Page:Maori Division of Time.djvu/11

Rh moon. At the Hawaiian Isles we find an old myth that shows Kongo and Hina to be but two names for the one being. When Hina became crippled and ascended to the moon to abide therein she took the name of Lono-moku (Rongo-motu = crippled Rongo).

In Asiatic beliefs of old the moon is closely connected with reproduction, as in Polynesia and New Zealand. A lunar crescent surmounting a linga was the symbol of Ira, the eel-god of India, where the phallic eel was also nearly concerned with reproduction, as it is in Maori myth. Now, the old symbol of the moon-god, the lunar crescent, reappears here at the end of the earth in the whakamarama or whakaaurei (both moon-names), which is the crescent carved on the upper end of the old Maori ko, or digging-implement.

Early man ever turned to the moon for help in the matter of the division of time, inasmuch as its phases are more apparent than those of the sun. The fixing of the solar year with precision was too difficult a task for him, hence he employed various devices in order to bring the lunar year into agreement with the solar year—that is to say, with recurring seasons. The lunar month would be one of the first mediums for division of time to be recognized by uncultured man, so apparent are its limits. Many peoples have advanced so far as to recognize a year of twelve months, each of thirty days. Then came the difficulty of the odd days, which often proved to be a serious stumbling-block, and, amongst other races, we find that Polynesians made various attempts to surmount it. Some divisions appear to have kept an extra month up the divisional sleeve, to be slipped in when matters became serious. Others added five loose days to the year. It is because we encounter so many institutions, arts, beliefs, &c., in process of development in the Polynesian area that the ethnography of that region is so interesting a study. Our week of seven days is a heritage from people whose system of time-measurement resembled that of the Maori.

The first attempt made by man to employ the sun as a time-measure, beyond the very evident alternation of night and day, was apparently in the recognition of seasons, to which he assigned names. Thus season-names are older than words employed to denote the solar year, and in some cases we find that the word defining the solar year originally meant "season." The Maori word tau, formerly employed as denoting a season, has now come to be used as meaning a year, owing to European influence.

In the realm of myth we see that the Maori tells of the death and resurrection of the moon in the mythopoetic conception of the Waiora a Tane, but we do not encounter such fancies in connection with the sun, or its personified form Tane. This fact tends to show that the importance of the sun as a time-measurer was not fully recognized by Polynesian folk; they clung to the lunar year of early man. Both the lunar and solar years have been the progenitors as it were of a great many interesting myths.

The Maori not only lacked a precisely measured year, but also any dependable system of chronology whereby to register the fleeting years. No man knew how old he was. The only serviceable unit for the defining of long periods of time was the