On the Lower Niger, among the Owu-Waji, the year
is terminated by the feast of roasted yams, which also serves as a
public announcement that the labours of the field are to be resumed.
Homage is paid to Ifejioku, god of the harvest, in token of gratitude
for a good and fruitful year[949]. On the Society Islands a festival
was celebrated with a great banquet, and this was called ‘the
ripening or consummation of the year’[950]. The greatest feast of the
Dyaks is _dangei_, the celebration of the new rice-year after the
harvest; but if the harvest fails, the festival is suspended[951].
Among the Yoruba _odun_ means year, an annual festival celebrated in
October and the time between two such festivals[952].
The new year is equivalent to the new harvest, the new supplies of
food which through the raising of the taboo are blessed and made
accessible. Where there are several fruits which ripen at different
times there may be several ‘new year festivals’, as among the Thonga,
but usually there is one principal sowing-time and consequently only
one festival. A festival of this nature forms the great division of
the year, and this fact is emphasised by the ceremonies which aim
at clearing away everything old and beginning again. In this way
the change of the year acquires great significance, but this is not
universally the case.
More rarely some other natural phenomenon gives rise to the
celebration of the change of the year, e. g. the appearance of the
palolo, the favourite delicacy of Samoa: but since the palolo appears
at different times near different islands, the turn of the year
varies accordingly[953].
A festival of this nature is originally not a calendar festival,
and only on account of its special significance does it become of
importance for the calendar: it is not a universal phenomenon. In
different districts the position of the beginning of the year varies
greatly. Among the North American Indians many tribes began the year
at the spring equinox, others in the autumn, the Hopi with the ‘new
fire’ in November, the Takulli in January[954]. The Kiowa began the
year at the commencement of winter, which was signalised by the
first snow-fall, or according to other statements a month earlier,
with the first cold, the Pawnee with winter, the Teton-Sioux and the
Cheyenne immediately before the winter[955], the Klamath and Modok in
August, after the _wokash_-harvest[956], the Chocktaw of Louisiana
in December[957], the Natchez in March, when they celebrated a
great festival[958]. As a rule the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia count their moons beginning at the rutting-season of the
deer in November, but some begin with the end of the rutting-season
at the end of November: others, particularly Shamans, with the
rutting-season of the big-horn sheep. Many peoples of the Lytton band
begin when the ground-hogs go into their winter dens. Many of the
Lower Thompsons begin with the rutting-season of the mountain-goats.
Some moons are called by numbers only, but those following the tenth
moon are not numbered[959]. The Shuswap in the same country connected
the year with the same moon as the Thompson Indians, although most
of them entered their winter houses a month earlier[960]. Among the
Hudson Bay Eskimos the year begins when the sun has reached its
lowest position at the winter solstice[961]. The first month of the
Koryak of N. E. Asia begins at the time of the winter solstice, and
corresponds to our December[962]. It has already been mentioned
that the East Greenlanders also began to count their months at the
winter solstice, but later at the morning rising of Altair[963]. It
will be seen that the beginning of the year has no common position
marked out by Nature, although we may perhaps say that it usually
falls somewhere during the period of rest, while the peculiar natural
conditions under which the Eskimos live make it easy to understand
why their year should be begun with the eagerly awaited return of the
sun. Among many peoples little attention seems to have been paid to
the matter, since no special prominence is given to the beginning of
the year, although lists of months are given. But where these lists
exist, and it is desired to enumerate the months, a beginning must be
made somewhere, and a fixed initial month very easily arises.
The dispute already touched upon[964] as to the beginning of the
Israelitish year is very characteristic of the matter in hand[965].
It is easy to understand why no unity has been arrived at, since the
conception of the beginning of the year is fluctuating and capable of
many interpretations. When in the oldest codes of the law it is said
of the feast of in-gathering (namely of fruit, wine, and oil) that
it is to be celebrated at the end of the year or that it marks the
‘turning’ of the year[966], Dillman is right in describing this year
as an economic one. From the very beginning the feast is a feast of
the end of the year[967]. Only as the agricultural year is extended
into a complete year does it become a feast of the turn, and finally
of the beginning, of the year.
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.
APPENDIX: THE EGYPTIAN YEAR.
Upon the quite peculiar Egyptian time-reckoning I have only a few
remarks to make by way of addition to the clear and convincing
account of its origin given by Eduard Meyer; as to the disarrangement
of the names of months familiar to us, which are borrowed from
festivals, I must admit I am not quite clear, but this matters
little for our present purpose since these names are more than
two thousand years younger than the introduction of the year.
