As the title says. In the cultures that have arisen amongst the western world, Indian subcontinent and far east, the latitude has been far enough removed from the equator that there are clear seasons, and agriculture makes it so that attention is paid to the yearly cycle of seasons. Amongst indigenous tribes in equatorial areas of South America and Africa (i.e., in their pre-Christian cultures), is there any significance attached to the orbit of the earth around the sun?
Sort of. An example that may be familiar to you would be Egypt, whose year was defined by the annual Nile flood (resulting from seasonal variation in the Nile-headwaters area), which was marked by the annual ‘heliacal’ rising of Sirius (that being a fancy term for ‘at the same time as sunrise’).
Even if there is no winter-summer variation at a given spot, there is either an annual cycle of wet and dry seasons or influence on food sources from areas that do. (“The birds we hunt in January fly north in the spring, and return in the fall.”)
The Incas in what is now Peru had a calendar, and their territory extended into equatorial regions.
Egypt, of course, had an extremely ancient tradition of literacy including calendar computations.
How close to the equator are you requiring for your definition of “equatorial culture”?
Personally, I’d guess that since almost all geographical areas have seasonal weather patterns, and annual changes in the apparent motion of the sun are perceptible in all areas, pretty much all cultures had some kind of annual calendar.
Just as a bit of trivia, since you mention in the Indian subcontinent, in Bengali culture, there are six seasons: Cold, Spring, Summer, Rain, Autumn, and Dry.
To sum up the answers given, it seems that the OP is making a false asumption: that “equatorial” implies “no important, regular annual changes in nature”. But this isn’t true. The most basic atmospheric feature of the tropics is the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (rainy pretty much all the time) and the relatively drier latitudes to its north and south. Across any one year, the ITCZ (and the drier bands to either side of it) will shift north, then shift south. So, any place in the tropics will, to one degree or another, experience a predictible pattern of WET and DRY seasons.
The OP brings up an interesting point, though, because the dry seasons in most places very close to the equator are quite subtle – that is, they’re only slightly less wet. But even there, there are many trees which flower and fruit at particular times of the year, and animals with annual patterns of behavior (mostly due to those fruiting schedules.) So there’s still plenty of predictable annual occurrences.
The pattern of the stars in the night sky, the apparent position of the sun against the stars, the movements of the planets, etc. would vary on a regular pattern that is the very definition of a year. Astronomy in this sense is known to go back many thousands of years. There’s no reason to think that an equatorial culture would pay any less attention to what happens in the sky.
Exapno Mapcase:
There is if my initial assumption, that all times of year in those areas are equally suited for planting/harvesting/etc, were true - they may be capable of noting a difference, but if it makes no practical difference to their lives, there’s be no reason to make an institution of it.
But it seems my initial assumption was wrong. I am well aware that even in equatorial regions there’s some seasonal variation, but I assumed it was slight and did not significantly affect the natives’ lifestyles. If in fact the local flora and fauna are affected by the subtle seasons, then there’s reason for the human natives to pay attention to it as well.
In Cameroon our seasons were as such:
Rainy season Jun-Sept (it’d rain for an hour or so most days)
Small hot season Sept-Nov (usually around 90)
Small cold season/dust season Dec-Mar (it’d get around 70)
Hot season Mar-Aug (120+ regularly)
Most Cameroonians did not even know the terms for "spring, summer, august, winter. It was all "hot season, " “Dry season,” “Cold season,” etc.
Yeah, the seasons in equatorial places drive behavior every bit as much as they do at higher latitudes. Planting at the wrong time still yields a lousy harvest. Even if we’re talking 80% yield instead of 100%, that’s a difference worth learning - a farmer who produces 20% more than his neighbor is going to buy up the neighbor’s land after just a few years of that.
But I think Exapno Mapcase’s point stands. People are very curious and they don’t have a lot to do at night except look at stars. Even if the seasons weren’t significant, you just can’t miss the cyclical nature of everything in the sky. The sun goes up and down every day. The moon waxes and wanes every month. Both of those are obvious even to mentally handicapped people. Eventually, someone with brains and leisure time is going to look for (and find) other patterns.
Egypt is hardly equatorial, though. Even modern Egypt, at its farthest south, just touches the Tropic of Cancer.
While current definitions of “winter” and “summer” are, well, modern and in Spanish, I’m reasonably sure that the weather in Costa Rica’s NW province of Guanacaste was similar in precolumbian times as now. There is a [del]drenched[/del]rainy season, which more or less matches the Northern Hemisphere’s summer months, followed by a dry season with very nice weather, followed by a change in the winds thereabouts of February, followed by “OK, who switched the oven on”, until the ever-increasing temperatures finally get curtailed by the blessed, refreshing rain again.
So yeah, tropical but still on a yearly cycle. Other parts of Costa Rica have different weather but still with yearly cycles, Guanacaste just happens to be the one I know better.
Nitpick: The heliacal rising of a star is when it’s just barely visible before sunrise. A star rising at the same time as the Sun would not be visible at all. It’s also worth noting that the flooding of the Nile and the heliacal rising of Sirius aren’t actually on the same cycle, and it’s possible that the two falling out of synch was one of the reasons for the decline of Egyptian civilization.
One other note about equatorial regions and calendar-keeping: In most temperate cultures, the most significant dates on the calendar are the equinoces and solstices, but in many tropical cultures, the dates to recognize are instead the pair of dates straddling Summer Solstice when the Sun passes directly overhead (how far from the Solstice these days would be depends on how far from the tropic line you are).
This is very interesting! Perhaps the importance of those sun-at-the-zenith days is reinforced, in places like the Amazon or Congo, by the fact that some rainforest peoples rarely see all that much of the sky, except what IS directly overhead. (I don’t mean to exaggerate this point, since even the Yanomami clear forest patches to plant root and tree crops and to direct game, but I did read in Eric Hansen’s account of Borneo that some forest dwellers really do feel uncomfortable in big-sky open places.)
Point taken. I used it as an example of a culture that Chaim as an Orthodox Jew would be quite familiar with which did not follow the cold/hot temperate seasonal rotation but the wet/dry ‘tropical’ one – even though Egypt is outside the tropics.