Counting the phases of the moon, however, has no reference to the changes in the seasons, which depend on the relative position of the earth in reference to the sun, and is more relevant to the physical environment of human beings (while the attitude toward the moon has always been of a more spiritual nature).
Observing the changes of seasons and their effect on life around them was important for the gatherer-hunters long before farming. They had to know when and where the various parts of plants appear and are edible; when birds nest and their eggs could be collected; when beasts drop their young which can be taken and eaten. In the same way, the cyclical movements of herd beasts from pasture to pasture according to the wet and dry seasons were important to the hunters following them. About the Aboriginies it is said, "For thousands of years these nomadic people have moved with the changing seasons over the land."1
In equatorial Africa, the birth place of the human species, two seasons of the year are known: wet and dry, with no significant change of temperature. The Himba people in Namibia mark the coming of the New Year with the arrival of seasonal rains that transform the parched red soil into a carpet of green. According to the saying of a Namibian villager, "When the thunderstorms start and the leaves grow from the ground, that's how we know it's the New Year."2
As Homo sapiens began moving northward toward the Middle East and Europe, changes of cold and hot between the seasons were also noticed. Thus, in Mediterranean areas, the year is divided into two basic seasons: wet and cold winter; dry and hot summer. In time, further developments have occurred, making calendars all over the world different in their complexity.
Two prominent calendars have been founded on this basic idea: the ancient Babylonian and the Jewish one — the latter still exists today. This division has led to the possibility of two beginnings of the year. Following the Babylonian example, when Jewish leaders came back to the Land of Israel from their exile in Babylon in the 6th-5th Century B.C., they brought with them, together with the Babylonian months' names, a year beginning around the Spring equinox; at this time, in the words of the Biblical poet (Canticles 2,11), "Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over... and the time of birds' nesting(?) is come..." The days then get longer and warmer, and the first barley harvest takes place.
However, although the Jews have kept the Babylonian names of months at the expense of the ancient Hebrew ones (some of which are mentioned in the Old Testament), their calendar has reverted to the natural Israelite year beginning around the Autumn equinox. This is when the long, dry and hot summer is over, the rains begin to wet the parched earth and the first plowing for the winter sowing (as mentioned in the Gezer calendar) takes place. This calendar is still kept today by Jews all over the world, as well as in by the state of Israel.
***
An ancient civilization highly depending on rains is the Hindu. This is how the Indian climate is described in a modern almanac:
"It is possible to identify seasons, although these do not occur uniformly throughout South Asia. The Indian Meteorological Service divides the year into four seasons: the relatively dry, cool winter from December through February; the dry, hot summer from March through May; the southwest monsoon from June through September when the predominating southwest maritime winds bring rains to most of the country; and the northeast, or retreating, monsoon of October and November."3
The monsoon, then, is considered a season, as appears from the following calendar:
| Solar months | Season |
| Mesha | Spring |
|---|---|
| Vrushabha | |
| Mithuna | Summer |
| Karka | |
| Simha | Monsoon |
| Kanya | |
| Tula | Autumn |
| Vrushchika | |
| Dhanu | Autumn-winter |
| Makara | |
| Kumbha | Winter-Spring |
| Meena |
Some societies, not wanting to give up their lunar calendar in favor of a seasonal one, have found various ways of compromising between these two ways of counting months, seasons, years. Some do it by adding a thirteenth month every certain number of years in a cycle of nineteen years, as the Jews do; others, like the Chinese, do it in a different way, as described in this Wikipedia article:
Chinese months follow the phases of the moon. As a result, they do not accurately follow the seasons of the solar year. To assist farmers to decide when to plant or harvest crops, the drafters of the calendar put in 24 seasonal markers, which follow the solar year.
It must be observed that in China, a season begins not at a solstice or equinox, but at a date between them; each of those points serves as the peak of the season and not its beginning, as they do in Europe:
February 4 — Start of spring
February 19 — Falling of rain
March 5 — Awakening of insects from hibernation
March 21 — Spring equinox
April 5 — An ancestral festival
April 20 — Rain for the growing of grain
May 6 — Start of summer
May 21 — Grains are full
June 6 — Grains in ear
June 21 — Summer solstice
July 7 — Hot
July 23 — Hottest time of the year
August 7 — Start of autumn
August 23 — Limit of heat
September 8 — White dew as sign for autumn
September 23 — Autumn equinox
October 8 — Cold dew turning to frost
October 23 — Frost and decline of temperature
November 7 — Start of winter
November 22 — Beginning of snow
December 7 — Snow storms
December 22 — Winter solstice
January 6 — Cold
January 20 — Extreme cold
It is evident that the Chinese were interested not only in the function of this table for farming but as a more comprehensive description of climate and weather. Chinese years, as is well known, are arranged in cycles of 12, which have abstract meaning and nothing to do with the seasons.
Notes:
1 http://www.cybertrails.com/~ransgreenleaf/down_under/10AborigOfAustralia.html
2 http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-ancient.html#himba
3 http://www.indianchild.com/climate_india.htm
