How to use a 5 or 6 bit integer in Python?

[Glen Wheeler]

  Hello all,

  My program uses many millions of integers, and Python is allocating
way too much memory for these.  I can't have the performance hit by
using disk, so I figured I'd write a C extension to define a new type.
  Problem is, my C knowledge is years old and regardless of my
attempts distutils will not recognise my installation of the MS
compiler.
  I am thinking, is there any easier way to use a 5 or 6 bit integer
in python?  Even a regular 8-bit would be fine.  I only need to
represent either 32 or 64 distinct numbers.

  thanks,
  Glen