Eleven, by shaking the right fist and holding up one finger as described under one.
Twelve, by shaking the right fist and holding up two fingers as described under two; and so on.
The toes are very rarely used in counting. I have only seen them used when counting 20,000, and then the man stretched down and put the fingers of both hands on the toes of both of his feet and said: mikoko mibale = 20,000. Sometimes, when trying to give me an idea of vast numbers, they would say: “It will take all our fingers and toes to tell you,” i.e. tens of thousands.
For addition and subtraction under 10 they use their fingers, but for higher numbers they use palm nuts, or anything suitable to hand. This is not because they are incapable of adding and subtracting mentally, but because they are so suspicious of each other that they want an ocular proof that the sum is right, and that neither one is getting the better of the other. Those who know figures and can run through their arithmetical tables accept each other’s sums, but in transactions with the untaught they resort to the fingers and palm nuts for counting.
They always count by fives and tens, e.g. if a person wants to make up 26 brass rods he will take 3 rods and then put 2 with the 3 and push that 5 on one side, he will make another 5 in the same way, and then put the two fives together, making 10, and then make two more fives and put those together, keeping, however, the tens separate, then another 5 is made by the 3 and 2 process, and at last 1 put down. Then the two tens are counted, and the 5, and lastly the 1.
Note 4.—On Boloki Relations or Kinship
The accompanying lists I received about the same time from two different young men of fair intelligence, and after I had written the two lists down I called both the young men and read over to them their different names for the same relative. They each argued that what they had given was the right one, and the other was wrong. I have found the same difficulty on the Lower Congo. It is impossible to procure a list of any real value. My colleagues find it much the same among other tribes.
The natives of Monsembe are unanimous respecting the terms for mother = nyongo; father = ango and tata (ango is only used by a son to the one who begot him, tata is used by a slave to his master, by a son to his father, and I have heard it used by a mother to her son. It seems to be a term of respect in its wider use); brother = nkaja; sister is also nkaja (a sister calls her brother nkaja, and a brother calls his sister nkaja; but if a girl speaks of her younger sister, or elder sister, she uses the words mojimi for the younger one and motomolo for the elder only; the boy uses the same words for younger or elder brother); younger sister or younger brother, nkaja mojimi; elder sister or elder brother, nkaja motomolo (nkaja is never used in speaking of the same sex as the speaker, i.e. by a sister of a sister, or a brother of a brother); wife = mwali; husband = moloi; child = mwana; male child = mwana lele, i.e. son; female child = mwana muntaka, i.e. daughter; grandparent = nkoko; great grandparent = nkokolele; great great grandparent = ndalola; but a grandchild is nkoko, and so with a great grandchild = nkokolele, and great great grandchild = ndalola.
All agree in the above names for the relationships indicated, but the farther you get away from those degrees of relationship the more confused the native becomes, and the more contradictory will be his statements. The terms of relationship are employed in addressing each other, but personal names are also used without any hesitation. The only exception is this: When two persons of the same name speak to or of one another they never mention the name, but say, ndoi = namesake. The names of the dead are freely mentioned, and even passed on to children. No genealogies are kept, and in two or three generations all ties of near relationship are lost; and if, here and there, remembered, are non-effective except where a man can get a drink of sugar-cane wine, or a feed by recalling kinship.