· Obfervations on the names of the numbers of the American Indians. WE fee by the table, that the five nations, p. 345, which are included in the two first columns, ufe the fame names, in general, to their numbers; and, as I have faid before, have particular appellations for the units, and add these units to the tens, according as they are multiplied, to form the increafing numbers: but the reason why the Mohawks are in a column by themselves is, because they differ from the other four in the numbers, eight, nine, ten, who use the fame names exactly in their feveral tribes. THE Wanats,, who are not of the fame nations, come very near them, having only a trifling change of letters, and having no abfolute difference from the four nations, but in the number nine, which will be easily discerned in attending to the table, and making the neceffary allowance for their variations, and which are required, even in the dialects of the fame language, every where. And, indeed, in confidering fome of these numbers, it is not difficult to make out three, which feem to have fome relation to those of Europe: for example, the cayeary, for four, is near the Magogian cathair. The wisk, five, is like the cuig; and the towachson, twenty, approaches the German zwantzig; this is fomething very particular, and the more fo, as they fignify the fame numbers in both parts of the world. THE Shawanofe and Delawares are very different from the foregoing, and, indeed, from one another, except that the latter has koti for one, which has fome affinity to the bufkot of the five nations, and the ufcot of the Wanats. 3 Now, Now, by the agreement between the five nations, in what regards their numbers, it is, I think, very clear, that their alliance must be of very ancient standing; and that the Wanats were either formerly adherents to them, or else were always their very near neighbours; for, their being a strong and powerful people, whilft fo many tribes were in perpetual alliance, offenfive and defenfive, they could not be so subject to the viciffitudes that other fingle nations must undergo, of being driven up and down, and depopulated by their wars with one another, and, confequently, not forced to forget their language, especially their numeral names, as those scattered tribes have manifeftly been. THERE is, however, another very striking circumstance, in a close affinity, between the names of some of the numbers of the Delawares and thofe of the Poles and Ruffians: the first of these, in adding the units to the tens, fay nisha naghky, twenty; naba nagbky, thirty; nehwa naghky, forty; and so on, using the last to fignify ten, and the first the number of tens: and the Poles, for eleven, fay ieden nafcie; for twelve, dwa nafcie, and fo on till they come to twenty; fo the Ruffians fay for these fame numbers, udi nazet, twa. nazet, &c. Again, the Delawares say koti puchky, for one hundred; and the Poles fay puczfets, for five hundred.. Now, if chance has produced these furprizing agreements,. in nations so remote, they are very curious, at least; but, I am inclined to think, there is too close an affinity between them, being used for the very fame numbers in each of these nations, to be ascribed to any accidental caufe, and that their origin was from the fame fource,, however remote their fituation. I ALSO I ALSO find another fimilarity between the names of the numbers, as they are combined both among the Delawares and the Five Nations of North America, and the Wanats. All the latter fay towachfon, for twenty; and the former, the Delawares, say nisha naghky, for the same number, expressing the tens by the word wachson and naghky; now, I cannot but think the latter is a corruption of the former, and that the Five Nations were always their fuperiors, both in power and antiquity: and the fame may be faid of the Shawanefe; for they use a word for the very fame purpose, which seems also a corruption of the wachson, and that is, wapitiky, in which it agrees with the wachson in the first fyllable, and with the naghky in the last. THE Carribeans have not the least likeness to any of the North Americans, in the names of their numbers; they seem to be alone in their notions of counting, and so limited, as to be incapable of rifing higher than the number twenty, of which I have given some account in the beginning of this chapter; but we must add here, a few other anecdotes of their notions in this matter: they say aban, for one; biam, for two; elcoua, for three; biambouri, for four. Now, biam being the name for two, they add bouri to it, to fignify four; and bouri means all, or intire; fo that, in their idiom, this word, added to the biam, denotes four to be a perfect, or intire number. As to the five, they cannot express it, but by three long words: viz. laoyagone ouacabo apourcou; of which, being interpreted, the meaning is, come the other, or fifth, of this hand: and when they come to this number, then they add the four names of the units to these words, to say one and five, two and and five, three and five, four and five, and then they have the two fentences, mentioned already, to exprefs ten and twenty. After which, if they want to go any farther, they are bewildered, and say tamigati cachi nitibouri-bali, or faccao-bali, which fignifies, "there are as many more: as the hairs of my head, or grains of fand upon the feafhore." These accounts I have from the Carribean French dictionary of Pere Raymond, printed at Auxerre, in 1665; who was one of the firft miflioners fent to the Carribean iflands. Thus we fee, that when these people were driven from the continent to thefe iflands, they entered upon a new fcene, and, in time, they dwindled into an abfolute oblivion of the ufe of their numbers, inventing a new and moft imperfect manner of counting, as well as of conducting most of their affairs: just so, all the inhabitants that were driven to the coafts of the Frozen Sea, all along. to the moft North-eastern promontory of land, called the Tchuckfkoy Nos, and so to Kamptschatka, have lost all kinds. of knowledge of what their ancestors were doing in the more Southern regions of European and Afiatic Tartary,, and for other reasons, given before. Names |