and to 20, which they described in words as in gesture by the hands and feet together, or as one man, and that lastly, by various expressions referring directly to the gestures of counting on the fingers and toes, they gave names to these and intermediate numerals. As a definite term is wanted to describe significant numerals of this class, it may be convenient to call them 'hand-numerals' or 'digit-numerals.' A selection of typical instances will serve to make it probable that this ingenious device was not, at any rate generally, copied from one tribe by another or inherited from a common source, but that its working out with original character and curiously varying detail displays the recurrence of a similar but independent process of mental development among various races of man.
Father Gilij, describing the arithmetic of the Tamanacs on the Orinoco, gives their numerals up to 4: when they come to 5, they express it by the word amgnaitòne, which being translated means 'a whole hand;' 6 is expressed by a term which translates the proper gesture into words, itaconò amgnaponà tevinitpe 'one of the other hand,' and so on up to 9. Coming to 10, they give it in words as amgna aceponàre 'both hands.' To denote 11 they stretch out both the hands, and adding the foot they say puittaponà tevinitpe 'one to the foot,' and thus up to 15, which is iptaitòne 'a whole foot.' Next follows 16, 'one to the other foot,' and so on to 20, tevin itòto, 'one Indian;' 21, itaconò itòto jamgnàr bonà tevinitpe 'one to the hands of the other Indian;' 40, acciachè itòto, 'two Indians;' thence on to 60, 80, 100, 'three, four, five Indians,' and beyond if needful. South America is remarkably rich in such evidence of an early condition of finger-counting recorded in spoken language. Among its many other languages which have recognizable digit-numerals, the Cayriri, Tupi, Abipone, and Carib rival the Tamanac in their systematic way of working out 'hand,' 'hands,' 'foot,' 'feet,' &c. Others show slighter traces of the same process, where, for instance, the numerals 5 or 10 are found to be connected
