Chapter X

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.