Evening star., 1905-10-23
INDIAN SIGN LANGUAGE
A POSSESSION OF THE ABORI0-
INES OF THE PLAINS.
Its Rudiments Learned by Major
Hugh L. Scott, While Cam
paigning With Custer
Washington Cor. New York Evening Post.

Washington Cor New York Evening Post.
One of the accomplishments of Maj Hugh
L. Scott, who was Gen. Leonard Wood g
ndjutant through his administration in
Cuba and is serving him in the same ca
Iacity In the Philippines, Is a very thor.
o'lgh knowledge of the sign language. Mai
Scott learned the rudiments Of the Ian
grage from the Indians while campaigning
un Ter Custer. and gradually perfected him
sci thereafter, partly by practice and
partly by deliberate effort to increase his
vocabulary by the offer, from time to time
OF a prize to any Indian who would bring
him a new sign. But of late 1t has been
almost impossible to pose him. In one
long sojourn in the southwest in recent
years his offer cost him only one pay
ment. and that was for the sign of the wal
nut-a fruit which does not grow in the
north country where his earlier native in
structors lived
Only the Indians of the plains-that is,
the aborigines of the great tract lying
roughly. between the Mississippi river and
the Rocky mountains-possess a sign Ian
guage. The tribes IN the far northwest
have the Chinook jargon in common; those
on the Atlantic slope use the Chippewa
tongue as a court language" as it were,
some members of all these groups being
able to speak and understand it and thus
to hold communication with the occasional
visiting stranger. But these eastern In
dams have always been rather sedentary,
whereas on the plains the tribes are no
mad1c, and long ago were in the habit of
following the buffalo herds from place to
place. This brought them In contact with
each other. and the sign language, as the
only practicable universal medium of con-
versation, became highly developed, and
was handed down from father to son in
every family. The plains Indians include
the Blackfeet, Crows, Assiniboines, Gros-
ventres. Mandans. Arikarees, Pend d'Oreil-
les, Kootenais, Flatheads, Sioux, Northern
and Southern Cheyennes, Northern and
Southern Arapahoes, Shoshones, Bannoeks,
Pawnees. Osages. Omahas, Poncas. Otoes,
Iowas, Sac and Foxes. Caddos, Wichitas,
kiowas, Comanches and Apaches.
Basis of Sign Language.
The basis of the language is the repre-
sentation of idea by means of ges-
ture sign. Each sign. there Is excellent
reason to suppose, grew out Of some need
of the Indian and its satisfaction, and
could be traced to an attempt to suggest,
If not actually to reproduce, an organic
feature of some natural object, one of
its attitudes or motions. A good many Of
the signs, of course, have to represent pri-
marily an abstraction but even these can
usually be carried back to concrete origin.
Thus, a question which we indicate in the
spoken tongue by an infection of the voice
Is indicated in the sign language by the ex-
tension of all the fingers and the thumb
spread apart, and a twist of the wrist,
two, three or more times repeated. This
looks, at a first glance, like arbitrary
symbol; but Capt. Scott's theory Is that 1t
is merely a growth from the extension of
two fingers-the index and it's neighbor-
and, by twist of the wrist. bringing first
one and then the other uppermost. There
he finds the sign of man with two hearts;
or as we should say, a man of two minds;
HrSt 10 inn Mt hon
other; then the first again, and so on. This
Is the mood of hesitation between two
courses. Add a third finger to the group,
and his hesitation becomes doubt. A fourth
and fifth alternative suggest themselves,
and his doubt becomes confusion. He does
not know: he must ask some one. The
meaning the revolution and counter-rev-
eiution of all the fingers by the motion of
the wrist is therefore, uncertainty, lack of
knowledge. Interrogation.
The application of this sign is governed
by the conditions under which 1t Is used.
An Indian meets friend riding. Out go
his arm and fingers, and the wrist turns.
He wishes to ask: Where are you going?"
He encounters another Indian in hostile
country. and the same gesture means:
who are your" He finds you listless
when he wishes to tell you something; his
fingers and wrist say: DO you follow me?"
The sign for fat would probably puzzle
many. 1t is made by holding the two fists
together with the knuckles upward, and
tnen drawing lnem apart ana UOWnWdru,
so to describe an arc Of a circle. This
outwardly bears relation to the sub
stance indicated But go back TO the time
when the Indian used to chase the buffalo,
driving them before him into a narrow
pass. AS they gallop through this with
their backs toward him he runs his eye
quickly over the herd to select the particu-
lar animal he Is to hunt down and kill for
meat. 1t Is the fat one he is after and he
can Judge of It's condition only by its hump,
which ShaDe0
It's full distention has the silhouette of an
arc.
Or, again, there is the sign for woman;
the two fists laid sidewise against the top
of the head, with the thumbs out. and then
brought down, one on either side, rubbing
the head as they come, as far as the ears,
where they stop. Old books of exploration
describe the Sioux women wearing their
hair parted In the middle. but thrown out
In wide rolls at either side of the head. In
the sign we, have probably this distinctive
characteristic of appearance. reproduced as
nearly as may be with head and hands.