Part 17 (1/2)
Experience has led to the apparently paradoxical judg to be those of Indians, ns who is not an Indian, is less valuable than that of a discriesture speech The forly invents and ht to be, often with a very different conception fro fixed and lies, expertness in it is not necessarily a proof of accuracy in anyone of its forht, could, would, or should be, or what is the best sign for a particularIf any one sign is honestly invented or adopted by any one man, whether Indian, African, Asiatic, or deaf-mute, it has its value, but it should be identified to be in accordance with the fact and should not be subject to the suspicion that it has been assiarbled in interpretation Its prevalence and special range present considerations of different interest and requiring further evidence
The genuine signs alone should be presented to scholars, to give their studies proper direction, while the true article can always be adulterated into a con talkers instead of ic science The few direct contributions of interpreters to the present work are, it is believed, valuable, because they were made without expression of self-conceit or symptom of possession by a pet theory
MODE IN WHICH RESEARCHES HAVE BEEN MADE
It is proper to give to all readers interested in the subject, but particularly to those whose collaboration for the more complete work above mentioned is solicited, an account of the mode in which the researches have thus far been conducted and in which it is proposed to continue them After study of all that could be obtained in printed form, and a considerable amount of personal correspondence, the results were ey in the early part of 1880, entitled ”_Introduction to the Study of Sign Language a the Gesture Speech of Mankind_” In this, suggestions were made as to points and manner of observation and report, and forms prepared to secure uniformity and accuracy were explained, many separate sheets of which with the pamphlet were distributed, not only to all applicants, but to all known and accessible persons in this country and abroad who, there was reason to hope, would take sufficient interest in the undertaking to contribute their assistance Those forms, TYPES OF HAND POSITIONS, OUTLINES OF ARM POSITIONS, and EXAMPLES, thus distributed, are reproduced at the end of this paper
The main object of those forms was to eliminate the source of confusion produced by attempts of different persons at the difficult description of positions and motions The comprehensive plan required that many persons should be at work in many parts of the world
It will readily be understood that if a number of persons should undertake to describe in words the saesturers, even if the visual perception of all the observers should be the sauage in description ive very diverse iestures described But with a set form of expressions for the typical positions, and skeleton outlines to be filled up and, when necessary, altered in a uniforraphic lines drawn to represent the positions and rams will vary but little in co Bothto supplement and correct the other, and provision was also es or eestures It was also pointed out that the prepared sheets could be used by cutting and pasting the a speech or story, so as to exhibit the semiotic syntax Attention was specially directed to the i the intrinsic idea or conception of all signs, which it was urged should be obtained directly fro them and not by inference
In the autumn of 1880 the prompt and industrious co-operation of n lands, had supplied a large number of descriptions which were collated and collected into a quarto voluns and Signals of the North American Indians, with some comparisons_”
This was printed on sized paper ide ins to allow of convenient correction and addition It was not published, but was regarded as proof, a copy being sent to each correspondent with a request for his annotations, not only in revision of his own contribution, but for its comparison with those made by others Even when it was supposed that mistakes had been made in either description or reported conception, or both, the contribution was printed as received, in order that a nuht examine it and thus ascertain the amount and character of error
The attention of each contributor was invited to the fact that, in son as described by one of the other contributors nized as intended for the same idea or object as that furnished by hiht prove to be the better description Each was also requested to exaht not have induced a difference in his own description from that of another contributor with no real distinction either in conception or essential fored to be candid in ad, when such cases occurred, that their own descriptions were mere unessential variants from others printed, otherwise to adhere to their own and explain the true distinction When the descriptions showed substantial identity, they were united with the reference to all the authorities giving them
Many of these copies have been returned with valuable annotations, not only of correction but of addition and suggestion, and are now being collated again into one general revision
