Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 430 pages of information about Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes.

Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 430 pages of information about Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes.

In Fig. 193, taken from the same MS. drawing book, the conversation is about the lassoing, shooting, and final killing of a buffalo which has wandered to a camp.  The dotted lines indicate footprints.  The Indian drawn under the buffalo having secured the animal by the fore feet, so informs his companions, as indicated by the line drawn from his mouth to the object mentioned; the left-hand figure, having also secured the buffalo by the horns, gives his nearest comrade an opportunity to strike it with an ax, which he no doubt announces that he will do, as the line from his mouth to the head of the animal suggests.  The Indian in the upper left-hand corner is told by a squaw to take an arrow and join his companions, when he turns his head to inform her that he has one already, which fact he demonstrates by holding up the weapon.

[Illustration:  Fig. 193.]

The Mexican pictograph, Fig. 194, taken from Kingsborough, II, pt. 1, p. 100, is illustrative of the sign made by the Arikara and Hidatsa for tell and conversation. Tell me is:  Place the flat right hand, palm upward, about fifteen inches in front of the right side of the face, fingers pointing to the left and front; then draw the hand inward toward and against the bottom of the chin.  For conversation, talking between two persons, both hands are held before the breast, pointing forward, palms up, the edges being moved several times toward one another.  Perhaps, however, the picture in fact only means the common poetical image of “flying words.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 194.]

Fig. 195 is one of Landa’s characters, found in Rel. des choses de Yucatan p. 316, and suggests one of the gestures for talk and more especially that for sing, in which the extended and separated fingers are passed forward and slightly downward from the mouth—­“many voices.”  Although the last opinion about the bishop is unfavorable to the authenticity of his work, yet even if it were prepared by a Maya, under his supervision, the latter would probably have given him some genuine native conceptions, and among them gestures would be likely to occur.

[Illustration:  Fig. 195.]

The natural sign for hear, made both by Indians and deaf-mutes, consisting in the motion of the index, or the index and thumb joined, in a straight line to the ear, is illustrated in the Ojibwa pictograph Fig. 196, “hearing ears,” and those of the same people, Figs. 197 and 198, the latter of which is a hearing serpent, and the former means “I hear, but your words are from a bad heart,” the hands being thrown out as in the final part of a gesture for bad heart, which is made by the hand being closed and held near the breast, with the back toward the breast, then as the arm is suddenly extended the hand is opened and the fingers separated from each other. (Mandan and Hidatsa I.)

[Illustration:  Fig. 196.]

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Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.