Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples Part 7

_TO WHAT EXTENT PREVALENT AS A SYSTEM._

The a.s.sertion has been made by many writers, and is currently repeated by Indian traders and some Army officers, that all the tribes of North America have long had and still use a _common_ and _identical_ sign language, in which they can communicate freely without oral a.s.sistance. Although this remarkable statement is at variance with some of the principles of the formation and use of signs set forth by Dr. E.B. TYLOR, whose admirable chapters on gesture speech in his _Researches into the Early History of Mankind_ have in a great degree prompted the present inquiries, that eminent authority did not see fit to discredit it. He repeats the report as he received it, in the words that "the same signs serve as a medium of converse from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico." Its truth or falsity can only be established by careful comparison of lists or vocabularies of signs taken under test conditions at widely different times and places. For this purpose lists have been collated by the writer, taken in different parts of the country at several dates, from the last century to the last month, comprising together several thousand signs, many of them, however, being mere variants or synonyms for the same object or quality, some being repet.i.tions of others and some of small value from uncertainty in description or authority, or both.

ONCE PROBABLY UNIVERSAL IN NORTH AMERICA.

The conclusion reached from the researches made is to the effect that before the changes wrought by the Columbian discovery the use of gesture ill.u.s.trated the remark of Quintilian upon the same subject (l. xi, c. 3) that "_In tanta per omnes gentes nationesque linguae diversitate hic mihi omnium hominum communis sermo videatur._"

Quotations may be taken from some old authorities referring to widely separated regions. The Indians of Tampa Bay, identified with the Timucua, met by Cabeca de Vaca in 1528, were active in the use of signs, and in his journeying for eight subsequent years, probably through Texas and Mexico, he remarks that he pa.s.sed through many dissimilar tongues, but that he questioned and received the answers of the Indians by signs "just as if they spoke our language and we theirs." Michaelius, writing in 1628, says of the Algonkins on or near the Hudson River: "For purposes of trading as much was done by signs with the thumb and fingers as by speaking." In Bossu's _Travels through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana_, _London_, 1771 (Forster's translation), an account is given of Monsieur de Belle-Isle some years previously captured by the Atak-apa, who remained with them two years and "conversed in their pantomimes with them." He was rescued by Governor Bienville and was sufficiently expert in the sign language to interpret between Bienville and the tribe. In Bushmann's _Spuren_, p. 424, there is a reference to the "Accocessaws on the west side of the Colorado, two hundred miles southwest of Nacogdoches," who use thumb signs which they understand: "_Theilen sich aber auch durch Daum-Zeichen mit, die sie alle verstehen._"

Omitting many authorities, and for brevity allowing a break in the continuity of time, reference may be made to the statement in Major Long's expedition of 1819, concerning the Arapahos, Kaiowas, Ietans, and Cheyennes, to the effect that, being ignorant of each other's languages, many of them when they met would communicate by means of signs, and would thus maintain a conversation without the least difficulty or interruption. A list of the tribes reported upon by Prince Maximilian von Wied-Neuweid, in 1832-'34, appears elsewhere in this paper. In Fremont's expedition of 1844 special and repeated allusion is made to the expertness of the Pai-Utes in signs, which is contradictory to the statement above made by correspondents. The same is mentioned regarding a band of Shoshonis met near the summit of the Sierra Nevada, and one of "Diggers," probably Chemehuevas, encountered on a tributary of the Rio Virgen.

Ruxton, in his _Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains_, _New York_, 1848, p. 278, sums up his experience with regard to the Western tribes so well as to require quotation: "The language of signs is so perfectly understood in the Western country, and the Indians themselves are such admirable pantomimists, that, after a little use, no difficulty whatever exists in carrying on a conversation by such a channel; and there are few mountain men who are at a loss in thoroughly understanding and making themselves intelligible by signs alone, although they neither speak nor understand a word of the Indian tongue."

