Part 2

Shame on you (Point one index at the person and draw the other along it several times in same direction).

You make me ashamed (Cover eyes and face with hands).

Mockery (Stick tongue out at person).

Disdain (Snap fingers toward person).

Scorn (Throw an imaginary pinch of sand at person).

Insolent defiance (Thumb to nose, hand spread).

Arrogant (Indicate swelled head).

Pompous (Indicate big chest).

Incredulity (Expose white of eye with finger, as though proving “No green there”).

I am no fool (Tap one side of the nose).

Joke (Rub side of nose with index).

Connivance (Winking one eye).

Puzzled (Scratch the head).

Crazy (Tap forehead with index then describe a circle with it).

Despair (Pulling the hair).

Sleepy (Put a fist in each eye).

Bellyache (Hands clasped across the belly).

Sick (A grimace and a limp dropping of the hands).

Applause (Clap hands).

Victory (Swing an imaginary flag over head).

Upon my honor (Draw a cross over heart or cross the hands over breast).

I am seeking (Looking about and pointing finger in same directions).

I am thinking (Lay index on brow, lower head and look out under brows).

I have my doubts (Slowly swing head from side to side).

I will not listen (Hold flat hands on ears).

I will not look (Cover eyes with hands).

I forget (Slowly shake head, and brush away something in air, near the forehead).

I claim exemption, or “Fins” or “Bar up” (Middle finger crossed on index).

I beg of you (Flat hand palm to palm, pointing to the person).

I pray (Clasped hands held up).

I am afraid, or surrender (Hold up both flat hands, palm forward).

I wind him around my finger (Make the action with right thumb and index around left index).

I have him under my thumb (Press firmly down with top of right thumb).

You surprise me (Flat hand on open mouth).

I send you a kiss (Kiss the finger tips of right hand and throw it forward).

Search me (Hold the coat flaps open, one in each hand).

Swim (Strike out with flat hands).

Dive (Flat hands together, moved in a curve, forward and down).

Will you come swimming? (Two fingers in V shape held up level).

Will you? or Is it so? (Look, nod and raise brows).

Fool or Ass (A thumb in each ear, flat hands up).

Cut-throat (Draw index across throat).

Indifference (A shoulder shrug).

Ignorance (A shrug and a head shake).

Pay (Hold out closed hand, palm up, rubbing thumb and index tips together).

Jew (Flat hands waved near shoulders, palms up).

Bribe (Hold hollow hand, palm up, behind one).

It is in my pocket (Slap pocket with flat hand).

Give me my bill (Beckon, then write on air).

Match (Make the sign of striking a match on the thigh).

Set it afire (Sign match, and then thrust it forward).

Pistol (Making barrel with left index, stock and hammer with right hooked on; snapping right index from thumb).

That tastes good (Smack the lips).

The food was good (Pat the stomach).

Bad taste (Grimace and spitting out).

Bad smell (Hold the nose).

Bend (With right hand bend left index).

Break (With fists touching, make as though to bend a stick, then swing the fists apart).

Hot (Wet middle finger in mouth, reach it forward and jerk it back).

Cold (Fists near shoulder and shaken).

Paint (Use flat right as a brush to paint flat left).

Shave (Use finger or thumb on face as a razor).

Wash (Revolve hands on each other as in washing).

Knife (With right fist as though holding knife, whittle left index).

Revolver (Hold out right fist with index extended and thumb up).

Gun or shooting (Hold hands as in aiming a gun).

Drive horses (Work the two fists, side by side).

Give me (Hold out flat hand, palm up).

Write (Make the action with index).

Strike (Strike down with fist).

Fighting (Make the fists menace each other).

Drinking (Lift right hand to mouth as though it held a glass).

Smoking (Make as though holding a pipe and drawing).

Rub it out (Wet tips of right fingers, and seem to rub).

Thank you (Bow and, at the same time, swing flat right, palm up, a little way down and to one side).

Church (Hands clasped, fingers in, but index fingers up and touching).

Get up (Raise flat right, palm up, from low up high).

