Sign Language Among North American Indians 11

Sign Language Among North American Indians 11

shows the extremities of the index and thumb closely joined in

form of a cone, and turned down, the other fingers held at pleasure,

and the hand and arm advanced to the point and held steady. This

signifies _justice_, a just person, that which is just and right. The

same sign may denote friendship, a menace, which specifically is that

of being brought to justice, and snuff, i.e. powdered tobacco; but the

__EXPRESSION__ of the countenance and the circumstance of the use of the

sign determine these distinctions. Its origin is clearly the balance

or emblem of justice, the office of which consists in ascertaining

physical weight, and thence comes the moral idea of distinguishing

clearly what is just and accurate and what is not. The hand is

presented in the usual manner of holding the balance to weigh

articles.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 93.]

 

[Illustration: Fig. 94.]

 

Fig. 93 signifies _little, small_, both as regards the size of

physical objects or figuratively, as of a small degree of talent,

affection, or the like. It is made either by the point of the thumb

placed under the end of the index (a), or _vice versa_ (b), and the

other fingers held at will, but separated from those mentioned. The

intention is to exhibit a small portion either of the thumb or

index separated from the rest of the hand. The gesture is found in

Herculanean bronzes, with obviously the same signification. The

signs made by some tribes of Indians for the same conception are very

similar, as is seen by Figs. 94 and 95.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 95.]

 

[Illustration: Fig. 96.]

 

Fig. 96 is simply the index extended by itself. The other fingers are

generally bent inwards and pressed down by the thumb, as mentioned by

Quintilian, but that is not necessary to the gesture if the forefinger

is distinctly separated from the rest. It is most commonly used for

indication, pointing out, as it is over all the world, from which

comes the name index, applied by the Romans as also by us, to the

forefinger. In different relations to the several parts of the

body and arm positions it has many significations, e.g., attention,

meditation, derision, silence, number, and demonstration in general.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 97.]

 

Fig. 97 represents the head of a jackass, the thumbs being the ears,

and the separation of the little from the third fingers showing the

jaws.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 98.]

 

Fig. 98 is intended to portray the head of the same animal in a front

view, the hands being laid upon each other, with thumbs extending on

each side to represent the ears. In each case the thumbs are generally

moved forward and back, in the manner of the quadruped, which, without

much apparent reason, has been selected as the emblem of stupidity.

The sign, therefore, means _stupid, fool_. Another mode of executing

the same conception--the ears of an ass--is shown in Fig. 99, where

the end of the thumb is applied to the ear or temple and the hand

is wagged up and down. Whether the ancient Greeks had the same low

opinion of the ass as is now entertained is not clear, but they

regarded long ears with derision, and Apollo, as a punishment to Midas

for his foolish decision, bestowed on him the lengthy ornaments of the

patient beast.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 99.]

 

[Illustration: Fig. 100.]

 

Fig. 100 is the fingers elongated and united in a point, turned

upwards. The hand is raised slightly toward the face of the gesturer

and shaken a few times in the direction of the person conversed with.

This is _inquiry_, not a mere interrogative, but to express that the

person addressed has not been clearly understood, perhaps from the

vagueness or diffusiveness of his __EXPRESSION__s. The idea appears to

suggest the gathering of his thoughts together into one distinct

__EXPRESSION__, or to be _pointed_ in what he wishes to say.

 

_Crafty, deceitful_, Fig. 101. The little fingers of both reversed

hands are hooked together, the others open but slightly curved, and,

with the hands, moved several times to the right and left. The gesture

is intended to represent a crab and the tortuous movements of the

crustacean, which are likened to those of a man who cannot be depended

on in his walk through life. He is not straight.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 101.]

 

[Illustration: Fig. 102.]

 

Figs. 102 and 103 are different positions of the hand in which the

approximating thumb and forefinger form a circle. This is the direst

insult that can be given. The amiable canon De Jorio only hints at

its special significance, but it may be evident to persons aware of a

practice disgraceful to Italy. It is very ancient.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 104.]

 

[Illustration: Fig. 103.]

 

Fig. 104 is easily recognized as a request or command to be _silent_,

either on the occasion or on the subject. The mouth, supposed to be

forcibly closed, prevents speaking, and the natural gesture, as might

be supposed, is historically ancient, but the instance, frequently

adduced from the attitude of the god Harpokrates, whose finger is on

his lips, is an error. The Egyptian hieroglyphists, notably in the

designation of Horus, their dawn-god, used the finger in or on the

lips for "child." It has been conjectured in the last instance that

the gesture implied, not the mode of taking nourishment, but inability

to speak--_in-fans_. This conjecture, however, was only made to

explain the blunder of the Greeks, who saw in the hand placed

connected with the mouth in the hieroglyph of Horus (the) son,

"Hor-(p)-chrot," the gesture familiar to themselves of a finger on

the lips to express "silence," and so, mistaking both the name and the

characterization, invented the God of Silence, Harpokrates. A careful

examination of all the linear hieroglyphs given by Champollion

(_Dictionnaire Egyptien_) shows that the finger or the hand to the

mouth of an adult (whose posture is always distinct from that of

a child) is always in connection with the positive ideas of voice,

mouth, speech, writing, eating, drinking, &c., and never with the

negative idea of silence. The special character for _child_, Fig.

