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Neapolitan
Signs
The female confidant, who supports and guides her
embarrassed friend with her right arm, brings her left hand
into the sign of beautiful—"See what a beauty she
is!" This sign is made by the thumb and index open and
severally lightly touching each side of
the
lower cheek, the other fingers open. It is given on a larger
scale and slightly varied in Fig. 84, evidently referring to
a fat and rounded visage. Almost the same sign is made by
the Ojibwas of Lake Superior, and a mere variant of it is
made by the Dakotas—stroking the cheeks alternately down to
the tip of the chin with the palm or surface of the extended
fingers.
The mother-in-law greets the bride by making the sign
mano in fica with her right hand. This sign, made with
the hand clenched and the point of
the thumb between and projecting
beyond the fore and
| middle fingers, is
more distinctly shown in Fig. 85. It
has a very ancient origin, being
found on Greek antiques that have
escaped the destruction of time,
more particularly in bronzes, and undoubtedly
refers to the pudendum muliebre. It is used
offensively and ironically, but
also—which is doubtless the case in
this instance—as an invocation or
prayer against evil, being more
forcible than the horn-shaped |
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gesture before described. With
this sign the Indian sign for
female, see Fig. 132, page 357, infra, may be
compared. The mother-in-law also places her left hand hollowed in
front of her abdomen, drawing with it her gown slightly
forward, thereby making a pantomimic representation of the
state in which "women wish to be who love their lords"; the
idea being plainly an expressed hope that the household will
be blessed with a new generation.
Next to her is a hunchback, who
is present as a familiar clown or
merrymaker, and dances and laughs to
please the company, at the same time
snapping his fingers. Two other
illustrations of this action, the
middle finger in one leaving and in
the other having left the thumb and
passed to its base, |
| are seen in Figs. 86, 87. This gesture by itself
has, like others mentioned, a great variety of
significations, but here means joy and acclamation.
It is frequently used among us for subdued applause, less
violent than clapping the two hands, but still
oftener to express negation with
disdain, and also carelessness. Both
these uses of it are common in
Naples, and appear in Etruscan vases
and Pompeian paintings, as well |
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| as in the classic
authors. The significance of the action in the hand
of the contemporary statue of Sardanapalus at Anchiale is
clearly worthlessness, as shown by the inscription in
Assyrian, "Sardanapalus, the son of Anacyndaraxes, built in
one day Anchiale and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play; the rest is
not worth that!" The bridegroom has left his
mother to do the honors to the
bride, and himself attends to the |
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rest of the company,
inviting one of them to drink some
wine by a sign, enlarged in Fig. 88,
which is not merely pointing to the
mouth with the thumb, but the hand
with the incurved fingers represents
the body of the common glass flask
which the Neapolitans use, the
extended thumb being its neck; the
invitation is therefore specially to
drink wine. The guest, however,
responds by a very obvious gesture
that he don't wish anything to
drink, but he would like to eat some
macaroni, the fingers being disposed
as if handling that comestible in
the fashion of vulgar Italians. If
the idea were only to eat generally,
it would have been expressed by the
fingers and thumb united in a point
and moved
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Quarrel between Neapolitan women.
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| several times near
and toward the mouth, not raised
above it, as is necessary for
suspending the strings of macaroni.
n Fig. 89 the female in the left of
the group is much disgusted at
seeing one of her former
acquaintances, who has met with good
fortune, promenade in a fine costume
with her husband. Overcome with
jealousy, she spreads out her dress
derisively on both sides, in
imitation of the hoop-skirts once
worn by women of rank, as if to say
"So you are playing the great lady!"
The insulted woman, in resentment,
makes with both hands, for double
effect, the sign of horns, before
described, which in this case is
done obviously in menace and
imprecation. The husband is a
pacific fellow who is not willing to
get into a woman's quarrel, and is
very easily held back by a woman and
small boy who happen to join the
group. He contents himself with
pretending to be in a great passion
and biting his finger, which gesture
may be collated with the emotional
clinching of the teeth and biting
the lips in anger, common to all
mankind.