The Egyptian year consists of three seasons--time of inundation,
seed-time, and harvest--each of four months containing thirty days
each, together with five additional days, the epagomena, standing
outside the year and theoretically not included in it. The month
is therefore the round month and the year the round year, which
by multiplying the round number of the months in the year by the
round number of days in the month gives a total of 360 (12 × 30)
days. The use of round numbers in the arithmetical application of
the calendar is familiar in all quarters of the world and has been
known at all times; it is continued in the practice of our modern
banks in calculating interest _à l’usance_. The surprising thing
is that in Egypt no notice should have been taken of the moon, and
that the month should have been carried through as a mere numerical
unity. For at the stage of knowledge presupposed by the regulation
of the calendar the Egyptians must have known that the number of
days in the moon-month varies between 29 and 30. I am therefore
inclined to think that this form of year was first introduced as a
means of counting in administration and the making of returns, and
then by degrees established itself as the civil calendar because the
rural life was so closely dependent upon the administration and its
accounts. We may compare the fact that the lunisolar calendar of
Greece was introduced as an ecclesiastical calendar, and succeeded
in establishing itself as the civil calendar owing to the close
connexion between the religious and the political life; but the old
reckoning from the phases of the stars persisted alongside of it. In
the same way we must suppose that in Egypt alongside of the numerical
calendar the old method of reckoning by the concrete appearance of
the moon originally persisted, but since by this time it had lost its
practical importance it vanished without leaving any other traces
than the length of the arithmetical month (as a round number) and the
name ‘month’.
On the other hand it must have been intended to give to the year
the length of the solar year: the five extra days were accordingly
introduced outside the series of months. Hence the same word _wepet
ronpet_ means both the first day of the civil shifting year and
also the day of the actual morning rising of Sirius; hence too the
three four-month divisions of the shifting year are called after the
seasons. The first of these, the time of inundation, began exactly
with the morning rising of Sirius when the Nile began perceptibly
to rise. Here the Egyptians went wrong because they did not realise
that the year does not consist of exactly 365 days, but contains an
additional fraction of a day. The consequence was that the Egyptian
year got out of place in relation to the solar year, but so slowly
that no inconvenience was caused in practical life: the linguistic
difficulty, that _wepet ronpet_ acquired two different meanings and
that e. g. the season called the time of inundation might fall in the
actual seed-time or harvest, the conservative minds of the Egyptians
enabled them to tolerate. A contributing factor was the practical
convenience of the calendar. The dislocation must however very soon
have been recognised, since the actual morning rising of Sirius, so
far as we know, was always celebrated, i. e. it was a movable feast
in relation to the calendar. The error is included in the well-known
formula of the Sothic period (1461 Egyptian = 1460 Julian years).
The knowledge of the closest approximation that can be made to the
correct number of days in the year, reckoning only whole days, can
only be arrived at in one of two ways, either by the observations of
the solstices and equinoxes, which is the method adopted e. g. by the
Hopi, or by means of the rising of a star. The duration of the solar
year is not reached by way of the lunisolar year. Which of the two
methods the Egyptians adopted is not in doubt. No notice has come
before me which suggests that the Egyptians observed the position of
the sunrise or sunset on the horizon, while the stars on the other
hand were accurately observed by them. There are calendars which give
the position of the constellations in accordance with which the hours
of night were determined and proclaimed[982], and in particular the
morning rising of Sirius was at all times observed and celebrated.
This is primitive[983], but not so the counting of the days between
two risings. The latter process would be facilitated if the reckoning
was previously carried out in numerical months of 30 days (naturally
as a round number, not as an actual month); perhaps this was the
first stage. The calendar therefore, as Ed. Meyer has specially
pointed out, must have begun to run its course in a year in which the
rising of Sirius and New Year’s Day coincided, i. e. it began with a
Sothic period.
The months within each season are numbered from I to IV. Among
primitive peoples it frequently happens that a season gives its name
to two months, which are distinguished as the first and second, but
a numbering such as that of the Egyptian calendar is unexampled
and shews once more a desire to get away from the moon-month. The
so-called ‘months’ are rather subdivisions of the seasons.
The breach--and it can be considered no less--with the primitive
time-reckoning is part negative, part positive. Positively, the
length of the solar year in whole days has been astonishingly early
recognised, but the greatest advance is in the negative direction.
The calendar has been detached from the concrete phenomena of the
heavens: thereby it acquires a numerical character, and only so
is the genuine time-reckoning created. For in practice it is more
necessary to be able to reckon conveniently than to remain in
accurate agreement with the incommensurability of the motions of the
heavenly bodies. Hence the Egyptian calendar held good, although its
year was a shifting year and in spite of the fact that the ideal year
underlying it was a sidereal and not the actual solar year, and the
Greek astronomers reckoned by it on account of its convenience, just
as our astronomers still reckon by the Julian calendar. The Egyptian
year therefore lies at the bottom of our year, which has been altered
so as to remain in agreement with the seasons,--this being necessary
in view of the spread of the historic sense among the people--but has
also unfortunately been spoiled in the division into months, owing
to the influence of the Roman months. The Egyptian calendar is the
greatest intellectual fact in the history of time-reckoning; like
all the greatest achievements of this nature, e. g. the alphabet,
it was attained through a radical simplification, in which also
practical convenience played a great part. It should not be forgotten
that astronomy and the calendar are not identical. In matters of the
calendar practical utility is more welcome than refined astronomical
calculation.