314 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. V. 



of a pestilent superstition." This we are told was done with the 

 sanction and under the direction of Zumaraga, the first Archbishop of 

 Mexico, who doubtless considered them as devices of the evil one, and 

 thought that, by consigning them to the flames, he was doing good 

 service to the cause of religion. It is greatly to be regretted that these 

 interesting records had not been carefully collected and preserved, as 

 they would no doubt have thrown much light upon the history of those 

 early times among that interesting people. Fortunately, however, a 

 number of them escaped the general destruction, and were deposited in 

 several of the European Libraries. 



According to Mr. Murdock in his notes on counting and measuring 

 among the Eskimo, they must find it difficult to keep track of time- 

 They are not in the habit, we are told, of using numbers above 5. 6 

 and all higher numbers are called anadraktuk, signifying " many." 

 When they wish to express 6, they say " five and once on the next hand; " 

 7 is " twice on the next ; " Q is kodlin oteila, probably meaning " that 

 which is not ten," (ten being kodlm, signifying " the upper part," 

 referring to the digits on the hand). They reckon the year by moons, 

 commencing with the first one after the freezing over of the Elson Bay, 

 when the women begin to sew deer skins. This first one is called 

 SJmd-le-zving "the time for working." Their third one, which nearly 

 corresponds with December, is called Kai-wig-win, "the time for 

 dancing." When anything has taken place more than four or five 

 years before, they are in the habit of saying aipani, that is " in the 

 other " (time). From this it will be seen, as Mr. Murdock justly 

 remarks, the expressions used by them for past time are too vague to 

 make it possible to learn the date of any event in their history. So far 

 as I can learn, our Indians in the Northwest, prior to their coming in 

 contact with the whites, were in an equally benighted condition, having 

 had no system whatever for recording past events, except what they 

 were able to retain in their memory, and that could only be for a com- 

 paratively limited period. 



The ancient Peruvians had a curious method of recording events by 

 knotting strings, or as they were called Quipos, meaning cords, i, was 

 represented by one knot on a thread ; 2, by putting the end of the 

 thread through a second time, making what we would call a double 

 knot ; 3, was expressed by a treble knot ; 4, by a certain kind of 

 loop ; 5, by the same kind of loop with an additional twist ; 6, had a 

 second twist given to the loop, and so on, by some new contrivance in 

 the process, till 100 is reached, a new knot being used at every third 

 numeral, the two following ones being expressed by additions at the 



