Jdxe 5, ISSf).] 



» KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



475 



clacked their tongiies when they saw his horses, 

 bullocks, and especiiilly his kangaroo-dogs. The Green- 

 landers', according to Ci-anz, " when they affirm anything 

 ■with pleasure suck down air with a certain sound." Pro- 

 bably an imitation of the manner in which a favourite 

 morsel is sucked down. 



With infants, the first act of denial consists in refusing 

 food, and Darwin* repeatedly noticed with his own infants 

 that thev did so " by withdrawing their heads laterally from 

 the breast, or from anything ctl'ered thorn in a spoon. In 

 accepting food and taking it into their mouths they in- 

 clined their heads forward It deserves notice that 



in accepting or taking food there is only a single movement 

 forward, and a single nod implies an atlirmation. On the 

 other hand, in refusing food, especially if it be pressed on 

 them, children frequently move their heads several times 

 from side to side, as we do in shaking our heads in negation.'' 

 Moreover, in case of refusal, the head is not rarely thrown 

 backwards, or the mouth is closed, so that these movements 

 might likewise come to serve as signal of negation. Jlr. 

 Wedgewood remarkst on this subject, that " when the 

 voice is exerted with closed teeth or lips, it produces the 

 sound of the letter >i or m. Hence we may account for the 

 use of the particle ne, to signify negation, and possibly also 

 the Greek me in the same sense ; " but as to this there will 

 be more to say hereafter. 



The gestures of nodding and shaking the head are, 

 Darwin observes, not so universally employed ns lie would 

 have expected. They are nevertheless very general, and 

 are used by the Malays, the natives of Ceylon, the Chinese, 

 the negroes of the Guinea coast, " and, according to Geike, 

 by the Kaffirs of South Africa, although with these latter 

 people Mrs. Barber lias never seen a lateral shake used as 

 a negative. With respect to the Australians, seven ob- 

 servers agree that a nod is given in atlirmation ; five agree 

 about a lateral shake in negation, accompanied or not by 

 some word ; but Mr. Dyson Lacy has never seen the latter 

 sign in Queensland, and Mr. Bulmer says that in Gipp's 

 Land a negative is expressed by throwing the head a little 

 backwards and putting out the tongue." Near Torres 

 Straits, according to Mr. Jukes, the natives, when uttering 

 a negative do not " shake the head with it ; but holding up 

 the right hand, shake it by turning it half round and back 

 again two or three times." Modern Greeks and Turks are 

 said to throw back the head with a cluck of the tongue for 

 negative, and the Turks to express yes by a movement like 

 our shaking the head. The Abyssinians express a negative 

 by jerking the head to the right shoulder with a slight 

 cluck, the mouth being closed. The Dyaks of Borneo 

 are said to express affirmation by raising the e} ebrows, and 

 negation by slightly contracting them with a peculiar look 

 from the eyes. Professor and ^Irs. Asa Gray consider that 

 nodding in affirmation is rare, while shaking the head in 

 negation is neither used nor understood by the Arabs on 

 the Nile. With the Esquimaux a nod means ijes and a 

 wink no. The New Zealanders elevate the head and chin 

 as a sign of acquiescence, which may be a relic of the habit 

 of craning the neck to see a distant object better. 



The signs of affirmation and negation in use among the 

 Hindoos seemingly vary, a nod and lateral shake being 

 said to be used sometimes aa by us, but a negative to be 

 more commonly expressed by the head beirg suddenly 

 thrown backwards a little to one side, with a cluck of the 

 tongue. A native gentleman has stated that affirmation is 

 frequently shown by the head being thrown to the left. 

 Mr. Scott, after repeated observations, believes that a 



' See " Expression of the EmotionB," pp. 273-7. 

 + "On the Origin of Language," l&CC, p. 91. 



vertical nod is not commonly used by the Hindoos in alUr- 

 niation, but that the head is first thrown backwards either 

 to the left or right, and then jerked obliquely forwards only 

 once. In negation, he says, tlic head is usually held nearly 

 upright, and shaken several times. 



The Fuegians nod veriically in affirmation and shake the 

 head laterally in denial, and the wild Indians of North 

 America do the same ; but Mr. W. iMathews asserts that 

 these actions are not natural to the latter tribes, having 

 been learnt from Europeans. He fays that ihey express 

 affirmation by describing with the hand (all the fingers 

 except the index being flexed) a curve downwards and out- 

 wards from the body, whilst negation is expressed by 

 moving the open liand outwards with the palm facing in 

 wards. Other observers state that in affirmation these 

 Indians raise the forefinger and then lower and point it to 

 the ground, or wave the hand straight forward I'l oin the face, 

 while the sign of negation is the finger or whole 1 aid shaken 

 from side to side.* The Italians are also said to shake the 

 lifted forefinger from right to left in negation, and the 

 same gesture is sometimes used by English people. 



The shaking of the hand or finger may, as Darwin 

 suggests, be symbolic of the lateral movement of the head ; 

 or"iiossibly, as it seems to me, it may have originated in 

 the shaking of various parts of the body to get rid of a 

 local irritation. The sudden backward movement of the 

 head is often performed by infants and others in refusing 

 food. The former, which is the sign of negation among 

 the Dyaks, often accompanies shaking of the head among 

 people who make the latter gesture. 



Regarding affirmation, Darwin remarks : "The eyebrows 

 are sometimes raised in affirmation, and as a person in 

 bending his head forwards and downwards naturally looks 

 up to the person whom he addresses, he will be apt to 

 raise his eyebrows, and this sign may have arisen as an 

 abbreviation. So again with the New Zealanders, the 

 lilting up the chin and head in affirmation may, perhaps, 

 represent in an abbreviated form, the upward movement 

 of the head after it has been nodded forwards and down- 

 wards." 



On the whole, the suggestion that gestures expressive of 

 assent and dissent have aiisen from natural movements per- 

 formed in order to obtain pleasure or avoid pain, is, I 

 think, fully justified by the varied evidence quoted above, 

 and they aflbrd a most perfect example of the manner in 

 which involuntary gestuies expressive of feeling may 

 develop into gestures voluntarily performed for the pur- 

 pose of conveying thought, and even become so apparently 

 conventional that their origin can only be discovered after 

 a considerable amount of inquiry. The fact that instinc- 

 tive gestures may thus become, to all intents and purposes, 

 conventional signs, is one that has a bearing of the greatest 

 possible import on the theory of the evolution of language, 

 and I shall show hereafter that it forms, as it were, a bridge 

 between the language of the lower animals and that of man. 



ARAGO ON SHOOTING STARS. 



IN connection with what has recently appeared in these 

 columns on shooting stars, the following passage, 

 translated from the French " Annuaire " for 1S36, will be 

 read with interest. The popular portion of the work for 

 several years was written by M. Arago. 



" These phenomena, which have often been considered 



* James asserts that North American traders express no and not 

 by waving the hand outwards with the thumb pointed upwards ; 

 but Dunbar maintains that the negative is indicated by holdmg the 

 liand palm outward and vibrating it to and fro. 



