[This e-text includes characters that will only display in UTF-8
(Unicode) text readers:
Ē ā ē ī ō ū (vowel with macron or “long” mark)
Ă Ĕ Ĭ ă ĕ ĭ ŏ (vowel with breve or “short” mark)
Ś ś ć (s, c with “acute”:
mainly in Recording Indian Languages article)
ⁿ (small raised n, representing nasalized vowel)
ɔ ʞ ʇ (inverted letters)
‖ (double vertical line
There are also a handful of Greek words.
Some compromises were made to accommodate font availability:
The ordinary “cents” sign ¢ was used in place of the correct form ȼ,
and bracketed [¢] represents the capital letter Ȼ.
Turned c is represented by ɔ (technically an open o).
Bracketed [K] and [T] represent upside-down (turned) capital K and T.
Inverted V (described in text) is represented by the Greek letter Λ.
If your computer has a more appropriate character, feel free to replace
letters globally.
Syllable stress is represented by an acute accent either on the main
vówel or after the syl´lable; inconsistencies are unchanged. Except
for special characters noted above, and obvious insertions such as
[Illustration] and [Footnote], brackets are in the original. Note that
in the Sign Language article, hand positions identified by letter
(A, B ... W, Y) are descriptive; they do not represent a “finger
alphabet”.
Italics are shown with _lines_. Boldface (rare) is shown with +marks+;
in some articles the same notation is used for +small capitals+.
The First Annual Report includes ten “Accompanying Papers”, all
available from Project Gutenberg as individual e-texts. Except for
Yarrow’s “Mortuary Customs”, updated shortly before the present text,
the separate articles were released between late 2005 and late 2007. For
this combined e-text they have been re-formatted for consistency. Some
articles have been further modified to include specialized characters
shown above, and a few more typographical errors have been corrected.
For consistency with later Annual Reports, a full List of Illustrations
has been added after the Table of Contents, and each article has been
given its own Table of Contents. In the original, the Contents were
printed _only_ at the beginning of the volume, and Illustrations were
listed _only_ with their respective articles.
Errors and inconsistencies are listed separately at the end of each
article and after the combined Index. Differences in punctuation or
hyphenization between the Table of Contents, Index, or List of
Illustrations, and the item itself, are not noted.]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT
of the
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY
to the
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
1879-’80
by
J. W. POWELL
Director
[Illustration]
WASHINGTON
Government Printing Office
1881
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Bureau of Ethnology,
_Washington, D.C., July, 1880._
Prof. SPENCER F. BAIRD,
_Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution_,
_Washington, D.C._:
SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith the first annual report of
the operations of the Bureau of Ethnology.
By act of Congress, an appropriation was made to continue researches in
North American anthropology, the general direction of which was confided
to yourself. As chief executive officer of the Smithsonian Institution,
you entrusted to me the immediate control of the affairs of the Bureau.
This report, with its appended papers, is designed to exhibit the
methods and results of my administration of this trust.
If any measure of success has been attained, it is largely due to
general instructions received from yourself and the advice you have ever
patiently given me on all matters of importance.
I am indebted to my assistants, whose labors are delineated in the
report, for their industry; hearty co-operation, and enthusiastic love
of the science. Only through their zeal have your plans been executed.
Much assistance has been rendered the Bureau by a large body of
scientific men engaged in the study of anthropology, some of whose names
have been mentioned in the report and accompanying papers, and others
will be put on record when the subject-matter of their writings is fully
published.
I am, with respect, your obedient servant,
J. W. POWELL.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR.
Page.
Introductory xi
Bibliography of North American philology, by J. C. Pilling xv
Linguistic and other anthropologic researches,
by J. O. Dorsey xvii
Linguistic researches, by S. R. Riggs xviii
Linguistic and general researches among the Klamath
Indians, by A. S. Gatschet xix
Studies among the Iroquois, by Mrs. E. A. Smith xxii
Work by Prof. Otis T. Mason xxii
The study of gesture speech, by Brevet Lieut. Col.
Garrick Mallery xxiii
Studies on Central American picture writing,
by Prof. E. S. Holden xxv
The study of mortuary customs, by Dr. H. C. Yarrow xxvi
Investigations relating to cessions of lands by Indian
tribes to the United States, by C. C. Royce xxvii
Explorations by Mr. James Stevenson xxx
Researches among the Wintuns, by Prof. J. W. Powell xxxii
The preparation of manuals for use in American research xxxii
Linguistic classification of the North American tribes xxxiii
ACCOMPANYING PAPERS.
Page.
ON THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE, BY J. W. POWELL.
Process by combination 3
Process by vocalic mutation 5
Process by intonation 6
Process by placement 6
Differentiation of the parts of speech 8
SKETCH OF THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, BY J. W. POWELL.
The genesis of philosophy 19
Two grand stages of philosophy 21
Mythologic philosophy has four stages 29
Outgrowth from mythologic philosophy 33
The course of evolution in mythologic philosophy 38
Mythic tales 43
The Cĭn-aú-äv Brothers discuss matters of importance
to the Utes 44
Origin of the echo 45
The So´-kûs Wai´-ûn-ats 47
Ta-vwots has a fight with the sun 52
WYANDOT GOVERNMENT, BY J. W. POWELL.
The family 59
The gens 59
The phratry 60
Government 61
Civil government 61
Methods of choosing councillors 61
Functions of civil government 63
Marriage regulations 63
Name regulations 64
Regulations of personal adornment 64
Regulations of order in encampment 64
Property rights 65
Rights of persons 65
Community rights 65
Rights of religion 65
Crimes 66
Theft 66
Maiming 66
Murder 66
Treason 67
Witchcraft 67
Outlawry 67
Military government 68
Fellowhood 68
ON LIMITATIONS TO THE USE OF SOME ANTHROPOLOGIC DATA, BY J. W. POWELL.
Archæology 73
Picture writing 75
History, customs, and ethnic characteristics 76
Origin of man 77
Language 78
Mythology 81
Sociology 83
Psychology 83
A FURTHER CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE MORTUARY CUSTOMS OF THE NORTH
AMERICAN INDIANS, BY H. C. YARROW.
List of illustrations 89
Introductory 91
Classification of burial 92
Inhumation 93
Pit burial 93
Grave burial 101
Stone graves or cists 113
Burial in mounds 115
Burial beneath or in cabins, wigwams, or houses 122
Cave burial 126
Embalmment or mummification 130
Urn burial 137
Surface burial 138
Cairn burial 142
Cremation 143
Partial cremation 150
Aerial sepulture 152
Lodge burial 152
Box burial 155
Tree and scaffold burial 158
Partial scaffold burial and ossuaries 168
Superterrene and aerial burial in canoes 171
Aquatic burial 180
Living sepulchers 182
Mourning, sacrifice, feasts, etc. 183
Mourning 183
Sacrifice 187
Feasts 190
Superstition regarding burial feasts 191
Food 192
Dances 192
Songs 194
Games 195
Posts 197
Fires 198
Superstitions 199
STUDIES IN CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE WRITING, BY E. S. HOLDEN.
List of illustrations 206
Introductory 207
Materials for the present investigation 210
System of nomenclature 211
In what order are the hieroglyphs read? 221
The card catalogue of hieroglyphs 223
Comparison of plates I and IV (Copan) 224
Are the hieroglyphs of Copan and Palenque identical? 227
Huitzilopochtli, Mexican god of war, etc. 229
Tlaloc, or his Maya representative 237
Cukulcan or Quetzalcoatl 239
Comparison of the signs of the Maya months 243
CESSIONS OF LAND BY INDIAN TRIBES TO THE UNITED STATES, BY C. C. ROYCE.
Character of the Indian title 249
Indian boundaries 253
Original and secondary cessions 256
SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, BY COL. GARRICK MALLERY.
Introductory 269
Divisions of gesture speech 270
The origin of sign language 273
Gestures of the lower animals 275
Gestures of young children 276
Gestures in mental disorder 276
Uninstructed deaf-mutes 277
Gestures of the blind 278
Loss of speech by isolation 278
Low tribes of man 279
Gestures as an occasional resource 279
Gestures of fluent talkers 279
Involuntary response to gestures 280
Natural pantomime 280
Some theories upon primitive language 282
Conclusions 284
History of gesture language 285
Modern use of gesture speech 293
Use by other peoples than North American Indians 294
Use by modern actors and orators 308
Our Indian conditions favorable to sign language 311
Theories entertained respecting Indian signs 313
Not correlated with meagerness of language 314
Its origin from one tribe or region 316
Is the Indian system special and peculiar? 319
To what extent prevalent as a system 323
Are signs conventional or instinctive? 340
Classes of diversities in signs 341
Results sought in the study of sign language 346
Practical application 346
Relations to philology 349
Sign language with reference to grammar 359
Gestures aiding archæologic research 368
Notable points for further researches 387
Invention of new signs 387
Danger of symbolic interpretation 388
Signs used by women and children 391
Positive signs rendered negative 391
Details of positions of fingers 392
Motions relative to parts of the body 393
Suggestions for collecting signs 394
Mode in which researches have been made 395
List of authorities and collaborators 401
Algonkian 403
Dakotan 404
Iroquoian 405
Kaiowan 406
Kutinean 406
Panian 406
Piman 406
Sahaptian 406
Shoshonian 406
Tinnean 407
Wichitan 407
Zuñian 407
Foreign correspondence 407
Extracts from dictionary 409
Tribal signs 458
Proper names 476
Phrases 479
Dialogues 486
Tendoy-Huerito Dialogue. 486
Omaha Colloquy. 490
Brulé Dakota Colloquy. 491
Dialogue between Alaskan Indians. 492
Ojibwa Dialogue. 499
Narratives 500
Nátci’s Narrative. 500
Patricio’s Narrative. 505
Na-wa-gi-jig’s Story. 508
Discourses 521
Address of Kin Chē-Ĕss. 521
Tso-di-a´-ko’s Report. 524
Lean Wolf’s Complaint. 526
Signals 529
Signals executed by bodily action 529
Signals in which objects are used in connection with
personal action 532
Signals made when the person of the signalist
is not visible 536
Scheme of illustration 544
Outlines for arm positions in sign language 545
Types of hand positions in sign language 547
Examples 550
CATALOGUE OF LINGUISTIC MANUSCRIPTS IN THE LIBRARY OF THE BUREAU OF
ETHNOLOGY, BY J. C. PILLING.
Introductory 555
List of manuscripts 562
ILLUSTRATION OF THE METHOD OF RECORDING INDIAN LANGUAGES. FROM THE
MANUSCRIPTS OF MESSRS. J. O. DORSEY, A. S. GATSCHET, AND S. B. RIGGS.
How the rabbit caught the sun in a trap, by J. O. Dorsey 581
Details of a conjurer’s practice, by A. S. Gatschet 583
The relapse, by A. S. Gatschet 585
Sweat-Lodges, by A. S. Gatschet 586
A dog’s revenge, by S. R. Riggs 587
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
BY J. W. POWELL, _Director._
INTRODUCTORY.
The exploration of the Colorado River of the West, begun in 1869 by
authority of Congressional action, was by the same authority
subsequently continued as the second division of the Geographical and
Geological Survey of the Territories, and, finally, as the Geographical
and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region.
By act of Congress of March 3, 1879, the various geological and
geographical surveys existing at that time were discontinued and the
United States Geological Survey was established.
In all the earlier surveys anthropologic researches among the North
American Indians were carried on. In that branch of the work finally
designated as the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky
Mountain Region, such research constituted an important part of the
work. In the act creating the Geological Survey, provision was made to
continue work in this field under the direction of the Smithsonian
Institution, on the basis of the methods developed and materials
collected by the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky
Mountain Region.
Under the authority of the act of Congress providing for the
continuation of the work, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
intrusted its management to the former director of the Survey of the
Rocky Mountain Region, and a bureau of ethnology was thus practically
organized.
In the Annual Report of the Geographical and Geological Survey of the
Rocky Mountain Region for 1877, the following statement of the condition
of the work at that time appears:
ETHNOGRAPHIC WORK.
During the same office season the ethnographic work was more
thoroughly organized, and the aid of a large number of volunteer
assistants living throughout the country was secured. Mr. W. H.
Dall, of the United States Coast Survey, prepared a paper on the
tribes of Alaska, and edited other papers on certain tribes of
Oregon and Washington Territory. He also superintended the
construction of an ethnographic map to accompany his paper,
including on it the latest geographic determination from all
available sources. His long residence and extended scientific labors
in that region peculiarly fitted him for the task, and he has made a
valuable contribution both to ethnology and geography.
With the same volume was published a paper on the habits and customs
of certain tribes of the State of Oregon and Washington Territory,
prepared by the late Mr. George Gibbs while he was engaged in
scientific work in that region for the government. The volume also
contains a Niskwalli vocabulary with extended grammatic notes, the
last great work of the lamented author.
In addition to the map above mentioned and prepared by Mr. Dall,
a second has been made, embracing the western portion of Washington
Territory and the northern part of Oregon. The map includes the
results of the latest geographic information and is colored to show
the distribution of Indian tribes, chiefly from notes and maps left
by Mr. Gibbs.
The Survey is indebted to the following gentlemen for valuable
contributions to this volume: Gov. J. Furujelm, Lieut. E. De Meulen,
Dr. Wm. F. Tolmie, and Rev. Father Mengarini.
Mr. Stephen Powers, of Ohio, who has spent several years in the
study of the Indians of California, had the year before been engaged
to prepare a paper on that subject. In the mean time at my request
he was employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to travel among
these tribes for the purpose of making collections of Indian arts
for the International Exhibition. This afforded him opportunity of
more thoroughly accomplishing his work in the preparation of the
above-mentioned paper. On his return the new material was
incorporated with the old, and the whole has been printed.
At our earliest knowledge of the Indians of California they were
divided into small tribes speaking diverse languages and belonging
to radically different stocks, and the whole subject was one of
great complexity and interest. Mr. Powers has successfully unraveled
the difficult problems relating to the classification and affinities
of a very large number of tribes, and his account of their habits
and customs is of much interest.
In the volume with his paper will be found a number of vocabularies
collected by himself, Mr. George Gibbs, General George Crook,
U.S.A., General W. B. Hazen, U.S.A., Lieut. Edward Ross, U.S.A.,
Assistant Surgeon Thomas F. Azpell, U.S.A., Mr. Ezra Williams, Mr.
J. R. Bartlett, Gov. J. Furujelm, Prof. F. L. O. Roehrig, Dr.
William A. Gabb, Mr. H. B. Brown, Mr. Israel S. Diehl, Dr. Oscar
Loew, Mr. Albert S. Gatschet, Mr. Livingston Stone, Mr. Adam
Johnson, Mr. Buckingham Smith, Padre Aroyo; Rev. Father Gregory
Mengarini, Padre Juan Comelias, Hon. Horatio Hale, Mr. Alexander S.
Taylor, Rev. Antonio Timmeno, and Father Bonaventure Sitjar.
The volume is accompanied by a map of the State of California,
compiled from the latest official sources and colored to show the
distribution of linguistic stocks.
The Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, of Maryland, has been engaged for more than
a year in the preparation of a grammar and dictionary of the Ponka
language. His residence among these Indians as a missionary has
furnished him favorable opportunity for the necessary studies, and
he has pushed forward the work with zeal and ability, his only hope
of reward being a desire to make a contribution to science.
Prof. Otis T. Mason, of Columbian College, has for the past year
rendered the office much assistance in the study of the history and
statistics of Indian tribes.
On June 13, Brevet Lieut. Col. Garrick Mallery, U.S.A., at the
request of the Secretary of the Interior, joined my corps under
orders from the honorable Secretary of War, and since that time has
been engaged in the study of the statistics and history of the
Indians of the western portion of the United States.
In April last, Mr. A. S. Gatschet was employed as a philologist to
assist in the ethnographic work of this Survey. He had previously
been engaged in the study of the languages of various North American
tribes. In June last at the request of this office he was employed
by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to collect certain statistics
relating to the Indians of Oregon and Washington Territory, and is
now in the field. His scientific reports have since that time been
forwarded through the honorable Commissioner of Indian Affairs to
this office. His work will be included in a volume now in course of
preparation.
Dr. H. O. Yarrow, U.S.A., now on duty at the Army Medical Museum, in
Washington, has been engaged during the past year in the collection
of material for a monograph on the customs and rites of sepulture.
To aid him in this work circulars of inquiry have been widely
circulated among ethnologists and other scholars throughout North
America, and much material has been obtained which will greatly
supplement his own extended observations and researches.
Many other gentlemen throughout the United States have rendered me
valuable assistance in this department of investigation. Their
labors will receive due acknowledgment at the proper time, but I
must not fail to render my sincere thanks to these gentlemen, who
have so cordially and efficiently co-operated with me in this work.
A small volume, entitled “Introduction to the Study of Indian
Languages,” has been prepared and published. This book is intended
for distribution among collectors. In its preparation I have been
greatly assisted by Prof. W. D. Whitney, the distinguished
philologist of Yale College. To him I am indebted for that part
relating to the representation of the sounds of Indian languages;
a work which could not be properly performed by any other than a
profound scholar in this branch.
I complete the statement of the office-work of the past season by
mentioning that a tentative classification of the linguistic
families of the Indians of the United States has been prepared. This
has been a work of great labor, to which I have devoted much of my
own time, and in which I have received the assistance of several of
the gentlemen above mentioned.
In pursuing these ethnographic investigations it has been the
endeavor as far as possible to produce results that would be of
practical value in the administration of Indian affairs, and for
this purpose especial attention has been paid to vital statistics,
to the discovery of linguistic affinities, the progress made by the
Indians toward civilization, and the causes and remedies for the
inevitable conflict that arises from the spread of civilization over
a region previously inhabited by savages. I may be allowed to
express the hope that our labors in this direction will not be void
of such useful results.
In 1878 no report of the Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region was
published, as before its completion the question of reorganizing all of
the surveys had been raised, but the work was continued by the same
methods as in previous years.
The operations of the Bureau of Ethnology during the past fiscal year
will be briefly described.
In the plan of organization two methods of operation are embraced:
First. The prosecution of research by the direct employment of scholars
and specialists; and
Second. By inciting and guiding research immediately conducted by
collaborators at work throughout the country.
It has been the effort of the Bureau to prosecute work in the various
branches of North American anthropology on a systematic plan, so that
every important field should be cultivated, limited only by the amount
appropriated by Congress.
With little exception all sound anthropologic investigation in the lower
states of culture exhibited by tribes of men, as distinguished from
nations, must have a firm foundation in language Customs, laws,
governments, institutions, mythologies, religions, and even arts can not
be properly understood without a fundamental knowledge of the languages
which express the ideas and thoughts embodied therein. Actuated by these
considerations prime attention has been given to language.
It is not probable that there are many languages in North America
entirely unknown, and in fact it is possible there are none; but of many
of the known languages only short vocabularies have appeared. Except for
languages entirely unknown, the time for the publication of short
vocabularies has passed; they are no longer of value. The Bureau
proposes hereafter to publish short vocabularies only in the exceptional
cases mentioned above.
The distribution of the Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages is
resulting in the collection of a large series of chrestomathies, which
it is believed will be worthy of publication. It is also proposed to
publish grammars and dictionaries when those have been thoroughly and
carefully prepared. In each case it is deemed desirable to connect with
the grammar and dictionary a body of literature designed as texts for
reference in explaining the facts and principles of the language. These
texts will be accompanied by interlinear translations so arranged as
greatly to facilitate the study of the chief grammatic characteristics.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICAN PHILOLOGY, BY MR. J. C. PILLING.
There is being prepared in the office a bibliography of North American
languages. It was originally intended as a card catalogue for office
use, but has gradually assumed proportions which seem to justify its
publication. It is designed as an author’s catalogue, arranged
alphabetically, and is to include titles of grammars, dictionaries,
vocabularies, translations of the scriptures, hymnals, doctrinæ
christianæ, tracts, school-books, etc., general discussions, and reviews
when of sufficient importance; in short, a catalogue of authors who have
written in or upon any of the languages of North America, with a list of
their works.
It has been the aim in preparing this material to make not only full
titles of all the works containing linguistics, but also to exhaust
editions. Whether full titles of editions subsequent to the first will
be printed will depend somewhat on the size of the volume it will make,
there being at present about four thousand five hundred cards, probably
about three thousand titles.
The bibliography is based on the library of the Director, but much time
has been spent in various libraries, public and private, the more
important being the Congressional, Boston Public, Boston Athenæum,
Harvard College, Congregational of Boston, Massachusetts Historical
Society, American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, the John Carter
Brown at Providence, the Watkinson at Hartford, and the American Bible
Society at New York. It is hoped that Mr. Pilling may find opportunity
to visit the principal libraries of New York and Philadelphia,
especially those of the historical societies, before the work is
printed.
In addition to personal research, much correspondence has been carried
on with the various missionaries and Indian agents throughout the United
States and Canada, and with gentlemen who have written upon the subject,
among whom are Dr. H. Rink, of Copenhagen, Dr. J. C. E. Buschman, of
Berlin, and the well-known bibliographers, Mr. J. Sabin, of New York,
Hon. J. R. Bartlett, of Providence, and Señor Don J. G. Icazbalceta, of
the City of Mexico.
Mr. Pilling has not attempted to classify the material linguistically.
That work has been left for a future publication, intended to embody the
results of an attempt to classify the tribes of North America on the
basis of language, and now in course of preparation by the Director.
LINGUISTIC AND OTHER ANTHROPOLOGIC RESEARCHES, BY THE REV. J. OWEN
DORSEY.
For a number of years Mr. Dorsey has been engaged in investigations
among a group of cognate Dakotan tribes embracing three languages:
[¢]egiha, spoken by the Ponkas and Omahas, with a closely related
dialect of the same, spoken by the Kansas, Osage, and Kwapa tribes; the
[T]ɔiwere, spoken by the Iowa, Oto, and Missouri tribes; and the
Hotcañgara, spoken by the Winnebago.
In July, 1878, he repaired to the Omaha reservation, in the neighborhood
of which most of these languages are spoken, for the purpose of
continuing his studies.
Mr. Dorsey commenced the study of the [¢]egiha in 1871, and has
continued his researches in the group until the present time. He has
collected a very large body of linguistic material, both in grammar and
vocabulary, and when finally published a great contribution will be made
to North American linguistics.
These languages are excessively complex because of the synthetic
characteristics of the verb, incorporated particles being used in an
elaborate and complex scheme.
In these languages six general classes of pronouns are found:
1st. The free personal.
2d. The incorporated personal.
3d. The demonstrative.
4th. The interrogative.
5th. The relative.
6th. The indefinite.
One of the most interesting features of the language is found in the
genders or particle classifiers. The genders or classifiers are
_animate_ and _inanimate_, and these are again divided into the
_standing_, _sitting_, _reclining_, and _moving_; but in the Winnebago
the _reclining_ and _moving_ constitute but one class. They are suffixed
to nouns, pronouns, and verbs. When nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and
prepositions are used as predicants, _i.e._, to perform the function of
verbs, these classifiers are also suffixed. The classifiers point out
with particularity the gender or class of the subject and object. When
numerals are used as nouns the classifiers are attached.
In nouns and pronouns case functions are performed by an elaborate
system of postpositions in conjunction with the classifiers.
The verbs are excessively complex by reason of the use of many
incorporated particles to denote _cause_, _manner_, _instrument_,
_purpose_, _condition_, _time_, etc. Voice, mode, and tense are not
systematically differentiated in the morphology, but voices, modes, and
tenses, and a great variety of adverbial qualifications enter into the
complex scheme of incorporated particles.
Sixty-six sounds are found in the [¢]egiha; sixty-two in the
[T][c]iwere; sixty-two in the Hotcañgara; and the alphabet adopted by
the Bureau is used successfully for their expression.
While Mr. Dorsey has been prosecuting his linguistic studies among these
tribes he has had abundant opportunity to carry on other branches of
anthropologic research, and he has collected extensive and valuable
materials on sociology, mythology, religion, arts, customs, etc. His
final publication of the [¢]egiha will embrace a volume of literature
made up of mythic tales, historical narratives, letters, etc., in the
Indian, with interlinear translations, a selection from which appears in
the papers appended to this report. Another volume will be devoted to
the grammar and a third to the dictionary.
LINGUISTIC RESEARCHES, BY THE REV. S. R. RIGGS.
In 1852 the Smithsonian Institution published a grammar and dictionary
of the Dakota language prepared by Mr. Riggs. Since that time Mr. Riggs,
assisted by his sons, A. L. and T. L. Riggs, and by Mr. Williamson, has
been steadily engaged in revising and enlarging the grammar and
dictionary; and at the request of the Bureau he is also preparing a
volume of Dakota literature as texts for illustration to the grammar and
dictionary. He is rapidly preparing this work for publication, and it
will soon appear.
The work of Mr. Riggs and that of Mr. Dorsey, mentioned above, with the
materials already published, will place the Dakotan languages on record
more thoroughly than those of any other family in this country.
The following is a table of the languages of this family now recognized
by the Bureau:
LANGUAGES OF THE DAKOTAN FAMILY.
1. Dakóta (Sioux), in four dialects:
(_a_) Mdéwakaⁿtoⁿwaⁿ and Waqpékute.
(_b_) Waqpétoⁿwaⁿ (Warpeton) and Sisítoⁿwaⁿ (Sisseton).
These two are about equivalent to the modern Isaⁿ´yati (Santee).
(_c_) Ihañk´toⁿwaⁿ (Yankton), including the Assiniboins.
(_d_) Títoⁿwaⁿ (Teton).
2. [¢]egiha, in two (?) dialects:
(_a_) Umaⁿ´haⁿ (Omaha), spoken by the Omahas and Ponkas.
(_b_) Ugáqpa (Kwapa), spoken by the Kwapas, Osages, and Kansas.
3. [T]ɔiwére, in two dialects:
(_a_) [T]ɔiwére, spoken by the Otos and Missouris.
(_b_) [T]ɔéʞiwere, spoken by the Iowas.
4. Hotcañ´gara, spoken by the Winnebagos.
5. Númañkaki (Mandan), in two dialects:
(_a_) Mitútahañkuc.
(_b_) Ruptári.
6. Hi¢átsa (Hidatsa), in two (?) dialects:
(_a_) Hidátsa or Minnetaree.
(_b_) Absároka or Crow.
7. Tútelo, in Canada.
8. Katâ´ba (Catawba), in South Carolina.
LINGUISTIC AND GENERAL RESEARCHES AMONG THE KLAMATH INDIANS,
BY MR. A. S. GATSCHET.
Of the Klamath language of Oregon there are two dialects--one spoken by
the Indians of Klamath Lake and the other by the Modocs--constituting
the Lutuami family of Hale and Gallatin.
Mr. Gatschet has spent much time among these Indians, at their
reservation and elsewhere, and has at the present time in manuscript
nearly ready for the printer a large body of Klamath literature,
consisting of mythic, ethnic, and historic tales, a grammar and a
dictionary. The stories were told by the Indians and recorded by
himself, and constitute a valuable contribution to the subject. Some
specimens will appear in the papers appended to this report.
The grammatic sketch treats of both dialects, which differ but slightly
in grammar but more in vocabulary. The grammar is divided into three
principal parts: Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax.
In Phonology fifty different sounds are recognized, including simple and
compound consonants, the vowels in different quantities, and the
diphthongs.
A characteristic feature of this language is described in explaining
syllabic reduplication, which performs iterative and distributive
functions. Reduplication for various purposes is found in most of the
languages of North America. In the Nahuatl, Sahaptin, and Selish
families it is most prominent. Mr. Gatschet’s researches will add
materially to the knowledge of the functions of reduplication in tribal
languages.
The verbal inflection is comparatively simple, for in it the subject and
object pronouns are not incorporated. In the verb Mr. Gatschet
recognizes ten general forms, a part of which he designates as
_verbals_, as follows:
1. Infinitive in -a.
2. Durative in -ota.
3. Causative in -oga.
4. Indefinite in -ash.
5. Indefinite in -uĭsh.
6. Conditional in -asht.
7. Desiderative in -ashtka.
8. Intentional in -tki.
9. Participle in -ank.
10. Past participle and verbal adjectives in -tko.
Tense and mode inflection is very rudimentary and is mostly accomplished
by the use of particles. The study of the prefixes and suffixes of
derivation is one of the chief difficulties of the language, for they
combine in clusters, and are not easily analyzed, and their functions
are often obscure.
The inflection of nouns by case endings and postpositions is rich in
forms; that of the adjective and numeral less elaborate.
Of the pronouns, only the demonstrative show a complexity of forms.
Another feature of this language is found in verbs appended to certain
numerals, and thus serving as numerical classifiers. These verbs express
methods of counting and relate to form; that is, in each case they
present the Indian in the act of counting objects of a particular form
and placing them in groups of tens.
The appended verbs used as classifiers signify _to place_, but in Indian
languages we are not apt to find a word so highly differentiated as
_place_, but in its stead a series of words with verbs and adverbs
undifferentiated, each signifying _to place_, with a qualification, as
_I place upon_, _I lay alongside of_, _I stand up, by_, etc. Thus we get
classifiers attached to numerals in the Klamath, analogous to the
classifiers attached to verbs, nouns, numerals, etc., in the Ponka, as
mentioned above.
These classifiers in Klamath are further discriminated as to form; but
these form discriminations are the homologues of attitude
discriminations in the Ponka, for the form determines the attitude.
It is interesting to note how often in these lower languages attitude or
form is woven into the grammatic structure. Perhaps this arises from a
condition of expression imposed by the want of the verb _to be_, so that
when existence in place is to be affirmed, the verbs of attitude,
_i.e._, _to stand_, _to sit_, _to lie_, and sometimes _to move_, are
used to predicate existence in place, and thus the mind comes habitually
to consider all things as in the one or the other of these attitudes.
The process of growth seems to be that verbs of attitude are primarily
used to affirm existence in place until the habit of considering the
attitude is established; thus participles of attitude are used with
nouns, &c., and finally, worn down by the law of phonic change, for
economy, they become classifying particles. This view of the origin of
classifying particles seems to be warranted by studies from a great
variety of Indian sources.
The syntactic portion is divided into four parts:
1st. On the predicative relation;
2d. On the objective relation;
3d. On the attributive relation; and the
4th. Exhibits the formation of simple and compound sentences, followed
by notes on the incorporative tendency of the language, its rhetoric,
figures, and idioms.
The alphabet adopted by Mr. Gatschet differs slightly from that used by
the Bureau, particularly in the modification of certain Roman characters
and the introduction of one Greek character. This occurred from the fact
that Mr. Gatschet’s material had been partly prepared prior to the
adoption of the alphabet now in use.
Mr. Gatschet has collected much valuable material relating to
governmental and social institutions, mythology, religion, music,
poetry, oratory, and other interesting matters. The body of Klamath
literature, or otherwise the text previously mentioned, constitutes the
basis of these investigations.
STUDIES AMONG THE IROQUOIS, BY MRS. E. A. SMITH.
Mrs. Smith, of Jersey City, has undertaken to prepare a series of
chrestomathies of the Iroquois language, and has already made much
progress. Three of them are ready for the printer, and that on the
Tuscarora language has been increased much beyond the limits at first
established. She has also collected interesting material relating to the
mythology, habits, customs, &c., of these Indians, and her contributions
will be interesting and important.
WORK BY PROF. OTIS T. MASON.
On the advent of the white man in America a great number of tribes were
found. For a variety of reasons the nomenclature of these tribes became
excessively complex. Names were greatly multiplied for each tribe and a
single name was often inconsistently applied to different tribes.
Several important reasons conspired to bring about this complex state of
synonymy:
1st. A great number of languages were spoken, and ofttimes the first
names obtained for tribes were not the names used by themselves, but the
names by which they were known to some other tribes.
2d. The governmental organization of the Indians was not understood, and
the names for gentes, tribes, and confederacies were confounded.
3d. The advancing occupancy of the country by white men changed the
habitat of the Indians, and in their migrations from point to point
their names were changed.
Under these circumstances the nomenclature of Indian tribes became
ponderous and the synonymy complex. To unravel this synonymy is a task
of great magnitude. Early in the fiscal year the materials already
collected on this subject were turned over to Professor Mason and
clerical assistance given him, and he has prepared a card catalogue of
North American tribes, exhibiting the synonymy, for use in the office.
This is being constantly revised and enlarged, and will eventually be
published.
Professor Mason is also engaged in editing a grammar and dictionary of
the Chata language, by the late Rev. Cyrus Byington, the manuscript of
which was by Mrs. Byington turned over to the Bureau of Ethnology. The
dictionary is Chata-English, and Professor Mason has prepared an
English-Chata of about ten thousand words. He has also undertaken to
enlarge the grammar by a further study of the language among the Indians
themselves.
THE STUDY OF GESTURE SPEECH, BY BREVET LIEUT. COL. GARRICK MALLERY,
U.S.A.
The growth of the languages of civilized peoples in their later stages
may be learned from the study of recorded literature; and by comparative
methods many interesting facts may be discovered pertaining to periods
anterior to the development of writing.
In the study of peoples who have not passed beyond the tribal condition,
laws of linguistic growth anterior to the written stage may be
discovered. Thus, by the study of the languages of tribes and the
languages of nations, the methods and laws of development are discovered
from the low condition represented by the most savage tribe to the
highest condition existing in the speech of civilized man. But there is
a development of language anterior to this--a prehistoric condition--of
profound interest to the scholar, because in it the beginnings of
language--the first steps in the organization of articulate speech--are
involved.
On this prehistoric stage, light is thrown from four sources:
1st. Infant speech, in which the development of the language of the race
is epitomized.
2d. Gesture speech, which, among tribal peoples, never passes beyond the
first stages of linguistic growth; and these stages are probably
homologous to the earlier stages of oral speech.
3d. Picture writing, in which we again find some of the characteristics
of prehistoric speech illustrated.
4th. It may be possible to learn something of the elements of which
articulate speech is compounded by studying the inarticulate language of
the lower animals.
The traits of gesture speech that seem to illustrate the condition of
prehistoric oral language are found in the synthetic character of its
signs. The parts of speech are not differentiated, and the sentence is
not integrated; and this characteristic is more marked than in that of
the lowest oral language yet studied. For this reason the facts of
gesture speech constitute an important factor in the philosophy of
language. Doubtless, care must be exercised in its use because of the
advanced mental condition of the people who thus express their thought,
but with due caution it may be advantageously used. In itself,
independent of its relations to oral speech, the subject is of great
interest.
In taking up this subject for original investigation, valuable published
matter was found for comparison with that obtained by Colonel Mallery.
His opportunities for collecting materials from the Indians themselves
were abundant, as delegations of various tribes are visiting Washington
from time to time, by which the information obtained during his travels
was supplemented.
Again, the method of investigation by the assistance of a number of
collaborators is well illustrated in this work, and contributions from
various sources were made to the materials for study. The methods of
obtaining these contributions will be more fully explained hereafter.
One of the papers appended to this report was prepared by Colonel
Mallery and relates to this subject.
During the continuance of the Survey of the Colorado River, and of the
Rocky Mountain Region, the Director and his assistants made large
collections of pictographs. When Colonel Mallery joined the corps these
collections were turned over to him for more careful study. From various
sources these pictographs are rapidly accumulating, and now the subject
is assuming large proportions, and valuable results are expected.
An interesting relation between gesture speech and pictography consists
in the discovery that to the delineation of natural objects is added the
representation of gesture signs. Materials in America are very abundant,
and the prehistoric materials may be studied in the light given by the
practices now found among Indian tribes.
STUDIES IN CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE WRITING, BY PROF. E. S. HOLDEN.
In Central America and Mexico, picture writing had progressed to a stage
far in advance of anything discovered to the northward. Some of the most
interesting of these are the rock inscriptions of Yucatan, Copan,
Palenque, and other ruins of Central America.
Professor Holden has devoted much time to the study of these
inscriptions, for the purpose of discovering the characteristics of the
pictographic method and deciphering the records, and the discoveries
made by him are of great interest.
The Bureau has given him clerical assistance and such other aid as has
been found possible, and a paper by him on this subject appears with
this volume.
THE STUDY OF MORTUARY CUSTOMS, BY DR. H. C. YARROW.
The tribes of North America do not constitute a homogeneous people. In
fact, more than seventy distinct linguistic stocks are discovered, and
these are again divided by important distinctions of language. Among
these tribes varying stages of culture have been reached, and these
varying stages are exhibited in their habits and customs; and in a
territory of such vast extent the physical environment affecting culture
and customs is of great variety. Forest lands on the one hand, prairie
lands on the other, unbroken plains and regions of rugged mountains, the
cold, naked, desolate shores of sea and lake at the north and the dense
chaparral of the torrid south, the valleys of quiet rivers and the
cliffs and gorges of the cañon land--in all a great diversity of
physical features are found, imposing diverse conditions for obtaining
subsistence, in means and methods of house-building, creating diverse
wants and furnishing diverse ways for their supply. Through diversities
of languages and diversities of environment, diversity of traditions and
diversity of institutions have been produced; so that in many important
respects one tribe is never the counterpart of another.
These diversities have important limitations in the unity of the human
race and the social, mental, and moral homogeneity that has everywhere
controlled the progress of culture. The way of human progress is one
road, though wide.
From the interesting field of research cultivated by Dr. Yarrow an
abundant harvest will be gathered. The materials already accumulated are
large, and are steadily increasing through his vigorous work. These
materials constitute something more than a record of quaint customs and
abhorrent rites in which morbid curiosity may revel. In them we find the
evidences of traits of character and lines of thought that yet exist and
profoundly influence civilization. Passions in the highest culture
deemed most sacred--the love of husband and wife, parent and child, and
kith and kin, tempering, beautifying, and purifying social life and
culminating at death, have their origin far back in the early history of
the race and leaven the society of savagery and civilization alike. At
either end of the line bereavement by death tears the heart and mortuary
customs are symbols of mourning. The mystery which broods over the abbey
where lie the bones of king and bishop, gathers over the ossuary where
lie the bones of chief and shamin; for the same longing to solve the
mysteries of life and death, the same yearning for a future life, the
same awe of powers more than human, exist alike in the mind of the
savage and the sage.
By such investigations we learn the history of culture in these
important branches, and in a paper appended to this report Dr. Yarrow
presents some of the results of his studies.
INVESTIGATIONS RELATING TO CESSIONS OF LAND BY INDIAN TRIBES TO THE
UNITED STATES, BY C. C. ROYCE.
When civilized man first came to America the continent was partially
occupied by savage tribes, who obtained subsistence by hunting, by
fishing, by gathering vegetal products, and by rude garden culture in
cultivating small patches of ground. Semi-nomadic occupancy for such
purposes was their tenure to the soil.
On the organization of the present government such theories of natural
law were entertained that even this imperfect occupancy was held to be
sufficient title. Publicists, jurists, and statesmen agreed that no
portion of the waste of lands between the oceans could be acquired for
the homes of the incoming civilized men but by purchase or conquest in
just war. These theories were most potent in establishing practical
relations, and controlling governmental dealings with Indian tribes.
They were adjudged to be dependent domestic nations.
Under this theory a system of Indian affairs grew up, the history of
which, notwithstanding mistakes and innumerable personal wrongs, yet
demonstrates the justice inherent in the public sentiment of the nation
from its organization to the present time.
The difficulties subsisting in the adjustment of rights between savage
and civilized peoples are multiform and complex. Ofttimes the virtues of
one condition are the crimes of the other; happiness is misery; justice,
injustice. Thus, when the civilized man would do the best, he gave the
most offense. Under such circumstances it was impossible for wisdom and
justice combined to avert conflict.
One chapter in the history of Indian affairs in America is a doleful
tale of petty but costly and cruel wars; but there are other chapters
more pleasant to contemplate.
The attempts to educate the Indians and teach them the ways of
civilization have been many; much labor has been given, much treasure
expended. While to a large extent all of these efforts have disappointed
their enthusiastic promoters, yet good has been done, but rather by the
personal labors of missionaries, teachers, and frontiersmen associating
with Indians in their own land than by institutions organized and
supported by wealth and benevolence not immediately in contact with
savagery.
The great boon to the savage tribes of this country, unrecognized by
themselves, and, to a large extent, unrecognized by civilized men, has
been the presence of civilization, which, under the laws of
acculturation, has irresistibly improved their culture by substituting
new and civilized for old and savage arts, new for old customs--in
short, transforming savage into civilized life. These unpremeditated
civilizing influences have had a marked effect. The great body of the
Indians of North America have passed through stages of culture in the
last hundred years achieved by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors only by the
slow course of events through a thousand years.
The Indians of the continent have not greatly diminished in numbers, and
the tribes longest in contact with civilization are increasing. The
whole body of Indians is making rapid progress toward a higher culture,
notwithstanding the petty conflicts yet occurring where the relations of
the Indian tribes to our civilization have not yet been adjusted by the
adoption upon their part of the first conditions of a higher life.
The part which the General Government, representing public sentiment,
has done in the extinguishment of the vague Indian title to lands in the
granting to them of lands for civilized homes on reservations and in
severalty, in the establishment and support of schools, in the endeavors
to teach them agriculture and other industrial arts--in these and many
other ways justice and beneficence have been shown. Thus the history of
the tribes of America from savagery to civilization is a history of
three:
First. The history of acculturation--the effect of the presence of
civilization upon savagery.
Second. The history of Indian wars that have arisen in part from the
crimes and in part from the ignorance of either party.
Third. The history of civil Indian affairs. This last is divided into a
number of parts:
1st. The extinguishment of the Indian title.
2d. The gathering of Indians upon reservations.
3d. The instrumentalities used to teach the Indians civilized
industries; and
4th. The establishment and operation of schools.
From the organization of the Government to the present time these
branches of Indian affairs have been in operation; lands have been
bought and bought again; Indian tribes have been moved and moved again;
reservations have been established and broken up. The Government has
sought to give lands in severalty to the Indians from time to time along
the whole course of the history of Indian affairs. Every experiment to
teach the Indians the industries of civilization that could be devised
has been tried, and from all of these there has resulted a mixture of
failure and success.
A review of the century’s history abundantly demonstrates that there is
no short road to justice and peace; but a glance at the present state of
affairs exhibits the fact that these tribal communities will speedily be
absorbed in the citizenship of the republic. No new method is to be
adopted; the work is almost done; patient and persistent effort for a
short future like that of the long past will accomplish all. It remains
for us but to perfect the work wisely begun by the founders of the
Government.
The industries and social institutions of the pristine Indians have
largely been destroyed, and they are groping their way to civilized
life. To the full accomplishment of this, three things are necessary:
1st. The organization of the civilized family, with its rules of
inheritance in lineal descent.
2d. The civilized tenure of property in severalty must be substituted
for communal property.
3d. The English language must be acquired, that the thoughts and ways of
civilization may be understood.
To the history of Indian affairs much time has been given by the various
members of the Bureau of Ethnology. One of the more important of these
studies is that prosecuted by Mr. Royce in preparing a history of the
cessions of lands by Indian tribes to the Government of the United
States. A paper by him appended to this report illustrates the character
of these investigations.
EXPLORATIONS BY MR. JAMES STEVENSON.
In the early exploration of the southwestern portion of the United
States by Spanish travelers and conquerors, about sixty pueblos were
discovered. These pueblos were communal villages, with architecture in
untooled stone. In the conquest about half of the pueblos were
destroyed. Thirty-one now remain, and two of these are across the line,
on Mexican territory. The ruins of the pueblos yet remain, and some of
them have been identified.
The Navajos, composed of a group of tribes of the Athabascan family, and
the Coaninis, who live on the south side of the Grand Cañon of the
Colorado, are now known to be the people, or part of them at least, who
were driven from the pueblos.
In addition to the ruins that have been made in historic times, others
are found scattered throughout New Mexico, Arizona, Southern California,
Utah, and Colorado. Whether the ancient inhabitants of these older ruins
are represented by any of the tribes who now occupy the territory is not
known. These pueblo people were not homogeneous. Among the pueblos now
known at least five linguistic families are represented, but in their
study a somewhat homogeneous stage of culture is presented.
In a general way the earlier or older ruins represent very rude
structures, and the progress of development from the earlier to the
later exhibits two classes of interesting facts. The structures
gradually increase in size and improve in architecture. As the sites for
new villages were selected, more easily defensible positions were
chosen. The cliff dwellings thus belong to the later stage.
From the organization of the exploration of the Colorado River to the
present time, the pueblos yet inhabited, as well as those in ruins, have
been a constant subject of study, and on the organization of the Bureau
much valuable matter had already been collected. Early in the fiscal
year a party was organized to continue explorations in this field, and
placed under the direction of Mr. James Stevenson. The party left
Washington on the first of August last.
Mr. Frank H. Cushing, of the Smithsonian Institution, and Mr. J. K.
Hillers, photographer of the Bureau, with a number of general
assistants, accompanied Mr. Stevenson. The party remained in the field
until early winter, studying the ruins and making large and valuable
collections of pottery, stone implements, etc., and Mr. Hillers
succeeded in making an excellent suite of photographs.
When Mr. Stevenson returned with his party to Washington, Mr. Cushing
remained at Zuñi to study the language, mythology, sociology, and art of
that the most interesting pueblo. An illustrated catalogue of the
collections made by Mr. Stevenson has been printed. It was intended to
form an appendix to this report, but the volume has grown to such a size
that it is thought best to issue it with the next report.
RESEARCHES AMONG THE WINTUNS, BY J. W. POWELL.
During the fall the Director made an expedition into Northern California
for the purpose of studying the Wintuns. Much linguistic, sociologic,
and technologic material was collected, and more thorough anthropologic
researches initiated among a series of tribes heretofore neglected.
THE PREPARATION OF MANUALS FOR USE IN AMERICAN RESEARCH.
In the second plan of operations adopted by the Bureau, that of
promoting the researches of collaborators, aid in publication and, to
some extent, in preparation of scientific papers, has been given, and by
various ways new investigations and lines of research have been
initiated. For this latter purpose a series of manuals with elementary
discussions and schedules of interrogatories have been prepared.
The first is entitled Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages, by
J. W. Powell.
This has been widely distributed throughout North America, and the
collection of a large body of linguistic material has resulted
therefrom.
A second volume of this character is entitled Introduction to the Study
of Mortuary Customs, by Dr. H. C. Yarrow.
This also has been widely circulated with abundant success.
A third hand-book of the same character is entitled Introduction to the
Study of Sign Language, by Colonel Mallery.
This was circulated in like manner with like results.
A second edition of the Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages,
enlarged to meet the advanced wants of the time, has been prepared.
The papers by Dr. Yarrow and Colonel Mallery, and the catalogue of
manuscripts in the Bureau, prepared by Mr. Pilling, appended to this
volume, will illustrate the value of these agencies.
It is proposed in the near future to prepare similar volumes, as
follows:
Introduction to the Study of Medicine Practices of the North American
Indians;
Introduction to the Study of the Tribal Governments of North America;
Introduction to the Study of North American Mythology.
These additional manuals are nearly ready. Still others are projected,
and it is hoped that the field of North American anthropology will be
entirely covered by them. The series will then be systematically
combined in a Manual of Anthropology for use in North America.
SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN TRIBES.
There is in course of preparation by the Bureau a linguistic
classification of North American tribes, with an atlas exhibiting their
priscan homes, or the regions inhabited by them at the time they were
discovered by white men.
* * * * *
The foregoing sketch of the Bureau, for the first fiscal year of its
existence, is designed to set forth the plan on which it is organized
and the methods of research adopted, and the papers appended thereto
will exhibit the measure of success attained.
It is the purpose of the Bureau of Ethnology to organize anthropologic
research in America.
* * * * *
* * * *
_Errors and Inconsistencies: Introductory Section_
In the Table of Contents under Sign Language, entries for the individual
Dialogues, Narratives and Discourses were added by the transcriber for
consistency.
Contents:
Witchcraft 67 [Withcraft]
SIGN LANGUAGE ... BY COL. GARRICK MALLERY. [COL GARRICK]
Sweat-Lodges, by A. S. Gatschet 586 [_added by transcriber_]
Linguistic Researches (Gatschet):
2. Durative in -ota. [_hyphen invisible_]
STUDIES AMONG THE IROQUOIS, BY MRS. E. A. SMITH. [_final . missing_]
Gesture Speech (Mallery):
... the representation of gesture signs. [_final . missing_]
Mortuary Customs (Yarrow):
... savagery and civilization alike. [_final . invisible_]
... the bones of chief and shamin; [_spelling unchanged_]
Classification of Tribes:
anthropologic research in America. [_final . missing_]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
ACCOMPANYING PAPERS.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
ON THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE,
As Exhibited In
The Specialization of the Grammatic Processes,
the Differentiation of the Parts of Speech,
and the Integration of the Sentence;
From a Study of Indian Languages.
By
J. W. POWELL.
CONTENTS.
Process by combination 3
Process by vocalic mutation 5
Process by intonation 6
Process by placement 6
Differentiation of the parts of speech 8
* * * * *
ON THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE
* * * * *
Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A distinct word for
every distinct idea and thought would require a vast vocabulary. The
problem in language is to express many ideas and thoughts with
comparatively few words.
Again, in the evolution of any language, progress is from a condition
where few ideas are expressed by a few words to a higher, where many
ideas are expressed by the use of many words; but the number of all
possible ideas or thoughts expressed is increased greatly out of
proportion with the increase of the number of words.
And still again, in all of those languages which have been most
thoroughly studied, and by inference in all languages, it appears that
the few original words used in any language remain as the elements for
the greater number finally used. In the evolution of a language the
introduction of absolutely new material is a comparatively rare
phenomenon. The old material is combined and modified in many ways to
form the new.
How has the small stock of words found as the basis of a language been
thus combined and modified?
The way in which the old materials have been used gives rise to what
will here be denominated THE GRAMMATIC PROCESSES.
I.--THE PROCESS BY COMBINATION.
Two or more words may be united to form a new one, or to perform the
office of a new one, and four methods or stages of combination may be
noted.
_a._ By _juxtaposition_, where the two words are placed together and yet
remain as distinct words. This method is illustrated in Chinese, where
the words in the combination when taken alone seldom give a clew to
their meaning when placed together.
_b._ By _compounding_, where two words are made into one, in which case
the original elements of the new word remain in an unmodified condition,
as in _house-top_, _rain-bow_, _tell-tale_.
_c._ By _agglutination_, in which case one or more of the elements
entering into combination to form the new word is somewhat changed--the
elements are fused together. Yet this modification is not so great as to
essentially obscure the primitive words, as in _truthful_, where we
easily recognize the original words _truth_ and _full_; and _holiday_,
in which _holy_ and _day_ are recognized.
_d._ By _inflection_. Here one or more of the elements entering into the
compound has been so changed that it can scarcely be recognized. There
is a constant tendency to economy in speech by which words are gradually
shortened as they are spoken by generation after generation. In those
words which are combinations of others there are certain elements that
wear out more rapidly than others. Where some particular word is
combined with many other different words the tendency to modify by wear
this oft-used element is great. This is more especially the case where
the combined word is used in certain categories of combinations, as
where particular words are used to denote tense in the verb; thus, _did_
may be used in combination with a verb to denote past time until it is
worn down to the sound of _d_. The same wear occurs where particular
words are used to form cases in nouns, and a variety of illustrations
might be given. These categories constitute conjugations and
declensions, and for convenience such combinations may be called
paradigmatic. Then the oft-repeated elements of paradigmatic
combinations are apt to become excessively worn and modified, so that
the primitive words or themes to which they are attached seem to be but
slightly changed by the addition. Under these circumstances combination
is called inflection.
As a morphologic process, no well-defined plane of demarkation between
these four methods of combination can be drawn, as one runs into
another; but, in general, words may be said to be juxtaposed when two
words being placed together the combination performs the function of a
new word, while in form the two words remain separate.
Words may be said to be compound when two or more words are combined to
form one, no change being made in either. Words maybe said to be
agglutinated when the elementary words are changed but slightly, _i.e._,
only to the extent that their original forms are not greatly obscured;
and words may be said to be inflected when in the combination the
oft-repeated element or formative part has been so changed that its
origin is obscured. These inflections are used chiefly in the
paradigmatic combinations.
In the preceding statement it has been assumed that there can be
recognized, in these combinations of inflection, a theme or root, as it
is sometimes called, and a formative element. The formative element is
used with a great many different words to define or qualify them; that
is, to indicate mode, tense, number, person, gender, etc., of verbs,
nouns, and other parts of speech.
When in a language juxtaposition is the chief method of combination,
there may also be distinguished two kinds of elements, in some sense
corresponding to themes and formative parts. The theme is a word the
meaning of which is determined by the formative word placed by it; that
is, the theme is a word having many radically different meanings; with
which meaning it is to be understood is determined only by the formative
word, which thus serves as its label. The ways in which the theme words
are thus labeled by the formative word are very curious, but the subject
cannot be entered into here.
When words are combined by compounding, the formative elements cannot so
readily be distinguished from the theme; nor for the purposes under
immediate consideration can compounding be well separated from
agglutination.
When words are combined by agglutination, theme and formative part
usually appear. The formative parts are affixes; and affixes may be
divided into three classes, prefixes, suffixes, and infixes. These
affixes are often called incorporated particles.
In those Indian languages where combination is chiefly by agglutination,
that is, by the use of affixes, _i.e._, incorporated particles, certain
parts of the conjugation of the verb, especially those which denote
gender, number, and person, are effected by the use of article pronouns;
but in those languages where article pronouns are not found the verbs
are inflected to accomplish the same part of their conjugation. Perhaps,
when we come more fully to study the formative elements in these more
highly inflected languages, we may discover in such elements greatly
modified, _i.e._, worn out, incorporated pronouns.
II.--THE PROCESS BY VOCALIC MUTATION.
Here, in order to form a new word, one or more of the vowels of the old
word are changed, as in _man--men_, where an _e_ is substituted for _a_;
_ran--run_, where _u_ is substituted for _a_; _lead--led_, where _e_,
with its proper sound, is substituted for _ea_ with its proper sound.
This method is used to a very limited extent in English. When the
history of the words in which it occurs is studied it is discovered to
be but an instance of the wearing out of the different elements of
combined words; but in the Hebrew this method prevails to a very large
extent, and scholars have not yet been able to discover its origin in
combination as they have in English. It may or may not have been an
original grammatic process, but because of its importance in certain
languages it has been found necessary to deal with it as a distinct and
original process.
III.--THE PROCESS BY INTONATION.
In English, new words are not formed by this method, yet words are
intoned for certain purposes, chiefly rhetorical. We use the rising
intonation (or inflection, as it is usually called) to indicate that a
question is asked, and various effects are given to speech by the
various intonations of rhetoric. But this process is used in other
languages to form new words with which to express new ideas. In Chinese
eight distinct intonations are found, by the use of which one word may
be made to express eight different ideas, or perhaps it is better to say
that eight words may be made of one.
IV.--THE PROCESS BY PLACEMENT.
The place or position of a word may affect its significant use. Thus in
English we say _John struck James_. By the position of those words to
each other we know that John is the actor, and that James receives the
action.
* * * * *
By the grammatic processes language is organized. Organization
postulates the differentiation of organs and their combination into
integers. The integers of language are sentences, and their organs are
the parts of speech. Linguistic organization, then, consists in the
differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the
sentence. For example, let us take the words _John_, _father_, and
_love_. _John_ is the name of an individual; _love_ is the name of a
mental action, and _father_ the name of a person. We put them together,
John loves father, and they express a thought; _John_ becomes a noun,
and is the subject of the sentence; _love_ becomes a verb, and is the
predicant; _father_ a noun, and is the object; and we now have an
organized sentence. A sentence requires parts of speech, and parts of
speech are such because they are used as the organic elements of a
sentence.
The criteria of rank in languages are, first, grade of organization,
_i.e._, the degree to which the grammatic processes and methods are
specialized, and the parts of speech differentiated; second, sematologic
content, that is, the body of thought which the language is competent to
convey.
The grammatic processes may be used for three purposes:
First, for _derivation_, where a new word to express a new idea is made
by combining two or more old words, or by changing the vowel of one
word, or by changing the intonation of one word.
Second, for _modification_, a word may be qualified or defined by the
processes of combination, vocalic mutation or intonation.
It should here be noted that the plane between derivation and
qualification is not absolute.
Third, for _relation_. When words as signs of ideas are used together to
express thought, the relation of the words must be expressed by some
means. In English the relation of words is expressed both by placement
and combination, _i.e._, inflection for agreement.
It should here be noted that paradigmatic inflections are used for two
distinct purposes, qualification and relation. A word is qualified by
inflection when the idea expressed by the inflection pertains to the
idea expressed by the word inflected; thus a noun is qualified by
inflection when its number and gender are expressed. A word is related
by inflection when the office of the word in the sentence is pointed out
thereby; thus, nouns are related by case inflections; verbs are related
by inflections for gender, number, and person. All inflection for
agreement is inflection for relation.
In English, three of the grammatic processes are highly specialized.
_Combination_ is used chiefly for derivation, but to some slight extent
for qualification and relation in the paradigmatic categories. But its
use in this manner as compared with many other languages has almost
disappeared.
_Vocalic mutation_ is used to a very limited extent and only by
accident, and can scarcely be said to belong to the English language.
_Intonation_ is used as a grammatic process only to a limited
extent--simply to assist in forming the interrogative and imperative
modes. Its use here is almost rhetorical; in all other cases it is
purely rhetorical.
_Placement_ is largely used in the language, and is highly specialized,
performing the office of exhibiting the relations of words to each other
in the sentence; _i.e._, it is used chiefly for syntactic relation.
Thus one of the four processes does not belong to the English language;
the others are highly specialized.
The purposes for which the processes are used are _derivation_,
_modification_, and _syntactic relation_.
_Derivation_ is accomplished by combination.
_Modification_ is accomplished by the differentiation of adjectives and
adverbs, as words, phrases, and clauses.
_Syntactic relation_ is accomplished by placement. Syntactic relation
must not be confounded with the relation expressed by prepositions.
Syntactic relation is the relation of the parts of speech to each other
as integral parts of a sentence. Prepositions express relations of
thought of another order. They relate words to each other as words.
Placement relates words to each other as parts of speech.
In the Indian tongues combination is used for all three purposes,
performing the three different functions of derivation, modification,
and relation. Placement, also, is used for relation, and for both lands
of relation, syntactic and prepositional.
With regard, then, to the processes and purposes for which they are
used, we find in the Indian languages a low degree of specialization;
processes are used for diverse purposes, and purposes are accomplished
by diverse processes.
DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH.
It is next in order to consider to what degree the parts of speech are
differentiated in Indian languages, as compared with English.
Indian nouns are extremely connotive, that is, the name does more than
simply denote the thing to which it belongs; in denoting the object it
also assigns to it some quality or characteristic. Every object has many
qualities and characteristics, and by describing but a part of these the
true office of the noun is but imperfectly performed. A strictly
denotive name expresses no one quality or character, but embraces all
qualities and characters.
In _Ute_ the name for bear is _he seizes_, or _the hugger_. In this case
the verb is used for the noun, and in so doing the Indian names the bear
by predicating one of his characteristics. Thus noun and verb are
undifferentiated. In _Seneca_ the north is _the sun never goes there_,
and this sentence may be used as adjective or noun; in such cases noun,
adjective, verb, and adverb are found as one vocable or word, and the
four parts of speech are undifferentiated. In the _Pavänt_ language a
school-house is called _pó-kûnt-în-îñ-yî-kän_. The first part of the
word, _pó-kûnt_, signifies _sorcery is practiced_, and is the name given
by the Indians to any writing, from the fact that when they first
learned of writing they supposed it to be a method of practicing
sorcery; _în-îñ-yî_ is the verb signifying _to count_, and the meaning
of the word has been extended so as to signify _to read_; _kän_
signifies wigwam, and is derived from the verb _küri_, _to stay_. Thus
the name of the school-house literally signifies _a staying place where
sorcery is counted_, or where papers are read. The _Pavänt_ in naming a
school-house describes the purpose for which it is used. These examples
illustrate the general characteristics of Indian nouns; they are
excessively connotive; a simply denotive name is rarely found. In
general their name-words predicate some attribute of the object named,
and thus noun, adjective, and predicant are undifferentiated.
In many Indian languages there is no separate word for _eye_, _hand_,
_arm_, or other parts and organs of the body, but the word is found with
an incorporated or attached pronoun signifying _my_ hand, _my_ eye;
_your_ hand, _your_ eye; _his_ hand, _his_ eye, etc., as the case may
be. If the Indian, in naming these parts, refers to his own body, he
says _my_; if he refers to the body of the person to whom he is
speaking, he says _your_, &c. If an Indian should find a detached foot
thrown from the amputating-table of an army field hospital, he would say
something like this: I have found somebody _his foot_. The linguistic
characteristic is widely spread, though not universal.
Thus the Indian has no command of a fully differentiated noun expressive
of _eye_, _hand_, _arm_, or other parts and organs of the body.
In the pronouns we often have the most difficult part of an Indian
language. Pronouns are only to a limited extent independent words.
Among the free pronouns the student must early learn to distinguish
between the personal and the demonstrative. The demonstrative pronouns
are more commonly used. The Indian is more accustomed to say _this_
person or thing, _that_ person or thing, than _he_, _she_, or _it_.
Among the free personal pronouns the student may find an equivalent of
the pronoun _I_, another signifying _I and you_; perhaps another
signifying _I and he_, and one signifying _we, more than two_, including
the speaker and those present; and another including the speaker and
persons absent. He will also find personal pronouns in the second and
third person, perhaps with singular, dual, and plural forms.
To a large extent the pronouns are incorporated in the verbs as
prefixes, infixes, or suffixes. In such cases we will call them article
pronouns. These article pronouns point out with great particularity the
person, number, and gender, both of subject and object, and sometimes of
the indirect object. When the article pronouns are used the personal
pronouns may or may not be used; but it is believed that the personal
pronouns will always be found. Article pronouns may not always be found.
In those languages which are characterized by them they are used alike
when the subject and object nouns are expressed and when they are not.
The student may at first find some difficulty with these article
pronouns. Singular, dual, and plural forms will be found. Sometimes
distinct incorporated particles will be used for subject and object, but
often this will not be the case. If the subject only is expressed, one
particle may be used; if the object only is expressed, another particle;
but if subject and object are expressed an entirely different particle
may stand for both.
But it is in the genders of these article pronouns that the greatest
difficulty may be found. The student must entirely free his mind of the
idea that gender is simply a distinction of sex. In Indian tongues,
genders are usually methods of classification primarily into animate and
inanimate. The animate may be again divided into male and female, but
this is rarely the case. Often by these genders all objects are
classified by characteristics found in their attitudes or supposed
constitution. Thus we may have the animate and inanimate, one or both,
divided into the _standing_, the _sitting_, and the _lying_; or they may
be divided into the _watery_, the _mushy_, the _earthy_, the _stony_,
the _woody_, and the _fleshy_. The gender of these article pronouns has
rarely been worked out in any language. The extent to which these
classifications enter into the article pronouns is not well known. The
subject requires more thorough study. These incorporated particles are
here called _article_ pronouns. In the conjugation of the verb they take
an important part, and have by some writers been called _transitions_.
Besides pointing out with particularity the person, number, and gender
or the subject and object, they perform the same offices that are
usually performed by those inflections of the verb that occur to make
them agree in gender, number, and person with the subject. In those
Indian languages where the article pronouns are not found, and the
personal pronouns only are used, the verb is usually inflected to agree
with the subject or object, or both, in the same particulars.
The article pronouns as they point out person, number, gender, and case
of the subject and object, are not simple particles, but are to a
greater or lesser extent compound; their component elements may be
broken apart and placed in different parts of the verb. Again, the
article pronoun in some languages may have its elements combined into a
distinct word in such a manner that it will not be incorporated in the
verb, but will be placed immediately before it. For this reason the term
_article pronoun_ has been chosen rather than _attached pronoun_. The
older term, _transition_, was given to them because of their analogy in
function to verbal inflections.
Thus the verb of an Indian language contains within itself incorporated
article pronouns which point out with great particularity the gender,
number, and person of the subject and object. In this manner verb,
pronoun, and adjective are combined, and to this extent these parts of
speech are undifferentiated.
In some languages the article pronoun constitutes a distinct word, but
whether free or incorporated it is a complex tissue of adjectives.
Again, nouns sometimes contain particles within themselves to predicate
possession, and to this extent nouns and verbs are undifferentiated.
The verb is relatively of much greater importance in an Indian tongue
than in a civilized language. To a large extent the pronoun is
incorporated in the verb as explained above, and thus constitutes a part
of its conjugation.
Again, adjectives are used as intransitive verbs, as in most Indian
languages there is no verb _to be_ used as a predicant or copula. Where
in English we would say _the man is good_, the Indian would say _that
man good_, using the adjective as an intransitive verb, _i.e._, as a
predicant. If he desired to affirm it in the past tense, the
intransitive verb _good_, would be inflected, or otherwise modified, to
indicate the tense; and so, in like manner, all adjectives when used to
predicate can be modified to indicate mode, tense, number, person, &c.,
as other intransitive verbs.
Adverbs are used as intransitive verbs. In English we may say _he is
there_; the Indian would say _that person there_ usually preferring the
demonstrative to the personal pronoun. The adverb _there_ would,
therefore, be used as a predicant or intransitive verb, and might be
conjugated to denote different modes, tenses, numbers, persons, etc.
Verbs will often receive adverbial qualifications by the use of
incorporated particles, and, still further, verbs may contain within
themselves adverbial limitations without our being able to trace such
meanings to any definite particles or parts of the verb.
Prepositions are intransitive verbs. In English we may say _the hat is
on the table_; the Indian would say _that hat on table_; or he might
change the order, and say _that hat table on_; but the preposition _on_
would be used as an intransitive verb to predicate, and may be
conjugated. Prepositions may often be found as particles incorporated in
verbs, and, still further, verbs may contain within themselves
prepositional meanings without our being able to trace such meanings to
any definite particles within the verb. But the verb connotes such ideas
that something is needed to complete its meaning, that something being a
limiting or qualifying word, phrase, or clause. Prepositions may be
prefixed, infixed, or suffixed to nouns, _i.e._, they may be particles
incorporated in nouns.
Nouns may be used as intransitive verbs under the circumstances when in
English we would use a noun as the complement of a sentence after the
verb _to be_.
The verb, therefore, often includes within itself subject, direct
object, indirect object, qualifier, and relation-idea. Thus it is that
the study of an Indian language is, to a large extent, the study of its
verbs.
Thus adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and nouns are used as
intransitive verbs; and, to such extent, adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, nouns and verbs are undifferentiated.
From the remarks above, it will be seen that Indian verbs often include
within themselves meanings which in English are expressed by adverbs and
adverbial phrases and clauses. Thus the verb may express within itself
direction, manner, instrument, and purpose, one or all, as the verb _to
go_ may be represented by a word signifying _go home_; another, _go away
from home_; another, _go to a place other than home_; another, _go from
a place other than home_; one, _go from this place_, with reference to
home; one, to _go up_; another, to _go down_; one, _go around_; and,
perhaps, there will be a verb _go up hill_; another, _go up a valley_;
another, _go up a river_, etc. Then we may have _to go on foot_, _to go
on horseback_, _to go in a canoe_; still another, _to go for water_;
another _for wood_, etc. Distinct words may be used for all these, or a
fewer number used, and these varied by incorporated particles. In like
manner, the English verb _to break_ may be represented by several words,
each of which will indicate the manner of performing the act or the
instrument with which it is done. Distinct words may be used, or a
common word varied with incorporated particles.
The verb _to strike_ may be represented by several words, signifying
severally _to strike with the fist_, _to strike with a club_, _to strike
with the open hand_, _to strike with a whip_, _to strike with a switch_,
to strike with a flat instrument, etc. A common word may be used with
incorporated particles or entirely different words used.
Mode in an Indian tongue is a rather difficult subject. Modes analogous
to those of civilized tongues are found, and many conditions and
qualifications appear in the verb which in English and other civilized
languages appear as adverbs, and adverbial phrases and clauses. No plane
of separation can be drawn between such adverbial qualifications and
true modes. Thus there may be a form of the verb, which shows that the
speaker makes a declaration as certain, _i.e._, an _indicative_ mode;
another which shows that the speaker makes a declaration with doubt,
_i.e._, a _dubitative_ mode; another that he makes a declaration on
hearsay, _i.e._, a _quotative_ mode; another form will be used in making
a command, giving an _imperative_ mode; another in imploration, _i.e._,
an _implorative_ mode; another form to denote permission, _i.e._, a
_permissive_ mode; another in negation, _i.e._, a _negative_ mode;
another form will be used to indicate that the action is simultaneous
with some other action, _i.e._, a _simulative_ mode; another to denote
desire or wish that something be done, _i.e._, a _desiderative_ mode;
another that the action ought to be done, _i.e._, an _obligative_ mode;
another that action is repetitive from time to time, _i.e._, a
_frequentative_ mode; another that action is caused, _i.e._, a
_causative_ mode, etc.
These forms of the verb, which we are compelled to call modes, are of
great number. Usually with each of them a particular modal particle or
incorporated adverb will be used; but the particular particle which
gives the qualified meaning may not always be discovered; and in one
language a different word will be introduced, wherein another the same
word will be used with an incorporated particle.
It is stated above that incorporated particles may be used to indicate
direction, manner, instrument, and purpose; in fact, any adverbial
qualification whatever may be made by an incorporated particle instead
of an adverb as a distinct word.
No line of demarkation can be drawn between these adverbial particles
and those mentioned above as modal particles. Indeed it seems best to
treat all these forms of the verb arising from incorporated particles as
distinct modes. In this sense, then, an Indian language has a
multiplicity of modes. It should be further remarked that in many cases
these modal or adverbial particles are excessively worn, so that they
may appear as additions or changes of simple vowel or consonant sounds.
When incorporated particles are thus used, distinct adverbial words,
phrases, or clauses may also be employed, and the idea expressed twice.
In an Indian language it is usually found difficult to elaborate a
system of tenses in paradigmatic form. Many tenses or time particles are
found incorporated in verbs. Some of these time particles are
excessively worn, and may appear rather as inflections than as
incorporated particles. Usually rather distinct present, past, and
future tenses are discovered; often a remote or ancient past, and less
often an immediate future. But great specification of time in relation
to the present and in relation to other time is usually found.
It was seen above that adverbial particles cannot be separated from
modal particles. In like manner tense particles cannot be separated from
adverbial and modal particles.
In an Indian language adverbs are differentiated only to a limited
extent. Adverbial qualifications are found in the verb, and thus there
are a multiplicity of modes and tenses, and no plane of demarcation can
be drawn between mode and tense. From preceding statements it will
appear that a verb in an Indian tongue may have incorporated with it a
great variety of particles, which can be arranged in three general
classes, _i.e._, pronominal, adverbial, and prepositional.
The pronominal particles we have called article pronouns; they serve to
point out a variety of characteristics in the subject, object, and
indirect object of the verb. They thus subserve purposes which in
English are subserved by differentiated adjectives as distinct parts of
speech. They might, therefore, with some propriety, have been called
adjective particles, but these elements perform another function; they
serve the purpose which is usually called _agreement in language_; that
is, they make the verb agree with the subject and object, and thus
indicate the syntactic relation between subject, object, and verb. In
this sense they might with propriety have been called relation
particles, and doubtless this function was in mind when some of the
older grammarians called them transitions.
The adverbial particles perform the functions of voice, mode, and tense,
together with many other functions that are performed in languages
spoken by more highly civilized people by differentiated adverbs,
adverbial phrases, and clauses.
The prepositional particles perform the function of indicating a great
variety of subordinate relations, like the prepositions used as distinct
parts of speech in English.
By the demonstrative function of some of the pronominal particles, they
are closely related to adverbial particles, and adverbial particles are
closely related to prepositional particles, so that it will be sometimes
difficult to say of a particular particle whether it be pronominal or
adverbial, and of another particular particle whether it be adverbial or
prepositional.
Thus the three classes of particles are not separated by absolute planes
of demarkation.
The use of these particles as parts of the verb; the use of nouns,
adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions as intransitive verbs; and the
direct use of verbs as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, make the study of
an Indian tongue to a large extent the study of its verbs.
To the extent that voice, mode, and tense are accomplished by the use of
agglutinated particles or inflections, to that extent adverbs and verbs
are undifferentiated.
To the extent that adverbs are found as incorporated particles in verbs,
the two parts of speech are undifferentiated.
To the extent that prepositions are particles incorporated in the verb,
prepositions and verbs are undifferentiated.
To the extent that prepositions are affixed to nouns, prepositions and
nouns are undifferentiated.
In all these particulars it is seen that the Indian tongues belong to a
very low type of organization. Various scholars have called attention to
this feature by describing Indian languages as being holophrastic,
polysynthetic, or synthetic. The term synthetic is perhaps the best, and
may be used as synonymous with undifferentiated.
Indian tongues, therefore, may be said to be highly synthetic in that
their parts of speech are imperfectly differentiated.
In these same particulars the English language is highly organized, as
the parts of speech are highly differentiated. Yet the difference is one
of degree, not of kind.
To the extent in the English language that inflection is used for
qualification, as for person, number, and gender of the noun and
pronoun, and for mode and tense in the verb, to that extent the parts of
speech are undifferentiated. But we have seen that inflection is used
for this purpose to a very slight extent.
There is yet in the English language one important differentiation which
has been but partially accomplished. Verbs as usually considered are
undifferentiated parts of speech; they are nouns and adjectives, one or
both, and predicants. The predicant simple is a distinct part of speech.
The English language has but one, the verb _to be_, and this is not
always a pure predicant, for it sometimes contains within itself an
adverbial element when it is conjugated for mode and tense, and a
connective element when it is conjugated for agreement. With adjectives
and nouns this verb is used as a predicant. In the passive voice also it
is thus used, and the participles are nouns or adjectives. In what is
sometimes called the progressive form of the active voice nouns and
adjectives are differentiated in the participles, and the verb “to be”
is used as a predicant. But in what is usually denominated the active
voice of the verb, the English language has undifferentiated parts of
speech. An examination of the history of the verb _to be_ in the English
language exhibits the fact that it is coming more and more to be used as
the predicant; and what is usually called the common form of the active
voice is coming more and more to be limited in its use to special
significations.
The real active voice, indicative mode, present tense, first person,
singular number, of the verb to eat, is _am eating_. The expression _I
eat_, signifies _I am accustomed to eat_. So, if we consider the common
form of the active voice throughout its entire conjugation, we discover
that many of its forms are limited to special uses.
Throughout the conjugation of the verb the auxiliaries are predicants,
but these auxiliaries, to the extent that they are modified for mode,
tense, number, and person, contain adverbial and connective elements.
In like manner many of the lexical elements of the English language
contain more than one part of speech: _To ascend_ is _to go up_; _to
descend_ is _to go down_; and _to depart_ is _to go from_.
Thus it is seen that the English language is also synthetic in that its
parts of speech are not completely differentiated. The English, then,
differs in this respect from an Indian language only in degree.
In most Indian tongues no pure predicant has been differentiated, but in
some the verb _to be_, or predicant, has been slightly developed,
chiefly to affirm, existence in a place.
It will thus be seen that by the criterion of organization Indian
tongues are of very low grade.
It need but to be affirmed that by the criterion of sematologic content
Indian languages are of a very low grade. Therefore the
frequently-expressed opinion that the languages of barbaric peoples have
a more highly organized grammatic structure than the languages of
civilized peoples has its complete refutation.
It is worthy of remark that all paradigmatic inflection in a civilized
tongue is a relic of its barbaric condition. When the parts of speech
are fully differentiated and the process of placement fully specialized,
so that the order of words in sentences has its full significance, no
useful purpose is subserved by inflection.
Economy in speech is the force by which its development has been
accomplished, and it divides itself properly into economy of utterance
and economy of thought. Economy of utterance has had to do with the
phonic constitution of words; economy of thought has developed the
sentence.
All paradigmatic inflection requires unnecessary thought. In the clause
_if he was here_, _if_ fully expresses the subjunctive condition, and it
is quite unnecessary to express it a second time by using another form
of the verb _to be_. And so the people who are using the English
language are deciding, for the subjunctive form is rapidly becoming
obsolete with the long list of paradigmatic forms which have
disappeared.
Every time the pronoun _he_, _she_, or _it_ is used it is necessary to
think of the sex of its antecedent, though in its use there is no reason
why sex should be expressed, say, one time in ten thousand. If one
pronoun non-expressive of gender were used instead of the three, with
three gender adjectives, then in nine thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine cases the speaker would be relieved of the necessity of an
unnecessary thought, and in the one case an adjective would fully
express it. But when these inflections are greatly multiplied, as they
are in the Indian languages, alike with the Greek and Latin, the speaker
is compelled in the choice of a word to express his idea to think of a
multiplicity of things which have no connection with that which he
wishes to express.
A _Ponka_ Indian, in saying that a man killed a rabbit, would have to
say the man, he, one, animate, standing, in the nominative case,
purposely killed, by shooting an arrow, the rabbit, he, the one,
animate, sitting, in the objective case; for the form of a verb to kill
would have to be selected, and the verb changes its form by inflection
and incorporated particles to denote person, number, and gender as
animate or inanimate, and gender as standing, sitting, or lying, and
case; and the form of the verb would also express whether the killing
was done accidentally or purposely, and whether it was by shooting or by
some other process, and, if by shooting, whether by bow and arrow, or
with a gun; and the form of the verb would in like manner have to
express all of these things relating to the object; that is, the person,
number, gender, and case of the object; and from the multiplicity of
paradigmatic forms of the verb to kill this particular one would have to
be selected. Perhaps one time in a million it would be the purpose to
express all of these particulars, and in that case the Indian would have
the whole expression in one compact word, but in the nine hundred and
ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine cases all of these
particulars would have to be thought of in the selection of the form of
the verb, when no valuable purpose would be accomplished thereby.
In the development of the English, as well as the French and German,
linguistic evolution has not been in vain.
Judged by these criteria, the English stands alone in the highest rank;
but as a written language, in the way in which its alphabet is used, the
English has but emerged from a barbaric condition.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
SKETCH
of the
MYTHOLOGY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
By
J. W. POWELL.
CONTENTS.
The genesis of philosophy 19
Two grand stages of philosophy 21
Mythologic philosophy has four stages 29
Outgrowth from mythologic philosophy 33
The course of evolution in mythologic philosophy 38
Mythic tales 43
The Cĭn-aú-äv Brothers discuss matters of importance
to the Utes 44
Origin of the echo 45
The So´-kûs Wai´-ûn-ats 47
Ta-vwots has a fight with the sun 52
* * * * *
SKETCH OF THE MYTHOLOGY
of the
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
* * * * *
THE GENESIS OF PHILOSOPHY.
The wonders of the course of nature have ever challenged attention. In
savagery, in barbarism, and in civilization alike, the mind of man has
sought the explanation of things. The movements of the heavenly bodies,
the change of seasons, the succession of night and day, the powers of
the air, majestic mountains, ever-flowing rivers, perennial springs, the
flight of birds, the gliding of serpents, the growth of trees, the
blooming of flowers, the forms of storm-carved rocks, the mysteries of
life and death, the institutions of society--many are the things to be
explained. The yearning to know is universal. _How_ and _why_ are
everlasting interrogatories profoundly instinct in humanity. In the
evolution of the human mind, the instinct of cosmic interrogation
follows hard upon the instinct of self-preservation.
In all the operations of nature, man’s weal and woe are involved. A cold
wave sweeps from the north--rivers and lakes are frozen, forests are
buried under snows, and the fierce winds almost congeal the life-fluids
of man himself, and indeed man’s sources of supply are buried under the
rocks of water. At another time the heavens are as brass, and the clouds
come and go with mockery of unfulfilled promises of rain, the fierce
midsummer sun pours its beams upon the sands, and blasts heated in the
furnace of the desert sear the vegetation; and the fruits, which in more
congenial seasons are subsistence and luxury, shrivel before the eyes of
famishing men. A river rages and destroys the adjacent valley with its
flood. A mountain bursts forth with its rivers of fire, the land is
buried and the people are swept away. Lightning shivers a tree and rends
a skull. The silent, unseen powers of nature, too, are at work bringing
pain or joy, health or sickness, life or death, to mankind. In like
manner man’s welfare is involved in all the institutions of society.
_How_ and _why_ are the questions asked about all these
things--questions springing from the deepest instinct of
self-preservation.
In all stages of savage, barbaric, and civilized inquiry, every question
has found an answer, every _how_ has had its _thus_, every _why_ its
_because_. The sum of the answers to the questions raised by any people
constitute its philosophy; hence all peoples have had philosophies
consisting of their accepted explanation of things. Such a philosophy
must necessarily result from the primary instincts developed in man in
the early progress of his differentiation from the beast. This I
postulate: if demonstration is necessary, demonstration is at hand. Not
only has every people a philosophy, but every stage of culture is
characterized by its stage of philosophy. Philosophy has been unfolded
with the evolution of the human understanding. The history of philosophy
is the history of human opinions from the earlier to the later
days--from the lower to the higher culture.
In the production of a philosophy, phenomena must be _discerned_,
_discriminated_, _classified_. Discernment, discrimination, and
classification are the processes by which a philosophy is developed. In
studying the philosophy of a people at any stage of culture, to
understand what such a people entertain as the sum of their knowledge,
it is necessary that we should understand what phenomena they saw,
heard, felt, discerned; what discriminations they made, and what
resemblances they seized upon as a basis for the classification on which
their explanations rested. A philosophy will be higher in the scale,
nearer the truth, as the discernment is wider, the discrimination nicer,
and the classification better.
The sense of the savage is dull compared with the sense of the civilized
man. There is a myth current in civilization to the effect that the
barbarian has highly developed perceptive faculties. It has no more
foundation than the myth of the wisdom of the owl. A savage sees but few
sights, hears but few sounds, tastes but few flavors, smells but few
odors; his whole sensuous life is narrow and blunt, and his facts that
are made up of the combination of sensuous impressions are few. In
comparison, the civilized man has his vision extended away toward the
infinitesimal and away toward the infinite; his perception of sound is
multiplied to the comprehension of rapturous symphonies; his perception
of taste is increased to the enjoyment of delicious viands; his
perception of smell is developed to the appreciation of most exquisite
perfumes; and his facts that are made up of the combination of sensuous
impressions are multiplied beyond enumeration. The stages of discernment
from the lowest savage to the highest civilized man constitute a series
the end of which is far from the beginning.
If the discernment of the savage is little, his discrimination is less.
All his sensuous perceptions are confused; but the confusion of
confusion is that universal habit of savagery--the confusion of the
objective with the subjective--so that the savage sees, hears, tastes,
smells, feels the imaginings of his own mind. Subjectively determined
sensuous processes are diseases in civilization, but normal, functional
methods in savagery.
The savage philosopher classifies by obvious resemblances--analogic
characters. The civilized philosopher classifies by essential
affinitives--homologic characteristics--and the progress of philosophy
is marked by changes from analogic categories to homologic categories.
TWO GRAND STAGES OF PHILOSOPHY.
There are two grand stages of philosophy--the mythologic and scientific.
In the first, all phenomena are explained by analogies derived from
subjective human experiences; in the latter, phenomena are explained as
orderly successions of events.
In sublime egotism, man first interprets the cosmos as an extension of
himself; he classifies the phenomena of the outer word by their
analogies with subjective phenomena; his measure of distance is his own
pace, his measure of time his own sleep, for he says, “It is a thousand
paces to the great rock,” or, “It is a hundred sleeps to the great
feast.” Noises are voices, powers are hands, movements are made afoot.
By subjective examination discovering in himself will and design, and by
inductive reason discovering will and design in his fellow men and in
animals, he extends the induction to all the cosmos, and there discovers
in all things will and design. All phenomena are supposed to be the acts
of some one, and that some one having will and purpose. In mythologic
philosophy the phenomena of the outer physical world are supposed to be
the acts of living, willing, designing personages. The simple are
compared with and explained by the complex. In scientific philosophy,
phenomena are supposed to be children of antecedent phenomena, and so
far as science goes with its explanation they are thus interpreted. Man
with the subjective phenomena gathered about him is studied from an
objective point of view, and the phenomena of subjective life are
relegated to the categories established in the classification of the
phenomena of the outer world; thus the complex is studied by resolving
it into its simple constituents.
There is an unknown known, and there is a known unknown. The unknown
known is the philosophy of savagery; the known unknown is the philosophy
of civilization. In those stages of culture that we call savagery and
barbarism, all things are known--supposed to be known; but when at last
something is known, understood, explained, then to those who have that
knowledge in full comprehension all other things become unknown. Then is
ushered in the era of investigation and discovery; then science is born;
then is the beginning of civilization. The philosophy of savagery is
complete; the philosophy of civilization fragmentary. Ye men of science,
ye wise fools, ye have discovered the law of gravity, but ye cannot tell
what gravity is. But savagery has a cause and a method for all things;
nothing is left unexplained.
In the lower stages of savagery the cosmos is bounded by the great plain
of land and sea on which we tread, and the firmament, the azure surface
above, set with brilliants; and beyond is an abyss of--nothing. Within
these bounds all things are known, all things are explained; there are
no mysteries but the whims of the gods. But when the plain on which we
tread becomes a portion of the surface of a great globe, and the domed
firmament becomes the heavens, stretching beyond Alcyone and Sirius,
with this enlargement of the realm of philosophy the verity of
philosophy is questioned. The savage is a positive man; the scientist is
a doubting man.
The opinions of a savage people are childish. Society grows! Some say
society develops; others that society evolves; but, somehow, I like to
say it grows. The history of the discovery of growth is a large part of
the history of human culture. That individuals grow, that the child
grows to be a man, the colt a horse, the scion a tree, is easily
recognized, though with unassisted eye the processes of growth are not
discovered. But that races grow--races of men, races of animals, races
of plants, races or groups of worlds--is a very late discovery, and yet
all of us do not grasp so great a thought. Consider that stage of
culture where the growth of individuals is not fully recognized. That
stage is savagery. To-day the native races of North America are agitated
by discussions over that great philosophic question, “Do the trees grow
or were they created?” That the grass grows they admit, but the orthodox
philosophers stoutly assert that the forest pines and the great
_sequoias_ were created as they are.
Thus in savagery the philosophers dispute over the immediate creation or
development of individuals--in civilization over the immediate creation
or development of races. I know of no single fact that better
illustrates the wide difference between these two stages of culture. But
let us look for other terms of comparison. The scalping scene is no more
the true picture of savagery than the bayonet charge of civilization.
Savagery is sylvan life. Contrast _Ka-ni-ga_ with New York. _Ka-ni-ga_
is an Indian village in the Rocky Mountains. New York is, well--New
York. The home in the forest is a shelter of boughs; the home in New
York is a palace of granite. The dwellers in _Ka-ni-ga_ are clothed in
the skins of animals, rudely tanned, rudely wrought, and colored with
daubs of clay. For the garments of New York, flocks are tended, fields
are cultivated, ships sail on the sea, and men dig in the mountains for
dye-stuffs stored in the rocks. The industries of _Ka-ni-ga_ employ
stone knives, bone awls, and human muscle; the industries of New York
employ the tools of the trades, the machinery of the manufactories, and
the power of the sun--for water-power is but sunshine, and the coal mine
is but a pot of pickeled sunbeams.
Even the nursery rhymes are in contrast; the prattler in New York says:
Daffy down dilly
Has come up to town,
With a green petticoat
And a blue gown;
but in savagery the outer and nether garments are not yet
differentiated; and more: blue and green are not differentiated, for the
Indian has but one name for the two; the green grass and the blue
heavens are of the same hue in the Indian tongue. But the nursery tales
of _Ka-ni-ga_ are of the animals, for the savages associate with the
animals on terms of recognized equality; and this is what the prattler
in _Ka-ni-ga_ says:
The poor little bee
That lives in the tree,
The poor little bee
That lives in the tree,
Has only one arrow
In his quiver.
The arts and industries of savagery and civilization are not in greater
contrast than their philosophy. To fully present to you the condition of
savagery, as illustrated in their philosophy, three obstacles appear.
After all the years I have spent among the Indians in their mountain
villages, I am not certain that I have sufficiently divorced myself from
the thoughts and ways of civilization to properly appreciate their
childish beliefs. The second obstacle subsists in your own knowledge of
the methods and powers of nature, and the ways of civilized society; and
when I attempt to tell you what an Indian thinks, I fear you will never
fully forget what you know, and thus you will be led to give too deep a
meaning to a savage explanation; or, on the other hand, contrasting an
Indian concept with your own, the manifest absurdity will sound to you
as an idle tale too simple to deserve mention, or too false to deserve
credence. The third difficulty lies in the attempt to put savage
thoughts into civilized language; our words are so full of meaning,
carry with them so many great thoughts and collateral ideas.
Some examples of the philosophic methods belonging to widely separated
grades of culture may serve to make the previous statements clearer.
_Wind._--The _Ute_ philosopher discerns that men and animals breathe. He
recognizes vaguely the phenomena of the wind, and discovers its
resemblance to breath, and explains the winds by relegating them to the
class of breathings. He declares that there is a monster beast in the
north that breathes the winter winds, and another in the south, and
another in the east, and another in the west. The facts relating to
winds are but partially discerned; the philosopher has not yet
discovered that there is an earth-surrounding atmosphere. He fails in
making the proper discriminations. His relegation of the winds to the
class of breathings is analogic, but not homologic. The basis of his
philosophy is personality, and hence he has four wind-gods.
The philosopher of the ancient Northland discovered that he could cool
his brow with a fan, or kindle a flame, or sweep away the dust with the
wafted air. The winds also cooled his brow, the winds also swept away
the dust and kindled the fire into a great conflagration, and when the
wind blew he said, “Somebody is fanning the waters of the fiord,” or
“Somebody is fanning the evergreen forests,” and he relegated the winds
to the class of fannings, and he said, “The god Hræsvelger, clothed with
eagle-plumes, is spreading his wings for flight, and the winds rise from
under them.”
The early Greek philosopher discovered that air may be imprisoned in
vessels or move in the ventilation of caves, and he recognized wind as
something more than breath, something more than fanning, something that
can be gathered up and scattered abroad, and so when the winds blew he
said, “The sacks have been untied,” or “The caves have been opened.”
The philosopher of civilization, has discovered that breath, the
fan-wafted breeze, the air confined in vessels, the air moving in
ventilation, that these are all parts of the great body of air which
surrounds the earth, all in motion, swung by the revolving earth, heated
at the tropics, cooled at the poles, and thus turned into
counter-currents and again deflected by a thousand geographic features,
so that the winds sweep down valleys, eddy among mountain crags, or waft
the spray from the crested billows of the sea, all in obedience to
cosmic laws. The facts discerned are many, the discriminations made are
nice, and the classifications based on true homologies, and we have the
science of meteorology, which exhibits an orderly succession of events
even in the fickle winds.
_Sun and Moon._--The _Ute_ philosopher declares the sun to be a living
personage, and explains his passage across the heavens along an
appointed way by giving an account of a fierce personal conflict between
_Tä-vi_, the sun-god, and _Ta-wăts_, one of the supreme gods of his
mythology.
In that long ago, the time to which all mythology refers, the sun roamed
the earth at will. When he came too near with his fierce heat the people
were scorched, and when he hid away in his cave for a long time, too
idle to come forth, the night was long and the earth cold. Once upon a
time _Ta-wăts_, the hare-god, was sitting with his family by the
camp-fire in the solemn woods, anxiously waiting for the return of
_Tä-vi_, the wayward sun-god. Wearied with long watching, the hare-god
fell asleep, and the sun-god came so near that he scorched the naked
shoulder of _Ta-wăts_. Foreseeing the vengeance which would be thus
provoked, he fled back to his cave beneath the earth. _Ta-wăts_ awoke in
great anger, and speedily determined to go and fight the sun-god. After
a long journey of many adventures the hare-god came to the brink of the
earth, and there watched long and patiently, till at last the sun-god
coming out he shot an arrow at his face, but the fierce heat consumed
the arrow ere it had finished its intended course; then another arrow
was sped, but that was also consumed; and another, and still another,
till only one remained in his quiver, but this was the magical arrow
that had never failed its mark. _Ta-wăts_, holding it in his hand,
lifted the barb to his eye and baptized it in a divine tear; then the
arrow was sped and struck the sun-god full in the face, and the sun was
shivered into a thousand fragments, which fell to the earth, causing a
general conflagration. Then _Ta-wăts_, the hare-god, fled before the
destruction he had wrought, and as he fled the burning earth consumed
his feet, consumed his legs, consumed his body, consumed his hands and
his arms--all were consumed but the head alone, which bowled across
valleys and over mountains, fleeing destruction from the burning earth
until at last, swollen with heat, the eyes of the god burst and the
tears gushed forth in a flood which spread over the earth and
extinguished the fire. The sun-god was now conquered, and he appeared
before a council of the gods to await sentence. In that long council
were established the days and the nights, the seasons and the years,
with the length thereof, and the sun was condemned to travel across the
firmament by the same trail day after day till the end of time.
In this same philosophy we learn that in that ancient time a council of
the gods was held to consider the propriety of making a moon, and at
last the task was given to Whippoorwill, a god of the night, and a frog
yielded himself a willing sacrifice for this purpose, and the
Whippoorwill, by incantations, and other magical means, transformed the
frog into the new moon. The truth of this origin of the moon is made
evident to our very senses; for do we not see the frog riding the moon
at night, and the moon is cold, because the frog from which it was made
was cold?
The philosopher of _Oraibi_ tells us that when the people ascended by
means of the magical tree which constituted the ladder from the lower
world to this, they found the firmament, the ceiling of this world, low
down upon the earth--the floor of this world. _Matcito_, one of their
gods, raised the firmament on his shoulders to where it is now seen.
Still the world was dark, as there was no sun, no moon, and no stars. So
the people murmured because of the darkness and the cold. _Matcito_
said, “Bring me seven maidens,” and they brought him seven maidens; and
he said, “Bring me seven baskets of cotton-bolls,” and they brought him
seven baskets of cotton-bolls; and he taught the seven maidens to weave
a magical fabric from the cotton, and when they had finished it he held
it aloft, and the breeze carried it away toward the firmament, and in
the twinkling of an eye it was transformed into a beautiful full-orbed
moon, and the same breeze caught the remnants of flocculent cotton which
the maidens had scattered during their work, and carried them aloft, and
they were transformed into bright stars. But still it was cold and the
people murmured again, and _Matcito_ said, “Bring me seven buffalo
robes,” and they brought him seven buffalo robes, and from the densely
matted hair of the robes he wove another wonderful fabric, which the
storm carried away into the sky, and it was transformed into the
full-orbed sun. Then _Matcito_ appointed times and seasons and ways for
the heavenly bodies, and the gods of the firmament have obeyed the
injunctions of _Matcito_ from the day of their creation to the present.
The Norse philosopher tells us that Night and Day, each, has a horse and
a car, and they drive successively one after the other around the world
in twenty-four hours. Night rides first with her steed named Dew-hair,
and every morning as he ends his course he bedews the earth with foam
from his bit. The steed driven by Day is Shining-hair. All the sky and
earth glisten with the light of his mane. Jarnved, the great iron-wood
forest lying to the east of Midgard, is the abode of a race of witches.
One monster witch is the mother of many sons in the form of wolves, two
of which are Skol and Hate. Skol is the wolf that would devour the
maiden Sun, and she daily flies from the maw of the terrible beast, and
the moon-man flies from the wolf Hate.
The philosopher of Samos tells us that the earth is surrounded by hollow
crystalline spheres set one within another, and all revolving at
different rates from east to west about the earth, and that the sun is
set in one of these spheres and the moon in another.
The philosopher of civilization tells us that the sun is an incandescent
globe, one of the millions afloat in space. About this globe the planets
revolve, and the sun and planets and moons were formed from nebulous
matter by the gradual segregation of their particles controlled by the
laws of gravity, motion, and affinity.
The sun, traveling by an appointed way across the heavens with the
never-ending succession of day and night, and the ever-recurring train
of seasons, is one of the subjects of every philosophy. Among all
peoples, in all times, there is an explanation of these phenomena, but
in the lowest stage, way down in savagery, how few the facts discerned,
how vague the discriminations made, how superficial the resemblances by
which the phenomena are classified! In this stage of culture, all the
daily and monthly and yearly phenomena which come as the direct result
of the movements of the heavenly bodies are interpreted as the doings of
some one--some god acts. In civilization the philosopher presents us the
science of astronomy with all its accumulated facts of magnitude, and
weights, and orbits, and distances, and velocities--with all the nice
discriminations of absolute, relative, and apparent motions; and all
these facts he is endeavoring to classify in homologic categories, and
the evolutions and revolutions of the heavenly bodies are explained as
an orderly succession of events.
_Rain._--The _Shoshoni_ philosopher believes the domed firmament to be
ice, and surely it is the very color of ice, and he believes further
that a monster serpent-god coils his huge back to the firmament and with
his scales abrades its face and causes the ice-dust to fall upon the
earth. In the winter-time it falls as snow, but in the summer-time it
melts and falls as rain, and the Shoshoni philosopher actually sees the
serpent of the storm in the rainbow of many colors.
The _Oraibi_ philosopher who lives in a _pueblo_ is acquainted with
architecture, and so his world is seven-storied. There is a world below
and five worlds above this one. _Muĭñwa_, the rain-god, who lives in the
world immediately above, dips his great brush, made of feathers of the
birds of the heavens, into the lakes of the skies and sprinkles the
earth with refreshing rain for the irrigation of the crops tilled by
these curious Indians who live on the cliffs of Arizona. In winter,
_Muĭñwa_ crushes the ice of the lakes of the heavens and scatters it
over the earth, and we have a snow-fall.
The Hindoo philosopher says that the lightning-bearded Indra breaks the
vessels that hold the waters of the skies with his thunder-bolts, and
the rains descend to irrigate the earth.
The philosopher of civilization expounds to us the methods by which the
waters are evaporated from the land and the surface of the sea, and
carried away by the winds, and gathered into clouds to be discharged
again upon the earth, keeping up forever that wonderful circulation of
water from the heavens to the earth and from the earth to the
heavens--that orderly succession of events in which the waters travel by
river, by sea, and by cloud.
_Rainbow._--In _Shoshoni_, the rainbow is a beautiful serpent that
abrades the firmament of ice to give us snow and rain. In Norse, the
rainbow is the bridge Bifrost spanning the space between heaven and
earth. In the Iliad, the rainbow is the goddess Iris, the messenger of
the King of Olympus. In Hebrew, the rainbow is the witness to a
covenant. In science, the rainbow is an analysis of white light into its
constituent colors by the refraction of raindrops.
_Falling stars._--In _Ute_, falling stars are the excrements of dirty
little star-gods. In science--well, I do not know what falling stars are
in science. I think they are cinders from the furnace where the worlds
are forged. You may call this mythologic or scientific, as you please.
_Migration of birds._--The _Algonkian_ philosopher explains the
migration of birds by relating the myth of the combat between
_Ka-bĭ-bo-no-kĭ_ and _Shiñgapis_, the prototype or progenitor of the
water-hen, one of their animal gods. A fierce battle raged between
_Ka-bĭ-bo-no-kĭ_ and _Shiñgapis_, but the latter could not be conquered.
All the birds were driven from the land but _Shiñgapis_; and then was it
established that whenever in the future Winter-maker should come with
his cold winds, fierce snows, and frozen waters, all the birds should
leave for the south except _Shiñgapis_ and his friends. So the birds
that spend their winters north are called by the _Algonkian_
philosophers “the friends of _Shiñgapis_.”
In contrast to this explanation of the flight of birds may be placed the
explanation of the modern evolutionist, who says that the birds migrate
in quest of abundance of food and a genial climate, guided by an
instinct of migration, which is an accumulation of inherited memories.
_Diversity of languages._--The _Kaibäbĭt_ philosopher accounts for the
diversity of languages in this manner: _Sĭ-tcom´-pa Ma-só-ĭts_, the
grandmother goddess of the sea, brought up mankind from beneath the
waves in a sack, which she delivered to the _Cĭn-aú-äv_ brothers, the
great wolf-gods of his mythology, and told them to carry it from the
shores of the sea to the Kaibab Plateau, and then to open it; but they
were by no means to open the package ere their arrival, lest some great
disaster should befall. The curiosity of the younger _Cĭn-aú-äv_
overcame him, and he untied the sack, and the people swarmed out; but
the elder _Cĭn-aú-äv_, the wiser god, ran back and closed the sack while
yet not all the people had escaped, and they carried the sack, with its
remaining contents, to the plateau, and there opened it. Those that
remained in the sack found a beautiful land--a great plateau covered
with mighty forests, through which elk, deer, and antelope roamed in
abundance, and many mountain-sheep were found on the bordering crags;
_piv_, the nuts of the edible pine, they found on the foot-hills, and
_us_, the fruit of the yucca, in sunny glades; and _nänt_, the meschal
crowns, for their feasts; and _tcu-ar_, the cactus-apple, from which to
make their wine; reeds grew about the lakes for their arrow-shafts; the
rocks were full of flints for their barbs and knives, and away down in
the cañon they found a pipe-stone quarry, and on the hills they found
_är-a-ûm-pĭv_, their tobacco. O, it was a beautiful land that was given
to these, the favorites of the gods! The descendants of these people are
the present _Kaibäbĭts_ of northern Arizona. Those who escaped by the
way, through the wicked curiosity of the younger _Cĭn-aú-äv_, scattered
over the country and became _Navajos_, _Mokis_, _Sioux_, _Comanches_,
Spaniards, Americans--poor, sorry fragments of people without the
original language of the gods, and only able to talk in imperfect
jargons.
The Hebrew philosopher tells us that on the plains of Shinar the people
of the world were gathered to build a city and erect a tower, the summit
of which should reach above the waves of any flood Jehovah might send.
But their tongues were confused as a punishment for their impiety.
The philosopher of science tells us that mankind was widely scattered
over the earth anterior to the development of articulate speech, that
the languages of which we are cognizant sprang from innumerable centers
as each little tribe developed its own language, and that in the study
of any language an orderly succession of events may be discovered in its
evolution from a few simple holophrastic locutions to a complex language
with a multiplicity of words and an elaborate grammatic structure, by
the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the
sentence.
_A cough._--A man coughs. In explanation the _Ute_ philosopher would
tell us that an _u-nú-pĭts_--a pygmy spirit of evil--had entered the
poor man’s stomach, and he would charge the invalid with having whistled
at night; for in their philosophy it is taught that if a man whistles at
night, when the pygmy spirits are abroad, one is sure to go through the
open door into the stomach, and the evidence of this disaster is found
in the cough which the _u-nú-pĭts_ causes. Then the evil spirit must be
driven out, and the medicine-man stretches his patient on the ground and
scarifies him with the claws of eagles from head to heel, and while
performing the scarification a group of men and women stand about,
forming a chorus, and medicine-man and chorus perform a fugue in gloomy
ululation, for these wicked spirits will depart only by incantations and
scarifications.
In our folk-lore philosophy a cough is caused by a “cold,” whatever that
may be--a vague entity--that must be treated first according to the
maxim “Feed a cold and starve a fever,” and the “cold” is driven away by
potations of bitter teas.
In our medical philosophy a cough may be the result of a clogging of the
pores of the skin, and is relieved by clearing those flues that carry
away the waste products of vital combustion.
These illustrations are perhaps sufficient to exhibit the principal
characteristics of the two methods of philosophy, and, though they cover
but narrow fields, it should be remembered that every philosophy deals
with the whole cosmos. An explanation of all things is sought--not alone
the great movements of the heavens, or the phenomena that startle even
the unthinking, but every particular which is observed. Abstractly, the
plane of demarkation between the two methods of philosophy can be
sharply drawn, but practically we find them strangely mixed; mythologic
methods prevail in savagery and barbarism, and scientific methods
prevail in civilization. Mythologic philosophies antedate scientific
philosophies. The thaumaturgic phases of mythology are the embryonic
stages of philosophy, science being the fully developed form. Without
mythology there could be no science, as without childhood there could be
no manhood, or without embryonic conditions there could be no ultimate
forms.
MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY HAS FOUR STAGES.
Mythologic philosophy is the subject with which we deal. Its method, as
stated in general terms, is this: All phenomena of the outer objective
world are interpreted by comparison with those of the inner subjective
world. Whatever happens, some one does it; that some one has a will and
works as he wills. The basis of the philosophy is personality. The
persons who do the things which we observe in the phenomena of the
universe are the gods of mythology--_the cosmos is a pantheon_. Under
this system, whatever may be the phenomenon observed, the philosopher
asks, “Who does it?” and “Why?” and the answer comes, “A god with his
design.” The winds blow, and the interrogatory is answered, “Æolus frees
them from the cave to speed the ship of a friend, or destroy the vessel
of a foe.” The actors in mythologic philosophy are gods.
In the character of these gods four stages of philosophy may be
discovered. In the lowest and earliest stage everything has life;
everything is endowed with personality, will, and design; animals are
endowed with all the wonderful attributes of mankind; all inanimate
objects are believed to be animate; trees think and speak; stones have
loves and hates; hills and mountains, springs and rivers, and all the
bright stars, have life--everything discovered objectively by the senses
is looked upon subjectively by the philosopher and endowed with all the
attributes supposed to be inherent in himself. In this stage of
philosophy everything is a god. Let us call it _hecastotheism_.
In the second stage men no longer attribute life indiscriminately to
inanimate things; but the same powers and attributes recognized by
subjective vision in man are attributed to the animals by which he is
surrounded. No line of demarkation is drawn between man and beast; all
are great beings endowed with wonderful attributes. Let us call this
stage _zoötheism_, when men worship beasts. All the phenomena of nature
are the doings of these animal gods; all the facts of nature, all the
phenomena of the known universe, all the institutions of humanity known
to the philosophers of this stage, are accounted for in the mythologic
history of these zoömorphic gods.
In the third stage a wide gulf is placed between man and the lower
animals. The animal gods are dethroned, and the powers and phenomena of
nature are personified and deified. Let us call this stage
_physitheism_. The gods are strictly anthropomorphic, having the form as
well as the mental, moral, and social attributes of men. Thus we have a
god of the sun, a god of the moon, a god of the air, a god of dawn, and
a deity of the night.
In the fourth stage, mental, moral, and social characteristics are
personified and deified. Thus we have a god of war, a god of love, a god
of revelry, a god of plenty, and like personages who preside over the
institutions and occupations of mankind. Let us call this
_psychotheism_. With the mental, moral, and social characteristics in
these gods are associated the powers of nature; and they differ from
nature-gods chiefly in that they have more distinct psychic
characteristics.
Psychotheism, by the processes of mental integration, developes in one
direction into monotheism, and in the other into pantheism. When the
powers of nature are held predominant in the minds of the philosophers
through whose cogitations this evolution of theism is carried on,
pantheism, as the highest form of psychotheism, is the final result; but
when the moral qualities are held in highest regard in the minds of the
men in whom this process of evolution is carried on, _monotheism_, or a
god whose essential characteristics are moral qualities, is the final
product. The monotheistic god is not nature, but presides over and
operates through nature. Psychotheism has long been recognized. All of
the earlier literature of mankind treats largely of these gods, for it
is an interesting fact that in the history of any civilized people, the
evolution of psychotheism is approximately synchronous with the
invention of an alphabet. In the earliest writings of the Egyptians, the
Hindoos, and the Greeks, this stage is discovered, and Osiris, Indra,
and Zeus are characteristic representatives. As psychotheism and written
language appear together in the evolution of culture, this stage of
theism is consciously or unconsciously a part of the theme of all
written history.
The paleontologist, in studying the rocks of the hill and the cliffs of
the mountain, discovers, in inanimate stones, the life-forms of the
ancient earth. The geologist, in the study of the structure of valleys
and mountains, discovers groups of facts that lead him to a knowledge of
more ancient mountains and valleys and seas, of geographic features long
ago buried, and followed by a new land with new mountains and valleys,
and new seas. The philologist, in studying the earliest writings of a
people, not only discovers the thoughts purposely recorded in those
writings, but is able to go back in the history of the people many
generations, and discover with even greater certainty the thoughts of
the more ancient people who made the words. Thus the writings of the
Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Egyptians, that give an account of their
psychic gods, also contain a description of an earlier theism
unconsciously recorded by the writers themselves. Psychotheism prevailed
when the sentences were coined, physitheism when the words were coined.
So the philologist discovers physitheism in all ancient literature. But
the verity of that stage of philosophy does not rest alone upon the
evidence derived from the study of fossil philosophies through the
science of philology. In the folk-lore of every civilized people having
a psychotheistic philosophy, an earlier philosophy with nature-gods is
discovered.
The different stages of philosophy which I have attempted to
characterize have never been found in purity. We always observe
different methods of explanation existing side by side, and the type of
a philosophy is determined by the prevailing characteristics of its
explanation of phenomena. Fragments of the earlier are always found side
by side with the greater body of the later philosophy. Man has never
clothed himself in new garments of wisdom, but has ever been patching
the old, and the old and the new are blended in the same pattern, and
thus we have atavism in philosophy. So in the study of any philosophy
which has reached the psychotheistic age, patches of the earlier
philosophy are always seen. Ancient nature-gods are found to be living
and associating with the supreme psychic deities. Thus in anthropologic
science there are three ways by which to go back in the history of any
civilized people and learn of its barbaric physitheism. But of the
verity of this stage we have further evidence. When Christianity was
carried north from Central Europe, the champions of the new philosophy,
and its consequent religion, discovered, among those who dwelt by the
glaciers of the north, a barbaric philosophy which they have preserved
to history in the Eddas and Sagas, and Norse literature is full of a
philosophy in a transition state, from physitheism to psychotheism; and,
mark! the people discovered in this transition state were inventing an
alphabet--they were carving Runes. Then a pure physitheism was
discovered in the Aztec barbarism of Mexico; and elsewhere on the globe
many people were found in that stage of culture to which this philosophy
properly belongs. Thus the existence of physitheism as a stage of
philosophy is abundantly attested. Comparative mythologists are agreed
in recognizing these two stages. They might not agree to throw all of
the higher and later philosophies into one group, as I have done, but
all recognize the plane of demarkation between the higher and the lower
groups as I have drawn it. Scholars, too, have come essentially to an
agreement that physitheism is earlier and older than psychotheism.
Perhaps there may be left a “doubting Thomas” who believes that the
highest stage of psychotheism--that is, monotheism--was the original
basis for the philosophy of the world, and that all other forms are
degeneracies from that primitive and perfect state. If there be such a
man left, to him what I have to say about philosophy is blasphemy.
Again, all students of comparative philosophy, or comparative mythology,
or comparative religion, as you may please to approach this subject from
different points of view, recognize that there is something else; that
there are philosophies, or mythologies, or religions, not included in
the two great groups. All that something else has been vaguely called
_fetichism_. I have divided it into two parts, _hecastotheism_ and
_zoötheism_. The verity of zoötheism as a stage of philosophy rests on
abundant evidence. In psychotheism it appears as _devilism_ in obedience
to a well-known law of comparative theology, viz, that the gods of a
lower and superseded stage of culture oftentimes become the devils of a
higher stage. So in the very highest stages of psychotheism we find
beast-devils. In Norse mythology, we have Fenris the wolf, and
Jormungandur the serpent. Dragons appear in Greek mythology, the bull is
an Egyptian god, a serpent is found in the Zendavesta; and was there not
a scaly fellow in the garden of Eden? So common are these beast-demons
in the higher mythologies that they are used in every literature as
rhetorical figures. So we find, as a figure of speech, the great red
dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with tail that with one brush
sweeps away a third of the stars of heaven. And wherever we find
nature-worship we find it accompanied with beast-worship. In the study
of higher philosophies, having learned that lower philosophies often
exist side by side with them, we might legitimately conclude that a
philosophy based upon animal gods had existed previous to the
development of physitheism; and philologic research leads to the same
conclusion. But we are not left to base this conclusion upon an
induction only, for in the examination of savage philosophies we
actually discover zoötheism in all its proportions. Many of the Indians
of North America, and many of South America, and many of the tribes of
Africa, are found to be zoötheists. Their supreme gods are
animals--tigers, bears, wolves, serpents, birds. Having discovered this,
with a vast accumulation of evidence, we are enabled to carry philosophy
back one stage beyond physitheism, and we can confidently assert that
all the philosophies of civilization have come up through these three
stages.
And yet, there are fragments of philosophy discovered which are not
zoötheistic, physitheistic, nor psychotheistic. What are they? We find
running through all three stages of higher philosophy that phenomena are
sometimes explained by regarding them as the acts of persons who do not
belong to any of the classes of gods found in the higher stages. We find
fragments of philosophy everywhere which seem to assume that all
inanimate nature is animate; that mountains and hills, and rivers and
springs, that trees and grasses, that stones, and all fragments of
things are endowed with life and with will, and act for a purpose. These
fragments of philosophy lead to the discovery of hecastotheism.
Philology also leads us back to that state when the animate and the
inanimate were confounded, for the holophrastic roots into which words
are finally resolved show us that all inanimate things were represented
in language as actors. Such is the evidence on which we predicate the
existence of hecastotheism as a veritable stage of philosophy. Unlike
the three higher stages, it has no people extant on the face of the
globe, known to be in this stage of culture. The philosophies of many of
the lowest tribes of mankind are yet unknown, and hecastotheism may be
discovered; but at the present time we are not warranted in saying that
any tribe entertains this philosophy as its highest wisdom.
OUTGROWTH FROM MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY.
The three stages of mythologic philosophy that are still extant in the
world must be more thoroughly characterized, and the course of their
evolution indicated. But in order to do this clearly, certain outgrowths
from mythologic philosophy must be explained--certain theories and
practices that necessarily result from this philosophy, and that are
intricately woven into the institutions of mankind.
_Ancientism._--The first I denominate ancientism. Yesterday was better
than to-day. The ancients were wiser that we. This belief in a better
day and a better people in the elder time is almost universal among
mankind. A belief so widely spread, so profoundly entertained, must have
for its origin some important facts in the constitution or history of
mankind. Let us see what they are.
In the history of every individual the sports and joys of childhood are
compared and contrasted with the toils and pains of old age. Greatly
protracted life, in savagery and barbarism, is not a boon to be craved.
In that stage of society where the days and the years go by with little
or no provision for a time other than that which is passing, the old
must go down to the grave through poverty and suffering. In that stage
of culture to-morrow’s bread is not certain, and to-day’s bread is often
scarce. In civilization plenty and poverty live side by side; the palace
and the hovel are on the same landscape; the rich and poor elbow each
other on the same street; but in savagery plenty and poverty come with
recurring days to the same man, and the tribe is rich to-day and poor
to-morrow, and the days of want come in every man’s history; and when
they come the old suffer most, and the burden of old age is oppressive.
In youth activity is joy; in old age activity is pain. So wonder, then,
that old age loves youth, or that to-day loves yesterday, for the
instinct is born of the inherited experiences of mankind.
But there is yet another and more potent reason for ancientism. That
tale is the most wonderful that has been most repeated, for the breath
of speech is the fertilizer of story. Hence, the older the story the
greater its thaumaturgics. Thus, yesterday is greater than to-day by
natural processes of human exaggeration. Again, that is held to be most
certain, and hence most sacred, which has been most often affirmed.
A Brahman was carrying a goat to the altar. Three thieves would steal
it. So they placed themselves at intervals along the way by which the
pious Brahman would travel. When the venerable man came to the first
thief he was accosted: “Brahman, why do you carry a dog?” Now, a dog is
an unclean beast which no Brahman must touch. And the Brahman, after
looking at his goat, said: “You do err; this is a goat.” And when the
old man reached the second thief, again he was accosted: “Brahman, why
do you carry a dog?” So the Brahman put his goat on the ground, and
after narrowly scrutinizing it, he said: “Surely this is a goat,” and
went on his way. When he came to the third thief he was once more
accosted: “Brahman, why do you carry a dog?” Then the Brahman, having
thrice heard that his goat was a dog, was convinced, and throwing it
down, he fled to the temple for ablution, and the thieves had a feast.
The child learns not for himself, but is taught, and accepts as true
that which is told, and a propensity to believe the affirmed is
implanted in his mind. In every society some are wise and some are
foolish, and the wise are revered, and their affirmations are accepted.
Thus, the few lead the multitude in knowledge, and the propensity to
believe the affirmed started in childhood is increased in manhood in the
great average of persons constituting society, and these propensities
are inherited from generation to generation, until we have a cumulation
of effects.
The propagation of opinions by affirmation, the cultivation of the
propensity to believe that which has been affirmed many times, let us
call _affirmatization_. If the world’s opinions were governed only by
the principles of mythologic philosophy, affirmatization would become so
powerful that nothing would be believed but the anciently affirmed. Men
would come to no new knowledge. Society would stand still listening to
the wisdom of the fathers. But the power of affirmatization is steadily
undermined by science.
And, still again, the institutions of society conform to its philosophy.
The explanations of things always includes the origin of human
institutions. So the welfare of society is based on philosophy, and the
venerable sayings which constitute philosophy are thus held as sacred.
So ancientism is developed from accumulated life-experiences; by the
growth of story in repeated narration; by the steadily increasing power
of affirmatization, and by respect for the authority upon which the
institutions of society are based; all accumulating as they come down
the generations. That we do thus inherit effects we know, for has it not
been affirmed in the Book that “the fathers have eaten grapes, and the
children’s teeth are set on edge”? As men come to believe that the “long
ago” was better than the “now,” and the dead were better than the
living, then philosophy must necessarily include a theory of degeneracy,
which is a part of ancientism.
_Theistic Society._--Again, the actors in mythologic philosophy are
personages, and we always find them organized in societies. The social
organization of mythology is always found to be essentially identical
with the social organization of the people who entertain the philosophy.
The gods are husbands and wives, and parents and children, and the gods
have an organized government. This gives us theistic society, and we
cannot properly characterize a theism without taking its mythic society
into consideration.
_Spiritism._--In the earliest stages of society of which we have
practical knowledge by acquaintance with the people themselves, a belief
in the existence of spirits prevails--a shade, an immaterial existence,
which is the duplicate of the material personage. The genesis of this
belief is complex. The workings of the human mind during periods of
unconsciousness lead to opinions that are enforced by many physical
phenomena.
First, we have the activities of the mind during sleep, when the man
seems to go out from himself, to converse with his friends, to witness
strange scenes, and to have many wonderful experiences. Thus the man
seems to have lived an eventful life, when his body was, in fact,
quiescent and unconscious. Memories of scenes and activities in former
days, and the inherited memories of scenes witnessed and actions
performed by ancestors, are blended in strange confusion by broken and
inverted sequences. Now and then the dream-scenes are enacted in real
life, and the infrequent coincidence or apparent verification makes deep
impression on the mind, while unfulfilled dreams are forgotten. Thus the
dreams of sleepers are attributed to their immaterial duplicates--their
spirits. In many diseases, also, the mind seems to wander, to see sights
and to hear sounds, and to have many wonderful experiences, while the
body itself is apparently unconscious. Sometimes, on restored health,
the person may recall these wonderful experiences, and during their
occurrence the subject talks to unseen persons, and seems to have
replies, and to act, to those who witness, in such a manner that a
second self--a spirit independent of the body--is suggested. When
disease amounts to long-continued insanity all of these effects are
greatly exaggerated, and make a deep impression upon all who witness the
phenomena. Thus the hallucinations of fever-racked brains, and mad
minds, are attributed to spirits.
The same conditions of apparent severance of mind and body witnessed in
dreams and hallucinations are often produced artificially in the
practice of _ecstasism_. In the vicissitudes of savage life, while
little or no provision is made for the future, there are times when the
savage resorts to almost anything at hand as a means of subsistence, and
thus all plants and all parts of plants, seed, fruit, flowers, leaves,
bark, roots--anything in times of extreme want--may be used as food. But
experience soon teaches the various effects upon the human system which
are produced by the several vegetable substances with which he meets,
and thus the effect of narcotics is early discovered, and the savage in
the practice of his religion oftentimes resorts to these native drugs
for the purpose of producing an ecstatic state under which divination
may be performed. The practice of ecstasism is universal in the lower
stages of culture. In times of great anxiety, every savage and barbarian
seeks to know of the future. Through all the earlier generations of
mankind, ecstasism has been practiced, and civilized man has thus an
inherited appetite for narcotics, to which the enormous propensity to
drunkenness existing in all nations bears witness. When the great actor
in his personation of Rip Van Winkle holds his goblet aloft and says,
“Here’s to your health and to your family’s, and may they live long and
prosper,” he connects the act of drinking with a prayer, and
unconsciously demonstrates the origin of the use of stimulants. It may
be that when the jolly companion has become a loathsome sot, and his
mind is ablaze with the fire of drink, and he sees uncouth beasts in
horrid presence, that inherited memories haunt him with visions of the
beast-gods worshipped by his ancestors at the very time when the
appetite for stimulants was created.
But ecstasism is produced in other ways, and for this purpose the savage
and barbarian often resorts to fasting and bodily torture. In many ways
he produces the wonderful state, and the visions of ecstasy are
interpreted as the evidence of spirits.
Many physical phenomena serve to confirm this opinion. It is very late
in philosophy when shadows are referred to the interception of the rays
of the sun. In savagery and barbarism, shadows are supposed to be
emanations from or duplicates of the bodies causing the shadows. And
what savage understands the reflection of the rays of the sun by which
images are produced? They also are supposed to be emanations or
duplications of the object reflected. No savage or barbarian could
understand that the waves of the air are turned back, and sound is
duplicated in an echo. He knows not that there is an atmosphere, and to
him the echo is the voice of an unseen personage--a spirit. There is no
theory more profoundly implanted in early mankind than that of
spiritism.
_Thaumaturgics._--The gods of mythologic philosophies are created to
account for the wonders of nature. Necessarily they are a wonder-working
folk, and, having been endowed with these magical powers in all the
histories given in mythic tales of their doings on the earth, we find
them performing most wonderful feats. They can transform themselves;
they can disappear and reappear; all their senses are magical; some are
endowed with a multiplicity of eyes, others have a multiplicity of ears;
in Norse mythology the watchman on the rainbow bridge could hear the
grass grow, and wool on the backs of sheep; arms can stretch out to
grasp the distance, tails can coil about mountains, and all powers
become magical. But the most wonderful power with which the gods are
endowed is the power of will, for we find that they can think their
arrows to the hearts of their enemies; mountains are overthrown by
thought, and thoughts are projected into other minds. Such are the
thaumaturgics of mythologic philosophy.
_Mythic tales._--Early man having created through the development of his
philosophy a host of personages, these gods must have a history. A part
of that history, and the most important part to us as students of
philosophy, is created in the very act of creating the gods themselves.
I mean that portion of their history which relates to the operations of
nature, for the gods were created to account for those things. But to
this is added much else of adventure. The gods love as men love, and go
in quest of mates. The gods hate as men hate, and fight in single combat
or engage in mythic battles; and the history of these adventures
impelled by love and hate, and all other passions and purposes with
which men are endowed, all woven into a complex tissue with their doings
in carrying out the operations of nature, constitutes the web and woof
of mythology.
_Religion._--Again, as human welfare is deeply involved in the
operations of nature, man’s chief interest is in the gods. In this
interest religion originates. Man, impelled by his own volition, guided
by his own purposes, aspires to a greater happiness, and endeavor
follows endeavor, but at every step his progress is impeded; his own
powers fail before the greater powers of nature; his powers are pygmies,
nature’s powers are giants, and to him these giants are gods with wills
and purposes of their own, and he sees that man in his weakness can
succeed only by allying himself with the gods. Hence, impelled by this
philosophy, man must have communion with the gods, and in this communion
he must influence them to work for himself. Hence, religion, which has
to do with the relations which exist between the gods and man, is the
legitimate offspring of mythologic philosophy.
Thus we see that out of mythologic philosophy, as branches of the great
tree itself, there grow ancientism, theistic society, spiritism,
thaumaturgics, mythic tales, and religion.
THE COURSE OF EVOLUTION IN MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY.
I shall now give a summary characterization of zoötheism, then call
attention to some of the relics of hecastotheism found therein, and
proceed with a brief statement of the higher stages of theism. The
apparent and easily accessible is studied first. In botany, the trees
and the conspicuous flowering plants of garden, field, and plain were
first known, and then all other plants were vaguely grouped as weeds;
but, since the most conspicuous phenogamous plants were first studied,
what vast numbers of new orders, new genera, and new species have been
discovered, in the progress of research, to the lowest cryptogams!
In the study of ethnology we first recognized the more civilized races.
The Aryan, Hamites, Shemites, and Chinese, and the rest were the weeds
of humanity--the barbarian and savage, sometimes called Turanians. But,
when we come carefully to study these lower people, what numbers of
races are discovered! In North America alone we have more than
seventy-five--seventy-five stocks of people speaking seventy-five stocks
of language, and some single stocks embracing many distinct languages
and dialects. The languages of the Algonkian family are as diverse as
the Indo-European tongues. So are the languages of the Dakotans, the
Shoshonians, the Tinnéans, and others; so that in North America we have
more than five hundred languages spoken to-day. Each linguistic stock is
found to have a philosophy of its own, and each stock as many branches
of philosophy as it has languages and dialects. North America presents a
magnificent field for the study of savage and barbaric philosophies.
This vast region of thought has been explored only by a few adventurous
travelers in the world of science. No thorough survey of any part has
been made. Yet the general outlines of North American philosophy are
known, but the exact positions, the details, are all yet to be filled
in--as the geography of the general outline of North America is known by
exploration, but the exact positions and details of topography are yet
to be filled in as the result of careful survey. Myths of the Algonkian
stock are found in many a volume of _Americana_, the best of which were
recorded by the early missionaries who came from Europe, though we find
some of them, mixed with turbid speculations, in the writings of
Schoolcraft. Many of the myths of the Indians of the south, in that
region stretching back from the great Gulf, are known; some collected by
travelers, others by educated Indians.
Many of the myths of the Iroquois are known. The best of these are in
the writings of Morgan, America’s greatest anthropologist. Missionaries,
travelers, and linguists have given us a great store of the myths of the
Dakotan stock. Many myths of the Tinnéan also have been collected.
Petitot has recorded a number of those found at the north, and we have
in manuscript some of the myths of a southern branch--the Navajos.
Perhaps the myths of the Shoshonians have been collected more thoroughly
than those of any other stock. These are yet unpublished, but the
manuscripts are in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. Powers has
recorded many of the myths of various stocks in California, and the old
Spanish writings give us a fair collection of the Nahuatlan myths of
Mexico, and Rink has presented an interesting volume on the mythology of
the Innuits; and, finally, fragments of mythology have been collected
from nearly all the tribes of North America, and they are scattered
through thousands of volumes, so that the literature is vast. The brief
description which I shall give of zoötheism is founded on a study of the
materials which I have thus indicated.
All these tribes are found in the higher stages of savagery, or the
lower stages of barbarism, and their mythologies are found to be
zoötheistic among the lowest, physitheistic among the highest, and a
great number of tribes are found in a transition state; for zoötheism is
found to be a characteristic of savagery, and physitheism of barbarism,
using the terms as they have been defined by Morgan. The supreme gods of
this stage are animals. The savage is intimately associated with
animals. From them he obtains the larger part of his clothing, and much
of his food, and he carefully studies their habits and finds many
wonderful things. Their knowledge and skill and power appear to him to
be superior to his own. He sees the mountain-sheep fleet among the
crags, the eagle soaring in the heavens, the humming-bird poised over
its blossom-cup of nectar, the serpents swift without legs, the salmon
scaling the rapids, the spider weaving its gossamer web, the ant
building a play-house mountain--in all animal nature he sees things too
wonderful for him, and from admiration he grows to adoration, and the
animals become his gods.
Ancientism plays an important part in this zoötheism. It is not the
animals of to-day whom the Indians worship, but their progenitors--their
prototypes. The wolf of to-day is a howling pest, but that wolf’s
ancestor--the first of the line--was a god. The individuals of every
species are supposed to have descended from an ancient being--a
progenitor of the race; and so they have a grizzly-bear god, an
eagle-god, a rattlesnake-god, a trout-god, a spider-god--a god for every
species and variety of animal.
By these animal gods all things were established. The heavenly bodies
were created and their ways appointed, and when the powers and phenomena
of nature are personified the personages are beasts, and all human
institutions also were established by the ancient animal-gods.
The ancient animals of any philosophy of this stage are found to
constitute a clan or _gens_--a body of relatives, or _consanguinei_,
with grandfathers, fathers, sons, and brothers. In _Ute_ theism, the
ancient _To-gó-äv_, the first rattlesnake is the grandfather, and all
the animal-gods are assigned to their relationships. Grandfather
_To-gó-äv_, the wise, was the chief of the council, but _Cĭn-aú-äv_, the
ancient wolf, was the chief of the clan.
There were many other clans and tribes of ancient gods with whom these
supreme gods had dealings, of which hereafter; and, finally, each of
these ancient gods became the progenitor of a new tribe, so that we have
a tribe of bears, a tribe of eagles, a tribe of rattlesnakes, a tribe of
spiders, and many other tribes, as we have tribes of Utes, tribes of
Sioux, tribes of Navajos; and in that philosophy tribes of animals are
considered to be coördinate with tribes of men. All of these gods have
invisible duplicates--spirits--and they have often visited the earth.
All of the wonderful things seen in nature are done by the animal-gods.
That elder life was a magic life; but the descendants of the gods are
degenerate. Now and then as a medicine-man by practicing sorcery can
perform great feats, so now and then there is a medicine-bear,
a medicine-wolf, or a medicine-snake that can work magic.
On winter nights the Indians gather about the camp-fire, and then the
doings of the gods are recounted in many a mythic tale. I have heard the
venerable and impassioned orator on the camp-meeting stand rehearse the
story of the crucifixion, and have seen the thousands gathered there
weep in contemplation of the story of divine suffering, and heard their
shouts roll down the forest aisles as they gave vent to their joy at the
contemplation of redemption. But the scene was not a whit more dramatic
than another I have witnessed in an evergreen forest of the Rocky
Mountain region, where a tribe was gathered under the great pines, and
the temple of light from the blazing fire was walled by the darkness of
midnight, and in the midst of the temple stood the wise old man,
telling, in simple savage language, the story of _Ta-wăts_, when he
conquered the sun and established the seasons and the days. In that
pre-Columbian time, before the advent of white men, all the Indian
tribes of North America gathered on winter nights by the shores of the
seas where the tides beat in solemn rhythm, by the shores of the great
lakes where the waves dashed against frozen beaches, and by the banks of
the rivers flowing ever in solemn mystery--each in its own temple of
illumined space--and listened to the story of its own supreme gods, the
ancients of time.
Religion, in this stage of theism, is sorcery. Incantation, dancing,
fasting, bodily torture, and ecstasism are practiced. Every tribe has
its potion or vegetable drug, by which the ecstatic state is produced,
and their venerable medicine-men see visions and dream dreams. No
enterprise is undertaken without consulting the gods, and no evil
impends but they seek to propitiate the gods. All daily life, to the
minutest particular, is religious. This stage of religion is
characterized by fetichism. Every Indian is provided with his charm or
fetich, revealed to him in some awful hour of ecstasy produced by
fasting, or feasting, or drunkenness, and that fetich he carries with
him to bring good luck, in love or in combat, in the hunt or on the
journey. He carries a fetich suspended to his neck, he ties a fetich to
his bow, he buries a fetich under his tent, he places a fetich under his
pillow of wild-cat skins, he prays to his fetich, he praises it, or
chides it; if successful, his fetich receives glory; if he fail, his
fetich is disgraced. These fetiches may be fragments of bone or shell,
the tips of the tails of animals, the claws of birds or beasts, perhaps
dried hearts of little warblers, shards of beetles, leaves powdered and
held in bags, or crystals from the rocks--anything curious may become a
fetich. Fetichism, then, is a religious means, not a philosophic or
mythologic state. Such are the supreme gods of the savage, and such the
institutions which belong to their theism. But they have many other
inferior gods. Mountains, hills, valleys, and great rocks have their own
special deities--invisible spirits--and lakes, rivers, and springs are
the homes of spirits. But all these have animal forms when in proper
_personæ_. Yet some of the medicine-spirits can transform themselves,
and work magic as do medicine-men. The heavenly bodies are either
created personages or ancient men or animals translated to the sky. And,
last, we find that ancestors are worshipped as gods.
Among all the tribes of North America with which we are acquainted
tutelarism prevails. Every tribe and every clan has its own protecting
god, and every individual has his _my god_. It is a curious fact that
every Indian seeks to conceal the knowledge of his _my god_ from all
other persons, for he fears that, if his enemy should know of his
tutelar deity, he might by extraordinary magic succeed in estranging
him, and be able to compass his destruction through his own god.
In this summary characterization of zoötheism, I have necessarily
systematized my statements. This, of course, could not be done by the
savage himself. He could give you its particulars, but could not group
those particulars in any logical way. He does not recognize any system,
but talks indiscriminately, now of one, now of another god, and with him
the whole theory as a system is vague and shadowy, but its particulars
are vividly before his mind, and the certainty with which he entertains
his opinions leaves no room to doubt his sincerity.
But there is yet another phase of theism discovered. Sometimes a
particular mountain, or hill, or some great rock, some waterfall, some
lake, or some spring receives special worship, and is itself believed to
be a deity. This seems to be a relic of hecastotheism. Fetichism, also,
seems to have come from that lower grade, and all the minor deities, the
spirits of mountains and hills and forest, seem to have been derived
from that same stage, but with this development, that the things
themselves are not worshipped, but their essential spirits.
From zoötheism, as described, to physitheism the way is long. Gradually,
in the progress of philosophy, animal gods are dethroned and become
inferior gods or are forgotten; and gradually the gods of the
firmament--the sun, the moon, the stars--are advanced to supremacy; the
clouds, the storms, the winds, day and night, dawn and gloaming, the
sky, the earth, the sea, and all the various phases of nature perceived
by the barbaric mind, are personified and deified and exalted to a
supremacy coordinate with the firmament gods; and all the gods of the
lower stage that remain--animals, demons, and all men--belong to
inferior tribes. The gods of the sky--the shining ones, those that soar
on bright wings, those that are clothed in gorgeous colors, those that
came from we know not where, those that vanish to the unknown--are the
supreme gods. We always find these gods organized in great tribes, with
mighty chieftains who fight in great combats or lead their hosts in
battle, and return with much booty. Such is the theism of ancient
Mexico, such the theism of the Northland, and such the theism discovered
among the ancient Aryans.
From this stage to psychotheism the way is long, for evolution is slow.
Gradually men come to differentiate more carefully between good and
evil, and the ethic character of their gods becomes the subject of
consideration, and the good gods grow in virtue, and the bad gods grow
in vice. Their identity with physical objects and phenomena is gradually
lost. The different phases or conditions of the same object or
phenomenon are severed, and each is personified. The bad gods are
banished to underground homes, or live in concealment, from which they
issue on their expeditions of evil. Still, all powers exist in these
gods, and all things were established by them. With the growth of their
moral qualities no physical powers are lost, and the spirits of the
physical bodies and phenomena become demons, subordinate to the great
gods who preside over nature and human institutions.
We find, also, that these superior gods are organized in societies.
I have said the Norse mythology was in a transition state from
physitheism to psychotheism. The Asas, or gods, lived in Asgard,
a mythic communal village, with its Thing or Council, the very
counterpart of the communal village of Iceland. Olympus was a Greek
city.
Still further in the study of mythologic philosophy we see that more and
more supremacy falls into the hands of the few, until monotheism is
established on the plan of the empire. Then all of the inferior deities
whose characters are pure become ministering angels, and the inferior
deities whose characters are evil become devils, and the differentiation
of good and evil is perfected in the gulf between heaven and hell. In
all this time from zoötheism to monotheism, ancientism becomes more
ancient, and the times and dynasties are multiplied. Spiritism is more
clearly defined, and spirits become eternal; mythologic tales are
codified, and sacred books are written; divination for the result of
amorous intrigue has become the prophecy of immortality, and
thaumaturgics is formulated as the omnipresent, the omnipotent, the
omniscient--the infinite.
Time has failed me to tell of the evolution of idolatry from fetichism,
priestcraft from sorcery, and of their overthrow by the doctrines that
were uttered by that voice on the Mount. Religion, that was fetichism
and ecstasism and sorcery, is now the yearning for something better,
something purer, and the means by which this highest state for humanity
may be reached, the ideal worship of the highest monotheism, is “in
spirit and in truth.” The steps are long from _Cĭn-aú-äv_, the ancient
of wolves, by Zeus, the ancient of skies, to Jehovah, the “Ancient of
Days.”
MYTHIC TALES.
In every Indian tribe there is a great body of story lore--tales
purporting to be the sayings and doings, the history, of the gods. Every
tribe has one or more persons skilled in the relation of these
stories--preachers. The long winter evenings are set apart for this
purpose. Then the men and women, the boys and girls, gather about the
camp-fire to listen to the history of the ancients, to a chapter in the
unwritten bible of savagery. Such a scene is of the deepest interest.
A camp-fire of blazing pine or sage boughs illumines a group of dusky
faces intent with expectation, and the old man begins his story, talking
and acting; the elders receiving his words with reverence, while the
younger persons are played upon by the actor until they shiver with fear
or dance with delight. An Indian is a great actor. The conditions of
Indian life train them in natural sign language. Among the two hundred
and fifty or three hundred thousand Indians in the United States, there
are scores of languages, so that often a language is spoken by only a
few hundred or a few score of people; and as a means of communication
between tribes speaking different languages, a sign language has grown
up, so that an Indian is able to talk all over--with the features of his
face, his hands and feet, the muscles of his body; and thus a skillful
preacher talks and acts; and, inspired by a theme which treats of the
gods, he sways his savage audience at will. And ever as he tells his
story he points a moral--the mythology, theology, religion, history, and
all human duties are taught. This preaching is one of the most important
institutions of savagery. The whole body of myths current in a tribe is
the sum total of their lore--their philosophy, their miraculous history,
their authority for their governmental institutions, their social
institutions, their habits and customs. It is their unwritten bible.
_THE CĬN-AÚ-ÄV BROTHERS DISCUSS MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE TO THE PEOPLE._
Once upon a time the _Cĭn-aú-äv_ brothers met to consult about the
destiny of the _U-ĭn-ká-rĕts_. At this meeting the younger said:
“Brother, how shall these people obtain their food? Let us devise some
good plan for them. I was thinking about it all night, but could not see
what would be best, and when the dawn came into the sky I went to a
mountain and sat on its summit, and thought a long time; and now I can
tell you a good plan by which they can live. Listen to your younger
brother. Look at these pine trees; their nuts are sweet; and there is
the _us_, very rich; and there is the apple of the cactus, full of
juice; on the plain you see the sunflower, bearing many seeds--they will
be good for the nation. Let them have all these things for their food,
and when they have gathered a store they shall put them in the ground,
or hide them in the rocks, and when they return they shall find
abundance, and having taken of them as they may need, shall go on, and
yet when they return a second time there shall still be plenty; and
though they return many times, as long as they live the store shall
never fail; and thus they will be supplied with abundance of food
without toil.” “Not so,” said the elder brother, “for then will the
people, idle and worthless, and having no labor to perform, engage in
quarrels, and fighting will ensue, and they will destroy each other, and
the people will be lost to the earth; they must work for all they
receive.” Then the younger brother answered not, but went away
sorrowing.
The next day he met the elder brother and accosted him thus: “Brother,
your words were wise; let the _U-ĭn-ká-rĕts_ work for their food. But
how shall they be furnished with honey-dew? I have thought all night
about this, and when the dawn came into the sky I sat on the summit of
the mountain and did think, and now I will tell you how to give them
honey-dew: Let it fall like a great snow upon the rocks, and the women
shall go early in the morning and gather all they may desire, and they
shall be glad.” “No,” replied the elder brother, “it will not be good,
my little brother, for them to have much and find it without toil; for
they will deem it of no more value than dung, and what we give them for
their pleasure will only be wasted. In the night it shall fall in small
drops on the reeds, which they shall gather and beat with clubs, and
then will it taste very sweet, and having but little they will prize it
the more.” And the younger brother went away sorrowing, but returned the
next day and said: “My brother, your words are wise; let the women
gather the honey-dew with much toil, by beating the reeds with flails.
Brother, when a man or a woman, or a boy or a girl, or a little one
dies, where shall he go? I have thought all night about this, and when
the dawn came into the sky I sat on the top of the mountain and did
think. Let me tell you what to do: When a man dies, send him back when
the morning returns, and then will all his friends rejoice.” “Not so,”
said the elder; “the dead shall return no more.” The little brother
answered him not, but, bending his head in sorrow, went away.
One day the younger _Cĭn-aú-äv_ was walking in the forest, and saw his
brother’s son at play, and taking an arrow from his quiver slew the boy,
and when he returned he did not mention what he had done. The father
supposed that his boy was lost, and wandered around in the woods for
many days, and at last found the dead child, and mourned his loss for a
long time.
One day the younger _Cĭn-aú-äv_ said to the elder, “You made the law
that the dead should never return. I am glad that you were the first to
suffer.” Then the elder knew that the younger had killed his child, and
he was very angry and sought to destroy him, and as his wrath increased
the earth rocked, subterraneous groanings were heard, darkness came on,
fierce storms raged, lightning flashed, thunder reverberated through the
heavens, and the younger brother fled in great terror to his father,
_Ta-vwots´_, for protection.
_ORIGIN OF THE ECHO._
_I´-o-wi_ (the turtle dove) was gathering seeds in the valley, and her
little babe slept. Wearied with carrying it on her back, she laid it
under the _tĭ-hó-pĭ_ (sage bush) in care of its sister, _O-hó-tcu_ (the
summer yellow bird). Engaged in her labors, the mother wandered away to
a distance, when a _tsó-a-vwĭts_ (a witch) came and said to the little
girl, “Is that your brother?” and _O-hó-tcu_ answered, “This is my
sister,” for she had heard that witches preferred to steal boys, and did
not care for girls. Then the _tsó-a-vwĭts_ was angry and chided her,
saying that it was very naughty for girls to lie; and she put on a
strange and horrid appearance, so that _O-hó-tcu_ was stupefied with
fright; then the _tsó-a-vwĭts_ ran away with the boy, carrying him to
her home on a distant mountain. Then she laid him down on the ground,
and, taking hold of his right foot, stretched the baby’s leg until it
was as long as that of a man, and she did the same to the other leg;
then his body was elongated; she stretched his arms, and, behold, the
baby was as large as a man. And the _tsó-a-vwĭts_ married him and had a
husband, which she had long desired; but, though he had the body of a
man, he had the heart of a babe, and knew no better than to marry a
witch.
Now, when _I´-o-wi_ returned and found not her babe under the
_tĭ-hó-pĭ_, but learned from _O-hó-tcu_ that it had been stolen by a
_tsó-a-vwĭts_, she was very angry, and punished her daughter very
severely. Then she went in search of the babe for a long time, mourning
as she went, and crying and still crying, refusing to be comforted,
though all her friends joined her in the search, and promised to revenge
her wrongs.
Chief among her friends was her brother, _Kwi´-na_ (the eagle), who
traveled far and wide over all the land, until one day he heard a
strange noise, and coming near he saw the _tsó-a-vwĭts_ and _U´-ja_ (the
sage cock), her husband, but he did not know that this large man was
indeed the little boy who had been stolen. Yet he returned and related
to _I´-o-wi_ what he had seen, who said: “If that is indeed my boy, he
will know my voice.” So the mother came near to where the _tsó-a-vwĭts_
and _U´-ja_ were living, and climbed into a cedar tree, and mourned and
cried continually. _Kwi´-na_ placed himself near by on another tree to
observe what effect the voice of the mother would have on _U´-ja_, the
_tsó-a-vwĭts_’ husband. When he heard the cry of his mother, _U´-ja_
knew the voice, and said to the _tsó-a-vwĭts_, “I hear my mother, I hear
my mother, I hear my mother,” but she laughed at him, and persuaded him
to hide.
Now, the _tsó-a-vwĭts_ had taught _U´-ja_ to hunt, and a short time
before he had killed a mountain sheep, which was lying in camp. The
witch emptied the contents of the stomach, and with her husband took
refuge within; for she said to herself, “Surely, _I´-o-wi_ will never
look in the paunch of a mountain sheep for my husband.” In this retreat
they were safe for a long time, so that they who were searching were
sorely puzzled at the strange disappearance. At last _Kwi´-na_ said,
“They are hid somewhere in the ground, maybe, or under the rocks; after
a long time they will be very hungry and will search for food; I will
put some in a tree so as to tempt them.” So he killed a rabbit and put
it on the top of a tall pine, from which he trimmed the branches and
peeled the bark, so that it would be very difficult to climb; and he
said, “When these hungry people come out they will try to climb that
tree for food, and it will take much time, and while the _tsó-a-vwĭts_
is thus engaged we will carry _U´-ja_ away.” So they watched some days,
until the _tsó-a-vwĭts_ was very hungry, and her baby-hearted husband
cried for food; and she came out from their hiding place and sought for
something to eat. The odor of the meat placed on the tree came to her
nostrils, and she saw where it was and tried to climb up, but fell back
many times; and while so doing _Kwi´-na_, who had been sitting on a rock
near by and had seen from where she came, ran to the paunch which had
been their house, and taking the man carried him away and laid him down
under the very same _tĭ-hó-pĭ_ from which he had been stolen; and
behold! he was the same beautiful little babe that _I´-o-wi_ had lost.
And _Kwi´-na_ went off into the sky and brought back a storm, and caused
the wind to blow, and the rain to beat upon the ground, so that his
tracks were covered, and the _tsó-a-vwĭts_ could not follow him; but she
saw lying upon the ground near by some eagle feathers, and knew well who
it was that had deprived her of her husband, and she said to herself,
“Well, I know _Kwi´-na_ is the brother of _I´-o-wi_; he is a great
warrior and a terrible man; I will go to _To-go´-a_ (the rattlesnake),
my grandfather, who will protect me and kill my enemies.”
_To-go´-a_ was enjoying his midday sleep on a rock, and as the
_tsó-a-vwĭts_ came near her grandfather awoke and called out to her, “Go
back, go back; you are not wanted here; go back!” But she came on
begging his protection; and while they were still parleying they heard
_Kwi´-na_ coming, and _To-go´-a_ said, “Hide, hide!” But she knew not
where to hide, and he opened his mouth and the _tsó-a-vwĭts_ crawled
into his stomach. This made _To-go´-a_ very sick and he entreated her to
crawl out, but she refused, for she was in great fear. Then he tried to
throw her up, but could not, and he was sick nigh unto death. At last,
in his terrible retchings, he crawled out of his own skin, and left the
_tsó-a-vwĭts_ in it, and she, imprisoned there, rolled about and hid in
the rocks. When _Kwi´-na_ came near he shouted, “Where are you, old
_tsó-a-vwĭts_? where are you, old _tsó-a-vwĭts_?” She repeated his words
in mockery.
Ever since that day witches have lived in snake skins, and hide among
the rocks, and take great delight in repeating the words of passers by.
The white man, who has lost the history of these ancient people, calls
these mocking cries of witches domiciliated in snake skins “echoes,” but
the Indians know the voices of the old hags.
This is the origin of the echo.
_THE SO´-KÛS WAI´-ÛN-ÄTS._
_Tûm-pwĭ-nai´-ro-gwĭ-nûmp_, he who had a stone shirt, killed _Sĭ-kor´_,
(the crane,) and stole his wife, and seeing that she had a child, and
thinking it would be an incumbrance to them on their travels, he ordered
her to kill it. But the mother, loving the babe, hid it under her dress,
and carried it away to its grandmother. And Stone Shirt carried his
captured bride to his own land.
In a few years the child grew to be a fine lad, under the care of his
grandmother, and was her companion wherever she went.
One day they were digging flag roots, on the margin of the river, and
putting them in a heap on the bank. When they had been at work a little
while, the boy perceived that the roots came up with greater ease than
was customary, and he asked the old woman the cause of this, but she did
not know; and, as they continued their work, still the reeds came up
with less effort, at which their wonder increased, until the grandmother
said, “Surely, some strange thing is about to transpire.” Then the boy
went to the heap where they had been placing the roots, and found that
some one had taken them away, and he ran back, exclaiming, “Grandmother,
did you take the roots away?” And she answered, “No, my child; perhaps
some ghost has taken them off; let us dig no more; come away.”
But the boy was not satisfied, as he greatly desired to know what all
this meant; so he searched about for a time, and at length found a man
sitting under a tree, whom he taunted with being a thief, and threw mud
and stones at him, until he broke the stranger’s leg, who answered not
the boy, nor resented the injuries he received, but remained silent and
sorrowful; and, when his leg was broken, he tied it up in sticks, and
bathed it in the river, and sat down again under the tree, and beckoned
the boy to approach.
When the lad came near, the stranger told him he had something of great
importance to reveal. “My son,” said he, “did that old woman ever tell
you about your father and mother?” “No,” answered the boy; “I have never
heard of them.” “My son, do you see these bones scattered on the ground?
Whose bones are these?” “How should I know?” answered the boy. “It may
be that some elk or deer has been killed here.” “No,” said the old man.
“Perhaps they are the bones of a bear;” but the old man shook his head.
So the boy mentioned many other animals, but the stranger still shook
his head, and finally said, “These are the bones of your father; Stone
Shirt killed him, and left him to rot here on the ground, like a wolf.”
And the boy was filled with indignation against the slayer of his
father. Then the stranger asked, “Is your mother in yonder lodge?” and
the boy replied, “No.” “Does your mother live on the banks of this
river?” and the boy answered, “I don’t know my mother; I have never seen
her; she is dead.” “My son,” replied the stranger, “Stone Shirt, who
killed your father, stole your mother, and took her away to the shore of
a distant lake, and there she is his wife to-day.” And the boy wept
bitterly, and while the tears filled his eyes so that he could not see,
the stranger disappeared.
Then the boy was filled with wonder at what he had seen and heard, and
malice grew in his heart against his father’s enemy. He returned to the
old woman, and said, “Grandmother, why have you lied to me about my
father and mother?” and she answered not, for she knew that a ghost had
told all to the boy. And the boy fell upon the ground weeping and
sobbing, until he fell into a deep sleep, when strange things were told
him.
His slumber continued three days and three nights, and when he awoke he
said to his grandmother, “I am going away to enlist all nations in my
fight,” and straightway he departed.
(Here the boy’s travels are related with many circumstances concerning
the way he was received by the people, all given in a series of
conversations, very lengthy; so they will be omitted.)
Finally, he returned in advance of the people whom he had enlisted,
bringing with him _Cĭn-au´-äv_, the wolf, and _To-go´-a_, the
rattlesnake. When the three had eaten food, the boy said to the old
woman: “Grandmother, cut me in two.” But she demurred, saying she did
not wish to kill one whom she loved so dearly. “Cut me in two,” demanded
the boy, and he gave her a stone ax which he had brought from a distant
country, and with a manner of great authority he again commanded her to
cut him in two. So she stood before him, and severed him in twain, and
fled in terror. And lo! each part took the form of an entire man, and
the one beautiful boy appeared as two, and they were so much alike no
one could tell them apart.
When the people or natives whom the boy had enlisted came pouring into
the camp, _Cĭn-au´-äv_ and _To-go´-a_ were engaged in telling them of
the wonderful thing that had happened to the boy, and that now there
were two; and they all held it to be an augury of a successful
expedition to the land of Stone Shirt. And they started on their
journey.
Now the boy had been told in the dream of his three days’ slumber of a
magical cup, and he had brought it home with him from his journey among
the nations, and the _So´-kûs Wai´-ûn-äts_ carried it between them,
filled with water. _Cĭn-au´-äv_ walked on their right and _To-go´-a_ on
their left, and the nations followed in the order in which they had been
enlisted. There was a vast number of them, so that when they were
stretched out in line it was one day’s journey from the front to the
rear of the column.
When they had journeyed two days and were far out on the desert all the
people thirsted, for they found no water, and they fell down upon the
sand groaning, and murmuring that they had been deceived, and they
cursed the One-Two.
But the _So´-kûs Wai´-ûn-äts_ had been told in the wonderful dream of
the suffering which would be endured and that the water which they
carried in the cup was only to be used in dire necessity, and the
brothers said to each other: “Now the time has come for us to drink the
water.” And when one had quaffed of the magical bowl, he found it still
full, and he gave it to the other to drink, and still it was full; and
the One-Two gave it to the people, and one after another did they all
drink, and still the cup was full to the brim.
But _Cĭn-au´-äv_ was dead, and all the people mourned, for he was a
great man. The brothers held the cup over him, and sprinkled him with
water, when he arose and said: “Why do you disturb me? I did have a
vision of mountain brooks and meadows, of cane where honey-dew was
plenty.” They gave him the cup, and he drank also; but when he had
finished there was none left. Refreshed and rejoicing they proceeded on
their journey.
The next day, being without food, they were hungry, and all were about
to perish; and again they murmured at the brothers, and cursed them. But
the _So´-kûs Wai´-ûn-äts_ saw in the distance an antelope, standing on
an eminence in the plain, in bold relief against the sky; and
_Cĭn-au´-äv_ knew it was the wonderful antelope with many eyes, which
Stone Shirt kept for his watchman; and he proposed to go and kill it,
but _To-go´-a_ demurred, and said: “It were better that I should go, for
he will see you and run away.” But the _So´-kûs Wai´-ûn-äts_ told
Cĭn´-au´-äv to go; and he started in a direction away to the left of
where the antelope was standing, that he might make a long detour about
some hills, and come upon him from the other side. _To-go´-a_ went a
little way from camp, and called to the brothers: “Do you see me?” and
they answered they did not. “Hunt for me;” and while they were hunting
for him, the rattlesnake said: “I can see you; you are doing” --so and
so, telling them what they were doing; but they could not find him.
Then, the rattlesnake came forth, declaring: “Now you know I can see
others, and that I cannot be seen when I so desire. _Cin-au´-äv_ cannot
kill that antelope, for he has many eyes, and is the wonderful watchman
of Stone Shirt; but I can kill him, for I can go where he is and he
cannot see me.” So the brothers were convinced, and permitted him to go;
and he went and killed the antelope. When _Cin-au´-äv_ saw it fall, he
was very angry, for he was extremely proud of his fame as a hunter, and
anxious to have the honor of killing this famous antelope, and he ran up
with the intention of killing _To-go´-a_; but when he drew near, and saw
the antelope was fat, and would make a rich feast for the people, his
anger was appeased. “What matters it,” said he, “who kills the game,
when we can all eat it?”
So all the people were fed in abundance, and they proceeded on their
journey.
The next day the people again suffered for water, and the magical cup
was empty; but the _So´-kûs Wai´-ûn-äts_, having been told in their
dream what to do, transformed themselves into doves, and flew away to a
lake, on the margin of which was the home of Stone Shirt.
Coming near to the shore, they saw two maidens bathing in the water; and
the birds stood and looked, for the maidens were very beautiful. Then
they flew into some bushes, near by, to have a nearer view, and were
caught in a snare which the girls had placed for intrusive birds. The
beautiful maidens came up, and, taking the birds out of the snare,
admired them very much, for they had never seen such birds before. They
carried them to their father, Stone Shirt, who said: “My daughters,
I very much fear these are spies from my enemies, for such birds do not
live in our land”; and he was about to throw them into the fire, when
the maidens besought him, with tears, that he would not destroy their
beautiful birds; but he yielded to their entreaties with much misgiving.
Then they took the birds to the shore of the lake, and set them free.
When the birds were at liberty once more, they flew around among the
bushes, until they found the magical cup which they had lost, and taking
it up, they carried it out into the middle of the lake and settled down
upon the water, and the maidens supposed they were drowned.
The birds, when they had filled their cup, rose again, and went back to
the people in the desert, where they arrived just at the right time to
save them with the cup of water, from which each drank; and yet it was
full until the last was satisfied, and then not a drop remained.
The brothers reported that they had seen Stone Shirt and his daughters.
The next day they came near to the home of the enemy, and the brothers,
in proper person, went out to reconnoiter. Seeing a woman gleaning
seeds, they drew near, and knew it was their mother, whom Stone Shirt
had stolen from _Sĭ-kor´_, the crane. They told her they were her sons,
but she denied it, and said she had never had but one son; but the boys
related to her their history, with the origin of the two from one, and
she was convinced. She tried to dissuade them from making war upon Stone
Shirt, and told them that no arrow could possibly penetrate his armor,
and that he was a great warrior, and had no other delight than in
killing his enemies, and that his daughters also were furnished with
magical bows and arrows, which they could shoot so fast that the arrows
would fill the air like a cloud, and that it was not necessary for them
to take aim, for their missiles went where they willed; they _thought_
the arrows to the hearts of their enemies; and thus the maidens could
kill the whole of the people before a common arrow could be shot by a
common person. But the boys told her what the spirit had said in the
long dream, and had promised that Stone Shirt should be killed. They
told her to go down to the lake at dawn, so as not to be endangered by
the battle.
During the night, the _So´-kûs Wai´-ûn-äts_ transformed themselves into
mice, and proceeded to the home of Stone Shirt, and found the magical
bows and arrows that belonged to the maidens, and with their sharp
teeth they cut the sinew on the backs of the bows, and nibbled the
bow-strings, so that they were worthless, while _To-go´-a_ hid himself
under a rock near by.
When dawn came into the sky, _Tûm-pwĭ-nai´-ro-gwĭ-nûmp_, the Stone Shirt
man, arose and walked out of his tent, exulting in his strength and
security, and sat down upon the rock under which _To-go´-a_ was hiding;
and he, seeing his opportunity, sunk his fangs into the flesh of the
hero. Stone Shirt sprang high into the air, and called to his daughters
that they were betrayed, and that the enemy was near; and they seized
their magical bows, and their quivers filled with magical arrows, and
hurried to his defense. At the same time, all the nations who were
surrounding the camp rushed down to battle. But the beautiful maidens,
finding their weapons were destroyed, waved back their enemies, as if
they would parley; and, standing for a few moments over the body of
their slain father, sang the death-song, and danced the death-dance,
whirling in giddy circles about the dead hero, and wailing with despair,
until they sank down and expired.
The conquerers buried the maidens by the shores of the lake; but
_Tûm-pwĭ-nai´-ro-gwĭ-nûmp_ was left to rot, and his bones to bleach on
the sands, as he had left _Sĭ-kor´_.
_TA-VWOTS´ HAS A FIGHT WITH THE SUN._
_Ta-vwots´_, the little rabbit, was wont to lie with his back to the sun
when he slept. One day he thus slept in camp while his children played
around him. After a time they saw that his back was smoking, and they
cried out, “What is the matter with your back, father?” Startled from
his sleep, he demanded to know the cause of the uproar. “Your back is
covered with sores and full of holes,” they replied. Then _Ta-vwots´_
was very angry, for he knew that _Ta´-vĭ_, the sun, had burned him; and
he sat down by the fire for a long time in solemn mood, pondering on the
injury and insult he had received. At last rising to his feet, he said,
“My children I must go and make war upon _Ta´-vĭ_.” And straightway he
departed.
Now his camp was in the valley of the Mo-a-pa.[2.1] On his journey he
came to a hill, and standing on its summit he saw in a valley to the
east a beautiful stretch of verdure, and he greatly marveled at the
sight and desired to know what it was. On going down to the valley he
found a corn-field, something he had never before seen, and the ears
were ready for roasting. When he examined them, he saw that they were
covered with beautiful hair, and he was much astonished. Then he opened
the husk and found within soft white grains of corn, which he tasted.
Then he knew that it was corn and good to eat. Plucking his arms full he
carried them away, roasted them on a fire, and ate until he was filled.
Now, when he had done all this, he reflected that he had been stealing,
and he was afraid; so he dug a hole in which to hide himself.
_Cĭn-au´-äv_ was the owner of this field, and when he walked through and
saw that his corn had been stolen, he was exceedingly wroth, and said,
“I will slay this thief _Ta-vwots´_; I will kill him, I will kill him.”
And straightway he called his warriors to him and made search for the
thief, but could not find him, for he was hid in the ground. After a
long time they discovered the hole and tried to shoot _Ta-vwots´_ as he
was standing in the entrance, but he blew their arrows back. This made
_Cĭn-au´-äv_’s people very angry and they shot many arrows, but
_Ta-vwots´_’ breath was a warder against them all. Then, with one
accord, they ran to snatch him up with their hands, but, all in
confusion, they only caught each others fists, for with agile steps
_Ta-vwots´_ dodged into his retreat. Then they began to dig, and said
they would drag him out. And they labored with great energy, all the
time taunting him with shouts and jeers. But _Ta-vwots´_ had a secret
passage from the main chamber of his retreat which opened by a hole
above the rock overhanging the entrance where they were at work.
