Part 1

SIGN TALK

_A Universal Signal Code, Without Apparatus, for Use in the Army, the Navy, Camping, Hunting, and Daily Life_

By Ernest Thompson Seton

_Author of “Wild Animals I Have Known,” “Life Histories of Northern Animals,” “The Book of Woodcraft,” etc., etc._

_Chief of the Woodcraft League of America_

THE GESTURE LANGUAGE OF THE CHEYENNE INDIANS

With additional Signs used by other tribes, also a few necessary Signs from the code of the Deaf in Europe and America, and others that are established among our Policemen, Firemen, Railroad Men, and School Children

IN ALL 1,725

Prepared with assistance from General Hugh L. Scott, U. S. A.

The French and German equivalent words added by Lillian Delger Powers, M. D.

700 ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1918

_Copyright, 1918, by_ ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian_

PREFACE

In offering this book to the public after having had the manuscript actually on my desk for more than nine years, let me say frankly that no one realizes better than myself, now, the magnitude of the subject and the many faults of my attempt to handle it.

My attention was first directed to the Sign Language in 1882 when I went to live in Western Manitoba. There I found it used among the various Indian tribes as a common language, whenever they were unable to understand each other’s speech. In later years I found it a daily necessity when traveling among the natives of New Mexico and Montana, and in 1897, while living among the Crow Indians at their agency near Fort Custer, I met White Swan, who had served under General George A. Custer as a Scout. He had been sent across country with a message to Major Reno, so escaped the fatal battle; but fell in with a party of Sioux, by whom he was severely wounded, clubbed on the head, and left for dead. He recovered and escaped, but ever after was deaf and practically dumb. However, sign-talk was familiar to his people and he was at little disadvantage in daytime. Always skilled in the gesture code, he now became very expert; I was glad indeed to be his pupil, and thus in 1897 began seriously to study the Sign Language.

In 1900 I included a chapter on Sign Language in my projected Woodcraft Dictionary, and began by collecting all the literature. There was much more than I expected, for almost all early travellers in our Western Country have had something to say about this _lingua franca_ of the Plains.

As the material continued to accumulate, the chapter grew into a Dictionary, and the work, of course, turned out manifold greater than was expected. The Deaf, our School children, and various European nations, as well as the Indians, had large sign vocabularies needing consideration. With all important print on the subject I am fairly well conversant, besides which I have had large opportunities in the field and have tried to avail myself of them to the fullest extent, carrying my manuscript from one Indian tribe to another, seeking out always the best sign-talkers among them, collecting and revising, aiming to add all the best signs in use to those already on record.

* * * * *

The following are the chief printed works on Sign Language:

=1823. The Indian Language of Signs= by Major Stephen H. Long, published in his Expedition to the Rocky Mts., 1823, Vol. I, pp. 378–394. Gives 104 signs. The earliest extensive vocabulary on record.

=1880. Gesture Signs and Signals of the North American Indians= by Lieut. Col. Garrick Mallery. An elaborate and valuable 330 page quarto compilation from many contributors; published by the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880.

It was preliminary to the much more extended work published the year following, and combines in itself all the important vocabularies published up to that time, including: _Wm. Dunbar’s List_ pub. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., January 16, 1801; about 60 signs; _Prince Maximilian von Wied-Neuwied’s List_, Reise, Nord. Am., 1832–34, 1837; _Capt. R. F. Burton’s List_ pub. in “The City of the Saints,” 1862; _Dr. D. G. MacGowan’s List_ pub. in _Historical Magazine_, Vol. X, 1866, pp. 86–97; also Manuscript Lists supplied by _Col. R. I. Dodge_, _Dr. William H. Corbusier_, U. S. A., and about forty other contributors.

=1881. Sign Language Among the North American Indians= compared with that among other peoples and Deaf Mutes, by Col. Garrick Mallery; 290 page quarto, 286 illustrations, an elaborate examination of the history, origin, and nature of the Sign Language, with extensive vocabularies. Published in 1st Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1881.

=1885. The Indian Sign Language= by Capt. William Philo Clark, U. S. A., 244 pp. octavo, quite the best book on the subject, giving over 1,000 signs with photographic exactness; it is also one of the best early encyclopedic books on Indians in general; unfortunately, it is without illustrations and is out of print. Published by Hamersly & Co., of Philadelphia, 1885.

