Section 8 Numeration
D. W. Eakins, in Schoolcraft I, p. 273, describes the mnemonic numeration marks of the Muskoki thus:
Each perpendicular stroke stood for one, and each additional stroke marked an additional number. The ages of deceased persons or number of scalps taken by them, or war-parties which they have headed, are recorded on their grave-posts by this system of strokes. The sign of the cross represents ten. The dot and comma never stood as a sign for a day, or a moon, or a month, or a year. The chronological marks that were and are in present use are a small number of sticks made generally of cane. Another plan sometimes in use was to make small holes in a board, in which a peg was inserted to keep the days of the week.
Capt. Bourke (b) gives the following account of an attempt at compromise between the aboriginal method of numbering days, weeks, and months, and that of the civilized intruders to whose system the Indians found it necessary to conform.
The Apache scouts kept records of the time of their absence on campaign. There were several methods in vogue, the best being that of colored beads which were strung on a string, six white ones to represent the days of the week, and one black, or other color, to stand for Sundays. This method gave rise to some confusion, because the Indians had been told that there were four weeks, or Sundays (“Domingos”), in each “Luna,” or moon, and yet they soon found that their own method of determining time by the appearance of the crescent moon was much the more satisfactory. Among the Zuñi I have seen little tally sticks with the marks for the days and months incised on the narrow edges, and among the Apache another method of indicating the flight of time by marking on a piece of paper along a horizontal line a number of circles or of straight lines across the horizontal datum line to represent the full days which had passed, a heavy straight line for each Sunday, and a small crescent for the beginning of each month.
It is not necessary to discuss the obvious method of repeating strokes, dots, knots, human heads or forms, weapons, and totemic designs, to designate the number of persons or articles referred to in the pictographs where they appear.