220
Notices of Japan, No. V111.
APRIL,
Strictly speaking, the length of the hours should vary from day to day; but such extreme accuracy is dispensed with, and the variations are regulated only four times in the year, upon averages of three months.
Again, the numbering of these twelve hours, which seems so straightforward a matter for people who can count twelve, is in Japan so strangely complicated, that had not the expedient been adopted of bestowing upon each hour the name of a sign of the Zodiac, in addition to its number, it would there be no easy task to answer the seemingly plain question of “What's o'clock?" An attempt must be made to explain this abstruse and original system.
Nine being esteemed the perfect number, noon and midnight are both called "9 o'clock"--the one of the day, the other of the night; while sunrise and sunset are respectively "six o'clock" of the day, and "six o'clock" of the night. If it be asked how nine can occur twice in twelve, the answer is, that the arithmetical impossibility is conquered or obviated by omitting the first and the last three num- bers, beginning with four and ending with the perfect nine. The intermediate numbers are laboriously evolved from the multiplication table, and the system is based upon the profound respect entertained for the number nine. Here is the
process :————
Nine, being the hour of noon and midnight, is the point from which the num- bering begins, and considered as the first hour. Twice 9 is 18; subtract the decimal figure and 8 remains, therefore the hour following noon or midnight, say the second hour, is 8 o'clock of the day or of the night. Three times 9 is 27; subtract the decimal figure and 7 remains, and the third hour becomes 7 o'clock of the day or the night. Four times 9 is 36; repeat the operation, and we find the fourth hour, which must invariably be sunset or sunrise, 6 o'clock of the night or the day. Five times 9 is 45; and the usual operation makes the hour following sunset or sunrise, fifth from either poon inclusively, 5 o'clock of the night or the day. Finally, six times 9 is 54; and by the same operation we obtain a 4 for the sixth and last hour, which becomes 4 o'clock of the night or the day. Then comes again the noon, or 9 o'clock of the night or the day. A table, which without previous explanations must have been unintelligible, will now place the sequence of the twelve hours of a natural day distinctly before the reader.
Midnight is kokonots or 9 o'clock of the night, the hour of the Rat.
2 A. M. is yats or 8 o'clock
do.
do.
Cow.
4 A. M. is nanats or 7 o'clock
do.
do.
Tiger.
Sunrise is mutsu-doki or 6 o'clock of the day,
do.
Rabbit.
8 A. M. is itsutsu or 5 o'clock
do:
do.
Dragon.
10 A. M. is yots or 4 o'clock
do.
do.
Snake.
Noon, is kokonots or 9 o'clock
do.
do.
Horse.
2 P. M. is yats or 8 o'clock
do.
do.
Goat or Sheep.
4 P. M. is nanats or 7 o'clock
do.
do.
Ape.
Sunset, is mutsu-doki or 6 o’olock of the night,
do.
Cock.
8 P. M. is itsutsu or 5 o'olock
. do.
do.
Dog,
10 P. M. is yots or 4 o'clock
do.
do.
Boar.*
* [Each of these hours is divided in eighths (equivalent to our quarters), and the notation of the intervals is done by additions to the word denoting the hour; thus, kokonots han is 1 a. m.; kokonots han sugi is half past one; kokonots han sugi maye is quarter past one, &c., &c. The use of the twelve branches' to desig. nate the hours is borrowed from the Chinese, but the other arrangement of num. bering the six hours as here explained is peculiar to the Japanese.]
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