2IO PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



though the numbers beyond the first ten are Httle 

 used. In counting any objects that cannot be held 

 in the hand or placed in a row, the Kayan (and 

 most of the other peoples) bends down one finger for 

 each object told off or enumerated, beginning with 

 the little finger of the right hand, passing at six to 

 that of the left hand, and then to the big toe of the 

 right foot, and lastly to that of the left foot. When all 

 the names or objects have been mentioned, he holds 

 the toe reached until he or some one else has told 

 off the number ; if the number was, say, seventeen, 

 he would keep hold of the second toe of the left foot 

 until he had counted up the number implied by that 

 toe, either by means of counting or by adding up 

 five and five and five and two ; unless the count 

 ends on the little toe of the left foot, when he knows at 

 once that the number is twenty. If a larger number 

 than twenty is to be counted, as when, for example, 

 a chief has to pay in tax for each door of his house, 

 he calls in the aid of several men, who sit before 

 him. One of these tells off his fingers and toes as 

 the chief utters the names of the heads of the 

 rooms ; and when twenty have been counted in this 

 way, a second man begins on his fingers, while the 

 first continues to hold on to all his toes. A third 

 and a fourth man may be used in the same way to 

 complete the count ; and when it is completed, the 

 total is found by reckoning each man as two tens, 

 and adding the number of fingers and toes held 

 down by the last man. The reckoning of the tens 

 is done by addition rather than multiplication. 

 Both multiplication and division are almost unknown 

 operations. 



When a chief is getting ready to pay in the door 

 tax of two dollars a door, he does not count the 

 doors and then multiply the number by two : he 

 simply lays down two dollars for each door and ^ 

 pays in the lot, generally without knowing the sum 



