No contribution has been printed which asserted that any described sign is used by “all Indians,” for the reason that such statement is not admissible evidence unless the authority had personally examined all Indians.  If any credible person had affirmatively stated that a certain identical, or substantially identical, sign had been found by him, actually used by Abnaki, Absaroka, Arikara, Assiniboins, etc., going through the whole list of tribes, or any definite portion of that list, it would have been so inserted under the several tribal heads.  But the expression “all Indians,” besides being insusceptible of methodical classification, involves hearsay, which is not the kind of authority desired in a serious study.  Such loose talk long delayed the recognition of Anthropology as a science.  It is true that some general statements of this character are made by some old authors quoted in the Dictionary, but their descriptions are reprinted, as being all that can be used of the past, for whatever weight they may have, and they are kept separate from the linguistic classification given below.

Regarding the difficulties met with in the task proposed, the same motto might be adopted as was prefixed to Austin’s Chironomia:  “Non sum nescius, quantum susceperim negotii, qui motus corporis exprimere verbis, imitari scriptura conatus sim voces.” Rhet. ad Herenn, 1.3.  If the descriptive recital of the signs collected had been absolutely restricted to written or printed words the work would have been still more difficult and the result less intelligible.  The facilities enjoyed of presenting pictorial illustrations have been of great value and will give still more assistance in the complete work than in the present paper.

In connection with the subject of illustrations it may be noted that a writer in the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, Vol.  II, No. 5, the same who had before invented the mode of describing signs by “means” mentioned on page 330 supra, gives a curious distinction between deaf-mute and Indian signs regarding their respective capability of illustration, as follows:  “This French system is taught, I believe, in most of the schools for deaf-mutes in this country, and in Europe; but so great has been the difficulty of fixing the hands in space, either by written description or illustrated cuts, that no text books are used.  I must therefore conclude that the Indian sign language is not only the more natural, but the more simple, as the gestures can be described quite accurately in writing, and I think can be illustrated.”  The readers of this paper will also, probably, “think” that the signs of Indians can be illustrated, and as the signs of deaf-mutes are often identical with the Indian, whether expressing the same or different ideas, and when not precisely identical are always made on the same principle and with the same members, it is not easy to imagine any greater difficulty either