used were in each case the actual names of the parts touched; the same
word, for example, standing for 6 and 14; but they were never used in the
numerical sense unless accompanied by the proper gesture, and bear no
resemblance to the common numerals, which are but few in number. This
method of counting is rapidly dying out among the natives of the island,
and is at the present time used only by old people.[18] Variations on this
most unusual custom have been found to exist in others of the neighbouring
islands, but none were exactly similar to it. One is also reminded by it of
a custom[19] which has for centuries prevailed among bargainers in the
East, of signifying numbers by touching the joints of each other's fingers
under a cloth. Every joint has a special signification; and the entire
system is undoubtedly a development from finger counting. The buyer or
seller will by this method express 6 or 60 by stretching out the thumb and
little finger and closing the rest of the fingers. The addition of the
fourth finger to the two thus used signifies 7 or 70; and so on. "It is
said that between two brokers settling a price by thus snipping with the
fingers, cleverness in bargaining, offering a little more, hesitating,
expressing an obstinate refusal to go further, etc., are as clearly
indicated as though the bargaining were being carried on in words.

The place occupied, in the intellectual development of man, by finger
counting and by the many other artificial methods of reckoning,--pebbles,
shells, knots, the abacus, etc.,--seems to be this: The abstract processes
of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and even counting
itself, present to the mind a certain degree of difficulty. To assist in
overcoming that difficulty, these artificial aids are called in; and, among
savages of a low degree of development, like the Australians, they make
counting possible. A little higher in the intellectual scale, among the
American Indians, for example, they are employed merely as an artificial
aid to what could be done by mental effort alone. Finally, among