When they had proceeded with this digging until they were quite under
ground, _Ta-vwots´_, standing on the rock above, hurled the magical ball
which he was accustomed to carry with him, and striking the ground above
the diggers, it caved the earth in, and they were all buried. “Aha,”
said he, “why do you wish to hinder me on my way to kill the Sun?
_A´-nier ti-tĭk´-a-nûmp kwaik-ai´-gar_” (fighting is my eating tool I
say; that’s so!), and he proceeded on his way musing. “I have started
out to kill; vengeance is my work; every one I meet will be an enemy. It
is well; no one shall escape my wrath.”
The next day he saw two men making arrow-heads of hot rocks, and drawing
near he observed their work for a time from a position where he could
not be seen. Then stepping forth, he said: “Let me help you”; and when
the rocks were on the fire again and were hot to redness he said: “Hot
rocks will not burn me.” And they laughed at him. “May be you would have
us believe that you are a ghost?” “I am not a ghost,” said he, “but I am
a better man than you are. Hold me on these hot rocks, and if I do not
burn you must let me do the same to you.” To this they readily agreed,
and when they had tried to burn him on the rocks, with his magic breath
he kept them away at a distance so slight they could not see but that
the rocks did really touch him. When they perceived that he was not
burned they were greatly amazed and trembled with fear. But having made
the promise that he should treat them in like manner, they submitted
themselves to the torture, and the hot rocks burned them until with
great cries they struggled to get free, but unrelenting _Ta-vwots´_ held
them until the rocks had burned through their flesh into their entrails,
and so they died. “Aha,” said _Ta-vwots´_, “lie there until you can get
up again. I am on my way to kill the Sun. _A´-nier ti-tĭk´-a-nûmp
kwaik-ai´-gar._” And sounding the war-whoop he proceeded on his way.
The next day he came to where two women were gathering berries in
baskets, and when he sat down they brought him some of the fruit and
placed it before him. He saw there were many leaves and thorns among the
berries, and he said, “Blow these leaves and thorns into my eyes,” and
they did so, hoping to blind him; but with his magic breath he kept them
away, so that they did not hurt him.
Then the women averred that he was a ghost. “I am no ghost,” said he,
“but a common person; do you not know that leaves and thorns cannot hurt
the eye? Let me show you;” and they consented and were made blind. Then
_Ta-vwots´_ slew them with his _pa-rûm´-o-kwi_. “Aha,” said he, “you are
caught with your own chaff. I am on my way to kill the Sun. This is good
practice. I must learn how. _A´-nier ti-tĭk´-a-nûmp kwaik-ai´-gar._” And
sounding the war-whoop he proceeded on his way.
The next day he saw some women standing on the Hurricane Cliff, and as
he approached he heard them say to each other that they would roll rocks
down upon his head and kill him as he passed; and drawing near he
pretended to be eating something, and enjoying it with great gusto; so
they asked him what it was, and he said it was something very sweet, and
they begged that they might be allowed to taste of it also. “I will
throw it up to you,” said he; “come to the brink and catch it.” When
they had done so, he threw it up so that they could not quite reach it,
and he threw it in this way many times, until, in their eagerness to
secure it, they all crowded too near the brink, fell, and were killed.
“Aha,” said he, “you were killed by your own eagerness. I am on my way
to kill the Sun. _A´-nier ti-tĭk´-a-nûmp kaiwk-ai´-gar._” And sounding
the war-whoop he passed on.
The following day he saw two women fashioning water-jugs, which are made
of willow-ware like baskets and afterwards lined with pitch. When afar
off he could hear them converse, for he had a wonderful ear. “Here comes
that bad _Ta-vwots´_,” said they; “how shall we destroy him?” When he
came near, he said, “What was that you were saying when I came up?” “Oh,
we were only saying, ‘here comes our grandson,’”[2.2] said they. “Is
that all?” replied _Ta-vwots´_, and looking around, he said, “Let me get
into your water-jug”; and they allowed him to do so. “Now braid the
neck.” This they did, making the neck very small; then they laughed with
great glee, for they supposed he was entrapped. But with his magic
breath he burst the jug, and stood up before them; and they exclaimed,
“You must be a ghost!” but he answered, “I am no ghost. Do you not know
that jugs were made to hold water, but cannot hold men and women?” At
this they wondered greatly, and said he was wise. Then he proposed to
put them in jugs in the same manner, in order to demonstrate to them the
truth of what he had said; and they consented. When he had made the
necks of the jugs and filled them with pitch, he said, “Now, jump out,”
but they could not. It was now his turn to deride; so he rolled them
about and laughed greatly, while their half-stifled screams rent the
air. When he had sported with them in this way until he was tired, he
killed them with his magical ball. “Aha,” said he, “you are bottled in
your own jugs. I am on my way to kill the Sun; in good time I shall
learn how. _A´-nier ti-tĭk´-a-nûmp kaiwk-ai´-gar._” And sounding the
war-hoop he passed on.
The next day he came upon _Kwi´-ats_, the bear, who was digging a hole
in which to hide, for he had heard of the fame of _Ta-vwots´_, and was
afraid. When the great slayer came to _Kwi´-ats_ he said, “Don’t fear,
my great friend; I am not the man from whom to hide. Could a little
fellow like me kill so many people?” And the bear was assured. “Let me
help you dig,” said _Ta-vwots´_, “that we may hide together, for I also
am fleeing from the great destroyer.” So they made a den deep in the
ground, with its entrance concealed by a great rock. Now, _Ta-vwots´_
secretly made a private passage from the den out to the side of the
mountain, and when the work was completed the two went out together to
the hill-top to watch for the coming of the enemy. Soon _Ta-vwots´_
pretended that he saw him coming, and they ran in great haste to the
den. The little one outran the greater, and going into the den, hastened
out again through his secret passage.
When _Kwi´-ats_ entered he looked about, and not seeing his little
friend he searched for him for some time, and still not finding him, he
supposed that he must have passed him on the way, and went out again to
see if he had stopped or been killed. By this time _Ta-vwots´_ had
perched himself on the rock at the entrance of the den, and when the
head of the bear protruded through the hole below he hurled his
_pa-rûm´-o-kwi_ and killed him. “Aha,” said _Ta-vwots´_, “I greatly
feared this renowned warrior, but now he is dead in his own den. I am
going to kill the Sun. _A´-nier ti´-tĭk´-a´-nûmp kwaik-ai´-gar._” And
sounding the war-whoop he went on his way.
The next day he met _Ku-mi´-a-pöts_, the tarantula. Now this knowing
personage had heard of the fame of _Ta-vwots´_, and determined to outwit
him. He was possessed of a club with such properties that, although it
was a deadly weapon when used against others, it could not be made to
hurt himself, though wielded by a powerful arm.
As _Ta-vwots´_ came near, _Ku-mi´-a-pöts_ complained of having a
headache; moaning and groaning, he said there was an _u-nu´-pĭts_, or
little evil spirit, in his head, and he asked _Ta-vwots´_ to take the
club and beat it out. _Ta-vwots´_ obeyed, and struck with all his power,
and wondered that _Ku-mi´-a-pöts_ was not killed; but he urged
_Ta-vwots´_ to strike harder. At last _Ta-vwots´_ understood the nature
of the club, and guessed the wiles of _Ku-mi´-a-pöts_, and raising the
weapon as if to strike again, he dexterously substituted his magic ball
and slew him. “Aha,” said he, “that is a blow of your own seeking,
_Ku-mi´-a-pöts_. I am on my way to kill the Sun; now I know that I can
do it. _A´-nier ti´-tĭk´-a´-nûmp kwaik-ai´-gar._” And sounding the
war-whoop he went on his way.
The next day he came to a cliff which is the edge or boundary of the
world on the east, where careless persons have fallen into unknown
depths below. Now to come to the summit of this cliff it is necessary to
climb a mountain, and _Ta-vwots´_ could see three gaps or notches in the
mountain, and he went up into the one on the left; and he demanded to
know of all the trees which where standing by of what use they were.
Each one in turn praised its own qualities, the chief of which in every
case was its value as fuel.[2.3] _Ta-vwots´_ shook his head and went
into the center gap and had another conversation with the trees,
receiving the same answer. Finally he went into the third gap--that on
the right. After he had questioned all the trees and bushes, he came at
last to a little one called _yu´-i-nump_, which modestly said it had no
use, that it was not even fit for fuel. “Good,” said _Ta-vwots´_, and
under it he lay down to sleep.
When the dawn came into the sky _Ta-vwots´_ arose and stood on the brink
overhanging the abyss from which the Sun was about to rise. The instant
it appeared he hurled his _pa-rûm´-o-kwi_, and, striking it full in the
face, shattered it into innumerable fragments, and these fragments were
scattered over all the world and kindled a great conflagration.
_Ta-vwots´_ ran and crept under the _yu´-i-nump_ to obtain protection.
At last the fire waxed very hot over all the world, and soon _Ta-vwots_
began to suffer and tried to run away, but as he ran his toes were
burned off, and then slowly, inch by inch, his legs, and then his body,
so that he walked on his hands, and these were burned, and he walked on
the stumps of his arms, and these were burned, until there was nothing
left but his head. And now, having no other means of progression, his
head rolled along the ground until his eyes, which were much swollen,
burst by striking against a rock, and the tears gushed out in a great
flood which spread out over all the land and extinguished the
conflagration.
The _Uinta Utes_ add something more to this story, namely, that the
flood from his eyes bore out new seeds, which were scattered over all
the world. The _Ute_ name for seed is the same as for eye.
Those animals which are considered as the descendants of _Ta-vwots´_ are
characterized by a brown patch back of the neck and shoulders, which is
attributed to the singeing received by him in the great fire.
The following apothegms are derived from this story:
“You are buried in the hole which you dug for yourself.”
“When you go to war every one you meet is an enemy; kill all.”
“You were caught with your own chaff.”
“Don’t get so anxious that you kill yourself.”
“You are bottled in your own jugs.”
“He is dead in his own den.”
“That is a blow of your own seeking.”
[Footnote 2.1: A stream in Southeastern Nevada.]
[Footnote 2.2: This is a very common term of endearment used by
elder to younger persons.]
[Footnote 2.3: Several times I have heard this story, and
invariably the dialogues held by _Ta-vwots´_ with the trees are
long and tedious, though the trees evince some skill in their own
praise.]
* * * * *
* * * *
_Errors and Inconsistencies: Mythology_
but the confusion of confusion
[_unchanged: error for “confusion” alone?_]
that great philosophic question [philosopic]
a pot of pickeled sunbeams [_spelling unchanged_]
The descendants of these people [decendents]
the inner subjective world. [_final . missing_]
And wherever we find nature-worship
[_text has “where-/ever” at line break_]
and the spirits of the physical bodies [spirts]
When the people or natives [_text unchanged: error for “nations”?]
The next day, being without food [The dext day]
and they cried out, “What is the matter [_comma missing_]
but _Ta-vwots´_’ breath was a warder against them all
[_text reads “breath as a warder”: may be whole missing word_]
And sounding the war-hoop he passed on.
[_variant spelling unchanged_]
“that we may hide together, for I also am fleeing from the great
destroyer.”
[_both quotation marks missing_]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
WYANDOT GOVERNMENT:
A Short Study of Tribal Society.
By
J. W. POWELL.
CONTENTS.
The family 59
The gens 59
The phratry 60
Government 61
Civil government 61
Methods of choosing councillors 61
Functions of civil government 63
Marriage regulations 63
Name regulations 64
Regulations of personal adornment 64
Regulations of order in encampment 64
Property rights 65
Rights of persons 65
Community rights 65
Rights of religion 65
Crimes 66
Theft 66
Maiming 66
Murder 66
Treason 67
Witchcraft 67
Outlawry 67
Military government 68
Fellowhood 68
* * * * *
WYANDOT GOVERNMENT:
A Short Study of Tribal Society.
* * * * *
In the social organization of the Wyandots four groups are
recognized--the family, the gens, the phratry, and the tribe.
THE FAMILY.
The family, as the term is here used, is nearly synonymous with the
household. It is composed of the persons who occupy one lodge, or, in
their permanent wigwams, one section of a communal dwelling. These
permanent dwellings are constructed in an oblong form, of poles
interwoven with bark. The fire is placed in line along the center, and
is usually built for two families, one occupying the place on each side
of the fire.
The head of the family is a woman.
THE GENS.
The gens is an organized body of consanguineal kindred in the female
line. “The woman carries the gens,” is the formulated statement by which
a Wyandot expresses the idea that descent is in the female line. Each
gens has the name of some animal, the ancient of such animal being its
tutelar god. Up to the time that the tribe left Ohio, eleven gentes were
recognized, as follows:
Deer, Bear, Highland Turtle (striped), Highland Turtle (black), Mud
Turtle, Smooth Large Turtle, Hawk, Beaver, Wolf, Sea Snake, and
Porcupine.
In speaking of an individual he is said to be a wolf, a bear, or a deer,
as the case may be, meaning thereby that he belongs to that gens; but in
speaking of the body of people comprising a gens, they are said to be
relatives of the wolf, the bear, or the deer, as the case may be.
There is a body of names belonging to each gens, so that each person’s
name indicates the gens to which he belongs. These names are derived
from the characteristics, habits, attitudes, or mythologic stories
connected with the tutelar god.
The following schedule presents the name of a man and a woman in each
gens, as illustrating this statement:
Wun-dát
English.
Man of Deer gens
De-wa-tí-re
Lean Deer.
Woman of Deer gens
A-ya-jin-ta
Spotted Fawn.
Man of Bear gens
A-tu-e-tĕs
Long Claws.
Woman of Bear gens
Tsá-maⁿ-da-ka-é
Grunting for her Young.
Man of Striped Turtle gens
Ta-há-soⁿ-ta-ra-ta-se
Going Around the Lake.
Woman of Striped Turtle gens
Tso-we-yuñ-kyu
Gone from the Water.
Man of Mud Turtle gens
Sha-yän-tsu-wat´
Hard Skull.
Woman of Mud Turtle gens
Yaⁿ-däc-u-räs
Finding Sand Beach.
Man of Smooth Large Turtle gens
Huⁿ´-du-cu-tá
Throwing Sand.
Woman of Smooth Large Turtle gens
Tsu-ca-eⁿ
Slow Walker.
Man of Wolf gens
Ha-ró-uⁿ-yû
One who goes about in the Dark; a Prowler.
Woman of Wolf gens
Yaⁿ-di-no
Always Hungry.
Man of Snake gens
Hu-ta-hú-sa
Sitting in curled Position.
Woman of Snake gens
Di-jé-rons
One who Ripples the Water.
Man of Porcupine gens
Haⁿ-dú-tuⁿ
The one who puts up Quills.
Woman of Porcupine gens
Ké-ya-runs-kwa
Good-Sighted.
THE PHRATRY.
There are four phratries in the tribe, the three gentes Bear, Deer, and
Striped Turtle constituting the first; the Highland Turtle, Black
Turtle, and Smooth Large Turtle the second; the Hawk, Beaver, and Wolf
the third, and the Sea Snake and Porcupine the fourth.
This unit in their organization has a mythologic basis, and is chiefly
used for religious purposes, in the preparation of medicines, and in
festivals and games.
The eleven gentes, as four phratries, constitute the tribe.
Each gens is a body of consanguineal kindred in the female line, and
each gens is allied to other gentes by consanguineal kinship through the
male line, and by affinity through marriage.
To be a member of the tribe it is necessary to be a member of a gens; to
be a member of a gens it is necessary to belong to some family; and to
belong to a family a person must have been born in the family so that
his kinship is recognized, or he must be adopted into a family and
become a son, brother, or some definite relative; and this artificial
relationship gives him the same standing as actual relationship in the
family, in the gens, in the phratry, and in the tribe.
Thus a tribe is a body of kindred.
Of the four groups thus described, the gens, the phratry, and the tribe
constitute the series of organic units; the family, or household as here
described, is not a unit of the gens or phratry, as two gentes are
represented in each--the father must belong to one gens, and the mother
and her children to another.
GOVERNMENT.
Society is maintained by the establishment of government, for rights
must be recognized and duties performed.
In this tribe there is found a complete differentiation of the military
from the civil government.
_CIVIL GOVERNMENT._
The civil government inheres in a system of councils and chiefs.
In each gens there is a council, composed of four women, called
_Yu-waí-yu-wá-na_. These four women councillors select a chief of the
gens from its male members--that is, from their brothers and sons. This
gentile chief is the head of the gentile council.
The council of the tribe is composed of the aggregated gentile councils.
The tribal council, therefore, is composed one-fifth of men and
four-fifths of women.
The sachem of the tribe, or tribal chief, is chosen by the chiefs of the
gentes.
There is sometimes a grand council of the gens, composed of the
councillors of the gens proper and all the heads of households and
leading men--brothers and sons.
There is also sometimes a grand council of the tribe, composed of the
council of the tribe proper and the heads of households of the tribe,
and all the leading men of the tribe.
These grand councils are convened for special purposes.
_METHODS OF CHOOSING AND INSTALLING COUNCILLORS AND CHIEFS._
The four women councillors of the gens are chosen by the heads of
households, themselves being women. There is no formal election, but
frequent discussion is had over the matter from time to time, in which a
sentiment grows up within the gens and throughout the tribe that, in the
event of the death of any councillor, a certain person will take her
place.
In this manner there is usually one, two, or more potential councillors
in each gens who are expected to attend all the meetings of the council,
though they take no part in the deliberations and have no vote.
When a woman is installed as councillor a feast is prepared by the gens
to which she belongs, and to this feast all the members of the tribe are
invited. The woman is painted and dressed in her best attire and the
sachem of the tribe places upon her head the gentile chaplet of
feathers, and announces in a formal manner to the assembled guests that
the woman has been chosen a councillor. The ceremony is followed by
feasting and dancing, often continued late into the night.
The gentile chief is chosen by the council women after consultation with
the other women and men of the gens. Often the gentile chief is a
potential chief through a period of probation. During this time he
attends the meetings of the council, but takes no part in the
deliberations, and has no vote.
At his installation, the council women invest him with an elaborately
ornamented tunic, place upon his head a chaplet of feathers, and paint
the gentile totem on his face. The sachem of the tribe then announces to
the people that the man has been made chief of the gens, and admitted to
the council. This is also followed by a festival.
The sachem of the tribe is selected by the men belonging to the council
of the tribe. Formerly the sachemship inhered in the Bear gens, but at
present he is chosen from the Deer gens, from the fact, as the Wyandots
say, that death has carried away all the wise men of the Bear gens.
The chief of the Wolf gens is the herald and the sheriff of the tribe.
He superintends the erection of the council-house and has the care of
it. He calls the council together in a formal manner when directed by
the sachem. He announces to the tribe all the decisions of the council,
and executes the directions of the council and of the sachem.
Gentile councils are held frequently from day to day and from week to
week, and are called by the chief whenever deemed necessary. When
matters before the council are considered of great importance, a grand
council of the gens may be called.
The tribal council is held regularly on the night of the full moon of
each lunation and at such other times as the sachem may determine; but
extra councils are usually called by the sachem at the request of a
number of councilors.
Meetings of the gentile councils are very informal, but the meetings of
the tribal councils are conducted with due ceremony. When all the
persons are assembled, the chief of the Wolf gens calls them to order,
fills and lights a pipe, sends one puff of smoke to the heavens and
another to the earth. The pipe is then handed to the sachem, who fills
his mouth with smoke, and, turning from left to right with the sun,
slowly puffs it out over the heads of the councilors, who are sitting in
a circle. He then hands the pipe to the man on his left, and it is
smoked in turn by each person until it has been passed around the
circle. The sachem then explains the object for which the council is
called. Each person in the way and manner he chooses tells what he
thinks should be done in the case. If a majority of the council is
agreed as to action, the sachem does not speak, but may simply announce
the decision. But in some cases there may be protracted debate, which is
carried on with great deliberation. In case of a tie, the sachem is
expected to speak.
It is considered dishonorable for any man to reverse his decision after
having spoken.
Such are the organic elements of the Wyandot government.
_FUNCTIONS OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT._
It is the function of government to preserve rights and enforce the
performance of duties. Rights and duties are co-relative. Rights imply
duties, and duties imply rights. The right inhering in the party of the
first part imposes a duty on the party of the second part. The right and
its co-relative duty are inseparable parts of a relation that must be
maintained by government; and the relations which governments are
established to maintain may be treated under the general head of rights.
In Wyandot government these rights may be classed as follows:
First--Rights of marriage.
Second--Rights to names.
Third--Rights to personal adornments.
Fourth--Rights of order in encampments and migrations.
Fifth--Rights of property.
Sixth--Rights of person.
Seventh--Rights of community.
Eighth--Rights of religion.
To maintain rights, rules of conduct are established, not by formal
enactment, but by regulated usage. Such custom-made laws may be called
regulations.
_MARRIAGE REGULATIONS._
Marriage between members of the same gens is forbidden, but
consanguineal marriages between persons of different gentes are
permitted. For example, a man may not marry his mother’s sister’s
daughter, as she belongs to the same gens with himself; but he can marry
his father’s sister’s daughter, because she belongs to a different gens.
Husbands retain all their rights and privileges in their own gentes,
though they live with the gentes of their wives. Children, irrespective
of sex, belong to the gens of the mother. Men and women must marry
within the tribe. A woman taken to wife from without the tribe must
first be adopted into some family of a gens other than that to which the
man belongs. That a woman may take for a husband a man without the tribe
he must also be adopted into the family of some gens other than that of
the woman. What has been called by some ethnologists endogamy and
exogamy are correlative parts of one regulation, and the Wyandots, like
all other tribes of which we have any knowledge in North America, are
both endogamous and exogamous.
Polygamy is permitted, but the wives must belong to different gentes.
The first wife remains the head of the household. Polyandry is
prohibited.
A man seeking a wife consults her mother, sometimes direct, and
sometimes through his own mother. The mother of the girl advises with
the women councilors to obtain their consent, and the young people
usually submit quietly to their decision. Sometimes the women councilors
consult with the men.
When a girl is betrothed, the man makes such presents to the mother as
he can. It is customary to consummate the marriage before the end of the
moon in which the betrothal is made. Bridegroom and bride make promises
of faithfulness to the parents and women councilors of both parties. It
is customary to give a marriage feast, in which the gentes of both
parties take part. For a short time at least, bride and groom live with
the bride’s mother, or rather in the original household of the bride.
The time when they will set up housekeeping for themselves is usually
arranged before marriage.
In the event of the death of the mother, the children belong to her
sister or to her nearest female kin, the matter being settled by the
council women of the gens. As the children belong to the mother, on the
death of the father the mother and children are cared for by her nearest
male relative until subsequent marriage.
_NAME REGULATIONS._
It has been previously explained that there is a body of names, the
exclusive property of each gens. Once a year, at the green-corn
festival, the council women of the gens select the names for the
children born during the previous year, and the chief of the gens
proclaims these names at the festival. No person may change his name,
but every person, man or woman, by honorable or dishonorable conduct, or
by remarkable circumstance, may win a second name commemorative of deed
or circumstance, which is a kind of title.
_REGULATIONS OF PERSONAL ADORNMENT._
Each clan has a distinctive method of painting the face, a distinctive
chaplet to be worn by the gentile chief and council women when they are
inaugurated, and subsequently at festival occasions, and distinctive
ornaments for all its members, to be used at festivals and religious
ceremonies.
_REGULATIONS OF ORDER IN ENCAMPMENT AND MIGRATIONS._
The camp of the tribe is in an open circle or horse-shoe, and the gentes
camp in following order, beginning on the left and going around to the
right:
Deer, Bear, Highland Turtle (striped), Highland Turtle (black), Mud
Turtle, Smooth Large Turtle, Hawk, Beaver, Wolf, Sea Snake, Porcupine.
The order in which the households camp in the gentile group is regulated
by the gentile councilors and adjusted from time to time in such a
manner that the oldest family is placed on the left, and the youngest on
the right. In migrations and expeditions the order of travel follows the
analogy of encampment.
_PROPERTY RIGHTS._
Within the area claimed by the tribe each gens occupies a smaller tract
for the purpose of cultivation. The right of the gens to cultivate a
particular tract is a matter settled in the council of the tribe, and
the gens may abandon one tract for another only with the consent of the
tribe. The women councillors partition the gentile land among the
householders, and the household tracts are distinctly marked by them.
The ground is re-partitioned once in two years. The heads of households
are responsible for the cultivation of the tract, and should this duty
be neglected the council of the gens calls the responsible parties to
account.
Cultivation is communal; that is, all of the able-bodied women of the
gens take part in the cultivation of each household tract in the
following manner:
The head of the household sends her brother or son into the forest or to
the stream to bring in game or fish for a feast; then the able-bodied
women of the gens are invited to assist in the cultivation of the land,
and when this work is done a feast is given.
The wigwam or lodge and all articles of the household belong to the
woman--the head of the household--and at her death are inherited by her
eldest daughter, or nearest of female kin. The matter is settled by the
council women. If the husband die his property is inherited by his
brother or his sister’s son, except such portion as may be buried with
him. His property consists of his clothing, hunting and fishing
implements, and such articles as are used personally by himself.
Usually a small canoe is the individual property of the man. Large
canoes are made by the male members of the gentes, and are the property
of the gentes.
_RIGHTS OF PERSON._
Each individual has a right to freedom of person and security from
personal and bodily injury, unless adjudged guilty of crime by proper
authority.
_COMMUNITY RIGHTS._
Each gens has the right to the services of all its women in the
cultivation of the soil. Each gens has the right to the service of all
its male members in avenging wrongs, and the tribe has the right to the
service of all its male members in time of war.
_RIGHTS OF RELIGION._
Each phratry has the right to certain religious ceremonies and the
preparation of certain medicines.
Each gens has the exclusive right to worship its tutelar god, and each
individual has the exclusive right to the possession and use of a
particular amulet.
_CRIMES._
The violations of right are crimes. Some of the crimes recognized by the
Wyandots are as follows:
1. Adultery.
2. Theft.
3. Maiming.
4. Murder.
5. Treason.
6. Witchcraft.
A maiden guilty of fornication may be punished by her mother or female
guardian, but if the crime is flagrant and repeated, so as to become a
matter of general gossip, and the mother fails to correct it, the matter
may be taken up by the council women of the gens.
A woman guilty of adultery, for the first offense is punished by having
her hair cropped; for repeated offenses her left ear is cut off.
_THEFT._
The punishment for theft is twofold restitution. When the prosecutor and
prosecuted belong to the same gens, the trial is before the council of
the gens, and from it there is no appeal. If the parties involved are of
different gentes, the prosecutor, through the head of his household,
lays the matter before the council of his own gens; by it the matter is
laid before the gentile council of the accused in a formal manner.
Thereupon it becomes the duty of the council of the accused to
investigate the facts for themselves, and to settle the matter with the
council of the plaintiff. Failure thus to do is followed by retaliation
in the seizing of any property of the gens which may be found.
_MAIMING._
Maiming is compounded, and the method of procedure in prosecution is
essentially the same as for theft.
_MURDER._
In the case of murder, if both parties are members of the same gens, the
matter is tried by the gentile council on complaint of the head of the
household, but there may be an appeal to the council of the tribe. Where
the parties belong to different gentes, complaint is formally made by
the injured party, through the chief of his gens, in the following
manner:
A wooden tablet is prepared, upon which is inscribed the totem or
heraldic emblem of the injured man’s gens, and a picture-writing setting
forth the offense follows.
The gentile chief appears before the chief of the council of the
offender, and formally states the offense, explaining the
picture-writing, which is then delivered.
A council of the offender’s gens is thereupon called and a trial is
held. It is the duty of this council to examine the evidence for
themselves and to come to a conclusion without further presentation of
the matter on the part of the person aggrieved. Having decided the
matter among themselves, they appear before the chief of the council of
the aggrieved party to offer compensation.
If the gens of the offender fail to settle the matter with the gens of
the aggrieved party, it is the duty of his nearest relative to avenge
the wrong. Either party may appeal to the council of the tribe. The
appeal must be made in due form, by the presentation of a tablet of
accusation.
Inquiry into the effect of a failure to observe prescribed formalities
developed an interesting fact. In procedure against crime, failure in
formality is not considered a violation of the rights of the accused,
but proof of his innocence. It is considered supernatural evidence that
the charges are false. In trials for all offenses forms of procedure
are, therefore, likely to be earnestly questioned.
_TREASON._
Treason consists in revealing the secrets of the medicine preparations
or giving other information or assistance to enemies of the tribe, and
is punished by death. The trial is before the council of the tribe.
_WITCHCRAFT._
Witchcraft is punished by death, stabbing, tomahawking, or burning.
Charges of witchcraft are investigated by the grand council of the
tribe. When the accused is adjudged guilty, he may appeal to
supernatural judgment. The test is by fire. A circular fire is built on
the ground, through which the accused must run from east and west and
from north to south. If no injury is received he is adjudged innocent;
if he falls into the fire he is adjudged guilty. Should a person accused
or having the general reputation of practicing witchcraft become deaf,
blind, or have sore eyes, earache, headache, or other diseases
considered loathsome, he is supposed to have failed in practicing his
arts upon others, and to have fallen a victim to them himself. Such
cases are most likely to be punished.
_OUTLAWRY._
The institution of outlawry exists among the Wyandots in a peculiar
form. An outlaw is one who by his crimes has placed himself without the
protection of his clan. A man can be declared an outlaw by his own clan,
who thus publish to the tribe that they will not defend him in case he
is injured by another. But usually outlawry is declared only after trial
before the tribal council.
The method of procedure is analogous to that in case of murder. When the
person has been adjudged guilty and sentence of outlawry declared, it is
the duty of the chief of the Wolf clan to make known the decision of the
council. This he does by appearing before each clan in the order of its
encampment, and declaring in terms the crime of the outlaw and the
sentence of outlawry, which may be either of two grades.
In the lowest grade it is declared that if the man shall thereafter
continue in the commission of similar crimes, it will be lawful for any
person to kill him; and if killed, rightfully or wrongfully, his clan
will not avenge his death.
Outlawry of the highest degree makes it the duty of any member of the
tribe who may meet with the offender to kill him.
_MILITARY GOVERNMENT._
The management of military affairs inheres in the military council and
chief. The military council is composed of all the able-bodied men of
the tribe; the military chief is chosen by the council from the
Porcupine gens. Each gentile chief is responsible for the military
training of the youth under his authority. There is usually one or more
potential military chiefs, who are the close companions and assistants
of the chief in time of war, and in case of the death of the chief, take
his place in the order of seniority.
Prisoners of war are adopted into the tribe or killed. To be adopted
into the tribe, it is necessary that the prisoner should be adopted into
some family. The warrior taking the prisoner has the first right to
adopt him, and his male or female relatives have the right in the order
of their kinship. If no one claims the prisoner for this purpose, he is
caused to run the gauntlet as a test of his courage.
If at his trial he behaves manfully, claimants are not wanting, but if
he behaves disgracefully he is put to death.
_FELLOWHOOD._
There is an interesting institution found among the Wyandots, as among
some other of our North American tribes, namely, that of fellowhood. Two
young men agree to be perpetual friends to each other, or more than
brothers. Each reveals to the other the secrets of his life, and
counsels with him on matters of importance, and defends him from wrong
and violence, and at his death is chief mourner.
* * * * *
The government of the Wyandots, with the social organization upon which
it is based, affords a typical example of tribal government throughout
North America. Within that area there are several hundred distinct
governments. In so great a number there is great variety, and in this
variety we find different degrees of organization, the degrees of
organization being determined by the differentiation of the functions of
the government and the correlative specialization of organic elements.
Much has yet to be done in the study of these governments before safe
generalizations may be made. But enough is known to warrant the
following statement:
Tribal government in North America is based on kinship in that the
fundamental units of social organization are bodies of consanguineal
kindred either in the male or female line; these units being what has
been well denominated “gentes.”
These “gentes” are organized into tribes by ties of relationship and
affinity, and this organization is of such a character that the man’s
position in the tribe is fixed by his kinship. There is no place in a
tribe for any person whose kinship is not fixed, and only those persons
can be adopted into the tribe who are adopted into some family with
artificial kinship specified. The fabric of Indian society is a complex
tissue of kinship. The warp is made of streams of kinship blood, and the
woof of marriage ties.
With most tribes military and civil affairs are differentiated. The
functions of civil government are in general differentiated only to this
extent, that executive functions are performed by chiefs and sachems,
but these chiefs and sachems are also members of the council. The
council is legislature and court. Perhaps it were better to say that the
council is the court whose decisions are law, and that the legislative
body properly has not been developed.
In general, crimes are well defined. Procedure is formal, and forms are
held as of such importance that error therein is _prima facie_ evidence
that the subject-matter formulated was false.
When one gens charges crime against a member of another, it can of its
own motion proceed only to retaliation. To prevent retaliation, the gens
of the offender must take the necessary steps to disprove the crime, or
to compound or punish it. The charge once made is held as just and true
until it has been disproved, and in trial the cause of the defendant is
first stated. The anger of the prosecuting gens must be placated.
In the tribal governments there are many institutions, customs, and
traditions which give evidence of a former condition in which society
was based not upon kinship, but upon marriage.
From a survey of the facts it seems highly probably that kinship
society, as it exists among the tribes of North America, has developed
from connubial society, which is discovered elsewhere on the globe. In
fact, there are a few tribes that seem scarcely to have passed that
indefinite boundary between the two social states. Philologic research
leads to the same conclusion.
Nowhere in North America have a people been discovered who have passed
beyond tribal society to national society based on property, _i.e._,
that form of society which is characteristic of civilization. Some
peoples may not have reached kinship society; none have passed it.
Nations with civilized institutions, art with palaces, monotheism as the
worship of the Great Spirit, all vanish from the priscan condition of
North America in the light of anthropologic research. Tribes with the
social institutions of kinship, art with its highest architectural
development exhibited in the structure of communal dwellings, and
polytheism in the worship of mythic animals and nature-gods remain.
* * * * *
* * * *
_Errors and Inconsistencies: Wyandot_
GOVERNMENT.
[_type of chapter break adjusted to agree with Table of Contents
and structure of article_]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
On Limitations to the Use
of some
ANTHROPOLOGIC DATA.
By
J. W. POWELL.
CONTENTS.
Archæology 73
Picture writing 75
History, customs, and ethnic characteristics 76
Origin of man 77
Language 78
Mythology 81
Sociology 83
Psychology 83
* * * * *
ON LIMITATIONS TO THE USE
OF SOME ANTHROPOLOGIC DATA.
* * * * *
ARCHÆOLOGY.
Investigations in this department are of great interest, and have
attracted to the field a host of workers; but a general review of the
mass of published matter exhibits the fact that the uses to which the
material has been put have not always been wise.
In the monuments of antiquity found throughout North America, in camp
and village sites, graves, mounds, ruins, and scattered works of art,
the origin and development of art in savage and barbaric life may be
satisfactorily studied. Incidentally, too, hints of customs may be
discovered, but outside of this, the discoveries made have often been
illegitimately used, especially for the purpose of connecting the tribes
of North America with peoples or so-called races of antiquity in other
portions of the world. A brief review of some conclusions that must be
accepted in the present status of the science will exhibit the futility
of these attempts.
It is now an established fact that man was widely scattered over the
earth at least as early as the beginning of the quaternary period, and,
perhaps, in pliocene time.
If we accept the conclusion that there is but one species of man, as
species are now defined by biologists, we may reasonably conclude that
the species has been dispersed from some common center, as the ability
to successfully carry on the battle of life in all climes belongs only
to a highly developed being; but this original home has not yet been
ascertained with certainty, and when discovered, lines of migration
therefrom cannot be mapped until the changes in the physical geography
of the earth from that early time to the present have been discovered,
and these must be settled upon purely geologic and paleontologic
evidence. The migrations of mankind from that original home cannot be
intelligently discussed until that home has been discovered, and,
further, until the geology of the globe is so thoroughly known that the
different phases of its geography can be presented.
The dispersion of man must have been anterior to the development of any
but the rudest arts. Since that time the surface of the earth has
undergone many and important changes. All known camp and village sites,
graves, mounds, and ruins belong to that portion of geologic time known
as the present epoch, and are entirely subsequent to the period of the
original dispersion as shown by geologic evidence.
In the study of these antiquities, there has been much unnecessary
speculation in respect to the relation existing between the people to
whose existence they attest, and the tribes of Indians inhabiting the
country during the historic period.
It may be said that in the Pueblos discovered in the southwestern
portion of the United States and farther south through Mexico and
perhaps into Central America tribes are known having a culture quite as
far advanced as any exhibited in the discovered ruins. In this respect,
then, there is no need to search for an extra-limital origin through
lost tribes for any art there exhibited.
With regard to the mounds so widely scattered between the two oceans, it
may also be said that mound-building tribes were known in the early
history of discovery of this continent, and that the vestiges of art
discovered do not excel in any respect the arts of the Indian tribes
known to history. There is, therefore, no reason for us to search for an
extra-limital origin through lost tribes for the arts discovered in the
mounds of North America.
The tracing of the origin of these arts to the ancestors of known tribes
or stocks of tribes is more legitimate, but it has limitations which are
widely disregarded. The tribes which had attained to the highest culture
in the southern portion of North America are now well known to belong to
several different stocks, and, if, for example, an attempt is made to
connect the mound-builders with the Pueblo Indians, no result beyond
confusion can be reached until the particular stock of these village
peoples is designated.
Again, it is contained in the recorded history of the country that
several distinct stocks of the present Indians were mound-builders and
the wide extent and vast number of mounds discovered in the United
States should lead us to suspect, at least, that the mound-builders of
pre-historic times belonged to many and diverse stocks. With the
limitations thus indicated the identification of mound-building peoples
as distinct tribes or stocks is a legitimate study, but when we consider
the further fact now established, that arts extend beyond the boundaries
of linguistic stocks, the most fundamental divisions we are yet able to
make of the peoples of the globe, we may more properly conclude that
this field promises but a meager harvest; but the origin and development
of arts and industries is in itself a vast and profoundly interesting
theme of study, and when North American archæology is pursued with this
end in view, the results will be instructive.
PICTURE-WRITING.
The pictographs of North America were made on divers substances. The
bark of trees, tablets of wood, the skins of animals, and the surfaces
of rocks were all used for this purpose; but the great body of
picture-writing as preserved to us is found on rock surfaces, as these
are the most enduring.
From Dighton Rock to the cliffs that overhang the Pacific, these records
are found--on bowlders fashioned by the waves of the sea, scattered by
river floods, or polished by glacial ice; on stones buried in graves and
mounds; on faces of rock that appear in ledges by the streams; on cañon
walls and towering cliffs; on mountain crags and the ceilings of
caves--wherever smooth surfaces of rock are to be found in North
America, there we may expect to find pictographs. So widely distributed
and so vast in number, it is well to know what purposes they may serve
in anthropologic science.
Many of these pictographs are simply pictures, rude etchings, or
paintings, delineating natural objects, especially animals, and
illustrate simply the beginning of pictorial art; others we know were
intended to commemorate events or to represent other ideas entertained
by their authors; but to a large extent these were simply mnemonic--not
conveying ideas of themselves, but designed more thoroughly to retain in
memory certain events or thoughts by persons who were already cognizant
of the same through current hearsay or tradition. If once the memory of
the thought to be preserved has passed from the minds of men, the record
is powerless to restore its own subject-matter to the understanding.
The great body of picture-writings is thus described; yet to some slight
extent pictographs are found with characters more or less conventional,
and the number of such is quite large in Mexico and Central America. Yet
even these conventional characters are used with others less
conventional in such a manner that perfect records were never made.
Hence it will be seen that it is illegitimate to use any pictographic
matter of a date anterior to the discovery of the continent by Columbus
for historic purposes; but it has a legitimate use of profound interest,
as these pictographs exhibit the beginning of written language and the
beginning of pictorial art, yet undifferentiated; and if the scholars of
America will collect and study the vast body of this material scattered
everywhere--over the valleys and on the mountain sides--from it can be
written one of the most interesting chapters in the early history of
mankind.
HISTORY, CUSTOMS, AND ETHNIC CHARACTERISTICS.
When America was discovered by Europeans, it was inhabited by great
numbers of distinct tribes, diverse in languages, institutions, and
customs. This fact has never been fully recognized, and writers have too
often spoken of the North American Indians as a body, supposing that
statements made of one tribe would apply to all. This fundamental error
in the treatment of the subject has led to great confusion.
Again, the rapid progress in the settlement and occupation of the
country has resulted in the gradual displacement of the Indian tribes,
so that very many have been removed from their ancient homes, some of
whom have been incorporated into other tribes, and some have been
absorbed into the body of civilized people.
The names by which tribes have been designated have rarely been names
used by themselves, and the same tribe has often been designated by
different names in different periods of its history and by different
names in the same period of its history by colonies of people having
different geographic relations to them. Often, too, different tribes
have been designated by the same name. Without entering into an
explanation of the causes which have led to this condition of things, it
is simply necessary to assert that this has led to great confusion of
nomenclature. Therefore the student of Indian history must be constantly
on his guard in accepting the statements of any author relating to any
tribe of Indians.
It will be seen that to follow any tribe of Indians through
post-Columbian times is a task of no little difficulty. Yet this portion
of history is of importance, and the scholars of America have a great
work before them.
Three centuries of intimate contact with a civilized race has had no
small influence upon the pristine condition of these savage and barbaric
tribes. The most speedy and radical change was that effected in the
arts, industrial and ornamental. A steel knife was obviously better than
a stone knife; firearms than bows and arrows; and textile fabrics from
the looms of civilized men are at once seen to be more beautiful and
more useful than the rude fabrics and undressed skins with which the
Indians clothed themselves in that earlier day.
Customs and institutions changed less rapidly. Yet these have been much
modified. Imitation and vigorous propagandism have been more or less
efficient causes. Migrations and enforced removals placed tribes under
conditions of strange environment where new customs and institutions
were necessary, and in this condition civilization had a greater
influence, and the progress of occupation by white men within the
territory of the United States, at least, has reached such a stage that
savagery and barbarism have no room for their existence, and even
customs and institutions must in a brief time be completely changed, and
what we are yet to learn of these people must be learned now.
But in pursuing these studies the greatest caution must be observed in
discriminating what is primitive from what has been acquired from
civilized man by the various processes of acculturation.
ORIGIN OF MAN.
Working naturalists postulate evolution. Zoölogical research is largely
directed to the discovery of the genetic relations of animals. The
evolution of the animal kingdom is along multifarious lines and by
diverse specializations. The particular line which connects man with the
lowest forms, through long successions of intermediate forms, is a
problem of great interest. This special investigation has to deal
chiefly with relations of structure. From the many facts already
recorded, it is probable that many detached portions of this line can be
drawn, and such a construction, though in fact it may not be correct in
all its parts, yet serves a valuable purpose in organizing and directing
research.
The truth or error of such hypothetic genealogy in no way affects the
validity of the doctrines of evolution in the minds of scientific men,
but on the other hand the value of the tentative theory is brought to
final judgment under the laws of evolution.
It would be vain to claim that the course of zoölogic development is
fully understood, or even that all of its most important factors are
known. So the discovery of facts and relations guided by the doctrines
of evolution reacts upon these doctrines, verifying, modifying, and
enlarging them. Thus it is that while the doctrines lead the way to new
fields of discovery, the new discoveries lead again to new doctrines.
Increased knowledge widens philosophy; wider philosophy increases
knowledge.
It is the test of true philosophy that it leads to the discovery of
facts, and facts themselves can only be known as such; that is, can only
be properly discerned and discriminated by being relegated to their
places in philosophy. The whole progress of science depends primarily
upon this relation between knowledge and philosophy.
In the earlier history of mankind philosophy was the product of
subjective reasoning, giving mythologies and metaphysics. When it was
discovered that the whole structure of philosophy was without
foundation, a new order of procedure was recommended--the Baconian
method. Perception must precede reflection; observation must precede
reason. This also was a failure. The earlier gave speculations; the
later give a mass of incoherent facts and falsehoods. The error in the
earlier philosophy was not in the order of procedure between perception
and reflection, but in the method, it being subjective instead of
objective. The method of reasoning in scientific philosophy is purely
objective; the method of reasoning in mythology and metaphysics is
subjective.
The difference between man and the animals most nearly related to him in
structure is great. The connecting forms are no longer extant. This
subject of research, therefore, belongs to the paleontologists rather
than the ethnologists. The biological facts are embraced in the
geological record, and this record up to the present time has yielded
but scant materials to serve in its solution.
It is known that man, highly differentiated from lower animals in
morphologic characteristics, existed in early Quaternary and perhaps in
Pliocene times, and here the discovered record ends.
LANGUAGE.
In philology, North America presents the richest field in the world, for
here is found the greatest number of languages distributed among the
greatest number of stocks. As the progress of research is necessarily
from the known to the unknown, civilized languages were studied by
scholars before the languages of savage and barbaric tribes. Again, the
higher languages are written and are thus immediately accessible. For
such reasons, chief attention has been given to the most highly
developed languages. The problems presented to the philologist, in the
higher languages, cannot be properly solved without a knowledge of the
lower forms. The linguist studies a language that he may use it as an
instrument for the interchange of thought; the philologist studies a
language to use its data in the construction of a philosophy of
language. It is in this latter sense that the higher languages are
unknown until the lower languages are studied, and it is probable that
more light will be thrown upon the former by a study of the latter than
by more extended research in the higher.
The vast field of unwritten languages has been explored but not
surveyed. In a general way it is known that there are many such
languages, and the geographic distribution of the tribes of men who
speak them is known, but scholars have just begun the study of the
languages.
That the knowledge of the simple and uncompounded must precede the
knowledge of the complex and compounded, that the latter may be rightly
explained, is an axiom well recognized in biology, and it applies
equally well to philology. Hence any system of philology, as the term is
here used, made from a survey of the higher languages exclusively, will
probably be a failure. “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit
unto his stature,” and which of you by taking thought can add the
antecedent phenomena necessary to an explanation of the language of
Plato or of Spencer?
The study of astronomy, geology, physics, and biology, is in the hands
of scientific men; objective methods of research are employed and
metaphysic disquisitions find no place in the accepted philosophies; but
to a large extent philology remains in the hands of the metaphysicians,
and subjective methods of thought are used in the explanation of the
phenomena observed. If philology is to be a science it must have an
objective philosophy composed of a homologic classification and orderly
arrangement of the phenomena of the languages of the globe.
Philologic research began with the definite purpose in view to discover
in the diversities of language among the peoples of the earth a common
element from which they were all supposed to have been derived, an
original speech, the parent of all languages. In this philologists had
great hopes of success at one time, encouraged by the discovery of the
relation between the diverse branches of the Aryan stock, but in this
very work methods of research were developed and doctrines established
by which unexpected results were reached.
Instead of relegating the languages that had before been unclassified to
the Aryan family, new families or stocks were discovered, and this
process has been carried on from year to year until scores or even
hundreds of families are recognized, and until we may reasonably
conclude that there was no single primitive speech common to mankind,
but that man had multiplied and spread throughout the habitable earth
anterior to the development of organized languages; that is, languages
have sprung from innumerable sources after the dispersion of mankind.
The progress in language has not been by multiplication, which would be
but a progress in degradation under the now well-recognized laws of
evolution; but it has been in integration from a vast multiplicity
toward a unity. True, all evolution has not been in this direction.
There has often been degradation as exhibited in the multiplicity of
languages and dialects of the same stock, but evolution has in the
aggregate been integration by progress towards unity of speech, and
differentiation (which must always be distinguished from multiplication)
by specialization of the grammatic process and the development of the
parts of speech.
When a people once homogeneous are separated geographically in such a
manner that thorough inter-communication is no longer preserved, all of
the agencies by which languages change act separately in the distinct
communities and produce different changes therein, and dialects are
established. If the separation continues, such dialects become distinct
languages in the sense that the people of one community are unable to
understand the people of another. But such a development of languages is
not differentiation in the sense in which this term is here used, and
often used in biology, but is analogous to multiplication as understood
in biology. The differentiation of an organ is its development for a
special purpose, _i.e._, the organic specialization is concomitant with
functional specialization. When paws are differentiated into hands and
feet, with the differentiation of the organs, there is a concomitant
differentiation in the functions.
When one language becomes two, the same function is performed by each,
and is marked by the fundamental characteristic of multiplication,
_i.e._, degradation; for the people originally able to communicate with
each other can no longer thus communicate; so that two languages do not
serve as valuable a purpose as one. And, further, neither of the two
languages has made the progress one would have made, for one would have
been developed sufficiently to serve all the purposes of the united
peoples in the larger area inhabited by them, and, _cæteris paribus_,
the language spoken by many people scattered over a large area must be
superior to one spoken by a few people inhabiting a small area.
It would have been strange, indeed, had the primitive assumption in
philology been true, and the history of language exhibited universal
degradation.
In the remarks on the “Origin of Man,” the statement was made that
mankind was distributed throughout the habitable earth, in some
geological period anterior to the present and anterior to the
development of other than the rudest arts. Here, again, we reach the
conclusion that man was distributed throughout the earth anterior to the
development of organized speech.
In the presence of these two great facts, the difficulty of tracing
genetic relationship among human races through arts, customs,
institutions, and traditions will appear, for all of these must have
been developed after the dispersion of mankind. Analogies and homologies
in these phenomena must be accounted for in some other way. Somatology
proves the unity of the human species; that is, the evidence upon which
this conclusion is reached is morphologic; but in arts, customs,
institutions, and traditions abundant corroborative evidence is found.
The individuals of the one species, though inhabiting diverse climes,
speaking diverse languages, and organized into diverse communities, have
progressed in a broad way by the same stages, have had the same arts,
customs, institutions, and traditions in the same order, limited only by
the degree of progress to which the several tribes have attained, and
modified only to a limited extent by variations in environment.
If any ethnic classification of mankind is to be established more
fundamental than that based upon language, it must be upon physical
characteristics, and such must have been acquired by profound
differentiation anterior to the development of languages, arts, customs,
institutions, and traditions. The classifications hitherto made on this
basis are unsatisfactory, and no one now receives wide acceptance.
Perhaps further research will clear up doubtful matters and give an
acceptable grouping; or it may be that such research will result only in
exhibiting the futility of the effort.
The history of man, from the lowest tribal condition to the highest
national organization, has been a history of constant and multifarious
admixture of strains of blood; of admixture, absorption, and destruction
of languages with general progress toward unity; of the diffusion of
arts by various processes of acculturation; and of admixture and
reciprocal diffusion of customs, institutions, and traditions. Arts,
customs, institutions, and traditions extend beyond the boundaries of
languages and serve to obscure them, and the admixture of strains of
blood has obscured primitive ethnic divisions, if such existed.
If the physical classification fails, the most fundamental grouping left
is that based on language; but for the reasons already mentioned and
others of like character, the classification of languages is not, to the
full extent, a classification of peoples.
It may be that the unity of the human race is a fact so profound that
all attempts at a fundamental classification to be used in all the
departments of anthropology will fail, and that there will remain
multifarious groupings for the multifarious purposes of the science; or,
otherwise expressed, that languages, arts, customs, institutions, and
traditions may be classified, and that the human family will be
considered as one race.
MYTHOLOGY.
Here again America presents a rich field for the scientific explorer. It
is now known that each linguistic stock has a distinct mythology, and as
in some of these stocks there are many languages differing to a greater
or less extent, so there are many like differing mythologies.
As in language, so in mythology, investigation has proceeded from the
known to the unknown--from the higher to the lower mythologies. In each
step of the progress of opinion on this subject a particular phenomenon
may be observed. As each lower status of mythology is discovered it is
assumed to be the first in origin, the primordial mythology, and all
lower but imperfectly understood mythologies are interpreted as
degradations, from this assumed original belief; thus polytheism was
interpreted as a degeneracy from monotheism; nature worship, from
psychotheism; zoölotry, from ancestor worship; and, in order, monotheism
has been held to be the original mythology, then polytheism, then
physitheism or nature worship, then ancestor worship.
With a large body of mythologists nature worship is now accepted as the
primitive religion; and with another body, equally as respectable,
ancestor worship is primordial. But nature worship and ancestor worship
are concomitant parts of the same religion, and belong to a status of
culture highly advanced and characterized by the invention of
conventional pictographs. In North America we have scores or even
hundreds of systems of mythology, all belonging to a lower state of
culture.
Let us hope that American students will not fall into this line of error
by assuming that zoötheism is the lowest stage, because this is the
status of mythology most widely spread on the continent.
Mythology is primitive philosophy. A mythology--that is, the body of
myths current among any people and believed by them--comprises a system
of explanations of all the phenomena of the universe discerned by them;
but such explanations are always mixed with much extraneous matter,
chiefly incidents in the history of the personages who were the heroes
of mythologic deeds.
Every mythology has for its basis a theology--a system of gods who are
the actors, and to whom are attributed the phenomena to be
explained--for the fundamental postulate in mythology is “some one does
it,” such being the essential characteristic of subjective reasoning. As
peoples pass from one stage of culture to another, the change is made by
developing a new sociology with all its institutions, by the development
of new arts, by evolution of language, and, in a degree no less, by a
change in philosophy; but the old philosophy is not supplanted. The
change is made by internal growth and external accretion.
Fragments of the older are found in the newer. This older material in
the newer philosophy is often used for curious purposes by many
scholars. One such use I wish to mention here. The nomenclature which
has survived from the earlier state is supposed to be deeply and
occultly symbolic and the mythic narratives to be deeply and occultly
allegoric. In this way search is made for some profoundly metaphysic
cosmogony; some ancient beginning of the mythology is sought in which
mystery is wisdom and wisdom is mystery.
The objective or scientific method of studying a mythology is to collect
and collate its phenomena simply as it is stated and understood by the
people to whom it belongs. In tracing back the threads of its historical
development the student should expect to find it more simple and
childlike in every stage of his progress.
It is vain to search for truth in mythologic philosophy, but it is
important to search for veritable philosphies, that they may be properly
compared and that the products of the human mind in its various stages
of culture may be known; important in the reconstruction of the history
of philosophy; and important in furnishing necessary data to psychology.
No labor can be more fruitless than the search in mythology for true
philosophy; and the efforts to build up from the terminology and
narratives of mythologies an occult symbolism and system of allegory is
but to create a new and fictitious body of mythology.
There is a symbolism inherent in language and found in all philosophy,
true or false, and such symbolism was cultivated as an occult art in the
early history of civilization when picture-writing developed into
conventional writing, and symbolism is an interesting subject for study,
but it has been made a beast of burden to carry packs of metaphysic
nonsense.
SOCIOLOGY.
Here again North America presents a wide and interesting field to the
investigator, for it has within its extent many distinct governments,
and these governments, so far as investigations have been carried, are
found to belong to a type more primitive than any of the feudalities
from which the civilized nations of the earth sprang, as shown by
concurrently recorded history.
Yet in this history many facts have been discovered suggesting that
feudalities themselves had an origin in something more primitive. In the
study of the tribes of the world a multitude of sociologic institutions
and customs have been discovered, and in reviewing the history of
feudalities it is seen that many of their important elements are
survivals from tribal society.
So important are these discoveries that all human history has to be
rewritten, the whole philosophy of history reconstructed. Government
does not begin in the ascendency of chieftains through prowess in war,
but in the slow specialization of executive functions from communal
associations based on kinship. Deliberative assemblies do not start in
councils gathered by chieftains, but councils precede chieftaincies. Law
does not begin in contract, but is the development of custom. Land
tenure does not begin in grants from the monarch or the feudal lord, but
a system of tenure in common by gentes or tribes is developed into a
system of tenure in severalty. Evolution in society has not been from
militancy to industrialism, but from organization based on kinship to
organization based on property, and alongside of the specializations of
the industries of peace the arts of war have been specialized.
So, one by one, the theories of metaphysical writers on sociology are
overthrown, and the facts of history are taking their place, and the
philosophy of history is being erected out of materials accumulating by
objective studies of mankind.
PSYCHOLOGY.
Psychology has hitherto been chiefly in the hands of subjective
philosophers and is the last branch of anthropology to be treated by
scientific methods. But of late years sundry important labors have been
performed with the end in view to give this department of philosophy a
basis of objective facts; especially the organ of the mind has been
studied and the mental operations of animals have been compared with
those of men, and in various other ways the subject is receiving
scientific attention.
The new psychology in process of construction will have a threefold
basis: A physical basis on phenomena presented by the organ of the mind
as shown in man and the lower animals; a linguistic basis as presented
in the phenomena of language, which is the instrument of mind;
a functional basis as exhibited in operations of the mind.
The phenomena of the third class may be arranged in three subclasses.
First, the operations of mind exhibited in individuals in various stages
of growth, various degrees of culture, and in various conditions, normal
and abnormal; second, the operations of mind as exhibited in technology,
arts, and industries; third, the operations of mind as exhibited in
philosophy; and these are the explanations given of the phenomena of the
universe. On such a basis a scientific psychology must be erected.
* * * * *
As methods of study are discovered, a vast field opens to the American
scholar. Now, as at all times in the history of civilization, there has
been no lack of interest in this subject, and no lack of speculative
writers; but there is a great want of trained observers and acute
investigators.
If we lay aside the mass of worthless matter which has been published,
and consider only the material used by the most careful writers, we find
on every hand that conclusions are vitiated by a multitude of errors of
fact of a character the most simple. Yesterday I read an article on the
“Growth of Sculpture,” by Grant Allen, that was charming; yet, therein I
found this statement:
So far as I know, the Polynesians and many other savages have not
progressed beyond the full-face stage of human portraiture above
described. Next in rank comes the drawing of a profile, as we find
it among the Eskimos and the bushmen. Our own children soon attain
to this level, which is one degree higher than that of the full
face, as it implies a special point of view, suppresses half the
features, and is not diagrammatic or symbolical of all the separate
parts. Negroes and North American Indians cannot understand profile;
they ask what has become of the other eye.
Perhaps Mr. Allen derives his idea of the inability of the Indians to
understand profiles from a statement of Catlin, which I have seen used
for this and other purposes by different anthropologists until it seems
to have become a _favorite fact_.
Turning to Catlin’s _Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and
Condition of the North American Indians_, (vol. 2, page 2) we find him
saying:
After I had painted these, and many more whom I have not time at
present to name, I painted the portrait of a celebrated warrior of
the Sioux, by the name of Mah-to-chee-ga (the Little Bear), who was
unfortunately slain in a few moments after the picture was done by
one of his own tribe; and which was very near costing me my life,
for having painted a side view of his face, leaving one-half of it
out of the picture, which had been the cause of the affray; and
supposed by the whole tribe to have been intentionally left out by
me, as “good for nothing.” This was the last picture that I painted
amongst the Sioux, and the last, undoubtedly, that I shall ever
paint in that place. So tremendous and so alarming was the
excitement about it that my brushes were instantly put away, and I
embarked the next day on the steamer for the sources of the
Missouri, and was glad to get underweigh.
Subsequently, Mr. Catlin elaborates this incident into the “Story of the
Dog” (vol. 2, page 188 _et seq._).
Now, whatsoever of truth or of fancy there may be in this story, it
cannot be used as evidence that the Indians could not understand or
interpret profile pictures, for Mr. Catlin himself gives several plates
of Indian pictographs exhibiting profile faces. In my cabinet of
pictographs I have hundreds of side views made by Indians of the same
tribe of which Mr. Catlin was speaking.
It should never be forgotten that accounts of travelers and other
persons who write for the sake of making good stories must be used with
the utmost caution. Catlin is only one of a thousand such who can be
used with safety only by persons so thoroughly acquainted with the
subject that they are able to divide facts actually observed from
creations of fancy. But Mr. Catlin must not be held responsible for
illogical deductions even from his facts. I know not how Mr. Allen
arrived at his conclusion, but I do know that pictographs in profile are
found among very many, if not all, the tribes of North America.
Now, for another example. Peschel, in _The Races of Man_ (page 151),
says:
The transatlantic history of Spain has no case comparable in
iniquity to the act of the Portuguese in Brazil, who deposited the
clothes of scarlet-fever or small-pox patients on the hunting
grounds of the natives, in order to spread the pestilence among
them; and of the North Americans, who used strychnine to poison the
wells which the Redskins were in the habit of visiting in the
deserts of Utah; of the wives of Australian settlers, who, in times
of famine, mixed arsenic with the meal which they gave to starving
natives.
In a foot-note on the same page, Burton is given as authority for the
statement that the people of the United States poisoned the wells of the
redskins.
Referring to Burton, in _The City of the Saints_ (page 474), we find him
saying:
The Yuta claim, like the Shoshonee, descent from an ancient people
that immigrated into their present seats from the Northwest. During
the last thirty years they have considerably decreased, according to
the mountaineers, and have been demoralized mentally and physically
by the emigrants. Formerly they were friendly, now they are often at
war with the intruders. As in Australia, arsenic and corrosive
sublimate in springs and provisions have diminished their number.
Now, why did Burton make this statement? In the same volume he describes
the Mountain Meadow massacre, and gives the story as related by the
actors therein. It is well known that the men who were engaged in this
affair tried to shield themselves by diligently publishing that it was a
massacre by Indians incensed at the travelers because they had poisoned
certain springs at which the Indians were wont to obtain their supplies
of water. When Mr. Burton was in Salt Lake City he, doubtless, heard
these stories.
So the falsehoods of a murderer, told to hide his crime, have gone into
history as facts characteristic of the people of the United States in
their treatment of the Indians. In the paragraph quoted from Burton some
other errors occur. The Utes and Shoshonis do not claim to have
descended from an ancient people that immigrated into their present
seats from the Northwest. Most of these tribes, perhaps all, have myths
of their creation in the very regions now inhabited by them.
Again, these Indians have not been demoralized mentally or physically by
the emigrants, but have made great progress toward civilization.
The whole account of the Utes and Shoshonis given in this portion of the
book is so mixed with error as to be valueless, and bears intrinsic
evidence of having been derived from ignorant frontiersmen.
Turning now to the first volume of Spencer’s _Principles of Sociology_
(page 149), we find him saying:
And thus prepared, we need feel no surprise on being told that the
Zuni Indians require “much facial contortion and bodily
gesticulation to make their sentences perfectly intelligible;” that
the language of the Bushman needs so many signs to eke out its
meaning, that “they are unintelligible in the dark;” and that the
Arapahos “can hardly converse with one another in the dark.”
When people of different languages meet, especially if they speak
languages of different stocks, a means of communication is rapidly
established between them, composed partly of signs and partly of oral
words, the latter taken from one or both of the languages, but curiously
modified so as hardly to be recognized. Such conventional languages are
usually called “jargons,” and their existence is rather brief.
When people communicate with each other in this manner, oral speech is
greatly assisted by sign-language, and it is true that darkness impedes
their communication. The great body of frontiersmen in America who
associate more or less with the Indians depend upon jargon methods of
communication with them; and so we find that various writers and
travelers describe Indian tongues by the characteristics of this jargon
speech. Mr. Spencer usually does.
The Zuni and the Arapaho Indians have a language with a complex grammar
and copious vocabulary well adapted to the expression of the thoughts
incident to their customs and status of culture, and they have no more
difficulty in conveying their thoughts with their language by night than
Englishmen have in conversing without gaslight. An example from each of
three eminent authors has been taken to illustrate the worthlessness of
a vast body of anthropologic material to which even the best writers
resort.
Anthropology needs trained devotees with philosophic methods and keen
observation to study every tribe and nation of the globe almost _de
novo_; and from materials thus collected a science may be established.
* * * * *
* * * *
_Errors and Inconsistencies: Anthropologic Data_
objective studies of mankind. [_final . missing_]
“Story of the Dog” (vol. 2, page 188 _et seq._).
[_“et seq” without period_]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
A Further Contribution
to the
STUDY OF THE MORTUARY CUSTOMS
of the
North American Indians.
By
Dr. H. C. YARROW,
Act. Asst. Surg., U.S.A.
[Transcriber’s Note (Mortuary Customs):
Much of this article is quoted from other published sources. The
resulting inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation are unchanged.
Most footnotes are bibliographic. Asterisks after a few footnote
numbers [5.44*] were added by the transcriber to identify those
notes that give further information.]
CONTENTS.
List of illustrations 89
Introductory 91
Classification of burial 92
Inhumation 93
Pit burial 93
Grave burial 101
Stone graves or cists 113
Burial in mounds 115
Burial beneath or in cabins, wigwams, or houses 122
Cave burial 126
Embalmment or mummification 130
Urn burial 137
Surface burial 138
Cairn burial 142
Cremation 143
Partial cremation 150
Aerial sepulture 152
Lodge burial 152
Box burial 155
Tree and scaffold burial 158
Partial scaffold burial and ossuaries 168
Superterrene and aerial burial in canoes 171
Aquatic burial 180
Living sepulchers 182
Mourning, sacrifice, feasts, etc. 183
Mourning 183
Sacrifice 187
Feasts 190
Superstition regarding burial feasts 191
Food 192
Dances 192
Songs 194
Games 195
Posts 197
Fires 198
Superstitions 199
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[In the original, Figure 12 was printed before Figure 11 (both
full-page Plates). Figure 45 (_on_ page 196) was printed before the
group of plates 34-44 (_between_ pages 196 and 197).]
1.--Quiogozon or dead house 94
2.--Pima burial 98
3.--Towers of silence 105
4.--Towers of silence 106
5.--Alaskan mummies 135
6.--Burial urns 138
7.--Indian cemetery 139
8.--Grave pen 141
9.--Grave pen 141
10.--Tolkotin cremation 145
11.--Eskimo lodge burial 154
12.--Burial houses 154
13.--Innuit grave 156
14.--Ingalik grave 157
15.--Dakota scaffold burial 158
16.--Offering food to the dead 159
17.--Depositing the corpse 160
18.--Tree-burial 161
19.--Chippewa scaffold burial 162
20.--Scarification at burial 164
21.--Australian scaffold burial 166
22.--Preparing the dead 167
23.--Canoe-burial 171
24.--Twana canoe-burial 172
25.--Posts for burial canoes 173
26.--Tent on scaffold 174
27.--House burial 175
28.--House burial 175
29.--Canoe-burial 178
30.--Mourning-cradle 181
31.--Launching the burial cradle 182
32.--Chippewa widow 185
33.--Ghost gamble 195
34.--Figured plum stones 196
35.--Winning throw, No. 1 196
36.--Winning throw, No. 2 196
37.--Winning throw, No. 3 196
38.--Winning throw, No. 4 196
39.--Winning throw, No. 5 196
40.--Winning throw, No. 6 196
41.--Auxiliary throw, No. 1 196
42.--Auxiliary throw, No. 2 196
43.--Auxiliary throw, No. 3 196
44.--Auxiliary throw, No. 4 196
45.--Auxiliary throw, No. 5 196
46.--Burial posts 197
47.--Grave fire 198
* * * * *
A Further Contribution to the
STUDY OF THE MORTUARY CUSTOMS
of the North American Indians.
By H. C. Yarrow.
* * * * *
INTRODUCTORY.
In view of the fact that the present paper will doubtless reach many
readers who may not, in consequence of the limited edition, have seen
the preliminary volume on mortuary customs, it seems expedient to
reproduce in great part the prefatory remarks which served as an
introduction to that work; for the reasons then urged, for the immediate
study of this subject, still exist, and as time flies on become more and
more important.
The primitive manners and customs of the North American Indians are
rapidly passing away under influences of civilization and other
disturbing elements. In view of this fact, it becomes the duty of all
interested in preserving a record of these customs to labor assiduously,
while there is still time, to collect such data as may be obtainable.
This seems the more important now, as within the last ten years an
almost universal interest has been awakened in ethnologic research, and
the desire for more knowledge in this regard is constantly increasing.
A wise and liberal government, recognizing the need, has ably seconded
the efforts of those engaged in such studies by liberal grants, from
the public funds; nor is encouragement wanted from the hundreds of
scientific societies throughout the civilized globe. The public press,
too--the mouth-piece of the people--is ever on the alert to scatter
broadcast such items of ethnologic information as its corps of
well-trained reporters can secure. To induce further laudable inquiry,
and assist all those who may be willing to engage in the good work, is
the object of this further paper on the mortuary customs of North
American Indians, and it is hoped that many more laborers may through it
be added to the extensive and honorable list of those who have already
contributed.
It would appear that the subject chosen should awaken great interest,
since the peculiar methods followed by different nations and the great
importance attached to burial ceremonies have formed an almost
invariable part of all works relating to the different peoples of our
globe; in fact, no particular portion of ethnologic research has claimed
more attention. In view of these facts, it might seem almost a work of
supererogation to continue a further examination of the subject, for
nearly every author in writing of our Indian tribes makes some mention
of burial observances; but these notices are scattered far and wide on
the sea of this special literature, and many of the accounts, unless
supported by corroborative evidence, may be considered as entirely
unreliable. To bring together and harmonize conflicting statements, and
arrange collectively what is known of the subject, has been the writer’s
task, and an enormous mass of information has been acquired, the method
of securing which has been already described in the preceding volume and
need not be repeated at this time. It has seemed undesirable at present
to enter into any discussion regarding the causes which may have led to
the adoption of any particular form of burial or coincident ceremonies,
the object of this paper being simply to furnish illustrative examples,
and request further contributions from observers; for, notwithstanding
the large amount of material already at hand, much still remains to be
done, and careful study is needed before any attempt at a thorough
analysis of mortuary customs can be made. It is owing to these facts and
from the nature of the material gathered that the paper must be
considered more as a compilation than an original effort, the writer
having done little else than supply the thread to bind together the
accounts furnished.
It is proper to add that all the material obtained will eventually be
embodied in a quarto volume, forming one of the series of Contributions
to North American Ethnology prepared under the direction of Maj. J. W.
Powell, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution,
from whom, since the inception of the work, most constant encouragement
and advice has been received, and to whom all American ethnologists owe
a debt of gratitude which can never be repaid.
Having thus called attention to the work, the classification of the
subject may be given, and examples furnished of the burial ceremonies
among different tribes, calling especial attention to similar or almost
analogous customs among the peoples of the Old World.
For our present purpose the following provisional arrangement of burials
may be adopted, although further study may lead to some modifications.
CLASSIFICATION OF BURIAL.
1st. By INHUMATION in pits, graves, or holes in the ground, stone graves
or cists, in mounds, beneath or in cabins, wigwams, houses or lodges, or
in caves.
2d. By EMBALMMENT or a process of mummifying, the remains being
afterwards placed in the earth, caves, mounds, boxes on scaffolds, or in
charnel-houses.
3d. By DEPOSITION of remains in urns.
4th. By SURFACE BURIAL, the remains being placed in hollow trees or
logs, pens, or simply covered with earth, or bark, or rocks forming
cairns.
5th. By CREMATION, or partial burning, generally on the surface of the
earth, occasionally beneath, the resulting bones or ashes being placed
in pits in the ground, in boxes placed on scaffolds or trees, in urns,
sometimes scattered.
6th. By AERIAL SEPULTURE, the bodies being left in lodges, houses,
cabins, tents, deposited on scaffolds or trees, in boxes or canoes, the
two latter receptacles supported on scaffolds or posts, or placed on the
ground. Occasionally baskets have been used to contain the remains of
children, these being hung to trees.
7th. By AQUATIC BURIAL, beneath the water, or in canoes, which were
turned adrift.
These heads might, perhaps, be further subdivided, but the above seem
sufficient for all practical needs.
The use of the term _burial_ throughout this paper is to be understood
in its literal significance, the word being derived from the Teutonic
Anglo-Saxon “_birgan_,” to conceal or hide away.
In giving descriptions of different burials and attendant ceremonies, it
has been deemed expedient to introduce entire accounts as furnished, in
order to preserve continuity of narrative, and in no case has the
relator’s language been changed except to correct manifest
unintentional, errors of spelling.
INHUMATION.
_PIT BURIAL._
The commonest mode of burial among North American Indians has been that
of interment in the ground, and this has taken place in a number of
different ways; the following will, however, serve as good examples of
the process:
One of the simplest forms is thus noted by Schoolcraft:[5.1]
The Mohawks of New York made a large round hole in which the body
was placed upright or upon its haunches, after which it was covered
with timber, to support the earth which they lay over, and thereby
kept the body from being pressed. They then raised the earth in a
round hill over it. They always dressed the corpse in all its
finery, and put wampum and other things into the grave with it; and
the relations suffered not grass nor any wood to grow upon the
grave, and frequently visited it and made lamentation.
In Jones[5.2] is the following interesting account from Lawson[5.3] of
the burial customs of the Indians formerly inhabiting the Carolinas:
Among the Carolina tribes the burial of the dead was accompanied
with special ceremonies, the expense and formality attendant upon
the funeral according with the rank of the deceased. The corpse was
first placed in a cane hurdle and deposited in an outhouse made for
the purpose, where it was suffered to remain for a day and a night,
guarded and mourned over by the nearest relatives with disheveled
hair. Those who are to officiate at the funeral go into the town,
and from the backs of the first young men they meet strip such
blankets and matchcoats as they deem suitable for their purpose. In
these the dead body is wrapped and then covered with two or three
mats made of rushes or cane. The coffin is made of woven reeds or
hollow canes tied fast at both ends. When everything is prepared for
the interment, the corpse is carried from the house in which it has
been lying into the orchard of peach-trees and is there deposited in
another hurdle. Seated upon mats are there congregated the family
and tribe of the deceased and invited guests. The medicine man, or
conjurer, having enjoined silence, then pronounces a funeral
oration, during which he recounts the exploits of the deceased, his
valor, skill, love of country, property, and influence; alludes to
the void caused by his death, and counsels those who remain to
supply his place by following in his footsteps; pictures the
happiness he will enjoy in the land of spirits to which he has gone,
and concludes his address by an allusion to the prominent traditions
of his tribe.
Let us here pause to remind the reader that this custom has prevailed
throughout the civilized world up to the present day--a custom, in the
opinion of many, “more honored in the breach than in the observance.”
At last [says Mr. Lawson], the Corpse is brought away from that
Hurdle to the Grave by four young Men, attended by the Relations,
the King, old Men, and all the Nation. When they come to the
Sepulcre, which is about six foot deep and eight foot long, having
at each end (that is, at the Head and Foot) a Light-Wood or
Pitch-Pine Fork driven close down the sides of the Grave firmly into
the Ground (these two Forks are to contain a Ridge-Pole, as you
shall understand presently), before they lay the Corps into the
Grave, they cover the bottom two or three time over with the Bark of
Trees; then they let down the Corps (with two Belts that the
_Indians_ carry their Burdens withal) very leisurely upon the said
Barks; then they lay over a Pole of the same Wood in the two Forks,
and having a great many Pieces of Pitch-Pine Logs about two Foot and
a half long, they stick them in the sides of the Grave down each End
and near the Top thereof, where the other Ends lie in the
Ridge-Pole, so that they are declining like the Roof of a House.
These being very thick plac’d, they cover them [many times double]
with Bark; then they throw the Earth thereon that came out of the
Grave and beat it down very firm. By this Means the dead Body lies
in a Vault, nothing touching him.
After a time the body is taken up, the bones cleaned, and deposited in
an ossuary called the Quiogozon.
Figure 1, after De Bry and Lafitau, represents what the early writers
called the Quiogozon, or charnel-house, and allusions will be found to
it in other parts of this volume. Discrepancies in these accounts impair
greatly their value, for one author says that bones were deposited,
another dried bodies.
It will be seen from the following account, furnished by M. B. Kent,
relating to the Sacs and Foxes (_Oh-sak-ke-uck_) of the Nehema Agency,
Nebraska, that these Indians were careful in burying their dead to
prevent the earth coming in contact with the body, and this custom has
been followed by a number of different tribes, as will be seen by
examples given further on.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Quiogozon or Dead House.]
_Ancient burial._--The body was buried in a grave made about 2½
feet deep, and was laid always with the head towards the east, the
burial taking place as soon after death as possible. The grave was
prepared by putting bark in the bottom of it before the corpse was
deposited, a plank covering made and secured some distance above the
body. The plank was made by splitting trees, until intercourse with
the whites enabled them to obtain sawed lumber. The corpse was
always enveloped in a blanket, and prepared as for a long journey in
life, no coffin being used.
_Modern burial._--This tribe now usually bury in coffins, rude ones
constructed by themselves, still depositing the body in the grave
with the head towards the east.
_Ancient funeral ceremonies._--Every relative of the deceased had to
throw some article in the grave, either food, clothing, or other
material. There was no rule stating the nature of what was to be
added to the collection, simply a requirement that something must be
deposited, if it were only a piece of soiled and faded calico. After
the corpse was lowered into the grave some brave addressed the dead,
instructing him to walk directly westward, that he would soon
discover moccasin tracks, which he must follow until he came to a
great river, which is the river of death; when there he would find a
pole across the river, which, if he has been honest, upright, and
good, will be straight, upon which he could readily cross to the
other side; but if his life had been one of wickedness and sin, the
pole would be very crooked, and in the attempt to cross upon it he
would be precipitated into the turbulent stream and lost forever.
The brave also told him if he crossed the river in safety the Great
Father would receive him, take out his old brains, give him new
ones, and then he would have reached the happy hunting grounds,
always be happy and have eternal life. After burial a feast was
always called, and a portion of the food of which each and every
relative was partaking was burned to furnish subsistence to the
spirit upon its journey.
_Modern funeral ceremonies._--Provisions are rarely put into the
grave, and no portion of what is prepared for the feast subsequent
to burial is burned, although the feast is continued. All the
address delivered by the brave over the corpse after being deposited
in the grave is omitted. A prominent feature of all ceremonies,
either funeral or religious, consists of feasting accompanied with
music and dancing.
_Ancient mourning observances._--The female relations allowed their
hair to hang entirely unrestrained, clothed themselves in the most
unpresentable attire, the latter of which the males also do. Men
blacked the whole face for a period of ten days after a death in the
family, while the women blacked only the cheeks; the faces of the
children were blacked for three months; they were also required to
fast for the same length of time, the fasting to consist of eating
but one meal per day, to be made entirely of hominy, and partaken of
about sunset. It was believed that this fasting would enable the
child to dream of coming events and prophesy what was to happen in
the future. The extent and correctness of prophetic vision depended
upon how faithfully the ordeal of fasting had been observed.
_Modern mourning observances._--Many of those of the past are
continued, such as wearing the hair unrestrained, wearing uncouth
apparel, blacking faces, and fasting of children, and they are
adhered to with as much tenacity as many of the professing
Christians belonging to the evangelical churches adhere to their
practices, which constitute mere forms, the intrinsic value of which
can very reasonably be called in question.
The Creeks and Seminoles of Florida, according to Schoolcraft,[5.4] made
the graves of their dead as follows:
When one of the family dies, the relatives bury the corpse about
four feet deep in a round hole dug directly under the cabin or rock
wherever he died. The corpse is placed in the hole in a sitting
posture, with a blanket wrapped about it, and the legs bent under
and tied together. If a warrior, he is painted, and his pipe,
ornaments, and warlike appendages are deposited with him. The grave
is then covered with canes tied to a hoop round the top of the hole,
then a firm layer of clay, sufficient to support the weight of a
man. The relations howl loudly and mourn publicly for four days. If
the deceased has been a man of eminent character, the family
immediately remove from the house in which he is buried and erect a
new one, with a belief that where the bones of their dead are
deposited the place is always attended by goblins and chimeras dire.
Dr. W. C. Boteler, physician to the Otoe Indian Agency, Gage County,
Nebraska, in a personal communication to the writer, furnishes a most
interesting account of the burial ceremonies of this tribe, in which it
may be seen that graves are prepared in a manner similar to those
already mentioned:
The Otoe and Missouri tribes of Indians are now located in southern
Gage County, Nebraska, on a reservation of 43,000 acres, unsurpassed
in beauty of location, natural resources, and adaptability for
prosperous agriculture. This pastoral people, though in the midst of
civilization, have departed but little from the rude practice and
customs of a nomadic life, and here may be seen and studied those
interesting dramas as vividly and satisfactorily as upon the remote
frontier.
During my residence among this people on different occasions, I have
had the opportunity of witnessing the Indian burials and many quaint
ceremonies pertaining thereto.
When it is found that the vital spark is wavering in an Otoe
subject, the preparation of the burial costume is immediately began.
The near relatives of the dying Indian surround the humble bedside,
and by loud lamentations and much weeping manifest a grief which is
truly commensurate with the intensity of Indian devotion and
attachment.
While thus expressing before the near departed their grief at the
sad separation impending, the Indian women, or friendly braves, lose
no time in equipping him or her with the most ornate clothes and
ornaments that are available or in immediate possession. It is thus
that the departed Otoe is enrobed in death, in articles of his own
selection and by arrangements of his own taste and dictated by his
own tongue. It is customary for the dying Indian to dictate, ere his
departure, the propriety or impropriety of the accustomed
sacrifices. In some cases there is a double and in others no
sacrifice at all. The Indian women then prepare to cut away their
hair; it is accomplished with scissors, cutting close to the scalp
at the side and behind.
The preparation of the dead for burial is conducted with great
solemnity and care. Bead-work, the most ornate, expensive blankets
and ribbons comprise the funeral shroud. The dead, being thus
enrobed, is placed in a recumbent posture at the most conspicuous
part of the lodge and viewed in rotation by the mourning relatives
previously summoned by a courier, all preserving uniformity in the
piercing screams which would seem to have been learned by rote.
An apparent service is then conducted. The aged men of the tribe,
arranged in a circle, chant a peculiar funeral dirge around one of
their number, keeping time upon a drum or some rude cooking-utensil.
At irregular intervals an aged relative will arise and dance
excitedly around the central person, vociferating, and with wild
gesture, tomahawk in hand, imprecate the evil spirit, which he
drives to the land where the sun goes down. The evil spirit being
thus effectually banished, the mourning gradually subsides, blending
into succeeding scenes of feasting and refreshment. The burial feast
is in every respect equal in richness to its accompanying
ceremonies. All who assemble are supplied with cooked venison, hog,
buffalo, or beef, regular waiters distributing alike hot cakes
soaked in grease and coffee or water, as the case may be.
Frequently during this stage of the ceremony the most aged Indian
present will sit in the central circle, and in a continuous and
doleful tone narrate the acts of valor in the life of the departed,
enjoining fortitude and bravery upon all sitting around as an
essential qualification for admittance to the land where the Great
Spirit reigns. When the burial feast is well-nigh completed, it is
customary for the surviving friends to present the bereaved family
with useful articles of domestic needs, such as calico in bolt,
flannel cloth, robes, and not unfrequently ponies or horses. After
the conclusion of the ceremonies at the lodge, the body is carefully
placed in a wagon and, with an escort of all friends, relatives, and
acquaintances, conveyed to the grave previously prepared by some
near relation or friend. When a wagon is used, the immediate
relatives occupy it with the corpse, which is propped in a
semi-sitting posture; before the use of wagons among the Otoes, it
was necessary to bind the body of the deceased upon a horse and then
convey him to his last resting place among his friends. In past days
when buffalo were more available, and a tribal hunt was more
frequently indulged in, it is said that those dying on the way were
bound upon horses and thus frequently carried several hundred miles
for interment at the burial places of their friends.
At the graveyard of the Indians the ceremony partakes of a double
nature; upon the one hand it is sanguinary and cruel, and upon the
other blended with the deepest grief and most heartfelt sorrow.
Before the interment of the dead the chattels of the deceased are
unloaded from the wagons or unpacked from the backs of ponies and
carefully arranged in the vault-like tomb. The bottom, which is
wider than the top (graves here being dug like an inverted funnel),
is spread with straw or grass matting, woven generally by the Indian
women of the tribe or some near neighbor. The sides are then
carefully hung with handsome shawls or blankets, and trunks, with
domestic articles, pottery, &c., of less importance, are piled
around in abundance. The sacrifices are next inaugurated. A pony,
first designated by the dying Indian, is led aside and strangled by
men hanging to either end of a rope. Sometimes, but not always,
a dog is likewise strangled, the heads of both animals being
subsequently laid upon the Indian’s grave. The body, which is now
often placed in a plain coffin, is lowered into the grave, and if a
coffin is used the friends take their parting look at the deceased
before closing it at the grave. After lowering, a saddle and bridle,
blankets, dishes, &c., are placed upon it, the mourning ceases, and
the Indians prepare to close the grave. It should be remembered,
among the Otoe and Missouri Indians dirt is not filled in upon the
body, but simply rounded up from the surface upon stout logs that
are accurately fitted over the opening of the grave. After the
burying is completed, a distribution of the property of the deceased
takes place, the near relatives receiving everything, from the
merest trifle to the tent and homes, leaving the immediate family,
wife and children or father out-door pensioners.
Although the same generosity is not observed towards the whites
assisting in funeral rites, it is universally practiced as regards
Indians, and poverty’s lot is borne by the survivors with a
fortitude and resignation which in them amounts to duty, and marks a
higher grade of intrinsic worth than pervades whites of like
advantages and conditions. We are told in the Old Testament
Scriptures, “four days and four nights should the fires burn,” &c.
In fulfillment of this sacred injunction, we find the midnight vigil
carefully kept by these Indians four days and four nights at the
graves of their departed. A small fire is kindled for the purpose
near the grave at sunset, where the nearest relatives convene and
maintain a continuous lamentation till the morning dawn. There was
an ancient tradition that at the expiration of this time the Indian
arose, and mounting his spirit pony, galloped off to the happy
hunting-ground beyond.
Happily, with the advancement of Christianity these superstitions
have faded, and the living sacrifices are partially continued only
from a belief that by parting with their most cherished and valuable
goods they propitiate the Great Spirit for the sins committed during
the life of the deceased. This, though at first revolting, we find
was the practice of our own forefathers, offering up as burnt
offerings the lamb or the ox; hence we cannot censure this people,
but, from a comparison of conditions, credit them with a more strict
observance of our Holy Book than pride and seductive fashions permit
of us.
From a careful review of the whole of their attendant ceremonies a
remarkable similarity can be marked. The arrangement of the corpse
preparatory to interment, the funeral feast, the local service by
the aged fathers, are all observances that have been noted among
whites, extending into times that are in the memory of those still
living.
The Pimas of Arizona, actuated by apparently the same motives that led
the more eastern tribes to endeavor to prevent contact of earth with
the corpse, adopted a plan which has been described by Capt. F. E.
Grossman,[5.5] and the account is corroborated by M. Alphonse
Pinart[5.6] and Bancroft.[5.7]
Captain Grossman’s account follows:
The Pimas tie the bodies of their dead with ropes, passing the
latter around their neck and under the knees, and then drawing them
tight until the body is doubled up and forced into a sitting
position. They dig the graves from four to five feet deep and
perfectly round (about two feet in diameter), and then hollow out to
one side of the bottom of this grave a sort of vault large enough to
contain the body. Here the body is deposited, the grave is filled up
level with the ground, and poles, trees, or pieces of timber placed
upon the grave to protect the remains from coyotes.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Pima burial.]
Burials usually take place at night without much ceremony. The
mourners chant during the burial, but signs of grief are rare. The
bodies of their dead are buried if possible, immediately after death
has taken place and the graves are generally prepared before the
patients die. Sometimes sick persons (for whom the graves had
already been dug) recover. In such cases the graves are left open
until the persons for whom they are intended die. Open graves of
this kind can be seen in several of their burial grounds. Places of
burial are selected some distance from the village, and, if
possible, in a grove of mesquite trees.
Immediately after the remains have been buried, the house and
personal effects of the deceased are burned and his horses and
cattle killed, the meat being cooked as a repast for the mourners.
The nearest relatives of the deceased as a sign of their sorrow
remain within their village for weeks, and sometimes months; the men
cut off about six inches of their long hair, while the women cut
their hair quite short. * * *
The custom of destroying all the property of the husband when he
dies impoverishes the widow and children and prevents increase of
stock. The women of the tribe, well aware that they will be poor
should their husbands die, and that then they will have to provide
for their children by their own exertions, do not care to have many
children, and infanticide, both before and after birth, prevails to
a great extent. This is not considered a crime, and old women of the
tribe practice it. A widow may marry again after a year’s mourning
for her first husband; but having children no man will take her for
a wife and thus burden himself with her children. Widows generally
cultivate a small piece of ground, and friends and relatives (men)
plow the ground for them.
Fig. 2, drawn from Captain Grossman’s description by my friend Dr. W. J.
Hoffman, will convey a good idea of this mode of burial.
Stephen Powers[5.8] describes a similar mode of grave preparation among
the Yuki of California:
The Yuki bury their dead in a sitting posture. They dig a hole six
feet deep sometimes and at the bottom of it “_coyote_” under, making
a little recess in which the corpse is deposited.
The Comanches of Indian Territory (_Nem_, _we, or us, people_),
according to Dr. Fordyce Grinnell, of the Wichita Agency, Indian
Territory, go to the opposite extreme, so far as the protection of the
dead from the surrounding earth is concerned. The account as received is
given entire, as much to illustrate this point as others of interest.
When a Comanche is dying, while the death-rattle may yet be faintly
heard in the throat, and the natural warmth has not departed from
the body, the knees are strongly bent upon the chest, and the legs
flexed upon the thighs. The arms are also flexed upon each side of
the chest, and the head bent forward upon the knees. A lariat, or
rope, is now used to firmly bind the limbs and body in this
position. A blanket is then wrapped around the body, and this again
tightly corded, so that the appearance when ready for burial is that
of an almost round and compact body, very unlike the composed pall
of his Wichita or Caddo brother. The body is then taken and placed
in a saddle upon a pony, in a sitting posture; a squaw usually
riding behind, though sometimes one on either side of the horse,
holds the body in position until the place of burial is reached,
when the corpse is literally tumbled into the excavation selected
for the purpose. The deceased is only accompanied by two or three
squaws, or enough to perform the little labor bestowed upon the
burial. The body is taken due west of the lodge or village of the
bereaved, and usually one of the deep washes or heads of cañons in
which the Comanche country abounds is selected, and the body thrown
in, without special reference to position. With this are deposited
the bows and arrows; these, however, are first broken. The saddle is
also placed in the grave, together with many of the personal
valuables of the departed. The body is then covered over with sticks
and earth, and sometimes stones are placed over the whole.
_Funeral ceremonies._--the best pony owned by the deceased is
brought to the grave and killed, that the departed may appear well
mounted and caparisoned among his fellows in the other world.
Formerly, if the deceased were a chief or man of consequence and had
large herds of ponies, many were killed, sometimes amounting to 200
or 300 head in number.
The Comanches illustrate the importance of providing a good pony for
the convoy of the deceased to the happy-grounds by the following
story, which is current among both Comanches and Wichitas:
“A few years since, an old Comanche died who had no relatives and
who was quite poor. Some of the tribe concluded that almost any kind
of a pony would serve to transport him to the next world. They
therefore killed at his grave an old, ill-conditioned, lop-eared
horse. But a few weeks after the burial of this friendless one, lo
and behold he returned, riding this same old worn-out horse, weary
and hungry. He first appeared at the Wichita camps, where he was
well known, and asked for something to eat, but his strange
appearance, with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, filled with
consternation all who saw him, and they fled from his presence.
Finally one bolder than the rest placed a piece of meat on the end
of a lodge-pole and extended it to him. He soon appeared at his own
camp, creating, if possible, even more dismay than among the
Wichitas, and this resulted in both Wichitas and Comanches leaving
their villages and moving _en masse_ to a place on Rush Creek, not
far distant from the present site of Fort Sill.
“When the troubled spirit from the sunsetting world was questioned
why he thus appeared among the inhabitants of earth, he made reply
that when he came to the gates of paradise the keepers would on no
account permit him to enter upon such an ill-conditioned beast as
that which bore him, and thus in sadness he returned to haunt the
homes of those whose stinginess and greed permitted him no better
equipment. Since this no Comanche has been permitted to depart with
the sun to his chambers in the west without a steed which in
appearance should do honor alike to the rider and his friends.”
The body is buried at the sunsetting side of the camp, that the
spirit may accompany the setting sun to the world beyond. The spirit
starts on its journey the following night after death has taken
place; if this occur at night, the journey is not begun until the
next night.
_Mourning observances._--All the effects of the deceased, the tents,
blankets, clothes, treasures, and whatever of value, aside from the
articles which have been buried with the body, are burned, so that
the family is left in poverty. This practice has extended even to
the burning of wagons and harness since some of the civilized habits
have been adopted. It is believed that these ascend to heaven in the
smoke, and will thus be of service to the owner in the other world.
Immediately upon the death of a member of the household, the
relatives begin a peculiar wailing, and the immediate members of the
family take off their customary apparel and clothe themselves in
rags and cut themselves across the arms, breast, and other portions
of the body, until sometimes a fond wife or mother faints from loss
of blood. This scarification is usually accomplished with a knife,
or, as in earlier days, with a flint. Hired mourners are employed at
times who are in no way related to the family, but who are
accomplished in the art of crying for the dead. These are invariably
women. Those nearly related to the departed, cut off the long locks
from the entire head, while those more distantly related, or special
friends, cut the hair only from one side of the head. In case of the
death of a chief, the young warriors also cut the hair, usually from
the left side of the head.
After the first few days of continued grief, the mourning is
conducted more especially at sunrise and sunset, as the Comanches
venerate the sun; and the mourning at these seasons is kept up, if
the death occurred in summer, until the leaves fall, or, if in the
winter, until they reappear.
It is a matter of some interest to note that the preparation of the
corpse and the grave among the Comanches is almost identical with the
burial customs of some of the African tribes, and the baling of the body
with ropes or cords is a wide and common usage of savage peoples. The
hiring of mourners is also a practice which has been very prevalent from
remotest periods of time.
_GRAVE BURIAL._
The following interesting account of burial among the Pueblo Indians of
San Geronimo de Taos, New Mexico, furnished by Judge Anthony Joseph,
will show in a manner how civilized customs have become engrafted upon
those of a more barbaric nature. It should be remembered that the Pueblo
people are next to the Cherokees, Choctaws, and others in the Indian
Territory, the most civilized of our tribes.
According to Judge Joseph, these people call themselves _Wee-ka-nahs_.
These are commonly known to the whites as _Piros_. The manner of
burial by these Indians, both ancient and modern, as far as I can
ascertain from information obtained from the most intelligent of the
tribe, is that the body of the dead is and has been always buried in
the ground in a horizontal position with the flat bottom of the
grave. The grave is generally dug out of the ground in the usual and
ordinary manner, being about 6 feet deep, 7 feet long, and about 2
feet wide. It is generally finished after receiving its occupant by
being leveled with the hard ground around it, never leaving, as is
customary with the whites, a mound to mark the spot. This tribe of
Pueblo Indians never cremated their dead, as they do not know, even
by tradition, that it was ever done or attempted. There are no
utensils or implements placed in the grave, but there are a great
many Indian ornaments, such as beads of all colors, sea-shells,
hawk-bells, round looking-glasses, and a profusion of ribbons of all
imaginable colors; then they paint the body with red vermilion and
white chalk, giving it a most fantastic as well as ludicrous
appearance. They also place a variety of food in the grave as a wise
provision for its long journey to the happy hunting-ground beyond
the clouds.
The funeral ceremonies of this tribe are very peculiar. First, after
death, the body is laid out on a fancy buffalo robe spread out on
the ground, then they dress the body in the best possible manner in
their style of dress; if a male, they put on his beaded leggins and
embroidered _saco_, and his fancy dancing-moccasins, and his large
brass or shell ear-rings; if a female, they put on her best manta or
dress, tied around the waist with a silk sash, put on her feet her
fancy dancing-moccasins; her _rosario_ around her neck, her brass or
shell ear-rings in her ears, and with her tressed black hair tied up
with red tape or ribbon, this completes her wardrobe for her long
and happy chase. When they get through dressing the body, they place
about a dozen lighted candles around it, and keep them burning
continually until the body is buried. As soon as the candles are
lighted, the _veloris_, or wake, commences; the body lies in state
for about twenty-four hours, and in that time all the friends,
relatives, and neighbors of the deceased or “_difunti_” visit the
wake, chant, sing, and pray for the soul of the same, and tell one
another of the good deeds and traits of valor and courage manifested
by the deceased during his earthly career, and at intervals in their
praying, singing, &c., some near relative of the deceased will step
up to the corpse and every person in the room commences to cry
bitterly and express aloud words of endearment to the deceased and
of condolence to the family of the same in their untimely
bereavement.
At about midnight supper is announced, and every person in
attendance marches out into another room and partakes of a frugal
Indian meal, generally composed of wild game; Chilé Colorado or
red-pepper tortillas, and guayaves, with a good supply of mush and
milk, which completes the festive board of the _veloris_ or wake.
When the deceased is in good circumstances, the crowd in attendance
is treated every little while during the wake to alcoholic
refreshments. This feast and feasting is kept up until the Catholic
priest arrives to perform the funeral rites.
When the priest arrives, the corpse is done up or rather baled up in
a large and well-tanned buffalo robe, and tied around tight with a
rope or lasso made for the purpose; then six or eight men act as
pall-bearers, conducting the body to the place of burial, which is
in front of their church or chapel. The priest conducts the funeral
ceremonies in the ordinary and usual way of mortuary proceedings
observed by the Catholic church all over the world. While the
grave-diggers are filling up the grave, the friends, relatives,
neighbors, and, in fact, all persons that attend the funeral, give
vent to their sad feelings by making the whole pueblo howl; after
the tremendous uproar subsides, they disband and leave the body to
rest until Gabriel blows his trumpet. When the ceremonies are
performed with all the pomp of the Catholic church, the priest
receives a fair compensation for his services; otherwise he
officiates for the yearly rents that all the Indians of the pueblo
pay him, which amount in the sum total to about $2,000 per annum.
These Pueblo Indians are very strict in their mourning observance,
which last for one year after the demise of the deceased. While in
mourning for the dead, the mourners do not participate in the
national festivities of the tribe, which are occasions of state with
them, but they retire into a state of sublime quietude which makes
more civilized people sad to observe; but when the term of mourning
ceases, at the end of the year, they have high mass said for the
benefit of the soul of the departed; after this they again appear
upon the arena of their wild sports and continue to be gay and happy
until the next mortal is called from this terrestrial sphere to the
happy hunting-ground, which is their pictured celestial paradise.
The above cited facts, which are the most interesting points
connected with the burial customs of the Indians of the pueblo San
Geronimo de Taos, are not in the least exaggerated, but are the
absolute facts, which I have witnessed myself in many instances for
a period of more than twenty years that I have resided but a short
distant from said pueblo, and, being a close observer of their
peculiar burial customs, am able to give you this true and
undisguised information relative to your circular on “burial
customs.”
Another example of the care which is taken to prevent the earth coming
in contact with the corpse may be found in the account of the burial of
the Wichita Indians of Indian Territory, furnished by Dr. Fordyce
Grinnell, whose name has already been mentioned in connection with the
Comanche customs. The Wichitas call themselves _Kitty-ka-tats_, or those
of the tattooed eyelids.
When a Wichita dies the town-crier goes up and down through the
village and announces the fact. Preparations are immediately made
for the burial, and the body is taken without delay to the grave
prepared for its reception. If the grave is some distance from the
village, the body is carried thither on the back of a pony, being
first wrapped in blankets and then laid prone, across the saddle,
one person walking on either side to support it. The grave is dug
from three to four feet deep and of sufficient length for the
extended body. First blankets and buffalo-robes are laid in the
bottom of the grave, then the body, being taken from the horse and
unwrapped, is dressed in its best apparel and with ornaments is
placed upon a couch of blankets and robes, with the head towards the
west and the feet to the east; the valuables belonging to the
deceased are placed with the body in the grave. With the man are
deposited his bows and arrows or gun, and with the woman her cooking
utensils and other implements of her toil. Over the body sticks are
placed six or eight inches deep and grass over these, so that when
the earth is filled in, it need not come in contact with the body or
its trappings. After the grave is filled with earth, a pen of poles
is built around it, or as is frequently the case, stakes are driven
so that they cross each other from either side about midway over the
grave, thus forming a complete protection from the invasion of wild
animals. After all this is done, the grass or other _debris_ is
carefully scraped from about the grave for several feet, so that the
ground is left smooth and clean. It is seldom the case that the
relatives accompany the remains to the grave, but they more often
employ others to bury the body for them, usually women. Mourning is
similar in this tribe, as in others, and it consists in cutting off
the hair, fasting, &c. Horses are also killed at the grave.
The Caddoes, _Ascena_, or Timber Indians, as they call themselves,
follow nearly the same mode of burial as the Wichitas, but one custom
prevailing is worthy of mention:
If a Caddo is killed in battle, the body is never buried, but is
left to be devoured by beasts or birds of prey, and the condition of
such individuals in the other world is considered to be far better
than that of persons dying a natural death.
In a work by Bruhier[5.9] the following remarks, freely translated by
the writer, may be found, which note a custom having great similarity to
the exposure of bodies to wild beasts mentioned above:
The ancient Persians threw out the bodies of their dead on the
roads, and if they were promptly devoured by wild beasts it was
esteemed a great honor, a misfortune if not. Sometimes they
interred, always wrapping the dead in a wax cloth to prevent odor.
M. Pierre Muret,[5.10] from whose book Bruhier probably obtained his
information, gives at considerable length an account of this peculiar
method of treating the dead among the Persians, as follows:
It is a matter of astonishment, considering the _Persians_ have ever
had the renown of being one of the most civilized Nations in the
world, that notwithstanding they should have used such barbarous
customs about the Dead as are set down in the Writings of some
Historians; and the rather because at this day there are still to be
seen among them those remains of Antiquity, which do fully satisfie
us, that their Tombs have been very magnificent. And yet
nevertheless, if we will give credit to _Procopius_ and _Agathias_,
the _Persians_ were never wont to bury their Dead Bodies, so far
were they from bestowing any Funeral Honours upon them: But, as
these Authors tell us, they exposed them stark naked in the open
fields, which is the greatest shame our Laws do allot to the most
infamous Criminals, by laying them open to the view of all upon the
highways: Yea, in their opinion it was a great unhappiness, if
either Birds or Beasts did not devour their Carcases; and they
commonly made an estimate of the Felicity of these poor Bodies,
according as they were sooner or later made a prey of. Concerning
these, they resolved that they must needs have been very bad indeed,
since even the beasts themselves would not touch them; which caused
an extream sorrow to their Relations, they taking it for an ill
boding to their Family, and an infallible presage of some great
misfortune hanging over their heads; for they persuaded themselves,
that the Souls which inhabited those Bodies being dragg’d into Hell,
would not fail to come and trouble them; and that being always
accompanied with the Devils, their Tormentors, they would certainly
give them a great deal of disturbance.
And on the contrary, when these Corpses were presently devoured,
their joy was very great, they enlarged themselves in praises of the
Deceased; every one esteeming them undoubtedly happy, and came to
congratulate their relations on that account: For as they believed
assuredly, that they were entered into the _Elysian_ Fields, so they
were persuaded, that they would procure the same bliss for all those
of their family.
They also took a great delight to see Skeletons and Bones scatered
up and down in the fields, whereas we can scarcely endure to see
those of Horses and Dogs used so. And these remains of Humane
Bodies, (the sight whereof gives us so much horror, that we
presently bury them out of our sight, whenever we find them
elsewhere than in Charnel-houses or Church-yards) were the occasion
of their greatest joy; beecause they concluded from thence the
happiness of those that had been devoured, wishing after their Death
to meet with the like good luck.
The same author states, and Bruhier corroborates the assertion, that the
Parthians, Medes, Iberians, Caspians, and a few others, had such a
horror and aversion of the corruption and decomposition of the dead, and
of their being eaten by worms, that they threw out the bodies into the
open fields to be devoured by wild beasts, a part of their belief being
that persons so devoured would not be entirely extinct, but enjoy at
least a partial sort of life in their living sepulchers. It is quite
probable that for these and other reasons the Bactrians and Hircanians
trained dogs for this special purpose, called _Canes sepulchrales_,
which received the greatest care and attention, for it was deemed proper
that the souls of the deceased should have strong and lusty frames to
dwell in.
The Buddhists of Bhotan are said to expose the bodies of their dead on
top of high rocks.
According to Tegg, whose work is quoted frequently, in the London Times
of January 28, 1876, Mr. Monier Williams writes from Calcutta regarding
the “Towers of Silence,” so called, of the Parsees, who, it is well
known, are the descendants of the ancient Persians expelled from Persia
by the Mohammedan conquerors, and settled at Surat about 1,100 years
since. This gentleman’s narrative is freely made use of to show how the
custom of the exposure of the dead to birds of prey has continued up to
the present time.
The Dakhmas, or Parsee towers of silence, are erected in a garden on
the highest point of Malabar Hill, a beautiful, rising ground on one
side of Black Bay, noted for the bungalows and compounds of the
European and wealthier inhabitants of Bombay scattered in every
direction over its surface.
The garden is approached by a well-constructed, private road, all
access to which, except to Parsees, is barred by strong iron gates.
The garden is described as being very beautiful, and he says:
No English nobleman’s garden could be better kept, and no pen could
do justice to the glories of its flowering shrubs, cypresses, and
palms. It seemed the very ideal, not only of a place of sacred
silence, but of peaceful rest.
The towers are five in number, built of hardest black granite, about 40
feet in diameter and 25 in height, and constructed so solidly as almost
to resist absolutely the ravages of time. The oldest and smallest of the
towers was constructed about 200 years since, when the Parsees first
settled in Bombay, and is used only for a certain family. The next
oldest was erected in 1756, and the three others during the next
century. A sixth tower of square shape stands alone, and is only used
for criminals.
The writer proceeds as follows:
Though wholly destitute of ornament and even of the simplest
moldings, the parapet of each tower possesses an extraordinary
coping, which instantly attracts and fascinates the gaze. It is a
coping formed not of dead stone, but of living vultures. These
birds, on the occasion of my visit, had settled themselves side by
side in perfect order and in a complete circle around the parapets
of the towers, with their heads pointing inwards, and so lazily did
they sit there, and so motionless was their whole mien, that except
for their color, they might have been carved out of the stonework.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Parsee Towers of Silence (interior).]
No one is allowed to enter the towers except the corpse-bearers, nor is
any one permitted within thirty feet of the immediate precincts. A model
was shown Mr. Williams, and from it he drew up this description:
Imagine a round column or massive cylinder, 12 or 14 feet high and
at least 40 feet in diameter, built throughout of solid stone except
in the center, where a well, 5 or 6 feet across, leads down to an
excavation under the masonry, containing four drains at right angles
to each other, terminated by holes filled with charcoal. Round the
upper surface of this solid circular cylinder, and completely hiding
the interior from view, is a stone parapet, 10 or 12 feet in height.
This it is which, when viewed from the outside, appears to form one
piece with the solid stone-work, and being, like it, covered with
chunam, gives the whole the appearance of a low tower. The upper
surface of the solid stone column is divided into 72 compartments,
or open receptacles, radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the
central well, and arranged in three concentric rings, separated from
each other by narrow ridges of stone, which are grooved to act as
channels for conveying all moisture from the receptacles into the
well and into the lower drains. It should be noted that the number
“3” is emblematical of Zoroaster’s three precepts, and the number
“72” of the chapters of his Yasna, a portion of the Zend-Avestá.
Each circle of open stone coffins is divided from the next by a
pathway, so that there are three circular pathways, the last
encircling the central well, and these three pathways are crossed by
another pathway conducting from the solitary door which admits the
corpse-bearers from the exterior. In the outermost circle of the
stone coffins are placed the bodies of males, in the middle those of
the females, and in the inner and smallest circle nearest the well
those of children.
While I was engaged with the secretary in examining the model,
a sudden stir among the vultures made us raise our heads. At least a
hundred birds collected round one of the towers began to show
symptoms of excitement, while others swooped down from neighboring
trees. The cause of this sudden abandonment of their previous apathy
soon revealed itself. A funeral was seen to be approaching. However
distant the house of a deceased person, and whether he be rich or
poor, high or low in rank, his body is always carried to the towers
by the official corpse-bearers, called _Nasasalár_, who form a
distinct class, the mourners walking behind.
Before they remove the body from the house where the relatives are
assembled, funeral prayers are recited, and the corpse is exposed to
the gaze of a dog, regarded by the Parsees as a sacred animal. This
latter ceremony is called _sagdid_.
Then the body, swathed in a white sheet, is placed in a curved metal
trough, open at both ends, and the corpse-bearers, dressed in pure
white garments, proceed with it towards the towers. They are
followed by the mourners at a distance of at least 30 feet, in
pairs, also dressed in white, and each couple joined by holding a
white handkerchief between them. The particular funeral I witnessed
was that of a child. When the two corpse-bearers reached the path
leading by a steep incline to the door of the tower, the mourners,
about eight in number, turned back and entered one of the
prayer-houses. “There,” said the secretary, “they repeat certain
gáthás, and pray that the spirit of the deceased may be safely
transported, on the fourth day after death, to its final
resting-place.”
The tower selected for the present funeral was one in which other
members of the same family had before been laid. The two bearers
speedily unlocked the door, reverently conveyed the body of the
child into the interior, and, unseen by any one, laid it uncovered
in one of the open stone receptacles nearest the central well. In
two minutes they reappeared with the empty bier and white cloth, and
scarcely had they closed the door when a dozen vultures swooped down
upon the body and were rapidly followed by others. In five minutes
more we saw the satiated birds fly back and lazily settle down again
upon the parapet. They had left nothing behind but a skeleton.
Meanwhile, the bearers were seen to enter a building shaped like a
high barrel. There, as the secretary informed me, they changed their
clothes and washed themselves. Shortly afterwards we saw them come
out and deposit their cast-off funeral garments in a stone
receptacle near at hand. Not a thread leaves the garden, lest it
should carry defilement into the city. Perfectly new garments are
supplied at each funeral. In a fortnight, or, at most, four weeks,
the same bearers return, and, with gloved hands and implements
resembling tongs, place the dry skeleton in the central well. There
the bones find their last resting-place, and there the dust of whole
generations of Parsees commingling is left undisturbed for
centuries.
The revolting sight of the gorged vultures made me turn my back on
the towers with ill-concealed abhorrence. I asked the secretary how
it was possible to become reconciled to such usage. His reply was
nearly in the following words: “Our prophet Zoroaster, who lived
6,000 years ago, taught us to regard the elements as symbols of the
Deity. Earth, fire, water, he said, ought never, under any
circumstances, to be defiled by contact with putrefying flesh.
Naked, he said, came we into the world and naked we ought to leave
it. But the decaying particles of our bodies should be dissipated as
rapidly as possible and in such a way that neither Mother Earth nor
the beings she supports should be contaminated in the slightest
degree. In fact, our prophet was the greatest of health officers,
and, following his sanitary laws, we build our towers on the tops of
the hills, above all human habitations. We spare no expense in
constructing them of the hardest materials, and we expose our
putrescent bodies in open stone receptacles, resting on fourteen
feet of solid granite, not necessarily to be consumed by vultures,
but to be dissipated in the speediest possible manner and without
the possibility of polluting the earth or contaminating a single
being dwelling thereon. God, indeed, sends the vultures, and, as a
matter of fact, these birds do their appointed work much more
expeditiously than millions of insects would do if we committed our
bodies to the ground. In a sanitary point of view, nothing can be
more perfect than our plan. Even the rain-water which washes our
skeletons is conducted by channels into purifying charcoal. Here in
these five towers rest the bones of all the Parsees that have lived
in Bombay for the last two hundred years. We form a united body in
life and we are united in death.”
It would appear that the reasons given for this peculiar mode of
disposing of the dead by the Parsee secretary are quite at variance with
the ideas advanced by Muret regarding the ancient Persians, and to which
allusion has already been made. It might be supposed that somewhat
similar motives to those governing the Parsees actuated those of the
North American Indians who deposit their dead on scaffolds and trees,
but the theory becomes untenable when it is recollected that great care
is taken to preserve the dead from the ravages of carnivorous birds, the
corpse being carefully enveloped in skins and firmly tied up with ropes
or thongs.
Figures 3 and 4 are representations of the Parsee towers of silence,
drawn by Mr. Holmes, mainly from the description given.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Parsee Towers of Silence.]
George Gibbs[5.11] gives the following account of burial among the
Klamath and Trinity Indians of the Northwest coast, the information
having been originally furnished him by James G. Swan.
The graves, which are in the immediate vicinity of their houses,
exhibit very considerable taste and a laudable care. The dead are
inclosed in rude coffins formed by placing four boards around the
body, and covered with earth to some depth; a heavy plank, often
supported by upright head and foot stones, is laid upon the top, or
stones are built up into a wall about a foot above the ground, and
the top flagged with others. The graves of the chiefs are surrounded
by neat wooden palings, each pale ornamented with a feather from the
tail of the bald eagle. Baskets are usually staked down by the side,
according to the wealth or popularity of the individual, and
sometimes other articles for ornament or use are suspended over
them. The funeral ceremonies occupy three days, during which the
soul of the deceased is in danger from _O-mah-á_, or the devil. To
preserve it from this peril, a fire is kept up at the grave, and the
friends of the deceased howl around it to scare away the demon.
Should they not be successful in this the soul is carried down the
river, subject, however, to redemption by _Péh-ho-wan_ on payment of
a big knife. After the expiration of three days it is all well with
them.
The question may well be asked, is the big knife a “sop to Cerberus”?
To Dr. Charles E. McChesney, acting assistant surgeon, United States
Army, one of the most conscientious and careful of observers, the writer
is indebted for the following interesting account of the mortuary
customs of the
WAH-PETON AND SISSETON SIOUX OF DAKOTA.
A large proportion of these Indians being members of the
Presbyterian church (the missionaries of which church have labored
among them for more than forty years past), the dead of their
families are buried after the customs of that church, and this
influence is felt to a great extent among those Indians who are not
strict church members, so that they are dropping one by one the
traditional customs of their tribe, and but few can now be found who
bury their dead in accordance with their customs of twenty or more
years ago. The dead of those Indians who still adhere to their
modern burial customs are buried in the ways indicated below.
_Warrior._--After death they paint a warrior red across the mouth,
or they paint a hand in black color, with the thumb on one side of
the mouth and the fingers separated on the other cheek, the rest of
the face being painted red. (This latter is only done as a mark of
respect to a specially brave man.) Spears, clubs, and the
medicine-bag of the deceased when alive are buried with the body,
the medicine-bag being placed on the bare skin over the region of
the heart. There is not now, nor has there been, among these Indians
any special preparation of the grave. The body of a warrior is
generally wrapped in a blanket or piece of cloth (and frequently in
addition is placed in a box) and buried in the grave prepared for
the purpose, always, as the majority of these Indians inform me,
with the head towards the _south_. (I have, however, seen many
graves in which the head of the occupant had been placed to the
_east_. It may be that these graves were those of Indians who
belonged to the church; and a few Indians inform me that the head is
sometimes placed towards the _west_, according to the occupant’s
belief when alive as to the direction from which his guiding
medicine came, and I am personally inclined to give credence to this
latter as sometimes occurring.) In all burials, when the person has
died a natural death, or had not been murdered, and whether man,
woman, or child, the body is placed in the grave with the face _up_.
In cases, however, when a man or woman has been murdered by one of
their own tribe, the body was, and is always, placed in the grave
with the face _down_, head to the _south_, and a piece of fat (bacon
or pork) placed in the mouth. This piece of fat is placed in the
mouth, as these Indians say, to prevent the spirit of the murdered
person driving or scaring the game from that section of country.
Those Indians who state that their dead are always buried with the
head towards the south say they do so in order that the spirit of
the deceased may go to the south, the land from which these Indians
believe they originally came.
_Women and children._--Before death the face of the person expected
to die is often painted in a red color. When this is not done before
death it is done afterwards; the body being then buried in a grave
prepared for its reception, and in the manner described for a
warrior, cooking-utensils taking the place of the warrior’s weapons.
In cases of boys and girls a kettle of cooked food is sometimes
placed at the head of the grave after the body is covered. Now, if
the dead body be that of a boy, all the boys of about his age go up
and eat of the food, and in cases of girls all the girls do
likewise. This, however, has never obtained as a custom, but is
sometimes done in cases of warriors and women also.
Cremation has never been practiced by these Indians. It is now, and
always has been, a custom among them to remove a lock of hair from
the top or scalp lock of a warrior, or from the left side of the
head of a woman, which is carefully preserved by some near relative
of the deceased, wrapped in pieces of calico and muslin, and hung in
the lodge of the deceased and is considered the ghost of the dead
person. To the bundle is attached a tin cup or other vessel, and in
this is placed some food for the spirit of the dead person. Whenever
a stranger happens in at meal time, this food, however, is not
allowed to go to waste; if not consumed by the stranger to whom it
is offered, some of the occupants of the lodge eat it. They seem to
take some pains to please the ghost of the deceased, thinking
thereby they will have good luck in their family so long as they
continue to do so. It is a custom with the men when they smoke to
offer the pipe to the ghost, at the same time asking it to confer
some favor on them, or aid them in their work or in hunting, &c.
There is a feast held over this bundle containing the ghost of the
deceased, given by the friends of the dead man. This feast may be at
any time, and is not at any particular time, occurring, however,
generally as often as once a year, unless, at the time of the first
feast, the friends designate a particular time, such, for instance,
as when the leaves fall, or when the grass comes again. This bundle
is never permitted to leave the lodge of the friends of the dead
person, except to be buried in the grave of one of them. Much of the
property of the deceased person is buried with the body, a portion
being placed under the body and a portion over it. Horses are
sometimes killed on the grave of a warrior, but this custom is
gradually ceasing, in consequence of the value of their ponies.
These animals are therefore now generally given away by the person
before death, or after death disposed of by the near relatives. Many
years ago it was customary to kill one or more ponies at the grave.
In cases of more than ordinary wealth for an Indian, much of his
personal property is now, and has ever been, reserved from burial
with the body, and forms the basis for a gambling party, which will
be described hereafter. No food is ever buried in the grave, but
some is occasionally placed at the head of it; in which case it is
consumed by the friends of the dead person. Such is the method that
was in vogue with these Indians twenty years ago, and which is still
adhered to, with more or less exactness, by the majority of them,
the exceptions being those who are strict church members and those
very few families who adhere to their ancient customs.
Before the year 1860 it was a custom, for as long back as the oldest
members of these tribes can remember, and with the usual tribal
traditions handed down from generation to generation, in regard to
this as well as to other things, for these Indians to bury in a tree
or on a platform, and in those days an Indian was only buried in the
ground as a mark of disrespect in consequence of the person having
been murdered, in which case the body would be buried in the ground,
_face down_, head toward the south and with a piece of fat in the
mouth. * * * The platform upon which the body was deposited was
constructed of four crotched posts firmly set in the ground, and
connected near the top by cross-pieces, upon which was placed
boards, when obtainable, and small sticks of wood, sometimes hewn so
as to give a firm resting-place for the body. This platform had an
elevation of from six to eight or more feet, and never contained but
one body, although frequently having sufficient surface to
accommodate two or three. In burying in the crotch of a tree and on
platforms, the head of the dead person was always placed towards the
south; the body was wrapped in blankets or pieces of cloth securely
tied, and many of the personal effects of the deceased were buried
with it; as in the case of a warrior, his bows and arrows,
war-clubs, &c., would be placed alongside of the body, the Indians
saying he would need such things in the next world.
I am informed by many of them that it was a habit, before their
outbreak, for some to carry the body of a near relative whom they
held in great respect with them on their moves, for a greater or
lesser time, often as long as two or three years before burial.
This, however, never obtained generally among them, and some of them
seem to know nothing about it. It has of late years been entirely
dropped, except when a person dies away from home, it being then
customary for the friends to bring the body home for burial.
_Mourning ceremonies._--The mourning ceremonies before the year 1860
were as follows: After the death of a warrior the whole camp or
tribe would be assembled in a circle, and after the widow had cut
herself on the arms, legs, and body with a piece of flint, and
removed the hair from her head, she would go around the ring any
number of times she chose, but each time was considered as an oath
that she would not marry for a year, so that she could not marry for
as many years as times she went around the circle. The widow would
all this time keep up a crying and wailing. Upon the completion of
this the friends of the deceased would take the body to the platform
or tree where it was to remain, keeping up all this time their
wailing and crying. After depositing the body, they would stand
under it and continue exhibiting their grief, the squaws by hacking
their arms and legs with flint and cutting off the hair from their
head. The men would sharpen sticks and run them through the skin of
their arms and legs, both men and women keeping up their crying
generally for the remainder of the day, and the near relatives of
the deceased for several days thereafter. As soon as able, the
warrior friends of the deceased would go to a near tribe of their
enemies and kill one or more of them if possible, return with their
scalps, and exhibit them to the deceased person’s relatives, after
which their mourning ceased, their friends considering his death as
properly avenged; this, however, was many years ago, when their
enemies were within reasonable striking distance, such, for
instance, as the Chippewas and the Arickarees, Gros Ventres and
Mandan Indians. In cases of women and children, the squaws would cut
off their hair, hack their persons with flint, and sharpen sticks
and run them through the skin of the arms and legs, crying as for a
warrior.
It was an occasional occurrence twenty or more years ago for a squaw
when she lost a favorite child to commit suicide by hanging herself
with a lariat over the limb of a tree. This could not have prevailed
to any great extent, however, although the old men recite several
instances of its occurrence, and a very few examples within recent
years. Such was their custom before the Minnesota outbreak, since
which time it has gradually died out, and at the present time these
ancient customs are adhered to by but a single family, known as the
seven brothers, who appear to retain all the ancient customs of
their tribe. At the present time, as a mourning observance, the
squaws hack themselves on their legs with knives, cut off their
hair, and cry and wail around the grave of the dead person, and the
men in addition paint their faces, but no longer torture themselves
by means of sticks passed through the skin of the arms and legs.
This cutting and painting is sometimes done before and sometimes
after the burial of the body. I also observe that many of the women
of these tribes are adopting so much of the customs of the whites as
prescribes the wearing of black for certain periods. During the
period of mourning these Indians never wash their face, or comb
their hair, or laugh. These customs are observed with varying degree
of strictness, but not in many instances with that exactness which
characterized these Indians before the advent of the white man among
them. There is not now any permanent mutilation of the person
practiced as a mourning ceremony by them. That mutilation of a
finger by removing one or more joints, so generally observed among
the Minnetarree Indians at the Fort Berthold, Dak., Agency, is not
here seen, although the old men of these tribes inform me that it
was an ancient custom among their women, on the occasion of the
burial of a husband, to cut off a portion of a finger and have it
suspended in the tree above his body. I have, however, yet to see an
example of this having been done by any of the Indians now living,
and the custom must have fallen into disuse more than seventy years
ago.
In regard to the period of mourning, I would say that there does not
now appear to be, and, so far as I can learn, never was, any fixed
period of mourning, but it would seem that, like some of the whites,
they mourn when the subject is brought to their minds by some remark
or other occurrence. It is not unusual at the present time to hear a
man or woman cry and exclaim, “O, my poor husband!” “O, my poor
wife!” or “O, my poor child!” as the case may be, and, upon
inquiring, learn that the event happened several years before.
I have elsewhere mentioned that in some cases much of the personal
property of the deceased was and is reserved from burial with the
body, and forms the basis of a gambling party. I shall conclude my
remarks upon the burial customs, &c., of these Indians by an account
of this, which they designate as the “ghost’s gamble.”
The account of the game will be found in another part of this paper.
As illustrative of the preparation of the dead Indian warrior for the
tomb, a translation of Schiller’s beautiful burial song is here given.
It is believed to be by Bulwer, and for it the writer is indebted to the
kindness of Mr. Benjamin Drew, of Washington, D.C.:
BURIAL OF THE CHIEFTAIN.
See on his mat, as if of yore,
How lifelike sits he here;
With the same aspect that he wore
When life to him was dear.
But where the right arm’s strength, and where
The breath he used to breathe
To the Great Spirit aloft in air,
The peace-pipe’s lusty wreath?
And where the hawk-like eye, alas!
That wont the deer pursue
Along the waves of rippling grass,
Or fields that shone with dew?
Are these the limber, bounding feet
That swept the winter snows?
What startled deer was half so fleet,
Their speed outstripped the roe’s.
These hands that once the sturdy bow
Could supple from its pride,
How stark and helpless hang they now
Adown the stiffened side!
Yet weal to him! at peace he strays
Where never fall the snows,
Where o’er the meadow springs the maize
That mortal never sows;
Where birds are blithe in every brake,
Where forests teem with deer,
Where glide the fish through every lake,
One chase from year to year!
With spirits now he feasts above;
All left us, to revere
The deeds we cherish with our love,
The rest we bury here.
Here bring the last gifts, loud and shrill
Wail death-dirge of the brave
What pleased him most in life may still
Give pleasure in the grave.
We lay the axe beneath his head
He swung when strength was strong,
The bear on which his hunger fed--
The way from earth is long!
And here, new-sharpened, place the knife
Which severed from the clay,
From which the axe had spoiled the life,
The conquered scalp away.
The paints that deck the dead bestow,
Aye, place them in his hand,
That red the kingly shade may glow
Amid the spirit land.
The position in which the body is placed, as mentioned by Dr. McChesney,
face upwards, while of common occurrence among most tribes of Indians,
is not invariable as a rule, for the writer discovered at a cemetery
belonging to an ancient pueblo in the valley of the Chama, near Abiquiu,
N. Mex., a number of bodies, all of which had been buried face downward.
The account originally appeared in Field and Forest, 1877, vol. iii,
No. 1, p. 9.
On each side of the town were noticed two small arroyas or water
washed ditches, within 30 feet of the walls, and a careful
examination of these revealed the objects of our search. At the
bottom of the arroyas, which have certainly formed subsequent to the
occupation of the village, we found portions of human remains, and
following up the walls of the ditch soon had the pleasure of
discovering several skeletons _in situ_. The first found was in the
eastern arroya, and the grave in depth was nearly 8 feet below the
surface of the mesa. The body had been placed in the grave face
downward, the head pointing to the south. Two feet above the
skeleton were two shining black earthen vases, containing small bits
of charcoal, the bones of mammals, birds, and partially consumed
corn, and above these “_ollas_” the earth to the surface was filled
with pieces of charcoal. Doubtless the remains found in the vases
served at a funeral feast prior to the inhumation. We examined very
carefully this grave, hoping to find some utensils, ornaments, or
weapons, but none rewarded our search. In all of the graves examined
the bodies were found in similar positions and under similar
circumstances in both arroyas, several of the skeletons being those
of children. No information could be obtained as to the probable age
of these interments, the present Indians considering them as dating
from the time when their ancestors with Moctezuma came from the
_north_.
The Coyotero Apaches, according to Dr. W. J. Hoffman,[5.12] in disposing
of their dead, seem to be actuated by the desire to spare themselves any
needless trouble, and prepare the defunct and the grave in this manner:
The Coyoteros, upon the death of a member of the tribe, partially
wrap up the corpse and deposit it into the cavity left by the
removal of a small rock or the stump of a tree. After the body has
been crammed into the smallest possible space the rock or stump is
again rolled into its former position, when a number of stones are
placed around the base to keep out the coyotes. The nearest of kin
usually mourn for the period of one month, during that time giving
utterance at intervals to the most dismal lamentations, which are
apparently sincere. During the day this obligation is frequently
neglected or forgotten, but when the mourner is reminded of his duty
he renews his howling with evident interest. This custom of mourning
for the period of thirty days corresponds to that formerly observed
by the Natchez.
Somewhat similar to this rude mode of sepulture is that described in the
life of Moses Van Campen,[5.13] which relates to the Indians formerly
inhabiting Pennsylvania:
Directly after, the Indians proceeded to bury those who had fallen
in battle, which they did by rolling an old log from its place and
laying the body in the hollow thus made, and then heaping upon it a
little earth.
As a somewhat curious, if not exceptional, interment, the following
account, relating to the Indians of New York, is furnished, by Mr.
Franklin B. Hough, who has extracted it from an unpublished journal of
the agents of a French company kept in 1794:
CANOE BURIAL IN GROUND.
Saw Indian graves on the plateau of Independence Rock. The Indians
plant a stake on the right side of the head of the deceased and bury
them in a bark canoe. Their children come every year to bring
provisions to the place where their fathers are buried. One of the
graves had fallen in, and we observed in the soil some sticks for
stretching skins, the remains of a canoe, &c., and the two straps
for carrying it, and near the place where the head lay were the
traces of a fire which they had kindled for the soul of the deceased
to come and warm itself by and to partake of the food deposited
near it.
These were probably the Massasauga Indians, then inhabiting the
north shore of Lake Ontario, but who were rather intruders here, the
country being claimed by the Oneidas.
It is not to be denied that the use of canoes for coffins has
occasionally been remarked, for the writer in 1873 removed from the
graves at Santa Barbara, California, an entire skeleton which was
discovered in a redwood canoe, but it is thought that the individual may
have been a noted fisherman, particularly as the implements of his
vocation--nets, fish-spears, &c.--were near him, and this burial was
only an exemplification of the well-rooted belief common to all Indians,
that the spirit in the next world makes use of the same articles as were
employed in this one. It should be added that of the many hundreds of
skeletons uncovered at Santa Barbara the one mentioned presented the
only example of the kind.
Among the Indians of the Mosquito coast, in Central America, canoe
burial in the ground, according to Bancroft, was common, and is thus
described:
The corpse is wrapped in cloth and placed in one-half of a pitpan
which has been cut in two. Friends assemble for the funeral and
drown their grief in _mushla_, the women giving vent to their sorrow
by dashing themselves on the ground until covered with blood, and
inflicting other tortures, occasionally even committing suicide. As
it is supposed that the evil spirit seeks to obtain possession of
the body, musicians are called in to lull it to sleep while
preparations are made for its removal. All at once four naked men,
who have disguised themselves with paint so as not to be recognized
and punished by _Wulasha_, rush out from a neighboring hut, and,
seizing a rope attached to the canoe, drag it into the woods,
followed by the music and the crowd. Here the pitpan is lowered into
the grave with bow, arrow, spear, paddle, and other implements to
serve the departed in the land beyond, then the other half of the
boat is placed over the body. A rude hut is constructed over the
grave, serving as a receptacle for the choice food, drink, and other
articles placed there from time to time by relatives.
_STONE GRAVES OR CISTS._
These are of considerable interest, not only from their somewhat rare
occurrence, except in certain localities, but from the manifest care
taken by the survivors to provide for the dead what they considered a
suitable resting place. In their construction they resemble somewhat, in
the care that is taken to prevent the earth touching the corpse, the
class of graves previously described.
A number of cists have been found in Tennessee, and are thus described
by Moses Fiske:[5.14]
There are many burying grounds in West Tennessee with regular
graves. They dug them 12 or 18 inches deep, placed slabs at the
bottom ends and sides, forming a kind of stone coffin, and, after
laying in the body, covered it over with earth.
It may be added that, in 1873, the writer assisted at the opening of a
number of graves of men of the reindeer period, near Solutré, in France,
and they were almost identical in construction with those described by
Mr. Fiske, with the exception that the latter were deeper, this,
however, may be accounted for if it is considered how great a deposition
of earth may have taken place during the many centuries which have
elapsed since the burial. Many of the graves explored by the writer in
1875, at Santa Barbara, resembled somewhat cist graves, the bottom and
sides of the pit being lined with large flat stones, but there were none
directly over the skeletons.
The next account is by Maj. J. W. Powell, the result of his own
observation in Tennessee.
The burial places, or cemeteries are exceedingly abundant throughout
the State. Often hundreds of graves may be found on a single
hillside. The same people sometimes bury in scattered graves and in
mounds--the mounds being composed of a large number of cist graves.
The graves are increased by additions from time to time. The
additions are sometimes placed above and sometimes at the sides of
the others. In the first burials there is a tendency to a concentric
system with the feet towards the center, but subsequent burials are
more irregular, so that the system is finally abandoned before the
place is desired for cemetery purposes.
Some other peculiarities are of interest. A larger number of
interments exhibit the fact that the bodies were placed there before
the decay of the flesh, and in many instances collections of bones
are buried. Sometimes these bones are placed in some order about the
crania, and sometimes in irregular piles, as if the collection of
bones had been emptied from a sack. With men, pipes, stone hammers,
knives, arrowheads, &c., were usually found, with women, pottery,
rude beads, shells, &c., with children, toys of pottery, beads,
curious pebbles, &c.
Sometimes, in the subsequent burials, the side slab of a previous
burial was used as a portion of the second cist. All of the cists
were covered with slabs.
Dr. Jones has given an exceedingly interesting account of the stone
graves of Tennessee, in his volume published by the Smithsonian
Institution, to which valuable work[5.15] the reader is referred for a
more detailed account of this mode of burial.
G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey, informs the
writer that in 1878 he had a conversation with an old Moquis chief as to
their manner of burial, which is as follows: The body is placed in a
receptacle or cist of stone slabs or wood, in a sitting posture, the
hands near the knees, and clasping a stick (articles are buried with the
dead), and it is supposed that the soul finds its way out of the grave
by climbing up the stick, which is allowed to project above the ground
after the grave is filled in.
The Indians of Illinois, on the Saline River, according to George Escoll
Sellers,[5.16] inclosed their dead in cists, the description of which is
as follows:
Above this bluff, where the spur rises at an angle of about 30°, it
has been terraced and the terrace as well as the crown of the spur
have been used as a cemetery; portions of the terraces are still
perfect; all the burials appear to have been made in rude stone
cists, that vary in size from 13 inches by 3 feet to 2 feet by 4
feet, and from 18 inches to 2 feet deep. They are made of
thin-bedded sandstone slabs, generally roughly shaped, but some of
them have been edged and squared with considerable care,
particularly the covering slabs. The slope below the terraces was
thickly strewed with these slabs, washed out as the terraces have
worn away, and which have since been carried off for door-steps and
hearth-stones. I have opened many of these cists; they nearly all
contain fragments of human bones far gone in decay, but I have never
succeeded in securing a perfect skull; even the clay vessels that
were interred with the dead have disintegrated, the portions
remaining being almost as soft and fragile as the bones. Some of the
cists that I explored were paved with valves of fresh-water shells,
but most generally with the fragments of the great salt-pans, which
in every case are so far gone in decay as to have lost the outside
markings. This seems conclusively to couple the tenants of these
ancient graves with the makers and users of these salt-pans. The
great number of graves and the quantity of slabs that have been
washed out prove either a dense population or a long occupancy, or
both.
W. J. Owsley, of Fort Hall, Idaho, furnishes the writer with a
description of the cist graves of Kentucky, which differ somewhat from
other accounts, inasmuch as the graves appeared to be isolated.
I remember that when a school-boy in Kentucky, some twenty-five
years ago, of seeing what was called “Indian graves,” and those that
I examined were close to small streams of water, and were buried in
a sitting or squatting posture and inclosed by rough, flat stones,
and were then buried from 1 to 4 feet from the surface. Those graves
which I examined, which examination was not very minute, seemed to
be isolated, no two being found in the same locality. When the
burials took place I could hardly conjecture, but it must have been,
from appearances, from fifty to one hundred years. The bones that I
took out on first appearance seemed tolerably perfect, but on short
exposure to the atmosphere crumbled, and I was unable to save a
specimen. No implements or relics were observed in those examined by
me, but I have heard of others who have found such. In that State,
Kentucky, there are a number of places where the Indians buried
their dead and left mounds of earth over the graves, but I have not
examined them myself. * * *
According to Bancroft,[5.17] the Dorachos, an isthmian tribe of Central
America, also followed the cist form of burial.
In Veragua the Dorachos had two kinds of tombs, one for the
principal men, constructed with flat stones laid together with much
care, and in which were placed costly jars and urns filled with food
and wine for the dead. Those for the plebians were merely trenches,
in which were deposited some gourds of maize and wine, and the place
filled with stones. In some parts of Panama and Darien only the
chiefs and lords received funeral rites. Among the common people a
person feeling his end approaching either went himself or was led to
the woods by his wife, family, or friends, who, supplying him with
some cake or ears of corn and a gourd of water, then left him to die
alone or to be assisted by wild beasts. Others, with more respect
for their dead, buried them in sepulchers made with niches, where
they placed maize and wine and renewed the same annually. With some,
a mother dying while suckling her infant, the living child was
placed at her breast and buried with her, in order that in her
future state she might continue to nourish it with her milk.
_BURIAL IN MOUNDS._
In view of the fact that the subject of mound-burial is so extensive,
and that in all probability a volume by a member of the Bureau of
Ethnology may shortly be published, it is not deemed advisable to devote
any considerable space to it in this paper, but a few interesting
examples may be noted to serve as indications to future observers.
The first to which attention is directed is interesting as resembling
cist burial combined with deposition in mounds. The communication is
from Prof. F. W. Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum of Archæology,
Cambridge, made to the Boston Society of Natural History, and is
published in volume XX of its proceedings, October 15, 1878:
* * * He then stated that it would be of interest to the members, in
connection with the discovery of dolmens in Japan, as described by
Professor Morse, to know that within twenty-four hours there had
been received at the Peabody Museum a small collection of articles
taken from rude dolmens (or chambered barrows, as they would be
called in England), recently opened by Mr. E. Curtiss, who is now
engaged, under his direction, in exploration for the Peabody Museum.
These chambered mounds are situated in the eastern part of Clay
County, Missouri, and form a large group on both sides of the
Missouri River. The chambers are, in the three opened by Mr.
Curtiss, about 8 feet square, and from 4½ to 5 feet high, each
chamber having a passage-way several feet in length and 2 in width,
leading from the southern side and opening on the edge of the mound
formed by covering the chamber and passage-way with earth. The walls
of the chambered passages were about 2 feet thick, vertical, and
well made of stones, which were evenly laid without clay or mortar
of any kind. The top of one of the chambers had a covering of large,
flat rocks, but the others seem to have been closed over with wood.
The chambers were filled with clay which had been burnt, and
appeared as if it had fallen in from above. The inside walls of the
chambers also showed signs of fire. Under the burnt clay, in each
chamber, were found the remains of several human skeletons, all of
which had been burnt to such an extent as to leave but small
fragments of the bones, which were mixed with the ashes and
charcoal. Mr. Curtiss thought that in one chamber he found the
remains of 5 skeletons and in another 13. With these skeletons there
were a few flint implements and minute fragments of vessels of clay.
A large mound near the chambered mounds was also opened, but in this
no chambers were found. Neither had the bodies been burnt. This
mound proved remarkably rich in large flint implements, and also
contained well-made pottery and a peculiar “gorget” of red stone.
The connection of the people who placed the ashes of their dead in
the stone chambers with those who buried their dead in the earth
mounds is, of course, yet to be determined.
It is quite possible, indeed probable, that these chambers were used for
secondary burials, the bodies having first been cremated.
In the volume of the proceedings already quoted, the same investigator
gives an account of other chambered mounds which are, like the
preceding, very interesting, the more so as adults only were inhumed
therein, children having been buried beneath the dwelling-floors:
Mr. F. W. Putnam occupied the rest of the evening with an account of
his explorations of the ancient mounds and burial places in the
Cumberland Valley, Tennessee.
The excavations had been carried on by himself, assisted by Mr.
Edwin Curtiss, for over two years, for the benefit of the Peabody
Museum at Cambridge. During this time many mounds of various kinds
had been thoroughly explored, and several thousand of the singular
stone graves of the mound builders of Tennessee had been carefully
opened. * * * Mr. Putnam’s remarks were illustrated by drawings of
several hundred objects obtained from the graves and mounds,
particularly to show the great variety of articles of pottery and
several large and many unique forms of implements of chipped flint.
He also exhibited and explained in detail a map of a walled town of
this old nation. This town was situated on the Lundsley estate, in a
bend of Spring Creek. The earth embankment, with its accompanying
ditch, encircled an area of about 12 acres. Within this inclosure
there was one large mound with a flat top, 15 feet high, 130 feet
long, and 90 feet wide, which was found not to be a burial mound.
Another mound near the large one, about 50 feet in diameter, and
only a few feet high, contained 60 human skeletons, each in a
carefully-made stone grave, the graves being arranged in two rows,
forming the four sides of a square, and in three layers. * * * The
most important discovery he made within the inclosure was that of
finding the remains of the houses of the people who lived in this
old town. Of them about 70 were traced out and located on the map by
Professor Buchanan, of Lebanon, who made the survey for Mr. Putnam.
Under the floors of hard clay, which was in places much burnt, Mr.
Putnam found the graves of children. As only the bodies of adults
had been placed in the one mound devoted to burial, and as nearly
every site of a house he explored had from one to four graves of
children under the clay floor, he was convinced that it was a
regular custom to bury the children in that way. He also found that
the children had undoubtedly been treated with affection, as in
their small graves were found many of the best pieces of pottery he
obtained, and also quantities of shell-beads, several large pearls,
and many other objects which were probably the playthings of the
little ones while living.[5.18]
This cist mode of burial is by no means uncommon in Tennessee, as it is
frequently mentioned by writers on North American archæology.
The examples which follow are specially characteristic, some of them
serving to add strength to the theory that mounds were for the most part
used for secondary burial, although intrusions were doubtless common.
Caleb Atwater[5.19] gives this description of the
BURIAL MOUNDS OF OHIO.
Near the center of the round fort * * * was a tumulus of earth about
10 feet in height and several rods in diameter at its base. On its
eastern side, and extending 6 rods from it, was a semicircular
pavement composed of pebbles such as are now found in the bed of the
Scioto River, from whence they appear to have been brought. The
summit of this tumulus was nearly 30 feet in diameter, and there was
a raised way to it, leading from the east, like a modern turnpike.
The summit was level. The outline of the semicircular pavement and
the walk is still discernible. The earth composing this mound was
entirely removed several years since. The writer was present at its
removal and carefully examined the contents. It contained--
1st. Two human skeletons, lying on what had been the original
surface of the earth.
2d. A great quantity of arrow-heads, some of which were so large as
to induce a belief that they were used as spear-heads.
3d. The handle either of a small sword or a huge knife, made of an
elk’s horn. Around the end where the blade had been inserted was a
ferule of silver, which, though black, was not much injured by time.
Though the handle showed the hole where the blade had been inserted,
yet no iron was found, but an oxyde remained of similar shape and
size.
4th. Charcoal and wood ashes on which these articles lay, which were
surrounded by several bricks very well burnt. The skeleton appeared
to have been burned in a large and very hot fire, which had almost
consumed the bones of the deceased. This skeleton was deposited a
little to the south of the center of the tumulus; and about 20 feet
to the north of it was another, with which were--
5th. A large mirrour about 3 feet in breadth and 1½ inches in
thickness. This mirrour was of isinglass (_mica membranacea_), and
on it--
6th. A plate of iron which had become an oxyde, but before it was
disturbed by the spade resembled a plate of cast iron. The mirrour
answered the purpose very well for which it was intended. This
skeleton had also been burned like the former, and lay on charcoal
and a considerable quantity of wood ashes. A part of the mirrour is
in my possession, as well as a piece of brick taken from the spot at
the time. The knife or sword handle was sent to Mr. Peal’s Museum,
at Philadelphia.
To the southwest of this tumulus, about 40 rods from it, is another,
more than 90 feet in height, which is shown on the plate
representing these works. It stands on a large hill, which appears
to be artificial. This must have been the common cemetery, as it
contains an immense number of human skeletons of all sizes and ages.
The skeletons are laid horizontally, with their heads generally
towards the center and the feet towards the outside of the tumulus.
A considerable part of this work still stands uninjured, except by
time. In it have been found, besides these skeletons, stone axes and
knives, and several ornaments, with holes through them, by means of
which, with a cord passing through these perforations, they could be
worn by their owners. On the south side of this tumulus, and not far
from it, was a semicircular fosse, which, when I first saw it, was 6
feet deep. On opening it was discovered at the bottom a great
quantity of human bones, which I am inclined to believe were the
remains of those who had been slain in some great and destructive
battle: first, because they belonged to persons who had attained
their full size, whereas in the mound adjoining were found the
skeletons of persons of all ages; and, secondly, they were here in
the utmost confusion, as if buried in a hurry. May we not conjecture
that they belonged to the people who resided in the town, and who
were victorious in the engagement? Otherwise they would not have
been thus honorably buried in the common cemetery.
_Chillicothe mound._--Its perpendicular height was about 15 feet,
and the diameter of its base about 60 feet. It was composed of sand
and contained human bones belonging to skeletons which were buried
in different parts of it. It was not until this pile of earth was
removed and the original surface exposed to view that a probable
conjecture of its original design could be formed. About 20 feet
square of the surface had been leveled and covered with bark. On the
center of this lay a human skeleton, over which had been spread a
mat manufactured either from weeds or bark. On the breast lay what
had been a piece of copper, in the form of a cross, which had now
become verdigris. On the breast also lay a stone ornament with two
perforations, one near each end, through which passed a string, by
means of which it was suspended around the wearer’s neck. On this
string, which was made of sinews, and very much injured by time,
were placed a great many beads made of ivory or bone, for I cannot
certainly say which. * * *
_Mounds of stone._--Two such mounds have been described already in
the county of Perry. Others have been found in various parts of the
country. There is one at least in the vicinity of Licking River, not
many miles from Newark. There is another on a branch of Hargus’s
Creek, a few miles to the northeast of Circleville. There were
several not very far from the town of Chillicothe. If these mounds
were sometimes used as cemeteries of distinguished persons, they
were also used as monuments with a view of perpetuating the
recollection of some great transaction or event. In the former not
more generally than one or two skeletons are found; in the latter
none. These mounds are like those of earth, in form of a cone,
composed of small stones on which no marks of tools were visible. In
them some of the most interesting articles are found, such as urns,
ornaments of copper, heads of spears, &c., of the same metal, as
well as medals of copper and pickaxes of horneblende; * * * works of
this class, compared with those of earth, are few, and they are none
of them as large as the mounds at Grave Creek, in the town of
Circleville, which belong to the first class. I saw one of these
stone tumuli which had been piled on the surface of the earth on the
spot where three skeletons had been buried in stone coffins, beneath
the surface. It was situated on the western edge of the hill on
which the “walled town” stood, on Paint Creek. The graves appear to
have been dug to about the depth of ours in the present times. After
the bottom and sides were lined with thin flat stones, the corpses
were placed in these graves in an eastern and western direction, and
large flat stones were laid over the graves; then the earth which
had been dug out of the graves was thrown over them. A huge pile of
stones was placed over the whole. It is quite probable, however,
that this was a work of our present race of Indians. Such graves are
more common in Kentucky than Ohio. No article, except the skeletons,
was found in these graves; and the skeletons resembled very much the
present race of Indians.
The mounds of Sterling County, Illinois, are described by W. C.
Holbrook[5.20] as follows:
I recently made an examination of a few of the many Indian mounds
found on Rock River, about two miles above Sterling, Ill. The first
one opened was an oval mound about 20 feet long, 12 feet wide, and
7 feet high. In the interior of this I found a _dolmen_ or
quadrilateral wall about 10 feet long, 4 feet high, and 4½ feet
wide. It had been built of lime-rock from a quarry near by, and was
covered with large flat stones. No mortar or cement had been used.
The whole structure rested on the surface of the natural soil, the
interior of which had been scooped out to enlarge the chamber.
Inside of the _dolmen_ I found the partly decayed remains of eight
human skeletons, two very large teeth of an unknown animal, two
fossils, one of which is not found in this place, and a plummet. One
of the long bones had been splintered; the fragments had united, but
there remained large morbid growths of bone (exostosis) in several
places. One of the skulls presented a circular opening about the
size of a silver dime. This perforation had been made during life,
for the edges had commenced to cicatrize. I later examined three
circular mounds, but in them I found no dolmens. The first mound
contained three adult human skeletons, a few fragments of the
skeleton of a child, the lower maxillary of which indicated it to be
about six years old. I also found claws of some carnivorous animal.
The surface of the soil had been scooped out and the bodies laid in
the excavation and covered with about a foot of earth; fires had
then been made upon the grave and the mound afterwards completed.
The bones had not been charred. No charcoal was found among the
bones, but occurred in abundance in a stratum about one foot above
them. Two other mounds, examined at the same time, contain no
remains.
Of two other mounds, opened later, the first was circular, about 4
feet high, and 15 feet in diameter at the base, and was situated on
an elevated point of land close to the bank of the river. From the
top of this mound one might view the country for many miles in
almost any direction. On its summit was an oval altar 6 feet long
and 4½ wide. It was composed of flat pieces of limestone, which
had been burned red, some portions having been almost converted into
lime. On and about this altar I found abundance of charcoal. At the
sides of the altar were fragments of human bones, some of which had
been charred. It was covered by a natural growth of vegetable mold
and sod, the thickness of which was about 10 inches. Large trees had
once grown in this vegetable mold, but their stumps were so decayed
I could not tell with certainty; to what species they belonged.
Another large mound was opened which contained nothing.
The next account relates to the grave-mounds near Pensacola, Fla., and
was originally published by Dr. George M. Sternberg, surgeon United
States Army:[5.21]
Before visiting the mound I was informed that the Indians were
buried in it in an upright position, each one with a clay pot on his
head. This idea was based upon some superficial explorations which
had been made from time to time by curiosity hunters. Their
excavations had, indeed, brought to light pots containing fragments
of skulls, but not buried in the position they imagined. Very
extensive explorations, made at different times by myself, have
shown that only fragments of skulls and of the long bones of the
body are to be found in the mound, and that these are commonly
associated with earthen pots, sometimes whole, but more frequently
broken fragments only. In some instances portions of the skull were
placed in a pot, and the long bones were deposited in its immediate
vicinity. Again, the pots would contain only sand, and fragments of
bones would be found near them. The most successful “find” I made
was a whole nest of pots, to the number of half a dozen, all in a
good state of preservation, and buried with a fragment of skull,
which I take, from its small size, to have been that of a female.
Whether this female was thus distinguished above all others buried
in the mound by the number of pots deposited with her remains
because of her skill in the manufacture of such ware, or by reason
of the unusual wealth of her sorrowing husband, must remain a matter
of conjecture. I found, altogether, fragments of skulls and
thigh-bones belonging to at least fifty individuals, but in no
instance did I find anything like a complete skeleton. There were no
vertebræ, no ribs, no pelvic bones, and none of the small bones of
the hands and feet. Two or three skulls, nearly perfect, were found,
but they were so fragile that it was impossible to preserve them. In
the majority of instances, only fragments of the frontal and
parietal bones were found, buried in pots or in fragments of pots
too small to have ever contained a complete skull. The conclusion
was irresistible that this was not a burial-place for _the bodies_
of deceased Indians, but that the bones had been gathered from some
other locality for burial in this mound, or that cremation was
practiced before burial, and the fragments of bone not consumed by
fire were gathered and deposited in the mound. That the latter
supposition is the correct one I deem probable from the fact that in
digging in the mound evidences of fire are found in numerous places,
but without any regularity as to depth and position. These evidences
consist in strata of from one to four inches in thickness, in which
the sand is of a dark color and has mixed with it numerous small
fragments of charcoal.
My theory is that the mound was built by gradual accretion in the
following manner: That when a death occurred a funeral pyre was
erected on the mound, upon which the body was placed. That after the
body was consumed, any fragments of bones remaining were gathered,
placed in a pot, and buried, and that the ashes and cinders were
covered by a layer of sand brought from the immediate vicinity for
that purpose. This view is further supported by the fact that only
the shafts of the long bones are found, the expanded extremities,
which would be most easily consumed, having disappeared; also, by
the fact that no bones of children were found. Their bones being
smaller, and containing a less proportion of earthy matter, would be
entirely consumed. * * *
At the Santa Rosa mound the method of burial was different. Here I
found the skeletons complete, and obtained nine well-preserved
skulls. * * * The bodies were not, apparently, deposited upon any
regular system, and I found no objects of interest associated with
the remains. It may be that this was due to the fact that the
skeletons found were those of warriors who had fallen in battle in
which they had sustained defeat. This view is supported by the fact
that they were all males, and that two of the skulls bore marks of
ante-mortem injuries which must have been of a fatal character.
Writing of the Choctaws, Bartram,[5.22] in alluding to the ossuary, or
bone-house, mentions that so soon as this is filled a general inhumation
takes place, in this manner:
Then the respective coffins are borne by the nearest relatives of
the deceased to the place of interment, where they are all piled one
upon another in the form of a pyramid, and the conical hill of earth
heaped above.
The funeral ceremonies are concluded with the solemnization of a
festival called the feast of the dead.
Florian Gianque, of Cincinnati, Ohio, furnishes an account of a somewhat
curious mound-burial which had taken place in the Miami Valley of Ohio:
A mound was opened in this locality, some years ago, containing a
central corpse in a sitting posture, and over thirty skeletons
buried around it in a circle, also in a sitting posture, but leaning
against one another, tipped over towards the right, facing inwards.
I did not see this opened, but have seen the mounds and many
ornaments, awls, &c., said to have been found near the central body.
The parties informing me are trustworthy.
As an example of interment, unique, so far as known, and interesting as
being _sui generis_, the following description by Dr. J. Mason
Spainhour, of Lenoir, N.C., of an excavation made by him March 11,
1871, on the farm of R. V. Michaux, esq., near John’s River, in Burke
County, N.C., is given. The author bears the reputation of an observer
of undoubted integrity, whose facts as given may not be doubted:
EXCAVATION OF AN INDIAN MOUND.
In a conversation with Mr. Michaux on Indian curiosities, he
informed me that there was an Indian mound on his farm which was
formerly of considerable height, but had gradually been plowed down;
that several mounds in the neighborhood had been excavated, and
nothing of interest found in them. I asked permission to examine
this mound, which was granted, and upon investigation the following
facts were revealed:
Upon reaching the place, I sharpened a stick 4 or 5 feet in length
and ran it down in the earth at several places, and finally struck a
rock about 18 inches below the surface, which, on digging down, was
found to be smooth on top, lying horizontally upon solid earth,
about 18 inches above the bottom of the grave, 18 inches in length,
and 16 inches in width, and from 2 to 3 inches in thickness, with
the corners rounded.
Not finding anything under this rock, I then made an excavation in
the south of the grave, and soon struck another rock, which, upon
examination, proved to be in front of the remains of a human
skeleton in a sitting posture. The bones of the fingers of the right
hand were resting on this rock, and on the rock near the hand was a
small stone about 5 inches long, resembling a tomahawk or Indian
hatchet. Upon a further examination many of the bones were found,
though in a very decomposed condition, and upon exposure to the air
soon crumbled to pieces. The heads of the bones, a considerable
portion of the skull, maxillary bones, teeth, neck bones, and the
vertebra, were in their proper places, though the weight of the
earth above them had driven them down, yet the entire frame was so
perfect that it was an easy matter to trace all the bones; the bones
of the cranium were slightly inclined toward the east. Around the
neck were found coarse beads that seemed to be of some hard
substance and resembled chalk. A small lump of red paint about the
size of an egg was found near the right side of this skeleton. The
sutures of the cranium indicated the subject to have been 25 or 28
years of age, and its top rested about 12 inches below the mark of
the plow.
I made a farther excavation toward the west of this grave and found
another skeleton, similar to the first, in a sitting posture, facing
the east. A rock was on the right, on which the bones of the right
hand were resting, and on this rock was a tomahawk which had been
about 7 inches in length, but was broken into two pieces, and was
much better finished than the first. Beads were also around the neck
of this one, but were much smaller and of finer quality than those
on the neck of the first. The material, however, seems to be the
same. A much larger amount of paint was found by the side of this
than the first. The bones indicated a person of large frame, who,
I think, was about 50 years of age. Everything about this one had
the appearance of superiority over the first. The top of the skull
was about 6 inches below the mark of the plane.
I continued the examination, and, after diligent search, found
nothing at the north side of the grave; but, on reaching the east,
found another skeleton, in the same posture as the others, facing
the west. On the right side of this was a rock on which the bones of
the right hand were resting, and on the rock was also a tomahawk,
which had been about 8 inches in length, but was broken into _three_
pieces, and was composed of much better material, and better
finished than the others. Beads were also found on the neck of this,
but much smaller and finer than those of the others. A larger amount
of paint than both of the others was found near this one. The top of
the cranium had been moved by the plow. The bones indicated a person
of 40 years of age.
There was no appearance of hair discovered; besides, the smaller
bones were almost entirely decomposed, and would crumble when taken
from their bed in the earth. These two circumstances, coupled with
the fact that the farm on which this grave was found was the first
settled in that part of the country, the date of the first deed made
from Lord Granville to John Perkins running back about 150 years
(the land still belonging to the descendants of the same family that
first occupied it), would prove beyond doubt that it is a very old
grave.
The grave was situated due east and west, in size about 9 by 6 feet,
the line being distinctly marked by the difference in the color of
the soil. It was dug in rich, black loam, and filled around the
bodies with white or yellow sand, which I suppose was carried from
the river-bank, 200 yards distant. The skeletons approximated the
walls of the grave, and contiguous to them was a dark-colored earth,
and so decidedly different was this from all surrounding it, both in
quality and odor, that the line of the bodies could be readily
traced. The odor of this decomposed earth, which had been flesh, was
similar to clotted blood, and would adhere in lumps when compressed
in the hand.
This was not the grave of the Indian warriors; in those we find pots
made of earth or stone, and all the implements of war, for the
warrior had an idea that after he arose from the dead he would need,
in the “hunting-grounds beyond,” his bow and arrow, war-hatchet, and
scalping-knife.
The facts set forth will doubtless convince every Mason who will
carefully read the account of this remarkable burial that the
American Indians were in possession of at least some of the
mysteries of our order, and that it was evidently the grave of
Masons, and the three highest officers in a Masonic lodge. The grave
was situated due east and west; an altar was erected in the center;
the south, west, and east were occupied--_the north was not_;
implements of authority were near each body. The difference in the
quality of the beads, the tomahawks in one, two, and three pieces,
and the difference in distance that the bodies were placed from the
surface, indicate beyond doubt that these three persons had been
buried by Masons, and those, too, that understood what they were
doing.
Will some learned Mason unravel this mystery and inform the Masonic
world how the Indians obtained so much Masonic information?
The tomahawks, maxillary bones, some of the teeth, beads, and other
bones, have been forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution at
Washington, D.C., to be placed among the archives of that
institution for exhibition, at which place they may be seen.
Should Dr. Spainhour’s inferences be incorrect, there is still a
remarkable coincidence of circumstances patent to every Mason.
In support of this gentleman’s views, attention is called to the
description of the _Midawan_--a ceremony of initiation for would-be
medicine men--in Schoolcraft’s History of the Indian Tribes of the
United States, 1855, p. 428, relating to the Sioux and Chippewas. In
this account are found certain forms and resemblances which have led
some to believe that the Indians possessed a knowledge of Masonry.
_BURIAL BENEATH, OR IN CABINS, WIGWAMS, OR HOUSES._
While there is a certain degree of similitude between the above-noted
methods and the one to be mentioned subsequently--_lodge_ burial--they
differ, inasmuch as the latter are examples of surface or aerial burial,
and must consequently fall under another caption. The narratives which
are now to be given afford a clear idea of the former kinds of burial.
Bartram[5.23] relates the following regarding the Muscogulges of the
Carolinas:
The Muscogulges bury their deceased in the earth; they dig a
four-foot, square, deep pit under the cabin, or couch which the
deceased laid on in his house, lining the grave with cypress bark,
when they place the corpse in a sitting posture, as if it were
alive, depositing with him his gun, tomahawk, pipe, and such other
matters as he had the greatest value for in his lifetime. His oldest
wife, or the queen dowager, has the second choice of his
possessions, and the remaining effects are divided among his other
wives and children.
According to Bernard Roman,[5.24] the “funeral customs of the Chickasaws
did not differ materially from those of the Muscogulges. They interred
the dead as soon as the breath left the body, and beneath the couch in
which the deceased expired.”
The Navajos of New Mexico and Arizona, a tribe living a considerable
distance from the Chickasaws, follow somewhat similar customs, as
related by Dr. John Menard, formerly a physician to their agency:
The Navajo custom is to leave the body where it dies, closing up the
house or hogan or covering the body with stones or brush. In case
the body is removed, it is taken to a cleft in the rocks and thrown
in, and stones piled over. The person touching or carrying the body
first takes off all his clothes and afterwards washes his body with
water before putting them on or mingling with the living. When a
body is removed from a house or hogan, the hogan is burned down, and
the place in every case abandoned, as the belief is that the devil
comes to the place of death and remains where a dead body is. Wild
animals frequently (indeed, generally) get the bodies, and it is a
very easy matter to pick up skulls and bones around old camping
grounds, or where the dead are laid. In case it is not desirable to
abandon a place, the sick person is left out in some lone spot
protected by brush, where they are either abandoned to their fate or
food brought to them until they die. This is done only when all hope
is gone. I have found bodies thus left so well inclosed with brush
that wild animals were unable to get at them; and one so left to die
was revived by a cup of coffee from our house and is still living
and well.