The above stateive assurance that the work of the Bureau of Ethnology has been careful and thorough No schelected which could be contrived and no labor has been spared to secure the accuracy and completeness of the publication still in preparation It h the writer has n has been printed by him which rests on his authority alone Personal controversy and individual bias were thus avoided For every sign there is a special reference either to an author or to some one or more of the collaborators While the latter have received full credit, full responsibility was also imposed, and that course will be continued
No contribution has been printed which asserted that any described sign is used by ”all Indians,” for the reason that such statement is not admissible evidence unless the authority had personally examined all Indians If any credible person had affirmatively stated that a certain identical, or substantially identical, sign had been found by him, actually used by Abnaki, Absaroka, Arikara, assiniboins, etc, going through the whole list of tribes, or any definite portion of that list, it would have been so inserted under the several tribal heads But the expression ”all Indians,” besides being insusceptible of methodical classification, involves hearsay, which is not the kind of authority desired in a serious study Such loose talk long delayed the recognition of Anthropology as a science It is true that soeneral statements of this character are made by some old authors quoted in the Dictionary, but their descriptions are reprinted, as being all that can be used of the past, for whatever weight they uistic classification given below
Regarding the difficulties ht be adopted as was prefixed to Austin's _Chironootii, qui motus corporis exprimere verbis, imitari scriptura conatus sim voces_” _Rhet ad Herenn_, 13
If the descriptive recital of the signs collected had been absolutely restricted to written or printed words the ould have been still ible The facilities enjoyed of presenting pictorial illustrations have been of great value and will give still more assistance in the complete work than in the present paper
In connection with the subject of illustrations it may be noted that a writer in the _Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States_, Vol II, No 5, the sans by ”ives a curious distinction between deaf- their respective capability of illustration, as follows: ”This French systeht, I believe, in most of the schools for deaf-reat has been the difficulty of fixing the hands in space, either by written description or illustrated cuts, that no text books are used I e is not only the estures can be described quite accurately in writing, and I think can be illustrated” The readers of this paper will also, probably, ”think” that the signs of Indians can be illustrated, and as the signs of deaf- the same or different ideas, and when not precisely identical are always made on the saine any greater difficulty either in their graphic illustration or in their written description
The assertion is as incorrect as if it were paraphrased to declare that a portrait of an Indian in a certain attitude could be taken by a pencil or with the camera while by some occult influence the sa that of a deaf-mute in the same attitude In fact, text books on the ”French system” are used and one in the writer's possession published in Paris twenty-five years ago, contains over four hundred illustrated cuts of deaf-ens will always be troublesome and unsatisfactory There can be no accurate translation either of sentences or of words frons representing words as logographs, they do not in their presentation of the ideas of actions, objects, and events, under physical forest words, which lossarist and laboriously derived froer The use of words in fory, is so wide a departure from primitive conditions as to be incoe yet discovered No vocabulary of signs will be exhaustive for the sins are exhaustless, nor will it be exact because there cannot be a correspondence between signs and words taken individually Not only do words and signs both change their le word roup of signs, and, _vice versa_, a single sign may suffice for a number of words The elen and in the oral languages of civilization are effected are also discrepant The attens according to general ideas, conceptions, and, if possible, the ideas and conceptions of the gesturers theed in dictionaries
The hearty thanks of the writer are rendered to all his collaborators, a list of whoiven below, and will in future be presented in a ive an explanation of the ns has been y Fortunately for this undertaking, the policy of the governations, soe, of ent of the race from many distant and far separated localities were here in considerable nuether with their interpreters and agents, were, by the considerate order of the honorable Secretary of the Interior, placed at the disposal of this Bureau for all purposes of gathering ethnologic inforreater than could have been enjoyed by a large nu time over the continent for the sans were allto a uniforestures were obtained directly fro (often in itself clear frons before knoas translated solish or Spanish, or of a native language known in common by some one or more of the Indians and by some one of the observers When an interpreter