Each palintangan calendar serves as a personal horoscope for the individual who commissioned it. It incorporates the Indian-derived Saka lunar calendar and combines several sets of weekly cycles, whose number of days may vary. The horoscope enables its owner to identify the most auspicious days for undertaking particular activities, such as marriage, harvesting and sowing. It also indicates which offerings should be made to alleviate illness and misfortune, according to the individual’s day of birth.

See a palintangan calendar held at the Australian Museum, Sydney (inv. no. E74230), and another, dated 1840–60 and copied onto barkcloth, in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (inv. no. 20194P43).