Lieut. George E. Ford, Third United States Cavalry, in a personal
communication to the writer, corroborates the account given by Dr.
Menard, as follows:
This tribe, numbering about 8,000 souls, occupy a reservation in the
extreme northwestern corner of New Mexico and Northeastern Arizona.
The funeral ceremonies of the Navajos are of the most simple
character. They ascribe the death of an individual to the direct
action of _Chinde_, or the devil, and believe that he remains in the
vicinity of the dead. For this reason, as soon as a member of the
tribe dies a shallow grave is dug within the hogan or dwelling by
one of the near male relatives, and into this the corpse is
unceremoniously tumbled by the relatives, who have previously
protected themselves from the evil influence by smearing their naked
bodies with tar from the piñon tree. After the body has thus been
disposed of, the hogan (composed of logs and branches of trees
covered with earth) is pulled down over it and the place deserted.
Should the deceased have no near relatives or was of no importance
in the tribe, the formality of digging a grave is dispensed with,
the hogan being simply leveled over the body. This carelessness does
not appear to arise from want of natural affection for the dead, but
fear of the evil influence of _Chinde_ upon the surviving relatives
causes them to avoid doing anything that might gain for them his
ill-will. A Navajo would freeze sooner than make a fire of the logs
of a fallen hogan, even though from all appearances it may have been
years in that condition. There are no mourning observances other
than smearing the forehead and under the eyes with tar, which is
allowed to remain until worn off, and then not renewed. The deceased
is apparently forgotten, as his name is never spoken by the
survivors for fear of giving offense to _Chinde_.
J. L. Burchard, agent to the Round Valley Indians, of California,
furnishes an account of burial somewhat resembling that of the Navajos:
When I first came here the Indians would dig a round hole in the
ground, draw up the knees of the deceased Indian, and wrap the body
into as small a bulk as possible in blankets, tie them firmly with
cords, place them in the grave, throw in beads, baskets, clothing,
everything owned by the deceased, and often donating much extra; all
gathered around the grave wailing most pitifully, tearing their
faces with their nails till the blood would run down their cheeks,
pull out their hair, and such other heathenish conduct. These
burials were generally made under their thatch houses or very near
thereto. The house where one died was always torn down, removed,
rebuilt, or abandoned. The wailing, talks, &c., were in their own
jargon; none else could understand, and they seemingly knew but
little of its meaning (if there was any meaning in it); it simply
seemed to be the promptings of grief, without sufficient
intelligence to direct any ceremony; each seemed to act out his own
impulse.
The next account, taken from M. Butel de Dumont,[5.25] relating to the
Paskagoulas and Billoxis of Louisiana, may be considered as an example
of burial in houses, although the author of the work was pleased to
consider the receptacles as temples.
Les Paskagoulas et les Billoxis n’enterent point leur Chef,
lorsqu’il est décédé; mais-ils font sécher son cadavre au feu et à
la fumée de façon qu’ils en font un vrai squelette. Après l’avoir
réduit en cet état, ils le portent au Temple (car ils en ont un
ainsi que les Natchez), et le mettent à la place de son
prédécesseur, qu’ils tirent de l’endroit qu’il occupoit, pour le
porter avec les corps de leurs autres Chefs dans le fond du Temple
où ils sont tous rangés de suite dressés sur leurs pieds comme des
statues. A l’égard du dernier mort, il est exposé à l’entrée de ce
Temple sur une espèce d’autel ou de table faite de cannes, et
couverte d’une natte très-fine travaillée fort proprement en
quarreaux rouges et jaunes avec la peau de ces mêmes cannes. Le
cadavre du Chef est exposé au milieu de cette table droit sur ses
pieds, soutenu par derrière par une longue perche peinte en rouge
dont le bout passe au dessus de sa tête, et à laquelle il est
attaché par le milieu du corps avec une liane. D’une main il tient
un casse-tête ou une petite hache, de l’autre un pipe; et au-dessus
de sa tête, est attaché au bout de la perche qui le soutient, le
Calumet le plus fameux de tous ceux qui lui ont été présentés
pendant sa vie. Du reste cette table n’est guères élevée de terre
que d’un demi-pied; mais elle a au moins six pieds de large et dix
de longueur.
C’est sur cette table qu’on vient tous les jours servir à manger à
ce Chef mort en mettant devant lui des plats de sagamité, du bled
grolé ou boucané, &c. C’est-là aussi qu’au commencement de toutes
les récoltes ses Sujets vont lui offrir les premiers de tous les
fruits qu’ils peuvent recueillir. Tout ce qui lui est présenté de la
sorte reste sur cette table; et comme la porte de ce Temple est
toujours ouverte, qu’il n’y a personne préposé pour y veiller, que
par conséquent y entre qui veut, et que d’ailleurs il est éloigné du
Village d’un grand quart de lieue, il arrive que ce sont
ordinairement des Etrangers, Chasseurs ou Sauvages, qui profitent de
ces mets et de ces fruits, ou qu’ils sont consommés par les animaux.
Mais cela est égal à ces sauvages; et moins il en reste lorsqu’ils
retournent le lendemain, plus ils sont dans la joie, disant que leur
Chef a bien mangé, et que par conséquent il est content d’eux
quoiqu’il les ait abandonnés. Pour leur ouvrir les yeux sur
l’extravagance de cette pratique, on a beau leur représenter ce
qu’ils ne peuvent s’empêcher de voir eux-mêmes, que ce n’est point
ce mort qui mange; ils répondent que si ce n’est pas lui, c’est
toujours lui au moins qui offre à qui il lui plaît ce qui a été mis
sur la table; qu’après tout c’étoit là la pratique de leur père, de
leur mère, de leurs parens; qu’ils n’ont pas plus d’esprit qu’eux,
et qu’ils ne sauroient mieux faire que de suivre leur example.
C’est aussi devant cette table, que pendant quelques mois la veuve
du Chef, ses enfans, ses plus proches parens, viennent de tems en
tems lui rendre visite et lui faire leur harangue, comme s’il étoit
en état de les entendre. Les uns lui demandent pourquoi il s’est
laissé mourir avant eux? d’autres lui disent que s’il est mort ce
n’est point leur faute; que c’est lui même qui s’est tué par telle
débauche on par tel effort; enfin s’il y a eu quelque défaut dans
son gouvernement, on prend ce tems-là pour le lui reprocher.
Cependant ils finissent toujours leur harangue, en lui disant de
n’être pas fâché contre eux, de bien manger, et qu’ils auront
toujours bien soin de lui.
Another example of burial in houses may be found in vol. vi of the
publications of the Hakluyt Society, 1849, p. 89, taken from Strachey’s
Virginia. It is given more as a curious narrative of an early writer on
American ethnology than for any intrinsic value it may possess as a
truthful relation of actual events. It relates to the Indians of
Virginia:
Within the chauncell of the temple, by the Okens, are the
cenotaphies or the monuments of their kings, whose bodyes, so soon
as they be dead, they embowell, and, scraping the flesh from off the
bones, they dry the same upon hurdells into ashes, which they put
into little potts (like the anncyent urnes): the annathomy of the
bones they bind together or case up in leather, hanging braceletts,
or chaines of copper, beads, pearle, or such like, as they used to
wear about most of their joints and neck, and so repose the body
upon a little scaffold (as upon a tomb), laying by the dead bodies’
feet all his riches in severall basketts, his apook, and pipe, and
any one toy, which in his life he held most deare in his fancy;
their inwards they stuff with pearle, copper, beads, and such trash,
sowed in a skynne, which they overlapp againe very carefully in whit
skynnes one or two, and the bodyes thus dressed lastly they rowle in
matte, as for wynding sheets, and so lay them orderly one by one, as
they dye in their turnes, upon an arche standing (as aforesaid) for
the tomb, and thes are all the ceremonies we yet can learne that
they give unto their dead. We heare of no sweet oyles or oyntments
that they use to dresse or chest their dead bodies with; albeit they
want not of the pretious rozzin running out of the great cedar,
wherewith in the old time they used to embalme dead bodies, washing
them in the oyle and licoure thereof. Only to the priests the care
of these temples and holy interments are committed, and these
temples are to them as solitary Asseteria colledged or ministers to
exercise themselves in contemplation, for they are seldome out of
them, and therefore often lye in them and maynteyne contynuall fier
in the same, upon a hearth somewhat neere the east end.
For their ordinary burialls they digg a deepe hole in the earth with
sharpe stakes, and the corps being lapped in skynns and matts with
their jewells, they laye uppon sticks in the ground, and soe cover
them with earth; the buryall ended, the women (being painted all
their faces with black coale and oyle) do sitt twenty-four howers in
their howses, mourning and lamenting by turnes, with such yelling
and howling as may expresse their great passions.
While this description brings the subject under the head before
given--house burial--at the same time it might also afford an example of
embalmment or mummifying.
Figure 1 may be referred to as a probable representation of the temple
or charnel-house described.
The modes of burial described in the foregoing accounts are not to be
considered rare; for among certain tribes in Africa similar practices
prevailed. For instance, the Bari of Central Africa, according to the
Rev. J. G. Wood,[5.26] bury their dead within the inclosure of the
home-stead, fix a pole in the ground, and fasten to it certain emblems.
The Apingi, according to the same author, permit the corpse to remain in
its dwelling until it falls to pieces. The bones are then collected and
deposited on the ground a short distance from the village. The Latookas
bury within the inclosure of a man’s house, although the bones are
subsequently removed, placed in an earthen jar, and deposited outside
the village. The Kaffirs bury their head-men within the cattle
inclosure, the graves of the common people being made outside, and the
Bechuanas follow the same general plan.
The following description of Damara burial, from the work quoted above
(p. 314), is added as containing an account of certain details which
resemble somewhat those followed by North American Indians. In the
narrative it will be seen that house burial was followed only if
specially desired by the expiring person:
When a Damara chief dies, he is buried in rather a peculiar fashion.
As soon as life is extinct--some say even before the last breath is
drawn--the bystanders break the spine by a blow from a large stone.
They then unwind the long rope that encircles the loins, and lash
the body together in a sitting posture, the head being bent over the
knees. Ox-hides are then tied over it, and it is buried with its
face to the north, as already described when treating of the
Bechuanas. Cattle are then slaughtered in honor of the dead chief,
and over the grave a post is erected, to which the skulls and hair
are attached as a trophy. The bow, arrows, assagai, and clubs of the
deceased are hung on the same post. Large stones are pressed into
the soil above and around the grave, and a large pile of thorns is
also heaped over it, in order to keep off the hyenas, who would be
sure to dig up and devour the body before the following day. The
grave of a Damara chief is represented on page 302. Now and then a
chief orders that his body shall be left in his own house, in which
case it is laid on an elevated platform, and a strong fence of
thorns and stakes built round the hut.
The funeral ceremonies being completed, the new chief forsakes the
place and takes the whole of the people under his command. He
remains at a distance for several years, during which time he wears
the sign of mourning, _i.e._, a dark-colored conical cap, and round
the neck a thong, to the ends of which are hung two small pieces of
ostrich-shell. When the season of mourning is over, the tribe
return, headed by the chief, who goes to the grave of his father,
kneels over it, and whispers that he has returned, together with the
cattle and wives which his father gave him. He then asks for his
parent’s aid in all his undertakings, and from that moment takes the
place which his father filled before him. Cattle are then
slaughtered, and a feast held to the memory of the dead chief and in
honor of the living one, and each person present partakes of the
meat, which is distributed by the chief himself. The deceased chief
symbolically partakes of the banquet. A couple of twigs cut from the
tree of the particular eanda to which the deceased belonged are
considered as his representative, and with this emblem each piece of
meat is touched before the guests consume it. In like manner, the
first pail of milk that is drawn is taken to the grave and poured
over it.
_CAVE BURIAL._
Natural or artificial holes in the ground, caverns, and fissures in
rocks have been used as places of deposit for the dead since the
earliest periods of time, and are used up to the present day by not only
the American Indians, but by peoples noted for their mental elevation
and civilization, our cemeteries furnishing numerous specimens of
artificial or partly artificial caves. As to the motives which have
actuated this mode of burial, a discussion would be out of place at this
time, except as may incidentally relate to our own Indians, who, so far
as can be ascertained, simply adopt caves as ready and convenient
resting places for their deceased relatives and friends.
In almost every State in the Union burial caves have been discovered,
but as there is more or less of identity between them, a few
illustrations will serve the purpose of calling the attention of
observers to the subject.
While in the Territory of Utah, in 1872, the writer discovered a natural
cave not far from the House Range of mountains, the entrance to which
resembled the shaft of a mine. In this the Gosi-Ute Indians had
deposited their dead, surrounded with different articles, until it was
quite filled up; at least it so appeared from the cursory examination
made, limited time preventing a careful exploration. In the fall of the
same year another cave was heard of, from an Indian guide, near the
Nevada border, in the same Territory, and an attempt made to explore it,
which failed for reasons to be subsequently given. This Indian,
a Gosi-Ute, who was questioned regarding the funeral ceremonies of his
tribe, informed the writer that not far from the very spot where the
party were encamped, was a large cave in which he had himself assisted
in placing dead members of his tribe. He described it in detail and drew
a rough diagram of its position and appearance within. He was asked if
an entrance could be effected, and replied that he thought not, as some
years previous his people had stopped up the narrow entrance to prevent
game from seeking a refuge in its vast vaults, for he asserted that it
was so large and extended so far under ground that no man knew its full
extent. In consideration, however, of a very liberal bribe, after many
refusals, he agreed to act as guide. A rough ride of over an hour and
the desired spot was reached. It was found to be almost upon the apex of
a small mountain apparently of volcanic origin, for the hole which was
pointed out appeared to have been the vent of the crater. This entrance
was irregularly circular in form and descended at an angle. As the
Indian had stated, it was completely stopped up with large stones and
roots of sage brash, and it was only after six hours of uninterrupted,
faithful labor that the attempt to explore was abandoned. The guide was
asked if many bodies were therein, and replied “Heaps, heaps,” moving
the hands upwards as far they could be stretched. There is no reason to
doubt the accuracy of the information received, as it was voluntarily
imparted.
In a communication received from Dr. A. J. McDonald, physician to the
Los Pinos Indian Agency, Colorado, a description is given of crevice or
rock-fissure burial, which follows:
As soon as death takes place the event is at once announced by the
medicine man, and without loss of time the squaws are busily engaged
in preparing the corpse for the grave. This does not take long;
whatever articles of clothing may have been on the body at the time
of death are not removed. The dead man’s limbs are straightened out,
his weapons of war laid by his side, and his robes and blankets
wrapped securely and snugly around him, and now everything is ready
for burial. It is the custom to secure if possible, for the purpose
of wrapping up the corpse, the robes and blankets in which the
Indian died. At the same time that the body is being fitted for
internment, the squaws having immediate care of it, together with
all the other squaws in the neighborhood, keep up a continued chant
or dirge, the dismal cadence of which may, when the congregation of
women is large, be heard for quite a long distance. The death song
is not a mere inarticulate howl of distress; it embraces expressions
eulogistic in character, but whether or not any particular formula
of words is adopted on such occasion is a question which I am
unable, with the materials at my disposal, to determine with any
degree of certainty.
The next duty falling to the lot of the squaws is that of placing
the dead man on a horse and conducting the remains to the spot
chosen for burial. This is in the cleft of a rock, and, so far as
can be ascertained, it has always been customary among the Utes to
select sepulchers of this character. From descriptions given by Mr.
Harris, who has several times been fortunate enough to discover
remains, it would appear that no superstitious ideas are held by
this tribe with respect to the position in which the body is placed,
the space accommodation of the sepulcher probably regulating this
matter; and from the same source I learn that it is not usual to
find the remains of more than one Indian deposited in one grave.
After the body has been received into the cleft, it is well covered
with pieces of rock, to protect it against the ravages of wild
animals. The chant ceases, the squaws disperse, and the burial
ceremonies are at an end. The men during all this time have not been
idle, though they have in no way participated in the preparation of
the body, have not joined the squaws in chanting praises to the
memory of the dead, and have not even as mere spectators attended
the funeral, yet they have had their duties to perform. In
conformity with a long-established custom, all the personal property
of the deceased is immediately destroyed. His horses and his cattle
are shot, and his wigwam, furniture, &c., burned. The performance of
this part of the ceremonies is assigned to the men; a duty quite in
accord with their taste and inclinations. Occasionally the
destruction of horses and other properly is of considerable
magnitude, but usually this is not the case, owing to a practice
existing with them of distributing their property among their
children while they are of a very tender age, retaining to
themselves only what is necessary to meet every-day requirements.
The widow “goes into mourning” by smearing her face with a substance
composed of pitch and charcoal. The application is made but once,
and is allowed to remain on until it wears off. This is the only
mourning observance of which I have any knowledge.
The ceremonies observed on the death of a female are the same as
those in the case of a male, except that no destruction of property
takes place, and of course no weapons are deposited with the corpse.
Should a youth die while under the superintendence of white men, the
Indians will not as a role have anything to do with the interment of
the body. In a case of the kind which occurred at this agency some
time ago, the squaws prepared the body in the usual manner; the men
of the tribe selected a spot for the burial, and the employee at the
agency, after digging a grave and depositing the corpse therein,
filled it up according to the fashion of civilized people, and then
at the request of the Indians rolled large fragments of rocks on
top. Great anxiety was exhibited by the Indians to have the employes
perform the service as expeditiously as possible.
Within the past year Ouray, the Ute chief living at the Los Pinos
agency, died and was buried, so far as could be ascertained, in a rock
fissure or cave 7 or 8 miles from the agency.
An interesting cave in Calaveras County, California, which had been used
for burial purposes, is thus described by Prof. J. D. Whitney:[5.27]
The following is an account of the cave from which the skulls, now
in the Smithsonian collection, were taken: It is near the Stanislaus
River, in Calaveras County, on a nameless creek, about two miles
from Abbey’s Ferry, on the road to Vallicito, at the house of Mr.
Robinson. There were two or three persons with me, who had been to
the place before and knew that the skulls in question were taken
from it. Their visit was some ten years ago, and since that the
condition of things in the cave has greatly changed. Owing to some
alteration in the road, mining operations, or some other cause which
I could not ascertain, there has accumulated on the formerly clean
stalagmitic floor of the cave a thickness of some 20 feet of surface
earth that completely conceals the bottom, and which could not be
removed without considerable expense. This cave is about 27 feet
deep at the mouth and 40 to 50 feet at the end, and perhaps 30 feet
in diameter. It is the general opinion of those who have noticed
this cave and saw it years ago that it was a burying-place of the
present Indians. Dr. Jones said he found remains of bows and arrows
and charcoal with the skulls he obtained, and which were destroyed
at the time the village of Murphy’s was burned. All the people spoke
of the skulls as lying on the surface and not as buried in the
stalagmite.
The next description of cave burial, by W. H. Dall,[5.28] is so
remarkable that it seems worthy of admittance to this paper. It relates
probably to the Innuits of Alaska.
The earliest remains of man found in Alaska up to the time of
writing I refer to this epoch [Echinus layer of Dall]. There are
some crania found by us in the lowermost part of the Amaknak cave
and a cranium obtained at Adakh, near the anchorage in the Bay of
Islands. These were deposited in a remarkable manner, precisely
similar to that adopted by most of the continental Innuit, but
equally different from the modern Aleut fashion. At the Amaknak cave
we found what at first appeared to be a wooden inclosure, but which
proved to be made of the very much decayed supra-maxillary bones of
some large cetacean. These were arranged so as to form a rude
rectangular inclosure covered over with similar pieces of bone. This
was somewhat less than 4 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 18 inches deep.
The bottom was formed of flat pieces of stone. Three such were found
close together, covered with and filled by an accumulation of fine
vegetable and organic mold. In each was the remains of a skeleton in
the last stages of decay. It had evidently been tied up in the
Innuit fashion to get it into its narrow house, but all the bones,
with the exception of the skull, were minced to a soft paste, or
even entirely gone. At Adakh a fancy prompted me to dig into a small
knoll near the ancient shell-heap, and here we found, in a precisely
similar sarcophagus, the remains of a skeleton, of which also only
the cranium retained sufficient consistency to admit of
preservation. This inclosure, however, was filled with a dense peaty
mass not reduced to mold, the result of centuries of sphagnous
growth, which had reached a thickness of nearly 2 feet above the
remains. When we reflect upon the well-known slowness of this kind
of growth in these northern regions, attested by numerous Arctic
travelers, the antiquity of the remains becomes evident.
It seems beyond doubt that in the majority of cases, especially as
regards the caves of the Western States and Territories, the interments
were primary ones, and this is likewise true of many of the caverns of
Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, for in the three States mentioned many
mummies have been found, but it is also likely that such receptacles
were largely used as places of secondary deposits. The many fragmentary
skeletons and loose bones found seem to strengthen this view.
EMBALMMENT OR MUMMIFICATION.
Following and in connection with cave burial, the subject of mummifying
or embalming the dead may be taken up, as most specimens of the kind
have generally been found in such repositories.
It might be both interesting and instructive to search out and discuss
the causes which have led many nations or tribes to adopt certain
processes with a view to prevent that return to dust which all flesh
must sooner or later experience, but the necessarily limited scope of
this work precludes more than a brief mention of certain theories
advanced by writers of note, and which relate to the ancient Egyptians.
Possibly at the time the Indians of America sought to preserve their
dead from decomposition, some such ideas may have animated them, but on
this point no definite information has been procured. In the final
volume an effort will be made to trace out the origin of mummification
among the Indians and aborigines of this continent.
The Egyptians embalmed, according to Cassien, because during the time of
the annual inundation no interments could take place, but it is more
than likely that this hypothesis is entirely fanciful. It is said by
others they believed that so long as the body was preserved from
corruption the soul remained in it. Herodotus states that it was to
prevent bodies from becoming a prey to animal voracity. “They did not
inter them,” says he, “for fear of their being eaten by worms; nor did
they burn, considering fire as a ferocious beast, devouring everything
which it touched.” According to Diodorus of Sicily, embalmment
originated in filial piety and respect. De Maillet, however, in his
tenth letter on Egypt, attributes it entirely to a religious belief,
insisted upon by the wise men and priests, who taught their disciples
that after a certain number of cycles, of perhaps thirty or forty
thousand years, the entire universe became as it was at birth, and the
souls of the dead returned into the same bodies in which they had lived,
provided that the body remained free from corruption, and that
sacrifices were freely offered as oblations to the manes of the
deceased. Considering the great care taken to preserve the dead, and the
ponderously solid nature of the Egyptian tombs, it is not surprising
that this theory has obtained many believers. M. Gannal believes
embalmment to have been suggested by the affectionate sentiments of our
nature--a desire to preserve as long as possible the mortal remains of
loved ones; but MM. Volney and Pariset think it was intended to obviate,
in hot climates especially, danger from pestilence, being primarily a
cheap and simple process, elegance and luxury coming later; and the
Count de Caylus states the idea of embalmment was derived from the
finding of desiccated bodies which the burning sands of Egypt had
hardened and preserved. Many other suppositions have arisen, but it is
thought the few given above are sufficient to serve as an introduction
to embalmment in North America.
From the statements of the older writers on North American Indians, it
appears that mummifying was resorted to, among certain tribes of
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida, especially for people of
distinction, the process in Virginia for the kings, according to
Beverly,[5.29] being as follows:
The _Indians_ are religious in preserving the Corpses of their Kings
and Rulers after Death, which they order in the following manner:
First, they neatly flay off the Skin as entire as they can, slitting
it only in the Back; then they pick all the Flesh off from the Bones
as clean as possible, leaving the Sinews fastned to the Bones, that
they may preserve the Joints together; then they dry the Bones in
the Sun, and put them into the Skin again, which in the mean time
has been kept from drying or shrinking; when the Bones are placed
right in the Skin, they nicely fill up the Vacuities, with a very
fine white Sand. After this they sew up the Skin again, and the Body
looks as if the Flesh had not been removed. They take care to keep
the Skin from shrinking, by the help of a little Oil or Grease,
which saves it also from Corruption. The Skin being thus prepar’d,
they lay it in an apartment for that purpose, upon a large Shelf
rais’d above the Floor. This Shelf is spread with Mats, for the
Corpse to rest easy on, and skreened with the same, to keep it from
the Dust. The Flesh they lay upon Hurdles in the Sun to dry, and
when it is thoroughly dried, it is sewed up in a Basket, and set at
the Feet of the Corpse, to which it belongs. In this place also they
set up a _Quioccos_, or Idol, which they believe will be a Guard to
the Corpse. Here Night and Day one or the other of the Priests must
give his Attendance, to take care of the dead Bodies. So great an
Honour and Veneration have these ignorant and unpolisht People for
their Princes even after they are dead.
It should be added that, in the writer’s opinion, this account and
others like it are somewhat apocryphal, and it has been copied and
recopied a score of times.
According to Pinkerton,[5.30] who took the account from Smith’s
Virginia, the Werowance of Virginia preserved their dead as follows:
In their Temples they have his [their chief God, the Devil’s] image
euill favouredly carved, and then painted and adorned with chaines
of copper, and beads, and covered with a skin, in such manner as the
deformitie may well suit with such a God. By him is commonly the
sepulchre of their Kings. Their bodies are first bowelled, then
dried upon hurdles till they be very dry, and so about the most of
their ioynts and necke they hang bracelets, or chaines of copper,
pearle, and such like, as they use to wear. Their inwards they
stuffe with copper beads, hatchets, and such trash. Then lappe they
them very carefully in white skins, and so rowle them in mats for
their winding-sheets. And in the Tombe, which is an arch made of
mats, they lay them orderly. What remaineth of this kind of wealth
their Kings have, they set at their feet in baskets. These temples
and bodies are kept by their Priests.
For their ordinary burials, they dig a deepe hole in the earth with
sharpe stakes, and the corpse being lapped in skins and mats with
their Jewels they lay them upon stickes in the ground, and so cover
them with earth. The buriale ended, the women being painted all
their faces with blacke cole and oyle doe sit twenty-foure houres in
the houses mourning and lamenting by turnes with such yelling and
howling as may expresse their great passions. * * *
Upon the top of certain red sandy hills in the woods there are three
great houses filled with images of their Kings and devils and the
tombes of their predecessors. Those houses are near sixty feet in
length, built harbourwise after their building. This place they
count so holey as that but the priests and Kings dare come into
them; nor the savages dare not go up the river in boates by it, but
that they solemnly cast some piece of copper, white beads or pocones
into the river for feare their Okee should be offended and revenged
of them.
They think that their Werowances and priests which they also esteeme
quiyough-cosughs, when they are deade doe goe beyond the mountains
towards the setting of the sun, and ever remain there in form of
their Okee, with their bedes paynted rede with oyle and pocones,
finely trimmed with feathers, and shall have beads, hatchets,
copper, and tobacco, doing nothing but dance and sing with all their
predecessors. But the common people they suppose shall not live
after deth, but rot in their graves like dede dogges.
This is substantially the same account as has been given on a former
page, the verbiage differing slightly, and the remark regarding
truthfulness will apply to it as well as to the other.
Figure 1 may again be referred to as an example of the dead-house
described.
The Congaree or Santee Indians of South Carolina, according to Lawson,
used a process of partial embalmment, as will be seen from the subjoined
extract from Schoolcraft;[5.31] but instead of laying away the remains
in caves, placed them in boxes supported above the ground by crotched
sticks.
The manner of their interment is thus: A mole or pyramid of earth is
raised, the mould thereof being worked very smooth and even,
sometimes higher or lower according to the dignity of the person
whose monument it is. On the top thereof is an umbrella, made
ridgeways, like the roof of a house. This in supported by nine
stakes or small posts, the grave being about 6 to 8 feet in length
and 4 feet in breadth, about which is hung gourds, feathers, and
other such like trophies, placed there by the dead man’s relations
in respect to him in the grave. The other parts of the funeral rites
are thus: As soon as the party is dead they lay the corpse upon a
piece of bark in the sun, seasoning or embalming it with a small
root beaten to powder, which looks as red as vermillion; the same is
mixed with bear’s oil to beautify the hair. After the carcass has
laid a day or two in the sun they remove it and lay it upon crotches
cut on purpose for the support thereof from the earth; then they
anoint it all over with the aforementioned ingredients of the powder
of this root and bear’s oil. When it is so done they cover it over
very exactly with the bark or pine of the cypress tree to prevent
any rain to fall upon it, sweeping the ground very clean all about
it. Some of his nearest of kin brings all the temporal estate he was
possessed of at his death, as guns, bows and arrows, beads,
feathers, match-coat, &c. This relation is the chief mourner, being
clad in moss, with a stick in his hand, keeping a mournful ditty for
three or four days, his face being black with the smoke of pitch
pine mixed with bear’s oil. All the while he tells the dead man’s
relations and the rest of the spectators who that dead person was,
and of the great feats performed in his lifetime, all that he speaks
tending to the praise of the defunct. As soon as the flesh grows
mellow and will cleave from the bone they get it off and burn it,
making the bones very clean, then anoint them with the ingredients
aforesaid, wrapping up the skull (very carefully) in a cloth
artificially woven of opossum’s hair. The bones they carefully
preserve in a wooden box, every year oiling and cleansing them. By
these means they preserve them for many ages, that you may see an
Indian in possession of the bones of his grandfather or some of his
relations of a longer antiquity. They have other sorts of tombs, as
when an Indian is slain in that very place they make a heap of
stones (or sticks where stones are not to be found); to this
memorial every Indian that passes by adds a stone to augment the
heap in respect to the deceased hero. The Indians make a roof of
light wood or pitch-pine over the graves of the more distinguished,
covering it with bark and then with earth, leaving the body thus in
a subterranean vault until the flesh quits the bones. The bones are
then taken up, cleaned, jointed, clad in white-dressed deerskins,
and laid away in the _Quiogozon_, which is the royal tomb or
burial-place of their kings and war-captains, being a more
magnificent cabin reared at the public expense. This Quiogozon is an
object of veneration, in which the writer says he has known the
king, old men, and conjurers to spend several days with their idols
and dead kings, and into which he could never gain admittance.
Another class of mummies are those which have been found in the
saltpetre and other caves of Kentucky, and it is still a matter of doubt
with archæologists whether any special pains were taken to preserve
these bodies, many believing that the impregnation of the soil with
certain minerals would account for the condition in which the specimens
were found. Charles Wilkins[5.32] thus describes one:
* * * An exsiccated body of a female[5.33] * * * was found at the
depth of about 10 feet from the surface of the cave bedded in clay
strongly impregnated with nitre, placed in a sitting posture,
incased in broad stones standing on their edges, with a flat atone
covering the whole. It was enveloped in coarse clothes, * * * the
whole wrapped in deer-skins, the hair of which was shaved off in the
manner in which the Indians prepare them for market. Enclosed in the
stone coffin were the working utensils, beads, feathers, and other
ornaments of dress which belonged to her.
The next description is by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill.[5.34*]
AUG. 24th, 1815.
DEAR SIR: I offer you some observations on a curious piece of
American antiquity now in New York. It is a human body: found in one
of the limestone caverns of Kentucky. It is a perfect desiccation;
all the fluids are dried up. The skin, bones, and other firm parts
are in a state of entire preservation. I think it enough to have
puzzled Bryant and all the archæologists.
This was found in exploring a calcareous cave in the neighborhood of
Glasgow for saltpetre.
These recesses, though under ground, are yet dry enough to attract
and retain the nitrick acid. It combines with lime and potash; and
probably the earthy matter of these excavations contains a good
proportion of calcareous carbonate. Amidst them drying and
antiseptick ingredients, it may be conceived that putrefaction would
be stayed, and the solids preserved from decay. The outer envelope
of the body is a deer-skin, probably dried in the usual way, and
perhaps softened before its application by rubbing. The next
covering is a deer’s skin, whose hair had been cut away by a sharp
instrument resembling a batter’s knife. The remnant of the hair and
the gashes in the skin nearly resemble a sheared pelt of beaver. The
next wrapper is of cloth made of twine doubled and twisted. But the
thread does not appear to have been formed by the wheel, nor the web
by the loom. The warp and filling seem to have been crossed and
knotted by an operation like that of the fabricks of the northwest
coast, and of the Sandwich Islands. Such a botanist as the lamented
Muhlenbergh could determine the plant which furnished the fibrous
material.
The innermost tegument is a mantle of cloth, like the preceding, but
furnished with large brown feathers, arranged and fashioned with
great art, so as to be capable of guarding the living wearer from
wet and cold. The plumage is distinct and entire, and the whole
bears a near similitude to the feathery cloaks now worn by the
nations of the northwestern coast of America. A Wilson might tell
from what bird they were derived.
The body is in a squatting posture, with the right arm reclining
forward, and its hand encircling the right leg. The left arm hangs
down, with its hand inclined partly under the seat. The individual,
who was a male, did not probably exceed the age of fourteen at his
death. There is near the occiput a deep and extensive fracture of
the skull, which probably killed him. The skin has sustained little
injury; it is of a dusky colour, but the natural hue cannot be
decided with exactness, from its present appearance. The scalp, with
small exceptions, is covered with sorrel or foxey hair. The teeth
are white and sound. The hands and feet, in their shrivelled state,
are slender and delicate. All this is worthy the investigation of
our acute and perspicacious colleague, Dr. Holmes.
There is nothing bituminous or aromatic in or about the body, like
the Egyptian mummies, nor are there bandages around any part. Except
the several wrappers, the body is totally naked. There is no sign of
a suture or incision about the belly; whence it seems that the
viscera were not removed.
It may now be expected that I should offer some opinion as to the
antiquity and race of this singular exsiccation.
First, then, I am satisfied that it does not belong to that class of
white men of which we are members.
2dly. Nor do I believe that it ought to be referred to the bands of
Spanish adventurers, who, between the years 1500 and 1600, rambled
up the Mississippi, and along its tributary streams. But on this
head I should like to know the opinion of my learned and sagacious
friend, Noah Webster.
3dly. I am equally obliged to reject the opinion that it belonged to
any of the tribes of aborigines, now or lately inhabiting Kentucky.
4thly. The mantle of the feathered work, and the mantle of twisted
threads, so nearly resemble the fabricks of the indigines of Wakash
and the Pacifick Islands, that I refer this individual to that era
of time, and that generation of men, which preceded the Indians of
the Green River, and of the place where these relicks were found.
This conclusion is strengthened by the consideration that such
manufactures are not prepared by the actual and resident red men of
the present day. If the Abbe Clavigero had had this case before him,
he would have thought of the people who constructed those ancient
forts and mounds, whose exact history no man living can give. But I
forbear to enlarge; my intention being merely to manifest my respect
to the society for having enrolled me among its members, and to
invite the attention of its Antiquarians to further inquiry on a
subject of such curiousity.
With respect, I remain yours,
SAMUEL L. MITCHILL.
It would appear, from recent researches on the Northwest coast, that the
natives of that region embalmed their dead with much care, as may be
seen from the work recently published by W. H. Dall,[5.35] the
description of the mummies being as follows:
We found the dead disposed of in various ways; first, by interment
in their compartments of the communal dwelling, as already
described; second, by being laid on a rude platform of drift-wood or
stones in some convenient rock shelter. These lay on straw and moss,
covered by matting, and rarely have either implements, weapons, or
carvings associated with them. We found only three or four specimens
in all in these places, of which we examined a great number. This
was apparently the more ancient form of disposing of the dead, and
one which more recently was still pursued in the case of poor or
unpopular individuals.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Alaskan Mummies.]
Lastly, in comparatively modern times, probably within a few
centuries, and up to the historic period (1740), another mode was
adopted for the wealthy, popular, or more distinguished class. The
bodies were eviscerated, cleansed from fatty matters in running
water, dried, and usually placed in suitable cases in wrappings of
fur and fine grass matting. The body was usually doubled up into the
smallest compass, and the mummy case, especially in the case of
children, was usually suspended (so as not to touch the ground) in
some convenient rock shelter. Sometimes, however, the prepared body
was placed in a lifelike position, dressed and armed. They were
placed as if engaged in some congenial occupation, such as hunting,
fishing, sewing, &c. With them were also placed effigies of the
animals they were pursuing, while the hunter was dressed in his
wooden armor and provided with an enormous mask all ornamented with
feathers, and a countless variety of wooden pendants, colored in gay
patterns. All the carvings were of wood, the weapons even were only
fac-similes in wood of the original articles. Among the articles
represented were drums, rattles, dishes, weapons, effigies of men,
birds, fish, and animals, wooden armor of rods or scales of wood,
and remarkable masks, so arranged that the wearer when erect could
only see the ground at his feet. These were worn at their religious
dances from an idea that a spirit which was supposed to animate a
temporary idol was fatal to whoever might look upon it while so
occupied. An extension of the same idea led to the masking of those
who had gone into the land of spirits.
The practice of preserving the bodies of those belonging to the
whaling class--a custom peculiar to the Kadiak Innuit--has
erroneously been confounded with the one now described. The latter
included women as well as men, and all those whom the living desired
particularly to honor. The whalers, however, only preserved the
bodies of males, and they were not associated with the paraphernalia
of those I have described. Indeed, the observations I have been able
to make show the bodies of the whalers to have been preserved with
stone weapons and actual utensils instead of effigies, and with the
meanest apparel, and no carvings of consequence. These details, and
those of many other customs and usages of which the shell heaps bear
no testimony * * * do not come within my line.
Figure 5, copied from Dall, represents the Alaskan mummies.
Martin Sauer, secretary to Billings’ Expedition,[5.36] speaks of the
Aleutian Islanders embalming their dead, as follows:
They pay respect, however, to the memory of the dead, for they
embalm the bodies of the men with dried moss and grass; bury them in
their best attire, in a sitting posture, in a strong box, with their
darts and instruments; and decorate the tomb with various coloured
mats, embroidery, and paintings. With women, indeed, they use less
ceremony. A mother will keep a dead child thus embalmed in their hut
for some months, constantly wiping it dry; and they bury it when it
begins to smell, or when they get reconciled to parting with it.
Regarding these same people, a writer in the San Francisco Bulletin
gives this account:
The schooner William Sutton, belonging to the Alaska Commercial
Company, has arrived from the seal islands of the company with the
mummified remains of Indians who lived on an island north of
Ounalaska one hundred and fifty years ago. This contribution to
science was secured by Captain Henning, an agent of the company who
has long resided at Ounalaska. In his transactions with the Indians
he learned that tradition among the Aleuts assigned Kagamale, the
island in question, as the last resting-place of a great chief,
known as Karkhayahouchak. Last year the captain was in the
neighborhood of Kagamale in quest of sea-otter and other furs, and
he bore up for the island, with the intention of testing the truth
of the tradition he had heard. He had more difficulty in entering
the cave than in finding it, his schooner having to beat on and off
shore for three days. Finally he succeeded in affecting a landing,
and clambering up the rocks he found himself in the presence of the
dead chief, his family and relatives.
The cave smelt strongly of hot sulphurous vapors. With great care
the mummies were removed, and all the little trinkets and ornaments
scattered around were also taken away.
In all there are eleven packages of bodies. Only two or three have
as yet been opened. The body of the chief is inclosed in a large
basket-like structure, about four feet in height. Outside the
wrappings are finely wrought sea-grass matting, exquisitely close in
texture, and skins. At the bottom is a broad hoop or basket of
thinly cut wood, and adjoining the center portions are pieces of
body armor composed of reeds bound together. The body is covered
with the fine skin of the sea-otter, always a mark of distinction in
the interments of the Aleuts, and round the whole package are
stretched the meshes of a fish-net, made of the sinews of the sea
lion; also those of a bird-net. There are evidently some bulky
articles inclosed with the chief’s body, and the whole package
differs very much from the others, which more resemble, in their
brown-grass matting, consignments of crude sugar from the Sandwich
Islands than the remains of human beings. The bodies of a pappoose
and of a very little child, which probably died at birth or soon
after it, have sea-otter skins around them. One of the feet of the
latter projects, with a toe-nail visible. The remaining mummies are
of adults.
One of the packages has been opened, and it reveals a man’s body in
tolerable preservation, but with a large portion of the face
decomposed. This and the other bodies were doubled up at death by
severing some of the muscles at the hip and knee joints and bending
the limbs downward horizontally upon the trunk. Perhaps the most
peculiar package, next to that of the chief, is one which incloses
in a single matting, with sea-lion skins, the bodies of a man and
woman. The collection also embraces a couple of skulls, male and
female, which have still the hair attached to the scalp. The hair
has changed its color to a brownish red. The relics obtained with
the bodies include a few wooden vessels scooped out smoothly:
a piece of dark, greenish, flat stone, harder than the emerald,
which the Indians use to tan skins; a scalp-lock of jet-black hair;
a small rude figure, which may have been a very ugly doll or an
idol; two or three tiny carvings in ivory of the sea-lion, very
neatly executed; a comb, a necklet made of bird’s claws inserted
into one another, and several specimens of little bags, and a cap
plaited out of sea-grass and almost water-tight.
In Cary’s translation of Herodotus (1853, p. 180) the following passage
occurs which purports to describe the manner in which the Macrobrian
Ethiopians preserved their dead. It is added, simply as a matter of
curious interest, nothing more, for no remains so preserved have ever
been discovered.
After this, they visited last of all their sepulchres, which are
said to be prepared from crystal in the following manner. When they
have dried the body, either as the Egyptians do, or in some other
way, they plaster it all over with gypsum, and paint it, making it
as much as possible resemble real life; they then put round it a
hollow column made of crystal, which they dig up in abundance, and
is easily wrought. The body being in the middle of the column is
plainly seen, nor does it emit an unpleasant smell, nor is it in any
way offensive, and it is all visible as the body itself. The nearest
relations keep the column in their houses for a year, offering to it
the first-fruits of all, and performing sacrifices; after that time
they carry it out and place it somewhere near the city.
NOTE.--The Egyptian mummies could only be seen in front, the back
being covered by a box or coffin; the Ethiopian bodies could be seen
all round, as the column of glass was transparent.
With the foregoing examples as illustration, the matter of embalmment
may be for the present dismissed, with the advice to observers that
particular care should be taken, in case mummies are discovered, to
ascertain whether the bodies have been submitted to a regular
preservative process, or owe their protection to ingredients in the soil
of their graves or to desiccation in arid districts.
URN-BURIAL.
To close the subject of subterranean burial proper, the following
account of urn-burial in Foster[5.37] may be added:
Urn-burial appears to have been practiced to some extent by the
mound-builders, particularly in some of the Southern States. In the
mounds on the Wateree River, near Camden, S.C., according to Dr.
Blanding, ranges of vases, one above the other, filled with human
remains, were found. Sometimes when the mouth of the vase is small
the skull is placed with the face downward in the opening,
constituting a sort of cover. Entire cemeteries have been found in
which urn-burial alone seems to have been practiced. Such a one was
accidentally discovered not many years since in Saint Catherine’s
Island, off the coast of Georgia. Professor Swallow informs me that
from a mound at New Madrid, Mo., he obtained a human skull inclosed
in an earthen jar, the lips of which were too small to admit of its
extraction. It must therefore have been molded on the head after
death.
A similar mode of burial was practiced by the Chaldeans, where the
funeral jars often contain a human cranium much too expanded to
admit of the possibility of its passing out of it, so that either
the clay must have been modeled over the corpse, and then baked, or
the neck of the jar must have been added subsequently to the other
rites of interment.[5.38]
It is with regret that the writer feels obliged to differ from the
distinguished author of the work quoted regarding urn-burial, for
notwithstanding that it has been employed by some of the Central and
Southern American tribes, it is not believed to have been customary, but
_to a very limited extent_, in North America, except as a secondary
interment. He must admit that he himself has found bones in urns or
ollas in the graves of New Mexico and California, but under
circumstances that would seem to indicate a deposition long subsequent
to death. In the graves of the ancient peoples of California a number of
ollas were found in long used burying places, and it is probable that as
the bones were dug up time and again for new burials they were simply
tossed into pots, which were convenient receptacles, or it may have been
that bodies were allowed to repose in the earth long enough for the
fleshy parts to decay, and the bones were then collected, placed in
urns, and reinterred. Dr. E. Foreman, of the Smithsonian Institution,
furnishes the following account of urns used for burial:
I would call your attention to an earthenware burial-urn and cover,
Nos. 27976 and 27977, National Museum, but very recently received
from Mr. William McKinley, of Milledgeville, Ga. It was exhumed on
his plantation, ten miles below that city, on the bottom lands of
the Oconee River, now covered with almost impassible canebrakes,
tall grasses, and briers. We had a few months ago from the same
source one of the covers, of which the ornamentation was different
but more entire. A portion of a similar cover has been received also
from Chattanooga, Tenn. Mr. McKinley ascribes the use of these urns
and covers to the Muscogees, a branch of the Creek Nation.
These urns are made of baked clay, and are shaped somewhat like the
ordinary steatite ollas found in the California coast graves, but the
bottoms instead of being round run down to a sharp apex; on the top was
a cover, the upper part of which also terminated in an apex, and around
the border, near where it rested on the edge of the vessel, are indented
scroll ornamentations.
The burial urns of New Mexico are thus described by E. A. Barber:[5.39]
Burial-urns * * * comprise vessels or ollas without handles, for
cremation, usually being from 10 to 15 inches in height, with broad,
open mouths, and made of coarse clay, with a laminated exterior
(partially or entirely ornamented). Frequently the indentations
extend simply around the neck or rim, the lower portion being plain.
So far as is known, up to the present time no burial-urns have been
found in North America resembling those discovered in Nicaragua by Dr.
J. C. Bransford, U.S.N., but it is quite within the range of possibility
that future researches in regions not far distant from that which he
explored may reveal similar treasures. Figure 6 represents different
forms of burial-urns, _a_, _b_, and _e_, after Foster, are from Laporte,
Ind. _f_, after Foster, is from Greenup County, Kentucky; _d_ is from
Milledgeville, Ga., in Smithsonian collection, No. 27976; and _c_ is one
of the peculiar shoe-shaped urns brought from Ometepec Island, Lake
Nicaragua, by Surgeon J. C. Bransford, U.S.N.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Burial Urns.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Indian Cemetery.]
SURFACE BURIAL.
This mode of interment was practiced to only a limited extent, so far as
can be discovered, and it is quite probable that in most cases it was
employed as a temporary expedient when the survivors were pressed for
time. The Seminoles of Florida are said to have buried in hollow trees,
the bodies being placed in an upright position, occasionally the dead
being crammed into a hollow log lying on the ground. With some of the
Eastern tribes a log was split in half and hollowed out sufficiently
large to contain the corpse; it was then lashed together with withes and
permitted to remain where it was originally placed. In some cases a pen
was built over and around it. This statement is corroborated by R. S.
Robertson, of Fort Wayne, Ind., who states, in a communication received
in 1877, that the Miamis practiced surface burial in two different ways:
* * * 1st. The surface burial in hollow logs. These have been found
in heavy forests. Sometimes a tree has been split and the two halves
hollowed out to receive the body, when it was either closed with
withes or confined to the ground with crossed stakes; and sometimes
a hollow tree is used by closing the ends.
2d. Surface burial where the body was covered by a small pen of logs
laid up as we build a cabin, but drawing in every course until they
meet in a single log at the top.
The writer has recently received from Prof. C. Engelhardt, of
Copenhagen, Denmark, a brochure describing the oak coffins of
Borum-Æshœi. From an engraving in this volume it would appear that the
manner employed by the ancient Danes of hollowing out logs for coffins
has its analogy among the North American Indians.
Romantically conceived, and carried out to the fullest possible extent
in accordance with the _ante mortem_ wishes of the dead, were the
obsequies of Blackbird, the great chief of the Omahas. The account is
given by George Catlin:[5.40]
He requested them to take his body down the river to this his
favorite haunt, and on the pinnacle of this towering bluff to bury
him on the back of his favorite war-horse, which was to be buried
alive under him, from whence he could see, as he said, “the
Frenchmen passing up and down the river in their boats.” He owned,
amongst many horses, a noble white steed, that was led to the top of
the grass-covered hill, and with great pomp and ceremony, in the
presence of the whole nation and several of the fur-traders and the
Indian agent, he was placed astride of his horse’s back, with his
bow in his hand, and his shield and quiver slung, with his pipe and
his medicine bag, with his supply of dried meat, and his
tobacco-pouch replenished to last him through the journey to the
beautiful hunting grounds of the shades of his fathers, with his
flint, his steel, and his tinder to light his pipe by the way; the
scalps he had taken from his enemies’ heads could be trophies for
nobody else, and were hung to the bridle of his horse. He was in
full dress, and fully equipped, and on his head waved to the last
moment his beautiful head-dress of the war-eagles’ plumes. In this
plight, and the last funeral honors having been performed by the
medicine-men, every warrior of his band painted the palm and fingers
of his right hand with vermillion, which was stamped and perfectly
impressed on the milk-white sides of his devoted horse. This all
done, turfs were brought and placed around the feet and legs of the
horse, and gradually laid up to its sides, and at last over the back
and head of the unsuspecting animal, and last of all over the head
and even the eagle plumes of its valiant rider, where all together
have smouldered and remained undisturbed to the present day.
Figure 7, after Schoolcraft, represents an Indian burial-ground on a
high bluff of the Missouri River.
According to the Rev. J. G. Wood,[5.41] the Obongo, an African tribe,
buried their dead in a manner similar to that which has been stated of
the Seminoles:
When an Obongo dies it is usual to take the body to a hollow tree in
the forest and drop it into the hollow, which is afterwards filled
to the top with earth, leaves, and branches.
M. de la Potherie[5.42] gives an account of surface burial as practiced
by the Iroquois of New York:
Quand ce malade est mort, on le met sur son séant, on oint ses
cheveux et tout son corps d’huile d’animaux, on lui applique du
vermillon sur le visage; on lui met toutes sortes de beaux plumages
de la rassade de la porcelaine et on le pare des plus beaux habits
que l’on peut trouver, pendant que les parens et des vieilles
continuent toujours à pleurer. Cette cérémonie finie, les alliez
apportent plusieurs présens. Les uns sont pour essuyer les larmes et
les autres pour servir de matelas au défunt, on en destine certains
pour couvrir la fosse, de peur, disent-ils, que la plague ne
l’incommode, on y étend fort proprement des peaux d’ours et de
chevreuils qui lui servent de lit, et on lui met ses ajustemens avec
un sac de farine de bled d’Inde, de la viande, sa cuillière, et
généralement tout ce qu’il faut à un homme qui veut faire un long
voyage, avec toux les présens qui lui ont été faits á sa mort, et
s’il a été guerrier on lui donne ses armes pour s’en servir au pais
des morts. L’on couvre ensuite ce cadavre d’écorce d’arbres sur
lesquelles on jette de la terre et quantité de pierres, et on
l’entoure de pierres pour empêcher que les animaux ne le déterrent.
Ces sortes de funérailles ne se font que dans leur village.
Lorsqu’ils meurent en campagne on les met dans un cercueil d’écorce,
entre les branches des arbres où on les élève sur quatre pilliers.
On observe ces mêmes funérailles aux femmes et aux filles. Tous ceux
qui ont assisté aux obsèques profitent de toute la dépouille du
défunt et s’il n’avoit rien, les parens y supléent. Ainsi ils ne
pleurent pas en vain. Le deuil consiste à ne se point couper ni
graisser les cheveux et de se tenir négligé sans aucune parure,
couverts de méchantes hardes. Le père et la mère portent le deuil de
leur fils. Si le père meurt les garçons le portent, et les filles de
leur mère.
Dr. P. Gregg, of Rock Island, Illinois, has been kind enough to forward
to the writer an interesting work by J. V. Spencer,[5.43] containing
annotations by himself. He gives the following account of surface and
partial surface burial occurring among the Sacs and Foxes formerly
inhabiting Illinois:
Black Hawk was placed upon the ground in a sitting posture, his
hands grasping his cane. They usually made a shallow hole in the
ground, setting the body in up to the waist, so the most of the body
was above ground. The part above ground was then covered by a
buffalo robe, and a trench about eight feet square was then dug
about the grave. In this trench they set picketing about eight feet
high, which secured the grave against wild animals. When I first
came here there were quite a number of these high picketings still
standing where their chiefs had been buried, and the body of a chief
was disposed of in this way while I lived near their village. The
common mode of burial was to dig a shallow grave, wrap the body in a
blanket, place it in the grave, and fill it nearly full of dirt;
then take split sticks about three feet long and stand them in the
grave so that their tops would come together in the form of a roof;
then they filled in more earth so as to hold the sticks in place.
I saw a father and mother start out alone to bury their child about
a year old; they carried it by tieing it up in a blanket and putting
a long stick through the blanket, each taking an end of the stick.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Grave Pen.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Grave Pen.]
I have also seen the dead bodies placed in trees. This is done by
digging a trough out of a log, placing the body in it, and covering
it. I have seen several bodies in one tree. I think when they are
disposed of in this way it is by special request, as I knew of an
Indian woman who lived with a white family who desired her body
placed in a tree, which was accordingly done.[5.44*] Doubtless there
was some peculiar superstition attached to this mode, though I do
not remember to have heard what it was.
Judge H. Welch[5.45] states that “the Sauks, Foxes, and Pottawatomies
buried by setting the body on the ground and building a pen around it of
sticks or logs. I think the bodies lay heads to the east.” And C. C.
Baldwin, of Cleveland, Ohio, sends a more detailed account, as follows:
I was some time since in Seneca County and there met Judge Welch.
* * * In 1824 he went with his father-in-law, Judge Gibson, to Fort
Wayne. On the way they passed the grave of an Ottawa or Pottawatomie
chief. The body lay on the ground covered with notched poles. It had
been there but a few days and the worms were crawling around the
body. My special interest in the case was the accusation of
witchcraft against a young squaw who was executed for killing him by
her arts. In the Summit County mounds there were only parts of
skeletons with charcoal and ashes, showing they had been burned.
W. A. Brice[5.46] mentions a curious variety of surface burial not
heretofore met with:
And often had been seen, years ago, swinging from the bough of a
tree, or in a hammock stretched between two trees, the infant of the
Indian mother; or a few little log inclosures, where the bodies of
adults sat upright, with all their former apparel wrapped about
them, and their trinkets, tomahawks, &c., by their side, could be
seen at any time for many years by the few pale-faces visiting or
sojourning here.
A method of interment so closely allied to surface burial that it may be
considered under that head is the one employed by some of the Ojibways
and Swampy Crees of Canada. A small cavity is scooped out, the body
deposited therein, covered with a little dirt, the mound thus formed
being covered either with split planks, poles, or birch bark.
Prof. Henry Youle Hind, who was in charge of the Canadian Red River
exploring expedition of 1858, has been good enough to forward to the
Bureau of Ethnology two photographs representing the variety of grave,
which he found 15 or 20 miles from the present town of Winnipeg, and
they are represented in the woodcuts, Figures 8 and 9.
_CAIRN-BURIAL._
The next mode of interment to be considered is that of cairn or rock
burial, which has prevailed and is still common to a considerable extent
among the tribes living in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas.
In the summer of 1872 the writer visited one of these rock cemeteries in
Middle Utah, which had been used for a period not exceeding fifteen or
twenty years. It was situated at the bottom of a rock slide, upon the
side of an almost inaccessible mountain, in a position so carefully
chosen for concealment that it would have been almost impossible to find
it without a guide. Several of the graves were opened, and found to have
been constructed in the following manner: A number of bowlders had been
removed from the bed of the slide until a sufficient cavity had been
obtained; this was lined with skins, the corpse placed therein, with
weapons, ornaments, &c., and covered over with saplings of the mountain
aspen; on the top of these the removed bowlders were piled, forming a
huge cairn, which appeared large enough to have marked the last resting
place of an elephant. In the immediate vicinity of the graves were
scattered the osseous remains of a number of horses which had been
sacrificed, no doubt, during the funeral ceremonies. In one of the
graves, said to contain the body of a chief, in addition to a number of
articles useful and ornamental, were found parts of the skeleton of a
boy, and tradition states that a captive boy was buried alive at this
place.
From Dr. O. G. Given, physician to the Kiowa and Comanche Agency, Indian
Territory, the following description of burial ceremonies was received.
According to this gentleman the Kiowas call themselves _Kaw-a-wāh_, the
Comanches _Nerm_, and the Apaches _Tāh-zee_.
They bury in the ground or in crevices of rocks. They do not seem to
have any particular rule with regard to the position. Sometimes
prone, sometimes supine, but always decumbent. They select a place
where the grave is easily prepared, which they do with such
implements as they chance to have, viz, a squaw-axe, or hoe. If they
are traveling, the grave is often very hastily prepared and not much
time is spent in finishing. I was present at the burial of Black
Hawk, an Apache chief, some two years ago, and took the body in my
light wagon up the side of a mountain to the place of burial. They
found a crevice in the rocks about four feet wide and three feet
deep. By filling in loose rocks at either end they made a very nice
tomb. The body was then put in face downwards, short sticks were put
across, resting on projections of rock at the sides, brush was
thrown on this, and flat rocks laid over the whole of it.
The body of the deceased is dressed in the best clothing, together
with all the ornaments most admired by the person when living. The
face is painted with any colored paint they may have, mostly red and
yellow, as I have observed. The body is then wrapped in skins,
blankets, or domestic, with the hands laid across the breast, and
the legs placed upon the thighs. They put into the grave their guns,
bows and arrows, tobacco, and if they have it a blanket, moccasins,
and trinkets of various kinds. One or more horses are killed over or
near the grave. Two horses and a mule were killed near Black Hawk’s
grave. They were led up near and shot in the head. At the death of a
Comanche chief, some years ago, I am told about seventy horses were
killed, and a greater number than that were said to have been killed
at the death of a prominent Kiowa chief a few years since.
The mourning is principally done by the relatives and immediate
friends, although any one of their own tribe, or one of another
tribe, who chances to be passing, will stop and moan with the
relatives. Their mourning consists in a weird wail, which to be
described must be heard, and once heard is never forgotten, together
with the scarifying of their faces, arms, and legs with some sharp
instrument, the cutting off of the hair, and oftentimes the cutting
off of a joint of a finger, usually the little finger (Comanches do
not cut off fingers). The length of time and intensity of their
mourning depends upon the relation and position of the deceased in
the tribe. I have known instances where, if they should be passing
along where any of their friends had died, even a year after their
death, they would mourn.
The Shoshones, of Nevada, generally concealed their dead beneath heaps
of rocks, according to H. Butterfield, of Tyho, Nye County, Nevada,
although occasionally they either burn or bury them. He gives as reasons
for rock burial: 1st, to prevent coyotes eating the corpses; 2d, because
they have no tools for deep excavations; and 3d, natural indolence of
the Indians--indisposition to work any more than can be helped.
The Pi-Utes, of Oregon, bury in cairns; the Blackfeet do the same, as
did also the Acaxers and Yaquis, of Mexico, and the Esquimaux; in fact,
a number of examples might be quoted. In foreign lands the custom
prevailed among certain African tribes, and it is said that the ancient
Balearic Islanders covered their dead with a heap of stones, but this
ceremony was preceded by an operation which consisted in cutting the
body in small pieces and collecting in a pot.
CREMATION.
Next should be noted this mode of disposing of the dead, a common custom
to a considerable extent among North American tribes, especially those
living on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, although we have
undoubted evidence that it was also practiced, among the more eastern
ones. This rite may be considered as peculiarly interesting from its
great antiquity, for Tegg[5.47] informs us that it reached as far back
as the Theban war, in the account of which mention is made of the
burning of Menœacus and Archemorus, who were contemporary with Jair,
eighth judge of Israel. It was common in the interior of Asia, and among
the ancient Greeks and Romans, and has also prevailed among the Hindoos
up to the present time. In fact, it is now rapidly becoming a custom
among civilized people.
While there is a certain degree of similarity between the performance of
this rite among the people spoken of and the Indians of North America,
yet, did space admit, a discussion might profitably be entered upon
regarding the details of it among the ancients and the origin of the
ceremony. As it is, simple narrations of cremation in the country, with
discursive notes and an account of its origin among the Nishinams of
California, by Stephen Powers,[5.48] seem to be all that is required at
this time:
The moon and the coyote wrought together in creating all things that
exist. The moon was good, but the coyote was bad. In making men and
women, the moon wished to so fashion their souls that when they died
they should return to the earth after two or three days as he
himself does when he dies. But the coyote was evil disposed and said
this should not be; but that when men died their friends should burn
their bodies and once a year make a great mourning for them and the
coyote prevailed. So, presently when deer died, they burned his
body, as the coyote had decreed and after a year they made a great
mourning for him. But the moon created the rattlesnake and caused it
to bite the coyote’s son, so that he died. Now, though the coyote
had been willing to burn the deer’s relations, he refused to burn
his own son. Then the moon said unto him, “This is your own rule.
You would have it so, and now your son shall be burned like the
others.” So he was burned, and after a year the coyote mourned for
him. Thus the law was established over the coyote also, and, as he
had dominion over men, it prevailed over men likewise.
This story is utterly worthless for itself, but it has its value in
that it shows there was a time when the California Indians did not
practice cremation, which is also established by other traditions.
It hints at the additional fact that the Nishinams to this day set
great store by the moon, consider it their benefactor in a hundred
ways and observe its changes for a hundred purposes.
Another myth regarding cremation is given by Adam Johnston in
Schoolcraft[5.49] and relates to the Bonaks, or root-diggers:
The first Indians that lived were coyotes. When one of their number
died the body became full of little animals or spirits, as they
thought then. After crawling over the body for a time they took all
manner of shapes, some that of the deer, others the elk, antelope,
etc. It was discovered however, that great numbers were taking wings
and for a while they sailed about in the air, but eventually they
would fly off to the moon. The old coyotes or Indians, fearing the
earth might become depopulated in this way, concluded to stop it at
once and ordered that when one of their people died the body must be
burnt. Ever after they continued to burn the bodies of deceased
persons.
Ross Cox gives an account of the process as performed by the Tolkotins
of Oregon:[5.50]
The ceremonies attending the dead are very singular and quite
peculiar to this tribe. The body of the deceased is kept nine days
laid out in his lodge and on the tenth it is buried. For this
purpose a rising ground is selected, on which are laid a number of
sticks, about 7 feet long, of cypress, neatly split and in the
interstices, placed a quantity of gummy wood. During these
operations invitations are dispatched to the natives of the
neighboring villages requesting their attendance at the ceremony.
When the preparations are perfected, the corpse is placed on the
pile, which is immediately ignited and during the process of
burning, the bystanders appear to be in a high state of merriment.
If a stranger happen to be present they invariably plunder him, but
if that pleasure be denied them, they never separate without
quarreling among themselves. Whatever property the deceased
possessed is placed about the corpse, and if he happened to be a
person of consequence, his friends generally purchase a capote,
a shirt, a pair of trousers, &c, which articles are also laid around
the pile. If the doctor who attended him has escaped uninjured, he
is obliged to be present at the ceremony, and for the last time
tries his skill in restoring the defunct to animation. Failing in
this, he throws on the body a piece of leather, or some other
article, as a present, which in some measure appeases the resentment
of his relatives, and preserves the unfortunate quack from being
maltreated. During the nine days the corpse is laid out, the widow
of the deceased is obliged to sleep along side it from sunset to
sunrise, and from this custom there is no relaxation even during the
hottest days of summer! While the doctor is performing his last
operations she must lie on the pile, and after the fire is applied
to it she cannot stir until the doctor orders her to be removed,
which, however, is never done until her body is completely covered
with blisters. After being placed on her legs, she is obliged to
pass her hands gently through the flame and collect some of the
liquid fat which issues from the corpse, with which she is permitted
to wet her face and body. When the friends of the deceased observe
the sinews of the legs and arms beginning to contract they compel
the unfortunate widow to go again on the pile, and by dint of hard
pressing to straighten those members.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Tolkotin cremation.]
If during her husband’s life time she has been known to have
committed any act of infidelity or omitted administering to him
savory food or neglected his clothing, &c. she is now made to suffer
severely for such lapses of duty by his relations, who frequently
fling her in the funeral pile, from which she is dragged by her
friends, and thus between alternate scorching and cooling she is
dragged backwards and forwards until she falls into a state of
insensibility.
After the process of burning the corpse has terminated, the widow
collects the larger bones, which she rolls up in an envelope of
birch bark and which she is obliged for some years afterwards to
carry on her back. She is now considered and treated as a slave, all
the laborious duties of cooking, collecting food, &c. devolve on
her. She must obey the orders of all the women, and even of the
children belonging to the village, and the slightest mistake or
disobedience subjects her to the infliction of a heavy punishment.
The ashes of her husband are carefully collected and deposited in a
grave which it is her duty to keep free from weeds, and should any
such appear, she is obliged to root them out with her fingers.
During this operation her husband’s relatives stand by and beat her
in a cruel manner until the task is completed or she falls a victim
to their brutality. The wretched widows, to avoid this complicated
cruelty, frequently commit suicide. Should she, however, linger on
for three or four years, the friends of her husband agree to relieve
her from the her painful mourning. This is a ceremony of much
consequence and the preparations for it occupy a considerable time
generally from six to eight months. The hunters proceed to the
various districts in which deer and beaver abound and after
collecting large quantities of meat and fur return to the village.
The skins are immediately bartered for guns, ammunition, clothing,
trinkets, &c. Invitations are then sent to the inhabitants of the
various friendly villages, and when they have all assembled the
feast commences, and presents are distributed to each visitor. The
object of their meeting is then explained, and the woman is brought
forward, still carrying on her back the bones of her late husband,
which are now removed and placed in a covered box, which is nailed
or otherwise fastened to a post twelve feet high. Her conduct as a
faithful widow is next highly eulogized, and the ceremony of her
manumission is completed by one man powdering on her head the down
of birds and another pouring on it the contents of a bladder of oil.
She is then at liberty to marry again or lead a life of single
blessedness, but few of them, I believe, wish to encounter the risk
attending a second widowhood.
The men are condemned to a similar ordeal, but they do not bear it
with equal fortitude, and numbers fly to distant quarters to avoid
the brutal treatment which custom has established as a kind of
religious rite.
Figure 10 is an ideal sketch of the cremation according to the
description given.
Perhaps a short review of some of the peculiar and salient points of
this narrative may be permitted.
It is stated that the corpse is kept nine days after death--certainly a
long period of time, when it is remembered that Indians as a rule
endeavor to dispose of their dead as soon as possible. This may be
accounted for on the supposition that it is to give the friends and
relatives an opportunity of assembling, verifying the death, and of
making proper preparations for the ceremony. With regard to the
verification of the dead person, William Sheldon[5.51] gives an account
of a similar custom which was common among the Caraibs of Jamaica, and
which seems to throw some light upon the unusual retention of deceased
persons by the tribe in question, although it most be admitted that this
is mere hypothesis:
They had some very extraordinary customs respecting deceased
persons. When one of them died, it was necessary that all his
relations should see him and examine the body in order to ascertain
that he died a natural death. They acted so rigidly on this
principle, that if one relative remained who had not seen the body
all the others could not convince that one that the death was
natural. In such a case the absent relative considered himself as
bound in honor to consider all the other relatives as having been
accessories to the death of the kinsman, and did not rest until he
had killed one of them to revenge the death of the deceased. If a
Caraib died in Martinico or Guadaloupe and but his relations lived
in St. Vincents, it was necessary to summon them to see the body,
and several months sometimes elapsed before it could be finally
interred. When a Caraib died he was immediately painted all over
with _roucou_, and had his mustachios and the black streaks in his
face made with a black paint, which was different from that used in
their lifetime. A kind of grave was then dug in the _carbet_ where
he died, about 4 feet square and 6 or 7 feet deep. The body was let
down in it, when sand was thrown in, which reached to the knees, and
the body was placed in it in a sitting posture, resembling that in
which they crouched round the fire or the table when alive, with the
elbows on the knees and the palms of the hands against the cheeks.
No part of the body touched the outside of the grave, which was
covered with wood and mats until all the relations had examined it.
When the customary examinations and inspections were ended the hole
was filled, and the bodies afterwards remained undisturbed. The hair
of the deceased was kept tied behind. In this way bodies have
remained several months without any symptoms of decay or producing
any disagreeable smell. The _roucou_ not only preserved them from
the sun, air, and insects during their lifetime, but probably had
the same effect after death. The arms of the Caraibs were placed by
them when they were covered over for inspection, and they were
finally buried with them.
Again, we are told that during the burning the bystanders are very
merry. This hilarity is similar to that shown by the Japanese at a
funeral, who rejoice that the troubles and worries of the world are over
for the fortunate dead. The plundering of strangers present, it may be
remembered, also took place among the Indians of the Carolinas. As
already mentioned on a preceding page, the cruel manner in which the
widow is treated seems to be a modification of the Hindoo suttee, but,
if the account be true, it would appear that death might be preferable
to such torments.
It is interesting to note that in Corsica, as late as 1743, if a husband
died, women threw themselves upon the widow and beat her severely.
Brohier quaintly remarks that this custom obliged women to take good
care of their husbands.
George Gibbs, in Schoolcraft,[5.52] states that among the Indians of
Clear Lake, California, “the body is consumed upon a scaffold built over
a hole, into which the ashes are thrown and covered.”
According to Stephen Powers,[5.53] cremation was common among the Se-nél
of California. He thus relates it.
The dead are mostly burned. Mr. Willard described to me a scene of
incremation that he once witnessed, which was frightful for its
exhibitions of fanatic frenzy and infatuation. The corpse was that
of a wealthy chieftain, and as he lay upon the funeral pyre they
placed in his month two gold twenties, and other smaller coins in
his ears and hands, on his breast, &c. besides all his finery, his
feather mantles, plumes, clothing, shell money, his fancy bows,
painted arrows, &c. When the torch was applied they set up a
mournful ululation, chanting and dancing about him, gradually
working themselves into a wild and ecstatic raving, which seemed
almost a demoniacal possession, leaping, howling, lacerating their
flesh. Many seemed to lose all self-control. The younger
English-speaking Indians generally lend themselves charily to such
superstitious work, especially if American spectators are present,
but even they were carried away by the old contagious frenzy of
their race. One stripped off a broadcloth coat, quite new and fine,
and ran frantically yelling and cast it upon the blazing pile.
Another rushed up, and was about to throw on a pile of California
blankets, when a white man, to test his sincerity, offend him $16
for them, jingling the bright coins before his eyes, but the savage
(for such he had become again for the moment) otherwise so
avaricious, hurled him away with a yell of execration and ran and
threw his offering into the flames. Squaws, even more frenzied,
wildly flung upon the pyre all they had in the world--their dearest
ornaments, their gaudiest dresses, their strings of glittering
shells. Screaming, wailing, tearing their hair, beating their
breasts in their mad and insensate infatuation, some of them would
have cast themselves bodily into the flaming ruins and perished with
the chief had they not been restrained by their companions. Then the
bright, swift flames, with their hot tongues, licked this “cold
obstruction” into chemic change, and the once “delighted spirit” of
the savage was borne up. * * *
It seems as if the savage shared in Shakspeare’s shudder at the
thought of rotting in the dismal grave, for it is the one passion of
his superstition to think of the soul, of his departed friend set
free and purified by the swift purging heat of the flames not
dragged down to be clogged and bound in the mouldering body, but
borne up in the soft, warm chariots of the smoke toward the
beautiful sun, to bask in his warmth and light, and then to fly away
to the Happy Western Land. What wonder if the Indian shrinks with
unspeakable horror from the thought of _burying his friend’s
soul!_--of pressing and ramming down with pitiless clods that inner
something which once took such delight in the sweet light of the
sun! What wonder if it takes years to persuade him to do otherwise
and follow our custom! What wonder if even then he does it with sad
fears and misgivings! Why not let him keep his custom! In the
gorgeous landscapes and balmy climate of California an Indian
incremation is as natural to the savage as it is for him to love the
beauty of the sun. Let the vile Esquimaux and the frozen Siberian
bury their dead if they will; it matters little, the earth is the
same above as below; or to them the bosom of the earth may seem even
the better; but in California do not blame the savage if he recoils
at the thought of going underground! This soft pale halo of the
lilac hills--ah, let him console himself if he will with the belief
that his lost friend enjoys it still! The narrator concluded by
saying that they destroyed full $500 worth of property. “The
blankets,” said he with a fine Californian scorn of much absurd
insensibility to such a good bargain, “the blankets that the
American offered him $16 for were not worth half the money.”
After death the Se-nél hold that bad Indians return into coyotes.
Others fall off a bridge which all souls must traverse, or are
hooked off by a raging bull at the further end, while the good
escape across. Like the Yokaia and the Konkan, they believe it
necessary to nourish the spirits of the departed for the space of a
year. This is generally done by a squaw, who takes pinole in her
blanket, repairs to the scene of the incremation, or to places
hallowed by the memory of the dead, when she scatters it over the
ground, meantime rocking her body violently to and fro in a dance
and chanting the following chorous:
Hel-lel-li-ly,
Hel-lel-lo,
Hel-lel-lu.
This refrain is repeated over and over indefinitely, but the words
have no meaning whatever.
Henry Gillman[5.54] has published an interesting account of the
exploration of a mound near Waldo, Fla., in which he found abundant
evidence that cremation had existed among the former Indian population.
It is as follows:
In opening a burial-mound at Cade’s Pond, a small body of water
situated about two miles northeastward of Santa Fé Lake, Fla., the
writer found two instances of cremation, in each of which the skull
of the subject, which was unconsumed, was used as the depository of
his ashes. The mound contained besides a large number of human
burials, the bones being much decayed. With them were deposited a
great number of vessels of pottery, many of which are painted in
brilliant colors, chiefly red, yellow, and brown, and some of them
ornamented with indented patterns, displaying not a little skill in
the ceramic art, though they are reduced to fragments. The first of
the skulls referred to was exhumed at a depth of 2½ feet. It rested
on its apex (base uppermost), and was filled with fragments of half
incinerated human bones, mingled with dark-colored dust, and the
sand which invariably sifts into crania under such circumstances.
Immediately beneath the skull lay the greater part of a human tibia,
presenting the peculiar compression known as a platycnemism to the
degree of affording a latitudinal index of .512; while beneath and
surrounding it lay the fragments of a large number of human bones,
probably constituting an entire individual. In the second instance
of this peculiar mode in cremation, the cranium was discovered on
nearly the opposite side of the mound, at a depth of 2 feet, and,
like the former, resting on its apex. It was filled with a black
mass--the residuum of burnt human bones mingled with sand. At three
feet to the eastward lay the shaft of a flattened tibia, which
presents the longitudinal index of .527. Both the skulls were free
from all action of fire, and though subsequently crumbling to pieces
on their removal, the writer had opportunity to observe their strong
resemblance to the small, orthocephalic crania which he had exhumed
from mounds in Michigan. The same resemblance was perceptible in the
other cranium belonging to this mound. The small narrow, retreating
frontal, prominent parietal protuberances, rather protuberant
occipital, which was not in the least compressed, the well defined
supraciliary ridges, and the superior border of the orbits,
presenting a quadrilateral outline, were also particularly noticed.
The lower facial bones, including the maxillaries, were wanting. On
consulting such works as are accessible to him, the writer finds no
mention of any similar relics having been discovered in mounds in
Florida, or elsewhere. For further particulars reference may be had
to a paper on the subject read before the Saint Louis meeting of the
American Association, August, 1878.
The discoveries made by Mr. Gillman would seem to indicate that the
people whose bones he excavated resorted to a process of partial
cremation, some examples of which will be given on another page. The use
of crania as receptacles is certainly remarkable, if not unique.
The fact is well-known to archæologists that whenever cremation was
practiced by Indians it was customary as a rule to throw into the
blazing pyre all sorts of articles supposed to be useful to the dead,
but no instance is known of such a wholesale destruction of property as
occurred when the Indians of Southern Utah burned their dead, for Dr. E.
Foreman relates, in the American Naturalist for July, 1876, the account
of the exploration of a mound in that Territory, which proves that at
the death of a person not only were the remains destroyed by fire, but
all articles of personal property, even the very habitation which had
served as a home. After the process was completed, what remained
unburned was covered with earth and a mound formed.
A. S. Tiffany[5.55] describes what he calls a cremation-furnace,
discovered within seven miles of Davenport, Iowa.
* * * Mound seven miles, below the city, a projecting point known as
Eagle Point. The surface was of the usual black soil to the depth of
from 6 to 8 inches. Next was found a burnt indurated clay,
resembling in color and texture a medium-burned brick, and about 30
inches in depth. Immediately beneath this clay was a bed of charred
human remains 6 to 18 inches thick. This rested upon the unchanged
and undisturbed loam of the bluffs, which formed the floor of the
pit. Imbedded in this floor of unburned clay were a few very much
decomposed, but unburned, human bones. No implements of any kind
were discovered. The furnace appears to have been constructed by
excavating the pit and placing at the bottom of it the bodies or
skeletons which had possibly been collected from scaffolds, and
placing the fuel among and above the bodies, with a covering of
poles or split timbers extending over and resting upon the earth,
with the clay covering above, which latter we now find resting upon
the charred remains. The ends of the timber covering, where they
were protected by the earth above and below, were reduced to
charcoal, parallel pieces of which were found at right angles to the
length of the mound. No charcoal was found among or near the
remains, the combustion there having been complete. The porous and
softer portions of the bones were reduced to pulverized bone-black.
Mr. Stevens also examined the furnace. The mound had probably not
been opened after the burning.
This account is doubtless true, but the inferences may be incorrect.
Many more accounts of cremation among different tribes might be given to
show how prevalent was the custom, but the above are thought to be
sufficiently distinctive to serve as examples.
_PARTIAL CREMATION._
Allied somewhat to cremation is a peculiar mode of burial which is
supposed to have taken place among the Cherokees, or some other tribe of
North Carolina, and which is thus described by J. W. Foster:[5.56]
Up to 1819 the Cherokee held possession of this region, when, in
pursuance of a treaty, they vacated a portion of the lands lying in
the valley of the Little Tennessee River. In 1821 Mr. McDowell
commenced farming. During the first season’s operations the
plowshare, in passing over a certain portion of a field, produced a
hollow rumbling sound, and in exploring for the cause the first
object met with was a shallow layer of charcoal, beneath which was a
slab of burnt clay about 7 feet in length and 4 feet broad, which,
in the attempt to remove, broke into several fragments. Nothing
beneath this slab was found, but on examining its under side, to his
great surprise there was the mould of a naked human figure. Three of
these burned-clay sepulchers were thus raised and examined during
the first year of his occupancy, since which time none have been
found until recently. During the past season, (1878) the plow
brought up another fragment of one of these moulds, revealing the
impress of a plump human arm.
Col. C. W. Jenkes, the superintendent of the Corundum mines, which
have recently been opened in that vicinity, advises me thus:
“We have Indians all about us, with traditions extending back for
500 years. In this time they have buried their dead under huge piles
of stones. We have at one point the remains of 600 warriors under
one pile, but a grave has just been opened of the following
construction: A pit was dug, into which the corpse was placed, face
upward; then over it was moulded a covering of mortar, fitting the
form and features. On this was built a hot fire, which formed an
entire shield of pottery for the corpse. The breaking up of one such
tomb gives a perfect cast of the form of the occupant.”
Colonel Jenkes, fully impressed with the value of these
archeological discoveries, detailed a man to superintend the
exhumation, who proceeded to remove the earth from the mould, which
he reached through a layer of charcoal, and then with a trowel
excavated beneath it. The clay was not thoroughly baked, and no
impression of the corpse was left, except of the forehead and that
portion of the limbs between the ankles and the knees, and even
these portions of the mould crumbled. The body had been placed east
and west, the head toward the east. “I had hoped,” continues Mr.
McDowell, “that the cast in the clay would be as perfect as one I
found 51 years ago, a fragment of which I presented to Colonel
Jenkes, with the impression of a part of the arm on one side and on
the other of the fingers, that had pressed down the soft clay upon
the body interred beneath it.” The mound-builders of the Ohio
valley, as has been shown, often placed a layer of clay over the
dead, but not in immediate contact, upon which they builded fires;
and the evidence that cremation was often resorted to in their
disposition are too abundant to be gainsaid.
This statement is corroborated by Mr. Wilcox:[5.57]
Mr. Wilcox also stated that when recently in North Carolina his
attention was called to an unusual method of burial by an ancient
race of Indians in that vicinity. In numerous instances burial
places were discovered where the bodies had been placed with the
face up and covered with a coating of plastic clay about an inch
thick. A pile of wood was then placed on top and fired, which
consumed the body and baked the clay, which retained the impression
of the body. This was then lightly covered with earth.
It is thought no doubt can attach to the statements given, but the cases
are remarkable as being the only instances of the kind met with in the
extensive range of reading preparatory to a study of the subject of
burial, although it must be observed that Bruhier states that the
ancient Ethiopians covered the corpses of their dead with plaster
(probably mud), but they did not burn these curious coffins.
Another method, embracing both burial and cremation, has been practiced
by the Pitt River or Achomawi Indians of California, who
Bury the body in the ground in a standing position, the shoulders
nearly even with the ground. The grave is prepared by digging a hole
of sufficient depth and circumference to admit the body, the head
being cut off. In the grave are placed the bows and arrows,
bead-work, trappings, &c., belonging to the deceased; quantities of
food, consisting of dried fish, roots, herbs, &c., were placed with
the body also. The grave was then filled up, covering the headless
body; then a bundle of fagots was brought and placed on the grave by
the different members of the tribe, and on these fagots the head was
placed, the pile fired, and the head consumed to ashes; after this
was done the female relatives of the deceased, who had appeared as
mourners with their faces blackened with a preparation resembling
tar or paint, dipped their fingers in the ashes of the cremated head
and made three marks on their right cheek. This constituted the
mourning garb, the period of which lasted until this black substance
wore off from the face. In addition to this mourning, the blood
female relatives of the deceased (who, by the way, appeared to be a
man of distinction) had their hair cropped short. I noticed while
the head was burning that the old women of the tribe sat on the
ground, forming a large circle, inside of which another circle of
young girls were formed standing and swaying their bodies to and fro
and singing a mournful ditty. This was the only burial of a male
that I witnessed. The custom of burying females is very different,
their bodies being wrapped or bundled up in skins and laid away in
caves, with their valuables and in some cases food being placed with
them in their mouths. Occasionally money is left to pay for food in
the spirit land.
This account is furnished by Gen. Charles H. Tompkins, deputy
quartermaster-general, United States Army, who witnessed the burial
above related, and is the more interesting as it seems to be the only
well-authenticated case on record, although E. A. Barber[5.58] has
described what may possibly have been a case of cremation like the one
above noted:
A very singular case of aboriginal burial was brought to my notice
recently by Mr. William Klingbeil, of Philadelphia. On the New
Jersey bank of the Delaware River, a short distance below Gloucester
City, the skeleton of a man was found buried in a standing position,
in a high, red, sandy-clay bluff overlooking the stream. A few
inches below the surface the neck bones were found, and below these
the remainder of the skeleton, with the exception of the bones of
the hands and feet. The skull being wanting, it could not be
determined whether the remains were those of an Indian or of a white
man, but in either case the sepulture was peculiarly aboriginal.
A careful exhumation and critical examination by Mr. Klingbeil
disclosed the fact that around the lower extremities of the body had
been placed a number of large stones, which revealed traces of fire,
in conjunction with charred wood, and the bones of the feet had
undoubtedly been consumed. This fact makes it appear reasonably
certain that the subject had been executed, probably as a prisoner
of war. A pit had been dug, in which he was placed erect, and a fire
kindled around him. Then he had been buried alive, or, at least, if
he did not survive the fiery ordeal, his body was imbedded in the
earth, with the exception of his head, which was left protruding
above the surface. As no trace of the cranium could be found, it
seems probable that the head had either been burned or severed from
the body and removed, or else left a prey to ravenous birds. The
skeleton, which would have measured fully six feet in height, was
undoubtedly that of a man.
Blacking the face, as is mentioned in the first account, is a custom
known to have existed among many tribes throughout the world, but in
some cases different earths and pigments are used as signs of mourning.
The natives of Guinea smear a chalky substance over their bodies as an
outward expression of grief, and it is well known that the ancient
Israelites threw ashes on their heads and garments. Placing food with
the corpse or in its mouth, and money in the hand, finds its analogue in
the custom of the ancient Romans, who, some time before interment,
placed a piece of money in the corpse’s mouth, which was thought to be
Charon’s fare for wafting the departed soul over the Infernal River.
Besides this, the corpse’s mouth was furnished with a certain cake,
composed of flour, honey, &c. This was designed to appease the fury of
Cerberus, the infernal doorkeeper, and to procure a safe and quiet
entrance. These examples are curious coincidences, if nothing more.
AERIAL SEPULTURE.
_LODGE-BURIAL._
Our attention should next be turned to sepulture above the ground,
including lodge, house, box, scaffold, tree, and canoe burial, and the
first example which may be given is that of burial in lodges, which is
by no means common. The description which follows is by Stansbury,[5.59]
and relates to the Sioux:
I put on my moccasins, and, displaying my wet shirt like a flag to
the wind, we proceeded to the lodges which had attracted our
curiosity. There were five of them pitched upon the open prairie,
and in them we found the bodies of nine Sioux laid out upon the
ground, wrapped in their robes of buffalo-skin, with their saddles,
spears, camp-kettles, and all their accoutrements piled up around
them. Some lodges contained three, others only one body, all of
which were more or less in a state of decomposition. A short
distance apart from these was one lodge which, though small, seemed
of rather superior pretensions, and was evidently pitched with great
care. It contained the body of a young Indian girl of sixteen or
eighteen years, with a countenance presenting quite an agreeable
expression: she was richly dressed in leggins of fine scarlet cloth
elaborately ornamented; a new pair of moccasins, beautifully
embroidered with porcupine quills, was on her feet, and her body was
wrapped in two superb buffalo-robes worked in like manner; she had
evidently been dead but a day or two, and to our surprise a portion
of the upper part of her person was bare, exposing the face and a
part of the breast, as if the robes in which she was wrapped had by
some means been disarranged, whereas all the other bodies were
closely covered up. It was, at the time, the opinion of our
mountaineers, that these Indians must have fallen in an encounter
with a party of Crows; but I subsequently learned that they had all
died of the cholera, and that this young girl, being considered past
recovery, had been arranged by her friends in the habiliments of the
dead, inclosed in the lodge alive, and abandoned to her fate, so
fearfully alarmed were the Indians by this to them novel and
terrible disease.
It might, perhaps, be said that this form of burial was exceptional, and
due to the dread of again using the lodges which had served as the homes
of those afflicted with the cholera, but it is thought such was not the
case, as the writer has notes of the same kind of burial among the same
tribe and of others, notably the Crows, the body of one of their chiefs
(Long Horse) being disposed of as follows:
The lodge poles inclose an oblong circle some 18 by 22 feet at the
base, converging to a point, at least 30 feet high, covered with
buffalo-hides dressed without hair except a part of the tail switch,
which floats outside like, and mingled with human scalps. The
different skins are neatly fitted and sewed together with sinew, and
all painted in seven alternate horizontal stripes of brown and
yellow, decorated with various lifelike war scenes. Over the small
entrance is a large bright cross, the upright being a large stuffed
white wolf-skin upon his war lance, and the cross-bar of bright
scarlet flannel, containing the quiver of bow and arrows, which
nearly all warriors still carry, even when armed with repeating
rifles. As the cross is not a pagan but a Christian (which Long
Horse was not either by profession or practice) emblem, it was
probably placed there by the influence of some of his white friends.
I entered, finding Long Horse buried Indian fashion, in full war
dress, paint and feathers, in a rude coffin, upon a platform about
breast high, decorated with weapons, scalps, and ornaments. A large
opening and wind-flap at the top favored ventilation, and though he
had lain there in an open coffin a full month, some of which was hot
weather, there was but little effluvia; in fact, I have seldom found
much in a burial-teepee, and when this mode of burial is thus
performed it is less repulsive than natural to suppose.
This account is furnished by Col. P. W. Norris, superintendent of
Yellowstone National Park, he having been an eye-witness of what he
relates in 1876; and although the account has been questioned, it is
admitted for the reason that this gentleman persists, after a reperusal
of his article, that the facts are correct.
General Stewart Van Vliet, U.S.A., informs the writer that among the
Sioux of Wyoming and Nebraska when a person of consequence dies a small
scaffold is erected inside his lodge and the body wrapped in skins
deposited therein. Different utensils and weapons are placed by his
side, and in front a horse is slaughtered; the lodge is then closed up.
Dr. W. J. Hoffman writes as follows regarding the burial lodges of the
Shoshones of Nevada:
The Shoshones of the upper portion of Nevada are not known to have
at any time practiced cremation. In Independence Valley, under a
deserted and demolished _wickeup_ or “brush tent,” I found the
dried-up corpse of a boy, about twelve years of age. The body had
been here for at least six weeks, according to information received,
and presented a shriveled and hideous appearance. The dryness of the
atmosphere prevented decomposition. The Indians in this region
usually leave the body when life terminates, merely throwing over it
such rubbish as may be at hand, or the remains of their primitive
shelter tents, which are mostly composed of small branches, leaves,
grass, &c.
The Shoshones living on Independence Creek and on the eastern banks
of the Owyhee River, upper portion of Nevada, did not bury their
dead at the time of my visit in 1871. Whenever the person died, his
lodge (usually constructed of poles and branches of _Salix_) was
demolished and placed in one confused mass over his remains, when
the band removed a short distance. When the illness is not too
great, or death sudden, the sick person is removed to a favorable
place, some distance from their temporary camping ground, so as to
avoid the necessity of their own removal. Coyotes, ravens, and other
carnivores soon remove all the flesh so that there remains nothing
but the bones, and even these are scattered by the wolves. The
Indians at Tuscarora, Nevada, stated that when it was possible and
that they should by chance meet the bony remains of any Shoshone,
they would bury it, but in what manner I failed to discover as the
were very reticent, and avoided giving any information regarding the
dead. One corpse was found totally dried and shrivelled, owing to
the dryness of the atmosphere in this region.
Capt. F. W. Beechey[5.60] describes a curious mode of burial among the
Esquimaux on the west coast of Alaska, which appears to be somewhat
similar to lodge burial. Figure 11, after his illustration, affords a
good idea of these burial receptacles.
Near us there was a burying ground, which in addition to what we had
already observed at Cape Espenburg furnished several examples of the
manner in which this tribe of natives dispose of their dead. In some
instances a platform was constructed of drift-wood raised about two
feet and a quarter from the ground, upon which the body was placed,
with its head to the westward and a double tent of drift-wood
erected over it, the inner one with spars about seven feet long, and
the outer one with some that were three times that length. They were
placed close together, and at first no doubt sufficiently so to
prevent the depredations of foxes and wolves, but they had yielded
at last, and all the bodies, and even the hides that covered them,
had suffered by these rapacious animals.
In these tents of the dead there were no coffins or planks, as at
Cape Espenburg, the bodies were dressed in a frock made of eider
duck skins, with one of deer skin over it, and were covered with a
sea horse hide, such as the natives use for their _baidars_.
Suspended to the poles, and on the ground near them, were several
Esquimaux implements, consisting of wooden trays, paddles, and a
tamborine, which, we were informed as well as signs could convey the
meaning of the natives, were placed there for the use of the
deceased, who, in the next world (pointing to the western sky) ate,
drank, and sang songs. Having no interpreter, this was all the
information I could obtain, but the custom of placing such
instruments around the receptacles of the dead is not unusual, and
in all probability the Esquimaux may believe that the soul has
enjoyments in the next world similar to those which constitute their
happiness in this.
The Blackfeet, Cheyennes, and Navajos also bury in lodges, and the
Indians of Bellingham Bay, according to Dr. J. F. Hammond, U.S.A., place
their dead in carved wooden sarcophagi, inclosing these with a
rectangular tent of some white material. Some of the tribes of the
northwest coast bury in houses similar to those shown in Figure 12.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Burial Houses.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Eskimo lodge burial.]
Bancroft[5.61] states that certain of the Indians of Costa Rica, when a
death occurred, deposited the body in a small hut constructed of plaited
palm reeds. In this it is preserved for three years, food being
supplied, and on each anniversary of the death it is redressed and
attended to amid certain ceremonies. The writer has been recently
informed that a similar custom prevailed in Demerara. No authentic
accounts are known of analogous modes of burial among the peoples of the
Old World, although quite frequently the dead were interred beneath the
floors of their houses, a custom which has been followed by the Mosquito
Indians of Central America and one or two of our own tribes.
_BOX-BURIAL._
Under this head may be placed those examples furnished by certain tribes
on the northwest coast who used as receptacles for the dead wonderfully
carved, large wooden chests, these being supported upon a low platform
or resting on the ground. In shape they resemble a small house with an
angular roof, and each one has an opening through which food may be
passed to the corpse.
Some of the tribes formerly living in New York used boxes much
resembling those spoken of, and the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees did
the same.
Capt. J. H. Gageby, United States Army, furnishes the following relating
to the Creeks in Indian Territory.
* * * are buried on the surface, in a box or a substitute made of
branches of trees, covered with small branches, leaves, and earth.
I have seen several of their graves, which after a few weeks had
become uncovered and the remains exposed to view. I saw in one Creek
grave (a child’s) a small sum of silver, in another (adult male)
some implements of warfare, bow and arrows. They are all interred
with the feet of the corpse to the east. In the mourning ceremonies
of the Creeks the nearer relatives smeared their hair and faces with
a composition made of grease and wood ashes, and would remain in
that condition for several days, and probably a month.
Josiah Priest[5.62] gives an account of the burial repositories of a
tribe of Pacific coast Indians living on the Talomeco River, Oregon. The
writer believes it to be entirely unreliable and gives it place as an
example of credulity shown by many writers and readers.
The corpses of the Caciques were so well embalmed that there was no
bad smell, they were deposited in large wooden coffins, well
constructed, and placed upon benches two feet from the ground. In
smaller coffins, and in baskets, the Spaniards found the clothes of
the deceased men and women, and so many pearls that they distributed
them among the officers and soldiers by handsfulls.
In Bancroft[5.63] may be found the following account of the burial boxes
of the Esquimaux.
The Eskimos do not as a rule bury their dead, but double the body up
and place it on the side in a plank box which is elevated three or
four feet from the ground and supported by four posts. The grave-box
is often covered with painted figures of birds, fishes and animals.
Sometimes it is wrapped in skins placed upon an elevated frame and
covered with planks or trunks of trees so as to protect it from wild
beasts. Upon the frame, or in the grave box are deposited the arms,
clothing, and sometimes the domestic utensils of the deceased.
Frequent mention is made by travelers of burial places where the
bodies lie exposed with their heads placed towards the north.
Frederic Whymper[5.64] describes the burial boxes of the Kalosh of that
Territory.
Their grave boxes or tombs are interesting. They contain only the
ashes of the dead. These people invariably burn the deceased. On one
of the boxes I saw a number of faces painted, long tresses of human
hair depending therefrom. Each head represented a victim of the
(happily) deceased one’s ferocity. In his day he was doubtless more
esteemed than if he had never harmed a fly. All their graves are
much ornamented with carved and painted faces and other devices.
W. H. Dall,[5.65] well known as one of the most experienced and careful
of American Ethnologic observers, describes the burial boxes of the
Innuits of Unalaklik, Innuits of Yuka, and Ingaliks of Ulukuk as
follows: Figs. 13 and 14 are after his illustrations in the volume
noted.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Innuit Grave.]
INNUIT OF UNALAKLIK.
The usual fashion is to place the body doubled up on its side in a
box of plank hewed out of spruce logs and about four feet long. This
is elevated several feet above the ground on four posts which
project above the coffin or box. The sides are often painted with
red chalk in figures of fur animals, birds, and fishes. According to
the wealth of the dead man, a number of articles which belonged to
him are attached to the coffin or strewed around it; some of them
have kyaks, bows and arrows, hunting implements, snow-shoes, or even
kettles, around the grave or fastened to it; and almost invariably
the wooden dish, or “kantág,” from which the deceased was accustomed
to eat, is hung on one of the posts.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Ingalik grave.]
INNUIT OF YUKON.
The dead are enclosed above ground in a box in the manner previously
described. The annexed sketch shows the form of the sarcophagus,
which, in this case, is ornamented with snow-shoes, a reel for
seal-lines, a fishing-rod, and a wooden dish or kantág. The latter
is found with every grave, and usually one is placed in the box with
the body. Sometimes a part of the property of the dead person is
placed in the coffin or about it; occasionally the whole is thus
disposed of. Generally the furs, possessions, and clothing (except
such as has been worn) are divided among the nearer relatives of the
dead, or remain in possession of his family if he has one; such
clothing, household utensils, and weapons as the deceased had in
daily use are almost invariably enclosed in his coffin. If there are
many deaths about the same time, or an epidemic occurs, everything
belonging to the dead is destroyed. The house in which a death
occurs is always deserted and usually destroyed. In order to avoid
this, it is not uncommon to take the sick person out of the house
and put him in a tent to die. A woman’s coffin may be known by the
kettles and other feminine utensils about it. There is no
distinction between the sexes in method of burial. On the outside of
the coffin, figures are usually drawn in red ochre. Figures of fur
animals usually indicate that the dead person was a good trapper; if
seal or deer skin, his proficiency as a hunter; representation of
parkies that he was wealthy; the manner of his death is also
occasionally indicated. For four days after a death the women in the
village do no sewing; for five days the men do not cut wood with an
axe. The relatives of the dead must not seek birds’ eggs on the
overhanging cliffs for a year, or their feet will slip from under
them and they will be dashed to pieces. No mourning is worn or
indicated, except by cutting the hair. Women sit and watch the body,
chanting a mournful refrain until he is interred. They seldom
suspect that others have brought the death about by shamánism, as
the Indians almost invariably do.
At the end of a year from the death, a festival is given, presents
are made to those who assisted in making the coffin, and the period
of mourning is over. Their grief seldom seems deep but they indulge
for a long time in wailing for the dead at intervals. I have seen
several women who refused to take a second husband, and had remained
single in spite of repeated offers for many years.
INGALIKS OF ULUKUK.
As we drew near, we heard a low, wailing chant, and Mikála, one of
my men, informed me that it was women lamenting for the dead. On
landing, I saw several Indians hewing out the box in which the dead
are placed. * * * The body lay on its side on a deer skin, the heels
were lashed to the small of the back, and the head bent forward on
the chest so that his coffin needed to be only about four feet long.
_TREE AND SCAFFOLD BURIAL._
We may now pass to what may be called aerial sepulture proper, the most
common examples of which are tree and scaffold burial, quite extensively
practiced even at the present time. From what can be learned the choice
of this mode depends greatly on the facilities present, where timber
abounds, trees being used, if absent, scaffolds being employed.
From William J. Cleveland, of the Spotted Tail Agency, Nebraska, has
been received a most interesting account of the mortuary customs of the
Brulé or Teton Sioux, who belong to the Lakotah alliance. They are
called _Sicaugu_, in the Indian tongue _Seechaugas_, or the “burned
thigh” people. The narrative is given in its entirety, not only on
account of its careful attention to details, but from its known
truthfulness of description. It relates to tree and scaffold burial.
FUNERAL CEREMONIES AND MOURNING OBSERVANCES.
Though some few of this tribe now lay their dead in rude boxes,
either burying them when implements for digging can be had, or, when
they have no means of making a grave, placing them on top of the
ground on some hill or other slight elevation, yet this is done in
imitation of the whites, and their general custom, as a people,
probably does not differ in any essential way from that of their
forefathers for many generations in the past. In disposing of the
dead, they wrap the body tightly in blankets or robes (sometimes
both) wind it all over with thongs made of the hide of some animal
and place it reclining on the back at full length, either in the
branches of some tree or on a scaffold made for the purpose. These
scaffolds are about eight feet high and made by planting four forked
sticks firmly in the ground, one at each corner and then placing
others across on top, so as to form a floor on which the body is
securely fastened. Sometimes more than one body is placed on the
same scaffold, though generally a separate one is made for each
occasion. These Indians being in all things most superstitious,
attach a kind of sacredness to these scaffolds and all the materials
used or about the dead. This superstition is in itself sufficient to
prevent any of their own people from disturbing the dead, and for
one of another nation to in any wise meddle with them is considered
an offense not too severely punished by death. The same feeling also
prevents them from ever using old scaffolds or any of the wood which
has been used about them, even for firewood, though the necessity
may be very great, for fear some evil consequences will follow. It
is also the custom, though not universally followed, when bodies
have been for two years on the scaffolds to take them down and bury
them under ground.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Dakota Scaffold Burial.]
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Offering Food to the Dead.]
All the work about winding up the dead, building the scaffold, and
placing the dead upon it is done by women only, who, after having
finished their labor, return and bring the men, to show them where
the body is placed, that they may be able to find it in future.
Valuables of all kinds, such as weapons, ornaments, pipes, &c.--in
short, whatever the deceased valued most highly while living, and
locks of hair cut from the heads of the mourners at his death, are
always bound up with the body. In case the dead was a man of
importance, or if the family could afford it, even though he were
not, one or several horses (generally, in the former case, those
which the departed thought most of) are shot and placed under the
scaffold. The idea in this is that the spirit of the horse will
accompany and be of use to his spirit in the “happy hunting
grounds,” or, as these people express it, “the spirit land.”
When an Indian dies, and in some cases even before death occurs, the
friends and relatives assemble at the lodge and begin crying over
the departed or departing one. This consists in uttering the most
heartrending, almost hideous wails and lamentations, in which all
join until exhausted. Then the mourning ceases for a time until some
one starts it again, when all join in as before and keep it up until
unable to cry longer. This is kept up until the body is removed.
This crying is done almost wholly by women, who gather in large
numbers on such occasions, and among them a few who are professional
mourners. These are generally old women and go whenever a person is
expected to die, to take the leading part in the lamentations,
knowing that they will be well paid at the distribution of goods
which follows. As soon as death takes place, the body is dressed by
the women in the best garments and blankets obtainable, new ones if
they can be afforded. The crowd gathered near continue wailing
piteously, and from time to time cut locks of hair from their own
heads with knives, and throw them on the dead body. Those who wish
to show their grief most strongly, cut themselves in various places,
generally in the legs and arms, with their knives or pieces of
flint, more commonly the latter, causing the blood to flow freely
over their persons. This custom is followed to a less degree by the
men.
A body is seldom kept longer than one day as, besides the desire to
get the dead out of sight, the fear that the disease which caused
the death will communicate itself to others of the family causes
them to hasten the disposition of it as soon as they are certain
that death has actually taken place.
Until the body is laid away the mourners eat nothing. After that is
done, connected with which there seems to be no particular ceremony,
the few women who attend to it return to the lodge and a
distribution is made among them and others, not only of the
remaining property of the deceased, but of all the possessions, even
to the lodge itself of the family to which he belonged. This custom
in some cases has been carried so far as to leave the rest of the
family not only absolutely destitute but actually naked. After
continuing in this condition for a time, they gradually reach the
common level again by receiving gifts from various sources.
The received custom requires of women, near relatives of the dead,
a strict observance of the ten days following the death, as follows:
They are to rise at a very early hour and work unusually hard all
day, joining in no feast, dance, game, or other diversion, eat but
little, and retire late, that they may be deprived of the usual
amount of sleep as of food. During this they never paint themselves,
but at various times go to the top of some hill and bewail the dead
in loud cries and lamentations for hours together. After the ten
days have expired they paint themselves again and engage in the
usual amusements of the people as before. The men are expected to
mourn and fast for one day and then go on the war-path against some
other tribe, or on some long journey alone. If he prefers, he can
mourn and fast for two or more days and remain at home. The custom
of placing food at the scaffold also prevails to some extent. If but
little is placed there it is understood to be for the spirit of the
dead, and no one is allowed to touch it. If much is provided, it is
done with the intention that those of the same sex and age as the
deceased shall meet there and consume it. If the dead be a little
girl, the young girls meet and eat what is provided; if it be a man,
then men assemble for the same purpose. The relatives never mention
the name of the dead.
“KEEPING THE GHOST.”
Still another custom, though at the present day by no means
generally followed, is still observed to some extent among them.
This is called _wanagee yuhapee_, or “keeping the ghost.” A little
of the hair from the head of the deceased being preserved is bound
up in calico and articles of value until the roll is about two feet
long and ten inches or more in diameter, when it is placed in a case
made of hide handsomely ornamented with various designs in different
colored paints. When the family is poor, however, they may
substitute for this case blue or scarlet blanket or cloth. The roll
is then swung lengthwise between two supports made of sticks, placed
thus × in front of a lodge which has been set apart for the purpose.
In this lodge are gathered presents of all kinds, which are given
out when a sufficient quantity is obtained. It is often a year and
sometimes several years before this distribution is made. During all
this time the roll containing the hair of the deceased is left
undisturbed in front of the lodge. The gifts as they are brought in
are piled in the back part of the lodge, and are not to be touched
until given out. No one but men and boys are admitted to the lodge
unless it be a wife of the deceased, who may go in if necessary very
early in the morning. The men sit inside, as they choose, to smoke,
eat, and converse. As they smoke they empty the ashes from their
pipes in the center of the lodge, and they, too, are left
undisturbed until after the distribution. When they eat, a portion
is always placed first under the roll outside for the spirit of the
deceased. No one is allowed to take this unless a large quantity is
so placed, in which case it may be eaten by any persons actually in
need of food, even though strangers to the dead. When the proper
time comes the friends of the deceased and all to whom presents are
to be given are called together to the lodge and the things are
given out by the man in charge. Generally this is some near relative
of the departed. The roll is now undone and small locks of the hair
distributed with the other presents, which ends the ceremony.
Sometimes this “keeping the ghost” is done several times, and it is
then looked upon as a repetition of the burial or putting away of
the dead. During all the time before the distribution of the hair,
the lodge, as well as the roll, is looked upon as in a manner
sacred, but after that ceremony it becomes common again and may be
used for any ordinary purpose. No relative or near friend of the
dead wishes to retain anything in his possession that belonged to
him while living, or to see, hear, or own anything which will remind
him of the departed. Indeed, the leading idea in all their burial
customs in the laying away with the dead their most valuable
possessions, the giving to others what is left of his and the family
property, the refusal to mention his name, &c., is to put out of
mind as soon and as effectual as possible the memory of the
departed.
From what has been said, however, it will be seen that they believe
each person to have a spirit which continues to live after the death
of the body. They have no idea of a future life in the body, but
believe that after death their spirits will meet and recognize the
spirits of their departed friends in the spirit land. They deem it
essential to their happiness here, however, to destroy as far as
practicable their recollection of the dead. They frequently speak of
death as a sleep, and of the dead as asleep or having gone to sleep
at such a time. These customs are gradually losing their hold upon
them, and are much less generally and strictly observed than
formerly.
Figure 15 furnishes a good example of scaffold burial. Figure 16,
offering of food and drink to the dead. Figure 17, depositing the dead
upon the scaffold.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Depositing the Corpse.]
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Tree-burial.]
A. Delano,[5.66] mentions as follows an example of tree-burial which he
noticed in Nebraska.
* * * During the afternoon we passed a Sioux burying-ground, if I
may be allowed to use an Irishism. In a hackberry tree, elevated
about twenty feet from the ground, a kind of rack was made of broken
tent poles, and the body (for there was but one) was placed upon it,
wrapped in his blanket, and a tanned buffalo skin, with his tin cup,
moccasins, and various things which he had used in life, were placed
upon his body, for his use in the land of spirits.
Figure 18 represents tree-burial, from a sketch drawn by my friend Dr.
Washington Matthews, United States Army.
John Young, Indian agent at the Blackfeet Agency, Montana, sends the
following account of tree-burial among this tribe:
Their manner of burial has always been (until recently) to inclose
the dead body in robes or blankets, the best owned by the departed,
closely sewed up, and then, if a male or chief, fasten in the
branches of a tree so high as to be beyond the reach of wolves, and
then left to slowly waste in the dry winds. If the body was that of
a squaw or child, it was thrown into the underbrush or jungle, where
it soon became the prey of the wild animals. The weapons, pipes,
&c., of men were inclosed, and the small toys of children with them.
The ceremonies were equally barbarous, the relatives cutting off,
according to the depth of their grief, one or more joints of the
fingers, divesting themselves of clothing even in the coldest
weather, and filling the air with their lamentations. All the sewing
up and burial process was conducted by the squaws, as the men would
not touch nor remain in proximity to a dead body.
The following account of scaffold burial among the Gros Ventres and
Mandans of Dakota is furnished by E. H. Alden, United States Indian
agent at Fort Berthold:
The Gros Ventres and Mandans never bury in the ground, but always on
a scaffold, made of four posts about eight feet high, on which the
box is placed, or, if no box is used, the body wrapped in red or
blue cloth if able, or, if not, a blanket of cheapest white cloth,
the tools and weapons being placed directly under the body, and
there they remain forever, no Indian ever daring to touch one of
them. It would be bad medicine to touch the dead or anything so
placed belonging to him. Should the body by any means fall to the
ground, it is never touched or replaced on the scaffold. As soon as
one dies he is immediately buried, sometimes within an hour, and the
friends begin howling and wailing as the process of interment goes
on, and continue mourning day and night around the grave, without
food sometimes three or four days. Those who mourn are always paid
for it in some way by the other friends of the deceased, and those
who mourn the longest are paid the most. They also show their grief
and affection for the dead by a fearful cutting of their own bodies,
sometimes only in part, and sometimes all over their whole flesh,
and this sometimes continues for weeks. Their hair, which is worn in
long braids, is also cut off to show their mourning. They seem proud
of their mutilations. A young man who had just buried his mother
came in boasting of, and showing his mangled legs.
According to Thomas L. McKenney,[5.67] the Chippewas of Fond du Lac,
Wis., buried on scaffolds, inclosing the corpse in a box. The narrative
is as follows:
One mode of burying the dead among the Chippewas is to place the
coffin or box containing their remains on two cross-pieces, nailed
or tied with wattap to four poles. The poles are about ten feet
high. They plant near these posts the wild hop or some other kind of
running vine, which spreads over and covers the coffin. I saw one of
these on the island, and as I have described it. It was the coffin
of a child about four years old. It was near the lodge of the sick
girl. I have a sketch of it. I asked the chief why his people
disposed of their dead in that way. He answered they did not like to
put them out of their sight so soon by putting them under ground.
Upon a platform they could see the box that contained their remains,
and that was a comfort to them.
Figure 19 is copied from McKenney’s picture of this form of burial.
Keating[5.68] thus describes burial scaffolds:
On these scaffolds, which are from eight to ten feet high, corpses
were deposited in a box made from part of a broken canoe. Some hair
was suspended, which we at first mistook for a scalp, but our guide
informed us that these were locks of hair torn from their heads by
the relatives to testify their grief. In the center, between the
four posts which supported the scaffold, a stake was planted in the
ground, it was about six feet high, and bore an imitation of human
figures, five of which had a design of a petticoat indicating them
to be females; the rest amounting to seven, were naked and were
intended for male figures; of the latter four were headless, showing
that they had been slain, the three other male figures were
unmutilated, but held a staff in their hand, which, as our guide
informed us designated that they were slaves. The post, which is an
usual accompaniment to the scaffold that supports a warrior’s
remains, does not represent the achievements of the deceased, but
those of the warriors that assembled near his remains danced the
dance of the post, and related their martial exploits. A number of
small bones of animals were observed in the vicinity, which were
probably left there after a feast celebrated in honor of the dead.
The boxes in which the corpses were placed are so short that a man
could not lie in them extended at full length, but in a country
where boxes and boards are scarce this is overlooked. After the
corpses have remained a certain time exposed, they are taken down
and burned. Our guide, Renville, related to us that he had been a
witness to an interesting, though painful, circumstance that
occurred here. An Indian who resided on the Mississippi, hearing
that his son had died at this spot, came up in a canoe to take
charge of the remains and convey them down the river to his place of
abode but on his arrival he found that the corpse had already made
such progress toward decomposition as rendered it impossible for it
to be removed. He then undertook with a few friends, to clean off
the bones. All the flesh was scraped off and thrown into the stream,
the bones were carefully collected into his canoe, and subsequently
carried down to his residence.
Interesting and valuable from the extreme attention paid to details is
the following account of a burial case discovered by Dr. George M.
Sternberg, United States Army, and furnished by Dr. George A. Otis,
United States Army, Army Medical Museum, Washington, D.C. It relates to
the Cheyennes of Kansas.
The case was found, Brevet Major Sternberg states, on the banks of
Walnut Creek, Kansas, elevated about eight feet from the ground by
four notched poles, which were firmly planted in the ground. The
unusual care manifested in the preparation of the case induced Dr.
Sternberg to infer that some important chief was inclosed in it.
Believing that articles of interest were inclosed with the body, and
that their value would be enhanced if the were received at the
Museum as left by the Indians, Dr. Sternberg determined to send the
case unopened.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Chippewa Scaffold Burial.]
I had the case opened this morning and an inventory made of the
contents. The case consisted of a cradle of interlaced branches of
white willow, about six feet long, three feet broad, and three feet
high, with a flooring of buffalo thongs arranged as a net-work. This
cradle was securely fastened by strips of buffalo-hide to four poles
of ironwood and cottonwood, about twelve feet in length. These poles
doubtless rested upon the forked extremities of the vertical poles
described by Dr. Sternberg. The cradle was wrapped in two buffalo
robes of large size and well preserved. On removing these an
aperture eighteen inches square was found at the middle of the
right-side of the cradle or basket. Within appeared other buffalo
robes folded about the remains, and secured by gaudy-colored sashes.
Five robes were successively removed, making seven in all. Then we
came to a series of new blankets folded about the remains. There
were five in all--two scarlet, two blue, and one white. These being
removed, the next wrappings consisted of a striped white and gray
sack, and of a United States Infantry overcoat, like the other
coverings nearly new. We had now come apparently upon the immediate
envelope of the remains, which it was now evident must be those of a
child. These consisted of three robes, with hoods very richly
ornamented with bead-work. These robes or cloaks were of
buffalo-calf skin about four feet in length, elaborately decorated
with bead-work in stripes. The outer was covered with rows of blue
and white bead-work, the second was green and yellow, and the third
blue and red. All were further adorned by spherical brass bells
attached all about the borders by strings of beads.
The remains with their wrappings lay upon a matting similar to that
used by the Navajo and other Indians of the southern plains, and
upon a pillow of dirty rags, in which were folded a bag of red
paint, bits of antelope skin, bunches of straps, buckles, &c. The
three bead-work hooded cloaks were now removed, and then we
successively unwrapped a gray woolen double shawl, five yards of
blue cassimere, six yards of red calico, and six yards of brown
calico, and finally disclosed the remains of a child, probably about
a year old, in an advanced stage of decomposition. The cadaver had a
beaver-cap ornamented with disks of copper containing the bones of
the cranium, which had fallen apart. About the neck were long wampum
necklaces, with _Dentalium_, _Unionidæ_, and _Auriculæ_,
interspersed with beads. There were also strings of the pieces of
_Haliotis_ from the Gulf of California, so valued by the Indians on
this side of the Rocky Mountains. The body had been elaborately
dressed for burial, the costume consisting of a red-flannel cloak,
a red tunic, and frock-leggins adorned with bead-work, yarn
stockings of red and black worsted, and deer-skin beadwork
moccasins. With the remains were numerous trinkets, a porcelain
image, a China vase, strings of beads, several toys, a pair of
mittens, a fur collar, a pouch of the skin of _Putorius vison_, &c.
Another extremely interesting account of scaffold-burial, furnished by
Dr. L. S. Turner, United States Army, Fort Peck, Mont., and relating to
the Sioux, is here given entire, as it refers to certain curious
mourning observances which have prevailed to a great extent over the
entire globe:
The Dakotas bury their dead in the tops of trees when limbs can be
found sufficiently horizontal to support scaffolding on which to lay
the body, but as such growth is not common in Dakota, the more
general practice is to lay them upon scaffolds from seven to ten
feet high and out of the reach of carnivorous animals, as the wolf.
These scaffolds are constructed upon four posts set into the ground
something after the manner of the rude drawing which I inclose. Like
all labors of a domestic kind, the preparation for burial is left to
the women, usually the old women. The work begins as soon as life is
extinct. The face, neck, and hands are thickly painted with
vermilion, or a species of red earth found in various portions of
the Territory when the vermilion of the traders cannot be had. The
clothes and personal trinkets of the deceased ornament the body.
When blankets are available, it is then wrapped in one, all parts of
the body being completely enveloped. Around this a dressed skin of
buffalo is then securely wrapped, with the flesh side out, and the
whole securely bound with thongs of skins, either raw or dressed;
and for ornament, when available, a bright-red blanket envelopes all
other coverings, and renders the general scene more picturesque
until dimmed by time and the elements. As soon as the scaffold is
ready, the body is borne by the women, followed by the female
relatives, to the place of final deposit, and left prone in its
secure wrappings upon this airy bed of death. This ceremony is
accompanied with lamentations wild and weird that one must see and
hear in order to appreciate. If the deceased be a brave, it is
customary to place upon or beneath the scaffold a few buffalo-heads
which time has rendered dry and inoffensive; and if he has been
brave in war some of his implements of battle are placed on the
scaffold or securely tied to its timbers. If the deceased has been a
chief, or a soldier related to his chief, it is not uncommon to slay
his favorite pony and place the body beneath the scaffold, under the
superstition, I suppose, that the horse goes with the man. As
illustrating the propensity to provide the dead with the things used
while living, I may mention that some years ago I loaned to an old
man a delft urinal for the use of his son, a young man who was
slowly dying of a wasting disease. I made him promise faithfully
that he would return it as soon as his son was done using it. Not
long afterwards the urinal graced the scaffold which held the
remains of the dead warrior, and as it has not to this day been
returned I presume the young man is not done using it.
The mourning customs of the Dakotas, though few of them appear to be
of universal observance, cover considerable ground. The hair, never
cut under other circumstances, is cropped off even with the neck,
and the top of the head and forehead, and sometimes nearly the whole
body, are smeared with a species of white earth resembling chalk,
moistened with water. The lodge, teepee, and all the family
possessions except the few shabby articles of apparel worn by the
mourners, are given away and the family left destitute. Thus far the
custom is universal or nearly so. The wives, mother, and sisters of
a deceased man, on the first, second, or third day after the
funeral, frequently throw off their moccasins and leggings and gash
their legs with their butcher-knives, and march through the camp and
to the place of burial with bare and bleeding extremities, while
they chant or wail their dismal songs of mourning. The men likewise
often gash themselves in many places, and usually seek the solitude
of the higher point on the distant prairie, where they remain
fasting, smoking, and wailing out their lamentations for two or
three days. A chief who had lost a brother once came to me after
three or four days of mourning in solitude almost exhausted from
hunger and bodily anguish. He had gashed the outer side of both
lower extremities at intervals of a few inches all the way from the
ankles to the top of the hips. His wounds had inflamed from
exposure, and were suppurating freely. He assured me that he had not
slept for several days or nights. I dressed his wounds with a
soothing ointment, and gave him a full dose of an effective anodyne,
after which he slept long and refreshingly, and awoke to express his
gratitude and shake my hand in a very cordial and sincere manner.
When these harsher inflictions are not resorted to, the mourners
usually repair daily for a few days to the place of burial, toward
the hour of sunset, and chant their grief until it is apparently
assuaged by its own expression. This is rarely kept up for more than
four or five days, but is occasionally resorted to, at intervals,
for weeks, or even months, according to the mood of the bereft.
I have seen few things in life so touching as the spectacle of an
old father going daily to the grave of his child, while the shadows
are lengthening, and pouring out his grief in wails that would move
a demon, until his figure melts with the gray twilight, when, silent
and solemn, he returns to his desolate family. The weird effect of
this observance is sometimes heightened, when the deceased was a
grown-up son, by the old man kindling a little fire near the head of
the scaffold, and varying his lamentations with smoking in silence.
The foregoing is drawn from my memory of personal observances during
a period of more than six years’ constant intercourse with several
subdivisions of the Dakota Indians. There may be much which memory
has failed to recall upon a brief consideration.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Scarification at Burial.]
Figure 20 represents scarification as a form of grief-expression for the
dead.
Perhaps a brief review of Dr. Turner’s narrative may not be deemed
inappropriate here.
Supplying food to the dead is a custom which is known to be of great
antiquity; in some instances, as among the ancient Romans, it appears to
have been a sacrificial offering, for it usually accompanied cremation,
and was not confined to food alone, for spices, perfumes, oil, &c., were
thrown upon the burning pile. In addition to this, articles supposed or
known to have been agreeable to the deceased were also consumed. The
Jews did the same, and in our own time the Chinese, Caribs, and many of
the tribes of North American Indians followed these customs. The cutting
of hair as a mourning observance is of very great antiquity, and Tegg
relates that among the ancients whole cities and countries were shaved
(_sic_) when a great man died. The Persians not only shaved themselves
on such occasions, but extended the same process to their domestic
animals, and Alexander, at the death of Hephæstin, not only cut off the
manes of his horses and mules, but took down the battlements from the
city walls, that even towns might seem in mourning and look bald.
Scarifying and mutilating the body has prevailed from a remote period of
time, having possibly replaced, in the process of evolution, to a
certain extent, the more barbarous practice of absolute personal
sacrifice. In later days, among our Indians, human sacrifices have taken
place to only a limited extent, but formerly many victims were
immolated, for at the funerals of the chiefs of the Florida and Carolina
Indians all the male relatives and wives were slain, for the reason,
according to Gallatin, that the hereditary dignity of Chief or Great Sun
descended, as usual, by the female line, and he, as well as all other
members of his clan, whether male or female, could marry only persons of
an inferior clan. To this day mutilation of the person among some tribes
of Indians is usual. The sacrifice of the favorite horse or horses is by
no means peculiar to our Indians, for it was common among the Romans,
and possibly even among the men of the Reindeer period, for at Solutré,
in France, the writer saw horses’ bones exhumed from the graves examined
in 1873. The writer has frequently conversed with Indians upon this
subject, and they have invariably informed him that when horses were
slain great care was taken to select the poorest of the band.
Tree-burial was not uncommon among the nations of antiquity, for the
Colchians enveloped their dead in sacks of skin and hung them to trees;
the ancient Tartars and Scythians did the same. With regard to the use
of scaffolds and trees as places of deposit for the dead, it seems
somewhat curious that the tribes who formerly occupied the eastern
portion of our continent were not in the habit of burying in this way,
which, from the abundance of timber, would have been a much easier
method than the ones in vogue, while the western tribes, living in
sparsely-wooded localities, preferred the other. If we consider that the
Indians were desirous of preserving their dead as long as possible, the
fact of their dead being placed in trees and scaffolds would lead to the
supposition that those living on the plains were well aware of the
desiccating property of the dry air of that arid region. This
desiccation would pass for a kind of mummification.
The particular part of the mourning ceremonies, which consisted in loud
cries and lamentations, may have had in early periods of time a greater
significance than that of a mere expression of grief or woe, and on this
point Bruhier[5.69] seems quite positive, his interpretation being that
such cries were intended to prevent premature burial. He gives some
interesting examples, which may be admitted here:
The Caribs lament loudly, their wailings being interspersed with
comical remarks and questions to the dead as to why he preferred to
leave this world, having everything to make life comfortable. They
place the corpse on a little seat in a ditch or grave four or five
feet deep, and for ten days they bring food, requesting the corpse
to eat. Finally, being convinced that the dead will neither eat nor
return to life, they throw the food on the head of the corpse and
fill up the grave.
When one died among the Romans, the nearest relatives embraced the body,
closed the eyes and month, and when one was about to die received the
last words and sighs, and then loudly called the name of the dead,
finally bidding an eternal adieu. This ceremony of calling the deceased
by name was known as the _conclamation_, and was a custom anterior even
to the foundation of Rome. One dying away from home was immediately
removed thither, in order that this might be performed with greater
propriety. In Picardy, as late as 1743, the relatives threw themselves
on the corpse and with loud cries called it by name, and up to 1855 the
Moravians of Pennsylvania, at the death of one of their number,
performed mournful musical airs on brass instruments from the village
church steeple and again at the grave[5.70*]. This custom, however, was
probably a remnant of the ancient funeral observances, and not to
prevent premature burial, or, perhaps, was intended to scare away bad
spirits.
W. L. Hardisty[5.71] gives a curious example of log-burial in trees,
relating to the Loucheux of British America:
They inclose the body in a neatly-hollowed piece of wood, and secure
it to two or more trees, about six feet from the ground. A log about
eight feet long is first split in two, and each of the parts
carefully hollowed out to the required size. The body is then
inclosed and the two pieces well lashed together, preparatory to
being finally secured, as before stated, to the trees.
The American Indians are by no means the only savages employing
scaffolds as places of deposit for the dead, for Wood[5.72] gives a
number of examples of this mode of burial.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Australian Scaffold Burial.]
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Preparing the Dead.]
In some parts of Australia the natives, instead of consuming the
body by fire, or hiding it in caves or in graves, make it a
peculiarly conspicuous object. Should a tree grow favorably for
their purpose, they will employ it as the final resting place for
the dead body. Lying in its canoe coffin, and so covered over with
leaves and grass that its shape is quite disguised, the body is
lifted into a convenient fork of the tree and lashed to the boughs,
by native ropes. No farther care is taken of it, and if in process
of time it should be blown out of the tree, no one will take the
trouble of replacing it.
Should no tree be growing in the selected spot, an artificial
platform is made for the body, by fixing the ends of stout branches
in the ground and connecting them at their tops by smaller
horizontal branches. Such are the curious tombs which are
represented in the illustration. * * * These strange tombs are
mostly placed among the reeds, so that nothing can be more mournful
than the sound of the wind as it shakes the reeds below the branch
in which the corpse is lying. The object of this aerial tomb is
evident enough, namely, to protect the corpse from the dingo, or
native dog. That the ravens and other carrion-eating birds should
make a banquet upon the body of the dead man does not seem to
trouble the survivors in the least, and it often happens that the
traveler is told by the croak of the disturbed ravens that the body
of a dead Australian is lying in the branches over his head.
The aerial tombs are mostly erected for the bodies of old men who
have died a natural death; but when a young warrior has fallen in
battle the body is treated in a very different manner. A moderately
high platform is erected, and upon this is seated the body of the
dead warrior with the face toward the rising sun. The legs are
crossed and the arms kept extended by means of sticks. The fat is
then removed, and after being mixed with red ochre is rubbed over
the body, which has previously been carefully denuded of hair, as is
done in the ceremony of initiation. The legs and arms are covered
with zebra-like stripes of red, white, and yellow, and the weapons
of the dead man are laid across his lap.
The body being thus arranged, fires are lighted under the platform,
and kept up for ten days or more, during the whole of which time the
friends and mourners remain by the body, and are not permitted to
speak. Sentinels relieve each other at appointed intervals, their
duty being to see that the fires are not suffered to go out, and to
keep the flies away by waving leafy boughs or bunches of emu
feathers. When a body has been treated in this manner it becomes
hard and mummy-like, and the strongest point is that the wild dogs
will not touch it after it has been so long smoked. It remains
sitting on the platform for two months or so, and is then taken down
and buried, with the exception of the skull, which is made into a
drinking-cup for the nearest relative. * * *
This mode of mummifying resembles somewhat that already described as the
process by which the Virginia kings were preserved from decomposition.
Figs. 21 and 22 represent the Australian burials described, and are
after the original engravings in Wood’s work. The one representing
scaffold-burial resembles greatly the scaffolds of our own Indians.
With regard to the use of scaffolds as places of deposit for the dead,
the following theories by Dr. W. Gardner, United States Army, are given:
If we come to inquire why the American aborigines placed the dead
bodies of their relatives and friends in trees, or upon scaffolds
resembling trees, instead of burying them in the ground, or burning
them and preserving their ashes in urns, I think we can answer the
inquiry by recollecting that most if not all the tribes of American
Indians, as well as other nations of a higher civilization, believed
that the human soul, spirit, or immortal part was of the form and
nature of a bird, and as these are essentially arboreal in their
habits, it is quite in keeping to suppose that the soul-bird would
have readier access to its former home or dwelling-place if it was
placed upon a tree or scaffold than if it was buried in the earth;
moreover, from this lofty eyrie the souls of the dead could rest
secure from the attacks of wolves or other profane beasts, and guard
like sentinels the homes and hunting-grounds of their loved ones.
This statement is given because of a corroborative note in the writer’s
possession, but he is not prepared to admit it as correct without
farther investigation.
_PARTIAL SCAFFOLD BURIAL AND OSSUARIES._
Under this heading may be placed the burials which consisted in first
depositing the bodies on scaffolds, where they were allowed to remain
for a variable length of time, after which the bones were cleaned and
deposited either in the earth or in special structures, called by
writers “bone-houses.” Roman[5.73] relates the following concerning the
Choctaws:
The following treatment of the dead is very strange. * * * As soon
as the deceased is departed, a stage is erected (as in the annexed
plate is represented) and the corpse is laid on it and covered with
a bear-skin; if he be a man of note, it is decorated, and the poles
painted red with vermillion and bear’s oil; if a child, it is put
upon stakes set across; at this stage the relations come and weep,
asking many questions of the corpse, such as, why he left them? did
not his wife serve him well? was he not contented with his children?
had he not corn enough? did not his land produce sufficient of
everything? was he afraid of his enemies? &c., and this accompanied
by loud howlings; the women will be there constantly, and sometimes,
with the corrupted air and heat of the sun, faint so as to oblige
the bystanders to carry them home; the men will also come and mourn
in the same manner, but in the night or at other unseasonable times
when they are least likely to be discovered.
The stage is fenced round with poles; it remains thus a certain
time, but not a fixed space; this is sometimes extended to three or
four months, but seldom more than half that time. A certain set of
venerable old Gentlemen, who wear very long nails as a
distinguishing badge on the thumb, fore, and middle finger of each
hand, constantly travel through the nation (when I was there I was
told there were but five of this respectable order) that one of them
may acquaint those concerned, of the expiration of this period,
which is according to their own fancy; the day being come, the
friends and relations assemble near the stage, a fire is made, and
the respectable operator, after the body is taken down, with his
nails tears the remaining flesh off the bones, and throws it with
the entrails into the fire, where it is consumed; then he scrapes
the bones and burns the scrapings likewise; the head being painted
red with vermillion is with the rest of the bones put into a neatly
made chest (which for a Chief is also made red) and deposited in the
loft of a hut built for that purpose, and called bone house; each
town has one of these; after remaining here one year or thereabouts,
if he be a man of any note, they take the chest down, and in an
assembly of relations and friends they weep once more over him,
refresh the colour of the head, paint the box, and then deposit him
to lasting oblivion.
An enemy and one who commits suicide is buried under the earth as
one to be directly forgotten and unworthy the above ceremonial
obsequies and mourning.
Jones[5.74] quotes one of the older writers, as follows, regarding the
Natchez tribe:
Among the Natchez the dead were either inhumed or placed in tombs.
These tombs were located within or very near their temples. They
rested upon four forked sticks fixed fast in the ground, and were
raised some three feet above the earth. About eight feet long and a
foot and a half wide, they were prepared for the reception of a
single corpse. After the body was placed upon it, a basket-work of
twigs was woven around and covered with mud, an opening being left
at the head, through which food was presented to the deceased. When
the flesh had all rotted away, the bones were taken out, placed in a
box made of canes, and then deposited in the temple. The common dead
were mourned and lamented for a period of three days. Those who fell
in battle were honored with a more protracted and grievous
lamentation.
Bartram[5.75] gives a somewhat different account from Roman of burial
among the Choctaws of Carolina:
The Chactaws pay their last duties and respect to the deceased in a
very different manner. As soon as a person is dead, they erect a
scaffold 18 or 20 feet high in a grove adjacent to the town, where
they lay the corps, lightly covered with a mantle; here it is
suffered to remain, visited and protected by the friends and
relations, until the flesh becomes putrid, so as easily to part from
the bones; then undertakers, who make it their business, carefully
strip the flesh from the bones, wash and cleanse them, and when dry
and purified by the air, having provided a curiously-wrought chest
or coffin, fabricated of bones and splints, they place all the bones
therein, which is deposited in the bone-house, a building erected
for that purpose in every town; and when this house is full a
general solemn funeral takes place; when the nearest kindred or
friends of the deceased, on a day appointed, repair to the
bone-house, take up the respective coffins, and, following one
another in order of seniority, the nearest relations and connections
attending their respective corps, and the multitude following after
them, all as one family, with united voice of alternate allelujah
and lamentation, slowly proceeding on to the place of general
interment, when they place the coffins in order, forming a
pyramid;[5.76*] and, lastly, cover all over with earth, which raises a
conical hill or mount; when they return to town in order of solemn
procession, concluding the day with a festival, which is called the
feast of the dead.
Morgan[5.77] also alludes to this mode of burial:
The body of the deceased was exposed upon a bark scaffolding erected
upon poles or secured upon the limbs of trees, where it was left to
waste to a skeleton. After this had been effected by the process of
decomposition in the open air, the bones were removed either to the
former house of the deceased, or to a small bark house by its side,
prepared for their reception. In this manner the skeletons of the
whole family were preserved from generation to generation by the
filial or parental affection of the living. After the lapse of a
number of years, or in a season of public insecurity, or on the eve
of abandoning a settlement, it was customary to collect these
skeletons from the whole community around and consign them to a
common resting-place.
To this custom, which is not confined to the Iroquois, is doubtless
to be ascribed the burrows and bone-mounds which have been found in
such numbers in various parts of the country. On opening these
mounds the skeletons are usually found arranged in horizontal
layers, a conical pyramid, those in each layer radiating from a
common center. In other cases they are found placed promiscuously.
Dr. D. G. Brinton[5.78] likewise gives an account of the interment of
collected bones:
East of the Mississippi nearly every nation was accustomed at stated
periods--usually once in eight or ten years--to collect and clean
the osseous remains of those of its number who had died in the
intervening time, and inter them in one common sepulcher, lined with
choice furs, and marked with a mound of wood, stone, or earth. Such
is the origin of those immense tumuli filed with the mortal remains
of nations and generations, which the antiquary, with irreverent
curiosity, so frequently chances upon in all portions of our
territory. Throughout Central America the same usage obtained in
various localities, as early writers and existing monuments
abundantly testify. Instead of interring the bones, were they those
of some distinguished chieftain, they were deposited in the temples
or the council-houses, usually in small chests of canes or splints.
Such were the charnel-houses which the historians of De Soto’s
expedition so often mention, and these are the “arks” Adair and
other authors who have sought to trace the decent of the Indians
from the Jews have likened to that which the ancient Israelites bore
with them in their migration.
A widow among the Tahkalis was obliged to carry the bones of her
deceased husband wherever she went for four years, preserving them
in such a casket, handsomely decorated with feathers (Rich. Arc.
Exp., p. 200). The Caribs of the mainland adopted the custom for
all, without exception. About a year after death the bones were
cleaned, bleached, painted, wrapped in odorous balsams, placed in a
wicker basket, and kept suspended from the door of their dwelling
(Gumilla Hist. del Orinoco I., pp. 199, 202, 204). When the quantity
of these heirlooms became burdensome they were removed to some
inaccessible cavern and stowed away with reverential care.
George Catlin[5.79] describes what he calls the “Golgothas” of the
Mandans:
There are several of these golgothas, or circles of twenty or thirty
feet in diameter, and in the center of each ring or circle is a
little mound of three feet high, on which uniformly rest two buffalo
skulls (a male and female), and in the center of the little mound is
erected “a medicine pole,” of about twenty feet high, supporting
many curious articles of mystery and superstition, which they
suppose have the power of guarding and protecting this sacred
arrangement.
Here, then, to this strange place do these people again resort to
evince their further affections for the dead, not in groans and
lamentations, however, for several years have cured the anguish, but
fond affection and endearments are here renewed, and conversations
are here held and cherished with the dead. Each one of these skulls
is placed upon a bunch of wild sage, which has been pulled and
placed under it. The wife knows, by some mark or resemblance, the
skull of her husband or her child which lies in this group, and
there seldom passes a day that she does not visit it with a dish of
the best-cooked food that her wigwam affords, which she sets before
the skull at night, and returns for the dish in the morning. As soon
as it is discovered that the sage on which the skull rests is
beginning to decay, the woman cuts a fresh bunch and places the
skull carefully upon it, removing that which was under it.
Independent of the above-named duties, which draw the women to this
spot, they visit it from inclination, and linger upon it to hold
converse and company with the dead. There is scarcely an hour in a
pleasant day but more or less of these women may be seen sitting or
lying by the skull of their child or husband, talking to it in the
most pleasant and endearing language that they can use (as they were
wont to do in former days), and seemingly getting an answer back.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Canoe Burial.]
From these accounts it may be seen that the peculiar customs which have
been described by the authors cited were not confined to any special
tribe or area of country, although they do not appear to have prevailed
among the Indians of the northwest coast, so far as known.
_SUPERTERRENE AND AERIAL BURIAL IN CANOES._
The next mode of burial to be remarked is that of deposit in canoes,
either supported on posts, on the ground, or swung from trees, and is
common only to the tribes inhabiting the northwest coast.
The first example given relates to the Chinooks of Washington Territory,
and may be found in Swan.[5.80]
In this instance old Cartumhays, and old Mahar, a celebrated doctor,
were the chief mourners, probably from being the smartest scamps
among the relatives. Their duty was to prepare the canoe for the
reception of the body. One of the largest and best the deceased had
owned was then hauled into the woods, at some distance back of the
lodge, after having been first thoroughly washed and scrubbed. Two
large square holes were then cut in the bottom, at the bow and
stern, for the twofold purpose of rendering the canoe unfit for
further use, and therefore less likely to excite the cupidity of the
whites (who are but too apt to help themselves to these depositories
for the dead), and also to allow any rain to pass off readily.
When the canoe was ready, the corpse, wrapped in blankets, was
brought out, and laid in it on mats previously spread. All the
wearing apparel was next put in beside the body, together with her
trinkets, beads, little baskets, and various trifles she had prized.
More blankets were then covered over the body, and mats smoothed
over all. Next, a small canoe, which fitted into the large one, was
placed, bottom up, over the corpse, and the whole then covered with
mats. The canoe was then raised up and placed on two parallel bars,
elevated four or five feet from the ground, and supported by being
inserted through holes mortised at the top of four stout posts
previously firmly planted in the earth. Around these holes were then
hung blankets, and all the cooking utensils of the deceased, pots,
kettles, and pans, each with a hole punched through it, and all her
crockery-ware, every piece of which was first cracked or broken, to
render it useless; and then, when all was done, they left her to
remain for one year, when the bones would be buried in a box in the
earth directly under the canoe; but that, with all its appendages,
would never be molested, but left to go to gradual decay.
They regard these canoes precisely as we regard coffins, and would
no more think of using one than we would of using our own graveyard
relics; and it is, in their view, as much of a desecration for a
white man to meddle or interfere with these, to them, sacred
mementoes, as it would be to us to have an Indian open the graves of
our relatives. Many thoughtless white men have done this, and
animosities have been thus occasioned.
Figure 23 represents this mode of burial.
From a number of other examples, the following, relating to the Twanas,
and furnished by the Rev. M. Eells, missionary to the Skokomish Agency,
Washington Territory, is selected:
The deceased was a woman about thirty or thirty-five years of age,
dead of consumption. She died in the morning, and in the afternoon I
went to the house to attend the funeral. She had then been placed in
a Hudson’s Bay Company’s box for a coffin, which was about 3½
feet long, 1½ wide, and 1½ high. She was very poor when she died,
owing to her disease, or she could not have been put in this box.
A fire was burning near by, where a large number of her things had
been consumed, and the rest was in three boxes near the coffin. Her
mother sang the mourning song, sometimes with others, and often
saying, “My daughter, my daughter, why did you die?” and similar
words. The burial did not take place until the next day, and I was
invited to go. It was an aerial burial in a canoe. The canoe was
about 25 feet long. The posts, of old Indian layered boards, were
about a foot wide. Holes were cut in those, in which boards were
placed, on which the canoe rested. One thing I noticed while this
was done which was new to me, but the significance of which I did
not learn. As fast as the holes were cut in the posts, green leaves
were gathered and placed over the holes until the posts were put in
the ground. The coffin-box and the three others containing her
things were placed in the canoe and a roof of boards made over the
central part, which was entirely covered with white cloth. The head
part and the foot part of her bedstead were then nailed on to the
posts, which front the water, and a dress nailed on each of these.
After pronouncing the benediction, all left the hull and went to the
beach except her father, mother, and brother, who remained ten or
fifteen minutes, pounding on the canoe and mourning. They then came
down and made a present to those persons who were there--a gun to
one, a blanket to each of two or three others, and a dollar and a
half to each of the rest, including myself, there being about
fifteen persons present. Three or four of them then made short
speeches, and we came home.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Twana Canoe-Burial.]
The reason why she was buried thus is said to be because she is a
prominent woman in the tribe. In about nine months it is expected
that there will be a “_pot-latch_” or distribution of money near
this place, and as each tribe shall come they will send a delegation
of two or three men, who will carry a present and leave it at the
grave; soon after that shall be done she will be buried in the
ground. Shortly after her death both her father and mother cut off
their hair as a sign of their grief.
Figure 24 is from a sketch kindly furnished by Mr. Eells, and represents
the burial mentioned in his narrative.
The Clallams and Twanas, an allied tribe, have not always followed
canoe-burial, as may be seen from the following account, also written by
Mr. Eells, who gives the reasons why the original mode of disposing of
the dead was abandoned. It is extremely interesting, and characterized
by painstaking attention to detail:
I divide this subject into five periods, varying according to time,
though they are somewhat intermingled.
(_a_) There are places where skulls and skeletons have been plowed
up or still remain in the ground and near together, in such a way as
to give good ground for the belief which is held by white residents
in the region, that formerly persons were buried in the ground and
in irregular cemeteries. I know of such places in Duce Waillops
among the Twanas, and at Dungeness and Port Angeles among the
Clallams. These graves were made so long ago that the Indians of the
present day profess to have no knowledge as to who is buried in
them, except that they believe, undoubtedly, that they are the
graves of their ancestors. I do not know that any care has ever been
exercised by any one in exhuming these skeletons so as to learn any
particulars about them. It is possible, however, that these persons
were buried according to the (_b_) or canoe method, and that time
has buried them where they now are.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Posts for Burial Canoes.]
(_b_) Formerly when a person died the body was placed in the forks
of two trees and left there. There was no particular cemetery, but
the person was generally left near the place where the death
occurred. The Skokomish Valley is said to have been full of canoes
containing persons thus buried. What their customs were while
burying, or what they placed around the dead, I am not informed but
am told that they did not take as much care then of their dead as
they do now. I am satisfied, however, that they then left some
articles around the dead. An old resident informs me that the
Clallam Indians always bury their dead in a sitting posture.
(_c_) About twenty years ago gold mines were discovered in British
Columbia, and boats being scarce in the region, unprincipled white
men took many of the canoes in which the Indian dead had been left,
emptying them of their contents. This incensed the Indians and they
changed their mode of burial somewhat by burying the dead in one
place, placing them in boxes whenever they could obtain them, by
building scaffolds for them instead of placing them in forks of
trees, and in cutting their canoes so as to render them useless,
when they were used as coffins or left by the side of the dead. The
ruins of one such graveyard now remain about two miles from this
agency. Nearly all the remains were removed a few years ago.
With this I furnish you the outlines of such graves which I have
drawn. Fig. 25 shows that at present only one pair of posts remains.
I have supplied the other pair as they evidently were.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Tent on Scaffold.]
Figure 26 is a recent grave at another place. That part which is
covered with board and cloth incloses the coffin which is on a
scaffold.
As the Indians have been more in contact with the whites they have
learned to bury in the ground, and this is the most common method at
the present time. There are cemeteries everywhere where Indians have
resided any length of time. After a person has died a coffin is made
after the cheaper kinds of American ones, the body is placed in it,
and also with it a number of articles, chiefly cloth or clothes,
though occasionally money. I lately heard of a child being buried
with a twenty-dollar gold piece in each hand and another in its
month, but I am not able to vouch for the truth of it. As a general
thing, money is too valuable with them for this purpose and there is
too much temptation for some one to rob the grave when this is left
in it.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--House-Burial.]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--House-Burial.]
(_d_) The grave is dug after the style of the whites and the coffin
then placed in it. After it has been covered it is customary though
not universal, to build some kind of an inclosure over it or around
it in the shape of a small house, shed, lodge or fence. These are
from 2 to 12 feet high, from 2 to 6 feet wide, and from 5 to 12 feet
long. Some of these are so well inclosed that it is impossible to
see within and some are quite open. Occasionally a window is placed
in the front side. Sometimes these enclosures are covered with
cloth, which is generally white, sometimes partly covered, and some
have none. Around the grave, both outside and inside of the
inclosure, various articles are placed, as guns, canoes, dishes,
pails, cloth, sheets, blankets, beads, tubs, lamps, bows, mats, and
occasionally a roughly-carved human image rudely painted. It is said
that around and in the grave of one Clallam chief, buried a few
years ago, $500 worth of such things were left. Most of these
articles are cut or broken so as to render them valueless to man and
to prevent their being stolen. Poles are also often erected, from 10
to 30 feet long, on which American flags, handkerchiefs, clothes,
and cloths of various colors are hung. A few graves have nothing of
this kind. On some graves these things are renewed every year or
two. This depends mainly on the number of relatives living and the
esteem in which they hold the deceased.
The belief exists that as the body decays spirits carry it away
particle by particle to the spirit of the deceased in the spirit
land, and also as these articles decay they are also carried away in
a similar manner. I have never known of the placing food near a
grave. Figures 27 and 28 will give you some idea of this class of
graves. Figure 27 has a paling fence 12 feet square around it.
Figure 28 is simply a frame over a grave where there is no
enclosure.
(_e_) _Civilized mode._--A few persons, of late, have fallen almost
entirely into the American custom of burying, building a simple
paling fence around it, but placing no articles around it; this is
more especially true of the Clallams.
FUNERAL CEREMONIES.
In regard to the funeral ceremonies and mourning observances of
sections (_a_) and (_b_) of the preceding subject I know nothing. In
regard to (_c_) and (_d_), they begin to mourn, more especially the
women, as soon as a person dies. Their mourning song consists
principally of the sounds represented by the three English notes mi
mi, do do, la la; those who attend the funeral are expected to bring
some articles to place in the coffin or about the grave as a token
of respect for the dead. The articles which I have seen for this
purpose have been cloth of some kind; a small piece of cloth is
returned by the mourners to the attendants as a token of
remembrance. They bury much sooner after death than white persons
do, generally as soon as they can obtain a coffin. I know of no
other native funeral ceremonies. Occasionally before being taken to
the grave, I have held Christian funeral ceremonies over them, and
these services increase from year to year. One reason which has
rendered them somewhat backward about having these funeral services
is, that they are quite superstitions about going near the dead,
fearing that the evil spirit which killed the deceased will enter
the living and kill them also. Especially are they afraid of having
children go near, being much more fearful of the effect of the evil
spirit on them than on older persons.
MOURNING OBSERVANCES.
They have no regular period, so far as I know, for mourning, but
often continue it after the burial, though I do not know that they
often visit the grave. If they feel the loss very much, sometimes
they will mourn nearly every day for several weeks; especially is
this true when they meet an old friend who has not been seen since
the funeral, or when they see an article owned by the deceased which
they have not seen for a long time. The only other thing of which I
think, which bears on this subject, is an idea they have, that
before a person dies--it may be but a short time or it may be
several months--a spirit from the spirit land comes and carries off
the spirit of the individual to that place. There are those who
profess to discover when this is done, and if by any of their
incantations they can compel that spirit to return, the person will
not die, but if they are not able, then the person will become dead
at heart and in time die, though it may not be for six months or
even twelve. You will also find a little on this subject in a
pamphlet which I wrote on the Twana Indians and which has recently
been published by the Department of the Interior, under Prof. F. V.
Hayden, United States Geologist.
George Gibbs[5.81] gives a most interesting account of the burial
ceremonies of the Indians of Oregon and Washington Territory, which is
here reproduced in its entirety, although it contains examples of other
modes of burial besides that in canoes; but to separate the narrative
would destroy the thread of the story:
The common mode of disposing of the dead among the fishing tribes
was in canoes. These were generally drawn into the woods at some
prominent point a short distance from the village, and sometimes
placed between the forks of trees or raised from the ground on
posts. Upon the Columbia River the Tsinūk had in particular two very
noted cemeteries, a high isolated bluff about three miles below the
mouth of the Cowlitz, called Mount Coffin, and one some distance
above, called Coffin Rock. The former would appear not to have been
very ancient. Mr. Broughton, one of Vancouver’s lieutenants, who
explored the river, makes mention only of _several_ canoes at this
place; and Lewis and Clarke, who noticed the mount, do not speak of
them at all, but at the time of Captain Wilkes’s expedition it is
conjectured that there were at least 3,000. A fire caused by the
carelessness of one of his party destroyed the whole, to the great
indignation of the Indians.
Captain Belcher, of the British ship Sulphur, who visited the river
in 1839, remarks: “In the year 1836 [1826] the small-pox made great
ravages, and it was followed a few years since by the ague.
Consequently Corpse Island and Coffin Mount, as well as the adjacent
shores, were studded not only with canoes, but at the period of our
visit the skulls and skeletons were strewed about in all
directions.” This method generally prevailed on the neighboring
coasts, as at Shoal Water Bay, &c. Farther up the Columbia, as at
the Cascades, a different form was adopted, which is thus described
by Captain Clarke:
“About half a mile below this house, in a very thick part of the
woods, is an ancient Indian burial-place; it consists of eight
vaults, made of pine cedar boards, closely connected, about 8 feet
square and 6 in height, the top securely covered with wide boards,
sloping a little, so as to convey off the rain. The direction of all
these is east and west, the door being on the eastern side, and
partially stopped with wide boards, decorated with rude pictures of
men and other animals. On entering we found in some of them four
dead bodies, carefully wrapped in skins, tied with cords of grass
and bark, lying on a mat in a direction east and west; the other
vaults contained only bones, which in some of them were piled to a
height of 4 feet; on the tops of the vaults and on poles attached to
them hung brass kettles and frying-pans with holes in their bottoms,
baskets, bowls, sea-shells, skins, pieces of cloth, hair bags of
trinkets, and small bones, the offerings of friendship or affection,
which have been saved by a pious veneration from the ferocity of war
or the more dangerous temptation of individual gain. The whole of
the walls as well as the door were decorated with strange figures
cut and painted on them, and besides these were several wooden
images of men, some of them so old and decayed as to have almost
lost their shape, which were all placed against the sides of the
vault. These images, as well as those in the houses we have lately
seen, do not appear to be at all the objects of adoration in this
place; they were most probably intended as resemblances of those
whose decease they indicate, and when we observe them in houses they
occupy the most conspicuous part, but are treated more like
ornaments than objects of worship. Near the vaults which are still
standing are the remains of others on the ground, completely rotted
and covered with moss; and as they are formed of the most durable
pine and cedar timber, there is every appearance that for a very
long series of years this retired spot has been the depository for
the Indians near this place.”
Another depository of this kind upon an island in the river a few
miles above gave it the name of Sepulcher Inland. The _Watlala_, a
tribe of the Upper Tsinūk, whose burial place is here described, are
now nearly extinct; but a number of the sepulchers still remain in
different states of preservation. The position of the body, as
noticed by Clarke, is, I believe, of universal observance, the head
being always placed to the west. The reason assigned to me is that
the road to the _mé-mel-ūs-illa-hee_, the country of the dead, is
toward the west, and if they place them otherwise they would be
confused. East of the Cascade Mountains the tribes whose habits are
equestrian, and who use canoes only for ferriage or transportation
purposes, bury their dead, usually heaping over them piles of
stones, either to mark the spot or to prevent the bodies from being
exhumed by the prairie wolf. Among the Yakamas we saw many of their
graves placed in conspicuous points of the basaltic walls which line
the lower valleys, and designated by a clump of poles planted over
them, from which fluttered various articles of dress. Formerly these
prairie tribes killed horses over the graves--a custom now falling
into disuse in consequence of the teachings of the whites.
Upon Puget Sound all the forms obtain in different localities. Among
the Makah of Cape Flattery the graves are covered with a sort of
box, rudely constructed of boards, and elsewhere on the Sound the
same method is adopted in some cases, while in others the bodies are
placed on elevated scaffolds. As a general thing, however, the
Indians upon the water placed the dead in canoes, while those at a
distance from it buried them. Most of the graves are surrounded with
strips of cloth, blankets, and other articles of property. Mr.
Cameron, an English gentleman residing at Esquimalt Harbor,
Vancouver Island, informed me that on his place there were graves
having at each corner a large stone, the interior space filled with
rubbish. The origin of these was unknown to the present Indians.
The distinctions of rank or wealth in all cases were very marked;
persons of no consideration and slaves being buried with very little
care or respect. Vancouver, whose attention was particularly
attracted to their methods of disposing of the dead, mentions that
at Port Discovery he saw baskets suspended to the trees containing
the skeletons of young children, and, what is not easily explained,
small square boxes, containing, apparently, food. I do not think
that any of these tribes place articles of food with the dead, nor
have I been able to learn from living Indians that they formerly
followed that practice. What he took for such I do not understand.
He also mentions seeing in the same place a cleared space recently
burned over, in which the skulls and bones of a number lay among the
ashes. The practice of burning the dead exists in parts of
California and among the Tshimsyan of Fort Simpson. It is also
pursued by the “Carriers” of New California, but no intermediate
tribes, to my knowledge, follow it. Certainly those of the Sound do
not at present.
It is clear from Vancouver’s narrative that some great epidemic had
recently passed through the country, as manifested by the quantity
of human remains uncared for and exposed at the time of his visit,
and very probably the Indians, being afraid, had buried a house, in
which the inhabitants had perished with the dead in it. This is
frequently done. They almost invariably remove from any place where
sickness has prevailed, generally destroying the house also.
At Penn Cove Mr. Whidbey, one of Vancouver’s officers, noticed
several sepulchers formed exactly like a sentry-box. Some of them
were open, and contained the skeletons of many young children tied
up in baskets. The smaller bones of adults were likewise noticed,
but not one of the limb bones was found, which gave rise to an
opinion that these, by the living inhabitants of the neighborhood,
were appropriated to useful purposes, such as pointing their arrows,
spears, or other weapons.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--Canoe Burial.]
It is hardly necessary to say that such a practice is altogether
foreign to Indian character. The bones of the adults had probably
been removed and buried elsewhere. The corpses of children are
variously disposed of; sometimes by suspending them, at others by
placing in the hollows of trees. A cemetery devoted to infants is,
however, an unusual occurrence. In cases of chiefs or men of note
much pomp was used in the accompaniments of the rite. The canoes
were of great size and value--the war or state canoes of the
deceased. Frequently one was inverted over that holding the body,
and in one instance, near Shoalwater Bay, the corpse was deposited
in a small canoe, which again was placed in a larger one and covered
with a third. Among the _Tsinūk_ and _Tsìhalis_ the _tamahno-ūs_
board of the owner was placed near him. The Puget Sound Indians do
not make these _tamahno-ūs_ boards, but they sometimes constructed
effigies of their chiefs, resembling the person as nearly as
possible, dressed in his usual costume, and wearing the articles of
which he was fond. One of these, representing the Skagit chief
Sneestum, stood very conspicuously upon a high bank on the eastern
side of Whidbey Island. The figures observed by Captain Clarke at
the Cascades were either of this description or else the carved
posts which had ornamented the interior of the houses of the
deceased, and were connected with the superstition of the
_tamahno-ūs_. The most valuable articles of property were put into
or hung up around the grave, being first carefully rendered
unserviceable, and the living family were literally stripped to do
honor to the dead. No little self-denial must have been practiced in
parting with articles so precious, but those interested frequently
had the least to say on the subject. The graves of women were
distinguished by a cap, a Kamas stick, or other implement of their
occupation, and by articles of dress.
Slaves were killed in proportion to the rank and wealth of the
deceased. In some instances they were starved to death, or even tied
to the dead body and left to perish thus horribly. At present this
practice has been almost entirely given up, but till within a very
few years it was not uncommon. A case which occurred in 1850 has
been already mentioned. Still later, in 1853, Toke, a Tsinūk chief
living at Shoalwater Bay, undertook to kill a slave girl belonging
to his daughter, who, in dying, had requested that this might be
done. The woman fled, and was found by some citizens in the woods
half starved. Her master attempted to reclaim her, but was soundly
thrashed and warned against another attempt.
It was usual in the case of chiefs to renew or repair for a
considerable length of time the materials and ornaments of the
burial-place. With the common class of persons family pride or
domestic affection was satisfied with the gathering together of the
bones after the flesh had decayed and wrapping them in a new mat.
The violation of the grave was always regarded as an offense of the
first magnitude and provoked severe revenge. Captain Belcher
remarks: “Great secrecy is observed in all their burial ceremonies,
partly from fear of Europeans, and as among themselves they will
instantly punish by death any violation of the tomb or wage war if
perpetrated by another tribe, so they are inveterate and tenaceously
bent on revenge should they discover that any act of the kind has
been perpetrated by a white man. It is on record that part of the
crew of a vessel on her return to this port (the Columbia) suffered
because a person who belonged to her (but not then in her) was known
to have taken a skull, which, from the process of flattening, had
become an object of curiosity.” He adds, however, that at the period
of his visit to the river “the skulls and skeletons were scattered
about in all directions; and as I was on most of their positions
unnoticed by the natives, I suspect the feeling does not extend much
beyond their relatives, and then only till decay has destroyed body,
goods, and chattels. The chiefs, no doubt, are watched, as their
canoes are repainted, decorated, and greater care taken by placing
them in sequestered spots.”
The motive for sacrificing or destroying property on occasion of
death will be referred to in treating of their religious ideas.
Wailing for the dead is continued for a long time, and it seems to
be rather a ceremonial performance than an act of spontaneous grief.
The duty, of course, belongs to the woman, and the early morning is
usually chosen for the purpose. They go out alone to some place a
little distant from the lodge or camp and in a loud, sobbing voice
repeat a sort of stereotyped formula; as, for instance, a mother, on
the loss of her child, “_A seahb shed-da bud-dah ah ta bud!
ad-de-dah_,” “Ah chief!” “My child dead, alas!” When in dreams they
see any of their deceased friends this lamentation is renewed.
With most of the Northwest Indians it was quite common, as mentioned by
Mr. Gibbs, to kill or bury with the dead a living slave, who, failing to
die within three days, was strangled by another slave; but the custom
has also prevailed among other tribes and peoples, in many cases the
individuals offering themselves as voluntary sacrifices. Bancroft states
that--
In Panama, Nata, and some other districts, when a cacique died,
those of his concubines that loved him enough, those that he loved
ardently and so appointed, as well as certain servants, killed
themselves and were interred with him. This they did in order that
they might wait upon him in the land of spirits.
It is well known to all readers of history to what an extreme this
revolting practice has prevailed in Mexico, South America, and Africa.
AQUATIC BURIAL.
As a confirmed rite or ceremony, this mode of disposing of the dead has
never been followed by any of our North American Indians, although
occasionally the dead have been disposed of by sinking in springs or
water-courses, by throwing into the sea, or by setting afloat in canoes.
Among the nations of antiquity the practice was not uncommon, for we are
informed that the Ichthyophagi, or fish-eaters, mentioned by Ptolemy,
living in a region bordering on the Persian Gulf, invariably committed
their dead to the sea, thus repaying the obligations they had incurred
to its inhabitants. The Lotophagians did the same, and the Hyperboreans,
with a commendable degree of forethought for the survivors, when ill or
about to die, threw themselves into the sea. The burial of Balder “the
beautiful,” it may be remembered, was in a highly decorated ship, which
was pushed down to the sea, set on fire, and committed to the waves. The
Itzas of Guatemala, living on the islands of Lake Peten, according to
Bancroft, are said to have thrown their dead into the lake for want of
room. The Indians of Nootka Sound and the Chinooks were in the habit of
thus getting rid of their dead slaves, and, according to Timberlake, the
Cherokees of Tennessee “seldom bury the dead, but throw them into the
river.”
The Alibamans, as they were called by Bossu, denied the rite of
sepulture to suicides; they were looked upon as cowards, and their
bodies thrown into a river. The Rev. J. G. Wood[5.82] states that the
Obongo or African tribe takes the body to some running stream, the
course of which has been previously diverted. A deep grave is dug in the
bed of the stream, the body placed in it, and covered over carefully.