This is practically the only publication quoted in preparing this work. I have referred to it continually as a standard—as the highest available authority. (W. P. Clark was born July 27, 1845, at Deer River, Lewis Co., New York. Graduated from West Point June 15, 1868. Served on the Plains in 2d Cavalry during the Indian wars of 1876 to 1880. Died at Washington, D. C., September 23, 1884.)

HADLEY INDIAN SIGN PRINTS

About twenty-five years ago there lived in Anadarko, Indian Territory, an enthusiastic missionary worker named Lewis F. Hadley, known to the Indians as Ingonompashi.

He made a study of Sign Language in order to furnish the Indians with a pictographic writing, based on diagrams of the signs, and meant to be read by all Indians, without regard to their speech. Pointing to the Chinese writing as a model and parallel, he made a Sign Language font of 4,000 pictographic types for use in his projected works. He maintained that 110,793 Indians were at that time sign-talkers and he proposed to reach them by Sign-Language publications.

In pursuance of his plan, he issued the following:

=1887. List of the Primary Gestures in Indian Sign Talk.= “Only 19 copies were printed.” It was intended as a prodrome to “_extended works and a magazine in Hands-tal[k]ing_.”

It consists of 63 pages with 684 crude woodblocks of white lines on black ground, illustrating signs, alphabetically arranged, but without captions or text of any kind, except the explanation on the title page, abridged as above.

=1890. A Lesson in Sign Talk=, designed to show the use of the line showing the movement of the hands in the Indian Gesture Language, by In-go-nom-pa-shi, Fort Smith, Ark., 1890. Copyrighted by Lewis F. Hadley, 12 pp. A portrait of him by himself is on p. 11, inscribed “In-go-nom-pa-shi, drawn by himself at 60 years.”

It devotes 3 pages to general discussion of Sign Talk, 1½ pages to reform of our spelling, the rest is given to general remarks with 12 poor illustrations in white line, also a Scripture text with 15 signs drawn, the Lord’s Prayer with 55 drawn signs, and on p. 12, The Indian Little Star, a novel version of “Twinkle, Twinkle,” rendered in 97 drawn signs.

=1893. Indian Sign Talk.= Being a Book of Proofs of the matter printed or equivalent cards designed for teaching sign-talking Indians as much English as can be explained through the medium of their “Universal” Gesture Language, by Ingonompashi, copyrighted May 15, 1893, “only 75 copies are saved.”

This is Hadley’s most extended work. It is a dictionary of the Sign Language, in 268 large octavo leaves printed on one side only of each sheet.

It consists of 9 pages of Preface and general matter, 192 pp. of dictionary alphabetically arranged, each page having three gestures figured and beside each the equivalent in English. A total of 577 signs (including a double). Pages 193 to 205 are given to small reproductions of the sign drawings to illustrate “measurements of type”—his font—about 800 illustrations, two pages of appendix with compound sign words, and 14 illustrations, 1 page of black type, 18 in number, 53 pages of reading matter in signs, the above cited version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and the story of “Wolf and the White Man” in signs; the rest being Scripture texts and exhortations and the 19th Psalm, ending with the Lord’s Prayer.

The cards referred to I have. They consist of 571 separate cards with an illustrated sign on each and additional matter on the back. Besides which there are about 100 separate cards each with a scripture text, chapter, or sermonette on it, about 1,000 illustrations in all. The same being the matter of the dictionary proper reproduced on separate cards, the diagram on one side and the text on the other. The front matter and the type measurements do not, however, appear on the cards. Though poor as art, the drawings are of some value to the student.

This is the most ambitious work extant on the subject of Sign Language, but seems to be quite unknown to most ethnologists, and is not in any library, so far as I can learn, except the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the New York Public Library, the Library of Prof. J. C. Elsom of Wisconsin State University, and my own collection.

Of the 75 copies issued, only these 5 have been accounted for, but cards comprising the dictionary part were issued to the extent of 100,000 in sets of 571 each, and the reading matter on cards to the number of over 27,000.