Sit down (Drop flat right, palm down, from high, down low).

Here (Pointing down, hand swung in small circle).[1]

In all, 110; besides the compass points, the features of the face, the parts of the body, the numerals up to 20 or 30, and a great many half-established signs, such as book, telephone, ring the bell, etc., which, if allowed, would bring the number up to nearly 200.

As another line of observation, I have asked New York boys, “How many signs does the Broadway policeman use in regulating the traffic?” Any bright child remembers presently that the officer seldom speaks, could scarcely be heard if he did. Indeed, he relies chiefly on Sign Language and hourly uses the established signs for “Stop,” “Come on,” “Come here,” “Go right,” “Go left,” “Go back,” “Hurry up,” “Go easy,” “I warn you,” “I’ll punish you,” “Pass,” “Keep behind me,” “Scorn,” and, perhaps, one or two others.

While not infrequently the small boy responds with the sign of “insolent defiance” that is used the world ’round, and was probably invented by Cain and Abel.

Similarly, the car conductor uses the signs for “Do you want this car?” “Do you want transfer?” “How many?” “Go on,” as well as most of the above.

Evidently, then, the Sign Language is used of necessity in much of our life where speech is impossible.

CODES, ETC.

It is inevitable that a world-wide language be split into variant forms. Besides the fragmentary Sign Code among our children, the more copious list of signs among Latins, and the code of the Cistercian or Trappist Monks, there are the Deaf Code and the Sign Language of the American Indians. Only the two last are widely established and at all complete as languages to-day.

DEAF CODE

The Sign Language used by the deaf was originated in France by Abbé de l’Epée about 1759, with a view to facilitating the intercommunication of the deaf. His signs were largely arbitrary or founded on the spelling of French words, usually in abbreviated form, so that it was merely a short-hand of French done into finger-spelling.

While this was the case at its beginning, the deaf themselves had instinctively done so much in the way of introducing pantomime and expressive gesture, that they have half redeemed the Code from its unfortunate original plan, and, in so doing, have made themselves intelligible to an immensely larger audience.

THE INDIAN CODE

So far as I can learn, no student hitherto has compared the various methods without being convinced that the American Indian Sign Language is the best extant. It is theoretically perfect and practically complete. In order to make this evident, I must offer a definition and some comparative details.

_A true Sign Language is an established code of logical gestures to convey ideas; and is designed as an appeal to the eye, without the assistance of sounds, grimaces, apparatus, personal contact, written or spoken language, or reference to words or letters; preferably made by using only the hands and adjoining parts of the body._

Measured by these standards, there is only one true Gesture Language in the field to-day; that is the sign-talk of the American Indians. It is established over the whole area of the Great Plains; and, though varied locally, is essentially the same from Saskatchewan to Rio Grande.

In general, it is claimed that there are two well-marked dialects of this: the northern, which is a _whole hand_ and a _two-hand_ dialect; the central and southern, which is a _finger_ and _one-hand_ dialect.

The former is better for far signalling; the latter for conversation. There are, however, many exceptions to these rules; and, in any case, they are so close akin that Indians from opposite extremes of the Plains have no difficulty in conversing with each other.

The Cheyennes originally lived in a central region where they had intercourse with a dozen tribes whose spoken language differed from their own; so they became very expert sign-talkers, perhaps the best. They have amplified to the number of several thousand signs, and simplified until theirs has become largely a one-hand code; therefore, as far as possible, I make the Cheyenne sign-talk my standard. All signs herein given I have found in use among the southern Cheyennes and are understood to be Cheyenne except when another source is specifically mentioned.

Clark gives first place among gesture talkers to the Cheyennes and their associates the Arapahoes, whose sign-talk was the same, though their speech was very different, so that the signs for which he is authority may also be considered Cheyenne.

The signs given me as Indian by Sheeaka and his friend, Tom Frosted, should be cautiously received if one would study the ancient code. Sheeaka had in his family a deaf-mute, who probably imported some signs from the Deaf Code, as indicated.

