JF Ptak Science Books Post 1957
For the most part Native Americans of the pre-U.S. had no names for days, no division of the week, nor a name for years, though underscoring the observation of the skies and the passing of time was a primary appreciation of a more sophisticated lunar cosmology. Simply put, the lunar cycle was one of the major ways in which Indians captured spent time. Days, weeks and travel distances were in general measured in terms of nights passed, or sleeps (similarly the length of the day in terms of the four major daily appearances of the sun and moon). The passing of the year was marked in lunar cycles, and delineated important, measurable, repeating events in the environment important in the life of a tribe. (These events—harvests, plantings, snows—would vary from tribe to tribe according to their geographic distribution.)
The division of time was elegant, for example we have the following: for the Kiowa November/December was the Geese-going Moon, to mark the southward journey of geese for the winter, and the Little Bud Moon (February) and the Bud Moon (February/March) marked the coming of Spring.
Among other tribes:
February is the Raccoon Moon (Dakota); March, the Sore Eye Moon (Cheyenne) and Bad Eyes (Sioux)—this for the months spent inside next to smoking fires during the winter.
April was the month of the Birth of Calves, and year’s beginning;
May, the Moon of Thunderstorms or ripening Strawberries; and the Moon of Nests for the Sioux; and the Drying the Earth Moon for Winnebagos.
June, the Moon of Ripe Juneberries, the Moon of the strawberries (Sioux) and among the Winnebago, the Digging Moon;
July, the Cherry Ripening Moon, and among the Winnebago, the Hoeing Corn Moon;
August, the Moon of the Ripe Plums;
September, the Moon of gathering on rice (Chippewa);
October, the Moon of falling leaves (Chippewa);
November, associated with freezing/snow/whitefish (Chippewa);
December, the Moon o Little Spirit (Chippewa). Indeed some tribe shave no more than 6 named moons coinciding with the twice-a-year winters, or snows. (Thus when someone is 54 snows they are actually 27 years old).
In Teton-Sioux and Cheyenne the nomenclature begins with the Moon just before winter, and follows: (1) the moon the leaves fall off, (2) the moon the buffalo cow’s foetus is getting large; (3) the moon the wolves run together; (4) the moon the skin if the foetus of buffalo commences to color, and on through the last moon, (12), the moon that the plums get red.
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