=1910. The Sign Language=, by Prof. J. Schuyler Long, State School for the Deaf, Council Bluffs, Iowa, published at Washington, D. C., 1910. A valuable dictionary of about 1,500 signs used by the deaf, with 500 admirable photographic illustrations. Of these signs a large number seem to be arbitrary, but many are evidently of good construction and quite acceptable to Indian sign-talkers.

To these should be added:

=1832. La Mimica=, by Andrea de Jorio. “La mimica degli antichi investigata nel Gestire Napoletano.” Napoli, 1832, 8vo, 372 pp., 21 plates.

This interesting Italian work on Sign Language was written to show that the gestures figured on antique vases, etc., may be explained by their modern parallels, especially as observed in Naples. The 21 plates illustrate about one hundred of these gestures—about half of these are reproduced in Mallery’s 1881 publication.

=1854. Dactylologie= by Louis de Mas-Latrie. “Dictionnaire de Paleographie.” _Tome Quarante-septième_, pp. 179 to 366.

An extended study of Finger-talking as used by the deaf, the savages, etc. About 30 American Indian signs are described and compared with those of the deaf. No illustrations.

=1878. The Gesture Language=, by E. B. Tyler, in his studies in “Early History of Mankind,” third edition, 1878, pp. 14–81.

An interesting but not very important dissertation on the Gesture Language in use among the deaf, the Cistercian Monks, and the American Indians. No illustrations.

=1883. Sign Language, Remarks on=, by Wilfred Powells in his “Wanderings in a Wild Country.” An account of a three years’ residence in New Britain (to the north of New Guinea), 1883, pp. 254–261, with 14 good figures, showing the digital origin of numbers.

=1896. Arunta Sign Language=, E. C. Stirling. Rep. Horn Scientific Exped. to Central Australia; IV, pp. 111–125.

A considerable discourse on the Sign Language as used by the very primitive races. Many figures.

* * * * *

My thanks are due to General Hugh Lenox Scott, U. S. A., one of the best living sign-talkers, for a general review of the text, with new signs and explanations as indicated.

To John Homer Seger of Colony, Oklahoma, for much assistance. He was for 45 years in official control of the Indians at Darlington and Colony, Oklahoma. They were of the Southern Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho tribes chiefly. All his communications with them were in the Sign Language, so that he became one of our best experts. We have corresponded much, and during a prolonged visit to his home in August, 1915, we together went over every sign in this Manual. His signs were of the Cheyenne dialect.

To the Reverend Walter C. Roe (since dead) of Colony, Oklahoma, for many notes and comments. He was so expert that he preached every Sunday in the Sign Language.

To Sheeaka, or Cyiaka (The Mudhen), a Yanktonnais Sioux living at Standing Rock. He worked over my entire manuscript with me in 1912, endorsing most of the signs given by Clark, as well as adding those that are accredited to him. He was considered the best sign-talker on the reservation. His familiarity with the Sign Language was largely due to the fact that a member of his family was a deaf-mute, so that he has kept up the method while others of his generation are forgetting it. Frank Zahn, an intelligent and educated half-breed, acted as interpreter and helped with many suggestions.

In the autumn of 1916 I took my manuscript to Montana and received valuable help from the following Blackfoot Indians:

Bearhead, an old-time, full-blooded Piegan Indian, with a pronounced contempt for modern ways and modern signs; George Starr or Bull Calf, a half-blood, who acted as interpreter for Bearhead; Medicine Owl, Eagle Child, Three Bears, Two-Guns Whitecalf; all full-blooded Piegans and excellent sign-talkers.

Heavy Breast, a half-blood, acted as interpreter, with assistance from James C. Grant.

I am also indebted to Chasing Bear (Ma-to Hu-wa-pi), a Santee, and to Chief Tom Frosted, a Yanktonnais; both of Standing Rock. About a dozen good signs were given me by C. B. Ruggles, of Taos, New Mexico; and helpful information was received from Thomas La Forge, official interpreter for the Crow Nation, and Clitzo Dead-man, an educated Navaho at Ganado, Arizona.

