Signs Connected with Ethnologic Facts

The present limits permit only a few examples of the manner in which the signs of Indians refer to sociologic, religious, historic, and other ethnologic facts. They may incite research to elicit further information of the same character.

The Prince of Wied gives in his list of signs the heading Partisan, a term of the Canadian voyageurs, signifying a leader of an occasional or volunteer war party, the sign being reported as follows: Make first the sign of the pipe, afterwards open the thumb and index-finger of the right hand, back of the hand outward, and move it forward and upward in a curve. This is explained by the author's account in a different connection, that to become recognized as a leader of such a war party as above mentioned, the first act among the tribes using the sign was the consecration, by fasting succeeded by feasting, of a medicine pipe without ornament, which the leader of the expedition afterward bore before him as his badge of authority, and it therefore naturally became an emblematic sign. This sign with its interpretation supplies a meaning

to Fig. 226 from the Dakota Calendar showing "One Feather," a Sioux chief who raised in that year a large war party against the Crows, which fact is simply denoted by his holding out demonstratively an unornamented pipe. In connection with this subject, Fig. 227, drawn and explained by Two Strike, an Ogalalla Dakota, relating to his own achievements, displays four plain pipes to exhibit the fact that he had led four war parties.

The sign of the pipe or of smoking is made in a different manner, when used to mean friend, as follows: (1) Tips of the two first fingers of the right hand placed against or at right angles to the mouth;

A ceremonial sign for peace, friendship, is the extended fingers, separated (R), interlocked in front of the breast, hands horizontal, backs outward. (Dakota I.) Fig. 229 from the Dakota Calendar exhibits the beginning of this gesture. When the idea conveyed is peace or friendship with the whites, the

hand shaking of the latter is adopted as in Fig. 230, also taken from the Dakota Calendar, and referring to the peace made in 1855 by General Harney, at Fort Pierre, with a number of the tribes of the Dakotas.

It is noticeable that while the ceremonial gesture of uniting or linking hands is common and ancient in token of peace, the practice of shaking hands on meeting, now the annoying etiquette of the Indians in their intercourse with whites, was not until very recently and is even now seldom used by them between each other, and is clearly a foreign importation. Their fancy for affectionate greeting was in giving a pleasant bodily, sensation by rubbing each other on the breast, abdomen, and limbs, or by a hug. The senseless and inconvenient custom of shaking hands is, indeed, by no means general throughout the world, and in the extent to which it prevails in the United States is a subject of ridicule by foreigners. The Chinese, with a higher conception of politeness, shake their own hands. The account of a recent observer of the meeting of two polite Celestials is: "Each placed the fingers of one hand over the fist of the other, so that the thumbs met, and then standing a few feet apart raised his hands gently up and down in front of his breast. For special courtesy, after the foregoing gesture, they place the hand which had been the actor in it on the stomach of its owner, not on that part of the interlocutor, the whole proceeding being subjective, but perhaps a relic of objective performance." In Miss Bird's Unbeaten Trades in Japan, London, 1880, the following is given as the salutatory etiquette of that empire: "As acquaintances come in sight of each other they slacken their pace and approach with downcast eyes and averted faces as if neither were worthy of beholding each other; then they bow low, so low as to bring the face, still kept carefully averted, on a level with the knees, on which the palms of the hands are pressed. Afterwards, during the friendly strife of each to give the pas to the other, the palms of the hands are diligently rubbed against each other."

The interlocking of the fingers of both hands above given as an Indian sign (other instances being mentioned under the head of Signals, infra) is also reported by R. Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, loc. cit., Vol. II, p. 308, as made by the natives of Cooper's Creek, Australia, to express the highest degree of friendship, including a special form of hospitality in which the wives of the entertainer performed a part. Fig. 231 is reproduced from a cut in the work referred to.

But besides this interlocked form of signifying the union of friendship the hands are frequently grasped together. Sometimes the sign is abbreviated by simply extending the hand as if about to grasp that of another, and sometimes the two forefingers are laid side by side, which last sign also means, same, brother and companion. For description and illustration of these three signs, see respectively pages 521, 527, and 317. A different execution of the same conception of union or linking to signify friend

Wied's sign for medicine is "Stir with the right hand into the left, and afterward blow into the latter." All persons familiar with the Indians will understand that the term "medicine," foolishly enough adopted by both French and English to express the aboriginal magic arts, has no therapeutic significance. Very few even pretended remedies were administered to the natives and probably never by the professional shaman, who worked by incantation, often pulverizing and mixing the substances mystically used, to prevent their detection. The same mixtures were employed in divination. The author particularly mentions Mandan ceremonies, in which a white "medicine" stone, as hard as pyrites, was produced by rubbing in the hand snow or the white feathers of a bird. The blowing away of the disease, considered to be introduced by a supernatural power foreign to the body, was a common part of the juggling performance.

A sign for stone is as follows: With the back of the arched right hand (H) strike repeatedly in the palm of the left, held horizontal, back outward, at the height of the breast and about a foot in front; the ends of the fingers point in opposite directions. (Dakota I.) From its use when the stone was the only hammer.

A suggestive sign for knife is reported, viz: Cut past the mouth with the raised right hand. (Wied.) This probably refers to the general practice of cutting off food, as much being crammed into the mouth as can be managed and then separated from the remaining mass by a stroke of a knife. This is specially the usage with fat and entrails, the Indian delicacies.

An old sign for tomahawk, ax, is as follows: Cross the arms and slide the edge of the right hand, held vertically, down over the left arm. (Wied.) This is still employed, at least for a small hatchet, or "dress tomahawk," and would be unintelligible without special knowledge. The essential point is laying the extended right hand in the bend of the left elbow. The sliding down over the left arm is an almost unavoidable but quite unnecessary accompaniment to the sign, which indicates the way in which the hatchet is usually carried. Pipes, whips, bows and arrows, fans, and other dress or emblematic articles of the "buck" are seldom or never carried in the bend of the left elbow as is the ax. The pipe is usually held in the left hand.

The following sign for Indian village is given by Wied: Place the open thumb and forefinger of each hand opposite to each other, as if to make a circle, but leaving between them a small interval; afterward move them from above downward simultaneously. The villages of the tribes with which the author was longest resident, particularly the Mandans and Arikaras, were surrounded by a strong circular stockade, spaces or breaks in the circle being left for entrance or exit.

Signs for dog are made by some of the tribes of the plains essentially the same as the following: Extend and spread the right, fore, and middle fingers, and draw the hand about eighteen inches from left to right across the front of the body at the height of the navel, palm downward, fingers pointing toward the left and a little downward, little and ring fingers to be loosely closed, the thumb against the ring-finger. (Dakota IV.) The sign would not be intelligible without knowledge of the fact that before the introduction of the horse, and even yet, the dog has been used to draw the tent- or lodge-poles in moving camp, and the sign represents the trail. Indians less nomadic, who built more substantial lodges, and to whom the material for poles was less precious than on the plains, would not have comprehended this sign without such explanation as is equivalent to a translation from a foreign language, and the more general one is the palm lowered as if to stroke gently in a line conforming to the animal's head and neck. It is abbreviated by simply lowering the hand to the usual height of the wolfish aboriginal breed, and suggests the animal par excellence domesticated by the Indians and made a companion.

Several examples connected with this heading may be noticed under the preceding head of gestures connected with pictographs, and others of historic interest will be found among the Tribal Signs, infra.

Indian Sign Language

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Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared with that Among Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes, 1881

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