“Wonderful as the statement may appear, the signaling on a bright day, when the sun is in the proper direction, is done with a piece of looking-glass held in the hollow of the hand.  The reflection of the sun’s rays thrown on the ranks communicates in some mysterious way the wishes of the chief.  Once standing on a little knoll overlooking the valley of the South Platte, I witnessed almost at my feet a drill of about one hundred warriors by a Sioux chief, who sat on his horse on a knoll opposite me, and about two hundred yards from his command in the plain below.  For more than half an hour he commanded a drill, which for variety and promptness of action could not be equaled by any civilized cavalry of the world.  All I could see was an occasional movement of the right arm.  He himself afterwards told me that he used a looking-glass.” (Dodge’s Plains of the Great West, loc. cit., pp. 307, 308.)

FRIENDSHIP.

If two Indians [of the plains] are approaching one another on horseback, and they may, for instance, be one mile apart, or as far as they can see each other.  At that safe distance one wants to indicate to the other that he wishes to be friendly.  He does this by turning his horse around and traveling about fifty paces back and forth, repeating this two or three times; this shows to the other Indian that he is not for hostility, but for friendly relations.  If the second Indian accepts this proffered overture of friendship, he indicates the same by locking the fingers of both hands as far as to the first joints, and in that position raises his hands and lets them rest on his forehead with the palms either in or out, indifferently, as if he were trying to shield his eyes from the excessive light of the sun.  This implies, “I, too, am for peace,” or “I accept your overture.” (Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo I.) It is interesting in this connection to note the reception of Father Marquette by an Illinois chief who is reported to have raised his hands to his eyes as if to shield them from overpowering splendor.  That action was supposed to be made in a combination of humility and admiration, and a pretended inability to gaze on the face of the illustrious guest has been taken to be the conception of the gesture, which in fact was probably only the holding the interlocked hands in the most demonstrative posture.  An oriental gesture in which the flat hand is actually interposed as a shield to the eyes before a superior is probably made with the poetical conception erroneously attributed to the Indian.

The display of green branches to signalize friendly or pacific intentions does not appear to have been noticed among the North American Indians by trustworthy observers.  Captain Cook makes frequent mention of it as the ceremonial greeting among islands he visited.  See his Voyage toward the South Pole.  London, 1784, Vol.  II, pp. 30 and 35.  Green branches were also waved, in signal of friendship by the natives of the island of New Britain to the members of the expedition in charge of Mr. Wilfred Powell in 1878. Proceedings of the Royal Geological Society, February, 1881, p. 89.