866 NUMERAL SYSTEMS [ETH. ANN. 19 
5 + 2%, and 5 + 3, yet, judging by the Maya method of writing the 
numbers, shown above, and the Mexican terms, lam inclined to believe 
that this is the implied meaning, the words being doubtless archaic; 
and I will give on a later page an additional reason for this opinion. 
As the names and method of counting in other languages may throw 
some light on the subject, the following lists of numerals up to LO are 
added. The first is the Nahuatl or Mexican (using the term in its lim- 
ited sense—Aztec as given by Charencey), the signification so far as 
satisfactorily determined being added. 
Nahuatl 
1 ce. 
2 ome. 
3 yel or ei. 
4 naui. 
5 macuilli (‘‘ hand taken’’). 
6 chiqua-ce or chicua-cen (literally 5 and 1). 
7 chic-ome (literally 5 and 2). 
8 chicu-ei or chicu-ey (literally 5 and 3). 
9 chico-naui or chiue-naui (literally 5 and 4). 
10 matlactli (‘‘ the two hands’’). 
The term for 5, macuilli, is a composite word from ma7t/, hand, 
and cu7, to seize or take—that is to say, the five fingers of the 
hand have been taken (Siméon, Dic. Lang. Nahuatl). The name for 
10 is also composite from mazt/, hand, and ¢/actl, bust or torso of 
the man; in other words, the two hands. It is apparent that the 
names for 6, 7, 8, and 9 are formed by adding the names for 1, 2, 3, 
and 4 to ch? or chico, which here takes the place of macuill7, 5. The 
signification of this term is ‘tat the side, in part, by fraction, a 
moiety,” etc.; the name is apparently formed from ch7co and zhuan or 
huan, **near another.” It is probable, therefore, that the correct 
interpretation is, one at the side, two at the side, ete., the 5 or hand 
being understood, the reference being evidently to the process of 
counting on the hands. 
The following lists are those of related tribes belonging to the group 
called by Dr Brinton the ‘* Uto-Aztecan family.”* Some of these, as 
the tribes of the Shoshonean group, had not adopted the vigesimal 
system nor the ‘‘native calendar”; nevertheless, it is best to bring 
the material concerning them together, that all which seems to have 
any bearing on the questions that arise may be before the reader. 
That the boundaries of the use of the vigesimal system and *‘‘ native 
calendar” in the southern half of North America were not governed 
entirely by the lines of linguistic or ethnic stocks is well known, and 
hence they must have been governed, in part at least, by some other 
influence. Possibly a careful study of the numeral systems of the 

' This is used here provisionally, though the Bureau of American Ethnology will, according to the 
rule established by Major Powell, adopt the name Nahuatlan. 
