Sign Language Among North American Indians 5

Sign Language Among North American Indians 5

GESTURES OF THE BLIND._

 

The facial __EXPRESSION__s and gestures of the congenitally blind are

worthy of attention. The most interesting and conclusive examples

come from the case of Laura Bridgman, who, being also deaf, could not

possibly have derived them by imitation. When a letter from a beloved

friend was communicated to her by gesture-language, she laughed

and clapped her hands. A roguish __EXPRESSION__ was given to her face,

concomitant with the emotion, by her holding the lower lip by the

teeth. She blushed, shrugged her shoulders, turned in her elbows, and

raised her eye-brows under the same circumstances as other people.

In amazement, she rounded and protruded the lips, opened them, and

breathed strongly. It is remarkable that she constantly accompanied

her "yes" with the common affirmative nod, and her "no" with our

negative shake of the head, as these gestures are by no means

universal and do not seem clearly connected with emotion. This,

possibly, may be explained by the fact that her ancestors for many

generations had used these gestures. A similar curious instance is

mentioned by Cardinal Wiseman (_Essays_, III, 547, _London_, 1853) of

an Italian blind man, the appearance of whose eyes indicated that he

had never enjoyed sight, and who yet made the same elaborate gestures

made by the people with whom he lived, but which had been used by them

immemorially, as correctly as if he had learned them by observation.

 

 

 

_LOSS OF SPEECH BY ISOLATION._

 

When human beings have been long in solitary confinement, been

abandoned, or otherwise have become isolated from their fellows, they

have lost speech either partially or entirely, and required to have

it renewed through gestures. There are also several recorded cases of

children, born with all their faculties, who, after having been lost

or abandoned, have been afterwards found to have grown up possessed

of acute hearing, but without anything like human speech. One of these

was Peter, "the Wild Boy," who was found in the woods of Hanover in

1726, and taken to England, where vain attempts were made to teach him

language, though he lived to the age of seventy. Another was a boy of

twelve, found in the forest of Aveyron, in France, about the beginning

of this century, who was destitute of speech, and all efforts to teach

him failed. Some of these cases are to be considered in connection

with the general law of evolution, that in degeneration the last

and highest acquirements are lost first. When in these the effort

at acquiring or re-acquiring speech has been successful, it has been

through gestures, in the same manner as missionaries, explorers,

and shipwrecked mariners have become acquainted with tongues before

unknown to themselves and sometimes to civilization. All persons in

such circumstances are obliged to proceed by pointing to objects and

making gesticulations, at the same time observing what articulate

sounds were associated with those motions by the persons addressed,

and thus vocabularies and lists of phrases were formed.

 

 

 

_LOW TRIBES OF MAN._

 

Apart from the establishment of a systematic language of signs under

special circumstances which have occasioned its development, the

gestures of the lower tribes of men may be generally classed under the

emotional or instinctive division, which can be correlated with those

of the lower animals. This may be illustrated by the modes adopted to

show friendship in salutation, taking the place of our shaking hands.

Some Pacific Islanders used to show their joy at meeting friends by

sniffing at them, after the style of well-disposed dogs. The Fuegians

pat and slap each other, and some Polynesians stroke their own faces

with the hand or foot of the friend. The practice of rubbing or

pressing noses is very common. It has been noticed in the Lapland

Alps, often in Africa, and in Australia the tips of the noses are

pressed a long time, accompanied with grunts of satisfaction. Patting

and stroking different parts of the body are still more frequent, and

prevailed among the North American Indians, though with the latter

the most common __EXPRESSION__ was hugging. In general, the civilities

exchanged are similar to those of many animals.

 

 

 

_GESTURES AS AN OCCASIONAL RESOURCE._

 

Persons of limited vocabulary, whether foreigners to the tongue

employed or native, but not accomplished in its use, even in the midst

of a civilization where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for

words resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild nor

meaningless, but picturesque and significant, though perhaps made

by the gesturer for the first time. An uneducated laborer, if

good-natured enough to be really desirous of responding to a request

for information, when he has exhausted his scanty stock of words will

eke them out by original gestures. While fully admitting the advice to

Coriolanus--

 

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant

More learned than the ears--

 

it may be paraphrased to read that the hands of the ignorant are

more learned than their tongues. A stammerer, too, works his arms and

features as if determined to get his thoughts out, in a manner not

only suggestive of the physical struggle, but of the use of gestures

as a hereditary expedient.

 

 

 

_GESTURES OF FLUENT TALKERS._

 

The same is true of the most fluent talkers on occasions when the

exact vocal formula desired does not at once suggest itself, or is

unsatisfactory without assistance from the physical machinery not

embraced in the oral apparatus. The command of a copious vocabulary

common to both speaker and hearer undoubtedly tends to a phlegmatic

delivery and disdain of subsidiary aid. An excited speaker will,

however, generally make a free use of his hands without regard to

any effect of that use upon auditors. Even among the gesture-hating

English, when they are aroused from torpidity of manner, the hands are

involuntarily clapped in approbation, rubbed with delight, wrung in

distress, raised in astonishment, and waved in triumph. The fingers

are snapped for contempt, the forefinger is vibrated to reprove or

threaten, and the fist shaken in defiance. The brow is contracted with

displeasure, and the eyes winked to show connivance. The shoulders

are shrugged to express disbelief or repugnance, the eyebrows

elevated with surprise, the lips bitten in vexation and thrust out in

sullenness or displeasure, while a higher degree of anger is shown

by a stamp of the foot. Quintilian, regarding the subject, however,

not as involuntary exhibition of feeling and intellect, but for

illustration and enforcement, becomes eloquent on the variety of

motions of which the hands alone are capable, as follows:

 

"The action of the other parts of the body assists the speaker, but

the hands (I could almost say) speak themselves. By them do we

not demand, promise, call, dismiss, threaten, supplicate, express

abhorrence and terror, question and deny? Do we not by them express

joy and sorrow, doubt, confession, repentance, measure, quantity,

number, and time? Do they not also encourage, supplicate, restrain,

convict, admire, respect? and in pointing out places and persons do

they not discharge the office of adverbs and of pronouns?"

