[The Number Concept by Levi Leonard Conant]@TWC D-Link bookThe Number Concept CHAPTER II 15/22
The Comanches, curiously enough, are so reluctant to employ their number words that they appear to prefer finger pantomime instead, thus giving rise to the impression which at one time became current, that they had no numerals at all for ordinary counting. Aside from the specific examples already given, a considerable number of sweeping generalizations may be made, tending to show how rudimentary the number sense may be in aboriginal life.
Scores of the native dialects of Australia and South America have been found containing number systems but little more extensive than those alluded to above.
The negro tribes of Africa give the same testimony, as do many of the native races of Central America, Mexico, and the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada, the northern part of Siberia, Greenland, Labrador, and the arctic archipelago. In speaking of the Eskimos of Point Barrow, Murdoch[46] says: "It was not easy to obtain any accurate information about the numeral system of these people, since in ordinary conversation they are not in the habit of specifying any numbers above five." Counting is often carried higher than this among certain of these northern tribes, but, save for occasional examples, it is limited at best.
Dr.Franz Boas, who has travelled extensively among the Eskimos, and whose observations are always of the most accurate nature, once told the author that he never met an Eskimo who could count above 15.
Their numerals actually do extend much higher; and a stray numeral of Danish origin is now and then met with, showing that the more intelligent among them are able to comprehend numbers of much greater magnitude than this.
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