Safety. All quiet. See Notes on Cheyenne and Arapaho signals.
Surrender.
Hold the folded blanket or a piece of cloth high above the head. “This really means ‘I want to die right now.’” (Dakota I.)
Surrounded, We are.
Take an end of the blanket in each hand, extend the arms at the sides of the body, allowing the blanket to hang down in front of the body, and then wave it in a circular manner. (Dakota I.)
[ SIGNALS MADE WHEN THE PERSON OF THE SIGNALIST IS NOT VISIBLE.]
Those noted consist of SMOKE, FIRE, or DUST signals.
[ SMOKE SIGNALS GENERALLY.]
They [the Indians] had abandoned the coast, along which bale-fires were left burning and sending up their columns of smoke to advise the distant bands of the arrival of their old enemy. (Schoolcraft’s History, &c., vol. iii, p. 35, giving a condensed account of De Soto’s expedition.)
“Their systems of telegraphs are very peculiar, and though they might seem impracticable at first, yet so thoroughly are they understood by the savages that it is availed of frequently to immense advantage. The most remarkable is by raising smokes, by which many important facts are communicated to a considerable distance and made intelligible by the manner, size, number, or repetition of the smokes, which are commonly raised by firing spots of dry grass.” (Josiah Gregg’s Commerce of the Prairies. New York, 1844, vol. ii, p. 286.)