Lastly, the stream is restored to its original course, so that all
traces of the grave are soon lost.
The Kavague also bury their common people, or wanjambo, by simply
sinking the body in some stream.
Historians inform us that Alaric was buried in a manner similar to that
employed by the Obongo, for in 410, at Cosença, a town of Calabria, the
Goths turned aside the course of the river Vasento, and having made a
grave in the midst of its bed, where its course was most rapid, they
interred their king with a prodigious amount of wealth and riches. They
then caused the river to resume its regular course, and destroyed all
persons who had been concerned in preparing this romantic grave.
A later example of water-burial is that afforded by the funeral of De
Soto. Dying in 1542, his remains were inclosed in a wooden chest well
weighted, and committed to the turbid and tumultuous waters of the
Mississippi.
After a careful search for well-authenticated instances of burial,
aquatic and semi-aquatic, among North American Indians, but two have
been found, which are here given. The first relates to the Gosh-Utes,
and is by Capt. J. H. Simpson:[5.83]
Skull Valley, which is a part of the Great Salt Lake Desert, and
which we have crossed to-day, Mr. George W. Bean, my guide over this
route last fall, says derives its name from the number of skulls
which have been found in it, and which have arisen from the custom
of the Goshute Indians burying their dead in springs, which they
sank with stones or keep down with sticks. He says he has actually
seen the Indians bury their dead in this way near the town of Provo,
where he resides.
As corroborative of this statement, Captain Simpson mentions in another
part of the volume that, arriving at a spring one evening, they were
obliged to dig out the skeleton of an Indian from the mud at the bottom
before using the water.
This peculiar mode of burial is entirely unique, so far as known, and
but from the well-known probity of the relator might well be questioned,
especially when it is remembered that in the country spoken of water is
quite scarce and Indians are careful not to pollute the streams or
springs near which they live. Conjecture seems useless to establish a
reason for this disposition of the dead, unless we are inclined to
attribute it to the natural indolence of the savage, or a desire to
poison the springs for white persons.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Mourning Cradle.]
The second example is by George Catlin,[5.84] and relates to the
Chinook:
* * * This little cradle has a strap which passes over the woman’s
forehead whilst the cradle rides on her back, and if the child dies
during its subjection to this rigid mode, its cradle becomes its
coffin, forming a little canoe, in which it lies floating on the
water in some sacred pool, where they are often in the habit of
fastening their canoes containing the dead bodies of the old and
young, or, which in often the case, elevated into the branches of
trees, where their bodies are left to decay and their bones to dry
whilst they are bandaged in many skins and curiously packed in their
canoes, with paddles to propel and ladles to bale them out, and
provisions to last and pipes to smoke as they are performing their
“long journey after death to their contemplated hunting grounds,”
which these people think is to be performed in their canoes.
Figure 30, after Catlin, is a representation of a mourning-cradle.
Figure 31 represents the sorrowing mother committing the body of her
dead child to the mercy of the elements.
LIVING SEPULCHERS.
This is a term quaintly used by the learned M. Pierre Muret to express
the devouring of the dead by birds and animals or the surviving friends
and relatives. Exposure of the dead to animals and birds has already
been mentioned, but in the absence of any positive proof, it is not
believed that the North American Indians followed the custom, although
cannibalism may have prevailed to a limited extent. It is true that a
few accounts are given by authors, but these are considered apochryphal
in character, and the one mentioned is only offered to show how
credulous were the early writers on American natives.
That such a means of disposing of the dead was not in practice is
somewhat remarkable when we take into consideration how many analogies
been found in comparing old and new world funeral observances, and the
statements made by Bruhier, Lafitau, Muret, and others, who give a
number of examples of this peculiar mode of burial.
For instance, the Tartars sometimes ate their dead, and the Massagetics,
Padæans, Derbices, and Effedens did the same, having previously
strangled the aged and mixed their flesh with mutton. Horace and
Tertullian both affirm that the Irish and ancient Britons devoured the
dead, and Lafitau remarks that certain Indians of South America did the
same, esteeming this mode of disposal more honorable and much to be
preferred than to rot and be eaten by worms.
J. G. Wood, in his work already quoted, states that the Fans of Africa
devour their dead, but this disposition is followed only for the common
people, the kings and chiefs being buried with much ceremony.
The following extract is from Lafitau:[5.85]
Dans l’Amérique Méridionale quelque Peuples décharnent les corps de
leurs Guerriers et les mangent leurs chairs, ainsi que je viens de
le dire, et après les avoir consumées, ils conservent pendant
quelque temps leurs cadavres avec respect dans leurs Cabanes, et il
portent ces squeletes dans les combats en guise d’Etendard, pour
ranimer leur courage par cette vue et inspirer de la terreur à leurs
ennemis. * * *
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Launching the Burial Cradle.]
Il est vrai qu’il y en a qui font festin des cadavres de leurs
parens; mais il est faux qu’elles les mettent à mort dans leur
vieillesse, pour avoir le plaisir de se nourrir de leur chair, et
d’en faire un repas. Quelques Nations de l’Amérique Méridionale, qui
ont encore cette coutume de manger les corps morts de leurs parens,
n’en usent ainsi que par piété, piété mal entenduë à la verité, mais
piété colorée néanmoins par quelque ombre de raison; car ils croyent
leur donner une sépulture bien plus honorable.
To the credit of our savages, this barbarous and revolting practice is
not believed to have been practiced by them.
MOURNING, SACRIFICE, FEASTS, FOOD, DANCES, SONGS, GAMES, POSTS, FIRES,
AND SUPERSTITIONS IN CONNECTION WITH BURIAL.
The above subjects are coincident with burial, and some of them,
particularly mourning, have been more or less treated of in this paper,
yet it may be of advantage to here give a few of the collected examples,
under separate heads.
_MOURNING._
One of the most carefully described scenes of mourning at the death of a
chief of the Crows is related in the life of Beckwourth,[5.86] who for
many years lived among this people, finally attaining great distinction
as a warrior.
I dispatched a herald to the village to inform them of the head
chief’s death, and then, burying him according to his directions, we
slowly proceeded homewards. My very soul sickened at the
contemplation of the scenes that would be enacted at my arrival.
When we drew in sight of the village, we found every lodge laid
prostrate. We entered amid shrieks, cries, and yells. Blood was
streaming from every conceivable part of the bodies of all who were
old enough to comprehend their loss. Hundreds of fingers were
dismembered; hair torn from the head lay in profusion about the
paths; wails and moans in every direction assailed the ear, where
unrestrained joy had a few hours before prevailed. This fearful
mourning lasted until evening of the next day. * * *
A herald having been dispatched to our other villages to acquaint
them with the death of our head chief, and request them to assemble
at the Rose Bud, in order to meet our village and devote themselves
to a general time of mourning, there met, in conformity to the
summons, over ten thousand Crows at the place indicated. Such a
scene of disorderly, vociferous mourning, no imagination can
conceive nor any pen portray. Long Hair cut off a large roll of his
hair; a thing he was never known to do before. The cutting and
hacking of human flesh exceeded all my previous experience; fingers
were dismembered as readily as twigs, and blood was poured out like
water. Many of the warriors would cut two gashes nearly the entire
length of their arm; then, separating the skin from the flesh at one
end, would grasp it in their other hand, and rip it asunder to the
shoulder. Others would carve various devices upon their breasts and
shoulders, and raise the skin in the same manner to make the scars
show to advantage after the wound was healed. Some of their
mutilations were ghastly, and my heart sickened to look at them, but
they would not appear to receive any pain from them.
It should be remembered that many of Beckwourth’s statements are to be
taken _cum grana salis_.
From I. L. Mahan, United States Indian agent for the Chippewas of Lake
Superior, Red Cliff, Wisconsin, the following detailed account of
mourning has been received:
There is probably no people that exhibit more sorrow and grief for
their dead than they. The young widow mourns the loss of her
husband; by day as by night she is heard silently sobbing; she is a
constant visitor to the place of rest; with the greatest reluctance
will she follow the raised camp. The friends and relatives of the
young mourner will incessantly devise methods to distract her mind
from the thought of her lost husband. She refuses nourishment, but
as nature is exhausted she is prevailed upon to partake of food; the
supply is scant, but on every occasion the best and largest
proportion is deposited upon the grave of her husband. In the mean
time the female relatives of the deceased have, according to custom,
submitted to her charge a parcel made up of different cloths
ornamented with bead-work and eagle’s feathers, which she is charged
to keep by her side--the place made vacant by the demise of her
husband--a reminder of her widowhood. She is therefore for a term of
twelve moons not permitted to wear any finery, neither is she
permitted to slicken up and comb her head; this to avoid attracting
attention. Once in a while a female relative of deceased,
commiserating with her grief and sorrow, will visit her and
voluntarily proceed to comb out the long-neglected and matted hair.
With a jealous eye a vigilant watch is kept over her conduct during
the term of her widowhood, yet she is allowed the privilege to
marry, any time during her widowhood, an unmarried brother or
cousin, or a person of the same _Dodem_ [_sic_] (family mark) of her
husband.
At the expiration of her term, the vows having been faithfully
performed and kept, the female relatives of deceased assemble and,
with greetings commensurate to the occasion, proceed to wash her
face, comb her hair, and attire her person with new apparel, and
otherwise demonstrating the release from her vow and restraint.
Still she has not her entire freedom. If she will still refuse to
marry a relative of the deceased and will marry another, she then
has to purchase her freedom by giving a certain amount of goods and
whatever else she might have manufactured during her widowhood in
anticipation of the future now at hand. Frequently, though, during
widowhood the vows are disregarded and an inclination to flirt and
play courtship or form an alliance of marriage outside of the
relatives of the deceased is being indulged, and when discovered the
widow is set upon by the female relatives, her slick braided hair is
shorn close up to the back of her neck, all her apparel and trinkets
are torn from her person, and a quarrel frequently results fatally
to some member of one or the other side.
Thomas L. McKenney[5.87] gives a description of the Chippewa widow which
differs slightly from the one above:
I have noticed several women here carrying with them rolls of
clothing. On inquiring what these imported, I learn that they _are
widows_ who carry them, and that these are badges of mourning. It is
indispensable, when a woman of the Chippeway Nation loses her
husband, for her to take of her best apparel--and the whole of it is
not worth a dollar--and roll it up, and confine it by means of her
husband’s sashes; and if he had ornaments, these are generally put
on the top of the roll, and around it is wrapped a piece of cloth.
This bundle is called her husband, and it is expected that she is
never to be seen without it. If she walks out she takes it with her;
if she sits down in her lodge, she places it by her side. This badge
of widowhood and of mourning the widow is compelled to carry with
her until some of her late husband’s family shall call and take it
away, which is done when they think she has mourned long enough, and
which is generally at the expiration of a year. She is then, but not
before, released from her mourning, and at liberty to marry again.
She has the privilege to take this husband to the family of the
deceased and leave it, but this is considered indecorous, and is
seldom done. Sometimes a brother of the deceased takes the widow for
his wife at the grave of her husband, which is done by a ceremony of
walking her over it. And this he has a right to do; and when this is
done she is not required to go into mourning; or, if she chooses,
she has the right _to go to him_, and he is _bound_ to support her.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Chippewa Widow.]
I visited a lodge to-day, where I saw one of these badges. The size
varies according to the quantity of clothing which the widow may
happen to have. It is expected of her to put up her _best_ and wear
her _worst_. The “_husband_” I saw just now was 30 inches high and
18 inches in circumference.
I was told by the interpreter that he knew a woman who had been left
to mourn after this fashion for years, none of her husband’s family
calling for the badge or token of her grief. At a certain time it
was told her that some of her husband’s family were passing, and she
was advised to speak to them on the subject. She did so, and told
them she had mourned long and was poor; that she had no means to buy
clothes, and her’s being all in the mourning badge, and sacred,
could not be touched. She expressed a hope that her request might
not be interpreted into a wish to marry; it was only made that she
might be placed in a situation to get some clothes. She got for
answer, that “they were going to Mackinac, and would think of it.”
They left her in this state of uncertainty, but on returning, and
finding her faithful still, they took her “husband” and presented
her with clothing of various kinds. Thus was she rewarded for her
constancy and made comfortable.
The Choctaw widows mourn by never combing their hair for the term of
their grief, which is generally about a year. The Chippeway men
mourn by painting their faces black.
I omitted to mention that when presents are going round, the badge
of mourning, this “_husband_” comes in for an equal share, as if it
were the living husband.
A Chippeway mother, on losing her child, prepares an image of it in
the best manner she is able, and dresses it as she did her living
child, and fixes it in the kind of cradle I have referred to, and
goes through the ceremonies of nursing it as if it were alive, by
dropping little particles of food in the direction of its mouth, and
giving it of whatever the living child partook. This ceremony also
is generally observed for a year.
Figure 32 represents the Chippewa widow holding in her arms the
substitute for the dead husband.
The substitution of a reminder for the dead husband, made from rags,
furs, and other articles, is not confined alone to the Chippewas, other
tribes having the same custom. In some instances the widows are obliged
to carry around with them, for a variable period, a bundle containing
the bones of the deceased consort.
Similar observances, according to Bancroft,[5.88] were followed by some
of the Central American tribes of Indians, those of the Sambos and
Mosquitos being as follows:
The widow was bound to supply the grave of her husband for a year,
after which she took up the bones and carried them with her for
another year, at last placing them upon the roof of her house, and
then only was she allowed to marry again.
On returning from the grave the property of the deceased is
destroyed, the cocoa palms being cut down, and all who have taken
part in the funeral undergo a lustration in the river. Relatives cut
off the hair, the men leaving a ridge along the middle from the nape
of the neck to the forehead. Widows, according to some old writers,
after supplying the grave with food for a year take up the bones and
carry them on the back in the daytime, sleeping with them at night
for another year, after which they are placed at the door or upon
the house-top. On the anniversary of deaths, friends of the deceased
hold a feast, called _seekroe_, at which large quantities of liquor
are drained to his memory. Squier, who witnessed the ceremonies on
an occasion of this kind, says that males and females were dressed
in _ule_ cloaks fantastically painted black and white, while their
faces were correspondingly streaked with red and yellow, and they
performed a slow walk around, prostrating themselves at intervals
and calling loudly upon the dead and tearing the ground with their
hands. At no other time is the departed referred to, the very
mention of his name being superstitiously avoided. Some tribes
extend a thread from the house of death to the grave, carrying it in
a straight line over every obstacle. Fröebel states that among the
Woolwas all property of the deceased is buried with him, and that
both husband and wife cut the hair and burn the hut on the death of
either, placing a gruel of maize upon the grave for a certain time.
Benson[5.89] gives the following account of the Choctaws’ funeral
ceremonies, embracing the disposition of the body, mourning feast and
dance:
Their funeral is styled by them “the last cry.”
When the husband dies the friends assemble, prepare the grave, and
place the corpse in it, but do not fill it up. The gun, bow and
arrows, hatchet, and knife are deposited in the grave. Poles are
planted at the head and the foot, upon which flags are placed; the
grave is then inclosed by pickets driven in the ground. The funeral
ceremonies now begin, the widow being the chief mourner. At night
and morning she will go to the grave and pour forth the most piteous
cries and wailings. It is not important that any other member of the
family should take any very active part in the “cry,” though they do
participate to some extent.
The widow wholly neglects her toilet, while she daily goes to the
grave during one entire moon from the date when the death occurred.
On the evening of the last day of the moon the friends all assemble
at the cabin of the disconsolate widow, bringing provisions for a
sumptuous feast, which consists of corn and jerked beef boiled
together in a kettle. While the supper is preparing the bereaved
wife goes to the grave and pours out, with unusual vehemence, her
bitter wailings and lamentations. When the food is thoroughly cooked
the kettle is taken from the fire and placed in the center of the
cabin, and the friends gather around it, passing the buffalo-horn
spoon from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth till all have been
bountifully supplied. While supper is being served, two of the
oldest men of the company quietly withdraw and go to the grave and
fill it up, taking down the flags. All then join in a dance, which
not unfrequently is continued till morning; the widow does not fail
to unite in the dance, and to contribute her part to the festivities
of the occasion. This is the “_last cry_,” the days of mourning are
ended, and the widow is now ready to form another matrimonial
alliance. The ceremonies are precisely the same when a man has lost
his wife, and they are only slightly varied when any other member of
the family has died. (Slaves were buried without ceremonies.)
_SACRIFICE._
Some examples of human sacrifice have already been given in connection
with another subject, but it is thought others might prove interesting.
The first relates to the Natchez of Louisiana.[5.90]
When their sovereign died he was accompanied in the grave by his
wives and by several of his subjects. The lesser Suns took care to
follow the same custom. The law likewise condemned every Natchez to
death who had married a girl of the blood of the Suns as soon as she
was expired. On this occasion I must tell you the history of an
Indian who was noways willing to submit to this law. His name was
_Elteacteal_; he contracted an alliance with the Suns, but the
consequences which this honor brought along with it had like to have
proved very unfortunate to him. His wife fell sick; as soon as he
saw her at the point of death he fled, embarked in a piragua on the
_Mississippi_, and came to New Orleans. He put himself under the
protection of M. de Bienville, the then governor, and offered to be
his huntsman. The governor accepted his services, and interested
himself for him with the Natchez, who declared that he had nothing
more to fear, because the ceremony was past, and he was accordingly
no longer a lawful prize.
_Elteacteal_, being thus assured, ventured to return to his nation,
and, without settling among them, he made several voyages thither.
He happened to be there when the Sun called the _Stung Serpent_,
brother to the Great Sun, died. He was a relative of the late wife
of _Elteacteal_, and they resolved to make him pay his debt. M. de
Bienville had been recalled to France, and the sovereign of the
Natchez thought that the protector’s absence had annulled the
reprieve granted to the protected person, and accordingly he caused
him to be arrested. As soon as the poor fellow found himself in the
hut of the grand chief of war, together with the other victims
destined to be sacrificed to the _Stung Serpent_, he gave vent to
the excess of his grief. The favorite wife of the late Son, who was
likewise to be sacrificed, and who saw the preparations for her
death with firmness, and seemed impatient to rejoin her husband,
hearing _Elteacteal’s_ complaints and groans, said to him: “Art thou
no warrior?” He answered, “Yes: I am one.” “However,” said she,
“thou cryest; life is dear to thee, and as that is the case, it is
not good that thou shouldst go along with us; go with the women.”
_Elteacteal_ replied: “True; life is dear to me. It would be well if
I walked yet on earth till to the death of the Great Sun, and I
would die with him.” “Go thy way,” said the favorite, “it is not fit
thou shouldst go with us, and that thy heart should remain behind on
earth. Once more, get away, and let me see thee no more.”
_Elteacteal_ did not stay to hear this order repeated to him; he
disappeared like lightning; three old women, two of which were his
relatives, offered to pay his debt; their age and their infirmities
had disgusted them of life; none of them had been able to use their
legs for a great while. The hair of the two that were related to
_Elteacteal_ was no more gray than those of women of fifty-five
years in France. The other old woman was a hundred and twenty years
old, and had very white hair, which is a very uncommon thing among
the Indians. None of the three had a quite wrinkled skin. They were
dispatched in the evening, one at the door of the _Stung Serpent_,
and the other two upon the place before the temple. * * * A cord is
fastened round their necks with a slip-knot, and eight men of their
relations strangle them by drawing, four one way and four the other.
So many are not necessary, but as they acquire nobility by such
executions, there are always more than are wanting, and the
operation is performed in an instant. The generosity of these women
gave _Elteacteal_ life again, acquired him the degree of
_considered_, and cleared his honor, which he had sullied by fearing
death. He remained quiet after that time, and taking advantage of
what he had learned during his stay among the French, he became a
juggler and made use of his knowledge to impose upon his countrymen.
The morning after this execution they made everything ready for the
convoy, and the hour being come, the great master of the ceremonies
appeared at the door of the hut, adorned suitably to his quality.
The victims who were to accompany the deceased prince into the
mansion of the spirits came forth; they consisted of the favorite
wife of the deceased, of his second wife, his chancellor, his
physician, his hired man, that is, his first servant, and of some
old women.
The favorite went to the Great Sun, with whom there were several
Frenchmen, to take leave of him; she gave orders for the Suns of
both sexes that were her children to appear, and spoke to the
following effect:
“Children, this is the day on which I am to tear myself from you
(_sic_) arms and to follow your father’s steps, who waits for me in
the country of the spirits; if I were to yield to your tears I would
injure my love and fail in my duty. I have done enough for you by
bearing you next to my heart, and by suckling you with my breasts.
You that are descended of his blood and fed by my milk, ought you to
shed tears? Rejoice rather that you are _Suns_ and warriors; you are
bound to give examples of firmness and valor to the whole nation:
go, my children, I have provided for all your wants, by procuring
you friends; my friends and those of your father are yours too;
I leave you amidst them; they are the French; they are
tender-hearted and generous; make yourselves worthy of their esteem
by not degenerating from your race; always act openly with them and
never implore them with meanness.
“And you, Frenchmen,” added she, turning herself towards our
officers, “I recommend my orphan children to you; they will know no
other fathers than you; you ought to protect them.”
After that she got up; and, followed by her troop, returned to her
husband’s hut with a surprising firmness.
A noble woman came to join herself to the number of victims of her
own accord, being engaged by the friendship she bore the _Stung
Serpent_ to follow him into the other world. The Europeans called
her the _haughty_ lady, on account of her majestic deportment and
her proud air, and because she only frequented the company of the
most distinguished Frenchmen. They regretted her much, because she
had the knowledge of several simples with which she had saved the
lives of many of our sick. This moving sight filled our people with
grief and horror. The favorite wife of the deceased rose up and
spoke to them with a smiling countenance: “I die without fear;” said
she, “grief does not embitter my last hours. I recommend my children
to you; whenever you see them, noble Frenchmen, remember that you
have loved their father, and that he was till death a true and
sincere friend of your nation, whom he loved more than himself. The
disposer of life has been pleased to call him, and I shall soon go
and join him; I shall tell him that I have seen your hearts moved at
the sight of his corps; do not be grieved; we shall be longer
friends in the _country of the spirits_ than here, because we do not
die there again.”[5.91*]
These words forced tears from the eyes of all the French; they were
obliged to do all they could to prevent the Great Sun from killing
himself, for he was inconsolable at the death of his brother, upon
whom he was used to lay the weight of government, he being great
chief of war of the Natches, _i.e._ generalissimo of their armies;
that prince grew furious by the resistance he met with; he held his
gun by the barrel, and the Sun, his presumptive heir, held it by the
lock, and caused the powder to fall out of the pan; the hut was full
of Suns, Nobles, and Honorables[5.92*] but the French raised their
spirits again, by hiding all the arms belonging to the sovereign,
and filling the barrel of his gun with water, that it might be unfit
for use for some time.
As soon as the Suns saw their sovereign’s life in safety, they
thanked the French, by squeezing their hands, but without speaking;
a most profound silence reigned throughout, for grief and awe kept
in bounds the multitude that were present.
The wife of the Great Sun was seized with fear during this
transaction. She was asked whether she was ill, and she answered
aloud, “Yes, I am”; and added with a lower voice, “If the Frenchmen
go out of this hut, my husband dies and all the Natches will die
with him; stay, then, brave Frenchmen, because your words are as
powerful as arrows; besides, who could have ventured to do what you
have done? But you are his true friends and those of his brother.”
Their laws obliged the Great Sun’s wife to follow her husband in the
grave; this was doubtless the cause of her fears; and likewise the
gratitude towards the French, who interested themselves in behalf of
his life, prompted her to speak in the above-mentioned manner.
The Great Sun gave his hand to the officers, and said to them: “My
friends, my heart is so overpowered with grief that, though my eyes
were open, I have not taken notice that you have been standing all
this while, nor have I asked you to sit down; but pardon the excess
of my affliction.”
The Frenchmen told him that he had no need of excuses; that they
were going to leave him alone, but that they would cease to be his
friends unless he gave orders to light the fires again,[5.93*]
lighting his own before them; and that they should not leave him
till his brother was buried.
He took all the Frenchmen by the hands, and said: “Since all the
chiefs and noble officers will have me stay on earth, I will do it;
I will not kill myself; let the fires be lighted again immediately,
and I’ll wait till death joins me to my brother; I am already old,
and till I die I shall walk with the French; had it not been for
them I should have gone with my brother, and all the roads would
have been covered with dead bodies.”
Improbable as this account may appear, it has nevertheless been credited
by some of the wisest and most careful of ethnological writers, and its
seeming appearance of romance disappears when the remembrance of similar
ceremonies among Old World peoples comes to our minds.
An apparently well-authenticated case of attempted burial sacrifice is
described by Miss A. J. Allen,[5.94] and refers to the Wascopums, of
Oregon.
At length, by meaning looks and gestures rather than words, it was
found that the chief had determined that the deceased boy’s friend,
who had been his companion in hunting the rabbit, snaring the
pheasant, and fishing in the streams, was to be his companion to the
spirit land; his son should not be deprived of his associate in the
strange world to which he had gone; that associate should perish by
the hand of his father, and be conveyed with him to the dead-house.
This receptacle was built on a long, black rock in the center of the
Columbia River, around which, being so near the falls, the current
was amazingly rapid. It was thirty feet in length, and perhaps half
that in breadth, completely enclosed and sodded except at one end,
where was a narrow aperture just sufficient to carry a corpse
through. The council overruled, and little George, instead of being
slain, was conveyed living to the dead-house about sunset. The dead
were piled on each side, leaving a narrow aisle between, and on one
of these was placed the deceased boy; and, bound tightly till the
purple, quivering flesh puffed above the strong bark cords, that he
might die very soon, the living was placed by his side, his face to
his till the very lips met, and extending along limb to limb and
foot to foot, and nestled down into his couch of rottenness, to
impede his breathing as far as possible and smother his cries.
Bancroft[5.95] states that--
The slaves sacrificed at the graves by the Aztecs and Tarascos were
selected from various trades and professions, and took with them the
most cherished articles of the master and the implements of their
trade wherewith to supply his wants--
while among certain of the Central American tribe death was voluntary,
wives, attendants, slaves, friends, and relations sacrificing themselves
by means of a vegetable poison.
To the mind of a savage man unimpressed with the idea that self-murder
is forbidden by law or custom, there can seem no reason why, if he so
wills, he should not follow his beloved chief, master, or friend to the
“happy other world;” and when this is remembered we need not feel
astonished as we read of accounts in which scores of self immolations
are related. It is quite likely that among our own people similar
customs might be followed did not the law and society frown down such
proceedings. In fact the daily prints occasionally inform us,
notwithstanding the restraints mentioned, that sacrifices do take place
on the occasion of the death of a beloved one.
_FEASTS._
In Beltrami[5.96] an account is given of the funeral ceremonies of one
of the tribes of the west, including a description of the feast which
took place before the body was consigned to its final resting-place:
I was a spectator of the funeral ceremony performed in honor of the
manes of _Cloudy Weather’s_ son-in-law, whose body had remained with
the Sioux, and was suspected to have furnished one of their repasts.
What appeared not a little singular and indeed ludicrous in this
funeral comedy was the contrast exhibited by the terrific
lamentations and yells of one part of the company while the others
were singing and dancing with all their might.
At another funeral ceremony for a member of the _Grand Medicine_,
and at which as _a man of another world_ I was permitted to attend,
the same practice occurred. But at the feast which took place on
that occasion an allowance was served up for the deceased out of
every article of which it consisted, while others were beating,
wounding, and torturing themselves, and letting their blood flow
both over the dead man and his provisions, thinking possibly that
this was the most palatable seasoning for the latter which they
could possibly supply. His wife furnished out an entertainment
present for him of all her hair and rags, with which, together with
his arms, his provisions, his ornaments, and his mystic medicine
bag, he was wrapped up in the skin which had been his last covering
when alive. He was then tied round with the bark of some particular
trees which they use for making cords, and bonds of a very firm
texture and hold (the only ones indeed which they have), and instead
of being buried in the earth was hung up to a large oak. The reason
of this was that, as his favorite Manitou was the eagle, his spirit
would be enabled more easily from such a situation to fly with him
to Paradise.
Hind[5.97] mentions an account of a burial feast by De Brebeuf which
occurred among the Hurons of New York:
The Jesuit missionary, P. de Brebeuf, who assisted at one of the
“feasts of the dead” at the village of Ossosane, before the
dispersion of the Hurons, relates that the ceremony took place in
the presence of 2,000 Indians, who offered 1,300 presents at the
common tomb, in testimony of their grief. The people belonging to
five large villages deposited the bones of their dead in a gigantic
shroud, composed of forty-eight robes, each robe being made of ten
beaver skins. After being carefully wrapped in this shroud, they
were placed between moss and bark. A wall of stones was built around
this vast ossuary to preserve it from profanation. Before covering
the bones with earth a few grains of Indian corn were thrown by the
women upon the sacred relics. According to the superstitious belief
of the Hurons the souls of the dead remain near the bodies until the
“feast of the dead”; after which ceremony they become free, and can
at once depart for the land of spirits, which they believe to be
situated in the regions of the setting sun.
Ossuaries have not been used by savage nations alone, for the custom of
exhuming the bones of the dead after a certain period, and collecting
them in suitable receptacles, is well known to have been practiced in
Italy, Switzerland, and France. The writer saw in the church-yard of
Zug, Switzerland, in 1857, a slatted pen containing the remains of
hundreds of individuals. These had been dug up from the grave-yard and
preserved in the manner indicated. The catacombs of Naples and Paris
afford examples of burial ossuaries.
_SUPERSTITION REGARDING BURIAL FEASTS._
The following account is by Dr. S. G. Wright, acting physician to the
Leech Lake Agency, Minnesota:--
Pagan Indians or those who have not become Christians still adhere
to the ancient practice of feasting at the grave of departed
friends; the object is to feast with the departed; that is, they
believe that while they partake of the visible material the departed
spirit partakes at the same time of the spirit that dwells in the
food. From ancient time it was customary to bury with the dead
various articles, such especially as were most valued in lifetime.
The idea was that there was a spirit dwelling in the article
represented by the material article; thus the war-club contained a
spiritual war-club, the pipe a spiritual pipe, which could be used
by the departed in another world. These several spiritual implements
were supposed, of course, to accompany the soul, to be used also on
the way to its final abode. This habit has now ceased.
_FOOD._
This subject has been sufficiently mentioned elsewhere in connection
with other matters and does not need to be now repeated. It has been an
almost universal custom throughout the whole extent of the country to
place food in or near the grave of deceased persons.
_DANCES._
Gymnastic exercises, dignified with this name, upon the occasion of a
death or funeral, were common to many tribes. It is thus described by
Morgan:[5.98]
An occasional and very singular figure was called the “dance for the
dead.” It was known as the _O-hé-wä._ It was danced by the women
alone. The music was entirely vocal, a select band of singers being
stationed in the center of the room. To the songs for the dead which
they sang the dancers joined in chorus. It was plaintive and
mournful music. This dance was usually separate from all councils
and the only dance of the occasion. It was commenced at dusk or soon
after and continued until towards morning, when the shades of the
dead who were believed to be present and participate in the dance
were supposed to disappear. The dance was had whenever a family
which had lost a member called for it, which was usually a year
after the event. In the spring and fall it was often given for all
the dead indiscriminately, who were believed then to revisit the
earth and join in the dance.
The interesting account which now follows is by Stephen Powers[5.99] and
relates to the Yo-kaí-a of California, containing other matters of
importance pertaining to burial:
I paid a visit to their camp four miles below Ukiah, and finding
there a unique kind of assembly-house, desired to enter and examine
it, but was not allowed to do so until I had gained the confidence
of the old sexton by a few friendly words and the tender of a silver
half dollar. The pit of it was about 50 feet in diameter and 4 or 5
feet deep, and it was so heavily roofed with earth that the interior
was damp and somber as a tomb. It looked like a low tumulus, and was
provided with a tunnel-like entrance about 10 feet long and 4 feet
high, and leading down to a level with the floor of the pit. The
mouth of the tunnel was closed with brush, and the venerable sexton
would not remove it until he had slowly and devoutly paced several
times to and fro before the entrance.
Passing in I found the massive roof supported by a number of peeled
poles painted white and ringed with black and ornamented with rude
devices. The floor was covered thick and green with sprouting wheat,
which had been scattered to feed the spirit of the captain of the
tribe, lately deceased. Not long afterwards a deputation of the
Senèl come up to condole with the Yo-kaí-a on the loss of their
chief, and a dance or series of dances was held which lasted three
days. During this time of course the Senèl were the guests of the
Yo-kaí-a, and the latter were subjected to a considerable expense.
I was prevented by other engagements from being present, and shall
be obliged to depend on the description of an eye-witness, Mr. John
Tenney, whose account is here given with a few changes:
There are four officials connected with the building, who are
probably chosen to preserve order and to allow no intruders. They
are the assistants of the chief. The invitation to attend was from
one of them, and admission was given by the same. These four wore
black vests trimmed with red flannel and shell ornaments. The chief
made no special display on the occasion. In addition to these four,
who were officers of the assembly-chamber, there were an old man and
a young woman, who seemed to be priest and priestess. The young
woman was dressed differently from any other, the rest dressing in
plain calico dresses. Her dress was white covered with spots of red
flannel, cut in neat figure, ornamented with shells. It looked
gorgeous and denoted some office, the name of which I could not
ascertain. Before the visitors were ready to enter, the older men of
the tribe were reclining around the fire smoking and chatting. As
the ceremonies were about to commence, the old man and young woman
were summoned, and, standing at the end opposite the entrance, they
inaugurated the exercises by a brief service, which seemed to be a
dedication of the house to the exercises about to commence. Each of
them spoke a few words, joined in a brief chant, and the house was
thrown open for their visitors. They staid at their post until the
visitors entered and were seated on one side of the room. After the
visitors then others were seated, making about 200 in all, though
there was plenty of room in the center for the dancing.
Before the dance commented the chief of the visiting tribe made a
brief speech in which he no doubt referred to the death of the chief
of the Yo-kaí-a, and offered the sympathy of his tribe in this loss.
As he spoke, some of the women scarcely refrained from crying out,
and with difficulty they suppressed their sobs. I presume that he
proposed a few moments of mourning, for when he stopped the whole
assemblage burst forth into a bitter wailing, some screaming as if
in agony. The whole thing created such a din that I was compelled to
stop my ears. The air was rent and pierced with their cries. This
wailing and shedding of tears lasted about three or five minutes,
though it seemed to last a half hour. At a given signal they ceased,
wiped their eyes, and quieted down.
Then preparations were made for the dance. One end of the room was
set aside for the dressing-room. The chief actors wens five men, who
were muscular and agile. They were profusely decorated with paint
and feathers, while white and dark stripes covered their bodies.
They were girt about the middle with cloth of bright colors,
sometimes with variegated shawls. A feather mantle hung from the
shoulder, reaching below the knee; strings of shells ornamented the
neck, while their heads were covered with a crown of eagle feathers.
They had whistles in their months as they danced, swaying their
heads, bending and whirling their bodies; every muscle seemed to be
exercised, and the feather ornaments quivered with light. They were
agile and graceful as they bounded about in the sinuous course of
the dance.
The five men were assisted by a semicircle of twenty women, who only
marked time by stepping up and down with short step. They always
took their places first and disappeared first, the men making their
exit gracefully one by one. The dresses of the women were suitable
for the occasion. They were white dresses, trimmed heavily with
black velvet. The stripes were about three inches wide, some plain
and others edged like saw teeth. This was an indication of their
mourning for the dead chief, in whose honor they had prepared that
style of dancing. Strings of haliotis and pachydesma shell beads
encircled their necks, and around their waists were belts heavily
loaded with the same material. Their head-dresses were more showy
than those of the men. The head was encircled with a bandeau of
otters’ or beavers’ fur, to which were attached short wires standing
out in all directions, with glass or shell beads strung on them, and
at the tips little feather flags and quail plumes. Surmounting all
was a pyramidal plume of feathers, black, gray, and scarlet, the top
generally being a bright scarlet bunch, waving and tossing very
beautifully. All these combined gave their heads a very brilliant
and spangled appearance.
The first day the dance was slow and funereal, in honor of the
Yo-kaí-a chief who died a short time before. The music was mournful
and simple, being a monotonous chant in which only two tones were
used, accompanied with a rattling of split sticks and stamping on a
hollow slab. The second day the dance was more lively on the part of
the men, the music was better, employing airs which had a greater
range of tune, and the women generally joined in the chorus. The
dress of the women was not so beautiful, as they appeared in
ordinary calico. The third day, if observed in accordance with
Indian custom, the dancing was still more lively and the proceedings
more gay, just as the coming home from a Christian funeral is apt to
be much more jolly than the going out.
A Yo-kaí-a widow’s style of mourning is peculiar. In addition to the
usual evidences of grief, she mingles the ashes of her dead husband
with pitch, making a white tar or unguent, with which she smears a
band about two inches wide all around the edge of the hair (which is
previously cut off close to the head), so that at a little distance
she appears to be wearing a white chaplet.
It is their custom to “feed the spirits of the dead” for the space
of one year by going daily to places which they were accustomed to
frequent while living, where they sprinkle pinole upon the ground.
A Yo-kaí-a mother who has lost her babe goes every day for a year to
some place where her little one played when alive, or to the spot
where the body was burned, and milks her breasts into the air. This
is accompanied by plaintive mourning and weeping and piteous calling
upon her little one to return, and sometimes she sings a hoarse and
melancholy chant, and dances with a wild static swaying of the body.
_SONGS._
It has nearly always been customary to sing songs at not only funerals,
but for varying periods of time afterwards, although these chants may no
doubt occasionally have been simply wailing or mournful ejaculation.
A writer[5.100] mentions it as follows:
At almost all funerals there is an irregular crying kind of singing,
with no accompaniments, but generally all do not sing the same
melody at the same time in unison. Several may sing the same song
and at the same time, but each begins and finishes when he or she
may wish. Often for weeks, or even months, after the decease of a
dear friend, a living one, usually a woman, will sit by her house
and sing or cry by the hour, and they also sing for a short time
when they visit the grave or meet an esteemed friend whom they have
not seen since the decease. At the funeral both men and women sing.
No. 11 I have heard more frequently some time after the funeral, and
No. 12 at the time of the funeral, by the Twanas. (For song see
p. 251 of the magazine quoted.) The words are simply an exclamation
of grief, as our word “alas,” but they also have other words which
they use, and sometimes they use merely the syllable _la_. Often the
notes are sung in this order, and sometimes not, but in some order
the notes _do_ and _la_, and occasionally _mi_, are sung.
Some pages back will be found a reference, and the words of a peculiar
death dirge sung by the Senèl of California, as related by Mr. Powers.
It is as follows:
Hel-lel-li-ly,
Hel-lel-lo,
Hel-lel-lo.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Ghost Gamble.]
Mr. John Campbell, of Montreal, Canada, has kindly called the attention
of the writer to death songs very similar in character; for instance,
the Basques of Spain ululate thus:
Lelo il Lelo, Lelo dead Lelo,
Lelo il Lelo,
Lelo zarat, Lelo zara,
Il Lelon killed Lelo.
This was called the “ululating Lelo.” Mr. Campbell says:
This again connects with the Linus or Ailinus of the Greeks and
Egyptians * * * which Wilkinson connects with the Coptic “ya
lay-lee-ya lail.” The Alleluia which Lescarbot heard the South
Americans sing must have been the same wail. The Greek verb
ὀλολύζω and the Latin ululare, with an English howl and wail,
are probably derived from this ancient form of lamentation.
In our own time a writer on the manner and customs of the Creeks
describes a peculiar alleluia or hallelujah he heard, from which he
inferred that the American Indians must be the descendants of the lost
tribes of Israel.
_GAMES._
It is not proposed to describe under this heading examples of those
athletic and gymnastic performances following the death of a person
which have been described by Lafitau, but simply to call attention to a
practice as a secondary or adjunct part of the funeral rites, which
consists in gambling for the possession of the property of the defunct.
Dr. Charles E. McChesney, U.S.A., who for some time was stationed among
the Wahpeton and Sisseton Sioux, furnishes a detailed and interesting
account of what is called the “ghost gamble.” This is played with marked
wild-plum stones. So far as ascertained it is peculiar to the Sioux.
Figure 33 appears as a fair illustration of the manner in which this
game is played.
After the death of a wealthy Indian the near relatives take charge
of the effects, and at a stated time--usually at the time of the
first feast held over the bundle containing the lock of hair--they
are divided into many small piles, so as to give all the Indians
invited to play an opportunity to win something. One Indian is
selected to represent the ghost and he plays against all the others,
who are not required to stake anything on the result, but simply
invited to take part in the ceremony, which is usually held in the
lodge of the dead person, in which is contained the bundle inclosing
the lock of hair. In cases where the ghost himself is not wealthy
the stakes are furnished by his rich friends, should he have any.
The players are called in one at a time, and play singly against the
ghost’s representative, the gambling being done in recent years by
means of cards. If the invited player succeeds in beating the ghost,
he takes one of the piles of goods and passes out, when another is
invited to play, &c., until all the piles of goods are won. In cases
of men only the men play, and in cases of women the women only take
part in the ceremony.
Before white men came among these Indians and taught them many of
his improved vices, this game was played by means of figured
plum-seeds, the men using eight and the women seven seeds, figured
as follows, and shown in Figure 34.
Two seeds are simply blackened on one side, the reverse containing
nothing. Two seeds are black on one side, with a small spot of the
color of the seed left in the center, the reverse side having a
black spot in the center, the body being plain. Two seeds have a
buffalo’s head on one side and the reverse simply two crossed black
lines. There is but one seed of this kind in the set used by the
women. Two seeds have half of one side blackened and the rest left
plain, so as to represent a half moon; the reverse has a black
longitudinal line crossed at right angles by six small ones. There
are six throws whereby the player can win, and five that entitle him
to another throw. The winning throws are as follows, each winner
taking a pile of the ghost’s goods:
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Auxiliary throw No 5.]
Two plain ones up, two plain with black spots up, buffalo’s head up,
and two half moons up wins a pile. Two plain black ones up, two
black with natural spots up, two longitudinally crossed ones up, and
the transversely crossed one up wins a pile. Two plain black ones
up, two black with natural spots up, two half moons up, and the
transversely crossed one up wins a pile. Two plain black ones, two
black with natural spots up, two half moons up, and the buffalo’s
head up wins a pile. Two plain ones up, two with black spots up, two
longitudinally crossed ones up, and the transversely crossed one up
wins a pile. Two plain ones up, two with black spots up, buffalo’s
head up, and two long crossed up wins a pile. The following
auxiliary throws entitle to another chance to win: two plain ones
up, two with black spots up, one half moon up, one longitudinally
crossed one up, and buffalo’s head up gives another throw, and on
this throw, if the two plain ones up and two with black spots with
either of the half moons or buffalo’s head up, the player takes a
pile. Two plain ones up, two with black spots up, two half moons up,
and the transversely crossed one up entitles to another throw, when,
if all of the black sides come up, excepting one, the throw wins.
One of the plain ones up and all the rest with black sides up gives
another throw, and the same then turning up wins. One of the plain
black ones up with that side up of all the others having the least
black on gives another throw, when the same turning up again wins.
One half moon up, with that side up of all the others having the
least black on gives another throw, and if the throw is then
duplicated it wins. The eighth seed, used by the men, has its place
in their game whenever its facings are mentioned above. I transmit
with this paper a set of these figured seeds, which can be used to
illustrate the game if desired. These seeds are said to be nearly a
hundred years old, and sets of them are now very rare.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Figured Plum Stones.]
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--Winning Throw No. 1.]
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Winning Throw No. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Winning Throw No. 3.]
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Winning Throw No. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Winning Throw No. 5.]
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Winning Throw No. 6.]
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Auxiliary Throw No. 1.]
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Auxiliary Throw No. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Auxiliary Throw No. 3.]
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Auxiliary Throw No. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Grave Posts.]
For assisting in obtaining this account Dr. McChesney acknowledges his
indebtedness to Dr. C. C. Miller, physician to the Sisseton Indian
Agency.
Figures 35 to 45 represent the appearance of the plum stones and the
different throws; these have been carefully drawn from the set of stones
sent by Dr. McChesney.
_POSTS._
These are placed at the head or foot of the grave, or at both ends, and
have painted or carved on them a history of the deceased or his family,
certain totemic characters, or, according to Schoolcraft, not the
achievements of the dead, but of those warriors who assisted and danced
at the interment. The northwest tribes and others frequently plant poles
near the graves, suspending therefrom bite of rag, flags, horses’ tails,
&c. The custom among the present Indians does not exist to any extent.
Beltrami[5.101] speaks of it as follows:
Here I saw a most singular union. One of these graves was surmounted
by a cross, whilst upon another close to it a trunk of a tree was
raised, covered with hieroglyphics recording the number of enemies
slain by the tenant of the tomb and several of his tutelary
Manitous.
The following extract from Schoolcraft[5.102] relates to the burial
posts used by the Sioux and Chippewas. Figure 46 is after the picture
given by this author in connection with the account quoted:
Among the Sioux and Western Chippewas, after the body had been
wrapped in its best clothes and ornaments, it is then placed on a
scaffold or in a tree until the flesh is entirely decayed, after
which the bones are buried and grave-posts fixed. At the head of the
grave a tubular piece of cedar or other wood, called the
_adjedatig_, is set. This grave-board contains the symbolic or
representative figure, which records, if it be a warrior, his totem,
that is to say the symbol of his family, or surname, and such
arithmetical or other devices as seem to denote how many times the
deceased has been in war parties, and how many scalps he has taken
from the enemy--two facts from which his reputation is essentially
to be derived. It is seldom that more is attempted in the way of
inscription. Often, however, distinguished chiefs have their war
flag, or, in modern days, a small ensign of American fabric,
displayed on a standard at the head of their graves, which is left
to fly over the deceased till it is wasted by the elements. Scalps
of their enemies, feathers of the bald or black eagle, the
swallow-tailed falcon, or some carnivorous bird, are also placed, in
such instances, on the _adjedatig_, or suspended, with offerings of
various kinds, on a separate staff. But the latter are
superadditions of a religious character, and belong to the class of
the Ke-ke-wa-o-win-an-tig (_ante_, No. 4). The building of a funeral
fire on recent graves is also a rite which belongs to the
consideration of their religious faith.
_FIRES._
It is extremely difficult to determine why the custom of building fires
on or near graves was originated, some authors stating that the soul
thereby underwent a certain process of purification, others that demons
were driven away by them, and again that they were to afford light to
the wandering soul setting out for the spirit land. One writer states
that--
The Algonkins believed that the fire lighted nightly on the grave
was to light the spirit on its journey. By a coincidence to be
explained by the universal sacredness of the number, both Algonkins
and Mexicans maintained it for four nights consecutively. The former
related the tradition that one of their ancestors returned from the
spirit land and informed their nation that the journey thither
consumed just four days, and that collecting fuel every night added
much to the toil and fatigue the soul encountered, all of which
could be spared it.
So it would appear that the belief existed that the fire was also
intended to assist the spirit in preparing its repast.
Stephen Powers[5.103] gives a tradition current among the Yurok of
California as to the use of fires:
After death they keep a fire burning certain nights in the vicinity
of the grave. They hold and believe, at least the “Big Indians” do,
that the spirits of the departed are compelled to cross an extremely
attenuated greasy pole, which bridges over the chasm of the
debatable land, and that they require the fire to light them on
their darksome journey. A righteous soul traverses the pole quicker
than a wicked one, hence they regulate the number of nights for
burning a light according to the character for goodness or the
opposite which the deceased possessed in this world.
Dr. Emil Bessels, of the Polaris expedition, informs the writer that a
somewhat similar belief obtains among the Esquimaux.
Figure 47 is a fair illustration of a grave-fire; it also shows one of
the grave-posts mentioned in a previous section.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Grave Fire.]
_SUPERSTITIONS._
An entire volume might well be written which should embrace only an
account of the superstitious regarding death and burial among the
Indians, so thoroughly has the matter been examined and discussed by
various authors, and yet so much still remains to be commented on, but
in this work, which is mainly tentative, and is hoped will be
provocative of future efforts, it is deemed sufficient to give only a
few accounts. The first is by Dr. W. Mathews, United States Army,[5.104]
and relates to the Hidatsa:
When a Hidatsa dies, his shade lingers four nights around the camp
or village in which he died, and then goes to the lodge of his
departed kindred in the “village of the dead.” When he has arrived
there he is rewarded for his valor, self-denial, and ambition on
earth by receiving the same regard in the one place as in the other,
for there as here the brave man is honored and the coward despised.
Some say that the ghosts of those that commit suicide occupy a
separate part of the village, but that their condition differs in no
wise from that of the others. In the next world human shades hunt
and live in the shades of buffalo and other animals that have here
died. There, too there are four seasons, but they come in an inverse
order to the terrestrial seasons. During the four nights that the
ghost is supposed to linger near his former dwelling, those who
disliked or feared the deceased, and do not wish a visit from the
shade, scorch with red coals a pair of moccasins which they leave at
the door of the lodge. The smell of the burning leather they claim
keeps the ghost out; but the true friends of the dead man take no
such precautions.
From this account it will be seen that the Hidatsa as well as the
Algonkins and Mexicans believed that four days were required before the
spirit could finally leave the earth. Why the smell of burning leather
should be offensive to spirits it would perhaps be fruitless to
speculate on.
The next account, by Keating,[5.105] relating to the Chippewas, shows a
slight analogy regarding the slippery-pole tradition already alluded to:
The Chippewas believe that there is in man an essence entirely
distinct from the body; they call it _Ochechag_, and appear to
supply to it the qualities which we refer to the soul. They believe
that it quits the body it the time of death, and repairs to what
they term _Chekechekchekawe_; this region is supposed to be situated
to the south, and on the shores of the great ocean. Previous to
arriving there they meet with a stream which they are obliged to
cross upon a large snake that answers the purpose of a bridge; those
who die from drowning never succeed in crossing the stream; they are
thrown into it and remain there forever. Some souls come to the edge
of the stream, but are prevented from passing by the snake, which
threatens to devour them; these are the souls of the persons in a
lethargy or trance. Being refused a passage these souls return to
their bodies and reanimate them. They believe that animals have
souls, and even that inorganic substances, such as kettles, &c.,
have in them a similar essence.
In this land of souls all are treated according to their merits.
Those who have been good men are free from pain; they have no duties
to perform, their time is spent in dancing and singing, and they
feed upon mushrooms, which are very abundant. The souls of bad men
are haunted by the phantom of the persons or things that they have
injured; thus, if a man has destroyed much property the phantoms of
the wrecks of this property obstruct his passage wherever he goes;
if he has been cruel to his dogs or horses they also torment him
after death. The ghosts of those whom during his lifetime he wronged
are there permitted to avenge their injuries. They think that when a
soul has crossed the stream it cannot return to its body, yet they
believe in apparitions, and entertain the opinion that the spirits
of the departed will frequently revisit the abodes of their friends
in order to invite them to the other world, and to forewarn them of
their approaching dissolution.
Stephen Powers, in his valuable work so often quoted, gives a number of
examples of superstitions regarding the dead, of which the following
relates to the Karok of California:
How well and truly the Karok reverence the memory of the dead is
shown by the fact that the highest crime one can commit is the
_pet-chi-é-ri_ the mere mention of the dead relative’s name. It is a
deadly insult to the survivors, and can be atoned for only by the
same amount of blood-money paid for willful murder. In default of
that they will have the villain’s blood. * * * At the mention of his
name the mouldering skeleton turns in his grave and groans. They do
not like stragglers even to inspect the burial place. * * * They
believe that the soul of a good Karok goes to the “happy western
land” beyond the great ocean. That they have a well-grounded
assurance of an immortality beyond the grave is proven, if not
otherwise, by their beautiful and poetical custom of whispering a
message in the ear of the dead. * * * Believe that dancing will
liberate some relative’s soul from bonds of death, and restore him
to earth.
According to the same author, when a Kelta dies a little bird flies away
with his soul to the spirit land. If he was a bad Indian a hawk will
catch the little bird and eat him up, soul and feathers, but if he was
good he will reach the spirit land. Mr. Powers also states that--
The Tolowa share in the superstitious observance for the memory of
the dead which is common to the Northern Californian tribes. When I
asked the chief Tahhokolli to tell me the Indian words for “father”
and “mother” and certain others similar, he shook his head
mournfully and said, “All dead,” “All dead,” “No good.” They are
forbidden to mention the name of the dead, as it is a deadly insult
to the relatives, * * * and that the Mat-tóal hold that the good
depart to a happy region somewhere southward in the great ocean, but
the soul of a bad Indian transmigrates into a grizzly bear, which
they consider, of all animals, the cousin-german of sin.
The same author who has been so freely quoted states as follows
regarding some of the superstitions and beliefs of the Modocs:
* * * It has always been one of the most passionate desires among
the Modok, as well as their neighbors, the Shastika, to live, die,
and be buried where they were born. Some of their usages in regard
to the dead and their burial may be gathered from an incident that
occurred while the captives of 1873 were on their way from the Lava
Beds to Fort Klamath, as it was described by an eye-witness.
Curly-headed Jack, a prominent warrior, committed suicide with a
pistol. His mother and female friends gathered about him and set up
a dismal wailing; they besmeared themselves with his blood and
endeavored by other Indian customs to restore his life. The mother
took his head in her lap and scooped the blood from his ear, another
old woman placed her hand upon his heart, and a third blew in his
face. The sight of the group--these poor old women, whose grief was
unfeigned, and the dying man--was terrible in its sadness. Outside
the tent stood Bogus-Charley, Huka Jim, Shucknasty Jim, Steamboat
Frank, Curly-headed Doctor, and others who had been the dying man’s
companions from childhood, all affected to tears. When he was
lowered into the grave, before the soldiers began to cover the body,
Huka Jim was seen running eagerly about the camp trying to exchange
a two-dollar bill of currency for silver. He owed the dead warrior
that amount of money, and he had grave doubts whether the currency
would be of any use to him in the other world--sad commentary on our
national currency!--and desired to have the coin instead. Procuring
it from one of the soldiers he cast it in and seemed greatly
relieved. All the dead man’s other effects, consisting of clothing,
trinkets, and a half dollar, were interred with him, together with
some root-flour as victual for the journey to the spirit land.
The superstitious fear Indians have of the dead or spirit of the dead
may be observed from the following narrative by Swan.[5.106] It regards
the natives of Washington Territory:
My opinion about the cause of these deserted villages is this: It is
the universal custom with these Indians never to live in a lodge
where a person has died. If a person of importance dies, the lodge
is usually burned down, or taken down and removed to some other part
of the bay; and it can be readily seen that in the case of the Palux
Indians, who had been attacked by the Chehalis people, as before
stated, their relatives chose at once to leave for some other place.
This objection to living in a lodge where a person has died is the
reason why their sick slaves are invariably carried out into the
woods, where they remain either to recover or die. There is,
however, no disputing the fact that an immense mortality has
occurred among these people, and they are now reduced to a mere
handful.
The great superstitious dread these Indians have for a dead person,
and their horror of touching a corpse, oftentimes give rise to a
difficulty as to who shall perform the funeral ceremonies; for any
person who handles a dead body must not eat of salmon or sturgeon
for thirty days. Sometimes, in cases of small-pox, I have known them
leave the corpse in the lodge, and all remove elsewhere; and in two
instances that came to my knowledge, the whites had to burn the
lodges, with the bodies in them, to prevent infection.
So, in the instances I have before mentioned, where we had buried
Indians, not one of their friends or relatives could be seen. All
kept in their lodges, singing and drumming to keep away the spirits
of the dead.
According to Bancroft[5.107]--
The Tlascaltecs supposed that the common people were after death
transformed into beetles and disgusting objects, while the nobler
became stars and beautiful birds.
The Mosquito Indians of Central America studiously and superstitiously
avoid mentioning the name of the dead, in this regard resembling those
of our own country.
Enough of illustrative examples have now been given, it is thought, to
enable observers to thoroughly comprehend the scope of the proposed
final volume on the mortuary customs of North American Indians, and
while much more might have been added from the stored-up material on
hand, it has not been deemed advisable at this time to yield to a desire
for amplification. The reader will notice, as in the previous paper,
that discussion has been avoided as foreign to the present purpose of
the volume, which is intended, as has been already stated, simply to
induce further investigation and contribution from careful and
conscientious observers. From a perusal of the excerpts from books and
correspondence given will be seen what facts are useful and needed; in
short, most of them may serve as copies for preparation of similar
material.
To assist observers, the queries published in the former volume are also
given.
_1st._ NAME OF THE TRIBE; present appellation; former, if differing any;
and that used by the Indians themselves.
_2d._ LOCALITY, PRESENT AND FORMER.--The response should give the range
of the tribe and be full and geographically accurate.
_3d._ DEATHS AND FUNERAL CEREMONIES; what are the important and
characteristic facts connected with these subjects? How is the corpse
prepared after death and disposed of? How long is it retained? Is it
spoken to after death as if alive? when and where? What is the character
of the addresses? What articles are deposited with it; and why? Is food
put in the grave, or in or near it afterwards? Is this said to be an
ancient custom? Are persons of the same gens buried together; and is the
clan distinction obsolete, or did it ever prevail?
_4th._ MANNER OF BURIAL, ANCIENT AND MODERN; STRUCTURE AND POSITION OF
THE GRAVES; CREMATION.--Are burials usually made in high and dry
grounds? Have mounds or tumuli been erected in modern times over the
dead? How is the grave prepared and finished? What position are bodies
placed in? Give reasons therefor if possible. If cremation is or was
practiced, describe the process, disposal of the ashes, and origin of
custom or traditions relating thereto. Are the dead ever eaten by the
survivors? Are bodies deposited in springs or in any body of water? Are
scaffolds or trees used as burial places; if so, describe construction
of the former and how the corpse is prepared, and whether placed in
skins or boxes. Are bodies placed in canoes? State whether they are
suspended from trees, put on scaffolds or posts, allowed to float on the
water or sunk beneath it, or buried in the ground. Can any reasons be
given for the prevalence of any one or all of the methods? Are burial
posts or slabs used, plain, or marked, with flags or other insignia of
position of deceased. Describe embalmment, mummification, desiccation,
or if antiseptic precautions are taken, and subsequent disposal of
remains. Are bones collected and reinterred; describe ceremonies, if
any, whether modern or ancient. If charnel houses exist or have been
used, describe them.
_5th._ MOURNING OBSERVANCES.--Is scarification practiced, or personal
mutilation? What is the garb or sign of mourning? How are the dead
lamented? Are periodical visits made to the grave? Do widows carry
symbols of their deceased children or husbands, and for how long? Are
sacrifices, human or otherwise, voluntary or involuntary, offered? Are
fires kindled on graves; why, and at what time, and for how long?
_6th._ BURIAL TRADITIONS AND SUPERSTITIONS.--Give in full all that can
be learned on these subjects, as they are full of interest and very
important.
In short, every fact bearing on the disposal of the dead; and
correlative customs are needed, and details should be as succinct and
full as possible.
One of the most important matters upon which information is needed is
the “why” and “wherefore” for every rite and custom; for, as a rule,
observers are content to simply state a certain occurrence as a fact,
but take very little trouble to inquire the reason for it.
Any material the result of careful observation will be most gratefully
received and acknowledged in the final volume; but the writer must here
confess the lasting obligation he is under to those who have already
contributed, a number so large that limited space precludes a mention of
their individual names.
Criticism and comments are earnestly invited from all those interested
in the special subject of this paper and anthropology in general.
Contributions are also requested from persons acquainted with curious
forms of burial prevailing among other tribes of savage men.
The lithographs which illustrate this paper have been made by Thos.
Sinclair & Son, of Philadelphia, Pa., after original drawings made by
Mr. W. H. Holmes, who has with great kindness superintended their
preparation.
[Footnote 5.1: Hist. Ind. Tribes of U.S., 1853, pt. 3, p. 193.]
[Footnote 5.2: Antiq. of Southern Indians, 1873, pp. 108-110.]
[Footnote 5.3: Hist. of Carolina, 1714, p. 181.]
[Footnote 5.4: Hist. Ind. Tribes of U.S., 1855, pt. 5, p. 270.]
[Footnote 5.5: Rep. Smithsonian Institution, 1871, p. 407.]
[Footnote 5.6: Voy. dans l’Arizona, in Bull. Soc. de Géographie,
1877.]
[Footnote 5.7: Nat. Races Pacif. States 1874, vol. 1, p. 555.]
[Footnote 5.8: Cont. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. iii, p. 133.]
[Footnote 5.9: L’incertitude des Signes de la Mort, 1749, t. 1,
p. 439.]
[Footnote 5.10: Rites of Funeral, Ancient and Modern, 1683,
p. 45.]
[Footnote 5.11: Schoolcraft Hist. Ind. Tribes of the United
States, 1853, Pt. 3, p. 140.]
[Footnote 5.12: U.S. Geol. Surv. of Terr. 1876, p. 473.]
[Footnote 5.13: Life and adventures of Moses Van Campen, 1841,
p. 252.]
[Footnote 5.14: Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc., 1830, vol i, p. 302.]
[Footnote 5.15: Antiquities of Tennessee. Smith. Inst. Cont. to
Knowledge. No. 259, 1876. Pp. 1, 8, 37, 52, 55, 82.]
[Footnote 5.16: Pop. Sc. Month., Sept., 1877, p. 577.]
[Footnote 5.17: Nat. Races of the Pacific States, 1874, vol. i,
p. 780.]
[Footnote 5.18: A detailed account of this exploration, with many
illustrations, will be found in the Eleventh Annual Report of the
Peabody Museum, Cambridge, 1878.]
[Footnote 5.19: Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. i, p. 174 _et
seq._]
[Footnote 5.20: American Naturalist, 1877, xi, No. 11, p. 688.]
[Footnote 5.21: Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. of Science, 1875, p. 288.]
[Footnote 5.22: Bartram’s Travels, 1791, p. 513.]
[Footnote 5.23: Bartram’s Travels, 1791, p. 515.]
[Footnote 5.24: A Concise Nat. Hist. of East and West Florida,
1775.]
[Footnote 5.25: Mem. Hist. sur la Louisiane, 1753, vol. i, pp.
241-243.]
[Footnote 5.26: Uncivilized Races of the World, 1870, vol i,
p. 464.]
[Footnote 5.27: Rep. Smithsonian Inst., 1867, p. 406.]
[Footnote 5.28: Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. 1, p. 62.]
[Footnote 5.29: Hist. of Virginia, 1722, p. 185.]
[Footnote 5.30: Collection of Voyages, 1812, vol. xiii, p. 39.]
[Footnote 5.31: Hist. Ind. Tribes United States, 1854, Part IV,
pp. 155 _et seq._]
[Footnote 5.32: Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. 1, p. 360.]
[Footnote 5.33: Letter to Samuel M. Burnside, in Trans. and Coll.
Amer. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. 1, p. 318.]
[Footnote 5.34: A mummy of this kind, of a person of mature age,
discovered in Kentucky, is now in the cabinet of the American
Antiquarian Society. It is a female. Several human bodies were
found enwrapped carefully in skins and cloths. They were inhumed
below the floor of the cave; _inhumed_, and not lodged in
catacombs.]
[Footnote 5.35: Cont. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. i, p. 89.]
[Footnote 5.36: Billings’ Exped., 1802, p. 161.]
[Footnote 5.37: Pre-historic Races, 1873, p. 199.]
[Footnote 5.38: Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Book i, chap. 198, _note_.]
[Footnote 5.39: Amer. Naturalist, 1876, vol. x, p. 455 et seq.]
[Footnote 5.40: Manners, Customs, &c., of North American Indians,
1844, vol. ii, p. 5.]
[Footnote 5.41: Uncivilized Races of the World, 1870, vol. i,
p. 483.]
[Footnote 5.42: Hist. de l’Amérique Septentrionale, 1753, tome ii,
p. 43.]
[Footnote 5.43: Pioneer Life, 1872.]
[Footnote 5.44: I saw the body of this woman in the tree. It was
undoubtedly an exceptional case. When I came here (Rock Island)
the bluffs on the peninsula between Mississippi and Rock River
(three miles distant) were thickly studded with Indian grave
mounds, showing conclusively that subterranean was the usual mode
of burial. In making roads, streets, and digging foundations,
skulls, bones, trinkets, beads, etc., in great numbers, were
exhumed, proving that many things (according to the wealth or
station of survivors) were deposited in the graves. In 1836 I
witnessed the burial of two chiefs in the manner stated.
--P. GREGG.]
[Footnote 5.45: Tract No. 50, West. Reserve and North. Ohio Hist.
Soc. (1879?), p. 107.]
[Footnote 5.46: Hist. of Ft. Wayne, 1868, p. 284.]
[Footnote 5.47: The Last Act, 1876.]
[Footnote 5.48: Cont. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. iii, p. 341.]
[Footnote 5.49: Hist. Indian Tribes of the United States, 1854,
part IV, p. 224.]
[Footnote 5.50: Adventures on the Columbia River, 1831, vol. ii,
p. 387.]
[Footnote 5.51: Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. i, p. 377.]
[Footnote 5.52: Hist. Indian Tribes of the United States, 1853,
part iii, p. 112.]
[Footnote 5.53: Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol iii, p. 169.]
[Footnote 5.54: Amer. Naturalist, November, 1878, p. 753.]
[Footnote 5.55: Proc. Dav. Acad. Nat. Sci., 1867-’76, p. 64.]
[Footnote 5.56: Pre-historic Races, 1873, p. 149.]
[Footnote 5.57: Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., Nov. 1874, p. 168.]
[Footnote 5.58: Amer. Naturalist, Sept., 1878, p. 629.]
[Footnote 5.59: Explorations of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake
of Utah, 1852, p. 43.]
[Footnote 5.60: Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific, 1831,
vol. i, p. 332.]
[Footnote 5.61: Nat. Races of Pac. States, 1871, vol. i, p. 780.]
[Footnote 5.62: Am. Antiq. and Discov., 1838, p. 286.]
[Footnote 5.63: Nat. Races of Pac. States, 1874 vol. i, p. 69.]
[Footnote 5.64: Travels in Alaska, 1869, p. 100.]
[Footnote 5.65: Alaska and its Resources, 1870, pp. 19, 132, 145.]
[Footnote 5.66: Life on the Plains, 1854, p. 68.]
[Footnote 5.67: Tour to the Lakes, 1827, p. 305.]
[Footnote 5.68: Long’s Exped. to the St. Peter’s River, 1824,
p. 332.]
[Footnote 5.69: L’incertitude des signes de la Mort, 1742, tome i,
p. 475, _et seq._]
[Footnote 5.70: The writer is informed by Mr. John Henry Boner
that the custom still prevails not only in Pennsylvania, but at
the Moravian settlement of Salem, N.C.]
[Footnote 5.71: Rep. Smithsonian Inst., 1866, p. 319.]
[Footnote 5.72: Uncivilized Races of the World, 1874, v. ii,
p. 774, _et seq._]
[Footnote 5.73: Hist. of Florida, 1775, p. 88.]
[Footnote 5.74: Antiquities of the Southern Indians, 1873,
p. 105.]
[Footnote 5.75: Bartram’s Travels, 1791, p. 516.]
[Footnote 5.76: “Some ingenious men whom I have conversed with
have given it as their opinion that all those pyramidal artificial
hills, usually called Indian mounds, were raised on this occasion,
and are generally sepulchers. However, I am of different
opinion.”]
[Footnote 5.77: League of the Iroquois, 1851, p. 173.]
[Footnote 5.78: Myths of the New World, 1868, p. 255.]
[Footnote 5.79: Hist. N. A. Indians, 1844, i, p. 90.]
[Footnote 5.80: Northwest Coast, 1857, p. 185.]
[Footnote 5.81: Cont. N. A. Ethnol., 1877, i., p. 200.]
[Footnote 5.82: Uncivilized Races of the World, 1870, vol. i,
p. 483.]
[Footnote 5.83: Exploration Great Salt Lake Valley, Utah, 1859,
p. 48.]
[Footnote 5.84: Hist. North American Indians, 1844, vol. ii,
p. 141.]
[Footnote 5.85: Mœurs des Sauvages, 1724, tome ii, p. 406.]
[Footnote 5.86: Autobiography of James Beckwourth, 1856, p. 269.]
[Footnote 5.87: Tour to the Lakes, 1827, p. 292.]
[Footnote 5.88: Nat. Races of Pacific States, 1874, vol. i,
pp. 731, 744.]
[Footnote 5.89: Life Among the Choctaws, 1860, p. 294.]
[Footnote 5.90: Bossu’s Travels (Forster’s translation), 1771,
p. 38.]
[Footnote 5.91: At the hour intended for the ceremony, they made
the victims swallow little balls or pills of tobacco, in order to
make them giddy, and as it were to take the sensation of pain from
them; after that they were all strangled and put upon mats, the
favorite on the right, the other wife on the left, and the others
according to their rank.]
[Footnote 5.92: The established distinctions among these Indians
were as follows: The Suns, relatives of the Great Sun, held the
highest rank; next come the Nobles; after them the Honorables; and
last of all the common people, who were very much despised. As the
nobility was propagated by the women, this contributed much to
multiply it.]
[Footnote 5.93: The Great Sun had given orders to put out all the
fires, which is only done at the death of the sovereign.]
[Footnote 5.94: Ten Years in Oregon, 1850, p. 261.]
[Footnote 5.95: Nat. Races of Pacif. States, 1875, vol iii,
p. 513.]
[Footnote 5.96: Pilgrimage, 1828, vol. ii, p. 443.]
[Footnote 5.97: Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition, 1860, ii,
p. 164.]
[Footnote 5.98: League of the Iroquois, 1851, p. 287.]
[Footnote 5.99: Cont. to North American Ethnol., 1878, iii,
p. 164.]
[Footnote 5.100: Am. Antiq., April, May, June, 1879, p. 251.]
[Footnote 5.101: Pilgrimage, 1828, ii, p. 308.]
[Footnote 5.102: Hist. Indian Tribes of the United States, 1851,
part i, p. 356.]
[Footnote 5.103: Cont. to N. A. Ethnol., 1877, vol. ii., p. 58.]
[Footnote 5.104: Ethnol. and Philol. of the Hidatsa Indians. U.S.
Geol. Surv. of Terr., 1877, p. 409.]
[Footnote 5.105: Long’s Exped., 1824, vol. ii, p. 158.]
[Footnote 5.106: Northwest Coast, 1857, p. 212.]
[Footnote 5.107: Nat. Races Pacif. States, 1875, vol. iii,
p. 512.]
* * * * *
* * * *
_Errors and Inconsistencies: Mortuary Customs_
[List of Illustrations]
1.--Quiogozon or dead house [Quiogozeon]
two small arroyas
[_spelling “arroya” consistent throughout the quoted passage_]
chanting the following chorous:
[_spelling in quoted passage unchanged_]
the Colchians enveloped their dead [Colchiens]
these are considered apochryphal [_spelling unchanged_]
Horace and Tertullian both affirm [Tertulian]
cum grana salis [_error unchanged: correct form is “grano”_]
the same _Dodem_ [_sic_] (family mark) of her husband.
[_bracketed “sic” in original_]
Fröebel states that among the Woolwas
[_spelling unchanged: apparent error for “Froebel” (two letters)
or “Fröbel” (o-umlaut alone)_]
tear myself from you (_sic_) arms
[_error unchanged; parenthetical “sic” in original_]
[Footnote 5.54]
Amer. Naturalist, November, 1878, p. 753. [1878.]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
STUDIES
in
CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE-WRITING.
By
EDWARD S. HOLDEN,
Professor Of Mathematics, U.S. Naval Observatory.
[Transcriber’s Note (Picture-Writing):
In Plate numbers and glyph references, “a” and “b” were printed
as superscripts. The notation has been omitted to reduce visual
clutter. For the same reason, italic marking of the word “See” in
Plates has been left off.
For this e-text, a few mechanical changes were made to the
large diagrams (called Plates) on pages 214-220. Parenthetical
notations such as (right-hand side) are in the original; bracketed
and italicized notations such as [_left half_] were added by the
transcriber.
--Plate LII was printed as a single table, with each long line of
the original shown as a pair of lines bracketed together. It has
been separated into left and right halves.
--Plates LIII and LIV were printed horizontally; each has been split
in two.
--Plates XXIV and LVI were each printed in two halves, left and
right. They have been redivided into three segments. In Plate
XXIV, the section headed “In the middle of the plate at the top”
was printed in the empty part of the “left-hand” page; the top
two rows are continuous across all segments.
The forms /----\ and \----/ represent horizontal braces.]
CONTENTS.
List of illustrations 206
Introductory 207
Materials for the present investigation 210
System of nomenclature 211
In what order are the hieroglyphs read? 221
The card catalogue of hieroglyphs 223
Comparison of plates I and IV (Copan) 224
Are the hieroglyphs of Copan and Palenque identical? 227
Huitzilopochtli, Mexican god of war, etc. 229
Tlaloc, or his Maya representative 237
Cukulcan or Quetzalcoatl 239
Comparison of the signs of the Maya months 243
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 48.--The Palenquean Group of the Cross 221
49.--Statue at Copan 224
50.--Statue at Copan 225
51.--Synonymous Hieroglyphs from Copan and Palenque 227
52.--Yucatec Stone 229
53.--Huitzilopochtli (front) 232
54.--Huitzilopochtli (side) 232
55.--Huitzilopochtli (back) 232
56.--Miclantecutli 232
57.--Adoratorio 233
58.--The Maya War-God 234
59.--The Maya Rain-God 234
60.--Tablet at Palenque 234
* * * * *
STUDIES IN CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE-WRITING.
By Edward S. Holden.
* * * * *
I.
Since 1876 I have been familiar with the works of Mr. JOHN L. STEPHENS
on the antiquities of Yucatan, and from time to time I have read works
on kindred subjects with ever increasing interest and curiosity in
regard to the meaning of the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the stones and
tablets of Copan, Palenque, and other ruins of Central America. In
August, 1880, I determined to see how far the principles which are
successful when applied to ordinary cipher-writing would carry one in
the inscriptions of Yucatan. The difference between an ordinary
cipher-message and these inscriptions is not so marked as might at first
sight appear. The underlying principles of deciphering are quite the
same in the two cases.
The chief difficulty in the Yucatec inscriptions is our lack of any
definite knowledge of the nature of the records of the aborigines. The
patient researches of our archæologists have recovered but very little
of their manners and habits, and one has constantly to avoid the
tempting suggestions of an imagination which has been formed by modern
influences, and to endeavor to keep free from every suggestion not
inherent in the stones themselves. I say the stones, for I have only
used the Maya manuscripts incidentally. They do not possess, to me, the
same interest, and I think it may certainly be said that all of them are
younger than the Palenque tablets, and far younger than the inscriptions
at Copan.
I therefore determined to apply the ordinary principles of deciphering,
without any bias, to the Yucatec inscriptions, and to go as far as I
could _certainly_. Arrived at the point where demonstration ceased, it
would be my duty to stop. For, while even the conjectures of a mind
perfectly trained in archæologic research are valuable and may
subsequently prove to be quite right, my lack of familiarity with
historical works forced me to keep within narrow and safe limits.
My programme at beginning was, _first_, to see if the inscriptions at
Copan and Palenque were written in the same tongue. When I say “to see,”
I mean to definitely prove the fact, and so in other cases; _second_, to
see how the tablets were to be read. That is, in horizontal lines, are
they to be read from right to left, or the reverse? In vertical columns,
are they to be read up or down? _Third_, to see whether they were
phonetic characters, or merely ideographic, or a mixture of the
two--rebus-like, in fact.
If the characters turned out to be purely phonetic, I had determined to
stop at this point, since I had not the time to learn the Maya language,
and again because I utterly and totally distrusted the methods which, up
to this time, have been applied by BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG and others who
start, and must start, from the misleading and unlucky alphabet handed
down by LANDA. I believe that legacy to have been a positive misfortune,
and I believe any process of the kind attempted by BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG
(for example, in his essay on the _MS. Troano_) to be extremely
dangerous and difficult in application, and to require a degree of
scientific caution almost unique.
Dr. HARRISON ALLEN, in his paper, “The Life Form in Art,” in the
_Transactions of the American Philosophical Society_, is the only
investigator who has applied this method to Central American remains
with success, so it seems to me; and even here errors have occurred.
The process I allude to is something like the following: A set of
characters, say the alphabet of LANDA, is taken as a starting point. The
_variants_ of these are formed. Then the basis of the investigation is
ready. From this, the interpretation follows by identifications of each
new character with one of the standard set or with one of its
_variants_. Theoretically, there is no objection to this procedure.
Practically, also, there is no objection if the work is done strictly in
the order named. In fact, however, the list of _variants_ is filled out
not before the work is begun, but during its progress, and in such a way
as to satisfy the necessities of the interpreter in carrying out some
preconceived idea. With a sufficient latitude in the choice of
_variants_ any MS. can receive any interpretation. For example, the _MS.
Troano_, which a casual examination leads me to think is a _ritual_, and
an account of the adventures of several Maya gods, is interpreted by
BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG as a record of mighty geologic changes. It is next
to impossible to avoid errors of this nature at least, and in fact they
have not been avoided, so far as I know, except by Dr. ALLEN in the
paper cited.
I, personally, have chosen the stones and not the manuscripts for study
largely because _variants_ do not exist in the same liberal degree in
the stone inscriptions as they have been supposed to exist in the
manuscripts.
At any one ruin the characters for the same idea are alike, and alike to
a marvelous degree. At another ruin the type is just a little different,
but the fidelity to this type is equally great. Synonyms exist; that is,
the same idea may be given by two or more utterly different signs. But a
given sign is made in a fixed and definite way. Finally the MSS. are,
I think, later than the stones. Hence the root of the matter is the
interpretation of the stones, or not so much their full interpretation
as the discovery of a _method of interpretation_, which shall be sure.
Suppose, for example, that we know the meaning of a dozen characters
only, and the way a half dozen of these are joined together in a
sentence. The _method_ by which these were obtained will serve to add
others to the list, and progress depends in such a case only on our
knowledge of the people who wrote, and of the subjects upon which they
were writing. Such knowledge and erudition belongs to the archæologists
by profession. A step that might take me a year to accomplish might be
made in an instant by one to whom the Maya and Aztec mythology was
familiar, if he were proceeding according to a sound method. At the
present time we know nothing of the meaning of any of the Maya
hieroglyphs.
It will, therefore, be my object to go as far in the subject as I can
proceed with certainty, every step being demonstrated so that not only
the archæologist but any intelligent person can follow. As soon as the
border-land is reached in which proof disappears and opinion is the only
guide, the search must be abandoned except by those whose cultivated and
scientific opinions are based on knowledge far more profound and various
than I can pretend or hope to have.
If I do not here push my own conclusions to their farthest limit, it
must not be assumed that I do not see, at least in some cases, the
direction in which they lead. Rather, let this reticence be ascribed to
a desire to lay the foundations of a new structure firmly, to prescribe
the method of building which my experience has shown to be adequate and
necessary, and to leave to those abler than myself the erection of the
superstructure. If my methods and conclusions are correct (and I have no
doubts on this point, since each one has been reached in various ways
and tested by a multiplicity of criteria) there is a great future to
these researches. It is not to be forgotten that here we have no Rosetta
stone to act at once as key and criterion, and that instead of the
accurate descriptions of the Egyptian hieroglyphics which were handed
down by the Greek cotemporaries of the sculptors of these inscriptions,
we have only the crude and brutal chronicles of an ignorant Spanish
soldiery, or the bigoted accounts of an unenlightened priesthood. To
CORTEZ and his companions a memorandum that it took one hundred men all
day to throw the idols into the sea was all-sufficient. To the Spanish
priests the burning of all manuscripts was praiseworthy, since those
differing from Holy Writ were noxious and those agreeing with it
superfluous. It is only to the patient labor of the Maya sculptor who
daily carved the symbols of his belief and creed upon enduring stone,
and to the luxuriant growths of semi-tropical forests which concealed
even these from the passing Spanish adventurer, that we owe the
preservation of the memorials of past beliefs and vanished histories.
Not the least of the pleasures of such researches as these comes from
the recollection that they vindicate the patience and skill of forgotten
men, and make their efforts not quite useless. It was no rude savage
that carved the Palenque cross; and if we can discover what his efforts
meant, his labor and his learning have not been all in vain. It will be
one more proof that human effort, even misdirected, is not lost, but
that it comes, later or earlier, “to forward the general deed of man.”
II.
MATERIALS FOR THE PRESENT INVESTIGATION.
My examination of the works of Mr. J. L. STEPHENS has convinced me that
in every respect his is the most trustworthy work on the _hieroglyphs_
of Central America. The intrinsic evidence to this effect is very
strong, but when I first became familiar with the works of WALDECK I
found so many points of difference that my faith was for a time shaken,
and I came to the conclusion that while the existing representations
might suffice for the study of the general forms of statues, tablets,
and buildings, yet they were not sufficiently accurate in detail to
serve as a basis for the deciphering I had in mind. I am happy to bear
witness, however, that STEPHENS’S work is undoubtedly amply adequate to
the purpose, and this fact I have laboriously verified by a comparison
of it with various representations, as those of DESAIX and others, and
also with a few photographs. The drawings of WALDECK are very beautiful
and artistic, but either the artist himself or his lithographers have
taken singular liberties in the published designs. STEPHENS’S work is
not only accurate, but it contains sufficient material for my purpose
(over 1,500 separate hieroglyphs), and, therefore, I have based my study
exclusively upon his earliest work, “_Incidents of Travel in Central
America, Chiapas, and Yucatan_,” 2 vols., 8vo. New York, 1842 (twelfth
edition). I have incidentally consulted the works on the subject
contained in the Library of Congress, particularly those of BRASSEUR DE
BOURBOURG, KINGSBOROUGH, WALDECK, and others, but, as I have said, the
two volumes above named contain all the material I have been able to
utilize, and much more which is still under examination.
* * * * *
One fact which makes the examination of the Central American antiquities
easier than it otherwise would be, has not, I think, been sufficiently
dwelt upon by former writers. This is the remarkable faithfulness of the
artists and sculptors of these statues and inscriptions to a standard.
Thus, at Copan, wherever the same kind of hieroglyph is to be
represented, it will be found that the human face or other object
employed is almost identically the same in expression and character,
wherever it is found. The same characters at different parts of a tablet
do not differ more than the same letters of the alphabet in two fonts of
type.
At Palenque the _type_ (font) changes, but the adherence to this is
equally or almost equally rigid. It is to be presumed that in this
latter case, where work was done both in stone and stucco, the nature of
the material affected the portraiture more or less.
The stone statues at Copan, for example, could not all have been done by
the same artist, nor at the same time. I have elsewhere shown that two
of these statues are absolutely identical. How was this accomplished?
Was one stone taken to the foot of the other and cut by it as a pattern?
This is unlikely, especially as in the case mentioned the _scale_ of the
two statues is quite different. I think it far more likely that each was
cut from a drawing, or series of drawings, which must have been
preserved by priestly authority. The work at any one place must have
required many years, and could not have been done by a single man; nor
is it probable that it was all done in one generation. Separate
hieroglyphs must have been preserved in the same way. It is this rigid
adherence to a type, and the banishment of artistic fancy, which will
allow of progress in the deciphering of the inscriptions or the
comparison of the statues. Line after line, ornament after ornament, is
repeated with utter fidelity. The reason of this is not far to seek.
This, however, is not the place to explain it, but rather to take
advantage of the fact itself. We may fairly say that were it not so, and
with our present data, all advances would be tenfold more difficult.
III.
SYSTEM OF NOMENCLATURE.
It is impossible without a special and expensive font of type to refer
pictorially to each character, and therefore some system of nomenclature
must be adopted. The one I employ I could now slightly improve, but it
has been used and results have been obtained by it. It is sufficient for
the purpose, and I will, therefore, retain it rather than to run the
risk of errors by changing it to a more perfect system. I have numbered
the plates in STEPHENS’S _Central America_ according to the following
scheme:
ENGRAVINGS OF VOLUME I.
Page.
Stone Statue, front view, I have called Plate I _Frontispiece._
Wall of Copan, Plate II 96
Plan of Copan, Plate III 133
Death’s Head, Plate IIIa 135
Portrait, Plate IIIb 136
Stone Idol, Plate IV 138
Portrait, Plate IVa 139
Stone Idol, Plate V 140
Tablet of Hieroglyphics, Plate Va 141
No. 1, Sides of Altar, Plate VI 142
No. 2, Sides of Altar, Plate VII 142
Gigantic Head, Plate VIII 143
No. 1, Stone Idol, front view, Plate IX 149
No. 2, Stone Idol, back view, Plate X 150
Idol half buried, Plate XI 151
No. 1, Idol, Plate XII 152
No. 2, Idol, Plate XIII 152
No. 1, Idol, Plate XIV 153
No. 2, Idol, Plate XV 153
Idol and Altar, Plate XVI 154
Fallen Idol, Plate XVII 155
No. 1, Idol, front view, Plate XVIII 156
No. 2, Idol, back view, Plate XIX 156
No. 3, Idol, side view, Plate XX 156
Fallen Idol, Plate XXa 157
Circular Altar, Plate XXb 157
No. 1, Stone Idol, front view, Plate XXI 158
No. 2, Stone Idol, back view, Plate XXII 158
No. 3, Stone Idol, side view, Plate XXIII 158
Great Square of Antigua Guatimala, Plate XXIIIa 266
Profile of Nicaragua Canal, Plate XXIIIb 412
ENGRAVINGS OF VOLUME II.
Page.
Stone Tablet, Plate XXIV _Frontispiece._
Idol at Quirigua, Plate XXV 121
Idol at Quirigua, Plate XXVI 122
Santa Cruz del Quiché, Plate XXVII 171
Place of Sacrifice, Plate XXVIII 184
Figures found at Santa Cruz del Quiché, Plate XXIX 185
Plaza of Quezaltenango, Plate XXX 204
Vases found at Gueguetenango, Plate XXXI 231
Ocosingo, Plate XXXII 259
Palace at Palenque, Plate XXXIII 309
Plan of Palace, Plate XXXIV 310
Stucco Figure on Pier, Plate XXXV 311
Front Corridor of Palace, Plate XXXVI 313
No. 1, Court-yard of Palace, Plate XXXVIII 314
No. 2, Colossal Bas-reliefs in Stone, Plate XXXIX 314
East side of Court-yard, Plate XXXVII 314
No. 1, Bas-relief in Stucco, Plate XL 316
No. 2, Bas-relief in Stucco, Plate XLI 316
No. 3, Bas-relief in Stucco, Plate XLII 316
Oval Bas-relief in Stone, Plate XLIII 318
Bas-relief in Stucco, Plate XLIV 319
General Plan of Palenque, Plate XLV 337
Casa No. 1 in Ruins, Plate XLVI 338
Casa No. 1 restored, Plate XLVII 339
No. 1, Bas-relief in Stucco, Plate XLVIII 340
No. 2, Bas-relief in Stucco, Plate XLIX 340
No. 3, Bas-relief in Stucco, Plate L 340
No. 4, Bas-relief in Stucco, Plate LI 340
No. 1, Tablet of Hieroglyphics, Plate LII 342
No. 2, Tablet of Hieroglyphics, Plate LIII 342
Tablet on inner Wall, Plate LIV 343
Casa di Piedras, No. 2, Plate LV 344
Tablet on back Wall of Altar, Casa No. 2, Plate LVI 345
Stone Statue, Plate LVII 349
Casa No. 3, Plate LVIII 350
Front Corridor, Plate LIX 351
No. 1, Bas-reliefs in Front of Altar, Plate LX 353
No. 2, Bas-reliefs in Front of Altar, Plate LXI 353
Adoratorio or Altar, Plate LXII 354
Casa No. 4, Plate LXIII 355
House of the Dwarf, Plate LXIV 420
Casa del Gobernador, Plate LXV 428
Sculptured Front of Casa del Gobernador, Plate LXVI 443
Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Plate LXVIII 441
Top of Altar at Copan, Plate LXVIII = Va 454
Mexican Hieroglyphical Writing, Plate LXIX 454
In each plate I have numbered the hieroglyphs, giving each one its own
number. Thus the hieroglyphs of the Copan altar (vol. i, p. 141) which I
have called plate Va, are numbered from 1 to 36 according to this
scheme--
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36
And the right hand side of the Palenque Cross tablet, as given by RAU in
his memoir published by the Smithsonian Institution (1880), has the
numbers--
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035
2040 2041 2042 2043 2044 2045
2050 2051 2052 2053 2054 2055
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
3080 3081 3082 3083 3084 3085
These are consecutive with the numbers which I have attached to the
left-hand side, as given by STEPHENS. Whenever I have stated any results
here, I have also given the means by which any one can number a copy of
STEPHENS’S work in the way which I have adopted, and thus the means of
testing my conclusions is in the hands of every one who desires to do
so.
In cases where only a _part_ of a hieroglyphic is referred to, I have
placed its number in a parenthesis, as 1826 _see_ (122), by which I mean
that the character 1826 is to be compared with a part of the character
122. The advantages of this system are many: for example; a memorandum
can easily be taken that two hieroglyphs are alike, thus 2072=2020 and
2073 = 2021. Hence the _pair_ 2020--2021, read horizontally, occurs
again at the point 2072--2073, etc. _Horizontal pairs_ will be known by
their numbers being consecutive, as 2020--2021; _vertical pairs_ will
usually be known by their numbers differing by 10. Thus, 2075--2085 are
one above the other.
This method of naming the _chiffres_, then, is a quick and safe one, and
we shall see that it lends itself to the uses required of it.
I add here the scheme according to which the principal plates at
Palenque have been numbered.
PLATE XXIV (left-hand side).
/------------\
{ 37 37 38 39
{See 1800 See 1800 See 1806
{
{ 40 40 41 42
43=1810 43a=46a 44 45
46=1810 46a=43a 47 48
49 50 51
52 52a=1820? 53 54
55 56=1840? 57 58
See 1802
59 60 61 62=58?
63 64 65† 66
See 2025
67 68 69 70
See 1911
71 72=281 73 74
See 2020
75 76=67 77 78
79 80 81 82
83 84 85 86=56?
86* 86* 87 88
89 90 91 92
93
[* Accidental error in numbering here.]
[† Possibly Muluc--a Maya day; the meaning is “reunion.”]
PLATE XXIV. [_center_]
94 96 98 100 102 104 106
95 97 99=127 101 103 105 107
108
See 91
In the middle of the
plate at the top.
/-----------\
109 115
110 116
See 2020
111 117
112 118
113 119
114 120
PLATE XXIV (right-hand side).
/------------------------\
121 122=86?† 123=87 124=88
See 74, 86* See 61, 1822
125 126‡ 127=99 128
See 1940 See 1940 See (44), 64
129 130 131=147 132
See 50, 58, 62
133 134 135 136=47?
137 138 139 140
See 39, 91 See 1811
141 142§ 143 144
See 54 See 50, 58, 62, 132
145 146 147=131 148
See 71
149 150 151 152
See 56, 1882
153 154 155 156
See 53 See 50, 58, 132
157* 158 159 160
See 68 See 38 See 46a, 49a, 52a
/------------------------------------\
161=50 162 †163=1936 164
See 58, 62, 132 See 56, 73, 1882 See 57 See 58, 62
165 166 167 168
See 81?
169 170 171 172
See 68?
173 174 175 176
See 67, 76, 90, 1910 See 57 See 126
177 178 179 180
See 43a See 50, 58, 62
181 182 183 184
See 57, 163, 1936
185
[* Possibly Ymix--a Maya day.]
[† Possibly Chuen--a Maya day; meaning “a board,” “a tree.”]
[‡ Possibly Ahau--a Maya day; meaning “king.”]
[§ Possibly Ezanab--a Maya day.]
PLATE LII. [_left half_]
200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209
220 221 222 223 224=2060 225 226 227 228 229
See 2030 See 2060 See
1811-2
240 241 242=2020 243=1951 244 245 246 247 248 249
/-------------------\
260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269
See See See 2022
2020 2021
280 281=72 282 283 284 285 286 287 288
See 1820 See 385
300 301 302 303=360 304 305 306 307
See 203
/--------------\
320 321 322 323 324=1824 325 326 327 328 329
See See See See
203 204 285 305
340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349
See 209 See 322
360=303 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369
See 351 See
303, 360
380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389
See
286, 1822
400 401 402 403=360 404 405 406 407 408 409
See 326 367 See 360
420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427
See 324
[_right half of Plate LII_]
[_The 213 column is vacant._]
210 211 212 214 215 216 217 218 219
See 2020
230 231 232 234 235 236 237 238 239
See 1822
250 251 252 254 255 256 257 258 259=1943
See 214
270 271 274=244 275 276 277 278 279
See 204
290 294 295 296 297 298 299
310 311 314 315 316 317 318 319
330 331 332 334 335 336 337 338 339
See 209
350 351 352 354 355 356=1822 357 358 359
See See 230
267, 298
370 371 375 376 377 378 379
390 391 392 394 395 396 397 398 399
410 411 412 414 415 416 417 418 419
See 326 See 324
430 432 434 435 436 437 438 439
PLATE LIII.
[Transcriber’s Note:
The following bracketed paragraph is in the original.]
[The upper left-hand square is No. 500, the upper right is 519, the
lower left-hand is 720, the lower right is 739. All the squares from 500
to 508, 520 to 528, 530 to 538, etc., up to 720 to 728, are obliterated
(and their numbers omitted here) except a few.]
[_left half_]
509 510 511 512
See 1967
529 530 531 532
See 3012
549 550 551 552
570 571 572
589 590 591 592
604 605 609 610 611 612
See 571
628 629 630 631 632
649 650 651 652
669 670 671=324 672=322?
See 2042
688 689 690 691 692
708 709 710 711 712
729 730=1845 731 732
[_right half of Plate LIII_]
513 514 515 516 517 518 519
See 509 See 510
533 534 535 536 537 538 539
553 554 555 556 557 558 559
See 162
573 574 575 576 577 578 579
See 1823
593 594 595 596 597 598 599
613 614 615 616 617 618 619
633 634 635 636 637 638 639
See 3054
653 654 655 656 657 658 659
See
150, 1882
673=323? 674 675 676 677 678 679
See 77 See 1802
693 694 695 696 697 698 699
713=1802 714 715 716 717 718 719
See 439
733 734 735 736 737 738 739
See 2020
PLATE LIV. [_left half_]
800 801 802 803 804 805 806
900 901 902 903 904 905 906
1000 1001 1002 1003=907 1004 1005 1006
/-----------------\
1100 1101 1102=717 1103 1104 1105=2020 1106
See 1820 See 2021
1200 1201 1202=1110 1203 1204=1008 1205 1206
See 3054
1300 1301 1302 1303=1910 1304 1305 1306
1400=1823 1401 1402 1403 1404 1405 1406
1500 1501 1502=1010 1503 1504=717 1505 1506
1102
1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606
1700 1701 1702=1911 1703 1704 1705 1706
[_right half of Plate LIV_]
/-------------\
807 808 809 810 811 812 813
See 1882 See 26 See See
1940 1941, 3011
907=1003 908 909 910 911 912 913
See 2020 See 1310
1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013
See 2021 See 3054 See
1811-2
1107 1108 1109 1110=1209 1113 1114 1115
See 1840 See 1841?
1207 1208 1209=1110 1210 1211 1212 1213
1307 1308 1309 1310 1311 1312 1313
See 910
1407 1408 1409 1410 1411 1412 1413
1507 1508 1509 1510 1511 1512 1513
/----------------------\
1607 1608 1609=1304 1610=1305 1611=1010 1612 1613
1707 1708 1709 1710 1711=1702 1712=1708 1713
1911
PLATE LVI (left-hand side--Palenque Cross).
{ 1801 1802 1803 1804
{ See
{ 163, 175
1800 {
{ 1805 1806 1807 1808
{ See 155 See 138
{
/------------------------\
*1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816
See 150 See See See See 126,
139, 179 (1852) 131, 146 127, 176
1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826
See 161 See 124 See
122, 160
1830=1820 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836
See 161 See See 121 See 163 See 182 See 123
123, 124
1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845=1822 1846
See See See 124 See 179
1835 124, 1836
1850 1851 1852 1853 1854=1806 1855
See 122
1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865=2021 1866
See See 144 See
126, 127 136?, 184?
1870=1820 1871 1872=1842? 1873=1803 1874 1875 1876
See See 182
160, 161
1880 1881 1882 1883 1884=1834 1885
See See 124 See See
150, 162 163, 182 132, 144
1890 1891 1892 1893 1894=1822 1895
See See See 132? See 124 See 144
130, 158 131?, 147?
1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905=1803
See 146 See
157, 182
1910 1911 1912 1913=1834 1914 1915
See 174 See 174 See 141 1884
/---------------\
1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925
See 123 See 124
1930 1931 1932=1811-2? 1933 1934 1935=1884
See 182
/---------------------\
1940=1862 1941 1942 1943 1944=1922 1945=1923
See See 123 See 124
126, 127
1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955
See 164
[* At and after this place, in vertical columns, 1810-1-2, 1820-1-2,
1830-1-2, 1840-1-2, and 1860-1-2 may be taken as 2 or 3 symbols.
I have assumed them to be 3.]
[_center of Plate LVI_]
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1980 1981 1982
1966 1983
1967 1984
See
131, 147
1968
1969
1970
[_empty rows omitted from e-text_]
{ 1976 1978
{
{ 1977 1979
1971
See 1802
1972
1973
1975 1974
PLATE LVI (right-hand side--Palenque Cross).
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025=123
See 131, See 144 See 163
147, 150
2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035
See 132 See 134, See See 124
146, 149 1811, 1812
/---------------\
2040 2041 2042 2043=123 2044 2045
See See
131, 147 132, 150
2000 2050 2051 2052 2053 2054 2055
2001 2060 2061 2062 2063 2064 2065
See 182
2002=122 2070 2071 2072 2073 2074 2075
2003=2021 2080 2081 2082 2083 2084 2085
See 130
2004 2090 2091 2092 2093 2094 2095
2005 3000 3001 3002 3003 3004 3005
2006 3010 3011 3012 3013 3014 3015
See 1902,
1903
2007 3020 3021 3022 3023 3024 3025
See 182?
2008 3030 3031 3032 3033 3034 3035
2009 3040 3041 3042 3043 3044 3045
2010 3050 3051 3052 3053 3054 3055
See 184
2011 3060 3061 3062 3063 3064 3065
See 131,
2020
2012 3070 3071 3072 3073 3074 3075
2013 3080 3081 3082 3083 3084 3085
2014
[* These four each side of the main stem of the cross. 1976 =
_Ezanab_--a Maya day.]
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--The Palenquean Group of the Cross.]
IV.
IN WHAT ORDER ARE THE HIEROGLYPHS READ?
Before any advance can be made in the deciphering of the hieroglyphic
inscriptions, it is necessary to know in what directions, along what
lines or columns, the verbal sense proceeds.
All the inscriptions that I know of are in rectangular figures. At Copan
they are usually in squares. At Palenque the longest inscriptions are in
rectangles. At Palenque again, there are some cases where there is a
single horizontal line of hieroglyphs over a pictorial tablet. Here
clearly the only question is, do the characters proceed from left to
right, or from right to left? In other cases as in the tablet of the
cross, there are vertical columns. The question here is, shall we read
up or down?
Now, the hieroglyphs must be phonetic or pictorial, or a mixture of the
two. If they are phonetic, it will take more than one symbol to make a
word, and we shall have groups of like characters when the same word is
written in two places. If the signs are pictorial, the same thing will
follow; that is, we shall have groups recurring when the same idea
recurs. Further, we know that the subjects treated of in these tablets
must be comparatively simple, and that _names_, as of gods, kings, etc.,
must necessarily recur.
The _names_, then, will be the first words deciphered. At present no
single name is known. These considerations, together with our system of
nomenclature, will enable us to take some steps.
Take, for example, the right-hand side of the Palenque cross tablet as
given by RAU. _See_ our figure 48, which is Plate LVI of STEPHENS
(vol. ii, p. 345), with the addition of the part now in the National
Museum at Washington.
Our system of numbering is here
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
3080 3081 3082 3083 3084 3085
Now pick out the duplicate hieroglyphs in this; that is, run through the
tablet, and wherever 2020 occurs erase the number which fills the place
and write in 2020. Do the same for 2021, 2022, etc., down to 3084. The
result will be as follows:
RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF PALENQUE CROSS TABLET (RAU).
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
\---------------/ \-----------/
2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035
\---------------/
2040 2041 2042 { 2025 2020 2021
{ \---------------/
{
2050 2051 2034 { 2053 2054 2055
\---------------/
2053 2061 2062 2063 2064 2065
2070 2071 2020 2021 2022? 2024? }
\---------------/ } ?
}
2053 2020 2082 2083 2025 2053 }
2021 2091 2092 { 2025 2094 2095
{
3000 2023 2034 { 2053 2033 3005
\---------------/
\---------------/
3010 2083 3012 2024 3014 2091
2053 3021 2023 2020 3024 2024
{ 2024 2025 2021 3033 { 2025 2034*
{\---------------/ { \------
? { {
{ 2053* 3021 3042 3043 { 2035 3045
{-------/
3050 2083 { 2025 2034 3054 3055
See 2082 {
\---------------/ {
{
2024 2020 { 2035 3063 2024 2025
\--------------/
2021 2031 2020 2021 2035 3045
\---------------/
3080 3081 2091 2093 2020 2021
\---------------/
14 cases of horizontal pairs; 4 cases of vertical pairs; 102
characters in all, of which 51 appear more than once, so that
there are but 51 independent hieroglyphs.
Here the first two lines are unchanged. In the third line we find that
2043 is the same as 2025, 2044 = 2020, 2045 = 2021, and so on, and we
write the smallest number in each case.
After this is done, connect like pairs by braces whenever they are
consecutive, either vertical or horizontal. Take the pair 2020 and 2021
for example; 2020 occurs eight times in the tablet, viz, as 2020, 2044,
2072, 2081, 3023, 3061, 3072, 3084. In five out of the eight cases, it
is followed by 2021, viz, as 2021, 2045, 2073, 3073, 3085.
It is clear this is not the result of accident. The pair 2020 and 2021
means something, and when the two characters occur together they must be
read together. There is no point of punctuation between them. We also
learn that they are not inseparable. 2020 will make sense with 2082,
3024 and 3062. Here it looks as if the writing must be read in _lines_
horizontally. We do not know yet in which direction.
We must examine other cases. This is to be noticed: If the reading is in
horizontal lines from left to right, then the progress is from top to
bottom in columns, as the case of 3035 and 3040 shows. This occurs at
the end of a line, and the corresponding _chiffre_ required to make the
pair is at the other end of the next line. I have marked this case with
asterisks. If we must read in the lines from right to left we must
necessarily read in columns from bottom to top. Thus the _lines_ are
connected.
A similar process with all the other tablets in STEPHENS leads to the
conclusion that the reading is in lines horizontally and in columns
vertically. The cases 1835-’45, 1885-’95, 1914-’24, and 1936-’46 should,
however, be examined. We have now to decide at which end of the lines to
begin. The reasons given by Mr. BANCROFT (_Native Races_, vol. ii,
p. 782) appeared to me sufficient to decide the question before I was
acquainted with his statement of them.
Therefore, the sum total of our present data, examined by a rational
method, leads to the conclusion, so far as we can know from these data,
that the verbal sense proceeded in _lines_ from left to right, in
_columns_ from top to bottom; just as the present page is written, in
fact.
For the present, the introduction of the method here indicated is the
important step. It has, as yet, been applied only to the plates of
STEPHENS’ work. The definite conclusion should be made to rest on _all
possible_ data, some of which is not at my disposition at present.
Tablets exist in great numbers at other points besides Palenque, and for
the final conclusion these must also be consulted. If each one is
examined in the way I have indicated, it will yield a certain answer.
The direction of reading for that plate can be thus determined. At
Palenque the progress is in the order I have indicated.
V.
THE CARD-CATALOGUE OF HIEROGLYPHS.
It has already been explained how a system of nomenclature was gradually
formed. As I have said, this is not perfect, but it is sufficiently
simple and full for the purpose. By it, every plate in STEPHENS’ work
receives a number and every hieroglyph in each plate is likewise
numbered.
This was first done in my private copy of the work. I then procured
another copy and duplicated these numbers both for plates and single
_chiffres_. The plates of this copy were then cut up into single
hieroglyphs and each single hieroglyph was mounted on a library card, as
follows:
___________________________________________
| | | |
| No. 2020. | Hieroglyph. | Plate LVI. |
| |_______________| |
|__________________________________________|
| Same as Numbers. | Similar to Numbers. |
| ................ | ................... |
| ................ | ................... |
| ................ | ................... |
| ................ | ................... |
| ................ | ................... |
|__________________________________________|
The cards were 6.5 by 4.5 inches. The _chiffre_ was pasted on, in the
center of the top space. Its number and the plate from which it came
were placed as in the cut. The numbers of hieroglyphs which resembled
the one in question could be written on the right half of the card, and
the numbers corresponding to different recurrences of this hieroglyph
occupied the left half.
All this part of the work was most faithfully and intelligently
performed for me by Miss MARY LOCKWOOD, to whom I desire to express the
full amount of my obligations. A mistake in any part would have been
fatal. But no mistakes occurred.
These cards could now be arranged in any way I saw fit. The simple
_chiffres_, for example, could be placed so as to bring like ones
together. A compound hieroglyph could be placed among simple ones
agreeing with any one of its components, and so on.
The expense of forming this card catalogue of about 1,500 single
hieroglyphs was borne by the Ethnological Bureau of the Smithsonian
Institution, and the catalogue is the property of that bureau, forming
only one of its many rich collections of American picture-writings.
VI.
COMPARISON OF PLATES I AND IV (COPAN).
In examining the various statues at Copan, as given by STEPHENS, one
naturally looks for points of striking resemblance or striking
difference. Where all is unknown, even the smallest sign is examined, in
the hope that it may prove a clue. The Plate I, Fig. 49, has a twisted
knot (the “square knot” of sailors) of cords over its head, and above
this is a _chiffre_ composed of ellipses, and above this again a sign
like a sea-shell. A natural suggestion was that these might be the signs
for the name of the personage depicted in Plate I. If this is so and we
should find the same sign elsewhere in connection with a figure, we
should expect to find this second figure like the first in every
particular. This would be a rigid test of the theory. After looking
through the Palenque series, and finding no similar figure and sign,
I examined the Copan series, and in Plate IV, our Fig. 50, I found the
same signs exactly; _i.e._, the knot and the two _chiffres_.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Statue at Copan.]
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Statue at Copan.]
At first sight there is only the most general resemblance between the
personages represented in the two plates; as STEPHENS says in his
original account of them, they are “in many respects similar.” If he had
known them to be the same, he would not have wasted his time in drawing
them. The scale of the two drawings and of the two statues is different;
but the two personages are the same identically. Figure for figure,
ornament for ornament, they correspond. It is unnecessary to give the
minute comparison here in words. It can be made by any one from the two
plates herewith. Take any part of Plate I, find the corresponding part
of Plate IV, and whether it is human feature or sculptured ornament the
two will be found to be the same.
Take the middle face depending from the belt in each plate. The earrings
are the same; the ornament below the chin, the knot above the head, the
complicated beadwork on each side of this face, all are the same. The
bracelets of the right arms of the main figures have each the forked
serpent tongue, and the left-arm bracelets are ornamented alike. The
crosses with beads almost inclosed in the right hands are alike; the
elliptic ornaments above each wrist, the knots and _chiffres_ over the
serpent masks which surmount the faces, all are the same. In the steel
plates given by STEPHENS there are even more coincidences to be seen
than in the excellent wood-cuts here given, which have been copied from
them.
Here, then, is an important fact. The theory that the _chiffre_ over the
forehead is characteristic, though it is not definitively proved,
receives strong confirmation. The parts which have been lost by the
effects of time on one statue can be supplied from the other. Better
than all, we gain a test of the minuteness with which the sculptors
worked, and an idea of how close the adherence to a type was required to
be. Granting once that the two personages are the same (a fact about
which I conceive there can be no possible doubt, since the chances in
favor are literally thousands to one), we learn what license was
allowed, and what synonyms in stone might be employed. Thus, the
ornament suspended from the neck in Plate IV is clearly a tiger’s skull.
That from the neck of Plate I has been shown to be the derived form of a
skull by Dr. HARRISON ALLEN,[6.1] and we now know that this common form
relates not to the human skull, as Dr. ALLEN has supposed, but to that
of the tiger. We shall find this figure often repeated, and the
identification is of importance. This is a case in regard to synonyms.
The kind of symbolism so ably treated by Dr. ALLEN is well exemplified
in the conventional sign for the _crotalus_ jaw at the mouth of the mask
over the head of each figure. This is again found on the body of the
snake in Plate LX, and in other places. Other important questions can be
settled by comparison of the two plates. For example, at Palenque we
often find a sign composed of a half ellipse, inside of which bars are
drawn. [Illustration (inline, unnumbered)] I shall elsewhere show that
there is reason to believe the ellipse is to represent the concave of
the sky, its diameter to be the level earth, and in some cases at least
the bars to be the descending and fertilizing rain. The bars are
sometimes two, three, and sometimes four in number. Are these variants
of a single sign, or are they synonyms? Before the discovery of the
identity of the personages in these two plates, this question could not
be answered. Now we can say that they are not synonyms, or at least that
they must be considered separately. To show this, examine the bands just
above the wristlets of the two figures. Over the left hands of the
figures the bars are two in number; over the right hands there are four.
This exact similarity is not accidental; there is a meaning in it, and
we must search for its explanation elsewhere, but we now have a valuable
test of what needs to be regarded, and of what, on the other hand, may
be passed over as accidental or unimportant.
One other case needs mentioning here, as it will be of future use. From
the waist of each figure depend nine oval solids, six being hatched over
like pine cones and the three central ones having two ovals, one within
the other, engraved on them. In Plate IV the inner ovals are all on the
right-hand side of the outer ovals. Would they mean the same if they
were on the left-hand side? Plate I enables us to say that they would,
since one of these inner ovals has been put by the artist on that side
by accident or by an allowed caprice. It is by furnishing us with tests
and criteria like these that the proof of the identity of these two
plates is immediately important. In other ways, too, the proof is
valuable and interesting, but we need not discuss them at this time.
These statues, then, are to us a dictionary of synonyms in stone--a test
of the degree of adherence to a prototype which was exacted, and a
criterion of the kind of minor differences which must be noticed in any
rigid study.
I have not insisted more on the resemblances, since the accompanying
figures present a demonstration. Let those who wish to verify these
resemblances compare minutely the ornaments above the knees of the two
figures, those about the waists, above the heads, and the square knots,
etc., etc.
VII.
ARE THE HIEROGLYPHS OF COPAN AND PALENQUE IDENTICAL?
One of the first questions to be settled is whether the same system of
writing was employed at Palenque and at Copan. Before any study of the
meanings of the separate _chiffres_ can be made, we must have our
material properly assorted, and must not include in the figures we are
examining for the detection of a clue, any which may belong to a system
possibly very different.
The opinion of STEPHENS and of later writers is confirmed by my
comparison of the Palenque and the Copan series; that is, it becomes
evident that the latter series is far the older.
In Nicaragua and Copan the statues of gods were placed at the foot of
the pyramid; farther north, as at Palenque, they were placed in temples
at the summit. Such differences show a marked change in customs, and
must have required much time for their accomplishment. In this time did
the picture-writing change, or, indeed, was it ever identical?
To settle the question whether they were written on the same system,
I give here the results of a rapid survey of the card-catalogue of
hieroglyphs. A more minute examination is not necessary, as the present
one is quite sufficient to show that the system employed at the two
places was the same in its general character and almost identical even
in details. The practical result of this conclusion is that similar
characters of the Copan and Palenque series may be used interchangeably.
A detailed study of the undoubted synonyms of the two places will afford
much light on the manner in which these characters were gradually
evolved. This is not the place for such a study, but it is interesting
to remark how, even in unmistakable synonyms, the Palenque character is
always the most conventional, the least pictorial; that is, the latest.
Examples of this are No. 7, Plate Va, and No. 1969, Plate LVI. The
_mask_ in profile which forms the left-hand edge of No. 7 seems to have
been conventionalized into the two hooks and the ball, which have the
same place in No. 1969.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Synonymous hieroglyphs from Copan and
Palenque.]
The larger of these two was cut on stone, the smaller in stucco.
The mask has been changed into the ball and hooks; the angular nose
ornament into a single ball, easier to make and quite as significant to
the Maya priest. But to us the older (Copan) figure is infinitely more
significant. The curious rows of little balls which are often placed at
the left-hand edge of the various _chiffres_ are also conventions for
older forms. It is to be noted that these balls always occur on the left
hand of the hieroglyphs, except in one case, the _chiffre_ 1975 in the
Palenque cross tablet, on which the left-hand acolyte stands.
The conclusion that the two series are both written on the same system,
and that like _chiffres_ occurring at the two places are synonyms, will,
I think, be sufficiently evident to any one who will himself examine the
following cases. It is the _nature_ of the agreements which proves the
thesis, and not the number of cases here cited. The reader will remember
that the Copan series comprises Plates I to XXIII, inclusive; the
Palenque series, Plate XXIV and higher numbers.
The sign of the group of Mexican gods who relate to hell, _i.e._, a
circle with a central dot, and with four small segments cut out at four
equally distant points of its circumference, is found in No. 4291, Plate
XXII, and in many of the Palenque plates, as Plate LVI, Nos. 2090, 2073,
2045, 2021, etc. In both places this sign is worn by human figures just
below the ear.
The same sign occurs as an important part of No. 4271, Plate XXII, and
No. 4118, Plate XIII (Copan), and No. 2064, Plate LVI (Palenque), etc.
No. 7, Plate Va, and No. 1969, Plate LVI, I regard as absolutely
identical. These are both human figures. No. 12, Plate Va, and No. 637,
Plate LIII, are probably the same. These probably represent or relate to
the long-nosed divinity, YACATEUCTLI, the Mexican god of commerce, etc.,
or rather to his Maya representative.
The sign of TLALOC, or rather the family of TLALOCS, the gods of rain,
floods, and waters, is an eye (or sometimes a mouth), around which there
is a double line drawn. I take No. 26, Plate Va, of the Copan series,
and Nos. 154 and 165, Plate XXIV, to be corresponding references to
members of this family. No. 4, Plate Va, and No. 155 also correspond.
No. 4242, Plate XXII, is probably related to No. 53, Plate XXIV, and its
congeners.
Nos. 14 and 34, Plate Va, are clearly related to No. 900, Plate LIV,
Nos. 127 and 176, Plate XXIV, No. 3010, Plate LVI, and many others.
Plate IIIa of Copan is evidently identically the same as the No. 75 of
the Palenque Plate No. XXIV.
The right half of No. 27, Plate Va, is the same as the right half of
Nos. 3020, 3040, and many others of Plate LVI.
No. 17, Plate Va, is related to No. 2051, Plate LVI, and many others
like it.
The major part of No. 4105, Plate XIII, is the same as No. 124, Plate
XXIV, etc.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Yucatec Stone.]
It is not necessary to add a greater number of examples here. The
card-catalogue which I have mentioned enables me to at once pick out all
the cases of which the above are specimens, taken just as they fell
under my eye in rapidly turning over the cards. They therefore represent
the _average_ agreement, neither more nor less. Taken together they show
that the same signs were used at Copan and at Palenque. As the same
symbols used at both places occur in like positions in regard to the
human face, etc., I conclude that not only were the same signs used at
both places, but that these signs had the same meaning; _i.e._, were
truly synonyms. In future I shall regard this as demonstrated.
VIII.
HUITZILOPOCHTLI (MEXICAN GOD OF WAR), TEOYAOMIQUI (MEXICAN GODDESS OF
DEATH), MICLANTECUTLI (MEXICAN GOD OF HELL), AND TLALOC (MEXICAN
RAIN-GOD), CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO CENTRAL AMERICAN DIVINITIES.
In the _Congrès des Américanistes, session de Luxembourg_, vol. ii,
p. 283, is a report of a memoir of Dr. LEEMANS, entitled “Description de
quelques antiquités américaines conservées dans le Musée royal
néerlandais d’antiquités à Leide.” On page 299 we find--
M. G.-H.-BAND, de Arnheim, a eu la bonté de me confier quelques
antiquités provenant des anciens habitants du Yucatan et de
l’Amérique Centrale, avec autorisation d’en faire prendre des
fac-similes pour le Musée, ce qui me permet de les faire connaître
aux membres du Congrès. Elles ont été trouvées enfouies à une grande
profondeur dans le sol, lors de la construction d’un canal, vers la
rivière Gracioza, près de San Filippo, sur la frontière du Honduras
britannique et de la république de Guatémala par M. S.-A.-van BRAAM,
ingénieur néerlandais au service de la Guatémala-Company.
From the maps given in STIELER’S Hand-Atlas and in BANCROFT’S Native
Races of the Pacific States I find that these relics were found 308
miles from Uxmal, 207 miles from Palenque, 92 miles from Copan, and 655
miles from the city of Mexico, the distances being in a straight line
from place to place.
The one of these objects with which we are now concerned is figured in
Plate (63) of the work quoted, and is reproduced here as Fig. 52.
Dr. LEEMANS refers to a similarity between this figure and others in
Stephens’ Travels in Central America, but gives no general comparison.
I wish to direct attention to some of the points of this cut. The
_chiffre_ or symbol of the principal figure is, perhaps, represented in
his belt, and is a St. Andrew’s cross, with a circle at each end of it.
Inside the large circle is a smaller one. It may be said, in passing,
that the cross probably relates to the _air_ and the circle to the
_sun_.
The main figure has two hands folded against his breast. Two other arms
are extended, one in front, the other behind, which carry two birds.
Each arm has a bracelet. This second pair of hands is not described by
Dr. LEEMANS. The two birds are exact duplicates, except that the eye of
one is shut, of the other open. Just above the bill of each bird is
something which might be taken as a second bill (which probably is not,
however), and on this and on the back of each bird are five spines or
claws. The corresponding claws are curved and shaped alike in the two
sets. The birds are fastened to the neck of the person represented by
two ornaments, which are alike, and which seem to be the usual
hieroglyph of the _crotalus_ jaw. These jaws are placed similarly with
respect to each bird. In KINGSBOROUGH’S Mexican Antiquities, vol. I,
Plate X, we find the parrot as the sign of TONATIHU, the sun, and in
Plate XXV with NAOLIN, the sun. On a level with the nose of the
principal figure are two symbols, one in front and one behind, each
inclosing a St. Andrew’s cross, and surmounted by what seems to be a
flaming fire. It is probably the _chiffre_ of the wind, as the cross is
of the rain. Below the rear one of these is a head with protruding
tongue (the sign of QUETZALCOATL); below the other a hieroglyph (perhaps
a bearded face). Each of these is upborne by a hand. It is to be
noticed, also, that these last arms have bracelets different from the
pair on the breast.
In passing, it may be noted that the head in rear is under a cross, and
has on its cheek the symbol +U+. These are the symbols of the left-hand
figure in the Palenque cross tablet.
The head hanging from the rear of the belt has an _open_ eye (like that
of the principal figure), and above it is a crotalus mask, with open
eye, and teeth, and forked fangs. The principal figure wears over his
head a mask, with open mouth, and with tusks, and above this mask is the
eagle’s head. This eagle is a sign of TLALOC, at least in Yucatan. In
Mexico the eagle was part of the insignia of TETZCATLIPOCA, “the devil,”
who overthrew the good QUETZALCOATL and reintroduced human sacrifice.
The characteristics of the principal figure, 63, are then briefly as
follows:
I. His _chiffre_ is an air-cross with the sun-circle.
II. He has four hands.
III. He bears two birds as a symbol.
IV. The claws or spikes on the backs of these are significant.
V. The mask with tusks over the head.
VI. The head worn at the belt.
VII. The captive trodden under foot.
VIII. The chain from the belt attached to a kind of ornament or symbol.
IX. The twisted flames (?) or winds (?) on each side of the figure.
X. His association with QUETZALCOATL or CUKULCAN, as shown by the mouth
with protruding tongue, and with TLALOC or TETZCATLIPOCA, as shown by
the eagle’s head.
We may note here for reference the signification of one of the
hieroglyphs in the right-hand half of Fig. 52, _i.e._, in that half
which contains only writing. The topmost _chiffre_ is undoubtedly the
name, or part of the name, of the principal figure represented in the
other half. It is in pure picture-writing; that is, it expresses the sum
of his attributes. It has the crotalus mask, with nose ornament, which
he wears over his face; then the cross, with the “five feathers” of
Mexico, and the sun symbol. These are in the middle of the _chiffre_.
Below these the oval may be, and probably is, heaven, with the rain
descending and producing from the surface of the earth (the long axis of
the ellipse), the seed, of which three grains are depicted.
We know by the occurrence of the hieroglyphs on the reverse side of the
stone that this is not of Aztec sculpture. These symbols are of the same
sort as those at Copan, Palenque, etc., and I shall show later that some
of them occur in the Palenque tablets. Hence, we know this engraving to
be Yucatec and not Aztec in its origin. If it had been sculptured on one
side only, and these hieroglyphs omitted, I am satisfied that the facts
which I shall point out in the next paragraphs would have led to the
conclusion that this stone was Mexican in its origin. Fortunately the
native artist had the time to sculpture the Yucatec hieroglyphs, which
are the proof of its true origin. It was not dropped by a traveling
Aztec; it was made by a Yucatec.
In passing, it may be said that the upper left-hand hieroglyph of Plate
XIII most probably repeats this name.
I collect from the third volume of BANCROFT’S _Native Races_, chapter
viii, such descriptions of HUITZILOPOCHTLI as he was represented among
the Mexicans as will be of use to us in our comparisons. No display of
learning in giving the references to the original works is necessary
here, since Mr. BANCROFT has placed all these in order and culled them
for a use like the present. It will suffice once for all to refer the
critical reader to this volume, and to express the highest sense of
obligation to Mr. BANCROFT’S compilation, which renders a survey of the
characteristic features of the American divinities easy.
In Mexico, then, this god had, among other symbols, “five balls of
feathers arranged in the form of a cross.” This was in reference to the
mysterious conception of his mother through the _powers of the air_. The
upper hieroglyph in Fig. 52, and one of the lower ones, contain this
sign: “In his right hand he had an azured staff cutte in fashion of a
waving snake.” (See Plate LXI of STEPHENS.) “Joining to the temple of
this idol there was a piece of less work, where there was another idol
they called TLALOC. These two idolls were alwayes together, for that
they held them as companions and of equal power.”
To his temple “there were foure gates,” in allusion to the form of the
cross. The temple was surrounded by rows of skulls (as at Copan) and the
temple itself was upon a high pyramid. SOLIS says the war god sat “on a
throne supported by a blue globe.” From this, supposed to represent the
heavens, projected four staves with serpents’ heads. (See Plate XXIV,
STEPHENS.) “The image bore on its head a bird of wrought plumes,” “its
right hand rested upon a crooked serpent.” “Upon the left arm was a
buckler bearing five white plumes arranged in form of a cross.” SAHAGUN
describes his device as a dragon’s head, “frightful in the extreme, and
casting fire out of his mouth.”
HERRARA describes HUITZILOPOCHTLI and TETZCATLIPOCA together, and says
they were “beset with pieces of gold wrought like birds, beasts, and
_fishes_.” “For collars, they had ten hearts of men,” “and in their
necks Death painted.”
TORQUEMADA derives the _name_ of the war god in two ways. According to
some it is composed of two words, one signifying “a humming bird” and
the other “a sorcerer that spits fire.” Others say that the last word
means “the left hand,” so that the whole name would mean “the shining
feathered left hand.” “This god it was that led out the Mexicans from
their own land and brought them into Anáhuac.” Besides his regular
statue, set up in Mexico, “there was another renewed every year, made of
different kinds of grains and seeds, moistened with the blood of
children.” This was in allusion to the nature-side of the god, as fully
explained by MÜLLER (_Americanische Urreligionen_).
No description will give a better idea of the general features of this
god than the following cuts from BANCROFT’S _Native Races_, which are
copied from LEON Y GAMA, _Las Dos Piedras_, etc. Figs. 53 and 54 are the
war god himself; Fig. 55 is the back of the former statue on a larger
scale; Fig. 56 is the god of hell, and was engraved on the bottom of the
block.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--HUITZILOPOCHTLI (front).]
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--HUITZILOPOCHTLI (side).]
These three were a trinity well nigh inseparable. It has been doubted
whether they were not different attributes of the same personage. In the
natural course of things the primitive idea would become differentiated
into its parts, and in process of time the most important of the parts
would each receive a separate pictorial representation.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--HUITZILOPOCHTLI (back).]
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--MICLANTECUTLI.]
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--Adoratorio.]
By referring back a few pages the reader will find summarized the
principal characteristics of the Central American figure represented in
Fig. 52. He will also have noticed the remarkable agreement between the
attributes of this figure and those contained in the cuts or in the
descriptions of the Mexican gods. Thus--
I. The symbol of both was the cross.
II. Fig. 52 and Fig. 55 each have four hands.[6.2]
III. Both have birds as symbols.
It is difficult to regard the bird of Fig. 52 as a humming bird, as it
more resembles the parrot, which, as is well known, was a symbol of some
of the Central American gods. Its occurrence here in connection with the
four arms fixes it, however, as the bird symbol of HUITZILOPOCHTLI. In
the _MS. Troano_, plate xxxi (lower right-hand figure), we find this
same personage with his two parrots, along with TLALOC, the god of rain.
IV. The claws of the Mexican statue may be symbolized by the spikes on
the back of the birds in Fig. 52, but these latter appear to me to
relate rather to the fangs and teeth of the various crotalus heads of
the statues.
V. The mask, with tusks, of Fig. 52, is the same as that at the top of
Fig. 55, where we see that they represent the teeth of a serpent, and
not the tusks of an animal. This is shown by the forked tongue beneath.
The three groups of four dots each on HUITZILOPOCHTLI’S statue are
references to his relationship with TLALOC.
With these main and striking duplications, and with other minor and
corroborative resemblances, which the reader can see for himself, there
is no doubt but that the two figures, Mexican and Yucatec, relate to the
same personage. The Yucatec figure combines several of the attributes of
the various members of the Mexican trinity named above, but we should
not be surprised at this, for, as has been said, some writers consider
that this trinity was one only of attributes and not of persons.
What has been given above is sufficient to show that the personage
represented in Fig. 52 is the Yucatec equivalent of HUITZILOPOCHTLI, and
has relations to his trinity named at the head of this section, and also
to the family of TLALOC. I am not aware that the relationship of the
Yucatec and Aztec gods has been so directly shown, on evidence almost
purely pictorial, and therefore free from a certain kind of bias.
If the conclusions above stated are true, there will be many
corroborations of them, and the most prominent of these I proceed to
give, as it involves the explanation of one of the most important
tablets of Palenque, parts of which are shown in Plates XXIV, LX, LXI,
and LXII, vol. ii, of STEPHENS.
Plate LXII, Fig. 57, represents the “Adoratorio or Alta Casa, No. 3” of
Palenque. This is nothing else than the temple of the god
HUITZILOPOCHTLI and of his equal, TLALOC. The god of war is shown on a
larger scale in Plate LXI, Fig. 58, while TLALOC is given in Plate LX,
Fig. 59, and the tablet inside the temple in Plate XXIV, Fig. 60. The
resemblances of Plate XXIV and of the Palenque cross tablet and their
meanings will be considered farther on.
Returning to Plate LXII, the symbols of the roof and cornice refer to
these two divinities. The faces at the ends of the cornice, with the
double lines for eye and mouth, are unmistakable TLALOC signs. The
association of the two gods in one temple, as at Mexico, is a strong
corroboration.
Let us now take Plate LXI, Fig. 58, which represents HUITZILOPOCHTLI, or
rather, the Yucatec equivalent of this Aztec god. I shall refer to him
by the Aztec appelation, but I shall in future write it in italics; and
in general the Yucatec equivalents of Aztec personages in italics, and
the Aztec names in small capitals.
Compare Fig. 52 and the Plate LXI (Fig. 58). As the two plates are
before the reader, I need only point out the main resemblances, and,
what is more important, the differences.
The sandals, the belt, its front pendant, the bracelets, the neck
ornament, the helmet, should be examined. The four hands of Fig. 52 are
not in LXI, nor the parrots; but if we refer to KINGSBOROUGH, Vol. II,
Plates 6 and 7 of the LAUD manuscript, we shall find figures of
HUITZILOPOCHTLI with a parrot, and of TLALOC with the stork with a fish
in its mouth, as in the head-dress here. The prostrate figure of Fig. 52
is here led by a chain. At Labphak (BANCROFT, Vol. iv., p. 251), he is
held aloft in the air, and he is on what _may be_ a sacrificial yoke.
The _Tlaloc_ eagle is in the head of the staff carried in the hand. This
eagle is found in the second line from the bottom of Fig. 52, we may
remark in passing. Notice also the crescent moon in the ornament back of
the shoulders of the personage of Fig. 58. The twisted cords which form
the bottom of this ornament are in the hieroglyph No. 37, Plate XXIV
(Fig. 60).
Turning now to Plate LX (Fig. 59).
This I take to be the sorcerer _Tlaloc_. He is blowing the wind from his
mouth; he has the eagle in his head-dress, the jaw with grinders, the
peculiar eye, the four TLALOC dots over his ear and on it, the snake
between his legs, curved in the form of a yoke (this is known to be a
serpent by the conventional crotalus signs of jaw and rattles on it in
nine places), the four TLALOC dots again in his head-dress, etc. He has
a leopard skin on his back (the tiger was the earth in Mexico) and his
naked feet have peculiar anklets which should be noticed.
Although I am deferring the examination of the hieroglyphs to a later
section, the _chiffre_ 3201 should be noticed. It is the TLALOC eye
again, and 3203 is the _chiffre_ of the Mexican gods of hell.
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Maya War God.]
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Maya Rain God.]
In passing I may just refer the reader to p. 164, Vol. ii, of STEPHENS’
book on Yucatan, where a figure occurring at Labphak is given. This I
take to be the same as _Huitzilopochtli_ of Plate LXI. Also in the MS.
_Troano_, published by BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG, a figure in Plate XXV and
in other plates sits on a hieroglyph like 3201, and is _Tlaloc_. This is
known by the head-dress, the teeth, the air-trumpet, the serpent symbol,
etc. In Plates XXVIII, XXXI, and XXXIII of the same work HUITZILOPOCHTLI
and TLALOC are represented together, in various adventures.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--Tablet at Palenque.]
In Plate LX (Fig. 59) notice also the _chiffre_ on the tassels before
and behind the main personage.
Now turn to the Plate XXIV (Fig. 60), which is the main object in the
“Adoratorio” (Fig. 57), where the human figures serve as flankers.
First examine the caryatides who support the central structure. These
are _Tlalocs_. Each has an eagle over his face, is clothed in leopard
skin, has the characteristic eye and teeth, and the wristlets of Plate
LX (Fig. 59).
A vertical line through the center of Plate XXIV (Fig. 60) would
separate the figures and ornaments into two groups. These groups are
very similar, but never identical, and this holds good down to the
minutest particulars and is not the result of accident. One side (the
right-hand) belongs to _Tlaloc_, the other to _Huitzilopochtli_.
The right-hand priest (let us call him, simply for a name and not to
commit ourselves to a theory) has the sandals of Plate LXI; the
left-hand priest the anklets of Plate LX.
The beast on which the first stands and the man who supports the other
are both marked with the tassel symbol of Plate LX. There is a certain
rude resemblance between the supplementary head of this beast and the
pendant in front of the belt of Fig. 52. Four of these beasts supply
rain to the earth with _Tlaloc_ in Plate XXVI of the MS. _Troano_. The
infant offered by the right-hand priest has the _two_ curls on his
forehead which was a necessary mark of the victims for TLALOC’S
sacrifices. The center of the whole plate is a horrid mask with an open
mouth. Behind this are two staves with _different_ ornaments crossed in
the form of the air-cross. On either hand of this the ornaments are
different though similar.
A curious resemblance may be traced between the positions, etc., of
these two staves and those of the figure on p. 563, vol. iv, of
BANCROFT’S _Native Races_, which is a Mexican stone. Again, this latter
figure has at its upper right-hand corner a crouching animal (?) very
similar to the gateway ornament given in the same volume, p. 321. This
last is at Palenque. I quote these two examples in passing simply to
reinforce the idea of similarity between the sacred sculptures of
Yucatan and Mexico.
I take it that the examination of which I have sketched the details will
have left no doubt but that the personage of Fig. 52 is truly
_Huitzilopochtli_, the Yucatec representative of HUITZILOPOCHTLI; that
Plate LXI (Fig. 58) is the same personage; that Plate LX (Fig. 59)
represents TLALOC; and that Plate XXIV (Fig. 60) is a tablet relating to
the service of these two gods.
I have previously shown that the Palenque hieroglyphs are read in order
from left to right. We should naturally expect, then, that the sign for
_Tlaloc_ or for _Huitzilopochtli_ would occupy the upper left-hand
corner of Plate XXIV. In fact it does, and I was led to this discovery
in the way I have indicated.
No. 37 is the Palenque manner of writing the top sign of Fig. 52.
I shall call the signs of Fig. 52 _a_, _b_, _c_, etc., in order
downwards.
The crouching face in _a_ occupies the lower central part of No. 37.
Notice also that this face occurs below the small cross in the detached
ornament to the left of the central mask of Fig. 60. The crescent moon
of Plate LXI (Fig. 58) is on its cheek; back of this is the sun-sign;
the cross of _a_ is just above its eye; the three signs for the
celestial concave are at the top of 37, crossed with rain bands; the
three seeds (?) are below these. The feathers are in the lower
right-hand two-thirds. This is the sign or part of the sign for
_Huitzilopochtli_. If a Maya Indian had seen either of these signs a few
centuries ago, he would have had the successive ideas--a war-god, with a
feather-symbol, related to sun and moon, to fertilizing rain and
influences, to clouds and seed; that is _Huitzilopochtli_, the companion
of _Tlaloc_. Or if he had seen the upper left-hand symbol of the
Palenque cross tablet (1800), he would have had _related_ ideas, and so
on.
What I have previously said about the faithfulness with which the
Yucatec artist adhered to his prototypes in signs is perfectly true,
although apparently partly contradicted by the identification I have
just made. When a given attribute of a god (or other personage) was to
be depicted, the _chiffres_ expressing this were marvellously alike.
Witness the _chiffres_ Nos. 2090, 2073, 2021, 2045, 3085, 3073, 3070,
3032 of the Palenque cross tablet. But directly afterwards some other
attribute is to be brought out, and the _chiffre_ changes; thus the
hieroglyph 1009 of Plate LIV, or 265, Plate LII, has the same protruding
tongue as 2021, etc., and is the same personage, but the style is quite
changed. In Fig. 52, _Huitzilopochtli_ is the war-god, in Plate XXIV he
is the rain-god’s companion; and while every attribute is accounted for,
prominence is given to the special ones worshipped or celebrated. Scores
of instances of this have arisen in the course of my examination.
Again, we must remember that this was no source of ambiguity to the
Yucatecs, however much it may be to us. Each one of them, and specially
each officiating priest, was entirely familiar with every attribute of
every god of the Yucatec pantheon. The sign of the attribute brought the
idea of the power of the god in that special direction; the full idea of
his divinity was the integral of all these special ideas. The limits
were heaven and earth.
This, then, is the first step. I consider that it is securely based, and
that we may safely say that in proper names, at least, a kind of picture
writing was used which was _not_ phonetic.
From this point we may go on. I must again remark that great familiarity
with the literature of the Aztecs and Yucatecs is needed--a familiarity
to which I personally cannot pretend--and that it is clear that the
method to reach its full success must be applied by a true scholar in
this special field.
IX.
TLALOC, OR HIS MAYA REPRESENTATIVE.
Although there is no personage of all the Maya pantheon more easy to
recognize in the form of a _statue_ than _Tlaloc_, there is great
difficulty in being certain of _all_ the hieroglyphs which relate to
him. There is every reason to believe that in Yucatan, as in Mexico,
there was a family of rain-gods, _Tlalocs_, and the distinguishing signs
of the several members are almost impossible of separation, so long as
we know so little of the special functions of each member of this
family.
In Yucatan, as in Mexico, _Tlaloc’s_ main sign was a double line about
the eye or mouth, or about both; and further, some of the _Tlalocs_, at
least, were bearded.[6.3]
CUKULCAN was also bearded, but we have separated out in the next section
the _chiffres_, or certainly most of them, that relate to him. Those
that are left remain to be distributed among the family of rain-gods;
and this, as I have said, can only be done imperfectly, on account of
our slight knowledge of the character of these gods.
If we examine the plates given by STEPHENS, we shall find many pictorial
allusions to _Tlaloc_. These are often used as mere ornaments or
embellishments, as in borders, etc., and probably served only to notify,
in a general way, the fact of the relationship of the personage
represented, to this family, and probably not to convey any specific
meaning.
Thus, in Plate XXXV of STEPHENS’ work the upper left-hand ornament of
the border is a head of _Tlaloc_ with double lines about eye and mouth,
and this ornament is repeated in a different form at the lower
right-hand corner of the border just back of the right hand of the
sitting figure, and also in the base of the border below the feet of the
principal figure.
Plate XLVIII (of STEPHENS’) is probably CHALCHIHUITLICUE (that is, the
Yucatec equivalent of that goddess), who was the sister of _Tlaloc_. His
sign occurs in the upper left-hand corner of the border, and in Plate
XLIX the same sign occurs in a corresponding position.
Plate XXIV (our Fig. 60) is full of _Tlaloc_ signs. The bottom of the
tablet has a hieroglyph, 93 (_Huitzilopochtli_), at one end and 185
(_Tlaloc_) at the other. The leopard skin, eagle, and the crouching
tiger (?) under the feet of the priest of _Tlaloc_ (the right-hand
figure) are all given. The infant (?) offered by this priest has two
locks of curled hair at its forehead, as was prescribed for children
offered to this god.
In Plate LVI (our Fig. 48) the mask at the foot of the cross is a human
mask, and not a serpent mask, as has been ingeniously proved by Dr.
HARRISON ALLEN in his paper so often quoted. It is the mask of _Tlaloc_,
as shown by the teeth and corroborated (not proved) by the way in which
the eye is expressed. The curved hook within the eyeball here, as in
185, stands for the air--the wind--of which _Tlaloc_ was also god. The
Mexicans had a similar sign for breath, message.
The _chiffre_ 1975, on which _Huitzilopochtli’s_ priest is standing,
I believe to be the synonym of 185 in Plate XXIV. Just in front of
_Tlaloc’s_ priest is a sacrificial yoke (?), at the top of which is a
face, with the eye of the _Tlalocs_, and various decorations. This face
is to be found also at the lower left-hand corner of Plate XLI
(of STEPHENS’), and also (?) in the same position in Plate XLII
(of STEPHENS’). These will serve as subjects for further study.
Notice in Plate LVI (our Fig. 48) how the ornaments in corresponding
positions on either side of the central line are similar, yet never the
same. A careful study of these pairs will show how the two gods
celebrated, differed. A large part, at least, of the attributes of each
god is recorded in this way by antithesis. I have not made enough
progress in this direction to make the very few conclusions of which I
am certain worth recording. The general fact of such an antithesis is
obvious when once it is pointed out, and it is in just such paths as
this that advances must be looked for.
I have just mentioned, in this rapid survey of the plates of vol. ii of
STEPHENS’ work, the principal pictorial signs relating to _Tlaloc_.
There are a number almost equally well marked in vol. i, in Plates VII,
IX, X, XIII, and XV, but they need not be described. Those who are
especially interested can find them for themselves.
The following brief account and plate of a _Tlaloc_ inscription at Kabah
will be useful for future use, and is the more interesting as it is
comparatively unknown.
_INSCRIPTION AT KABAH (Yucatan)._
This hitherto unpublished inscription on a rock at Kabah is given in
_Archives paléographiques_, vol. i, part ii, Plate 20. It deserves
attention on account of its resemblances, but still more on account of
its differences, with certain other Yucatec glyphs.
We may first compare it with the Plate LX of STEPHENS (our Fig. 59).
The head-dress in Plate 20 is quite simple, and presents no resemblance
to the elaborate gear of Plate LX, in which the ornament of a leaf (?),
or more probably feather, cross-hatched at the end and divided
symmetrically by a stem (?) or quill about which four dots are placed,
seems characteristic.
_Possibly_, and only possibly, the square in the rear of the head of
Plate 20, which has two cross-hatchings, may refer to the elaborate
cross-hatchings in Plate LX. The four dots are found twice, once in
front and once in rear of the figure. The heads of the two figures have
only one resemblance, but this is a very important one. The tusks belong
to HUITZILOPOCHTLI and to his trinity, and specially to TLALOC, his
companion.
Both Plate 20 and LX have the serpent wand or yoke clearly expressed. In
LX the serpent is decorated with crotalus heads; in 20 by images of the
sun (?), as in the FERJAVARY MS. (KINGSBOROUGH). The front apron or
ornament of Plate 20 is of snake skin, ornamented with sun-symbols.
Comparing Plate 20 with Fig. 52 (_ante_), we find quite other
resemblances. The head-dress of 20 is the same as the projecting arm of
the head-dress of Fig. 52; and the tusks are found in the helmet or mask
of Fig. 52.
These and other resemblances show the Kabah inscription to be a TLALOC.
It is interesting specially on account of its hieroglyphs, which I hope
to examine subsequently. The style of this writing appears to be late,
and may serve as a connecting link between the stones and the
manuscripts, and it is noteworthy that even the style of the drawing
itself seems to be in the manner of the Mexican MS. of LAUD, rather than
in that of the Palenque stone tablets.
From the card catalogue I select the following _chiffres_ as
appertaining to the family of the _Tlalocs_. As I have said, these must
for the present remain in a group, unseparated. Future studies will be
necessary to discriminate between the special signs which relate to
special members of the family. The _chiffres_ are Nos. 3200; 1864; 1403;
811; 1107?; 1943?; 4114??; _b_?; 1893 (bearded faces, or faces with
teeth very prominent); 166?; 4??; 807?; 62?; 155?; 26; 154?; 165?; 164?;
805; 4109; 1915?; 675??; 635?? (distinguished by the characteristic eye
of the TLALOCS).
Here, again, the writing is ideographic, and not phonetic.
X.
CUKULCAN OR QUETZALCOATL.
The character 2021 occurs many times in Plate LVI (Fig. 48), and
occasionally elsewhere. The personage represented is distinguished by
having a protruding tongue, and was therefore at once suspected to be
QUETZALCOATL. (See BANCROFT’S _Native Races_, vol. iii, p. 280.) The
protruding tongue is probably a reference to his introduction of the
sacrificial acts performed by wounding that member.
The rest of the sign I suppose to be the rebus of his name,
“Snake-plumage”; the part cross-hatched being “snake,” the feather-like
ornament at the upper left-hand corner being “plumage.” It is necessary,
however, to prove this before accepting the theory. To do this I had
recourse to Plates I and IV (Figs. 49, 50), my dictionary of synonyms.
This _cross-hatching_ occurs in Plate I. In the six tassels below the
waist, where the cross-hatching _might_ indicate the serpent skin,
notice the ends of the tassels; these are in a scroll-like form, and as
if rolled or coiled tip. In Plate IV they are the same, naturally. So
far there is but little light.
In Plate IV, just above each wrist, is a sign composed of ellipse and
bars; a little above each of these signs, among coils which may be
serpent coils, and on the horizontal line through the top of the
necklace pendant, are two surfaces cross-hatched all over. What do these
mean? Referring to Plate I, we find, in exactly the same relative
situation, the forked tongue and the rattles of the crotalus. These are,
then, synonyms, and the _guess_ is confirmed. The cross-hatching means
serpent-skin. Is this _always_ so? We must examine other plates to
decide.
The same ornament is found in Plates IX, XIV, XVI, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI,
XXXV (of STEPHENS’), but its situation does not allow us to gain any
additional light.
In Plate XII (STEPHENS’) none of the ornaments below the belt will help
us. At the level of the mouth are four patches of it. Take the upper
right-hand one of these. Immediately to its right is a serpent’s head;
below the curve and above the frog’s (?) head are the rattles. Here is
another confirmation. In Plate XVIII I refer the cross-hatching to the
jaw of the crocodile. In Plate XXII I have numbered the _chiffres_ as
follows:
4201 4202 4203 4204.
4211 4212 4213 4214.
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
4311 4312 4313 4314.
4204 has the cross-hatching at its top, and to its left in 4203 is the
serpent’s head. The same is true in 4233-4. In 4264 we have the same
symbol that we are trying to interpret; it is in its perfect form here
and in No. 1865 of the Palenque series. In the caryatides of Plate XXIV
(Fig. 60) the cross-hatching is included in the spots of the leopard’s
skin; in the ornaments at the base, in and near the masks which they are
supporting, it is again serpent skin. Take the lower mask; its jaws,
forked-tongue, and teeth prove it to be a serpent-mask, as well as the
ornament just above it. In Plate LX (Fig. 59) it is to be noticed that
the leopard spots are not cross-hatched, but that this ornament is given
at the lower end of the leopard robe, which ends moreover in a crotalus
tongue marked with the sign of the jaw (near the top of this ornament)
and of the rattles (near the bottom). This again confirms the theory of
the rebus meaning of the cross-hatching. In Plate XXIV (Fig. 60) the
cross-hatching on the leopard spots probably is meant to _add_ the
serpent attribute to the leopard symbol, and not simply to denote the
latter.
Thus an examination of the _whole_ of the material available, shows that
the preceding half of the hieroglyph 2021 and its congeners is nothing
but the _rebus_ for QUETZALCOATL, or rather for CUKULCAN, the Maya name
for this god. BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG, as quoted in BANCROFT’S _Native
Races_, vol. ii, p. 699, foot note, says CUKULCAN, comes from _kuk_ or
_kukul_, a bird, which appears to be the same as the _quetzal_, and from
_can_, serpent; so that CUKULCAN in Maya is the same as QUETZALCOATL in
Aztec. It is to be noticed how checks on the accuracy of any deciphering
of hieroglyphs occur at every point, if we will only use them.
The Maya equivalents of HUITZILOPOCHTLI and TLALOC are undoubtedly
buried in the _chiffres_ already deciphered, but we have no means of
getting their names in Maya from the rebus of the _chiffres_.
In the cases of these two gods we got the _chiffre_, and the rebus is
still to seek. In the case of _Quetzalcoatl_ or CUKULCAN, the rebus was
the means of getting the name; and if the names of this divinity had not
been equivalent in the two tongues, our results would have led us to the
(almost absurd) conclusion that a god of certain attributes was called
by his Aztec name in the Maya nations.
Thus every correct conclusion confirms every former one and is a basis
for subsequent progress. The results of this analysis are that the Maya
god CUKULCAN is named in each one of the following _chiffres_, viz: Nos.
1009, 265, 2090, 2073, 2021, 3085, 2045, 3073, 3070, 3032, 1865, 265,
268?, 4291? 73?? I give the numbers in the order in which they are
arranged in the card-catalogue. There is, of course, a reason for this
order.
BANCROFT, vol. iii, p. 268, says of QUETZALCOATL that “his symbols were
the bird, the serpent, the cross, and the flint, representing the
clouds, the lightning, the four winds, and the thunderbolt.”
We shall find all of his titles except one, the bird, in what follows.
We must notice here that in the _chiffre_ 2021 and its congeners the
bird appears directly over the head of CUKULCAN. It is plainly shown in
the heliotype which accompanies Professor RAU’S work on the Palenque
cross, though not so well in our Fig. 48.
In what has gone before, we have seen that the characters 2021, 2045,
2073, 3073, 3085, 265, etc., present the portrait and the rebus of
CUKULCAN. It will not be forgotten that in the examination of the
question as to the order in which the stone inscriptions were read we
found a number of _pairs_ in Plate LVI, Fig. 48; the characters 2021,
etc., being one member of each. The other members of the pairs in the
Plate LVI were 2020, 2044, 2072, 3072, 3084, etc. 264-265 is another
example of the same pair elsewhere.
I hoped to find that the name CUKULCAN, or 2021, was associated in these
pairs with some adjective or verb, and therefore examined the other
members of the pair.
In a case like this the card-catalogue is of great assistance; for
example, I wish to examine here the _chiffres_ Nos. 2020, 2044, 2072,
3072, 3084, etc. In the catalogue their cards occur in the same
compartment, arranged so that two cards that are exactly alike are
contiguous. We can often know that two _chiffres_ are alike when one is
in a far better state of preservation than the other. Hence we may
select for study that one in which the lines and figures are best
preserved; or from several characters known to be alike, and of which no
one is entirely perfect, we may construct with accuracy the type upon
which they were founded. In this case the hieroglyph 2020 is well
preserved (see the right-hand side of Plate LVI, Fig. 48, the upper
left-hand glyph). It consists of a _human hand_, with the symbol of the
_sun_ in it; above this is a sign similar to that of the Maya day
_Ymix_; above this again, in miniature, is the rebus “snake plumage” or
_Cukulcan_; and to the left of the hieroglyph are some curved lines not
yet understood. No. 2003 of the same plate is also well preserved. It
has the hand as in 2020, the rebus also, and the sign for _Ymix_ is
slightly different, being modified with a sign like the top of a cross,
the symbol of the _four winds_. The symbol _Ymix_ may be seen, by a
reference to Plate XXVII (lower half) of the MS. _Troano_, to relate to
the _rain_. The figure of that plate is pouring rain upon the earth from
the orifices represented by _Ymix_. The cross of the _four winds_ is
still more plain in Nos. 2072, 3084, and 3072.
The part of this symbol 2020 and its synonyms which consists of curved
lines occupying the left hand one-third of the whole _chiffre_ occurs
only in this set of characters, and thus I cannot say _certainly_ what
this particular part of the hieroglyph means; but if the reader will
glance back over the last one hundred lines he will find that these
_chiffres_ contain the _rebus_ CUKULCAN, the sign of a _human hand_, of
the _sun_, of the _rain_, and of the _four winds_.
In BANCROFT’S _Native Races_, vol. iii, chapter vii, we find that the
titles of QUETZALCOATL (CUKULCAN) were the _air_, the _rattlesnake_, the
_rumbler_ (in allusion to thunder), the _strong hand_, the lord of the
_four winds_. The bird symbol exists in 2021, etc. Now in 2020 and its
congeners we have found every one of these titles, save only that
relating to the _thunder_. And we have found a meaning for every part of
the hieroglyph 2020 save only one, viz, the left-hand one-third,
consisting of concentric half ellipses or circles. It may be said to be
quite _probable_ that the unexplained part of the sign (2020)
corresponds to the unused title, “the rumbler.” But it is not rigorously
proved, although very probable. The thunder would be well represented by
repeating the sign for sky or heaven. This much seems to me certain. The
sign is but another summing up of the attributes and titles of CUKULCAN.
2021 gave his portrait, his bird symbol, made allusion to his
institution of the sacrifice of wounding the tongue, and spelled out his
name in rebus characters. 2020 repeats his name as a rebus and adds the
titles of lord of the four winds, of the sun, of rain, of the strong
hand, etc. It is his biography, as it were.
In this connection, a passing reference to the characters 1810, etc.,
1820, etc., 1830, etc., 1840, etc., 1850, etc., of the left-hand side of
Plate LVI should be made. Among these, all the titles named above are to
be found. These are suitable subjects for future study.
We now see _why_ the pair 2020, 2021 occurs so many times in Plate LVI,
and again as 264, 265, etc. The right-hand half of this tablet has much
to say of CUKULCAN, and whenever his name is mentioned a brief list of
his titles accompanies it. Although it is disappointing to find _both_
members of this well-marked pair to be proper names, yet it is
gratifying to see that the theory of pairs, on which the proof of the
order in which the tablets are to be read must rest, has received such
unexpected confirmation.
To conclude the search for the hieroglyphs of CUKULCAN’S name, it will
be necessary to collect all those faces with “_round_ beards” (see
BANCROFT’S _Native Races_, vol. iii, p. 250). TLALOC was also bearded,
but all the historians refer to QUETZALCOATL as above cited. I refer
hieroglyphs Nos. 658, 651?, 650?, and 249? to this category.
Perhaps also the sign No. 153 is the sign of QUETZALCOATL, as something
very similar to it is given as his sign in the _Codex Telleriano
Remensis_, KINGSBOROUGH, vol. i, Plates I, II, and V (Plate I the best),
where he wears it at his waist.
In Plate LXIII of STEPHENS (vol. ii) is a small figure of CUKULCAN which
he calls “Bas Relief on Tablet.” WALDECK gives a much larger drawing
(incorrect, however, in many details), in which the figure, the “Beau
Relief,” is seen to wear bracelets high up on the arm. This was a
distinguishing sign of QUETZALCOATL (see BANCROFT’S _Native Races_, vol.
iii, pp. 249 and 250), and this figure probably is a representation of
the Maya divinity. He is on a stool with tigers for supports. The tiger
belongs to the attributes which he had in common with TLALOC, and we see
again the intimate connection of these divinities--a connection often
pointed out by BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG.
This is the third proper name which has been deciphered. All of them
have been pure picture-writing, except in so far as their rebus
character may make them in a sense phonetic.
XI.
COMPARISON OF THE SIGNS OF THE MAYA MONTHS (LANDA) WITH THE TABLETS.
We have a set of signs for Maya months and days handed down to us by
LANDA along with his phonetic alphabet. _A priori_ these are more likely
to represent the primitive forms as carved in stone than are the
alphabetic hieroglyphs, which may well have been invented by the
Spaniards to assist the natives to memorize religious formulæ.[6.4]
BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG has analyzed the signs for the day and month in
his publication on the MS. _Troano_, and the strongest arguments which
can be given for their phonetic origin are given by him.
I have made a set of MS. copies of these signs and included them in my
card-catalogue, and have carefully compared them with the tablets XXIV
and LVI. My results are as follows:
PLATE XXIV (our Fig. 60).
No. 42 is the Maya month _Pop_, beginning July 16.
No. 54 is _Zip_??, beginning August 25.
No. 47 is _Tzoz_??, beginning September 14.
No. 57 is _Tzec_? beginning October 4.
No. 44-45 is _Mol_?, beginning December 3.
No. 39 is _Yax_, _Zac_, or _Ceh_, beginning January 12, February 1,
February 21, respectively.
PLATE LVI (our Fig. 48).
No. 1804 is _Uo_????
No. 1901 is _Zip_????
No. 1816 is _Tzoz_??
No. 1814 is _Tzec_?
No. 1807 is _Mol_?
No. 1855 is _Yax_, _Zac_, or _Ceh_.
No. 1844 is _Mac_?
The only sign about which there is little or no doubt is No. 42, which
seems pretty certainly to be the sign of the Maya month _Pop_, which
began July 16.
No. 39, just above it, seems also to be _one_ of the months _Yax_,
_Zac_, or _Ceh_, which began on January 12, February 1, and February 21,
respectively. Which one of these it corresponds to must be settled by
other means than a direct comparison. The signs given by LANDA for these
three months all contain the same radical as No. 39, but it is
impossible to decide with entire certainty to which it corresponds. It,
however, most nearly resembles the sign for _Zac_ (February 1); and it
is noteworthy that it was precisely in this month that the greatest
feast of TLALOC took place,[6.5] and its presence in this tablet, which
relates to _Tlaloc_, is especially interesting.
In connection with the counting of time, a reference to the bottom part
of the _chiffre_ 3000 of the Palenque cross tablet should be made. This
is a _knot_ tied up in a string or scarf; and we know this to have been
the method of expressing the expiration and completion of a cycle of
years. It occurs just above the symbol 3010, the _chiffre_ for a metal.
An examination of the original stone in the National Museum, Washington,
which is now in progress, has already convinced me that the methods
which I have described in the preceding pages promise other interesting
confirmations of the results I have reached. For the time, I must leave
the matter in its present state. I think I am justified in my confidence
that suitable methods of procedure have been laid down, and that certain
important results have already been reached.
I do not believe that the conclusions stated will be changed, but I am
confident that a rich reward will be found by any competent person who
will continue the study of these stones. The proper names now known will
serve as points of departure, and it is probable that some research will
give us the signs for verbs or adjectives connected with them.
It is an immense step to have rid ourselves of the phonetic or
alphabetic idea, and to have found the manner in which the Maya mind
represented attributes and ideas. Their method was that of all nations
at the origin of written language; that is, pure picture-writing. At
Copan this is found in its earliest state; at Palenque it was already
highly conventionalized. The step from the Palenque character to that
used in the Kabah inscription is apparently not greater than the step
from the latter to the various manuscripts. An important research would
be the application of the methods so ably applied by Dr. ALLEN to
tracing the evolution of the latter characters from their earlier forms.
In this way it will be possible to extend our present knowledge
materially.
[Footnote 6.1: The Life Form in Art, Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc.,
vol. xv, 1873, p. 325.]
[Footnote 6.2: From KINGSBOROUGH, vol. i, plate 48, it appears
that TLACLI TONATIO may have had four hands. His name meant
(?) Let there be light.]
[Footnote 6.3: See KINGSBOROUGH, vol. ii, Plate I, of the
LAUD MS.]
[Footnote 6.4: Since this was written I have seen a paper by Dr.
VALENTINI, “The LANDA alphabet a Spanish fabrication” (read
before the American Antiquarian Society, April 28, 1880), and the
conclusions of that paper seem to me to be undoubtedly correct.
They are the same as those just given, but while my own were
reached by a study of the stones and in the course of a general
examination, Dr. VALENTINI has addressed himself successfully to
the solution of a special problem.]
[Footnote 6.5: See BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG, _Histoire du Mexique_,
vol. i, p. 328.]
* * * * *
* * * *
_Errors and Inconsistencies: Picture-Writing_
The variations between “_MS. Troano_” (wholly italicized) and
“MS. _Troano_” (only title italicized), and between “Stephens’s” and
“Stephens’” (with and without possessive “s”) are in the original.
handed down by the Greek cotemporaries [_variant spelling unchanged_]
contain all the material [all the the material]
[Plate LIII, left half]
604 605 609 610 611 612
[_number 605 printed and positioned as shown_]
PLATE LVI... 1976 = _Ezanab_--a Maya day. [_final . missing_]
there are even more coincidences [coindences]
FIG. 51.--Synonymous hieroglyphs [Synonomous]
probably related to No. 53, Plate XXIV, and [Plate XXIV and]
M. G.-H.-BAND ... M. S.-A.-van BRAAM ...
[_hyphens in original (quoted passage)_]
others in Stephens’ Travels in Central America
[_printed in plain text as shown: expected form is “Stephens”
in small capitals, book title in italics_]
His association with QUETZALCOATL or CUKULCAN [CUCULKAN]
the upper left-hand hieroglyph of Plate XIII [left-hand,]
supported by a blue globe.” [_close quote missing_]
a buckler bearing five white plumes [plums]
HERRARA describes HUITZILOPOCHTLI and TETZCATLIPOCA [TEZCATLIPOCA]
In the _MS. Troano_, plate xxxi [Ms.]
a figure occurring at Labphak is given [Labphax]
I personally cannot pretend [pertend]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
CESSIONS OF LAND BY INDIAN TRIBES
to the
UNITED STATES:
Illustrated by Those in the State of Indiana.
By
C. C. ROYCE.
CONTENTS.
Character of the Indian title 249
Indian boundaries 253
Original and secondary cessions 256
[Illustration: Map of the State of Indiana]
* * * * *
CESSIONS OF LAND BY INDIAN TRIBES
TO THE UNITED STATES:
ILLUSTRATED BY THOSE IN THE STATE OF INDIANA.
By C. C. Royce.
* * * * *
CHARACTER OF THE INDIAN TITLE.
The social and political relations that have existed and still continue
between the Government of the United States and the several Indian
tribes occupying territory within its geographical limits are, in many
respects, peculiar.
The unprecedentedly rapid increase and expansion of the white population
of the country, bringing into action corresponding necessities for the
acquisition and subjection of additional territory, have maintained a
constant straggle between civilization and barbarism. Involved as a
factor in this social conflict, was the legal title to the land occupied
by Indians. The questions raised were whether in law or equity the
Indians were vested with any stronger title than that of mere tenants at
will, subject to be dispossessed at the pleasure or convenience of their
more civilized white neighbors, and, if so, what was the nature and
extent of such stronger title?
These questions have been discussed and adjudicated from time to time by
the executive and judicial authorities of civilized nations ever since
the discovery of America.
