While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
The assertion has been made by many writers,
and is currently repeated by Indian traders and some Army
officers, that all the tribes of North America have long had
and still use a common and identical sign
language, in which they can communicate freely without oral
assistance. Although this remarkable statement is at
variance with some of the principles of the formation and
use of signs set forth by Dr. E.B. Tylor, whose admirable
chapters on gesture speech in his Researches into the
Early History of Mankind have in a great degree prompted
the present inquiries, that eminent authority did not see
fit to discredit it. He repeats the report as he received
it, in the words that "the same signs serve as a medium of
converse from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico." Its truth
or falsity can only be established by careful comparison of
lists or vocabularies of signs taken under test conditions
at widely different times and places. For this purpose lists
have been collated by the writer, taken in different parts
of the country at several dates, from the last century to
the last month, comprising together several thousand signs,
many of them, however, being mere variants or synonyms for
the same object or quality, some being repetitions of others
and some of small value from uncertainty in description or
authority, or both.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or
language of a particular period or place. These items are presented as
part of the historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that
the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
Sign Language
Among North American Indians Compared with
that Among Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,
1881
