Barnabas' recent point concerning native Californian number
names, and the ancient use of bases 4, 5, 8, 10, and 12 is
interesting. Around Santa Barbara, the Chumash, a large group
that extended along the coast as far north as San Luis Obispo,
(that Barnabas may have been citing) used their number system(s)
to solve astronomy and other classes of problems. Kroeber reports
a star group very much like the Big Dipper, that may have meant
that the Chumash also computed time with star clocks.
Even more important is that native North Americans, extending
at least as far south as Mesoamerica, commonly used base 4 as
a spiritual number system. The Mesoamerican tradition of labeling
the four directions, east (good), south (not so good), west (bad),
and North (evil) come to mind, as found in related forms in
several North American pre-Columbian cultural situations.
Returning to California, Kroeber provides an incomplete
list of his 45 separate pre-Columbian cultures that often
used mixed versions of number systems, based on their preceived
needs. Additional study and reporting is needed to fully report
the interesting ways that number bases were used in California
(prior to the arrival of the Spanish).
Regards to all,
Milo Gardner