In the spring of 1917 I spent some time among the Cheyennes at Concho, Oklahoma, checking up my lists. My chief source of information was Robert Burns, an intelligent and educated Cheyenne, who spoke excellent English and was also a good sign-talker. At the same time I got much valuable assistance from Cheyenne Fanny (Mrs. Hamilton), Deafy Fletcher, and numerous old Cheyennes and Arapahoes about the Post. Father Isadore, of the St. Patrick’s Mission, Anadarko, Oklahoma, and the Reverend Sherman Coolidge (Arapahoe), of Sheridan, Wyoming, also contributed.

In the case of special or unusual signs, I give the name of the best of my authorities; but when, according to my own observation, the sign is in general use and indorsed by practically all, no authority is cited.

I have to thank my friends James Mooney and F. W. Hodge of the Smithsonian Institution, and Professor J. Schuyler Long, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, for much helpful criticism; Professor Elmer D. Read, of the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, for a review of the Introduction; also, Doctor Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), Colonel W. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), Hamlin Garland, Miss Frances Densmore, and Mrs. Mary Austin for contributions or criticism.

For the French and German equivalent words I am chiefly indebted to Doctor Lillian Delger Powers, of Mt. Kisco, New York. Some assistance was given by Miss Dorothy Dwenger, of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Harry G. Seides, Professor of German, Jersey City High School, New Jersey.

The drawings throughout are by myself.

ERNEST THOMPSON SETON.

INTRODUCTION

ITS ANTIQUITY

Many thoughtful men have been trying for a century, at least, to give mankind a world-speech which would overstep all linguistic barriers, and one cannot help wondering why they have overlooked the Sign Language, the one mode common to all mankind, already established and as old as Babel. Yes, more ancient than the hills.

As far back as the records go, we find the Sign Language in use. General Hugh L. Scott has pointed out nineteen examples in Homer. Greek vases, Japanese bronzes, ancient Hindu statuary, as well as songs and legends older than history, give testimony in like tenor. While Egyptologists remind us that the oldest records show, not only that the Sign Language was then used, but that the one original code was much like that in use to-day. The fact that it is yet found all over the world wherever man is man, is proof of its being built on human nature in the beginnings. We might even argue that it is more ancient than speech.

Ideas certainly came before the words that express them. The idea of “hunger” must be a thousand times as old as any existing “word” for “hunger.” When it became necessary to communicate to another the idea of hunger, it certainly was easier and more direct to communicate it by gesture than by word. The word had, perforce, to be more or less arbitrary, but the gesture was logical, and could at once indicate the pain, its place, and even hint at the cause.

The possible variations of a mere squeak in a concealed pipe are obviously less in number and far less graphic and logical than the various movements of two active, free-moving, compound, visible parts of the body that utilize all the dimensions of space, all the suggestions of speed, motion, physical form and action, juxtaposition, yes, even a measure of sound, and that could in a multitude of cases reproduce the very idea itself.

Animals have far more gestures to express thoughts and emotions than they have sounds, and children instinctively use gestures for various ideas long before they acquire the sound for them. In all races as a rule the very young children’s gestures are the same, but the different words imposed by the different mothers have little or nothing in common, and no obvious basis in logic. All of which goes to prove the greater antiquity of eye-talk over ear-talk. To which conclusion we are forced also by the superiority of sight over hearing as a sense. “Seeing is believing,” is convincement: hearing is more open to challenge.

Nor can the sign-talk have changed radically, for it is founded on the basic elements of human make-up, and on mathematics, and is so perfectly ideographic that no amount of bad presentation can completely divert attention from the essential thought to the vehicle; while punning is an impossibility.

It had all the inherent possibilities of speech, was indeed capable of even greater subtleties, as we have noted, and had a far greater distance range, three or four times that of spoken words.

In view of the greater antiquity and many advantages that hand gestures have over spoken language, one is prompted to ask: Why did it not develop and continue man’s chief mode of inter-communication? The answer is, doubtless, partly because it was useless in the dark or when the person was out of sight or partly hidden by intervening things. Diagrammatically expressed it was thus:

Speech therefore covers all directions night and day.

Gesture covers one-third of the circle in hours of light.

Therefore speech serves six times as many occasions as gesture.

