Sessuto is the language of the Basuto, an ethnic group of Lesotho, a sovereign kingdom landlocked within the larger country of South Africa. As recorded in the nineteenth century, the Basuto developed an innovative method of counting collaboratively. In this method, one person counted the units, a second person kept track of the tens, and a third person kept track of the hundreds. The method was extensible to very high numbers, as a fourth person would keep track of the thousands. This method of counting has also been found in Oceania. Early European observers assumed that collaborative counting meant the Basuto had difficulty with large numbers. In actuality, the method created an ephemeral abacus, ephemeral because the abacus existed only as long as the counting was performed and an abacus because the method represented the exponential values (units, tens, hundreds) in different places. The method simplified the task of counting for participants, who only needed to count from one to ten as assisted by their fingers. The method shows how higher numbers and attributes like place value and exponential structure can develop in the absence of formal devices and notations.