Sign Language Among North American Indians 31

Sign Language Among North American Indians 31

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.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 226.]

 

[Illustration: Fig. 227.]

 

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.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 228.]

 

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.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 229.]

 

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.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 230.]

 

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."

 

[Illustration: Fig. 231.]

 

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.

 

[Illustration: 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_.