The Caffres recognise the time of sowing by the position of the stars, especially the Pleiades, and reckon the new year from the morning rising of the latter[975]. Although the Amazulu call the feast of the first-fruits the new year, they say at the appearance of the Pleiades: “The Pleiades are renewed, the year is renewed”, and they begin to dig[976]. In Bali the appearance of the Pleiades at sunset marks the end of the year[977]. In Bambatana (Solomon Islands) the year is reckoned by the Pleiades[978]. Among the Polynesians the Pleiades year was extremely wide-spread. The inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands had a ten-month year, but were acquainted with a year of twelve months, which they called by the name of the Pleiades, _maka-ihi_ or _mata-iti_, ‘the little eyes’[979]. On Hervey Island the new year was given by the evening rising of the Pleiades in the middle of December[980]. In the Society Islands there were two seasons named after the Pleiades. The first, _matarii i nia_, ‘little eyes above’, began at the evening rising of these stars and continued as long as they were visible in the sky in the evening; the other _matarii i raro_, ‘little eyes under’, began after the evening setting and extended over the time during which the stars were not to be seen in the evening[981]. It follows that a fixed beginning of the year does not exist universally, and therefore is not the general norm. The beginning of the year in our sense is the starting-point of the series of the days of the calendar; among the primitive peoples it is the beginning of any year, whether the complete year or the phenomena of the time of vegetation only. There are several such phenomena appearing side by side, so that there can also be several beginnings to the year, e. g. several feasts of first-fruits, as among the Thonga, the rising of the Pleiades and the feast of the first-fruits among the Amazulu. When one phenomenon of this kind, e. g. the corn-harvest, prevails over the others and is perhaps brought into prominence by the greatest festival of the year, it appears more like our New Year, though the significance of the occasion does not depend, as among ourselves, upon the position of the day in the calendar, but upon the natural conditions. And when a phase of the stars, e. g. of the Pleiades, coincides with the beginning of the agricultural year and the renewal of Nature, the stellar (Pleiades) year is obtained by comprising the time between one rising or setting and the next. By this means we arrive at the pure but undivided solar year. On the other hand the phases of the stars, like the other natural phases, were needed to determine the months, and here the result was more important.