Sign Language Among North American Indians 17

Sign Language Among North American Indians 17

MISTAKEN DENIAL THAT SIGN LANGUAGE EXISTS.

 

The most useful suggestion to persons interested in the collection

of signs is that they shall not too readily abandon the attempt to

discover recollections of them even among tribes long exposed

to European influence and officially segregated from others. The

instances where their existence, at first denied, has been ascertained

are important with reference to the theories advanced.

 

Rev. J. Owen Dorsey has furnished a considerable vocabulary of signs

finally procured from the Poncas, although, after residing among them

for years, with thorough familiarity with their language, and after

special and intelligent exertion to obtain some of their disused

gesture language, he had before reported it to be entirely forgotten.

A similar report was made by two missionaries among the Ojibwas,

though other trustworthy authorities have furnished a copious list

of signs obtained from that tribe. This is no imputation against

the missionaries, as in October, 1880, five intelligent Ojibwas from

Petoskey, Mich., told the writer that they had never heard of gesture

language. An interesting letter from Mr. B.O. Williams, sr., of

Owasso, Mich., explains the gradual decadence of signs used by the

Ojibwas in his recollection, embracing sixty years, as chiefly

arising from general acquaintance with the English language. Further

discouragement came from an Indian agent giving the decided statement,

after four years of intercourse with the Pai-Utes, that no such thing

as a communication by signs was known or even remembered by them,

which, however, was less difficult to bear because on the day of the

receipt of that well-intentioned missive some officers of the Bureau

of Ethnology were actually talking in signs with a delegation of that

very tribe of Indians then in Washington, from one of whom, Nátci, a

narrative printed in this paper (page 500), was received.

 

The report from missionaries, army officers, and travelers in Alaska

was unanimous against the existence of a sign language there until

Mr. Ivan Petroff, whose explorations had been more extensive, gave

the excellent exposition and dialogue now produced (see page 492).

Collections were also obtained from the Apaches and Zuñi, Pimas,

Papagos, and Maricopas, after agents and travelers had denied them to

be possessed of any knowledge on the subject.

 

For the reasons mentioned under the last heading, little hope was

entertained of procuring a collection from any of the Iroquoian stock,

but the intelligent and respectable chief of the Wyandots, Hénto (Gray

Eyes), came to the rescue. His tribe was moved from Ohio in July,

1843, to the territory now occupied by the State of Kansas, and

then again moved to Indian Territory, in 1870. He asserts that about

one-third of the tribe, the older portion, know many signs, a partial

list of which he gave with their descriptions. He was sure that those

signs were used before the removal from Ohio, and he saw them used

also by Shawnees, Delawares, and Senecas there.

 

Unanimous denial of any existence of sign language came from the

British provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and was followed by the

collection obtained by the Hon. Horatio Hale. His statement of the

time and manner of its being procured by him is not only interesting

but highly instructive:

 

"The aged Mohawk chief, from whom the information on this subject has

been obtained, is commonly known by his English name of John

Smoke Johnson. 'Smoke' is a rude version of his Indian name,

_Sakayenkwaraton_, which may be rendered 'Disappearing Mist.' It is

the term applied to the haze which rises in the morning of an autumn

day, and gradually passes away. Chief Johnson has been for many years

'speaker' of the great council of the Six Nations. In former times he

was noted as a warrior, and later has been esteemed one of the most

eloquent orators of his race. At the age of eighty-eight years he

retains much of his original energy. He is considered to have a better

knowledge of the traditions and ancient customs of his people than

any other person now living. This superior knowledge was strikingly

apparent in the course of the investigations which were made

respecting the sign language. Two other members of his tribe,

well-educated and very intelligent men of middle age, the one a chief

and government interpreter, the other a clergyman now settled over a

white congregation, had both been consulted on the subject and both

expressed the opinion that nothing of the sign language, properly

speaking, was known among the Six Nations. They were alike surprised

and interested when the old chief, in their presence, after much

consideration, gradually drew forth from the stores of his memory the

proofs of an accomplishment which had probably lain unused for more

than half a century."

 

One of the most conclusive instances of the general knowledge of

sign language, even when seldom used, was shown in the visit of five

Jicarilla Apaches to Washington in April, 1880, under the charge of

Dr. Benjamin Thomas, their agent. The latter said he had never heard

of any use of signs among them. But it happened that there was a

delegation of Absaroka (Crows) at the same hotel, and the two parties

from such widely separated regions, not knowing a word of each other's

language, immediately began to converse in signs, resulting in a

decided sensation. One of the Crows asked the Apaches whether they ate

horses, and it happening that the sign for _eating_ was misapprehended

for that known by the Apaches for _many_, the question was supposed

to be whether the latter had many horses, which was answered in

the affirmative. Thence ensued a misunderstanding on the subject of

hippophagy, which was curious both as showing the general use of

signs as a practice and the diversity in special signs for particular

meanings. The surprise of the agent at the unsuspected accomplishment

of his charges was not unlike that of a hen who, having hatched a

number of duck eggs, is perplexed at the instinct with which the brood

takes to the water.

