The Vei language counts from one up to nineteen, and for twenty says _mo bande_--"a person is finished"-- that is, both fingers and toes.

I venture to add another suggestion.

Eichhoff gives a Sanskrit word for finger, "daicini" (taken apparently from _pra-decini_, forefinger), and which corresponds curiously with "dacan," ten; and we have the same resemblance running through many of the Indo-European languages, as [Greek: deka] and [Greek: daktylos], _decem_ and _digitus_; German, _Zehn_ and _Zehe_, and so on.
Here the Mexican numerals will afford us a new illustration.

Of the meaning of the first four of them--_ce, ome, yei, nahui_--I can give no idea, any more than I can of the meaning of the words one, two, three, four, which correspond to them; but the Mexican for _five_ is _macuilli_, "hand-depicting." Then we go on in the dark as far as _ten_, which is _matlactli_, "hand-half," as I think it means, (from _tlactli_, half); and this would mean, not the halving of a hand, but the half of the whole person, which you get by counting his hands only.
The syllable _ma_, which means "hand," makes its appearance in the words five and ten, and no where else; just as it should do.

When we come to twenty, we have _cempoalli_, "one counting;" that is, one whole man, fingers and toes--corresponding to the Vei word for twenty, "a person is finished." I think we need no more examples to show that people--in almost all countries--reckon by fives, tens, or twenties, merely because they began to count upon their fingers and toes.