The discovery of this continent, with its supposed marvelous wealth of
precious metals and commercial woods, gave fresh impetus to the ambition
and cupidity of European monarchs.
Spain, France, Holland, and England each sought to rival the other in
the magnitude and value of their discoveries. As the primary object of
each of these European potentates was the same, and it was likely to
lead to much conflict of jurisdiction, the necessity of some general
rule became apparent, whereby their respective claims might be
acknowledged and adjudicated without resort to the arbitrament of arms.
Out of this necessity grew the rule which became a part of the
recognized law of nations, and which gave the preference of title to the
monarch whose vessels should be the first to discover, rather than to
the one who should first enter upon the possession of new lands. The
exclusion under this rule of all other claimants gave to the discovering
nation the sole right of acquiring the soil from the natives and of
planting settlements thereon. This was a right asserted by all the
commercial nations of Europe, and fully recognized in their dealings
with each other; and the assertion, of such a right necessarily carried
with it a modified denial of the Indian title to the land discovered. It
recognized in them nothing but a possessory title, involving a right of
occupancy and enjoyment until such time as the European sovereign should
purchase it from them. The ultimate fee was held to reside in such
sovereign, whereby the natives were inhibited from alienating in any
manner their right of possession to any but that sovereign or his
subjects.
The recognition of these principles seems to have been complete, as is
evidenced by the history of America from its discovery to the present
day. France, England, Portugal, and Holland recognized them
unqualifiedly, and even Catholic Spain did not predicate her title
solely upon the grant of the Holy See.
No one of these countries was more zealous in her maintenance of these
doctrines than England. In 1496 King Henry VII commissioned John and
Sebastian Cabot to proceed upon a voyage of discovery and to take
possession of such countries as they might find which were then unknown
to Christian people, in the name of the King of England. The results of
their voyages in the next and succeeding years laid the foundation for
the claim of England to the territory of that portion of North America
which subsequently formed the nucleus of our present possessions.
The policy of the United States since the adoption of the Federal
Constitution has in this particular followed the precedent established
by the mother country. In the treaty of peace between Great Britain and
the United States following the Revolutionary war, the former not only
relinquished the right of government, but renounced and yielded to the
United States all pretensions and claims whatsoever to all the country
south and west of the great northern rivers and lakes as far as the
Mississippi.
In the period between the conclusion of this treaty and the year 1789 it
was undoubtedly the opinion of Congress that the relinquishment of
territory thus made by Great Britain, without so much as a saving clause
guaranteeing the Indian right of occupancy, carried with it an absolute
and unqualified fee-simple title unembarrassed by any intermediate
estate or tenancy. In the treaties held with the Indians during this
period--notably those of Fort Stanwix, with the Six Nations, in 1784,
and Fort Finney, with the Shawnees, in 1786--they had been required to
acknowledge the United States as the sole and absolute sovereign of all
the territory ceded by Great Britain.
This claim, though unintelligible to the savages in its legal aspects,
was practically understood by them to be fatal to their independence and
territorial rights. Although in a certain degree the border tribes had
been defeated in their conflicts with the United States, they still
retained sufficient strength and resources to render them formidable
antagonists, especially when the numbers and disposition of their
adjoining and more remote allies were taken into consideration. The
breadth, and boldness of the territorial claims thus asserted by the
United States were not long in producing their natural effect. The
active and sagacious Brant succeeded in reviving his favorite project of
an alliance between the Six Nations and the northwestern tribes. He
experienced but little trouble in convening a formidable assemblage of
Indians at Huron Village, opposite Detroit, where they held council
together from November 28 to December 18, 1786.
These councils resulted in the presentation of an address to Congress,
wherein they expressed an earnest desire for peace, but firmly insisted
that all treaties carried on with the United States should be with the
general voice of the whole confederacy in the most open manner; that the
United States should prevent surveyors and others from crossing the Ohio
River; and they proposed a general treaty early in the spring of 1787.
This address purported to represent the Five Nations, Hurons, Ottawas,
Twichtwees, Shawanese, Chippewas, Cherokees, Delawares, Pottawatomies,
and the Wabash Confederates, and was signed with the totem of each
tribe.
Such a remonstrance, considering the weakness of the government under
the old Articles of Confederation, and the exhausted condition
immediately following the Revolution, produced a profound sensation in
Congress. That body passed an act providing for the negotiation of a
treaty or treaties, and making an appropriation for the purchase and
extinguishment of the Indian claim to certain lands. These preparations
and appropriations resulted in two treaties made at Fort Harmar, January
9, 1789, one with the Six Nations, and the other with the Wiandot,
Delaware, Ottawa, Chippewa, Pottawatima, and Sac Nations, wherein the
Indian title of occupancy is clearly acknowledged. That the government
so understood and recognized this principle as entering into the text of
those treaties is evidenced by a communication bearing date June 15,
1789, from General Knox, then Secretary of War, to President Washington,
and which was communicated by the latter on the same day to Congress, in
which it is declared that--
The Indians, being the prior occupants, possess the right of soil.
It cannot be taken from them, unless by their free consent, or by
right of conquest in case of a just war. To dispossess them on any
other principle would be a gross violation of the fundamental laws
of nature, and of that distributive justice which is the glory of a
nation.
The principle thus outlined and approved by the administration of
President Washington, although more than once questioned by interested
parties, has almost, if not quite, invariably been sustained by the
legal tribunals of the country, at least by the courts of final resort;
and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States bear
consistent testimony to its legal soundness. Several times has this
question in different forms appeared before the latter tribunal for
adjudication, and in each case has the Indian right been recognized and
protected. In 1823, 1831, and 1832, Chief Justice Marshall successively
delivered the opinion of the court in important cases involving the
Indian status and rights. In the second of these cases (The Cherokee
Nation _vs._ The State of Georgia) it was maintained that the Cherokees
were a state and had uniformly been treated as such since the settlement
of the country; that the numerous treaties made with them by the United
States recognized them as a people capable of maintaining the relations
of peace and war; of being responsible in their political character for
any violation of their engagements, or for any aggression committed on
the citizens of the United States by any individual of their community;
that the condition of the Indians in their relations to the United
States is perhaps unlike that of any other two peoples on the globe;
that, in general, nations not owing a common allegiance are foreign to
each other, but that the relation of the Indians to the United States is
marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions which exist nowhere else;
that the Indians were acknowledged to have an unquestionable right to
the lands they occupied until that right should be extinguished by a
voluntary cession to our government; that it might well be doubted
whether those tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of
the United States could with strict accuracy be denominated foreign
nations, but that they might more correctly perhaps be denominated
domestic dependent nations; that they occupied a territory to which we
asserted a title independent of their will, but which only took effect
in point of possession when their right of possession ceased.
The Government of the United States having thus been committed in all of
its departments to the recognition of the principle of the Indian right
of possession, it becomes not only a subject of interest to the student
of history, but of practical value to the official records of the
government, that a carefully compiled work should exhibit the boundaries
of the several tracts of country which have been acquired from time to
time, within the present limits of the United States, by cession or
relinquishment from the various Indian tribes, either through the medium
of friendly negotiations and just compensation, or as the result of
military conquest. Such a work, if accurate, would form the basis of any
complete history of the Indian tribes in their relations to, and
influence upon the growth and diffusion of our population and
civilization. Such a contribution to the historical collections of the
country should comprise:
1st. A series of maps of the several States and Territories, on a scale
ranging from ten to sixteen miles to an inch, grouped in atlas form,
upon which should be delineated in colors the boundary lines of the
various tracts of country ceded to the United States from time to time
by the different Indian tribes.
2d. An accompanying historical text, not only reciting the substance of
the material provisions of the several treaties, but giving a history of
the causes leading to them, as exhibited in contemporaneous official
correspondence and other trustworthy data.
3d. A chronologic list of treaties with the various Indian tribes,
exhibiting the names of tribes, the date, place where, and person by
whom negotiated.
4th. An alphabetic list of all rivers, lakes, mountains, villages, and
other objects or places mentioned in such treaties, together with their
location and the names by which they are at present known.
5th. An alphabetic list of the principal rivers, lakes, mountains, and
other topographic features in the United States, showing not only their
present names but also the various names by which they have from time to
time been known since the discovery of America, giving in each case the
date and the authority therefor.
INDIAN BOUNDARIES.
The most difficult and laborious feature of the work is that involved
under the first of these five subdivisions. The ordinary reader in
following the treaty provisions, in which the boundaries of the various
cessions are so specifically and minutely laid down, would anticipate
but little difficulty in tracing those boundaries upon the modern map.
In this he would find himself sadly at fault. In nearly all of the
treaties concluded half a century or more ago, wherein cessions of land
were made, occur the names of boundary points which are not to be found
on any modern map, and which have never been known to people of the
present generation living in the vicinity.
In many of the older treaties this is the case with a large proportion
of the boundary points mentioned. The identification and exact location
of these points thus becomes at once a source of much laborious
research. Not unfrequently weeks and even months of time have been
consumed, thousands of old maps and many volumes of books examined, and
a voluminous correspondence conducted with local historical societies or
old settlers, in the effort to ascertain the location of a single
boundary point.
To illustrate this difficulty, the case of “Hawkins’ line” may be cited,
a boundary line mentioned in the cession by the Cherokees by treaty of
October 2, 1798. An examination of more than four thousand old and
modern maps and the scanning of more than fifty volumes failed to show
its location or to give even the slightest clue to it. A somewhat
extended correspondence with numerous persons in Tennessee, including
the veteran annalist, Ramsey, also failed to secure the desired
information. It was not until months of time had been consumed and
probable sources of information had been almost completely exhausted
that, through the persevering inquiries of Hon. John M. Lea, of
Nashville, Tenn., in conjunction with the present writer’s own
investigations, the line was satisfactorily identified as being the
boundary line mentioned in the Cherokee treaty of July 2, 1791, and
described as extending from the North Carolina boundary “north to a
point from which a line is to be extended to the river Clinch that shall
pass the Holston at the ridge which divides the waters running into
Little River from those running into the Tennessee.”
It gained the title of “Hawkins’ line” from the fact that a man named
Hawkins surveyed it.
That this is not an isolated case, and as an illustration of the number
and frequency of changes in local geographical names in this country, it
may be remarked that in twenty treaties concluded by the Federal
Government with the various Indian tribes prior to the year 1800, in an
aggregate of one hundred and twenty objects and places therein recited,
seventy-three of them are wholly ignored in the latest edition of
Colton’s Atlas; and this proportion will hold with but little diminution
in the treaties negotiated during the twenty years immediately
succeeding that date.
Another and most perplexing question has been the adjustment of the
conflicting claims of different tribes of Indians to the same territory.
In the earlier days of the Federal period, when the entire country west
of the Alleghanies was occupied or controlled by numerous contiguous
tribes, whose methods of subsistence involved more or less of nomadic
habit, and who possessed large tracts of country then of no greater
value than merely to supply the immediate physical wants of the hunter
and fisherman, it was not essential to such tribes that a careful line
of demarkation should define the limits of their respective territorial
claims and jurisdiction. When, however, by reason of treaty negotiations
with the United States, with a view to the sale to the latter of a
specific area of territory within clearly-defined boundaries, it became
essential for the tribe with whom the treaty was being negotiated to
make assertion and exhibit satisfactory proof of its possessory title to
the country it proposed to sell, much controversy often arose with other
adjoining tribes, who claimed all or a portion of the proposed cession.
These conflicting claims were sometimes based upon ancient and
immemorial occupancy, sometimes upon early or more recent conquest, and
sometimes upon a sort of wholesale squatter-sovereignty title whereby a
whole tribe, in the course of a sudden and perhaps forced migration,
would settle down upon an unoccupied portion of the territory of some
less numerous tribe, and by sheer intimidation maintain such occupancy.
In its various purchases from the Indians, the Government of the United
States, in seeking to quiet these conflicting territorial claims, have
not unfrequently been compelled to accept from two, and even three,
different tribes separate relinquishments of their respective rights,
titles, and claims to the same section of country. Under such
circumstances it can readily be seen, what difficulties would attend a
clear exhibition upon a single map of these various coincident and
overlapping strips of territory. The State of Illinois affords an
excellent illustration. The conflicting cessions in that State may be
briefly enumerated as follows:
1. The cession at the mouth of Chicago River, by treaty of August 3,
1795, was also included within the limits of a subsequent cession made
by treaty of August 24, 1816, with the Ottawas, Chippewas, and
Pottawatomies.
2. The cession at the mouth of the Illinois River, by treaty of 1795,
was overlapped by the Kaskaskia cession of 1803, again by the Sac and
Fox cession of 1804, and a third time by the Kickapoo cession of 1819.
3. The cession at “Old Peoria Fort, or village,” by treaty of 1795, was
also overlapped in like manner with the last preceding one.
4. The cessions of 1795 at Fort Massac and at Great Salt Spring are
within the subsequent cession by the Kaskaskias of 1803.
5. The cession of August 13, 1803, by the Kaskaskias, as ratified and
enlarged by the Kaskaskias and Peorias September 25, 1818, overlaps the
several sessions by previous treaty of 1795 at the mouth of the Illinois
River, at Great Salt Spring, at Fort Massac, and at Old Peoria Fort, and
is in turn overlapped by subsequent cessions of July 30, and August 30,
1819, by the Kickapoos and by the Pottawatomie cession of October 20,
1832.
6. The Sac and Fox cession of November 3, 1804 (partly in Missouri and
Wisconsin) overlaps the cessions of 1795 at the mouth of the Illinois
River and at Old Peoria Fort. It is overlapped by two Chippewa, Ottawa,
and Pottawatomie cessions of July 29, 1829, the Winnebago cessions of
August 1, 1829, and September 1, 1832, and by the Chippewa, Ottawa, and
Pottawatomie cession of September 26, 1833.
7. The Piankeshaw cession of December 30, 1805, is overlapped by the
Kickapoo cession of 1819.
8. The Ottawa, Chippewa, and Pottawatomie cession of August 24, 1816,
overlaps the cession of 1795 around Chicago.
9. The cession of October 2, 1818, by the Pottawatomies (partly in
Indiana), is overlapped by the subsequent cession of 1819, by the
Kickapoos.
10. The combined cessions of July 30, and August 30, 1819, by the
Kickapoos (partly in Indiana), overlap the cessions of 1795 at the mouth
of the Illinois River and at Old Fort Peoria; also the Kaskaskia and
Peoria cessions of 1803 and 1818, the Piankeshaw cession of 1805, and
the Pottawatomie cession of October 2, 1818, and are overlapped by the
subsequent Pottawatomie cession of October 20, 1832.
11. Two cessions were made by the Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottawatomies
by treaty of July 29, 1829 (partly located in Wisconsin), one of which
is entirely and the other largely within the limits of the country
previously ceded by the Sacs and Foxes, November 3, 1804.
12. The Winnebago cession of August 1, 1829 (which is partly in
Wisconsin), is also wholly within the limits of the aforesaid Sac and
Fox cession of 1804.
13. Cession by the Winnebagoes September 15, 1832, which is mostly in
the State of Wisconsin and which was also within the limits of the Sac
and Fox cession of 1804.
14. Pottawatomie cession of October 20, 1832, which overlaps the
Kaskaskia and Peoria cession of August 13, 1803, as confirmed and
enlarged September 25, 1818, and also the Kickapoo cession by treaties
of July 30 and August 30, 1819.
From this it will be seen that almost the entire country comprising the
present State of Illinois was the subject of controversy in the matter
of original ownership, and that the United States, in order fully to
extinguish the Indian claim thereto, actually bought it twice, and some
portions of it three times. It is proper, however, to add in this
connection that where the government at the date of a purchase from one
tribe was aware of an existing claim to the same region by another
tribe, it had the effect of diminishing the price paid.
ORIGINAL AND SECONDARY CESSIONS.
Another difficulty that has arisen, and one which, in order to avoid
confusion, will necessitate the duplication in the atlas of the maps of
several States, is the attempt to show not only original, but also
secondary cessions of land. The policy followed by the United States for
many years in negotiating treaties with the tribes east of the
Mississippi River included the purchase of their former possessions and
their removal west of that river to reservations set apart for them
within the limits of country purchased for that purpose from its
original owners, and which were in turn retroceded to the United States
by its secondary owners. This has been largely the case in Missouri,
Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Indian Territory. The present State of
Kansas, for instance, was for the most part the inheritance of the
Kansas and Osage tribes. It was purchased from them by the provisions of
the treaties of June 2, 1825, with the Osage, and June 3, 1825, with the
Kansas tribe, they, however, reserving in each case a tract sufficiently
large for their own use and occupancy. These and subsequent cessions of
these two tribes must be shown upon a map of “original cessions.”
After securing these large concessions from the Kansas and Osages, the
government, in pursuance of the policy above alluded to, sought to
secure the removal of the remnant of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois tribes
to this region by granting them, in part consideration for their eastern
possessions, reservations therein of size and location suitable to their
wishes and necessities. In this way homes were provided for the
Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Pottawatomies, Sacs and Foxes of the
Mississippi, Kickapoos, the Confederated Kaskaskias, Peorias,
Piankeshaws, and Weas, the Ottawas of Blanchard’s Fork and Roche de
Boeuf, and the Chippewas and Munsees. A few years of occupation again
found the advancing white settlements encroaching upon their domain,
with the usual accompanying demand for more land. Cessions, first; of a
portion and finally of the remnant, of these reservations followed,
coupled with the removal of the Indians to Indian Territory. These
several reservations and cessions must be indicated upon a map of
“secondary cessions.”
Object illustration is much more striking and effective than mere
verbal description. In order, therefore, to secure to the reader the
clearest possible understanding of the subject, there is herewith
presented as an illustration a map of the State of Indiana, upon which
is delineated the boundaries of the different tracts of land within that
State ceded to the United States from time to time by treaty with the
various Indian tribes.
The cessions are as follows:
No. 1. A tract lying east of a line running from opposite the mouth of
Kentucky River, in a northerly direction, to Fort Recovery, in Ohio, and
which forms a small portion of the western end of the cession made by
the first paragraph of article 3, treaty of August 3, 1795, with the
Wyandots, Delawares, Miamis, and nine other tribes. Its boundaries are
indicated by scarlet lines. The bulk of the cession is in Ohio.
No. 2. Six miles square at confluence of Saint Mary’s and Saint Joseph’s
Rivers, including Fort Wayne; also ceded by treaty of August 3, 1795,
and bounded on the map by scarlet lines.
No. 3. Two miles square on the Wabash, at the end of the Portage of the
Miami of the Lake; also ceded by treaty of August 3, 1795, and bounded
on the map by scarlet lines.
No. 4. Six miles square at Outatenon, or Old Wea Towns, on the Wabash;
also ceded by treaty of August 3, 1795, and bounded on the map by
scarlet lines. This tract was subsequently retroceded to the Indians by
article 8, treaty of September 30, 1809, and finally included within the
Pottawatomie session of October 2, 1818, and the Miami cession of
October 6, 1818.
No. 5. Clarke’s grant on the Ohio River; stipulated in deed from
Virginia to the United States in 1784 to be granted to General George
Rogers Clarke and his soldiers. This tract was specially excepted from
the limits of the Indian country by treaty of August 3, 1795, and is
bounded on the map by scarlet lines.
No. 6. “Post of Vincennes and adjacent country, to which the Indian
title has been extinguished.” This tract was specially excluded from the
limits of the Indian country by treaty of August 3, 1795. Doubt having
arisen as to its proper boundaries, they were specifically defined by
treaty of June 7, 1803. It is known as the “Vincennes tract”; is partly
in Illinois, and is bounded on the map by scarlet lines.
No. 7. Tract ceded by the treaties of August 18, 1804, with the
Delawares, and August 27, 1804, with the Piankeshaws. In the southern
part of the State, and bounded on the map by green lines.
No. 8. Cession by the treaty of August 21, 1805, with the Miamis, Eel
Rivers, and Weas, in the southeastern part of the State, and designated
by blue lines.
No. 9. Cession by treaty of September 30, 1809, with the Miami, Eel
River, Delaware, and Pottawatomie tribes, adjoining “Vincennes tract”
(No. 9) on the north, and designated by yellow lines. This cession was
concurred in by the Weas in the treaty of October 26, 1809.
No. 10. Cession by the same treaty of September 30, 1809; in the
southeastern portion of the State; bounded on the map by yellow lines.
No. 11. Cession also by the treaty of September 30, 1809; marked by
crimson lines, and partly in Illinois. This cession was conditional upon
the consent of the Kickapoos, which was obtained by the treaty with them
of December 9, 1809.
No. 12. Cession by the Kickapoos, December 9, 1809, which was
subsequently reaffirmed by them June 4, 1816. It was also assented to by
the Weas October 2, 1818, and by the Miamis October 6, 1818. It is
partly in Illinois, and is bounded on the map by green lines. The
Kickapoos also assented to the cession No. 11 by the Miamis _et al._, of
September 30, 1809.
No. 13. Cession by the Wyandots, September 29, 1817. This is mostly in
Ohio, and is bounded on the map by yellow lines.
No. 14. Cession by the Pottawatomies, October 2, 1818; partly in
Illinois, and is denoted by brown lines. A subsequent treaty of August
30, 1819, with the Kickapoos, cedes a tract of country (No. 16) which
overlaps this cession, the overlap being indicated by a dotted blue
line.
By the treaty of October 2, 1818, the Weas ceded all the land claimed by
them in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, except a small reserve on the
Wabash River. Their claim was of a general and indefinite character, and
is fully covered by more definite cessions by other tribes.
By the treaty of October 3, 1818, the Delawares ceded all their claim to
land in Indiana. This claim, which they held in joint tenancy with the
Miamis, was located on the waters of White River, and it is included
within the tract marked 15, ceded by the Miamis October 6, 1818.
No. 15. Cession by the Miamis, October 6, 1818; bounded on the map by
purple lines. Its general boundaries cover all of Central Indiana and a
small portion of Western Ohio, but within its limits were included the
Wea Reservation of 1818 (No. 17), and six tracts of different dimensions
were reserved for the future use of the Miamis [Nos. 21, 29 (30 and 50),
(31, 48, 53, and 54), 49, and 51]. The Miamis also assented to the
Kickapoo cession of December 9, 1809 (No. 12). The Kickapoos in turn, by
treaty of July 30, 1819, relinquished all claim to country southeast of
the Wabash, which was an indefinite tract, and is covered by the
foregoing Miami cession of 1818.
No. 16. Cession by the Kickapoos, August 30, 1819. This cession is
bounded on the map by blue lines, and is largely in Illinois. It
overlaps the Pottawatomie cession of October 2, 1818 (No. 14), the
overlap being indicated by a dotted blue line. It is inborn overlapped
by the Pottawatomie cession (No. 23) of October 26, 1832.
No. 17. Cession by the Weas, August 11, 1820, of the tract reserved by
them October 2, 1818. It is on the Wabash River, in the western part of
the State, and is indicated by blue lines. It is within the general
limits of the Miami cession (No. 15) of October 6, 1818.
No. 18. Cession of August 29, 1821, by the Ottowas, Chippewas, and
Pottawatomies, indicated by green lines, and mostly in Michigan.
No. 19. Cession by the Pottawatomies, by first clause of first article
of the treaty of October 16, 1826. It lies north of Wabash River, and is
bounded on the map by blue lines. This and an indefinite extent of
adjoining country was also claimed by the Miamis, who ceded their claim
thereto October 23, 1826, with the exception of sundry small
reservations, four of which [Nos. 26, 27, 32, and 52] were partially or
entirely within the general limits of the Pottawatomie.
No. 20. Cession by the last clause of the first article of the
Pottawatomie treaty of October 16, 1826; in the northwest corner of the
State, and bounded on the map by scarlet lines.
As above stated, the Miamis, by treaty of October 23, 1826, ceded all
their claim to land in Indiana lying north and west of the Wabash and
Miami (Maumee) Rivers, except six small tribal, and a number of
individual reserves and grants. These six tribal, reserves were numbers
23, 27, 32, 52, 25, and 28, the first four of which, as above remarked,
were either partially or entirely within the Pottawatomie cession by the
first clause of the first article of the treaty of October 16, 1826, and
the other two within the Pottawatomie cession of October 27, 1832.
No. 21. Cession by the Eel River Miamis, February 11, 1828, bounded on
the map by green lines. This tract is within the general limits of the
Miami cession (No. 15) of 1818, and was reserved therefrom.
No. 22. Cession by the second clause of the first article of the
Pottawatomie treaty of September 20, 1828, designated by brown lines.
No. 23. Cession by the Pottawatomies, October 26, 1832, is in the
northwest portion of the State, and is indicated by yellow lines. Near
the southwest corner it overlaps the Kickapoo cession (No. 16) of August
30, 1819. Within the general limits of this cession seven tracts were
reserved for different bands of the tribe, which will be found on the
map numbered as follows: 33, 34, 39, 40 (two reserves), 41, and 42.
No. 24. Cession by the Pottawatomies of Indiana and Michigan, October
27, 1832, which in terms is a relinquishment of their claim to any
remaining lands in the States of Indiana and Illinois, and in the
Territory of Michigan south of Grand River. The cession thus made in
Indiana is bounded on the map by scarlet lines. Within the general
limits of this cession, however, they reserved for the use of various
bands of the tribe eleven tracts of different areas, and which are
numbered as follows: 35, 36, 37, 38, 43 (two reserves), 44 (two
reserves), 45, 46, and 47.
Nos. 25 to 32, inclusive. Cession of October 23, 1834, by the Miamis, of
eight small tracts previously reserved to them, all bounded on the map
by green lines. These are located as follows:
No. 25. Tract of thirty-six sections at Flat Belly’s village,
reserved by treaty of 1826; in townships 33 and 34 north, ranges 7
and 8 east.
No. 26. Tract of five miles in length on the Wabash, extending back
to Eel River, reserved by treaty of 1826; in townships 27 and 28
north, ranges 4 and 5 east.
No. 27. Tract of ten sections at Raccoon’s Village, reserved by the
treaty of 1826; in townships 29 and 30 north, ranges 10 and 11 east.
No. 28. Tract of ten sections on Mud Creek, reserved by the treaty
of 1826; in township 28 north, range 4 east. The treaty of October
27, 1832, with the Pottawatomies, established a reserve of sixteen
sections for the bands of Ash-kum and Wee-si-o-nas (No. 46), and one
of five sections for the band of Wee-sau (No. 47), which overlapped
and included nearly all the territory comprised in the Mud Creek
reserve.
No. 29. Tract of two miles square on Salamanie River, at the mouth
of At-che-pong-quawe Creek, reserved by the treaty of 1818; in
township 23 north, ranges 13 and 14 east.
No. 30. A portion of the tract opposite the mouth of Aboutte River,
reserved by the treaty of 1818; in townships 29 and 30 north, ranges
10, 11, and 12 east.
No. 31. A portion of the tract known as the “Big Reserve,”
established by the treaty of 1818; in townships 21 to 27, inclusive,
ranges 1 and 2 east.
No. 32. Tract of ten sections at the Forks of the Wabash, reserved
by the treaty of 1826. This cession provides for the relinquishment
of the Indian title and the issuance of a patent to John B.
Richardville therefor. In township 28 north, ranges 8 and 9 east.
No. 33. Cession of December 4, 1834, by Com-o-za’s band of
Pottawatomies, of a tract of two sections reserved for them on the
Tippecanoe River by the treaty of October 26, 1832.
No. 34. Cession of December 10, 1834, by Mau-ke-kose’s (Muck-rose) band
of Pottawatomies, of six sections reserved to them by the treaty of
October 26, 1832; in township 32 north, range 2 east, and bounded on the
map by crimson lines.
No. 35. Cession of December 16, 1834, by the Pottawatomies, of two
sections reserved by the treaty of October 27, 1832, to include their
mills on the Tippecanoe River.
No. 36. Cession of December 17, 1834, by Mota’s band of Pottawatomies,
of four sections reserved for them by the treaty of October 27, 1832; in
townships 32 and 33 north, range 5 east, indicated by blue lines.
No. 37. Cession of March 26, 1836, by Mes-quaw-buck’s band of
Pottawatomies, of four sections reserved to them by the treaty of
October 27, 1832; in township 33 north, range 6 east, indicated by
crimson lines.
No. 38. Cession of March 29, 1836, by Che-case’s band of Pottawatomies,
of four sections reserved for them by the treaty of October 27, 1832; in
townships 32 and 33 north, ranges 5 and 6 east, bounded on the map by
yellow lines.
No. 39. Cession of April 11, 1836, by Aub-ba-naub-bee’s band of
Pottawatomies, of thirty-six sections reserved for them, by the treaty
of October 26, 1832. In townships 31 and 32 north, ranges 1 and 2 east,
bounded on the map by blue lines.
No. 40. Cession of April 22, 1836, by the bands of O-kaw-mause,
Kee-waw-nee, Nee-boash, and Ma-che-saw (Mat-chis-jaw), of ten sections
reserved to them by the Pottawatomie treaty of October 26, 1832.
No. 41. Cession of April 22, 1836, by the bands of Nas-waw-kee
(Nees-waugh-gee) and Quash-quaw, of three sections reserved for them by
the treaty of October 26, 1832; in township 32 north, range 1 east,
bounded on the map by scarlet lines.
No. 42. Cession of August 5, 1836, by the bands of Pee-pin-ah-waw,
Mack-kah-tah-mo-may, and No-taw-kah (Pottawatomies), of twenty-two
sections reserved for them and the band of Menom-i-nee (the latter of
which does not seem to be mentioned in the treaty of cession), by treaty
of October 26, 1832; in township 33 north, ranges 1 and 2 east, bounded
on the map by green lines.
No. 43. Cession of September 20, 1836, by the bands of To-i-sas brother
Me-mot-way, and Che-quaw-ka-ko, of ten sections reserved for them by the
Pottawatomie treaty of October 27, 1832, and cession of September 22,
1836, by Ma-sac’s band of Pottawatomies, of four sections reserved for
them by the treaty of October 27, 1832; in township 31 north, range 3
east, bounded on the map by crimson lines.
Nos. 44 to 47, inclusive. Cessions of September 23, 1836, by various
bands of Pottawatomies, of lands reserved for them by the treaty of 1832
(being all of their remaining lands in Indiana), as follows:
No. 44. Four sections each for the bands of Kin-kash and Men-o-quet;
in township 33 north, ranges 5 and 6 east, bounded on the map by
crimson lines.
No. 45. Ten sections for the band of Che-chaw-kose; in township 32
north, range 4 east, designated by scarlet lines.
No. 46. Sixteen sections for the bands of Ash-kum and Wee-si-o-nas;
in townships 28 and 29 north, range 4 east, bounded on the map by a
dotted black line, and overlapping No. 28.
No. 47. Five sections for the band of Wee-sau; in township 28 north,
range 4 east, adjoining No. 46, bounded on the map by a dotted black
line, and overlapping Nos. 19 and 28.
A cession for the second time is also made by this treaty of the four
sections reserved for the band of Mota (No. 35), by the treaty of
October 27, 1832.
Nos. 48 to 52, inclusive. Cessions of November 6, 1838, by the Miamis,
as follows:
No. 48. A portion of the “Big Reserve,” in townships 25, 26, and 27
north, ranges 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 east, bounded on the map by
crimson lines, within the limits of which is reserved a tract for
the band of Me-to-sin-ia, numbered 54.
No. 49. The reservation by the treaty of 1818, on the Wabash River,
below the forks thereof; in townships 27 and 28 north, ranges 8 and
9 east, bounded on the map by scarlet lines.
No. 50. The remainder of the tract reserved by the treaty of 1818,
opposite the mouth of Abouette River; in townships 28 and 29 north,
ranges 10, 11, and 12 east, denoted by crimson lines.
No. 51. The reserve by the treaty of 1818 at the mouth of Flat Rock
Creek; in township 27 north, ranges 10 and 11 east, bounded on the
map by crimson lines.
No. 52. The reserve at Seek’s Village by the treaty of 1826; in
townships 31 and 32 north, ranges 9 and 10 east, marked by yellow
lines.
No. 53. Cession of November 28, 1840, of the residue of the “Big
Reserve” (except the grant to Me-to-sin-ia’s band No. 54); in townships
21 to 26 north, ranges 2 to 7 east, designated by yellow lines.
No. 54. By the Miami treaty of November 6, 1838, a reserve of ten miles
square was made (out of the general cession) for the band of
Me-to-sin-ia. By the treaty of November 28, 1840, the United States
agreed to convey this tract to Me-shing-go-me-sia, son of Me-to-sin-ia,
in trust for the band.
By act of Congress approved June 10, 1872, this reserve was partitioned
among the members of the band, 63 in number, and patents issued to each
of them for his or her share. It is in townships 25 and 26 north, ranges
6 and 7 east, and is bounded on the map by green lines.
This ended all Indian tribal title to lands within the State of Indiana.
* * * * *
The results to accrue from the researches contemplated under the 2d, 3d,
4th, and 5th subdivisions of the work suggested have already been
outlined with sufficient clearness, and need not be farther elaborated
here.
A source of much delay in the collection of facts essential to the
completion of the work is the apparent indifference of librarians and
others in responding to letters of inquiry. Some, however, have entered
most zealously and intelligently into the work of searching musty
records and interviewing the traditional “oldest inhabitant” for light
on these dark spots. Thanks are especially due in this regard to Hon.
John M. Lea, Nashville, Tenn.; William Harden, librarian State
Historical Society, Savannah, Ga.; K. A. Linderfelt, librarian Public
Library, Milwaukee, Wis.; Dr. John A. Rice, Merton, Wis.; Hon. John
Wentworth, Chicago, Ill.; A. Cheesebrough and Hon. J. N. Campbell, of
Detroit, Mich.; D. S. Durrie, librarian State Historical Society,
Madison, Wis.; H. M. Robinson, Milwaukee, Wis.; Andrew Jackson, Sault
Ste. Marie, Mich.; A. W. Rush, Palmyra, Mo.; H. C. Campbell,
Centreville, Mich., and others.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
SIGN LANGUAGE
among
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes.
By
GARRICK MALLERY.
CONTENTS.
Introductory 269
Divisions of gesture speech 270
The origin of sign language 273
Gestures of the lower animals 275
Gestures of young children 276
Gestures in mental disorder 276
Uninstructed deaf-mutes 277
Gestures of the blind 278
Loss of speech by isolation 278
Low tribes of man 279
Gestures as an occasional resource 279
Gestures of fluent talkers 279
Involuntary response to gestures 280
Natural pantomime 280
Some theories upon primitive language 282
Conclusions 284
History of gesture language 285
Modern use of gesture speech 293
Use by other peoples than North American Indians 294
Use by modern actors and orators 308
Our Indian conditions favorable to sign language 311
Theories entertained respecting Indian signs 313
Not correlated with meagerness of language 314
Its origin from one tribe or region 316
Is the Indian system special and peculiar? 319
To what extent prevalent as a system 323
Are signs conventional or instinctive? 340
Classes of diversities in signs 341
Results sought in the study of sign language 346
Practical application 346
Relations to philology 349
Sign language with reference to grammar 359
Gestures aiding archæologic research 368
Notable points for further researches 387
Invention of new signs 387
Danger of symbolic interpretation 388
Signs used by women and children 391
Positive signs rendered negative 391
Details of positions of fingers 392
Motions relative to parts of the body 393
Suggestions for collecting signs 394
Mode in which researches have been made 395
List of authorities and collaborators 401
Algonkian 403
Dakotan 404
Iroquoian 405
Kaiowan 406
Kutinean 406
Panian 406
Piman 406
Sahaptian 406
Shoshonian 406
Tinnean 407
Wichitan 407
Zuñian 407
Foreign correspondence 407
Extracts from dictionary 409
Tribal signs 458
Proper names 476
Phrases 479
Dialogues 486
Tendoy-Huerito Dialogue. 486
Omaha Colloquy. 490
Brulé Dakota Colloquy. 491
Dialogue between Alaskan Indians. 492
Ojibwa Dialogue. 499
Narratives 500
Nátci’s Narrative. 500
Patricio’s Narrative. 505
Na-wa-gi-jig’s Story. 508
Discourses 521
Address of Kin Chē-Ĕss. 521
Tso-di-a´-ko’s Report. 524
Lean Wolf’s Complaint. 526
Signals 529
Signals executed by bodily action 529
Signals in which objects are used in connection with
personal action 532
Signals made when the person of the signalist
is not visible 536
Scheme of illustration 544
Outlines for arm positions in sign language 545
Types of hand positions in sign language 547
Examples 550
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Fig. 61. Affirmation, approving. Old Roman 286
62. Approbation. Neapolitan 286
63. Affirmation, approbation. N.A. Indian 286
64. Group. Old Greek. Facing 289
65. Negation. Dakota 290
66. Love. Modern Neapolitan 290
67. Group. Old Greek. Facing 290
68. Hesitation. Neapolitan 291
69. Wait. N.A. Indian 291
70. Question, asking. Neapolitan 291
71. Tell me. N.A. Indian 291
72. Interrogation. Australian 291
73. Pulcinella 292
74. Thief. Neapolitan 292
75. Steal. N.A. Indian 293
76. Public writer. Neapolitan group. Facing 296
77. Money. Neapolitan 297
78. “Hot Corn.” Neapolitan Group. Facing 297
79. “Horn” sign. Neapolitan 298
80. Reproach. Old Roman 298
81. Marriage contract. Neapolitan group. Facing 298
82. Negation. Pai-Ute sign 299
83. Coming home of bride. Neapolitan group. Facing 299
84. Pretty. Neapolitan 300
85. “Mano in fica.” Neapolitan 300
86. Snapping the fingers. Neapolitan 300
87. Joy, acclamation 300
88. Invitation to drink wine 300
89. Woman’s quarrel. Neapolitan Group. Facing 301
90. Chestnut vender. Facing 301
91. Warning. Neapolitan 302
92. Justice. Neapolitan 302
93. Little. Neapolitan 302
94. Little. N.A. Indian 302
95. Little. N.A. Indian 302
96. Demonstration. Neapolitan 302
97. “Fool.” Neapolitan 303
98. “Fool.” _Ib._ 303
99. “Fool.” _Ib._ 303
100. Inquiry. Neapolitan 303
101. Crafty, deceitful. Neapolitan 303
102. Insult. Neapolitan 304
103. Insult. Neapolitan 304
104. Silence. Neapolitan 304
105. Child. Egyptian hieroglyph 304
106. Negation. Neapolitan 305
107. Hunger. Neapolitan 305
108. Mockery. Neapolitan 305
109. Fatigue. Neapolitan 305
110. Deceit. Neapolitan 305
111. Astuteness, readiness. Neapolitan 305
112. Tree. Dakota, Hidatsa 343
113. To grow. N.A. Indian 343
114. Rain. Shoshoni, Apache 344
115. Sun. N.A. Indian 344
116. Sun. Cheyenne 344
117. Soldier. Arikara 345
118. No, negation. Egyptian 355
119. Negation. Maya 356
120. Nothing. Chinese 356
121. Child. Egyptian figurative 356
122. Child. Egyptian linear 356
123. Child. Egyptian hieratic 356
124. Son. Ancient Chinese 356
125. Son. Modern Chinese 356
126. Birth. Chinese character 356
127. Birth. Dakota 356
128. Birth, generic. N.A. Indians 357
129. Man. Mexican 357
130. Man. Chinese character 357
131. Woman. Chinese character 357
132. Woman. Ute 357
133. Female, generic. Cheyenne 357
134. To give water. Chinese character 357
135. Water, to drink. N.A. Indian 357
136. Drink. Mexican 357
137. Water. Mexican 357
138. Water, giving. Egypt 358
139. Water. Egyptian 358
140. Water, abbreviated 358
141. Water. Chinese character 358
142. To weep. Ojibwa pictograph 358
143. Force, vigor. Egyptian 358
144. Night. Egyptian 358
145. Calling upon. Egyptian figurative 359
146. Calling upon. Egyptian linear 359
147. To collect, to unite. Egyptian 359
148. Locomotion. Egyptian figurative 359
149. Locomotion. Egyptian linear 359
150. Shuⁿ´-ka Lu´-ta. Dakota 365
151. “I am going to the east.” Abnaki 369
152. “Am not gone far.” Abnaki 369
153. “Gone far.” Abnaki 370
154. “Gone five days’ journey.” Abnaki 370
155. Sun. N.A. Indian 370
156. Sun. Egyptian 370
157. Sun. Egyptian 370
158. Sun with rays. _Ib._ 371
159. Sun with rays. _Ib._ 371
160. Sun with rays. Moqui pictograph 371
161. Sun with rays. _Ib._ 371
162. Sun with rays. _Ib._ 371
163. Sun with rays. _Ib._ 371
164. Star. Moqui pictograph 371
165. Star. Moqui pictograph 371
166. Star. Moqui pictograph 371
167. Star. Moqui pictograph 371
168. Star. Peruvian pictograph 371
169. Star. Ojibwa pictograph 371
170. Sunrise. Moqui _do._ 371
171. Sunrise. _Ib._ 371
172. Sunrise. _Ib._ 371
173. Moon, month. Californian pictograph 371
174. Pictograph, including sun. Coyotero Apache 372
175. Moon. N.A. Indian 372
176. Moon. Moqui pictograph 372
177. Moon. Ojibwa pictograph 372
178. Sky. _Ib._ 372
179. Sky. Egyptian character 372
180. Clouds. Moqui pictograph 372
181. Clouds. _Ib._ 372
182. Clouds. _Ib._ 372
183. Cloud. Ojibwa pictograph 372
184. Rain. New Mexican pictograph 373
185. Rain. Moqui pictograph 373
186. Lightning. Moqui pictograph 373
187. Lightning. _Ib._ 373
188. Lightning, harmless. Pictograph at Jemez, N.M. 373
189. Lightning, fatal. _Do._ 373
190. Voice. “The-Elk-that-hollows-walking” 373
191. Voice. Antelope. Cheyenne drawing 373
192. Voice, talking. Cheyenne drawing 374
193. Killing the buffalo. Cheyenne drawing 375
194. Talking. Mexican pictograph 376
195. Talking, singing. Maya character 376
196. Hearing ears. Ojibwa pictograph 376
197. “I hear, but your words are from a bad heart.” Ojibwa 376
198. Hearing serpent. Ojibwa pictograph 376
199. Royal edict. Maya 377
200. To kill. Dakota 377
201. “Killed Arm.” Dakota 377
202. Pictograph, including “kill.” Wyoming Ter. 378
203. Pictograph, including “kill.” Wyoming Ter. 378
204. Pictograph, including “kill.” Wyoming Ter. 379
205. Veneration. Egyptian character 379
206. Mercy. Supplication, favor. Egyptian 379
207. Supplication. Mexican pictograph 380
208. Smoke. _Ib._ 380
209. Fire. _Ib._ 381
210. “Making medicine.” Conjuration. Dakota 381
211. Meda. Ojibwa pictograph 381
212. The God Knuphis. Egyptian 381
213. The God Knuphis. _Ib._ 381
214. Power. Ojibwa pictograph 381
215. Meda’s Power. _Ib._ 381
216. Trade pictograph 382
217. Offering. Mexican pictograph 382
218. Stampede of horses. Dakota 382
219. Chapultepec. Mexican pictograph 383
220. Soil. _Ib._ 383
221. Cultivated soil. _Ib._ 383
222. Road, path. _Ib._ 383
223. Cross-roads and gesture sign. Mexican pictograph 383
224. Small-pox or measles. Dakota 383
225. “No thoroughfare.” Pictograph 383
226. Raising of war party. Dakota 384
227. “Led four war parties.” Dakota drawing 384
228. Sociality. Friendship. Ojibwa pictograph 384
229. Peace. Friendship. Dakota 384
230. Peace. Friendship with whites. Dakota 385
231. Friendship. Australian 385
232. Friend. Brulé Dakota 386
233. Lie, falsehood. Arikara 393
234. Antelope. Dakota 410
235. Running Antelope. Personal totem 410
236. Bad. Dakota 411
237. Bear. Cheyenne 412
238. Bear. Kaiowa, etc. 413
239. Bear. Ute 413
240. Bear. Moqui pictograph 413
241. Brave. N.A. Indian 414
242. Brave. Kaiowa, etc. 415
243. Brave. Kaiowa, etc. 415
244. Chief. Head of tribe. Absaroka 418
245. Chief. Head of tribe. Pai-Ute 418
246. Chief of a band. Absaroka and Arikara 419
247. Chief of a band. Pai-Ute 419
248. Warrior. Absaroka, etc. 420
249. Ojibwa gravestone, including “dead” 422
250. Dead. Shoshoni and Banak 422
251. Dying. Kaiowa, etc. 424
252. Nearly dying. Kaiowa 424
253. Log house. Hidatsa 428
254. Lodge. Dakota 430
255. Lodge. Kaiowa, etc. 431
256. Lodge. Sahaptin 431
257. Lodge. Pai-Ute 431
258. Lodge. Pai-Ute 431
259. Lodge. Kutchin 431
260. Horse. N.A. Indian 434
261. Horse. Dakota 434
262. Horse. Kaiowa, etc. 435
263. Horse. Caddo 435
264. Horse. Pima and Papago 435
265. Horse. Ute 435
266. Horse. Ute 435
267. Saddling a horse. Ute 437
268. Kill. N.A. Indian 438
269. Kill. Mandan and Hidatsa 439
270. Negation. No. Dakota 441
271. Negation. No. Pai-Ute 442
272. None. Dakota 443
273. None. Australian 444
274. Much, quantity. Apache 447
275. Question. Australian 449
276. Soldier. Dakota and Arikara 450
277. Trade. Dakota 452
278. Trade. Dakota 452
279. Buy. Ute 453
280. Yes, affirmation. Dakota 456
281. Absaroka tribal sign. Shoshoni 458
282. Apache tribal sign. Kaiowa, etc. 459
283. Apache tribal sign. Pima and Papago 459
284. Arikara tribal sign. Arapaho and Dakota 461
285. Arikara tribal sign. Absaroka 461
286. Blackfoot tribal sign. Dakota 463
287. Blackfoot tribal sign. Shoshoni 464
288. Caddo tribal sign. Arapaho and Kaiowa 464
289. Cheyenne tribal sign. Arapaho and Cheyenne 464
290. Dakota tribal sign. Dakota 467
291. Flathead tribal sign. Shoshoni 468
292. Kaiowa tribal sign. Comanche 470
293. Kutine tribal sign. Shoshoni 471
294. Lipan tribal sign. Apache 471
295. Pend d’Oreille tribal sign. Shoshoni 473
296. Sahaptin or Nez Percé tribal sign. Comanche 473
297. Shoshoni tribal sign. Shoshoni 474
298. Buffalo. Dakota 477
299. Eagle Tail. Arikara 477
300. Eagle Tail. Moqui pictograph 477
301. Give me. Absaroka 480
302. Counting. How many? Shoshoni and Banak 482
303. I am going home. Dakota 485
304. Question. Apache 486
305. Shoshoni tribal sign. Shoshoni 486
306. Chief. Shoshoni 487
307. Cold, winter, year. Apache 487
308. “Six.” Shoshoni 487
309. Good, very well. Apache 487
310. Many. Shoshoni 488
311. Hear, heard. Apache 488
312. Night. Shoshoni 489
313. Rain. Shoshoni 489
314. See each other. Shoshoni 490
315. White man, American. Dakota 491
316. Hear, heard. Dakota 492
317. Brother. Pai-Ute 502
318. No, negation. Pai-Ute 503
319. Scene of Na-wa-gi-jig’s story. Facing 508
320. We are friends. Wichita 521
321. Talk, talking. Wichita 521
322. I stay, or I stay right here. Wichita 521
323. A long time. Wichita 522
324. Done, finished. _Do._ 522
325. Sit down. Australian 523
326. Cut down. Wichita 524
327. Wagon. Wichita 525
328. Load upon. Wichita 525
329. White man; American. Hidatsa 526
330. With us. Hidatsa 526
331. Friend. Hidatsa 527
332. Four. Hidatsa 527
333. Lie, falsehood. Hidatsa 528
334. Done, finished. Hidatsa 528
335. Peace, friendship. Hualpais. Facing 530
336. Question, ans’d by tribal sign for Pani. Facing 531
337. Buffalo discovered. Dakota. Facing 532
338. Discovery. Dakota. Facing 533
339. Success of war party. Pima. Facing 538
340. Outline for arm positions, full face 545
341. Outline for arm positions, profile 545
342a. Types of hand positions, A to L 547
342b. Types of hand positions, M to Y 548
343. Example. To cut with an ax 550
344. Example. A lie 550
345. Example. To ride 551
346. Example. I am going home 551
* * * * *
SIGN LANGUAGE
among
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes.
By Garrick Mallery.
* * * * *
INTRODUCTORY.
During the past two years the present writer has devoted the intervals
between official duties to collecting and collating materials for the
study of sign language. As the few publications on the general subject,
possessing more than historic interest, are meager in details and vague
in expression, original investigation has been necessary. The high
development of communication by gesture among the tribes of North
America, and its continued extensive use by many of them, naturally
directed the first researches to that continent, with the result that a
large body of facts procured from collaborators and by personal
examination has now been gathered and classified. A correspondence has
also been established with many persons in other parts of the world
whose character and situation rendered it probable that they would
contribute valuable information. The success of that correspondence has
been as great as could have been expected, considering that most of the
persons addressed were at distant points sometimes not easily accessible
by mail. As the collection of facts is still successfully proceeding,
not only with reference to foreign peoples and to deaf-mutes everywhere,
but also among some American tribes not yet thoroughly examined in this
respect, no exposition of the subject pretending to be complete can yet
be made. In complying, therefore, with the request to prepare the
present paper, it is necessary to explain to correspondents and
collaborators whom it may reach, that this is not the comprehensive
publication by the Bureau of Ethnology for which their assistance has
been solicited. With this explanation some of those who have already
forwarded contributions will not be surprised at their omission, and
others will not desist from the work in which they are still kindly
engaged, under the impression that its results will not be received in
time to meet with welcome and credit. On the contrary, the urgent appeal
for aid before addressed to officers of the Army and Navy of this and
other nations, to missionaries, travelers, teachers of deaf-mutes, and
philologists generally, is now with equal urgency repeated. It is,
indeed, hoped that the continued presentation of the subject to persons
either having opportunity for observation or the power to favor with
suggestions may, by awakening some additional interest in it, secure new
collaboration from localities still unrepresented.
It will be readily understood by other readers that, as the limits
assigned to this paper permit the insertion of but a small part of the
material already collected and of the notes of study made upon that
accumulation, it can only show the general scope of the work undertaken,
and not its accomplishment. Such extracts from the collection have been
selected as were regarded as most illustrative, and they are preceded by
a discussion perhaps sufficient to be suggestive, though by no means
exhaustive, and designed to be for popular, rather than for scientific
use. In short, the direction to submit a progress-report and not a
monograph has been complied with.
DIVISIONS OF GESTURE SPEECH.
These are corporeal motion and facial expression. An attempt has been
made by some writers to discuss these general divisions separately, and
its success would be practically convenient if it were always understood
that their connection is so intimate that they can never be altogether
severed. A play of feature, whether instinctive or voluntary,
accentuates and qualifies all motions intended to serve as signs, and
strong instinctive facial expression is generally accompanied by action
of the body or some of its members. But, so far as a distinction can be
made, expressions of the features are the result of emotional, and
corporeal gestures, of intellectual action. The former in general and
the small number of the latter that are distinctively emotional are
nearly identical among men from physiological causes which do not affect
with the same similarity the processes of thought. The large number of
corporeal gestures expressing intellectual operations require and admit
of more variety and conventionality. Thus the features and the body
among all mankind act almost uniformly in exhibiting fear, grief,
surprise, and shame, but all objective conceptions are varied and
variously portrayed. Even such simple indications as those for “no” and
“yes” appear in several differing motions. While, therefore, the terms
sign language and gesture speech necessarily include and suppose facial
expression when emotions are in question, they refer more particularly
to corporeal motions and attitudes. For this reason much of the valuable
contribution of DARWIN in his _Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals_ is not directly applicable to sign language. His analysis of
emotional gestures into those explained on the principles of serviceable
associated habits, of antithesis, and of the constitution of the nervous
system, should, nevertheless, always be remembered. Even if it does not
strictly embrace the class of gestures which form the subject of this
paper, and which often have an immediate pantomimic origin, the earliest
gestures were doubtless instinctive and generally emotional, preceding
pictorial, metaphoric, and, still subsequent, conventional gestures
even, as, according to DARWIN’S cogent reasoning, they preceded
articulate speech.
While the distinction above made between the realm of facial play and
that of motions of the body, especially those of the arms and hands, is
sufficiently correct for use in discussion, it must be admitted that the
features do express intellect as well as emotion. The well-known saying
of Charles Lamb that “jokes came in with the candles” is in point, but
the most remarkable example of conveying detailed information without
the use of sounds, hands, or arms, is given by the late President T. H.
Gallaudet, the distinguished instructor of deaf-mutes, which, to be
intelligible, requires to be quoted at length:
“One day, our distinguished and lamented historical painter, Col. John
Trumbull, was in my school-room during the hours of instruction, and, on
my alluding to the tact which the pupil referred to had of reading my
face, he expressed a wish to see it tried. I requested him to select any
event in Greek, Roman, English, or American history of a scenic
character, which would make a striking picture on canvas, and said I
would endeavor to communicate it to the lad. ‘Tell him,’ said he, ‘that
Brutus (Lucius Junius) condemned his two sons to death for resisting his
authority and violating his orders.’
“I folded my arms in front of me, and kept them in that position, to
preclude the possibility of making any signs or gestures, or of spelling
any words on my fingers, and proceeded, as best I could, by the
expression of my countenance, and a few motions of my head and attitudes
of the body, to convey the picture in my own mind to the mind of my
pupil.
“It ought to be stated that he was already acquainted with the fact,
being familiar with the leading events in Roman history. But when I
began, he knew not from what portion of history, sacred or profane,
ancient or modern, the fact was selected. From this wide range, my
delineation on the one hand and his ingenuity on the other had to bring
it within the division of Roman history, and, still more minutely, to
the particular individual and transaction designated by Colonel
Trumbull. In carrying on the process, I made no use whatever of any
arbitrary, conventional look, motion, or attitude, before settled
between us, by which to let him understand what I wished to communicate,
with the exception of a single one, if, indeed, it ought to be
considered such.
“The usual sign, at that time, among the teachers and pupils, for a
Roman, was portraying an aquiline nose by placing the fore-finger,
crooked, in front of the nose. As I was prevented from using my finger
in this way, and having considerable command over the muscles of my
face, I endeavored to give my nose as much of the aquiline form as
possible, and succeeded well enough for my purpose. * * *
“The outlines of the process were the following:
“A stretching and stretching gaze eastward, with an undulating motion of
the head, as if looking across and beyond the Atlantic Ocean, to denote
that the event happened, not on the western, but eastern continent. This
was making a little progress, as it took the subject out of the range of
American history.
“A turning of the eyes upward and backward, with frequently-repeated
motions of the head backward, as if looking a great way back in past
time, to denote that the event was one of ancient date.
“The aquiline shape of the nose, already referred to, indicating that a
Roman was the person concerned. It was, of course, an old Roman.
“Portraying, as well as I could, by my countenance, attitude, and manner
an individual high in authority, and commanding others, as if he
expected to be obeyed.
“Looking and acting as if I were giving out a specific order to many
persons, and threatening punishment on those who should resist my
authority, even the punishment of death.
“Here was a pause in the progress of events, which I denoted by sleeping
as it were during the night and awakening in the morning, and doing this
several times, to signify that several days had elapsed.
“Looking with deep interest and surprise, as if at a single person
brought and standing before me, with an expression of countenance
indicating that he had violated the order which I had given, and that I
knew it. Then looking in the same way at another person near him as also
guilty. Two offending persons were thus denoted.
“Exhibiting serious deliberation, then hesitation, accompanied with
strong conflicting emotions, producing perturbation, as if I knew not
how to feel or what to do.
“Looking first at one of the persons before me, and then at the other,
and then at both together, _as a father would look_, indicating his
distressful parental feelings under such afflicting circumstances.
“Composing my feelings, showing that a change was coming over me, and
exhibiting towards the imaginary persons before me the decided look of
the inflexible commander, who was determined and ready to order them
away to execution. Looking and acting as if the tender and forgiving
feelings of _the father_ had again got the ascendency, and as if I was
about to relent and pardon them.
“These alternating states of mind I portrayed several times, to make my
representations the more graphic and impressive.
“At length the father yields, and the stern principle of justice, as
expressed in my countenance and manners, prevails. My look and action
denote the passing of the sentence of death on the offenders, and the
ordering them away to execution.
* * * * * * *
“He quickly turned round to his slate and wrote a correct and complete
account of this story of Brutus and his two sons.”
While it appears that the expressions of the features are not confined
to the emotions or to distinguishing synonyms, it must be remembered
that the meaning of the same motion of hands, arms, and fingers is often
modified, individualized, or accentuated by associated facial changes
and postures of the body not essential to the sign, which emotional
changes and postures are at once the most difficult to describe and the
most interesting when intelligently reported, not only because they
infuse life into the skeleton sign, but because they may belong to the
class of innate expressions.
THE ORIGIN OF SIGN LANGUAGE.
In observing the maxim that nothing can be thoroughly understood unless
its beginning is known, it becomes necessary to examine into the origin
of sign language through its connection with that of oral speech. In
this examination it is essential to be free from the vague popular
impression that some oral language, of the general character of that now
used among mankind, is “natural” to mankind. It will be admitted on
reflection that all oral languages were at some past time far less
serviceable to those using them than they are now, and as each
particular language has been thoroughly studied it has become evident
that it grew out of some other and less advanced form. In the
investigation of these old forms it has been so difficult to ascertain
how any of them first became a useful instrument of inter-communication
that many conflicting theories on this subject have been advocated.
Oral language consists of variations and mutations of vocal sounds
produced as signs of thought and emotion. But it is not enough that
those signs should be available as the vehicle of the producer’s own
thoughts. They must be also efficient for the communication of such
thoughts to others. It has been, until of late years, generally held
that thought was not possible without oral language, and that, as man
was supposed to have possessed from the first the power of thought, he
also from the first possessed and used oral language substantially as at
present. That the latter, as a special faculty, formed the main
distinction between man and the brutes has been and still is the
prevailing doctrine. In a lecture delivered before the British
Association in 1878 it was declared that “animal intelligence is unable
to elaborate that class of abstract ideas, the formation of which
depends upon the faculty of speech.” If instead of “speech” the word
“utterance” had been used, as including all possible modes of
intelligent communication, the statement might pass without criticism.
But it may be doubted if there is any more necessary connection between
abstract ideas and sounds, the mere signs of thought, that strike the
ear, than there is between the same ideas and signs addressed only to
the eye.
The point most debated for centuries has been, not whether there was any
primitive oral language, but what that language was. Some literalists
have indeed argued from the Mosaic narrative that because the Creator,
by one supernatural act, with the express purpose to form separate
peoples, had divided all tongues into their present varieties, and
could, by another similar exercise of power, obliterate all but one
which should be universal, the fact that he had not exercised that power
showed it not to be his will that any man to whom a particular speech
had been given should hold intercourse with another miraculously set
apart from him by a different speech. By this reasoning, if the study of
a foreign tongue was not impious, it was at least clear that the
primitive language had been taken away as a disciplinary punishment, as
the Paradisiac Eden had been earlier lost, and that, therefore, the
search for it was as fruitless as to attempt the passage of the flaming
sword. More liberal Christians have been disposed to regard the Babel
story as allegorical, if not mythical, and have considered it to
represent the disintegration of tongues out of one which was primitive.
In accordance with the advance of linguistic science they have
successively shifted back the postulated primitive tongue from Hebrew to
Sanscrit, then to Aryan, and now seek to evoke from the vasty deeps of
antiquity the ghosts of other rival claimants for precedence in
dissolution. As, however, the languages of man are now recognized as
extremely numerous, and as the very sounds of which these several
languages are composed are so different that the speakers of some are
unable to distinguish with the ear certain sounds in others, still less
able to reproduce them, the search for one common parent language is
more difficult than was supposed by mediæval ignorance.
The discussion is now, however, varied by the suggested possibility that
man at some time may have existed without any oral language. It is
conceded by some writers that mental images or representations can be
formed without any connection with sound, and may at least serve for
thought, though not for expression. It is certain that concepts, however
formed, can be expressed by other means than sound. One mode of this
expression is by gesture, and there is less reason to believe that
gestures commenced as the interpretation of, or substitute for words
than that the latter originated in, and served to translate gestures.
Many arguments have been advanced to prove that gesture language
preceded articulate speech and formed the earliest attempt at
communication, resulting from the interacting subjective and objective
conditions to which primitive man was exposed. Some of the facts on
which deductions have been based, made in accordance with
well-established modes of scientific research from study of the lower
animals, children, idiots, the lower types of mankind, and deaf-mutes,
will be briefly mentioned.
_GESTURES OF THE LOWER ANIMALS._
Emotional expression in the features of man is to be considered in
reference to the fact that the special senses either have their seat in,
or are in close relation to the face, and that so large a number of
nerves pass to it from the brain. The same is true of the lower animals,
so that it would be inferred, as is the case, that the faces of those
animals are also expressive of emotion. There is also noticed among them
an exhibition of emotion by corporeal action. This is the class of
gestures common to them with the earliest made by man, as above
mentioned, and it is reasonable to suppose that those were made by man
at the time when, if ever, he was, like the animals, destitute of
articulate speech. The articulate cries uttered by some animals,
especially some birds, are interesting as connected with the principle
of imitation to which languages in part owe their origin, but in the
cases of forced imitation, the mere acquisition of a vocal trick, they
only serve to illustrate that power of imitation, and are without
significance. Sterne’s starling, after his cage had been opened, would
have continued to complain that he could not get out. If the bird had
uttered an instinctive cry of distress when in confinement and a note of
joy on release, there would have been a nearer approach to language than
if it had clearly pronounced many sentences. Such notes and cries of
animals, many of which are connected with reproduction and nutrition,
are well worth more consideration than can now be given, but regarding
them generally it is to be questioned if they are so expressive as the
gestures of the same animals. It is contended that the bark of a dog is
distinguishable into fear, defiance, invitation, and a note of warning,
but it also appears that those notes have been known only since the
animal has been domesticated. The gestures of the dog are far more
readily distinguished than his bark, as in his preparing for attack, or
caressing his master, resenting an injury, begging for food, or simply
soliciting attention. The chief modern use of his tail appears to be to
express his ideas and sensations. But some recent experiments of Prof.
A. GRAHAM BELL, no less eminent from his work in artificial speech than
in telephones, shows that animals are more physically capable of
pronouncing articulate sounds than has been supposed. He informed the
writer that he recently succeeded by manipulation in causing an English
terrier to form a number of the sounds of our letters, and particularly
brought out from it the words “How are you, Grandmamma?” with
distinctness. This tends to prove that only absence of brain power has
kept animals from acquiring true speech. The remarkable vocal instrument
of the parrot could be used in significance as well as in imitation, if
its brain had been developed beyond the point of expression by gesture,
in which latter the bird is expert.
The gestures of monkeys, whose hands and arms can be used, are nearly
akin to ours. Insects communicate with each other almost entirely by
means of the antennæ. Animals in general which, though not deaf, can not
be taught by sound, frequently have been by signs, and probably all of
them understand man’s gestures better than his speech. They exhibit
signs to one another with obvious intention, and they also have often
invented them as a means of obtaining their wants from man.
_GESTURES OF YOUNG CHILDREN._
The wishes and emotions of very young children are conveyed in a small
number of sounds, but in a great variety of gestures and facial
expressions. A child’s gestures are intelligent long in advance of
speech; although very early and persistent attempts are made to give it
instruction in the latter but none in the former, from the time when it
begins _risu cognoscere matrem_. It learns words only as they are
taught, and learns them through the medium of signs which are not
expressly taught. Long after familiarity with speech, it consults the
gestures and facial expressions of its parents and nurses as if seeking
thus to translate or explain their words. These facts are important in
reference to the biologic law that the order of development of the
individual is the same as that of the species.
Among the instances of gestures common to children throughout the world
is that of protruding the lips, or pouting, when somewhat angry or
sulky. The same gesture is now made by the anthropoid apes and is found
strongly marked in the savage tribes of man. It is noticed by
evolutionists that animals retain during early youth, and subsequently
lose, characters once possessed by their progenitors when adult, and
still retained by distinct species nearly related to them.
The fact is not, however, to be ignored that children invent words as
well as signs with as natural an origin for the one as for the other. An
interesting case was furnished to the writer by Prof. BELL of an infant
boy who used a combination of sounds given as “nyum-nyum,” an evident
onomatope of gustation, to mean “good,” and not only in reference to
articles of food relished but as applied to persons of whom the child
was fond, rather in the abstract idea of “niceness” in general. It is a
singular coincidence that a bright young girl, a friend of the writer,
in a letter describing a juvenile feast, invented the same expression,
with nearly the same spelling, as characteristic of her sensations
regarding the delicacies provided. The Papuans met by Dr. Comrie also
called “eating” _nam-nam_. But the evidence of all such cases of the
voluntary use of articulate speech by young children is qualified by the
fact that it has been inherited from very many generations, if not quite
so long as the faculty of gesture.
_GESTURES IN MENTAL DISORDER._
The insane understand and obey gestures when they have no knowledge
whatever of words. It is also found that semi-idiotic children who
cannot be taught more than the merest rudiments of speech, can receive a
considerable amount of information through signs, and can express
themselves by them. Sufferers from aphasia continue to use appropriate
gestures after their words have become uncontrollable. It is further
noticeable in them that mere ejaculations, or sounds which are only the
result of a state of feeling, instead of a desire to express thought,
are generally articulated with accuracy. Patients who have been in the
habit of swearing preserve their fluency in that division of their
vocabulary.
_UNINSTRUCTED DEAF-MUTES._
The signs made by congenital and uninstructed deaf-mutes to be now
considered are either strictly natural signs, invented by themselves, or
those of a colloquial character used by such mutes where associated. The
accidental or merely suggestive signs peculiar to families, one member
of which happens to be a mute, are too much affected by the other
members of the family to be of certain value. Those, again, which are
taught in institutions have become conventional and designedly adapted
to translation into oral speech, although founded by the abbé de l’Épée,
followed by the abbé Sicard, in the natural signs first above mentioned.
A great change has doubtless occurred in the estimation of congenital
deaf-mutes since the Justinian Code, which consigned them forever to
legal infancy, as incapable of intelligence, and classed them with the
insane. Yet most modern writers, for instance Archbishop Whately and Max
Müller, have declared that deaf-mutes could not think until after having
been instructed. It cannot be denied that the deaf-mute thinks after his
instruction either in the ordinary gesture signs or in the finger
alphabet, or more lately in artificial speech. By this instruction he
has become master of a highly-developed language, such as English or
French, which he can read, write, and actually talk, but that foreign
language he has obtained through the medium of signs. This is a
conclusive proof that signs constitute a real language and one which
admits of thought, for no one can learn a foreign language unless he had
some language of his own, whether by descent or acquisition, by which it
could be translated, and such translation into the new language could
not even be commenced unless the mind had been already in action and
intelligently using the original language for that purpose. In fact the
use by deaf-mutes of signs originating in themselves exhibits a creative
action of mind and innate faculty of expression beyond that of ordinary
speakers who acquired language without conscious effort. The thanks of
students, both of philology and psychology, are due to Prof. SAMUEL
PORTER, of the National Deaf Mute College, for his response to the
question, “Is thought possible without language?” published in the
_Princeton Review_ for January, 1880.
With regard to the sounds uttered by deaf-mutes, the same explanation of
heredity may be made as above, regarding the words invented by young
children. Congenital deaf-mutes at first make the same sounds as hearing
children of the same age, and, often being susceptible to vibrations of
the air, are not suspected of being deaf. When that affliction is
ascertained to exist, all oral utterances from the deaf-mute are
habitually repressed by the parents.
_GESTURES OF THE BLIND._
The facial expressions and gestures of the congenitally blind are worthy
of attention. The most interesting and conclusive examples come from the
case of Laura Bridgman, who, being also deaf, could not possibly have
derived them by imitation. When a letter from a beloved friend was
communicated to her by gesture-language, she laughed and clapped her
hands. A roguish expression was given to her face, concomitant with the
emotion, by her holding the lower lip by the teeth. She blushed,
shrugged her shoulders, turned in her elbows, and raised her eye-brows
under the same circumstances as other people. In amazement, she rounded
and protruded the lips, opened them, and breathed strongly. It is
remarkable that she constantly accompanied her “yes” with the common
affirmative nod, and her “no” with our negative shake of the head, as
these gestures are by no means universal and do not seem clearly
connected with emotion. This, possibly, may be explained by the fact
that her ancestors for many generations had used these gestures.
A similar curious instance is mentioned by Cardinal Wiseman (_Essays_,
III, 547, _London_, 1853) of an Italian blind man, the appearance of
whose eyes indicated that he had never enjoyed sight, and who yet made
the same elaborate gestures made by the people with whom he lived, but
which had been used by them immemorially, as correctly as if he had
learned them by observation.
_LOSS OF SPEECH BY ISOLATION._
When human beings have been long in solitary confinement, been
abandoned, or otherwise have become isolated from their fellows, they
have lost speech either partially or entirely, and required to have it
renewed through gestures. There are also several recorded cases of
children, born with all their faculties, who, after having been lost or
abandoned, have been afterwards found to have grown up possessed of
acute hearing, but without anything like human speech. One of these was
Peter, “the Wild Boy,” who was found in the woods of Hanover in 1726,
and taken to England, where vain attempts were made to teach him
language, though he lived to the age of seventy. Another was a boy of
twelve, found in the forest of Aveyron, in France, about the beginning
of this century, who was destitute of speech, and all efforts to teach
him failed. Some of these cases are to be considered in connection with
the general law of evolution, that in degeneration the last and highest
acquirements are lost first. When in these the effort at acquiring or
re-acquiring speech has been successful, it has been through gestures,
in the same manner as missionaries, explorers, and shipwrecked mariners
have become acquainted with tongues before unknown to themselves and
sometimes to civilization. All persons in such circumstances are obliged
to proceed by pointing to objects and making gesticulations, at the same
time observing what articulate sounds were associated with those motions
by the persons addressed, and thus vocabularies and lists of phrases
were formed.
_LOW TRIBES OF MAN._
Apart from the establishment of a systematic language of signs under
special circumstances which have occasioned its development, the
gestures of the lower tribes of men may be generally classed under the
emotional or instinctive division, which can be correlated with those of
the lower animals. This may be illustrated by the modes adopted to show
friendship in salutation, taking the place of our shaking hands. Some
Pacific Islanders used to show their joy at meeting friends by sniffing
at them, after the style of well-disposed dogs. The Fuegians pat and
slap each other, and some Polynesians stroke their own faces with the
hand or foot of the friend. The practice of rubbing or pressing noses is
very common. It has been noticed in the Lapland Alps, often in Africa,
and in Australia the tips of the noses are pressed a long time,
accompanied with grunts of satisfaction. Patting and stroking different
parts of the body are still more frequent, and prevailed among the North
American Indians, though with the latter the most common expression was
hugging. In general, the civilities exchanged are similar to those of
many animals.
_GESTURES AS AN OCCASIONAL RESOURCE._
Persons of limited vocabulary, whether foreigners to the tongue employed
or native, but not accomplished in its use, even in the midst of a
civilization where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for words
resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild nor
meaningless, but picturesque and significant, though perhaps made by the
gesturer for the first time. An uneducated laborer, if good-natured
enough to be really desirous of responding to a request for information,
when he has exhausted his scanty stock of words will eke them out by
original gestures. While fully admitting the advice to Coriolanus--
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears--
it may be paraphrased to read that the hands of the ignorant are more
learned than their tongues. A stammerer, too, works his arms and
features as if determined to get his thoughts out, in a manner not only
suggestive of the physical struggle, but of the use of gestures as a
hereditary expedient.
_GESTURES OF FLUENT TALKERS._
The same is true of the most fluent talkers on occasions when the exact
vocal formula desired does not at once suggest itself, or is
unsatisfactory without assistance from the physical machinery not
embraced in the oral apparatus. The command of a copious vocabulary
common to both speaker and hearer undoubtedly tends to a phlegmatic
delivery and disdain of subsidiary aid. An excited speaker will,
however, generally make a free use of his hands without regard to any
effect of that use upon auditors. Even among the gesture-hating English,
when they are aroused from torpidity of manner, the hands are
involuntarily clapped in approbation, rubbed with delight, wrung in
distress, raised in astonishment, and waved in triumph. The fingers are
snapped for contempt, the forefinger is vibrated to reprove or threaten,
and the fist shaken in defiance. The brow is contracted with
displeasure, and the eyes winked to show connivance. The shoulders are
shrugged to express disbelief or repugnance, the eyebrows elevated with
surprise, the lips bitten in vexation and thrust out in sullenness or
displeasure, while a higher degree of anger is shown by a stamp of the
foot. Quintilian, regarding the subject, however, not as involuntary
exhibition of feeling and intellect, but for illustration and
enforcement, becomes eloquent on the variety of motions of which the
hands alone are capable, as follows:
“The action of the other parts of the body assists the speaker, but the
hands (I could almost say) speak themselves. By them do we not demand,
promise, call, dismiss, threaten, supplicate, express abhorrence and
terror, question and deny? Do we not by them express joy and sorrow,
doubt, confession, repentance, measure, quantity, number, and time? Do
they not also encourage, supplicate, restrain, convict, admire, respect?
and in pointing out places and persons do they not discharge the office
of adverbs and of pronouns?”
Voss adopts almost the words of Quintilian, “_Manus non modo loquentem
adjuvant, sed ipsæ pene loqui videntur_,” while Cresollius calls the
hand “the minister of reason and wisdom * * * without it there is no
eloquence.”
_INVOLUNTARY RESPONSE TO GESTURES._
Further evidence of the unconscious survival of gesture language is
afforded by the ready and involuntary response made in signs to signs
when a man with the speech and habits of civilization is brought into
close contact with Indians or deaf-mutes. Without having ever before
seen or made one of their signs, he will soon not only catch the meaning
of theirs, but produce his own, which they will likewise comprehend, the
power seemingly remaining latent in him until called forth by necessity.
_NATURAL PANTOMIME._
In the earliest part of man’s history the subjects of his discourse must
have been almost wholly sensuous, and therefore readily expressed in
pantomime. Not only was pantomime sufficient for all the actual needs of
his existence, but it is not easy to imagine how he could have used
language such as is now known to us. If the best English dictionary and
grammar had been miraculously furnished to him, together with the art of
reading with proper pronunciation, the gift would have been valueless,
because the ideas expressed by the words had not yet been formed.
That the early concepts were of a direct and material character is shown
by what has been ascertained of the roots of language, and there does
not appear to be much difficulty in expressing by other than vocal
instrumentality all that could have been expressed by those roots. Even
now, with our vastly increased belongings of external life, avocations,
and habits, nearly all that is absolutely necessary for our physical
needs can be expressed in pantomime. Far beyond the mere signs for
eating, drinking, sleeping, and the like, any one will understand a
skillful representation in signs of a tailor, shoemaker, blacksmith,
weaver, sailor, farmer, or doctor. So of washing, dressing, shaving,
walking, driving, writing, reading, churning, milking, boiling, roasting
or frying, making bread or preparing coffee, shooting, fishing, rowing,
sailing, sawing, planing, boring, and, in short, an endless list.
Max Müller properly calls touch, scent, and taste the palaioteric, and
sight and hearing the neoteric senses, the latter of which often require
to be verified by the former. Touch is the lowest in specialization and
development, and is considered to be the oldest of the senses, the
others indeed being held by some writers to be only its modifications.
Scent, of essential importance to many animals, has with man almost
ceased to be of any, except in connection with taste, which he has
developed to a high degree. Whether or not sight preceded hearing in
order of development, it is difficult, in conjecturing the first
attempts of man or his hypothetical ancestor at the expression either of
percepts or concepts, to connect vocal sounds with any large number of
objects, but it is readily conceivable that the characteristics of their
forms and movements should have been suggested to the eye--fully
exercised before the tongue--so soon as the arms and fingers became free
for the requisite simulation or portrayal. There is little distinction
between pantomime and a developed sign language, in which thought is
transmitted rapidly and certainly from hand to eye as it is in oral
speech from lips to ear; the former is, however, the parent of the
latter, which is more abbreviated and less obvious. Pantomime acts
movements, reproduces forms and positions, presents pictures, and
manifests emotions with greater realization than any other mode of
utterance. It may readily be supposed that a troglodyte man would desire
to communicate the finding of a cave in the vicinity of a pure pool,
circled with soft grass, and shaded by trees bearing edible fruit. No
sound of nature is connected with any of those objects, but the position
and size of the cave, its distance and direction, the water, its
quality, and amount, the verdant circling carpet, and the kind and
height of the trees could have been made known by pantomime in the days
of the mammoth, if articulate speech had not then been established, as
Indians or deaf-mutes now communicate similar information by the same
agency.
The proof of this fact, as regards deaf-mutes, will hardly be demanded,
as their expressive pantomime has been so often witnessed. That of the
North American Indians, as distinct from the signs which are generally
its abbreviations, has been frequently described in general terms, but
it may be interesting to present two instances from remote localities.
A Maricopa Indian, in the present limits of Arizona, was offered an
advantageous trade for his horse, whereupon he stretched himself on his
horse’s neck, caressed it tenderly, at the same time shutting his eyes,
meaning thereby that no offer could tempt him to part with his charger.
An A-tco-mâ-wi or Pit River Indian, in Northeastern California, to
explain the cause of his cheeks and forehead being covered with tar,
represented a man falling, and, despite his efforts to save him,
trembling, growing pale (pointing from his face to that of a white man),
and sinking to sleep, his spirit winging its way to the skies, which he
indicated by imitating with his hands the flight of a bird upwards, his
body sleeping still upon the river bank, to which he pointed. The tar
upon his face was thus shown to be his dress of mourning for a friend
who had fallen and died.
Several descriptions of pure pantomime, intermixed with the more
conventionalized signs, will be found in the present paper. In especial,
reference is made to the Address of Kin Chē-ĕss, Nátci’s Narrative, the
Dialogue between Alaskan Indians, and Na-wa-gi-jig’s Story.
SOME THEORIES UPON PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE.
Cresollius, writing in 1620, was strongly in favor of giving precedence
to gesture. He says, “Man, full of wisdom and divinity, could have
appeared nothing superior to a naked trunk or block had he not been
adorned with the hand as the interpreter and messenger of his thoughts.”
He quotes with approval the brother of St. Basil in declaring that had
men been formed without hands they would never have been endowed with an
articulate voice, and concludes: “Since, then, nature has furnished us
with two instruments for the purpose of bringing into light and
expressing the silent affections of the mind, language and the hand, it
has been the opinion of learned and intelligent men that the former
would be maimed and nearly useless without the latter; whereas the hand,
without the aid of language, has produced many and wonderful effects.”
Rabelais, who incorporated into his satirical work much true learning
and philosophy, makes his hero announce the following opinion:
“Nothing less, quoth Pantagruel [Book iii, ch. xix], do I believe than
that it is a mere abusing of our understandings to give credit to the
words of those who say that there is any such thing as a natural
language. All speeches have had their primary origin from the arbitrary
institutions, accords, and agreements of nations in their respective
condescendments to what should be noted and betokened by them. An
articulate voice, according to the dialecticians, hath naturally no
signification at all; for that the sense and meaning thereof did totally
depend upon the good will and pleasure of the first deviser and imposer
of it.”
Max Müller, following Professor Heyse, of Berlin, published an ingenious
theory of primitive speech, to the effect that man had a creative
faculty giving to each conception, as it thrilled through his brain for
the first time, a special phonetic expression, which faculty became
extinct when its necessity ceased. This theory, which makes each radical
of language to be a phonetic type rung out from the organism of the
first man or men when struck by an idea, has been happily named the
“ding-dong” theory. It has been abandoned mainly through the destructive
criticisms of Prof. W. D. WHITNEY, of Yale College. One lucid
explanation by the latter should be specially noted: “A word is a
combination of sounds which by a series of historical reasons has come
to be accepted and understood in a certain community as the sign of a
certain idea. As long as they so accept and understand it, it has
existence; when everyone ceases to use and understand it, it ceases to
exist.”
Several authors, among them Kaltschmidt, contend that there was but one
primitive language, which was purely onomatopœic, that is, imitative of
natural sounds. This has been stigmatized as the “bow-wow” theory, but
its advocates might derive an argument from the epithet itself, as not
only our children, but the natives of Papua, call the dog a “bow-wow.”
They have, however, gone too far in attempting to trace back words in
their shape as now existing to any natural sounds instead of confining
that work to the roots from which the words have sprung.
Another attempt has been made, represented by Professor Noiré, to
account for language by means of interjectional cries. This Max Müller
revengefully styled the “pooh-pooh” theory. In it is included the
rhythmical sounds which a body of men make seemingly by a common impulse
when engaged in a common work, such as the cries of sailors when hauling
on a rope or pulling an oar, or the yell of savages in an attack. It
also derives an argument from the impulse of life by which the child
shouts and the bird sings. There are, however, very few either words or
roots of words which can be proved to have that derivation.
Professor SAYCE, in his late work, _Introduction to the Science of
Language_, _London_, 1880, gives the origin of language in gestures, in
onomatopœia, and to a limited extent in interjectional cries. He
concludes it to be the ordinary theory of modern comparative
philologists that all languages are traced back to a certain number of
abstract roots, each of which was a sort of sentence in embryo, and
while he does not admit this as usually presented, he believes that
there was a time in the history of speech, when the articulate or
semi-articulate sounds uttered by primitive men were made the
significant representations of thought by the gestures with which they
were accompanied. This statement is specially gratifying to the present
writer as he had advanced much the same views in his first publication
on the subject in the following paragraph, now reproduced with greater
confidence:
“From their own failures and discordancies, linguistic scholars have
recently decided that both the ‘bow-wow’ and the ‘ding-dong’ theories
are unsatisfactory; that the search for imitative, onomatopœic, and
directly expressive sounds to explain the origin of human speech has
been too exclusive, and that many primordial roots of language have been
founded in the involuntary sounds accompanying certain actions. As,
however, the action was the essential, and the consequent or concomitant
sound the accident, it would be expected that a representation or
feigned reproduction of the action would have been used to express the
idea before the sound associated with that action could have been
separated from it. The visual onomatopœia of gestures, which even yet
have been subjected to but slight artificial corruption, would therefore
serve as a key to the audible. It is also contended that in the pristine
days, when the sounds of the only words yet formed had close connection
with objects and the ideas directly derived from them, signs were as
much more copious for communication than speech, as the sight embraces
more and more distinct characteristics of objects than does the sense of
hearing.”
_CONCLUSIONS._
The preponderance of authority is in favor of the view that man, when in
the possession of all his faculties, did not choose between voice and
gesture, both being originally instinctive, as they both are now, and
never, with those faculties, was in a state where the one was used to
the absolute exclusion of the other. The long neglected work of
Dalgarno, published in 1661, is now admitted to show wisdom when he
says: “_non minus naturale fit homini communicare in _Figuris_ quam
_Sonis_: quorum utrumque dico homini _naturale_._” With the voice man at
first imitated the few sounds of nature, while with gesture he exhibited
actions, motions, positions, forms, dimensions, directions, and
distances, and their derivatives. It would appear from this unequal
division of capacity that oral speech remained rudimentary long after
gesture had become an art. With the concession of all purely imitative
sounds and of the spontaneous action of the vocal organs under
excitement, it is still true that the connection between ideas and words
generally depended upon a compact between the speaker and hearer which
presupposes the existence of a prior mode of communication. That was
probably by gesture, which, in the apposite phrase of Professor SAYCE,
“like the rope-bridges of the Himalayas or the Andes, formed the first
rude means of communication between man and man.” At the very least it
may be gladly accepted provisionally as a clue leading out of the
labyrinth of philologic confusion.
For the purpose of the present paper there is, however, no need of an
absolute decision upon the priority between communication of ideas by
bodily motion and by vocal articulation. It is enough to admit that the
connection between them was so early and intimate that gestures, in the
wide sense indicated of presenting ideas under physical forms, had a
direct formative effect upon many words; that they exhibit the earliest
condition of the human mind; are traced from the remotest antiquity
among all peoples possessing records; are generally prevalent in the
savage stage of social evolution; survive agreeably in the scenic
pantomime, and still adhere to the ordinary speech of civilized man by
motions of the face, hands, head, and body, often involuntary, often
purposely in illustration or for emphasis.
It may be unnecessary to explain that none of the signs to be described,
even those of present world-wide prevalence, are presented as precisely
those of primitive man. Signs as well as words, animals, and plants have
had their growth, development, and change, their births and deaths, and
their struggle for existence with survival of the fittest. It is,
however, thought probable from reasons hereinafter mentioned that their
radicals can be ascertained with more precision than those of words.
HISTORY OF GESTURE LANGUAGE.
There is ample evidence of record, besides that derived from other
sources, that the systematic use of gesture speech was of great
antiquity. Livy so declares, and Quintilian specifies that the “_lex
gestus * * * ab illis temporibus heroicis orta est_.” Plato classed its
practice among civil virtues, and Chrysippus gave it place among the
proper education of freemen. Athenæus tells that gestures were even
reduced to distinct classification with appropriate terminology. The
class suited to comedy was called Cordax, that to tragedy Eumelia, and
that for satire Sicinnis, from the inventor Sicinnus. Bathyllus from
these formed a fourth class, adapted to pantomime. This system appears
to have been particularly applicable to theatrical performances.
Quintilian, later, gave most elaborate rules for gestures in oratory,
which are specially noticeable from the importance attached to the
manner of disposing the fingers. He attributed to each particular
disposition a significance or suitableness which are not now obvious.
Some of them are retained by modern orators, but without the same, or
indeed any, intentional meaning, and others are wholly disused.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.]
The value of these digital arrangements is, however, shown by their use
among the modern Italians, to whom they have directly descended. From
many illustrations of this fact the following is selected. Fig. 61 is
copied from Austin’s _Chironomia_ as his graphic execution of the
gesture described by Quintilian: “The fore finger of the right hand
joining the middle of its nail to the extremity of its own thumb, and
moderately extending the rest of the fingers, is graceful in
_approving_.” Fig. 62 is taken from De Jorio’s plates and descriptions
of the gestures among modern Neapolitans, with the same idea of
approbation--“good.” Both of these may be compared with Fig. 63,
a common sign among the North American Indians to express affirmation
and approbation. With the knowledge of these details it is possible to
believe the story of Macrobius that Cicero used to vie with Roscius, the
celebrated actor, as to which of them could express a sentiment in the
greater variety of ways, the one by gesture and the other by speech,
with the apparent result of victory to the actor who was so satisfied
with the superiority of his art that he wrote a book on the subject.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.]
Gestures were treated of with still more distinction as connected with
pantomimic dances and representations. Æschylus appears to have brought
theatrical gesture to a high degree of perfection, but Telestes,
a dancer employed by him, introduced the dumb show, a dance without
marked dancing steps, and subordinated to motions of the hands, arms,
and body, which is dramatic pantomime. He was so great an artist, says
Athenæus, that when he represented the _Seven before Thebes_ he rendered
every circumstance manifest by his gestures alone. From Greece, or
rather from Egypt, the art was brought to Rome, and in the reign of
Augustus was the great delight of that Emperor and his friend Mæcenas.
Bathyllus, of Alexandria, was the first to introduce it to the Roman
public, but he had a dangerous rival in Pylades. The latter was
magnificent, pathetic, and affecting, while Bathyllus was gay and
sportive. All Rome was split into factions about their respective
merits. Athenæus speaks of a distinguished performer of his own time
(he died A.D. 194) named Memphis, whom he calls the “dancing
philosopher,” because he showed what the Pythagorean philosophy could do
by exhibiting in silence everything with stronger evidence than they
could who professed to teach the arts of language. In the reign of Nero,
a celebrated pantomimist who had heard that the cynic philosopher
Demetrius spoke of the art with contempt, prevailed upon him to witness
his performance, with the result that the cynic, more and more
astonished, at last cried out aloud, “Man, I not only see, but I hear
what you do, for to me you appear to speak with your hands!”
[Illustration: FIG. 63.]
Lucian, who narrates this in his work _De Saltatione_, gives another
tribute to the talent of, perhaps, the same performer. A barbarian
prince of Pontus (the story is told elsewhere of Tyridates, King of
Armenia), having come to Rome to do homage to the Emperor Nero, and been
taken to see the pantomimes, was asked on his departure by the Emperor
what present he would have as a mark of his favor. The barbarian begged
that he might have the principal pantomimist, and upon being asked why
he made such an odd request, replied that he had many neighbors who
spoke such various and discordant languages that he found it difficult
to obtain any interpreter who could understand them or explain his
commands; but if he had the dancer he could by his assistance easily
make himself intelligible to all.
While the general effect of these pantomimes is often mentioned, there
remain but few detailed descriptions of them. Apuleius, however, in the
tenth book of his _Metamorphosis_ or “Golden Ass,” gives sufficient
details of the performance of the Judgment of Paris to show that it
strongly resembled the best form of ballet opera known in modern times.
These exhibitions were so greatly in favor that, according to Ammianus
Marcellinus, there were in Rome in the year 190 six thousand persons
devoted to the art, and that when a famine raged they were all kept in
the city, though besides all the strangers all the philosophers were
forced to leave. Their popularity continued until the sixth century, and
it is evident from a decree of Charlemagne that they were not lost, or
at least, had been revived in his time. Those of us who have enjoyed the
performance of the original Ravel troupe will admit that the art still
survives, though not with the magnificence or perfection, especially
with reference to serious subjects, which it exhibited in the age of
imperial Rome.
Early and prominent among the post-classic works upon gesture is that of
the venerable Bede (who flourished A.D. 672-735) _De Loquelâ per Gestum
Digitorum, sive de Indigitatione_. So much discussion had indeed been
carried on in reference to the use of signs for the desideratum of a
universal mode of communication, which also was designed to be occult
and mystic, that Rabelais, in the beginning of the sixteenth century,
who, however satirical, never spent his force upon matters of little
importance, devotes much attention to it. He makes his English
philosopher, Thaumast “The Wonderful” declare, “I will dispute by signs
only, without speaking, for the matters are so abstruse, hard, and
arduous, that words proceeding from the mouth of man will never be
sufficient for unfolding of them to my liking.”
The earliest contributions of practical value connected with the subject
were made by George Dalgarno, of Aberdeen, in two works, one published
in London, 1661, entitled _Ars Signorum, vulgo character universalis et
lingua philosophica_, and the other printed at Oxford, 1680, entitled,
_Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man’s Tutor_. He spent his life
in obscurity, and his works, though he was incidentally mentioned by
Leibnitz under the name of “M. Dalgarus,” passed into oblivion. Yet he
undoubtedly was the precursor of Bishop Wilkins in his _Essay toward a
Real Character and a Philosophical Language_, published in London, 1668,
though indeed the first idea was far older, it having been, as reported
by Piso, the wish of Galen that some way might be found out to represent
things by such peculiar signs and names as should express their natures.
Dalgarno’s ideas respecting the education of the dumb were also of the
highest value, and though they were too refined and enlightened to be
appreciated at the period when he wrote, they probably were used by Dr.
Wallis if not by Sicard. Some of his thoughts should be quoted: “As I
think the eye to be as docile as the ear; so neither see I any reason
but the hand might be made as tractable an organ as the tongue; and as
soon brought to form, if not fair, at least legible characters, as the
tongue to imitate and echo back articulate sounds.” A paragraph
prophetic of the late success in educating blind deaf-mutes is as
follows: “The soul can exert her powers by the ministry of any of the
senses: and, therefore, when she is deprived of her principal
secretaries, the eye and the ear, then she must be contented with the
service of her lackeys and scullions, the other senses; which are no
less true and faithful to their mistress than the eye and the ear; but
not so quick for dispatch.”
In his division of the modes of “expressing the inward emotions by
outward and sensible signs” he relegates to physiology cases “when the
internal passions are expressed by such external signs as have a natural
connection, by way of cause and effect, with the passion they discover,
as laughing, weeping, frowning, &c., and this way of interpretation
being common to the brute with man belongs to natural philosophy. And
because this goes not far enough to serve the rational soul, therefore,
man has invented Sematology.” This he divides into Pneumatology,
interpretation by sounds conveyed through the ear; Schematology, by
figures to the eye, and Haptology, by mutual contact, skin to skin.
Schematology is itself divided into Typology or Grammatology, and
Cheirology or Dactylology. The latter embraces “the transient motions of
the fingers, which of all other ways of interpretation comes nearest to
that of the tongue.”
As a phase in the practice of gestures in lieu of speech must be
mentioned the code of the Cistercian monks, who were vowed to silence
except in religious exercises. That they might literally observe their
vows they were obliged to invent a system of communication by signs,
a list of which is given by Leibnitz, but does not show much ingenuity.
A curious description of the speech of the early inhabitants of the
world, given by Swedenborg in his _Arcana Cœlestia_, published
1749-1756, may be compared with the present exhibitions of deaf-mutes in
institutions for their instruction. He says it was not articulate like
the vocal speech of our time, but was tacit, being produced not by
external respiration, but by internal. They were able to express their
meaning by slight motions of the lips and corresponding changes of the
face.
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--Group from an ancient Greek vase.]
Austin’s comprehensive work, _Chironomia, or a Treatise on Rhetorical
Delivery_, _London_, 1806, is a repertory of information for all writers
on gesture, who have not always given credit to it, as well as on all
branches of oratory. This has been freely used by the present writer, as
has also the volume by the canon Andrea de Jorio, _La Mimica degli
Antichi investigata nel Gestire Napoletano_, _Napoli_, 1832. The canon’s
chief object was to interpret the gestures of the ancients as shown in
their works of art and described in their writings, by the modern
gesticulations of the Neapolitans, and he has proved that the general
system of gesture once prevailing in ancient Italy is substantially the
same as now observed. With an understanding of the existing language of
gesture the scenes on the most ancient Greek vases and reliefs obtain a
new and interesting significance and form a connecting link between the
present and prehistoric times. Two of De Jorio’s plates are here
reproduced, Figs. 64 and 67, with such explanation and further
illustration as is required for the present subject.
The spirited figures upon the ancient vase, Fig. 64, are red upon a
black ground and are described in the published account in French of the
collection of Sir John Coghill, Bart., of which the following is a free
translation:
Dionysos or Bacchus is represented with a strong beard, his head girt
with the credemnon, clothed in a long folded tunic, above which is an
ample cloak, and holding a thyrsus. Under the form of a satyr, Comus, or
the genius of the table, plays on the double flute and tries to excite
to the dance two nymphs, the companions of Bacchus--Galené, Tranquility,
and Eudia, Serenity. The first of them is dressed in a tunic, above
which is a fawn skin, holding a tympanum or classic drum on which she is
about to strike, while her companion marks the time by a snapping of the
fingers, which custom the author of the catalogue wisely states is still
kept up in Italy in the dance of the tarantella. The composition is said
to express allegorically that pure and serene pleasures are benefits
derived from the god of wine.
[Illustration: FIG. 65.]
[Illustration: FIG. 66.]
This is a fair example of the critical acumen of art-commentators. The
gestures of the two nymphs are interesting, but on very slight
examination it appears that those of Galené have nothing to do with beat
of drum, nor have those of Eudia any connection with music, though it is
not so clear what is the true subject under discussion. Aided, however,
by the light of the modern sign language of Naples, there seems to be by
no means serenity prevailing, but a quarrel between the ladies, on a
special subject which is not necessarily pure. The nymph at the reader’s
left fixes her eyes upon her companion with her index in the same
direction, clearly indicating, _thou_. That the address is reproachful
is shown from her countenance, but with greater certainty from her
attitude and the corresponding one of her companion, who raises both her
hands in surprise accompanied with negation. The latter is expressed by
the right hand raised toward the shoulder, with the palm opposed to the
person to whom response is made. This is the rejection of the idea
presented, and is expressed by some of our Indians, as shown in Fig. 65.
A sign of the Dakota tribe of Indians with the same signification is
given in Fig. 270, page 441, _infra_. At the same time the upper part of
the nymph’s body is drawn backward as far as the preservation of
equilibrium permits. So a reproach or accusation is made on the one
part, and denied, whether truthfully or not, on the other. Its subject
also may be ascertained. The left hand of Eudia is not mute; it is held
towards her rival with the balls of the index and thumb united, the
modern Neapolitan sign for _love_, which is drawn more clearly in Fig.
66. It is called the kissing of the thumb and finger, and there is ample
authority to show that among the ancient classics it was a sign of
marriage. St. Jerome, quoted by Vincenzo Requena, says: “_Nam et ipsa
digitorum conjunctio, et quasi molli osculo se complectans et fœderans,
maritum pingit et conjugem_;” and Apuleius clearly alludes to the same
gesture as used in the adoration of Venus, by the words “_primore digito
in erectum pollicem residente_.” The gesture is one of the few out of
the large number described in various parts of Rabelais’ great work, the
significance of which is explained. It is made by Naz-de-cabre or Goat’s
Nose (_Pantagruel_, Book III, Ch. XX), who lifted up into the air his
left hand, the whole fingers whereof he retained fistways closed
together, except the thumb and the forefinger, whose nails he softly
joined and coupled to one another. “I understand, quoth Pantagruel, what
he meaneth by that sign. It denotes marriage.” The quarrel is thus
established to be about love; and the fluting satyr seated between the
two nymphs, behind whose back the accusation is furtively made by the
jealous one, may well be the object concerning whom jealousy is
manifested. Eudia therefore, instead of “serenely” marking time for a
“tranquil” tympanist, appears to be crying, “Galené! you bad thing! you
are having, or trying to have, an affair with my Comus!”--an accusation
which this writer verily believes to have been just. The lady’s attitude
in affectation of surprised denial is not that of injured innocence.
* * * * *
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Group from a vase in the Homeric Gallery.]
[Illustration: FIG. 68.]
[Illustration: FIG. 69.]
Fig. 67, taken from a vase in the Homeric Gallery, is rich in natural
gestures. Without them, from the costumes and attitudes it is easy to
recognize the protagonist or principal actor in the group, and its
general subject. The warrior goddess Athené stands forth in the midst of
what appears to be a council of war. After the study of modern gesture
speech, the votes of each member of the council, with the degree of
positiveness or interest felt by each, can be ascertained. Athené in
animated motion turns her eyes to the right, and extends her left arm
and hand to the left, with her right hand brandishing a lance in the
same direction, in which her feet show her to be ready to spring. She is
urging the figures on her right to follow her at once to attempt some
dangerous enterprise. Of these the elderly man, who is calmly seated,
holds his right hand flat and reversed, and suspended slightly above his
knee. This probably is the ending of the modern Neapolitan gesture, Fig.
68, which signifies hesitation, advice to pause before hasty action, “go
slowly,” and commences higher with a gentle wavering movement downward.
This can be compared with the sign of some of our Indians, Fig. 69, for
_wait!_ _slowly!_ The female figure at the left of the group, standing
firmly and decidedly, raises her left hand directed to the goddess with
the palm vertical. If this is supposed to be a stationary gesture it
means, “_wait!_ _stop!_” It may, however, be the commencement of the
last mentioned gesture, “_go slow_.”
[Illustration: FIG. 70.]
Both of these members of the council advise delay and express doubt of
the propriety of immediate action.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.]
The sitting warrior on the left of Athené presents his left hand flat
and carried well up. This position, supposed to be stationary, now means
to _ask, inquire_, and it may be that he inquires of the other veteran
what reasons he can produce for his temporizing policy. This may be
collated with the modern Neapolitan sign for _ask_, Fig. 70, and the
common Indian sign for “_tell me!_” Fig. 71. In connection with this it
is also interesting to compare the Australian sign for interrogation,
Fig. 72, and also the Comanche Indian sign for _give me_, Fig. 301, page
480, _infra_. If, however, the artist had the intention to represent the
flat hand as in motion from below upward, as is probable from the
connection, the meaning is _much, greatly_. He strongly disapproves the
counsel of the opposite side. Our Indians often express the idea of
quantity, _much_, with the same conception of comparative height, by an
upward motion of the extended palm, but with them the palm is held
downward. The last figure to the right, by the action of his whole body,
shows his rejection of the proposed delay, and his right hand gives the
modern sign of combined surprise and reproof.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.]
It is interesting to note the similarity of the merely emotional
gestures and attitudes of modern Italy with those of the classics. The
Pulcinella, Fig. 73, for instance, drawn from life in the streets of
Naples, has the same pliancy and _abandon_ of the limbs as appears in
the supposed foolish slaves of the Vatican Terence.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.]
In close connection with this branch of the study reference must be made
to the gestures exhibited in the works of Italian art only modern in
comparison with the high antiquity of their predecessors. A good
instance is in the Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, painted toward the
close of the fifteenth century, and to the figure of Judas as there
portrayed. The gospel denounces him as a thief, which is expressed in
the painting by the hand extended and slightly curved; imitative of the
pilferer’s act in clutching and drawing toward him furtively the stolen
object, and is the same gesture that now indicates _theft_ in Naples,
Fig. 74, and among some of the North American Indians, Fig. 75. The
pictorial propriety of the sign is preserved by the apparent desire of
the traitor to obtain the one white loaf of bread on the table (the
remainder being of coarser quality) which lies near where his hand is
tending. Raffaelle was equally particular in his exhibition of gesture
language, even unto the minutest detail of the arrangement of the
fingers. It is traditional that he sketched the Madonna’s hands for the
Spasimo di Sicilia in eleven different positions before he was
satisfied.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.]
No allusion to the bibliography of gesture speech, however slight,
should close without including the works of Mgr. D. De Haerne, who has,
as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, in addition to
his rank in the Roman Catholic Church, been active in promoting the
cause of education in general, and especially that of the deaf and dumb.
His admirable treatise _The Natural Language of Signs_ has been
translated and is accessible to American readers in the _American Annals
of the Deaf and Dumb_, 1875. In that valuable serial, conducted by Prof.
E. A. FAY, of the National Deaf Mute College at Washington, and now in
its twenty-sixth volume, a large amount of the current literature on the
subject indicated by its title can be found.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.]
MODERN USE OF GESTURE SPEECH.
Dr. TYLOR says (_Early History of Mankind_, 44): “We cannot lay down as
a rule that gesticulation decreases as civilization advances, and say,
for instance, that a Southern Frenchman, because his talk is illustrated
with gestures as a book with pictures, is less civilized than a German
or Englishman.” This is true, and yet it is almost impossible for
persons not accustomed to gestures to observe them without associating
the idea of low culture. Thus in Mr. Darwin’s summing up of those
characteristics of the natives of Tierra del Fuego, which rendered it
difficult to believe them to be fellow-creatures, he classes their
“violent gestures” with their filthy and greasy skins, discordant
voices, and hideous faces bedaubed with paint. This description is
quoted by the Duke of Argyle in his _Unity of Nature_ in approval of
those characteristics as evidence, of the lowest condition of humanity.
Whether or not the power of the visible gesture relative to, and its
influence upon the words of modern oral speech are in inverse proportion
to the general culture, it seems established that they do not bear that
or any constant proportion to the development of the several languages
with which gesture is still more or less associated. The statement has
frequently been made that gesture is yet to some highly-advanced
languages a necessary modifying factor, and that only when a language
has become so artificial as to be completely expressible in written
signs--indeed, has been remodeled through their long familiar use--can
the bodily signs be wholly dispensed with. The evidence for this
statement is now doubted, and it is safer to affirm that a common use of
gesture depends more upon the sociologic conditions of the speakers than
upon the degree of copiousness of their oral speech.
_USE BY OTHER PEOPLES THAN NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS._
The nearest approach to a general rule which it is now proposed to
hazard is that where people speaking precisely the same dialect are not
numerous, and are thrown into constant contact on equal terms with
others of differing dialects and languages, gesture is necessarily
resorted to for converse with the latter, and remains for an indefinite
time as a habit or accomplishment among themselves, while large bodies
enjoying common speech, and either isolated from foreigners, or, when in
contact with them, so dominant as to compel the learning and adoption of
their own tongue, become impassive in its delivery. The ungesturing
English, long insular, and now rulers when spread over continents, may
be compared with the profusely gesticulating Italians dwelling in a maze
of dialects and subject for centuries either to foreign rule or to the
influx of strangers on whom they depended. So common is the use of
gestures in Italy, especially among the lower and uneducated classes,
that utterance without them seems to be nearly impossible. The driver or
boatman will often, on being addressed, involuntarily drop the reins or
oars, at the risk of a serious accident, to respond with his arms and
fingers in accompaniment of his tongue. Nor is the habit confined to the
uneducated. King Ferdinand returning to Naples after the revolt of 1821,
and finding that the boisterous multitude would not allow his voice to
be heard, resorted successfully to a royal address in signs, giving
reproaches, threats, admonitions, pardon, and dismissal, to the entire
satisfaction of the assembled lazzaroni. The medium, though probably not
the precise manner of its employment, recalls Lucan’s account of the
quieting of an older tumult--
tumultum
Composuit vultu, dextraque silentia fecit.
This rivalry of Punch would, in London, have occasioned measureless
ridicule and disgust. The difference in what is vaguely styled
temperament does not wholly explain the contrast between the two
peoples, for the performance was creditable both to the readiness of the
King in an emergency and to the aptness of his people, the main
distinction being that in Italy there was in 1821, and still is,
a recognized and cultivated language of signs long disused in Great
Britain. In seeking to account for this it will be remembered that the
Italians have a more direct descent from the people who, as has been
above shown, in classic times so long and lovingly cultivated gesture as
a system. They have also had more generally before their eyes the
artistic relics in which gestures have been preserved.
It is a curious fact that some English writers, notably Addison
(_Spectator_, 407), have contended that it does not suit the genius of
that nation to use gestures even in public speaking, against which
doctrine Austin vigorously remonstrates. He says: “There may possibly be
nations whose livelier feelings incline them more to gesticulation than
is common among us, as there are also countries in which plants of
excellent use to man grow spontaneously; these, by care and culture, are
found to thrive also in colder countries.”
It is in general to be remarked that as the number of dialects in any
district decreases so will the gestures, though doubtless there is also
weight in the fact not merely that a language has been reduced to and
modified by writing, but that people who are accustomed generally to
read and write, as are the English and Germans, will after a time think
and talk as they write, and without the accompaniments still persistent
among Hindus, Arabs, and the less literate of European nations.
The fact that in the comparatively small island of Sicily gesture
language has been maintained until the present time in a perfection not
observed elsewhere in Europe must be considered in connection with the
above remark on England’s insularity, and it must also be admitted that
several languages have prevailed in the latter, still leaving dialects.
This apparent similarity of conditions renders the contrast as regards
use of gestures more remarkable, yet there are some reasons for their
persistence in Sicily which apply with greater force than to Great
Britain. The explanation, through mere tradition, is that the common
usage of signs dates from the time of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse,
who prohibited meetings and conversation among his subjects, under the
direst penalties, so that they adopted that expedient to hold
communication. It would be more useful to consider the peculiar history
of the island. The Sicanians being its aborigines it was colonized by
Greeks, who, as the Romans asserted, were still more apt at gesture than
themselves. This colonization was also by separate bands of adventurers
from several different states of Greece, so that they started with
dialects and did not unite in a common or national organization, the
separate cities and their territories being governed by oligarchies or
tyrants frequently at war with each other, until, in the fifth century
B.C., the Carthaginians began to contribute a new admixture of language
and blood, followed by Roman, Vandal, Gothic, Herulian, Arab, and Norman
subjugation. Thus some of the conditions above suggested have existed in
this case, but, whatever the explanation, the accounts given by
travelers of the extent to which the language of signs has been used
even during the present generation are so marvelous as to deserve
quotation. The one selected is from the pen of Alexandre Dumas, who, it
is to be hoped, did not carry his genius for romance into a professedly
sober account of travel:
“In the intervals of the acts of the opera I saw lively conversations
carried on between the orchestra and the boxes. Arami, in particular,
recognized a friend whom he had not seen for three years, and who
related to him, by means of his eyes and his hands, what, to judge by
the eager gestures of my companion, must have been matters of great
interest. The conversation ended, I asked him if I might know without
impropriety what was the intelligence which had seemed to interest him
so deeply. ‘O, yes,’ he replied, ‘that person is one of my good friends,
who has been away from Palermo for three years, and he has been telling
me that he was married at Naples; then traveled with his wife in Austria
and in France; there his wife gave birth to a daughter, whom he had the
misfortune to lose; he arrived by steamboat yesterday, but his wife had
suffered so much from sea-sickness that she kept her bed, and he came
alone to the play.’ ‘My dear friend,’ said I to Arami, ‘if you would
have me believe you, you must grant me a favor.’ ‘What is it?’ said he.
‘It is, that you do not leave me during the evening, so that I may be
sure you give no instructions to your friend, and when we join him, that
you ask him to repeat aloud what he said to you by signs.’ ‘That I
will,’ said Arami. The curtain then rose; the second act of Norma was
played; the curtain falling, and the actors being recalled, as usual, we
went to the side-room, where we met the traveler. ‘My dear friend,’ said
Arami, ‘I did not perfectly comprehend what you wanted to tell me; be so
good as to repeat it.’ The traveler repeated the story word for word,
and without varying a syllable from the translation, which Arami had
made of his signs; it was marvelous indeed.
“Six weeks after this, I saw a second example of this faculty of mute
communication. This was at Naples. I was walking with a young man of
Syracuse. We passed by a sentinel. The soldier and my companion
exchanged two or three grimaces, which at another time I should not even
have noticed, but the instances I had before seen led me to give
attention. ‘Poor fellow,’ sighed my companion. ‘What did he say to you?’
I asked. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I thought that I recognized him as a
Sicilian, and I learned from him, as we passed, from what place he came;
he said he was from Syracuse, and that he knew me well. Then I asked him
how he liked the Neapolitan service; he said he did not like it at all,
and if his officers did not treat him better he should certainly finish
by deserting. I then signified to him that if he ever should be reduced
to that extremity, he might rely upon me, and that I would aid him all
in my power. The poor fellow thanked me with all his heart, and I have
no doubt that one day or other I shall see him come.’ Three days after,
I was at the quarters of my Syracusan friend, when he was told that a
man asked to see him who would not give his name; he went out and left
me nearly ten minutes. ‘Well,’ said he, on returning, ‘just as I said.’
‘What?’ said I. ‘That the poor fellow would desert.’”
After this there is an excuse for believing the tradition that the
revolt called “the Sicilian Vespers,” in 1282, was arranged throughout
the island without the use of a syllable, and even the day and hour for
the massacre of the obnoxious foreigners fixed upon by signs only.
Indeed, the popular story goes so far as to assert that all this was
done by facial expression, without even manual signs.
NEAPOLITAN SIGNS.
It is fortunately possible to produce some illustrations of the modern
Neapolitan sign language traced from the plates of De Jorio, with
translations, somewhat condensed, of his descriptions and remarks.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Neapolitan public letter-writer and
clients.]
[Illustration: FIG. 77.]
In Fig. 76 an ambulant secretary or public writer is seated at his
little table, on which are the meager tools of his trade. He wears
spectacles in token that he has read and written much, and has one seat
at his side to accommodate his customers. On this is seated a married
woman who asks him to write a letter to her absent husband. The
secretary, not being told what to write about, without surprise, but
somewhat amused, raises his left hand with the ends of the thumb and
finger joined, the other fingers naturally open, a common sign for
_inquiry_. “What shall the letter be about?” The wife, not being ready
of speech, to rid herself of the embarrassment, resorts to the mimic
art, and, without opening her mouth, tells with simple gestures all that
is in her mind. Bringing her right hand to her heart, with a
corresponding glance of the eyes she shows that the theme is to be
_love_. For emphasis also she curves the whole upper part of her body
towards him, to exhibit the intensity of her passion. To complete the
mimic story, she makes with her left hand the sign of _asking_ for
something, which has been above described (see page 291). The letter,
then, is to assure her husband of her love and to beg him to return it
with corresponding affection. The other woman, perhaps her sister, who
has understood the whole direction, regards the request as silly and
fruitless and is much disgusted. Being on her feet, she takes a step
toward the wife, who she thinks is unadvised, and raises her left hand
with a sign of disapprobation. This position of the hand is described in
full as open, raised high, and oscillated from right to left. Several of
the Indian signs have the same idea of oscillation of the hand raised,
often near the head, to express _folly, fool_. She clearly says, “What a
thing to ask! what a fool you are!” and at the same time makes with the
right hand the sign of _money_. This is made by the extremities of the
thumb and index rapidly rubbed against each other, and is shown more
clearly in Fig. 77. It is taken from the handling and counting of coin.
This may be compared with an Indian sign, see Fig. 115, page 344.
So the sister is clearly disapproving with her left hand and with her
right giving good counsel, as if to say, in the combination, “What a
fool you are to ask for his love; you had better ask him to send you
some money.”
* * * * *
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--Neapolitan hot-corn vender.]
[Illustration: FIG. 79.]
[Illustration: FIG. 80.]
In Naples, as in American cities, boiled ears of green corn are vended
with much outcry. Fig. 78 shows a boy who is attracted by the local cry
“_Pollanchelle tenerelle!_” and seeing the sweet golden ears still
boiling in the kettle from which steams forth fragrance, has an ardent
desire to taste the same, but is without a _soldo_. He tries begging.
His right open hand is advanced toward the desired object with the sign
of _asking_ or _begging_, and he also raises his left forefinger to
indicate the number _one_--“Pretty girl, please only give me one!” The
pretty girl is by no means cajoled, and while her left hand holds the
ladle ready to use if he dares to touch her merchandise, she replies by
gesture “_Te voglio dà no cuorno!_” freely translated, “I’ll give you
one _in a horn!_” This gesture is drawn, with clearer outline in Fig.
79, and has many significations, according to the subject-matter and
context, and also as applied to different parts of the body. Applied to
the head it has allusion, descending from high antiquity, to a marital
misfortune which was probably common in prehistoric times as well as the
present. It is also often used as an amulet against the _jettatura_ or
evil eye, and misfortune in general, and directed toward another person
is a prayerful wish for his or her preservation from evil. This use is
ancient, as is shown on medals and statues, and is supposed by some to
refer to the horns of animals slaughtered in sacrifice. The position of
the fingers, Fig. 80, is also given as one of Quintilian’s oratorical
gestures by the words “_Duo quoque medii sub pollicem veniunt_,” and is
said by him to be vehement and connected with reproach or argument. In
the present case, as a response to an impertinent or disagreeable
petition, it simply means, “instead of giving what you ask, I will give
you nothing but what is vile and useless, as horns are.”
* * * * *
Fig. 81 tells a story which is substantially the foundation of the
slender plot of most modern scenic pantomimes preliminary to the
bursting forth from their chrysalides of Harlequin, Columbine,
Pantaloon, and company. A young girl, with the consent of her parents,
has for some time promised her hand to an honest youth. The old mother,
in despite of her word, has taken a caprice to give her daughter to
another suitor. The father, though much under the sway of his spouse, is
in his heart desirous to keep his engagement, and has called in the
notary to draw the contract. At this moment the scene begins, the actors
of which, for greater perspicuity and brevity, may be provided with
stage names as follows:
Cecca, diminutive for Francisca, the mother of--
Nanella, diminutive of Antoniella, the betrothed of--
Peppino, diminutive of Peppe, which is diminutive of Giuseppe.
Pasquale, husband of Cecca and father of Nanella.
Tonno, diminutive of Antonio, favored by Cecca.
D. Alfonso, notary.
[Illustration: FIG. 81.--Disturbance at signing of Neapolitan
marriage contract.]
[Illustration: FIG. 82.]
Cecca tries to pick a quarrel with Peppino, and declares that the
contract shall not be signed. He reminds her of her promise, and accuses
her of breach of faith. In her passion she calls on her daughter to
repudiate her lover, and casting her arms around her, commands her to
make the sign of breaking off friendship--“_scocchiare_”--which she has
herself made to Peppino, and which consists in extending the hand with
the joined ends of finger and thumb before described, see Fig. 66, and
then separating them, thus breaking the union. This the latter
reluctantly pretends to do with one hand, yet with the other, which is
concealed from her irate mother’s sight, shows her constancy by
continuing with emphatic pressure the sign of _love_. According to the
gesture vocabulary, on the sign _scocchiare_ being made to a person who
is willing to accept the breach of former affection, he replies in the
same manner, or still more forcibly by inserting the index of the other
hand between the index and thumb of the first, thus showing the
separation by the presence of a material obstacle. Simply refraining
from holding out the hand in any responsive gesture is sufficient to
indicate that the breach is not accepted, but that the party addressed
desires to continue in friendship instead of resolving into enmity. This
weak and inactive negative, however, does not suit Peppino’s vivacity,
who, placing his left hand on his bosom, makes, with his right, one of
the signs for emphatic negation. This consists of the palm turned to the
person addressed with the index somewhat extended and separated from the
other fingers, the whole hand being oscillated from right to left. This
gesture appears on ancient Greek vases, and is compound, the index being
demonstrative and the negation shown by the horizontal oscillation, the
whole being translatable as, “That thing I want not, won’t have,
reject.” The sign is virtually the same as that made by Arapaho and
Cheyenne Indians (see EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY, page 440, _infra_). The
conception of oscillation to show negation also appears with different
execution in the sign of the Jicarilla Apaches and the Pai-Utes, Fig.
82. The same sign is reported from Japan, in the same sense.
[Illustration: FIG. 83.--Coming home of Neapolitan bride.]
Tonno, in hopes that the quarrel is definitive, to do his part in
stopping the ceremony, proceeds to blow out the three lighted candles,
which are an important traditional feature of the rite. The good old man
Pasquale, with his hands extended, raised in surprised displeasure and
directed toward the insolent youth, stops his attempt. The veteran
notary, familiar with such quarrels in his experience, smiles at this
one, and, continuing in his quiet attitude, extends his right hand
placidly to Peppino with the sign of _adagio_, before described, see
Fig. 68, advising him not to get excited, but to persist quietly, and
all would be well.
* * * * *
Fig. 83 portrays the first entrance of a bride to her husband’s house.
She comes in with a tender and languid mien, her pendent arms indicating
soft yielding, and the right hand loosely holds a handkerchief, ready to
apply in case of overpowering emotion. She is, or feigns to be, so timid
and embarrassed as to require support by the arm of a friend who
introduces her. She is followed by a male friend of the family, whose
joyful face is turned toward supposed by-standers, right hand pointing
to the new acquisition, while with his left he makes the sign of horns
before described, see Fig. 79, which in this connection is to wish
prosperity and avert misfortune, and is equivalent to the words in the
Neapolitan dialect, “_Mal’uocchie non nce pozzano_”--may evil eyes never
have power over her.
[Illustration: FIG. 84.]
The female confidant, who supports and guides her embarrassed friend
with her right arm, brings her left hand into the sign of
_beautiful_--“See what a beauty she is!” This sign is made by the thumb
and index open and severally lightly touching each side of the lower
cheek, the other fingers open. It is given on a larger scale and
slightly varied in Fig. 84, evidently referring to a fat and rounded
visage. Almost the same sign is made by the Ojibwas of Lake Superior,
and a mere variant of it is made by the Dakotas--stroking the cheeks
alternately down to the tip of the chin with the palm or surface of the
extended fingers.
[Illustration: FIG. 85.]
The mother-in-law greets the bride by making the sign _mano in fica_
with her right hand. This sign, made with the hand clenched and the
point of the thumb between and projecting beyond the fore and middle
fingers, is more distinctly shown in Fig. 85. It has a very ancient
origin, being found on Greek antiques that have escaped the destruction
of time, more particularly in bronzes, and undoubtedly refers to the
_pudendum muliebre_. It is used offensively and ironically, but
also--which is doubtless the case in this instance--as an invocation or
prayer against evil, being more forcible than the horn-shaped gesture
before described. With this sign the Indian sign for _female_, see Fig.
132, page 357, _infra_, may be compared.
The mother-in-law also places her left hand hollowed in front of her
abdomen, drawing with it her gown slightly forward, thereby making a
pantomimic representation of the state in which “women wish to be who
love their lords”; the idea being plainly an expressed hope that the
household will be blessed with a new generation.
[Illustration: FIG. 86.]
[Illustration: FIG. 87.]
Next to her is a hunchback, who is present as a familiar clown or
merrymaker, and dances and laughs to please the company, at the same
time snapping his fingers. Two other illustrations of this action, the
middle finger in one leaving and in the other having left the thumb and
passed to its base, are seen in Figs. 86, 87. This gesture by itself
has, like others mentioned, a great variety of significations, but here
means _joy_ and acclamation. It is frequently used among us for subdued
applause, less violent than clapping the two hands, but still oftener to
express negation with disdain, and also carelessness. Both these uses of
it are common in Naples, and appear in Etruscan vases and Pompeian
paintings, as well as in the classic authors. The significance of the
action in the hand of the contemporary statue of Sardanapalus at
Anchiale is clearly _worthlessness_, as shown by the inscription in
Assyrian, “Sardanapalus, the son of Anacyndaraxes, built in one day
Anchiale and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play; the rest is not worth _that!_”
[Illustration: FIG. 88.]
The bridegroom has left his mother to do the honors to the bride, and
himself attends to the rest of the company, inviting one of them to
drink some wine by a sign, enlarged in Fig. 88, which is not merely
pointing to the mouth with the thumb, but the hand with the incurved
fingers represents the body of the common glass flask which the
Neapolitans use, the extended thumb being its neck; the invitation is
therefore specially to drink wine. The guest, however, responds by a
very obvious gesture that he don’t wish anything to drink, but he would
like to eat some macaroni, the fingers being disposed as if handling
that comestible in the fashion of vulgar Italians. If the idea were only
to eat generally, it would have been expressed by the fingers and thumb
united in a point and moved several times near and toward the mouth, not
raised above it, as is necessary for suspending the strings of macaroni.
[Illustration: FIG. 89.--Quarrel between Neapolitan women.]
In Fig. 89 the female in the left of the group is much disgusted at
seeing one of her former acquaintances, who has met with good fortune,
promenade in a fine costume with her husband. Overcome with jealousy,
she spreads out her dress derisively on both sides, in imitation of the
hoop-skirts once worn by women of rank, as if to say “So you are playing
the great lady!” The insulted woman, in resentment, makes with both
hands, for double effect, the sign of horns, before described, which in
this case is done obviously in menace and imprecation. The husband is a
pacific fellow who is not willing to get into a woman’s quarrel, and is
very easily held back by a woman and small boy who happen to join the
group. He contents himself with pretending to be in a great passion and
biting his finger, which gesture may be collated with the emotional
clinching of the teeth and biting the lips in anger, common to all
mankind.
[Illustration: FIG. 90.--The cheating Neapolitan chestnut huckster.]
[Illustration: FIG. 91.]
In Fig. 90 a contadina, or woman from the country, who has come to the
city to sell eggs (shown to be such by her head-dress, and the form of
the basket which she has deposited on the ground), accosts a vender of
roast chestnuts and asks for a measure of them. The chestnut huckster
says they are very fine and asks a price beyond that of the market; but
a boy sees that the rustic woman is not sharp in worldly matters and
desires to warn her against the cheat. He therefore, at the moment when
he can catch her eye, pretending to lean upon his basket, and moving
thus a little behind the huckster, so as not to be seen, points him out
with his index finger, and lays his left forefinger under his eye,
pulling down the skin slightly, so as to deform the regularity of the
lower eyelid. This is a _warning against a cheat_, shown more clearly in
Fig. 91. This sign primarily indicates a squinting person, and
metaphorically one whose looks cannot be trusted, even as in a squinting
person you cannot be certain in which direction he is looking.
[Illustration: FIG. 92.]
Fig. 92 shows the extremities of the index and thumb closely joined in
form of a cone, and turned down, the other fingers held at pleasure, and
the hand and arm advanced to the point and held steady. This signifies
_justice_, a just person, that which is just and right. The same sign
may denote friendship, a menace, which specifically is that of being
brought to justice, and snuff, _i.e._ powdered tobacco; but the
expression of the countenance and the circumstance of the use of the
sign determine these distinctions. Its origin is clearly the balance or
emblem of justice, the office of which consists in ascertaining physical
weight, and thence comes the moral idea of distinguishing clearly what
is just and accurate and what is not. The hand is presented in the usual
manner of holding the balance to weigh articles.
[Illustration: FIG. 93.]
[Illustration: FIG. 94.]
Fig. 93 signifies _little, small_, both as regards the size of physical
objects or figuratively, as of a small degree of talent, affection, or
the like. It is made either by the point of the thumb placed under the
end of the index (_a_), or _vice versâ_ (_b_), and the other fingers
held at will, but separated from those mentioned. The intention is to
exhibit a small portion either of the thumb or index separated from the
rest of the hand. The gesture is found in Herculanean bronzes, with
obviously the same signification. The signs made by some tribes of
Indians for the same conception are very similar, as is seen by Figs. 94
and 95.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.]
[Illustration: FIG. 96.]
Fig. 96 is simply the index extended by itself. The other fingers are
generally bent inwards and pressed down by the thumb, as mentioned by
Quintilian, but that is not necessary to the gesture if the forefinger
is distinctly separated from the rest. It is most commonly used for
indication, pointing out, as it is over all the world, from which comes
the name index, applied by the Romans as also by us, to the forefinger.
In different relations to the several parts of the body and arm
positions it has many significations, _e.g._, attention, meditation,
derision, silence, number, and demonstration in general.
[Illustration: FIG. 97.]
Fig. 97 represents the head of a jackass, the thumbs being the ears, and
the separation of the little from the third fingers showing the jaws.
[Illustration: FIG. 98.]
Fig. 98 is intended to portray the head of the same animal in a front
view, the hands being laid upon each other, with thumbs extending on
each side to represent the ears. In each case the thumbs are generally
moved forward and back, in the manner of the quadruped, which, without
much apparent reason, has been selected as the emblem of stupidity. The
sign, therefore, means _stupid, fool_. Another mode of executing the
same conception--the ears of an ass--is shown in Fig. 99, where the end
of the thumb is applied to the ear or temple and the hand is wagged up
and down. Whether the ancient Greeks had the same low opinion of the ass
as is now entertained is not clear, but they regarded long ears with
derision, and Apollo, as a punishment to Midas for his foolish decision,
bestowed on him the lengthy ornaments of the patient beast.
[Illustration: FIG. 99.]
[Illustration: FIG. 100.]
Fig. 100 is the fingers elongated and united in a point, turned upwards.
The hand is raised slightly toward the face of the gesturer and shaken a
few times in the direction of the person conversed with. This is
_inquiry_, not a mere interrogative, but to express that the person
addressed has not been clearly understood, perhaps from the vagueness or
diffusiveness of his expressions. The idea appears to suggest the
gathering of his thoughts together into one distinct expression, or to
be _pointed_ in what he wishes to say.
_Crafty, deceitful_, Fig. 101. The little fingers of both reversed hands
are hooked together, the others open but slightly curved, and, with the
hands, moved several times to the right and left. The gesture is
intended to represent a crab and the tortuous movements of the
crustacean, which are likened to those of a man who cannot be depended
on in his walk through life. He is not straight.
[Illustration: FIG. 101.]
[Illustration: FIG. 102.]
Figs. 102 and 103 are different positions of the hand in which the
approximating thumb and forefinger form a circle. This is the direst
insult that can be given. The amiable canon De Jorio only hints at its
special significance, but it may be evident to persons aware of a
practice disgraceful to Italy. It is very ancient.
[Illustration: FIG. 104.]
[Illustration: FIG. 103.]
Fig. 104 is easily recognized as a request or command to be _silent_,
either on the occasion or on the subject. The mouth, supposed to be
forcibly closed, prevents speaking, and the natural gesture, as might be
supposed, is historically ancient, but the instance, frequently adduced
from the attitude of the god Harpokrates, whose finger is on his lips,
is an error. The Egyptian hieroglyphists, notably in the designation of
Horus, their dawn-god, used the finger in or on the lips for “child.” It
has been conjectured in the last instance that the gesture implied, not
the mode of taking nourishment, but inability to speak--_in-fans_. This
conjecture, however, was only made to explain the blunder of the Greeks,
who saw in the hand placed connected with the mouth in the hieroglyph of
Horus (the) son, “Hor-(p)-chrot,” the gesture familiar to themselves of
a finger on the lips to express “silence,” and so, mistaking both the
name and the characterization, invented the God of Silence, Harpokrates.
A careful examination of all the linear hieroglyphs given by Champollion
(_Dictionnaire Égyptien_) shows that the finger or the hand to the mouth
of an adult (whose posture is always distinct from that of a child) is
always in connection with the positive ideas of voice, mouth, speech,
writing, eating, drinking, &c., and never with the negative idea of
silence. The special character for _child_, Fig. 105, always has the
above-mentioned part of the sign with reference to nourishment from the
breast.
[Illustration: FIG. 105.]
Fig. 106 is a forcible _negation_. The outer ends of the fingers united
in a point under the chin are violently thrust forward. This is the
rejection of an idea or proposition, the same conception being executed
in several different modes by the North American Indians.
[Illustration: FIG. 106.]
Fig. 107 signifies _hunger_, and is made by extending the thumb and
index under the open mouth and turning them horizontally and vertically
several times. The idea is emptiness and desire to be filled. It is also
expressed by beating the ribs with the flat hands, to show that the
sides meet or are weak for the want of something between them.
[Illustration: FIG. 107.]
Fig. 108 is made in mocking and ridicule. The open and oscillating hand
touches the point of the nose with that of the thumb. It has the
particular sense of stigmatizing the person addressed or in question as
a dupe. A credulous person is generally imagined with a gaping mouth and
staring eyes, and as thrusting forward his face, with pendant chin, so
that the nose is well advanced and therefore most prominent in the
profile. A dupe is therefore called _naso lungo_ or long-nose, and with
Italian writers “_restare con un palmo di naso_”--to be left with a
palm’s length of nose--means to have met with loss, injury, or
disappointment.
[Illustration: FIG. 108.]
The thumb stroking the forehead from one side to the other, Fig. 109, is
a natural sign of _fatigue_, and of the physical toil that produces
fatigue. The wiping off of perspiration is obviously indicated. This
gesture is often used ironically.
[Illustration: FIG. 109.]
As a _dupe_ was shown above, now the _duper_ is signified, by Fig. 110.
The gesture is to place the fingers between the cravat and the neck and
rub the latter with the back of the hand. The idea is that the deceit is
put within the cravat, taken in and down, similar to our phrase to
“swallow” a false and deceitful story, and a “cram” is also an English
slang word for an incredible lie. The conception of the slang term is
nearly related to that of the Neapolitan sign, viz., the artificial
enlargement of the œsophagus of the person victimized or on whom
imposition is attempted to be practiced, which is necessary to take it
down.
[Illustration: FIG. 110.]
Fig. 111 shows the ends of the index and thumb stroking the two sides of
the nose from base to point. This means _astute, attentive, ready_.
Sharpness of the nasal organ is popularly associated with subtlety and
finesse. The old Romans by _homo emunctæ naris_ meant an acute man
attentive to his interests. The sign is often used in a bad sense, then
signifying _too_ sharp to be trusted.
[Illustration: FIG. 111.]
This somewhat lengthy but yet only partial list of Neapolitan
gesture-signs must conclude with one common throughout Italy, and also
among us with a somewhat different signification, yet perhaps also
derived from classic times. To express suspicion of a person the
forefinger of the right hand is placed upon the side of the nose. It
means _tainted_, not sound. It is used to give an unfavorable report of
a person inquired of and to warn against such.
* * * * *
The Chinese, though ready in gesticulation and divided by dialects, do
not appear to make general use of a systematic sign language, but they
adopt an expedient rendered possible by the peculiarity of their written
characters, with which a large proportion of their adults are
acquainted, and which are common in form to the whole empire. The
inhabitants of different provinces when meeting, and being unable to
converse orally, do not try to do so, but write the characters of the
words upon the ground or trace them on the palm of the hand or in the
air. Those written characters each represent words in the same manner as
do the Arabic or Roman numerals, which are the same to Italians,
Germans, French, and English, and therefore intelligible, but if
expressed in sound or written in full by the alphabet, would not be
mutually understood. This device of the Chinese was with less apparent
necessity resorted to in the writer’s personal knowledge between a
Hungarian who could talk Latin, and a then recent graduate from college
who could also do so to some extent, but their pronunciation was so
different as to occasion constant difficulty, so they both wrote the
words on paper, instead of attempting to speak them.
The efforts at intercommunication of all savage and barbarian tribes,
when brought into contact with other bodies of men not speaking an oral
language common to both, and especially when uncivilized inhabitants of
the same territory are separated by many linguistic divisions, should in
theory resemble the devices of the North American Indians. They are not
shown by published works to prevail in the Eastern hemisphere to the
same extent and in the same manner as in North America. It is, however,
probable that they exist in many localities, though not reported, and
also that some of them survive after partial or even high civilization
has been attained, and after changed environment has rendered their
systematic employment unnecessary. Such signs may be, first, unconnected
with existing oral language, and used in place of it; second, used to
explain or accentuate the words of ordinary speech, or third, they may
consist of gestures, emotional or not, which are only noticed in oratory
or impassioned conversation, being, possibly, survivals of a former
gesture language.
From correspondence instituted it may be expected that a considerable
collection of signs will be obtained from West and South Africa, India,
Arabia, Turkey, the Fiji Islands, Sumatra, Madagascar, Ceylon, and
especially from Australia, where the conditions are similar in many
respects to those prevailing in North America prior to the Columbian
discovery. In the _Aborigines of Victoria_, _Melbourne_, 1878, by
R. Brough Smythe, the author makes the following curious remarks: “It is
believed that they have several signs, known only to themselves, or to
those among the whites who have had intercourse with them for lengthened
periods, which convey information readily and accurately. Indeed,
because of their use of signs, it is the firm belief of many (some
uneducated and some educated) that the natives of Australia are
acquainted with the secrets of Freemasonry.”
In the _Report of the cruise of the United States Revenue steamer Corwin
in the Arctic Ocean_, _Washington_, 1881, it appears that the Innuits of
the northwestern extremity of America use signs continually. Captain
Hooper, commanding that steamer, is reported by Mr. Petroff to have
found that the natives of Nunivak Island, on the American side, below
Behring Strait, trade by signs with those of the Asiatic coast, whose
language is different. Humboldt in his journeyings among the Indians of
the Orinoco, where many small isolated tribes spoke languages not
understood by any other, found the language of signs in full operation.
Spix and Martius give a similar account of the Puris and Coroados of
Brazil.
* * * * *
It is not necessary to enlarge under the present heading upon the signs
of deaf-mutes, except to show the intimate relation between sign
language as practiced by them and the gesture signs, which, even if not
“natural,” are intelligible to the most widely separated of mankind.
A Sandwich Islander, a Chinese, and the Africans from the slaver Amistad
have, in published instances, visited our deaf-mute institutions with
the same result of free and pleasurable intercourse; and an English
deaf-mute had no difficulty in conversing with Laplanders. It appears,
also, on the authority of Sibscota, whose treatise was published in
1670, that Cornelius Haga, ambassador of the United Provinces to the
Sublime Porte, found the Sultan’s mutes to have established a language
among themselves in which they could discourse with a speaking
interpreter, a degree of ingenuity interfering with the object of their
selection as slaves unable to repeat conversation. A curious instance
has also been reported to the writer of operatives in a large mill where
the constant rattling of the machinery rendered them practically deaf
during the hours of work and where an original system of gestures was
adopted.
In connection with the late international convention, at Milan, of
persons interested in the instruction of deaf-mutes which, in the
enthusiasm of the members for the new system of artificial articulate
speech, made war upon all gesture-signs, it is curious that such
prohibition of gesture should be urged regarding mutes when it was
prevalent to so great an extent among the speaking people of the country
where the convention was held, and when the advocates of it were
themselves so dependent on gestures to assist their own oratory if not
their ordinary conversation. Artificial articulation surely needs the
aid of significant gestures more, when in the highest perfection to
which it can attain, than does oral speech in its own high development.
The use of artificial speech is also necessarily confined to the oral
language acquired by the interlocutors and throws away the advantage of
universality possessed by signs.
_USE BY MODERN ACTORS AND ORATORS._
Less of practical value can be learned of sign language, considered as a
system, from the study of gestures of actors and orators than would
appear without reflection. The pantomimist who uses no words whatever is
obliged to avail himself of every natural or imagined connection between
thought and gesture, and, depending wholly on the latter, makes himself
intelligible. On the stage and the rostrum words are the main reliance,
and gestures generally serve for rhythmic movement and to display
personal grace. At the most they give the appropriate representation of
the general idea expressed by the words, but do not attempt to indicate
the idea itself. An instance is recorded of the addition of significance
to gesture when it is employed by the gesturer, himself silent, to
accompany words used by another. Livius Andronicus, being hoarse,
obtained permission to have his part sung by another actor while he
continued to make the gestures, and he did so with much greater effect
than before, as Livy, the historian, explains, because he was not
impeded by the exertion of the voice; but the correct explanation
probably is, because his attention was directed to ideas, not mere
words.
GESTURES OF ACTORS.
To look at the performance of a play through thick glass or with closed
ears has much the same absurd effect that is produced by also stopping
the ears while at a ball and watching the apparently objectless capering
of the dancers, without the aid of musical accompaniment. Diderot, in
his _Lettre sur les sourds muets_, gives his experience as follows:
“I used frequently to attend the theater and I knew by heart most of our
good plays. Whenever I wished to criticise the movements and gestures of
the actors I went to the third tier of boxes, for the further I was from
them the better I was situated for this purpose. As soon as the curtain
rose, and the moment came when the other spectators disposed themselves
to listen, I put my fingers into my ears, not without causing some
surprise among those who surrounded me, who, not understanding, almost
regarded me as a crazy man who had come to the play only not to hear it.
I was very little embarrassed by their comments, however, and
obstinately kept my ears closed as long as the action and gestures of
the players seemed to me to accord with the discourse which I
recollected. I listened only when I failed to see the appropriateness of
the gestures. * * * There are few actors capable of sustaining such a
test, and the details into which I could enter would be mortifying to
most of them.”
It will be noticed that Diderot made this test with regard to the
appropriate gestural representation of plays that he knew by heart, but
if he had been entirely without any knowledge of the plot, the
difficulty in his comprehending it from gestures alone would have been
enormously increased. When many admirers of Ristori, who were wholly
unacquainted with the language in which her words were delivered,
declared that her gesture and expression were so perfect that they
understood every sentence, it is to be doubted if they would have been
so delighted if they had not been thoroughly familiar with the plots of
Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stuart. This view is confirmed by the case of a
deaf-mute, told to the writer by Professor FAY, who had prepared to
enjoy Ristori’s acting by reading in advance the advertised play, but on
his reaching the theater another play was substituted and he could
derive no idea from its presentation. The experience of the present
writer is that he could gain very little meaning in detail out of the
performance at a Chinese theater, where there is much more true
pantomime than in the European, without a general notion of the subject
as conveyed from time to time by an interpreter. A crucial test on this
subject was made at the representation at Washington, in April, 1881, of
_Frou-Frou_ by Sarah Bernhardt and the excellent French company
supporting her. Several persons of special intelligence and familiar
with theatrical performances, but who did not understand spoken French,
and had not heard or read the play before or even seen an abstract of
it, paid close attention to ascertain what they could learn of the plot
and incidents from the gestures alone. This could be determined in the
special play the more certainly as it is not founded on historic events
or any known facts. The result was that from the entrance of the heroine
during the first scene in a peacock-blue riding habit to her death in a
black walking-suit, three hours or five acts later, none of the students
formed any distinct conception of the plot. This want of apprehension
extended even to uncertainty whether _Gilberte_ was married or not; that
is, whether her adventures were those of a disobedient daughter or a
faithless wife, and, if married, which of the half dozen male personages
was her husband. There were gestures enough, indeed rather a profusion
of them, and they were thoroughly appropriate to the words (when those
were understood) in which fun, distress, rage, and other emotions were
expressed, but in no cases did they interpret the motive for those
emotions. They were the dressing for the words of the actors as the
superb millinery was that of their persons, and perhaps acted as varnish
to bring out dialogues and soliloquies in heightened effect. But though
varnish can bring into plainer view dull or faded characters, it cannot
introduce into them significance where none before existed. The simple
fact was that the gestures of the most famed histrionic school, the
Comédie Française, were not significant, far less self-interpreting, and
though praised as the perfection of art, have diverged widely from
nature. It thus appears that the absence of absolute self-interpretation
by gesture is by no means confined to the lower grade of actors, such as
are criticised in the old lines:
When to enforce some very tender part
His left hand sleeps by instinct on the heart;
His soul, of every other thought bereft,
Seems anxious only--where to place the left!
Without relying wholly upon the facts above mentioned, it will be
admitted upon reflection that however numerous and correct may be the
actually significant gestures made by a great actor in the
representation of his part, they must be in small proportion to the
number of gestures not at all significant, and which are no less
necessary to give to his declamation precision, grace, and force.
Significant gestures on the stage may be regarded in the nature of high
seasoning and ornamentation, which by undue use defeat their object and
create disgust. Histrionic perfection is, indeed, more shown in the
slight shades of movement of the head, glances of the eye, and poises of
the body than in violent attitudes; but these slight movements are
wholly unintelligible without the words uttered with them. Even in the
expression of strong emotion the same gesture will apply to many and
utterly diverse conditions of fact. The greatest actor in telling that
his father was dead can convey his grief with a shade of difference from
that which he would use if saying that his wife had run away, his son
been arrested for murder, or his house burned down; but that shade would
not without words inform any person, ignorant of the supposed event,
which of the four misfortunes had occurred. A true sign language,
however, would fully express the exact circumstances, either with or
without any exhibition of the general emotion appropriate to them.
Even among the best sign-talkers, whether Indian or deaf-mute, it is
necessary to establish some _rapport_ relating to theme or
subject-matter, since many gestures, as indeed is the case in a less
degree with spoken words, have widely different significations,
according to the object of their exhibition, as well as the context.
Panurge (_Pantagruel_, Book III, ch. xix) hits the truth upon this
point, however ungallant in his application of it to the fair sex. He is
desirous to consult a dumb man, but says it would be useless to apply to
a woman, for “whatever it be that they see they do always represent unto
their fancies, and imagine that it hath some relation to love. Whatever
signs, shows, or gestures we shall make, or whatever our behavior,
carriage, or demeanor shall happen to be in their view and presence,
they will interpret the whole in reference to androgynation.” A story is
told to the same point by Guevara, in his fabulous life of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius. A young Roman gentleman encountering at the foot of
Mount Celion a beautiful Latin lady, who from her very cradle had been
deaf and dumb, asked her in gesture what senators in her descent from
the top of the hill she had met with, going up thither. She straightway
imagined that he had fallen in love with her and was eloquently
proposing marriage, whereupon she at once threw herself into his arms in
acceptance. The experience of travelers on the Plains is to the same
general effect, that signs commonly used to men are understood by women
in a sense so different as to occasion embarrassment. So necessary was
it to strike the mental key-note of the spectators by adapting their
minds to time, place, and circumstance, that even in the palmiest days
of pantomime it was customary for the crier to give some short
preliminary explanation of what was to be acted, which advantage is now
retained by our play-bills, always more specific when the performance is
in a foreign language, unless, indeed, the management is interested in
the sale of librettos.
GESTURES OF OUR PUBLIC SPEAKERS.
If the scenic gestures are so seldom significant, those appropriate to
oratory are of course still less so. They require energy, variety, and
precision, but also a degree of simplicity which is incompatible with
the needs of sign language. As regards imitation, they are restrained
within narrow bounds and are equally suited to a great variety of
sentiments. Among the admirable illustrations in Austin’s _Chironomia_
of gestures applicable to the several passages in Gay’s “Miser and
Plutus” one is given for “But virtue’s sold” which is perfectly
appropriate, but is not in the slightest degree suggestive either of
virtue or of the transaction of sale. It could be used for an indefinite
number of thoughts or objects which properly excited abhorrence, and
therefore without the words gives no special interpretation. Oratorical
delivery demands general grace--cannot rely upon the emotions of the
moment for spontaneous appropriateness, and therefore requires
preliminary study and practice, such as are applied to dancing and
fencing with a similar object; indeed, accomplishment in both dancing
and fencing has been recommended as of use to all orators. In reference
to this subject a quotation from Lord Chesterfield’s letters is in
place: “I knew a young man, who, being just elected a member of
Parliament, was laughed at for being discovered, through the key-hole of
his chamber door, speaking to himself in the glass and forming his looks
and gestures. I could not join in that laugh, but, on the contrary,
thought him much wiser than those that laughed at him, for he knew the
importance of those little graces in a public assembly and they did
not.”
OUR INDIAN CONDITIONS FAVORABLE TO SIGN LANGUAGE.
In no other thoroughly explored part of the world has there been found
spread over so large a space so small a number of individuals divided by
so many linguistic and dialectic boundaries as in North America. Many
wholly distinct tongues have for an indefinitely long time been confined
to a few scores of speakers, verbally incomprehensible to all others on
the face of the earth who did not, from some rarely operating motive,
laboriously acquire their language. Even when the American race, so
styled, flourished in the greatest population of which we have any
evidence (at least according to the published views of the present
writer, which seem to have been generally accepted), the immense number
of languages and dialects still preserved, or known by early recorded
fragments to have once existed, so subdivided it that only the dwellers
in a very few villages could talk together with ease. They were all
interdistributed among unresponsive vernaculars, each to the other being
_bar-bar-ous_ in every meaning of the term. The number of known stocks
or families of Indian languages within the territory of the United
States amounts now to sixty-five, and these differ among themselves as
radically as each differs from the Hebrew, Chinese, or English. In each
of these linguistic families there are several, sometimes as many as
twenty, separate languages, which also differ from each other as much as
do the English, French, German, and Persian divisions of the Aryan
linguistic stock.
The use of gesture-signs, continued, if not originating, in necessity
for communication with the outer world, became entribally convenient
from the habits of hunters, the main occupation of all savages,
depending largely upon stealthy approach to game, and from the sole form
of their military tactics--to surprise an enemy. In the still expanse of
virgin forests, and especially in the boundless solitudes of the great
plains, a slight sound can be heard over a large area, that of the human
voice being from its rarity the most startling, so that it is now, as it
probably has been for centuries, a common precaution for members of a
hunting or war party not to speak together when on such expeditions,
communicating exclusively by signs. The acquired habit also exhibits
itself not only in formal oratory and in impassioned or emphatic
conversation, but also as a picturesque accompaniment to ordinary social
talk. Hon. LEWIS H. MORGAN mentions in a letter to this writer that he
found a silent but happy family composed of an Atsina (commonly called
Gros Ventre of the Prairie) woman, who had been married two years to a
Frenchman, during which time they had neither of them attempted to learn
each other’s language; but the husband having taken kindly to the
language of signs, they conversed together by that means with great
contentment. It is also often resorted to in mere laziness, one gesture
saving many words. The gracefulness, ingenuity, and apparent spontaneity
of the greater part of the signs can never be realized until actually
witnessed, and their beauty is much heightened by the free play to which
the arms of these people are accustomed, and the small and well-shaped
hands for which they are remarkable. Among them can seldom be noticed in
literal fact--
The graceless action of a heavy hand--
which the Bastard metaphorically condemns in King John.
The conditions upon which the survival of sign language among the
Indians has depended is well shown by those attending its discontinuance
among certain tribes.
Many instances are known of the discontinuance of gesture speech with no
development in the native language of the gesturers, but from the
invention for intercommunication of one used in common. The Kalapuyas of
Southern Oregon until recently used a sign language, but have gradually
adopted for foreign intercourse the composite tongue, commonly called
the Tsinuk or Chinook jargon, which probably arose for trade purposes on
the Columbia River before the advent of Europeans, founded on the
Tsinuk, Tsihali, Nutka, &c., but now enriched by English and French
terms, and have nearly forgotten their old signs. The prevalence of this
mongrel speech, originating in the same causes that produced the
pigeon-English or _lingua-franca_ of the Orient, explains the marked
scantiness of sign language among the tribes of the Northwest coast.
Where the Chinook jargon has not extended on the coast to the North, the
Russian language commences, used in the same manner, but it has not
reached so deeply into the interior of the continent as the Chinook,
which has been largely adopted within the region bounded by the eastern
line of Oregon and Washington, and has become known even to the Pai-Utes
of Nevada. The latter, however, while using it with the Oregonian tribes
to their west and north, still keep up sign language for communication
with the Banaks, who have not become so familiar with the Chinook. The
Alaskan tribes on the coast also used signs not more than a generation
ago, as is proved by the fact that some of the older men can yet
converse by this means with the natives of the interior, whom they
occasionally meet. Before the advent of the Russians the coast tribes
traded their dried fish and oil for the skins and paints of the eastern
tribes by visiting the latter, whom they did not allow to come to the
coast, and this trade was conducted mainly in sign language. The
Russians brought a better market, so the travel to the interior ceased,
and with it the necessity for the signs, which therefore gradually died
out, and are little known to the present generation on the coast, though
still continuing in the interior, where the inhabitants are divided by
dialects.
No explanation is needed for the disuse of a language of signs for the
special purpose now in question when the speech of surrounding
civilization is recognized as necessary or important to be acquired, and
gradually becomes known as the best common medium, even before it is
actually spoken by many individuals of the several tribes. When it has
become general, signs, as systematically employed before, gradually fade
away.
THEORIES ENTERTAINED RESPECTING INDIAN SIGNS.
In this paper it is not designed to pronounce upon theories, and
certainly none will be advocated in a spirit of dogmatism. The writer
recognizes that the subject in its novelty specially requires an
objective and not a subjective consideration. His duty is to collect the
facts as they are, and this as soon as possible, since every year will
add to the confusion and difficulty. After the facts are established the
theories will take care of themselves, and their final enunciation will
be in the hands of men more competent than the writer will ever pretend
to be, although his knowledge, after careful study of all data
attainable, may be considerably increased. The mere collection of facts,
however, cannot be prosecuted to advantage without predetermined rules
of judgment, nor can they be classified at all without the adoption of
some principle which involves a tentative theory. More than a generation
ago Baader noticed that scientific observers only accumulated great
masses of separate facts without establishing more connection between
them than an arbitrary and imperfect classification; and before him
Goethe complained of the indisposition of students of nature to look
upon the universe as a whole. But since the great theory of evolution
has been brought to general notice no one will be satisfied at knowing a
fact without also trying to establish its relation to other facts.
Therefore a working hypothesis, which shall not be held to with
tenacity, is not only allowable but necessary. It is also important to
examine with proper respect the theories advanced by others. Some of
these, suggested in the few publications on the subject and also by
correspondents, will be mentioned.
_NOT CORRELATED WITH MEAGERNESS OF LANGUAGE._
The story has been told by travelers in many parts of the world that
various languages cannot be clearly understood in the dark by their
possessors, using their mother tongue between themselves. The evidence
for this anywhere is suspicious; and when it is asserted, as it often
has been, in reference to some of the tribes of North American Indians,
it is absolutely false, and must be attributed to the error of travelers
who, ignorant of the dialect, never see the natives except when trying
to make themselves intelligible to their visitors by a practice which
they have found by experience to have been successful with strangers to
their tongue, or perhaps when they are guarding against being overheard
by others. Captain Burton, in his _City of the Saints_, specially states
that the Arapahos possess a very scanty vocabulary, pronounced in a
quasi-unintelligible way, and can hardly converse with one another in
the dark. The truth is that their vocabulary is by no means scanty, and
they do converse with each other with perfect freedom without any
gestures when they so please. The difficulty in speaking or
understanding their language is in the large number of guttural and
interrupted sounds which are not helped by external motions of the mouth
and lips in articulation, and the light gives little advantage to its
comprehension so far as concerns the vocal apparatus, which, in many
languages, can be seen as well as heard, as is proved by the modern
deaf-mute practice of artificial speech. The corresponding story that no
white man ever learned Arapaho is also false. A member of Frémont’s
party so long ago as 1842 spoke the language. Burton in the same
connection gives a story “of a man who, being sent among the Cheyennes
to qualify himself for interpreting, returned in a week and proved his
competency; all he did, however, was to go through the usual pantomime
with a running accompaniment of grunts.” And he might as well have
omitted the grunts, for he obviously only used sign language. Lieutenant
Abert, in 1846-’47, made much more sensible remarks from his actual
observation than Captain Burton repeated at second-hand from a Mormon
met by him at Salt Lake. He said: “Some persons think that it [the
Cheyenne language] would be incomplete without gesture, because the
Indians use gestures constantly. But I have been assured that the
language is in itself capable of bodying forth any idea to which one may
wish to give utterance.”
In fact, individuals of those American tribes specially instanced in
these reports as unable to converse without gesture, often, in their
domestic _abandon_, wrap themselves up in robes or blankets with only
breathing holes before the nose, so that no part of the body is seen,
and chatter away for hours, telling long stories. If in daylight they
thus voluntarily deprive themselves of the possibility of making signs,
it is clear that their preference for talks around the fire at night is
explicable by very natural reasons wholly distinct from the one
attributed. The inference, once carelessly made from the free use of
gesture by some of the Shoshonian stock, that their tongue was too
meager for use without signs, is refuted by the now ascertained fact
that their vocabulary is remarkably copious and their parts of speech
better differentiated than those of many people on whom no such stigma
has been affixed. The proof of this was seen in the writer’s experience,
when Ouray, the head chief of the Utes, was at Washington, in the early
part of 1880, and after an interview with the Secretary of the Interior
made report of it to the rest of the delegation who had not been
present. He spoke without pause in his own language for nearly an hour,
in a monotone and without a single gesture. The reason for this
depressed manner was undoubtedly because he was very sad at the result,
involving loss of land and change of home; but the fact remains that
full information was communicated on a complicated subject without the
aid of a manual sign, and also without even such change of inflection of
voice as is common among Europeans. All theories based upon the supposed
poverty of American languages must be abandoned.
The grievous accusation against foreign people that they have no
intelligible language is venerable and general. With the Greeks the
term ἄγλωσσος, “tongueless,” was used synonymous with βάρβαρος,
“barbarian” of all who were not Greek. The name “Slav,” assumed by a
grand division of the Aryan family, means “the speaker,” and is
contradistinguished from the other peoples of the world, such as the
Germans, who are called in Russian “Njemez,” that is, “speechless.” In
Isaiah (xxxiii, 19) the Assyrians are called a people “of a stammering
tongue, that one cannot understand.” The common use of the expression
“tongueless” and “speechless,” so applied, has probably given rise, as
TYLOR suggests, to the mythical stories of actually speechless tribes of
savages, and the considerations and instances above presented tend to
discredit the many other accounts of languages which are incomplete
without the help of gesture. The theory that sign language was in whole
or in chief the original utterance of mankind would be strongly
supported by conclusive evidence to the truth of such travelers’ tales,
but does not depend upon them. Nor, considering the immeasurable period
during which, in accordance with modern geologic views, man has been on
the earth, is it probable that any existing races can be found in which
speech has not obviated the absolute necessity for gesture in
communication among themselves. The signs survive for convenience, used
together with oral language, and for special employment when language is
unavailable.
A comparison sometimes drawn between sign language and that of our
Indians, founded on the statement of their common poverty in abstract
expressions, is not just to either. This paper will be written in vain
if it shall not suggest the capacities of gesture speech in that regard,
and a deeper study into Indian tongues has shown that they are by no
means so confined to the concrete as was once believed.
_ITS ORIGIN FROM ONE TRIBE OR REGION._
Col. Richard I. Dodge, United States Army, whose long experience among
the Indians entitles his opinion to great respect, says in a letter:
“The embodiment of signs into a systematic language is, I believe,
confined to the Indians of the Plains. Contiguous tribes gain, here and
there, a greater or less knowledge of this language; these again extend
the knowledge, diminished and probably perverted, to their neighbors,
until almost all the Indian tribes of the United States east of the
Sierras have some little smattering of it. The Plains Indians believe
the Kiowas to have invented the sign language, and that by them its use
was communicated to other Plains tribes. If this is correct, analogy
would lead us to believe that those tribes most nearly in contact with
the Kiowas would use it most fluently and correctly, the knowledge
becoming less as the contact diminishes. Thus the Utes, though nearly
contiguous (in territory) to the Plains Indians, have only the merest
‘picked up’ knowledge of this language, and never use it among
themselves, simply because, they and the Plains tribes having been,
since the memory of their oldest men, in a chronic state of war, there
has been no social contact.”
In another communication Colonel Dodge is still more definite:
“The Plains Indians themselves believe the sign language was invented by
the Kiowas, who holding an intermediate position between the Comanches,
Tonkaways, Lipans, and other inhabitants of the vast plains of Texas,
and the Pawnees, Sioux, Blackfeet, and other northern tribes, were the
general go-betweens, trading with all, making peace or war with or for
any or all. It is certain that the Kiowas are at present more
universally proficient in this language than any other Plains tribe. It
is also certain that the tribes farthest away from them and with whom
they have least intercourse use it with least facility.”
Dr. William H. Corbusier, assistant surgeon United States Army, a valued
contributor, gives information as follows:
“The traditions of the Indians point toward the south as the direction
from which the sign language came. They refer to the time when they did
not use it; and each tribe say they learned it from those south of them.
The Comanches, who acquired it in Mexico, taught it to the Arapahoes and
Kiowas, and from these the Cheyennes learned it. The Sioux say that they
had no knowledge of it before they crossed the Missouri River and came
in contact with the Cheyennes, but have quite recently learned it from
them. It would thus appear that the Plains Indians did not invent it,
but finding it adapted to their wants adopted it as a convenient means
of communicating with those whose language they did not understand, and
it rapidly spread from tribe to tribe over the Plains. As the sign
language came from Mexico, the Spaniards suggest themselves as the
introducers of it on this continent. They are adepts in the use of
signs. Cortez as he marched through Mexico would naturally have resorted
to signs in communicating with the numerous tribes with which he came in
contract. Finding them very necessary, one sign after another would
suggest itself and be adopted by Spaniards and Indians, and, as the
former advanced, one tribe after another would learn to use them. The
Indians on the Plains, finding them so useful, preserved them and each
tribe modified them to suit their convenience, but the signs remained
essentially the same. The Shoshones took the sign language with them as
they moved northwest, and a few of the Piutes may have learned it from
them, but the Piutes as a tribe do not use it.”
Mr. Ben. Clarke, the respected and skillful interpreter at Fort Reno
writes to the same general effect:
“The Cheyennes think that the sign language used by the Cheyennes,
Arapahoes, Ogallala and Brulé Sioux, Kiowas, and Comanches originated
with the Kiowas. It is a tradition that, many years ago, when the
Northern Indians were still without horses, the Kiowas often raided
among the Mexican Indians and captured droves of horses on these trips.
The Northern Plains Indians used to journey to them and trade for
horses. The Kiowas were already proficient in signs, and the others
learned from them. It was the journeying to the South that finally
divided the Cheyennes, making the Northern and Southern Cheyennes. The
same may be said of the Arapahoes. That the Kiowas were the first sign
talkers is only a tradition, but as a tribe they are now considered to
be the best or most thorough of the Plains Indians.”
Without engaging in any controversy on this subject it may be noticed
that the theory advanced supposes a comparatively recent origin of sign
language from one tribe and one region, whereas, so far as can be
traced, the conditions favorable to a sign language existed very long
ago and were co-extensive with the territory of North America occupied
by any of the tribes. To avoid repetition reference is made to the
discussion below under the heads of universality, antiquity, identity,
and permanence. At this point it is only desired to call attention to
the ancient prevalence of signs among tribes such as the Iroquois,
Wyandot, Ojibwa, and at least three generations back among the Crees
beyond our northern boundary and the Mandans and other far-northern
Dakotas, not likely at that time to have had communication, even through
intertribal channels, with the Kaiowas. It is also difficult to
understand how their signs would have in that manner reached the Kutchin
of Eastern Alaska and the Kutine and Selish of British Columbia, who use
signs now. At the same time due consideration must be given to the great
change in the intercommunication of tribes, produced by the importation
of the horse, by which the habits of those Indians now, but not very
anciently, inhabiting the Plains were entirely changed. It is probable
that a sign language before existing became, contemporaneously with
nomadic life, cultivated and enriched.
As regards the Spanish origin suggested, there is ample evidence that
the Spaniards met signs in their early explorations north of and in the
northern parts of Mexico, and availed themselves of them but did not
introduce them. It is believed also that the elaborate picture writing
of Mexico was founded on gesture signs.
