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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 Ogalala 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;
(2) suddenly
elevated upward and outward to
imitate smoke expelled. (Cheyenne II). "We two smoke
together." This is illustrated in the Ojibwa pictograph,
Fig. 228, taken from Schoolcraft I, pl. 59.
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
is often made as follows: Hook the
curved index over the curved forefinger of the left hand,
the palm of the latter pointing forward, the palm of the
right hand being turned toward the face; remaining fingers
and thumbs being closed. (Dakota VIII.) Fig. 232.
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.
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language of a particular period or place. These items are presented as
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Sign Language
Among North American Indians Compared with
that Among Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,
1881
