"THE Yorubas reckon time by moons and weeks. A moon, or month, is the period of time between one new moon and the next, and, as is the case with all peoples who count by lunar months, the day commences at sunset, that is at the hour at which a new moon would ordinarily be first perceived.
The custom of measuring time by lunar months appears to be common to all uncivilised peoples, the regular recurrence of the moon at fixed intervals of time affording a natural and easy mode of computing its lapse. The measurement of time by weeks, that is, by sub-divisions of the lunar month, seems, in the present state of our knowledge of the modes of measuring time amongst the lower races, to be rather exceptional; but the subject is one that has been much neglected by travellers, and there is but little information from which a conclusion may be drawn.
The Tshi-tribes of the Gold Coast have (as was stated in the first volume of this series) a seven-day week, or, to be more correct, they have divided the lunar month, which is approximately twenty-nine and a-half days long, into four parts, each of seven days and about nine hours. Hence, as before said,[1] each week commences at a different hour of the day, the reason of this arrangement being that twenty-nine and a-half will not divide exactly into halves and quarters. The first day of the first week of the lunar month commences when the new moon is first seen; the first day of the second week commences some nine hours later, and so on.
The Gã-tribes have an exactly similar mode of measuring time, but their names for the days of the week are not the same as those used by the Tshi-tribes.
They are-
1st. Dsu.
2nd. Dsu-fo.
3rd. Fso.
4th. So.
5th. So-ha.
6th. Ho.
7th. Ho-gba.
which, it will be seen, seem to consist of three pairs and an odd one, the third day.
The Yoruba week consists of five days, and six of them are supposed to make a lunar month; bnt, as a matter of fact, since the first day of the first week always commences with the appearance of the now moon, the month really contains five weeks of five days' duration, and one of four day-, and a-half, approximately. The Benin-tribes to the cast are said to have a similar method, and the Yoruba-tribes have perhaps borrowed the five-day week from them.
The Tsbi and Gã-tribes thus add a few hours to each seven-day week in order to make four of these periods coincident with a lunar month, and the Yorubatribes deduct about twelve hours from the last five
[1. "Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast" pp. 215, 216.]
day week in order to make six of these periods agree with a lunar month. The reason is obvious. Twenty-nine and a-half will not divide, and the nearest numbers that will are twenty-eight and thirty. The Tshi and Gã-tribes have adopted the former as the integer to be divided, and consequently have had to add some hours, while the Yorubas have adopted the latter and have had to deduct.
We have said that to divide the lunar month into weeks appears to be exceptional among the lower races, but we have some examples. The Ahantas, who inhabit the western portion of the Gold Coast, divide the lunar month into three periods, two of ten days' duration, and the third lasting till the next new moon appears, that is, for about nine days and a-half. The Sofalese of East Africa must have had the same system, for De Faria says that they divided the month into three weeks of ten days each, and that the first day of the first week was the festival of the new moon.[1]
When a people has progressed sufficiently far in astronomical knowledge to have adopted the solar year as a measurement of time, the month, for the reason that an exact number of lunar months will not make up a solar year, becomes a civil period or calendar month, and is arbitrarily fixed at a certain number of days, or some months are made of one length and some of another. When this occurs, and the month is disconnected from the moon and its phases, it seems that the week-which was properly a sub-division of the lunar month, and was no doubt
[1. Astley's Collection, vol. iii., p. 397.]
designed to mark the chief phases of the moon-also becomes a civil period, and is a sub-division of the civil month. The ancient Greeks had a civil month of thirty days, divided into three weeks, each of ten days; and the Javanese, before the seven-day week was adopted from the Mohammedans, had a civil week of five days.[1] The former thus resembled the Ahantas, and the latter the Yorabas, and no doubt when the Greeks and Javanese reckoned time by lunar months instead of by civil, they, like the Ahantas and Yorubas, struck off the superfluous hours from the last sub-division of the month.
The names of the days of the Yoruba week are as follows:--
1. Ako-ojo. First day.
2. Ojo-awo. Day of the Secret (sacred to Ifa).
3. Ojo-Ogun. Ogun's Day.
4. Ojo-Shango. Shango's Day.
5. Ojo-Obatala. Obatala's Day.
Ako-ojo is a Sabbath, or day of general rest. It is considered unlucky, and no business of importance is ever undertaken on it. On this day all the temples are swept out, and water, for the use of the gods, is brought in procession. Each of the other days is a day of rest for the followers of the god to which it is dedicated, and for them only, Ojo-Shango being the Sabbath of the worshippers of the thunder-god, and Ojo-Ogun for those of the god of iron, but Ako-Ojo is a day of rest for all. A holy day is called Ose (se, to disallow), and because each holy day recurs weekly,
[1. Raffles' 'History of Java,' vol. i. p. 475.]
Ose has come also to mean the week of five days, or the period intervening between two holy days."
► Source:
Chapter VIII, “Measurements of Time”, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of The Slave Coast of West Africa [1894] by A. B. ELLIS
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/yor/yor09.htm