In cases where there were different signs for the same idea, I have selected the simplest and clearest, the least like other signs; or, other things equal, the one most extensively used, preferring a one-hand to a two-hand sign.

Usually that sign is best from the locality where the idea is most familiar. Thus the Sioux sign for “tree squirrel” is poor; the Modoc sign is very good. The Navaho signs for “domestic sheep” are numerous and clearly differentiated; those of the north are not, and refer back to the “bighorn.” Southern signs for “snow” are descriptive and cumbrous, while those of the northern tribes are simple and perfect.

A COMPARISON OF THE TWO CODES

A comparison of the Deaf and Indian Codes seems to emphasize the superiority of the Indian. The Deaf was intended to convey, word by word, a vocal language; it assumes that you know the other man’s speech, and can spell. Whereas, the Indian was invented to over-ride linguistic barriers and, knowing nothing of spelling, deals only with ideas.

The next great advantage of Indian style is its picturesqueness. The two systems can be illustrated and fairly compared by the signs for the months.

First the Deaf:

January—Sign for _Month_, then _J_, _N_, and _R_, that is 4 signs.

June—Sign for _Month_, then _J_ and _N_, that is 3 signs.

July—Sign for _Month_, then _J_ and _L_, again 3 signs.

Whereas the Indian calls January the _Snow Moon_, thus _moon_ or “Horns in the sky” and _snow_, that is two signs. June is _Rose Moon_ i.e., _horns_ or _Crescent in the sky_ and _rose_ (the right hand plucking an imaginary petal from each finger tip of the left). July is the _Thunder Moon_, i.e., _horns in the sky_, then the right index darted downward in a quick zigzag to imitate _lightning_. All need but two signs each.

The first involving a certain amount of spelling is limited to those who can read, and who use that word. The second, touching nothing but the idea, is widely acceptable, much shorter, and visible much farther off. It was apparently developed for the safe distance beyond arrow range.

Again the Indian method is strong in its dignity. The deaf often spoil their sign-talk by grimacing, the Indian never does so. One may occasionally help the idea by facial expression, but it should be used with great reserve, as there is nothing more unlovely or likely to harm the study of the Sign Language than the excessive grimacing that one sometimes sees in an uneducated deaf-mute. The Indian sign-talker’s face is calm and little changed, his head is moved in graceful sweeps, and never jerked unless to express some jerky action. His communication is indeed a study in beautiful, dignified gesture. There is not an Indian sign in this book that depends on facial expression for its usefulness, and there are but few that involve the face in any way.

Last year (1910) my friend Hamlin Garland met a party of moving picture men returning from a business tour among the Indians. He asked, “Did you get two old chiefs talking together in the Sign Language?” They said “No, hadn’t heard of it.”

“Then,” he replied, “you have missed one of the most graceful and rewarding chances for your special art that the western country affords.”

They were so much impressed with his description that they went back. Having brought together two chiefs of diverse speech they got results on their films which amply justified their time and trouble.

Finally a large number of the signs used by the deaf are conventional and arbitrarily fixed, dating back about 100 years, whereas each Indian sign is the slow evolutionary product of ages, with its roots deep in human nature. It is never arbitrary, but so logical and so reasonable that it is easily and quickly learned.

Every interested person, therefore, must regret profoundly that the teachers of the deaf should have gone out of their way to fabricate an unnatural, localized code, when there was awaiting them ready-made, and already established, a system founded on universal human nature, old as the hills, full of the charms of grace and poetry, and so logical that any one of any race can learn it in a tithe of the time required for the acquisition of the merest smattering of a spoken language, and the adoption of which would at once have greatly lessened the handicap of the deaf. One can only suppose that the founders of the code were unaware of the other’s existence.

Undoubtedly actual service has done much to reform and redeem the Deaf Code and make it more nearly a true Sign Language, but one cannot help wishing that their teachers would take the inevitable step at once and adopt the natural system.

