Where there is only a series of less than twelve months, the problem of calendar regulation does not exist. The series is begun on the appearance of the signs from which the first month is named, and is continued from that point until the end. The vacant period serves, unconsciously of course, to bring lunar reckoning and solar year into agreement. Nevertheless the months can be fixed in a more accurate fashion. The Eskimos of Greenland, for instance, mark the winter solstice by the position of the sun, and then begin to count the moons, and continue doing so until the moon can no longer be observed in the bright summer nights[862]. The Lower Thompson Indians in British Columbia counted up to ten or sometimes eleven months, the remainder of the year being called the autumn or late fall. This indefinite period of unnamed months enabled them to bring the lunar and solar year into harmony. Also the Shuswap and the Lillooet in the same country counted eleven months and then the ‘fall-time’, which was the balance of the year[863]. Among most peoples, however, a series of months covering the whole year has arisen, and this series has more often 13 than 12 months. Here the difficulties first begin. If a new moon falls on a certain day of the solar year, in the following year a new moon will occur about 11 days before or 19 days after this day, and in the year after that about 21 days before or 9 days after it. Since the natural phases are bound up with the solar year, they get out of place in relation to the moon. The situation is still further complicated by the fact that the phases of Nature, and with them the occupations, vary somewhat according to the peculiarities of the climate in different years. Hence doubt arises, and the accustomed order of succession of the months is broken. And this is not a mere theoretical piece of reasoning: primitive peoples are not seldom in perplexity as to which month they are to count. Of the Dakota it is said that they often have heated debates as to which moon it is. The raccoons do not come out of their winter holes at the same time every winter, the conditions which cause inflammation of the eyes do not appear at the same time every spring, the geese lay their eggs at a slightly different period according to the character of the year. Twelve moons do not bring them back to the same point in the season as that from which their reckoning began; and therefore towards the end of the winter there is dispute among the Dakota as to the correct current date[864]. If the people has a thirteenth month, the matter is no better. Of the Pawnee, who had an intercalary month, it is stated that they sometimes became inextricably involved in reckoning, and were obliged to have recourse to objects about them to rectify their computations. Councils have been known to be disturbed, or even broken up, in consequence of irreconcilable differences of opinion as to the correctness of their calculation[865]. The same is