Tradition

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Cyclical gathers four timekeeping schemes that run on their own repeating period rather than on the seven day week most of the world now shares, each one still governing real ritual life where it is kept.

The Sexagenary Cycle pairs the ten Heavenly Stems with the twelve Earthly Branches into a sixty term cycle that has counted days without interruption since the Shang oracle bones and named years since the Han, underlying the animal years, Ba Zi horoscopy and feng shui reckonings; it is a naming wheel rather than a calendar of months and days in itself. The Balinese Pawukon is a perpetual 210 day cycle in which weeks of one to ten days run concurrently, the three, five and seven day weeks mattering most for ritual, fixing the odalan anniversary festivals of Balinese temples and running alongside the separate lunisolar Saka year.

The Igbo izu runs four days, Eke, Orie, Afo and Nkwo, ordering both the rotation of markets and the ritual life of a community, each day bound to particular spirits, and in the tradition of Nri the four days were delivered by divine messengers. The Yoruba ose likewise runs four days, each belonging to an orisha or group of them, Ifa and Orunmila, Ogun, Sango and Obatala among the usual assignments, fixing when a shrine is served and a market held; because it does not divide into the seven day week, most Yoruba communities now keep both systems side by side.