Introduction

In The Description of the World, Marco Polo gives an account of an interesting custom. On the occasion of the New Year, the Mongol people bring presents to their sovereign, and each present is comprised of elements being a multiple of number nine:

The truthfulness of many fragments of Polo’s work was challenged. Yet, his presentation of the custom known to the Mongol people in the 13th century must have been based on his own observations or some other reliable source.

Number nine as a perfect whole

Since the beginning of the 20th century, papers dealing with linguistics have discussed counting systems used by the Altai and Uralic peoples, and the special role of some numbers, including number nine.

The number has been and, to a vestigial extent, still is treated as a peculiar unity – an entirety comprised of nine parts. Before the decimal system was introduced, number nine was used to calculate taxes and fines; the noun nine denoted a ‘nine-piece set’, and this was also the name for a present which was commonly comprised of nine elements. There is no clear answer to the question about the origins of the nonary (novemal) counting system found in Asia.