Tuesday, September 17, 1963
Today, for the first time, we see the preparations for the making of a woman's fringed skirt. At'ema has twisted an uncommonly lengthy piece of twine and now, helped by her neighbor, is dividing it into bundles of short pieces of equal length.
She ties off each of the many ends with a neat knot.
Then she places the bundles one by one in the spaces between her fingers.
After all the finger "place-holders" are taken, she hangs the remaining bundles over her forearm until she sees that there are sufficient bundles.
Verbally, the Maring use only two words for counting:
rangwai = one
romai = two
rangwai-romai = three
The kind of "visual counting" we are witnessing today extends the possibilities in a practical way.
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As an educator, I'd love to know more about the counting words and how high the Maring method could go. So many bundles of twine to prepare, etc..
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