[Illustration:  Fig. 284.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 285.]

Place the back of the closed right hand transversely before the mouth, and rotate it forward and backward several times.  This gesture may be accompanied, as it sometimes is, by a motion of the jaws as if eating, to illustrate more fully the meaning of the rotation of the fist. (Kaiowa I; Comanche III; Wichita II; Apache I.) “Corn-eater; eating corn from the ear.”

Signified by the same motions with the thumbs and forefingers that are used in shelling corn.  The dwarf Ree (Arikara) corn is their peculiar possession, which their tradition says was given to them by a superior being, who led them to the Missouri River and instructed them how to plant it. (Rev. C.L.  Hall, in The Missionary Herald, April, 1880.) “They are the corn-shellers.”  Have seen this sign used by the Arikaras as a tribal designation. (Dakota II.)

ASSINABOIN.

Hands in front of abdomen, horizontal, backs outward, ends of fingers pointing toward one another, separated and arched (H), then, moved up and down and from side to side as though covering a corpulent body.  This sign is also used to indicate the Gros Ventres of the Prairie or Atsina. (Dakota I.)

Make the sign of cutting the throat. (Kutine I.) As the Assinaboins belong to the Dakotan stock, the sign generally given for the Sioux may be used for them also.

With the right hand flattened, form a curve by passing it from the top of the chest to the pubis, the fingers pointing to the left, and the back forward. (Shoshoni and Banak I.) “Big bellies.”

ATSINA, LOWER GROS VENTRE.

Both hands closed, the tips of the fingers pointing toward the wrist and resting upon the base of the joint, the thumbs lying upon, and extending over the middle joint of the forefingers; hold the left before the chest, pointing forward, palm up, placing the right, with palm down, just back of the left, and move as if picking small objects from the left with the tip of the right thumb. (Absaroka I; Shoshoni and Banak I.) “Corn-shellers.”

Bring the extended and separated fingers and thumb loosely to a point, flexed at the metacarpal joints; point them toward the left clavicle, and imitate a dotting motion as if tattooing the skin. (Kaiowa I; Comanche III; Apache II; Wichita II.) “They used to tattoo themselves, and live in the country south of the Dakotas.”

See also the sign of (Dakota I) under ASSINABOIN.

BANAK.

Make a whistling sound “phew” (beginning at a high note and ending about an octave lower); then draw the extended index across the throat from the left to the right and out to nearly at arm’s length.  They used to cut the throats of their prisoners. (Pai-Ute I.)

Major Haworth states that the Banaks make the following sign for themselves:  Brush the flat right hand backward over the forehead as if forcing back the hair.  This represents the manner of wearing the tuft of hair backward from the forehead.  According to this informant, the Shoshoni use the same sign for BANAK as for themselves.