XX 



PECULIARITIES 211 



total of the dollars. If a chief were told to pay in 

 the tax for half his doors only, he would not know 

 how to carry out the instruction. Subtraction is 

 accomplished only in the most concrete manner, e.g, 

 if a man wished to take away eight from twenty-five, 

 he would count out twenty-five of the objects in 

 question, or of bits of leaf or stick, then push away 

 eight and count up the remainder. A dodge some- 

 times adopted, especially by the Kenyah, for count- 

 ing the persons present, is to take a fern-leaf with 

 many fronds, tear off a half of each frond, hand- 

 ing each piece to one of the men, until every man 

 present affirms that he has a piece, and then to count 

 the number of torn fronds remaining on the stalk. 



It will thus be seen that the arithmetical 

 operations of the Kayans are of an extremely 

 concrete character ; those of the other tribes are 

 similar (with the exception again of the Punans, 

 who do not count beyond three) ; though many of 

 the Klemantans get confused over simple counting 

 and reckoning, which the Kayans accomplish 

 successfully. 



Tama Bulan, the Kenyah chief whom we have 

 had occasion to mention in several connections, 

 obtained and learnt the use of an abacus from a 

 Chinaman, and used it effectively. This deficiency 

 in arithmetic is, however, no evidence of innate 

 intellectual inferiority, and there seems to be no 

 good reason to doubt that most of the people could 

 be taught to use figures as readily as the average 

 European ; those children who have entered the 

 schools seem to pick up arithmetic with normal 

 rapidity. 



The Sea Dayaks sometimes deposit sums of 

 money with the Government officers, and they know 

 accurately the number of dollars paid in ; but when 

 they withdraw the deposit, they generally expect to 

 receive the identical dollars paid in by them. 



