PERMANENCE OF SIGNS.
In connection with any theory it is important to inquire into the permanence of particular gesture signs to express a special idea or object when the system has been long continued. Many examples have been given above showing that the gestures of classic times are still in use by the modern Italians with the same signification; indeed that the former on Greek vases or reliefs or in Herculanean bronzes can only be interpreted by the latter. In regard to the signs of instructed deaf-mutes in this country there appears to be a permanence beyond expectation. Mr. Edmund Booth, a pupil of the Hartford Institute half a century ago, and afterwards a teacher, says in the “Annals” for April, 1880, that the signs used by teachers and pupils at Hartford, Philadelphia, Washington, Council Bluffs, and Omaha were nearly the same as he had learned. “We still adhere to the old sign for President from Monroe’s three-cornered hat, and for governor we designate the cockade worn by that dignitary on grand occasions three generations ago.”
The specific comparisons made, especially by Dr. Washington Matthews and Dr. W. C. Boteler, of the signs reported by the Prince of Wied in 1832 with those now used by the same tribes from whom he obtained them, show a remarkable degree of permanency in many of those that were so clearly described by the Prince as to be proper subjects of any comparison. If they have persisted for half a century their age is probably much greater. In general it is believed that signs, constituting as they do a natural mode of expression, though enlarging in scope as new ideas and new objects require to be included and though abbreviated as hereinafter explained, do not readily change in their essentials.
The writer has before been careful to explain that he does not present any signs as precisely those of primitive man, not being so carried away by enthusiasm as to suppose them possessed of immutability and immortality not found in any other mode of human utterance. Yet such signs as are generally prevalent among Indian tribes, and also in other parts of the world, must be of great antiquity. The use of derivative meanings to a sign only enhances this presumption. At first there might not appear to be any connection between the ideas of same and wife, expressed by the sign of horizontally extending the two forefingers side by side. The original idea was doubtless that given by the Welsh captain in Shakspere’s Henry V: “’Tis so like as my fingers is to my fingers,” and from this similarity comes “equal,” “companion,” and subsequently the close life-companion “wife.” The sign is used in each of these senses by different Indian tribes, and sometimes the same tribe applies it in all of the senses as the context determines. It appears also in many lands with all the significations except that of “wife.” It is proper here to mention that the suggestion of several correspondents that the Indian sign as applied to “wife” refers to “lying together” is rendered improbable by the fact that when the same tribes desire to express the sexual relation of marriage it is gestured otherwise.
Many signs but little differentiated were unstable, while others that have proved the best modes of expression have survived as definite and established. Their prevalence and permanence being mainly determined by the experience of their utility, it would be highly interesting to ascertain how long a time was required for a distinctly new conception or execution to gain currency, become “the fashion,” so to speak, over a large part of the continent, and to be supplanted by a new “mode.” A note may be made in this connection of the large number of diverse signs for horse, all of which must have been invented within a comparatively recent period, and the small variation in the signs for dog, which are probably ancient.
SURVIVAL IN GESTURE.
Even when the specific practice of sign language has been generally discontinued for more than one generation, either from the adoption of a jargon or from the common use of the tongue of the conquering English, French, or Spanish, some of the gestures formerly employed as substitutes for words may survive as a customary accompaniment to oratory or impassioned conversation, and, when ascertained, should be carefully noted. An example, among many, may be found in the fact that the now civilized Muskoki or Creeks, as mentioned by Rev. H. F. Buckner, when speaking of the height of children or women, illustrate their words by holding their hands at the proper elevation, palm up; but when describing the height of “soulless” animals or inanimate objects, they hold the palm downward. This, when correlated with the distinctive signs of other Indians, is an interesting case of the survival of a practice which, so far as yet reported, the oldest men of the tribe, now living only remember to have once existed. It is probable that a collection of such distinctive gestures among the most civilized Indians would reproduce enough of their ancient system to be valuable, while possibly the persistent inquirer might in his search discover some of its surviving custodians even among Chabta or Cheroki, Innuit or Abnaki, Klamath or Nutka.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN IDENTITY OF SIGNS AND THEIR USE AS AN ART.
