The idea the New Zealand Māori once counted by elevens has been viewed as a cultural misunderstanding originating with a mid-nineteenth-century dictionary of their language. Yet this “remarkable singularity” had an earlier, Continental origin, the details of which have been lost over a century of transmission in the literature. The affair is traced to a pair of scientific explorers, René-Primevère Lesson and Jules Poret de Blosseville, as reconstructed through their publications on the 1822–1825 circumnavigational voyage of the Coquille, a French corvette. Possible explanations for the affair are briefly examined, including whether it might have been a prank by the Polynesians or a misunderstanding or hoax on the part of the Europeans. Reasons why the idea of counting by elevens remains topical are discussed. First, its very oddity has obscured the counting method actually used— setting aside every tenth item as a tally. This “ephemeral abacus” is examined for its physical and mental efficiencies and its potential to explain aspects of numerical structure and vocabulary (e.g., Mangarevan binary counting; the Hawaiian number word for twenty, iwakalua), matters suggesting material forms have a critical if underappreciated role in realising concepts like exponential value. Second, it provides insight into why it can be difficult to appreciate highly elaborated but unwritten numbers like those found throughout Polynesia. Finally, the affair illuminates the difficulty of categorising number systems that use multiple units as the basis of enumeration, like Polynesian pair-counting; potential solutions are offered.

中文翻译：

---

毛利人曾经以 11 为单位的奇怪想法，以及它对跨文化数值研究仍然持有的见解

新西兰毛利人曾经以 11 人计算的想法被视为源自 19 世纪中叶的一本关于他们语言的字典的文化误解。然而，这个“非凡的奇点”有一个更早的大陆起源，其细节在一个世纪的文学传播中已经丢失。这件事可以追溯到一对科学探险家 René-Primevère Lesson 和 Jules Poret de Blosseville，通过他们在 1822-1825 年法国护卫舰 Coquille 的环球航行中的出版物进行了重建。对这件事的可能解释进行了简要研究，包括它是否可能是波利尼西亚人的恶作剧，还是欧洲人的误解或骗局。讨论了为什么用 11 计数的想法仍然是热门话题的原因。第一的，它的怪异之处掩盖了实际使用的计数方法——每隔十个项目作为一个计数。这个“短暂的算盘”被检查了它的身体和心理效率以及它解释数字结构和词汇方面的潜力（例如，Mangarevan 二进制计数；夏威夷数字词 20，iwakalua），暗示物质形式的问题如果被低估，则具有关键意义在实现指数值等概念中的作用。其次，它提供了关于为什么很难理解像波利尼西亚各地的那些经过高度阐述但不成文的数字的原因。最后，这件事说明了对使用多个单位作为枚举基础的数字系统进行分类的困难，例如波利尼西亚的配对计数；提供了潜在的解决方案。