928 NUMERAL SYSTEMS [ETH. ANN. 19 
gestion, given in a note above, would fail, the toes were brought into 
the count, as shown by the following terms: 
11 achqaneq-atauseq—first foot 1. 
16 achfechsanea-atauseq—other foot 1. 
20 inuk navdlucho—a man ended. 
Why tribes belonging to the same well-defined, limited linguistic 
group and living geographically in close relation—as, for example, in 
the Cahita group of northwestern Mexico and one or two of the Cali- 
fornia groups—should adopt different systems, some the vigesimal 
and others the decimal, we are unable to answer with our present 
information. Before answer can be made it will be necessary to elimi- 
nate what has been derived from contact with the whites. 
In concluding this topic it may be added that Conant appears to be 
fully justified by the data in infering that environment exerts no 
appreciable influence in determining the system. In the regions 
occupied by the Semitic, Hamitic, and Polynesian races, where we 
should most expect to find the vigesimal system, it is entirely unknown, 
while, on the contrary, it is found in the frozen regions of the north, 
where it would be least of all expected. As yet we are unable to 
assign any general influencing cause for its development. 
While the chief object of this paper is an examination and discus- 
sion of the numeral systems of the Mexican and Central American 
tribes with special reference to their relation to the Nahuatlan and 
Mayan systems, another object is to bring together the data which 
seem to have a bearing on the questions of the origin, development, 
and relations of these systems. In accordance, therefore, with this 
object, a comparison of the names used in counting (1 to 5, 10, and 20) 
in a number of dialects is herewith presented. It is true that nearly 
all of these can be found in the preceding lists. The object of reintro- 
ducing them here is to bring the corresponding names into close con- 
trast for convenience in comparison. They are brought together in 
the order of the groups, the Nahuatlan, which is the most extensive, 
coming first. The names in the Mayan series are so uniform that it 
is unnecessary to reintroduce them here. 

i. Nahuatl 2. Pipil 5. Alaguilae 1, Cahita 
es : SS _ aes | 
1 | ce ce se | senu 
2 | ome ume umi | uol 
3 | yei yei | hei | vahi, or bei’ bey 
$ | naui navui nagul | naequi 
5 | macuilli macuil makuil | mamni 
10 matlaetli mahtlati matakti | uo-mamni 
20 | cem-poalli cempual sempual | taeahua 

