84 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



Beginners in school count from i to lo by folding a finger into the 

 palm of the hand at each number (a manner in which adults also 

 count). If the count is beyond 10, it is usually continued on toes, a 

 toe being bent under the foot at each number. A teacher, during her 

 first days in a Boroa area school, said she wondered why a child was 

 continually bending over. "I found she was doing her addition prob- 

 lems on her toes. Every time there was a number greater than lo, 

 of course, she had to stoop." An Alepue father said with pride, "My 

 boy counts in his head now ; he no longer needs an outside thing, 

 like his fingers and toes, to do so." A Panguipulli couple past 60 had 

 not heard of using toes in counting. 



Informants knew of no method of keeping count "except remem- 

 bering it in one's head." "I have never heard of Mapuche cutting 

 notches in a stick or tying knots in a string or doing anything else to 

 keep count. If anyone wanted to know anything which he could not 

 recall, he asked other members of the family about it ; someone would 

 recall it, for if it had importance enough to be remembered, everybody 

 in the family would have heard of it." Cooper notes that the knotted 

 cord (quipu) was used to keep accounts of livestock and records of 

 events ; to indicate the number of days at the end of which summoned 

 representatives or warriors would assemble for war, festival, sport, or 

 other business ; to keep tab on the number of days in which work was 

 done, or of the number of payments to be made in case of compensa- 

 tion for murder; and for other purposes (1946, p. 754)- 



MEASUREMENT OF TIME 



The time of day is regulated by the sun (antu). Antii is a word 

 used not only to mean sun but also to designate the span of time from 

 sunrise to sunset. When outdoors, informants glanced or pointed at 

 the sun when talking of time. A Cofiaripe woman pointed at various 

 points at which the sun should be when a decoction she was telling 

 about should be given to a fever-stricken person. Another woman 

 being interviewed in her yard looked at the sun, and said, "It is nearly 

 midday [11:40 a.m.]." Soon her husband and children returned from 

 the harvest fields. The smaller children peeked into the kettle, in 

 which their older sister was preparing the midday meal, and said, 

 "Hurry ! Hurry ! The sun is already overhead." At about i o'clock, 

 when passing through the same yard, the woman teasingly remarked, 

 as she glanced toward the sun, "If you do not get home soon, there will 

 be no dinner left for you !" Nearly every family, too, had a particular 

 place outdoors, maybe the corner of the ruka or a fence post near 



