Loa Luni-Ecdysial Calendar

The Loa Luni-Ecdysial calendar, called the Marataka Hiraka in Insuo Loa, is the calendar in use in Takatta Loa with several overseas Loa communities using this calendar in an unofficial capacity. It is a dual system calendar, with one half of the calendar being a lunar calendar and the other being an ecdysial calendar, that is one centered around a 365 day year and the life cycles of the Loa Silk Moth.

History

The Polynesians have since time immemorial revered the moon, viewing it as a source or power or mana. The Loa would come to see it as the arbiter of divine and natural law. As such, lunar calendars are well attested since at least 600 CE, with archaeological sites unearthing several pictographic representations that resemble lunar calendars of later literate periods. Around 1617, it was estimated an eclipse would occur on roughly November Eighth, 1645. This was in the 12th year of the reign of King Meajungasai IV, who ruled over the Ahoso Basin during this time. He commissioned a team of philosophers and mathematicians to design a calendar that would incorporate both this upcoming eclipse and the traditional lunar calendar currently in use. The team spent nearly 30 years designing the calendar based on theological positions and a desire to create a mathematically precise calendar. They drew on sacred numerology to date the dawn of humanity to roughly 1.23 million years ago, and to determine year length they measured the rotation of the fixed stars. Arriving at 365.25 days as being the length of a year, adding a leap week every sixty years, they broke the year up into the roughly 70 day long intervals with a 15 day week at the end of the year. These divisions were based on the growth cycle of tropical Loa silk moths, which live for roughly 70 days. As both the most lucrative crop for the Polynesians and especially the kingdom due to their rare and exotic golden hued silk, the silk moth had a sacred and economic role in Polynesian society. They were warned though that should the eclipse fail to arrive, they would all be executed.

On November Seventh, the designers of the calendar approached the king with their creation, called the Silk Calendar. The next day, when the eclipse happened as it was supposed to on its 800 year schedule, the king declared the calendar to be official in the kingdom, and set about having steles detailing its function and structure constructed and erected across the kingdom. Three of these steles survive in partial condition and one remains intact but unfinished, with the king's seal missing. These are housed in the Ólájá Aría Museum in the hills outside Ninao, converted from the Monsoon Palace of the Loa Empire. The calendar saw limited use during these times, being used for the reigns of three kings. In 1712, the Loa and their coalition of mercenaries, dissatisfied tribal subjects and enemy states went to war against the Septerine Alliance that ruled Southern Vallos as an unsteady alliance of privateering and slaving kings, including the kingdom that commissioned the Silk Calendar. The Loa adopted many aspects of their conquered peoples that they found appealing, but Káámarakatu (Empress) Raiatia'atiauelao was so enraptured by the calendar that she mandated its use across the Empire. It has endured to this day, being the official calendar of Takatta Loa to this day.

Structure

The calendar is divided into two parts, the lunar calendar and the ecdysial calendar. The lunar calendar follows a standard format, with there being 12 lunar months with intervals of 29 and thirty days, with even numbered months having 30 days. There are also 12 lunar holidays, one of which is the Lunar New Year's, which all fall on the full moon of the cycle, marking the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next.

The ecdysial calendar is far more complex. It is divided into 365 days of the year, with the year beginning on the 23rd of November after the fifteen day long new year's week. This is based around the eclipse that occurs at exactly 16:15 in the afternoon of the Ahoso Basin every 800 years on November Eighth. The months are 70 days long, adding up to 350 with the fifteen day long week being added. There are also measurements of years, which measure how many years since the last eclipse has occurred. A single eclipse cycle is called a solar cycle with there being 24 solar cycles in a solar year, or 19,800 ecdysial years. These have little use and are used for formal and religious reasons as well as for keeping track of very large dates. It is believed there have been 96 solar years since the creation of mankind, or 1,843,587 years.

These are rendered in full as the amount of solar years followed by solar cycles in the current year, both in small notation. Then the ecdysial years in the cycle, followed by years since the last eclipse, the month and day, then the corresponding lunar date. In practice, the Loa omit most of these, using only the years since the eclipse and all following information. In full the date of September 29th, 2030 (date of Peace Day, celebrating the end of the Takatta Loa Civil War) is rendered as ⁹⁶^¹²9985/385/5/30/8/18, but is typically rendered as 385/5/30/8/18.