Part 16 (1/2)

A sign for _stone_ is as follows: With the back of the arched right hand (H) strike repeatedly in the palht of the breast and about a foot in front; the ends of the fingers point in opposite directions (_Dakota_ I) Froestive sign for _knife_ is reported, viz: Cut past the ht hand (_Wied_) This probably refers to the general practice of cutting off food, as ed and then separated fro e with fat and entrails, the Indian delicacies

An old sign for _toe of the right hand, held vertically, down over the left arm (_Wied_) This is still employed, at least for a sible without special knowledge The essential point is laying the extended right hand in the bend of the left elbow The sliding down over the left arm is an almost unavoidable but quite unnecessary accon, which indicates the way in which the hatchet is usually carried

Pipes, whips, bows and arrows, fans, and other dress or emblematic articles of the ”buck” are seldom or never carried in the bend of the left elbow as is the ax The pipe is usually held in the left hand

The following sign for _Indian village_ is given by Wied: Place the open thuer of each hand opposite to each other, as if tobetween them a small interval; afterward es of the tribes hich the author was longest resident, particularly the Mandans and Arikaras, were surrounded by a strong circular stockade, spaces or breaks in the circle being left for entrance or exit

Signs for _dog_ are made by some of the tribes of the plains essentially the saht, fore, and hteen inches froht of the navel, pal toward the left and a little doard, little and ring fingers to be loosely closed, the thun would not be intelligible without knowledge of the fact that before the introduction of the horse, and even yet, the dog has been used to draw the tent- or lodge-poles in n represents the trail Indians less noes, and to whom the material for poles was less precious than on the plains, would not have con without such explanation as is equivalent to a translation froeneral one is the pal to the animal's head and neck

It is abbreviated by siht of the wolfish aboriginal breed, and suggests _the_ animal _par excellence_ domesticated by the Indians and made a co estures connected with pictographs, and others of historic interest will be found a the TRIBAL SIGNS, _infra_

NOTABLE POINTS FOR FURTHER RESEARCHES

It is considered desirable to indicate some points to which for special reasons the attention of collaborators for the future publication on the general subject of sign language may be invited

These now follow:

_INVENTION OF NEW SIGNS_

It is probable that signs will often be invented by individual Indians who may be pressed for thens of course fore; but while that fact should, if possible, be ascertained and reported, the signs so invented are not valueless inal and not traditional, if they are ood faith and in accordance with the principles of sign formation Less error will arise in this direction than from the misinterpretation of the idea intended to be conveyed by spontaneous signs The process resees owe their copiousness It is observed in the signs invented by Indians for each new product of civilization brought to their notice

An interesting instance is in the sign for _steamboat_, made at the request of the writer by White Man (who, however, did not like that sobriquet and announced his intention to change his name to Lean Bear), an Apache, in June, 1880, who had a few days before seen a steaave an original sign, described as follows:

Make the sign for _water_, by placing the flat right hand before the face, pointing upward and forward, the back forward, with the wrist as high as the nose; then draw it down and inward toward the chin; then with both hands indicate the outlines of a horizontal oval figure fro the outline of the deck); then place both flat hands, pointing forward, thues, and push the the powerful forward raph_ is given in NaTCI'S NARRATIVE, _infra_

An Indian skilled in signs, as also a deaf-ht of a new object, or at the first experience of so orit in pantons, which will be intelligible to others, similarly skilled, provided that they have seen the same objects or have felt the same emotions But if a number of such Indians or deaf-mutes were to see an object--for instance an elephant--for the first tin, in accordance with the characteristic appearance enerally the n by pointing to the nose andtusks as the e head and ss to mind the poem of ”The Blind Men and the Elephant,” which with true philosophy in an auise explains how the sense of touch led the ”six men of Indostan” severally to liken the animal to a wall, spear, snake, tree, fan, and rope A consideration of invented or original signs, as showing the operation of the esturer, has a psychologic interest, and as connected with the vocal expression, often also invented at the same time, has further value

_DANGER OF SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION_

In the exae it is ins proper and syeably, but with liability tolexical definition, ascribe to synification All characters in Indian picture-writing have been loosely styled syical distinction, between the characters i forestures, ht with equal appropriateness be called syeneric head of signs, very few signs are in accurate classification syn included in the idea it represents This n is extraneous to the concept and, rather than suggested by it, is invented to express it by soy, while a syht from the concept itself; but it is no very exhaustive or practically useful distinction Syns, require convention, are not only abstract, but ion, and custoest subjects; do not speak directly through the eye to the intelligence, but presuppose in the n recalls The symbols of the ark, dove, olive branch, and rainboould be wholly less to people unfay, as would be the cross and the crescent to those ignorant of history The last named objects appeared in the class of _e powers of Christendom and Islay between the objects representing, and the objects or qualities represented, but ar's wallet became the emblem of the confederated nobles, the Gueux of the Netherlands; and a sling, in the earlyby the Frondeur opponents of Mazarin The portraiture of a fish, used, especially by the early Christians, for the name and title of Jesus Christ was still , in the Greek word [Greek: ichthus], an acrostic co that na unknown to persons whose religious enthusiasnorance, they expended much rhetoric to prove that there was some true symbolic relation between an actual fish and the Saviour of men

Apart from this misapplication, the fish undoubtedly beca frequently on the Roman catacombs and at one tins for the Sioux, Arapahos, Cheyennes, &c, are their e is that of the United States, but there is nothing syns for individual chiefs, when not merely translations of their names, are emblematic of their family totems or personal distinctions, and are no more symbols than are the distinctive shoulder-straps of army officers The _crux ansata_ and the circle for its tail are symbols, but _consensus_ as well as invention was necessary for their establish so esoteric, nothing which they intended for hermeneutic as distinct froe can undoubtedly be and is ehly metaphysical ideas, but to do that in a symbolic system requires a development of the mode of expression consequent upon a siesturers far beyond any yet found ans may at first appear to be symbolic, yet even those on closer exaated to the class of ens can be used as emblems and both can be converted by convention into syenuity, it is futile to seek for that fore of development attained by the tribes now under consideration All predeterraphs on the principles of symbolism as understood or pretended to be understood by its adyptian hieroglyphs, results inmysticism This was shown by a correspondent who enthusiastically lauded the _Dakota Calendar_ (edited by the present writer, and which is a uration of successive occurrences in the history of the people), as a nuion in the equations of time, and proved to his own satisfaction that our Indians preserved hereometric cultus of pre-Cushi+te scientists

Another exhibition of this vicious practice was recently ed to have been unearthed near Zanesville, Ohio Two of the characters were supposed, in liberal exercise of the iination, to represent the [Greek letter: Alpha]