Even where the year is known as a unit of time, it does not necessarily follow that the years are counted and that a chronology exists. "It is true indeed of most primitive peoples … that they are well acquainted with … the concrete phenomenon of the year … as a single period of the seasonal variation, but do not reckon in years in this sense. That is to say, the year is by them empirically given but not limited in the abstract: above all it is not a calendrical and numerical quantity" (Nilsson, 1920, p. 90). Thus in archaic cultures and in early high cultures the importance of New Year festivals is not, or is only in small measure, found in the fact that they are measures of time; the principal function of such ceremonies is to ensure, during a critical transitional period, a renewal of life and the life force. In fact in many instances they even assume the form of a symbolic new creation out of chaos.
Whereas New Year ceremonies vary widely from culture to culture, their meaning is essentially concerned with the phenomenon of transition or passage in its two aspects of "elimination" and "inauguration." What is old, exhausted, weakened, inferior, and harmful is to be eliminated, and what is new, fresh, powerful, good, and healthy is to be introduced and ensured.
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