Sign Language Among North American Indians 28
GESTURES AIDING ARCHÆOLOGIC RESEARCH._
The most interesting light in which the Indians of North America can
be regarded is in their present representation of a stage of evolution
once passed through by our own ancestors. Their signs, as well as
their myths and customs, form a part of the paleontology of humanity
to be studied in the history of the latter as the geologist, with
similar object, studies all the strata of the physical world. At this
time it is only possible to suggest the application of gesture signs
to elucidate pictographs, and also their examination to discover
religious, sociologic, and historic ideas preserved in them, as has
been done with great success in the radicals of oral speech.
SIGNS CONNECTED WITH PICTOGRAPHS.
The picture writing of Indians is the sole form in which they recorded
events and ideas that can ever be interpreted without the aid of a
traditional key, such as is required for the signification of the
wampum belts of the Northeastern tribes and the _quippus_ of Peru.
Strips of bark, tablets of wood, dressed skins of animals, and the
smooth surfaces of rock have been and still are used for such records,
those most ancient, and therefore most interesting, being of course
the rock etchings; but they can only be deciphered, if at all, by the
ascertained principles on which the more modern and the more obvious
are made. Many of the numerous and widespread rock carvings are mere
idle sketches--of natural objects, mainly animals, and others are as
exclusively mnemonic as the wampum above mentioned. Even since the
Columbian discovery some tribes have employed devices yet ruder than
the rudest pictorial attempt as markers for the memory. An account
of one of these is given in E. Winslow's Relation (A.D. 1624), _Col.
Mass. Hist. Soc._, 2d series, ix, 1822, p. 99, as follows:
"Instead of records and chronicles they take this course: Where any
remarkable act is done, in memory of it, either in the place or by
some pathway near adjoining, they make a round hole in the ground
about a foot deep, and as much over, which, when others passing by
behold, they inquire the cause and occasion of the same, which being
once known, they are careful to acquaint all men as occasion serveth
therewith. And lest such holes should be filled or grown over by any
accident, as men pass by they will often renew the same; by which
means many things of great antiquity are fresh in memory. So that as a
man traveleth, if he can understand his guide, his journey will be the
less tedious, by reason of the many historical discourses which will
be related unto him."
Gregg, in _Commerce of the Prairies_, _New York_, 1844, II, 286, says
of the Plains tribes: "When traveling, they will also pile heaps
of stones upon mounds or conspicuous points, so arranged as to be
understood by their passing comrades; and sometimes they set up the
bleached buffalo heads, which are everywhere scattered over those
plains, to indicate the direction of their march, and many other facts
which may be communicated by those simple signs."
[Illustration: Fig. 151.]
[Illustration: Fig. 152.]
A more ingenious but still arbitrary mode of giving intelligence is
practiced at this day by the Abnaki, as reported by H.L. Masta, chief
of that tribe, now living at Pierreville, Quebec. When they are in the
woods, to say "I am going to the east," a stick is stuck in the ground
pointing to that direction, Fig. 151. "Am not gone far," another stick
is stuck across the former, close to the ground, Fig. 152. "Gone
far" is the reverse, Fig. 153. The number of days journey of proposed
absence is shown by the same number of sticks across the first; thus
Fig. 154 signifies five days' journey. Cutting the bark off from a
tree on one, two, three or four sides near the butt means "Have had
poor, poorer, poorest luck." Cutting it off all around the tree means
"I am starving." Smoking a piece of birch bark and hanging it on a
tree means "I am sick."
[Illustration: Fig. 153.]
[Illustration: Fig. 154.]
Where there has existed any form of artistic representation, however
rude, and at the same time a system of ideographic gesture signs
prevailed, it would be expected that the form of the latter would
appear in the former. The sign of _river_ and _water_ mentioned on
page 358 being established, when it became necessary or desirable to
draw a character or design to convey the same idea, nothing would be
more natural than to use the graphic form of delineation which is
also above described. It was but one more and an easy step to fasten
upon bark, skins, or rocks the evanescent air pictures that still in
pigments or carvings preserve their skeleton outline, and in their
ideography approach, as has been shown above, the rudiments of the
phonetic alphabets that have been constructed by other peoples. A
transition stage between gestures and pictographs, in which the left
hand is used as a supposed drafting surface upon which the index draws
lines, is exhibited in the DIALOGUE BETWEEN ALASKAN INDIANS, _infra_,
page 498. This device is common among deaf-mutes, without equal
archæologic importance, as it may have been suggested by the art
of writing, with which they are generally acquainted, even if not
instructed in it.
The reproduction of apparent gesture lines in the pictographs made
by our Indians has, for obvious reasons, been most frequent in the
attempt to convey those subjective ideas which were beyond the range
of an artistic skill limited to the direct representation of objects,
so that the part of the pictographs which is still the most difficult
of interpretation is precisely the one which the study of sign
language is likely to elucidate. The following examples of pictographs
of the Indians, in some cases compared with those from foreign
sources, have been selected because their interpretation is definitely
known and the gestures corresponding with or suggested by them are
well determined.
