536 GRAMMAR OF THE KLAMATH LANGUAGE. 



Indians always begin with the smallest finger of the right or left hand, 

 counting the fingers with the hand left free; after counting the thumb, they 

 continue with the thumb of the other hand, and proceeding further, bend 

 over the fingers of this other hand as soon as counted. That Klamath 

 numerals have the quinary counting system for tlieir basis is apparent from 

 the repetition of the three first numerals in the terms for six, seven, and 

 ei(/hf, while nine is formed differently. 



One and ttvo are etymologically related to the corresponding numerals 

 in Sahaptin and Cayuse dialects, and all must have a common origin. 

 La'pi, lap two is but another form of nep hand, which appears also in the 

 numerals viinep four and tunep five, which are compounds of nep and the 

 prefixed particles u- and tu-. Thua four means "hand up", and five "hand 

 away", indicating the completion of the count on the four long fingers. 

 Kshapta is abbreviated from kshapata to hend backward, to lean, recline upon; 

 as the component of numerals, it indicates the bending over of the digits 

 named, as ndan=kshapta for ndan nu kshapata, "three I have bent over", 

 on the second hand. Nadsh=sxekish nine is in Modoc abbreviated into 

 skt'kish, which signifies "left over", one digit only being left over to com- 

 plete the ten; cf ska'kish, in the Dictionary. Te-unep ten, the original form 

 of which appears to be ta-unep, is probably a dissimilated repetition of 

 tunep five. 



If the origin of the Klamath numerals is thus correctly traced, their 

 inventors must have counted ordy the four long fingers without the thumb, 

 and five was counted while saying Jiand away! liand off! The "four", or 

 hand high! hand up! intimates that the hand was held up high after count- 

 ing its four digits; and some term expressing this gesture was in the case of 

 nine substituted by "one left over", sk^kish, which means to say, "only one 

 is left until all finyers are counted." 



o^ 



THE PRONOUN. 



The pronominal roots, which, as we have seen in the preceding chap- 

 ters, form a large number of verbal and nominal affixes, become of still 

 greater importance in the subsequent chapters of the Grammar. The task 

 which these roots have to fulfill in the organism of language is to provide it 



