North America. There have been found in use among the Dacotas the following two series of names for sons and daughters in order of birth. Eldest son, Chaské; second, Haparm; third, Ha-pe-dah; fourth, Chatun; fifth Harka. Eldest daughter, Wenonah; second, Harpen; third, Harpstenah; fourth, Waska; fifth, We-harka. These mere numeral appellations they retain through childhood, till their relations or friends find occasion to replace them by bestowing some more distinctive personal name.[1] Africa affords further examples.[2]
As to numerals in the ordinary sense, Polynesia shows remarkable cases of new formation. Besides the well-known system of numeral words prevalent in Polynesia, exceptional terms have from time to time grown up. Thus the habit of altering words which sounded too nearly like a king's name, has led the Tahitians on the accession of new chiefs to make several new words for numbers. Thus, wanting a new term for 2 instead of the ordinary rua, they for obvious reasons took up the word piti, 'together,' and made it a numeral, while to get a new word for 5 instead of rima, 'hand,' which had to be discontinued, they substituted pae, 'part, division,' meaning probably division of the two hands. Such words as these, introduced in Polynesia for ceremonial reasons, are expected to be dropped again and the old ones replaced, when the reason for their temporary exclusion ceases, yet the new 2 and 5, piti and pae, became so positively the proper numerals of the language, that they stand instead of rua and rima in the Tahitian translation of the Gospel of St. John made at the time. Again, various special habits of counting in the South Sea Islands have had their effect on language. The Marquesans, counting fish or fruit by one in each hand,
- ↑ M. Eastman, 'Dahcotah; or, Life and Legends of the Sioux,' p. xxv.
- ↑ 'Journ. Ethnol. Soc.' vol. iv. (Akra); Ploss, 'Das Kind,' vol. i. p. 139 (Elmina).
drina, for last male; Andrianivo for intermediate male. Malagasy laby 'male' = Malay laki; Malagasy vavy, 'female' = Tongan fafine, Maori wahine, 'woman;' comp. Malay bâtina, 'female.'