Thus we have logic with us as well as the opinion of ethnologic students in giving preference to the Indian System. While in the extent of usage honors are about even, I am credibly assured that about 100,000 people are daily using the Deaf Code and an equal number using the Indian.

It is my belief that an available popular Manual will soon establish the latter as the universal code and result in its further and full development.

ATTITUDE TOWARD THE SIGN LANGUAGE

There are two distinct attitudes toward Indian Sign Language:

_First_, that of the student who sees in it a beautiful product of evolution, a perfect demonstration of the subtle laws of speech growth, the outcome of human mind yearning for converse with human mind, rebellious at its shut-in loneliness, battering with its hands the prison walls, till it could reach out and signal to the next locked-in, before it had yet found the way of modulated sounds. This, then, was the means which responded to the demand for communion and mental fellowship before there was a spoken speech. It began, as all codes must, with the broadest, simplest root ideas, and expressed their inter-relationships at most by context, sequence, proximity, or emphasis, but not by inflection.

Every student of the Sign Language is impressed by this thought and very naturally considers every true sign of the old Sign Language a thing sacred, precious as a pre-Homeric manuscript. He believes that to modify it or tamper with it would be to rob it of all value as a living expression of growth, and much like trying to readjust the crystalline forms on a frost-covered pane by shaping them with a hot iron. The student recognizes it as his first and highest duty to make faithful, unadulterated, untooled records of the oldest types of signs. This is the academic attitude. I am fully in sympathy with it.

_Second_, the practical attitude which realizes that Sign Language, never dead, is coming to its renaissance and can serve many useful ends among us here to-day. But to complete its possibilities it must be brought up to date by the addition of elements that stand for the latest modern ideas; and therefore does not hesitate to seize on and adopt these elements wherever they may be found. Thus, it may be held, is a contamination of the thought by interminglement of spurious recent creations. But it is merely submitting the code to the ordinary rules of all language. We should remember, further, that the ancient signs, as well as the modern, were _invented by men who had need of them_. The only difference is that the one was invented recently, the other maybe thousands of years ago; and that without such changes the Sign Language could not serve its beneficent purpose to-day among the deaf, the distant, the roar-environed, the moving picture folk, and those of unknown speech about us. Hand-talk fully developed will find much good work to do; and it matters little where the elements of the code were gathered so long as they meet with general acceptation; which implies that they be _needed_, _serviceable_, and of _sound construction_. The forty odd Deaf Signs included here have been admitted on this basis.

PROPER NAMES

There is at least one place where all pure Sign Language must fail; that is in dealing with proper names, especially new proper names. If I wish to signal “New York State” to an expert sign-talker, I can use the nickname “Empire State” and signal “_Country great crowned_”; or, for “Kentucky” I can signal “_Country blue grass_”; or Boston, “_The Hub City_”; or Chicago “_Windy City_”; but when I come to South America or Oberammergau or Poughkeepsie, I am obliged to fall back on the white man’s method and spell the name. For this reason then we begin our sign-talk by teaching the one-handed sign alphabet of the deaf. The two-handed will answer, but obviously a one-handed sign is better than a two-handed, other things equal. We aim at simplicity; and there are many occasions when one has but one hand free.

TO WHAT PURPOSE?

My own interest in the study had been growing for thirty years, and to satisfy myself that it was not a mere fad of slight and passing import, I set down carefully the reasons for studying and using the Sign Language, not forgetting its limitations. I set these also in hostile array and will give them first:

It is useless in the dark.

It cannot serve over the telephone.

It can scarcely be written, except by cumbrous pictographs.

It cannot give new proper names; they must be spelled.

But the reasons for the study were more numerous and stronger.

1st. _It develops observation and accurate thinking._ All races that excel in sign-talking are noted for their keenness of observation. Which is cause and which effect one cannot certainly determine, but it is sure that this method of communication is excellent practice to develop observation, and it makes for a wonderfully graphic descriptive power.

Herein, perhaps, is its most enduring, the least obvious, claim to a high place. There is a sweet reasonableness, a mathematical accuracy, in the fabric of the Sign Language that has an insistent and reactionary effect on the mental processes and pictures of those who use it. Therefore, it is valuable for the kind of mind it makes.