With reference to the statement that the Kaiowas are the most expert
sign talkers of the Plains, a number of authorities and correspondents
give the precedence to the Cheyennes, and an equal number to the
Arapahos. Probably the accident of meeting specially skillful talkers in
the several tribes visited influences such opinions.
The writer’s experience, both of the Utes and Pai-Utes, is different
from the above statement respecting the absence of signs among them.
They not only use their own signs but fully understand the difference
between the signs regarded as their own and those of the Kaiowas. On
special examination they understood some of the latter only as words of
a foreign language interpolated in an oral conversation would be
comprehended from the context, and others they would recognize as having
seen before among other tribes without adoption. The same is true
regarding the Brulé Sioux, as was clearly expressed by Medicine Bull,
their chief. The Pimas, Papagos, and Maricopas examined had a copious
sign language, yet were not familiar with many Kaiowa signs presented to
them.
Instead of referring to a time past when they did not use signs, the
Indians examined by the writer and by most of his correspondents speak
of a time when they and their fathers used it more freely and copiously
than at present, its disuse being from causes before mentioned. It,
however, may be true in some cases that a tribe, having been for a long
time in contact only with others the dialect of which was so nearly akin
as to be comprehensible, or from any reason being separated from those
of a strange speech, discontinued sign language for a time, and then
upon migration or forced removal came into circumstances where it was
useful, and revived it. It is asserted that some of the Muskoki and the
Ponkas now in the Indian Territory never saw sign language until they
arrived there. Yet there is some evidence that the Muskoki did use signs
a century ago, and some of the Ponkas still remaining on their old homes
on the Missouri remember it and have given their knowledge to an
accurate correspondent, Rev. J. O. Dorsey, though for many years they
have not been in circumstances to require its employment.
Perhaps the most salutary criticism to be offered regarding the theory
would be in the form of a query whether sign language has ever been
invented by any one body of people at any one time, and whether it is
not simply a phase in evolution, surviving and reviving when needed.
Criticism on this subject is made reluctantly, as it would be highly
interesting to determine that sign language on this continent came from
a particular stock, and to ascertain that stock. Such research would be
similar to that into the Aryan and Semitic sources to which many modern
languages have been traced backwards from existing varieties, and if
there appear to be existing varieties in signs their roots may still be
found to be _sui generis_. The possibility that the discrepancy between
signs was formerly greater than at present will receive attention in
discussing the distinction between the identity of signs and their
common use as an art. It is sufficient to add now that not only does the
burden of proof rest unfavorably upon the attempt to establish one
parent stock for sign language in North America, but it also comes under
the stigma now fastened upon the immemorial effort to name and locate
the original oral speech of man. It is only next in difficulty to the
old persistent determination to decide upon the origin of the whole
Indian “race,” in which most peoples of antiquity in the eastern
hemisphere, including the lost tribes of Israel, the Gipsies, and the
Welsh, have figured conspicuously as putative parents.
_IS THE INDIAN SYSTEM SPECIAL AND PECULIAR?_
This inquiry is closely connected with the last. If the system of signs
was invented here in the correct sense of that term, and by a known and
existing tribe, it is probable that it would not be found prevailing in
any important degree where the influence of the inventors could not
readily have penetrated. An affirmative answer to the question also
presupposes the same answer to another question, viz, whether there is
any one uniform system among the North American Indians which can
therefore be compared with any other system. This last inquiry will be
considered in its order. In comparing the system as a whole with others,
the latter are naturally divided into signs of speaking men foreign to
America and those of deaf-mutes.
COMPARISONS WITH FOREIGN SIGNS.
The generalization of TYLOR that “gesture language is substantially the
same among savage tribes all over the world,” interpreted by his remarks
in another connection, is understood as referring to their common use of
signs, and of signs formed on the same principles, but not of precisely
the same signs to express the same ideas. In this sense of the
generalization the result of the writer’s study not only sustains it,
but shows a surprising number of signs for the same idea which are
substantially identical, not only among savage tribes, but among all
peoples that use gesture signs with any freedom. Men, in groping for a
mode of communication with each other, and using the same general
methods, have been under many varying conditions and circumstances which
have determined differently many conceptions and their semiotic
execution, but there have also been many of both which were similar. Our
Indians have no special superstition concerning the evil-eye like the
Italians, nor have they been long familiar with the jackass so as to
make him emblematical of stupidity; therefore signs for these concepts
are not cisatlantic, but even in this paper many are shown which are
substantially in common between our Indians and Italians. The large
collection already obtained, but not now published, shows many others
identical, not only with those of the Italians and the classic Greeks
and Romans, but of other peoples of the Old World, both savage and
civilized. The generic uniformity is obvious, while the occasion of
specific varieties can be readily understood.
COMPARISON WITH DEAF-MUTE SIGNS.
The Indians who have been shown over the civilized East have often
succeeded in holding intercourse, by means of their invention and
application of principles in what may be called the voiceless mother
utterance, with white deaf-mutes, who surely have no semiotic code more
nearly connected with that attributed to the plain-roamers than is
derived from their common humanity. They showed the greatest pleasure in
meeting deaf-mutes, precisely as travelers in a foreign country are
rejoiced to meet persons speaking their language, with whom they can
hold direct communication without the tiresome and often suspected
medium of an interpreter. When they met together they were found to
pursue the same course as that noticed at the meeting of deaf-mutes who
were either not instructed in any methodical dialect or who had received
such instruction by different methods. They often disagreed in the signs
at first presented, but soon understood them, and finished by adopting
some in mutual compromise, which proved to be those most strikingly
appropriate, graceful, and convenient; but there still remained in some
cases a plurality of fitting signs for the same idea or object. On one
of the most interesting of these occasions, at the Pennsylvania
Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, in 1873, it was remarked that the
signs of the deaf-mutes were much more readily understood by the
Indians, who were Absaroka or Crows, Arapahos, and Cheyennes, than were
theirs by the deaf-mutes, and that the latter greatly excelled in
pantomimic effect. This need not be surprising when it is considered
that what is to the Indian a mere adjunct or accomplishment is to the
deaf-mute the natural mode of utterance, and that there is still greater
freedom from the trammel of translating words into action--instead of
acting the ideas themselves--when, the sound of words being unknown,
they remain still as they originated, but another kind of sign, even
after the art of reading is acquired, and do not become entities as with
us. The “action, action, action,” of Demosthenes is their only oratory,
not the mere heightening of it, however valuable.
On March 6, 1880, the writer had an interesting experience in taking to
the National Deaf-Mute College at Washington seven Utes (which tribe,
according to report, is unacquainted with sign language), among whom
were Augustin, Alejandro, Jakonik, Severio, and Wash. By the kind
attention of President GALLAUDET a thorough test was given, an equal
number of deaf-mute pupils being placed in communication with the
Indians, alternating with them both in making individual signs and in
telling narratives in gesture, which were afterwards interpreted in
speech by the Ute interpreter and the officers of the college. Notes of
a few of them were taken, as follows:
Among the signs was that for _squirrel_, given by a deaf-mute. The right
hand was placed over and facing the left, and about four inches above
the latter, to show the height of the animal; then the two hands were
held edgewise and horizontally in front, about eight inches apart
(showing _length_); then imitating the grasping of a small object and
biting it rapidly with the incisors, the extended index was pointed
upward and forward (_in a tree_).
This was not understood, as the Utes have no sign for the tree squirrel,
the arboreal animal not being now found in their region.
Deaf-mute sign for _jack-rabbit_: The first two fingers of each hand
extended (the remaining fingers and thumbs closed) were placed on either
side of the head, pointing upward; then arching the hands, palm down,
quick, interrupted, jumping movements forward were made.
This was readily understood.
The signs for the following narrative were given by a deaf-mute: When he
was a boy he mounted a horse without either bridle or saddle, and as the
horse began to go he grasped him by the neck for support; a dog flew at
the horse, began to bark, when the rider was thrown off and considerably
hurt.
In this the sign for _dog_ was as follows: Pass the arched hand forward
from the lower part of the face, to illustrate elongated nose and mouth,
then with both forefingers extended, remaining fingers and thumbs
closed, place them upon either side of the lower jaw, pointing upward,
to show lower canines, at the same time accompanying the gesture with an
expression of withdrawing the lips so as to show the teeth snarling;
then, with the fingers of the right hand extended and separated throw
them quickly forward and slightly upward (_voice_ or _talking_).
This sign was understood to mean _bear_, as that for _dog_ is different
among the Utes, _i.e._, by merely showing the height of the dog and
pushing the flat hand forward, finger-tips first.
Another deaf-mute gestured to tell that when he was a boy he went to a
melon-field, tapped several melons, finding them to be green or unripe;
finally reaching a good one he took his knife, cut a slice, and ate it.
A man made his appearance on horseback, entered the patch on foot, found
the cut melon, and detecting the thief, threw the melon towards him,
hitting him in the back, whereupon he ran away crying. The man mounted
and rode off in an opposite direction.
All of these signs were readily comprehended, although some of the
Indians varied very slightly in their translation.
When the Indians were asked whether, if they (the deaf-mutes) were to
come to the Ute country they would be scalped, the answer was given,
“Nothing would be done to you; but we would be friends,” as follows:
The palm of the right hand was brushed toward the right over that of the
left (_nothing_), and the right hand made to grasp the palm of the left,
thumbs extended over and lying upon the back of the opposing hand.
This was readily understood by the deaf-mutes.
Deaf-mute sign of milking a cow and drinking the milk was fully and
quickly understood.
The narrative of a boy going to an apple-tree, hunting for ripe fruit
and filling his pockets, being surprised by the owner and hit upon the
head with a stone, was much appreciated by the Indians and completely
understood.
A deaf-mute asked Alejandro how long it took him to come to Washington
from his country. He replied by placing the index and second finger of
the right hand astride the extended forefinger (others closed) of the
left; then elevating the fingers of the left hand (except thumb and
forefinger) back forward (_three_); then extending the fingers of both
hands and bringing them to a point, thumbs resting on palmar sides and
extended, placing the hands in front of the body, the tips opposite the
opposing wrist, and about four inches apart; then, revolving them in
imitation of _wheels_, he elevated the extended forefinger of the left
hand (_one_); then placing the extended flat hands, thumbs touching, the
backs sloping downward towards the respective right and left sides, like
the roof of a house; then repeating the sign of wheels as in the
preceding, after which the left hand was extended before the body,
fingers toward the right, horizontal, palm down and slightly arched, the
right wrist held under it, the fingers extending upward beyond it, and
quickly and repeatedly snapped upward (_smoke_); the last three signs
being _covered_--_wagon_--_smoke_, _i.e._, _cars_; then elevating four
fingers of the left hand (_four_).
_Translation._--Traveled three days on horseback, one in a wagon, and
four in the cars.
The deaf-mutes understood all but the sign for wheel, which they make as
a large circle, with _one_ hand.
Another example: A deaf-mute pretended to hunt something; found birds,
took his bow and arrows and killed several.
This was fully understood.
A narrative given by Alejandro was also understood by the deaf-mutes, to
the effect that he made search for deer, shot one with a gun, killed and
skinned it, and packed it up.
It will be observed that many of the above signs admitted of and were
expressed by pantomime, yet that was not the case with all that were
made. President GALLAUDET made also some remarks in gesture which were
understood by the Indians, yet were not strictly pantomimic.
The opinion of all present at the test was that two intelligent mimes
would seldom fail of mutual understanding, their attention being
exclusively directed to the expression of thoughts by the means of
comprehension and reply equally possessed by both, without the mental
confusion of conventional sounds only intelligible to one.
A large collection has been made of natural deaf-mute signs, and also of
those more conventional, which have been collated with those of the
several tribes of Indians. Many of them show marked similarity, not only
in principle but often in detail.
* * * * *
The result of the studies so far as prosecuted is that what is called
_the_ sign language of Indians is not, properly speaking, one language,
but that it and the gesture systems of deaf-mutes and of all peoples
constitute together one language--the gesture speech of mankind--of
which each system is a dialect.
_TO WHAT EXTENT PREVALENT AS A SYSTEM._
The assertion has been made by many writers, and is currently repeated
by Indian traders and some Army officers, that all the tribes of North
America have long had and still use a _common_ and _identical_ sign
language, in which they can communicate freely without oral assistance.
Although this remarkable statement is at variance with some of the
principles of the formation and use of signs set forth by Dr. E. B.
TYLOR, whose admirable chapters on gesture speech in his _Researches
into the Early History of Mankind_ have in a great degree prompted the
present inquiries, that eminent authority did not see fit to discredit
it. He repeats the report as he received it, in the words that “the same
signs serve as a medium of converse from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of
Mexico.” Its truth or falsity can only be established by careful
comparison of lists or vocabularies of signs taken under test conditions
at widely different times and places. For this purpose lists have been
collated by the writer, taken in different parts of the country at
several dates, from the last century to the last month, comprising
together several thousand signs, many of them, however, being mere
variants or synonyms for the same object or quality, some being
repetitions of others and some of small value from uncertainty in
description or authority, or both.
ONCE PROBABLY UNIVERSAL IN NORTH AMERICA.
The conclusion reached from the researches made is to the effect that
before the changes wrought by the Columbian discovery the use of gesture
illustrated the remark of Quintilian upon the same subject (l. xi, c. 3)
that “_In tanta per omnes gentes nationesque linguæ diversitate hic mihi
omnium hominum communis sermo videatur._”
Quotations may be taken from some old authorities referring to widely
separated regions. The Indians of Tampa Bay, identified with the
Timucua, met by Cabeça de Vaca in 1528, were active in the use of signs,
and in his journeying for eight subsequent years, probably through Texas
and Mexico, he remarks that he passed through many dissimilar tongues,
but that he questioned and received the answers of the Indians by signs
“just as if they spoke our language and we theirs.” Michaëlius, writing
in 1628, says of the Algonkins on or near the Hudson River: “For
purposes of trading as much was done by signs with the thumb and fingers
as by speaking.” In Bossu’s _Travels through that part of North America
formerly called Louisiana_, _London_, 1771 (Forster’s translation), an
account is given of Monsieur de Belle-Isle some years previously
captured by the Atak-apa, who remained with them two years and
“conversed in their pantomimes with them.” He was rescued by Governor
Bienville and was sufficiently expert in the sign language to interpret
between Bienville and the tribe. In Bushmann’s _Spuren_, p. 424, there
is a reference to the “Accocessaws on the west side of the Colorado, two
hundred miles southwest of Nacogdoches,” who use thumb signs which they
understand: “_Theilen sich aber auch durch Daum-Zeichen mit, die sie
alle verstehen._”
Omitting many authorities, and for brevity allowing a break in the
continuity of time, reference may be made to the statement in Major
Long’s expedition of 1819, concerning the Arapahos, Kaiowas, Ietans, and
Cheyennes, to the effect that, being ignorant of each other’s languages,
many of them when they met would communicate by means of signs, and
would thus maintain a conversation without the least difficulty or
interruption. A list of the tribes reported upon by Prince Maximilian
von Wied-Neuweid, in 1832-’34, appears elsewhere in this paper. In
Frémont’s expedition of 1844 special and repeated allusion is made to
the expertness of the Pai-Utes in signs, which is contradictory to the
statement above made by correspondents. The same is mentioned regarding
a band of Shoshonis met near the summit of the Sierra Nevada, and one of
“Diggers,” probably Chemehuevas, encountered on a tributary of the Rio
Virgen.
Ruxton, in his _Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains_, _New
York_, 1848, p. 278, sums up his experience with regard to the Western
tribes so well as to require quotation: “The language of signs is so
perfectly understood in the Western country, and the Indians themselves
are such admirable pantomimists, that, after a little use, no difficulty
whatever exists in carrying on a conversation by such a channel; and
there are few mountain men who are at a loss in thoroughly understanding
and making themselves intelligible by signs alone, although they neither
speak nor understand a word of the Indian tongue.”
Passing to the correspondents of the writer from remote parts of North
America, it is important to notice that Mr. J. W. Powell, Indian
superintendent, reports the use of sign language among the Kutine, and
Mr. James Lenihan, Indian agent, among the Selish, both tribes of
British Columbia. The Very Rev. Edward Jacker, while contributing
information upon the present use of gesture language among the Ojibwas
of Lake Superior, mentions that it has fallen into comparative neglect
because for three generations they had not been in contact with tribes
of a different speech. Dr. Francis H. Atkins, acting assistant surgeon,
United States Army, in forwarding a contribution of signs of the
Mescalero Apaches remarks: “I think it probable that they have used sign
language rather less than many other Indians. They do not seem to use it
to any extent at home, and abroad the only tribes they were likely to
come into contact with were the Navajos, the Lipans of old Mexico, and
the Comanches. Probably the last have been almost alone their visiting
neighbors. They have also seen the Pueblos a little, these appearing to
be, like the Phœnicians of old, the traders of this region.” He also
alludes to the effect of the Spanish, or rather _lingua Mexicana_, upon
all the Southern tribes and, indeed, upon those as far north as the
Utes, by which recourse to signs is now rendered less necessary.
Before leaving this particular topic it is proper to admit that, while
there is not only recorded testimony to the past use of gesture signs by
several tribes of the Iroquoian and Algonkian families, but evidence
that it still remains, it is, however, noticeable that these families
when met by their first visitors do not appear to have often impressed
the latter with their reliance upon gesture language to the same extent
as has always been reported of the tribes now and formerly found farther
inland. An explanation may be suggested from the fact that among those
families there were more people dwelling near together in communities
speaking the same language, though with dialectic peculiarities, than
became known later in the farther West, and not being nomadic their
intercourse with strange tribes was less individual and conversational.
Some of the tribes, in especial the Iroquois proper, were in a
comparatively advanced social condition. A Mohawk or Seneca would
probably have repeated the arrogance of the old Romans, whom in other
respects they resembled, and compelled persons of inferior tribes to
learn his language if they desired to converse with him, instead of
resorting to the compromise of gesture speech, which he had practiced
before the prowess and policy of the confederated Five Nations had
gained supremacy and which was still used for special purposes between
the members of his own tribe.
The studies thus far pursued lead to the conclusion that at the time of
the discovery of North America all its inhabitants practiced sign
language, though with different degrees of expertness, and that while
under changed circumstances it was disused by some, others, in especial
those who after the acquisition of horses became nomads of the Great
Plains, retained and cultivated it to the high development now attained,
from which it will surely and speedily decay.
MISTAKEN DENIAL THAT SIGN LANGUAGE EXISTS.
The most useful suggestion to persons interested in the collection of
signs is that they shall not too readily abandon the attempt to discover
recollections of them even among tribes long exposed to European
influence and officially segregated from others. The instances where
their existence, at first denied, has been ascertained are important
with reference to the theories advanced.
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey has furnished a considerable vocabulary of signs
finally procured from the Poncas, although, after residing among them
for years, with thorough familiarity with their language, and after
special and intelligent exertion to obtain some of their disused gesture
language, he had before reported it to be entirely forgotten. A similar
report was made by two missionaries among the Ojibwas, though other
trustworthy authorities have furnished a copious list of signs obtained
from that tribe. This is no imputation against the missionaries, as in
October, 1880, five intelligent Ojibwas from Petoskey, Mich., told the
writer that they had never heard of gesture language. An interesting
letter from Mr. B. O. Williams, sr., of Owasso, Mich., explains the
gradual decadence of signs used by the Ojibwas in his recollection,
embracing sixty years, as chiefly arising from general acquaintance with
the English language. Further discouragement came from an Indian agent
giving the decided statement, after four years of intercourse with the
Pai-Utes, that no such thing as a communication by signs was known or
even remembered by them, which, however, was less difficult to bear
because on the day of the receipt of that well-intentioned missive some
officers of the Bureau of Ethnology were actually talking in signs with
a delegation of that very tribe of Indians then in Washington, from one
of whom, Nátci, a narrative printed in this paper (page 500), was
received.
The report from missionaries, army officers, and travelers in Alaska was
unanimous against the existence of a sign language there until Mr. Ivan
Petroff, whose explorations had been more extensive, gave the excellent
exposition and dialogue now produced (see page 492). Collections were
also obtained from the Apaches and Zuñi, Pimas, Papagos, and Maricopas,
after agents and travelers had denied them to be possessed of any
knowledge on the subject.
For the reasons mentioned under the last heading, little hope was
entertained of procuring a collection from any of the Iroquoian stock,
but the intelligent and respectable chief of the Wyandots, Hénto (Gray
Eyes), came to the rescue. His tribe was moved from Ohio in July, 1843,
to the territory now occupied by the State of Kansas, and then again
moved to Indian Territory, in 1870. He asserts that about one-third of
the tribe, the older portion, know many signs, a partial list of which
he gave with their descriptions. He was sure that those signs were used
before the removal from Ohio, and he saw them used also by Shawnees,
Delawares, and Senecas there.
Unanimous denial of any existence of sign language came from the British
provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and was followed by the collection
obtained by the Hon. Horatio Hale. His statement of the time and manner
of its being procured by him is not only interesting but highly
instructive:
“The aged Mohawk chief, from whom the information on this subject
has been obtained, is commonly known by his English name of John
Smoke Johnson. ‘Smoke’ is a rude version of his Indian name,
_Sakayenkwaraton_, which may be rendered ‘Disappearing Mist.’ It is the
term applied to the haze which rises in the morning of an autumn day,
and gradually passes away. Chief Johnson has been for many years
‘speaker’ of the great council of the Six Nations. In former times he
was noted as a warrior, and later has been esteemed one of the most
eloquent orators of his race. At the age of eighty-eight years he
retains much of his original energy. He is considered to have a better
knowledge of the traditions and ancient customs of his people than any
other person now living. This superior knowledge was strikingly apparent
in the course of the investigations which were made respecting the sign
language. Two other members of his tribe, well-educated and very
intelligent men of middle age, the one a chief and government
interpreter, the other a clergyman now settled over a white
congregation, had both been consulted on the subject and both expressed
the opinion that nothing of the sign language, properly speaking, was
known among the Six Nations. They were alike surprised and interested
when the old chief, in their presence, after much consideration,
gradually drew forth from the stores of his memory the proofs of an
accomplishment which had probably lain unused for more than half a
century.”
One of the most conclusive instances of the general knowledge of sign
language, even when seldom used, was shown in the visit of five
Jicarilla Apaches to Washington in April, 1880, under the charge of Dr.
Benjamin Thomas, their agent. The latter said he had never heard of any
use of signs among them. But it happened that there was a delegation of
Absaroka (Crows) at the same hotel, and the two parties from such widely
separated regions, not knowing a word of each other’s language,
immediately began to converse in signs, resulting in a decided
sensation. One of the Crows asked the Apaches whether they ate horses,
and it happening that the sign for _eating_ was misapprehended for that
known by the Apaches for _many_, the question was supposed to be whether
the latter had many horses, which was answered in the affirmative.
Thence ensued a misunderstanding on the subject of hippophagy, which was
curious both as showing the general use of signs as a practice and the
diversity in special signs for particular meanings. The surprise of the
agent at the unsuspected accomplishment of his charges was not unlike
that of a hen who, having hatched a number of duck eggs, is perplexed at
the instinct with which the brood takes to the water.
The denial of the use of signs is often faithfully though erroneously
reported from the distinct statements of Indians to that effect. In
that, as in other matters, they are often provokingly reticent about
their old habits and traditions. Chief Ouray asserted to the writer, as
he also did to Colonel Dodge, that his people, the Utes, had not the
practice of sign talk, and had no use for it. This was much in the proud
spirit in which an Englishman would have made the same statement, as the
idea involved an accusation against the civilization of his people,
which he wished to appear highly advanced. Still more frequently the
Indians do not distinctly comprehend what is sought to be obtained.
Sometimes, also, the art, abandoned in general, only remains in the
memories of a few persons influenced by special circumstances or
individual fancy.
In this latter regard a comparison may be made with the old science of
heraldry, once of practical use and a necessary part of a liberal
education, of which hardly a score of persons in the United States have
any but the vague knowledge that it once existed; yet the united
memories of those persons could, in the absence of records, reproduce
all essential points on the subject.
Another cause for the mistaken denial in question must be mentioned.
When travelers or sojourners have become acquainted with signs in any
one place they may assume that those signs constitute _the_ sign
language, and if they afterwards meet tribes not at once recognizing
those signs, they remove all difficulty about the theory of a “one and
indivisible” sign language by simply asserting that the tribes so met do
not understand _the_ sign language, or perhaps that they do not use
signs at all. This precise assertion has, as above mentioned, been made
regarding the Utes and Apaches. Of course, also, Indians who have not
been brought into sufficient contact with certain tribes using different
signs, for the actual trial which would probably result in mutual
comprehension, tell the travelers the same story. It is the venerable
one of “ἄγλωσσος,” “Njemez,” “barbarian,” and “stammering,” above
noted, applied to the hands instead of the tongue. Thus an observer
possessed by a restrictive theory will find no signs where they are in
plenty, while another determined on the universality and identity of
sign language can, as elsewhere explained, produce, from perhaps the
same individuals, evidence in his favor from the apparently conclusive
result of successful communication.
PERMANENCE OF SIGNS.
In connection with any theory it is important to inquire into the
permanence of particular gesture signs to express a special idea or
object when the system has been long continued. Many examples have been
given above showing that the gestures of classic times are still in use
by the modern Italians with the same signification; indeed that the
former on Greek vases or reliefs or in Herculanean bronzes can only be
interpreted by the latter. In regard to the signs of instructed
deaf-mutes in this country there appears to be a permanence beyond
expectation. Mr. Edmund Booth, a pupil of the Hartford Institute half a
century ago, and afterwards a teacher, says in the “_Annals_” for April,
1880, that the signs used by teachers and pupils at Hartford,
Philadelphia, Washington, Council Bluffs, and Omaha were nearly the same
as he had learned. “We still adhere to the old sign for President from
Monroe’s three-cornered hat, and for governor we designate the cockade
worn by that dignitary on grand occasions three generations ago.”
The specific comparisons made, especially by Dr. Washington Matthews and
Dr. W. C. Boteler, of the signs reported by the Prince of Wied in 1832
with those now used by the same tribes from whom he obtained them, show
a remarkable degree of permanency in many of those that were so clearly
described by the Prince as to be proper subjects of any comparison. If
they have persisted for half a century their age is probably much
greater. In general it is believed that signs, constituting as they do a
natural mode of expression, though enlarging in scope as new ideas and
new objects require to be included and though abbreviated as hereinafter
explained, do not readily change in their essentials.
The writer has before been careful to explain that he does not present
any signs as precisely those of primitive man, not being so carried away
by enthusiasm as to suppose them possessed of immutability and
immortality not found in any other mode of human utterance. Yet such
signs as are generally prevalent among Indian tribes, and also in other
parts of the world, must be of great antiquity. The use of derivative
meanings to a sign only enhances this presumption. At first there might
not appear to be any connection between the ideas of _same_ and _wife_,
expressed by the sign of horizontally extending the two forefingers side
by side. The original idea was doubtless that given by the Welsh captain
in Shakspere’s Henry V: “’Tis so like as my fingers is to my fingers,”
and from this similarity comes “equal,” “companion,” and subsequently
the close life-companion “wife.” The sign is used in each of these
senses by different Indian tribes, and sometimes the same tribe applies
it in all of the senses as the context determines. It appears also in
many lands with all the significations except that of “wife.” It is
proper here to mention that the suggestion of several correspondents
that the Indian sign as applied to “wife” refers to “lying together” is
rendered improbable by the fact that when the same tribes desire to
express the sexual relation of marriage it is gestured otherwise.
Many signs but little differentiated were unstable, while others that
have proved the best modes of expression have survived as definite and
established. Their prevalence and permanence being mainly determined by
the experience of their utility, it would be highly interesting to
ascertain how long a time was required for a distinctly new conception
or execution to gain currency, become “the fashion,” so to speak, over a
large part of the continent, and to be supplanted by a new “mode.”
A note may be made in this connection of the large number of diverse
signs for _horse_, all of which must have been invented within a
comparatively recent period, and the small variation in the signs for
_dog_, which are probably ancient.
SURVIVAL IN GESTURE.
Even when the specific practice of sign language has been generally
discontinued for more than one generation, either from the adoption of a
jargon or from the common use of the tongue of the conquering English,
French, or Spanish, some of the gestures formerly employed as
substitutes for words may survive as a customary accompaniment to
oratory or impassioned conversation, and, when ascertained, should be
carefully noted. An example, among many, may be found in the fact that
the now civilized Muskoki or Creeks, as mentioned by Rev. H. F. Buckner,
when speaking of the height of children or women, illustrate their words
by holding their hands at the proper elevation, palm up; but when
describing the height of “soulless” animals or inanimate objects, they
hold the palm downward. This, when correlated with the distinctive signs
of other Indians, is an interesting case of the survival of a practice
which, so far as yet reported, the oldest men of the tribe, now living
only remember to have once existed. It is probable that a collection of
such distinctive gestures among the most civilized Indians would
reproduce enough of their ancient system to be valuable, while possibly
the persistent inquirer might in his search discover some of its
surviving custodians even among Chabta or Cheroki, Innuit or Abnaki,
Klamath or Nutka.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN IDENTITY OF SIGNS AND THEIR USE AS AN ART.
The general report that there is but one sign language in North America,
any deviation from which is either blunder, corruption, or a dialect in
the nature of provincialism, may be examined in reference to some of the
misconceived facts which gave it origin and credence. It may not appear
to be necessary that such examination should be directed to any mode of
collecting and comparing signs which would amount to their distortion.
It is useful, however, to explain that distortion would result from
following the views of a recent essayist, who takes the ground that the
description of signs should be made according to a “mean” or average.
There can be no philosophic consideration of signs according to a “mean”
of observations. The proper object is to ascertain the radical or
essential part as distinct from any individual flourish or mannerism on
the one hand, and from a conventional or accidental abbreviation on the
other; but a mere average will not accomplish that object. If the hand,
being in any position whatever, is, according to five observations,
moved horizontally one foot to the right, and, according to five other
observations, moved one foot horizontally to the left, the “mean” or
resultant will be that it is stationary, which sign does not correspond
with any of the ten observations. So if six observations give it a rapid
motion of one foot to the right and five a rapid motion of the same
distance to the left, the mean or resultant would be somewhat difficult
to express, but perhaps would be a slow movement to the right for an
inch or two, having certainly no resemblance either in essentials or
accidents to any of the signs actually observed. In like manner the tail
of the written letter “_y_” (which, regarding its mere formation, might
be a graphic sign) may have in the chirography of several persons
various degrees of slope, may be a straight line, or looped, and may be
curved on either side; but a “mean” taken from the several manuscripts
would leave the unfortunate letter without any tail whatever, or
travestied as a “_u_” with an amorphous flourish. A definition of the
radical form of the letter or sign by which it can be distinguished from
any other letter or sign is a very different proceeding. Therefore, if a
“mean” or resultant of any number of radically different signs to
express the same object or idea, observed either among several
individuals of the same tribe or among different tribes, is made to
represent those signs, they are all mutilated and ignored as distinctive
signs, though the result may possibly be made intelligible in practice,
according to principles mentioned in the present paper. The expedient of
a “mean” may be practically useful in the formation of a mere
interpreter’s jargon, but it elucidates no principle. It is also
convenient for any one determined to argue for the uniformity of sign
language as against the variety in unity apparent in all the realms of
nature. On the “mean” principle, he only needs to take his two-foot rule
and arithmetical tables and make all signs his signs and his signs all
signs. Of course they are uniform, because he has made them so after the
brutal example of Procrustes.
In this connection it is proper to urge a warning that a mere sign
talker is often a bad authority upon principles and theories. He may not
be liable to the satirical compliment of Dickens’s “brave courier,” who
“understood all languages indifferently ill”; but many men speak some
one language fluently, and yet are wholly unable to explain or analyze
its words and forms so as to teach it to another person, or even to give
an intelligent summary or classification of their own knowledge. What
such a sign talker has learned is by memorizing, as a child may learn
English, and though both the sign talker and the child may be able to
give some separate items useful to a philologist or foreigner, such
items are spoiled when colored by the attempt of ignorance to theorize.
A German who has studied English to thorough mastery, except in the mere
facility of speech, may in a discussion upon some of its principles be
contradicted by any mere English speaker, who insists upon his superior
knowledge because he actually speaks the language and his antagonist
does not, but the student will probably be correct and the talker wrong.
It is an old adage about oral speech that a man who understands but one
language understands none. The science of a sign talker possessed by a
restrictive theory is like that of Mirabeau, who was greater as an
orator than as a philologist, and who on a visit to England gravely
argued that there was something seriously wrong in the British mind
because the people would persist in saying “give me some bread” instead
of “_donnez-moi du pain_,” which was so much easier and more natural.
A designedly ludicrous instance to the same effect was Hood’s
arraignment of the French because they called their mothers “mares” and
their daughters “fillies.” It is necessary to take with caution any
statement from a person who, having memorized or hashed up any number of
signs, large or small, has decided in his conceit that those he uses are
the only genuine Simon Pure, to be exclusively employed according to his
direction, all others being counterfeits or blunders. His vocabulary has
ceased to give the signs of any Indian or body of Indians whatever, but
becomes his own, the proprietorship of which he fights for as if secured
by letters-patent. When a sign is contributed by one of the present
collaborators, which such a sign talker has not before seen or heard of,
he will at once condemn it as bad, just as a United States Minister to
Vienna, who had been nursed in the mongrel Dutch of Berks County,
Pennsylvania, declared that the people of Germany spoke very bad German.
An argument for the uniformity of the signs of our Indians is derived
from the fact that those used by any of them are generally understood by
others. But signs may be understood without being identical with any
before seen. The entribal as well as intertribal exercise of Indians for
generations in gesture language has naturally produced great skill both
in expression and reception, so as to render them measurably independent
of any prior mutual understanding, or what in a system of signals is
called preconcert. Two accomplished army signalists can, after
sufficient trial, communicate without having any code in common between
them, one being mutually devised, and those specially designed for
secrecy are often deciphered. So, if any one of the more conventional
signs is not quickly comprehended, an Indian skilled in the principle of
signs resorts to another expression of his flexible art, perhaps
reproducing the gesture unabbreviated and made more graphic, perhaps
presenting either the same or another conception or quality of the same
object or idea by an original portraiture.
An impression of the community of signs is the more readily made because
explorers and officials are naturally brought into contact more closely
with those individuals of the tribes visited who are experts in sign
language than with their other members, and those experts, on account of
their skill as interpreters, are selected as guides to accompany the
visitors. The latter also seek occasion to be present when signs are
used, whether with or without words, in intertribal councils, and then
the same class of experts comprises the orators, for long exercise in
gesture speech has made the Indian politicians, with no special effort,
masters of the art acquired by our public speakers only after laborious
apprenticeship. The whole theory and practice of sign language being
that all who understand its principles can make themselves mutually
intelligible, the fact of the ready comprehension and response among all
the skilled gesturers gives the impression of a common code.
Furthermore, if the explorer learn to employ with ingenuity the signs
used by any of the tribes, he will probably be understood in any other
by the same class of persons who will surround him in the latter,
thereby confirming him in the “common” theory. Those of the tribe who
are less skilled, but who are not noticed, might be unable to catch the
meaning of signs which have not been actually taught to them, just as
ignorant persons among us cannot derive any sense from newly-coined
words or those strange to their habitual vocabulary, which, though never
before heard, linguistic scholars would instantly understand and might
afterward adopt.
It is also common experience that when Indians find that a sign which
has become conventional among their tribe is not understood by an
interlocutor, a self-expressive sign is substituted for it, from which a
visitor may form the impression that there are no conventional signs. It
may likewise occur that the self-expressive sign substituted will be met
with by a visitor in several localities, different Indians, in their
ingenuity, taking the best and the same means of reaching the exotic
intelligence.
There is some evidence that where sign language is now found among
Indian tribes it has become more uniform than ever before, simply
because many tribes have for some time past been forced to dwell near
together at peace. A collection was obtained in the spring of 1880, at
Washington, from a united delegation of the Kaiowa, Comanche, Apache,
and Wichita tribes, which was nearly uniform, but the individuals who
gave the signs had actually lived together at or near Anadarko, Indian
Territory, for a considerable time, and the resulting uniformity of
their signs might either be considered as a jargon or as the natural
tendency to a compromise for mutual understanding--the unification so
often observed in oral speech, coming under many circumstances out of
former heterogeneity. The rule is that dialects precede languages and
that out of many dialects comes one language. It may be found that other
individuals of those same tribes who have from any cause not lived in
the union explained may have signs for the same ideas different from
those in the collection above mentioned. This is probable, because
some signs of other representatives of one of the component
bodies--Apache--have actually been reported differing from those for the
same ideas given by the Anadarko group. The uniformity of the signs of
those Arapahos, Cheyennes, and Sioux who have been secluded for years at
one particular reservation, so far as could be done by governmental
power, from the outer world, was used in argument by a correspondent;
but some collected signs of other Cheyennes and Sioux differ, not only
from those on the reservation, but among each other. Therefore the signs
used in common by the tribes at the reservation seem to have been
modified and to a certain extent unified.
The result of the collation and analysis of the large number of signs
collected is that in numerous instances there is an entire discrepancy
between the signs made by different bodies of Indians to express the
same idea, and that if any of these are regarded as rigidly determinate,
or even conventional with a limited range, and used without further
devices, they will fail in conveying the desired impression to any one
unskilled in gesture as an art, who had not formed the same precise
conception or been instructed in the arbitrary motion. Few of the
gestures that are found in current use are, in their origin,
conventional. They are only portions, more or less elaborate, of obvious
natural pantomime, and those proving efficient to convey most
successfully at any time the several ideas became the most widely
adopted, liable, however, to be superseded by more appropriate
conceptions and delineations. The skill of any tribe and the copiousness
of its signs are proportioned first to the necessity for their use, and
secondly to the accidental ability of the individuals in it who act as
custodians and teachers, so that the several tribes at different times
vary in their degree of proficiency, and therefore both the precise mode
of semiotic expression and the amount of its general use are always
fluctuating. Sign language as a product of evolution has been developed
rather than invented, and yet it seems probable that each of the
separate signs, like the several steps that lead to any true invention,
had a definite origin arising out of some appropriate occasion, and the
same sign may in this manner have had many independent origins due to
identity in the circumstances, or if lost, may have been reproduced.
The process is precisely the same as that observed among deaf-mutes. One
of those unfortunate persons, living with his speaking relatives, may
invent signs which the latter are taught to understand, though strangers
sometimes will not, because they may be by no means the fittest
expressions. Should a dozen or more deaf-mutes, possessed only of such
crude signs, come together, they will be able at first to communicate
only on a few common subjects, but the number of those and the general
scope of expression will be continually enlarged. Each one commences
with his own conception and his own presentment of it, but the
universality of the medium used makes it sooner or later understood.
This independent development, thus creating diversity, often renders the
first interchange of thought between strangers slow, for the signs must
be self-interpreting. There can be no natural universal language which
is absolute and arbitrary. When used without convention, as sign
language alone of all modes of utterance can be, it must be tentative,
experimental, and flexible. The mutes will also resort to the invention
of new signs for new ideas as they arise, which will be made
intelligible, if necessary, through the illustration and definition
given by signs formerly adopted, so that the fittest signs will be
evolved, after rivalry and trial, and will survive. But there may not
always be such a preponderance of fitness that all but one of the rival
signs shall die out, and some, being equal in value to express the same
idea or object, will continue to be used indifferently, or as a matter
of individual taste, without confusion. A multiplication of the numbers
confined together, either of deaf-mutes or of Indians whose speech is
diverse, will not decrease the resulting uniformity, though it will
increase both the copiousness and the precision of the vocabulary. The
Indian use of signs, though maintained by linguistic diversities, is not
coincident with any linguistic boundaries. The tendency is to their
uniformity among groups of people who from any cause are brought into
contact with each other while still speaking different languages. The
longer and closer such contact, while no common tongue is adopted, the
greater will be the uniformity of signs.
Colonel Dodge takes a middle ground with regard to the identity of the
signs used by our Indians, comparing it with the dialects and
provincialisms of the English language, as spoken in England, Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales. But those dialects are the remains of actually
diverse languages, which to some speakers have not become integrated. In
England alone the provincial dialects are traceable as the legacies of
Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Danes, with a varying amount of Norman
influence. A thorough scholar in the composite tongue, now called
English, will be able to understand all the dialects and provincialisms
of English in the British Isles, but the uneducated man of Yorkshire is
not able to communicate readily with the equally uneducated man of
Somersetshire. This is the true distinction to be made. A thorough sign
talker would be able to talk with several Indians who have no signs in
common, and who, if their knowledge of signs were only memorized, could
not communicate together. So also, as an educated Englishman will
understand the attempts of a foreigner to speak in very imperfect and
broken English, a good Indian sign expert will apprehend the feeble
efforts of a tyro in gestures. But Colonel Dodge’s conclusion that there
is but one true Indian sign language, just as there is but one true
English language, is not proved unless it can be shown that a much
larger proportion of the Indians who use signs at all, than present
researches show to be the case, use identically the same signs to
express the same ideas. It would also seem necessary to the parallel
that the signs so used should be absolute, if not arbitrary, as are the
words of an oral language, and not independent of preconcert and
self-interpreting at the instant of their invention or first exhibition,
as all true signs must originally have been and still measurably remain.
All Indians, as all gesturing men, have many natural signs in common and
many others which are now conventional. The conventions by which the
latter were established occurred during long periods, when the tribes
forming them were so separated as to have established altogether diverse
customs and mythologies, and when the several tribes were with such
different environment as to have formed varying conceptions needing
appropriate sign expression. The old error that the North American
Indians constitute one homogeneous race is now abandoned. Nearly all the
characteristics once alleged as segregating them from the rest of
mankind have proved not to belong to the whole of the pre-Columbian
population, but only to those portions of it first explored. The
practice of scalping is not now universal, even among the tribes least
influenced by civilization, if it ever was, and therefore the
cultivation of the scalp-lock separated from the rest of the hair of the
head, or with the removal of all other hair, is not a general feature of
their appearance. The arrangement of the hair is so different among
tribes as to be one of the most convenient modes for their pictorial
distinction. The war paint, red in some tribes, was black in others; the
mystic rites of the calumet were in many regions unknown, and the use of
wampum was by no means extensive. The wigwam is not the type of native
dwellings, which show as many differing forms as those of Europe. In
color there is great variety, and even admitting that the term “race” is
properly applied, no competent observer would characterize it as red,
still less copper-colored. Some tribes differ from each other in all
respects nearly as much as either of them do from the lazzaroni of
Naples, and more than either do from certain tribes of Australia. It
would therefore be expected, as appears to be the case, that the
conventional signs of different stocks and regions differ as do the
words of English, French, and German, which, nevertheless, have sprung
from the same linguistic roots. No one of those languages is a dialect
of any of the others; and although the sign systems of the several
tribes have greater generic unity with less specific variety than oral
languages, no one of them is necessarily the dialect of any other.
Instead, therefore, of admitting, with present knowledge, that the signs
of our Indians are “identical” and “universal,” it is the more accurate
statement that the systematic attempt to convey meaning by signs is
universal among the Indians of the Plains, and those still comparatively
unchanged by civilization. Its successful execution is by an _art_,
which, however it may have commenced as an instinctive mental process,
has been cultivated, and consists in actually pointing out objects in
sight not only for designation, but for application and predication, and
in suggesting others to the mind by action and the airy forms produced
by action. To insist that sign language is uniform were to assert that
it is perfect--“That faultless monster that the world ne’er saw.”
FORCED AND MISTAKEN SIGNS.
Examination into the identity of signs is complicated by the fact that
in the collection and description of Indian signs there is danger lest
the civilized understanding of them may be mistaken or forced. The
liability to those errors is much increased when the collections are not
taken directly from the Indians themselves, but are given as obtained at
second-hand from white traders, trappers, and interpreters, who, through
misconception in the beginning and their own introduction or
modification of gestures, have produced a jargon in the sign, as well as
in the oral intercourse. An Indian talking in signs, either to a white
man or to another Indian using signs which he never saw before, catches
the meaning of that which is presented and adapts himself to it, at
least for the occasion. Even when he finds that his interlocutor insists
upon understanding and presenting a certain sign in a manner and with a
significance widely different from those to which he has been
accustomed, it is within the very nature, tentative and elastic, of the
gesture art--both performers being on an equality--that he should adopt
the one that seems to be recognized or that is pressed upon him, as with
much greater difficulty he has learned and adopted many foreign terms
used with whites before attempting to acquire their language, but never
with his own race. Thus there is now, and perhaps always has been, what
may be called a _lingua-franca_, in the sign vocabulary. It is well
known that all the tribes of the Plains having learned by experience
that white visitors expect to receive certain signs really originating
with the latter, use them in their intercourse just as they sometimes do
the words “squaw” and “papoose,” corruptions of the Algonkian, and once
as meaningless in the present West as the English terms “woman” and
“child,” but which the first pioneers, having learned them on the
Atlantic coast, insisted upon treating as generally intelligible.
The perversity in attaching through preconceived views a wrong
significance to signs is illustrated by an anecdote found in several
versions and in several languages, but repeated as a veritable Scotch
legend by Duncan Anderson, esq., Principal of the Glasgow Institution
for the Deaf and Dumb, when he visited Washington in 1853.
King James I. of England, desiring to play a trick upon the Spanish
ambassador, a man of great erudition, but who had a crotchet in his head
upon sign language, informed him that there was a distinguished
professor of that science in the university at Aberdeen. The ambassador
set out for that place, preceded by a letter from the King with
instructions to make the best of him. There was in the town one Geordy,
a butcher, blind of one eye, a fellow of much wit and drollery. Geordy
is told to play the part of a professor, with the warning not to speak a
word; is gowned, wigged, and placed in a chair of state, when the
ambassador is shown in and they are left alone together. Presently the
nobleman came out greatly pleased with the experiment, claiming that his
theory was demonstrated. He said: “When I entered the room I raised one
finger to signify there is one God. He replied by raising two fingers to
signify that this Being rules over two worlds, the material and the
spiritual. Then I raised three fingers, to say there are three persons
in the Godhead. He then closed his fingers, evidently to say these three
are one.” After this explanation on the part of the nobleman the
professors sent for the butcher and asked him what took place in the
recitation room. He appeared very angry and said: “When the crazy man
entered the room where I was he raised one finger, as much as to say I
had but one eye, and I raised two fingers to signify that I could see
out of my one eye as well as he could out of both of his. When he raised
three fingers, as much as to say there were but three eyes between us,
I doubled up my fist, and if he had not gone out of that room in a hurry
I would have knocked him down.”
The readiness with which a significance may be found in signs when none
whatever exists is also shown in the great contest narrated by Rabelais
between Panurge and the English philosopher, Thaumast, commencing as
follows:
“Everybody then taking heed in great silence, the Englishman lifted his
two hands separately, clinching the ends of his fingers in the form that
at Chion they call the fowl’s tail. Then he struck them together by the
nails four times. Then he opened them and struck one flat upon the other
with a clash once; after which, joining them as above, he struck twice,
and four times afterwards, on opening them. Then he placed them, joined
and extended the one above the other, seeming to pray God devoutly.
“Panurge suddenly moved his right hand in the air, placed the right-hand
thumb at the right-hand nostril, holding the four fingers stretched out
and arrayed in parallel lines with the point of the nose; shutting the
left eye entirely, and winking with the right, making a profound
depression with eyebrow and eyelid. Next he raised aloft the left with a
strong clinching and extension of the four fingers and elevation of the
thumb, and held it in line directly corresponding with the position of
the right, the distance between the two being a cubit and a half. This
done, in the like manner he lowered towards the ground both hands, and
finally held them in the midst as if aiming straight at the Englishman’s
nose.”
And so on at great length. The whole performance of Panurge was to save
the credit of Pantagruel by making fantastic and mystic motions in
pretended disputation with the signs given by Thaumast in good faith.
Yet the latter confessed himself conquered, and declared that he had
derived inestimable information from the purposely meaningless gestures.
The satire upon the diverse interpretations of the gestures of
Naz-de-cabre (_Pantagruel_, Book III, chap. xx) is to the same effect,
showing it to have been a favorite theme with Rabelais.
ABBREVIATIONS.
A lesson was learned by the writer as to the abbreviation of signs, and
the possibility of discovering the original meaning of those most
obscure, from the attempts of a Cheyenne to convey the idea of _old
man_. He held his right hand forward, bent at elbow, fingers and thumb
closed sidewise. This not conveying any sense, he found a long stick,
bent his back, and supported his frame in a tottering step by the stick
held, as was before only imagined. Here at once was decrepit age
dependent on a staff. The principle of abbreviation or reduction may be
illustrated by supposing a person, under circumstances forbidding the
use of the voice, seeking to call attention to a particular bird on a
tree, and failing to do so by mere indication. Descriptive signs are
resorted to, perhaps suggesting the bill and wings of the bird, its
manner of clinging to the twig with its feet, its size by seeming to
hold it between the hands, its color by pointing to objects of the same
hue; perhaps by the action of shooting into a tree, picking up the
supposed fallen game, and plucking feathers. These are continued until
understood, and if one sign or combination of signs proves to be
successful it will be repeated on the next occasion by both persons
engaged, and after becoming familiar between them and others will be
more and more abbreviated. Conventionality in signs largely consists in
the form of abbreviation which is agreed upon. When the signs of the
Indians have from ideographic form thus become demotic, they may be
called conventional, but still not arbitrary. In them, as in all his
actions, man had at the first a definite meaning or purpose, together
with method in their subsequent changes or modifications.
Colonel Dodge gives a clear account of the manner in which an
established sign is abbreviated in practice, as follows: “There are an
almost infinite number and variety of abbreviations. For instance, to
tell a man to ‘talk,’ the most common formal sign is made thus: Hold the
right hand in front of, the back near, the mouth, end of thumb and
index-finger joined into an ‘O,’ the outer fingers closed on the palm;
throw the hand forward sharply by a quick motion of the wrist, and at
the same time flip forward the index-finger. This may be done once or
several times.
“The formal sign to ‘cease’ or ‘stop doing’ anything is made by bringing
the two hands open and held vertically in front of the body, one behind
the other, then quickly pass one upward, the other downward, simulating
somewhat the motion of the limbs of a pair of scissors, meaning ‘cut it
off.’ The latter sign is made in conversation in a variety of ways, but
habitually with one hand only.
“The formal sign to ‘stop talking’ is first to make the formal sign for
‘talk,’ then the formal sign for ‘cut;’ but this is commonly abbreviated
by first making the formal sign for ‘talk’ with the right hand, and then
immediately passing the same hand, open, fingers extended, downward
across and in front of the mouth, ‘talk, cut.’
“But though the Plains Indian, if asked for the sign to ‘stop talking,’
will properly give the sign either in its extended or abbreviated form
as above, he in conversation abbreviates it so much further that the
sign loses almost all resemblance to its former self. Whatever the
position of the hand, a turn of the wrist, a flip of the forefinger, and
a turn of the wrist back to its original position is fully equivalent to
the elaborate signs.”
It may be added that nearly every sign which to be intelligibly
described and as exhibited in full requires the use of both hands, is
outlined, with one hand only, by skillful Indians gesturing between
themselves, so as to be clearly understood between them. Two Indians,
whose blankets are closely held to their bodies by the left hand, which
is necessarily rendered unavailable for gesture, will severally thrust
the right from beneath the protecting folds and converse freely. The
same is true when one hand of each holds the bridle of a horse.
The Italian signs are also made in such abbreviated forms as to be
little more than hinted at, requiring a perfect knowledge of the full
and original form before the slight and often furtive suggestion of it
can be understood. Deaf-mutes continually seek by tacit agreement to
shorten their signs more and more. While the original of each may be
preserved in root or stem, it is only known to the proficient, as the
root or stem of a plant enables botanists, but no others, to distinguish
it. Thus the natural character of signs, the universal significance
which is their peculiarly distinctive feature, may and often does become
lost. From the operation of the principle of independent and individual
abbreviation inherent in all sign language, without any other cause,
that of the Indians must in one or two generations have become diverse,
even if it had in fact originated from one tribe in which all
conceptions and executions were absolute.
_ARE SIGNS CONVENTIONAL OR INSTINCTIVE?_
There has been much discussion on the question whether gesture signs
were originally invented, in the strict sense of that term, or whether
they result from a natural connection between them and the ideas
represented by them, that is whether they are conventional or
instinctive. Cardinal Wiseman (_Essays_, III, 537) thinks that they are
of both characters; but referring particularly to the Italian signs and
the proper mode of discovering their meaning, observes that they are
used primarily with words and from the usual accompaniment of certain
phrases. “For these the gestures become substitutes, and then by
association express all their meaning, even when used alone.” This would
be the process only where systematic gestures had never prevailed or had
been so disused as to be forgotten, and were adopted after elaborate
oral phrases and traditional oral expressions had become common. In
other parts of this paper it is suggested that conventionality chiefly
consists in abbreviation, and that signs are originally
self-interpreting, independent of words, and therefore in a certain
sense instinctive.
Another form of the above query, having the same intent, is whether
signs are arbitrary or natural. The answer will depend upon what the
observer considers to be natural to himself. A common sign among both
deaf-mutes and Indians for _woman_ consists in designating the
arrangement of the hair, but such a represented arrangement of hair
familiar to the gesturer as had never been seen by the person addressed
would not seem “natural” to the latter. It would be classed as
arbitrary, and could not be understood without context or explanation,
indeed without translation such as is required from foreign oral speech.
Signs most naturally, that is, appropriately, expressing a conception of
the thing signified, are first adopted and afterwards modified by
circumstances of environment, so as to appear, without full
understanding, conventional and arbitrary, yet they are as truly
“natural” as the signs for hearing, seeing, eating, and drinking, which
continue all over the world as they were first formed because there is
no change in those operations.
_CLASSES OF DIVERSITIES IN SIGNS._
While there is not sufficient evidence that any exhibition of sign
language in any tribe is a dialect derived or corrupted from an
ascertained language in any other tribe, it still is convenient to
consider the different forms appearing in different tribes as several
dialects (in the usual mode of using that term) of a common language.
Every sign talker necessarily has, to some extent, a dialect of his own.
No one can use sign language without original invention and without
modification of the inventions of others; and all such new inventions
and modifications have a tendency to spread and influence the production
of other variations. The diversities thus occasioned are more distinct
than that mere individuality of style or expression which may be likened
to the differing chirography of men who write, although such individual
characteristics also constitute an important element of confusion to the
inexperienced observer. In differing handwriting there is always an
attempt or desire to represent an alphabet which is essentially
determinate, but no such fixedness or limited condition of form
restricts gesture speech.
Those variations and diversities of form and connected significance
specially calling for notice may be: 1st. In the nature of synonyms.
2d. Substantially the same form with such different signification as not
to be synonymous. 3d. Difference in significance produced by such slight
variation in form as to be, to a careless observer, _symmorphic_.
SYNONYMS.
In this division are placed signs of differing forms which are used in
senses so nearly the same as to have only a slight shade of distinction,
or sometimes to be practically interchangeable. The comprehensive and
metaphorical character of signs renders more of them interchangeable
than is the case with words; still, like words, some signs with
essential resemblance of meaning have partial and subordinate
differences made by etymology or usage. Doubtless signs are purposely
selected as delineating the most striking outlines of an object, or the
most characteristic features of an action; but different individuals,
and likewise different bodies of people, would not always agree in the
selection of those outlines and features. Taking the illustration of the
attempt to invent a sign for _bird_, before used, any one of a dozen
signs might have been agreed upon with equal appropriateness, and, in
fact, a number have been so selected by several individuals and tribes,
each one, therefore, being a synonym of the other. Another example of
this is in the signs for _deer_, designated by various modes of
expressing fleetness, by his gait when not in rapid motion, by the shape
of his horns, by the color of his tail, and sometimes by combinations of
several of those characteristics. Each of these signs may be
indefinitely abbreviated, and therefore create indefinite diversity.
Another illustration, in which an association of ideas is apparent, is
in the upward raising of the index in front of and above the head, which
means _above_ (sometimes containing the religious conception of _heaven,
great spirit_, &c.), and also _now, to-day_. Not unfrequently these
several signs to express the same ideas are used interchangeably by the
same people, and some one of the duplicates or triplicates may have been
noticed by separate observers to the exclusion of the others. On the
other hand, they might all have been noticed, but each one among
different bodies. Thus confusing reports would be received, which might
either be erroneous in deducing the prevalence of particular signs or
the opposite. Sometimes the synonym may be recognized as an imported
sign, used with another tribe known to affect it. Sometimes the diverse
signs to express the same thing are only different trials at reaching
the intelligence of the person addressed. An account is given by Lieut.
Heber M. Creel, Seventh Cavalry, U.S.A., of an old Cheyenne squaw, who
made about twenty successive and original signs to a recruit of the
Fourth Cavalry to let him know that she wanted to obtain out of a wagon
a piece of cloth belonging to her, to wipe out an oven preparatory to
baking bread. Thus by tradition, importation, recent invention, or from
all these causes together, several signs entirely distinct are produced
for the same object or action.
THE SAME SIGN WITH DIVERSE MEANINGS.
This class is not intended to embrace the cases common both to sign and
oral language where the same sign has several meanings, according to the
expression, whether facial or vocal, and the general manner accompanying
its delivery. The sign given, for “stop talking” on page 339 may be used
in simple acquiescence, “very well,” “all right!” or for comprehension,
“I understand;” or in impatience, “you have talked enough!” which may be
carried further to express actual anger in the violent “shut up!” But
all these grades of thought accompany the idea of a cessation of talk.
In like manner an acquaintance of the writer asking the same favor
(a permission to go through their camp) of two chiefs, was answered by
both with the sign generally used for repletion after eating, viz., the
index and thumb turned toward the body, passed up from the abdomen to
the throat; but in the one case, being made with a gentle motion and
pleasant look, it meant, “I am satisfied,” and granted the request; in
the other, made violently, with the accompaniment of a truculent frown,
it read, “I have had enough of that!” But these two meanings might also
have been expressed by different intonations of the English word
“enough.” The class of signs now in view is better exemplified by the
French word _souris_, which is spelled and pronounced precisely the same
with the two wholly distinct and independent significations of _smile_
and _mouse_. From many examples may be selected the Omaha sign for
_think, guess_, which is precisely the same as that of the Absaroka,
Shoshoni and Banak for _brave_, see page 414. The context alone, both of
the sign and the word, determines in what one of its senses it is at the
time used, but it is not discriminated merely by a difference in
expression.
It would have been very remarkable if precisely the same sign were not
used by different or even the same persons or bodies of people with
wholly distinct significations. The graphic forms for objects and ideas
are much more likely to be coincident than sound is for similar
expressions, yet in all oral languages the same precise sound is used
for utterly diverse meanings. The first conception of many different
objects must have been the same. It has been found, indeed, that the
homophony of words and the homomorphy of ideographic pictures is
noticeable in opposite significations, the conceptions arising from the
opposition itself. The differentiation in portraiture or accent is a
subsequent and remedial step not taken until after the confusion has
been observed and become inconvenient. Such confusion and contradiction
would only be eliminated if sign language were absolutely perfect as
well as absolutely universal.
SYMMORPHS.
In this class are included those signs conveying different ideas, and
really different in form of execution as well as in conception, yet in
which the difference in form is so slight as practically to require
attention and discrimination. An example from oral speech may be found
in the English word “desert,” which, as pronounced “des´-ert” or
“desert´,” and in a slightly changed form, “dessert,” has such widely
varying significations. These distinctions relating to signs require
graphic illustration.
[Illustration: FIG. 112.]
[Illustration: FIG. 113.]
The sign made by the Dakota, Hidatsa, and several other tribes, for
_tree_ is made by holding the right hand before the body, back forward,
fingers and thumb separated, then pushing it slightly upward, Fig. 112.
That for _grass_ is the same made near the ground; that for _grow_ is
made like _grass_, though instead of holding the back of the hand near
the ground the hand is pushed upward in an interrupted manner, Fig. 113.
For _smoke_, the hand (with the back down, fingers pointing upward as in
_grow_) is thrown upward several times from the same place instead of
continuing the whole motion upward. Frequently the fingers are thrown
forward from under the thumb with each successive upward motion. For
_fire_, the hand is employed as in the gesture for _smoke_, but the
motion is frequently more waving, and in other cases made higher from
the ground.
The sign for _rain_, made by the Shoshoni, Apache, and other Indians, is
by holding the hand (or hands) at the height of and before the shoulder,
fingers pendent, palm down, then pushing it downward a short distance,
Fig. 114. That for _heat_ is the same, with the difference that the hand
is held above the head and thrust downward toward the forehead; that for
_to weep_ is made by holding the hand as in _rain_, and the gesture made
from the eye downward over the cheek, back of the fingers nearly
touching the face.
[Illustration: FIG. 114.]
The common sign for _sun_ is made by bringing the tips of the thumb and
index together so as to form a circle; remaining fingers closed. The
hand is then held toward the sky, Fig. 115. The motion with the same
circular position of index and thumb is for _want_, by bringing the hand
backward toward the mouth, in a curve forming a short arch between the
origin and termination of the gesture.
[Illustration: FIG. 115.]
For _drink_ the gesture by several tribes is the same as for _want_,
with the slight difference in the position of the last three fingers,
which are not so tightly clinched, forming somewhat the shape of a cup;
and that for _money_ is made by holding out the hand with the same
arrangement of fingers in front of the hips, at a distance of about
twelve or fifteen inches.
[Illustration: FIG. 116.]
Another sign for _sun_, made by the Cheyennes, is by placing the tips of
the partly separated thumb and index of one hand against those of the
other, approximating a circle, and holding them toward the sky, Fig.
116, and that for _various things_, observed among the Brulé Sioux with
the same position of the hands, is made by placing the circle
horizontal, and moving it interruptedly toward the right side, each
movement forming a short arch. Compare also the sign for _village_,
described on page 386.
The Arikara sign for _soldier_ is by placing the clinched hands together
before the breast, thumbs touching, then drawing them horizontally
outward toward their respective sides, Fig. 117. That for _done_, made
by the Hidatsa, is shown below in this paper, see Fig. 334, page 528.
That for _much_ (_Cheyenne_ I, _Comanche_ III), see Fig. 274, page 447,
is to be correlated with the above.
[Illustration: FIG. 117.]
The sign for _to be told_ or _talked to_, and for the reception of
speech, by the tribes generally, is made by placing the flat right hand,
palm upward, about fifteen inches in front of the right side of the face
or breast, fingers pointing to the left, then drawing the hand toward
the bottom of the chin, and is illustrated in Fig. 71, page 291. The
Comanche sign for _give_ or _asking_ is shown in Fig. 301, page 480
(_Comanche_ III), and is made by bringing the hand toward the body but a
short distance, and the motion repeated, the tips of the fingers
indicating the outline of a circle.
The tribal sign for _Kaiowa_, illustrated in its place among the TRIBAL
SIGNS, is made by holding the hand with extended and separated fingers
and thumb near the side of the head, back outward, and giving it a
rotary motion. This gesture is made in front of the face by many tribes.
The generic sign for _deer_, made by the Dakota and some others, is by
holding the hand motionless at the side of the head, with extended and
separated thumb and fingers, representing the branched antlers. That for
_fool_, reported from the same Indians, is the same as above described
for _Kaiowa_, which it also signifies, though frequently only one or two
fingers are used.
The tribal sign both for the _Sahaptin_ or _Nez Percés_ and for _Caddo_
(see TRIBAL SIGNS) is made by passing the extended index, pointing under
the nose from right to left. When the second finger is not tightly
closed it strongly resembles the sign often made for _lie, falsehood_,
by passing the extended index and second fingers separated toward the
left, over the mouth.
The tribal sign for Cheyenne (see TRIBAL SIGNS) differs from the sign
for _spotted_ only in the finger (or hand) in the latter being
alternately passed across the upper and lower sides of the left forearm.
The sign for _steal, theft_, see Fig. 75, page 293, is but slightly
different from that for _bear_, see Fig. 239, page 413, especially when
the latter is made with one hand only. The distinction, however, is that
the grasping in the latter sign is not followed by the idea of
concealment in the former, which is executed by the right hand, after
the motion of grasping, being brought toward and sometimes under the
left armpit.
_Cold_ and _winter_, see Tendoy-Huerito Dialogue, page 486, may be
compared with _love_, see Kin Chē-ĕss’ speech, page 521, and with
_prisoner_. In these the difference consists in that _cold_ and _winter_
are represented by crossing the arms with clinched hands before the
breast; _love_ by crossing the arms so as to bring the fists more under
the chin, and _prisoner_ by holding the crossed wrists a foot in front
of the breast.
_Melon, squash, muskmelon_, used by the Utes and Apaches, is made by
holding the hand arched, fingers separated and pointing forward, and
pushing the hand forward over a slight curve near the ground, and the
generic sign for _animals_ by the Apaches is made in the same manner at
the height intended to represent the object.
The sign for _where?_, and _to search, to seek for_, made by the Dakota
(IV), is by holding the back of the hand upward, index pointing forward,
and carrying it from left to right about eight inches, raising and
lowering it several times while so doing, as if quickly pointing at
different objects. That for _some of them_, a part of a number of things
or persons, made by the Kaiowa, Comanche, Wichita, and Apache Indians is
nearly identical, the gesture being made less rapidly.
RESULTS SOUGHT IN THE STUDY OF SIGN LANGUAGE.
These may be divided into (1) its practical application, (2) its aid to
philologic researches in general with (3) particular reference to the
grammatic machinery of language, and (4) its archæologic relations.
_PRACTICAL APPLICATION._
The most obvious application of Indian sign language will for its
practical utility depend, to a large extent, upon the correctness of the
view submitted by the present writer that it is not a mere semaphoric
repetition of motions to be memorized from a limited traditional list,
but is a cultivated art, founded upon principles which can be readily
applied by travelers and officials, so as to give them much independence
of professional interpreters--as a class dangerously deceitful and
tricky. This advantage is not merely theoretical, but has been
demonstrated to be practical by a professor in a deaf-mute college who,
lately visiting several of the wild tribes of the plains, made himself
understood among all of them without knowing a word of any of their
languages; nor would it only be experienced in connection with American
tribes, being applicable to intercourse with savages in Africa and Asia,
though it is not pretended to fulfill by this agency the schoolmen’s
dream of an ecumenical mode of communication between all peoples in
spite of their dialectic divisions.
It must be admitted that the practical value of signs for intercourse
with the American Indians will not long continue, their general progress
in the acquisition of English or of Spanish being so rapid that those
languages are becoming, to a surprising extent, the common medium, and
signs are proportionally disused. Nor is a systematic use of signs of so
great assistance in communicating with foreigners, whose speech is not
understood, as might at first be supposed, unless indeed both parties
agree to cease all attempt at oral language, relying wholly upon
gestures. So long as words are used at all, signs will be made only as
their accompaniment, and they will not always be ideographic.
An amusing instance in which savages showed their preference to signs
instead of even an onomatope may be quoted from Wilfred Powell’s
_Observations on New Britain and neighboring Islands during Six Years’
Exploration_, in _Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc._, vol. iii, No. 2 (new monthly
series), February, 1881, p. 89, 90: “On one occasion, wishing to
purchase a pig, and not knowing very well how to set about it, being
ignorant of the dialect, which is totally different from that of the
natives in the north, I asked Mr. Brown how I should manage, or what he
thought would be the best way of making them understand. He said, ‘Why
don’t you try grunting?’ whereupon I began to grunt most vociferously.
The effect was magical. Some of them jumped back, holding their spears
in readiness to throw; others ran away, covering their eyes with their
hands, and all exhibited the utmost astonishment and alarm. In fact, it
was so evident that they expected me to turn into a pig, and their alarm
was so irresistibly comic, that Mr. Brown and I both burst out laughing,
on which they gradually became more reassured, and those that had run
away came back, and seeing us so heartily amused, and that I had not
undergone any metamorphosis, began to laugh too; but when I drew a pig
on the sand with a piece of stick, and made motions of eating, it
suddenly seemed to strike them what was the matter, for they all burst
out laughing, nodding their heads, and several of them ran off,
evidently in quest of the pig that was required.”
POWERS OF SIGNS COMPARED WITH SPEECH.
Sign language, being the mother utterance of nature, poetically styled
by Lamartine the visible attitudes of the soul, is superior to all
others in that it permits every one to find in nature an image to
express his thoughts on the most needful matters intelligently to any
other person. The direct or substantial natural analogy peculiar to it
prevents a confusion of ideas. It is to some extent possible to use
words without understanding them which yet may be understood by those
addressed, but it is hardly possible to use signs without full
comprehension of them. Separate words may also be comprehended by
persons hearing them without the whole connected sense of the words
taken together being caught, but signs are more intimately connected.
Even those most appropriate will not be understood if the subject is
beyond the comprehension of their beholders. They would be as
unintelligible as the wild clicks of his instrument, in an electric
storm, would be to the telegrapher, or as the semaphore, driven by wind,
to the signalist. In oral speech even onomatopes are arbitrary, the most
strictly natural sounds striking the ear of different individuals and
nations in a manner wholly diverse. The instances given by SAYCE are in
point. Exactly the same sound was intended to be reproduced in the
“_bilbit_ amphora” of Nævius, the “_glut glut_ murmurat unda sonans” of
the Latin Anthology, and the “_puls_” of Varro. The Persian “_bulbul_,”
the “_jugjug_” of Gascoigne, and the “_whitwhit_” of others are all
attempts at imitating the note of the nightingale. Successful signs must
have a much closer analogy and establish a _consensus_ between the
talkers far beyond that produced by the mere sound of words.
Gestures, in the degree of their pantomimic character, excel in graphic
and dramatic effect applied to narrative and to rhetorical exhibition,
and beyond any other mode of description give the force of reality.
Speech, when highly cultivated, is better adapted to generalization and
abstraction; therefore to logic and metaphysics. The latter must ever
henceforth be the superior in formulating thoughts. Some of the
enthusiasts in signs have contended that this unfavorable distinction is
not from any inherent incapability, but because their employment has not
been continued unto perfection, and that if they had been elaborated by
the secular labor devoted to spoken language they might in resources and
distinctiveness have exceeded many forms of the latter. Gallaudet, Peet,
and others maybe right in asserting that man could by his arms, hands,
and fingers, with facial and bodily accentuation, express any idea that
could be conveyed by words.
The combinations which can be made with corporeal signs are infinite. It
has been before argued that a high degree of culture might have been
attained by man without articulate speech and it is but a further step
in the reasoning to conclude that if articulate speech had not been
possessed or acquired, necessity would have developed gesture language
to a degree far beyond any known exhibition of it. The continually
advancing civilization and continually increasing intercourse of
countless ages has perfected oral speech, and as both civilization and
intercourse were possible with signs alone it is to be supposed that
they would have advanced in some corresponding manner. But as sign
language has been chiefly used during historic time either as a
scaffolding around a more valuable structure to be thrown aside when the
latter was completed, or as an occasional substitute, such development
was not to be expected.
The process of forming signs to express abstract ideas is only a variant
from that of oral speech, in which the words for the most abstract
ideas, such as law, virtue, infinitude, and immortality, are shown by
Max Müller to have been derived and deduced, that is, abstracted, from
sensuous impressions. In the use of signs the countenance and manner as
well as the tenor decide whether objects themselves are intended, or the
forms, positions, qualities, and motions of other objects which are
suggested, and signs for moral and intellectual ideas, founded on
analogies, are common all over the world as well as among deaf-mutes.
Concepts of the intangible and invisible are only learned through
percepts of tangible and visible objects, whether finally expressed to
the eye or to the ear, in terms of sight or of sound.
Sign language is so faithful to nature, and so essentially living in its
expression, that it is not probable that it will ever die. It may become
disused, but will revert. Its elements are ever natural and universal,
by recurring to which the less natural signs adopted dialectically or
for expedition can always, with some circumlocution, be explained. This
power of interpreting itself is a peculiar advantage, for spoken
languages, unless explained by gestures or indications, can only be
interpreted by means of some other spoken language. When highly
cultivated, its rapidity on familiar subjects exceeds that of speech and
approaches to that of thought itself. This statement may be startling to
those who only notice that a selected spoken word may convey in an
instant a meaning for which the motions of even an expert in signs may
require a much longer time, but it must be considered that oral speech
is now wholly conventional, and that with the similar development of
sign language conventional expressions with hands and body could be made
more quickly than with the vocal organs, because more organs could be
worked at once. Without such supposed development the habitual
communication between deaf-mutes and among Indians using signs is
perhaps as rapid as between the ignorant class of speakers upon the same
subjects, and in many instances the signs would win at a trial of speed.
At the same time it must be admitted that great increase in rapidity is
chiefly obtained by the system of preconcerted abbreviations, before
explained, and by the adoption of arbitrary forms, in which naturalness
is sacrificed and conventionality established, as has been the case with
all spoken languages in the degree in which they have become copious and
convenient.
There is another characteristic of the gesture speech that, though it
cannot be resorted to in the dark, nor where the attention of the person
addressed has not been otherwise attracted, it has the countervailing
benefit of use when the voice could not be employed. This may be an
advantage at a distance which the eye can reach, but not the ear, and
still more frequently when silence or secrecy is desired. Dalgarno
recommends it for use in the presence of great people, who ought not to
be disturbed, and curiously enough “Disappearing Mist,” the Iroquois
chief, speaks of the former extensive use of signs in his tribe by women
and boys as a mark of respect to warriors and elders, their voices, in
the good old days, not being uplifted in the presence of the latter. The
decay of that wholesome state of discipline, he thinks, accounts partly
for the disappearance of the use of signs among the modern impudent
youth and the dusky claimants of woman’s rights.
An instance of the additional power gained to a speaker of ordinary
language by the use of signs, impressed the writer while dictating to
two amanuenses at the same moment, to the one by signs and the other by
words, on different subjects, a practice which would have enabled Cæsar
to surpass his celebrated feat. It would also be easy to talk to a deaf
and blind man at once, the latter being addressed by the voice and the
former in signs.
_RELATIONS TO PHILOLOGY._
The aid to be derived from the study of sign language in prosecuting
researches into the science of language was pointed out by LEIBNITZ, in
his _Collectanea Etymologica_, without hitherto exciting any thorough or
scientific work in that direction, the obstacle to it probably being
that scholars competent in other respects had no adequate data of the
gesture speech of man to be used in comparison. The latter will, it is
hoped, be supplied by the work now undertaken.
In the first part of this paper it was suggested that signs played an
important part in giving meaning to spoken words. Philology, comparing
the languages of earth in their radicals, must therefore include the
graphic or manual presentation of thought, and compare the elements of
ideography with those of phonics. Etymology now examines the ultimate
roots, not the fanciful resemblances between oral forms, in the
different tongues; the internal, not the mere external parts of
language. A marked peculiarity of sign language consists in its limited
number of radicals and the infinite combinations into which those
radicals enter while still remaining distinctive. It is therefore a
proper field for etymologic study.
From these and other considerations it is supposed that an analysis of
the original conceptions of gestures, studied together with the
holophrastic roots in the speech of the gesturers, may aid in the
ascertainment of some relation between concrete ideas and words. Meaning
does not adhere to the phonic presentation of thought, while it does to
signs. The latter are doubtless more flexible and in that sense more
mutable than words, but the ideas attached to them are persistent, and
therefore there is not much greater metamorphosis in the signs than in
the cognitions. The further a language has been developed from its
primordial roots, which have been twisted into forms no longer
suggesting any reason for their original selection, and the more the
primitive significance of its words has disappeared, the fewer points of
contact can it retain with signs. The higher languages are more precise
because the consciousness of the derivation of most of their words is
lost, so that they have become counters, good for any sense agreed upon
and for no other.
It is, however, possible to ascertain the included gesture even in many
English words. The class represented by the word _supercilious_ will
occur to all readers, but one or two examples may be given not so
obvious and more immediately connected with the gestures of our Indians.
_Imbecile_, generally applied to the weakness of old age, is derived
from the Latin _in_, in the sense of on, and _bacillum_, a staff, which
at once recalls the Cheyenne sign for _old man_, mentioned above, page
339. So _time_ appears more nearly connected with τείνω to stretch,
when information is given of the sign for _long time_, in the Speech of
Kin Chē-ĕss, in this paper, viz., placing the thumbs and forefingers in
such a position as if a small thread was held between the thumb and
forefinger of each hand, the hands first touching each other, and
then moving slowly from each other, as if _stretching_ a piece of
gum-elastic.
In the languages of North America, which have not become arbitrary to
the degree exhibited by those of civilized man, the connection between
the idea and the word is only less obvious than that still unbroken
between the idea and the sign, and they remain strongly affected by the
concepts of outline, form, place, position, and feature on which gesture
is founded, while they are similar in their fertile combination of
radicals.
Indian language consists of a series of words that are but slightly
differentiated parts of speech following each other in the order
suggested in the mind of the speaker without absolute laws of
arrangement, as its sentences are not completely integrated. The
sentence necessitates parts of speech, and parts of speech are possible
only when a language has reached that stage where sentences are
logically constructed. The words of an Indian tongue, being synthetic or
undifferentiated parts of speech, are in this respect strictly analogous
to the gesture elements which enter into a sign language. The study of
the latter is therefore valuable for comparison with the words of the
former. The one language throws much light upon the other, and neither
can be studied to the best advantage without a knowledge of the other.
Some special resemblances between the language of signs and the
character of the oral languages found on this continent may be
mentioned. Dr. J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL remarks of the composition of their
words that they were “so constructed as to be thoroughly self-defining
and immediately intelligible to the hearer.” In another connection the
remark is further enforced: “Indeed, it is a requirement of the Indian
languages that every word shall be so framed as to admit of immediate
resolution to its significant elements by the hearer. It must be
thoroughly _self-defining_, for (as Max Müller has expressed it) ‘it
requires tradition, society, and literature to maintain words which can
no longer be analyzed at once.’ * * * In the ever-shifting state of a
nomadic society no debased coin can be tolerated in language, no obscure
legend accepted on trust. The metal must be pure and the legend
distinct.”
Indian languages, like those of higher development, sometimes exhibit
changes of form by the permutation of vowels, but often an incorporated
particle, whether suffix, affix, or infix, shows the etymology which
often, also, exhibits the same objective conception that would be
executed in gesture. There are, for instance, different forms for
standing, sitting, lying, falling, &c., and for standing, sitting, lying
on or falling from the same level or a higher or lower level. This
resembles the pictorial conception and execution of signs.
Major J. W. POWELL, with particular reference to the disadvantages of
the multiplied inflections in Indian languages, alike with the Greek and
Latin, when the speaker is compelled, in the choice of a word to express
his idea, to think of a great multiplicity of things, gives the
following instance:
“A Ponca Indian in saying that a man killed a rabbit, would have to say:
the man, he, one, animate, standing, in the nominative case, purposely
killed, by shooting an arrow, the rabbit, he, the one, animate, sitting,
in the objective case; for the form of a verb to kill would have to be
selected, and the verb changes its form by inflection and incorporated
particles to denote person, number, and gender as animate or inanimate,
and gender as standing, sitting, or lying, and case; and the form of the
verb would also express whether the killing was done accidentally or
purposely, and whether it was by shooting or by some other process, and,
if by shooting, whether by bow and arrow, or with a gun; and the form of
the verb would in like manner have to express all of these things
relating to the object; that is, the person, number, gender, and case of
the object; and from the multiplicity of paradigmatic forms of the verb
to kill, this particular one would have to be selected.” This is
substantially the mode in which an Indian sign talker would find it
necessary to tell the story, as is shown by several examples given below
in narratives, speeches, and dialogues.
Indian languages exhibit the same fondness for demonstration which is
necessary in sign language. The two forms of utterance are alike in
their want of power to express certain words, such as the verb “to be,”
and in the criterion of organization, so far as concerns a high degree
of synthesis and imperfect differentiation, they bear substantially the
same relation to the English language.
It may finally be added that as not only proper names but nouns,
generally in Indian languages are connotive, predicating some attribute
of the object, they can readily be expressed by gesture signs, and
therefore among them, if anywhere, it is to be expected that relations
may be established between the words and the signs.
ETYMOLOGY OF WORDS FROM GESTURES.
There can be no attempt in the present limits to trace the etymology of
any large number of words in the several Indian languages to a gestural
origin, nor, if the space allowed, would it be satisfactory. The signs
have scarcely yet been collected, verified, and collated in sufficient
numbers for such comparison, even with the few of the Indian languages
the radicals of which have been scientifically studied. The signs will,
in a future work, be frequently presented in connection with the
corresponding words of the gesturers, as is done now in a few instances
in another part of this paper. For the present the subject is only
indicated by the following examples, introduced to suggest the character
of the study in which the students of American linguistics are urgently
requested to assist:
The Dakota word _Shaⁿte-suta_--from _shaⁿte_, heart, and _suta_,
strong--_brave_, not cowardly, literally strong-hearted, is made by
several tribes of that stock, and particularly by the Brulé Sioux, in
gestures by collecting the tips of the fingers and thumb of the right
hand to a point, and then placing the radial side of the hand over the
heart, finger tips pointing downward--_heart_; then place the left fist,
palm inward, horizontally before the lower portion of the breast, the
right fist back of the left, then raise the right and throw it forcibly
over and downward in front of the left--_brave, strong_. See Fig. 242,
page 415.
The Arikaras make the sign for _brave_ by striking the clinched fist
forcibly toward the ground in front of and near the breast.
Brave, or “strong-hearted,” is made by the Absaroka, Shoshoni, and Banak
Indians by merely placing the clinched fist to the breast, the latter
having allusion to the heart, the clinching of the hand to strength,
vigor, or force.
An Ojibwa sign for _death, to die_, is as follows:
Place the palm of the hand at a short distance from the side of the
head, then withdraw it gently in an oblique downward direction,
inclining the head and upper part of the body in the same direction.
The same authority, The Very Rev. E. Jacker, who contributes it, notes
that there is an apparent connection between this conception and
execution and the etymology of the corresponding terms in Ojibwa. “He
dies,” is _nibo_; “he sleeps,” is _niba_. The common idea expressed by
the gesture is a sinking to rest. The original significance of the root
_nib_ seems to be “leaning;” _anibeia_, “it is leaning”; _anibekweni_,
“he inclines the head sidewards.” The word _niba_ or _nibe_ (only in
compounds) conveys the idea of “night,” perhaps as the falling over, the
going to rest, or the death of the day.
_Ogima_, the Ojibwa term for _chief_, is derived from a root which
signifies “above” (_Ogidjaii_, upon; _ogidjina_, above; _ogidaki_, on a
hill or mountain, etc.). _Ogitchida_, a brave, a hero (Otawa, _ogida_),
is probably from the same root.
_Sagima_, the Ojibwa form of sachem, is from the root _sag_, which
implies a coming forth, or stretching out. These roots are to be
considered in connection with several gestures described under the head
of _Chief_, in EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY, _infra_.
_Onijishin_, it is _good_ (_Ojibwa_), originally signifies “it lies
level.” This may be compared with the sign for _good_, in the
Tendoy-Huerito Dialogue, Fig. 309, page 487, and also that for _happy,
contentment_, in the Speech of Kin Chē-ĕss, page 523.
In Klamath the radix _lam_ designates a whirling motion, and appears in
the word _láma_, “to be crazy, mad,” readily correlated with the common
gesture for _madman_ and _fool_, in which the hand is rotated above and
near the head.
_Evening_, in Klamath, is _litkhí_, from _luta_, to hang down, meaning
the time when the sun hangs down, the gesture for which, described
elsewhere in this paper (see Nátci’s Narrative, page 503), is executive
of the same conception, which is allied to the etymology usually given
for _eve, even_, “the decline of the day.” These Klamath etymologies
have been kindly contributed by Mr. A. S. Gatschet.
The Very Rev. E. Jacker also communicates a suggestive _excursus
exegeticus_ upon the probable gestural origin of the Ojibwa word
_tibishko_, “opposite in space; just so; likewise:”
“The adverb _tibishko_ (or _dibishko_) is an offshoot of the root _tib_
(or _dib_), which in most cases conveys the idea of measuring or
weighing, as appears from the following samples: _dibaige_, he measures;
_dibowe_, he settles matters by his speech or word, _e.g._, as a
juryman; _dibaamage_, he pays out; _dibakonige_, he judges;
_dibabishkodjige_, he weighs; _dibamenimo_, he restricts himself,
_e.g._, to a certain quantity of food; _dibissitchige_, he fulfills a
promise; _dibijigan_, a pattern for cutting clothes.
“The original meaning of _tib_, however, must be supposed to have been
more comprehensive, if we would explain other (apparent) derivatives,
such as: _tibi_, ‘I don’t know where, where to, where from,’ &c.;
_tibik_, night; _dibendjige_, he is master or owner; _titibisse_, it
rolls (as a ball), it turns (as a wheel); _dibaboweigan_, the cover of a
kettle. The notion of measuring does not very naturally enter into the
ideas expressed by these terms.
“The difficulty disappears if we assume the root _tib_ or _dib_ to have
been originally the phonetic equivalent of a _gesture_ expressive of the
notion of covering as well as of that of measuring. This gesture would
seem to be the holding of one hand above the other, horizontally, at
some distance, palms opposite or both downwards. This, or some similar
gesture would most naturally accompany the above terms. As for _tibik_,
night, compare (_Dunbar_): ‘The two hands open and extended, crossing
one another horizontally.’ The idea of covering evidently enters into
this conception. The strange adverb _tibi_ (‘I don’t know where,’ &c.,
or ‘in a place unknown to me’), if derived from the same root, would
originally signify ‘covered.’ In _titibisse_, or _didibisse_ (it rolls,
it turns), the reduplication of the radical syllable indicates the
repetition of the gesture, by holding the hands alternately above one
another, palms downwards, and thus producing a rotary motion.
“In German, the clasping of the hands in a horizontal position,
expressive of a promise or the conclusion of a bargain, is frequently
accompanied by the interjection _top!_ the same radical consonants as
in _tib_. Compare also the English _tap_, the French _tape_, the Greek
τύπτω, the Sanscrit _tup_ and _tub_, &c.”
GESTURES CONNECTED WITH THE ORIGIN OF WRITING.
Though written characters are generally associated with speech, they are
shown, by successful employment in hieroglyphs and by educated
deaf-mutes to be representative of ideas without the intervention of
sounds, and so also are the outlines of signs. This will be more
apparent if the motions expressing the most prominent feature,
attribute, or function of an object are made, or supposed to be made, so
as to leave a luminous track impressible upon the eye separate from the
members producing it. The actual result is an immateriate graphic
representation of visible objects and qualities which, invested with
substance, has become familiar to us as the _rebus_, and also appears in
the form of heraldic blazonry styled punning or “canting.”
Gesture language is, in fact, not only a picture language, but is actual
writing, though dissolving and sympathetic, and neither alphabetic nor
phonetic.
Dalgarno aptly says: “_Qui enim caput nutat, oculo connivet, digitum
movet in aëre, &c., (ad mentis cogitata exprimendum); is non minus vere
scribit, quam qui Literas pingit in Charta, Marmore, vel ære._”
It is neither necessary nor proper to enter now upon any prolonged
account of the origin of alphabetic writing. There is, however,
propriety, if not necessity, for the present writer, when making any
remarks under this heading and under some others in this paper
indicating special lines of research, to disclaim all pretension to
being a Sinologue or Egyptologist, or even profoundly versed in Mexican
antiquities. His partial and recently commenced studies only enable him
to present suggestions for the examination of scholars. These
suggestions may safely be introduced by the statement that the common
modern alphabetic characters, coming directly from the Romans, were
obtained by them from the Greeks, and by the latter from the Phœnicians,
whose alphabet was connected with that of the old Hebrew. It has also
been of late the general opinion that the whole family of alphabets to
which the Greek, Latin, Gothic, Runic, and others belong, appearing
earlier in the Phœnician, Moabite, and Hebrew, had its beginning in the
ideographic pictures of the Egyptians, afterwards used by them to
express sounds. That the Chinese, though in a different manner from the
Egyptians, passed from picture writing to phonetic writing, is
established by delineations still extant among them, called _ku-wăn_, or
“ancient pictures,” with which some of the modern written characters can
be identified. The ancient Mexicans also, to some extent, developed
phonetic expressions out of a very elaborate system of ideographic
picture writing. Assuming that ideographic pictures made by ancient
peoples would be likely to contain representations of gesture signs,
which subject is treated of below, it is proper to examine if traces of
such gesture signs may not be found in the Egyptian, Chinese, and Aztec
characters. Only a few presumptive examples, selected from a
considerable number, are now presented in which the signs of the North
American Indians appear to be included, with the hope that further
investigation by collaborators will establish many more instances not
confined to Indian signs.
A typical sign made by the Indians for _no, negation_, is as follows:
The hand extended or slightly curved is held in front of the body,
a little to the right of the median line; it is then carried with a
rapid sweep a foot or more farther to the right. (_Mandan and
Hidatsa_ I.)
One for _none, nothing_, sometimes used for simple negation, is also
given: Throw both hands outward toward their respective sides from the
breast. (_Wyandot_ I.)
With these compare the two forms of the Egyptian character for _no,
negation_, Fig. 118, taken from Champollion, _Grammaire Égyptienne_,
_Paris_, 1836, p. 519.
[Illustration: FIG. 118.]
No vivid fancy is needed to see the hands indicated at the extremities
of arms extended symmetrically from the body on each side.
[Illustration: FIG. 119.]
Also compare the Maya character for the same idea of negation, Fig. 119,
found in Landa, _Relation des Choses de Yucatan_, _Paris_, 1864, 316.
The Maya word for negation is “_ma_,” and the word “_mak_,” a six-foot
measuring rod, given by Brasseur de Bourbourg in his dictionary,
apparently having connection with this character, would in use separate
the hands as illustrated, giving the same form as the gesture made
without the rod.
Another sign for _nothing, none_, made by the Comanches, is: Flat hand
thrown forward, back to the ground, fingers pointing forward and
downward. Frequently the right hand is brushed over the left thus thrown
out.
[Illustration: FIG. 120.]
Compare the Chinese character for the same meaning, Fig. 120. This will
not be recognized as a hand without study of similar characters, which
generally have a cross-line cutting off the wrist. Here the wrist bones
follow under the cross cut, then the metacarpal bones, and last the
fingers, pointing forward and downward.
[Illustration: FIG. 121.]
[Illustration: FIG. 122.]
[Illustration: FIG. 123.]
The Arapaho sign for _child, baby_, is the forefinger in the mouth,
_i.e._, a nursing child, and a natural sign of a deaf-mute is the same.
The Egyptian figurative character for the same is seen in Fig. 121. Its
linear form is Fig. 122, and its hieratic is Fig. 123 (Champollion,
_Dictionnaire Égyptien_, _Paris_, 1841, p. 31).
[Illustration: FIG. 124.]
[Illustration: FIG. 125.]
[Illustration: FIG. 126.]
[Illustration: FIG. 127.]
These afford an interpretation to the ancient Chinese form for _son_,
Fig. 124, given in _Journ. Royal Asiatic Society_, I, 1834, p. 219, as
belonging to the Shang dynasty, 1756, 1112 B.C., and the modern Chinese
form, Fig. 125, which, without the comparison, would not be supposed to
have any pictured reference to an infant with hand or finger at or
approaching the mouth, denoting the taking of nourishment. Having now
suggested this, the Chinese character for _birth_, Fig. 126, is
understood as the expression of a common gesture among the Indians,
particularly reported from the Dakota, for _born, to be born_, viz:
Place the left hand in front of the body, a little to the right, the
palm downward and slightly arched, then pass the extended right hand
downward, forward, and upward, forming a short curve underneath the
left, as in Fig. 127 (_Dakota_ V). This is based upon the curve followed
by the head of the child during birth, and is used generically. The same
curve, when made with one hand, appears in Fig. 128.
[Illustration: FIG. 128.]
It may be of interest to compare with the Chinese _child_ the Mexican
abbreviated character for _man_, Fig. 129, found in Pipart in _Compte
Rendu Cong. Inter. des Américanistes, 2^me Session_, _Luxembourg_,
1877, 1878, II, 359. The figure on the right is called the abbreviated
form of that by its side, yet its origin may be different.
[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 mammæ
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 stelē 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 139.]
The Egyptian character for the same is Fig. 139 (Champollion, _Dict._,
p. 429). The broken line is held to represent the movement of the water
on the surface of the stream. When made with one line less angular and
more waving it means _water_. It is interesting to compare with this the
identical character in the syllabary invented by a West African negro,
Mormoru Doalu Bukere, for _water_, [Symbol: water, represented by a wavy
line], mentioned by TYLOR in his _Early History of Mankind_, p. 103.
The abbreviated Egyptian sign for _water_ as a stream is Fig. 140
(Champollion, _loc. cit._), and the Chinese for the same is as in Fig.
141.
[Illustration: FIG. 140.]
[Illustration: FIG. 141.]
In the picture-writing of the Ojibwa the Egyptian abbreviated character,
with two lines instead of three, appears with the same signification.
The Egyptian character for _weep_, Fig. 142, an eye, with tears falling,
is also found in the pictographs of the Ojibwa (Schoolcraft, I, pl. 54,
Fig. 27), and is also made by the Indian gesture of drawing lines by the
index repeatedly downward from the eye, though perhaps more frequently
made by the full sign for _rain_, described on page 344, made with the
back of the hand downward from the eye--“eye rain.”
[Illustration: FIG. 142.]
The Egyptian character for _to be strong_ is Fig. 143 (Champollion,
_Dict._, p. 91), which is sufficiently obvious, but may be compared with
the sign for _strong_, made by some tribes as follows: Hold the clinched
fist in front of the right side, a little higher than the elbow, then
throw it forcibly about six inches toward the ground.
[Illustration: FIG. 143.]
A typical gesture for _night_ is as follows: Place the flat hands,
horizontally, about two feet apart, move them quickly in an upward curve
toward one another until the right lies across the left. “Darkness
covers all.” See Fig. 312, page 489.
[Illustration: FIG. 144.]
The conception of covering executed by delineating the object covered
beneath the middle point of an arch or curve, appears also clearly in
the Egyptian characters for _night_, Fig. 144 (Champollion, _Dict._,
p. 3).
The upper part of the character is taken separately to form that for
_sky_ (see page 372, _infra_).
[Illustration: FIG. 145.]
The Egyptian figurative and linear characters, Figs. 145 and 146
(Champollion, _Dict._, p. 28), for _calling upon_ and _invocation_, also
used as an interjection, scarcely require the quotation of an Indian
sign, being common all over the world.
[Illustration: FIG. 146.]
The gesture sign made by several tribes for _many_ is as follows: Both
hands, with spread and slightly curved fingers, are held pendent about
two feet apart before the thighs; then bring them toward one another,
horizontally, drawing them upward as they come together. (_Absaroka_ I;
_Shoshoni and Banak_ I; _Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II;
_Wichita_ II.) “An accumulation of objects.” This may be the same motion
indicated by the Egyptian character, Fig. 147, meaning to _gather
together_ (Champollion, _Dict._, p. 459).
[Illustration: FIG. 147.]
[Illustration: FIG. 148.]
[Illustration: FIG. 149.]
The Egyptian character, Fig. 148, which in its linear form is
represented in Fig. 149, and meaning to _go_, to _come, locomotion_, is
presented to show readers unfamiliar with hieroglyphics how a corporeal
action may be included in a linear character without being obvious or at
least certain, unless it should be made clear by comparison with the
full figurative form or by other means. This linear form might be
noticed many times without certainty or perhaps suspicion that it
represented the human legs and feet in the act of walking. The same
difficulty, of course, as also the same prospect of success by careful
research, attends the tracing of other corporeal motions which more
properly come under the head of gesture signs.
_SIGN LANGUAGE WITH REFERENCE TO GRAMMAR._
Apart from the more material and substantive relations between signs and
language, it is to be expected that analogies can by proper research be
ascertained between their several developments in the manner of their
use, that is, in their grammatic mechanism, and in the genesis of the
sentence. The science of language, ever henceforward to be studied
historically, must take account of the similar early mental processes in
which the phrase or sentence originated, both in sign and oral
utterance. In this respect, as in many others, the North American
Indians may be considered to be living representatives of prehistoric
man.
SYNTAX.
The reader will understand without explanation that there is in the
gesture speech no organized sentence such as is integrated in the
languages of civilization, and that he must not look for articles or
particles or passive voice or case or grammatic gender, or even what
appears in those languages as a substantive or a verb, as a subject or a
predicate, or as qualifiers or inflexions. The sign radicals, without
being specifically any of our parts of speech, may be all of them in
turn. There is, however, a grouping and sequence of the ideographic
pictures, an arrangement of signs in connected succession, which may be
classed under the scholastic head of syntax. This subject, with special
reference to the order of deaf-mute signs as compared with oral speech,
has been the theme of much discussion, some notes of which, condensed
from the speculations of M. Rémi Valade and others, follow in the next
paragraph without further comment than may invite attention to the
profound remark of LEIBNITZ.
In mimic construction there are to be considered both the order in which
the signs succeed one another and the relative positions in which they
are made, the latter remaining longer in the memory than the former, and
spoken language may sometimes in its early infancy have reproduced the
ideas of a sign picture without commencing from the same point. So the
order, as in Greek and Latin, is very variable. In nations among whom
the alphabet was introduced without the intermediary to any impressive
degree of picture-writing, the order being (1) language of signs, almost
superseded by (2) spoken language, and (3) alphabetic writing, men would
write in the order in which they had been accustomed to speak. But if at
a time when spoken language was still rudimentary, intercourse being
mainly carried on by signs, figurative writing had been invented, the
order of the figures would be the order of the signs, and the same order
would pass into the spoken language. Hence LEIBNITZ says truly that “the
writing of the Chinese might seem to have been invented by a deaf
person.” The oral language has not known the phases which have given to
the Indo-European tongues their formation and grammatical parts. In the
latter, signs were conquered by speech, while in the former, speech
received the yoke.
Sign language cannot show by inflection the reciprocal dependence of
words and sentences. Degrees of motion corresponding with vocal
intonation are only used rhetorically or for degrees of comparison. The
relations of ideas and objects are therefore expressed by placement, and
their connection is established when necessary by the abstraction of
ideas. The sign talker is an artist, grouping persons and things so as
to show the relations between them, and the effect is that which is seen
in a picture. But though the artist has the advantage in presenting in a
permanent connected scene the result of several transient signs, he can
only present it as it appears at a single moment. The sign talker has
the succession of time at his disposal, and his scenes move and act, are
localized and animated, and their arrangement is therefore more varied
and significant.
It is not satisfactory to give the order of equivalent words as
representative of the order of signs, because the pictorial arrangement
is wholly lost; but adopting this expedient as a mere illustration of
the sequence in the presentation of signs by deaf-mutes, the following
is quoted from an essay by Rev. J. R. Keep, in _American Annals of the
Deaf and Dumb_, vol. xvi, p. 223, as the order in which the parable of
the Prodigal Son is translated into signs:
“Once, man one, sons two. Son younger say, Father property your divide:
part my, me give. Father so.--Son each, part his give. Days few after,
son younger money all take, country far go, money spend, wine drink,
food nice eat. Money by and by gone all. Country everywhere food little:
son hungry very. Go seek man any, me hire. Gentleman meet. Gentleman son
send field swine feed. Son swine husks eat, see--self husks eat
want--cannot--husks him give nobody. Son thinks, say, father my,
servants many, bread enough, part give away can--I none--starve, die.
I decide: Father I go to, say I bad, God disobey, you disobey--name my
hereafter _son_, no--I unworthy. You me work give servant like. So son
begin go. Father far look: son see, pity, run, meet, embrace. Son father
say, I bad, you disobey, God disobey--name my hereafter _son_, no--I
unworthy. But father servants call, command robe best bring, son put on,
ring finger put on, shoes feet put on, calf fat bring, kill. We all eat,
merry. Why? Son this my formerly dead, now alive: formerly lost, now
found: rejoice.”
It may be remarked, not only from this example, but from general study,
that the verb “to be” as a copula or predicant does not have any place
in sign language. It is shown, however, among deaf-mutes as an assertion
of presence or existence by a sign of stretching the arms and hands
forward and then adding the sign of affirmation. _Time_ as referred to
in the conjunctions _when_ and _then_ is not gestured. Instead of the
form, “When I have had a sleep I will go to the river,” or “After
sleeping I will go to the river,” both deaf-mutes and Indians would
express the intention by “Sleep done, I river go.” Though time present,
past, and future is readily expressed in signs (see page 366), it is
done once for all in the connection to which it belongs, and once
established is not repeated by any subsequent intimation, as is commonly
the case in oral speech. Inversion, by which the object is placed before
the action, is a striking feature of the language of deaf-mutes, and it
appears to follow the natural method by which objects and actions enter
into the mental conception. In striking a rock the natural conception is
not first of the abstract idea of striking or of sending a stroke into
vacancy, seeing nothing and having no intention of striking anything in
particular, when suddenly a rock rises up to the mental vision and
receives the blow; the order is that the man sees the rock, has the
intention to strike it, and does so; therefore he gestures, “I rock
strike.” For further illustration of this subject, a deaf-mute boy,
giving in signs the compound action of a man shooting a bird from a
tree, first represented the tree, then the bird as alighting upon it,
then a hunter coming toward and looking at it, taking aim with a gun,
then the report of the latter and the falling and the dying gasps of the
bird. These are undoubtedly the successive steps that an artist would
have taken in drawing the picture, or rather successive pictures, to
illustrate the story. It is, however, urged that this pictorial order
natural to deaf-mutes is not natural to the congenitally blind who are
not deaf-mute, among whom it is found to be rhythmical. It is asserted
that blind persons not carefully educated usually converse in a metrical
cadence, the action usually coming first in the structure of the
sentence. The deduction is that all the senses when intact enter into
the mode of intellectual conception in proportion to their relative
sensitiveness and intensity, and hence no one mode of ideation can be
insisted on as normal to the exclusion of others.
Whether or not the above statement concerning the blind is true, the
conceptions and presentations of deaf-mutes and of Indians using sign
language because they cannot communicate by speech, are confined to
optic and, therefore, to pictorial arrangement.
The abbé Sicard, dissatisfied with the want of tenses and conjunctions,
indeed of most of the modern parts of speech, in the natural signs, and
with their inverted order, attempted to construct a new language of
signs, in which the words should be given in the order of the French or
other spoken language adopted, which of course required him to supply a
sign for every word of spoken language. Signs, whatever their character,
could not become associated with words, or suggest them, until words had
been learned. The first step, therefore, was to explain by means of
natural signs, as distinct from the new signs styled methodical, the
meaning of a passage of verbal language. Then each word was taken
separately and a sign affixed to it, which was to be learned by the
pupil. If the word represented a physical object, the sign would be the
same as the natural sign, and would be already understood, provided the
object had been seen and was familiar; and in all cases the endeavor was
to have the sign convey as strong a suggestion of the meaning of the
word as was possible. The final step was to gesticulate these signs,
thus associated with words, in the exact order in which the words were
to stand in a sentence. Then the pupil would write the very words
desired in the exact order desired. If the previous explanation in
natural signs had not been sufficiently full and careful, he would not
understand the passage. The methodical signs did not profess to give him
the ideas, except in a very limited degree, but only to show him how to
express ideas according to the order and methods of spoken language. As
there were no repetitions of time in narratives in the sign language, it
became necessary to unite with the word-sign for verbs others, to
indicate the different tenses of the verbs, and so by degrees the
methodical signs not only were required to comprise signs for every
word, but also, with every such sign, a grammatical sign to indicate
what part of speech the word was, and, in the case of verbs, still other
signs to show their tenses and corresponding inflections. It was, as Dr.
Peet remarks, a cumbrous and unwieldly vehicle, ready at every step to
break down under the weight of its own machinery. Nevertheless, it was
industriously taught in all our schools from the date of the founding of
the American Asylum in 1817 down to about the year 1835, when it was
abandoned.
The collection of narratives, speeches, and dialogues of our Indians in
sign language, first systematically commenced by the present writer,
several examples of which are in this paper, has not yet been
sufficiently complete and exact to establish conclusions on the subject
of the syntactic arrangement of their signs. So far as studied it seems
to be similar to that of deaf-mutes and to retain the characteristic of
pantomimes in figuring first the principal idea and adding the
accessories successively in the order of importance, the ideographic
expressions being in the ideologic order. If the examples given are not
enough to establish general rules of construction, they at least show
the natural order of ideas in the minds of the gesturers and the several
modes of inversion by which they pass from the known to the unknown,
beginning with the dominant idea or that supposed to be best known. Some
special instances of expedients other than strictly syntactic coming
under the machinery broadly designated as grammar may be mentioned.
DEGREES OF COMPARISON.
Degrees of comparison are frequently expressed, both by deaf-mutes and
by Indians, by adding to the generic or descriptive sign that for “big”
or “little.” _Damp_ would be “wet--little”; _cool_, “cold--little”;
_hot_, “warm--much.” The amount or force of motion also often indicates
corresponding diminution or augmentation, but sometimes expresses a
different shade of meaning, as is reported by Dr. Matthews with
reference to the sign for _bad_ and _contempt_, see page 411. This
change in degree of motion is, however, often used for emphasis only, as
is the raising of the voice in speech or italicizing and capitalizing in
print. The Prince of Wied gives an instance of a comparison in his sign
for _excessively hard_, first giving that for _hard_, viz: Open the left
hand, and strike against it several times with the right (with the backs
of the fingers). Afterwards he gives _hard, excessively_, as follows:
Sign for _hard_, then place the left index-finger upon the right
shoulder, at the same time extend and raise the right arm high,
extending the index-finger upward, perpendicularly.
Rev. G. L. Deffenbaugh describes what may perhaps be regarded as an
intensive sign among the Sahaptins in connection with the sign for
_good_; _i.e._, _very good_. “Place the left hand in position in front
of the body with all fingers closed except first, thumb lying on second,
then with forefinger of right hand extended in same way point to end of
forefinger of left hand, move it up the arm till near the body and then
to a point in front of breast to make the sign _good_.” For the latter
see EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY page 487, _infra_. The same special motion
is prefixed to the sign for _bad_ as an intensive.
Another intensive is reported by Mr. Benjamin Clark, interpreter at the
Kaiowa, Comanche, and Wichita agency, Indian Territory, in which after
the sign for _bad_ is made, that for _strong_ is used by the Comanches
as follows: Place the clinched left fist horizontally in front of the
breast, back forward, then pass the palmar side of the right fist
downward in front of the knuckles of the left.
Dr. W. H. Corbusier, assistant surgeon U.S.A., writes as follows in
response to a special inquiry on the subject: “By carrying the right
fist from behind forward over the left, instead of beginning the motion
six inches above it, the Arapaho sign for _strong_ is made. For _brave_,
first strike the chest over the heart with the right fist two or three
times, and then make the sign for _strong_.
“The sign for _strong_ expresses the superlative when used with other
signs; with coward it denotes a base coward; with hunger, starvation;
and with sorrow, bitter sorrow. I have not seen it used with the sign
for pleasure or that of hunger, nor can I learn that it is ever used
with them.”
OPPOSITION.
The principle of opposition, as between the right and left hands, and
between the thumb and forefinger and the little finger, appears among
Indians in some expressions for “above,” “below,” “forward,” “back,” but
is not so common as among the methodical, distinguished from the
natural, signs of deaf-mutes. It is also connected with the attempt to
express degrees of comparison. _Above_ is sometimes expressed by holding
the left hand horizontal, and in front of the body, fingers open, but
joined together, palm upward. The right hand is then placed horizontal,
fingers open but joined, palm downward, an inch or more above the left,
and raised and lowered a few inches several times, the left hand being
perfectly still. If the thing indicated as “above” is only a _little_
above, this concludes the sign, but if it be _considerably_ above, the
right hand is raised higher and higher as the height to be expressed is
greater, until, if _enormously_ above, the Indian will raise his right
hand as high as possible, and, fixing his eyes on the zenith, emit a
duplicate grunt, the more prolonged as he desires to express the greater
height. All this time the left hand is held perfectly motionless.
_Below_ is gestured in a corresponding manner, all movement being made
by the left or lower hand, the right being held motionless, palm
downward, and the eyes looking down.
The code of the Cistercian monks was based in large part on a system of
opposition which seems to have been wrought out by an elaborate process
of invention rather than by spontaneous figuration, and is more of
mnemonic than suggestive value. They made two fingers at the right side
of the nose stand for “friend,” and the same at the left side for
“enemy,” by some fanciful connection with right and wrong, and placed
the little finger on the tip of the nose for “fool” merely because it
had been decided to put the forefinger there for “wise man.”
PROPER NAMES.
It is well known that the names of Indians are almost always connotive,
and particularly that they generally refer to some animal, predicating
often some attribute or position of that animal. Such names readily
admit of being expressed in sign language, but there may be sometimes a
confusion between the sign expressing the animal which is taken as a
name-totem, and the sign used, not to designate that animal, but as a
proper name. A curious device to differentiate proper names was observed
as resorted to by a Brulé Dakota. After making the sign of the animal he
passed his index forward from the mouth in a direct line, and explained
it orally as “that is his name,” _i.e._, the name of the person referred
to. This approach to a grammatic division of substantives maybe
correlated with the mode in which many tribes, especially the Dakotas,
designate names in their pictographs, _i.e._, by a line from the mouth
of the figure drawn representing a man to the animal, also drawn with
proper color or position. Fig. 150 thus shows the name of Shuⁿ-ka Luta,
Red Dog, an Ogallalla chief, drawn by himself. The shading of the dog by
vertical lines is designed to represent red, or _gules_, according to
the heraldic scheme of colors, which is used in other parts of this
paper where it seemed useful to designate particular colors. The writer
possesses in painted robes many examples in which lines are drawn from
the mouth to a name-totem.
[Illustration: FIG. 150.]
It would be interesting to dwell more than is now allowed upon the
peculiar objectiveness of Indian proper names with the result, if not
the intention, that they can all be signified in gesture, whereas the
best sign-talker among deaf-mutes is unable to translate the proper
names occurring in his speech or narrative and, necessarily ceasing
signs, resorts to the dactylic alphabet. Indians are generally named at
first according to a clan or totemic system, but later in life often
acquire a new name or perhaps several names in succession from some
exploit or adventure. Frequently a sobriquet is given by no means
complimentary. All of the subsequently acquired, as well as the original
names, are connected with material objects or with substantive actions
so as to be expressible in a graphic picture, and, therefore, in a
pictorial sign. The determination to use names of this connotive
character is shown by the objective translation, whenever possible, of
those European names which it became necessary to introduce into their
speech. William Penn was called “Onas,” that being the word for
feather-quill in the Mohawk dialect. The name of the second French
governor of Canada was “Montmagny” which was translated by the Iroquois
“Onontio”--“Great Mountain,” and becoming associated with the title, has
been applied to all successive Canadian governors, though the origin
being generally forgotten, it has been considered as a metaphorical
compliment. It is also said that Governor Fletcher was not named by the
Iroquois “Cajenquiragoe,” “the great swift arrow,” because of his speedy
arrival at a critical time, but because they had somehow been informed
of the etymology of his name--“arrow maker” (_Fr._ _fléchier_).
GENDER.
This is sometimes expressed by different signs to distinguish the sex of
animals, when the difference in appearance allows of such varied
portraiture. An example is in the signs for the male and female buffalo,
given by the Prince of Wied. The former is, “Place the tightly closed
hands on both sides of the head, with the fingers forward;” the latter
is, “Curve the two forefingers, place them on the sides of the head and
move them several times.” The short stubby horns of the bull appear to
be indicated, and the cow’s ears are seen moving, not being covered by
the bull’s shock mane. Tribes in which the hair of the women is
differently arranged from that of men often denote their females by
corresponding gesture. In many cases the sex of animals is indicated by
the addition of a generic sign for male or female.
TENSE.
While it has been mentioned that there is no inflection of signs to
express tense, yet the conception of present, past, and future is
gestured without difficulty. A common mode of indicating the present
time is by the use of signs for _to-day_, one of which is, “(1) both
hands extended, palms outward; (2) swept slowly forward and to each
side, to convey the idea of openness.” (_Cheyenne_ II.) This may combine
the idea of _now_ with _openness_, the first part of it resembling the
general deaf-mute sign for _here_ or _now_.
Two signs nearly related together are also reported as expressing the
meaning _now, at once_, viz.: “Forefinger of the right hand extended,
upright, &c. (J), is carried upward in front of the right side of the
body and above the head so that the extended finger points toward the
center of the heavens, and then carried downward in front of the right
breast, forefinger still pointing upright.” (_Dakota_ I.) “Place the
extended index, pointing upward, palm to the left, as high as and before
the top of the head; push the hand up and down a slight distance several
times, the eyes being directed upward at the time.” (_Hidatsa_ I;
_Kaiowa_ I; _Arikara_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
Time past is not only expressed, but some tribes give a distinct
modification to show a short or long time past. The following are
examples:
_Lately, recently_.--Hold the left hand at arm’s length, closed, with
forefinger only extended and pointing in the direction of the place
where the event occurred; then hold the right hand against the right
shoulder, closed, but with index extended and pointing in the direction
of the left. The hands may be exchanged, the right extended and the left
retained, as the case may require for ease in description.
(_Absaroka_ I; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I.)
_Long ago_.--Both hands closed, forefingers extended and straight; pass
one hand slowly at arm’s length, pointing horizontally, the other
against the shoulder or near it, pointing in the same direction as the
opposite one. Frequently the tips of the forefingers are placed
together, and the hands drawn apart, until they reach the positions
described. (_Absaroka_ I; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I.)
The Comanche, Wichita, and other Indians designate a _short time ago_ by
placing the tips of the forefinger and thumb of the left hand together,
the remaining fingers closed, and holding the hand before the body with
forefinger and thumb pointing toward the right shoulder; the index and
thumb of the right hand are then similarly held and placed against those
of the left, when the hands are slowly drawn apart a short distance. For
a _long time ago_ the hands are similarly held, but drawn farther apart.
Either of these signs may be and frequently is preceded by those for
_day, month_, or _year_, when it is desired to convey a definite idea of
the time past.
A sign is reported with the abstract idea of _future_, as follows: “The
arms are flexed and hands brought together in front of the body as in
type-position (W). The hands are made to move in wave-like motions up
and down together and from side to side.” (_Oto_ I.) The authority gives
the poetical conception of “Floating on the tide of time.”
The ordinary mode of expressing future time is, however, by some
figurative reference, as the following: Count off fingers, then shut all
the fingers of both hands several times, and touch the hair and tent or
other white object. (_Apache_ III.) “Many years; when I am old
(whitehaired).”
CONJUNCTIONS.
An interesting instance where the rapid connection of signs has the
effect of the conjunction _and_ is shown in NÁTCI’S NARRATIVE, _infra_.
PREPOSITIONS.
In the TENDOY-HUERITO DIALOGUE (page 489) the combination of gestures
supplies the want of the proposition _to_.
PUNCTUATION.
While this is generally accompanied by facial expression, manner of
action, or pause, instances have been noticed suggesting the device of
interrogation points and periods.
_Mark of interrogation._
The Shoshoni, Absaroka, Dakota, Comanche, and other Indians, when
desiring to ask a question, precede the gestures constituting the
information desired by a sign intended to attract attention and “asking
for,” viz., by holding the flat right hand, with the palm down, directed
to the individual interrogated, with or without lateral oscillating
motion; the gestural sentence, when completed, being closed by the same
sign and a look of inquiry. This recalls the Spanish use of the
interrogation points before and after the question.
_Period._
A Hidatsa, after concluding a short statement, indicated its conclusion
by placing the inner edges of the clinched hands together before the
breast, and passing them outward and downward to their respective sides
in an emphatic manner, Fig. 334, page 528. This sign is also used in
other connections to express _done_.
The same mode of indicating the close of a narrative or statement is
made by the Wichitas, by holding the extended left hand horizontally
before the body, fingers pointing to the right, palm either toward the
body or downward, and cutting edgewise downward past the tips of the
left with the extended right hand. This is the same sign given in the
ADDRESS OF KIN CHĒ-ĔSS as _cut off_, and is illustrated in Fig. 324,
page 522. This is more ideographic and convenient than the device of the
Abyssinian Galla, reported by M. A. d’Abbadie, who denoted a comma by a
slight stroke of a leather whip, a semicolon by a harder one, and a full
stop by one still harder.
_GESTURES AIDING ARCHÆOLOGIC RESEARCH._
The most interesting light in which the Indians of North America can be
regarded is in their present representation of a stage of evolution once
passed through by our own ancestors. Their signs, as well as their myths
and customs, form a part of the paleontology of humanity to be studied
in the history of the latter as the geologist, with similar object,
studies all the strata of the physical world. At this time it is only
possible to suggest the application of gesture signs to elucidate
pictographs, and also their examination to discover religious,
sociologic, and historic ideas preserved in them, as has been done with
great success in the radicals of oral speech.
SIGNS CONNECTED WITH PICTOGRAPHS.
The picture writing of Indians is the sole form in which they recorded
events and ideas that can ever be interpreted without the aid of a
traditional key, such as is required for the signification of the wampum
belts of the Northeastern tribes and the _quippus_ of Peru. Strips of
bark, tablets of wood, dressed skins of animals, and the smooth surfaces
of rock have been and still are used for such records, those most
ancient, and therefore most interesting, being of course the rock
etchings; but they can only be deciphered, if at all, by the ascertained
principles on which the more modern and the more obvious are made. Many
of the numerous and widespread rock carvings are mere idle sketches of
natural objects, mainly animals, and others are as exclusively mnemonic
as the wampum above mentioned. Even since the Columbian discovery some
tribes have employed devices yet ruder than the rudest pictorial attempt
as markers for the memory. An account of one of these is given in
E. Winslow’s Relation (A.D. 1624), _Col. Mass. Hist. Soc._, 2d series,
ix, 1822, p. 99, as follows:
“Instead of records and chronicles they take this course: Where any
remarkable act is done, in memory of it, either in the place or by some
pathway near adjoining, they make a round hole in the ground about a
foot deep, and as much over, which, when others passing by behold, they
inquire the cause and occasion of the same, which being once known, they
are careful to acquaint all men as occasion serveth therewith. And lest
such holes should be filled or grown over by any accident, as men pass
by they will often renew the same; by which means many things of great
antiquity are fresh in memory. So that as a man traveleth, if he can
understand his guide, his journey will be the less tedious, by reason of
the many historical discourses which will be related unto him.”
Gregg, in _Commerce of the Prairies_, _New York_, 1844, II, 286, says of
the Plains tribes: “When traveling, they will also pile heaps of stones
upon mounds or conspicuous points, so arranged as to be understood by
their passing comrades; and sometimes they set up the bleached buffalo
heads, which are everywhere scattered over those plains, to indicate the
direction of their march, and many other facts which may be communicated
by those simple signs.”
[Illustration: FIG. 151.]
[Illustration: FIG. 152.]
A more ingenious but still arbitrary mode of giving intelligence is
practiced at this day by the Abnaki, as reported by H. L. Masta, chief
of that tribe, now living at Pierreville, Quebec. When they are in the
woods, to say “I am going to the east,” a stick is stuck in the ground
pointing to that direction, Fig. 151. “Am not gone far,” another stick
is stuck across the former, close to the ground, Fig. 152. “Gone far” is
the reverse, Fig. 153. The number of days journey of proposed absence is
shown by the same number of sticks across the first; thus Fig. 154
signifies five days’ journey. Cutting the bark off from a tree on one,
two, three or four sides near the butt means “Have had poor, poorer,
poorest luck.” Cutting it off all around the tree means “I am starving.”
Smoking a piece of birch bark and hanging it on a tree means “I am
sick.”
[Illustration: FIG. 153.]
[Illustration: FIG. 154.]
Where there has existed any form of artistic representation, however
rude, and at the same time a system of ideographic gesture signs
prevailed, it would be expected that the form of the latter would appear
in the former. The sign of _river_ and _water_ mentioned on page 358
being established, when it became necessary or desirable to draw a
character or design to convey the same idea, nothing would be more
natural than to use the graphic form of delineation which is also above
described. It was but one more and an easy step to fasten upon bark,
skins, or rocks the evanescent air pictures that still in pigments or
carvings preserve their skeleton outline, and in their ideography
approach, as has been shown above, the rudiments of the phonetic
alphabets that have been constructed by other peoples. A transition
stage between gestures and pictographs, in which the left hand is used
as a supposed drafting surface upon which the index draws lines, is
exhibited in the DIALOGUE BETWEEN ALASKAN INDIANS, _infra_, page 498.
This device is common among deaf-mutes, without equal archæologic
importance, as it may have been suggested by the art of writing, with
which they are generally acquainted, even if not instructed in it.
The reproduction of apparent gesture lines in the pictographs made by
our Indians has, for obvious reasons, been most frequent in the attempt
to convey those subjective ideas which were beyond the range of an
artistic skill limited to the direct representation of objects, so that
the part of the pictographs which is still the most difficult of
interpretation is precisely the one which the study of sign language is
likely to elucidate. The following examples of pictographs of the
Indians, in some cases compared with those from foreign sources, have
been selected because their interpretation is definitely known and the
gestures corresponding with or suggested by them are well determined.
[Illustration: FIG. 155.]
[Illustration: FIG. 156.]
[Illustration: FIG. 157.]
The common Indian gesture sign for _sun_ is: “Right hand closed, the
index and thumb curved, with tips touching, thus approximating a circle,
and held toward the sky,” the position of the fingers of the hand
forming a circle being shown in Fig. 155. Two of the Egyptian characters
for _sun_, Figs. 156 and 157, are plainly the universal conception of
the disk. The latter, together with indications of rays, Fig. 158, and
in its linear form, Fig. 159, (Champollion, _Dict._, 9), constitutes the
Egyptian character for _light_. The rays emanating from the whole disk
appear in Figs. 160 and 161, taken from a MS. contributed by Mr. G. K.
GILBERT of the United States Geological Survey, from the rock etchings
of the Moqui pueblos in Arizona. The same authority gives from the same
locality Figs. 162 and 163 for _sun_, which may be distinguished from
several other similar etchings for _star_ also given by him, Figs. 164,
165, 166, 167, by always showing some indication of a face, the latter
being absent in the characters denoting _star_.
[Illustration: FIG. 158.]
[Illustration: FIG. 159.]
[Illustration: FIG. 160.]
[Illustration: FIG. 161.]
[Illustration: FIG. 162.]
[Illustration: FIG. 163.]
With the above characters for sun compare Fig. 168, found at Cuzco,
Peru, and taken from Wiener’s _Pérou et Bolivie_, _Paris_, 1880, p. 706.
[Illustration: FIG. 164.]
[Illustration: FIG. 165.]
[Illustration: FIG. 166.]
[Illustration: FIG. 167.]
The Ojibwa pictograph for sun is seen in Fig. 169, taken from
Schoolcraft, _loc. cit._, v. 1, pl. 56, Fig. 67.
[Illustration: FIG. 168.]
[Illustration: FIG. 169.]
A gesture sign for _sunrise, morning_, is: Forefinger of right hand
crooked to represent half of the sun’s disk and pointed or extended to
the left, then slightly elevated. (_Cheyenne_ II.) In this connection it
may be noted that when the gesture is carefully made in open country the
pointing would generally be to the east, and the body turned so that its
left would be in that direction. In a room in a city, or under
circumstances where the points of the compass are not specially attended
to, the left side supposes the east, and the gestures relating to sun,
day, &c., are made with such reference. The half only of the disk
represented in the above gesture appears in the following Moqui pueblo
etchings for _morning_ and _sunrise_, Figs. 170, 171, and 172. (Gilbert,
_MS._)
[Illustration: FIG. 170.]
[Illustration: FIG. 171.]
[Illustration: FIG. 172.]
[Illustration: FIG. 173.]
A common gesture for _day_ is when the index and thumb form a circle
(remaining fingers closed) and are passed from east to west.
Fig. 173 shows a pictograph found in Owen’s Valley, California,
a similar one being reported in the _Ann. Rep. Geog. Survey west of the
100th Meridian for 1876_, _Washington_, 1876, pl. opp. p. 326, in which
the circle may indicate either _day_ or _month_ (both these gestures
having the same execution), the course of the sun or moon being
represented perhaps in mere contradistinction to the vertical line, or
perhaps the latter signifies _one_.
[Illustration: FIG. 174.]
[Illustration: FIG. 175.]
Fig. 174 is a pictograph of the Coyotero Apaches, found at Camp Apache,
in Arizona, reported in the _Tenth Ann. Rep. U.S. Geolog. and Geograph.
Survey of the Territories for 1876_, _Washington_, 1878, pl. lxxvii. The
sun and the ten spots of approximately the same shape represent the
days, eleven, which the party with five pack mules passed in traveling
through the country. The separating lines are the nights, and may
include the conception of covering over and consequent obscurity above
referred to (page 354).
[Illustration: FIG. 176.]
A common sign for _moon, month_, is the right hand closed, leaving the
thumb and index extended, but curved to form a half circle and the hand
held toward the sky, in a position which is illustrated in Fig. 175, to
which curve the Moqui etching, Fig. 176, and the identical form in the
ancient Chinese has an obvious resemblance.
[Illustration: FIG. 177.]
The crescent, as we commonly figure the satellite, appears also in the
Ojibwa pictograph, Fig. 177 (Schoolcraft, I, pl. 58), which is the same,
with a slight addition, as the Egyptian figurative character.
[Illustration: FIG. 178.]
[Illustration: FIG. 179.]
The sign for _sky_, also _heaven_, is generally made by passing the
index from east to west across the zenith. This curve is apparent in the
Ojibwa pictograph Fig. 178, reported in Schoolcraft, I, pl. 18, Fig. 21,
and is abbreviated in the Egyptian character with the same meaning, Fig.
179 (Champollion, _Dict._, p. 1).
[Illustration: FIG. 180.]
[Illustration: FIG. 181.]
[Illustration: FIG. 182.]
A sign for _cloud_ is as follows: (1) Both hands partially closed, palms
facing and near each other, brought up to level with or slightly above,
but in front of the head; (2) suddenly separated sidewise, describing a
curve like a scallop; this scallop motion is repeated for “many clouds.”
(_Cheyenne_ II.) The same conception is in the Moqui etchings, Figs.
180, 181, and 182 (Gilbert _MS._)
[Illustration: FIG. 183.]
The Ojibwa pictograph for _cloud_ is more elaborate, Fig. 183, reported
in Schoolcraft, I, pl. 58. It is composed of the sign for _sky_, to
which that for _clouds_ is added, the latter being reversed as compared
with the Moqui etchings, and picturesquely hanging from the sky.
[Illustration: FIG. 184.]
[Illustration: FIG. 185.]
The gesture sign for _rain_ is described and illustrated on page 344.
The pictograph, Fig. 184, reported as found in New Mexico by Lieutenant
Simpson (_Ex. Doc. No. 64, Thirty-first Congress, first session_, 1850,
pl. 9) is said to represent Montezuma’s adjutants sounding a blast to
him for rain. The small character inside the curve which represents the
sky, corresponds with the gesturing hand. The Moqui etching (Gilbert
_MS._) for _rain_, _i.e._, a cloud from which the drops are falling, is
given in Fig. 185.
[Illustration: FIG. 186.]
[Illustration: FIG. 187.]
The same authority gives two signs for _lightning_, Figs. 186 and 187.
In the latter the sky is shown, the changing direction of the streak,
and clouds with rain falling. The part relating specially to the streak
is portrayed in a sign as follows: Right hand elevated before and above
the head, forefinger pointing upward, brought down with great rapidity
with a sinuous, undulating motion; finger still extended diagonally
downward toward the right. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
[Illustration: FIG. 188.]
[Illustration: FIG. 189.]
Figs. 188 and 189 also represent _lightning_, taken by Mr. W. H.
Jackson, photographer of the late U.S. Geolog. and Geog. Survey, from
the decorated walls of an estufa in the Pueblo de Jemez, New Mexico. The
former is blunt, for harmless, and the latter terminating in an arrow or
spear point, for destructive or fatal, lightning.
[Illustration: FIG. 190.]
[Illustration: FIG. 191.]
A common sign for _speech, speak_, among the Indians is the repeated
motion of the index in a straight line forward from the mouth. This
line, indicating the voice, is shown in Fig. 190, taken from the
_Dakota Calendar_, being the expression for the fact that
“the-Elk-that-hollows-walking,” a Minneconjou chief, “made medicine.”
The ceremony is indicated by the head of an albino buffalo. A more
graphic portraiture of the conception of _voice_ is in Fig. 191,
representing an antelope and the whistling sound produced by the animal
on being surprised or alarmed. This is taken from MS. drawing book of an
Indian prisoner at Saint Augustine, Fla., now in the Smithsonian
Institution, No. 30664.
[Illustration: FIG. 192.]
Fig. 192 is the exhibition of wrestling for a turkey, the point of
interest in the present connection being the lines from the mouth to the
objects of conversation. It is taken from the above-mentioned MS.
drawing book.
The wrestlers, according to the foot prints, had evidently come
together, when, meeting the returning hunter, who is wrapped in his
blanket with only one foot protruding, they separated and threw off
their blankets, leggings, and moccasins, both endeavoring to win the
turkey, which lies between them and the donor.
In Fig. 193, taken from the same MS. drawing book, the conversation is
about the lassoing, shooting, and final killing of a buffalo which has
wandered to a camp. The dotted lines indicate footprints. The Indian
drawn under the buffalo having secured the animal by the fore feet, so
informs his companions, as indicated by the line drawn from his mouth to
the object mentioned; the left-hand figure, having also secured the
buffalo by the horns, gives his nearest comrade an opportunity to strike
it with an ax, which he no doubt announces that he will do, as the line
from his mouth to the head of the animal suggests. The Indian in the
upper left-hand corner is told by a squaw to take an arrow and join his
companions, when he turns his head to inform her that he has one
already, which fact he demonstrates by holding up the weapon.
[Illustration: FIG. 193.]
The Mexican pictograph, Fig. 194, taken from Kingsborough, II, pt. 1,
p. 100, is illustrative of the sign made by the Arikara and Hidatsa for
_tell_ and _conversation_. _Tell me_ is: Place the flat right hand, palm
upward, about fifteen inches in front of the right side of the face,
fingers pointing to the left and front; then draw the hand inward toward
and against the bottom of the chin. For _conversation_, talking between
two persons, both hands are held before the breast, pointing forward,
palms up, the edges being moved several times toward one another.
Perhaps, however, the picture in fact only means the common poetical
image of “flying words.”
[Illustration: FIG. 194.]
Fig. 195 is one of Landa’s characters, found in _Rel. des choses de
Yucatan_ p. 316, and suggests one of the gestures for _talk_ and more
especially that for _sing_, in which the extended and separated fingers
are passed forward and slightly downward from the mouth--“many voices.”
Although the last opinion about the bishop is unfavorable to the
authenticity of his work, yet even if it were prepared by a Maya, under
his supervision, the latter would probably have given him some genuine
native conceptions, and among them gestures would be likely to occur.
[Illustration: FIG. 195.]
The natural sign for _hear_, made both by Indians and deaf-mutes,
consisting in the motion of the index, or the index and thumb joined, in
a straight line to the ear, is illustrated in the Ojibwa pictograph Fig.
196, “hearing ears,” and those of the same people, Figs. 197 and 198,
the latter of which is a hearing serpent, and the former means “I hear,
but your words are from a bad heart,” the hands being thrown out as in
the final part of a gesture for _bad heart_, which is made by the hand
being closed and held near the breast, with the back toward the breast,
then as the arm is suddenly extended the hand is opened and the fingers
separated from each other. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.) The final part of
the gesture, representing the idea of _bad_, not connected with heart,
is illustrated in Fig. 236 on page 411.
[Illustration: FIG. 196.]
[Illustration: FIG. 197.]
[Illustration: FIG. 198.]
The above Ojibwa pictographs are taken from Schoolcraft, _loc. cit._ I,
plates 58, 53, 59.
Fig. 199, a bas-relief taken from Dupaix’s Monuments of New Spain, in
Kingsborough, _loc. cit._ IV, pt. 3, p. 31, has been considered to be a
royal edict or command. The gesture _to hear_ is plainly depicted, and
the right hand is directed to the persons addressed, so the command
appears to be uttered with the preface of _Hear Ye! Oyez!_
[Illustration: FIG. 199.]
[Illustration: FIG. 200.]
The typical sign for _kill_ or _killed_ is: Right hand clinched, thumb
lying along finger tips, elevated to near the shoulder, strike downward
and outward vaguely in the direction of the object to be killed. The
abbreviated sign is simply to clinch the right hand in the manner
described and strike it down and out from the right side.
(_Cheyenne_ II.) This gesture also appears among the Dakotas and is
illustrated in Fig. 200.
[Illustration: FIG. 201.]
Fig. 201, taken from the _Dakota Calendar_, illustrates this gesture. It
represents the year in which a Minneconjou chief was stabbed in the
shoulder by a Gros Ventre, and afterwards named “Dead Arm” or “Killed
Arm.” At first the figure was supposed to show the permanent drawing up
of the arm by anchylosis, but that would not be likely to be the result
of the wound described, and with knowledge of the gesture the meaning is
more clear.
[Illustration: FIG. 202.]
Fig. 202, taken from _Report upon the Reconnaissance of Northwestern
Wyoming, &c._, _Washington_, 1875, p. 207, Fig. 53, found in the Wind
River Valley, Wyoming Territory, was interpreted by members of a
Shoshoni and Banak delegation to Washington in 1880 as “an Indian killed
another.” The latter is very roughly delineated in the horizontal
figure, but is also represented by the line under the hand of the
upright figure, meaning the same individual. At the right is the scalp
taken and the two feathers showing the dead warrior’s rank. The arm
nearest the prostrate foe shows the gesture for _killed_.
[Illustration: FIG. 203.]
The same gesture appears in Fig. 203, from the same authority and
locality. The scalp is here held forth, and the numeral _one_ is
designated by the stroke at the bottom.
Fig. 204, from the same locality and authority, was also interpreted by
the Shoshoni and Banak. It appears from their description that a
Blackfoot had attacked the habitation of some of his own people. The
right-hand upper figure represents his horse with the lance suspended
from the side. The lower figure illustrates the log house built against
a stream. The dots are the prints of the horse’s hoofs, while the two
lines running outward from the upper inclosure show that two thrusts of
the lance were made over the wall of the house, thus killing the
occupant and securing two bows and five arrows, as represented in the
left-hand group. The right-hand figure of that group shows the hand
raised in the attitude of making the gesture for _kill_.
[Illustration: FIG. 204.]
As the Blackfeet, according to the interpreters, were the only Indians
in the locality mentioned who constructed log houses, the drawing
becomes additionally interesting, as an attempt appears to have been
made to illustrate the crossing of the logs at the corners, the gesture
for which (_log-house_) will be found on page 428.
Fig. 205 is the Egyptian character for _veneration, to glorify_
(Champollion, _Dict._, 29), the author’s understanding being that the
hands are raised in surprise, astonishment.
[Illustration: FIG. 205.]
The Menomoni Indians now begin their prayers by raising their hands in
the same manner. They may have been influenced in this respect by the
attitudes of their missionaries in prayer and benediction. The Apaches,
who have received less civilized tuition, in a religious gesture
corresponding with prayer spread their hands opposite the face, palms up
and backward, apparently expressing the desire to _receive_.
[Illustration: FIG. 206.]
Fig. 206 is a copy of an Egyptian tablet reproduced from Cooper’s
_Serpent Myths_, page 28. A priest kneels before the great goddess
Ranno, while supplicating her favor. The conception of the author is
that the hands are raised by the supplicant to shield his face from the
glory of the divinity. It may be compared with signs for asking for
_mercy_ and for giving mercy to another, the former being: Extend both
forefingers, pointing upward, palms toward the breast, and hold the
hands before the chest; then draw them inward toward their respective
sides, and pass them upward as high as the sides of the head by either
cheek. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) The
latter, _to have mercy on another_, as made by the same tribes, is: Hold
both hands nearly side by side before the chest, palms forward,
forefinger only extended and pointing upward; then move them forward and
upward, as if passing them by the cheeks of another person from the
breast to the sides of the head.
[Illustration: FIG. 207.]
A similar gesture for _supplication_ appears in Fig. 207, taken from
Kingsborough, _loc. cit._, III, pt. I, p. 24.
[Illustration: FIG. 208.]
An Indian gesture sign for _smoke_, and also one for _fire_, has been
described above, page 344. With the former is connected the Aztec design
(Fig. 208) taken from Pipart, _loc. cit._, II, 352, and the latter
appears in Fig. 209, taken from Kingsborough, III, pt. I, p. 21.
[Illustration: FIG. 209.]
A sign for _medicine-man, shaman_, is thus described: “With its
index-finger extended and pointing upward, or all the fingers extended,
back of hand outward, move the right hand from just in front of the
forehead, spirally upward, nearly to arm’s length, from left to right.”
(_Dakota_ IV.)
[Illustration: FIG. 210.]
Fig. 210, from the _Dakota Calendar_, represents the making of medicine
or conjuration. In that case the head and horns of a white buffalo cow
were used.
[Illustration: FIG. 211.]
[Illustration: FIG. 212.]
[Illustration: FIG. 213.]
Fig. 211 is an Ojibwa pictograph taken from Schoolcraft, _loc. cit._,
representing _medicine-man, meda_. With these horns and spiral may be
collated Fig. 212 which portrays the ram-headed Egyptian god Knuphis, or
Chnum, the spirit, in a shrine on the boat of the sun, canopied by the
serpent-goddess Ranno, who is also seen facing him inside the shrine.
This is reproduced from Cooper’s _Serpent Myths_, p. 24. The same deity
is represented in Champollion, _Gram._, p. 113, as reproduced in Fig.
213.
Fig. 214 is an Ojibwa pictograph found in Schoolcraft, I, pl. 58, and
given as _power_. It corresponds with the sign for _doctor_, or
_medicine-man_, made by the Absarokas by passing the extended and
separated index and second finger of the right hand upward from the
forehead, spirally, and is considered to indicate “superior knowledge.”
Among the Otos, as part of the sign with the same meaning, both hands
are raised to the side of the head, and the extended indices pressing
the temples.
[Illustration: FIG. 214.]
[Illustration: FIG. 215.]
Fig. 215 is also an Ojibwa pictograph from Schoolcraft I, pl. 59, and is
said to signify _Meda’s power_. It corresponds with another sign made
for _medicine-man_ by the Absarokas and Comanches, viz, The hand passed
upward before the forehead, with index loosely extended. Combined with
the sign for _sky_, before given, page 372, it means knowledge of
superior matters; spiritual power.
The common sign for _trade_ is made by extending the forefingers,
holding them obliquely upward, and crossing them at right angles to one
another, usually in front of the chest. This is often abbreviated by
merely crossing the forefingers, see Fig. 278, page 452. It is
illustrated in Fig. 216, taken from the Prince of Wied’s _Travels in the
Interior of North America_, _London_, 1843, p. 352.
[Illustration: FIG. 216.]
To this the following explanation is given: “The cross signifies,
‘I will barter or trade.’ Three animals are drawn on the right hand of
the cross; one is a buffalo; the two others, a weasel (_Mustela
Canadensis_) and an otter. The writer offers in exchange for the skins
of these animals (probably meaning that of a white buffalo) the articles
which he has drawn on the left side of the cross. He has, in the first
place, depicted a beaver very plainly, behind which there is a gun; to
the left of the beaver are thirty strokes, each ten separated by a
longer line; this means, I will give thirty beaver skins and a gun for
the skins of the three animals on the right hand of the cross.”
Fig. 217 is from Kingsborough, III, pt. 1, p. 25, and illustrates the
sign for _to give_ or _to present_, made by the Brulé-Dakotas by holding
both hands edgewise before the breast, pointing forward and upward, the
right above the left, then throwing them quickly downward until the
forearms reach a horizontal position.
[Illustration: FIG. 217.]
Fig. 218 is taken from the _Dakota Calendar_, representing a successful
raid of the Absarokas or Crows upon the Brulé-Sioux, in which the
village of the latter was surprised and a large number of horses
captured. That capture is exhibited by the horse-tracks moving from the
_village_, the gesture sign for which is often made by a circle formed
either by the opposed thumbs and forefingers of both hands or by a
circular motion of both hands, palms inward, toward each other. In some
cases there is a motion of the circle, from above downward, as formed.
[Illustration: FIG. 218.]
Fig. 219, from Kingsborough I, pt. 3, p. 10, represents _Chapultepec_,
“Mountain of the Locust,” by one enormous locust on top of a hill. This
shows the mode of augmentation in the same manner as is often done by an
exaggerated gesture. The curves at the base of the mountain are
intelligible only as being formed in the sign for _many_, described on
pages 359 and 488.
[Illustration: FIG. 219.]
Fig. 220, taken from Pipart, _loc. cit._, is the Mexican pictograph for
_soil cultivated_, _i.e._, tilled and planted. Fig. 221, from the same
authority, shows the sprouts coming from the cultivated soil, and may be
compared with the signs for _grass_ and _grow_ on page 343.
[Illustration: FIG. 220.]
[Illustration: FIG. 221.]
The gesture sign for _road, path_, is sometimes made by indicating two
lines forward from the body, then imitating walking with the hands upon
the imaginary road. The same natural representation of road is seen in
Fig. 222, taken from Pipart, _loc. cit._, page 352. A place where two
roads meet--cross-roads--is shown in Fig. 223, from Kingsborough. Two
persons are evidently having a chat in sign language at the cross-roads.
[Illustration: FIG. 222.]
[Illustration: FIG. 223.]
[Illustration: FIG. 224.]
If no gesture is actually included in all of the foregoing pictographs,
it is seen that a gesture sign is made with the same conception which is
obvious in the ideographic pictures. They are selected as specially
transparent and clear. Many others less distinct are now the subject of
examination for elucidation. The following examples are added to show
the ideographic style of pictographs not connected with gestures, lest
it may be suspected that an attempt is made to prove that gestures are
always included in or connected with them. Fig. 224, from the _Dakota
Calendar_, refers to the small-pox which broke out in the year (1802)
which it specifies. Fig. 225 shows in the design at the left, a warning
or notice, that though a goat can climb up the rocky trail a horse will
tumble--“No Thoroughfare.” This was contributed by Mr. J. K. Hillers,
photographer of the United States Geological Survey, as observed by him
in Cañon De Chelly, New Mexico, in 1880.
[Illustration: FIG. 225.]
SIGNS CONNECTED WITH ETHNOLOGIC FACTS.
The present limits permit only a few examples of the manner in which the
signs of Indians refer to sociologic, religious, historic, and other
ethnologic facts. They may incite research to elicit further information
of the same character.
[Illustration: FIG. 226.]
[Illustration: FIG. 227.]
The Prince of Wied gives in his list of signs the heading _Partisan_, a
term of the Canadian voyageurs, signifying a leader of an occasional or
volunteer war party, the sign being reported as follows: Make first the
sign of the pipe, afterwards open the thumb and index-finger of the
right hand, back of the hand outward, and move it forward and upward in
a curve. This is explained by the author’s account in a different
connection, that to become recognized as a leader of such a war party as
above mentioned, the first act among the tribes using the sign was the
consecration, by fasting succeeded by feasting, of a medicine pipe
without ornament, which the leader of the expedition afterward bore
before him as his badge of authority, and it therefore naturally became
an emblematic sign. This sign with its interpretation supplies a meaning
to Fig. 226 from the _Dakota Calendar_ showing “One Feather,” a Sioux
chief who raised in that year a large war party against the Crows, which
fact is simply denoted by his holding out demonstratively an
unornamented pipe. In connection with this subject, Fig. 227, drawn and
explained by Two Strike, an Ogalala Dakota, relating to his own
achievements, displays four plain pipes to exhibit the fact that he had
led four war parties.
[Illustration: FIG. 228.]
The sign of the pipe or of smoking is made in a different manner, when
used to mean _friend_, as follows: (1) Tips of the two first fingers of
the right hand placed against or at right angles to the mouth;
(2) suddenly elevated upward and outward to imitate smoke expelled.
(_Cheyenne_ II.) “We two smoke together.” This is illustrated in the
Ojibwa pictograph, Fig. 228, taken from Schoolcraft I, pl. 59.
[Illustration: FIG. 229.]
A ceremonial sign for _peace, friendship_, is the extended fingers,
separated (R), interlocked in front of the breast, hands horizontal,
backs outward. (_Dakota_ I.) Fig. 229 from the _Dakota Calendar_
exhibits the beginning of this gesture. When the idea conveyed is peace
or friendship with the whites, the hand shaking of the latter is adopted
as in Fig. 230, also taken from the _Dakota Calendar_, and referring to
the peace made in 1855 by General Harney, at Fort Pierre, with a number
of the tribes of the Dakotas.
[Illustration: FIG. 230.]
It is noticeable that while the ceremonial gesture of uniting or linking
hands is common and ancient in token of peace, the practice of shaking
hands on meeting, now the annoying etiquette of the Indians in their
intercourse with whites, was not until very recently and is even now
seldom used by them between each other, and is clearly a foreign
importation. Their fancy for affectionate greeting was in giving a
pleasant bodily sensation by rubbing each other on the breast, abdomen,
and limbs, or by a hug. The senseless and inconvenient custom of shaking
hands is, indeed, by no means general throughout the world, and in the
extent to which it prevails in the United States is a subject of
ridicule by foreigners. The Chinese, with a higher conception of
politeness, shake their own hands. The account of a recent observer of
the meeting of two polite Celestials is: “Each placed the fingers of one
hand over the fist of the other, so that the thumbs met, and then
standing a few feet apart raised his hands gently up and down in front
of his breast. For special courtesy, after the foregoing gesture, they
place the hand which had been the actor in it on the stomach of its
owner, not on that part of the interlocutor, the whole proceeding being
subjective, but perhaps a relic of objective performance.” In Miss
Bird’s _Unbeaten Trades in Japan_, _London_, 1880, the following is
given as the salutatory etiquette of that empire: “As acquaintances come
in sight of each other they slacken their pace and approach with
downcast eyes and averted faces as if neither were worthy of beholding
each other; then they bow low, so low as to bring the face, still kept
carefully averted, on a level with the knees, on which the palms of the
hands are pressed. Afterwards, during the friendly strife of each to
give the _pas_ to the other, the palms of the hands are diligently
rubbed against each other.”
[Illustration: FIG. 231.]
The interlocking of the fingers of both hands above given as an Indian
sign (other instances being mentioned under the head of SIGNALS,
_infra_) is also reported by R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_,
_loc. cit._, Vol. II, p. 308, as made by the natives of Cooper’s Creek,
Australia, to express the highest degree of friendship, including a
special form of hospitality in which the wives of the entertainer
performed a part. Fig. 231 is reproduced from a cut in the work referred
to.
But besides this interlocked form of signifying the union of friendship
the hands are frequently grasped together. Sometimes the sign is
abbreviated by simply extending the hand as if about to grasp that of
another, and sometimes the two forefingers are laid side by side, which
last sign also means, _same, brother_ and _companion_. For description
and illustration of these three signs, see respectively pages 521, 527,
and 317. A different execution of the same conception of union or
linking to signify _friend_ is often made as follows: Hook the curved
index over the curved forefinger of the left hand, the palm of the
latter pointing forward, the palm of the right hand being turned toward
the face; remaining fingers and thumbs being closed. (_Dakota_ VIII.)
Fig. 232.
[Illustration: FIG. 232.]
Wied’s sign for medicine is “Stir with the right hand into the left, and
afterward blow into the latter.” All persons familiar with the Indians
will understand that the term “medicine,” foolishly enough adopted by
both French and English to express the aboriginal magic arts, has no
therapeutic significance. Very few even pretended remedies were
administered to the natives and probably never by the professional
shaman, who worked by incantation, often pulverizing and mixing the
substances mystically used, to prevent their detection. The same
mixtures were employed in divination. The author particularly mentions
Mandan ceremonies, in which a white “medicine” stone, as hard as
pyrites, was produced by rubbing in the hand snow or the white feathers
of a bird. The blowing away of the disease, considered to be introduced
by a supernatural power foreign to the body, was a common part of the
juggling performance.
A sign for _stone_ is as follows: With the back of the arched right hand
(H) strike repeatedly in the palm of the left, held horizontal, back
outward, at the height of the breast and about a foot in front; the ends
of the fingers point in opposite directions. (_Dakota_ I.) From its use
when the stone was the only hammer.
A suggestive sign for _knife_ is reported, viz: Cut past the mouth with
the raised right hand. (_Wied_.) This probably refers to the general
practice of cutting off food, as much being crammed into the mouth as
can be managed and then separated from the remaining mass by a stroke of
a knife. This is specially the usage with fat and entrails, the Indian
delicacies.
An old sign for _tomahawk, ax_, is as follows: Cross the arms and slide
the edge of the right hand, held vertically, down over the left arm.
(_Wied_.) This is still employed, at least for a small hatchet, or
“dress tomahawk,” and would be unintelligible 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 accompaniment to the sign, 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
thumb and forefinger of each hand opposite to each other, as if to make
a circle, but leaving between them a small interval; afterward move them
from above downward simultaneously. The villages of the tribes with
which 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 same as the following: Extend and spread the right, fore, and middle
fingers, and draw the hand about eighteen inches from left to right
across the front of the body at the height of the navel, palm downward,
fingers pointing toward the left and a little downward, little and ring
fingers to be loosely closed, the thumb against the ring-finger.
(_Dakota_ IV.) The sign 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 moving camp, and
the sign represents the trail. Indians less nomadic, who built more
substantial lodges, and to whom the material for poles was less precious
than on the plains, would not have comprehended this sign without such
explanation as is equivalent to a translation from a foreign language,
and the more general one is the palm lowered as if to stroke gently in a
line conforming to the animal’s head and neck. It is abbreviated by
simply lowering the hand to the usual height of the wolfish aboriginal
breed, and suggests _the_ animal _par excellence_ domesticated by the
Indians and made a companion.
Several examples connected with this heading may be noticed under the
preceding head of gestures connected with pictographs, and others of
historic interest will be found among 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 them by collectors to express certain ideas,
which signs of course form no part of any current language; but while
that fact should, if possible, be ascertained and reported, the signs so
invented are not valueless merely because they are original and not
traditional, if they are made in good 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 resembles the coining of new words to
which the higher languages 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 steamboat for
the first time. After thinking a moment he gave 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 from
before the body back to near the chest (being the outline of the deck);
then place both flat hands, pointing forward, thumbs higher than the
outer edges, and push them forward to arms’-length (illustrating the
powerful forward motion of the vessel).
An original sign for _telegraph_ is given in NATCI’S NARRATIVE, _infra_.
An Indian skilled in signs, as also a deaf-mute, at the sight of a new
object, or at the first experience of some new feeling or mental
relation, will devise some mode of expressing it in pantomimic gesture
or by a combination of previously understood signs, 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 time, each would perhaps hit upon a different
sign, in accordance with the characteristic appearance most striking to
him. That animal’s trunk is generally the most attractive lineament to
deaf-mutes, who make a sign by pointing to the nose and moving the arm
as the trunk is moved. Others regard the long tusks as the most
significant feature, while others are struck by the large head and small
eyes. This diversity of conception brings to mind the poem of “The Blind
Men and the Elephant,” which with true philosophy in an amusing guise
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 mind of an Indian or other uncivilized gesturer, 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 examination of sign language it is important to form a clear
distinction between signs proper and symbols. The terms signs and
symbols are often used interchangeably, but with liability to
misconstruction, as many persons, whether with right or wrong lexical
definition, ascribe to symbols an occult and mystic signification. All
characters in Indian picture-writing have been loosely styled symbols,
and, as there is no logical distinction between the characters impressed
with enduring form and when merely outlined in the ambient air, all
Indian gestures, motions, and attitudes might with equal appropriateness
be called symbolic. While, however, all symbols come under the generic
head of signs, very few signs are in accurate classification symbols.
S. T. Coleridge has defined a symbol to be a sign included in the idea
it represents. This may be intelligible if it is intended that an
ordinary sign is extraneous to the concept and, rather than suggested by
it, is invented to express it by some representation or analogy, while a
symbol may be evolved by a process of thought from the concept itself;
but it is no very exhaustive or practically useful distinction. Symbols
are less obvious and more artificial than mere signs, require
convention, are not only abstract, but metaphysical, and often need
explanation from history, religion, and customs. They do not depict but
suggest subjects; do not speak directly through the eye to the
intelligence, but presuppose in the mind knowledge of an event or fact
which the sign recalls. The symbols of the ark, dove, olive branch, and
rainbow would be wholly meaningless to people unfamiliar with the Mosaic
or some similar cosmology, as would be the cross and the crescent to
those ignorant of history. The last named objects appeared in the class
of _emblems_ when used in designating the conflicting powers of
Christendom and Islamism. Emblems do not necessarily require any analogy
between the objects representing, and the objects or qualities
represented, but may arise from pure accident. After a scurrilous jest
the beggar’s wallet became the emblem of the confederated nobles, the
Gueux of the Netherlands; and a sling, in the early minority of Louis
XIV, was adopted from the refrain of a song by 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 more
accidental, being, in the Greek word ἰχθύς, an acrostic composed of
the initials of the several Greek words signifying that name and title.
This origin being unknown to persons whose religious enthusiasm was as
usual in direct proportion to their ignorance, 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 became an emblem of Christ and of Christianity,
appearing frequently on the Roman catacombs and at one time it was used
hermeneutically.
The several tribal signs for the Sioux, Arapahos, Cheyennes, &c., are
their emblems precisely as the star-spangled flag is that of the United
States, but there is nothing symbolic in any of them. So the signs 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 formed by a snake biting its tail are
symbols, but _consensus_ as well as invention was necessary for their
establishment, and the Indians have produced nothing so esoteric,
nothing which they intended for hermeneutic as distinct from descriptive
or mnemonic purposes. Sign language can undoubtedly be and is employed
to express highly metaphysical ideas, but to do that in a symbolic
system requires a development of the mode of expression consequent upon
a similar development of the mental idiocrasy of the gesturers far
beyond any yet found among historic tribes north of Mexico. A very few
of their signs may at first appear to be symbolic, yet even those on
closer examination will probably be relegated to the class of emblems.
The point urged is that while many signs can be used as emblems and both
can be converted by convention into symbols or be explained as such by
perverted ingenuity, it is futile to seek for that form of psychologic
exuberance in the stage of development attained by the tribes now under
consideration. All predetermination to interpret either their signs or
their pictographs on the principles of symbolism as understood or
pretended to be understood by its admirers, and as are sometimes
properly applied to Egyptian hieroglyphs, results in mooning mysticism.
This was shown by a correspondent who enthusiastically lauded the
_Dakota Calendar_ (edited by the present writer, and which is a mere
figuration of successive occurrences in the history of the people), as a
numerical exposition of the great doctrines of the Sun religion in the
equations of time, and proved to his own satisfaction that our Indians
preserved hermeneutically the lost geometric cultus of pre-Cushite
scientists.
Another exhibition of this vicious practice was recently made in the
interpretation of an inscribed stone alleged to have been unearthed
near Zanesville, Ohio. Two of the characters were supposed, in liberal
exercise of the imagination, to represent the Α and Ω of the Greek
alphabet. At the comparatively late date when the arbitrary arrangement
of the letters of that alphabet had become fixed, the initial and
concluding letters might readily have been used to represent
respectively the beginning and the end of any series or number of
things, and this figure of speech was employed in the book of
Revelations. In the attempted interpretation of the inscription
mentioned, which was hawked about to many scientific bodies, and
published over the whole country, the supposed alpha and omega were
assumed to constitute a universal as well as sacred symbol for the
everlasting Creator. The usual _menu_ of Roman feasts, commencing with
eggs and ending with apples, was also commonly known at the time when
the book of Revelations was written, and the phrase “_ab ovo usque ad
mala_” was as appropriate as “from alpha to omega” to express “from the
beginning to the end.” In deciphering the stone it would, therefore, be
as correct in principle to take one of its oval and one of its round
figures, call them egg and apple, and make them the symbols of eternity.
In fact, not depending wholly for significance upon the order of courses
of a feast or the accident of alphabetical position, but having
intrinsic characteristics in reference to the origin and fruition of
life, the egg and apple translation would be more acceptable to the
general judgment, and it is recommended to enthusiasts who insist on
finding symbols where none exist.
_SIGNS USED BY WOMEN AND CHILDREN._
For reasons before given it is important to ascertain the varying extent
of familiarity with sign language among the members of the several
tribes, how large a proportion possesses any skill in it, and the
average amount of their vocabulary. It is also of special interest to
learn the degree to which women become proficient, and the age at which
children commence its practice; also whether they receive systematic
instruction in it. The statement was made by Titchkemátski that the
Kaiowa and Comanche women know nothing of sign language, while the
Cheyenne women are versed in it. As he is a Cheyenne, however, he may
not have a large circle of feminine acquaintances beyond his own tribe,
and his negative testimony is not valuable. Rev. A. J. Holt, from large
experience, asserts that the Kaiowa and Comanche women do know and
practice sign language, though the Cheyenne either are more familiar
with it than the Kaiowa or have a greater degree of expertness. The
Comanche women, he says, are the peers of any sign-talkers. Colonel
Dodge makes the broad assertion that even among the Plains tribes only
the old, or at least middle-aged, men use signs properly, and that he
has not seen any women or even young men who were at all reliable in
signs. He gives this statement to show the difficulty in acquiring sign
language; but it is questionable if the fact is not simply the result of
the rapid disuse of signs, in many tribes, by which cause women, not so
frequently called upon to employ them, and the younger generation, who
have had no necessity to learn them, do not become expert. Disappearing
Mist, as before mentioned, remembers a time when the Iroquois women and
children used signs more than the men.
It is also asserted, with some evidence, that the signs used by males
and females are different, though mutually understood, and some minor
points for observation may be indicated, such as whether the
commencement of counting upon the fingers is upon those of the right or
the left hand, and whether Indians take pains to look toward the south
when suggesting the course of the sun, which would give the motion from
left to right.
* * * * *
A suggestion has been made by a correspondent that some secret signs
of affiliation are known and used by the members of the several
associations, religious and totemic, which have been often noticed among
several Indian tribes. No evidence of this has been received, but the
point is worth attention.
_POSITIVE SIGNS RENDERED NEGATIVE._
In many cases positive signs to convey some particular idea are not
reported, and in their place a sign with the opposite signification is
given, coupled with the sign of negation. In other words, the only mode
of expressing the intended meaning is supposed to be by negation of the
reverse of what it is desired to describe. In this manner “fool--no,”
would be “wise,” and “good--no,” would be “bad.” This mode of expression
is very frequent as a matter of option when the positive signs are in
fact also used. The reported absence of positive signs for the ideas
negatived is therefore often made with as little propriety as if when an
ordinary speaker chose to use the negative form “not good,” it should be
inferred that he was ignorant of the word “bad.” It will seldom prove,
on proper investigation, that where sign language has reached and
retained any high degree of development it will show such poverty as to
require the expedient of negation of an affirmative to express an idea
which is intrinsically positive.
_DETAILS OF POSITIONS OF FINGERS._
The signs of the Indians appear to consist of motions more often than of
positions--a fact enhancing the difficulty both of their description and
illustration--and the motions when not designedly abbreviated are
generally large, free, and striking, seldom minute. It seems also to be
the general rule among Indians as among deaf-mutes that the point of the
finger is used to trace outlines and the palm of the hand to describe
surfaces. From an examination of the identical signs made to each other
for the same object by Indians of the same tribe and band, they appear
to make many gestures with little regard to the position of the fingers
and to vary in such arrangement from individual taste. Some of the
elaborate descriptions, giving with great detail the attitude of the
fingers of any particular gesturer and the inches traced by his motions,
are of as little necessity as would be, when quoting a written word,
a careful reproduction of the flourishes of tailed letters and the
thickness of down-strokes in individual chirography. The fingers must be
in _some_ position, but that is frequently accidental, not contributing
to the general and essential effect. An example may be given in the sign
for _white man_ which Medicine Bull, _infra_, page 491, made by drawing
the palmar surface of the extended index across the forehead, and in
LEAN WOLF’S COMPLAINT, _infra_, page 526, the same motion is made by the
back of the thumb pressed upon the middle joint of the index, fist
closed. The execution as well as the conception in both cases was the
indication of the line of the hat on the forehead, and the position of
the fingers in forming the line is altogether immaterial. There is often
also a custom or “fashion” in which not only different tribes, but
different persons in the same tribe, gesture the same sign with
different degrees of beauty, for there is calligraphy in sign language,
though no recognized orthography. It is nevertheless better to describe
and illustrate with unnecessary minuteness than to fail in reporting a
real distinction. There are, also, in fact, many signs formed by mere
positions of the fingers, some of which are abbreviations, but in others
the arrangement of the fingers in itself forms a picture. An instance of
the latter is one of the signs given for the _bear_, viz.: Middle and
third finger of right hand clasped down by the thumb, fore and little
finger extended crooked downward. See EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY, _infra_.