Pa.s.sing to the correspondents of the writer from remote parts of North America, it is important to notice that Mr. J.W. Powell, Indian superintendent, reports the use of sign language among the Kutine, and Mr. James Lenihan, Indian agent, among the Selish, both tribes of British Columbia. The Very Rev. Edward Jacker, while contributing information upon the present use of gesture language among the Ojibwas of Lake Superior, mentions that it has fallen into comparative neglect because for three generations they had not been in contact with tribes of a different speech. Dr. Francis H. Atkins, acting a.s.sistant surgeon, United States Army, in forwarding a contribution of signs of the Mescalero Apaches remarks: "I think it probable that they have used sign language rather less than many other Indians. They do not seem to use it to any extent at home, and abroad the only tribes they were likely to come into contact with were the Navajos, the Lipans of old Mexico, and the Comanches. Probably the last have been almost alone their visiting neighbors. They have also seen the Pueblos a little, these appearing to be, like the Phoenicians of old, the traders of this region." He also alludes to the effect of the Spanish, or rather _lingua Mexicana_, upon all the Southern tribes and, indeed, upon those as far north as the Utes, by which recourse to signs is now rendered less necessary.

Before leaving this particular topic it is proper to admit that, while there is not only recorded testimony to the past use of gesture signs by several tribes of the Iroquoian and Algonkian families, but evidence that it still remains, it is, however, noticeable that these families when met by their first visitors do not appear to have often impressed the latter with their reliance upon gesture language to the same extent as has always been reported of the tribes now and formerly found farther inland. An explanation may be suggested from the fact that among those families there were more people dwelling near together in communities speaking the same language, though with dialectic peculiarities, than became known later in the farther West, and not being nomadic their intercourse with strange tribes was less individual and conversational. Some of the tribes, in especial the Iroquois proper, were in a comparatively advanced social condition. A Mohawk or Seneca would probably have repeated the arrogance of the old Romans, whom in other respects they resembled, and compelled persons of inferior tribes to learn his language if they desired to converse with him, instead of resorting to the compromise of gesture speech, which he had practiced before the prowess and policy of the confederated Five Nations had gained supremacy and which was still used for special purposes between the members of his own tribe. The studies thus far pursued lead to the conclusion that at the time of the discovery of North America all its inhabitants practiced sign language, though with different degrees of expertness, and that while under changed circ.u.mstances it was disused by some, others, in especial those who after the acquisition of horses became nomads of the Great Plains, retained and cultivated it to the high development now attained, from which it will surely and speedily decay.

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 Owa.s.so, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, from one of whom, Natci, 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 Zuni, 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, Hento (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 a.s.serts 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 pa.s.ses 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 a.s.serted 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sume that those signs const.i.tute _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 a.s.serting that the tribes so met do not understand _the_ sign language, or perhaps that they do not use signs at all. This precise a.s.sertion 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 ident.i.ty 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 cla.s.sic 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 Inst.i.tute 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, Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 c.o.c.kade worn by that dignitary on grand occasions three generations ago."

The specific comparisons made, especially by Dr. Was.h.i.+ngton 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, const.i.tuting 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 s.e.xual 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 fas.h.i.+on," 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.

SURVIVAL IN GESTURE.

Even when the specific practice of sign language has been generally discontinued for more than one generation, either from the adoption of a jargon or from the common use of the tongue of the conquering English, French, or Spanish, some of the gestures formerly employed as subst.i.tutes for words may survive as a customary accompaniment to oratory or impa.s.sioned conversation, and, when ascertained, should be carefully noted. An example, among many, may be found in the fact that the now civilized Muskoki or Creeks, as mentioned by Rev. H.F.

Buckner, when speaking of the height of children or women, ill.u.s.trate their words by holding their hands at the proper elevation, palm up; but when describing the height of "soulless" animals or inanimate objects, they hold the palm downward. This, when correlated with the distinctive signs of other Indians, is an interesting case of the survival of a practice which, so far as yet reported, the oldest men of the tribe, now living only remember to have once existed. It is probable that a collection of such distinctive gestures among the most civilized Indians would reproduce enough of their ancient system to be valuable, while possibly the persistent inquirer might in his search discover some of its surviving custodians even among Chabta or Cheroki, Innuit or Abnaki, Klamath or Nutka.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN IDENt.i.tY OF SIGNS AND THEIR USE AS AN ART.