The general report that there is but one sign language in North America, any deviation from which is either blunder, corruption, or a dialect in the nature of provincialism, may be examined in reference to some of the misconceived facts which gave it origin and credence. It may not appear to be necessary that such examination should be directed to any mode of collecting and comparing signs which would amount to their distortion. It is useful, however, to explain that distortion would result from following the views of a recent essayist, who takes the ground that the description of signs should be made according to a “mean” or average. There can be no philosophic consideration of signs according to a “mean” of observations. The proper object is to ascertain the radical or essential part as distinct from any individual flourish or mannerism on the one hand, and from a conventional or accidental abbreviation on the other; but a mere average will not accomplish that object. If the hand, being in any position whatever, is, according to five observations, moved horizontally one foot to the right, and, according to five other observations, moved one foot horizontally to the left, the “mean” or resultant will be that it is stationary, which sign does not correspond with any of the ten observations. So if six observations give it a rapid motion of one foot to the right and five a rapid motion of the same distance to the left, the mean or resultant would be somewhat difficult to express, but perhaps would be a slow movement to the right for an inch or two, having certainly no resemblance either in essentials or accidents to any of the signs actually observed. In like manner the tail of the written letter “y” (which, regarding its mere formation, might be a graphic sign) may have in the chirography of several persons various degrees of slope, may be a straight line, or looped, and may be curved on either side; but a “mean” taken from the several manuscripts would leave the unfortunate letter without any tail whatever, or travestied as a “u” with an amorphous flourish. A definition of the radical form of the letter or sign by which it can be distinguished from any other letter or sign is a very different proceeding. Therefore, if a “mean” or resultant of any number of radically different signs to express the same object or idea, observed either among several individuals of the same tribe or among different tribes, is made to represent those signs, they are all mutilated and ignored as distinctive signs, though the result may possibly be made intelligible in practice, according to principles mentioned in the present paper. The expedient of a “mean” may be practically useful in the formation of a mere interpreter’s jargon, but it elucidates no principle. It is also convenient for any one determined to argue for the uniformity of sign language as against the variety in unity apparent in all the realms of nature. On the “mean” principle, he only needs to take his two-foot rule and arithmetical tables and make all signs his signs and his signs all signs. Of course they are uniform, because he has made them so after the brutal example of Procrustes.
In this connection it is proper to urge a warning that a mere sign talker is often a bad authority upon principles and theories. He may not be liable to the satirical compliment of Dickens’s “brave courier,” who “understood all languages indifferently ill”; but many men speak some one language fluently, and yet are wholly unable to explain or analyze its words and forms so as to teach it to another person, or even to give an intelligent summary or classification of their own knowledge. What such a sign talker has learned is by memorizing, as a child may learn English, and though both the sign talker and the child may be able to give some separate items useful to a philologist or foreigner, such items are spoiled when colored by the attempt of ignorance to theorize. A German who has studied English to thorough mastery, except in the mere facility of speech, may in a discussion upon some of its principles be contradicted by any mere English speaker, who insists upon his superior knowledge because he actually speaks the language and his antagonist does not, but the student will probably be correct and the talker wrong. It is an old adage about oral speech that a man who understands but one language understands none. The science of a sign talker possessed by a restrictive theory is like that of Mirabeau, who was greater as an orator than as a philologist, and who on a visit to England gravely argued that there was something seriously wrong in the British mind because the people would persist in saying “give me some bread” instead of “donnez-moi du pain,” which was so much easier and more natural. A designedly ludicrous instance to the same effect was Hood’s arraignment of the French because they called their mothers “mares” and their daughters “fillies.” It is necessary to take with caution any statement from a person who, having memorized or hashed up any number of signs, large or small, has decided in his conceit that those he uses are the only genuine Simon Pure, to be exclusively employed according to his direction, all others being counterfeits or blunders. His vocabulary has ceased to give the signs of any Indian or body of Indians whatever, but becomes his own, the proprietorship of which he fights for as if secured by letters-patent. When a sign is contributed by one of the present collaborators, which such a sign talker has not before seen or heard of, he will at once condemn it as bad, just as a United States Minister to Vienna, who had been nursed in the mongrel Dutch of Berks County, Pennsylvania, declared that the people of Germany spoke very bad German.