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The cheating Neapolitan chestnut
huckster.
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| In Fig. 90 a
contadina, or woman from the country, who
has come to the city to sell eggs
(shown to be such by her head-dress,
and the form of the basket which she
has |
| deposited on the ground),
accosts a vender of roast chestnuts
and asks for a measure of them. The
chestnut huckster says they are very
fine and asks a price beyond that of
the market; but a boy sees that the
rustic woman is not sharp in worldly
matters and desires to warn her
against the cheat. He therefore, at
the moment when he can
catch her eye, pretending to lean upon his
basket, and moving thus a little behind the
huckster, so as not to be seen, points him
out with his index finger, and lays his left
forefinger under his eye, pulling down the
skin slightly, so as to deform the
regularity of the lower eyelid. This is a
warning against a cheat, shown more
clearly in Fig. 91. This sign primarily
indicates a squinting person, and
metaphorically one whose looks cannot be
trusted, even as in a squinting person you
cannot be certain in which direction he is
looking. |
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Fig.
92 shows the extremities of the index and
thumb closely joined in form of a cone, and
turned down, the other fingers held at
pleasure, and the hand and arm advanced to
the point and held steady. This signifies
justice, a just person, |
| that which is just
and right. The
same sign may denote friendship, a menace,
which specifically is that of being brought
to justice, and snuff, i.e. powdered
tobacco; but the expression of the
countenance and the circumstance of the use
of the sign determine these distinctions.
Its origin is clearly the balance or emblem
of justice, the office of which consists in
ascertaining physical weight, and thence comes
the moral idea of distinguishing clearly
what is just and accurate and what is not.
The hand is presented in the usual manner of
holding the balance to weigh articles. |
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Fig. 93 signifies little, small, both
as regards the size of physical objects or
figuratively, as of a small degree of
talent, affection, or the like. It is made
either by the point of the thumb placed
under the end of the index (a), or vice
versa (b), and the other fingers
held at will, but separated from
those |
| mentioned. The intention is to
exhibit a small portion either of
the thumb or index separated from
the rest of the hand. The gesture is found
in Herculanean bronzes, with obviously the
same signification. The signs made
by some tribes of Indians for the
same conception are very similar, as
is seen by Figs. 94 |
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and 95. Fig. 96 is simply the index extended by
itself. The other fingers are generally bent
inwards and pressed down by the thumb, as
mentioned by Quintilian, but that is not
necessary to the gesture if the
forefinger is |
| distinctly separated from the
rest. It is most commonly used for
indication, pointing out, as it is
over all the world, from which comes
the name index, applied by the
Romans
as also by us, to the forefinger. In
different relations to the several parts of
the body and arm positions it has many
significations, e.g., attention,
meditation, derision, silence, number, and
demonstration in general. Fig. 97 represents the head of a jackass,
the thumbs being the ears, and the
separation of the little from the third
fingers showing the jaws.
Fig. 98 is intended to portray the head of
the same animal in a front view, the hands
being laid upon each other, with thumbs
extending on each side to represent the
ears. In each case the thumbs are generally
moved forward and back, in the manner of the
quadruped, which, without much
apparent reason, has been selected
as the emblem of stupidity. The
sign, therefore, means stupid, fool.
Another mode of executing the same
conception—the ears of an ass—is
shown in Fig. 99, where the end of
the thumb is applied to the ear or
temple and the hand is wagged up and
down. Whether |
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the ancient
Greeks had the same low opinion of the ass
as is now entertained is not clear, but they
regarded long ears with derision, and
Apollo, as a punishment to Midas for
his foolish decision, bestowed on
him the lengthy ornaments of the
patient beast. |
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Sign Language
Among North American Indians Compared with
that Among Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,
1881
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