The general report that there is but one sign language in North America, any deviation from which is either blunder, corruption, or a dialect in the nature of provincialism, may be examined in reference to some of the misconceived facts which gave it origin and credence.

It may not appear to be necessary that such examination should be directed to any mode of collecting and comparing signs which would amount to their distortion. It is useful, however, to explain that distortion would result from following the views of a recent essayist, who takes the ground that the description of signs should be made according to a "mean" or average. There can be no philosophic consideration of signs according to a "mean" of observations. The proper object is to ascertain the radical or essential part as distinct from any individual flourish or mannerism on the one hand, and from a conventional or accidental abbreviation on the other; but a mere average will not accomplish that object. If the hand, being in any position whatever, is, according to five observations, moved horizontally one foot to the right, and, according to five other observations, moved one foot horizontally to the left, the "mean"

or resultant will be that it is stationary, which sign does not correspond with any of the ten observations. So if six observations give it a rapid motion of one foot to the right and five a rapid motion of the same distance to the left, the mean or resultant would be somewhat difficult to express, but perhaps would be a slow movement to the right for an inch or two, having certainly no resemblance either in essentials or accidents to any of the signs actually observed. In like manner the tail of the written letter "_y_" (which, regarding its mere formation, might be a graphic sign) may have in the chirography of several persons various degrees of slope, may be a straight line, or looped, and may be curved on either side; but a "mean" taken from the several ma.n.u.scripts would leave the unfortunate letter without any tail whatever, or travestied as a "_u_" with an amorphous flourish. A definition of the radical form of the letter or sign by which it can be distinguished from any other letter or sign is a very different proceeding. Therefore, if a "mean" or resultant of any number of radically different signs to express the same object or idea, observed either among several individuals of the same tribe or among different tribes, is made to represent those signs, they are all mutilated and ignored as distinctive signs, though the result may possibly be made intelligible in practice, according to principles mentioned in the present paper. The expedient of a "mean" may be practically useful in the formation of a mere interpreter's jargon, but it elucidates no principle. It is also convenient for any one determined to argue for the uniformity of sign language as against the variety in unity apparent in all the realms of nature. On the "mean"

principle, he only needs to take his two-foot rule and arithmetical tables and make all signs his signs and his signs all signs. Of course they are uniform, because he has made them so after the brutal example of Procrustes.

In this connection it is proper to urge a warning that a mere sign talker is often a bad authority upon principles and theories. He may not be liable to the satirical compliment of d.i.c.kens's "brave courier," who "understood all languages indifferently ill"; but many men speak some one language fluently, and yet are wholly unable to explain or a.n.a.lyze its words and forms so as to teach it to another person, or even to give an intelligent summary or cla.s.sification of their own knowledge. What such a sign talker has learned is by memorizing, as a child may learn English, and though both the sign talker and the child may be able to give some separate items useful to a philologist or foreigner, such items are spoiled when colored by the attempt of ignorance to theorize. A German who has studied English to thorough mastery, except in the mere facility of speech, may in a discussion upon some of its principles be contradicted by any mere English speaker, who insists upon his superior knowledge because he actually speaks the language and his antagonist does not, but the student will probably be correct and the talker wrong. It is an old adage about oral speech that a man who understands but one language understands none. The science of a sign talker possessed by a restrictive theory is like that of Mirabeau, who was greater as an orator than as a philologist, and who on a visit to England gravely argued that there was something seriously wrong in the British mind because the people would persist in saying "give me some bread"

instead of "_donnez-moi du pain_," which was so much easier and more natural. A designedly ludicrous instance to the same effect was Hood's arraignment of the French because they called their mothers "mares"

and their daughters "fillies." It is necessary to take with caution any statement from a person who, having memorized or hashed up any number of signs, large or small, has decided in his conceit that those he uses are the only genuine Simon Pure, to be exclusively employed according to his direction, all others being counterfeits or blunders.

