Australian Aboriginal enumeration

Australian Aboriginal enumeration refers to the way some Australian Aborigines traditionally counted.

A common misconception among non-Aborigines is that Aborigines did not have a way to count beyond two or three. However, Alfred Howitt, who studied the peoples of southeastern Australia, disproved this in the late nineteenth century, although the myth continues in circulation today.

The Australian Aborginal counting system was used to send messages on message sticks to neighbouring clans to alert them of, or invite them to, corroborees, set-fights, and ball games. Numbers could clarify the day the meeting was to be held (in a number of "moons") and where (the number of camps' distance away). The messenger would have a message "in his mouth" to go along with the message stick. The systems below are those of the Wurundjeri (Howitt called them after their language, Woiwurung) and the Wotjoballuk. Howitt wrote that it was common among nearly all peoples he encountered in the southeast: "Its occurrence in these tribes suggests that it must have been general over a considerable part of Victoria". As can be seen in the following tables, names for numbers were based on body parts, whose names themselves were metaphorical and often quite poetic:

Wurundjeri counting system

::

Howitt writes "from this place the count follows down the equivalent places on the other side, thus giving a considerable scope for enumeration."

Wotjoballuk counting system

::

Note that both numbers 6 and 8 here appear to be represented by the elbow. Howitt has perhaps misinterpreted the wrist in the translation of 6, since 7 is the forearm.

ee also

*Wurundjeri
*Alfred Howitt

Bibliography

*"Notes on Australian Message Sticks and Messengers", AW Howitt, FGS, "Journal of the Anthropological Institute", pp 317-8, London, 1889, reprinted by Ngarak Press, 1998, ISBN 1-875254-25-0