There are three basic units that readily avail themselves of calendrical use; the day, the month, and the year. Nowapan has used both of the latter two. The month-based calendar is the Eclipse Era Lunar Calendar. This was the religious calendar and until the Revolution, the official calendar. The year-based is based upon a simple solar calendar once primarily used for agricultural purposes. It was greatly modified and improved and since March 20, 1925 (3.17.9.1.1.1 in Nowan notation) has been both the official calendar and the one in use for everyday life. Confusingly, they chose to retain the Eclipse Era and the day names. Most writers now indicate which enumeration they are using when writing about events that happened before 1925.
Both the Lunar and Solar calendars use the same day names. The following day names are in use;
The correct way to refer to date in any given month is to reference both the day and the b�.ng�.tto. Individual b�.ng�.tto do not have names so to refer to the 3rd day named Arrow in the tt�l.lh� Month of Consuming, one would refer to s�.lh�, mno.gu t�.b�, i.e. Three Arrow, Month of Consuming (actually Third Arrow, Month of Consuming as Nova counts cyclicals by ordinals.) I am writing this on October 22, 1997, First Fire, Month of Consuming, EE. The full date for this in Nowapan would be written as: 4.1.1.8.1.4
The year always begins with the Vernal Equinox, k�m.dtu , but the days marking the other seasons are always off by a few days due to the fact that the seasons are not of equal length. It is interesting to note that Arunta's original model handled the length differences quite neatly. Corrections are handled by means of two special groupings of years. The Short Count, nq�.kun.ge, (of 4 years) is the first of these. At the end of each of Short Count, a leap- day, Summer's End, is added at the end of Summer and prior to the Autumnal Equinox. 32 Short Counts make 1 Long Count, nq�.kun, (of 128 years). At the end of the 128th year, which ordinarily would be a leap year, the leap-day is not added and the 128th year is a standard 365 day year. Short Counts and Long Counts are ordinarily of interest only to scholars and most people are no more conscious of them than are ordinary man-in-the-street 'users' of the Gregorian Calendar. The Solar Calendar groups twenty tt�l.tt�ng to make a tt�ng.xa.tto and 20 tt�ng.xa.tto make 1 tt�ng.gha.tto. The following list indicates the correllations;
Year One, Day One was March 25, 377 AD. On this date a total solar eclipse occurred in the sacred and scholarly city then known as Rajak (modern Za.po.pt�n), hence the name Eclipse Era. Years, months and days are counted from the beginning as in the Gregorian calendar. Days begin at sunset. Because of its start date and the mechanisms for adjustment, all months begin on the new moon, whether the first of second day depends on the month. The self correcting features allow a slight amount of wobble. A Nowan can come within a day or two of the EE-Lunar date each month just glancing at a clear night sky.
As with months in the Solar Calendar, le.lh� are divided into 3 'weeks' b�.ng�.tto, the first two of which are always 10 days long, the last is either 9 or 10 days long depending on the month and whether or not it is leap year.
The following le.lh� names are used;
The orgins of day, tt�l.lh�, and le.lh� names are lost to history but they appear to reflect earlier calendars.
As in the Solar Calendar, the correct way to refer to date in any given month is to reference both the day and the b�.ng�.tto. Similarly, the individual b�.ng�.tto do not have names so to refer to the 3rd day named Arrow in the le.lh� Shield, one would refer to the.lh�, mno.gu t�.b�, i.e. Third Arrow, Shield. Nowans still keep track of all units. I am writing this section on June 18, 1997. This is also the 14th day of the 1st month of the 1671st lunar year since that fateful eclipse in Rajak. To write the date, one would get something like this; 4.3.11.1.2.4, ('something like this' because it would look somewhat different with base 20 numerals. Dissecting this date yields this information;