 

The denial of the use of signs is often faithfully though erroneously

reported from the distinct statements of Indians to that effect. In

that, as in other matters, they are often provokingly reticent about

their old habits and traditions. Chief Ouray asserted to the writer,

as he also did to Colonel Dodge, that his people, the Utes, had not

the practice of sign talk, and had no use for it. This was much in

the proud spirit in which an Englishman would have made the same

statement, as the idea involved an accusation against the civilization

of his people, which he wished to appear highly advanced. Still more

frequently the Indians do not distinctly comprehend what is sought

to be obtained. Sometimes, also, the art, abandoned in general,

only remains in the memories of a few persons influenced by special

circumstances or individual fancy.

 

In this latter regard a comparison may be made with the old science

of heraldry, once of practical use and a necessary part of a liberal

education, of which hardly a score of persons in the United States

have any but the vague knowledge that it once existed; yet the united

memories of those persons could, in the absence of records, reproduce

all essential points on the subject.

 

Another cause for the mistaken denial in question must be mentioned.

When travelers or sojourners have become acquainted with signs in

any one place they may assume that those signs constitute _the_ sign

language, and if they afterwards meet tribes not at once recognizing

those signs, they remove all difficulty about the theory of a "one and

indivisible" sign language by simply asserting that the tribes so met

do not understand _the_ sign language, or perhaps that they do not

use signs at all. This precise assertion has, as above mentioned, been

made regarding the Utes and Apaches. Of course, also, Indians who have

not been brought into sufficient contact with certain tribes using

different signs, for the actual trial which would probably result

in mutual comprehension, tell the travelers the same story. It is

the venerable one of "[Greek: aglossos]," "Njemez," "barbarian," and

"stammering," above noted, applied to the hands instead of the tongue.

Thus an observer possessed by a restrictive theory will find no signs

where they are in plenty, while another determined on the universality

and identity of sign language can, as elsewhere explained, produce,

from perhaps the same individuals, evidence in his favor from the

apparently conclusive result of successful communication.

 

 

PERMANENCE OF SIGNS.

 

In connection with any theory it is important to inquire into the

permanence of particular gesture signs to express a special idea or

object when the system has been long continued. Many examples have

been given above showing that the gestures of classic times are still

in use by the modern Italians with the same signification; indeed that

the former on Greek vases or reliefs or in Herculanean bronzes

can only be interpreted by the latter. In regard to the signs of

instructed deaf-mutes in this country there appears to be a permanence

beyond expectation. Mr. Edmund Booth, a pupil of the Hartford

Institute half a century ago, and afterwards a teacher, says in the

"_Annals_" for April, 1880, that the signs used by teachers and pupils

at Hartford, Philadelphia, Washington, Council Bluffs, and Omaha were

nearly the same as he had learned. "We still adhere to the old sign

for President from Monroe's three-cornered hat, and for governor we

designate the cockade worn by that dignitary on grand occasions three

generations ago."

 

The specific comparisons made, especially by Dr. Washington Matthews

and Dr. W.O. Boteler, of the signs reported by the Prince of Wied

in 1832 with those now used by the same tribes from whom he obtained

them, show a remarkable degree of permanency in many of those that

were so clearly described by the Prince as to be proper subjects of

any comparison. If they have persisted for half a century their age

is probably much greater. In general it is believed that signs,

constituting as they do a natural mode of __EXPRESSION__, though enlarging

in scope as new ideas and new objects require to be included and

though abbreviated as hereinafter explained, do not readily change in

their essentials.

 

The writer has before been careful to explain that he does not present

any signs as precisely those of primitive man, not being so carried

away by enthusiasm as to suppose them possessed of immutability and

immortality not found in any other mode of human utterance. Yet such

signs as are generally prevalent among Indian tribes, and also in

other parts of the world, must be of great antiquity. The use of

derivative meanings to a sign only enhances this presumption. At

first there might not appear to be any connection between the ideas of

_same_ and _wife_, expressed by the sign of horizontally extending

the two forefingers side by side. The original idea was doubtless that

given by the Welsh captain in Shakspere's Henry V: "'Tis so like as

my fingers is to my fingers," and from this similarity comes "equal,"

"companion," and subsequently the close life-companion "wife." The

sign is used in each of these senses by different Indian tribes,

and sometimes the same tribe applies it in all of the senses as

the context determines. It appears also in many lands with all the

significations except that of "wife." It is proper here to mention

that the suggestion of several correspondents that the Indian sign as

applied to "wife" refers to "lying together" is rendered improbable

by the fact that when the same tribes desire to express the sexual

relation of marriage it is gestured otherwise. Many signs but little

differentiated were unstable, while others that have proved the best

modes of __EXPRESSION__ have survived as definite and established. Their

prevalence and permanence being mainly determined by the experience of

their utility, it would be highly interesting to ascertain how long a

time was required for a distinctly new conception or execution to gain

currency, become "the fashion," so to speak, over a large part of the

continent, and to be supplanted by a new "mode." A note may be made in

this connection of the large number of diverse signs for _horse_, all

of which must have been invented within a comparatively recent period,

and the small variation in the signs for _dog_, which are probably ancient.