Remarks and illustrations connected with the signs for kill appear on pages 377 and 378, supra.

——­, to, with a knife.

Clinch the right hand and strike forcibly toward the ground before the breast from the height of the face. (Ute I.) “Appears to have originated when flint knives were still used.”

NO, NOT. (COMPARE NOTHING.)

The hand held up before the face, with the palm outward and vibrated to and fro. (Dunbar.)

The right hand waved outward to the right with the thumb upward. (Long; Creel.)

Wave the right hand quickly by and in front of the face toward the right. (Wied.) Refusing to accept the idea or statement presented.

Move the hand from right to left, as if motioning away.  This sign also means “I’ll have nothing to do with you.” (Burton.)

A deprecatory wave of the right hand from front to right, fingers extended and joined. (Arapaho I; Cheyenne V.)

Right-hand fingers extended together, side of hand in front of and facing the face, in front of the mouth and waved suddenly to the right. (Cheyenne II.)

Place the right hand extended before the body, fingers pointing upward, palm to the front, then throw the hand outward to the right, and slightly downward. (Absaroka I; Hidatsa I; Arikara I.) See Fig. 65, page 290.

The right hand, horizontal, palm toward the left, is pushed sidewise outward and toward the right from in front of the left breast. No, none, I have none, etc., are all expressed by this sign.  Often these Indians for no will simply shake the head to the right and left.  This sign, although it may have originally been introduced from the white people’s habit of shaking the head to express “no,” has been in use among them for as long as the oldest people can remember, yet they do not use the variant to express “yes.” (Dakota I.) “Dismissing the idea, etc.”

Place the opened relaxed right hand, pointing toward the left, back forward, in front of the nose or as low as the breast, and throw it forward and outward about eighteen inches.  Some at the same time turn the palm upward.  Or make the sign at the height of the breast with both hands.  Represents the shaking of the head. (Dakota IV.) The shaking of the head in negation is not so universal or “natural” as is popularly supposed, for the ancient Greeks, followed by the modern Turks and rustic Italians, threw the head back, instead of shaking it, for “no.”  Rabelais makes Pantagruel (Book 3) show by many quotations from the ancients how the shaking of the head was a frequent if not universal concomitant of oracular utterance—­not connected with negation.

Hold the flat hand edgewise, pointing upward before the right side of the chest, then throw it outward and downward to the right. (Dakota VI, VII.) Fig. 270.