Considerations for the New Year
Considerations for the New Year
Welcome all, we hope you are well. So many plans and ideas have spun through my mind in recent days, and I often find myself overwhelmed by the need to do more than I am physically and mentally capable of. Even so, a feeling deep in my chest and in the pit of my stomach makes me move, forces my hand. “Write,” it says. “Please,” it begs.
So write I shall. Words cannot properly sum up all of the abstract feelings floating around inside, proper reactions to our own daily lives that cannot compare to the feelings of helplessness and powerlessness that come as we not only consider the larger events of our world, but the thousands of years of history that led us to where we are in the present day. To write about modern injustices, we must discuss the sins of the past. To write about contemporary successes, we must first discuss historical defeats. My heart and mind are heavy as I look over and contemplate the world. The promise of a new year seems simply too good to be true. What will be new about it? New pain, new suffering, new trauma. But I pray, from the creaking of my bones to the pounding of my blood in my heart, that there will indeed be new hope. May I somehow be a vessel for it.
We cannot speak of a new year without first considering why and how it came to be on January 1st. Indeed, in the oldest days of ancient religion, Mesopotamians from Sumer in the 35th Century BCE to Babylon in the 20th Century BCE would celebrate the New Year, an eleven-day festival that concluded with the joining of the king and tutelary deity in sacred marriage, therefore renewing the divine mandate of kingship and ensuring that the land itself is united with the ruling powers (1,2). The world’s first recorded myth, Enūma Eliš, “When On High,” would be recited in Babylon, thought to be where heaven and earth joined and the very gods walked amongst humans (2). This is a phenomena tied to the seasons, with close connections to both the vernal equinox and new moon. In much the same way, the Hebrew calendar, linked directly to the mosaic liturgical year, is entirely based on the light of the moon, and takes its basis from Israel’s ancient exodus from Egypt to Canaan (1). Similarly, the Roman Kingdom instituted a ten-month lunar calendar that began with the vernal equinox. In this calendar, the months of September, October, November and December were the 7th-10th months, reflecting their etymology. March comes from Mars, the god of war, while May comes from Maia, goddess of growth, and June is named for Juno, queen of the gods. King Numa Pompilius later added the months of January for the god Janus who ruled over doorways and transitions, and February for Februa, a festival of purification, increasing the length of the calendar by two months. In 153 BCE, the calendar’s official starting date was moved to January 1st, coinciding with the end of the Sol Invictus festival that celebrated the rebirth of the sun at the winter solstice, officially making it a solar calendar. Later, in 45 BCE, Julius Caesar consulted astronomers to solidify a 365-day calendar, which was variously in use across the Western World of Roman influence until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII created the modern calendar. It is with Julius Caesar that the original fifth and sixth months, now the seventh and eighth, were renamed “July” and “August,” commemorating the earliest Roman ruling titles. These two calendars and ways of reckoning time came to dominate the western world. Meanwhile, other calendars remained: the Vedic and Hindu calendars of India, the Avestan calendar of Iran, the Muslim calendar of Arabia, the many nordic calendars of Scandinavia, and the Chinese calendar, which remained ultimately independent of Western influence well into the 21st century. According to this ancient calendar, a forefront of traditional Chinese medicine and belief, we move from the Year of the Snake to the Year of the Horse from February 17th to March 3rd (1, 3, 4, 5, 6).
In our own home of Richland County, Wisconsin, another calendar has been in use since before the colonial incursions of the modern era, before the coming of the second peoples from the 15th to 21st centuries. The Ho-Chunk Nation, who have lived in the area around Southwest Wisconsin since at least about 700 CE and are no doubt descendants of those who lived here since 13,000 BCE, has their own calendar that is not only intimately tied to the moon as a basis for reckoning, but outlines the basis for every full moon period of their entire year, and traditions that have been kept for generations. Not only was the moon or Hąhewira a guide, but was considered one of many living beings in a complex belief system, a child of the creator-god Mą’ųna, Earth-maker, alongside the sun and Earth herself. With the sun, she is said to be the mother of some of the stars. Closer to home, each new turn of the moon is linked to a particular natural phenomenon, a season within a season, and acted as a guide for the lifeways of the Ho-Chunk people. The importance of hunting, gathering, and farming are clear, with a focus on bear, raccoon, fish, elk and deer, while the summer months certainly revolve around corn agriculture (7, 8, 9, 10). Moreover, we must take into account the fact that this calendar, and the people that created it, are still here, despite nearly 500 years of displacement and genocide. Despite this, they remain and thrive in the modern day, a testament to strength and resilience that our ancestors could not take away from them. Indeed, the land itself was preserved because of their traditional protocols and lifeways.
Ho-Chunk Moons (8, 9, 10)
Húnjwiconína - First Bear
Húnjwioràgenina - Second Bear
Wak'ék'iruxewìra - Raccoon Breeding
Hoítoginana - Fish Become Visible
Maįtąwus - Drying of the Earth
Mank'éra - Digging
Maįna - Cultivating
Wixócerera - Tasseling
Hųwaižúkera - Elk Whistling
Cámaįnàxora - When the Deer Paw the Earth
Caik'irúxira - Deer Breeding
Cahéyakèna - When the Deer Shed Their Horns
My simple request to you, dear reader, is that you take this information with you as you go into this new year, not only the history of different calendars, but the reality that our interactions with the world around us lie entirely within our subjective hands. Look around you, raise your awareness to meet the sky and earth and all wonders and horrors in between, with courage and kinship and the will that kept humans alive in this land for thousands of years. Sure enough, belief and norms and experiences shape society, and it is not difficult to see the differences between the western calendar, focused on heaven and interactions between celestial bodies as gods, and the calendar of the Ho-Chunk, tied closely as the people themselves to the very land which inspired it. Consider the multitude of beliefs in the world, and consider your own. Is it ego or objectivity that makes your beliefs correct? I must ask myself this too. But beyond belief, we must simply believe in and care for the very real world around us, the struggles that echo from forgotten history into our present time and modern life. Thank you for reading, and may you have a Happy New Year.
Resources, References & Further Reading
A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Karen Armstrong. 1993
An Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamian Religion. Tammi J. Schneider. 2011
The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics. Elaine Pagels. 1995
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. David Abram. 2017
Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Bron Taylor. 2010
The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology. Theodore Roszak. 2001
Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Patty Loew. 2013
ho-chunknation.com. Ho Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. 2025
The Encyclopedia of Hōcąk Mythology. Richard L. Dieterle. 2005
Comments
Post a Comment