NUMERAL SYSTEMS. 43 



Indians are considered as belonging to the animated class of 

 beings, they say: mauchsa, mayauchsu, one person, or a person, 

 or living being. It is truly incorrect to say ngutti lenno, a man. 

 And in the plural, nischowak lennowak, two men, &c. 



All and ak, the terminations of these last in tlie i)lural, are 

 respectively applied, the former to inanimate, the latter to animate 

 objects. But as exceptions, it is stated that among nouns, trees 

 and the larger plants are considered animate, while fishes take 

 the inanimate termination. It is thus evident that a similar idea 

 has governed the form of the numeral adjectivt in the Delaware 

 and the Mexican. 



Other examples among th« North American languages might 

 be cited, but the above are sufficient to indicate the object of in- 

 quiry. The system appears, however, not to have been universal, 

 as, according to Dr. Wilson, there is no distinction of numerals 

 in the Seneca or other Iroquois languages. 



Singularly enough, the same idea prevails in the numerals of 

 other and far distant races, of which a few specimens may be 

 useful. 



The Hon. John Pickering, in "Memoirs of the American 

 Academy," N. S., vol. ii, gives an account of the language and 

 inhabitants of Tobi, or Lord North's Island, in the Indian Archi- 

 pelago, derived from an American seaman, Horace Holden, who 

 spent two years upon it. This island is situated about lat. 3° 

 2' north and Ion. 131° 4' east, and is of very small extent and 

 sparsely inhabited. The different forms of the digits are thus 

 given in the accompanying vocabulary : — 



