QUINARY NOTATION AMONG THE ILONGOTS. 49 



From "six" to "nine" tlie Egongot numerals are clearly seen to express 

 "'five and one," "five and two," "five and three," and "five and four," 

 which shows that, once "five" is reached by counting the fingers of one 

 hand, the count is begun anew. That the particle no is the equivalent 

 of "and," is proved by a phrase of the text: dit bucolot no nauguin 

 Mniniaguen, "the pagans and bad Christians." * 



The numeral for "ten" is tainpo, evidently with long o (compare 

 the variant tarn poo). It consists of the prefix tang, which also appears in 

 tambiang. changed to tain- by the influence of the labial that follows, and 

 stem po or poo, which is tlie common Philippine polo or piilo with elision 

 of/. 



For the two numerals "one" and "five," in Egongot we find no imme- 

 diate correspondent among the forms of the equivalent numerals in the 

 generality of the other dialects. But apart from these two words we have 

 as characteristic of this series of Egongot numerals that it is based on 

 a clearly quinary plan, and that the words used are for the greater part 

 the common property of a family of languages which, as far as it is 

 represented in the Philippines, uses none but decimal systems. Similar 

 cases of quinary series we find in Formosa.^ 



It remains to be pointed out that, although the Egongot plan is 

 quinary, as far as I have been able to illustrate it above, it is only im- 

 perfectly so. If it were purely quinary the numeral for "ten," instead of 

 being expressed by a distinct word, would be given by such a term as 

 "five-five" or "two-fives." Again, beyond "ten," the advance would be 

 by fives, not by tens. But this is a question not to be decided from the 

 text before me, which lacks examples of higher numerals. I may, how- 

 ever, add that there exists a variant of the Egongot speech here illustrated, 

 the speakers of which use a purely decimal series from "one" to "ten," 

 and it may be believed that this will ultimately supersede the quinary 

 series. For the present it must suffice that evidence has been given here 

 of the existence in the Philippines of a representative of the quinary nota- 

 tion which is generally assumed to be a more primitive form of counting 

 than the decimal system. 



' Op. cit., p. 27. 



° Cf. the numerals given under 'Pep. Paz.' and 'Shek. T.' in Table I of The 

 Batan Dialect as a Member of the Philippine Group of Languages. Division of 

 Ethnology Pvbjications, Manila (1908), 5, pt. I. 

 101096 4 



