In the days before the white man discovered America, and, indeed, before the days of Pythagoras and the greek mathematicians, the red indian native inhabitants of North America had their own civilisation and cultures, and among their wise men was their great mathematician Running Adder. Because of his fame and honour among the red indian mathematicians, the next annual conference of mathematicians was to be held at his tribal ground in three days time.
Running Adder was sitting inside his tepee trying to formulate his next great theorem which he hoped to present at the Great Mathematics Convention which he hoped to present to the Conference. Although he had agreed to propound a great new theorem, unfortunately he had no idea yet what it would be, and he was starting to get desperate. As he pondered he heard three squaws, who were sitting outside, quarrelling among themselves, and irritated by the noise he put his head out to see what was going on. The first squaw, who was sitting on a deer hide, was boasting "My son isn`t fully a man yet, and already he weighs 150 lbs". The second squaw, who was sitting on a buffalo hide, said "Well my son is only a year older, and he weighs 200lbs". The third squaw, an enormous lady, who was sitting on a hippopotamus hide, laughed and said "Well , they`re hardly men yet if they`re that small. I`ve no sons, and I`m only woman, and I weigh as much as the pair of them put together. Greatly annoyed by this silly bickering which was hindering his deliberations and cursing the stupidity of the squaws Running Adder closed his tent flap and went back to his pondering. However, although his fertile brain worked frantically all day, when he went to bed he had still not hit upon anything which he could put forward as his new theorem, and he was afraid that after all the publicity he was going to be a laughing stock in front of his tribe.
As is so often the case, it was in the middle of the night that he suddenly woke up and realised that he very nearly had the answer to his problem. The following morning he called together all the braves of the tribe, he had them build to his own ingenious design a balance consisting of an upright pole with a horizontal arm pivotted by its centre at the top, and at each end of the horizontal pole a seat firmly secured. Bidding the first two squaws to bring their sons to him, he instructed them both to sit on one of the seats, then instructed the enormous third squaw to sit on the other seat. The third squaw had been correct in her boast - she did weigh exactly the same as the two youg men. Greatly relieved Running Deer returned to his tent to prepare his new theorem in readiness for the great day.
The following morning the great mathematicians from all of the Indian nations assembled, and there was much excited conversation and speculation about what Burning Adder would come up with this time. Suddenly the great man emerged from his tent, adjusted his feathered head dress and raised his arms to call for silence. Imediately the large throng fell silent and Burning Adder drew himself to his full height and, without further ado, announced in a proud voice ..
"The squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws on the two adjacent hides"
