Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes / First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-1880, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 263-552

by Garrick Mallery

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.