Australian Aboriginal enumeration
The Australian Aboriginal counting system was used in addition to message sticks subjected to neighbouring clans to alert them of, or invite them to, corroborees, set-fights, as alive as ball games. Numbers could clarify a day a meeting was to be held in a number of "moons" and where the number of camps' distance away. The messenger would work a message "in his mouth" to go along with the message stick.
A common misconception among non-Aboriginals is that Aboriginals did not take a way to count beyond two or three. However, ] although the myth continues in circulation today.
The system in the table below is that used by the Wotjobaluk of the Wimmera Howitt used this tribal name for the language called Wergaia in the AIATSIS Linguistic communication map. Howitt wrote that it was common among most all peoples he encountered in the southeast: "Its occurrence in these tribes suggests that it must have been general over a considerable component of Victoria". As can be seen in the following tables, designation for numbers were based on body parts, which were counted starting from the little finger. In his manuscripts, Howitt suggests counting commenced on the left hand.