Times of day

Morning only features in two of the six Rokuyo days: good luck in the morning of a Sensho day and bad luck in the morning of a Sakimake day. And the definition of the Rokuyo morning has a certain amount of precision.

Technically, morning runs from midnight to midday, but the Rokuyo morning is assumed to be the same as with most languages, i.e., from whatever time the sun dawns until midday. Curiously, however, the Rokuyo morning doesn't end at midday, rather if either stops at 11 a.m. or it ambles on until 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. More about that is explained below.

In the English language the word "noon" comes from Old English non and the Latin nona hora which means 3 p.m., the ninth hour after sunrise. Timekeeping was only important to certain situations and societies, such religious observances in monasteries. To adapt to changes in practices, noon changed between the 12th and 14th centuries to 12 p.m.

In Japan also, noon has shifted to suit various situations. But whenever that time is, it's the instant between morning and afternoon.

Now as we know, an instant is so infinitesimally small that philosophers and mathematicians since Aristotle have puzzled over what an instant is, how to measure it or how to observe what happens in it, and even whether instants of time actually exist. But don't worry; you don't need to crawl to a quiet corner to contemplate all this, since the Rokuyo "noon" lasts for two hours; from 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.

In Japan the day used to be divided into 12 rather than 24 hours. This 12-part Zodiac influenced old religions and cultures, not only throughout a duodecennial (12-year period), but also throughout each day. Each temporal unit of a day was associated with one of the 12 animals of the Japanese zodiac:

So noon is the 'hour' of the horse (Uma no koku).

Unlike the normal kanji for a horse (馬), the zodiac horse (noon) is assigned the kanji 午, which is very similar to 牛, the kanji for a cow. The identity crisis might be why he's a bit feisty, resulting in the change of pace for each Rokuyo day – except Taian and Butsumetsu, which are presumably the horse's days off.

* The hour number started at 9, the highest mark etched on an incense stick, which burned for six hours down to 4. A new stick was then used for the next six hours. The counting started at 9, a Chinese homophone of the word for 'long lasting', followed by 8, 7, 6, 5 and 4, being the least significant digits of incremental multiples of 9, where:

(One, two and three were the number of chimes calling Buddhists to prayer at dawn, noon and dusk, and therefore not used in secular time keeping. Four can mean death, so that's a convenient point for the stick to end its usefulness.)

The digital root of each multiple is also the cosy 9, a neat phenomenon unique to the number 9.

This quaint system was superseded by the Western method of timekeeping in 1873 and doesn't feature in any Japanese customs today; unlike Rokuyo, which is withstanding the test of time.

The dials on these two Edo period wall clocks (Seiko Museum, Ginza, Tokyo) show the twelve zodiac 120-minute hours on the outer rim, with the 9-to-4 numbers for daytime and 9-to-4 120-minute hours on the inner rim. (Click either image to enlarge.)

Besides seasonal time indication, the clock on the left has a moon window and solar hand, showing the motions of both sun and moon phases.

As with morning, the afternoon only features in Sensho and Sakimake.

Technically, afternoon begins immediately after the noon, which in the case of Rokuyo's noon is 1 p.m. But Rokuyo's afternoon begins at 2 p.m. and continues until 6 p.m. irrespective of what time the sun sets.

Having said that, the good or bad luck in the afternoon is only implied by the kanji characters for both Sensho and Sakimake which explain the morning's fortune. There is no specific reference to what happens in the afternoon.

The same can be said for the evening and night.

It might seem surprising that Rokuyo doesn't mention the fortunes of evening and night, since that's a long period from 6 p.m. until dawn the next day - a substantial part of the 24-hour day.

If you've ever been to Tokyo or indeed any sizeable city in Japan, you'll know how lively things are all through the day and night. But this was not the case hundreds of years ago. Only a bright moon on a cloudless night would permit some activity.

There was, therefore, no need for good luck and no need to worry about bad luck.