[Illustration:  Fig. 129.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 130.]

The Chinese character for man, is Fig. 130, and may have the same obvious conception as a Dakota sign for the same signification:  “Place the extended index, pointing upward and forward before the lower portion of the abdomen.”

The Chinese specific character for woman is Fig. 131, the cross mark denoting the wrist, and if the remainder be considered the hand, the fingers may be imagined in the position made by many tribes, and especially the Utes, as depicting the pudendum muliebre, Fig. 132.

[Illustration:  Fig. 131.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 132.]

The Egyptian generic character for female is [Symbol:  semicircle] (Champollion, Dict.,) believed to represent the curve of the mammae supposed to be cut off or separated from the chest, and the gesture with the same meaning was made by the Cheyenne Titchkematski, and photographed, as in Fig. 133.  It forms the same figure as the Egyptian character as well as can be done by a position of the human hand.

[Illustration:  Fig. 133.]

The Chinese character for to give water is Fig. 134, which may be compared with the common Indian gesture to drink, to give water, viz:  “Hand held with tips of fingers brought together and passed to the mouth, as if scooping up water”, Fig. 135, obviously from the primitive custom, as with Mojaves, who still drink with scooped hands.

[Illustration:  Fig. 134.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 135.]

Another common Indian gesture sign for water to drink, I want to drink, is:  “Hand brought downward past the mouth with loosely extended fingers, palm toward the face.”  This appears in the Mexican character for drink, Fig. 136, taken from Pipart, loc. cit., p. 351. Water, i.e., the pouring out of water with the drops falling or about to fall, is shown in Fig. 137, taken from the same author (p. 349), being the same arrangement of them as in the sign for rain, Fig. 114, p. 344, the hand, however, being inverted. Rain in the Mexican picture writing is shown by small circles inclosing a dot, as in the last two figures, but not connected together, each having a short line upward marking the line of descent.

[Illustration:  Fig. 136.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 137.]

With the gesture for drink may be compared Fig. 138, the Egyptian Goddess Nu in the sacred sycamore tree, pouring out the water of life to the Osirian and his soul, represented as a bird, in Amenti (Sharpe, from a funereal stele in the British Museum, in Cooper’s Serpent Myths, p. 43).

[Illustration:  Fig. 138.]

The common Indian gesture for river or stream, water, is made by passing the horizontal flat hand, palm down, forward and to the left from the right side in a serpentine manner.