But the chief reason for the triumph of the appeal to the ear is doubtless because the hands were in constant use for other things; the tongue was not; was indeed practically free to specialize for this end.

ITS UNIVERSALITY

Being so fundamental, ancient, and persistent, Sign Language is, _perforce_, universal. In some measure it is used by every race on earth to-day. Eskimo and Zulu, Japanese and Frenchman, Turk and Aztec, Greek and Patagonian. And whenever two men of hopelessly diverse speech have met, they have found a medium of thought exchange in the old Sign Language—the pantomimic suggestion of ideas.

Latin races are proverbially hand-talkers, so that the Sign Language is more widely used among them than with Anglo-Saxons.

But the American Plains Indian is undoubtedly the best sign-talker the world knows to-day. There are, or were, some thirty different tribes with a peculiar speech of their own, and each of these communicated with the others by use of the simple and convenient sign-talk of the plains. It is, or was, the language of Western trade and diplomacy as far back as the records go. Every traveller who visited the Buffalo Plains had need to study and practise this Western Volapuk, and all attest its simplicity, its picturesqueness, its grace, and its practical utility.

Many of the best observers among these have left us long lists of signs in use, Alexander Henry in his gossipy journal among the Mandans of the Missouri in 1806 tells us of the surprise and interest he felt in watching two Indian chiefs of different tribes who conversed freely for hours on all subjects of common interest, conveying their ideas accurately by nothing but simple gestures.

The European races are much less gifted as sign-talkers. But we all have a measure of it that is a surprise to most persons when first confronted with the facts. Our school children especially make daily use of the ancient signals.

AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN

In taking observations among school-boys and girls, I had this uniform experience: All denied any knowledge of the Sign Language, _at first_, but were themselves surprised on discovering how much of it they had in established use.

One very shy little girl—so shy that she dared not speak—furnished a good illustration:

“Do you use the Sign Language in your school?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Do you learn any language but English?”

She nodded.

“What is the use of learning any other than English?”

She raised her right shoulder in the faintest possible shrug and at the same time turned her right palm slightly up.

“Now,” was my reply, “don’t you see you have answered all my three questions in signs which you said you did not use?”

Following the subject, I said: “What does this mean?” and held up my right hand with the first and second fingers crossed.

“Pax,” she whispered; and then, after further trials, I learned that at least thirty signs were in daily use in that local school.

This was in England. In America the sign “Pax,” or “King’s cross,” is called “King’s X,” “Fines” or “Fins” or “Fends,” “Bars up” or “Truce,” meaning always, “I claim immunity.”

This is a very ancient sign and seems to refer to the right of sanctuary. The name “King’s cross,” used occasionally in England, means probably the sanctuary in the King’s palace.

In general I found about 150 gesture signals in established use among American school children, namely:

Me (Tap one’s own chest).

You (Pointing to you).

Yes (Nod).

No (Shake head).

Good (Nod and clap hands).

Bad (Shake head and grimace).

Go (Pushing flat hand forward, palm forward).

Come (Drawing in flat hand, palm toward one).

Hurry (The same repeated vigorously several times).

Come for a moment (Beckon with forefinger, hand unmoved).

Stop (Flat hand held up, palm forward).

Gently (Flat hand held low, palm down, gently waved).

Good-bye (Flat hand held high, palm down and forward, fingers quickly waved up and down).

Up (Point up).

High (Flat hand, palm down, held up at arm’s length).

Deep (Left flat hand palm down at level of mouth, right palm up, as low as possible).

Heaven (Point up very high and look up).

Down (Point down).

Forward (Swing index forward and down in a curve).

Backward (Jerk thumb over shoulder).

Across (Hold left hand out flat, palm down, run right index across it).

Over or Above (Hold out flat left, palm down, and above it hold ditto right).

Under (Reverse of foregoing).

Hush (Index finger on lips).

Listen (Curved hand behind ear).

Look (Flat hand over eyes).

Look there (Point and look in same direction).

Touch (Reach out and touch with index).

Taste (Lay finger on tongue).

Smell (Hold palm to nose).

Friendship (Hand shake).

Warning (Index finger held up).

Threatening (Fist held up).

Weeping (With index finger at each eye, trace course of tears).