105, always has the above-mentioned part of the sign with reference to

nourishment from the breast.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 105.]

 

Fig. 106 is a forcible _negation_. The outer ends of the fingers

united in a point under the chin are violently thrust forward. This

is the rejection of an idea or proposition, the same conception being

executed in several different modes by the North American Indians.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 106.]

 

Fig. 107 signifies _hunger_, and is made by extending the thumb

and index under the open mouth and turning them horizontally and

vertically several times. The idea is emptiness and desire to be

filled. It is also expressed by beating the ribs with the flat hands,

to show that the sides meet or are weak for the want of something

between them.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 107.]

 

Fig. 108 is made in mocking and ridicule. The open and oscillating

hand touches the point of the nose with that of the thumb. It has the

particular sense of stigmatizing the person addressed or in question

as a dupe. A credulous person is generally imagined with a gaping

mouth and staring eyes, and as thrusting forward his face, with

pendant chin, so that the nose is well advanced and therefore most

prominent in the profile. A dupe is therefore called _naso lungo_

or long-nose, and with Italian writers "_restare con un palmo di

naso_"--to be left with a palm's length of nose--means to have met

with loss, injury, or disappointment.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 108.]

 

The thumb stroking the forehead from one side to the other, Fig. 109,

is a natural sign of _fatigue_, and of the physical toil that produces

fatigue. The wiping off of perspiration is obviously indicated. This

gesture is often used ironically.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 109.]

 

As a _dupe_ was shown above, now the _duper_ is signified, by Fig.

110. The gesture is to place the fingers between the cravat and the

neck and rub the latter with the back of the hand. The idea is that

the deceit is put within the cravat, taken in and down, similar to our

phrase to "swallow" a false and deceitful story, and a "cram" is also

an English slang word for an incredible lie. The conception of the

slang term is nearly related to that of the Neapolitan sign, viz., the

artificial enlargement of the oesophagus of the person victimized or

on whom imposition is attempted to be practiced, which is necessary to take it down.

shows the ends of the index and thumb stroking the two sides

of the nose from base to point. This means _astute, attentive, ready_.

Sharpness of the nasal organ is popularly associated with subtlety

and finesse. The old Romans by _homo emunctæ naris_ meant an acute

man attentive to his interests. The sign is often used in a bad sense,

then signifying _too_ sharp to be trusted.

 

[Illustration: Fig. 111.]

 

This somewhat lengthy but yet only partial list of Neapolitan

gesture-signs must conclude with one common throughout Italy, and also

among us with a somewhat different signification, yet perhaps also

derived from classic times. To express suspicion of a person the

forefinger of the right hand is placed upon the side of the nose. It

means _tainted_, not sound. It is used to give an unfavorable report

of a person inquired of and to warn against such.

 

* * * * *

 

The Chinese, though ready in gesticulation and divided by dialects,

do not appear to make general use of a systematic sign language, but

they adopt an expedient rendered possible by the peculiarity of their

written characters, with which a large proportion of their adults

are acquainted, and which are common in form to the whole empire. The

inhabitants of different provinces when meeting, and being unable to

converse orally, do not try to do so, but write the characters of the

words upon the ground or trace them on the palm of the hand or in the

air. Those written characters each represent words in the same manner

as do the Arabic or Roman numerals, which are the same to Italians,

Germans, French, and English, and therefore intelligible, but if

expressed in sound or written in full by the alphabet, would not be

mutually understood. This device of the Chinese was with less apparent

necessity resorted to in the writer's personal knowledge between

a Hungarian who could talk Latin, and a then recent graduate from

college who could also do so to some extent, but their pronunciation

was so different as to occasion constant difficulty, so they both

wrote the words on paper, instead of attempting to speak them.

 

The efforts at intercommunication of all savage and barbarian tribes,

when brought into contact with other bodies of men not speaking

an oral language common to both, and especially when uncivilized

inhabitants of the same territory are separated by many linguistic

divisions, should in theory resemble the devices of the North American

Indians. They are not shown by published works to prevail in the

Eastern hemisphere to the same extent and in the same manner as

in North America. It is, however, probable that they exist in many

localities, though not reported, and also that some of them survive

after partial or even high civilization has been attained, and

after changed environment has rendered their systematic employment

unnecessary. Such signs may be, first, unconnected with existing

oral language, and used in place of it; second, used to explain or

accentuate the words of ordinary speech, or third, they may consist

of gestures, emotional or not, which are only noticed in oratory

or impassioned conversation, being, possibly, survivals of a former gesture language.