probable results of taking down unchecked answers from question-worried savages. In West Africa, a lively and continual habit of bargaining has developed a great power of arithmetic, and little children already do feats of computation with their heaps of cowries. Among the Yorubas of Abeokuta, to say 'you don't know nine times nine' is actually an insulting way of saying 'you are a dunce.'[1] This is an extraordinary proverb, when we compare it with the standard which our corresponding European sayings set for the limits of stupidity: the German says, 'he can scarce count five'; the Spaniard, 'I will tell you how many make five' (cuantos son cinco); and we have the same saw in England:
'… as sure as I'm alive,
And knows how many beans make five.'
A Siamese law-court will not take the evidence of a witness who cannot count or reckon figures up to ten; a rule which reminds us of the ancient custom of Shrewsbury, where a person was deemed of age when he knew how to count up to twelve pence.[2]
Among the lowest living men, the savages of the South American forests and the deserts of Australia, 5 is actually found to be a number which the languages of some tribes do not know by a special word. Not only have travellers failed to get from them names for numbers above 2, 3, or 4, but the opinion that these are the real limits of their numeral series is strengthened by the use of their highest known number as an indefinite term for a great many. Spix and Martius say of the low tribes of Brazil, 'They count commonly by their finger joints, so up to three only. Any larger number they express by the word "many."'[3]
- ↑ Crowther, 'Yoruba Vocab.'; Burton, 'W. & W. from W. Africa,' p. 253. 'O daju danu, o ko mo essan messan.—You (may seem) very clever, (but) you can't tell 9 X 9.'
- ↑ Low in 'Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. i. p. 408; 'Year-Books Edw I.' (xx.-i.) ed. Horwood, p. 220.
- ↑ Spix and Martius, 'Reise in Brazilian,' p. 387.
