The method of counting time by weeks, or sevenths, was a very ancient custom, practised by the Syrians, Egyptians, and most of the oriental nations; {75} and it evidently is a remain of the tradition of the creation. The Creator, indeed, renewed to the Hebrews the old precept of sanctifying the seventh day, on a particular occasion. And Christianity promoted that religious observance in the western world, in remembrance of the work of redemption. The Greeks counted time by decads, or tens; and the Romans by nones, or ninths. The number, and regular periods of the Indians public religious feasts, of which presently, is a good historical proof, that they counted time by, and observed a weekly sabbath, long after their arrival on the American continent. They count the day also by the three sensible differences of the sun, like the Hebrews—sun-rise, they term, _Hassé kootcha meente_, “the sun’s coming out;”—noon, or mid-day, _Tabookòre_;—and sun-set, _Hassé Oobèa_, literally, “the sun is dead;” likewise, _Hasse Ookka’tòra_, that is, “the sun is fallen into the water;” the last word is compounded of _Ookka_, water, and _Etòra_, to fall: it signifies also “to swim,” as instinct would direct those to do, who fell into the water. And they call dark, _Ookklille_—derived from _Ookka_, water, and _Illeh_, dead; which shews their opinion of the sun’s disappearance, according to the ancients, who said the sun slept every night in the western ocean. They subdivide the day, by any of the aforesaid three standards—as half way between the sun’s coming out of the water; and in like manner, by midnight, or cock-crowing, &c. They begin the year,[29] at the first appearance of the first new moon of the vernal æquinox, according to the ecclesiastical year of Moses: and those synodical months, each consist of twenty-nine days, twelve hours, and forty odd minutes; which make the moons, alternately, to consist of twenty-nine and of thirty days. They pay a great regard to the first appearance of every new moon, and, on the occasion, always repeat some joyful sounds, and stretch out their hands towards her—but at such times they offer no public sacrifice.