Did Native American cultures have a numbering system?

Answer 1

The native Americans of Central America developed both writing and number systems long before 1492; in Peru accurate accounting records were kept by a means of a system of knots in coloured cords. No such systems were used in other parts of the Americas.

All native languages include spoken numerals - but in some the counting system was very primitive. In many South American native languages there are only words for one, two and three (if you need to say seven, for example, you simply say three three one). Tribes such as the Tapirape, Makiri, Wayoro, Arua, Shikuyana, Wayumara, Guarequena, Garu, Moriwene and Karipura lived such remote and simple lives in the tropical rainforests that larger numbers were seldom needed.

In the Great Plains buffalo-hide records known as "winter counts" it was normal to indicate a specific number by simply indicating a series of dots or vertical strokes (there was no mathematics involved in this system beyond addition) - if the number was, for example, 50 the reader would have to count all those dots or marks to identify what number was intended.