which he at length did by holding up his hand three times, thus giving me
to understand that fifteen was the answer to this most difficult
arithmetical question." This meagreness of knowledge in all things
pertaining to numbers is often found to be sharply emphasized in the names
adopted by savages for their numeral words. While discussing in a previous
chapter the limits of number systems, we found many instances where
anything above 2 or 3 was designated by some one of the comprehensive terms
_much_, _many_, _very many_; these words, or such equivalents as _lot_,
_heap_, or _plenty_, serving as an aid to the finger pantomime necessary to
indicate numbers for which they have no real names. The low degree of
intelligence and civilization revealed by such words is brought quite as
sharply into prominence by the word occasionally found for 5. Whenever the
fingers and hands are used at all, it would seem natural to expect for 5
some general expression signifying _hand_, for 10 _both hands_, and for 20
_man_. Such is, as we have already seen, the ordinary method of
progression, but it is not universal. A drop in the scale of civilization
takes us to a point where 10, instead of 20, becomes the whole man. The
Kusaies,[110] of Strong's Island, call 10 _sie-nul_, 1 man, 30 _tol-nul_, 3
men, 40 _a naul_, 4 men, etc.; and the Ku-Mbutti[111] of central Africa
have _mukko_, 10, and _moku_, man. If 10 is to be expressed by reference to
the man, instead of his hands, it might appear more natural to employ some
such expression as that adopted by the African Pigmies,[112] who call 10
_mabo_, and man _mabo-mabo_. With them, then, 10 is perhaps "half a man,"
as it actually is among the Towkas of South America; and we have already
seen that with the Aztecs it was _matlactli_, the "hand half" of a
man.[113] The same idea crops out in the expression used by the Nicobar
Islanders for 30--_heam-umdjome ruktei_, 1 man (and a) half.[114] Such
nomenclature is entirely natural, and it accords with the analogy offered
by other words of frequent occurrence in the numeral scales of savage
races. Still, to find 10 expressed by the term _man_ always conveys an