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Introductory
During the past two years the present writer has devoted the
intervals between official duties to collecting and
collating materials for the study of sign language. As the
few publications on the general subject, possessing more
than historic interest, are meager in details and vague in
expression, original investigation has been necessary. The
high development of communication by gesture among the
tribes of North America, and its continued extensive use by
many of them, naturally directed the first researches to
that continent, with the result that a large body of facts
procured from collaborators and by personal examination has
now been gathered and classified. A correspondence has also
been established with many persons in other parts of the
world whose character and situation rendered it probable
that they would contribute valuable information. The success
of that correspondence has been as great as could have been
expected, considering that most of the persons addressed
were at distant points sometimes not easily accessible by
mail. As the collection of facts is still successfully
proceeding, not only with reference to foreign peoples and
to deaf-mutes everywhere, but also among some American
tribes not yet thoroughly examined in this respect, no
exposition of the subject pretending to be complete can yet
be made. In complying, therefore, with the request to
prepare the present paper, it is necessary to explain to
correspondents and collaborators whom it may reach, that
this is not the comprehensive publication by the Bureau of
Ethnology for which their assistance has been solicited.
With this explanation some of those who have already
forwarded contributions will not be surprised at their
omission, and others will not desist from the work in which
they are still kindly engaged, under the impression that its
results will not be received in time to meet with welcome
and credit. On the contrary, the urgent appeal for aid
before addressed to officers of the Army and Navy of this
and other nations, to missionaries, travelers, teachers of
deaf-mutes, and philologists generally, is now with equal
urgency repeated. It is, indeed, hoped that the continued
presentation of the subject to persons either having
opportunity for observation or the power to favor with
suggestions may, by awakening some additional interest in
it, secure new collaboration from localities still
unrepresented.
It will be readily understood by other readers that, as the
limits assigned to this paper permit the insertion of but a
small part of the material already collected and of the
notes of study made upon that accumulation, it can only show
the general scope of the work undertaken, and not its
accomplishment. Such extracts from the collection have been
selected as were regarded as most illustrative, and they are
preceded by a discussion perhaps sufficient to be
suggestive, though by no means exhaustive, and designed to
be for popular, rather than for scientific use. In short,
the direction to submit a progress-report and not a
monograph has been complied with.
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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
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Sign Language
Among North American Indians Compared with
that Among Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,
1881 |
Indian Sign
Language
Free
Genealogy |
Indian
Genealogy |
Indian Sign Language
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