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Even traditional calendar

The folk calendar of the Evens comes from ancient times. In pre-revolutionary times, the counting of time by "body parts" was first recorded by V. Bogoraz among the Anadyr Evens. In Soviet times, V. Tsintsius, V. Tugolukov, U. Popova drew attention to this interesting fact and Ph.D. A.A. Alekseev, from modern researchers. One of the distinctive, apparently very ancient forms of the folk calendar is the reckoning of the seasons according to the parts of the human body, which was typical not only for the Evens, but also for other peoples of Siberia and Central Asia. The famous Siberian scientist V.A. Tugolukov noted that the Evens adopted the same archaic calendar as the Evenks.

The Evens divide the year into thirteen lunar months and count them "on the head and hands": the beginning of the year is the crown of the head, the next month is the left shoulder (the year is "descending"), the last month is the right shoulder (having completed a circle, the year "has risen").

The Evens' hunting and reindeer herding calendar was influenced by the Orthodox. Evens began to use pascals to calculate time. However, the archaic calendar has not completely lost its relevance - it is still used by old people in reindeer herds. It reflects a set of information about nomadic life, about the annual economic cycle of hunters and reindeer herders, about the time and seasons of the year, the weather, about the state of the animal and plant world. In the Even lunar year, like other peoples of Siberia, each month began with a new moon. The months were 29-30 days long. The days of solstices and equinoxes were well known to the peoples of Siberia. The summer solstice holidays celebrated by the Evens, Yakuts and other peoples bear traces of the ancient solar cult. The annual cycle of calendar customs is based on a nomadic way of life, determined by the demands of the economic and cultural complex, expressed by transport reindeer husbandry and traditional hunting. Without any doubt, the calendar originated in ancient times, its development was influenced by the peculiarities of the cultural and historical environment, observations of the movement of heavenly bodies - the sun (nyolten) and the moon (ilaan), various planets and stars (osikat) and, undoubtedly, phenological observations curious ancestors of modern Evens [A.A. Alekseev. Evens of Verkhoyansk: history and culture (late 19th - 80s of the 20th century].

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