His vocabulary has ceased to give the signs of any Indian or body of Indians whatever, but becomes his own, the proprietors.h.i.+p of which he fights for as if secured by letters-patent. When a sign is contributed by one of the present collaborators, which such a sign talker has not before seen or heard of, he will at once condemn it as bad, just as a United States Minister to Vienna, who had been nursed in the mongrel Dutch of Berks County, Pennsylvania, declared that the people of Germany spoke very bad German.

An argument for the uniformity of the signs of our Indians is derived from the fact that those used by any of them are generally understood by others. But signs may be understood without being identical with any before seen. The entribal as well as intertribal exercise of Indians for generations in gesture language has naturally produced great skill both in expression and reception, so as to render them measurably independent of any prior mutual understanding, or what in a system of signals is called preconcert. Two accomplished army signalists can, after sufficient trial, communicate without having any code in common between them, one being mutually devised, and those specially designed for secrecy are often deciphered. So, if any one of the more conventional signs is not quickly comprehended, an Indian skilled in the principle of signs resorts to another expression of his flexible art, perhaps reproducing the gesture unabbreviated and made more graphic, perhaps presenting either the same or another conception or quality of the same object or idea by an original portraiture.

An impression of the community of signs is the more readily made because explorers and officials are naturally brought into contact more closely with those individuals of the tribes visited who are experts in sign language than with their other members, and those experts, on account of their skill as interpreters, are selected as guides to accompany the visitors. The latter also seek occasion to be present when signs are used, whether with or without words, in intertribal councils, and then the same cla.s.s of experts comprises the orators, for long exercise in gesture speech has made the Indian politicians, with no special effort, masters of the art acquired by our public speakers only after laborious apprentices.h.i.+p. The whole theory and practice of sign language being that all who understand its principles can make themselves mutually intelligible, the fact of the ready comprehension and response among all the skilled gesturers gives the impression of a common code. Furthermore, if the explorer learn to employ with ingenuity the signs used by any of the tribes, he will probably be understood in any other by the same cla.s.s of persons who will surround him in the latter, thereby confirming him in the "common" theory. Those of the tribe who are less skilled, but who are not noticed, might be unable to catch the meaning of signs which have not been actually taught to them, just as ignorant persons among us cannot derive any sense from newly-coined words or those strange to their habitual vocabulary, which, though never before heard, linguistic scholars would instantly understand and might afterward adopt.

It is also common experience that when Indians find that a sign which has become conventional among their tribe is not understood by an interlocutor, a self-expressive sign is subst.i.tuted for it, from which a visitor may form the impression that there are no conventional signs. It may likewise occur that the self-expressive sign subst.i.tuted will be met with by a visitor in several localities, different Indians, in their ingenuity, taking the best and the same means of reaching the exotic intelligence.

There is some evidence that where sign language is now found among Indian tribes it has become more uniform than ever before, simply because many tribes have for some time past been forced to dwell near together at peace. A collection was obtained in the spring of 1880, at Was.h.i.+ngton, from a united delegation of the Kaiowa, Comanche, Apache, and Wichita tribes, which was nearly uniform, but the individuals who gave the signs had actually lived together at or near Anadarko, Indian Territory, for a considerable time, and the resulting uniformity of their signs might either be considered as a jargon or as the natural tendency to a compromise for mutual understanding--the unification so often observed in oral speech, coming under many circ.u.mstances out of former heterogeneity. The rule is that dialects precede languages and that out of many dialects comes one language. It may be found that other individuals of those same tribes who have from any cause not lived in the union explained may have signs for the same ideas different from those in the collection above mentioned. This is probable, because some signs of other representatives of one of the component bodies--Apache--have actually been reported differing from those for the same ideas given by the Anadarko group. The uniformity of the signs of those Arapahos, Cheyennes, and Sioux who have been secluded for years at one particular reservation, so far as could be done by governmental power, from the outer world, was used in argument by a correspondent; but some collected signs of other Cheyennes and Sioux differ, not only from those on the reservation, but among each other. Therefore the signs used in common by the tribes at the reservation seem to have been modified and to a certain extent unified.