[Illustration: Fig. 155.]
[Illustration: Fig. 156.]
[Illustration: Fig. 157.]
The common Indian gesture sign for _sun_ is: "Right hand closed,
the index and thumb curved, with tips touching, thus approximating a
circle, and held toward the sky," the position of the fingers of the
hand forming a circle being shown in Fig. 155. Two of the Egyptian
characters for sun, Figs. 156 and 157, are plainly the universal
conception of the disk. The latter, together with indications of rays,
Fig. 158, and in its linear form, Fig. 159, (Champollion, _Dict._,
9), constitutes the Egyptian character for _light_. The rays emanating
from the whole disk appear in Figs. 160 and 161, taken from a MS.
contributed by Mr. G.K. GILBERT of the United States Geological
Survey, from the rock etchings of the Moqui pueblos in Arizona. The
same authority gives from the same locality Figs. 162 and 163 for
_sun_, which may be distinguished from several other similar etchings
for _star_ also given by him, Figs. 164, 165, 166, 167, by always
showing some indication of a face, the latter being absent in the
characters denoting _star_.
[Illustration: Fig. 158.]
[Illustration: Fig. 159.]
[Illustration: Fig. 160.]
[Illustration: Fig. 161.]
[Illustration: Fig. 162.]
[Illustration: Fig. 163.]
With the above characters for sun compare Fig. 168, found at Cuzco,
Peru, and taken from Wiener's _Pérou et Bolivie, Paris_, 1880, p. 706.
[Illustration: Fig. 164.]
[Illustration: Fig. 165.]
[Illustration: Fig. 166.]
[Illustration: Fig. 167.]
The Ojibwa pictograph for sun is seen in Fig. 169, taken from
Schoolcraft, _loc. cit._, v. 1, pl. 56, Fig. 67.
[Illustration: Fig. 168.]
[Illustration: Fig. 169.]
A gesture sign for _sunrise, morning_, is: Forefinger of right hand
crooked to represent half of the sun's disk and pointed or extended to
the left, then slightly elevated. (_Cheyenne_ II.) In this connection
it may be noted that when the gesture is carefully made in open
country the pointing would generally be to the east, and the body
turned so that its left would be in that direction. In a room in a
city, or under circumstances where the points of the compass are
not specially attended to, the left side supposes the east, and the
gestures relating to sun, day, &c., are made with such reference. The
half only of the disk represented in the above gesture appears in the
following Moqui pueblo etchings for _morning_ and _sunrise_, Figs.
170, 171, and 172. (Gilbert, _MS._)
[Illustration: Fig. 170.]
[Illustration: Fig. 171.]
[Illustration: Fig. 172.]
[Illustration: Fig. 173.]
A common gesture for _day_ is when the index and thumb form a circle
(remaining fingers closed) and are passed from east to west.
Fig. 173 shows a pictograph found in Owen's Valley, California, a
similar one being reported in the _Ann. Rep. Geog. Survey west of the
100th Meridian for 1876, Washington_, 1876, pl. opp. p. 326, in which
the circle may indicate either _day_ or _month_ (both these gestures
having the same execution), the course of the sun or moon being
represented perhaps in mere contradistinction to the vertical line, or
perhaps the latter signifies _one_.
[Illustration: Fig. 174.]
[Illustration: Fig. 175.]
Fig. 174 is a pictograph of the Coyotero Apaches, found at Camp
Apache, in Arizona, reported in the _Tenth Ann. Rep. U.S. Geolog. and
Geograph. Survey of the Territories for 1876_, _Washington_, 1878,
pl. lxxvii. The sun and the ten spots of approximately the same shape
represent the days, eleven, which the party with five pack mules
passed in traveling through the country. The separating lines are the
nights, and may include the conception of covering over and consequent
obscurity above referred to (page 354). A common sign for _moon, month_, is the right hand closed, leaving
the thumb and index extended, but curved to form a half circle and the
hand held toward the sky, in a position which is illustrated in Fig.
175, to which curve the Moqui etching, Fig. 176, and the identical
form in the ancient Chinese has an obvious resemblance. The crescent, as we commonly figure the satellite, appears also in
the Ojibwa pictograph, Fig. 177 (Schoolcraft, I, pl. 58), which is the
same, with a slight addition, as the Egyptian figurative character.
The sign for _sky_, also _heaven_, is generally made by passing the
index from east to west across the zenith. This curve is apparent in
the Ojibwa pictograph Fig. 178, reported in Schoolcraft, I, pl. 18,
Fig. 21, and is abbreviated in the Egyptian character with the same
meaning, Fig. 179 (Champollion, _Dict._, p. 1).
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