The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-03

when he feels astonishment he put hands over his mouth to show that h, has no words adequate of expressing himself"
 Colonel Scott then explained tha , many of the signs have become purely conventional to the Indian from long
 usage; for when asked the reasons con-
 corning the origin of any but the most
 obvious the reply is always the same, tc
 the effect that the old men talked il
 that way, and that is all there is known
 about it. But the inference as to the
 original pantomime can be drawn by the
 intelligent white man in many cases
 for instance, the sign to understand Is
 made with a motion of both hands, and
 it is highly probable that it comes from
 the idea of waking up or opening the
 eyes. as we say in Engish-a person Is
 wide awake or has his eyes open to a
 situation to indicate that he fully un- derstands it. When asked about the
 grammar of the sign language Colonel
 Scott replied:
 "The student versed In the grammars
 of the spoken tongues does not find
 grammatical signs analogous to those
 words by which the different parts of a
 sentence are pointed out, nor conjuga-
 tions of verbs or declensions of nouns;
 these relations must be indicated by po-
 sition or by pointing with the hand or
 b extraneous and independent signs.
 The English phrase, a fast horse
 would. be inverted and expressed by
 signs which would be literally translat- ed into horse fast or a good heart into heart good It may be said gen. erally that the attribute follows the ob- ject, the adverb precedes the verb, and the subject is often placed last of all There are few dependent sentences
 used. For instance, I shot with an ar-
 row last night an eagle, which was sit ting upon the limb of a tree, and it fell
 to the ground Here it would be neees- sary to make the signs in the following order: Night, before, tree, looking, I saw, bird, curved beak trees standing, arrow, bow, aim, shoot, transfx, whirl downward, strike on the ground. This would be very nearly the sequence of the steps of the actual occurrence and the order of the sign pictures used to describe it.
 "A good sign talker can make himself perfectly understood. I once saw a warrioar telling a mixed crowd of In- dians-in which I counted representa- tives of six different tribes-about his capture by General Miles, and they fol- lowed him with perfect comprehension. The way to see it to the best advantage is when the Indians are upon their mi grations and hunting expeditions, or seated around their campfires at night | No written account can give an idea of 1 the graceful and flowing sequence with 1 which the signs are made by a master | of the art
 If you could have witnessed the scenes enacted in many of their lodges during the long nights of the winter in | some isolated village upon the buffalo range, or sheltered from the wind in a park, when some Of their old- CT and more skillful men, fired with en- thusiasm by the memories of their youth, were relating their stories of the and adventure, or the cere- monies of their religion, to silent band of dusi1y warriors, then only could you the great force. the intense meaning and the exceeding graceful ness and beauty of the signIlanguage of he plains Indian"
 Those who understand the sign lan- |, guage get many strange stories from he old men and women of the tribes One of these absurd tales is an account ,f how the mother of all the Kiowas made her advent on earth by sliding town from heaven on rope twisted rom the sinews of the back of the buff alo How the buffalo came to be in heaven is a part of the story the , husky relator does not attempt to ex- Jain. Another tradition tells why an elope do not eat meat. In the long go there was primeval hero Sipdy ( " name, who was the wisest and ( raftiest parsonage of his time Tn z hose days antelope had dog teeth and onsidered Indian flesh deicacy. Complaint was made to Sindy that i lany people were being devoured by < he antelope. The bravest warriors of f he tribe Were powerless to stop the q avages of the man-eaters. and theein ,- enious procedure of the willy Sindy onstitutes the burden of the tale. z rming himself with a great rock mal- 7. t he proceeded to the plain where the readed beasts were browsing As, soon !, s be appeared in sight the herd with ', ne accord started in pursuit of him. !. He re swiftly to near by quagmire. y nd, by artful lodging. contrive6 to al V Ire them into the morass When the - nimals became powerless by being |. uck in the mud Sindy broke off their :, og teeth with his mallet, and from U lat day to this antelope have not had a og teeth and have not tasted meat. u The folklore of the Indian is replete Y ith fanciful and grotesque tales, many II
 which, having never been written. u ust be forgotten. The compiling of u hat remains of them into imperishable " int is a worthy undertaking, for by K is means alone can future genera u ons know the lordly red man. The ca ly of his wild bivouac is past He nS J' oger frequents the trail. He is all but Jl J. Haskins in Phila- h. lphia Record. M