The result of the collation and a.n.a.lysis of the large number of signs collected is that in numerous instances there is an entire discrepancy between the signs made by different bodies of Indians to express the same idea, and that if any of these are regarded as rigidly determinate, or even conventional with a limited range, and used without further devices, they will fail in conveying the desired impression to any one unskilled in gesture as an art, who had not formed the same precise conception or been instructed in the arbitrary motion. Few of the gestures that are found in current use are, in their origin, conventional. They are only portions, more or less elaborate, of obvious natural pantomime, and those proving efficient to convey most successfully at any time the several ideas became the most widely adopted, liable, however, to be superseded by more appropriate conceptions and delineations. The skill of any tribe and the copiousness of its signs are proportioned first to the necessity for their use, and secondly to the accidental ability of the individuals in it who act as custodians and teachers, so that the several tribes at different times vary in their degree of proficiency, and therefore both the precise mode of semiotic expression and the amount of its general use are always fluctuating. Sign language as a product of evolution has been developed rather than invented, and yet it seems probable that each of the separate signs, like the several steps that lead to any true invention, had a definite origin arising out of some appropriate occasion, and the same sign may in this manner have had many independent origins due to ident.i.ty in the circ.u.mstances, or if lost, may have been reproduced.

The process is precisely the same as that observed among deaf-mutes.

One of those unfortunate persons, living with his speaking relatives, may invent signs which the latter are taught to understand, though strangers sometimes will not, because they may be by no means the fittest expressions. Should a dozen or more deaf-mutes, possessed only of such crude signs, come together, they will be able at first to communicate only on a few common subjects, but the number of those and the general scope of expression will be continually enlarged. Each one commences with his own conception and his own presentment of it, but the universality of the medium used makes it sooner or later understood. This independent development, thus creating diversity, often renders the first interchange of thought between strangers slow, for the signs must be self-interpreting. There can be no natural universal language which is absolute and arbitrary. When used without convention, as sign language alone of all modes of utterance can be, it must be tentative, experimental, and flexible. The mutes will also resort to the invention of new signs for new ideas as they arise, which will be made intelligible, if necessary, through the ill.u.s.tration and definition given by signs formerly adopted, so that the fittest signs will be evolved, after rivalry and trial, and will survive. But there may not always be such a preponderance of fitness that all but one of the rival signs shall die out, and some, being equal in value to express the same idea or object, will continue to be used indifferently, or as a matter of individual taste, without confusion. A multiplication of the numbers confined together, either of deaf-mutes or of Indians whose speech is diverse, will not decrease the resulting uniformity, though it will increase both the copiousness and the precision of the vocabulary. The Indian use of signs, though maintained by linguistic diversities, is not coincident with any linguistic boundaries. The tendency is to their uniformity among groups of people who from any cause are brought into contact with each other while still speaking different languages. The longer and closer such contact, while no common tongue is adopted, the greater will be the uniformity of signs.

Colonel Dodge takes a middle ground with regard to the ident.i.ty of the signs used by our Indians, comparing it with the dialects and provincialisms of the English language, as spoken in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. But those dialects are the remains of actually diverse languages, which to some speakers have not become integrated.

In England alone the provincial dialects are traceable as the legacies of Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Danes, with a varying amount of Norman influence. A thorough scholar in the composite tongue, now called English, will be able to understand all the dialects and provincialisms of English in the British Isles, but the uneducated man of Yorks.h.i.+re is not able to communicate readily with the equally uneducated man of Somersets.h.i.+re. This is the true distinction to be made. A thorough sign talker would be able to talk with several Indians who have no signs in common, and who, if their knowledge of signs were only memorized, could not communicate together. So also, as an educated Englishman will understand the attempts of a foreigner to speak in very imperfect and broken English, a good Indian sign expert will apprehend the feeble efforts of a tyro in gestures. But Colonel Dodge's conclusion that there is but one true Indian sign language, just as there is but one true English language, is not proved unless it can be shown that a much larger proportion of the Indians who use signs at all, than present researches show to be the case, use identically the same signs to express the same ideas. It would also seem necessary to the parallel that the signs so used should be absolute, if not arbitrary, as are the words of an oral language, and not independent of preconcert and self-interpreting at the instant of their invention or first exhibition, as all true signs must originally have been and still measurably remain. All Indians, as all gesturing men, have many natural signs in common and many others which are now conventional. The conventions by which the latter were established occurred during long periods, when the tribes forming them were so separated as to have established altogether diverse customs and mythologies, and when the several tribes were with such different environment as to have formed varying conceptions needing appropriate sign expression. The old error that the North American Indians const.i.tute one h.o.m.ogeneous race is now abandoned. Nearly all the characteristics once alleged as segregating them from the rest of mankind have proved not to belong to the whole of the pre-Columbian population, but only to those portions of it first explored. The practice of scalping is not now universal, even among the tribes least influenced by civilization, if it ever was, and therefore the cultivation of the scalp-lock separated from the rest of the hair of the head, or with the removal of all other hair, is not a general feature of their appearance. The arrangement of the hair is so different among tribes as to be one of the most convenient modes for their pictorial distinction. The war paint, red in some tribes, was black in others; the mystic rites of the calumet were in many regions unknown, and the use of wampum was by no means extensive. The wigwam is not the type of native dwellings, which show as many differing forms as those of Europe. In color there is great variety, and even admitting that the term "race" is properly applied, no competent observer would characterize it as red, still less copper-colored. Some tribes differ from each other in all respects nearly as much as either of them do from the lazzaroni of Naples, and more than either do from certain tribes of Australia. It would therefore be expected, as appears to be the case, that the conventional signs of different stocks and regions differ as do the words of English, French, and German, which, nevertheless, have sprung from the same linguistic roots. No one of those languages is a dialect of any of the others; and although the sign systems of the several tribes have greater generic unity with less specific variety than oral languages, no one of them is necessarily the dialect of any other.

Instead, therefore, of admitting, with present knowledge, that the signs of our Indians are "identical" and "universal," it is the more accurate statement that the systematic attempt to convey meaning by signs is universal among the Indians of the Plains, and those still comparatively unchanged by civilization. Its successful execution is by an _art_, which, however it may have commenced as an instinctive mental process, has been cultivated, and consists in actually pointing out objects in sight not only for designation, but for application and predication, and in suggesting others to the mind by action and the airy forms produced by action. To insist that sign language is uniform were to a.s.sert that it is perfect--"That faultless monster that the world ne'er saw."

FORCED AND MISTAKEN SIGNS.

Examination into the ident.i.ty of signs is complicated by the fact that in the collection and description of Indian signs there is danger lest the civilized understanding of them may be mistaken or forced. The liability to those errors is much increased when the collections are not taken directly from the Indians themselves, but are given as obtained at second-hand from white traders, trappers, and interpreters, who, through misconception in the beginning and their own introduction or modification of gestures, have produced a jargon in the sign, as well as in the oral intercourse. An Indian talking in signs, either to a white man or to another Indian using signs which he never saw before, catches the meaning of that which is presented and adapts himself to it, at least for the occasion. Even when he finds that his interlocutor insists upon understanding and presenting a certain sign in a manner and with a significance widely different from those to which he has been accustomed, it is within the very nature, tentative and elastic, of the gesture art--both performers being on an equality--that he should adopt the one that seems to be recognized or that is pressed upon him, as with much greater difficulty he has learned and adopted many foreign terms used with whites before attempting to acquire their language, but never with his own race.

Thus there is now, and perhaps always has been, what may be called a _lingua-franca_, in the sign vocabulary. It is well known that all the tribes of the Plains having learned by experience that white visitors expect to receive certain signs really originating with the latter, use them in their intercourse just as they sometimes do the words "squaw" and "papoose," corruptions of the Algonkian, and once as meaningless in the present West as the English terms "woman" and "child," but which the first pioneers, having learned them on the Atlantic coast, insisted upon treating as generally intelligible.