Indigenous Time: Getting off Gregorian Calendar

BBC.com (June 22, 2016) via pri.org; Xochitl, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

The Native Bolivian American tribe the Aymara celebrate the new year across Bolivia with people gathering before sunrise on June 21st to welcome it in (Reuters/AP via BBC.com).

The Maya measured time in intervals like the Vedas ("Knowledge Books") of the IVC and India -- influenced by star beings (devas) -- Buddhist and Brahminical/Hindu aeons.

Bolivian leader wants to dump Gregorian calendar

BBC (Latin America & Caribbean) in the Andes Mountains

Andes Mountains, Bolivia, Cuernos del Paine from Lake Pehoé (Miguel Vieira/wiki)

Members of the indigenous South American Aymara group traditionally raise their hands to receive the first rays of sun on the morning of June 21st (AP via BBC.com)

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Bolivian President Evo [pronounced EH-voh] Morales has proposed that the Andean country switch back from the Gregorian calendar to the calendar previously used by its indigenous Aymara people.

During celebrations for the Aymara New Year, Pres. Morales said he found the Gregorian calendar "untidy."

He suggested that Bolivia "reclaim its ancestral calendar as part of the rebuilding of our identity." Pres. Morales is Aymara.

The future is behind us say Aymara (BBC)

It is not the first time the Bolivian government has suggested changes to the way time is measured.

Two years ago, the clock on the facade of the Congress in La Paz was reversed so that its hands turned left [counter-clockwise] and the numbers were inverted to go from 1 to 12 anti-clockwise. The government dubbed it "clock of the south."

It is Year 5,524

Time is fluid and a consensus reality

On Tuesday, Morales said the indigenous calendar, in which a year has 13 months of 28 days each, was much "tidier" than the Gregorian one, in which the length of the months can vary between 28 and 31 days.

• [EDITORIAL: As Wisdom Quarterly has explained: A day is 24 hours, a week is 7 days, a month is 4 weeks; therefore, a month is 28 days (4x7) and should be called a moonth, meaning it has all of the moon's phases (full, half, and two quarter moons). There are 13 months in a year because 13 [not 12] x 28 = 364 days. The 365th day is New Year's Day, a day of reflection and transition looking back and ahead, when Earth renews: spring.]

The 21st of June, the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere, is considered "day zero" in the indigenous calendar and marks the beginning of the new year.

On Tuesday, many Bolivians celebrated the arrival of the year 5,524.

It's cold for winter solstice in the Andes even as atmosphere erodes and sun worsens (BBC).

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The year is calculated by adding the number of years that have passed since the arrival of [Jewish convert to Catholicism, thief, rapist, ethnic cleanser, enslaver, mass murderer, genocide launcher] Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492 to the 5,000 years indigenous people are estimated to have lived in the region.
 

President Morales declared June 21st a national holiday in 2010. Traditionally, he sees in the new year day at the archaeological ruins at Tiahuanaco, the site of a pre-Columbian fortress.
 

But due to knee surgery, this year the president held a ceremony at the presidential palace instead. More