Abstract
UNDER the title, “Calendars of the Indians North of Mexico” (University of. California Publications in American Archæology and Ethnology, vol. xvi., No. 4), Miss Leona Cope has collected and arranged a large amount of information dealing with the divisions of time in use among the Indians of North America, including much linguistic material. The term “calendar” must be taken in a very elastic sense, for the Indian's power of keeping account of an interval of time is usually limited to two or three years, and never went so far, apparently, as even to fix the number of days in a month.. The only general rule seems to be a complete absence of uniformity, variations of system being found even among the most closely related groups. The basic period is naturally the lunation, indicated by an expression which is related etymologically, without exception, to the moon, and reckoned generally from new moon, but in some cases trom full moon.. The month is sometimes divided into “weeks” roughly depending on the lunar phases, but very variable in length and number. In general, the seasons are vaguely marked periods not directly connected with the months, though the latter are sometimes divided into a summer and a winter series. When the wide range of latitude in the area is considered, a corresponding variety of practice is natural enough. Thus it is not surprising that the Greenland Eskimo find a convenient division of the day in the ebb and flow of the tides, or that a, Point Barrow Eskimo should say that there are nine “moons,” and after that no moon, but the sun only. But the variations within connected groups make the study a complicated one.
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Time-Reckoning of the North American Indians. Nature 105, 75 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105075a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105075a0