This reproduction of the animal’s peculiar claws, with the hand and in
any position relative to the body, would suffice without the pantomime
of scratching in the air, which is added only if the sign without it
should not be at once comprehended.
_MOTIONS RELATIVE TO PARTS OF THE BODY._
[Illustration: FIG. 233.]
The specified relation of the positions and motions of the hands to
different parts of the body is essential to the formation and
description of many signs. Those for _speak_, _hear_, and _see_, which
must be respectively made relative to the mouth, ear and eye, are
manifest examples; and there are others less obviously dependent upon
parts of the body, such as the heart or head, which would not be
intelligible without apposition. There are also some directly connected
with height from the ground and other points of reference. In, however,
a large proportion of the signs noted the position of the hands with
reference to the body can be varied or disregarded. The hands making the
motions can be held high or low, as the gesturer is standing or sitting,
or the person addressed is distant or near by. These variations have
been partly discussed under the head of abbreviations. While
descriptions made with great particularity are cumbrous, it is desirable
to give the full detail of that gesture which most clearly carries out
the generic conception, with, if possible, also the description of such
deviations and abbreviations as are most confusing. For instance, it is
well to explain that signs for _yes_ and _no_, described with precise
detail as in EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY, _infra_, are also often made by
an Indian when wrapped in his blanket with only a forefinger protruding,
the former by a mere downward and the latter by a simple outward bend of
that finger. An example may be also taken from the following sign for
_lie, falsehood_, made by an Arikara, Fig. 233. in which the separated
index and second fingers are moved sidewise in a downward line near but
below the mouth, which may be compared with other executions of the
motion with the same position of the fingers directly forward from the
mouth, and with that given in LEAN WOLF’S COMPLAINT, illustrated on page
528, in which the motion is made carelessly across the body. The
original sign was undoubtedly made directly from the mouth, the
conception being “two tongues,” two accounts or opposed statements, one
of which must be false, but the finger-position coming to be established
for two tongues has relation to the original conception whether or not
made near or in reference to the mouth, the latter being understood.
It will thus be seen that sometimes the position of the fingers is
material as forming or suggesting a figure without reference to motion,
while in other cases the relative position of the hands to each other
and to parts of the body are significant without any special arrangement
of the fingers. Again, in others, the lines drawn in the air by the hand
or hands execute the conception without further detail. In each case
only the essential details, when they can be ascertained, should be
minutely described.
_SUGGESTIONS FOR COLLECTING SIGNS._
The object always should be, not to translate from English into signs,
but to ascertain the real signs and their meaning. By far the most
satisfactory mode of obtaining this result is to induce Indians or other
gesturers observed to tell stories, make speeches, or hold talks in
gesture, with one of themselves as interpreter in his own oral language
if the latter is understood by the observer, and, if not, the words, not
the signs, should be translated by an intermediary linguistic
interpreter. It will be easy afterward to dissect and separate the
particular signs used. This mode will determine the genuine shade of
meaning of each sign, and corresponds with the plan now adopted by the
Bureau of Ethnology for the study of the tribal vocal languages, instead
of that arising out of exclusively missionary purposes, which was to
force a translation of the Bible from a tongue not adapted to its terms
and ideas, and then to compile a grammar and dictionary from the
artificial result. A little ingenuity will direct the more intelligent
or complaisant gesturers to the expression of the thoughts, signs for
which are specially sought; and full orderly descriptions of such tales
and talks with or even without analysis and illustration are more
desired than any other form of contribution.
The original authorities, or the best evidence, for Indian
signs--_i.e._, the Indians themselves--being still accessible, the
collaborators in this work should not be content with secondary
authority. White sign talkers and interpreters may give some genuine
signs, but they are very apt to interpolate their own improvements.
Experience has led to the apparently paradoxical judgment that the
direct contribution of signs purporting to be those of Indians, made by
a habitual practitioner of signs who is not an Indian, is less valuable
than that of a discriminating observer who is not himself an actor in
gesture speech. The former, being to himself the best authority,
unwittingly invents and modifies signs, or describes what he thinks they
ought to be, often with a very different conception from that of an
Indian. Sign language not being fixed and limited, as is the case with
oral languages, expertness in it is not necessarily a proof of accuracy
in anyone of its forms. The proper inquiry is not what a sign might,
could, would, or should be, or what is the best sign for a particular
meaning, but what is any sign actually used for such meaning. If 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 assimilated or garbled 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 composite jargon by those whose ambition is only to
be sign talkers instead of making an honest contribution to ethnologic
and philologic 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 embraced in a pamphlet issued by the Bureau of Ethnology in the
early part of 1880, entitled “_Introduction to the Study of Sign
Language among the North American Indians as Illustrating 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 same motions, whether of pantomimists on the stage or of other
gesturers, even if the visual perception of all the observers should be
the same in the apprehension of the particular gestures, their language
in description might be so varied as to give very diverse impressions to
a reader who had never seen the gestures 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 uniform style, this source
of confusion is greatly reduced. The graphic lines drawn to represent
the positions and motions on the same diagrams will vary but little in
comparison with the similar attempt of explanation in writing. Both
modes of description were, however, requested, each tending to
supplement and correct the other, and provision was also made for the
notation of such striking facial changes or emotional postures as might
individualize or accentuate the gestures. It was also pointed out that
the prepared sheets could be used by cutting and pasting them in the
proper order, for successive signs forming a speech or story, so as to
exhibit the semiotic syntax. Attention was specially directed to the
importance of ascertaining the intrinsic idea or conception of all
signs, which it was urged should be obtained directly from the persons
using them and not by inference.
In the autumn of 1880 the prompt and industrious co-operation of many
observers in this country, and of a few from foreign lands, had supplied
a large number of descriptions which were collated and collected into a
quarto volume of 329 pages, called “_A Collection of Gesture Signs and
Signals of the North American Indians, with some comparisons_.”
This was printed on sized paper with wide margins 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 number
of skilled and disinterested persons might examine it and thus ascertain
the amount and character of error. The attention of each contributor was
invited to the fact that, in some instances, a sign as described by one
of the other contributors might be recognized as intended for the same
idea or object as that furnished by himself, and the former might prove
to be the better description. Each was also requested to examine if a
peculiar abbreviation or fanciful flourish might not have induced a
difference in his own description from that of another contributor with
no real distinction either in conception or essential formation. All
collaborators were therefore urged to be candid in admitting, 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 statement will, it is hoped, give assurance that the work of
the Bureau of Ethnology has been careful and thorough. No scheme has
been neglected which could be contrived and no labor has been spared to
secure the accuracy and completeness of the publication still in
preparation. It may also be mentioned that although the writer has made
personal observations of signs, no description of any sign 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 some general 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 may have, and they are kept separate
from the linguistic classification given below.
Regarding the difficulties met with in the task proposed, the same motto
might be adopted as was prefixed to Austin’s _Chironomia_: “_Non sum
nescius, quantum susceperim negotii, qui motus corporis exprimere
verbis, imitari scriptura conatus sim voces._” _Rhet. ad Herenn._,
l. 3. If the descriptive recital of the signs collected had been
absolutely restricted to written or printed words the work would have
been still more difficult and the result less intelligible. 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 same who had before invented the mode of
describing signs by “means” mentioned on page 330 _supra_, gives a
curious distinction between deaf-mute and Indian signs regarding their
respective capability of illustration, as follows: “This French system
is taught, I believe, in most of the schools for deaf-mutes in this
country, and in Europe; but so great has been the difficulty of fixing
the hands in space, either by written description or illustrated cuts,
that no text books are used. I must therefore conclude that the Indian
sign language is not only the more natural, but the more simple, as the
gestures 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-mutes are often identical with the Indian, whether expressing the
same or different ideas, and when not precisely identical are always
made on the same principle and with the same members, it is not easy to
imagine 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 same artistic skill would be paralysed in
attempting 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-mute gesture signs.
The proper arrangement and classification of signs will always be
troublesome and unsatisfactory. There can be no accurate translation
either of sentences or of words from signs into written English. So far
from the signs representing words as logographs, they do not in their
presentation of the ideas of actions, objects, and events, under
physical forms, even suggest words, which must be skillfully fitted to
them by the glossarist and laboriously derived from them by the
philologer. The use of words in formulation, still more in terminology,
is so wide a departure from primitive conditions as to be incompatible
with the only primordial language yet discovered. No vocabulary of signs
will be exhaustive for the simple reason that the signs 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 meaning from the context, but a single word may express a
complex idea, to be fully rendered only by a group of signs, and, _vice
versâ_, a single sign may suffice for a number of words. The elementary
principles by which the combinations in sign and in the oral languages
of civilization are effected are also discrepant. The attempt must
therefore be made to collate and compare the signs according to general
ideas, conceptions, and, if possible, the ideas and conceptions of the
gesturers themselves, instead of in order of words as usually arranged
in dictionaries.
The hearty thanks of the writer are rendered to all his collaborators,
a list of whom is given below, and will in future be presented in a
manner more worthy of them. It remains to give an explanation of the
mode in which a large collection of signs has been made directly by the
officers of the Bureau of Ethnology. Fortunately for this undertaking,
the policy of the government brought to Washington during the year 1880
delegations, sometimes quite large, of most of the important tribes.
Thus the most intelligent of the race from many distant and far
separated localities were here in considerable numbers for weeks, and
indeed, in some cases, months, and, together 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 information. The facilities thus obtained were much
greater than could have been enjoyed by a large number of observers
traveling for a long time over the continent for the same express
purpose. The observations relating to signs were all made here by the
same persons, according to a uniform method, in which the gestures were
obtained directly from the Indians, and their meaning (often in itself
clear from the context of signs before known) was translated sometimes
through the medium of English 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 minute and rapidly-executed signs,
dictated at the moment of their exhibition, were sometimes taken down by
a phonographer, that there might be no lapse of memory in any
particular, and in many cases the signs 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 answers were 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 made for the same objects and the
degree of mutual comprehension notwithstanding such differences. Similar
studies were made by taking Indians to the National Deaf Mute College
and bringing them in contact with the pupils.
By far the greater part of the actual work of the observation and record
of the signs obtained at Washington has been ably performed by Dr. W. J.
HOFFMAN, the assistant of the present writer. When the latter has made
personal observations the former has always been present, taking the
necessary notes and sketches and superintending the photographing. To
him, therefore, belongs 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 Washington from Indian delegations. Dr.
HOFFMAN acquired in the West, through his service as acting assistant
surgeon, United States Army, at a large reservation, the indispensable
advantage of becoming 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
permanent illustration all shades of gesture exhibited. Nearly all of
the pictorial illustrations in this paper are from his pencil. For the
remainder, and for general superintendence of the artistic department of
the work, thanks are due to Mr. W. H. HOLMES, whose high 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 from Pittsburgh 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.
J. O. Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the command of Maj. S. H. LONG,
of the United States Topographical Engineers, and is commonly called
James’ Long’s Expedition. This list appears to have been collected
chiefly by Mr. T. Say, from the Pani, and the Kansas, Otos, Missouris,
Iowas, Omahas, and other southern branches of the great 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
examples of the sign language of the former.” From the much greater
proportion of time spent and information obtained by the author among
the Mandans and Hidatsa then and now dwelling near Port Berthold, on the
Upper Missouri, it might be safe to consider that all the signs in his
list were in fact procured from those tribes. But as the author does not
say so, he is not made to say so in this work. If it shall prove that
the signs 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 German, above cited, and in the
French, _Paris_, 1840. Bibliographic reference is often made to this
distinguished explorer as “Prince Maximilian,” as if there were but one
possessor of that Christian name among 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 compared by readers with the signs now made by the same
tribes. The translation now presented is based upon the German original,
but in a few cases where the language 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 many recent reporters of Indian
signs, that the latter depend much more upon motion than mere position,
and are generally large and free, seldom minute. His object was to
express the general 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.
On account of the manifest importance of determining the prevalence and
persistence of the signs as observed half a century ago, an exception is
made to the general arrangement hereafter mentioned by introducing after
the _Wied_ signs remarks of collaborators who have made special
comparisons, and adding to the latter the respective names of those
collaborators--as, (_Matthews_), (_Boteler_). It is hoped that the work
of those gentlemen will be imitated, not only regarding the _Wied_
signs, but many others.
4. The signs given to publication by Capt. R. F. BURTON, which, it would
be inferred, were collected in 1860-’61, from the tribes met or learned
of on the overland stage route, including Southern Dakotas, Utes,
Shoshoni, Arapahos, Crows, Pani, and Apaches. They are contained in _The
City of the Saints_, _New York_, 1862, pp. 123-130.
Information has been recently received to the effect that this
collection was not made by the distinguished English explorer from his
personal observation, but was obtained by him from one man in Salt Lake
City, a Mormon bishop, who, it is feared, gave his own ideas of the
formation and use of signs rather than their faithful description.
5. A list read by Dr. D. G. MACGOWAN, at a meeting of the American
Ethnological Society, January 23, 1866, and published in the _Historical
Magazine_, vol. x, 1866, pp. 86, 87, purporting to be the signs of the
Caddos, Wichitas, and Comanches.
6. Annotations by Lieut. HEBER M. CREEL, Seventh United States Cavalry,
received in January, 1881. This officer is supposed to be specially
familiar with the Cheyennes, among whom he lived for eighteen months;
but his recollection is that most of the signs described by him were
also observed among the Arapaho, Sioux, and several other tribes.
7. A special contribution from Mr. F. F. GERARD, of Fort A. Lincoln,
D. T., of signs obtained chiefly from a deaf-mute Dakota, who has
traveled among most of the Indian tribes living between the Missouri
River and the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Gerard’s own observations are based
upon the experience of thirty-two years’ residence in that country,
during which long period he has had almost daily intercourse with
Indians. He states that the signs contributed by him are used by the
Blackfeet, (Satsika), Absaroka, Dakota, Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara
Indians, who may in general be considered to be the group of tribes
referred to by the Prince of Wied.
In the above noted collections the generality of the statements as to
locality of the observation and use of the signs rendered it impossible
to arrange them in the manner considered to be the best to study the
diversities and agreements of signs. For that purpose it is more
convenient that the names of the tribe or tribes among which the
described signs have been observed should catch the eye in immediate
connection with them than that those of the observers only should
follow. Some of the latter indeed have given both similar and different
signs for more than one tribe, so that the use of the contributor’s name
alone would create confusion. To print in every case the name of the
contributor, together with the name of the tribe, would seriously burden
the paper and be unnecessary to the student, the reference being readily
made to each authority through this LIST which also serves as an index.
The seven collections above mentioned will therefore be referred to by
the names of the authorities responsible for them. Those which now
follow are arranged alphabetically by tribes, under headings of
Linguistic Families according to Major J. W. POWELL’S classification,
which are also given below in alphabetic order. Example: The first
authority is under the heading ALGONKIAN, and, concerning only the
Abnaki tribe, is referred to as (_Abnaki_ I), Chief MASTA being the
personal authority.
_ALGONKIAN._
_Abnaki_ I. A letter dated December 15, 1879, from H. L. MASTA, chief of
the Abnaki, residing near Pierreville, Quebec.
_Arapaho_ I. A contribution from Lieut. H. B. LEMLY, Third United States
Artillery, compiled from notes and observations taken by him in 1877,
among the Northern Arapahos.
_Arapaho_ II. A list of signs obtained from O-QO-HIS´-SA (the Mare,
better known as Little Raven) and NA´-WATC (Left Hand), members of a
delegation of Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians, from Darlington, Ind. T.,
who visited Washington during the summer of 1880.
_Cheyenne_ I. Extracts from the _Report of Lieut. J. W. ABERT, of his
Examination of New Mexico in the years 1846-’47_, in Ex. Doc. No. 41,
Thirtieth Congress, first session, Washington, 1848, p. 417, _et seq._
_Cheyenne_ II. A list prepared in July, 1879, by Mr. FRANK H. CUSHING,
of the Smithsonian Institution, from continued interviews with
TITC-KE-MA´-TSKI (Cross-Eyes), an intelligent Cheyenne, then employed at
that Institution.
_Cheyenne_ III. A special contribution with diagrams from Mr. BEN CLARK,
scout and interpreter, of signs collected from the Cheyennes during his
long residence among that tribe.
_Cheyenne_ IV. Several communications from Col. RICHARD I. DODGE,
A.D.C., United States Army, author of _The Plains of the Great West and
their Inhabitants_, _New York_, 1877, relating to his large experience
with the Indians of the prairies.
_Cheyenne_ V. A list of signs obtained from WA-Uⁿ´ (Bob-tail) and
MO-HI´NUK-MA-HA´-IT (Big Horse), members of a delegation of Arapaho and
Cheyenne Indians from Darlington, Ind. T., who visited Washington during
the summer of 1880.
_Ojibwa_ I. The small collection of J. G. KOHL, made about the middle of
the present century, among the Ojibwas around Lake Superior. Published
in his _Kitchigami. Wanderings Around Lake Superior_, _London_, 1860.
_Ojibwa_ II. Several letters from the Very Rev. EDWARD JACKER, Pointe
St. Ignace, Mich., respecting the Ojibwas.
_Ojibwa_ III. A communication from Rev. JAMES A. GILFILLAN, White Earth,
Minn., relating to signs observed among the Ojibwas during his long
period of missionary duty, still continuing.
_Ojibwa_ IV. A list from Mr. B. O. WILLIAMS, Sr., of Owosso, Mich., from
recollection of signs observed among the Ojibwas of Michigan sixty years
ago.
_Ojibwa_ V. Contributions received in 1880 and 1881 from Mr. F. JACKER,
of Portage River, Houghton County, Michigan, who has resided many years
among and near the tribe mentioned.
_Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo_ I. A list from Rev. H. F. BUCKNER, D.D., of
Eufaula, Ind. T., consisting chiefly of tribal signs observed by him
among the Sac and Fox, Kickapoos, &c., during the early part of the year
1880.
_DAKOTAN._
_Absaroka_ I. A list of signs obtained from DE-E´-KI-TCIS (Pretty
Eagle), É-TCI-DI-KA-HĂTC´-KI (Long Elk), and PE-RI´-TCI-KA´-DI-A (Old
Crow), members of a delegation of Absaroka or Crow Indians from Montana
Territory, who visited Washington during the months of April and May,
1880.
_Dakota_ I. A comprehensive list, arranged with great care and skill,
from Dr. CHARLES E. MCCHESNEY, acting assistant surgeon, United States
Army, of signs collected among the Dakotas (Sioux) near Fort Bennett,
Dakota, during the year 1880. Dr. McChesney requests that recognition
should be made of the valuable assistance rendered to him by Mr. WILLIAM
FIELDEN, the interpreter at Cheyenne Agency, Dakota Territory.
_Dakota_ II. A short list from Dr. BLAIR D. TAYLOR, assistant surgeon,
United States Army, from recollection of signs observed among the Sioux
during his late service in the region inhabited by that tribe.
_Dakota_ III. A special contribution from Capt. A. W. CORLISS, Eighth
United States Infantry, of signs observed by him during his late service
among the Sioux.
_Dakota_ IV. A copious contribution with diagrams from Dr. WILLIAM H.
CORBUSIER, assistant surgeon, United States Army, of signs obtained from
the Ogalala Sioux at Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota Territory, during
1879-’80.
_Dakota_ V. A report of Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN, from observations among the
Teton Dakotas while acting assistant surgeon, United States Army, and
stationed at Grand River Agency, Dakota, during 1872-’73.
_Dakota_ VI. A list of signs obtained from PE-ZHI´ (Grass), chief of the
Blackfoot Sioux; NA-ZU´-LA-TAⁿ-KA (Big Head), chief of the Upper
Yanktonais; and CE-TAⁿ´-KIⁿ-YAⁿ (Thunder Hawk), chief of the Uncpapas,
Teton Dakotas, located at Standing Rock, Dakota Territory, while at
Washington in June, 1880.
_Dakota_ VII. A list of signs obtained from SHUN´-KA LU-TA (Red Dog), an
Ogalala chief from the Red Cloud Agency, who visited Washington in
company with a large delegation of Dakotas in June, 1880.
_Dakota_ VIII. A special list obtained from TA-TAⁿ´KA WA-KAⁿ (Medicine
Bull), and other members of a delegation of Lower Brulé Dakotas, while
at Washington during the winter of 1880-’81.
_Hidatsa_ I. A list of signs obtained from TCE-CAQ´-A-DAQ-A-QIC (Lean
Wolf), chief of the Hidatsa, located at Fort Berthold, Dakota Territory,
while at Washington with a delegation of Sioux Indians, in June, 1880.
_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I. A valuable and illustrated contribution from Dr.
WASHINGTON MATTHEWS, assistant surgeon, United States Army, author of
_Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians_, _Washington_, 1877,
&c., lately prepared from his notes and recollections of signs observed
during his long service among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians of the
Upper Missouri.
_Omaha_ I. A special list from Rev. J. OWEN DORSEY, lately missionary at
Omaha Agency, Nebraska, from observations made by him at that agency in
1880.
_Oto_ I. An elaborate list, with diagrams, from Dr. W. G. BOTELER,
United States Indian service, collected from the Otos at the Oto Agency,
Nebraska, during 1879-’80.
_Oto and Missouri_ I. A similar contribution by the same authority
respecting the signs of the Otos and Missouris, of Nebraska, collected
during the winter of 1879-’80, in the description of many of which he
was joined by Miss KATIE BARNES.
_Ponka_ I. A short list from Rev. J. OWEN DORSEY, obtained by him in
1880 from the Ponkas in Nebraska.
_Ponka_ II. A short list obtained at Washington from KHI-DHA-SKĂ, (White
Eagle), and other chiefs, a delegation from Kansas in January, 1881.
_IROQUOIAN._
_Iroquois_ I. A list of signs contributed by the Hon. HORATIO HALE,
author of “Philology” of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, &c., now
residing at Clinton, Ontario, Canada, obtained in June, 1880, from
SAKAYENKWARATON (Disappearing Mist), familiarly known as John Smoke
Johnson, chief of the Canadian division of the Six Nations, or Iroquois
proper, now a very aged man, residing at Brantford, Canada.
_Wyandot_ I. A list of signs from HEN´-TO (Gray Eyes), chief of the
Wyandots, who visited Washington during the spring of 1880, in the
interest of that tribe, now dwelling in Indian Territory.
_KAIOWAN._
_Kaiowa_ I. A list of signs from SITTIMGEA (Stumbling Bear), a Kaiowa
chief from Indian Territory, who visited Washington in June, 1880.
_KUTINEAN._
_Kutine_ I. A letter from J. W. POWELL, Esq., Indian superintendent,
British Columbia, relating to his observations among the Kutine and
others.
_PANIAN._
_Arikara_ I. A list of signs obtained from KUA-NUQ´-KNA-UI´-UQ (Son of
the Star), chief of the Arikaras, residing at Fort Berthold, Dakota
Territory, while at Washington with a delegation of Indians, in June,
1880.
_Pani_ I. A short list obtained from “ESAU,” a Pani Indian, acting as
interpreter to the Ponka delegation at Washington, in January, 1881.
_PIMAN._
_Pima and Papago_ I. A special contribution obtained from ANTONITO, son
of the chief of the Pima Indians in Arizona Territory, while on a visit
to Washington in February, 1881.
_SAHAPTIAN._
_Sahaptian_ I. A list contributed by Rev. G. L. DEFFENBAUGH, of Lapwai,
Idaho, giving signs obtained at Kamiah, Idaho, chiefly from FELIX, chief
of the Nez Percés, and used by the Sahaptin or Nez Percés.
_SHOSHONIAN._
_Comanche_ I. Notes from Rev. A. J. HOLT, Denison, Texas, respecting the
Comanche signs, obtained at Anadarko, Indian Territory.
_Comanche_ II. Information obtained at Washington, in February, 1880,
from Maj. J. M. HAWORTH, Indian inspector, relating to signs used by the
Comanches of Indian Territory.
_Comanche_ III. A list of signs obtained from KOBI (Wild Horse),
a Comanche chief from Indian Territory, who visited Washington in June,
1880.
_Pai-Ute_ I. Information obtained at Washington from NA´TCI, a Pai-Ute
chief, who was one of a delegation of that tribe to Washington in
January, 1880.
_Shoshoni and Banak_ I. A list of signs obtained from TENDOY (The
Climber), TISIDIMIT, PETE, and WI’AGAT, members of a delegation of
Shoshoni and Banak chiefs from Idaho, who visited Washington during the
months of April and May, 1880.
_Ute_ I. A list of signs obtained from ALEJANDRE, GA-LO-TE, AUGUSTIN,
and other chiefs, members of a delegation of Ute Indians of Colorado,
who visited Washington during the early months of the year 1880.
_TINNEAN._
_Apache_ I. A list of signs obtained from HUERITO (Little Blonde),
AGUSTIN VIJEL, and SANTIAGO LARGO (James Long), members of a delegation
of Apache chiefs from Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, who were brought to
Washington in the months of March and April, 1880.
_Apache_ II. A list of signs obtained from NA´-KA´-NA´-NI-TEN (White
Man), an Apache chief from Indian Territory, who visited Washington in
June, 1880.
_Apache_ III. A large collection made during the summer of 1880, by Dr.
FRANCIS H. ATKINS, acting assistant surgeon, United States Army, from
the Mescalero Apaches, near South Fork, N. Mex.
_Kutchin_ I. A communication, received in 1881, from Mr. IVAN PETROFF,
special agent United States census, transmitting a dialogue, taken down
by himself in 1866, between the Kenaitze Indians on the lower Kinnik
River, in Alaska, and some natives of the interior who called themselves
_Tennanah_ or _Mountain-River-Men_, belonging to the Tinne Kutchin
tribe.
_WICHITAN._
_Wichita_ I. A list of signs from Rev. A. J. HOLT, missionary, obtained
from KIN CHĒ-ĔSS (Spectacles), medicine-man of the Wichitas, at the
Wichita Agency, Indian Territory, in 1879.
_Wichita_ II. A list of signs from TSODIÁKO (Shaved Head Boy), a Wichita
chief, from Indian Territory, who visited Washington in June, 1880.
_ZUÑIAN._
_Zuñi_ I. Some preliminary notes received in 1880 from Rev. TAYLOR F.
EALY, missionary among the Zuñi, upon the signs of that body of Indians.
_FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE._
Valuable contributions have been received in 1880-’81 and collated under
their proper headings, from the following correspondents in distant
countries:
Rev. HERMAN N. BARNUM, D.D., of Harpoot, Turkey, furnishes a list of
signs in common use among Turks, Armenians, and Koords in that region.
Miss L. O. LLOYD, Charleton House, Mowbray, near Cape Town, Africa,
gives information concerning the gestures and signals of the Bushmen.
Rev. LORIMER FISON, Navuloa, Fiji, notes in letters comparisons between
the signs and gestures of the Fijians and those of the North American
Indians. As this paper is passing through the press a _Collection_ is
returned with annotations by him and also by Mr. WALTER CAREW,
Commissioner for the Interior of Navitilevu. The last named gentleman
describes some signs of a Fijian uninstructed deaf-mute.
Mr. F. A. VON RUPPRECHT, Kepahiang, Sumatra, supplies information and
comparisons respecting the signs and signals of the Redjangs and
Lelongs, showing agreement with some Dakota, Comanche, and Ojibwa signs.
Letters from Mr. A. W. HOWITT, F.G.S., Sale, Gippsland, Victoria, upon
Australian signs, and from Rev. JAMES SIBREE, jr., F.R.G.S., relative to
the tribes of Madagascar, are gratefully acknowledged.
Many other correspondents are now, according to their kind promises,
engaged in researches, the result of which have not yet been received.
The organization of those researches in India and Ceylon has been
accomplished through the active interest of Col. H. S. OLCOTT, U.S.
Commissioner, Breach Candy, Bombay.
Grateful acknowledgment must be made to Prof. E. A. FAY, of the National
Deaf Mute College, through whose special attention a large number of the
natural signs of deaf-mutes, remembered by them as having been invented
and used before instruction in conventional signs, indeed before
attending any school, was obtained. The gentlemen who made the
contributions in their own MS., and without prompting, are as follows:
Messrs. M. BALLARD, R. M. ZIEGLER, J. CROSS, PHILIP J. HASENSTAB, and
LARS LARSON. Their names respectively follow their several descriptions.
Mr. BALLARD is an instructor in the college, and the other gentlemen
were pupils during the session of 1880.
Similar thanks are due to Mr. J. L. NOYES, superintendent of the
Minnesota Institution for the education of the Deaf and Dumb, Faribault,
Minn., and to Messrs. GEORGE WING and D. H. CARROLL, teachers in that
institution, for annotations and suggestions respecting deaf-mute signs.
The notes made by the last named gentlemen are followed by their
respective names in reference.
Special thanks are also rendered to Prof. JAMES D. BUTLER, of Madison,
Wis., for contribution of Italian gesture-signs, noted by him in 1843,
and for many useful suggestions.
Other Italian signs are quoted from the Essay on Italian gesticulations
by his eminence Cardinal WISEMAN, in his _Essays on Various Subjects_,
_London_, 1855, Vol. III, pp. 533-555. Many Neapolitan signs are
extracted from the illustrated work of the canon ANDREA DE JORIO, _La
Mimica degli Antichi investigata nel gestire Napoletano_, _Napoli_,
1832.
A small collection of Australian signs has been extracted from R. BROUGH
SMYTH’S _The Aborigines of Victoria_, _London_, 1878.
EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY.
In the printed but unpublished _Collection_ before mentioned, page 396,
nearly three hundred quarto pages are devoted to descriptions of signs
arranged in alphabetic order. A few of these are now presented to show
the method adopted. They have been selected either as having connection
with the foregoing discussion of the subject or because for some of them
pictorial illustrations had already been prepared. There is propriety in
giving all the signs under some of the title words when descriptions of
only one or two of those signs have been used in the foregoing remarks.
This prevents an erroneous inference that the signs so mentioned are the
only or the common or the generally prevailing signs for the idea
conveyed. This course has involved some slight repetition both of
descriptions and of illustrations, as it seemed desirable that they
should appear to the eye in the several connections indicated. The
extracts are rendered less interesting and instructive by the necessity
for omitting cross-references which would show contrasts and
similarities for comparison, but would require a much larger part of the
collected material to be now printed than is consistent with the present
plan. Instead of occupying in this manner the remaining space allotted
to this paper, it was decided to present, as of more general interest,
the descriptions of TRIBAL SIGNS, PROPER NAMES, PHRASES, DIALOGUES,
NARRATIVES, DISCOURSES, and SIGNALS, which follow the EXTRACTS.
It will be observed that in the following extracts there has been an
attempt to supply the conceptions or origin of the several signs. When
the supposed conception, obtained through collaborators, is printed
before the authority given as reference, it is understood to have been
gathered from an Indian as being his own conception, and is therefore of
special value. When printed after the authority and within quotation
marks it is in the words of the collaborator as offered by himself. When
printed after the authority and without quotation marks it is suggested
by this writer.
The letters of the alphabet within parentheses, used in some of the
descriptions, refer to the corresponding figures in TYPES OF HAND
POSITIONS at the end of this paper. When such letters are followed by
Arabic numerals it is meant that there is some deviation, which is
described in the text, from that type of hand position corresponding
with the letter which is still used as the basis of description.
Example: In the first description from (_Sahaptin_ I) for _bad, mean_,
page 412, (G) refers to the type of hand position so marked, being
identically that position, but in the following reference, to (R 1), the
type referred to by the letter R has the palm to the front instead of
backward, being in all other respects the position which it is desired
to illustrate; (R), therefore, taken in connection with the description,
indicates that change, and that alone. This mode of reference is farther
explained in the EXAMPLES at the end of this paper.
References to another title word as explaining a part of a description
or to supply any other portions of a compound sign will always be
understood as being made to the description by the same authority of the
sign under the other title-word. Example: In the second description by
(_Sahaptin_ I) for _bad, mean_, above mentioned, the reference to GOOD
is to that sign for _good_ which is contributed by Rev. G. L.
DEFFENBAUGH, and is referred to as (_Sahaptin_ I.).
ANTELOPE.
Pass the open right hand outward from the small of the back. (_Wied_.)
This, as explained by Indians lately examined, indicates the lighter
coloration upon the animal’s flanks. A Ute who could speak Spanish
accompanied it with the word _blanco_, as if recognizing that it
required explanation.
With the index only extended, hold the hand eighteen or twenty inches
transversely in front of the head, index pointing to the left, then rub
the sides of the body with the flat hands. (_Cheyenne_ IV; _Dakota_ VI.)
“The latter sign refers to the white sides of the animal; the former
could not be explained.”
[Illustration: FIG. 234.]
[Illustration: FIG. 235.]
Extend and separate the forefingers and thumbs, nearly close all the
other fingers, and place the hands with backs outward above and a little
in front of the ears, about four inches from the head, and shake them
back and forth several times. Antelope’s horns. This is an Arapaho sign.
(_Dakota_ I, II, IV.)
Close the right hand, leaving the end of the index in the form of a
hook, and the thumb extended as in Fig. 234; then wave the hand quickly
back and forth a short distance, opposite the temple. (_Hidatsa_ I;
_Arikara_ I.) “Represents the pronged horn of the animal. This is the
sign ordinarily used, but it was noticed that in conversing with one of
the Dakotas the sign of the latter (_Dakota_ VI) was used several times,
to be more readily understood.”
Place both hands, fingers fully extended and spread, close to the sides
of the head. _Wied’s_ sign was readily understood as signifying the
white flanks. (_Apache_ I.)
In connection with the above signs Fig. 235 is presented, which was
drawn by Running Antelope, an Uncpapa Dakota, as his personal totem, or
proper name.
BAD, MEAN.
Make the sign for GOOD and then that of NOT. (_Long_.)
Close the hand, and open it whilst passing it downward. (_Wied_.) This
is the same as my description; but differently worded, possibly notes a
less forcible form. I say, however, that the arm is “extended.” The
precise direction in which the hand is moved is not, I think, essential.
(_Matthews_.) This sign is invariably accompanied by a countenance
expressive of contempt. (_F. Jacker_.)
Scatter the dexter fingers outward, as if spurting away water from them.
(_Burton_.)
(1) Right hand partially elevated, fingers closed, thumb clasping the
tips; (2) sudden motion downward and outward accompanied by equally
sudden opening of fingers and snapping of the fingers from the thumb.
(_Cheyenne_ II.)
Right hand closed back to front is moved forcibly downward and forward,
the fingers being violently opened at instant of stopping the motion of
hand. (_Cheyenne_ IV.)
Right hand closed (B) carried forward in front of the body toward the
right and downward, during which the hand is opened, fingers downward,
as if dropping out the contents. (_Dakota_ I.) “Not worth keeping.”
Half close the fingers of the right hand, hook the thumb over the fore
and middle fingers; move the hand, back upward, a foot or so toward the
object referred to, and suddenly let the fingers fly open. Scattered
around, therefore bad. An Arapaho sign. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Close the fingers of the right hand, resting the tips against the thumb,
then throw the hand downward and outward toward the right to arm’s
length, and spring open the fingers. Fig. 236. (_Dakota_ VI, VII, VIII;
_Ponka_ II; _Pani_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 236.]
The sign most commonly used for this idea is made by the hand being
closed near the breast, with the back toward the breast, then as the arm
is suddenly extended the hand is opened and the fingers separated from
each other. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
Hands open, palms turned in; move one hand toward, and the other from,
the body; then _vice versâ_. (_Omaha_ I.)
Throw the clinched right hand forward, downward, and outward, and when
near at arm’s length, suddenly snap the fingers from the thumb as if
sprinkling water. (_Wyandot_ I.) “To throw away contemptuously; not
worth keeping.”
Raise hand in front of breast, fingers hooked, thumb resting against
second finger, palm downward (G), then with a nervous movement throw the
hand downward to the right and a little behind the body, with an
expression of disgust on the face. During motion of hand the fingers are
suddenly extended as though throwing something out of the hand, and in
final position the fingers and thumb are straight and separated, palm
backward (R 1). (_Sahaptin_ I.) “Away with it!”
Another: Same motion of arm and hand as in _good_. But in the first
position fingers are closed, and as the hand moves to the right they are
thrown open, until in final position all are extended as in final for
_good_. (_Sahaptin_ I.)
Extend the right hand, palm downward, and move it in a horizontal line
from the body, then suddenly turn the hand over as if throwing water
from the back of it or the index. (_Comanche_ I.) “Good, no.”
Pass the flat right hand, interruptedly, downward and backward past the
right side. (_Pima and Papago_ I.) “Putting aside.”
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Hold forward the closed hand with the little finger up, at the same time
nodding the head. (_Ballard_.)
Draw the tongue out a little and then shake the head with a displeased
look. (_Larson_.)
Use the sign for _handsome_ (see first part of the sign for GOOD), at
the same time shake the head as if to say “no.” (_Ziegler_.)
_Deaf-mute signs:_
The hand closed (except the little finger which is extended and raised),
and held forward with the fingers to the front is the sign for _bad_
illustrated in the Report for 1879 of the Ohio Institution for the Deaf
and Dumb. This sign is used among the deaf-mutes in England.
BEAR, animal.
Pass the hand before the face to mean ugliness, at the same time
grinning and extending the fingers like claws. (_Burton_.)
Hands in front of and about eight inches above the elbows, fingers
slightly bent and open, thumbs and palms to the front to represent
claws,--or bear in standing position. Sometimes accompanied by clawing
motion. (_Creel_.)
(1) Middle and third finger of right hand clasped down by the thumb,
forefinger and little finger extended, crooked downward; (2) the motion
of scratching made in the air. (_Cheyenne_ II.) Fig. 237.
[Illustration: FIG. 237.]
Fingers of both hands closed, except the thumb and little finger, which
are extended, and point straight toward the front, hands horizontal,
backs upward, are held in front of their respective sides near the body,
and then moved directly forward with short, sharp jerking motions.
(_Dakota_ I.) “From the motion of the bear in running.” This is also
reported as an Arapaho sign. (_Dakota_ IV.) The paws and claws are
represented.
Seize a short piece of wood, say about two feet long, wave in the right
hand, and strike a blow at an imaginary person. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Seize a short thing about six inches long, hold it as dagger,
pretend to thrust it downward under the breast-bone repeatedly, and each
time farther, grunting or gasping in doing so; withdraw the stick,
holding it up, and, showing the blood, point to the breast with the left
forefinger, meaning to say _so do thou when you meet the bear_.
(_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Pretend to stab yourself with an arrow in various parts of the
body, then point towards the body with the left-hand forefinger.
(_Omaha_ I.)
Arms are flexed and hands clasped about center of breast; then slowly
fall with arms pendulous and both hands in type-position (Q). The sign
is completed by slowly lifting the hands and arms several times in
imitation of the animal’s locomotion. Movement and appearance of
animal’s front feet. (_Oto_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 238.]
Hold the closed right hand at the height of the elbow before the right
side, palm downward, extend and curve the thumb and little finger so
that their tips are nearly directed toward one another before the
knuckles of the closed fingers; then push the hand forward several
times. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “Paw and
long claws.” Fig. 238.
[Illustration: FIG. 239.]
Hold both closed hands before the body, palms down, and about eight
inches apart; reach forward a short distance, relaxing the fingers as if
grasping something with them, and draw them back again as the hands are
withdrawn to their former position. Ordinarily but one hand is used, as
in Fig. 239. (_Ute_ I.) “Scratching, and grasping with the claws.”
The right hand thrown in the position as for _horse_, as follows:
Elevate the right-hand, extended, with fingers joined, outer edge toward
the ground, in front of the body or right shoulder, and pointing
forward, resting the curved thumb against the palmar side of the index,
then extend both hands with fingers extended and curved, separated,
palms down, and push them forward several times, making a short arch.
(_Apache_ I.) “The animal that scratches with long claws.”
[Illustration: FIG. 240.]
Fig. 240 is from a Moqui rock etching, contributed by Mr. G. K. Gilbert,
showing the pictorial mode of representing the animal.
_Deaf-mute sign:_
Claw both shoulders with the fingers. (_Wing_.)
---- Grizzly.
Right hand flat and extended, held at height of shoulder, palm forward,
then bring the palm to the mouth, lick it with the tongue, and return it
to first position. (_Omaha_ I.) “Showing blood on the paw.”
Other remarks upon the signs for _bear_ are made on pages 293 and 345.
BRAVE.
Close the fists, place the left near the breast, and move the right over
the left toward the left side. (_Wied_.) A motion something like this,
which I do not now distinctly recall--a short of wrenching motion with
the fists in front of the chest--I have seen used for _strong_. If
_Wied’s_ sign-maker’s hand first struck the region over the heart (as he
may have done) he would then have indicated a “strong heart,” which is
the equivalent for _brave_. (_Matthews_.) This sign is used by the Sioux
at the present day to denote _small_. (_McChesney_.) I have seen a
similar sign repeatedly, the only variation being that the right fist is
passed over and downward, in front of the left, instead of toward the
left side. (_Hoffman_.) Fig. 241.
[Illustration: FIG. 241.]
Clinch the right fist, and place it to the breast. (_Absaroka_ I;
_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.)
Both hands fists, backs outward, obliquely upward, near together, right
inside of left, are moved forward from in front of the chest, two or
three times and back again to original position and then the right-hand
fist is thrown with some force over the left on a curve. _Endurance_ is
expressed by this sign, and it is connected with the sun-dance trials of
the young man in testing his bravery and powers of endurance before
admission to the ranks of the warriors. (_Dakota_ I.)
Push the two fists forward about a foot, at the height of the breast,
the right about two inches behind the left, palms inward. (_Dakota_ IV.)
“The hands push all before them.”
Hold the left arm in front as if supporting a shield, and the right
drawn back as if grasping a weapon. Close the fists, lower the head,
moving it a little forward (with a “lunge”) as well as the arms and
fists. (_Omaha_ I.) “I am brave.”
Another: Index and thumb extended parallel, palm to left, the other
fingers bent. Shake the open fingers several times at the person
referred to, the forearm being held at an angle of about 20°.
(_Omaha_ I.) “You are very brave; you do not fear death when you see the
danger.”
Strike the breast gently with the palmar side of the right fist.
(_Wyandot_ I.)
Place the left clinched hand horizontally before the breast, palm toward
the body, and at the same time strike forcibly downward in front of it
with the right fist, as in Fig. 242. Sometimes the right fist is placed
back of the left, then thrown over the latter toward the front and
downward, as in Fig. 241 above. The same gesture has also been made by
throwing the palmar side of the right fist edgewise downward in front of
the knuckles of the left, as in Fig. 243. In each instance the left fist
is jerked upward very perceptibly as the right one is thrust downward.
(_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
[Illustration: FIG. 242.]
Strike the clinched fist forcibly toward the ground in front of and near
the breast. (_Arikara_ I.)
---- He is the bravest of all.
Make the sign for BRAVE and then the left forefinger, upright, back
inward about twelve inches in front of left breast, right index
similarly held near the right breast, move them at the same time outward
or forward, obliquely to the left. (_Dakota_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 243.]
Raise right hand, fingers extended, palm downward (W 1), swing it around
“over all,” then point to the man, raise left fist (A 1, changed to left
and palm inward) to a point in front of and near the body, close fingers
of right hand and place the fist (A 2, palm inward) between left fist
and body and then with violent movement throw it over left fist, as
though breaking something, and stop at a point in front of and a little
below left fist, and lastly point upward with right hand.
(_Sahaptin_ I.) “Of all here he is strongest.”
The right fist, palm downward, is struck against the breast several
times, and the index is then quickly elevated before the face, pointing
upward. (_Apache_ I.)
Move the fist, thumb to the head, across the forehead from right to
left, and cast it toward the earth over the left shoulder. (_Apache_
III.)
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Run forward with a bold expression of the countenance. (_Larson_.)
Not to run back but to run forward. (_Ziegler_.)
_Deaf-mute sign:_
Left hand held as if pressing a loaf against the chest. Make a motion
with the right hand, palm upward as if cutting through the fingers of
the left with a sawing motion. (_Wing_.)
Other remarks connected with the signs for _brave_ appear on pages 352,
353, and 358, _supra_.
CHIEF.
The forefinger of the right hand extended, pass it perpendicularly
downward, then turn it upward, and raise it in a right line as high as
the head. (_Long_.) “Rising above others.”
Raise the index finger of the right hand, holding it straight upward,
then turn it in a circle and bring it straight down, a little toward the
earth. (_Wied_.) The right hand is raised, and in position (J) describes
a semicircle as in beginning the act of throwing. The arm is elevated
perfectly erect aside of the head, the palm of the index and hand should
be outward. There is an evident similarity in both execution and
conception of this sign and _Wied’s_; the little variation may be the
result of different interpretation. The idea of superiority is most
prominent in both. (_Boteler_.) “A prominent one before whom all
succumb.” The Arikaras understood this sign, and they afterwards used it
in talking to me. (_Creel_.) _Wied’s_ air-picture reminds of the royal
scepter with its sphere.
Raise the forefinger, pointed upwards, in a vertical direction, and then
reverse both finger and motion; the greater the elevation the “bigger”
the chief. (_Arapaho_ I.)
Place the closed hand, with the index extended and pointing upward, near
the right cheek, pass it upward as high as the head, then turn it
forward and downward toward the ground, the movement terminating a
little below the initial point. See Fig. 306 in TENDOY-HUERITO DIALOGUE,
p. 487. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Ponka_ II; _Shoshoni_ I.)
(1) Sign for MAN, as follows: Right hand, palm inward, elevated to about
the level of the breast, index carelessly pointing upward, suddenly
pointed straight upward, and the whole hand moved a little forward, at
the same time taking care to keep the back of the hand toward the person
addressed; (2) middle, third, little finger, and thumb slightly closed
together, forefinger pointing forward and downward; (3) curved motion
made forward, outward, and downward. (_Cheyenne_ II.) “He who stands
still and commands,” as shown by similarity of signs to _sit here_ or
_stand here_.
Extend the index, remaining fingers closed, and raise it to the right
side of the head and above it as far as the arm can reach. Have also
seen the sign given by _Wyandot_ I. (_Ojibwa_ V.)
The extended forefinger of the right hand (J), of which the other
fingers are closed, is raised to the right side of the head and above it
as far as the arm can be extended, and then the hand is brought down in
front of the body with the wrist bent, the back of hand in front and the
extended forefinger pointing downward. (_Dakota_ I.) “Raised above
others.”
Move the upright and extended right index, palm forward, from the
shoulder upward as high as the top of the head, then forward six inches
through a curve, and move it forward six inches, and then downward, its
palm backward, to the height of the shoulder. An Arapaho sign, Above all
others. He looks over or after us. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Elevate the extended index before the shoulder, palm forward, pass it
upward as high as the head, and forming a short curve to the front, then
downward again slightly to the front to before the breast and about
fifteen inches from it. (_Dakota_ VI, VII, VIII; _Hidatsa_ I;
_Arikara_ I.)
Right hand closed, forefinger pointing up, raise the hand from the waist
in front of the body till it passes above the head. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Bring the closed right hand, forefinger pointing up, on a level
with the face; then bring the palm of the left hand with force against
the right forefinger; next send up the right hand above the head,
leaving the left as it is. (_Omaha_ I.)
The right arm is extended by side of head, with the hand in position
(J). The arm and hand then descend, the finger describing a semicircle
with the arm as a radius. The sign stops with arm hanging at full
length. (_Oto_ I.) “The arm of authority before whom all must fall.”
Both hands elevated to a position in front of and as high as the
shoulders, palms facing, fingers and thumbs spread and slightly curved;
the hands are then drawn outward a short distance towards their
respective sides and gently elevated as high as the top of the head.
(_Wyandot_ I.) “One who is elevated by others.”
Elevate the closed hand--index only extended and pointing upward--to the
front of the right side of the face or neck or shoulder; pass it quickly
upward, and when as high as the top of the head, direct it forward and
downward again toward the ground. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
Close the right hand, index raised, extended, and placed before the
breast, then move it forward from the mouth, pointing forward, until at
arm’s length. (_Ute_ I.)
----, Head, of tribe.
Place the extended index, pointing upward, at some distance before the
right shoulder, then place the left hand, with fingers and thumb
extended and separated, just back of the index; then in passing the
index upward as high as the head, draw the left hand downward a short
distance, as in Fig. 244. Superior to others. (_Absaroka_ I;
_Arikara_ I.)
Place both flat hands before the body, palms down, and pass them
horizontally outward toward their respective sides, then make the sign
for CHIEF. (_Arikara_ I.) “Chief of the wide region and those upon it.”
[Illustration: FIG. 244.]
After pointing out the man, point to the ground, all fingers closed
except first (J 1, pointing downward in stead of upward), then point
upward with same hand (J 2), then move hand to a point in front of body,
fingers extended, palm downward (W 1), and move around horizontally.
(_Sahaptin_ I.) “In this place he is head over all.”
[Illustration: FIG. 245.]
Grasp the forelock with the right hand, palm backward, pass the hand
upward about six inches and hold it in that position a moment.
(_Pai-Ute_ I.) Fig. 245.
Elevate the extended index vertically above and in front of the head,
holding the left hand, forefinger pointing upward, from one to two feet
below and underneath the right, the position of the left, either
elevated or depressed, also denoting the relative position of the second
individual to that of the chief. (_Apache_ I.)
----, War. Head of a war party; Partisan.
First make the sign of the _pipe_; then open the thumb and index finger
of the right hand, back of the hand outward, moving it forward and
upward in a curve. (_Wied_.) For remarks upon this sign see page 384.
Place the right hand, index only extended and pointing forward and
upward, before the right side of the breast nearly at arm’s length, then
place the left hand, palm forward with fingers spread and extended,
midway between the breast and the right hand. (_Arapaho_ II;
_Cheyenne_ V; _Ponka_ II; _Pani_ I.)
First make the sign for BATTLE, viz: Both hands (A 1) brought to the
median line of the body on a level with the breast and close together;
describe with both hands at the same time a series of circular movements
of small circumference; and then add the sign for CHIEF, (_Dakota_ I.)
“First in battle.”
---- of a band.
Point toward the left and front with the extended forefinger of the left
hand, palm down; then place the extended index about twelve inches
behind the left hand, pointing in the same direction. (_Arapaho_ II;
_Cheyenne_ V; _Ponka_ II; _Pani_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 246.]
Place the extended index at some distance before the right shoulder,
pointing forward and slightly upward, then place the left hand with
fingers and thumb extended and separated over the index, and while
pushing the index to the front, draw the left hand backward toward body
and to the left. Ahead of others. (_Absaroka_ I; _Arikara_ I.) Fig. 246.
Point the extended index forward and upward before the chest, then place
the spread fingers of the left hand around the index, but at a short
distance behind it, all pointing the same direction. Ahead of the
remainder. (_Arikara_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 247.]
Grasp the forelock with the right hand, palm backward, and pretend to
lay the hair down over the right side of the head by passing the hand in
that direction. (_Pai-Ute_ I.) Fig. 247.
The French deaf-mute sign for _order, command_, may be compared with
several of the above signs. In it the index tip first touches the lower
lip, then is raised above the head and brought down with violence.
(_L’enseignment primaire des sourds-muets; par M. Pélissier_. _Paris_,
1856.)
Not only in Naples, but, according to De Jorio, in Italy generally the
conception of _authority_ in gesture is by pressing the right hand on
the flank, accompanied by an erect and squared posture of the bust with
the head slightly inclined to the right. The idea of _substance_ is
conveyed.
[Illustration: FIG. 248.]
----, Warrior lower than actual, but distinguished for bravery.
Place the left forefinger, pointing toward the left and front, before
the left side of the chest, then place the extended index near
(or against) the forefinger, and, while passing the latter outward
toward the left, draw the index toward the right. (_Absaroka_ I;
_Arikara_ I; _Shoshoni_ I.) Fig. 248.
DEAD, DEATH.
Throw the forefinger from the perpendicular into a horizontal position
toward the earth, with the back downward. (_Long_.)
Hold the left hand flat over the face, back outward, and pass with the
similarly held right hand below the former, gently striking or touching
it. (_Wied_.) The sign given (_Oto and Missouri_ I) has no similarity in
execution or conception with _Wied’s_. (_Boteler_.) This sign may convey
the idea of _under_ or _burial_, quite differently executed from most
others reported. Dr. McChesney conjectures this sign to be that of
wonder or surprise at hearing of a death, but not a distinct sign for
the latter.
The finger of the right hand passed to the left hand and then cast down.
(_Macgowan_.)
Hold the left hand slightly arched, palm down, fingers pointing toward
the right about fifteen inches before the breast, then place the
extended index nearer the breast, pointing toward the left, pass it
quickly forward underneath the left hand and in an upward curve to
termination. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Ponka_ II; _Pani_ I.)
Place the palm of the hand at a short distance from the side of the
head, then withdrawing it gently in an oblique downward direction and
inclining the head and upper part of the body in the same direction.
(_Ojibwa_ II.) See page 353 for remarks upon this sign.
Hold both hands open, with palms over ears, extend fingers back on
brain, close eyes, and incline body a little forward and to right or
left very low, and remain motionless a short time, pronouncing the word
_Ke-nee-boo_ slowly. (_Ojibwa_ IV.)
Left hand flattened and held back upward, thumb inward in front of and a
few inches from the breast. Right hand slightly clasped, forefinger more
extended than the others, and passed suddenly under the left hand, the
latter being at the same time gently moved toward the breast.
(_Cheyenne_ II.) “Gone under.”
Both hands horizontal in front of body, backs outward, index of each
hand alone extended, the right index is passed under the left with a
downward, outward and then upward and inward curved motion at the same
time that the left is moved inward toward the body two or three inches,
the movements being ended on the same level as begun. “Upset, keeled
over.” For _many deaths_ repeat the sign many times. The sign of
(_Cheyenne_ II) expresses “gone under,” but is not used in the sense of
_death, dead_, but _going under a cover_, as entering a lodge, under a
table, &c. (_Dakota_ I.)
Make the sign for ALIVE, viz.: The right hand, back upward, is to be at
the height of the elbow and forward, the index extended and pointing
forward, the other fingers closed, thumb against middle finger; then,
while rotating the hand outward, move it to a position about four inches
in front of the face, the back looking forward and the index pointing
upward; then the sign for NO. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Another: Hold the left hand pointing toward the right, palm obliquely
downward and backward, about a foot in front of the lower part of the
chest, and pass the right hand pointing toward the left, palm downward,
from behind forward underneath it. Or from an upright position in front
of the face, back forward, index extended and other fingers closed,
carry the right hand downward and forward underneath the left and about
four inches beyond it, gradually turning the right hand until its back
is upward and its index points toward the left. An Arapaho sign. Gone
under or buried. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Hold the left hand slightly bent with the palm down, before the breast,
then pass the extended right hand, pointing toward the left, forward
under and beyond the left. (_Dakota_ VI, VII.)
Hold the right hand, flat, palm downward, before the body; then throw it
over on its back to the right, making a curve of about fifteen inches.
(_Dakota_ VI; _Hidatsa_ I; _Arikara_ I.) The gesture of reversal in this
and other instances may be compared with picture-writings in which the
reversed character for the name or totem of a person signifies his
death. One of these is given in Fig. 249, taken from Schoolcraft’s
_Hist. Am. Tribes_, I, p. 356, showing the cedar burial post or
_adjedatig_ of Wabojeeg, an Ojibwa war chief, who died on Lake Superior
about 1793. He belonged to the deer clan of his tribe and the animal is
drawn reversed on the post.
[Illustration: FIG. 249.]
Extend right hand, palm down, hand curved. Turn the palm up in moving
the hand down towards the earth. (_Omaha_ I.)
The countenance is brought to a sleeping composure with the eyes closed.
This countenance being gradually assumed, the head next falls toward
either shoulder. The arms having been closed and crossed upon the chest
with the hands in type positions (B B) are relaxed and drop
simultaneously towards the ground, with the fall of the head. This
attitude is maintained some seconds. (_Oto and Missouri_ I.) “The bodily
appearance at death.”
Place the open hand, back upward, fingers a little drawn together, at
the height of the breast, pointing forward; then move it slowly forward
and downward, turning it over at the same time. (_Iroquois_ I.) “To
express ‘gone into the earth, face upward.’”
The flat right hand is waved outward and downward toward the same side,
the head being inclined in the same direction at the time, with eyes
closed. (_Wyandot_ I.)
Hold the left hand loosely extended about fifteen inches in front of the
breast, palm down, then pass the index, pointing to the left, in a short
curve downward, forward, and upward beneath the left palm. (_Kaiowa_ I;
_Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
[Illustration: FIG. 250.]
Bring the left hand to the left breast, hand half clinched (H), then
bring the right hand to the left with the thumb and forefinger in such a
position as if you were going to take a bit of string from the fingers
of the left hand, and pull the right hand off in a horizontal line as if
you were stretching a string out, extend the hand to the full length of
the arm from you and let the index finger point outward at the
conclusion of the sign. (_Comanche_ I.) “Soul going to happy
hunting-grounds.”
The left hand is held slightly arched, palm down, nearly at arm’s length
before the breast; the right extended, flat, palm down, and pointing
forward, is pushed from the top of the breast, straightforward,
underneath, and beyond the left. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) Fig. 250.
Close both eyes, and after a moment throw the palm of the right hand
from the face downward and outward toward the right side, the head being
dropped in the same direction. (_Ute_ I.)
Touch the breast with the extended and joined fingers of the right hand,
then throw the hand, palm to the left, outward toward the right, leaning
the head in that direction at the same time. (_Apache_ I.)
Close the eyes with the tips of the index and second finger,
respectively, then both hands are placed side by side, horizontally,
palms downward, fingers extended and united; hands separated by slow
horizontal movement to right and left. (_Kutchin_ I.)
Palm of hand upward, then a wave-like motion toward the ground.
(_Zuñi_ I.)
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Place the hand upon the cheek, and shut the eyes, and move the hand
downward toward the ground. (_Ballard_.)
Let your head lie on the open hand with eyes shut. (_Cross_.)
Use the right shut hand as if to draw a screw down to fasten the lid to
the coffin and keep the eyes upon the hand. (_Hasenstab_.)
Move the head toward the shoulder and then close the eyes. (_Larson_.)
_Deaf-mute signs:_
The French deaf-mute conception is that of gently falling or sinking,
the right index falling from the height of the right shoulder upon the
left forefinger, toward which the head is inclined.
The deaf-mute sign commonly used in the United States is the same as
_Dakota_ VI; _Hidatsa_ I; _Arikara_ I; above. Italians with obvious
conception, make the sign of the cross.
---- To Die.
Right hand, forefinger extended, side up, forming with the thumb a +U+;
the other fingers slightly curved, touching each other, the little
finger having its side toward the ground. Move the hand right and left
then forward, several times; then turn it over suddenly, letting it fall
toward the earth. (_Ojibwa_ V; _Omaha_ I.) “An animal wounded, but
staggering a little before it falls and dies.”
[Illustration: FIG. 251.]
---- Dying.
Hold the left hand as in _dead_; pass the index in the same manner
underneath the left, but in a slow, gentle, interrupted movement.
(_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “Step by step;
inch by inch.” Fig. 251.
[Illustration: FIG. 252.]
---- Nearly, but recovers.
Hold the left hand as in _dead_; pass the index with a slow, easy,
interrupted movement downward, under the left palm, as in _dying_, but
before passing from under the palm on the opposite side return the index
in the same manner to point of starting; then elevate it. (_Kaiowa_ I;
_Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) Fig. 252.
Other remarks upon the signs for _dead_ are given on page 353.
GOOD.
The hand held horizontally, back upward, describes with the arm a
horizontal curve outward. (_Long_.) This is like the Eurasian motion of
benediction, but may more suggestively be compared with several of the
signs for _yes_, and in opposition to several of those for _bad_ and
_no_, showing the idea of acceptance or selection of objects presented,
instead of their rejection.
Place the right hand horizontally in front of the breast and move it
forward. (_Wied_.) This description is essentially the same as the one I
furnished. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.) I stated, however, that the hand
was moved outward (_i.e._, to the right). I do not remember seeing it
moved directly forward. In making the motion as I have described it the
hand would have to go both outward and forward. (_Matthews_.) The left
arm is elevated and the hand held in position (W). The arm and hand are
thus extended from the body on a level with the chest; the elbow being
slightly bent, the arm resembles a bent bow. The right arm is bent and
the right hand, in position (W), sweeps smoothly over the left arm from
the biceps muscle over the ends of the fingers. This sign and _Wied’s_
are noticeably similar. The difference is, the _Oto_ sign uses the left
arm in conjunction and both _more to the left_. The conception is of
something that easily passes; smoothness, evenness, etc., in both.
(_Boteler_.)
Wave the hand from the mouth, extending the thumb from the index and
closing the other three fingers. This sign also means _I know_.
(_Burton_.)
(1) Right-hand fingers pointing to the left placed on a level with
mouth, thumb inward; (2) suddenly moved with curve outward so as to
present palm to person addressed. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
Pass the open right hand, palm downward, from the heart, twenty-four
inches horizontally forward and to the right through an arc of about
90°. (_Dakota_ IV.) “Heart easy or smooth.”
Another: Gently strike the chest two or three times over the heart with
the radial side of the right hand, the fingers partly flexed and
pointing downward. An Arapaho sign. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Place the flat right hand, palm down, thumb touching the breast, then
move it forward and slightly upward and to the right. (_Arapaho_ II;
_Cheyenne_ V; _Ojibwa_ V; _Dakota_ VI, VII, VIII; _Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_
III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
Pass the flat hand, palm down, from the breast forward and in a slight
curve to the right. (_Dakota_ VI; _Hidatsa_ I; _Ankara_ I.)
The extended right hand, palm downward, thumb backward, fingers pointing
to the left, is held nearly or quite in contact with the body about on a
level with the stomach; it is then carried outward to the right a foot
or two with a rapid sweep, in which the forearm is moved but not
necessarily the humerus. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
Move right hand, palm down, over the blanket, right and left, several
times. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Hit the blanket, first on the right, then on the left, palm
down, several times. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Point at the object with the right forefinger, shaking it a
little up and down, the other fingers being closed. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Same as preceding, but with the hand open, the thumb crooked
under and touching the forefinger; hand held at an angle of 45° while
shaking a little back and forth. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Hold the closed hands together, thumbs up; separate by turning
the wrists down, and move the fists a little apart; then reverse
movements till back to first position. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Hold the left hand with back toward the ground, fingers and
thumb apart, and curved; hold the right hand opposite it, palm down,
hands about six inches apart; shake the hands held thus, up and down,
keeping them the same distance apart. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Hold the hands with the palms in, thumbs up, move hands right
and left, keeping them about six inches apart. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Look at the right hand, first on the back, then on the palm,
then on the back again. (_Omaha_ I.)
The flat right hand, palm down, is moved forward and upward, starting at
a point about twelve inches before the breast. (_Wyandot_ I.)
Hold the flat right hand forward and slightly outward from the shoulder,
palm either upward or downward, and pass it edgewise horizontally to the
right and left. This sign was made when no personality was involved. The
same gesturer when claiming for himself the character of goodness made
the following: Rapidly pat the breast with the flat right hand. (_Pima
and Papago_ I.)
Throw right hand from front to side, fingers extended and palm down,
forearm horizontal. (_Sahaptin_ I.)
Make an inclination of the body forward, moving at the same time both
hands forward from the breast, open, with the palm upward, and gradually
lowering them. This is also used for _glad, pleased_. (_Iroquois_ I.)
Bring both hands to the front, arms extended, palms outward; elevate
them upward and slightly forward; the face meanwhile expressive of
wonder. (_Comanche_ I.)
Bring the hand opposite the breast, a little below, hand extended, palm
downward (W), and let it move off in a horizontal direction. If it be
very good, this may be repeated. If comparatively good, repeat it more
violently. (_Comanche_ I.)
Hold the right hand palm down, pointing to the left, and placed
horizontally before the breast, then raise it several times slightly.
Good and glad. (_Kutchin_ I.)
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Smack the lips. (_Ballard_.)
Close the hand while the thumb is up, and nod the head and smile as if
to approve of something good. (_Hasenstab_.)
Point the forefinger to the mouth and move the lips with a pleased look
as if tasting sweet fruit. (_Larson_.)
Use the sign for _handsome_ by drawing the outstretched palm of the
right hand down over the right cheek; at the same time nod the head as
if to say “yes.” (_Ziegler_.)
_Deaf-mute signs:_
Some of the Indian signs appear to be connected with a pleasant taste in
the month, as is the sign of the French and American deaf-mutes, waving
thence the hand, either with or without touching the lips, back upward,
with fingers straight and joined, in a forward and downward curve. They
make nearly the same gesture with hand sidewise for general assent:
“Very well!”
The conventional sign for _good_, given in the illustration to the
report of the Ohio Institution for the education of the deaf and dumb,
is: The right hand raised forward and closed, except the thumb, which is
extended upward, held vertically, its nail being toward the body; this
is in opposition to the sign for _bad_ in the same illustration, the one
being merely the exhibition of the thumb toward and the other of the
little finger away from the body. They are English signs, the
traditional conception being acceptance and rejection respectively.
_Italian signs:_
The fingers gathered on the mouth, kissed and stretched out and spread,
intimate a dainty morsel. The open hand stretched out horizontally, and
gently shaken, intimates that a thing is so-so, not good and not bad.
(_Butler_.) Compare also the Neapolitan sign given by De Jorio, see Fig.
62, p. 286, _supra_. Cardinal Wiseman gives as the Italian sign for
_good_ “the hand thrown upwards and the head back with a prolonged ah!”
_Loc. cit._, p. 543.
---- Heart is.
Strike with right hand on the heart and make the sign for GOOD from the
heart outward. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
Touch the left breast over the heart two or three times with the ends of
the fingers of the right hand; then make the sign for GOOD.
(_Dakota_ IV.)
Place the fingers of the flat right hand over the breast, then make the
sign for GOOD. (_Dakota_ VII.)
Move hand to position in front of breast, fingers extended, palm
downward (W), then with quick movement throw hand forward and to the
side to a point 12 or 15 inches from body, hand same as in first
position. (_Sahaptin_ I.)
For further remarks on the signs for _good_, see page 286.
HABITATION, including HOUSE, LODGE, TIPI, WIGWAM.
---- HOUSE.
The hand half open and the forefinger extended and separated; then raise
the hand upward and give it a half turn, as if screwing something.
(_Dunbar_.)
Cross the ends of the extended fingers of the two hands, the hands to be
nearly at right angle, radial side up, palms inward and backward, thumbs
in palms. Represents the logs at the end of a log house. (_Creel_;
_Dakota_ IV.)
Partly fold the hands; the fingers extended in imitation of the corner
of an ordinary log house. (_Arapaho_ I.)
Both hands outspread near each other, elevated to front of face;
suddenly separated, turned at right angles, palms facing; brought down
at right angles, suddenly stopped. Representing square form of a house.
(_Cheyenne_ II.)
The fingers of both hands extended and slightly separated, then those of
the right are placed into the several spaces between those of the left,
the tips extending to about the first joints. (_Absaroka_ I.) “From the
arrangement of the logs in a log building.”
Both hands extended, fingers spread, place those of the right into the
spaces between those of the left, then move the hands in this position a
short distance upward. (_Wyandot_ I.) “Arrangement of logs and
elevation.”
[Illustration: FIG. 253.]
Both hands are held edgewise before the body, palms facing, spread the
fingers, and place those of one hand into the spaces between those of
the other, so that the tips of each protrude about an inch beyond.
(_Hidatsa_ I; _Kaiowa_ I; _Arikara_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II;
_Wichita_ II.) “The arrangement of logs in a frontier house.” Fig. 253.
In connection with this sign compare the pictograph, Fig. 204, page 379,
_supra_. In ordinary conversation the sign for _white man’s house_ is
often dropped, using instead the generic term employed for _lodge_, and
this in turn is often abbreviated, as by the Kaiowas, Comanches,
Wichitas, and others, by merely placing the tips of the extended
forefingers together, leaving the other fingers and thumbs closed, with
the wrists about three or four inches apart.
Both hands held pointing forward, edges down, fingers extended and
slightly separated, then place the fingers of one hand into the spaces
between the fingers of the other, allowing the tips of the fingers of
either hand to protrude as far as the first joint, or near it.
(_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) “From the appearance of a corner of a log
house--protruding and alternate layers of logs.”
Fingers of both hands interlaced at right angles several times; then the
sign for LODGE. (_Kutchin_ I.)
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Draw the outlines of a house in the air with hands tip to tip at a right
angle. (_Ballard_.)
Put the open hands together toward the face, forming a right angle with
the arms. (_Larson_.)
----, Stone; Fort.
Strike the back of the right fist against the palm of the left hand, the
left palm backward, the fist upright (“idea of resistance or strength”);
then with both hands opened, relaxed, horizontal, and palms backward,
place the ends of the right fingers behind and against the ends of the
left; then separate them, and moving them backward, each through a
semicircle, bring their bases together. The latter sign is also that of
the Arapahos for _house_. An inclosure. (_Dakota_ IV.) The first part of
this sign is that for _stone_.
---- LODGE, TIPI, WIGWAM.
The two hands are reared together in the form of the roof of a house,
the ends of the fingers upward. (_Long_.)
Place the opened thumb and forefinger of each hand opposite each other,
as if to make a circle, but leaving between them a small interval;
afterward move them from above downward simultaneously (which is the
sign for _village_); then elevate the finger to indicate the
number--one. (_Wied_.) Probably he refers to an earthen lodge. I think
that the sign I have given you is nearly the same with all the Upper
Missouri Indians. (_Matthews_.)
Place the fingers of both hands ridge-fashion before the breast.
(_Burton_.)
Indicate outlines (an inverted +V+, thus +Λ+), with the forefingers
touching or crossed at the tips, the other fingers closed. (_Creel_;
_Arapaho_ I.)
Both hands open, fingers upward, tips touching, brought downward, and at
same time separated to describe outline of a cone, suddenly stopped.
(_Cheyenne_ II.)
Both hands approximated, held forward horizontally, fingers joined and
slightly arched, backs upward, withdraw them in a sideward and downward
direction, each hand moving to its corresponding side, thus combinedly
describing a hemisphere. Carry up the right and, with its index pointing
downward indicate a spiral line rising upward from the center of the
previously formed arch. (_Ojibwa_ V.) “From the dome-shaped form of the
wigwam, and the smoke rising from the opening in the roof.”
Both hands flat and extended, placing the tips of the fingers of one
against those of the other, leaving the palms or wrists about four
inches apart. (_Absaroka_ I; _Wyandot_ I; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) “From
its exterior outline.”
Both hands carried to the front of the breast and placed +V+-shaped,
inverted, thus +Λ+, with the palms looking toward each other, edge of
fingers outward, thumbs inward. (_Dakota_ I.) “From the outline of the
tipi.”
With the hands nearly upright, palms inward, cross the ends of the
extended forefingers, the right one either in front or behind the left,
or lay the ends together; resting the ends of the thumbs together side
by side, the other fingers to be nearly closed, and resting against each
other, palms inward. Represents the tipi poles and the profile of the
tipi. (_Dakota_ IV.)
[Illustration: FIG. 254.]
Place the tips of the fingers of both hands together in front of the
breast, with the wrists some distance apart. (_Dakota_ V.) Fig. 254.
Fingers of both hands extended and separated; then interlace them so
that the tips of the fingers of one hand protrude beyond the backs of
those of the opposing one; hold the hands in front of the breast,
pointing upward, leaving the wrists about six inches apart. (_Dakota_
VII, VIII; _Hidatsa_ I; _Ponka_ II; _Arikara_ I; _Pani_ I.)
The extended hands, with finger tips upward and touching, the palms
facing one another, and the wrists about two inches apart, are held
before the chest. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
Place the tip of the index against the tip of the forefinger of the left
hand, the remaining fingers and thumbs closed, before the chest, leaving
the wrists about six inches apart. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “Outline of lodge.” This is an abbreviated
sign, and care must be taken to distinguish it from _to meet_, in which
the fingers are brought from their respective sides instead of upward to
form the gesture.
Another: Place the tips of the fingers of the flat extended hands
together before the breast, leaving the wrists about six inches apart.
(_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
[Illustration: FIG. 255.]
Another: Both hands flat and extended, fingers slightly separated; then
place the fingers of the right hand between the fingers of the left as
far as the second joints, so that the fingers of one hand protrude about
an inch beyond those of the other; the wrists must be held about six
inches apart. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
“Outline of Indian lodge and crossing of tent-poles above the covering.”
Fig. 255.
Fig. 256 represents a Sahaptin sign given to the writer by a gentleman
long familiar with the northwestern tribes of Indians. The conception is
the same union of the lodge poles at the top, shown in several other
signs, differently executed.
[Illustration: FIG. 256.]
[Illustration: FIG. 257.]
Place the tips of the spread fingers of both hands against one another
pointing upward before the body, leaving a space of from four to six
inches between the wrists. Fig. 257. The fingers are sometimes bent so
as to more nearly represent the outline of a house and roof. Fig. 258.
This, however, is accidental. (_Pai-Ute_ I.) “Represents the boughs and
branches used in the construction of a Pai-Ute ‘wik-i-up.’”
[Illustration: FIG. 258.]
Place the tips of the two flat hands together before the body, leaving a
space of about six inches between the wrists. (_Ute_ I.) “Outline of the
shape of the lodge.”
[Illustration: FIG. 259.]
Left hand and right hand put together in shape of sloping shelter
(_Kutchin_ I). Fig. 259.
---- Great Council House.
Place both flat and extended hands in front of the shoulders, pointing
forward, palms facing; then pass them straight upward and slightly
inward near the termination of the gesture. This appears to combine the
gestures for _much_, _large_, and _lodge_. (_Arikara_ I.)
----, Coming or going out of a.
Same as the sign for _entering a lodge_, only the fingers of the right
hand point obliquely upward after passing under the left hand.
(_Dakota_ I.) “Coming out from under cover.”
Hold the open left hand a foot or eighteen inches in front of the
breast, palm downward or backward, fingers pointing toward the right and
pass the right, back upward, with index extended, or all of the fingers
extended, and pointing forward, about eighteen inches forward underneath
the left through an arc from near the mouth. Some at the same time move
the left hand toward the breast. (_Dakota_ IV.)
----, Entering a.
The left hand is held with the back upward, and the right hand also with
the back up is passed in a curvilinear direction down under the other,
so as to rub against its palm, then up on the other side of it. The left
hand here represents the low door of the skin lodge and the right the
man stooping down to pass in. (_Long_.)
Pass the flat right hand in short curves under the left, which is held a
short distance forward. (_Wied_.) I have described the same sign. It is
not necessary to pass the hand more than once. By saying curves, he
seems to imply many passes. If the hand is passed more than once it
means repetition of the act. (_Matthews_; _McChesney_.) The conception
is of the stooping to pass through the low entrance, which is often
covered by a flap of skin, sometimes stretched on a frame, and which
must be shoved aside, and the subsequent rising when the entrance has
been accomplished. A distinction is reported by a correspondent as
follows: “If the intention is to speak of a person entering the
gesturer’s own lodge, the right hand is passed under the left and toward
the body, near which the left hand is held; if of a person entering the
lodge of another, the left hand is held further from the body and the
right is passed under it and outward. In both cases both hands are
slightly curved and compressed.” As no such distinction is reported by
others it may be an individual invention or peculiarity.
A gliding movement of the extended hand, fingers joined, backs up,
downward, then ascending, indicative of the stooping and resumption of
the upright position in entering the same. (_Arapaho_ I.)
(1) Sign for LODGE, the left hand being still in position used in making
sign for LODGE; (2) forefinger and thumb of right hand brought to a
point and thrust through the outline of an imaginary lodge represented
by the left hand. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
First make the sign for LODGE, then place the left hand, horizontal and
slightly arched, before the body, and pass the right hand with extended
index underneath the left--forward and slightly upward beyond it.
(_Absaroka_ I; _Dakota_ V; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I; _Wyandot_ I.)
Left hand (W), ends of fingers toward the right, stationary in front of
the left breast; pass the right hand directly and quickly out from the
breast under the stationary left hand, ending with the extended fingers
of the right hand pointing outward and slightly downward, joined, palm
downward flat, horizontal (W). (_Dakota_ I.) “Gone under; covered.”
Hold the open left hand a foot or eighteen inches in front of the
breast, palm downward or backward, fingers pointing toward the right,
and pass the right hand, palm upward, fingers bent sidewise and pointing
backward, from before backward underneath it, through a curve until near
the mouth. Some at the same time move the left hand a little forward.
(_Dakota_ IV.)
The left hand, palm downward, finger-tips forward, either quite extended
or with the fingers slightly bent, is held before the body. Then the
right hand nearly or quite extended, palm downward, finger-tips near the
left thumb, and pointing toward it, is passed transversely under the
left hand and one to four inches below it. The fingers of the right hand
point slightly upward when the motion is completed. This sign usually,
but not invariably, refers to entering a house. (_Mandan and
Hidatsa_ I.)
Place the slightly curved left hand, palm down, before the breast,
pointing to the right, then pass the flat right hand, palm down, in a
short curve forward, under and upward beyond the left. (_Ute_ I.)
“Evidently from the manner in which a person is obliged to stoop in
entering an ordinary Indian lodge.”
HORSE.
The right hand with the edge downward, the fingers joined, the thumb
recumbent, extended forward. (_Dunbar_.)
Place the index and middle finger of the right hand astraddle the index
finger of the left. [In the original the expression “third” finger is
used, but it is ascertained in another connection that the author counts
the thumb as the first finger and always means what is generally styled
middle finger when he says third. The alteration is made to prevent
confusion.] (_Wied_.) I have described this sign in words to the same
effect. (_Matthews_.) The right arm is raised, and the hand, opened
edgewise, with fingers parallel and approximated, is drawn from left to
right before the body at the supposed height of the animal. There is no
conceivable identity in the execution of this sign and _Wied’s_, but his
sign for _horse_ is nearly identical with the sign for _ride a horse_
among the Otos. (_Boteler_.) This sign is still used by the Cheyennes.
(_Dodge_.)
A hand passed across the forehead. (_Macgowan_.)
Left-hand thumb and forefinger straightened out, held to the level of
and in front of the breast; right-hand forefinger separated from the
middle finger and thrown across the left hand to imitate the act of
bestriding. They appear to have no other conception of a horse, and have
thus indicated that they have known it only as an animal to be ridden.
(_Creel_; _Cheyenne_ II.)
Draw the right hand from left to right across the body about the heart,
the fingers all closed except the index. This is abbreviated by making a
circular sweep of the right open hand from about the left elbow to the
front of the body, probably indicating the mane. A Pani sign.
(_Cheyenne_ IV.)
Place the first two fingers of the right hand, thumb extended (N 1),
downward, astraddle the first two joined and straight fingers of the
left hand (T 1), sidewise to the right. Many Sioux Indians use only the
forefinger straightened. (_Dakota_ I.) “Horse mounted.”
The first and second fingers extended and separated, remaining fingers
and thumb closed; left forefinger extended, horizontal, remaining
fingers and thumb closed; place the right-hand fingers astride of the
forefinger of the left, and both hands jerked together, up and down, to
represent the motion of a horse. (_Dakota_ III.)
The two hands being clinched and near together, palms downward, thumbs
against the forefingers, throw them, each alternately, forward and
backward about a foot, through an ellipsis two or three times, from
about six inches in front of the chest, to imitate the galloping of a
horse, or the hands may be held forward and not moved. (_Dakota_ IV.)
[Illustration: FIG. 260.]
Place the extended and separated index and second fingers of the right
hand astraddle of the extended forefinger of the left. Fig. 260.
Sometimes all the fingers of the left hand are extended in making this
sign, as in Fig. 261, though this may be the result of carelessness.
(_Dakota_ VI, VII, VIII; _Hidatsa_ I; _Ponka_ II; _Arikara_ I;
_Pani_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 261.]
The left hand is before the chest, back upward in the position of an
index-hand pointing forward; then the first and second fingers of the
right hand only being extended, separated and pointing downward, are set
one on each side of the left forefinger, the interdigital space resting
on the forefinger. The palm faces downward and backward. This represents
a rider astride of a horse. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
Close hands, except forefingers, which are curved downward; move them
forward in rotation, imitating the fore feet of the horse, and make
puffing sound of “Uh, uh”! (_Omaha_ I.) “This sign represents the horse
racing off to a safe distance, and puffing as he tosses his head.”
The arm is flexed and the hand extended is brought on a level with the
mouth. The hand then assumes the position (W 1), modified by being held
edges up and down, palm toward the chest, instead of flat. The arm and
hand being held thus about the usual height of a horse are made to pass
in an undulating manner across the face or body about one foot distant
from contact. The latter movements are to resemble the animal’s gait.
(_Oto_ I.) “Height of animal and movement of same.”
The index and second fingers of the right hand are placed astraddle the
extended forefinger of the left. (_Wyandot_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 262.]
Place the flat right hand, thumb down, edgewise before the right side of
the shoulder, pointing toward the right. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) Fig. 262.
[Illustration: FIG. 263.]
Another: Hold the right hand flat, extended, with fingers joined, the
thumb extended upward, then pass the hand at arm’s length before the
face from left to right. This is said by the authorities cited below to
be also the Caddo sign, and that the other tribes mentioned originally
obtained it from that tribe. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ I, III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) Fig. 263.
Another: Place the extended and separated index and second fingers
astraddle the extended and horizontal forefinger of the left hand. This
sign is only used when communicating with uninstructed white men, or
with other Indians whose sign for horse is specifically distinct.
(_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.).
[Illustration: FIG. 264.]
Place the extended index and second fingers of the right hand across the
extended first two fingers of the left. Fig. 264. Size of the animal is
indicated by passing the right hand, palm down, with fingers loosely
separated, forward from the right side, at any height as the case may
necessitate, after which the sign for HORSE may be made. (_Pima and
Papago_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 265.]
Place the right hand, palm down, before the right side of the chest;
place the tips of the second and third fingers against the ball of the
thumb, allowing the index and little fingers to project to represent the
ears. Fig. 265. Frequently the middle fingers extend equally with and
against the thumb, forming the head of the animal, the ears always being
represented by the two outer fingers, viz, the index and little finger.
Fig. 266. (_Ute_ I.) A similar sign is reported by Colonel Dodge as used
by the Utes.
[Illustration: FIG. 266.]
Elevate the right hand, extended, with fingers joined, outer edge toward
the ground, in front of the body or right shoulder, and pointing
forward, resting the curved thumb against the palmar side of the index.
This sign appears also to signify _animal_ generically, being frequently
employed as a preliminary sign when denoting other species.
(_Apache_ I.)
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Imitate the motion of the elbows of a man on horseback. (_Ballard_.)
Act in the manner of a driver, holding the lines in his hands and
shouting to the horse. (_Cross_.)
Move the hands several times as if to hold the reins. (_Larson_.)
_Deaf-mute signs:_
The French deaf-mutes add to the straddling of the index the motion of a
trot. American deaf-mutes indicate the ears by placing two fingers of
each hand on each side of the head and moving them backward and forward.
This is sometimes followed by straddling the left hand by the fore and
middle fingers of the right.
----, A man on a.
Same sign as for HORSE, with the addition of erecting the thumb while
making the gesture. (_Dodge_.)
----, Bay.
Make the sign for HORSE, and then rub the lower part of the cheek back
and forth. (_Dakota_ IV.)
----, Black.
Make the sign for HORSE, and then point to a black object or rub the
back of the left hand with the palmar side of the fingers of the right.
(_Dakota_ IV.)
----, Bronco. An untamed horse.
Make the sign TO RIDE by placing the extended and separated index and
second fingers of the right hand astraddle the extended forefinger of
the left hand, then with both hands retained in their relative positions
move them forward in high arches to show the bucking of the animal.
(_Ute_ I.)
----, Grazing of a.
Make the sign for HORSE, then lower the hand and pass it from side to
side as if dipping it upon the surface. (_Ute_ I.)
----, Packing a.
Hold the left hand, pointing forward, palm inward, a foot in front of
the chest and lay the opened right hand, pointing forward, first
obliquely along the right side of the upper edge of the left hand, then
on top, and then obliquely along the left side. (_Dakota_ IV.)
----, Racing, Fast horse.
The right arm is elevated and bent at right angle before the face; the
hand, in position (S 1) modified by being horizontal, palm to the face,
is drawn across edgewise in front of the face. The hand is then closed
and in position (B) approaches the mouth from which it is opened and
closed successively forward several times, finally it is suddenly thrust
out in position (W 1) back concave. (_Oto and Missouri_ I.) “Is
expressed in the (_Oto_ I) sign for HORSE, then the motion for quick
running.”
---- Racing.
Extend the two forefingers and after placing them parallel near together
in front of the chest, backs upward, push them rapidly forward about a
foot. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Place both hands, with the forefingers only extended and pointing
forward side by side with the palms down, before the body; then push
them alternately backward and forward, in imitation of the movement of
horses who are running “neck and neck.” (_Ute_ I; _Apache_ I, II.)
----, Saddling a.
Hold the left hand as in the sign for HORSE, _Packing a_, and lay the
semiflexed right hand across its upper edge two or three times, the ends
of the right fingers toward the left. (_Dakota_ IV.)
[Illustration: FIG. 267.]
Place the extended and separated fingers rapidly with a slapping sound
astraddle the extended fore and second fingers of the left hand. The
sound is produced by the palm of the right hand which comes in contact
with the upper surface of the left. (_Ute_ I.) Fig. 267.
----, Spotted; pied.
Make the sign for HORSE, then the sign for SPOTTED, see page 345.
(_Dakota_ IV.)
KILL, KILLING.
The hands are held with the edge upward, and the right hand strikes the
other transversely, as in the act of chopping. This sign seems to be
more particularly applicable to convey the idea of death produced by a
blow of the tomahawk or war-club. (_Long_.)
Clinch the hand and strike from above downward. (_Wied_.) I do not
remember this. I have given you the sign for killing with a stroke.
(_Matthews_.) There is an evident similarity in conception and execution
between the (_Oto and Missouri_ I) sign and _Wied’s_. (_Boteler_.) I
have frequently seen this sign made by the Arikara, Gros Ventre, and
Mandan Indians at Fort Berthold Agency. (_McChesney_.) This motion,
which maybe more clearly expressed as the downward thrust of a knife
held in the clinched hand, is still used by many tribes for the general
idea of “kill,” and illustrates the antiquity of the knife as a weapon.
_Wied_ does not say whether the clinched hand is thrust downward with
the edge or the knuckles forward. The latter is now the almost universal
usage among the same tribes from which he is supposed to have taken his
list of signs, and indicates the thrust of a knife more decisively than
if the fist were moved with the edge in advance. The actual employment
of arrow, gun, or club in taking life, is, however, often specified by
appropriate gesture.
Smite the sinister palm earthward with the dexter fist sharply, in sign
of “going down”; or strike out with the dexter fist toward the ground,
meaning to “shut down”; or pass the dexter under the left forefinger,
meaning to “go under.” (_Burton_.)
Right hand cast down. (_Macgowan_.)
Hold the right fist, palm down, knuckles forward, and make a thrust
forward and downward. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Dakota_ VI, VII,
VIII; _Hidatsa_ I; _Ponka_ II; _Arikara_ I; _Pani_ I.) Fig. 268.
[Illustration: FIG. 268.]
Right hand clinched, thumb lying along the finger tips, elevated to near
the shoulder, strike downward and out vaguely in the direction of the
object to be killed. The abstract sign for _kill_ is simply to clinch
the right hand in the manner described and strike it down and out from
the right side. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
Close the right hand, extending the forefinger alone; point toward the
breast, then throw from you forward, bringing the hand toward the
ground. (_Ojibwa_ V; _Omaha_ I.)
Both hands clinched, with the thumbs resting against the middle joints
of the forefingers, hold the left transversely in front of and as high
as the breast, then push the right, palm down, quickly over and down in
front of the left. (_Absaroka_ I; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) “To force
under--literally.”
With the dexter fist carried to the front of the body at the right side,
strike downward and outward several times, with back of hand upward,
thumb toward the left, several times. (_Dakota_ I.) “Strike down.”
With the first and second joints of the fingers of the right hand bent,
end of thumb against the middle of the index, palm downward, move the
hand energetically forward and downward from a foot in front of the
right breast. Striking with a stone--man’s first weapon. (_Dakota_ IV.)
The left hand, thumb up, back forward, not very rigidly extended, is
held before the chest and struck in the palm with the outer edge of the
right hand. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.) “To kill with a blow; to deal the
death blow.” Fig. 269.
Right hand, fingers open but slightly curved, palm to the left; move
downward, describing a curve. (_Omaha_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 269.]
Another: Similar to the last, but the index finger is extended, pointing
in front of you, the other fingers but half open. (_Omaha_ I.)
Place the flat right hand, palm down, at arm’s length to the right,
bring it quickly, horizontally, to the side of the head, then make the
sign for DEAD. (_Ojibwa_ V; _Wyandot_ I.) “To strike with a club, dead.”
Both hands, in positions (AA), with arms semiflexed toward the body,
make the forward rotary sign with the clinched fists as in fighting; the
right hand is then raised from the left outward, as clutching a knife
with the blade pointing downward and inward toward the left fist; the
left fist, being held _in situ_, is struck now by the right, edgewise as
above described, and both suddenly fall together. (_Oto and
Missouri_ I.) “To strike down in battle with a knife. Indians seldom
disagree or kill another in times of tribal peace.”
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Strike a blow in the air with the clinched fist, and then incline the
head to one side, and lower the open hand, palm upward. (_Ballard_.)
Strike the other hand with the fist, or point a gun, and, having shot,
suddenly point to your breast with the finger, and hold your head
sidewise on the hand. (_Cross_.)
Use the closed hand as if to strike, and then move back the head with
the eyes shut and the mouth opened. (_Hasenstab_.)
Put the head down over the breast, and then move down the stretched hand
along the neck. (_Larson_.)
_Turkish sign:_
Draw finger across the throat like cutting with a knife. (_Barnum_.)
---- In battle, To.
Make the sign for BATTLE by placing both hands at the height of the
breast, palms facing, the left forward from the left shoulder, the right
outward and forward from the right, fingers pointing up and spread, move
them alternately toward and from one another; then strike the back of
the fingers of the right hand into the slightly curved palm of the left,
immediately afterward throwing the right outward and downward toward the
right. (_Ute_ I.) “Killed and falling over.”
---- You; I will kill you.
Direct the right hand toward the offender and spring the finger from the
thumb, as in the act of sprinkling water. (_Long_.) The conception is
perhaps “causing blood to flow,” or, perhaps, “sputtering away the
life,” though there is a strong similarity to the motion used for the
_discharge of a gun or arrow_.
Remarks and illustrations connected with the signs for _kill_ appear on
pages 377 and 378, _supra_.
----, to, with a knife.
Clinch the right hand and strike forcibly toward the ground before the
breast from the height of the face. (_Ute_ I.) “Appears to have
originated when flint knives were still used.”
NO, NOT. (Compare NOTHING.)
The hand held up before the face, with the palm outward and vibrated to
and fro. (_Dunbar_.)
The right hand waved outward to the right with the thumb upward.
(_Long_; _Creel_.)
Wave the right hand quickly by and in front of the face toward the
right. (_Wied_.) Refusing to accept the idea or statement presented.
Move the hand from right to left, as if motioning away. This sign also
means “I’ll have nothing to do with you.” (_Burton_.)
A deprecatory wave of the right hand from front to right, fingers
extended and joined. (_Arapaho_ I; _Cheyenne_ V.)
Right-hand fingers extended together, side of hand in front of and
facing the face, in front of the mouth and waved suddenly to the right.
(_Cheyenne_ II.)
Place the right hand extended before the body, fingers pointing upward,
palm to the front, then throw the hand outward to the right, and
slightly downward. (_Absaroka_ I; _Hidatsa_ I; _Arikara_ I.) See Fig.
65, page 290.
The right hand, horizontal, palm toward the left, is pushed sidewise
outward and toward the right from in front of the left breast. _No_,
_none_, _I have none_, etc., are all expressed by this sign. Often these
Indians for _no_ will simply shake the head to the right and left. This
sign, although it may have originally been introduced from the white
people’s habit of shaking the head to express “no,” has been in use
among them for as long as the oldest people can remember, yet they do
not use the variant to express “yes.” (_Dakota_ I.) “Dismissing the
idea, etc.”
Place the opened relaxed right hand, pointing toward the left, back
forward, in front of the nose or as low as the breast, and throw it
forward and outward about eighteen inches. Some at the same time turn
the palm upward. Or make the sign at the height of the breast with both
hands. Represents the shaking of the head. (_Dakota_ IV.) The shaking of
the head in negation is not so universal or “natural” as is popularly
supposed, for the ancient Greeks, followed by the modern Turks and
rustic Italians, threw the head back, instead of shaking it, for “no.”
Rabelais makes Pantagruel (Book 3) show by many quotations from the
ancients how the shaking of the head was a frequent if not universal
concomitant of oracular utterance--not connected with negation.
Hold the flat hand edgewise, pointing upward before the right side of
the chest, then throw it outward and downward to the right.
(_Dakota_ VI, VII.) Fig. 270.
[Illustration: FIG. 270.]
The hand, extended or slightly curved, is held in front of the body a
little to the right of the median line; it is then carried with a rapid
sweep a foot or more farther to the right. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
Place the hand as in _yes_, as follows: The hand open, palm downward, at
the level of the breast, is moved forward with a quick downward motion
from the wrist, imitating a bow of the head; then move it from side to
side. (_Iroquois_ I.) “A shake of the head.”
Throw the flat right hand forward and outward to the right, palm to the
front. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
Quick motion of open hand from the mouth forward, palm toward the mouth.
(_Sahaptin_ I.)
Place hand in front of body, fingers relaxed, palm toward body (Y 1),
then with easy motion move to a point, say, a foot from the body,
a little to right, fingers same, but palm upward. (_Sahaptin_ I.) “We
don’t agree.” To express _All gone_, use a similar motion with both
hands. “Empty.”
The hand waved outward with the thumb upward in a semi-curve.
(_Comanche_ I; _Wichita_ I.)
Elevate the extended index and wave it quickly from side to side before
the face. This is sometimes accompanied by shaking the head.
(_Pai-Ute_ I.) Fig. 271.
[Illustration: FIG. 271.]
Extend the index, holding it vertically before the face, remaining
fingers and thumb closed; pass the finger quickly from side to side a
foot or so before the face. (_Apache_ I.) This sign, as also that of
(_Pai-Ute_ I), is substantially the same as that with the same
significance reported from Naples by De Jorio.
Another: The right hand, naturally relaxed, is thrown outward and
forward toward the right. (_Apache_ I.)
Wave extended index before the face from side to side. (_Apache_ III.)
Another: Wave the index briskly before the right shoulder. This appears
to be more common than the preceding. (_Apache_ III.)
Right hand extended at the height of the eye, palm outward, then moved
outward a little toward the right. (_Kutchin_ I.)
Extend the palm of the right hand horizontally a foot from the waist,
palm downward, then suddenly throw it half over from the body, as if
tossing a chip from the back of the hand. (_Wichita_ I.)
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Shake the head. (_Ballard_.)
Move both hands from each other, and, at the same time, shake the head.
(_Hasenstab_.)
_Deaf-mute signs:_
French deaf-mutes wave the hand to the right and downward, with the
first and second fingers joined and extended, the other fingers closed.
This position of the fingers is that for the letter N in the finger
alphabet, the initial for the word _non_. American deaf-mutes for
emphatic negative wave the right hand before the face.
_Turkish sign:_
Throwing head back or elevating the chin and partly shutting the eyes.
This also means, “Be silent.” (_Barnum_.)
_Japanese sign:_
Move the right hand rapidly back and forth before the face. Communicated
in a letter from Prof. E. S. MORSE, late of the University of Tokio,
Japan. The same correspondent mentions that the Admiralty Islanders pass
the forefinger across the face, striking the nose in passing, for
negation. If the _no_ is a doubtful one they _rub_ the nose in passing,
a gesture common elsewhere.
For further illustrations and comparisons see pp. 290, 298, 299, 304,
355, and 356, _supra_.
NONE, NOTHING; I HAVE NONE.
Motion of rubbing out. (_Macgowan_.)
_Little_ or _nothing_ is signified by passing one hand over the other.
(_Creel_; _Ojibwa_ I.)
May be signified by smartly brushing the right hand across the left from
the wrist toward the fingers, both hands extended, palms toward each
other and fingers joined. (_Arapaho_ I.)
Is included in _gone, destroyed_. (_Dakota_ I.)
Place the open left hand about a foot in front of the navel, pointing
obliquely forward toward the right, palm obliquely upward and backward,
and sweep the palm of the open right hand over it and about a foot
forward and to the right through a curve. All bare. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Another: Pass the ulnar side of the right index along the left index
several times from tip to base, while pronating and supinating the
latter. Some roll the right index over on its back as they move it along
the left. The hands are to be in front of the navel, backs forward and
outward, the left index straight and pointing forward toward the right,
the right index straight and pointing forward and toward the left; the
other fingers loosely closed. Represents a bush bare of limbs.
(_Dakota_ IV.)
Another: With the light hand pointing obliquely forward to the left, the
left forward to the right, palms upward, move them alternately several
times up and down, each time striking the ends of the fingers. Or, the
left hand being in the above position, rub the right palm in a circle on
the left two or three times, and then move it forward and to the right.
Rubbed out; that is all; it is all gone. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Pass the palm of the flat right hand over the left from the wrist toward
and off of the tips of the fingers. (_Dakota_ VI, VII, VIII; _Ponka_ II;
_Pani_ I.) Fig. 272.
[Illustration: FIG. 272.]
Brush the palm of the left hand from wrist to finger tips with the palm
of the right. (_Wyandot_ I.)
Another: Throw both hands outward toward their respective sides from the
breast. (_Wyandot_ I.)
Pass the flat right palm over the palm of the left hand from the wrist
forward over the fingers. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II;
_Wichita_ II.) “Wiped out.”
Hold the left hand open, with the palm upward, at the height of the
elbow and before the body; pass the right quickly over the left, palms
touching, from the wrist toward the tips of the left, as if brushing off
dust. (_Apache_ I.)
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Place the hands near each other, palms downward, and move them over and
apart, bringing the palms upward in opposite directions. (_Ballard_.)
Make a motion as in picking up something between the thumb and finger,
carry it to the lips, blow it away, and show the open hand. (_Wing_.)
_Australian sign:_
_Pannie_ (none or nothing). For instance, a native says _Bomako ingina_
(give a tomahawk). I reply by shaking the hand, thumb, and all fingers,
separated and loosely extended, palm down. (_Smyth_, _loc. cit._) Fig.
273.
[Illustration: FIG. 273.]
_Turkish sign:_
Blowing across open palm as though blowing off feathers; also means
“Nothing, nothing left.” (_Barnum_.)
----, I have none.
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Expressed by the signs for none, after pointing to one’s self.
(_Ballard_.)
Stretch the tongue and move it to and fro like a pendulum, then shake
the head as if to say “no.” (_Ziegler_.)
---- Left. Exhausted for the present.
Hold both hands naturally relaxed nearly at arm’s length before the
body, palms toward the face, move them alternately to and fro a few
inches, allowing the fingers to strike those of the opposite hand each
time as far as the second joint. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) Cleaned out.
QUANTITY, LARGE; MANY; MUCH.
The flat of the right hand patting the back of the left hand, which is
repeated in proportion to the greater or lesser quantity. (_Dunbar_.)
Simple repetition.
The hands and arms are passed in a curvilinear direction outward and
downward, as if showing the form of a large globe; then the hands are
closed and elevated, as if something was grasped in each hand and held
up about as high as the face. (_Long_; _Creel_.)
Clutch at the air several times with both hands. The motion greatly
resembles those of danseuses playing the castanets. (_Ojibwa_ I.)
In the preceding signs the authorities have not distinguished between
the ideas of “many” and “much.” In the following there appears by the
expressions of the authorities to be some distinction intended between a
number of objects and a quantity in volume.
---- MANY.
A simultaneous movement of both hands, as if gathering or heaping up.
(_Arapaho_ I.) Literally “a heap.”
Both hands, with spread and slightly curved fingers, are held pendent
about two feet apart before the thighs; then draw them toward one
another, horizontally, drawing them upward as they come together.
(_Absaroka_ I; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I; _Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “An accumulation of objects.”
Hands about eighteen inches from the ground in front and about the same
distance apart, held scoop-fashion, palms looting toward each other,
fingers separated; then, with a diving motion, as if scooping up corn
from the ground, bring the hands nearly together, with fingers nearly
closed, as though holding the corn, and carry upward to the height of
the breast, where the hands are turned over, fingers pointing downward,
separated, as though the contents were allowed to drop to the ground.
(_Dakota_ I, II.)
Open the fingers of both hands, and hold the two hands before the
breast, with the fingers upward and a little apart, and the palms turned
toward each other, as if grasping a number of things. (_Iroquois_ I.)
Place the hands on either side of and as high as the head, then open and
close the fingers rapidly four or five times. (_Wyandot_ I.) “Counting
‘tens’ an indefinite number of times.”
Clasp the hands effusively before the breast. (_Apache_ III.)
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Put the fingers of the two hands together, tip to tip, and rub them with
a rapid motion. (_Ballard_.)
Make a rapid movement of the fingers and thumbs of both hands upward and
downward, and at the same time cause both lips to touch each other in
rapid succession, and both eyes to be half opened. (_Hasenstab_.)
Move the fingers of both hands forward and backward. (_Ziegler_.) Add to
_Ziegler’s_ sign: slightly opening and closing the hands. (_Wing_.)
---- Horses.
Raise the right arm above the head, palm forward, and thrust forward
forcibly on a line with the shoulder. (_Omaha_ I.)
---- Persons, etc.
Hands and fingers interlaced. (_Macgowan_.)
Take up a bunch of grass or a clod of earth; place it in the hand of the
person addressed, who looks down upon it. (_Omaha_ I.) “Represents as
many or more than the particles contained in the mass.”
---- MUCH.
Move both hands toward one another and slightly upward. (_Wied_.) I have
seen this sign, but I think it is used only for articles that may be
piled on the ground or formed into a heap. The sign most in use for the
general idea of _much_ or _many_ I have given. (_Matthews_.)
Bring the hands up in front of the body with the fingers carefully kept
distinct. (_Cheyenne_ I.)
Both hands closed, brought up in a curved motion toward each other to
the level of the neck or chin. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
Both hands and arms are partly extended; each hand is then made to
describe, simultaneously with the other, from the head downward, the arc
of a circle curving outward. This is used for _large_ in some senses.
(_Ojibwa_ V; _Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
Both hands flat and extended, placed before the breast, finger tips
touching, palms down; then separate them by passing outward and downward
as if smoothing the outer surface of a globe. (_Absaroka_ I; _Shoshoni
and Banack_ I; _Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
“A heap.”
_Much_ is included in _many_ or _big_, as the case may require.
(_Dakota_ I.)
The hands, with fingers widely separated, slightly bent, pointing
forward, and backs outward, are to be rapidly approximated through
downward curves, from positions twelve to thirty-six inches apart, at
the height of the navel, and quickly closed. Or the hands may be moved
until the right is above the left. So much that it has to be gathered
with both hands. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Hands open, palms turned in, held about three feet apart and about two
feet from the ground. Raise them about a foot, then bring in an upward
curve toward each other. As they pass each other, palms down, the right
hand is about three inches above the left. (_Omaha_ I.)
Place both hands flat and extended, thumbs touching, palms downward, in
front of and as high as the face; then move them outward and downward a
short distance toward their respective sides, thus describing the upper
half of a circle. (_Wyandot_ I.) “A heap.”
Both hands clinched, placed as high as and in front of the hips, palms
facing opposite sides and about a foot apart, then bring them upward and
inward, describing an arc, until the thumbs touch. (_Apache_ I.) Fig.
274.
[Illustration: FIG. 274.]
Sweep out both hands as if inclosing a large object; wave the hands
forward and somewhat upward. (_Apache_ III.) “Suggesting immensity.”
_Deaf-mute sign:_
The French deaf-mutes place the two hands, with fingers united and
extended in a slight curve, nearly together, left above right, in front
of the body, and then raise the left in a direct line above the right,
thus suggesting the idea of a large and slightly-rounded object being
held between the two palms.
---- And heavy.
Hands open, palms turned in, held about three feet apart, and about two
feet from the ground, raise them about a foot; close the fists, backs of
hands down, as if lifting something heavy; then move a short distance up
and down several times. (_Omaha_ I.)
Remarks connected with the signs for _quantity_ appear on pages 291,
359, and 382, _supra_.
QUESTION; INQUIRY; INTERROGATION.
The palm of the hand upward and carried circularly outward, and
depressed. (_Dunbar_.)
The hand held up with the thumb near the face, and the palm directed
toward the person of whom the inquiry is made; then rotated upon the
wrist two or three times edgewise, to denote uncertainty. (_Long_;
_Comanche_ I; _Wichita_ I.) The motion might be mistaken for the
derisive, vulgar gesture called “taking a sight,” “_donner un pied de
nez_,” descending to our small boys from antiquity. The separate motion
of the fingers in the vulgar gesture as used in our eastern cities is,
however, more nearly correlated with some of the Indian signs for
_fool_, one of which is the same as that for _Kaiowa_, see TRIBAL SIGNS.
It may be noted that the Latin “_sagax_,” from which is derived
“sagacity,” was chiefly used to denote the keen scent of dogs, so there
is a relation established between the nasal organ and wisdom or its
absence, and that “_suspendere naso_” was a classic phrase for hoaxing.
The Italian expressions “_restare con un palmo di naso_,” “_con tanto di
naso_,” etc., mentioned by the canon De Jorio, refer to the same vulgar
gesture in which the face is supposed to be thrust forward sillily.
Further remarks connected with this sign appear on pp. 304, 305,
_supra_.
Extend the open hand perpendicularly with the palm outward, and move it
from side to side several times. (_Wied_.) This sign is still used. For
“outward,” however, I would substitute “forward.” The hand is usually,
but not always, held before the face. (_Matthews_.) This is not the sign
for _question_, but is used to attract attention before commencing a
conversation or any other time during the talk, when found necessary.
(_McChesney_.) With due deference to Dr. McChesney, this is the sign for
_question_, as used by many tribes, and especially Dakotas. The Prince
of Wied probably intended to convey the motion of _forward, to the
front_, when he said _outward_. In making the sign for _attention_ the
hand is held more nearly horizontal, and is directed toward the
individual whose attention is desired. (_Hoffman_.)
Right hand in front of right side of body, forearm horizontal, palm of
hand to the left, fingers extended, joined and horizontal, thumb
extending upward naturally, turn hand to the left about 60°, then resume
first position. Continue this motion for about two to four seconds,
depending on earnestness of inquiry. (_Creel_.)
Right hand, fingers pointing upward, palm outward, elevated to the level
of the shoulder, extended toward the person addressed, and slightly
shaken from side to side. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
Hold the elbow of the right arm against the side, extending the right
hand, palm inward, with all the fingers straight joined, as far as may
be, while the elbow remains fixed against the side; then turn the
extended hand to the right and left, repeating this movement several
times, being performed by the muscles of the arm. (_Sac, Fox, and
Kickapoo_ I.)
Place the flat and extended right hand, palm forward, about twelve
inches in front of and as high as the shoulder, then shake the hand from
side to side as it is moved upward and forward. (_Apache_ I.) See Fig.
304, in TENDOY-HUERITO DIALOGUE, p. 486. This may be compared with the
ancient Greek sign, Fig. 67, and with the modern Neapolitan sign, Fig.
70, both of which are discussed on p. 291, _supra_.
_Deaf-mute natural sign:_
A quick motion of the lips with an inquiring look. (_Ballard_.)
_Deaf-mute sign:_
The French deaf-mutes for _inquiry_, “_qu’est-ce que c’est?_” bring the
hands to the lower part of the chest, with open palms about a foot
separate and diverging outward.
_Australian sign:_
One is a sort of note of interrogation. For instance, if I were to meet
a native and make the sign: Hand flat, fingers and thumb extended, the
two middle fingers touching, the two outer slightly separated from the
middle by turning the hand palm upward as I met him, it would mean:
“Where are you going?” In other words I should say “_Minna?_” (what
name?). (_Smyth_.) Fig. 275.
[Illustration: FIG. 275.]
Some comparisons and illustrations connected with the signs for
_question_ appear on pages 291, 297, and 303, _supra_, and under
PHRASES, _infra_. Quintilian remarks upon this subject as follows: “In
questioning, we do not compose our gesture after any single manner; the
position of the hand, for the most part is to be changed, however
disposed before.”
SOLDIER.
----, American.
The upright nearly closed hands, thumbs against the middle of the
forefingers, being in front of the body, with their thumbs near
together, palms forward, separate them about two feet horizontally on
the same line. All in a line in front. (_Cheyenne_ III; _Dakota_ IV.)
Pass each hand down the outer seam of the pants. (_Sac, Fox, and
Kickapoo_ I.) “Stripes.”
Sign for WHITE MAN as follows: The extended index (M turned inward) is
drawn from the left side of the head around in front to the right side,
about on a line with the brim of the hat, with the back of the hand
outward; and then for FORT, viz, on level of the breasts in front of
body, both hands with fingers turned inward, straight, backs joined,
backs of hands outward, horizontal, turn outward the hands until the
fingers are free, curve them, and bring the wrists together so as to
describe a circle with a space left between the ends of the curved
fingers. (_Dakota_ I.) “From his fortified place of abode.”
Another: Both hands in front of body, fists, backs outward, hands in
contact, draw them apart on a straight line right to right, left to left
about two feet, then draw the index, other fingers closed, across the
forehead above the eyebrows. This is the sign preferred by the Sioux.
(_Dakota_ I.)
Extend the fingers of the right hand; place the thumb on the same plane
close beside them, and then bring the thumb side of the hand
horizontally against the middle of the forehead, palm downward and
little finger to the front. (_Dakota_ II; _Ute_ I.) “Visor of forage
cap.”
First make the sign for SOLDIER substantially the same as (_Dakota_ VI)
below, then that for WHITE MAN, viz.: Draw the opened right hand
horizontally from left to right across the forehead a little above the
eyebrows, the back of the hand to be upward and the fingers pointing
toward the left; or, close all the fingers except the index and draw it
across the forehead in the same manner. (_Dakota_ IV.) For illustrations
of other signs for white man see Figs 315 and 329, _infra_.
[Illustration: FIG. 276.]
Place the radial sides of the clinched hands together before the chest,
then draw them horizontally apart. (_Dakota_ VI; _Arikara_ I.) “All in a
line.” Fig. 276.
Put thumbs to temples, and forefingers forward, meeting in front, other
fingers closed. (_Apache_ III.) “Cap-visor.”
----, Arikara.
Make the sign for ARIKARA (see TRIBAL SIGNS) and that for BRAVE.
(_Arikara_ I.)
----, Dakota.
Make the sign for DAKOTA (see TRIBAL SIGNS) and that for SOLDIER.
(_Dakota_ VI.)
----, Indian.
Both fists before the body, palms down, thumbs touching, then draw them
horizontally apart to the right and left. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V;
_Ponka_ II; _Pani_ I.) This is the same sign illustrated in Fig. 276,
above, as given by tribes there cited for _white_ or _American soldier_.
The tribes now cited use it for _a soldier_ of the same tribe as the
gesturer, or perhaps for _soldier_ generically, as they subjoin a tribal
sign or the sign for _white man_, when desiring to refer to any other
than their own tribe.
TRADE or BARTER; EXCHANGE.
---- TRADE.
First make the sign of EXCHANGE (see below), then pat the left arm with
the right finger, with a rapid motion from the hand passing it toward
the shoulder. (_Long_.)
Strike the extended index finger of the right hand several times upon
that of the left. (_Wied_.) I have described the same sign in different
terms and at greater length. It is only necessary, however, to place the
fingers in contact once. The person whom the prince saw making this sign
may have meant to indicate something more than the simple idea of trade,
_i.e._, trade often or habitually. The idea of frequency is often
conveyed by the repetition of a sign (as in some Indian languages by
repetition of the root). Or the sign-maker may have repeated the sign to
demonstrate it more clearly. (_Matthews_.) Though some difference exists
in the motions executed in _Wied’s_ sign and that of (_Oto and
Missouri_ I), there is sufficient similarity to justify a probable
identity of conception and to make them easily understood. (_Boteler_.)
In the author’s mind _exchange_ was probably intended for one
transaction, in which each of two articles took the place before
occupied by the other, and _trade_ was intended for a more general and
systematic barter, indicated by the repetition of strokes. Such
distinction would not perhaps have occurred to most observers, but as
the older authorities, such as Long and Wied, give distinct signs under
the separate titles of _trade_ and _exchange_ they must be credited with
having some reason for so doing. A pictograph connected with this sign
is shown on page 381, _supra_.
Cross the forefingers of both hands before the breast. (_Burton_.)
“Diamond cut diamond.” This conception of one smart trader cutting into
the profits of another is a mistake arising from the rough resemblance
of the sign to that for _cutting_. Captain Burton is right, however, in
reporting that this sign for _trade_ is also used for _white man,
American_, and that the same Indians using it orally call white men
“shwop,” from the English or American word “swap” or “swop.” This is a
legacy from the early traders, the first white men met by the Western
tribes, and the expression extends even to the Sahaptins on the Yakama
River, where it appears incorporated in their language as _swiapoin_. It
must have penetrated to them through the Shoshoni.
Cross the index fingers. (_Macgowan_.)
Cross the forefingers at right angles. (_Arapaho_ I.)
Both hands, palms facing each other, forefingers extended, crossed right
above left before the breast. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
The left hand, with forefinger extended, pointing toward the right (rest
of fingers closed), horizontal, back outward, otherwise as (M), is held
in front of left breast about a foot; and the right hand, with
forefinger extended (J), in front of and near the right breast, is
carried outward and struck over the top of the stationary left (+)
crosswise, where it remains for a moment. (_Dakota_ I.)
Hold the extended left index about a foot in front of the breast,
pointing obliquely forward toward the right, and lay the extended right
index at right angles across the left, first raising the right about a
foot above the left, palms of both inward, other fingers half closed.
This is also an Arapaho sign as well as Dakota. Yours is there and mine
is there; take either. (_Dakota_ IV.)
[Illustration: FIG. 277.]
Place the first two fingers of the right hand across those of the left,
both being slightly spread. The hands are sometimes used, but are placed
edgewise. (_Dakota_ V.) Fig. 277.
Another: The index of the right hand is laid across the forefinger of
the left when the transaction includes but two persons trading single
article for article. (_Dakota_ V.)
Strike the back of the extended index at a right angle against the
radial side of the extended forefinger of the left hand. (_Dakota_ VI,
VII.) Fig. 278.
[Illustration: FIG. 278.]
The forefingers are extended, held obliquely upward, and crossed at
right angles to one another, usually in front of the chest. (_Mandan and
Hidatsa_ I.)
Bring each hand as high as the breast, forefinger pointing up, the other
fingers closed, then move quickly the right hand to the left, the left
to the right, the forefingers making an acute angle as they cross.
(_Omaha_ I; _Ponka_ I.)
The palm point of the right index extended touches the chest; it is then
turned toward the second individual interested, then touches the object.
The arms are now drawn toward the body, semiflexed, with the hands, in
type-positions (W W), crossed, the right superposed to the left. The
individual then casts an interrogating glance at the second person.
(_Oto and Missouri_ I.) “To cross something from one to another.”
Close the hands, except the index fingers and the thumbs; with them
open, move the hands several times past one another at the height of the
breast; the index fingers pointing upward and the thumbs outward.
(_Iroquois_ I.) “The movement indicates ‘exchanging.’”
Hold the left hand horizontally before the body, with the forefinger
only extended and pointing to the right, palm downward; then, with the
right hand closed, index only extended, palm to the right, place the
index at right angles on the forefinger of the left, touching at the
second joints. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
Pass the hands in front of the body, all the fingers closed except the
forefingers. (_Sahaptin_ I.)
Close the fingers of both hands (K); bring them opposite each shoulder;
then bring the hands across each other’s pathway, without permitting
them to touch. At the close of the sign the left hand will be near and
pointing at the right shoulder; right hand will be near and pointing at
the left shoulder. (_Comanche_ I.)
Close both hands, leaving the forefingers only extended; place the right
before and several inches above the left, then pass the right hand
toward the left elbow and the left hand toward the right elbow, each
hand following the course made by a flourishing cut with a short sword.
This sign, according to the informant, is also employed by the Banak and
Umatilla Indians. (_Comanche_ II; _Pai-Ute_ I.)
The forefingers of both hands only extended, pass the left from left to
right, and the right at the same time crossing its course from the tip
toward the wrist of the left, stopping when the wrists cross. (_Ute_ I.)
“Exchange of articles.”
Right hand carried across chest, hand extended, palm upward, fingers and
thumb closed as if holding something; left hand, in same position,
carried across the right, palm downward. (_Kutchin_ I.)
Hands pronated and forefingers crossed. (_Zuñi_ I.)
_Deaf-mute natural sign:_
Close the hand slightly, as if taking something, and move it forward and
open the hand as if to drop or give away the thing, and again close and
withdraw the hand as if to take something else. (_Ballard_.)
American instructed deaf-mutes use substantially the sign described by
(_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I).
---- To buy.
[Illustration: FIG. 279.]
Hold the left hand about twelve inches before the breast, the thumb
resting on the closed third and fourth fingers; the fore and second
fingers separated and extended, palm toward the breast; then pass the
extended index into the crotch formed by the separated fingers of the
left hand. This is an invented sign, and was given to illustrate the
difference between buying and trading. (_Ute_ I.) Fig. 279.
_Deaf-mute natural sign:_
Make a circle on the palm of the left hand with the forefinger of the
right hand, to denote _coin_, and close the thumb and finger as if to
take the money, and put the hand forward to signify giving it to some
one, and move the hand a little apart from the place where it left the
money, and then close and withdraw the hand, as if to take the thing
purchased. (_Ballard_.)
_Italian sign:_
To indicate paying, in the language of the fingers, one makes as though
he put something, piece after piece, from one hand into the other--a
gesture, however, far less expressive than that when a man lacks money,
and yet cannot make up a face to beg it; or simply to indicate want of
money, which is to rub together the thumb and forefinger, at the same
time stretching out the hand. (_Butler_.) An illustration from De Jorio
of the Neapolitan sign for _money_ is given on page 297, _supra_.
---- EXCHANGE.
The two forefingers are extended perpendicularly, and the hands are then
passed by each other transversely in front of the breast so as nearly to
exchange positions. (_Long_.)
Pass both hands, with extended forefingers, across each other before the
breast. (_Wied_.) See remarks on this author’s sign for TRADE, _supra_.
Hands brought up to front of breast, forefingers extended and other
fingers slightly closed; hands suddenly drawn toward and past each other
until forearms are crossed in front of breast. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
“Exchange; right hand exchanging position with the left.”
Left hand, with forefinger extended, others closed (M, except back of
hand outward), is brought, arm extended, in front of the left breast,
and the extended forefinger of the right hand, obliquely upward, others
closed, is placed crosswise over the left and maintained in that
position for a moment, when the fingers of the right hand are relaxed
(as in Y), brought near the breast with hand horizontal, palm inward,
and then carried out again in front of right breast twenty inches, with
palm looking toward the left, fingers pointing forward, hand horizontal,
and then the left hand performs the same movements on the left side of
the body. (_Dakota_ I.) “You give me, I give you.”
The hands, backs forward, are held as index hands, pointing upward, the
elbows being fully bent; each hand is then, simultaneously with the
other, moved to the opposite shoulder, so that the forearms cross one
another almost at right angles. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
YES; AFFIRMATION; IT IS SO. (Compare GOOD.)
The motion is somewhat like _truth_, viz: The forefinger in the attitude
of pointing, from the mouth forward in a line curving a little upward,
the other fingers being carefully closed; but the finger is held rather
more upright, and is passed nearly straightforward from opposite the
breast, and when at the end of its course it seems gently to strike
something, though with rather a slow and not suddenly accelerated
motion. (_Long_.)
Wave the hand straight forward from the face. (_Burton_.) This may be
compared with the forward nod common over most of the world for assent,
but that gesture is not universal, as the New Zealanders elevate the
head and chin, and the Turks are reported by several travelers to shake
the head somewhat like our negative. Rev. H. N. Barnum denies that
report, giving below the gesture observed by him. He, however, describes
the Turkish gesture sign for _truth_ to be “gently bowing with head
inclined to the right.” This sidewise inclination may be what has been
called the shake of the head in affirmation.
Another: Wave the hand from the mouth, extending the thumb from the
index and closing the other three fingers. (_Burton_.)
Gesticulate vertically downward and in front of the body with the
extended forefinger (right hand usually), the remaining fingers and
thumb closed, their nails down. (_Creel_; _Arapaho_ I.)
Right hand elevated to the level and in front of the shoulder, two first
fingers somewhat extended, thumb resting against the middle finger;
sudden motion in a curve forward and downward. (_Cheyenne_ II.) It has
been suggested that the correspondence between this gesture and the one
given by the same gesturer for _sitting_ (made by holding the right hand
to one side, fingers and thumb drooping, and striking downward to the
ground or object to be sat upon) seemingly indicates that the origin of
the former is in connection with the idea of “resting,” or “settling a
question.” It is however at least equally probable that the forward and
downward curve is an abbreviation of the sign for _truth, true_, a
typical description of which follows given by (_Dakota_ I). The sign for
_true_ can often be interchanged with that for _yes_, in the same manner
as the several words.
The index of the horizontal hand (M), other fingers closed, is carried
straight outward from the mouth. This is also the sign for _truth_.
(_Dakota_ I.) “But one tongue.”
Extend the right index, the thumb against it, nearly close the other
fingers, and holding it about a foot in front of the right breast, bend
the hand from the wrist downward until the end of the index has passed
about six inches through an arc. Some at the same time move the hand
forward a little. (_Dakota_ IV.) “A nod; the hand representing the head
and the index the nose.”
Hold the naturally closed hand before the right side of the breast, or
shoulder, leaving the index and thumb extended, then throw the hand
downward, bring the index against the inner side of the thumb.
(_Dakota_ VI, VII, VIII.) Fig. 280. Compare also Fig. 61, p. 286,
_supra_, Quintilian’s sign for approbation.
[Illustration: FIG. 280.]
The right hand, with the forefinger only extended and pointing forward,
is held before and near the chest. It is then moved forward one or two
feet, usually with a slight curve downward. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
Bend the right arm, pointing toward the chest with the index finger;
unbend, throwing the hand up and forward. (_Omaha_ I.)
Another: Close the three fingers, close the thumb over them, extend
forefinger, and then shake forward and down. This is more emphatic than
the preceding, and signifies, _Yes, I know_. (_Omaha_ I.)
The right arm is raised to head with the index finger in type-position
(I 1), modified by being more opened. From aside the head the hands
sweep in a curve to the right ear as of something entering or hearing
something; the finger is then more open and carried direct to the ground
as something emphatic or direct. (_Oto and Missouri_ I.) “‘I hear,’
emphatically symbolized.” It is doubted if this sign is more than an
expression of understanding which may or may not imply positive assent.
It would not probably be used as a direct affirmative, for instance, in
response to a question.
The hand open, palm downward, at the level of the breast, is moved
forward with a quick downward motion from the wrist, imitating a bow of
the head. (_Iroquois_ I.)
Throw the closed right hand, with the index extended and bent, as high
as the face, and let it drop again naturally; but as the hand reaches
its greatest elevation the index is fully extended and suddenly drawn
into the palm, the gesture resembling a beckoning from above toward the
ground. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
Quick motion of the right hand forward from the mouth; first position
about six inches from the mouth and final as far again away. In first
position the index finger is extended, the others closed; in final, the
index loosely closed, thrown in that position as the hand is moved
forward, as though hooking something with it; palm of hand out.
(_Sahaptin_ I.)
Another: Move right hand to a position in front of the body, letting arm
hang loosely at the side, the thumb standing alone, all fingers hooked
except forefinger, which is partially extended (E 1, palm upward). The
sign consists in moving the forefinger from its partially extended
position to one similar to the others, as though making a sly motion for
some one to come to you. This is done once each time the assent is made.
More emphatic than the preceding. (_Sahaptin_ I.) “We are together,
think alike.”
_Deaf-mute natural sign:_
Indicate by nodding the head. (_Ballard_.)
_Deaf-mute sign:_
The French mutes unite the extremities of the index and thumb so as to
form a circle and move the hand downward with back vertical and turned
outward. It has been suggested in explanation that the circle formed and
exhibited is merely the letter O, the initial of the word _oui_.
_Fiji sign:_
Assent is expressed, not by a downward nod as with ourselves, but by an
upward nod; the head is jerked backward. Assent is also expressed by
uplifting the eyebrows. (_Fison_.)
_Turkish sign:_
One or two nods of the head forward. (_Barnum_.)
Other remarks and illustrations upon the signs for _yes_ are given on
page 286, _supra_.
TRIBAL SIGNS.
ABSAROKA or CROW.
The hands held out each side, and striking the air in the manner of
flying. (_Long_.)
Imitate the flapping of the bird’s wings with the two hands, palms
downward, brought close to the shoulder. (_Burton_.)
Imitate the flapping of a bird’s wings with the two hands, palms to the
front and brought close to the shoulder. (_Creel_.)
Place the flat hand as high as and in front or to the side of the right
shoulder, move it up and down, the motion occurring at the wrist. For
more thorough representation both hands are sometimes employed.
(_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Dakota_ V, VI, VIII; _Ponka_ II;
_Kaiowa_ I; _Pani_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
“Bird’s wing.”
Both hands extended, with fingers joined (W), held near the shoulders,
and flapped to represent the wings of a crow. (_Dakota_ II, III.)
At the height of the shoulders and a foot outward from them, move the
upright hands forward and backward twice or three times from the wrist,
palms forward, fingers and thumbs extended and separated a little; then
place the back or the palm of the upright opened right hand against the
upper part of the forehead; or half close the fingers, placing the end
of the thumb against the ends of the fore and middle fingers, and then
place the back of the hand against the forehead. This sign is also made
by the Arapahos. (_Dakota_ IV.) “To imitate the flying of a bird, and
also indicate the manner in which the Absaroka wear their hair.”
[Illustration: FIG. 281.]
Make with the arms the motion of flapping wings. (_Kutine_ I.)
The flat right hand, palm outward to the front and right, is held in
front of the right shoulder, and quickly waved back and forth a few
times. When made for the information of one ignorant of the common sign,
both hands are used, and the hands are moved outward from the body,
though still near the shoulder. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) “Wings,
_i.e._, of a crow.” Fig. 281.
APACHE.
[Illustration: FIG. 282.]
Make either of the signs for POOR, IN PROPERTY, by rubbing the index
back and forth over the extended left forefinger; or, by passing the
extended index alternately along the upper and lower sides of the
extended left forefinger from tip to base. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) Fig. 282. “It is said that when the first
Apache came to the region they now occupy he was asked who or what he
was, and not understanding the language he merely made the sign for
_poor_, which expressed his condition.”
[Illustration: FIG. 283.]
Rub the back of the extended left forefinger from end to end with the
extended index. (_Comanche_ II; _Ute_ I.) “Poor, poverty-stricken.”
----, Coyotero.
Place the back of the right hand near the end of the foot, the fingers
curved upward, to represent the turned-up toes of the moccasins. (_Pima
and Papago_ I; _Apache_ I.) Fig. 283.
----, Mescalero.
Same sign as for LIPAN _q.v._ (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II;
_Wichita_ II.)
----, Warm Spring.
Hand curved (Y, more flexed) and laid on its back on top of the foot
(_moccasins much curved up at toe_); then draw hands up legs to near
knee, and cut off with edges of hands (_boot tops_). (_Apache_ III.)
“Those who wear booted moccasins with turn-up toes.”
ARAPAHO.
The fingers of one hand touch the breast in different parts, to indicate
the tattooing of that part in points. (_Long_.)
Seize the nose with the thumb and forefinger. (Randolph B. Marcy,
captain United States Army, in _The Prairie Traveler_. _New York_, 1859,
p. 215.)
Rub the right side of the nose with the forefinger: some call this tribe
the “Smellers,” and make their sign consist of seizing the nose with the
thumb and forefinger. (_Burton_.)
Finger to side of nose. (_Macgowan_.)
Touch the left breast, thus implying what they call themselves, viz: the
“Good Hearts.” (_Arapaho_ I.)
Rub the side of the extended index against the right side of the nose.
(_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II;
_Wichita_ II.)
Hold the left hand, palm down, and fingers extended; then with the right
hand, fingers extended, palm inward and thumb up, make a sudden stroke
from left to right across the back of the fingers of the left hand, as
if cutting them off. (_Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo_ I.) This is believed to
be an error of the authority, and should apply to the CHEYENNE tribal
sign.
Join the ends of the fingers (the thumb included) of the right hand,
and, pointing toward the heart near the chest, throw the hand forward
and to the right once, twice, or many times, through an arc of about six
inches. (_Dakota_ IV.) “Some say they use this sign because these
Indians tattoo their breasts.”
Collect the fingers and thumb of the right hand to a point, and tap the
tips upon the left breast briskly. (_Comanche_ II; _Ute_ I.)
“Goodhearted.” It was stated by members of the various tribes at
Washington, in 1880, that this sign is used to designate the Northern
Arapahos, while that in which the index rubs against or passes upward
alongside of the nose refers to the Southern Arapahos.
Another: Close the right hand, leaving the index only extended; then rub
it up and down, held vertically, against the side of the nose where it
joins the cheek. (_Comanche_ II; _Ute_ I.)
The fingers and thumb of the right hand, are brought to a point, and
tapped upon the right side of the breast. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.)
ARIKARA. (Corruptly abbreviated REE.)
Imitate the manner of shelling corn, holding the left hand stationary,
the shelling being done with the right. (_Creel_.) Fig. 284.
With the right hand closed, curve the thumb and index, join their tips
so as to form a circle, and place to the lobe of the ear. (_Absaroka_ I;
_Hidatsa_ I.) “Big ear-rings.” Fig. 285.
Both hands, fists, (B, except thumbs) in front of body, backs looking
toward the sides of the body, thumbs obliquely upward, left hand
stationary, the backs of the fingers of the two hands touching, carry
the right thumb forward and backward at the inner side of the left thumb
and without moving the hand from the left, in imitation of the act of
shelling corn. (_Dakota_ I, VII, VIII.)
Collect the fingers and thumb of the right hand nearly to a point, and
make a tattooing or dotting motion toward the upper portion of the
cheek. This is the old sign, and was used by them previous to the
adoption of the more modern one representing “corn-eaters.”
(_Arikara_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 284.]
[Illustration: FIG. 285.]
Place the back of the closed right hand transversely before the mouth,
and rotate it forward and backward several times. This gesture may be
accompanied, as it sometimes is, by a motion of the jaws as if eating,
to illustrate more fully the meaning of the rotation of the fist.
(_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Wichita_ II; _Apache_ I.) “Corn-eater;
eating corn from the ear.”
Signified by the same motions with the thumbs and forefingers that are
used in shelling corn. The dwarf Ree (Arikara) corn is their peculiar
possession, which their tradition says was given to them by a superior
being, who led them to the Missouri River and instructed them how to
plant it. (Rev. C. L. Hall, in _The Missionary Herald_, April, 1880.)
“They are the corn-shellers.” Have seen this sign used by the Arikaras
as a tribal designation. (_Dakota_ II.)
ASSINABOIN.
Hands in front of abdomen, horizontal, backs outward, ends of fingers
pointing toward one another, separated and arched (H), then moved up and
down and from side to side as though covering a corpulent body. This
sign is also used to indicate the Gros Ventres of the Prairie or Atsina.
(_Dakota_ I.)
Make the sign of _cutting the throat_. (_Kutine_ I.) As the Assinaboins
belong to the Dakotan stock, the sign generally given for the Sioux may
be used for them also.
With the right hand flattened, form a curve by passing it from the top
of the chest to the pubis, the fingers pointing to the left, and the
back forward. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) “Big bellies.”
ATSINA, LOWER GROS VENTRE.
Both hands closed, the tips of the fingers pointing toward the wrist and
resting upon the base of the joint, the thumbs lying upon and extending
over the middle joint of the forefingers; hold the left before the
chest, pointing forward, palm up, placing the right, with palm down,
just back of the left, and move as if picking small objects from the
left with the tip of the right thumb. (_Absaroka_ I; _Shoshoni and
Banak_ I.) “Corn-shellers.”
Bring the extended and separated fingers and thumb loosely to a point,
flexed at the metacarpal joints; point them toward the left clavicle,
and imitate a dotting motion as if tattooing the skin. (_Kaiowa_ I;
_Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “They used to tattoo
themselves, and live in the country south of the Dakotas.”
See also the sign of (_Dakota_ I) under ASSINABOIN.
BANAK.
Make a whistling sound “phew” (beginning at a high note and ending about
an octave lower); then draw the extended index across the throat from
the left to the right and out to nearly at arm’s length. They used to
cut the throats of their prisoners. (_Pai-Ute_ I.)
Major Haworth states that the _Banaks_ make the following sign for
themselves: Brush the flat right hand backward over the forehead as if
forcing back the hair. This represents the manner of wearing the tuft of
hair backward from the forehead. According to this informant, the
Shoshoni use the same sign for BANAK as for themselves.
BLACKFEET. (This title refers to the Algonkian Blackfeet, properly
called SATSIKA. For the Dakota Blackfeet, or Sihasapa, see under head of
DAKOTA.)
The finger and thumb encircle the ankle. (_Long_.)
Pass the right hand, bent spoon-fashion, from the heel to the little toe
of the right foot. (_Burton_.)
The palmar surfaces of the extended fore and second fingers of the right
hand (others closed) are rubbed along the leg just above the ankle. This
would not seem to be clear, but these Indians do not make any sign
indicating _black_ in connection with the above. The sign does not,
however, interfere with any other sign as made by the Sioux. (_Creel_;
_Dakota_ I.) “Black feet.”
Pass the flat hand over the outer edge of the right foot from the heel
to beyond the toe, as if brushing off dust. (_Dakota_ V, VII, VIII.)
Fig. 286.
[Illustration: FIG. 286.]
Touch the right foot with the right hand. (_Kutine_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 287.]
Close the right hand, thumb resting over the second joint of the
forefinger, palm toward the face, and rotate over the cheek, though an
inch or two from it. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) “From manner of painting
the cheeks.” Fig. 287.
CADDO.
Pass the horizontally extended index from right to left under the nose.
(_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ I, II, III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ I, II.) “‘Pierced noses,’ from former custom of
perforating the septum for the reception of rings.” Fig. 288. This sign
is also used for the Sahaptin. For some remarks see page 345.
[Illustration: FIG. 288.]
CALISPEL. See PEND D’OREILLE.
CHEYENNE.
Draw the hand across the arm, to imitate cutting it with a knife.
(_Marcy_ in _Prairie Traveller_, _loc. cit._, p. 215.)
Draw the lower edge of the right hand across the left arm as if gashing
it with a knife. (_Burton_.)
With the index-finger of the right hand proceed as if cutting the left
arm in different places with a sawing motion from the wrist upward, to
represent the cuts or burns on the arms of that nation. (_Long_.)
Bridge palm of left hand with index-finger of right. (_Macgowan_.)
Draw the extended right hand, fingers joined, across the left wrist as
if cutting it. (_Arapaho_ I.)
Pass the ulnar side of the extended index repeatedly across the extended
finger and back of the left hand. Frequently, however, the index is
drawn across the wrist or forearm. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V;
_Ponka_ II; _Pani_ I.) Fig. 289. See p. 345 for remarks.
[Illustration: FIG. 289.]
The extended index, palm upward, is drawn across the forefinger of the
left hand (palm inward), several times, left hand stationary, right hand
is drawn toward the body until the index is drawn clear off; then
repeat. Some Cheyennes believe this to have reference to the former
custom of cutting the arm as offerings to spirits, while others think it
refers to a more ancient custom of cutting off the enemy’s fingers for
necklaces. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
Place the extended index at the right side of the nose, where it joins
the face, the tip reaching as high as the forehead, and close to the
inner corner of the eye. This position makes the thumb of the right hand
rest upon the chin, while the index is perpendicular. (_Sac, Fox, and
Kickapoo_ I.) It is considered that this sign, though given to the
collaborator as expressed, was an error. It applies to the Southern
Arapahos. Lieutenant Creel states the last remark to be correct, the
gesture having reference to the Southern bands.
As though sawing through the left forearm at its middle with the edge of
the right held back outward, thumb upward. Sign made at the left side of
the body. (_Dakota_ I.) “Same sign as for a _saw_. The Cheyenne Indians
are known to the Sioux by the name of ‘The Saws.’”
Right-hand fingers and thumb extended and joined (as in S), outer edge
downward, and drawn sharply across the other fingers and forearm as if
cutting with a knife. (_Dakota_ III.)
Draw the extended right index or the ulnar (inner) edge of the open
right hand several times across the base of the extended left index, or
across the left forearm at different heights from left to right. This
sign is also made by the Arapahos. (_Dakota_ IV.) “Because their arms
are marked with scars from cuts which they make as offerings to
spirits.”
Draw the extended index several times across the extended forefinger
from the tip toward the palm, the latter pointing forward and slightly
toward the right. From the custom of striping arms transversely with
colors. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ II, III; _Apache_ II; _Ute_ I;
_Wichita_ II.)
Another: Make the sign for DOG, viz: Close the right hand, leaving the
index and second fingers only extended and joined, hold it forward from
and lower than the hip and draw it backward, the course following the
outline of a dog’s form from head to tail; then add the sign TO EAT, as
follows: Collect the thumb, index, and second fingers to a point, hold
them above and in front of the mouth and make a repeated dotting motion
toward the mouth. This sign is generally used, but the other and more
common one is also employed, especially so with individuals not fully
conversant with the sign language as employed by the Comanches, &c.
(_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “Dog-eaters.”
Draw the extended index across the back of the left hand and arm as if
cutting it. The index does not touch the arm as in signs given for the
same tribe by other Indians, but is held at least four or five inches
from it. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.)
CHIPEWAY. See OJIBWA.
COMANCHE.
Imitate, by the waving of the hand or forefinger, the forward crawling
motion of a snake. (_Burton_, also _Blackmore_ in introduction to
Dodge’s _Plains of the Great West_. _New York_, 1877, p. xxv.) The same
sign is used for the Shoshoni, more commonly called “Snake”, Indians,
who as well as the Comanches belong to the Shoshonian linguistic family.
“The silent stealth of the tribe.” (_Dodge_; _Marcy_ in _Thirty Years of
Army Life on the Border_. _New York_, 1866, p. 33.) Rev. A. J. Holt
remarks, however, that among the Comanches themselves the conception of
this sign is the trailing of a rope, or lariat. This refers probably to
their well-known horsemanship.
Motion of a snake. (_Macgowan_.)
Hold the elbow of the right arm near the right side, but not touching
it; extend the forearm and hand, palm inward, fingers joined on a level
with the elbow, then with a shoulder movement draw the forearm and hand
back until the points of the fingers are behind the body; at the same
time that the hand is thus being moved back, turn it right and left
several times. (_Creel_; _Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo_ I.) “Snake in the
grass. A snake drawing itself back in the grass instead of crossing the
road in front of you.”
Another: The sign by and for the Comanches themselves is made by holding
both hands and arms upward from the elbow, both palms inward, and
passing both hands with their backs upward along the lower end of the
hair to indicate _long hair_, as they never cut it. (_Sac, Fox, and
Kickapoo_ I.)
Right hand horizontal, flat, palm downward (W), advanced to the front by
a motion to represent the crawling of a snake. (_Dakota_ III.)
Extend the closed right hand to the front and left; extend the index,
palm down, and rotate from side to side while drawing it back to the
right hip. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Dakota_ VI, VII, VIII;
_Ponka_ II; _Kaiowa_ I; _Pani_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II;
_Wichita_ II.) This motion is just the reverse of the sign for
_Shoshoni_, see Fig. 297 _infra_.
Make the reverse gesture for _Shoshoni_, _i.e._, begin away from the
body, drawing the hand back to the side of the right hip while rotating
it. (_Comanche_ II.)
CREE, KNISTENO, KRISTENEAUX.
Sign for WAGON and then the sign for MAN. (_Dakota_ I.) “This indicates
the Red River half-breeds, with their carts, as these people are so
known from their habit of traveling with carts.”
Place the first and second fingers of the right hand in front of the
mouth. (_Kutine_ I.)
CROW. See ABSAROKA.
DAKOTA, or SIOUX.
The edge of the hand passed across the throat, as in the act of cutting
that part. (_Long_; _Marcy_ in _Army Life_, p. 33.)
Draw the lower edge of the hand across the throat. (_Burton_.)
Draw the extended right hand across the throat. (_Arapaho_ I.) “The
cut-throats.”
Pass the flat right hand, with palm down, from left to right across the
throat. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Dakota_ VI, VIII; _Ponka_ II;
_Pani_ I.)
Draw the forefinger of the left hand from right to left across the
throat. (_Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo_ I.) “A cut-throat.”
Forefinger and thumb of right hand extended (others closed) is drawn
from left to right across the throat as though cutting it. The Dakotas
have been named the “cut-throats” by some of the surrounding tribes.
(_Dakota_ I.) “Cut-throats.”
Right hand horizontal, flat, palm downward (as in W), and drawn across
the throat as if cutting with a knife. (_Dakota_ II, III.)
Draw the open right hand, or the right index, from left to right
horizontally across the throat, back of hand upward, fingers pointing
toward the left. This sign is also made by the Arapahos. (_Dakota_ IV.)
“It is said that after a battle the Utes took many Sioux prisoners and
cut their throats; hence the sign ‘cut-throats’.”
Draw the extended right hand, palm downward, across the throat from left
to right. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ II, III; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I;
_Ute_ I; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “Cut-throats.” Fig. 290.
[Illustration: FIG. 290.]
----, Blackfoot (Sihasapa).
Pass the flat right hand along the outer edge of the foot from the heel
to beyond the toes. (_Dakota_ VIII; _Hidatsa_ I; _Ponka_ II;
_Arikara_ I; _Pani_ I.) Same as Fig. 286, above.
Pass the right hand quickly over the right foot from the great toe
outward, turn the heel as if brushing something therefrom. (_Dakota_ V.)
Pass the widely separated thumb and index of the right hand over the
lower leg, from just below the knee nearly down to the heel.
(_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
----, Brulé.
Rub the upper and outer part of the right thigh in a small circle with
the open right hand, fingers pointing downward. This sign is also made
by the Arapahos. (_Dakota_ IV.) “These Indians were once caught in a
prairie fire, many burned to death, and others badly burned about the
thighs; hence the name Si-caⁿ-gu ‘burnt thigh’ and the sign. According
to the Brulé chronology, this fire occurred in 1763, which they call
‘The-People-were-burned-winter.’”
Pass the flat right hand quickly over the thigh from near the buttock
forward, as if brushing dust from that part. (_Dakota_ V, VI, VII,
VIII.)
Brush the palm of the right hand over the right thigh, from near the
buttock toward the front of the middle third of the thigh. (_Kaiowa_ I;
_Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
----, Ogalala.
Fingers and thumb separated, straight (as in R), and dotted about over
the face to represent the marks made by the small-pox. (_Arapaho_ II;
_Cheyenne_ V; _Dakota_ III, VI, VII, VIII.) “This band suffered from the
disease many years ago.”
With the thumb over the ends of the fingers, hold the right hand
upright, its back forward, about six inches in front of the face, or on
one side of the nose near the face, and suddenly extend and spread all
the fingers, thumb included. (_Dakota_ IV.) “The word _Ogalala_ means
scattering or throwing at, and the name was given them, it is said,
after a row in which they threw ashes into one another’s faces.”
FLATHEAD, or SELISH.
One hand placed on the top of the head, and the other on the back of the
head. (_Long_.)
Place the right hand to the top of the head. (_Kutine_ I.)
Pat the right side of the head above and back of the ear with the flat
right hand. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) From the elongation of the
occiput. Fig. 291.
[Illustration: FIG. 291.]
FOX, or OUTAGAMI.
Same sign as for SAC. (_Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo_ I.)
GROS VENTRE. See HIDATSA.
HIDATSA, GROS VENTRE, or MINITARI.
Both hands flat and extended, palms toward the body, with the tips of
the fingers pointing toward one another; pass from the top of the chest
downward, outward, and inward toward the groin. (_Absaroka_ I;
_Dakota_ V, VI, VII, VIII; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) “Big belly.”
Left and right hands in front of breast, left placed in position first,
separated about four or five inches, left hand outside of the right,
horizontal, backs outward, fingers extended and pointing left and right;
strike the back of the right against the palm of the left several times,
and then make the sign for GO, GOING, as follows: Both hands (A 1)
brought to the median line of body on a level with the breast, some
distance apart, then describe a series of half circles or forward
arch-like movements with both hands. (_Dakota_ I.) “The Gros Ventre
Indians, Minitaris (the Hidatsa Indians of _Matthews_), are known to the
Sioux as the Indians who went to the mountains to kill their enemies;
hence the sign.”
Express with the hand the sign of a big belly. (_Dakota_ III.)
Pass the flat right hand, back forward, from the top of the breast,
downward, outward, and inward to the pubis. (_Dakota_ VI; _Hidatsa_ I;
_Arikara_ I.) “Big belly.”
INDIAN (generically).
Hand in type-position K, inverted, back forward, is raised above the
head with forefinger directed perpendicularly to the crown. Describe
with it a short gentle curve upward and backward in such a manner that
the finger will point upward and backward, back outward, at the
termination of the motion. (_Ojibwa_ V.) “Indicates a feather planted
upon the head--the characteristic adornment of the Indian.”
Make the sign for WHITE MAN, viz: Draw the open right hand horizontally
from left to right across the forehead a little above the eyebrows, the
back of the hand to be upward and the fingers pointing toward the left,
or close all the fingers except the index, and draw it across the
forehead in the same manner; then make the sign for NO; then move the
upright index about a foot from side to side, in front of right
shoulder, at the same time rotating the hand a little. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Rub the back of the extended left hand with the palmar surfaces of the
extended fingers of the right. (_Comanche_ II.) “People of the same
kind; dark-skinned.”
Rub the back of the left hand with the index of the right. (_Pai-Ute_ I;
_Wichita_ I.)
KAIOWA.
Make the signs of the PRAIRIE and of DRINKING WATER. (_Burton_;
_Blackmore_ in Dodge’s _Plains of the Great West_. _New York_, 1877,
p. xxiv.)
Cheyennes make the same sign as (_Comanche_ II), and think it was
intended to convey the idea of cropping the hair. The men wear one side
of the hair of the head full length and done up as among the Cheyennes,
the other side being kept cropped off about even with the neck and
hanging loose. (_Cheyenne_ II.)
Right-hand fingers and thumb, extended and joined (as in W), placed in
front of right shoulder, and revolving loosely at the wrist. (_Dakota_
III.)
Place the flat hand with extended and separated fingers before the face,
pointing forward and upward, the wrist near the chin; pass it upward and
forward several times. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II;
_Wichita_ II.)
[Illustration: FIG. 292.]
Place the right hand a short distance above the right side of the head,
fingers and thumb separated and extended; shake it rapidly from side to
side, giving it a slight rotary motion in doing so. (_Comanche_ II.)
“Rattle-brained.” Fig. 292. See p. 345 for remarks upon this sign.
Same sign as (_Comanche_ II), with the exception that both hands are
generally used instead of the right one only. (_Ute_ I.)
Make a rotary motion of the right hand, palm extended upward and outward
by the side of the head. (_Wichita_ I.) “Crazy heads.”
KICKAPOO.
With the thumb and finger go through the motion of clipping the hair
over the ear; then with the hand make a sign that the borders of the
leggings are wide. (_Sac, Fox, and, Kickapoo_ I.)
KNISTENO or KRISTENEAUX. See CREE.
KUTINE.
Place the index or second finger of the right hand on each side of the
left index finger to imitate riding a horse. (_Kutine_ I.)
Hold the left fist, palm upward, at arm’s length before the body, the
right as if grasping the bowstring and drawn back. (_Shoshoni and
Banak_ I.) “From their peculiar manner of holding the long bow
horizontally in shooting.” Fig. 293.
[Illustration: FIG. 293.]
LIPAN.
With the index and second fingers only extended and separated, hold the
hand at arm’s length to the front of the left side; draw it back in
distinct jerks; each time the hand rests draw the fingers back against
the inside of the thumb, and when the hand is again started on the next
movement backward snap the fingers to full length. This is repeated five
or six times during the one movement of the hand. The country which the
Lipans at one time occupied contained large ponds or lakes, and along
the shores of these the reptile was found which gave them this
characteristic appellation. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ III;
_Wichita_ II.) “Frogs.” Fig. 294.
[Illustration: FIG. 294.]
MANDAN.
The first and second fingers of the right hand extended, separated,
backs outward, other fingers and thumb closed, are drawn from the left
shoulder obliquely downward in front of the body to the right hip.
(_Dakota_ I.) “The Mandan Indians are known to the Sioux as ‘The people
who wear a scarlet sash, with a train,’ in the manner above described.”
MINITARI. See HIDATSA.
NEZ PERCÉS. See SAHAPTIN.
OJIBWA, or CHIPPEWA.
Right hand horizontal, back outward, fingers separated, arched, tips
pointing inward, is moved from right to left breast and generally over
the front of the body with a trembling motion and at the same time a
slight outward or forward movement of the hand as though drawing
something out of the body, and then make the sign for MAN, viz: The
right-hand is held in front of the right breast with the forefinger
extended, straight upright (J), with the back of the hand outward; move
the hand upward and downward with finger extended. (_Dakota_ I.)
“Perhaps the first Chippewa Indian seen by a Sioux had an eruption on
his body, and from that his people were given the name of the ‘People
with a breaking out,’ by which name the Chippewas have ever been known
by the Sioux.”
OSAGE, or WASAJI.
Pull at the eyebrows over the left eye with the thumb and forefinger of
the left hand. This sign is also used by the Osages themselves. (_Sac,
Fox, and Kickapoo_ I.)
Hold the flat right hand, back forward, with the edge pointing backward,
against the side of the head, then make repeated cuts, and the hand is
moved backward toward the occiput. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “Former custom of shaving the hair from the
sides of the head, leaving but an occipito-frontal ridge.”
Pass the flat and extended right hand backward over the right side of
the head, moving the index against the second finger in imitation of
cutting with a pair of scissors. (_Comanche_ II.) “Represents the manner
of removing the hair from the sides of the head, leaving a ridge only
from the forehead to the occiput.”
OUTAGAMI. See FOX.
PANI (PAWNEE).
Imitate a wolf’s ears with the two forefingers of the right hand
extended together, upright, on the left side of the head. (_Burton_.)
Place a hand on each side of the forehead, with two fingers pointing to
the front to represent the narrow, sharp ears of the wolf. (_Marcy_ in
_Prairie Traveler_, p. 215.)
Extend the index and second fingers of the right hand upward from the
right side of the head. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V; _Dakota_ VII, VIII;
_Ponka_ II; _Pani_ I; _Comanche_ II.)
Right hand, as (N), is passed from the back part of the right side of
the head, forward seven or eight inches. (_Dakota_ I.) “The Pani Indians
are known as the _Shaved-heads_, _i.e._, leaving only the scalp locks on
the head.”
First and second fingers of right hand, straight upward and separated,
remaining fingers and thumb closed (as in N), like the ears of a small
wolf. (_Dakota_ III.)
Place the closed right hand to the side of the temple, palm forward
leaving the index and second fingers extended and slightly separated,
pointing upward. This is ordinarily used, though, to be more explicit,
both hands may be used. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Ute_ I;
_Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) For illustration see Fig. 336, facing page
531.
PEND D’OREILLE, or CALISPEL.
Make the motion of paddling a canoe. (_Kutine_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 295.]
Both fists are held as if grasping a paddle vertically downward and
working a canoe. Two strokes are made on each side of the body from the
side backward. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) Fig. 295.
PUEBLO.
Place the clinched hand back of the occiput as if grasping the queue,
then place both fists in front of the right shoulder, rotating them
slightly to represent a loose mass of an imaginary substance. Represents
the large mass of hair tied back of the head. (_Arapaho_ II;
_Cheyenne_ V.)
REE. See ARIKARA.
SAC, or SAUKI.
Pass the extended palm of the right hand over the right side of the head
from front to back, and the palm of the left hand in the same manner
over the left side of the head. (_Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo_ I.)
“Shaved-headed Indians.”
SAHAPTIN, or NEZ PERCÉS.
The right index, back outward, passed from right to left under the nose.
Piercing the nose to receive the ring. (_Creel_; _Dakota_ I.)
Place the thumb and forefinger to the nostrils. (_Kutine_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 296.]
Close the right hand, leaving the index straight but flexed at right
angles with the palm; pass it horizontally to the left by and under the
nose. (_Comanche_ II.) “Pierced nose.” Fig. 296. This sign is made by
the Nez Percés for themselves, according to Major Haworth. Information
was received from Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians, who visited Washington
in 1880, that this sign is also used to designate the _Caddos_, who
practiced the same custom of perforating the nasal septum. The same
informants also state that the _Shawnees_ are sometimes indicated by the
same sign.
Pass the extended index, pointing toward the left, remaining fingers and
thumb closed, in front of and across the upper lip, just below the nose.
The second finger is also sometimes extended. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.)
“From the custom of piercing the noses for the reception of ornaments.”
See p. 345 for remarks upon the signs for _Sahaptin._
SATSIKA. See BLACKFEET.
SELISH. See FLATHEAD.
SHEEPEATER. See under SHOSHONI.
SHAWNEE. See remarks under SAHAPTIN.
SHOSHONI, or SNAKE.
The forefinger is extended horizontally and passed along forward in a
serpentine line. (_Long_.)
Right hand closed, palm down, placed in front of the right hip; extend
the index and push it diagonally toward the left front, rotating it
quickly from side to side in doing so. (_Absaroka_ I; _Shoshoni and
Banak_ I.) “Snake.” Fig. 297.
[Illustration: FIG. 297.]
Right hand, horizontal, flat, palm downward (W), advanced to the front
by a motion to represent the crawling of a snake. (_Dakota_ III.)
With the right index pointing forward, the hand is to be moved forward
about a foot in a sinuous manner, to imitate the crawling of a snake.
Also made by the Arapahos. (_Dakota_ IV.)
Place the closed right hand, palm down, in front of the right hip;
extend the index, and move it forward and toward the left, rotating the
hand and finger from side to side in doing so. (_Kaiowa_ I;
_Comanche_ II, III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
Make the motion of a serpent with the right finger. (_Kutine_ I.)
Close the right hand, leaving the index only extended and pointing
forward, palm to the left, then move it forward and to the left.
(_Pai-Ute_ I.) The rotary motion of the hand does not occur in this
description, which in this respect differs from the other authorities.
----, Sheepeater. Tukuarikai.
Both hands, half closed, pass from the top of the ears backward,
downward, and forward, in a curve, to represent a ram’s horns; then,
with the index only extended and curved, place the hand above and in
front of the mouth, back toward the face, and pass it downward and
backward several times. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.) “Sheep,” and “to eat.”
SIHASAPA. See under DAKOTA.
SIOUX. See DAKOTA.
TENNANAH.
Right hand hollowed, lifted to mouth, and describing waving line
gradually descending from right to left; left hand describing
mountainous outline, one peak rising above the other. (_Kutchin_ I.)
“Mountain-river-men.”
UTE.
“They who live on mountains” have a complicated sign which denotes
“living in mountains,” and is composed of the signs SIT and MOUNTAIN.
(_Burton_.)
Rub the back of the extended flat left hand with the extended fingers of
the right, then touch some black object. Represents black skin. Although
the same sign is generally used to signify _negro_, an addition is
sometimes made as follows: place the index and second fingers to the
hair on the right side of the head, and rub them against each other to
signify _curly hair_. This addition is only made when the connection
would cause a confusion between the “black skin” Indian (_Ute_) and
negro. (_Arapaho_ II; _Cheyenne_ V.)
Left hand horizontal, flat, palm downward, and with the fingers of the
right hand brush the other toward the wrist. (_Dakota_ III.)
Place the flat and extended left hand at the height of the elbow before
the body, pointing to the front and right, palm toward the ground; then
pass the palmar surface of the flat and extended fingers of the right
hand over the back of the left from near the wrist toward the tips of
the fingers. (_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
“Those who use sinew for sewing, and for strengthening the bow.”
Indicate the color _black_, then separate the thumbs and forefingers of
both hands as far as possible, leaving the remaining fingers closed, and
pass upward over the lower part of the legs. (_Shoshoni_ and _Banak_ I.)
“Black or dark leggings.”
WASAJI. See OSAGE.
WICHITA.
Indicate a circle over the upper portion of the right cheek, with the
index or several fingers of the right hand. The statement of the Indian
authorities for the above is that years ago the Wichita women painted
spiral lines on the breasts, starting at the nipple and extending
several inches from it; but after an increase in modesty or a change in
the upper garment, by which the breast ceased to be exposed, the cheek
has been adopted as the locality for the sign. (_Creel_; _Kaiowa_ I;
_Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.)
Extend the fingers and thumb of the right hand, semi-closed, and bring
the hand toward the face nearly touching it, repeating this several
times as if going through the motion of tattooing. The Comanches call
the Wichitas “Painted Faces”; Caddos call them “Tattooed Faces,” both
tribes using the same sign. (_Comanche_ I.)
WYANDOT.
Pass the flat right hand from the top of the forehead backward over the
head and downward and backward as far as the length of the arm.
(_Wyandot_ I.) “From the manner of wearing the hair.”
PROPER NAMES.
WASHINGTON, CITY OF.
The sign for _go_ by closing the hand (as in type position B 1) and
bending the arm; the hand is then brought horizontally to the
epigastrium, after which both the hand and arm are suddenly extended;
the sign for _house_ or _lodge_; the sign for _cars_, consisting of the
sign for _go_ and _wagon_, _e.g._, both arms are flexed at a right angle
before the chest; the hands then assume type position (L) modified by
the index being hooked and the middle finger partly opened and hooked
similarly; the hands are held horizontally and rotated forward side by
side to imitate two wheels, palms upward; and the sign for _council_ as
follows: The right arm is raised, flexed at elbow, and the hand brought
to the mouth (in type position G 1, modified by being inverted), palm
up, and the index being more open. The hand then passes from the mouth
in jerks, opening and closing successively; then the right hand
(in position S 1), horizontal, marks off divisions on the left arm
extended. The sign for _father_ is briefly executed by passing the open
hand down and from the loins, then bringing it erect before the body;
then the sign for _cars_, making with the mouth the noise of an engine.
The hands then raised before the eyes and approximated at points, as in
the sign for _lodge_; then diverge to indicate _extensive_; this being
followed by the sign for _council_. (_Oto and Missouri_ I.) “The home of
our father, where we go on the puffing wagon to council.”
MISSOURI RIVER.
Make the sign for _water_ by placing the right hand upright six or eight
inches in front of the mouth, back outward, index and thumb crooked, and
their ends about an inch apart, the other fingers nearly closed; then
move it toward the mouth, and then downward nearly to the top of the
breast-bone, at the same time turning the hand over toward the mouth
until the little finger is uppermost; and the sign for _large_ as
follows: The opened right hands, palms facing, fingers relaxed and
slightly separated, being at the height of the breast and about two feet
apart, separate them nearly to arm’s length; and then rapidly rotate the
right hand from right to left several times, its back upward, fingers
spread and pointing forward to show that it is stirred up or muddy.
(_Dakota_ IV.)
[Illustration: FIG. 298.]
EAGLE BULL, a Dakota chief.
[Illustration: FIG. 299.]
Place the clinched fists to either side of the head with the forefingers
extended and curved, as in Fig. 298; then extend the left hand, flat,
palm down, before the left side, fingers pointing forward; the outer
edge of the flat and extended right hand is then laid transversely
across the back of the left hand, and slid forward over the fingers as
in Fig. 299. (_Dakota_ VI; _Arikara_ I.) “Bull and eagle--‘_Haliaëtus
leucocephalus, (Linn.) Sav._’” In the picture-writing of the Moquis,
Fig. 300 represents the eagle’s tail as showing the difference of color
which is indicated in the latter part of the above gesture.
