In the Nicobars notched sticks in the form of a scimitar-blade are in use. They have notches on the edge and on the flat, the former denote months, the latter the days of the waning and waxing moon. They are used e. g. in finding out when a child of the owner learned to walk. The Shompen take a piece of bamboo and make as many bends in it as they mean to reckon days[1079]. The Negritos of Zambales in order to count the days make knots in a cord of _bejuco_ and cut off one of these knots every day[1080]. On the Solomon Islands also knotted cords are used for the same purpose[1081]. The counting is particularly necessary for the celebrating of the great feast of the dead at the proper time. The eating the death, _gana matea_, begins with the burial; they eat first, as they say, ‘his graves’, after that they eat ‘his days’--the 5th, 10th, and after that every ten up to the hundredth, and it may be, in the case of a father, wife, or mother, even so far as the thousandth. For counting the days, so that the guests from distant villages may arrive on the proper days, they use cycas fronds, one in the hands of each party, on which the appointed days are marked by the pinching off or turning down of a leaflet as each day passes[1082]. According to another authority the moons are counted. At the coming of the young moon after the death of a man either a knot is made in a thread or a notch is cut in a piece of wood. Up to thirty moons are then counted. The object is to calculate the time up to the great funeral wake of dead chiefs. For young people it takes place from 20 to 30 months afterwards, for old people after 10 months, for an unimportant person as soon as 3 or 4 months afterwards[1083]. In Nauru, west of the Gilbert Islands, knots were tied in a string when days were to be counted, e. g. the 15 days of the confinement of a woman[1084].