[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 Perou 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.