[Illustration: FIG. 300.]
RUSHING BEAR, an Arikara chief.
Place the right fist in front of the right side of the breast, palm
down; extend and curve the thumb and little finger so that their tips
point toward one another before the knuckles of the remaining closed
fingers, then reach forward a short distance and pull toward the body
several times ratter quickly; suddenly push the fist, in this form,
forward to arm’s length twice. (_Dakota_ VI; _Arikara_ I.) “Bear, and
rushing.”
SPOTTED TAIL, a Dakota chief.
With the index only of the right hand extended, indicate a line of curve
from the sacrum (or from the right buttock) downward, backward, and
outward toward the right; then extend the left forefinger, pointing
forward from the left side, and with the extended index draw imaginary
lines transversely across the left forefinger. (_Absaroka_ I;
_Shoshoni_ I; _Dakota_ VI, VII; _Arikara_ I.) “Tail, and spotted.”
STUMBLING BEAR, a Kaiowa chief.
Place the right fist in front of the right side of the breast, palm
down; extend and curve the thumb and little finger so that their tips
point toward one another before the knuckles of the remaining closed
fingers; then place the left flat hand edgewise before the breast,
pointing to the right; hold the right hand flat pointing down nearer the
body; move it forward toward the left, so that the right-hand fingers
strike the left palm and fall downward beyond the left. (_Kaiowa_ I.)
“Bear, and stumble or stumbling.”
SWIFT RUNNER, a Dakota warrior.
Place the right hand in front of the right side, palm down; close all
the fingers excepting the index, which is slightly curved, pointing
forward; then push the hand forward to arm’s length twice, very quickly.
(_Dakota_ VI; _Arikara_ I.) “Man running rapidly or swiftly.”
WILD HORSE, a Comanche chief.
Place the extended and separated index and second fingers of the right
hand astraddle the extended forefinger of the left hand. With the right
hand loosely extended, held as high as and nearly at arm’s length before
the shoulder, make several cuts downward and toward the left.
(_Comanche_ III.) “Horse, and prairie or wild.”
PHRASES.
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES; SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.
Close the right hand, leaving the thumb and index fully extended and
separated; place the index over the forehead so that the thumb points to
the right, palm toward the face; then draw the index across the forehead
toward the right; then elevate the extended index, pointing upward
before the shoulder or neck; pass it upward as high as the top of the
head; make a short turn toward the front and pass it pointing downward
toward the ground, to a point farther to the front and a little lower
than at the beginning. (_Absaroka_ I; _Dakota_ VI, VII; _Shoshoni and
Banak_ I; _Ute_ I; _Apache_ I.) “White man and chief.”
Make the sign for _white man_ (American), by passing the palmar surface
of the extended index and thumb of the right hand across the forehead
from left to right, then that for _chief_, and conclude by making that
for _parent_ by collecting the fingers and thumb of the right hand
nearly to a point and drawing them forward from the left breast.
(_Kaiowa_ I; _Comanche_ III; _Apache_ II; _Wichita_ II.) “White man;
chief; father.”
SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.
Draw the palmar side of the index across the forehead from left to
right, resting the thumb upon the right temple, then make the sign for
_chief_--the white chief, “Secretary;” then make the sign for _great
lodge, council house_, by making the sign for _lodge_, then placing both
hands somewhat bent, palms facing, about ten inches apart, and passing
them upward from the waist as high as the face. (_Arikara_ I.)
WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER?
After placing the index into the mouth--_mother_, point the index at the
individual addressed--_your_, then separate and extend the index and
second fingers of the right hand; hold them, pointing forward, about
twelve or fifteen inches before the face, and move them from side to
side, eyes following the same direction--_I see_, then throw the flat
right hand in a short curve outward to the right until the back points
toward the ground--_not_, and look inquiringly at the individual
addressed. (_Ute_ I.) “Mother your I see not; where is she?”
ARE YOU BRAVE?
Point to the person and make sign for _brave_, at same time looking with
an inquiring expression. (_Absaroka_ I; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I.)
BISON, I HAVE SHOT A.
Move the open left hand, palm to the front, toward the left and away
from the body slowly (motion of the buffalo when chased). Move right
hand on wrist as axis, rapidly (man on pony chasing buffalo); then
extend left hand to the left, draw right arm as if drawing a bow, snap
the forefinger and middle finger of left hand, and thrust the right
forefinger over the left hand. (_Omaha_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 301.]
GIVE ME SOMETHING TO EAT.
Bring the thumb, index and second fingers to a point as if grasping a
small object, the remaining fingers naturally extended, then place the
hand just above the mouth and a few inches in front of it, and make
repeated thrusts quickly toward the mouth several times; then place the
naturally extended right hand nearly at arm’s length before the body,
palm up, fingers pointing toward the front and left, and make a short
circular motion with the hand, as in Fig. 301, bringing the outer edge
toward the body as far as the wrist will permit, throwing the hand
forward again at a higher elevation. The motion being at the wrist only.
(_Absaroka_ I; _Dakota_ VII, VIII; _Comanche_ III.)
I WILL SEE YOU HERE AFTER NEXT YEAR.
Raise the right hand above the head (J 2), palm to the front, all the
fingers closed except the index, hand slanting a little to backward,
then move forward and downward toward the person addressed, describing a
curve. (_Omaha_ I.)
YOU GAVE US MANY CLOTHES, BUT WE DON’T WANT THEM.
Lean forward, and, holding the hands concavo-convex, draw them up over
the limbs severally, then cross on the chest as wrapping a blanket. The
arms are then extended before the body, with the hands in type-position
(W), to a height indicating a large pile. The right hand then sweeps
outward, showing a negative state of mind. The index of right hand
finally touches the chest of the second party and approaches the body,
in position (I), horizontal. (_Oto and Missouri_ I.) “Something to put
on that I don’t want from you.”
QUESTION. See also this title in EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY.
Hold the extended and flattened right hand, palm forward, at the height
of the shoulder or face, and about fifteen inches from it, shaking the
hand from side to side (at the wrist) as the arm is slightly raised,
resembling the outline of an interrogation mark (_?_) made from below
upward. (_Absaroka_ I; _Dakota_ V, VI, VII; _Hidatsa_ I; _Kaiowa_ I;
_Arikara_ I; _Comanche_ II, III; _Pai-Ute_ I; _Shoshoni and Banak_ I;
_Ute_ I; _Apache_ I, II; _Wichita_ II.)
---- What? What is it?
First attract the person’s notice by the sign for _attention_, viz: The
right hand (T) carried directly out in front of the body, with arm fully
extended and there moved sidewise with rapid motions; and then the right
hand, fingers extended, pointing forward or outward, fingers joined,
horizontal, is carried outward, obliquely in front of the right breast,
and there turned partially over and under several times. (_Dakota_ I.)
---- What are you doing? What do you want?
Throw the right hand about a foot from right to left several times,
describing an arc with its convexity upward, palm inward, fingers
slightly bent and separated, and pointing forward. (_Dakota_ IV.)
---- When?
With its index extended and pointing forward, back upward, rotate the
right hand several times to the right and left, describing an arc with
the index. (_Dakota_ IV.)
---- What are you? _i.e._, What tribe do you belong to?
Shake the upright open right hand four to eight inches from side to side
a few times, from twelve to eighteen inches in front of the chin, the
palm forward, fingers relaxed and a little separated. (_Dakota_ IV.)
It must be remarked that in the three preceding signs there is no
essential difference, either between themselves or between them and the
general sign for QUESTION above given, which can be applied to the
several special questions above mentioned. A similar remark may be made
regarding several signs given below, which are printed in deference to
collaborators.
Pass the right hand from left to right across the face. (_Kutine_ I.)
---- What do you want?
The arm is drawn to front of chest and the hand in position (N 1),
modified by palms being downward and hand horizontal. From the chest
center the hand is then passed spirally forward toward the one
addressed; the hand’s palm begins the spiral motion with a downward and
ends in an upward aspect. (_Oto_ I.) “To unwind or open.”
---- Whence come you?
First the sign for _you_, viz: The hand open, held upward obliquely, and
pointing forward; then the hand extended open and drawn to the breast,
and lastly the sign for _bringing_, as follows: The hand half shut, with
the thumb pressing against the forefinger, being first moderately
extended either to the right or left, is brought with a moderate jerk to
the opposite side, as if something was pulled along by the hand.
(_Dunbar_.)
---- Who are you? or what is your name?
The right or left hand approximates close to center of the body; the arm
is flexed and hand in position (D), or a little more closed. From
inception of sign near center of body the hand slowly describes the arc
of a quadrant, and fingers unfold as the hand recedes. We think the
proper intention is for the inception of sign to be located at the
heart, but it is seldom truly, anatomically thus located. (_Oto_ I.) “To
unfold one’s self or make known.”
---- Are you through?
With arms hanging at the side and forearms horizontal, place the fists
near each other in front of body; then with a quick motion separate them
as though breaking something asunder. (_Sahaptin_ I.)
---- Do you know?
Shake the right hand in front of the face, a little to the right, the
whole arm elevated so as to throw the hand even with the face, and the
forearm standing almost perpendicular. Principal motion with hand,
slight motion of forearm, palm out. (_Sahaptin_ I.)
---- How far is it?
Sign for DO YOU KNOW? followed with a precise movement throwing right
hand (palm toward face) to a position as far from body as convenient,
signifying _far_; then with the same quick, precise motion, bring the
hand to a position near the face--_near_. (_Sahaptin_ I.)
---- How will you go--horseback or in wagon?
First make the sign for DO YOU KNOW? then throw right hand forward--_go_
or _going_; then throw fore and middle fingers of right astride the
forefinger of the left hand, signifying, _will you ride?_; then swing
the forefingers of each hand around each other, sign of _wheel running_,
signifying, _or will you go in wagon?_ (_Sahaptin_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 302.]
---- How many?
After making the sign for _question_, touch the tips of as many of the
extended and separated fingers of the left hand held in front of the
body upright, with back outward, with the right index as may be
necessary. (_Dakota_ I.) “Count them off to me--how many?”
Place the left hand carelessly before the breast, fingers extended and
slightly separated, back to the front, then count off a few with the
extended index, by laying down the fingers of the left, beginning at the
little finger, as in Fig. 302. In asking the question, the sign for
_question_ must precede the sign for _many_, the latter being also
accompanied by a look of interrogation. (_Shoshoni and Banak_ I.)
---- Has he?
_Deaf-mute natural sign:_
Move to and fro the finger several times toward the person spoken of
(_Larson_.)
---- Have you?
_Deaf-mute natural sign:_
Move the finger to and fro several times toward the person to whom the
one is speaking. (_Larson_.)
---- Are you?
_Deaf-mute natural signs:_
Point to the person spoken to and slightly nod the head, with an
inquiring look. (_Ballard_.)
Point with the forefinger, as if to point toward the second person, at
the same time nod the head as if to say “yes.” (_Ziegler_.)
The following was obtained at Washington during the winter of 1880-’81
from Ta-taⁿ-ka Wa-kaⁿ (Medicine Bull), a Brulé Dakota chief, by Dr.
W. J. HOFFMAN.
I AM GOING HOME IN TWO DAYS.
(1) Place the flat hands in front of and as high as the elbows, palms
down, pass each hand across to the opposite side of the body, the right
above the left crossing near the wrist at the termination of the gesture
(_night_), repeat in quick succession--_nights_, (2) elevate the
extended index and second finger of the right hand, backs to the
front--_two_, (3) place the tips of the extended and joined fingers of
the right hand against the breast--_I_, (4) after touching the breast as
in the preceding, pass the extended index from the breast, pointing
downward, forward nearly to arm’s length, and terminating by holding the
hand but continuing the motion of the index until it points forward and
upward--_am going to_, (5) throw the clinched right fist about six
inches toward the earth at arm’s length after the completion of the
preceding gesture--_my home_.
ANALYSIS.
Haⁿ-he´-pi | noⁿ´-pa | mi´-ye | ti-ya´-ta | wa-gle´-kta.
(1) | (2) | (3) | (5) | (4)
nights | two | I | my home | am going to.
It will be noticed that the gesture No. 4, “am going to,” was made
before the gesture No. 5, “my home,” although the Dakota words
pronounced were in the reverse order, showing a difference in the syntax
of the gestures and of the oral speech in this instance. The other
gestures, 1, 2, and 3, had been made deliberately, the Dakota word
translating each being in obvious connection with the several gestures,
but the two final words were pronounced rapidly together as if they
could not in the mind of the gesturer be applied separately to the
reversed order of the signs for them.
* * * * *
The same authority obtained the above sentence in Ponka and Pani,
together with the following signs for it, from individuals of those
tribes. Those signs agreed between each other, but differed from the
Dakota, as will be observed, in the signs _to my house_, as signifying
_to my home_.
(1) Touch the breast with the tips of the extended fingers--_I_. This
precedes the signs for Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, which correspond to Nos. 1,
2, 3, and 4 of the Dakota; then follows: (6) place the tips of the
extended fingers of the flat hands together, leaving the wrists about
six inches apart--_lodge_, (7) and conclude by placing the clinched
fists nearly at arm’s length before the body, the right several inches
above the left, then throw them toward the ground--about six or eight
inches--the fists retaining their relative positions--_my, mine_.
ANALYSIS.
The following is the Ponka sentence as given by the gesturer in
connection with the several gestures as made:
.... | Naⁿ´-ba | jaⁿ ʞi | a-g¢e´ | ta miñ´-ke | ʇi | wi´-wi-a tĕ´-ʇa.
(1) | (3) | (2) | (4) | (5) |(6) | (7)
The following is the full sentence as spoken by Ponkas without regard to
gesture, and its literal translation:
Naⁿ´-ba| jaⁿ | ʞĭ | a-g¢e´ | ta´ | miñ´-ke|
Two | night, sleep | if, when | I go homeward | will | I who |
ʇi | wi´-wi-ʇa | tè´-ʇa. | ..
lodge | my own | the, one, standing object, | to.
The Pani gestures were given with the accompanying words, viz:
| Pit´ ku-rĕt´ | ka´-ha | wi | ta-tukh´-ta
(1) | (3) | (2) | (4) | (5)
I | (In) two | nights | I | am going
a-ka´-ru | ru-rĕt´-i-ru.
(6) | (7)
house | to my.
The orthography in the above sentences, as in others where the original
text is given (excepting the Dakota and Ojibwa), is that adopted by Maj.
J. W. POWELL in the second edition of the _Introduction to the Study of
Indian Languages_. _Washington_, 1880. The characters more particularly
requiring explanation are the following, viz:
_¢_, as _th_ in _then_, _though_.
_ñ_, as _ng_ in _sing_, _singer_; Sp. _luengo_.
_ʞ_, an intermediate sound between _k_ and _g_ in _gig_.
_kh_, as the German _ch_, in _nacht_.
_ʇ_, an intermediate sound between _t_ and _d_.
Nasalized vowels are written with a superior _n_, thus: _aⁿ_, _eⁿ_.
The following phrases were obtained by the same authority from Antonito,
son of Antonio Azul, chief of the Pimas in Arizona.
I AM HUNGRY, GIVE ME SOMETHING TO EAT.
(1) Touch the breast with the tips of the extended fingers of the right
hand--_I_, (2) place the outer edge of the flat and extended right hand
against the pit of the stomach, palm upward, then make a sawing motion
from side to side with the hand--_hunger_, (3) place the right hand
before the face, back upward, and fingers pointing toward the mouth,
then thrust the fingers rapidly to and from the mouth several
times--_eat_.
ANALYSIS.
Aⁿ-an´-t | pi´-hu-ki’um | .....
(1) | (2) | (3)
I (have) | hunger | eat.
The last sign is so intimately connected with that for hunger, that no
translation can be made.
GIVE ME A DRINK OF WATER.
(1) Place the tips of the index and thumb together, the remaining
fingers curved, forming a cup, then pass it from a point about six
inches before the chin, in a curve upward, backward and downward past
the mouth--_water_, (2) then place the flat right hand at the height of
the elbow in front of or slightly to the right of the body, palm up, and
in passing it slowly from left to right, give the hand a lateral motion
at the wrist--_give me_.
ANALYSIS.
Shu´-wu-to | do´-i’.
(1) | (2)
water | give me.
The following was also obtained by Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN from Ta-taⁿ-ka
Wa-kaⁿ, before referred to, at the time of his visit to Washington.
[Illustration: FIG. 303.]
I AM GOING HOME.
(1) Touch the breast with the extended index--_I_, (2) then pass it in a
downward curve, outward and upward toward the right nearly to arm’s
length, as high as the shoulder--_am going (to)_, (3) and when at that
point suddenly clinch the hand and throw it edgewise a short distance
toward the ground--_my country_, _my home_. Fig. 303.
ANALYSIS.
Ma-ko´-ce mi-ta´-wa kin e-kta´ wa-gle´ kta.
(3) (2) (1)
Country ‖ my own ‖ the ‖ to ‖ I go home ‖ will.
DIALOGUES.
_TENDOY-HUERITO DIALOGUE._
The following conversation took place at Washington in April, 1880,
between TENDOY, chief of the Shoshoni and Banak Indians of Idaho, and
HUERITO, one of the Apache chiefs from New Mexico, in the presence of
Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN. Neither of these Indians spoke any language known to
the other, or had ever met or heard of one another before that occasion:
[Illustration: FIG. 304.]
_Huerito._--WHO ARE YOU?
Place the flat and extended right hand, palm forward, about twelve
inches in front of and as high as the shoulder, then shake the hand from
side to side as it is moved forward and upward--_question, who are you?_
Fig. 304.
[Illustration: FIG. 305.]
_Tendoy._--SHOSHONI CHIEF.
Place the closed right hand near the right hip leaving the index only
extended, palm down; then pass the hand toward the front and left,
rotating it from side to side--_Shoshoni_, Fig. 305; then place the
closed hand, with the index extended and pointing upward, near the right
cheek, pass it upward as high as the head, then turn it forward and
downward toward the ground, terminating with the movement a little below
the initial point--_chief_. Fig. 306.
_Huerito._--HOW OLD ARE YOU?
Clinch both hands and cross the forearms before the breast with a
trembling motion--_cold_--_winter, year_, Fig. 307; then elevate the
left hand as high as the neck and about twelve or fifteen inches before
it, palm toward the face, with fingers extended and pointing upward;
then, with the index, turn down one finger after another slowly,
beginning at the little finger, until three or four are folded against
the palm, and look inquiringly at the person addressed--_how many?_ See
Fig. 302.
[Illustration: FIG. 306.]
[Illustration: FIG. 307.]
_Tendoy._--FIFTY-SIX.
Close and extend the fingers and thumbs of both hands, with the palms
forward, five times--_fifty_; then extend the fingers and thumb of the
left hand, close the right, and place the extended thumb alongside of
and near the left thumb--_six_. Fig. 308.
[Illustration: FIG. 308.]
[Illustration: FIG. 309.]
_Huerito._--VERY WELL. ARE THERE ANY BUFFALO IN YOUR COUNTRY?
Place the flat right hand, pointing to the left, with the palm down,
against the breast-bone; then move it forward and slightly to the right
and in an upward curve; make the gesture rather slow and nearly to arm’s
length (otherwise, _i.e._, if made hastily and but a short distance, it
would only mean _good_)--_very good_, Fig. 309; place both closed hands
to their respective sides of the head, palms toward the hair, leaving
the forefingers curved--_buffalo_, see Fig. 298, p. 477; then reach out
the fist to arm’s length toward the west, and throw it forcibly toward
the ground for a distance of about six inches, edge downward--_country,
away to the west_; then point the curved index rather quickly and
carelessly toward the person addressed--_your_.
[Illustration: FIG. 310.]
_Tendoy._--YES; MANY BLACK BUFFALO.
Pass the closed right hand, with the index partly flexed, to a position
about eight inches before the right collar-bone, and, as the hand
reaches that elevation, quickly close the index--_yes_; then make the
same sign as in the preceding question for _buffalo_; touch the hair on
the right side of the head with the palms of the extended fingers of the
right hand--_black_; spread the curved fingers and thumbs of both hands,
place them before either thigh, pointing downward; then draw them toward
one another and upward as high as the stomach, so that the fingers will
point toward one another, or may be interlaced--_many_. Fig. 310.
[Illustration: FIG. 311.]
_Tendoy._--DID YOU HEAR ANYTHING FROM THE SECRETARY? IF SO, TELL ME.
Close the right hand, leaving the index and thumb widely separated, pass
it by the ear from the back of the ear downward and toward the chin,
palm toward the head--_hear_, see Fig. 316, p. 492; point to the
individual addressed--_you_; close the hand again, leaving the index and
thumb separated as in the sign for _hear_ and placing the palmar surface
of the finger horizontally across the forehead, pointing to the left,
allow the thumb to rest against the right temple; then draw the index
across the forehead from left to right, leaving the thumb touching the
head--_white man_; then place the closed hand, with elevated index,
before the right side of the neck or in front of the top of the
shoulder; pass the index, pointing upward, as high as the top of the
head; turn it forward and downward as far as the breast--_chief_; pass
the extended index, pointing up ward and forward, forward from the mouth
twice--_talk_; then open and flatten the hand, palm up, outer edge
toward the face, place it about fifteen inches in front of the chin, and
draw it horizontally inward until the hand nearly touches the
neck--_tell me_.
_Huerito._--HE TOLD ME THAT IN FOUR DAYS I WOULD GO TO MY COUNTRY.
Close the right hand, leaving the index curved; place it about six
inches from the ear and move it in toward the external meatus--_told me,
hear, I heard_, Fig. 311; with the right hand still closed, form a
circle with the index and thumb by allowing their tips to touch; pass
the hand from east to west at arm’s length--_day_; place the left hand
before the breast, the fingers extended, and the thumb resting against
the palm, back forward, and, with the index, turn down one finger after
another, beginning at the little finger--_four_; touch the breast with
the tips of the finger and thumb of the left hand collected to a
point--_I_; drop the hand a short distance and move it forward to arm’s
length and slightly upward until it points above the horizon--_go to_*;
then as the arm is extended, throw the fist edgewise toward the
ground--_my country_.
[Illustration: FIG. 312.]
[Illustration: FIG. 313.]
_Tendoy._--IN TWO DAYS I GO TO MY COUNTRY JUST AS YOU GO TO YOURS. I GO
TO MINE WHERE THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF SNOW, AND WE SHALL SEE EACH OTHER
NO MORE.
Place the flat hands horizontally, about two feet apart, move them
quickly in an upward curve toward one another until the right lies
across the left--_night_, Fig. 312, repeat this sign--_two nights_
(literally _two sleeps hence_); point toward the individual addressed
with the right hand--_you_; and in a continuous movement pass the hand
to the right, _i.e._, toward the south, nearly to arm’s length--_go_;
then throw the fist edgewise toward the ground at that distance--_your
country_; then touch the breast with the tips of the fingers of the left
hand--_I_; move the hand off slowly toward the left, _i.e._, toward the
north to arm’s length--_go to_*; and throw the clinched hand toward the
ground--_my country_; then hold both hands toward the left as high as
the head, palms down, with fingers and thumbs pendent and separated;
move them toward the ground two or three times--_rain_, Fig. 313; then
place the flat hands horizontally to the left of the body about two feet
from the ground--_deep_; (literally, _deep rain_) _snow_--and raise them
until about three feet from the ground--_very deep--much_; place the
hands before the body about twelve inches apart, palms down, with
forefingers only extended and pointing toward one another; push them
toward and from one another several times--_see each other_, Fig. 314;
then hold the flat right hand in front of the breast, pointing forward,
palm to the left, and throw it over on its back toward the right--_not,
no more_.
[Illustration: FIG. 314.]
EXPLANATORY NOTE.--Where the asterisks appear in the above dialogue the
preposition _to_ is included in the gesture. After touching the breast
for _I_, the slow movement forward signifies _going to_, and _country_
is signified by locating it at arm’s length toward the west, to the left
of the gesturer, as the stopping-place, also _possession_ by the
clinched fist being directed toward the ground. It is the same as for
_my_ or _mine_, though made before the body in the latter signs. The
direction of Tendoy’s hands, first to the south and afterwards to the
north, was understood not as pointing to the exact locality of the two
parts of the country, but to the difference in their respective
climates.
_OMAHA COLLOQUY._
The following is contributed by Rev. J. OWEN DORSEY:
_Question._ FROM WHAT QUARTER IS THE WIND?
Raise the curved right hand, palm in, in front of the left shoulder.
Draw in toward the body a little, then from the body several times in
different directions.
_Answer._ FROM THAT QUARTER.
Hand as above; draw in towards the body _once_, and _farther_ with
_emphasis_, according to the direction of the wind.
_BRULÉ DAKOTA COLLOQUY._
The following signs, forming a question and answer, were obtained by Dr.
W. J. HOFFMAN, from Ta-taⁿ-ka Wa-kaⁿ (Medicine Bull), a Brulé Dakota
chief who visited Washington during the winter of 1880-’81:
_Question._ WE WENT TO THE DEPARTMENT [OF THE INTERIOR], SHOOK HANDS
WITH THE SECRETARY AND HAD A CONVERSATION WITH HIM, DID YOU HEAR OF IT?
[Illustration: FIG. 315.]
(1) Extend and separate the thumb and index, leaving the remaining
fingers closed, place the ball of the thumb against the temple above the
outer corner of the eye, and the index across the forehead, the tip
resting on the left temple, then draw the index across to the right
until its tip touches the thumb--_white man_, Fig. 315; (2) Elevate the
extended index before the shoulder, palm forward, pass it upward, as
high as the head, and forming a short curve to the front, then downward
again slightly to the front to before the breast and about fifteen
inches from it--_chief_; (3) Fingers of both hands extended and
separated; then interlace them so that the tips of the fingers of one
hand protrude beyond the backs of those of the opposing one; hold the
hands in front of the breast, pointing upward, leaving the wrists about
six inches apart--_lodge_; (4) Place the left hand a short distance
before the breast, palm down and slightly arched, fingers directed
toward the right and front, then pass the flat and extended right hand
forward, under and beyond the left, forming a downward curve, the right
hand being as high as the left at the commencement and termination of
the gesture--_enter, entered_; (5) Clasp the hands before the body, left
uppermost--_shook hands, friendly_; (6) Place the flat right hand before
the chin, palm up with fingers directed to the left, then pass the hand
forward several times--_talk, talked to him_; (7) Reverse this motion,
beginning away from the body, drawing the hand edgewise toward the chin
several times--_talked to me_; (8) Separate the extended thumb and index
as far as possible, leaving the remaining fingers closed, place the hand
about six inches opposite the right ear, palm toward the head, then pass
it in a curve forward and downward, terminating at the height of the
elbow--_hear, heard_; (9) then in a continuous movement direct the
extended index at the individual addressed, the face expressing a look
of inquiry--_you_.
ANALYSIS.
Wa-śi´-ćuⁿ i-taⁿ-caⁿ ti-el´ ti´-ma-hel
(1) ‖ (2) ‖ (3) ‖
White man | chief | lodge in | lodge within |
unk-i´-pi na
(4) ‖
we were at that place | and |
na´-pe-uⁿ-za-pi na ki-ci wo-un-gla-ka-pi
(5) ‖ (6,7) ‖
hand we hold it, | and | to each other | we talk |
take hold of
kiⁿ | na-ya-ḣoⁿ-hu-o
(8,9)
the thing | you hear it ?
It will be observed that the interrogation point is placed under the
last syllable, hu-o, the latter implying a question, though the gesture
was not made to accompany it, the gestures for _hear_ and _you_, with a
look of inquiry, being deemed sufficient to express the desire on the
part of the speaker.
[Illustration: FIG. 316.]
_Answer._ YES, I HEARD OF IT, BUT DID NOT SEE IT.
(1) Hold the naturally closed hand before the right side of the breast
or shoulder, leaving the index and thumb loosely extended, then, as the
hand is thrown downward and forward, bring the index against the inner
side of the thumb--_yes_. (2) Repeat gesture No. 8--_heard_, Fig. 316;
(3) pass the extended index forward from the right eye--_saw_; (4) then
in a continuous motion extend all the fingers so as to place the flat
hand edgewise, and pointing forward about twelve inches before the right
side of the breast, and throw it outward and slightly downward--_no,
not_.
ANALYSIS.
Ha-u | na-wa´-ḣoⁿ | tka | waⁿ-mla´-ke | śni
(1) | (2) | | (3) | (4)
Yes, | I heard | (but) | I saw it. | not.
_DIALOGUE BETWEEN ALASKAN INDIANS._
The following introductory notes are furnished by Mr. IVAN PETROFF, who
contributes the Dialogue:
It has been repeatedly stated that among the natives of Alaska no trace
of gesture or sign language can be found. The universal spread of the
Russian language in former times as a medium of trade and general
intercourse has certainly prevented observations of this primitive
linguistic feature in all the vast regions visited by the Russians. On
the other hand, the homogeneous elements of the Innuit tongue, spoken
along the whole seacoast from the Arctic to the Alaskan Peninsula, and
the Island of Kadiak, has, to a great extent, abolished all causes for
the employment of sign language between tribes in their mutual
intercourse. Basing their opinions upon what they saw while touching
upon the coast here and there, even the acknowledged authorities on
Alaskan matters have declared that sign language did not and could not
exist in all that country. Without entering into any lengthened dispute
upon this question, I venture to present in the subjoined pages a
succinct account of at least one instance where I saw natives of
different tribes converse with each other only by means of signs and
gestures within the boundaries of Alaska.
In the month of September, 1866, there arrived on the Lower Kinnik
River, a stream emptying its waters into Cook’s Inlet, two Indians from
a distant region, who did not speak the Kenaitze language. The people of
the settlement at which the strangers made their first appearance were
equally at a loss to understand the visitors. At last a chief of great
age, bearing the name of Chatidoolts (mentioned by Vancouver as a
youth), was found to be able to interpret some of the signs made by the
strangers, and after a little practice he entered into a continued
conversation with them in rather a roundabout way, being himself blind.
He informed me that it was the second or third time within his
recollection that strangers like those then present had come to Kinnik
from the northeast, but that in his youth he had frequently “talked with
his hands” to their visitors from the west and east. He also told me
that he had acquired this art from his father, who, as the old man
expressed himself, had “seen every country, and spoken to all the tribes
of the earth.” The conversation was carried on with the help of the old
man’s sons, who described to their blind parent the gestures of the
strangers, and were instructed in turn by him with what gestures to
reply.
This being an entirely new experience to me I at once proceeded to
carefully make notes of the desultory talk, extending over several days.
My object, primarily, was to make use of the signs for purposes of trade
in the future.
The notes thus obtained contain a narrative of the two strangers,
interpreted to me at the time by Chatidoolts. I shall present each sign
or sentence as I noted it at the time, with only casual reference to
that incomplete and frequently erroneous interpretation.
The two Indians wore the pointed hunting shirt of tanned moose-skin,
ornamented with beads and fringes which is still common to the Kutchin
tribes. They were not tattooed, but ears and noses were encumbered with
pendants of dentalium and a small red glass bead. Their feet were
clothed in moccasins. One of them had a rifle of English manufacture,
and his companion carried two huge knives, one of them of copper
evidently of native manufacture.
(1) _Kenaitze._--Left hand raised to height of eye, palm outward, moved
several times from right to left rapidly; fingers extended and closed;
pointing to strangers with left hand. Right hand describes a curve from
north to east--_Which of the northeastern tribes is yours?_
(2) _Tennanah._--Right hand, hollowed, lifted to mouth, then extended
and describing waving line gradually descending from right to left. Left
hand describing mountainous outline, apparently one peak rising above
the other, said by Chatidoolts to mean--_Tenan-tnu-kohtana_,
_Mountain-river-men_.
(3) _K._--Left hand raised to height of eye, palm outward, moved from
right to left, fingers extended. Left index describes curve from east to
west. Outline of mountain and river as in preceding sign.--_How many
days from Mountain-river?_
(4) _T._--Right hand raised toward sky, index and thumb forming first
crescent and then ring. This repeated three times--_moon, new and full
three times_.
(5) Right hand raised, palm to front, index raised and lowered at
regular intervals--_walked_. Both hands imitating paddling of canoe,
alternately right and left--_traveled three months on foot and by
canoe_.
(6) Both arms crossed over breast, simulating shivering--_cold, winter_.
(7) Right index pointing toward speaker--_I_. Left hand pointing to the
west--_traveled westward_.
(8) Right hand lifted cup-shaped to mouth--_water_. Right hand
describing waving line from right to left gradually descending, pointing
to the west--_river running westward_.
(9) Right hand gradually pushed forward, palm upward, from height of
breast. Left hand shading eyes; looking at great distance--_very wide_.
(10) Left and right hands put together in shape of sloping
shelter--_lodge, camp_. See Fig. 259, on p. 431.
(11) Both hands lifted, height of eye, palm inward, fingers
spread--_many times_.
(12) Both hands closed, palm outward, height of hips--_surprised_.
(13) Index pointing from eye forward--_see_.
(14) Right hand held up, height of shoulder, three fingers extended,
left hand pointing to me--_three white men_.
(15) _K._--Right hand pointing to me, left hand held up, three fingers
extended--_three white men_.
(16) Making Russian sign of cross--_Russians. Were the three white men
Russians?_
(17) _T._--Left hand raised, palm inward, two fingers extended, sign of
cross with right--_two Russians_.
(18) Right hand extended, height of eye, palm outward, moved outward a
little to right--_no_.
(19) One finger of left hand raised--_one_.
(20) Sign of cross with right--_Russian_.
(21) Right hand height of eye, fingers closed and extended, palm outward
a little to right--_no_.
(22) Right hand carried across chest, hand extended, palm upward,
fingers and thumb closed as if holding something. Left hand in same
position carried across the right, palm downward--_trade_.
(23) Left hand upholding one finger, right pointing to me--_one white
man_.
(24) Right hand held horizontally, palm downward, about four feet from
ground--_small_.
(25) Forming rings before eyes with index and thumb--_eye-glasses_.
(26) Right hand clinched, palm upward, in front of chest, thumb pointing
inward--_gave one_.
(27) Forming cup with right hand, simulating drinking--_drink_.
(28) Right hand grasping chest repeatedly, fingers curved and
spread--_strong_.
(29) Both hands pressed to temple and head moved from side to
side--_drunk, headache_.
(30) Both index fingers placed together, extended, pointing
forward--_together_.
(31) Fingers interlaced repeatedly--_build_.
(32) Left hand extended, fingers closed, pointing outward (vertically),
right hand extended, fingers closed, placed slopingly against
left--_camp_.
(33) Both wrists placed against temples, hands curved upward and
outward, fingers spread--_horns_.
(34) Both hands horizontally lifted to height of shoulder, right arm
extended gradually full length to the right, hand drooping a little at
the end--_long back, moose_.
(35) Both hands upright, palm outward, fingers extended and spread,
placing one before the other alternately--_trees, forest, dense forest_.
(36) Sign of cross--_Russian_.
(37) Motions of shooting a gun--_shot_.
(38) Sign for _moose_ (Nos. 33, 34), showing two fingers of left
hand--_two_.
(39) Sign for _camp_ as before (No. 10)--_camp_.
(40) Right hand describing curve from east to west, twice--_two days_.
(41) Left hand lifted height of mouth, back outward, fingers closed as
if holding something; right hand simulating motion of tearing off and
placing in mouth--_eating moose meat_.
(42) Right hand placed horizontally against heart, fingers closed, moved
forward a little and raised a little several times--_glad at heart_.
(43) Fingers of left hand and index of right hand extended and placed
together horizontally, pointing forward, height of chest. Hands
separated, right pointing eastward and left westward--_three men and
speaker parted, going west and east_.
(44) Pressing both arms against chest and shivering--_very cold_.
(45) Drawing index of each hand around corresponding legs below the
knee--_deep snow_.
(46) Drawing imaginary line with index of right hand across each foot,
just behind the toes--_snow shoes_.
(47) Head lowered to right side into palm of hand three times--_slept
three times_.
(48) Sign for _camp_, as before (No. 10)--_camp_.
(49) Pointing to speaker--_I_.
(50) Fingers of right hand extended and joined and pointed forward from
mouth, left hand lowered horizontally to a foot from the ground--_fox_.
(51) Left hand raised height of eye, back to the left, fingers closed,
with exception of middle finger held upright; then middle finger
suddenly closed--_trap_.
(52) Both hands lifted height of eye, palm inward, fingers
spread--_many_.
(53) Right hand pointing to speaker--_I_.
(54) Sign for _trap_ (No. 51), as above--_trap_.
(55) Right hand lowered to within a few inches of the ground and moved
from left to right about two feet. Motions of both hands descriptive of
playful jumping of marten around a tree or stump--_marten_.
(56) Holding up the fingers of both hands three times until aggregating
thirty--_thirty_.
(57) Left forearm held up vertically, palm to front, fingers
spread--_tree_.
(58) Motion of chopping with hatchet--_cut_.
(59) Driving invisible wedge around small circle--_peeling birch bark_.
(60) Right hand, fingers extended and joined, moved slowly from left to
right horizontally while blowing upon it with mouth--_pitching seams of
canoe_.
(61) Motions of using paddle very vigorously--_paddle up stream_.
(62) Lifting both arms above head on respective sides, hands closed as
if grasping something and lifting the body--_poling canoe_.
(63) Sign for _moon_ (No. 4), (crescent and ring) once--_one month_.
(64) Right hand vertically, height of chest, palm to left, fingers
extended, closed. Left hand horizontally, palm downward, pushed against
right--_stopped_.
(65) Right hand, index extended, drawing outline of mountains, one above
other--_high mountains_.
(66) Left hand lifted to left shoulder, back to front, fingers bent and
closed. Right hand, fingers bent and closed, placed over left and then
slowly drawn across chest to right shoulder. Motion with both hands as
if adjusting pack--_pack, knapsack_.
(67) Sign for _water_ as before (No. 8). Both hands brought forward,
palms down, arms passed outward horizontally to respective sides, palms
down--_lake_. Both hands describing circular line backward until
touching collar bone--_big and deep_.
(68) Left hand raised slightly about height of nipple, three fingers
closed; index and thumb holding tip of index of right hand. Both hands
moved across chest from left to right--_beaver_.*
(69) Previous sign for _many_ (No. 52) repeated several times--_very
plentiful_.
(70) Both hands held up with fingers spread, palm forward, twice and
left hand once--height of eye--_twenty-five_.
(71) Pointing to himself--_I_.
(72) Sign for _trap_ as before (No. 51)--_trapped_.
(73) Sign for temporary _shelter_ (No. 10)--_camped_.
(74) Sign for new and full moon (No. 4), once--_one month_.
(75) Right hand passed slowly over the hair and chin. Left hand touching
a pendant of white beads--_old man_.
(76) Index of right hand held up--_one_.
(77) Both hands partially closed and placed against breast, back of
hands to front, a few inches apart--_women_.
(78) Index and middle finger of right hand held up, palm forward; eyes
directed as if counting--_two_.
(79) Sign for _trap_ as before (No. 51)--_trapping_.
(80) Left forearm vertically in front of chest, palm of hand to front,
fingers spread, elbow resting upon the back of the right hand--_tree_.
(81) Arms and hands spanning imaginary tree of some size--_big_.
(82) Sign for _tree_ as before (No. 57), left forearm suddenly brought
down across extended right hand--_fell_.
(83) Right hand laid on top of head, then passed over the hair and chin,
left hand touching white beads--_on the head of the old man_.
(84) Sign for _old man_ as before (No. 75)--_old man_.
(85) Closing both eyes with fore and middle finger of right hand; both
hands placed side by side, horizontally, palms downward, fingers
extended and united, hands separated by slow horizontal movement to
right and left--_dead_.
(86) Sign for _women_ as before (No. 77)--_women_.
(87) Fingers of both hands interlaced at right angles several
times--_built_.
(88) Sign for _lodge_ as before (No. 10)--_lodge_.†
(89) Right index describing circle around the head, height of eye
(cutting hair). Right hand passed over forehead and face. Left index
pointing to black scabbard (blacking faces)--_mourning_.
(90) Index and middle finger of right hand passed from eyes downward
across cheeks--_weeping_.
(91) Pointing to himself--_I_.
(92) Make the signs for _shoot_ (Nos. 33, 34), and _moose_
(No. 37)--_shot a moose_.
(93) Left hand extended horizontally, palm upward, right hand placed
across left vertically, about the middle--_divided in two_.
(94) Right hand closed, palm downward, moved forward from right breast
the length of the arm and then opened--_I gave_.
(95) Sign for _women_, (No. 77)--_to women_.
(96) Right hand, palm down, pointing to left, placed horizontally before
heart and slightly raised several times--_good and glad_.
(97) Pointing to his companion--_he_.
(98) Motion of _paddling--in canoe_.
(99) Right arm and hand extended in N.E. direction, gradually curved
back until index touches speaker--_came to me from the northeast_.
(100) Sign for _together_ as above (No. 30)--_together_.
(101) Motion of _paddling--paddled_.
(102) Pointing to ground--_to this place_.
(103) _K._ Motion of drinking water out of hand--_water_.
(104) Describing circle with right index on palm of left hand extended
horizontally--_lake_.
(105) Left hand raised to height of eye, palm to front, fingers leaning
slightly backward. Fingers of left hand closed alternately--_how many?_
(106) _T._ Holding up right hand back to front, showing four fingers,
eyes looking at them as if counting--_four_.
(107) Sign for packing with wooden breast-brace as above; three fingers
of right hand shown as above--_three portages_.
(108) _K._ Right hand pointing to gun of stranger--_gun_. Left hand
raised height of eye, palm to front, and moved rapidly several times to
right and left--_interrogation_.
(109) Sign for _trade_ as before (No. 22)--_trade_; _i.e._, _where did
you buy the gun?_
(110) _T._ Sign for _Mountain-river_ as above (No. 2). Pointing
eastward--_from the eastward_.
(111) Pointing to sun and then raising both hands, backs to front,
fingers spread--_ten days_.
(112) Pointing to me--_white man_.
(113) Left hand held up vertically, palm outward, fingers joined. Right
index placed horizontally across fingers of left hand in front, about
the middle joint--_pallisaded_.
(114) Describing square with right index on flat palm of left
hand--_building_.
(115) Pointing to his gun, powder-horn, blanket, and beads--_trading
goods_.
(116) Both hands horizontal, brought forward and upward from chest and
then downward--_plenty_.
[* Chatidoolts explained this to his sons as well as to me, saying
that the mountain men had a peculiar mode of catching beavers with
long sticks.]
[† They never occupy a house in which one of the other Indians
died.]
In giving this narrative I have observed the original sequence, but
there were frequent interruptions, caused by consultation between
Chatidoolts and his sons, and before the strangers departed again they
had obtained a knowledge of some words of the Kenaitze language.
_OJIBWA DIALOGUE._
[Communicated by the Very Rev. EDWARD JACKER.]
The following short dialogue forms part of the scanty tradition the
civilized Ojibwas possess regarding their ancestors’ sign language:
Two Indians of different tongue meet on a journey. First Indian points
to second Indian with the outstretched forefinger of the right hand,
bringing it within a few inches of his breast; next he extends both
forearms horizontally, clinches all but the forefingers, and bends the
hands inward; then he brings them slowly and in a straight line
together, until the tips of the outstretched forefingers meet. This
gesture is accompanied with a look of inquiry--_You met somebody?_
Second Indian, facing the south, points to the east, and with the
outstretched hand forms a half-circle from east to west (corresponding
to the daily course of the sun); then he raises the arm and points to a
certain height above the southern horizon. Then the sign for _meeting_
(as above) may be made, or omitted. After this he bends the right hand
downward, and repeatedly moves the outstretched forefinger and middle
finger in opposite directions (in imitation of the motion of the legs in
the act of walking). Finally he raises the right hand and stretches up
the forefinger (or several fingers). _To-day, when the sun stood at such
a height, I met one (or several) persons traveling on foot._ If the
travelers met were on horseback he makes the sign for _horse_ as
described by (_Dakota_ III), see EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY, or the
identical one for _going_ given by (_Ojibwa_ I), which is as follows: To
describe a journey on horseback the first two fingers of the right hand
are placed astride of the forefinger of the left hand, and both
represent the galloping movement of a horse. If it is a foot journey,
wave the two fingers several times through the air.
NARRATIVES.
The following, which is presented as a good descriptive model, was
obtained by Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN, of the Bureau of Ethnology, from Natci,
a Pai-Ute chief connected with the delegation of that tribe to
Washington in January, 1880, and refers to an expedition made by him by
direction of his father, Winnimukka, Head Chief of the Pai-Utes, to the
northern camp of his tribe, partly for the purpose of preventing the
hostile outbreak of the Banaks which occurred in 1878, and more
particularly to prevent those Pai-Utes from being drawn into any
difficulty with the United States by being leagued with the Banaks.
_NÁTCI’S NARRATIVE._
(1) Close the right hand, leaving the index extended, pointed westward
at arm’s length a little above the horizon, head thrown back with the
eyes partly closed and following the direction--_Away to the west_,
(2) indicate a large circle on the ground with the forefinger of the
right hand pointing downward--_place_ (locative), (3) the tips of the
spread fingers of both hands placed against one another, pointing upward
before the body, leaving a space of four or five inches between the
wrists--_house_ (brush tent or wik´-i-up), see Fig. 257, p. 431,
(4) with the right hand closed, index extended or slightly bent, tap the
breast several times--_mine_. (5) Draw an imaginary line, with the right
index toward the ground, from some distance in front of the body to a
position nearer to it--_from there I came_, (6) indicate a spot on the
ground by quickly raising and depressing the right hand with the index
pointing downward--_to a stopping place_, (7) grasp the forelock with
the right hand, palm to the forehead, and raise it about six inches,
still holding the hair upward--_the chief of the tribe_ (Winnimukka),
see Fig. 245, p. 418, (8) touch the breast with the index--_me_, (9) the
right hand held forward from the hip at the level of the elbow, closed,
palm downward, with the middle finger extended and quickly moved up and
down a short distance--_telegraphed_, (10) head inclined toward the
right, at the same time making movement toward and from the ear with the
extended index pointing toward it--_I heard_, _i.e._, understood.
(11) An imaginary line indicated with the extended and inverted index
from a short distance before the body to a place on the right--_I went_,
(12) repeat gesture No. 6--_a stopping place_, (13) inclining the head,
with eyes closed, toward the right, bring the extended right hand, palm
up, to within six inches of the right ear--_where I slept_. (14) Place
the spread and extended index and thumb of the right hand, palm
downward, across the right side of the forehead--_white man_ (American),
(15) elevating both hands before the breast, palms forward, thumbs
touching, the little finger of the right hand closed--_nine_, (16) touch
the breast with the right forefinger suddenly--_and myself_, (17)
lowering the hand, and pointing downward and forward with the index
still extended (the remaining fingers and thumb being loosely closed)
indicate an imaginary line along the ground toward the extreme
right--_went_, (18) extend the forefinger of the closed left hand, and
place the separated fore and second fingers of the right astraddle the
forefinger of the left, and make a series of arched or curved movements
toward the right--_rode horseback_, (19) keeping the hands in their
relative position, place them a short distance below the right ear, the
head being inclined toward that side--_sleep_, (20) repeat the signs for
_riding_ (No. 18) and _sleeping_ (No. 19) three times--_four days and
nights_, (21) make sign No. 18, and stopping suddenly point toward the
east with the extended index-finger of the right (others being closed)
and follow the course of the sun until it reaches the zenith--_arrived
at noon of the fifth day_.
(22) Indicate a circle as in No. 2--_a camp_, (23) the hands then placed
together as in No. 3, and in this position, both moved in short
irregular upward and downward jerks from side to side--_many
wik´-i-ups_, (24) then indicate the chief of the tribe as in No.
7--meaning that _it was one of the camps of the chief of the tribe_.
(25) Make a peculiar whistling sound of “phew” and draw the extended
index of the right hand across the throat from left to right--_Banak_,
(26) draw an imaginary line with the same extended index, pointing
toward the ground, from the right to the body--_came from the north_,
(27) again make gesture No. 2--_camp_, (28) and follow it twice by sign
given as No. 18 (forward from the body, but a short distance)--_two
rode_. (29) Rub the back of the right hand with the extended index of
the left--_Indian_, _i.e._, the narrator’s own tribe, Pai-Ute, (30)
elevate both hands side by side before the breast, palms forward, thumbs
touching, then, after a short pause, close all the fingers and thumbs
except the two outer fingers of the right hand--_twelve_, (31) again
place the hands side by side with fingers all spread or separated, and
move them in a horizontal curve toward the right--_went out of camp_,
(32) and make the sign given as No. 25--_Banak_, (33) that of No.
2--_camp_, (34) then join the hands as in No. 31, from the right toward
the front--_Pai-Utes returned_, (35) close the right hand, leaving the
index only extended, move it forward and downward from the mouth three
or four times, pointing forward, each time ending the movement at a
different point--_I talked to them_, (36) both hands pointing upward,
fingers and thumbs separated, palms facing and about four inches apart,
held in front of the body as far as possible in that position--_the men
in council_, (37) point toward the east with the index apparently
curving downward over the horizon, then gradually elevate it to an
altitude of 45°--_talked all night and until nine o’clock next morning_,
(38) bring the closed hands, with forefingers extended, upward and
forward from their respective sides, and place them side by side, palms
forward, in front--_my brother_, Fig. 317, (39) (see also pp. 385, 386)
followed by the gesture, No. 18, directed toward the left and
front--_rode_, (40) by No. 7--_the head chief_, (41) and No. 2--_camp_.
[Illustration: FIG. 317.]
(42) Continue by placing the hands, slightly curved, palm to palm,
holding them about six inches below the right ear, the head being
inclined considerably in that direction--_one sleep (night)_, (43) make
sign No. 14--_white man_, (44) raise the left hand to the level of the
elbow forward from the left hip, fingers pointing upward, thumb and
forefinger closed--_three_, (45) and in this position draw them toward
the body and slightly to the right--_came_, (46) then make gesture No.
42--_sleep_; (47) point with the right index to the eastern horizon--_in
the morning_, (48) make sign No. 14--_white man_, (49) hold the left
hand nearly at arm’s length before the body, back up, thumb and
forefinger closed, the remaining fingers pointing downward--_three_,
(50) with the right index finger make gesture No. 35, the movement being
directed towards the left hand--_talked to them_, (51) motion along the
ground with the left hand, from the body toward the left and front,
retaining the position of the fingers just stated (in No. 49)--_they
went_, (52) tap toward the ground, as in gesture No. 6, with the left
hand nearly at arm’s length--_to their camp_.
(53) Make gesture No. 18 toward the front--_I rode_, (54) extend the
right hand to the left and front, and tap towards the earth several
times as in sign No. 6, having the fingers and thumb collected to a
point--_camp of the white men_. (55) Close both hands, with the
forefingers of each partly extended and crooked, and place one on either
side of the forehead, palms forward--_cattle_ (a steer), (56) hold the
left hand loosely extended, back forward, about twenty inches before the
breast, and strike the back of the partly extended right hand into the
left--_shot_, (57) make a short upward curved movement with both hands,
their position unchanged, over and downward toward the right--_fell
over, killed_, (58) then hold the left hand a short distance before the
body at the height of the elbow, palm downward, fingers closed, with the
thumb lying over the second joint of the forefinger, extend the
flattened right hand, edge down, before the body, just by the knuckles
of the left, and draw the hand towards the body, repeating the
movement--_skinned_, (59) make the sign given in No. 25--_Banak_, (60)
place both hands with spread fingers upward and palms forward, thumb to
thumb, before the right shoulder, moving them with a tremulous motion
toward the left and front--_came in_, (61) make three short movements
toward the ground in front, with the left hand, fingers loosely curved,
and pointing downward--_camp of the three white men_, (62) then with the
right hand open and flattened, edge down, cut towards the body as well
as to the right and left--_cut up the meat_, (63) and make the
pantomimic gesture of _handing it around to the visitors_.
(64) Make sign No. 35, the movement being directed to the left hand, as
held in No. 49--_told the white men_, (65) grasping the hair on the
right side of the head with the left hand, and drawing the extended
right hand with the edge towards and across the side of the head from
behind forward--_to scalp_; (66) close the right hand, leaving the index
partly extended, and wave it several times quickly from side to side a
short distance before the face, slightly shaking the head at the same
time--_no_, Fig. 318, (67) make gesture No. 4--_me_, (68) repeat No.
65--_scalp_, (69) and raising the forelock high with the left hand,
straighten the whole frame with a triumphant air--_make me a great
chief_. (70) Close the right hand with the index fully extended, place
the tip to the mouth and direct it firmly forward and downward toward
the ground--_stop_, (71) then placing the hands, pointing upward, side
by side, thumbs touching, and all the fingers separated, move them from
near the breast outward toward the right, palms facing that direction at
termination of movement--_the Banaks went to one side_, (72) with the
right hand closed, index curved, palm downward, point toward the western
horizon, and at arm’s length dip the finger downward--_after sunset_,
(73) make the gesture given as No. 14--_white men_, (74) pointing to the
heart as in No. 4--_and I_, (75) conclude by making gesture No. 18 from
near body toward the left, four times, at the end of each movement the
hands remaining in the same position, thrown slightly upward--_we four
escaped on horseback_.
[Illustration: FIG. 318.]
The above was paraphrased orally by the narrator as follows: “Hearing of
the trouble in the north, I started eastward from my camp in Western
Nevada, when, upon arriving at Winnemucca Station, I received
telegraphic orders from the head chief to go north to induce our bands
in that region to escape the approaching difficulties with the Banaks.
I started for Camp McDermit, where I remained one night. Leaving next
morning in company with nine others, we rode on for four days and a
half. Soon after our arrival at the Pai-Ute camp, two Banaks came in,
when I sent twelve Pai-Utes to their camp to ask them all to come in to
hold council. These messengers soon returned, when I collected all the
Pai-Utes ands talked to them all night regarding the dangers of an
alliance with the Banaks and of their continuance in that locality. Next
morning I sent my brother to the chief, Winnimukka, with a report of
proceedings.
“On the following day three white men rode into camp, who had come up to
aid in persuading the Pai-Utes to move away from the border. Next
morning I consulted with them respecting future operations, after which
they went away a short distance to their camp. I then followed them,
where I shot and killed a steer, and while skinning it the Banaks came
in, when the meat was distributed. The Banaks being disposed to become
violent at any moment, the white men became alarmed, when I told them
that rather than allow them to be scalped I would be scalped myself in
defending them, for which action I would be considered as great a chief
as Winnemukka by my people. When I told the Banaks to cease threatening
the white men they all moved to one side a short distance to hold a war
council, and after the sun went down the white men and I mounted our
horses and fled toward the south, whence we came.”
Some of the above signs seem to require explanation. Natci was facing
the west during the whole of this narration, and by the right he
signified the north; this will explain the significance of his gesture
to the right in Nos. 11 and 17, and to the left in No. 75.
No. 2 (repeated in Nos. 22, 27, 33, and 41) designates an Indian brush
lodge, and although Natci has not occupied one for some years, the
gesture illustrates the original conception in the round form of the
foundation of poles, branches, and brush, the interlacing of which in
the construction of the _wik´-i-up_ has survived in gestures Nos. 3 and
23 (the latter referring to more than one, _i.e._, an encampment).
The sign for Banak, No. 25 (also 32 and 59), has its origin from the
tradition among the Pai-Utes that the Banaks were in the habit of
cutting the throats of their victims. This sign is made with the index
instead of the similar gesture with the flat hand, which among several
tribes denotes the Sioux, but the Pai-Utes examined had no specific sign
for that body of Indians, not having been in sufficient contact with
them.
“A stopping place,” referred to in Nos. 6, 12, 52, and 54, represents
the temporary station, or camp of white men, and is contradistinguished
from a village, or perhaps from any permanent encampment of a number of
persons, by merely dotting toward the ground instead of indicating a
circle.
It will also be seen that in several instances, after indicating the
nationality, the fingers previously used in representing the number were
repeated without its previously accompanying specific gesture, as in No.
61, where the three fingers of the left hand represented the men
(white), and the three movements toward the ground signified the camp or
tents of the three (white) men.
This also occurs in the gesture (Nos. 59, 60, and 71) employed for the
Banaks, which, having been once specified, is used subsequently without
its specific preceding sign for the tribe represented.
The rapid connection of the signs Nos. 57 and 58 and of Nos. 74 and 75
indicates the conjunction, so that they are severally readily understood
as “shot _and_ killed,” and “the white men _and_ I.” The same remark
applies to Nos. 15 and 16, “the nine _and_ I.”
_PATRICIO’S NARRATIVE._
This narrative was obtained in July, 1880, by Dr. FRANCIS H. ATKINS,
acting assistant surgeon, United States Army, at South Fork, New Mexico,
from TI-PE-BES-TLEL (Sheepskin-leggings), habitually called Patricio, an
intelligent young Mescalero Apache. It gives an account of what is
locally termed the “April Round-up,” which was the disarming and
imprisoning by a cavalry command of the United States Army, of the small
Apache subtribe to which the narrator belonged.
(1) Left hand on edge, curved, palm forward, extended backward length of
arm toward the West (_far westward_).
(2) Arm same, turned hand, tips down, and moved it from north to south
(_river_).
(3) Dipped same hand several times above and beyond last line
(_beyond_).
(4) Hand curved (Y, more flexed) and laid on its back on top of his foot
(_moccasins much curved up at toe_); then drew hands up legs to near
knee, and cut off with edges of hands (_boot tops_), (_Warm Spring
Apaches_, who wear booted moccasins with turn-up toes).
(5) Hands held before him, tips near together, fingers gathered (U);
then alternately opened and gathered fingers of both hands (P to U,
U to P), and thrusting them toward each other a few times (_shot or
killed many_).
(6) Held hands six inches from side of head, thumbs and forefingers
widely separated (_Mexican_, _i.e._, wears a broad hat).
(7) Held right hand on edge, palm toward him, threw it on its back
forward and downward sharply toward earth (T on edge to X), (_dead, so
many dead_).
(8) Put thumbs to temples and indexes forward, meeting in front, other
fingers closed (_soldiers_, _i.e._, cap-visor).
(9) Repeated No. 5 and No. 7 (_were also shot dead_).
(10) Placed first and second fingers of right hand, others closed,
astride of left index, held horizontally (_horses_).
(11) Held hands on edge and forward (T on edge forward), pushed them
forward, waving vertically (_marching_, _i.e._, _ran off with soldiers’
horses or others_). N.B.--Using both hands indicates double ranks of
troops marching also.
(12) Struck right fist across in front of chin from right to left
sharply (_bad_).
(13) Repeated No. 4 (_Warm Spring Apache_).
(14) Moved fist, thumb to head, from center of forehead to right temple
and a little backward (_fool_).
(15) Repeated No. 8 and No. 11 (_soldiers riding in double column_).
(16) Thrust right hand down over and beyond left, both palms down (W)
(_came here_).
(17) Repeated No. 8 (_soldier_).
(18) Touched hair (_hair_).
(19) Touched tent (_quite white_).
(20) Touched top of shoulder (_commissioned officer_, _i.e._,
shoulder-straps).
(21) Thrust both hands up high (_high rank_).
(22) Right forefinger to forehead; waved it about in front of face and
rolled head about (primarily _fool_, but qualified in this case by the
interpreter as _no sabe much_).
(23) Drew hands up his thighs and body and pointed to himself
(_Mescalero Indian_).
(24) Approximated hands before him, palms down, with thumbs and indexes
widely separated, as if inclosing a circle (_captured_, _i.e._,
_corralled, surrounded_).
(25) Placed tips of hands together, wrists apart, held them erect
(T, both hands inclined), (_house_; in this case _the agency_).
(26) Threw both hands, palms back, forward and downward, moving from
knuckles (metacarpo-phalangeal joint) only, several times (_issuing
rations_).
(27) Thrust two fingers (N) toward mouth and downward (_food_).
(28) Repeated No. 25 (_house_); outlined a hemispherical object
(wik-i-up); repeated these several times, bringing the hands with
emphasis several times down toward the earth (_village permanently
here_).
(29) Repeated No. 25 several times and pointed to a neighboring hillside
(_village over there_).
(30) Repeated Nos. 17 to 21, inclusive (_General X_).
(31) Thrust two fingers forward from his eyes (primarily _I see_; also
_I saw_, or _there were_).
(32) Repeated No. 11 (_toward said hillside_), (_troops went over there
with General X_).
(33) Repeated No. 4, adding, swept indexes around head and touched red
paper on a tobacco wrapper (_San Carlos Apaches_, scouts especially
distinguished by wearing a red fillet about the head); also added, drew
indexes across each cheek from nose outward (_were much painted_).
(34) Repeated No. 24 and No. 23 (_to capture the Mescalero Indians_).
(35) Repeated No. 31 (_there were_).
(36) Repeated No. 33 (_San Carlos scouts_).
(37) Repeated No. 8 (_and soldiers_).
(38) Clasped his hands effusively before his breast (_so many!_ _i.e._,
_a great many_).
(39) Repeated No. 31 (_I saw_).
(40) Repeated No. 23 (_my people_).
(41) Brought fists together under chin, and hugged his arms close to his
breast, with a shrinking motion of body (_afraid_).
(42) Struck off half of left index with right index (_half_, or _a
portion_).
(43) Waved off laterally and upward with both hands briskly (_fled_).
(44) Projected circled right thumb and index to eastern horizon, thence
to zenith (_next morning_, _i.e._, sunrise to noon).
(45) Repeated No. 23 (_the Mescaleros_).
(46) Held hands in position of aiming a gun--left oblique--(_shoot_).
(47) Waved right index briskly before right shoulder (_no, did not;
negation_).
(48) Swept his hand from behind forward, palm up (Y) (_the others
came_).
(49) Repeated No. 5 (_and shot_).
(50) Repeated No. 23 (_the Mescaleros_).
(51) Repeated No. 7 (_many dead_).
(52) Repeated No. 8 (_soldiers_).
(53) Repeated No. 10 (_horse, mounted_).
(54) Hand forward, palm down (W) moved forward and up and down
(_walking_, _i.e._, _infantry_).
(55) Beckoned with right hand, two fingers curved (N horizontal and
curved) (_came_).
(56) Repeated No. 11 (_marching_).
(57) Repeated No. 28 (_to this camp_, or _village_).
(58) Repeated No. 23 (_with Mescaleros_).
(59) Repeated No. 24 (_as prisoners, surrounded_).
(60) Repeated No. 33 (_San Carlos scouts_).
(61) Placed hands, spread out (R inverted), tips down, about waist
(_many cartridges_).
(62) Repeated No. 46 (_and guns_).
(63) Repeated No. 5 (_shot many_).
(64) Repeated No. 4 (_Warm Spring Apaches_).
(65) Repeated No. 23 (_and Mescaleros_).
(66) Moved fist--thumb to head--across his forehead from right to left,
and cast it toward earth over left shoulder (_brave_, _i.e._, _the San
Carlos scouts are brave_).
CONTINUOUS TRANSLATION OF THE ABOVE.
Far westward beyond the Rio Grande are the Warm Spring Apaches, who
killed many Mexicans and soldiers and stole their horses. They (the Warm
Spring Apaches) are bad and fools.
Some cavalry came here under an aged officer of high rank, but of
inferior intelligence, to capture the Mescalero Indians.
The Mescaleros wished to have their village permanently here by the
agency, and to receive their rations, _i.e._, were peacefully inclined.
Our village was over there. I saw the general come with troops and San
Carlos scouts to surround (or capture) the Mescalero Indians. There were
a great many San Carlos scouts and soldiers.
I saw that my people were afraid, and half of them fled.
Next morning the Mescaleros did not shoot (were not hostile). The others
came and killed many Mescaleros. The cavalry and infantry brought us
(the Mescaleros) to this camp as prisoners.
The San Carlos scouts were well supplied with ammunition and guns, and
shot many Warm Spring Indians and Mescaleros.
The San Carlos scouts are brave men.
_NA-WA-GI-JIG’S STORY._
The following is contributed by Mr. FRANCIS JACKER:
This narrative was related to me by _John Na-wa-gi-jig_ (literally
“noon-day sky”), an aged Ojibwa, with whom I have been intimately
connected for a long period of years. He delivered his story, referring
to one of the many incidents in his perilous life, orally, but with
pantomimes so graphic and vivid that it may be presented truly as a
specimen of gesture language. Indeed, to any one familiar with Indian
mimicry, the story might have been intelligible without the expedient of
verbal language, while the oral exposition, incoherent as it was, could
hardly be styled anything better than the subordinate part of the
delivery. I have endeavored to reproduce these gestures in their
original connections from memory, omitting the verbal accompaniment as
far as practicable. In order to facilitate a clear understanding it is
stated that the gesturer was in a sitting posture before a camp fire by
the lake shore, and facing the locality where the event referred to had
actually occurred, viz, a portion of Keweenaw Bay, Lake Superior, in the
neighborhood of Portage Entry, as seen by the annexed diagram, Fig. 319.
The time of the relation (latter part of April) also coincided with the
_actual_ time. In speaking of “arm,” “hand,” “finger,” &c., the “right”
is understood if not otherwise specified. “Finger” stands for
“forefinger.”
(1) With the exclamation “_me-wi-ja_” (a long time ago), uttered in a
slow and peculiarly emphatic manner, he elevated the arm above and
toward the right at the head, accompanying the motion with an upward
wave of the hand and held it thus suspended a moment--_a long time ago_.
(This gesture resembles sign for _time, a long_, of which it seems to be
an abbreviation, and it is not sufficiently clear without the
accompanying exclamation.) Withdrawing it slowly, he placed the hand
back upon his knee.
(2) He then brought up the left hand toward the temple and tapped his
hair, which was gray, with the finger--_hair gray_.
(3) From thence he carried it down upon the thigh, placing the extended
finger perpendicularly upon a fold of his trousers, which the thumb and
finger of the right held grasped in such a manner as to advantageously
present the smooth black surface of the cloth--_of that color_, _i.e._,
_black_.
[Illustration: Fig. 319.--Scene of Na-wa-gi-jig’s story.]
(4) Next, with a powerful strain of the muscles, he slowly stretched out
the right arm and fist and grasping the arm about the elbow with the
left, he raised the forearm perpendicularly upward, then brought it down
with force, tightening the grasp in doing so (fingers pressing upon
knuckle, thumb against pit of elbow)--_strength_.
(5) Pointing first at me--_you_.
(6) He next held out the hand horizontally and flat, palm downward,
about four feet above the ground, correcting the measure a moment
afterward by elevating hand a few inches higher, and estimated the
height thus indicated with a telling look, leaning the head toward the
side--_about that height_, _i.e._, _a youth of about that size_.
(7) He then rapidly extended the arm about two-thirds of its length
forward and toward the right, terminating the motion with a jerk of the
hand upward, palm turned outward, and accompanied the motion with a nod
of the head, the hand in its downfall closing and dropping upon
knee--_very well_.
(8) Musing a few moments, he next slowly extended the arm and pointed
with the fingers toward and along the surface of the frozen bay--_out
there_.
(9) In an easterly direction--_eastward_.
(10) Thence turning the arm to the right he nodded the finger toward a
projection of land southward at a distance of about two miles--following
in each case the direction of the finger with the eyes--and immediately
after placed the hand again eastward, indicating the spot with the same
emphatic nod of the finger as though carrying the visible distance to a
spot upon the expanse of the bay, which, bearing no object, could not be
marked otherwise--_two miles out there_.
(11) Carrying the finger toward the body, he touched his breast--_I
myself_.
(12) Thence erected the hand, turning its palm forward, forefinger
perpendicularly extended, others slightly closed, and nodded it downward
in an explanatory manner, all in an uninterrupted movement--_one_,
meaning in connection with the preceding gesture--_I for one_.
(13) Again, with an emphatic movement, he turned the hand upward,
slightly erecting the index, thumb pointing forward, remaining
fingers partially and naturally opened and more or less
separated--_furthermore_.
(14) Then quickly and after a moment’s stop brought down the hand to a
horizontal position, first and second fingers joining and fully
extending during the movement, and pointing forward--_another_, _i.e._,
_joined by another_. Repeating this motion, he at the same time called
out the name _Ga-bi-wa-bi-ko-ke_.
(15) Following the exclamation with a repetition of No. 2--_gray
hair_--repeatedly touching the hair, meaning in this case--_an old man_.
(16) Pointed with the finger toward the right, directing it obliquely
toward the ground--_at a short distance toward my right_.
(17) Repeated No. 13--_furthermore_.
(18) Repeated No. 14, adding the third finger to joined fore and middle
fingers, thumb resting upon tip of fourth--_another_, _i.e._, _joined by
a third_, and pronounced the words “_o-gwis-san Sa-ba-dis_” (this is a
corruption of the French “Jean Baptiste,” a favorite name among
Christianized Indians)--_John Baptist, his son_, while repeating the
movement.
(19) Held up the three separated fingers perpendicularly in front of the
face, pushing the hand forward a little--_three in all_.
(20) Presently lowered the hand, fingers relaxing, and carried it a
short distance toward the left, thence back to the right, fingers
pointing obliquely toward the ground in each case--_placed to the right
and left of me at a short distance_.
(21) He then brought the hand--back toward the right, index horizontally
extended, remaining fingers closed, thumb placed against second
finger--in front of abdomen, and moved it slowly up and down two or
three times, giving it a slight jerk at the upward motion, and raising
the arm partially in doing so. At the same time he inclined the body
forward a little, eyes looking down--_fishing_. This refers to fishing
on the ice, and, as may be inferred from it, to the use of hook and
line. A short stick to which the line is attached serves as a rod and is
moved up and down in the manner described.
(22) After a short pause he elevated the hand, directing the index
toward that point of the meridian which the sun passes at about the
tenth hour of the day, and following the direction with the eye--_about
ten o’clock_.
(23) Turning his face toward the southwest and holding up the flat and
extended hand some distance in front of it, back outward, he waved it
briskly and several times toward the face--_fresh breeze from the
southwest_.
(24) Repeated No. 21 (_fishing_), playing the imaginary fish-line up and
down regularly for a while, till all at once he changed the movement by
raising the hand in an oblique course, which movement he repeated
several times, each time increasing the divergence and the length of the
motion--_the fish-hook don’t sink perpendicularly any longer_, _i.e._,
_it is moving_.
(25) Quickly erecting his body he looked around him with
surprise--_looking with surprise_.
(26) Shading his eyes with the hand, gazed intensively toward the
south--_fixedly gazing toward the south_.
(27) Threw up his arm almost perpendicularly the next moment--_greatly
astonished_.
(28) Extended and slowly moved the arm from southeast to northwest as
far as he could reach, at the same time exclaiming “_mig-wam_”
“ice”--_the ice from shore to shore_.
(29) Approximated the flat and horizontally extended hands, backs
upward, with their inner edges touching, whereupon, suddenly turning the
edges downward, he withdrew them laterally, backs nearly opposed to each
other--_parting_.
(30) Pushed the left hand, palm outward, fingers joined, edges up and
down, forward and toward its side with a full sweep of the arm, head
following the movement--_pushed in that direction_, _i.e._,
_northeastward_.
(31) Repeated No. 23, but waved the hand only once and with a quick and
more powerful movement toward the face--_by the force of the wind_.
(32) Rotated hands in front of body, rolling them tips over tips very
rapidly, fingers with thumbs nearly collected to a point--_winding up
the hook-line in a hurry_.
(33) Quickly passed the hand toward the left breast of his
coat--_putting it in pocket_.
(34) And bending the body forward made motion as if picking up
something--_picking up_.
(35) Raised the hand closed to fist, arm elevated so as to form a right
angle with elbow, and made a short stroke downward and toward the
left--_hatchet_.
(36) Thence moved the hand to side of breast and pushed it down the
waist--_putting it into belt_.
(37) Placed the closed hands to each side of the waist (thumbs upward
with tips facing each other) and approximated them rapidly and with a
jerk in front of navel--_tightening the belt_.
(38) With both hands lowered to the ground, he described an elongated
oval around his foot by placing tips of forefingers together in front of
the toes and passing them around each side, meeting the fingers behind
the heel and running them jointly backward a few inches to indicate a
tail--_snow-shoe_.
(39) Raised up the heel, resting the foot on the toes and turning it a
little toward the right, brought it back in a downward movement with a
jerk--_putting it on_.
(40) Waved the left hand emphatically forward, palm backward, fingers
joined and pointing downward, extending them forward at termination of
motion, at the same time pushing forward the head--_starting_.
(41) Directed the finger of the same hand toward the
light-house--_toward that point_.
(42) Pointed with extended first two fingers of the same hand, thumb
with remaining fingers partially extended to right and to
left--_companions_.
(43) Repeated No. 40 (_starting_) less emphatically.
(44) Made several very quick jumping movements forward with the extended
left fingers, joined, back upward--_going very fast_.
(45) Repeated No. 23 (_wind_), increasing the force of the movement and
terminating the sign with the second repetition (wave)--_wind
increasing_.
(46) Raised up the hand in front of head and then arrested it a moment,
palm outward, fingers extended, upward and forward--_halt_.
(47) Partially turning the body toward the north he lowered the extended
hand, back forward, fingers joined and pointing downward toward the left
of his feet and moved it closely in front of them, and with a cutting
motion toward the right, following the movement with the eye--_cut off
right before feet_, _i.e._, _standing on the very edge_.
(48) Still facing the north, he carried the hand, back upward, fingers
joined and extended, from left side of body outward and toward the right
horizontally, indicating the rippled surface of turbulent water by an
appropriate motion, and extending the arm to full length, fingers
pointing northeastward (toward the right) at termination of motion, and
accompanied the movement with a corresponding turn of the head, eyes
gazing far into distance--_water all along the shore_.
(49) Pushed the extended finger, back upward, forward (_i.e._,
northward) in a slightly arched movement--_across_.
(50) Directing it toward an object (tree) at a distance of about one
hundred yards the next moment--_a distance of about one hundred yards_.
(51) Repeated No. 49 (_across_) without interrupting the motion--_that
distance placed across_.
(52) Motions as follows: Hands naturally relaxed, edges up and down,
backs outward, are with a quick movement and simultaneously carried from
the epigastrium forward and toward their sides, arms being extended from
elbows only. The hands change their position during the movement and are
ultimately placed palms upward, thumbs and fingers extended and widely
separated, pointing forward. This is the general sign for _doubt_. He
also turned the face from one side to the other as though interrogating
his companions--_what are we to do?_
(53) Repeated No. 35 (_hatchet_).
(54) Raised up the finger perpendicularly, other fingers closed, thumb
resting against second, and emphatically inclined it forward--_only
one_.
(55) Elevated the arm from the elbow toward the head, hand naturally
relaxed, back obliquely upward, inclining the face sideward with a look
of consternation, simultaneously, and again mechanically lowered it,
dropping palm of hand heavily upon the knee--“_bad fix_.”
(56) Placed the hand to his hip and raised it up, closed to fist, by a
rapid and very energetic movement, ejaculating _haw!--quick to the work_
(referring to the ax or hatchet).
(57) Turning the body downward, he passed the hand, with forefinger
directed toward the ground, forward, sideward, and backward, in three
movements, each time turning at a right angle--_measuring off a square
piece on the ground_, _i.e._, _on the ice_.
(58) Looked and pointed toward an object some twenty feet off, then
opposed palms of hands horizontally, and at a short distance from each
other, connecting both movements in such a manner as to clearly
illustrate their meaning--_about twenty feet wide_.
(59) Moved the hand--fist, thumb upward--several times quickly up and
down a few inches, the arm progressing forward at every stroke--_cutting
it off_.
(60) Repeated No. 55 (_bad fix_), meaning in this case--_bad job_.
(61) Opposed the palms of both hands, vertically, at a distance of eight
inches, holding them thus steady a moment and estimating the thus
indicated measure with the eyes--_eight inches thick_.
(62) Then struck the palm of left with the back of arched right
forcibly--_solid ice_.
(63) Laid the joined and extended first two fingers, palm up, across
side of leg, a foot above heel, accompanying the movement with the
eye--_one foot deep_.
(64) Pushed downward perpendicularly and from same point the flat,
extended hand--_sinking_, or _giving in_--and turning the hand upward at
wrist, back downward, he flirted up the fingers several times
quickly--_water--slush and water_.
(65) Passed one hand over the other as in the act of pulling off
mittens--_mittens_.
(66) Made the motion of wringing out a wet piece of cloth--_wringing
wet_.
(67) Grasped a fold of his trowsers (below the knee) and wrung
it--_trowsers also wet_.
(68) Placed palms of both hands upon legs, near to the ankles, and
dragged them up to the knees--_up to the knees_.
(69) Shivered--_feeling cold_.
(70) Pointed with thumb backward and toward the right (designating his
companion) and repeated No. 2 (_hair gray_)--_my old companion_, _i.e._,
_Ga-bi-wa-bi-ko-ke_.
(71) Repeated No. 69 (_feeling cold_) more emphatically--_more so_,
_i.e._, _suffering worse from the cold_.
(72) Repeated No. 59 (_cutting the ice_).
(73) Made sign for _tired--getting tired_, as follows: The left arm is
partly extended forward, and is gently struck near the bend of the
elbow, usually above it, with the palm of the right hand, at the same
time the head is usually inclined to the left side, then in similar
manner the right arm is extended and struck by the left hand, and the
head in turn inclined to the right.
(74) Repeated No. 35--(_hatchet_).
(75) Turned the slightly closed left (thumb obliquely upward) over to
its side, partially opening it in so doing, fingers pointing to
left--_passing it over to his companion at the left_, _i.e._, _Sabadis_.
(76) Flung forefingers of both hands, backs forward, thumbs upward,
remaining fingers partially closed, toward their respective sides
alternately--_by turns_.
(77) Repeated No. 59 (_cutting the ice_).
(78) Elevated the hand above head, thumb and first two fingers extended
and directed toward the western meridian, and shook it emphatically and
with a tremulous motion up and down while thus suspended--_at a late
hour_.
(79) Followed with the sign for _done, finished_, as follows: Left hand,
with forearm horizontally extended toward the right, is held naturally
relaxed, back outward, a few inches in front of body and at a right
angle with opposite hand, which is placed on a higher level, slightly
arched, edge downward, fingers joined and extended forward. Pass the
right quickly and with a cutting motion downward and toward its side, at
the same time withdraw the left a few inches toward the opposite
direction--_finished our work_.
(80) Quickly threw up his arm, ejaculating “haw!”--_let us start_.
(81) Passed both hands approximated in front of body, naturally relaxed,
backs outward, forward and toward their respective sides, extending and
widely separating the fingers during the movement, and again
approximating them with quickly accelerated speed and arresting them,
closed to fists, in front of body and with a jerk upward--_with united
efforts_.
(82) Placing the fists, thumbs upward, pointing forward and placed upon
side of forefingers, with their wrists against the breast, he pushed
them forward and downward a few inches, head slightly participating in
the movement--_pushing off_.
(83) Repeated No. 38 (_snow-shoe_)--_with snow-shoes_.
(84) Immediately reassumed the position of “pushing off” as in No. 82,
slowly passing forward the fists further and further--_pushing and
gradually moving off_.
(85) Quickly passed and turned the closed left forward, upward, and
backward, opening and again closing the fingers in so doing, and
executing at almost the same instant a similar, but smaller, revolution
with the right--_turning over the snow-shoe, tail up_.
(86) With both hands closed to fists, left obliquely over the right and
on the right side of the body, made motion as if paddling--_paddling_.
(87) Moved and pointed finger of left towards its side, _i.e._,
northward--_toward the shore_.
(88) Moved both hands, flat and extended, backs upward, toward the left
side, by an even and very slow movement--_moving along very slowly
toward that direction_.
(89) Repeated No. 23--_southwest wind_.
(90) Repeated No. 30--_pushing northeastward_.
(91) Turned the thumb of left over to the left--_Sabadis._
(92) Repeated No. 32 (_winding up_), reversing the motion--_winding off
the hook-line_.
(93) Approximated both hands with their tips horizontally in front of
body, first two fingers with thumb collected to a point, and moving the
fingers as in the act of twisting a cord, gradually receded the
hands--_twisting_.
(94) Thrust forward three fingers of the right--_three_, _i.e._,
_hook-lines_.
(95) Repeated No. 93, then rubbed palm of flat and extended right
forward over the thigh repeatedly and with a slight pressure--_twisting
them tightly_.
(96) Approximated both hands closed to fists, thumbs upward, in front of
body and pulled them asunder repeatedly by short, quick, and sudden
jerks--_proving strength of line_.
(97) Hooked the forefinger, hand turned downward at wrist, remaining
fingers closed, thumb resting upon first--_fish-hook_.
(98) Raised and curved three fingers and thrust them forward a little
separated, back to the front--_three_, _i.e._, _hooks_.
(99) Collecting fore and middle fingers of each hand to a point with
thumb, he opposed tips of both hands, vertically describing with the
upper hand several short circular movements around the tip of the
lower--_tying together_.
(100) Hooked the separated fore and middle fingers of the right,
pointing upward, back forward, and placed the hooked finger of the left,
palm forward, in front and partially between the fork of the first--_in
the shape of an anchor_.
(101) Thrust both hands, backs upward, fingers extended and separated,
forward (_i.e._, northward), vigorously, left being foremost--_throwing
toward the shore_.
(102) Thence elevating the right toward the head, he thrust it downward
in an oblique direction, fore and middle fingers extended and joined
with the thumb--_sinking_.
(103) Placing hands in the position attained last in No. 100 (_throwing
out toward shore_), he closed the fingers, drawing the hands back toward
the body and leaning backward simultaneously--_hauling in_.
(104) Elevated the naturally closed hand to side of head, fingers
opening and separating during the movement--at the same time and with a
slight jerk of the shoulders inclining the head sideward--and again
closed and slowly dropped it upon knee--_in vain_.
(105) Dropped the finger perpendicularly downward, following the
movement with the eye--_bottom_.
(106) Passed the flat hand, palm down, from side to side in a smooth and
horizontal movement--_smooth_.
(107) Made the sign for _stone, rock_, as follows: With the back of the
arched right hand (H) strike repeatedly in the palm of the left, held
horizontal, back outward, at the height of the breast and about a foot
in front, the ends of the fingers pointing in opposite directions.
(108) Repeated No. 100--_anchor_.
(109) Dragged the curved fore and middle fingers over the back of the
extended left--_dragging_.
(110) Waved the left--bent at the wrist, back outward--forward and
upward from body, extending the arm to full length, at the same time
inclining and pushing forward the head, and repeated the gesture more
emphatically--_trying again and again_.
(111) Waved both hands--backs outward, fingers slightly joined, tips
facing each other and closely approximated in front of breast--forward
and toward their respective sides a short distance, turning the palms
upward during the movement, thumb and fingers being extended and widely
separated toward the last. At the same time he inclined the head to one
side, face expressing disappointment--_all in vain_.
(112) Repeated No. 80--_Let us start anew!_
(113) Repeated No. 86--_paddling_.
(114) Repeated the preceding gesture, executing the movement only once
very emphatically--_vigorously_.
(115) Waved the finger toward the place of the setting sun, following
the direction with the eye--_day is near its close_.
(116) Repeated No. 69, more emphatically--_feeling very cold_.
(117) Repeated No. 70--_Ga-bi-wa-bi-ko-ke_.
(118) Made sign for _without_, dropping the hands powerless at the
sides, with a corresponding movement of head--_exhausted_.
(119) Pointed with finger toward the light-house and drawing back the
finger a little, pushed it forward in the same direction, fully
extending the arm--_that distance_, _i.e._, _one mile beyond
light-house_.
(120) Elevated both hands to height of shoulder, fingers extended toward
the right, backs upward, moving them horizontally forward--left
foremost--with an impetuous motion toward the last--_drifted out_.
(121) Repeated No. 86, executing the movement a series of times without
interruption and very energetically--_paddling steadily and vigorously_.
(122) Pointed with the left forefinger to his breast--_I myself_.
(123) Waved the thumb of the same hand over to left side without
interrupting motion of hand--_and Sabadis_.
(124) Moved the extended left--back upward, fingers slightly
joined--toward left side, and downward a few inches--_shore_.
(125) Elevated it to level of eyes, fingers joined and extended, palm
toward the right, approaching it toward the face by a slow interrupted
movement--_drawing nearer and nearer_.
(126) Drawing a deep breath--_relieved_.
(127) Repeated No. 86 very emphatically--_paddling with increased
courage and vigor_.
(128) Gazed and pointed northeastward, shading the eyes with the hand,
at the same time pushing the left--bent downward at wrist, palm
backward--forward in that direction, arm fully extended, fingers
separated and pointing ahead at termination of motion--_out there at a
great distance_.
(129) Made a lateral movement with the hand flat and extended over the
field of ice in front of him--_the ice-field_.
(130) Described a series of waves with the flat and extended left, back
upward, horizontally outward--_sea getting turbulent_.
(131) Joyously flourished the hand above head, while pronouncing the
word _ke-ya-bi_--_only yet_.
(132) Pointed the finger toward the upturned root of a tree a few yards
off, thence carrying it forward directed it toward the shore in
front--_a few yards from shore_.
(133) Pointing toward the sun first, he placed palms of both hands in
opposition vertically, a space of only an inch or two intervening, with
a glance sideways at the height thus indicated--_the sun just setting_.
(134) Made three vigorous strokes with the imaginary paddle--_three more
paddle-strokes_.
(135) Moved both hands (flat and extended, backs upward) evenly and
horizontally toward the left, terminating the movement by turning hands
almost perpendicularly upward at wrist, thus arresting them
suddenly--_the ice-raft runs up against the shore_.
(136) Lastly threw up the hand perpendicularly above head, and bringing
it down, placed the palm gently over the heart with an air of
solemnity--_we are saved_.
_Free translation of the story._
Many years ago--my hair, then black and smooth, has since turned gray;
I was then in the prime of life; you, I suppose, were a young lad at
that time--the following incident occurred to me:
Yonder on the ice, two miles eastward, I was one day fishing in company
with two others, the old Gabiwabikoke and his son John Baptist. It was
about ten o’clock in the morning--a fresh breeze from the southwest had
previously been getting up--when the hook-line which I was playing up
and down began to take an oblique course as though it were moved by a
current. Surprised, I looked up and around me. When glancing toward the
south I saw a dark streak stretching from shore to shore across the bay;
the ice had parted and the wind was carrying it out toward the open
lake. In an instant I had wound up my hook-line, picked up my hatchet
and snow-shoes, which I put on my feet, and hurried--the others
following my example--toward the nearest point of land, yonder where the
light-house stands. The wind was increasing and we traveled as fast as
we could. There we arrived at the very edge of the ice, a streak of
water about one hundred yards in width extending northward along the
shore as far as we could see. What to begin with, nothing but a single
hatchet? We were in a bad situation. Well, something had to be done.
I measured off a square piece on the ice and began cutting it off with
the hatchet, a hard and tedious labor. The ice was only eight inches
thick, but slush and water covered it to the depth of a foot. I soon had
my mittens and trowsers wringing wet and began to feel cold and tired.
The old Gabiwabikoke was in a worse state than I. His son next took the
hatchet and we all worked by turns. It was about two o’clock in the
afternoon when we finished our work. With the help of our snow-shoes
(stemming their tail-ends against the edge of the solid ice), we
succeeded in pushing off our raft. Turning our snow-shoes the other way
(using their tails as handles), we commenced paddling with them toward
the shore. It was a very slow progress, as the wind drifted us outward
continually. John Baptist managed to twist our three hook-lines into a
strong cord, and tying the hooks together in the shape of an anchor, he
threw it out toward the shore. Hauling in the line the hooks dragged
over the smooth rock bottom and would not catch. Repeated trials were of
no avail. We all resumed our former attempt and paddled away with
increased energy. The day was drawing near its close, and we began to
feel the cold more bitterly. Gabiwabikoke was suffering badly from its
effects and was entirely played out. We had already drifted more than a
mile beyond the light-house point. John Baptist and I continued paddling
steadily and vigorously, and felt relieved and encouraged when we saw
the shore draw near and nearer. The ice-field, by this time, was miles
away to the northeast, and a sea was getting up. At last, just when the
sun was setting, only a few yards separated us from the shore; three
more paddle-strokes and our raft ran up against the beach. We were safe.
_The oral part of the story in the language of the narrator, with a
literal translation into English._
(1) _Meⁿ´wija_
a long time ago
(2) _aw ninisis´san_
this my hair
(3) _me´gwa giijina´gwak tibi´shko aw_
while it looked like that
(4) _me´gwa gimashkaw´isian_
while I possessed strength
(5) _kin dash_
you and (_i.e._, and you)
(6) _ga´nabatch kikwiwi´seⁿsiwina´ban_
perhaps (probably) were a boy
(7) _mi´iw_
very well
(8)-(10) _iwe´di_
there
(11)(12) _nin be´jig_
I one
(13) _mi´nawa_
again (furthermore)
(14) _Gabiwa´bikoke_
“The Miner”
(15) _akiweⁿ´si_
old man
(16) Expressed by gesture only.
(17) The same as No. 13.
(18) _ogwis´san ga´ie, Sabadis_
his son too, John Baptist.
(19) _mi minik´_
so many
(20)(21) Gestures only.
(22) _mi wa´pi_
thus far, _i.e._, at that time.
(23) _we´ai gion´din_
then the wind blew from
(24) _me´gwa nin wewe´banabina´ban_
while I was (in the act of) fishing with the hook
_nin´goting gonin´gotchi_
at one time somewhere (out of its course)
_oda´bigamo nimigis´skane´ab_
was drawn my hook line
(25) _a´nin ejiwe´bak?_
how it happens?
(26) Gesture only.
(27) _taai´!_
ho!
(28) _mi´gwam_
the ice
(29) _ma´dja_
goes
(30)(31) Gestures only.
(32) _we´wib_
quickly
(33)(34) Gestures only.
(35) _wagak´wadŏⁿs_
hatchet
(36) (37) Gestures only.
(38) (39) _nin bita´gime_
I put on snowshoes
(40) _win madja´min_
we go (start)
(41) Gestures only.
(42) (43) _mamaw´e_
together
(44) Gesture only.
(45) _esh´kam ki´tchi no´din_
more big wind
(46) Gesture only.
(47) _mi ja´igwa gima´djishkad_ (_i.e._, _mi´gwam_)
already has moved off (_i.e._, the ice)
(48) (49) Gestures only.
(50) _mi´wapi_
thus far, _i.e._, at such a distance
(51) Gesture only.
(52) _a´nin dash gediji´tehigeiang?_
how (_i.e._, what) shall we do?
(53) (54) _mi e´ta be´jigwang wagak´wadŏⁿs_
only one hatchet
(55) _ge´get gisan´agissimin_
indeed we are badly off.
(56) _haw! bak´wewada mi´gwam!_
well! (hallo!) let us cut the ice!
(57) (58) (59) Gestures only.
(60) _sa´nagad_
it is bad (hard)
(61) _mi epi´tading_
so it is thick (so thick is it)
(62) Gesture only.
(63) _mi dash mi´nawa minik´_
that again much (that much again)
(64) _nibi´ gon ga´ie_
water snow too (water and snow)
(65) _nimidjik a´wanag_
my mittens
(66) _a´pitchi_
very much
(67) _nindas´san gaie_
my trowsers two
(68) Gestures only.
(69) _nin gi´katch ja´igwa_
I feel cold already
(70) _aw sa kiweⁿ´si_
the old man
(71) _nawatch´ win´_
more yet he
(72) Gesture only.
(73) _nind aie´kos ja´igwa_
I am tired already
(74) Gesture only.
(75) _Sa´badis_
John Baptist
(76) _memesh´kwat kaki´na_
by turns all
(77) Gesture only.
(78) _wi´ka ga´ishkwanawo´kweg_
late in the afternoon
(79) _mi gibakwewangid_
now it is cut loose
(80) _haw!_
well! (ho!)
(81) _mama´we_
together
(82) Gesture only.
(83) _a´gimag_
snowshoes
(84) _ma´djishka_
it is moving
(85)-(87) Gestures only.
(88) _aga´wa ma´djishkca_
scarcely it moves (very little)
(89) _no´din_
wind
(90) Gesture only.
(91) _Sa´badis_
John Baptist
(92) _migiss´kaneyab_
hook-line
(93) (94) _oginisswa´biginan_
he twisted three cords together
(95)-(98) Gestures only.
(99) _oginisso´bidonan_ (_i.e._, _migaskanan_)
he tied together three (_i.e._, hooks)
(100) Gesture only.
(101) _ogiaba´gidonan dash_
he threw it out
(102) Gesture only.
(103) _owikobi´donan_
he wants to draw it in
(104) _kawes´sa_
in vain (“no go”)
(105)-(108) Gestures only.
(109) _ka´win sagakwidis´sinon_
(not) it don’t catch on the rock-bottom
(110) _mi´nawa--mo´jag_
again--often (repeatedly)
(111) The same as No. 104.
(112) The same as No. 80.
(113) Gesture only.
(114) _e´nigok_
vigorously
(115) _ja´igwa ona´kwishi_
already evening
(116) _esh´kam kis´sina_
more cold (getting colder)
(117) The same as No. 70.
(118) _mi ja´igwa gianiji´tang_
already he has given up
(119) _was´sa ja´igwa_
far already
(120) _niwebas´himin_
we have drifted out
(121) Gesture only.
(122) (123) _mi´sa e´ta mij´iang_
(now) only we are two
(124) Gesture only.
(125) _ja´igwa tehi´gibig_
already near to shore
(126) _mi ja´igwa anibonen´damang_
now we catch new spirits
(127) _esh´kam nigijijaw´isimin_
more we are strong
(_i.e._, our strength and courage increases)
(128) (129) _e-eh! was´sa ja´igwa´ mi´gwam!_
oh! far already the ice!
(130) _ja´igwa_
already
(131) _ke´abi_
yet
(132) _go´mapi_
so far perhaps
(133) _ge´ga bangi´shimo_
nearly sundown
(134) Gesture only.
(135) _mi gibima´jagang_
we have landed
(136) _mi gibima´disiang_
we have saved our lives.
DISCOURSES.
_ADDRESS OF KIN CHĒ-ĔSS._
[Illustration: FIG. 320.]
The following is the farewell address of KIN CHĒ-ĔSS (Spectacles),
medicine-man of the Wichitas, to Rev. A. J. HOLT, missionary, on his
departure from the Wichita Agency, in the words of the latter:
[Illustration: FIG. 321.]
He placed one hand on my breast, the other on his own, then clasped his
two hands together after the manner of our congratulations--_We are
friends_, Fig. 320. He placed one hand on me, the other on himself, then
placed the first two fingers of his right hand between his lips--_We are
brothers_. He placed his right hand over my heart, his left hand over
his own heart, then linked the first fingers of his right and left
hands--_Our hearts are linked together_. See Fig. 232, p. 386. He laid
his right hand on me lightly, then put it to his mouth, with the
knuckles lightly against his lips, and made the motion of flipping water
from the right-hand forefinger, each flip casting the hand and arm from
the mouth a foot or so, then bringing it back in the same position.
(This repeated three or more times, signifying _talk_ or _talking_.)
Fig. 321. He then made a motion with his right hand as if he were
fanning his right ear; this repeated. He then extended his right hand
with his index finger pointing upward, his eyes also being turned
upward--_You told me of the Great Father_. Pointing to himself, he
hugged both hands to his bosom, as if he were affectionately clasping
something he loved, and then pointed upward in the way before
described--_I love him_ (the Great Father). Laying his right hand on me,
he clasped his hands to his bosom as before--_I love you_. Placing his
right hand on my shoulder, he threw it over his own right shoulder as if
he were casting behind him a little chip, only when his hand was over
his shoulder his index finger was pointing behind him--_You go away_.
Pointing to his breast, he clinched the same hand as if it held a stick,
and made a motion as if he were trying to strike something on the ground
with the bottom of the stick held in an upright position--_I stay_, or
_I stay right here_, Fig. 322.
[Illustration: FIG. 322.]
[Illustration: FIG. 323.]
Placing his right hand on me, he placed both his hands on his breast and
breathed deeply two or three times, then using the index finger and
thumb of each hand as if he were holding a small pin, he placed the two
hands in this position as if he were holding a thread in each hand and
between the thumb and forefinger of each hand close together, and then
let his hands recede from each other, still holding his fingers in the
same position, as if he were letting a thread slip between them until
his hands were two feet apart--_You live long time_, Fig. 323. Laying
his right hand on his breast, then extending his forefinger of the same
hand, holding it from him at half-arm’s length, the finger pointing
nearly upward, then moving his hand, with the finger thus extended, from
side to side about as rapidly as a man steps in walking, each time
letting his hand get farther from him for three or four times, then
suddenly placing his left hand in a horizontal position with the fingers
extended and together so that the palm was sidewise, he used the
right-hand palm extended, fingers together, as a hatchet, and brought it
down smartly, just missing the ends of the fingers of the left hand,
Fig. 324. Then placing his left hand, with the thumb and forefinger
closed, to his heart, he brought his right hand, fingers in the same
position, to his left, then, as if he were holding something between his
thumb and forefinger, he moved his right hand away as if he were slowly
casting a hair from him, his left hand remaining at his breast, and his
eyes following his right--_I go about a little while longer, but will be
cut off shortly and my spirit will go away_ (or will die). Placing the
thumbs and forefingers again in such a position as if he held a small
thread between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and the hands
touching each other, he drew his hands slowly from each other, as if he
were stretching a piece of gum-elastic; then laying his right hand on
me, he extended the left hand in a horizontal position, fingers extended
and closed, and brought down his right hand with fingers extended and
together, so as to just miss the tips of the fingers of his left hand;
then placing his left forefinger and thumb against his heart, he acted
as if he took a hair from the forefinger and thumb of his left hand with
the forefinger and thumb of the right, and slowly cast it from him, only
letting his left hand remain at his breast, and let the index finger of
the right hand point outward toward the distant horizon--_After a long
time you die_. When placing his left hand upon himself and his right
hand upon me, he extended them upward over his head and clasped them
there--_We then meet in heaven_. Pointing upward, then to himself, then
to me, he closed the third and little finger of his right hand, laying
his thumb over them, then extending his first and second fingers about
as far apart as the eyes, he brought his hand to his eyes, fingers
pointing outward, and shot his hand outward--_I see you up there_.
Pointing to me, then giving the last above-described sign of _look_,
then pointing to himself, he made the sign as if stretching out a piece
of gum-elastic between the fingers of his left and right hands, and then
made the sign of _cut-off_ before described, and then extended the palm
of the right hand horizontally a foot from his waist, inside downward,
then suddenly threw it half over and from him, as if you were to toss a
chip from the back of the hand (this is the negative sign everywhere
used among these Indians)--_I would see him a long time, which should
never be cut off_, _i.e._, _always._
[Illustration: FIG. 324.]
Pointing upward, then rubbing the back of his left hand lightly with the
forefinger of his right, he again gave the negative sign--_No Indian
there_ (in heaven). Pointing upward, then rubbing his forefinger over
the back of my hand, he again made the negative sign--_No white man
there_. He made the same sign again, only he felt his hair with the
forefinger and thumb of his right hand, rolling the hair several times
between the fingers--_No black man in heaven_. Then rubbing the back of
his hand and making the negative sign, rubbing the back of my hand and
making the negative sign, feeling of one of his hairs with the thumb and
forefinger of his right hand, and making the negative sign, then using
both hands as if he were reaching around a hogshead, he brought the
forefinger of his right hand to the front in an upright position after
their manner of counting, and said thereby--_No Indian, no white man, no
black man, all one_. Making the “hogshead” sign, and that for _look_, he
placed the forefinger of each hand side by side pointing upward--_All
look the same_, or _alike_. Running his hands over his wild Indian
costume and over my clothes, he made the “hogshead” sign, and that for
_same_, and said thereby--_All dress alike there_. Then making the
“hogshead” sign, and that for _love_, (hugging his hands), he extended
both hands outward, palms turned downward, and made a sign exactly
similar to the way ladies smooth a bed in making it; this is the sign
for _happy_--_All will be happy alike there_. He then made the sign for
_talk_ and for _Father_, pointing to himself and to me--_You pray for
me_. He then made the sign for _go away_, pointing to me, he threw right
hand over his right shoulder so his index finger pointed behind
him--_You go away_. Calling his name he made the sign for _look_ and the
sign of _negation_ after pointing to me--_Kin Chē-ĕss see you no more_.
[Illustration: FIG. 325.]
Fig. 322, an illustration in the preceding address, also represents a
common gesture for _sit down_, if made to the right of the hip, toward
the locality to be occupied by the individual invited. The latter
closely corresponds to an Australian gesture described by Smyth (_The
Aborigines of Victoria_, _London_, 1878, Vol. II, p. 308, Fig. 260), as
follows: “_Minnie-minnie_ (wait a little). It is shaken downwards
rapidly two or three times. Done more slowly towards the ground, it
means ‘Sit down.’” This is reproduced in Fig. 325.
_TSO-DI-A´-KO’S REPORT._
The following statement was made to Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN by TSO-DI-A´-KO
(Shaved-head Boy), chief of the Wichitas in Indian Territory, while on a
visit to Washington, D.C., in June 1880.
The Indian being asked whether there was any timber in his part of the
Territory, replied in signs as follows:
[Illustration: FIG. 326.]
(1) Move the right hand, fingers loosely extended, separated and
pointing upward, back to the front, upward from the height of the waist
to the front of the face--_tree_ (for illustration see Fig. 112,
p. 343); repeat this two or three times--_trees_; (2) then hold the
hand, fingers extended and joined, pointing upward, with the back to the
front, and push it forward toward different points on a level with the
face--_standing at various places_; (3) both hands, with spread and
slightly curved fingers, are held about two feet apart, before the
thighs, palms facing, then draw them toward one another horizontally and
gradually upward until the wrists cross, as if grasping a bunch of grass
and pulling it up--_many_; (4) point to the southwest with the index,
elevating it a little above the horizon--_country_; (5) then throw the
fist edgewise toward the surface, in that direction--_my, mine_;
(6) place both hands, extended, flat, edgewise before the body, the left
below the right, and both edges pointing toward the ground a short
distance to the left of the body, then make repeated cuts toward that
direction from different points, the termination of each cut ending at
nearly the same point--_cut down_, Fig. 326; (7) hold the left hand with
the fingers and thumb collected to a point, directed horizontally
forward, and make several cutting motions with the edge of the flat
right hand transversely by the tips of the left, and upon the
wrist--_cut off the ends_; (8) then cut upon the left hand, still held
in the same position, with the right, the cuts being parallel to the
longitudinal axis of the palm--_split_; (9) both hands closed in front
of the body, about four inches apart, with forefingers and thumbs
approximating half circles, palms toward the ground, move them forward
so that the back of the hand comes forward and the half circles imitate
the movement of wheels--_wagon_, Fig. 327; (10) hold the left flat hand
before the body, pointing horizontally forward, with the palm down, then
bring the right flat hand from the right side and slap the palm upon the
back of the left several times--_load upon_, Fig. 328; (11) partly close
the right hand as if grasping a thick rod, palm toward the ground, and
push it straight forward nearly to arm’s length--_take_; (12) hold both
hands with fingers naturally extended and slightly separated nearly at
arm’s length before the body, palms down, the right lying upon the left,
then pass the upper forward and downward from the left quickly, so that
the wrist of the right is raised and the fingers point earthward--_throw
off_; (13) cut the left palm repeatedly with the outer edge of the
extended right hand--_build_; (14) hold both hands edgewise before the
body, palms facing, spread the fingers and place those of one hand into
the spaces between those of the left, so that the tips of one protrude
beyond the backs of the fingers of the other--_log house_, see Fig. 253,
p. 428; (15) then place the flat right hand, palm down and fingers
pointing to the left, against the breast and move it forward, and
slightly upward and to the right--_good_.
[Illustration: FIG. 327.]
[Illustration: FIG. 328.]
ANALYSIS OF THE FOREGOING.
[There is] much | timber | [in] my | country |
(3) (1,2) (5) (4)
[of which I] cut down [some], | trimmed, | split, |
(6) (7) (8)
loaded it upon | a wagon [and] | took it away, |
(10) (9) (11)
[where I] threw [it] off | [and] built | [a] good | house | .
(12) (13) (15) (14)
NOTES.--As will be seen, the word _timber_ is composed of signs No.
1 and 2, signifying _trees standing_. Sign No. 3, for _many_, in this
instance, as in similar other examples, becomes _much_. The word “in,”
in connection with _country_ and _my_, is expressed by the gesture of
pointing (passing the hand less quickly than in ordinary sign language)
before making sign No. 5. That sign commonly given for _possession_,
would, without the prefix of indication, imply _my country_, and with
that prefix signifies _in my country_. Sign No. 7, _trimmed_, is
indicated by chopping off the ends, and facial expression denoting
_satisfaction_. In sign Nos. 11 and 12 the gestures were continuous, but
at the termination of the latter the narrator straightened himself
somewhat, denoting that he had overcome the greater part of the labor.
Sign No. 14 denotes _log-house_, from the manner of interlacing the
finger-ends, thus representing the corner of a log-house, and the
arrangement of the ends of the same. _Indian lodge_ would be indicated
by another sign, although the latter is often used as an abbreviation
for the former, when the subject of conversation is known to all
present.
_LEAN WOLF’S COMPLAINT._
The following remarks were obtained by Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN from
TCE-CAQ-A-DAQ-A-QIC (Lean Wolf), chief of the Hidatsa Indians of Dakota
Territory, who visited Washington in 1880:
FOUR YEARS AGO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AGREED TO BE FRIENDS WITH US, BUT
THEY LIED. THAT IS ALL.
(1) Place the closed hand, with the thumb resting over the middle of the
index, on the left side of the forehead, palmar side down, then draw the
thumb across the forehead to the right, a short distance beyond the
head--_white man_, American, Fig. 329.
[Illustration: FIG. 329.]
[Illustration: FIG. 330.]
(2) Place the naturally extended hand, fingers and thumb slightly
separated and pointing to the left, about fifteen inches before the
right side of the body, bringing it to within a short distance--_with
us_, Fig. 330.
(3) Extend the flat right hand to the front and right as if about to
grasp the hand of another individual--_friend, friends_, Fig. 331. For
remarks connected with this sign see pp. 384-386.
[Illustration: FIG. 331.]
(4) Place the flat right hand, with fingers only extended, back to the
front, about eighteen inches before the right shoulder--_four_ [years],
Fig. 332.
[Illustration: FIG. 332.]
(5) Close the right hand, leaving the index and second fingers extended
and slightly separated, place it, back forward, about eight inches
before the right side of the body, and pass it quickly to the left in a
slightly downward curve--_lie_, Fig. 333.
[Illustration: FIG. 333.]
(6) Place the clinched fists together before the breast, palms down,
then separate them in a curve outward and downward to their respective
sides--_done, finished, “that is all”_, Fig. 334.
[Illustration: FIG. 334.]
SIGNALS.
The collaborators in the work above explained have not generally
responded to the request to communicate material under this head. It is,
however, hoped that by now printing some extracts from published works
and the few contributions recently procured, the attention of observers
will be directed to the prosecution of research in this direction.
The term “signal” is here used in distinction from the signs noted in
the DICTIONARY, extracts from which are given above, as being some
action or manifestation intended to be seen at a distance, and not
allowing of the minuteness or detail possible in close converse. Signals
may be executed, first, exclusively by bodily action; second, by action
of the person in connection with objects, such as a blanket, or a lance,
or the direction imparted to a horse; third, by various devices, such as
smoke, fire or dust, when the person of the signalist is not visible.
When not simply intended to attract attention they are generally
conventional, and while their study has not the same kind of importance
as that of gesture signs, it possesses some peculiar interest.
SIGNALS EXECUTED BY BODILY ACTION.
Some of these are identical, or nearly so, with the gesture signs used
by the same people.
ALARM. See NOTES ON CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO SIGNALS, _infra_.
ANGER.
Close the hand, place it against the forehead, and turn it back and
forth while in that position. (Col. R. B. Marcy, U.S.A., _Thirty Years
of Army Life on the Border_, _New York_, 1866, p. 34.)
COME HERE.
The right hand is to be advanced about eighteen inches at the height of
the navel, horizontal, relaxed, palm downward, thumb in the palm; then
draw it near the side and at the same time drop the hand to bring the
palm backward. The farther away the person called is, the higher the
hand is raised. If very far off, the hand is raised high up over the
head and then swung forward, downward, and backward to the side.
(_Dakota_ I, IV.)
DANGER.
_There is something dangerous in that place._--Right-hand index-finger
and thumb forming a curve, the other fingers closed; move the right hand
forward, pointing in the direction of the dangerous place or animal.
(_Omaha_ I.)
DEFIANCE.
Right-hand index and middle fingers open; motion toward the enemy
signifies “I do not fear you.” Reverse the motion, bringing the hand
toward the subject, means “Do your worst to me.” (_Omaha_ I.)
DIRECTION.
_Pass around that object or place near you_--she-í-he ti-dhá-ga.--When a
man is at a distance, I say to him “Go around that way.” Describe a
curve by raising the hand above the head, forefinger open, move to right
or left according to direction intended and hand that is used, _i.e._,
move to the left, use right hand; move to the right, use left hand.
(_Omaha_ I; _Ponka_ I.)
HALT!
---- To inquire disposition.
Raise the right hand with the palm in front and gradually push it
forward and back several times; if they are not hostile it will at once
be obeyed. (Randolph B. Marcy, _The Prairie Traveler_. _New York_, 1859,
p. 214.)
---- Stand there! He is coming to you.
Right hand extended, flat, edgewise, moved downward several times.
(_Omaha_ I.)
---- Stand there! He is going toward you.
Hold the open right hand, palm to the left, with the tips of the fingers
toward the person signaled to; thrust the hand forward in either an
upward or downward curve. (_Omaha_ I; _Ponka_ I.)
---- Lie down flat where you are--she-dhu bis-pé zhaⁿ´-ga.
Extend the right arm in the direction of the person signaled to, having
the palm down; move downward by degrees to about the knees. (_Omaha_ I;
_Ponka_ I.)
PEACE; FRIENDSHIP.
Hold up palm of hand.--Observed as made by an Indian of the Kansas tribe
in 1833. (John T. Irving, _Indian Sketches_. _Philadelphia_, 1835, vol.
ii, p. 253.)
Elevate the extended hands at arm’s length above and on either side of
the head. Observed by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, as made in Northern Arizona in
1871 by the Apaches, Mojaves, Hualpais, and Seviches. “No
arms”--corresponding with “hands up” of road-agents. Fig. 335.
[Illustration: FIG. 335.--A signal of peace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 336.--Signal, “Who are you?” Answer, “Pani.”]
The right hand held aloft, empty. (General G. A. Custer, _My Life on the
Plains_, _New York_, 1874, p. 238.) This may be collated with the lines
in Walt Whitman’s _Salut au Monde_--
Toward all
I raise high the perpendicular hand,--I make the signal.
The Natchez in 1682 made signals of friendship to La Salle’s party by
the joining of the two hands of the signalist, much embarrassing Tonty,
La Salle’s lieutenant, in command of the advance in the descent of the
Mississippi, who could not return the signal, having but one hand. His
men responded in his stead. (Margry, _Decouvertes et Établissments des
Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud de l’Amérique Septentrionale, &c._)
QUESTION.
---- I do not know you. Who are you?
After halting a party coming: Right hand raised, palm in front and
slowly moved to the right and left. [Answered by tribal sign.] (Marcy’s
_Prairie Traveler_, _loc. cit._, 214.) Fig. 336. In this illustration
the answer is made by giving the tribal sign for Pani.
---- To inquire if coming party is peaceful.
Raise both hands, grasped in the manner of shaking hands, or by locking
the two forefingers firmly while the hands are held up. If friendly they
will respond with the same signal. (Marcy’s _Prairie Traveler_, _loc.
cit._, 214.)
SUBMISSION.
The United States steamer Saranac in 1874, cruising in Alaskan waters,
dropped anchor in July, 1874, in Freshwater Harbor, back of Sitka, in
latitude 59° north. An armed party landed at a T’linkit village,
deserted by all the inhabitants except one old man and two women, the
latter seated at the feet of the former. The man was in great fear,
turned his back and held up his hands as a sign of utter helplessness.
(Extract from notes kindly furnished by Lieutenant-Commander WM.
BAINBRIDGE HOFF, U.S.N., who was senior aid to Rear-Admiral Pennock, on
the cruise mentioned.)
SURRENDER.
The palm of the hand is held toward the person [to whom the surrender is
made]. (_Long_.)
Hold the palm of the hand toward the person as high above the head as
the arm can be raised. (_Dakota_ I.)
SIGNALS IN WHICH OBJECTS ARE USED IN CONNECTION WITH PERSONAL ACTION.
BUFFALO DISCOVERED. See also NOTES ON CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO SIGNALS.
When the Ponkas or Omahas discover buffalo the watcher stands erect on
the hill, with his face toward the camp, holding his blanket with an end
in each hand, his arms being stretched out (right and left) on a line
with shoulders. (_Dakota_ VIII; _Omaha_ I; _Ponka_ I.) See Fig. 337.
Same as (_Omaha_ I), and (_Ponka_ I); with the addition that after the
blanket is held out at arm’s length the arms are crossed in front of the
body. (_Dakota_ I.)
CAMP!
When it is intended to encamp, a blanket is elevated upon a pole so as
to be visible to all the individuals of a moving party. (_Dakota_ VIII.)
COME! TO BECKON TO A PERSON.
Hold out the lower edge of the robe or blanket, then wave it in to the
legs. This is made when there is a desire to avoid general observation.
(_Matthews_.)
COME BACK!
Gather or grasp the left side of the unbuttoned coat (or blanket) with
the right hand, and, either standing or sitting in position so that the
signal can be seen, wave it to the left and right as often as may be
necessary for the sign to be recognized. When made standing the person
should not move his body. (_Dakota_ I.)
DANGER. See also NOTES ON CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO SIGNALS.
---- Horseman at a distance, galloping, passing and repassing, and
crossing each other--_enemy comes_. But for notice of herd of buffalo,
they gallop back and forward abreast--do not cross each other. (H. M.
Brackenridge’s _Views of Louisiana_. _Pittsburgh_, 1814, p. 250.)
---- Riding rapidly round in a circle, “Danger! Get together as quickly
as possible.” (Richard Irving Dodge, lieutenant-colonel United States
Army, _The Plains of the Great West_. _New York_, 1877, p. 368.)
---- Point the right index in the direction of the danger, and then
throw the arm over the front of the body diagonally, so that the hand
rests near the left shoulder, back outward. If the person to be notified
of the danger should be in the rear precede the above signal with that
for “_Attention_.” This signal can also be made with a blanket, properly
grasped so as to form a long narrow roll. Perhaps this signal would more
properly belong under “_Caution_,” as it would be used to denote the
presence of a dangerous beast or snake, and not that of a human enemy.
(_Dakota_ I.)
[Illustration: FIG. 337.--Signal for “buffalo discovered.”]
[Illustration: FIG. 338.--Signal of discovery or alarm.]
---- Passing and repassing one another, either on foot or
mounted, is used as a war-signal; which is expressed in the
Hidatsa--mạkimakă´da-halidié. (_Mandan and Hidatsa_ I.)
DIRECTION.
---- Pass around that place.
Point the folded blanket in the direction of the object or place to be
avoided, then draw it near the body, and wave it rapidly several times
in front of the body only, and then throwing it out toward the side on
which you wish the person to approach you, and repeat a sufficient
number of times for the signal to be understood. (_Dakota_ I.)
DISCOVERY.
The discovery of enemies, game, or anything else, is announced by riding
rapidly to and fro, or in a circle. The idea that there is a difference
in the signification of these two directions of riding appears,
according to many of the Dakota Indians of the Missouri Valley, to be
erroneous. Parties away from their regular encampment are generally in
search of some special object, such as game, or of another party, either
friendly or hostile, which is generally understood, and when that object
is found, the announcement is made to their companions in either of the
above ways. The reason that a horseman may ride from side to side is,
that the party to whom he desires to communicate may be at a particular
locality, and his movement--at right angles to the direction to the
party--would be perfectly clear. Should the party be separated into
smaller bands, or have flankers or scouts at various points, the only
way in which the rider’s signal could be recognized as a motion from
side to side, by all the persons to whom the signal was directed, would
be for him to ride in a circle, which he naturally does. (_Dakota_ VI,
VII, VIII.) Fig. 338.
The latter was noticed by Dr. Hoffman in 1873, on the Yellowstone River,
while attached to the Stanley Expedition. The Indians had again
concentrated after their first repulse by General Custer, and taken
possession of the woods and bluffs on the opposite side of the river. As
the column came up, one Indian was seen upon a high bluff to ride
rapidly round in a circle, occasionally firing off his revolver. The
signal announced the discovery of the advancing force, which had been
expected, and he could be distinctly seen from the surrounding region.
As many of the enemy were still scattered over the neighborhood, some of
them would not have been able to recognize this signal had he ridden to
and from an observer, but the circle produced a lateral movement visible
from any point.
---- Of enemies, or other game than Buffalo. See also NOTES ON CHEYENNE
AND ARAPAHO SIGNALS.
The discovery of enemies is indicated by riding rapidly around in a
circle, so that the signal could be seen by their friends, but out of
sight of the discovered enemy. (_Dakota_ I.)
When enemies are discovered, or other game than buffalo, the sentinel
waves his blanket over his head up and down, holding an end in each
hand. (_Omaha_ I; _Ponka_ I.)
---- Of game, wood, water, &c.
This is communicated by riding rapidly forward and backward on the top
of the highest hill. The same would be communicated with a blanket by
waving it right and left, and then directly toward the game or whatever
the party might be searching for, indicating that it is not to the right
or to the left, but directly in front. (_Dakota_ I.)
DRILL, MILITARY.
“It is done by signals, devised after a system of the Indian’s own
invention, and communicated in various ways.
“Wonderful as the statement may appear, the signaling on a bright day,
when the sun is in the proper direction, is done with a piece of
looking-glass held in the hollow of the hand. The reflection of the
sun’s rays thrown on the ranks communicates in some mysterious way the
wishes of the chief. Once standing on a little knoll overlooking the
valley of the South Platte, I witnessed almost at my feet a drill of
about one hundred warriors by a Sioux chief, who sat on his horse on a
knoll opposite me, and about two hundred yards from his command in the
plain below. For more than half an hour he commanded a drill, which for
variety and promptness of action could not be equaled by any civilized
cavalry of the world. All I could see was an occasional movement of the
right arm. He himself afterwards told me that he used a looking-glass.”
(Dodge’s _Plains of the Great West_, _loc. cit._, pp. 307, 308.)
FRIENDSHIP.
If two Indians [of the plains] are approaching one another on horseback,
and they may, for instance, be one mile apart, or as far as they can see
each other. At that safe distance one wants to indicate to the other
that he wishes to be friendly. He does this by turning his horse around
and traveling about fifty paces back and forth, repeating this two or
three times; this shows to the other Indian that he is not for
hostility, but for friendly relations. If the second Indian accepts this
proffered overture of friendship, he indicates the same by locking the
fingers of both hands as far as to the first joints, and in that
position raises his hands and lets them rest on his forehead with the
palms either in or out, indifferently, as if he were trying to shield
his eyes from the excessive light of the sun. This implies, “I, too, am
for peace,” or “I accept your overture.” (_Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo_ I.)
It is interesting in this connection to note the reception of Father
Marquette by an Illinois chief who is reported to have raised his hands
to his eyes as if to shield them from overpowering splendor. That action
was supposed to be made in a combination of humility and admiration, and
a pretended inability to gaze on the face of the illustrious guest has
been taken to be the conception of the gesture, which in fact was
probably only the holding the interlocked hands in the most
demonstrative posture. An oriental gesture in which the flat hand is
actually interposed as a shield to the eyes before a superior is
probably made with the poetical conception erroneously attributed to the
Indian.
The display of green branches to signalize friendly or pacific
intentions does not appear to have been noticed among the North American
Indians by trustworthy observers. Captain Cook makes frequent mention of
it as the ceremonial greeting among islands he visited. See his _Voyage
toward the South Pole_. _London_, 1784, Vol. II, pp. 30 and 35. Green
branches were also waved in signal of _friendship_ by the natives of the
island of New Britain to the members of the expedition in charge of Mr.
Wilfred Powell in 1878. _Proceedings of the Royal Geological Society_,
February, 1881, p. 89.
HALT!
---- Stand there! he is coming this way.
Grasp the end of the blanket or robe; wave it downward several times.
(_Omaha_ I.)
---- To inquire disposition.
Wave the folded blanket to the right and left in front of the body, then
point toward the person or persons approaching, and carry it from a
horizontal position in front of the body rapidly downward and upward
several times. (_Dakota_ I.)
MANY.
Wave the blanket directly in front of the body upward and downward
several times. Many of _anything_. (_Dakota_ I.)
PEACE, COUPLED WITH INVITATION.
Motion of spreading a real or imaginary robe or skin on the ground.
Noticed by Lewis and Clark on their first meeting with the Shoshoni in
1805. (_Lewis and Clark’s Travels_, &c., London, 1817, vol. ii, p. 74.)
This signal is more particularly described as follows: Grasp the blanket
by the two corners with the hands, throw it above the head, allowing it
to unfold as it falls to the ground as if in the act of spreading it.
QUESTION.
The ordinary manner of opening communication with parties known or
supposed to be hostile is to ride toward them in zigzag manner, or to
ride in a circle. (Custer’s _My Life on the Plains_, _loc. cit._,
p. 58.)
This author mentions (p. 202) a systematic manner of waving a blanket,
by which the son of Satana, the Kaiowa chief, conveyed information to
him, and a similar performance by Yellow Bear, a chief of the Arapahos
(p. 219), neither of which he explains in detail.
---- I do not know you. Who are you?
Point the folded blanket at arm’s length toward the person, and then
wave it toward the right and left in front of the face. You--I don’t
know. Take an end of the blanket in each hand, and extend the arms to
full capacity at the sides of the body, letting the other ends hang down
in front of the body to the ground, means, Where do you come from? or
who are you? (_Dakota_ I.)
SAFETY. ALL QUIET. See NOTES ON CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO SIGNALS.
SURRENDER.
Hold the folded blanket or a piece of cloth high above the head. “This
really means ‘I want to die right now.’” (_Dakota_ I.)
SURROUNDED, We are.
Take an end of the blanket in each hand, extend the arms at the sides of
the body, allowing the blanket to hang down in front of the body, and
then wave it in a circular manner. (_Dakota_ I.)
SIGNALS MADE WHEN THE PERSON OF THE SIGNALIST IS NOT VISIBLE.
Those noted consist of SMOKE, FIRE, or DUST signals.
_SMOKE SIGNALS GENERALLY._
They [the Indians] had abandoned the coast, along which bale-fires were
left burning and sending up their columns of smoke to advise the distant
bands of the arrival of their old enemy. (Schoolcraft’s _History_, &c.,
vol. iii, p. 35, giving a condensed account of De Soto’s expedition.)
“Their systems of telegraphs are very peculiar, and though they might
seem impracticable at first, yet so thoroughly are they understood by
the savages that it is availed of frequently to immense advantage. The
most remarkable is by raising smokes, by which many important facts are
communicated to a considerable distance and made intelligible by the
manner, size, number, or repetition of the smokes, which are commonly
raised by firing spots of dry grass.” (Josiah Gregg’s _Commerce of the
Prairies_. _New York_, 1844, vol. ii, p. 286.)
The highest elevations of land are selected as stations from which
signals with smoke are made. These can be seen at a distance of from
twenty to fifty miles. By varying the number of columns of smoke
different meanings are conveyed. The most simple as well as the most
varied mode, and resembling the telegraphic alphabet, is arranged by
building a small fire, which is not allowed to blaze; then by placing an
armful of partially green grass or weeds over the fire, as if to smother
it, a dense white smoke is created, which ordinarily will ascend in a
continuous vertical column for hundreds of feet. Having established a
current of smoke, the Indian simply takes his blanket and by spreading
it over the small pile of weeds or grass from which the smoke takes its
source, and properly controlling the edges and corners of the blanket,
he confines the smoke, and is in this way able to retain it for several
moments. By rapidly displacing the blanket, the operator is enabled to
cause a dense volume of smoke to rise, the length or shortness of which,
as well as the number and frequency of the columns, he can regulate
perfectly, simply by a proper use of the blanket. (Custer’s _My Life on
the Plains_, _loc. cit._, p. 187.)
They gathered an armful of dried grass and weeds, which were placed and
carried upon the highest point of the peak, where, everything being in
readiness, the match was applied close to the ground; but the blaze was
no sooner well lighted and about to envelop the entire amount of grass
collected than it was smothered with the unlighted portion. A slender
column of gray smoke then began to ascend in a perpendicular column.
This was not enough, as it might be taken for the smoke rising from a
simple camp-fire. The smoldering grass was then covered with a blanket,
the corners of which were held so closely to the ground as to almost
completely confine and cut off the column of smoke. Waiting a few
moments, until the smoke was beginning to escape from beneath, the
blanket was suddenly thrown aside, when a beautiful balloon-shaped
column puffed upward like the white cloud of smoke which attends the
discharge of a field-piece. Again casting the blanket on the pile of
grass, the column was interrupted as before, and again in due time
released, so that a succession of elongated, egg-shaped puffs of smoke
kept ascending toward the sky in the most regular manner. This bead-like
column of smoke, considering the height from which it began to ascend,
was visible from points on the level plain fifty miles distant. (_Ib._,
p. 217.)
* * * * *
The following extracts are made from Fremont’s _First and Second
Expeditions_, 1842-3-4, Ex. Doc., 28th Cong. 2d Session, Senate,
Washington, 1845:
“Columns of smoke rose over the country at scattered intervals--signals
by which the Indians here, as elsewhere, communicate to each other that
enemies are in the country,” p. 220. This was January 18, 1844, in the
vicinity of Pyramid Lake, and perhaps the signalists were Pai-Utes.
“While we were speaking, a smoke rose suddenly from the cottonwood grove
below, which plainly told us what had befallen him [Tabeau]; it was
raised to inform the surrounding Indians that a blow had been struck,
and to tell them to be on their guard,” p. 268, 269. This was on May 5,
1844, near the Rio Virgen, Utah, and was narrated of “Diggers,” probably
Chemehuevas.
ARRIVAL OF A PARTY AT AN APPOINTED PLACE, WHEN ALL IS SAFE.
This is made by sending upward one column of smoke from a fire partially
smothered by green grass. This is only used by previous agreement, and
if seen by friends of the party, the signal is answered in the same
manner. But should either party discover the presence of enemies, no
signal would be made, but the fact would be communicated by a runner.
(_Dakota_ I.)
SUCCESS OF A WAR PARTY.
Whenever a war party, consisting of either Pima, Papago, or Maricopa
Indians, returned from an expedition into the Apache country, their
success was announced from the first and most distant elevation visible
from their settlements. The number of scalps secured was shown by a
corresponding number of columns of smoke, arranged in a horizontal line,
side by side, so as to be distinguishable by the observers. When the
returning party was unsuccessful, no such signals were made. (_Pima and
Papago_ I.) Fig. 339. A similar custom appears to have existed among the
Ponkas, although the custom has apparently been discontinued by them, as
shown in the following proper name: Cú-de gá-xe, Smoke maker: He who
made a smoke by burning grass returning from war.
_SMOKE SIGNALS OF THE APACHES._
The following information was obtained by Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN from the
Apache chiefs named on page 407, under the title of TINNEAN,
(_Apache_ I):
The materials used in making smoke of sufficient density and color
consist of pine or cedar boughs, leaves and grass, which can nearly
always be obtained in the regions occupied by the Apaches of Northern
New Mexico. These Indians state that they employ but three kinds of
signals, each of which consists of columns of smoke, numbering from one
to three or more.
ALARM.
This signal is made by causing three or more columns of smoke to ascend,
and signifies danger or the approach of an enemy, and also requires the
concentration of those who see them. These signals are communicated from
one camp to another, and the most distant bands are guided by their
location. The greater the haste desired the greater the number of
columns of smoke. These are often so hastily made that they may resemble
puffs of smoke, and are caused by throwing heaps of grass and leaves
upon the embers again and again.
[Illustration: FIG. 339.--Signal of successful war-party.]
ATTENTION.
This signal is generally made by producing one continuous column, and
signifies attention for several purposes, viz, when a band had become
tired of one locality, or the grass may have been consumed by the
ponies, or some other cause necessitated removal, or should an enemy be
reported, which would require farther watching before a decision as to
future action would be made. The intention or knowledge of anything
unusual would be communicated to neighboring bands by causing one column
of smoke to ascend.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A CAMP; QUIET; SAFETY.
When a removal of camp has been made, after the signal for ATTENTION has
been given, and the party have selected a place where they propose to
remain until there may be a necessity or desire for their removal, two
columns of smoke are made, to inform their friends that they propose to
remain at that place. Two columns are also made at other times during a
long continued residence, to inform the neighboring bands that a camp
still exists, and that all is favorable and quiet.
_FOREIGN SMOKE SIGNALS._
The following examples of smoke signals in foreign lands are added for
comparison.
Miss Haigh, speaking of the Guanches of the Canary Islands at the time
of the Spanish conquest, says: “When an enemy approached, they alarmed
the country by raising a thick smoke or by whistling, which was repeated
from one to another. This latter method is still in use among the people
of Teneriffe, and may be heard at an almost incredible distance.”
(_Trans. Eth. Soc. Lond._ vii, 1869, sec. ser., pp. 109, 110.)
“The natives have an easy method of telegraphing news to their distant
friends. When Sir Thomas Mitchell was traveling through Eastern
Australia he often saw columns of smoke ascending through the trees in
the forests, and he soon learned that the natives used the smoke of
fires for the purpose of making known his movements to their friends.
Near Mount Frazer he observed a dense column of smoke, and subsequently
other smokes arose, extending in a telegraphic line far to the south,
along the base of the mountains, and thus communicating to the natives
who might be upon his route homeward the tidings of his return.
“When Sir Thomas reached Portland Bay he noticed that when a whale
appeared in the bay the natives were accustomed to send up a column of
smoke, thus giving timely intimation to all the whalers. If the whale
should be pursued by one boat’s crew only it might be taken; but if
pursued by several, it would probably be run ashore and become food for
the blacks.” (Smyth, _loc. cit._, vol. 1, pp. 152, 153, quoting Maj.
T. L. Mitchell’s _Eastern Australia_, vol. ii, p. 241.)
Jardine, writing of the natives of Cape York, says that a “communication
between the islanders and the natives of the mainland is frequent; and
the rapid manner in which news is carried from tribe to tribe, to great
distances, is astonishing. I was informed of the approach of Her
Majesty’s Steamer Salamander, on her last visit, two days before her
arrival here. Intelligence is conveyed by means of fires made to throw
up smoke in different forms, and by messengers who perform long and
rapid journeys.” (Smyth, _loc. cit._, vol. 1, p. 153, quoting from
_Overland Expedition_, p. 85.)
Messengers in all parts of Australia appear to have used this mode of
signaling. In Victoria, when traveling through the forests, they were
accustomed to raise smoke by filling the hollow of a tree with green
boughs and setting fire to the trunk at its base; and in this way, as
they always selected an elevated position for the fire when they could,
their movements were made known.
When engaged in hunting, when traveling on secret expeditions, when
approaching an encampment, when threatened with danger, or when foes
menaced their friends, the natives made signals by raising a smoke. And
their fires were lighted in such a way as to give forth signals that
would be understood by people of their own tribe and by friendly tribes.
They exhibited great ability in managing their system of telegraphy; and
in former times it was not seldom used to the injury of the white
settlers, who at first had no idea that the thin column of smoke rising
through the foliage of the adjacent bush, and raised perhaps by some
feeble old woman, was an intimation to the warriors to advance and
attack the Europeans. (R. Brough Smyth, F.L.S., F.G.S., _The Aborigines
of Victoria_. _Melbourne_, 1878, vol. i, pp. 152, 153.)
_FIRE ARROWS._
“Travelers on the prairie have often seen the Indians throwing up signal
lights at night, and have wondered how it was done. * * * They take off
the head of the arrow and dip the shaft in gunpowder, mixed with glue.
* * * The gunpowder adheres to the wood, and coats it three or four
inches from its end to the depth of one-fourth of an inch. Chewed bark
mixed with dry gunpowder is then fastened to the stick, and the arrow is
ready for use. When it is to be fired, a warrior places it on his
bowstring and draws his bow ready to let it fly; the point of the arrow
is then lowered, another warrior lights the dry bark, and it is shot
high in the air. When it has gone up a little distance, it bursts out
into a flame, and burns brightly until it falls to the ground. Various
meanings are attached to these fire-arrow signals. Thus, one arrow
meant, among the Santees, ‘The enemy are about’; two arrows from the
same point, ‘Danger’; three, ‘Great danger’; many, ‘They are too strong,
or we are falling back’; two arrows sent up at the same moment, ‘We will
attack’; three, ‘Soon’; four, ‘Now’; if shot diagonally, ‘In that
direction.’ These signals are constantly changed, and are always agreed
upon when the party goes out or before it separates. The Indians send
their signals very intelligently, and seldom make mistakes in
telegraphing each other by these silent monitors. The amount of
information they can communicate by fires and burning arrows is
perfectly wonderful. Every war party carries with it bundles of signal
arrows.” (_Belden_, _The White Chief; or Twelve Years among the Wild
Indians of the Plains_. _Cincinnati and New York_, 1871, pp. 106, 107.)
With regard to the above, it is possible that white influence has been
felt in the mode of signaling as well as in the use of gunpowder, but it
would be interesting to learn if any Indians adopted a similar expedient
before gunpowder was known to them. They frequently used arrows, to
which flaming material was attached, to set fire to the wooden houses of
the early colonists. The Caribs were acquainted with this same mode of
destruction as appears by the following quotation:
“Their arrows were commonly poisoned, except when they made their
military excursions by night; on these occasions they converted them
into instruments of still greater mischief; for, by arming the points
with pledgets of cotton dipped in oil, and set on fire, they fired whole
villages of their enemies at a distance.” (_Alcedo_. _The Geograph. and
Hist. Dict. of America and the West Indies_. Thompson’s trans. _London_,
1812, Vol. I, p. 314.)
_DUST SIGNALS._
When an enemy, game, or anything else which was the special object of
search is discovered, handfulls of dust are thrown into the air to
announce that discovery. This signal has the same general signification
as when riding to and fro, or, round in a circle on an elevated portion
of ground, or a bluff. (_Dakota_ VII, VII.)
When any game or any enemy is discovered, and should the sentinel be
without a blanket, he throws a handful of dust up into the air. When the
Brulés attacked the Ponkas, in 1872, they stood on the bluff and threw
up dust. (_Omaha_ I; _Ponka_ I.)
There appears to be among the Bushmen a custom of throwing up sand or
earth into the air when at a distance from home and in need of help of
some kind from those who were there. (_Miss L. C. Lloyd_, _MS. Letter_,
dated July 10, 1880, from Charlton House, Mowbray, near Cape Town,
Africa.)
_NOTES ON CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO SIGNALS._
The following information was obtained from WA-Uⁿ´ (_Bobtail_),
MO-HI´-NUK´-MA-HA´-IT (_Big Horse_), Cheyennes, and O-QO-HIS´-SA (_The
Mare_, better known as “Little Raven”), and NA´-WATC (_Left Hand_),
Arapahos, chiefs and members of a delegation who visited Washington,
D.C., in September, 1880, in the interest of their tribes dwelling in
Indian Territory:
A party of Indians going on the war-path leave camp, announcing their
project to the remaining individuals and informing neighboring friends
by sending runners. A party is not systematically organized until
several days away from its headquarters, unless circumstances should
require immediate action. The pipe-bearers are appointed, who precede
the party while on the march, carrying the pipes, and no one is allowed
to cross ahead of these individuals, or to join the party by riding up
before the head of the column, as it would endanger the success of the
expedition. All new arrivals fall in from either side or the rear. Upon
coming in sight of any elevations of land likely to afford a good view
of the surrounding country the warriors come to a halt and secrete
themselves as much as possible. The scouts who have already been
selected, advance just before daybreak to within a moderate distance of
the elevation to ascertain if any of the enemy has preceded them. This
is only discovered by carefully watching the summit to see if any
objects are in motion; if not, the flight of birds is observed, and if
any should alight upon the hill or butte it would indicate the absence
of anything that might ordinarily scare them away. Should a large bird,
as a raven, crow, or eagle, fly toward the hill-top and make a sudden
swerve to either side and disappear, it would indicate the presence of
something sufficient to require further examination. When it is learned
that there is reason to suspect an enemy the scout, who has all the time
been closely watched by the party in the rear, makes a signal for them
to lie still, signifying _danger or caution_. It is made by grasping the
blanket with the right hand and waving it earthward from a position in
front of and as high as the shoulder. This is nearly the same as
civilized Americans use the hand for a similar purpose in battle or
hunting to direct “lie quiet”!
Should the hill, however, be clear of any one, the Indian will ascend
slowly, and under cover as much as possible, and gain a view of the
country. If there is no one to be seen, the blanket is grasped and waved
horizontally from right to left and back again repeatedly, showing a
clear surface. If the enemy is discovered, the scout will give the
_alarm_ by running down the hill, upon a side visible to the watchers,
in a zigzag manner, which communicates the state of affairs.
Should any expedition or advance be attempted at night, the same signals
as are made with the blanket are made with a firebrand, which is
constructed of a bunch of grass tied to a short pole.
When a war party encamps for a night or a day or more, a piece of wood
is stuck into the ground, pointing in the direction pursued, with a
number of cuts, notches, or marks corresponding to the number of days
which the party spent after leaving the last camp until leaving the
present camp, serving to show to the recruits to the main party the
course to be followed, and the distance.
A hunting party in advancing takes the same precautions as a war party,
so as not to be surprised by an enemy. If a scout ascends a prominent
elevation and discovers no game, the blanket is grasped and waved
horizontally from side to side at the height of the shoulders or head;
and if game is discovered the Indian rides back and forth (from left to
right) a short distance so that the distant observers can view the
maneuver. If a large herd of buffalo is found, the extent traveled over
in going to and fro increases in proportion to the size of the herd.
A quicker gait is traveled when the herd is very large or haste on the
part of the hunters is desired.
It is stated that these Indians also use mirrors to signal from one
elevation to another, but the system could not be learned, as they say
they have no longer use for it, having ceased warfare (?).
SCHEME OF ILLUSTRATION.
In the following pages the scheme of graphic illustration, intended both
to save labor and secure accuracy, which was presented in the
_Introduction to the Study of Sign Language_, is reproduced with some
improvements. It is given for the use of observers who may not see that
publication, the material parts of which being included in the present
paper it is not necessary that the former should now be furnished. The
TYPES OF HAND POSITIONS were prepared for reference by the corresponding
letters of the alphabet to avoid tedious description, should any of them
exactly correspond, or by alteration, as suggested in the note following
them. These, as well as the OUTLINES OF ARM POSITIONS, giving front and
side outlines with arms pendant, were distributed in separate sheets to
observers for their convenience in recording, and this will still be
cheerfully done when request is made to the present writer. When the
sheets are not accessible the TYPES can be used for graphic changes by
tracing the one selected, or by a few words indicating the change, as
shown in the EXAMPLES. The OUTLINES OF ARM POSITIONS can also be readily
traced for the same use as if the sheets had been provided. It is hoped
that this scheme, promoting uniformity in description and illustration,
will be adopted by all observers who cannot be specially addressed.
Collaborators in the gestures of foreign uncivilized peoples will confer
a favor by sending at least one photograph or sketch in native costume
of a typical individual of the tribe, the gestures of which are reported
upon, in order that it may be reproduced in the complete work. Such
photograph or sketch need not be made in the execution of any particular
gesture, which can be done by artists engaged on the work, but would be
still more acceptable if it could be so made.
OUTLINES FOR ARM POSITIONS IN SIGN LANGUAGE.
The gestures, to be indicated by corrected positions of arms and by
dotted lines showing the motion from the initial to the final positions
(which are severally marked by an arrow-head and a cross--see EXAMPLES),
will always be shown as they appear to an observer facing the gesturer,
the front outline, Fig. 340, or side, Fig. 341, or both, being used as
most convenient. The special positions of hands and fingers will be
designated by reference to the TYPES OF HAND POSITIONS. For brevity in
the written description, “hand” may be used for “right hand,” when that
one alone is employed in any particular gesture. When more convenient to
use the profile figure in which the right arm is exhibited for a gesture
actually made by the left hand and arm it can be done, the fact,
however, being noted.
[Illustration: FIG. 340.]
[Illustration: FIG. 341.]
In cases where the conception or origin of any sign is ascertained or
suggested it should be annexed to the description, and when obtained
from the gesturer will be so stated affirmatively, otherwise it will be
considered to be presented by the observer. The graphic illustration of
associated facial expression or bodily posture which may accentuate or
qualify a gesture is necessarily left to the ingenuity of the
contributor.
_ORDER OF ARRANGEMENT._
The following order of arrangement for written descriptions is
suggested. The use of a separate sheet or part sheet of paper for each
sign described and illustrated would be convenient in the collation. It
should always be affirmatively stated whether the “conception or origin”
of the sign was procured from the sign-maker, or is suggested or
inferred by the observer.
_Word or idea expressed by Sign:_ __________________
DESCRIPTION:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
CONCEPTION OR ORIGIN:
____________________________________________________
_Tribe:_ ________________________________
_Locality:_ ______________________________
_Date:_ _____________________ 188_.
__________________________
_Observer._
TYPES OF HAND POSITIONS IN SIGN LANGUAGE.
[Illustration: FIG. 342a.
A--Fist, palm outward, horizontal.
B--Fist, back outward, oblique upward.
C--Clinched, with thumb extended against forefinger, upright, edge
outward.
D--Clinched, ball of thumb against middle of forefinger, oblique,
upward, palm down.
E--Hooked, thumb against end of forefinger, upright, edge outward.
F--Hooked, thumb against side of forefinger, oblique, palm outward.
G--Fingers resting against ball of thumb, back upward.
H--Arched, thumb horizontal against end of forefinger, back upward.
I--Closed, except forefinger crooked against end of thumb, upright, palm
outward.
J--Forefinger straight, upright, others closed, edge outward.
K--Forefinger obliquely extended upward, others closed, edge outward.
L--Thumb vertical, forefinger horizontal, others closed, edge outward.]
[Illustration: FIG. 342b.
M--Forefinger horizontal, fingers and thumb closed, palm outward.
N--First and second fingers straight upward and separated, remaining
fingers and thumb closed, palm outward.
O--Thumb, first and second fingers separated, straight upward, remaining
fingers curved edge outward.
P--Fingers and thumb partially curved upward and separated, knuckles
outward.
Q--Fingers and thumb, separated, slightly curved, downward.
R--Fingers and thumb extended straight, separated, upward.
S--Hand and fingers upright, joined, back outward.
T--Hand and fingers upright, joined, palm outward.
U--Fingers collected to a point, thumb resting in middle.
V--Arched, joined, thumb resting near end of forefinger, downward.
W--Hand horizontal, flat, palm downward.
X--Hand horizontal, flat, palm upward.
Y--Naturally relaxed, normal; used when hand simply follows arm with no
intentional disposition.]
NOTE CONCERNING THE FOREGOING TYPES.
The positions are given as they appear to an observer facing the
gesturer, and are designed to show the relations of the fingers to the
hand rather than the positions of the hand relative to the body, which
must be shown by the outlines (see OUTLINES OF ARM POSITIONS) or
description. The right and left hands are figured above without
discrimination, but in description or reference the right hand will be
understood when the left is not specified. The hands as figured can also
with proper intimation be applied with changes either upward, downward,
or inclined to either side, so long as the relative positions of the
fingers are retained, and when in that respect no one of the types
exactly corresponds with a sign observed, modifications may be made by
pen or pencil on that one of the types, or a tracing of it, found most
convenient, as indicated in the EXAMPLES, and referred to by the letter
of the alphabet under the type changed, with the addition of a
numeral--_e.g._, A 1, and if that type, _i.e._, A, were changed a second
time by the observer (which change would necessarily be drawn on another
sheet of types or another tracing of a type selected when there are no
sheets provided), it should be referred to as A 2.
EXAMPLES.
_Word or idea expressed by sign: To cut, with an ax._
[Illustration: FIG. 343.]
DESCRIPTION.
With the right hand flattened (X changed to right instead of left), palm
upward, move it downward to the left side repeatedly from different
elevations, ending each stroke at the same point. Fig. 343.
CONCEPTION OR ORIGIN.
From the act of felling a tree.
_Word or idea expressed by sign: A lie._
[Illustration: L 1, FIG. 344a.]
[Illustration: FIG. 344.]
DESCRIPTION.
Touch the left breast over the heart, and pass the hand forward from the
mouth, the two first fingers only being extended and slightly separated
(L, 1--with thumb resting on third finger, Fig. 344a). Fig. 344.
CONCEPTION OR ORIGIN.
Double-tongued.
_Word or idea expressed by sign: To ride._
[Illustration: FIG. 345.]
[Illustration: N 1, FIG. 345a.]
[Illustration: T 1, FIG. 345b.]
DESCRIPTION.
Place the first two fingers of the right hand, thumb extended (N 1, Fig.
345a) downward, astraddle the first two joined and straight fingers of
the left (T 1, Fig. 345b), sidewise, to the right, then make several
short, arched movements forward with hands so joined. Fig. 345.
CONCEPTION OR ORIGIN.
The horse mounted and in motion.
_Word or idea expressed by signs: I am going home._
[Illustration: FIG. 346.]
DESCRIPTION.
(1) Touch the middle of the breast with the extended index (K), then
(2) pass it slowly downward and outward to the right, and when the hand
is at arm’s length, at the height of the shoulder, (3) clinch it (A)
suddenly and throw it edgewise toward the ground. Fig. 346.
CONCEPTION OR ORIGIN.
(1) I, personality; (2) motion and direction; (3) locality of my
possessions--home.
EXPLANATION OF MARKS.
The following indicative marks are used in the above examples:
........... Dotted lines indicate movements to place the hand and arm in
position to commence the sign and not forming part of it.
- - - - - - Short dashes indicate the course of hand employed in the
sign, when made rapidly.
-- -- -- -- Longer dashes indicate a less rapid movement.
---- ---- Broken lines represent slow movement.
> Indicates commencement of movement in representing sign, or part of
sign.
× Represents the termination of movements.
☉ Indicates the point in the gesture line at which the hand position is
changed.
* * * * *
* * * *
_Errors and Inconsistencies: Sign Language_
--Missing or misplaced periods adjoining a close parenthesis were
silently regularized.
--In the List of Illustrations, “Ib.” and “Do.”/“do.” were
consistently printed without final period; it has been supplied
by the transcriber.
--Inconsistent accentuation of “Natci”/“Nátci” is unchanged, as is
the variable punctuation (comma or period) between a book’s title
and place of publication.
--The terms “jr.” and “sr.” are always printed in lower case.
The verses in the section on Gestures of Actors are loosely quoted from
“The Rosciad” by Charles Churchill, which more accurately reads:
“When to enforce some very tender part,
The right hand slips by instinct on the heart,
His soul, of every other thought bereft,
Is anxious only where to place the left;”
on my alluding to the tact which the pupil ... had
[_text unchanged: error for “talent”?_]
“He quickly turned round...
[_preceding row of asterisks is printed in the original_]
diminutive of Peppe, which is diminutive of Guiseppe [Guiseppe]
linear hieroglyphs given by Champollion (_Dictionnaire Égyptien_)
[Egyptien]
His left hand sleeps by instinct on the heart;
[_obvious error for “right”; see full passage quoted above_]
The Arikara sign for _soldier_ is by placing
[_text unchanged: “is made by”?_]
the Greek τύπτω, [the Greek, τύπτω]
The Chinese character for _man_ is Fig. 130, [_man_, is]
The Egyptian generic character for _female_ is [Symbol: semicircle]
(Champollion, _Dict._), [(Champollion, _Dict._,)]
I have not seen it used with the sign for pleasure or that of hunger,
[_obvious error unchanged: see beginning of paragraph_]
_Travels in the Interior of North America_, _London_
[_... North America_;]
Extend and spread the right, fore, and middle fingers
[_punctuation unchanged_]
described with precise detail as in EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY
[_text unchanged: superfluous “as”?_]
_Rhet. ad Herenn._, l. 3 [_Rhet. ad Herenn_,]
is commonly called James’ Long’s Expedition
[_not an error: “James” is the author’s surname_]
The one collected by Prince MAXIMILIAN VON WIED-NEUWIED
[_“von” printed in plain text_]
Apache chiefs from Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico [chief]
Elevate the right-hand, extended, with fingers joined
[_anomalous hyphen in original_]
a short of wrenching motion [_error for “a sort of”?_]
the same movements on the left side of the body. [the body,]
lower sides of the extended left forefinger [_final “r” invisible_]
from right to left under the nose. (_Arapaho_ II...)
[_opening parenthesis missing_]
“It is said that after a battle the Utes took many Sioux prisoners
and cut their throats; hence the sign ‘cut-throats’.”
[_inner quotes missing:
“It is said that after a battle the Utes took many Sioux prisoners
and cut their throats; hence the sign “cut-throats.”]
“Cut-throats.” Fig. 290. [Fig 290.]
along the shores of these the reptile was found [_text unchanged_]
throw right hand forward--_go_ or _going_ [forward--“_go_]
(39) Sign for _camp_ as before (No. 10)--_camp_. [(No. 10) _camp_]
(117) Repeated No. 70--_Ga-bi-wa-bi-ko-ke_. [Ga-bi-wa bi-ko-ke]
my trowsers two [_error for “too”?_]
he again gave the negative sign--_No Indian there_
[negative sign.--]
pointing upward--_All look the same_, or _alike_.
[_“alike” printed in plain (not Italic) type_]
mạkimakă´da-halidié [_hyphen at line break may not be needed_]
_Miss L. C. Lloyd_, _MS. Letter_ [_Miss L. C. Lloyd_,,]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. Powell, Director.
Catalogue
of
LINGUISTIC MANUSCRIPTS
in the
Library of the Bureau of Ethnology.
By
JAMES C. PILLING.
[Transcriber’s Note (Linguistic Manuscripts):
Book sizes printed as 4^o, 8^o, 12^o with superscript “o” have been
written out as 4to, 8vo, 12mo.]
CONTENTS.
Introductory 555
List of manuscripts 562
* * * * *
CATALOGUE OF LINGUISTIC MANUSCRIPTS
IN THE LIBRARY OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.
* * * * *
Mr. Henry R. Schoolcraft, while engaged in the preparation of his
work--“Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of
the Indian Tribes of the United States”--sent to various persons
residing among the Indians a “Comparative Vocabulary of the Languages of
the Indian Tribes of the United States,” a quarto paper of 25 pages,
comprising 350 words, and the numerals one to one billion. The returns
from this were for the most part incorporated in his work; a few,
however, found their way into the collection of the Smithsonian
Institution.
In 1853-’54, Mr. George Gibbs, while engaged under Gov. Isaac I. Stevens
in “Explorations for a route for the Pacific Railroad near the 47th and
49th parallels of north latitude,” became interested in the study of the
languages of the Indians inhabiting the Northwest, and collected many
vocabularies. To further extend this work, he prepared and had printed a
folio paper of three leaves entitled “A vocabulary of 180 words which it
is desired to collect in the different languages and dialects throughout
the Pacific Coast for publication by the Smithsonian Institute at
Washington.”
These were sent to such persons as, in his judgment, were competent to
furnish the material desired, and many of them, filled or partly filled,
were returned to him. A second edition of this vocabulary, 6 ll., folio,
was issued.
In 1863 there was published by the Smithsonian Institution a pamphlet
with the following title:
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. | --160-- | Instructions |
for research relative to the | Ethnology and Philology | of |
America. | Prepared for the Smithsonian Institution. | By | George
Gibbs. | Washington: | Smithsonian Institution: | March, 1863.
2 p. ll., pp. 1-51. 8vo.
In his introductory remarks, Professor Henry thus states the object of
the paper:
“The Smithsonian Institution is desirous of extending and completing its
collections of facts and materials relative to the Ethnology,
Archæology, and Philology of the races of mankind inhabiting, either now
or at any previous period, the continent of America, and earnestly
solicits the coöperation in this object of all officers of the United
States Government, and travellers or residents who may have it in their
power to render any assistance.”
Under the head of Philology, Mr. Gibbs gave a brief account of some of
the peculiarities of Indian languages, with general directions for the
best method of collecting certain words; a simple and practical
alphabet; and a vocabulary in English, Spanish, French, and Latin of 211
words. Speaking of the latter, he says:
“In view of the importance of a uniform system in collecting words of
the various Indian languages of North America, adapted to the use of
officers of the government, travellers, and others, the following is
recommended as a STANDARD VOCABULARY. It is mainly the one prepared by
the late Hon. Albert Gallatin, with a few changes made by Mr. Hale, the
Ethnologist of the United States Exploring Expedition, and is adopted as
that upon which nearly all the collections hitherto made for the purpose
of comparison have been based. For the purpose of ascertaining the more
obvious relations between the various members of existing families this
number is deemed sufficient. The remote affinities must be sought in a
wider research, demanding a degree of acquaintance with their languages
beyond the reach of transient visitors.”
The vocabulary given in this paper was separately printed on writing
paper, 10 ll., 4to, and reprinted, 6 ll., folio, and was distributed
widely among the missionaries, Indian agents, travelers, and local
collectors in ethnology, and has served a valuable purpose, resulting in
the collection by the Smithsonian Institution of a large number of
vocabularies, comprising many of the languages and dialects of the
Indian tribes of the United States, British America, and Mexico.
This material, as it was received, was placed in the hands of Mr. Gibbs
for revision and classification--a work in which he was engaged at the
time of his death, which occurred before any of it was published.
In 1876, Professor Henry turned this material over to Maj. J. W. Powell,
then in charge of the United States Geographical and Geological Survey
of the Rocky Mountain Region, to be consolidated and published in
connection with like material collected by himself and his assistants
while among the Indians of the western portion of the United States.
A number were accordingly published in the “Contributions to North
American Ethnology,” Vols. I and III, a quarto series issued by the
Survey.
Wishing to extend the work already begun by the Smithsonian Institution,
Major Powell, in 1877, prepared the following paper:
Introduction | to the | Study of Indian Languages, | with words,
phrases, and sentences to be collected. | By J. W. Powell. |
Washington: | Government Printing Office. | 1877.
Pp. 1-104, 10 ruled ll., 4to.
In his opening remarks, referring to the manuscripts derived from the
distribution of Mr. Gibbs’ paper, the author says: “It has, in fact,
greatly stimulated investigation, giving wiser direction to inquiry, and
the results have abundantly proved the value of the ‘Instructions’ and
the wisdom of its publication; and it serves to mark an epoch in the
history of ethnographic investigation in America. The material which has
thus been accumulated is of great amount, and its study has led to such
important conclusions that it is deemed wise to prepare a new system of
instruction, more comprehensive in plan and more elaborate in detail.
First, it is found necessary to enlarge the alphabet so as to include a
greater number of sounds, which have been discovered in the North
American languages, and to mark other letters with greater precision.
Second, it is necessary to enlarge the vocabulary so as to modify it
somewhat, as experience has dictated, so that new words may be
collected. Third, it is desirable that many simple phrases and sentences
should be given--so chosen as to bring out the more important
characteristics of grammatic structure.”
In the preparation of this paper, the alphabet was considered to be of
prime importance. Concerning it, the author says: “After devoting much
time to the consideration of the subject, and the examination of many
alphabets devised by scholars and linguists, none was found against
which there was not serious objections, and the author attempted to
devise an alphabet which would contain all the supposed requirements;
but there were many difficulties in the way, and many compromises to be
made in weighing the various considerations. At this stage of the work
he applied to the eminent philologist, Prof. W. D. Whitney, for
assistance. After much consultation and the weighing of the many
considerations arising from the large amount of manuscript material in
the author’s hands, Professor Whitney kindly prepared the following
paper on the alphabet.”
The words, phrases, and sentences to be collected are arranged in
schedules, each preceded by instructions, and followed by blanks for
additions, as follows:
I. Persons, 15 words.
II. Parts of the body, 103 words.
III. Relationships:
Relationships arising from the first and second generations,
58 words.
Relationships arising from the third generation, 224 words.
Relationships arising from the fourth generation, 24 words.
Names of children in order of birth, 26 words.
IV. Social organization.
V. Governmental organization, 22 words.
VI. Religion, 6 words.
VII. Disposal of the dead, 8 words.
VIII. Dress and ornaments, 39 words.
IX. Dwellings, 26 words.
X. Implements and utensils, 36 words.
Basket-ware, 15 words.
Woodenware, 7 words.
Utensils of shell, horn, bone, &c., 5 words.
Stone implements, 13 words.
Pottery, &c., 11 words.
XI. Food, 6 words.
XII. Games and sports, 5 words.
XIII. Animals:
Mammals, 91 words.
Parts of the body, &c., of mammals, 36 words.
Birds, 192 words.
Parts of the body, &c., of birds, 26 words.
Fish, 12 words.
Parts of the body, &c., of fish, 12 words.
Reptiles, 6 words.
Insects, 11 words.
XIV. Trees, shrubs, fruits, &c., 8 words.
XV. The firmament, meteorologic and other physical phenomena
and objects, 41 words.
XVI. Geographic terms, 8 words.
XVII. Geographic names.
XVIII. Colors, 13 words.
XIX. Numerals:
Cardinal numbers, 58 words (1-1000).
Ordinal numbers, 30 words.
Numeral adverbs denoting repetition of action, 23 words.
Multiplicatives, 22 words.
Distributives, 23 words.
XX. Measures.
XXI. Divisions of time, 29 words.
XXII. Standard of value.
XXIII. New words, 84 words.
XXIV. Phrases and sentences, 545 phrases, &c.
This paper was prepared with special reference to the wants of the
collector, being printed on bond paper and bound in flexible cloth. It
was widely distributed and, like that of Mr. Gibbs, resulted in the
collection of valuable linguistic material.
In 1879 Congress consolidated the various surveys, including that of the
Rocky Mountain Region, into the United States Geological Survey, but
made provision for continuing the publication of the Contributions to
North American Ethnology under the direction of the Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, and directed that the ethnologic material in
Major Powell’s hands be turned over to the Institution. Thus the Bureau
of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution was organized, and Major
Powell was placed at its head.
By this time the growing interest manifested in the study of North
American linguistics rendered necessary the preparation of a new edition
of the Introduction. In the words of the author:
“The progress made by various students, and the studies made by the
author, alike require that a new edition be prepared to meet the more
advanced wants and to embody the results of wider studies. Under these
circumstances the present edition is published. It does not purport to
be a philosophic treatment of the subject of language; it is not a
comparative grammar of Indian tongues; it is simply a series of
explanations of certain characteristics almost universally found by
students of Indian languages--the explanations being of such a character
as experience has shown would best meet the wants of persons practically
at work in the field on languages with which they are unfamiliar. The
book is a body of directions for collectors.
“It is believed that the system of schedules, followed _seriatim_, will
lead the student in a proper way to the collection of linguistic
materials; that the explanations given will assist him in overcoming the
difficulties which he is sure to encounter; and that the materials when
collected will constitute valuable contributions to philology. It has
been the effort of the author to connect the study of language with the
study of other branches of anthropology, for a language is best
understood when the habits, customs, institutions, philosophy--the
subject-matter of thought embodied in the language--are best known. The
student of language should be a student of the people who speak the
language; and to this end the book has been prepared, with many hints
and suggestions relating to other branches of anthropology.”
The title of this publication is as follows:
Smithsonian Institution--Bureau of Ethnology | J. W. Powell Director
| Introduction | to the | Study of Indian Languages | with | Words
Phrases and Sentences to be Collected | By J. W. Powell | Second
edition--with charts | Washington | Government Printing Office |
1880
Pp. i-xii, 1-228, and 8 ruled leaves. 4to.
The following is the
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.--On the Alphabet.
Page.
Vowels 4
Diphthongs 5
Consonants 6
Mutes 6
Nasals 7
Spirants 8
Sibilants 9
W, Y, R, L, and H 9
Interrupted sounds 11
Synthetic sounds 12
Complex combinations 13
Alphabet 14