The calendar months and their names

Thanks to some reading I’ve been doing, I’ve come across the information that indigenous people named the “months” by what happened at the particular time of year. The Hopi of the Southwest call October the “Wind Moon.” The Ojibwe of the north call September “Changing  Leaves Moon” and October “Falling Leaves Moon.”  Not surprisingly, June is the “Blossom Moon” and July “Berry Moon.”

 

What is perhaps surprising is that they regarded each year as having 13 months. But really, that discrepancy from the “Gregorian” calendar–the one used to indicate a year with 52 weeks and 12 months–only shows the native American system makes more sense.  The earth orbits the sun in 365 days: A full cycle of the moon is 28 days. The answer to 365 divided by 28 is 13. Thus, the native American way of measuring the year is supremely practical. The “Gregorian” way is riddled with politics and glory-seeking.

 

When the Romans began the calendar which preceded the current one, they divided the year into 10 parts. This is still visible in some of the month names. The prefixes “sept-,” “oct-,” “nov-,” and “dec-” are all based on the Latin words for the numbers seven, eight, nine and ten, even though the months named after them have become numbers nine, ten, eleven and twelve. The first six months were named after Roman gods or customs: Janus, the god of beginnings; Mars, the god of war. February was the time people would undergo a ritual of purification.

 

Politics came into it when Julius Caesar decided he was important enough to have a month named after him. Caesar Augustus made the same decision. I guess they were right, since we’ve continued to use their names–most of us without realizing it–for centuries. Along the way we’ve injected artificial elements, for example deciding some months are 30 days long, others are 31, and February only 28.

 

And while one set of humans was caught up in power plays and pretending their petty politics outranked the sturdy consistency of celestial bodies, another set of humans was observing nature and adjusting their own movements and lifestyles accordingly.

 

But as I think about it, the names of the months are really only the beginning. Those of us dependent on a printed calendar build a rather rigid framework into our concept of the years and seasons.

 

The year “starts” on January 1. Spring is due by the date assigned to Easter. Summer belongs in the months of June, July and August. When nature doesn’t comply with those deadlines, we express surprise and even displeasure.

 

The idea of a “spirit moon” at the depth of winter’s cold leading to a “bear moon” and then a “sugar moon” while knowing there will be twelve full moons before each repeats itself removes that grid of expectation and perhaps guides us to simply live with what this current moon brings.

 

The Ojibwe have a flood tradition in which the great spirit decided to cleanse the earth by covering it in deep water. I am purposely skimming over the details here, so that you will have a reason to go online and read the legend in its entirety. I mention the story only to share one last point pertinent to my topic. In the legend, one tiny bit of earth is recovered at great cost from deep under the water and placed on a turtle’s shell, where it grows back into the land humans and many animals need to survive.

 

The central raised mound of a turtle’s shell has thirteen sections. The low rim around the outside has 28 markings. Thus, a turtle’s shell could be used as a kind of calendar, with a small stone or other piece moving in turn to each of the 28 marks on the outside rim before another stone or piece could move to the next of the 13 larger sections on the raised center. Even the “calendar” aligns with something natural. It seems impressive to me that someone paid such close attention that they noticed the coincidence and built it into their not-quite-creation story.