1896-97.] COUNTING AND TIME RECKONING. 313 



wanted to say how long they would be absent, or when a thing would 

 happen, they would say so many nights or sleeps, not so many days — 

 their months being counted by moons. They had the idea that when the 

 moon was full, a large number of mice attacked it, nibbling away at it 

 till the whole was eaten up. When the nevv moon again made her 

 appearance and became full, the same nibbling process recommenced. 

 Five moons were apportioned by them to the winter, and five to the 

 summer, whereas the spring and autumn had only one each. January 

 had with them a name signifying " the hard moon ; " February, that of 

 "the racoon moon;" March, that of "the sore eye moon," and so on. 

 As the twelve lunations did not fill up the year, they would, no doubt, 

 find it difficult to decide what month it was, and probably had heated 

 discussions over the question. 



The Kaffirs of South Africa also regulated their years by the moon, 

 and indeed, this was usually the case with all rude and uncivilized 

 nations. They kept count of time by notches cut in pieces of wood, 

 and their recorded dates, we are told, seldom extended beyond one 

 generation, or at most a comparatively limited time. It would seem as 

 if the exchequer tallies, formerly used in England, and which were 

 abolished by 25 George III., were a survival of this ancient practice of 

 assigning numerical values to these scores or notches. 



According to Dr. Brinton, the Algonkin nations usually preserved 

 their myths, chronicles and important events by means of marked sticks. 

 The name, it appears, given to these records or tally sticks was among 

 the Crees and Chipeways, massinahigan, which is now their common 

 name for book, but it originally meant a piece of wood marked with 

 fire, from the verb Jiiasinakisan, " I burn a mark on it." In subsequent 

 times, instead of burning marks on sticks, they painted them, drawing 

 figures upon them to which they attached distinguishing conventional 

 meanings. Dr. Brinton further states, that the practice of using such 

 sticks painted or notched was in common use among the Southern tribes 

 of North America, and that the natives of South Carolina transmitted 

 their records by means of bunches of reeds of different lengths, having 

 various distinctive marks which only the initiated could understand. ""^ 



We are told by Brantz Mayer, that the Aztecs and other early 

 inhabitants of South America made use of picture writing in recording 

 events which were supposed to have some special interest or impor- 

 tance. The Spaniards, however, when they landed among them ruth- 

 lessly destroyed these wherever found, looking upon them " as symbols 



* " The Lenape anJ their Legends," by Or. Rrinton. 



