Not all weeks are 7 days. A look at the market week across the world.
Most people reading this are intimately familiar with the seven-day market week. Saturday to Sunday and all that. As much as it is the most widespread market week, it’s not the only game in town. There have been a number of different calendars and cultures that have organized their days into different lengths. Some based on numerology, mythology, or as a natural result of the structure of the calendar.
Seven days most likely is an approximation of lunar quarters, which are 7 or 8 days. Nevertheless, there’s always room for considering what others are doing with their time, as what benefits some of us may benefit more.
The most thorough analysis of the seven-day week that I’ve found is the Seven Day Circle (1989) by Eviatar Zerubavel. In the course of analysis, he also looks at historical market weeks as well as others currently in use. Excerpts below are from
The three-day market weeks of ancient Columbia and New Guinea, the five-day market weeks of ancient Mesoamerica and Indochina, and the ten-day market week of ancient Peru all serve to remind us that such weekly market cycles have not always been seven days long.
The ancient southern Chinese twelve-day week is a classic example of a weekly cycle that served to regulate economic transactions. Three-day market cycles regularly held on the first, fourth, seventh and tenth days of the week – were clearly derived from it. So were the six six-day market cycles…
… a nineteen-day cycle of social and religious activity… was adopted by the Baha’u’llah who… created the international religious movement known to this day as Baha’ism.
The Mesoamerican Calendars also hold 13-day weeks as fundamentally important. So, in quick summary, we have examples as follows:
- 3-day week: ancient Columbia & New Guinea & Southern China
- 5-day week: ancient Mesoamericans (Aztec & Maya et al) & Indochina
- 10-day week: Peru and Ancient Egypt
- 12-day week: ancient southern China
- 13-day week: Mesoamericans
- 19-day week: Baha’i
Alright, so different peoples use different lengths weeks. That’s the nature of the variance and variability of the world’s cultures. Most of the above are ancient systems no longer in use. How is that even relevant? Keep you pants on. We’re getting there. Next we’re going to look at three systems that combine market weeks of different lengths (and you thought weeks to months were complicated).
Quite popular in Rwanda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Togo, and [Democratic Repuglic of Congo] only a few decades ago, three-day, five-day, six-day, nine-day and ten-day market cycles still regulate the economic life of various tribes in Ghana, Nigeria, and the Upper Volta The most popular of all indigenous African weeks, however, is the four-day market week. … villages that belong to one and the same market circuit must hold their markets on different days of the week. This is designed to minimize the competition among them…
There is also the Akan Calendar used in Ghana and other parts of West Africa, which combines 6- and 7-day weeks.
In the market calendar system referred to above, there are a series of interlocking market weeks:
- 3-day
- 4-day
- 5-day
- 6-day
- 9-day
- 10-day
Mind you, not all the peoples in the Central African countries listed above follow all of these cycles. That kind of elaborate madness is the left to the Indonesians on Java & Bali.
The most remarkable week calendar ever invented evolved sometime around the ninth century on the island of Java, from where it has also spread to some other Indonesian islands, such as Bali.
The Javanese Calendar used in Indonesia interlocks a 5-day week with the Gregorian Week. The 5 days are associated with the cardinal directions (N, E, W, S and Centre). However, the 5-day week is falling into disuse as the Gregorian Week takes over. This is the worst case scenario, and as much as theAbysmal Calendar uses the 7-day week as its building block, variety is both welcome and encouraged. Fortunately, the Javanese use a more intricate 210-day calendar which is most associated with Bali.
The Balinese Pawukon
The Pawukon is the market calendar par excellence. It combines concurrent market weeks of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 days. The Pawukon is 210 days.
Observant readers will have noticed that 210 cannot be evenly divided by 4, 8 or 9. Those weeks are adjusted with extra days. 52 x 4 and 26 x 8 = 208, and 23 x 9 = 207. For the 4- and 8-day weeks, the 2 extra days are added at second last day of the week that would normally end on the 72nd day. For the 9-day week, the first day of the week is repeated three times at the start of the Pawukon. Apart from these exceptions, the 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-day cycles repeat themselves throughout the calendar.
The rest should be easy, right? 1, 2 and 10 all divide easily into 210. They do, but they do not repeat themselves the way other weeks do. It’s a complicated calculation which I won’t belabour here. Some intrepid soul has gone and mapped out an entire Pawukon of 210-days. The calendar days of each cycle are named instead of numbered. Have fun.
theAbysmal Calendar and Market Weeks
Summarizing what we’ve seen above, we now have market weeks of 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-, 10-, 12-, 13-, and 19- days. How can these be incorporated into theAbysmal Calendar? A solution awaits. The thing to remember is that the year is 365 days (the Leap Year doesn’t count for any of these market weeks – the Leap Day is never a weekday). Calendars have been divised to arrange the calendar into 365 days (like the Gregorian, Julian, Persian and any solar calendar), 364+1 days (like theAbysmal and other 13-month calendars), 361+4 days (like the Baha’i) and 360+5 days (like the Coptic & Ethiopian Calendars).
The key in incorporating these weeks into theAbysmal system depends on how the factors work out. Ignoring 1 and 2 and counting up to 20, let’s see what we have:
- 365 = 5
- 364 = 4, 7, 13, 14
- 361 = 19
- 360 = 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20
That’s most numbers from 1-20, excluding 11, 16 & 17.
As for the rest, how to consolidate 365, 361 and 360 day cycles into the 364+1 days of theAbysmal? It’s a matter of choosing which days to include and exclude. 365 includes all the days of the year. 364 excludes the New Year’s day (equivalent to December 21st). 360 excludes the New Year’s Day, plus the 4 days that fall midway in each quarter (equivalent to February 5th, May 7th, August 6th and November 5th), and 361 days excludes the midway days, and includes the New Year’s day.
If we look at the length of the market week (the number of weeks per year in bracket, and the number of days of year) theAbysmal Market Week Calendar looks like this:
- 1-day week: every day of the year, which seems like a given, but the Balinese system makes this cycle irregular. Use your discretion.
- 2-day week: (182) 364 – this could alternate between dark and light, as with yin and Yang
- 3-day week: (120) 360 -
- 4-day week: (91) 364 – the four directions are common themes for this kind of cycle, E, S, W, N
- 5-day week: (73) 365 – the five elements, Fire, Earth, Aether, Water, Air (or Chinese Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood)
- 6-day week: (60) 360 -
- 7-day week: (52) 364 – the weekdays as we currently know them representing the 7 ancient planets
- 8-day week: (45) 360 – could be the 8 spokes of the Buddhist Wheel of Dharma
- 9-day week: (40) 360 – the Mesoamericans used a cycle of the 9 Lords of Night
- 10-day week: (36) 360 – the Hindu guardians of the directions
- 12-day week:(30) 360 – the 12 Earthly Branches (i.e. animals) of the Chinese Calendar
- 13-day week: (28) 364 – the 13 signs of the zodiac
- 14-day week: (26) 364 – this is traditionally called a fortnight
- 15-day week: (24) 360 -
- 18-day week: (20) 360 -
- 19-day week: (19) 361 – days of the Bahá’í calendar
- 20-day week: (18) 360 -
It is possible to run a series of market weeks provided one, four or five days of theAbysmal Calendar are skipped. I think this speaks well towards its usefulness as a global calendar, especially as it does not necessarily entrench the 7-day week as the norm (although the structure of months and quarters is based on it, there’s nothing saying other measured cannot be factored in).
Thoughts?
314 Days to Dec 21st 2012
Related articles
- Why researchers want to overhaul the Gregorian calendar (mnn.com)
- The year they fear (blackmystory.wordpress.com)
