Many of the ancient calendars such of those of India, had months with lengths of 30 days. The original Roman calendar had ten months in the year of either 30 or 31 days. The winter period was without formal length and was called Intercalaris. When it ended, Martius or March began.  March was named after the Roman god of war and it was when taxes for war campaigns were collected based on the spring crops that were planted.  This is why our current fiscal year still ends on April 15^th, and that is why our taxes are due then.  It was around 800 B.C. when Romulus, who was thought to be the first Roman king, made extensive changes to the month lengths, assigning 29 days to some and 31 to others.  Shortly after Romulus’ death, a priest observed the sky and “called out” when there was a new moon, which evolved into our word for month.  The word “Kalends or Calends” means calare (to announce solemnly, to call out).  This lead to the invention of the word calendar-as applied to the whole cycle.
In 713 B.C., Numa, the king who followed Romulus, added January and February to the original Roman calendar of only ten months.  The first five months were named after Roman Gods but the last five months were named after Latin numerical names.  The addition of January and February shifted the names of the other months so that they no longer made sense.  This left us with Quintilis, meaning the 5^th month which was shifted to the 7^th month.   Sextilis, meaning the 6^th month was shifted to the 8^th month.   Septembre meaning the 7^th month was shifted to the 9^th month.   October, meaning the 8^th month was shifted to the 10^th month.   Novem, meaning the 9^th month was shifted to the 11^th month.  Decembre meaning the 10^th month was shifted to the12^th month.  These names had little association to anything that was happening in nature. Alternatively, some Native Americans named months (moons) for animals that appeared during that season, or for things that related to planting, hunting or gathering.
In the year 153 B.C., Rome changed the first month of the calendar from March (the month of the god of war) to January 1st.  This was because the military leaders felt that there was not enough time to train the troops for the summer war campaigns.  In 58 BC, Julius Caesar began the campaigns that led to the Roman annexation of the whole of Gaul which wiped out the culture that was developing Stonehenge which was based on the Sun cycle.  Many of the Celtic tribes that lived east of the Rhine were conquered or moved to west of the Rhine.  Eventually the only remaining tribes were in Ireland and Scotland. The Celts first appeared in history in the 9th century BCE. The Celts, were made up the various tribes, called ‘Galli’ by the Romans, and ‘Galatai’ or ‘Keltoi’ by the Greeks. Both terms meant ‘barbarian’ which would support the idea that they previously lived east of the Rhine because part of Germany is called Bavaria.  Perhaps their ancient roots were connected to a proven ancient migration from Bengal India. Perhaps the word Galli is connected to Bengali or Gallic.  At the height of their power, their territory stretched from the British Isles to Turkey.  The Celtic beliefs were slowly destroyed by Christianity.  Saint Patrick (who was captured by the Celts as a boy) is alleged to have personally burned close to 180 Irish books written in the Celtic language.  This set an example for Christian zealots who destroyed every piece of Druidic literature they could find. The Druids were the Celtic Priesthood who had three divisions: the Bards (poets), who wore blue robes; the Ovates (prophets & philosophers), who wore green; and the priests, who wore white. For clans entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, the oral stories were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
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© Copyright2009 Kelly Sabota-O’Donnell