noTH] TIME, SEASON, NUMBER, DISTANCE 719 
Indians in French Guiana use knots made on a long cord or string 
for all their calculations (FE, 87). The Arawak term ekkishihi, 
i. €., a sign, etc., was employed to denote these strings, the sticks 
being distinguished as adda-(ek)kishihi, i. e., wood signs. The 
sticks were either notched, e. g., among the Makusi (SR, 1, 203), or 
had small holes drilled in them, each notch or hole corresponding 
with an intervening day. ‘He then notched in a bit of wood the 
number of days, which he gave her. Each day she was to cut off a 
notch, so that her tablet would correspond with the remaining days 
of absence” (Da, 268). Wallace aptly compares this notching of 
the stick with what English boys do at school on the approach of 
the holidays (ARW, 254). Where holes were drilled, as I have 
noted among the upper Pomeroon Carib, a small peg was shifted 
from one to the other as each day was brought to a close. In addi- 
ition to the use of strings and sticks, the Island Carib had a system 
of placing the requisite number of stones or peas in a calabash and 
taking one out daily (RO, 467). On the mainland, at the River 
Oyapock, the stones, etc., were replaced by sticks. Thus Harcourt 
writes: “ When they appoint or promise anything to be done by a 
time limited, they [Indians] will deliver a little bundle of sticks 
equal to the number of dayes or moones that they appoint, and with 
themselves keepe another bundle of the hke number. And to observe 
their appointed time, they will every day or Moone take away a 
sticke, and when they have taken away all, then they know that 
the time of their appointment is come, and will accordingly per- 
form their promise” (HR, 376). Gumilla records how all the 
Orinoco nations counted up to five; then five+one, five+two, ete.; 
ten=two fives; fifteen=three fives; the fives being represented by 
a hand, two hands, one or both feet, ete. Thus, in the Achagua 
[Arawak stock] language abacaje=5, 1. e., the fingers of the hand; 
juchama-caje=10, the fingers of both hands; abacaytacay=20, the 
digits of hands and feet; juchama-tatacay=40, the digits of two 
men; and so on (G, 11, 281). Brett reported-the same thing for the 
Pomeroon Indians (Arawak), and Schomburgk for the Makusi 
(SR, wu, 327). 
940. But it does not follow that because all these Guianese Indians 
have conceptions of the higher numbers that they have names for 
them. Far from it. The Kaliana, at the sources of the Paragua, 
have but one numeral, meyakan, which is repeated as they count on 
the fingers, and then on the teeth (KGG, 458). On the upper Parou 
River, Cayenne, for instance, the Roucouyenne [Carib] only know 
how to verbally express three numbers: aowini, one; sakéné, two; 
hélé-ouati, three; beyond this they show the fingers and toes, and 
when the number is over 20 they say colepsi, which is a diminutive 