 

Voss adopts almost the words of Quintilian, "_Manus non modo loquentem

adjuvant, sed ipsæ pene loqui videntur_," while Cresollius calls the

hand "the minister of reason and wisdom ... without it there is no

eloquence."

 

 

 

_INVOLUNTARY RESPONSE TO GESTURES._

 

Further evidence of the unconscious survival of gesture language is

afforded by the ready and involuntary response made in signs to signs

when a man with the speech and habits of civilization is brought into

close contact with Indians or deaf-mutes. Without having ever before

seen or made one of their signs, he will soon not only catch the

meaning of theirs, but produce his own, which they will likewise

comprehend, the power seemingly remaining latent in him until called

forth by necessity.

 

 

 

_NATURAL PANTOMIME._

 

In the earliest part of man's history the subjects of his discourse

must have been almost wholly sensuous, and therefore readily expressed

in pantomime. Not only was pantomime sufficient for all the actual

needs of his existence, but it is not easy to imagine how he could

have used language such as is now known to us. If the best English

dictionary and grammar had been miraculously furnished to him,

together with the art of reading with proper pronunciation, the gift

would have been valueless, because the ideas expressed by the words

had not yet been formed.

 

That the early concepts were of a direct and material character is

shown by what has been ascertained of the roots of language, and there

does not appear to be much difficulty in expressing by other than

vocal instrumentality all that could have been expressed by those

roots. Even now, with our vastly increased belongings of external

life, avocations, and habits, nearly all that is absolutely necessary

for our physical needs can be expressed in pantomime. Far beyond the

mere signs for eating, drinking, sleeping, and the like, any one will

understand a skillful representation in signs of a tailor, shoemaker,

blacksmith, weaver, sailor, farmer, or doctor. So of washing,

dressing, shaving, walking, driving, writing, reading, churning,

milking, boiling, roasting or frying, making bread or preparing

coffee, shooting, fishing, rowing, sailing, sawing, planing, boring,

and, in short, an endless list.

 

Max Müller properly calls touch, scent, and taste the palaioteric,

and sight and hearing the neoteric senses, the latter of which

often require to be verified by the former. Touch is the lowest in

specialization and development, and is considered to be the oldest of

the senses, the others indeed being held by some writers to be only

its modifications. Scent, of essential importance to many animals, has

with man almost ceased to be of any, except in connection with taste,

which he has developed to a high degree. Whether or not sight preceded

hearing in order of development, it is difficult, in conjecturing the

first attempts of man or his hypothetical ancestor at the __EXPRESSION__

either of percepts or concepts, to connect vocal sounds with any

large number of objects, but it is readily conceivable that the

characteristics of their forms and movements should have been

suggested to the eye--fully exercised before the tongue--so soon

as the arms and fingers became free for the requisite simulation

or portrayal. There is little distinction between pantomime and a

developed sign language, in which thought is transmitted rapidly and

certainly from hand to eye as it is in oral speech from lips to

ear; the former is, however, the parent of the latter, which is more

abbreviated and less obvious. Pantomime acts movements, reproduces

forms and positions, presents pictures, and manifests emotions with

greater realization than any other mode of utterance. It may readily

be supposed that a troglodyte man would desire to communicate the

finding of a cave in the vicinity of a pure pool, circled with soft

grass, and shaded by trees bearing edible fruit. No sound of nature is

connected with any of those objects, but the position and size of the

cave, its distance and direction, the water, its quality, and amount,

the verdant circling carpet, and the kind and height of the trees

could have been made known by pantomime in the days of the mammoth,

if articulate speech had not then been established, as Indians or

deaf-mutes now communicate similar information by the same agency.

 

The proof of this fact, as regards deaf-mutes, will hardly be

demanded, as their expressive pantomime has been so often witnessed.

That of the North American Indians, as distinct from the signs which

are generally its abbreviations, has been frequently described in

general terms, but it may be interesting to present two instances from

remote localities.

 

A Maricopa Indian, in the present limits of Arizona, was offered an

advantageous trade for his horse, whereupon he stretched himself on

his horse's neck, caressed it tenderly, at the same time shutting his

eyes, meaning thereby that no offer could tempt him to part with his

charger.

 

An A-tco-mâ-wi or Pit River Indian, in Northeastern California, to

explain the cause of his cheeks and forehead being covered with tar,

represented a man falling, and, despite his efforts to save him,

trembling, growing pale (pointing from his face to that of a white

man), and sinking to sleep, his spirit winging its way to the skies,

which he indicated by imitating with his hands the flight of a bird

upwards, his body sleeping still upon the river bank, to which he pointed. The tar upon his face was thus shown to be his dress of mourning for a friend who had fallen and died.