A calendar for a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the Inuit

Well, not "Inuit" as such, more like Pre-Inuit.

See this thread for some background (Yes I know the plot of " girl has relationship with soldier from fantasy equivalent of the Roman Empire and gives birth to Crystal Dragon Jesus" has a lot of potential to be offensive, but the story's an ancient legend).

So basically the setting is a fantasy version of what is now the modern-day US what is now modern-day Canada North America based on medieval sources describing a western paradise with loads of grapes, nice warm weather, and self-sown wheat that is being colonised/occupied by a Fantasy Counterpart Culture. The local people are inspired by the Dorset culture escept that they are monotheistic and their religion inspired the equivalent of Christianity.

If the Dorset had developed a society based on farming and herding as well as hunting and gathering, what would their calendar have been like? I have a feeling that it would be similar to the Mayan and Mexican and Inka/Inca ones with a harvest calendar and a civil/state calendar.

Can anyone help me brainstorm how these calendars might work?

edited 11th Oct '14 8:39:31 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

Winter when it's cold, summer when it's hot. Spring and autumn for the in-between bits.

For a farmer society I would imagine that their calender would be less "It's January 3" and more "It's time to plant X crop".

Is having them import the calendar directly from the 'Southerners' not an option? I feel that it would take less effort say 'their calendar works, so we're gonna use it too' than 'we came up with this hodgepodge mess based on our religion', but I would need to know more about how willing they'd be to borrow (or steal!) knowledge from heathens.

If I were writing it, I'd name the months after seasonal phenomena (an old euphemism for 'harvest' instead of 'September' or 'Ninth-Month', for example) instead of religious events.

That could help.

If you're also locating it in the North/South poles as in reality, the thirty-day darkness would DEFINITELY need to be noted. I remember in an Avatar The Last Airbender fic whose title escapes me but it's on the Fanfic Recs page, the thirty-day night nearly killed firebender Zuko from spiritual cold/sickness. Sokka promptly noted the "craziness" of worshiping the sun instead of the moon: The Water Tribes worship the moon and therefore the month of night is pretty much business as usual, but the Fire Nation is used to the sun being there every day, so several other firebenders died from the spiritual strain.

(Yes, I'm citing fanfiction. It happens to be a fuck-all awesome story that draws on indigenous cultures, so it's relevant. I can't remember if the author also drew on the Poles' month-long daytime, but I feel like she did.)

This site is really good with Native American mythology in general.

Climate wise, I don't think the Inuit had proper names for the seasons aside from winter/summer/spring. To my knowledge, there's not much of an autumn in the Poles because the cold sets in pretty fast. However, snow/cold is often viewed as a good thing because it means their food is naturally refrigerated, which is something that most temperate-dwelling people don't really think about.

As for Mayan culture, YAY I BASED ONE OF MY CULTURES OFF THE MAYANS.

Climate-wise, they're tropical. Therefore they only have a wet and dry season for each half of the year. If the sun gets too powerful (causing drought), they can't grow corn, which means their animal/human sacrifices to the gods will be less nourishing, which means less powerful gods in the long run. Specifics escape me because I haven't found a complete translation of the Popol Vuh, so I only really know the basics and a few myths.

edited 12th Oct '14 8:37:01 PM by Sharysa

Your description of the fanfic also perfectly summarises the show!

Just wanted to agree too Deus Deneo said about an chalendar based on argiculture or weather is an good ida. The Germanic chalendars and the French Revolutionary chalendar are good inspiration.

ooh yeah, the Norse calendar too!

Also, the Mayans were crazy good at astronomy. Star position/visibility was as important for their agriculture as actual weather.

Yeah, in a civilization with month-long nights and days should names like "Moon-month" and "Sun-month" be good equavilents for December and Juny.

On a side note, do a chalendar really need to start with "our" New-Year? Maybe Midsummer work just as fine? or first day of daylight? Just some ideas...

On a side note, the Norse Chalendar was one of the many (Germanic) chalendars that I lumped together as "Germanic Chalendars"

edited 19th Oct '14 8:49:54 AM by TheBorderPrince

Yeah, the Celtic pagan year often starts in fall/winter at Samhain/All-Saints'/All-Hallows day from October 31 to November 2. You can theoretically start your fantasy-Inuit new year after the month of sunlight instead of the end of winter.

Pre-modern people more often decided years by seasons and rough estimates, not set-in-stone days and months.

Bumping this thread because I found the Zutara fic.

Read away for Indigenous Culture Goodness.