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

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The examples hitherto given are only single instances intended to make clear the manner and signification of this method of indicating time. Similar starting-points for reckoning are afforded the whole year through, and as their times are fixed in regard to each other, they may form a sort of calendar. The statements made for the extremely primitive Andamanese give a very characteristic circle of occupations throughout the year, though here we have to do not with names of seasons but with the phenomena and business of the year, which our authority gives according to the European calendar. January: much honey; two kinds of wild fruit ripen and are gathered. February: two other kinds of wild fruit, also a tuber; the inhabitants of the coastal districts catch the dujong and also a few turtles; the older folk make out of bark turtle-nets, cables, and lines for harpoons. March: still another two kinds of wild fruit ripen, wild honey is abundant. April: many visits of neighbouring tribes; fruit is scanty, there is only one kind ripe, the honey is finished, the bread-fruit has not yet ripened. From May to August the ripe bread-fruit forms the principal food. In June many cases of death occur since the men in their boar-hunting expeditions in the forest sleep without shelter. In August certain white caterpillars which live in the decaying tree-trunks are a favourite dish. From August to October boats are built. In November the people are particularly merry. The turtle-catch is productive, the weather is pleasantly cool, there is little rain, and shelter is not necessary. Different tribes visit one another and feast and dance together[224].