720 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
form of colé, much (Cr, 299). Again, numerals in many tribes reach 
only as far as 20, on a basis of fingers and toes. Commencing with 
the former, every higher number-is called “ plenty.” Only a few 
tribes, like the Arawak, count to 100 (SR, 1, 327). Bancroft also 
tells us that the Indian method of numeration is by units, tens, and 
scores, until they reach an hundred, after which they have no exact 
method of expressing the number of objects, but usually do it by 
showing such a quantity of hair as they think has the nearest relation 
to the numbers of which they would convey an idea (BA, 335). A 
similar interesting record comes from French Guiana: . . . “ Hav- 
ing asked an old woman how many cottages there were on one side 
to which we pointed, she told us there were 10. Then, pointing 
toward the quarter where their chief dwelt, she took a handful of 
her hair to signify to us the great number of cottages there were on 
that side. This is their common way of expressing things they can 
not number, saying enoura, which signifies “ thus much ” (GB, 30). 
The Carib Islanders also expressed very large numbers by taking up 
2 liberal quantity of hair or of sand (RO, 454, 467). 
941. Distance from one place to another is reckoned, among the 
Makusi, by the number of nights that are occupied on the journey 
(SR, um, 328). An interesting expression for the idea of proximity 
is furnished by Humboldt, from Indians of the upper Orinoco, whose 
continually repeated answer was that the sources of the Rio Negro 
and the Inirida were as near to each other as “two fingers of the 
hand” (AVH, 11, 406). If the distance to be traversed is less than 
a day, they sound the word hop-pah in a peculiar way, by dragging 
onto the first syllable at the same time that they describe the sun’s 
course as far as the zenith, and then with the second syllable lower 
it toward the point at which the sun will be at the time of arrival 
(SR, u, 328), 
