Native American Calendars - How the First People in the Americas Kept Up with Time
It is no surprise, then, that some tribes living in the Americas before the European conquest had made considerable advances in astronomy. By close observation of the heavenly bodies they had developed a complicated and remarkably exact calendar. Not only had they determined the length of the year with greater accuracy than the white invaders, but also the different cycles by which they computed time allowed them to assign dates to events that took place many hundreds of years earlier.
Although there are local differences, the calendars in use in Central and Southern Mexico and in Central America were evidently derived from a now lost source. There is a great deal of speculation about them, but many questions about them remain unanswered. We do not understand the uses of the shorter year, of 260 days, the doubling of certain months, or the names of many days and months. Different tribes even began the year at different seasons.
In ancient times, the calendars were usually depicted by circular drawings, which the Spaniards called wheels (ruedas). After the European invasion, they were written out, more like an almanac.
One importance use of the calendar was for supplying omens and predictions; another was for determining fasts, festivals, and religious rituals. We do know that in some cultures, the calendar was referred to as "the book of days" or "that by which events are arranged." So intimately were all the acts of individual and national life bound up with their religious beliefs, that an understanding of them is indispensable to a successful study of the psychology and history of first people in the Americas.
After the European invasion, as the native peoples adopted some of the beliefs of the newcomers, such as astrology, the Christian calendar (including saints days, festivals of the Virgin Mary, Lent, Easter and Christmas), and the concept of the week (which has no basis in nature) were absorbed into the native calendars, which began to display lucky and unlucky days (somewhat like the horoscopes in our modern newspapers), and discussions of planetary influence, apparently borrowed from the European almanacs.
Published by Michael Segers
I'm old enough to know better, but too young to admit it. I've been a teacher, owner of a sandwich shop, collector of neckties, acupuncture student. Now I get bossed around by my parrot and rejoice that I d... View profile
- Cross Curriculum Hands- On Native American Unit Unit on Native Americans with cross curriculum lessons, books, movies, activities and printables. Includes social studies, science, math, literature, art and drama. Adresses multi-sensory learning.
- Native American Gene Study Pinpoints Migration Where did Native Americans originate?
- Pan-Indianism: The New American
- How to Save Time While Grocery Shopping
- Vacation on a Native American Reservation
- Where Does the Time Go? A Guide to Time Management
- Native American Stand Up Comedian Finds Success in London
- Why do People Judge me Because I'm Fat?
- Fall Means Daylight Saving Time Ends: Remember to Fall Back!
|
|
8 Comments
Post a CommentYour topic and words are so interesting, but I am terribly disappointed that you refer to Native people as "primitive." With all of the amazing scientific knowledge we have contributed to the world, I hardly think we can be called "primitive people.
Helpful :)
You come up with the most interesting topics.
This is, indeed, an interesting topic, Michael. You know, it never ceases to amaze me how people can think just because some time has passed, that people in the past were little better than ape-creatures! Or that just because their ways were different, such people were uncivilized. Some of the worst among the civilized were the British who felt it their duty to torment people into becoming like them. Americans followed right along, albeit the times had changed and they didn't use the same methods.
Great topic!
Interesting. You write a lot about ecletic topics...that's great.
" book of days" - love that. This is a great article & I look forward to reading more. Thanks.
If you want to understand how the Maya came up with their calender and the shorter year of 260 sacred days, I strongly recommend the website IZAPA: BIRTHPLACE OF TIME, which contains the full text of "Cycles of the Sun and Moon, The Calendar in Mesoamerican Civilization" by Vincent Malmstrom, a geology professor at Dartmouth. Malmstrom is no new-ager; his work humbly lays out the archaeological, astronomical and architectural evidence for the genesis of the Mayan calendar.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Eizapa/CS-MM-TC.htm
Ogmin
http://ogmin.blogspot.com/