He made a study of Sign Language in order to furnish the Indians with a pictographic writing, based on diagrams of the signs, and meant to be read by all Indians, without regard to their speech. Pointing to the Chinese writing as a model and parallel, he made a Sign Language font of 4,000 pictographic types for use in his projected works. He maintained that 110,793 Indians were at that time sign-talkers and he proposed to reach them by Sign-Language publications.
In pursuance of his plan, he issued the following:
1887. List of the Primary Gestures in Indian Sign Talk. “Only 19 copies were printed.” It was intended as a prodrome to “extended works and a magazine in Hands-tal[k]ing.”
It consists of 63 pages with 684 crude woodblocks of white lines on black ground, illustrating signs, alphabetically arranged, but without captions or text of any kind, except the explanation on the title page, abridged as above.
1890. A Lesson in Sign Talk, designed to show the use of the line showing the movement of the hands in the Indian Gesture Language, by In-go-nom-pa-shi, Fort Smith, Ark., 1890. Copyrighted by Lewis F. Hadley, 12 pp. A portrait of him by himself is on p. 11, inscribed “In-go-nom-pa-shi, drawn by himself at 60 years.”
It devotes 3 pages to general discussion of Sign Talk, 1½ pages to reform of our spelling, the rest is given to general remarks with 12 poor illustrations in white line, also a Scripture text with 15 signs drawn, the Lord’s Prayer with 55 drawn signs, and on p. 12, The Indian Little Star, a novel version of “Twinkle, Twinkle,” rendered in 97 drawn signs.
1893. Indian Sign Talk. Being a Book of Proofs of the matter printed or equivalent cards designed for teaching sign-talking Indians as much English as can be explained through the medium of their “Universal” Gesture Language, by Ingonompashi, copyrighted May 15, 1893, “only 75 copies are saved.”
This is Hadley’s most extended work. It is a dictionary of the Sign Language, in 268 large octavo leaves printed on one side only of each sheet.
It consists of 9 pages of Preface and general matter, 192 pp. of dictionary alphabetically arranged, each page having three gestures figured and beside each the equivalent in English. A total of 577 signs (including a double). Pages 193 to 205 are given to small reproductions of the sign drawings to illustrate “measurements of type”—his font—about 800 illustrations, two pages of appendix with compound sign words, and 14 illustrations, 1 page of black type, 18 in number, 53 pages of reading matter in signs, the above cited version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and the story of “Wolf and the White Man” in signs; the rest being Scripture texts and exhortations and the 19th Psalm, ending with the Lord’s Prayer.
The cards referred to I have. They consist of 571 separate cards with an illustrated sign on each and additional matter on the back. Besides which there are