2d. _It is easily learned._ Unlike most languages, it is very easily acquired, for most of the signs are natural in concept, and so logical that they explain themselves where their history is known. Six hundred signs (that is ideas) make a fairly good sign-talker.

3d. _It is Indian talk._ By means of this you can talk to any Plains Indian no matter what his speech; and there are many tribes each with its own tongue or dialect. In some measure it is understood and used by savages and keen observers all over the globe.

4th. _A cognate code is the talk of the deaf_; and is used the world round by them in preference to the manual alphabet when possible; so that a wide use of the much better Indian Sign Language will certainly result in their accepting it and thus tend to lessen the barrier between the deaf and their more fortunate brethren.

5th. _It is silent talk._ It can be used on occasions when it is necessary to give information, but improper or impossible to speak aloud. Thus, lecturers use it in directing their lanternist; friends use it for necessary information during musical performances; it is used at the bedside of the sick, the actors in a moving picture can utilize it, and so be comprehended the world round; the pantomime stage, forbidden to use speech, can easily make clear the plot by sign-talk.

In a recent letter, Prof. J. S. Long has furnished me with a touching instance (one that has since recurred) that indicates another and final service that the silent method can render: An eminent divine was on his deathbed. His life had been devoted to ministering to the deaf, he knew the Sign Language perfectly; for several hours before the end his power of ordinary speech had deserted him, but his mind was clear, and to the last he conversed freely with those about him, in this, the universal talk, the one which for its exercise depended on muscular powers that in his case were the last of all to fail.

6th. _It allows talk in an uproar._ It can be used when great noise makes it impossible to use the voice; therefore it can be of daily service in modern life, city or country, and each year it discovers new uses. Friends talk across a rackety thoroughfare or from a moving train; firemen and policemen, or sailors in a storm find it of growing service. The baseball umpire uses it when the roar of the multitude makes him voiceless; the catcher talks to the pitcher; the aeroplanist talks to his friends on earth; the stockholder on the curb buys and sells in it; the football captain or the army officer issues clear sign orders when the uproar of fight would drown even the trumpet call. The politician facing a shrieking mob may find it useful for conveying a few crude truths to his crude, unruly audience, thus opening the way for a more usual form of harangue, or failing in the attempt, he can at least inform his friends of his next move and his audience what he thinks of them. In St. Paul’s epoch-making address on the stairs of Jerusalem we have a good illustration of the first part of this.

7th. _It is practical far-talk._ It is a valuable method of talking at a distance, far beyond earshot. Compared with the other modes of far-signalling it has the great advantages of speed, for it gives a sentence while semaphore, Morse, or Myer code give a letter, and of inconspicuousness at short range, or in a crowd; also it is independent of apparatus.

8th. _It is a true universal language._ It is already established. Instinctively the whole world has adopted it in a measure; and daily proofs of this are seen. Rasmussen among the Eskimo would have been helpless, he tells us, for he knew not their tongue, and they not a word of his, but they were expert sign-talkers and the lingual barrier was swept away. So also Henry among the Mandans, and Butler among the Basutos, while a thousand other cases could be aligned.

It is so complete that Dr. W. C. Roe and many others regularly _preach_ and _lecture_ in the language of Signs, to congregations in which several spoken tongues are used and would be necessary to the preacher were he limited to sounds.

It is so fundamental indeed that it is the easiest means of communicating with animals; the best trainers of dogs and horses use Sign Language as the principal medium of command.

But, for lack of standards and codification, its use is much smaller than it might be; and yet larger than commonly supposed. At least 100 of the 725 signs herein given are in daily employ among hearing white folk in America. After a little extension of the study, as is inevitable with a standard code, one will be able to travel all over Europe, the world indeed, on Sign Language alone. No matter what the other man’s language may be, French, German, Russian, Greek, all are the same in the Sign Language because it expresses _ideas, not words_. This, then, is its chief obvious strength—_It is a universal language._