More than a century ago travellers in Madagascar observed a
curious but simple mode of ascertaining the number of soldiers in an
army.[6] Each soldier was made to go through a passage in the presence of
the principal chiefs; and as he went through, a pebble was dropped on the
ground. This continued until a heap of 10 was obtained, when one was set
aside and a new heap begun. Upon the completion of 10 heaps, a pebble was
set aside to indicate 100; and so on until the entire army had been
numbered. Another illustration, taken from the very antipodes of
Madagascar, recently found its way into print in an incidental manner,[7]
and is so good that it deserves a place beside de Flacourt's time-honoured
example. Mom Cely, a Southern negro of unknown age, finds herself in debt
to the storekeeper; and, unwilling to believe that the amount is as great
as he represents, she proceeds to investigate the matter in her own
peculiar way. She had "kept a tally of these purchases by means of a
string, in which she tied commemorative knots." When her creditor
"undertook to make the matter clear to Cely's comprehension, he had to
proceed upon a system of her own devising. A small notch was cut in a
smooth white stick for every dime she owed, and a large notch when the
dimes amounted to a dollar; for every five dollars a string was tied in the
fifth big notch, Cely keeping tally by the knots in her bit of twine; thus,
when two strings were tied about the stick, the ten dollars were seen to be
an indisputable fact.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25