Also compare the Maya character for the same idea of negation, Fig. 119, found in Landa, Relation des Choses de Yucatan, Paris, 1864, 316.  The Maya word for negation is “ma,” and the word “mak,” a six-foot measuring rod, given by Brasseur de Bourbourg in his dictionary, apparently having connection with this character, would in use separate the hands as illustrated, giving the same form as the gesture made without the rod.

Another sign for nothing, none, made by the Comanches, is:  Flat hand thrown forward, back to the ground, fingers pointing forward and downward.  Frequently the right hand is brushed over the left thus thrown out.

[Illustration:  Fig. 120.]

Compare the Chinese character for the same meaning, Fig. 120.  This will not be recognized as a hand without study of similar characters, which generally have a cross-line cutting off the wrist.  Here the wrist bones follow under the cross cut, then the metacarpal bones, and last the fingers, pointing forward and downward.

[Illustration:  Fig. 121.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 122.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 123.]

The Arapaho sign for child, baby, is the forefinger in the mouth, i.e., a nursing child, and a natural sign of a deaf-mute is the same.  The Egyptian figurative character for the same is seen in Fig. 121.  Its linear form is Fig. 122, and its hieratic is Fig. 123 (Champollion, Dictionnaire Egyptien, Paris, 1841, p. 31.)

[Illustration:  Fig. 124.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 125.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 126.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 127.]

These afford an interpretation to the ancient Chinese form for son, Fig. 124, given in Journ.  Royal Asiatic Society, I, 1834, p. 219, as belonging to the Shang dynasty, 1756, 1112 B.C., and the modern Chinese form, Fig. 125, which, without the comparison, would not be supposed to have any pictured reference to an infant with hand or finger at or approaching the mouth, denoting the taking of nourishment.  Having now suggested this, the Chinese character for birth, Fig. 126, is understood as the expression of a common gesture among the Indians, particularly reported from the Dakota, for born, to be born, viz:  Place the left hand in front of the body, a little to the right, the palm downward and slightly arched, then pass the extended right hand downward, forward, and upward, forming a short curve underneath the left, as in Fig. 127 (Dakota V).  This is based upon the curve followed by the head of the child during birth, and is used generically.  The same curve, when made with one hand, appears in Fig. 128.

[Illustration:  Fig. 128.]

It may be of interest to compare with the Chinese child the Mexican abbreviated character for man, Fig. 129, found in Pipart in Compte Rendu Cong.  Inter. des Americanistes, 2me Session, Luxembourg, 1877, 1878, II, 359.  The figure on the right is called the abbreviated form of that by its side, yet its origin may be different.