Hold the open left hand a foot or eighteen inches in front of the breast, palm downward or backward, fingers pointing toward the right and pass the right, back upward, with index extended, or all of the fingers extended, and pointing forward, about eighteen inches forward underneath the left through an arc from near the mouth.  Some at the same time move the left hand toward the breast. (Dakota IV.)

——­, Entering a.

The left hand is held with the back upward, and the right hand also with the back up is passed in a curvilinear direction down under the other, so as to rub against its palm, then up on the other side of it.  The left hand here represents the low door of the skin lodge and the right the man stooping down to pass in, (Long.)

Pass the flat right hand in short curves under the left, which is held a short distance forward. (Wied.) I have described the same sign.  It is not necessary to pass the hand more than once.  By saying curves, he seems to imply many passes.  If the hand is passed more than once it means repetition of the act. (Matthews; McChesney.) The conception is of the stooping to pass through the low entrance, which is often covered by a flap of skin, sometimes stretched on a frame, and which must be shoved aside, and the subsequent rising when the entrance has been accomplished.  A distinction is reported by a correspondent as follows:  “If the intention is to speak of a person entering the gesturer’s own lodge, the right hand is passed under the left and toward the body, near which the left hand is held; if of a person entering the lodge of another, the left hand is held further from the body and the right is passed under it and outward.  In both cases both hands are slightly curved and compressed.”  As no such distinction is reported by others it may be an individual invention or peculiarity.

A gliding movement of the extended hand, fingers joined, backs up, downward, then ascending, indicative of the stooping and resumption of the upright position in entering the same. (Arapaho I.)

(1) Sign for LODGE, the left hand being still in position used in making sign for LODGE; (2) forefinger and thumb of right hand brought to a point and thrust through the outline of an imaginary lodge represented by the left hand. (Cheyenne II.)

First make the sign for LODGE, then place the left hand, horizontal and slightly arched, before the body, and pass the right hand with extended index underneath the left—­forward and slightly upward beyond it. (Absaroka I; Dakota V; Shoshoni and Banak I; Wyandot I.)

Left hand (W), ends of fingers toward the right, stationary in front of the left breast; pass the right hand directly and quickly out from the breast under the stationary left hand, ending with the extended fingers of the right hand pointing outward and slightly downward, joined, palm downward flat, horizontal (W). (Dakota I.) “Gone under; covered.”