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 natural phenomena from which the seasons are determined and named vary according to the geographical latitude, the nature of the country, and the mode of life, i. e. according as the tribe lives by hunting or by agriculture. Certain writers state that the Indians of Virginia divided the year into five seasons: the budding of spring, the earing of corn or ‘roasting-ear time’, summer or ‘the highest sun’, corn-gathering or ‘fall of the leaf’, and winter[271]. The Maida of northern California say that the seasons—the rainy season, the leafy season, the dry season, and the season of falling leaves—were instituted by Kodoyampeh, the Creator[272]. The Kiowa distinguished only four seasons: saigya or säta, considered to begin at the first snowfall; asegya, spring (the etymology of the word is unknown, a more recent name is son-pata, ‘grass-springing’), which begins when grass and buds sprout and the mares foal; paigya, summer (pai, ‘sun’), which begins when the grass has ceased to sprout and lasts until fires become necessary in the tipis at night; paongya, autumn (the thickening of the coat or fur, pa, of the buffalo and other animals), sometimes called ‘the time when the leaves are red’, begins when the leaves change colour[273]. It is to be noted that these seasons must be of very different length. In the same way the Dakota reckon five months each for winter and summer and only one month each for spring and autumn, but it is expressly mentioned that this reckoning is not strictly followed[274]. The Pawnee divided the year into a warm and a cold period, and also into the four seasons, each of which however was normalised to three months[275]. The account of the Comanches is somewhat indefinite: they have no computation of time beyond the seasons, which are reckoned by the rising height of the grass, the fall of the leaves, and the cold and the hot season. They very seldom reckon in new moons[276]. They have the four seasons therefore. The Indians of Chile have words for our four seasons[277].