was employed, he translated the words used by an Indian in his oral paraphrase of the signs, and was not relied upon to explain the signs according to his own ideas Such translations and a description of ns, dictated at the moment of their exhibition, were soht be no lapse of ns were made in successive motions before the camera, and prints secured as certain evidence of their accuracy Not only were more than one hundred Indians thus examined individually, at leisure, but, on occasions, several parties of different tribes, who had never before met each other, and could not communicate by speech, were examined at the same time, both by inquiry of individuals whose ansere consulted upon by all the Indians present, and also by inducing several of the Indians to engage in talk and story-telling in signs between themselves Thus it was possible to notice the difference in the signs ree ofsuch differences Si Indians to the National Deaf Mute College and bringing thereater part of the actual work of the observation and record of the signs obtained at Washi+ngton has been ably performed by Dr WJ HOFFMAN, the assistant of the present writer When the latter has made personal observations the for the necessary notes and sketches and superintending the photographing To his the credit for all those references in the following ”LIST OF AUTHORITIES AND COLLABORATORS,”
in which it is stated that the signs were obtained at Washi+ngton froh his service as acting assistant surgeon, United States Are of beco acquainted with the Indian character so as to conduct skillfully such researches as that in question, and in addition has the eye and pencil of an artist, so that he seizes readily, describes with physiological accuracy, and reproduces in action and in peresture exhibited Nearly all of the pictorial illustrations in this paper are froeneral superintendence of the artistic departh reputation needs no indorsement here
LIST OF AUTHORITIES AND COLLABORATORS
1 A list prepared by WILLIAM DUNBAR, dated Natchez, June 30, 1800, collected from tribes then ”west of the Mississippi,” but probably not from those very far west of that river, published in the _Transactions of the American Philosophical Society_, vol vi, pp 1-8, as read January 16, 1801, and communicated by Thomas Jefferson, president of the society
2 The one published in _An Account of an Expedition froh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the years 1819-1820, Philadelphia_, 1823, vol i, pp 378-394 This expedition was made by order of the Hon JO Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the coraphical Engineers, and is co's Expedition This list appears to have been collected chiefly by Mr T Say, from the Pani, and the Kansas, Otos, Missouris, Iowas, Oreat Dakota family
3 The one collected by Prince MAXIMILIAN VON WIED-NEUWIED in _Reise in das Innere Nord-America in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834_ _Coblenz_, 1839 [--1841], vol ii, pp 645-653 His statement is, ”the Arikaras, Mandans, Minnitarris [Hidatsa], Crows [Absaroka], Cheyennes, Snakes [Shoshoni], and Blackfeet [Satsika] all understand certain signs, which, on the contrary, as we are told, are unintelligible to the Dakotas, assiniboins, Ojibwas, Krihs [Crees], and other nations The list gives exareater proportion of ti the Mandans and Hidatsa then and noelling near Port Berthold, on the Upper Missouri, it ns in his list were in fact procured from those tribes But as the author does not say so, he is not ns now used by the Mandans and Hidatsa more closely resemble those on his list than do those of other tribes, the internal evidence will be verified This list is not published in the English edition, _London_, 1843, but appears in the Gerraphic reference is often uished explorer as ”Prince Maximilian,” as if there were but one possessor of that Christian na princely families For brevity the reference in this paper will be _Wied_
No translation of this list into English appears to have been printed in any shape before that recently published by the present writer in the _American Antiquarian_, vol ii, No 3, while the German and French editions are costly and difficult of access, so the collection cannot readily be cons now made by the same tribes The translation, now presented is based upon the Gere was so curt as not to give a clear idea, was collated with the French edition of the succeeding year, which, from some internal evidence, appears to have been published with the assistance or supervision of the author Many of the descriptions are, however, so brief and indefinite in both their German and French forms that they necessarily remain so in the present translation The princely explorer, with the keen discrimination shown in all his work, doubtless observed what has escaped ns, that the latter depend enerally large and free, seldoeneral effect of the motion rather than to describe it with such precision as to allow of its accurate reproduction by a reader who had never seen it To have presented the signs as now desired for comparison, toilsome elaboration would have been necessary, and even that would not in all cases have sufficed without pictorial illustration