have come to use a system of counting by pairs instead of by units. They start with tauna, 'a pair,' which thus becomes a numeral equivalent to 2; then they count onward by pairs, so that when they talk of takau or 10, they really mean 10 pair or 20. For bread-fruit, as they are accustomed to tie them up in knots of four, they begin with the word pona, 'knot,' which thus becomes a real numeral for 4, and here again they go on counting by knots, so that when they say takau or 10, they mean 10 knots or 40. The philological mystification thus caused in Polynesian vocabularies is extraordinary; in Tahitian, &c., rau and mano, properly meaning 100 and 1,000, have come to signify 200 and 2,000, while in Hawaii a second doubling in their sense makes them equivalent to 400 and 4,000. Moreover, it seems possible to trace the transfer of suitable names of objects still farther in Polynesia in the Tongan and Maori word tekau, 10, which seems to have been a word for 'parcel' or 'bunch,' used in counting yams and fish, as also in tefuhi, 100, derived from fuhi, 'sheaf or bundle.'[1]
In Africa, also, special numeral formations are to be noticed. In the Yoruba language, 40 is called ogodzi, 'a string,' because cowries are strung by forties, and 200 is igba, 'a heap,' meaning again a heap of cowries. Among the Dahomans in like manner, 40 cowries make a kade or 'string,' 50 strings make one afo or 'head;' these words becoming numerals for 40 and 2,000, When the king of Dahome attacked Abeokuta, it is on record that he was repulsed with the heavy loss of 'two heads, twenty strings, and twenty cowries' of men, that is to say, 4,820.[2]
Among cultured nations, whose languages are most tightly bound to the conventional and unintelligible
