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 Fremont'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 [Greek: aglossos], "tongueless," was used synonymous with
[Greek: barbaros], "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 Brule 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 Brule 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.