Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/347

Rh days. In Sofala (East Africa), according to De Faria, a civil month of thirty days was adopted, and divided into three weeks of ten days each. As, however, he says that the first day of the first week was the festival of the new moon, there must be some mistake. It looks more as if time were reckoned by lunar months, and consequently, while the first and second week might each be of ten days' duration, the third would be some hours short of that. The ancient Greeks had a civil month of thirty days, divided into three weeks each of ten days. The Ahantas of the western districts of the Gold Coast divide the lunar month into three periods or weeks, the first and second of which are of ten days' duration, while the third consists of the remainder of the month. The first period, called Adae, is considered lucky; the second, called Ajain-fo, unlucky; and the third, called Adim, neither lucky nor unlucky. The Yorubas of the Slave Coast of West Africa reckon by nights and moons, and have subdivided the lunar month into six weeks of five days each, or rather, five of them actually contain five days, and the remaining one, which completes the month, about four days and a half. The Javanese week, before the week of seven days was adopted from the Mohammedans, consisted of five days.

The Siamese seem, like the Tshi and Gã tribes of West Africa, to have divided the lunar months into four periods of seven days and some odd hours, but, for convenience' sake, they have now made the odd months contain twenty-nine nights and the even months thirty. Their week is commonly said to consist of seven days, but as it is contrived that their sabbath, called Vampra, should always fall on the fourth day, and, in the first week of the month, should always be coincident with the fourth night of the moon, it is evident that each week must be of seven days and some hours' duration, or, if three of them are exactly seven days long, then the fourth must complete the lunar month and be eight days and a half long. In dates, the age of the moon, either waxing or waning, is reckoned by evenings, and hence the day of twenty-four hours is considered to begin at sunset. This, of course, must be the case with all peoples who reckon by moons and nights; and so enduring is custom that the Italians and Bohemians still reckon the day of twenty-four hours from sunset to sunset.

When we tabulate our results, we get the following subdivisions of months, lunar or civil: