CHAPTEE XXVII. 



FACULTY OP NUMERATION. 



AMONG the many marks of low intelligence, or of stupidity, in 

 savage man that have struck travellers, has been their defec- 

 tive knowledge of number, their want of arithmetical power 

 (Wallace). Indeed, in a sense it may be said that certain 

 savages have no proper arithmetical knowledge, power of 

 mental arithmetic or of arithmetical calculation of any kind. 

 They can scarcely be said to possess either the ' science of 

 numbers ' or the fc art of reckoning by numbers*, 3 unless in a 

 very limited sense and in a very rudimentary degree. Thus 

 the Veddas of Ceylon are described by Hart shorn e as ' quite 



unable to count They cannot count even by the aid 



of their fingers, having no conception of number.' l 



Among the Amazon Indians there are no words for num- 

 bers, and there is a similar want of arithmetical power 

 ignorance of arithmetic, the most limited ideas of numbers 

 among the Eskimo and the Australian blacks (Houzeau;. 

 Even at the present day many savage tribes of Brazil and 

 Australia cannot count beyond two or four. ' They have not 

 carried their numerals beyond three or four, and can only in- 

 dicate higher numbers by gestures. Oldfield even describes 

 a tribe who count no further than the number two, and de- 

 signate all beyond by a word signifying ' many.' ' A mem- 

 ber of this tribe, after several vain attempts by enumerating 

 the names of the individuals to give an idea of the number 

 of men killed in a certain native battle, ' ended by raising one 

 hand three times in succession, by which he wished it to 

 be understood that the number amounted to fifteen.' The 

 1 Scotsman ' and < Daily Telegraph,' August 30, 1875. 



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