Count with tallies

Use notches and pebbles so you can count sheep, days, and sacks without holding them all in your head.

easy⏳ an hourtradition — not yet hand-tested

Your memory is small and busy. It forgets numbers the moment something else needs attention. A tally — a scratch on a stick, a pebble in a pouch — is a number that lives outside your head. It does not get tired, it does not argue, and it says the same thing tomorrow.

This is the seed of all counting, record-keeping, and mathematics. One mark means one thing. That single idea lets one person keep track of a hundred sheep, forty days, or twelve sacks of grain — and prove it to someone else.

You need

• A stick or flat bone — dry wood as thick as your thumb, so a knife can cut clean notches without splitting it.
• A knife or sharp stone flake — anything that scratches a mark you can still see next month.
• A handful of pebbles and a pouch or pot — pebbles are movable tallies; the pouch keeps them from wandering off.
• A safe place — tally sticks only work if they stay where you left them.

Steps

1. Decide exactly what one mark means. One sheep. One day. One basket of grain. Never mix meanings on the same stick — one stick, one kind of thing.
2. Make one mark per thing as it passes you. Cut a notch as each sheep walks through the gate. Do not count in your head at the same time; trust the stick, not your memory.
3. Group your marks in fives. Cut four short notches, then a fifth one slanted across them, like a small gate.
   • Groups matter more than marks. Thirty-seven single notches are a blur; seven gates and two spare notches you can read at a glance.
   • Any group size works — five is good because you can check it against one hand.
4. Count pebbles instead when things move both ways. Sheep out in the morning: drop one pebble in the pouch per sheep. Sheep home at night: take one pebble out per sheep. Pebbles left over means sheep still missing — go look.
5. Count days by adding one notch each morning. Pick the same moment every day — first light works — so you never wonder whether today is marked yet.
6. Label the stick. Scratch a simple picture at one end: a sheep shape, a sun, a grain ear. Ten unlabeled sticks are worse than none.
7. Make a split tally for deals between two people. Cut all the notches, then split the stick lengthwise down the middle so each half carries the same notches. Each person keeps one half.
   • Neither half can be secretly changed: a new notch on one half won't line up when the halves are put back together. This is a contract before writing exists.

Watch out

• Counting in your head "to be quick," then marking later. That is how counts die. Mark at the moment each thing passes — the whole point is to stop trusting memory.
• Two people tallying the same flock on different sticks. The counts will disagree and nobody knows which is right. One count, one stick, one counter — others may watch and check.
• Marks too shallow or too crowded. Rain, handling, and time blur them. Cut deep enough to feel with a fingertip, and leave a finger's width between groups.
• Losing the stick. A lost tally is a lost number forever. Keep counting sticks in one known place, and for anything important, keep a second stick as a copy.
• Forgetting whether you already marked today. Tie the marking to a fixed habit — notch the day-stick before you eat in the morning, every morning, no exceptions.

How it works

A tally works because of matching, not arithmetic. You never need to know how many while you count — you only need one mark for one thing, nothing skipped, nothing doubled. The pile of marks is the number. Grouping in fives just makes the pile readable, and the split stick makes it honest, because two matching halves cannot both be lies.