Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-07-29
HOW INDIANS COUNT.
Some Interesting Facts.


Hartford, recently, Dr.. J. Fl. Trum-
bull read the following:
Grimm's dictum that all names from
numbers are derived from the fingers
has no known exception in North
American languages. A IDENTICAL sys-
tenn, reckoning by the fingers of both
hands, seems to have been finally
adopted by most Indian tribes, some,
however. not getting beyond the first
hand, and few falling behind even
this. The Alipones of Paraguay could
not, it is said, count beyond four, and
to that final figure of their arithmetic
they gave the name Of "the ostrich
toes" Several nations including those
Of Mexico and Central America,
reckoneei by twenties instead of tens
and fves,, using the whole number of
fingers and toes as the base of the
numeral system. Among the Tule
Indian of Darten, counting in this way,
20 is, Zone man." 100 Give men" and
so on. Gallatin found in all of the
vocabula,1es of So North American
nations a decimal notation. Busch
mann showed that the enumeration of
the Athapascan family of languages
is decimal, with traces of counting by
twenties only in two languages
Umpqua of Oregon and the Kinai
| AS to the direction of counting on
the fingers, the Eskimos of Hudson's
Bay represent the middle, fourth and
little fingers as 8, 8 and 10, the thumb
of the second hand being 6. The
Eskimos of Greenland with difficulty
count 20-which they call ga man"
by means of fingers and toes, their
system of numbers going only to five
on one hand, a second five on the other
and the rest of the 20 similarly on
the toes. There is evidence from
various sources that many Indian tribes
Of North America counted similarly to
the Eskimos of Hudson's Bay; the
Dakotas counting 10 on their fingers
and bending them down successfully
each time ten is counted, thus keeping
tally on the tens the same method is
employed by the Crows
The Makans of Cape Flattery begin
to count with the little finger Of the
left hand, passing from the left thumb
to the right thumb, and turning down
each finger as it is counted. Occasion
ally one Of those Indians is found
reversing that process, .. e., beginning
with the little finger of the right hand,
but never with the thumb. This
, matter becomes of interest in view of
, the assumptions Of Mr.. Ellis, who has
announced the discovery of Indications
of common origin of the human race
in the names of numerals. Certainly,
among American races this as
sumption is not we'll founded. except
as regards the first three numerals for
, the other figures there is the greatest
confusion of names even in nearly re-
lated languages. In the Algonkin
dialects of common language there
are several different names for the
same number, the same finger of the
same hand being differently named by
two tribes speaking the same language
Mr. Ellis finds among the languages
OF Europe and Asia condolences with
the North American and Basque
, tongues, in the names from thumb,
, finger, palm, five, arm, six, ten, &C.,
even the Estruscandice Of Toscanelia
being broughtto testify to the primeval
unity Of mankind.
! Rigidly examined, however, these
condolences may be classed IS merely
: accidental. It is no new experience
Of philologists to meet with remarka-
: bic similarity in words of the same
meaning in different languages, where
there isnoreal connection of derivation.
There is a wild variety in the designa-
ton Of the hands, feet, arms, fingers,
, toes, &c. In some American language
likeness is recognized between men
!, and trees the arms are branches Of the
human trunk ;" thehands are branches
Of the arms the fingers are spro uts
or leaves the thumb an off-shoot. In
some languages the figures are the
: children of the hands, the little finger
, being the youngest son, the little one
the thumb sometimes, though less
commonly, being the eldest brother,
the stout one. The little finger of the
: second hand is ten. The ring finger
1.-THE nameless'' is some of the
Old World languages-among the
Dalzotas is merely s:the next to the
little finger The middle finger is so
named In many American languages.
Three is in some the middle of the
hand, eight (5x3) "the middle Of the
hand again" The forefnger, the
fourth by Indian reckoning, is almost
universally the index or showing finger,
and hence the number four is very
generally related to the designation Of
remote objects. It is by no means
certain, however, that a word relating
to hand or finger will be found in the
name for five or ten, Or any intermedi-
ate number in every series of Indian
numerals. In many languages the
numbers, above are made by compounds
OF that and the lower number. Nor
is the adverbial suffix or postposition
always the representative of hand, OF
finger, or five. Hence there is not the
asserted unity in North American
languages. Abundant evidences were
furnished by DR.. Trumbuu to prove
this statement. In very numerous
instances cited there is more than one
name in the same language for the
same numeral, for the same finger, &c.
New Mexican and Californian Indians,
by a perfxed m, convert arms into
legs. The paper closed with long
tabular, and profound ANALYSIS of the