When?

“Where were you, Zi?” Dan asked me

“When?”

“You said you’d be here to help. We were supposed to be going fishing. The whole village, but no one, not even a stray dog turned up.”

“For the big one?” I asked

“Yes, the one that gives us the tiny black egg stuff that the leader likes.”

“Why should we get it for him? Lazy bones should get his own tiny black egg stuff. “

“Because he owns our village.” He said.

“Says who? Just him?”

“Well ... .yes. He owns the village.”

“Well, sorry, but I say he doesn’t. Just because he has the biggest hut and many women doesn’t make him the owner of the village.” I answered. That the self styled leader thought he owned the village really annoyed me.

“Anyway, that aside. Where were you?” Dan asked again.

“You said we were all going to catch the sturgeon when the sun rose, but you didn’t say how many sunrises, and anyway, it was really cloudy this sunrise, so I couldn’t actually see the sunrise.” I answered.

“We really need to do something about this.” He said.

Well, it’s not just me, everyone gets confused about how many sunrises before we do something.” I answered. “But it’s funny how no one ever misses a feast.”

“We need to come up with a system to make the sunrise to sunset periods different from each other.” He said

“I agree. Why don’t we both go and have a good think about it, and meet up next sunrise? See, I’m already giving it thought.”

“Good idea.” Dan agreed.

I was just about to set off back to the hut I shared with my woman, Zuva, and children, when I had a thought.

Hey, Dan!” I shouted after him. He turned and came back.

“Yes?”

“Where should we meet? Not knowing where to meet is as bad as not knowing when to meet.” I said. He looked puzzled. “How about the light tree?” I suggested. This is a lone tree that sits apart from all the other trees. Because of this we can tell how much time has passed of the light between sunrise and sunset by the shadow it casts on the ground. Of course it’s a bit rubbish during the rainy season, but that’s not the tree’s fault.

“Good idea. We’ll meet here on the next sunrise. Have lots of ideas.” He said.

On the walk back to my hut I started to think things through. I had already decided that we should call the times between the sunrise and sunset ‘days’. Also I’d noticed that there were 28 ‘days’ between each full moon. Then my train of thought was broken as I saw a young deer alone. It had been left behind by the herd. I picked a smooth stone from the pouch I carried and took out my catapult. Keeping quiet, I lined up my shot, and loosed it. The fawn dropped to the ground. I quickly crossed to where it had dropped, the wild dogs would snatch it from me if I didn’t. I slit the calf’s throat and held it up by the back legs, being careful not to get the blood all over me. Once most of the blood had drained, I slung it around my shoulders and resumed my walk home.

“Mum, come look!” shouted one of my boys. “Dad’s got meat! And a pretty pelt for someone.”

Zi soon had the fawn skinned and butchered. The skin was being cleaned by the children. They enjoyed the smelly process. Whilst they were doing that he and Zuva hung the cuts of meat in the cold room attached to their hut.

As Zuva took the tongue for boiling, Zi started thinking about how to name each ‘day’. He’d decided that each period of light and dark should be called a ‘day’. It was much neater than describing exactly what a ‘day’ was. He looked at the marks he’s been making on a small skin. There was a circle he’d drawn to be the moon at the top. Under that he’d made four columns, and put the four moon states at the top of them. It was consistent, the moon took twenty eight days from being full, to fading and then being full again. Each state lasted seven ‘days’. So there was a recognisable pattern. What Dan and he had been talking about was naming each ‘day’. Naming all twenty eight seemed silly to Zi, four groups of seven could be a moon time, and then only the sets of seven needed names. There could be a sun’s ‘day’ and a moon’s ‘day’. But it was time for bed. He lay next to Zuva in their furs, and cuddled up.

“Night Zuva. I have to meet Dan at sun’s rise.”

“Why?” she asked

“We’ve decided that we need a way of naming the sunlight hours.”

“Why?”

“To stop all the confusion and mix ups about when we....”

“Yes dear,” said Zuva, yawning. “You’d better get some sleep then.”

Zi sighed. Women didn’t understand how hard a man’s life was. All they had to do was keep the hut clean, cook meals, look after the children, look after the animals, and weed the crops. They just didn’t work like men did.

At sun’s rise he was there, by the light tree, when Dan approached rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Sleep well, Dan?” he asked.

“Not really, I spent a lot of the dark awake puzzling over our problem.”

“It’s not just you and me, it’s everyone in the village.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dan.

“Apart from when we have a feast, the whole village is constantly getting muddled. Only a few ‘days’ ago we were supposed to be checking the village boundaries to make sure no dangerous animals could get close. All the men were supposed to meet, and I was there, and the only other person to turn up was old Nap. So we had to rearrange, and if we don’t sort this out, it will be another shambles.”

“I agree, Jour sulked at me a while back, because I had forgotten she was four seasons older. “ Dan said. “And what’s with this ‘day’ word?”

“I decided it was easier than saying from one sunrise until the next.”

“Great idea, anything else?” Dan asked, Zi told him what he’d got worked out. Dan asked a couple of questions about how he’d made his decisions, then said, “Good, we have periods of seven of your ‘days’, and those two names you have thought of are ideal, so we need five more, correct?”

“Yes.” said Zi.

“Any ideas?”

“While I was walking here to meet you I could see Dilbat in the sky, so why not name the other five for Wandering Stars?” Zi suggested.

“We all know the Wanderers, so that’s good.” Dan agreed.

“Right then, the seven ‘day’ things are weeks, and the ‘days’ are Sun’s ‘day’, Moon’s ‘day’, and we’ll use the Wanderers in the order we know them. Sihtu, Dilbat, Salbatanu, Marduk, and Ninurta.” Zi clarified. “Then there’ll be no more, ‘Not today, but’ confusion.”

“And we didn’t even have ‘day’ before your bright ideas.”