304 SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
Figs. 102 and 103 are different positions of the hand in which the ap- 
proximating thumb and forefinger form a circle. This is the direst in- 
sult that can be given. The amiable canon De Jorio only hints at its 
special significance, but it may be evident to persons aware of a practice 
disgraceful to Italy. It is very ancient. 
Fig. 104 is easily recognized as a request or command to be silent, 
either on the occasion or on the subject. The mouth, supposed to be 
forcibly closed, prevents speaking, and the natural gesture, as might be 
supposed, is historically ancient, but the instance, frequently adduced 
from the attitude of the god Harpokrates, whose finger is on his lips, is 
an error. The Egyptian hieroglyphists, notably in the designation of 
Horus, their dawn-god, used the finger in or on the lips for “child.” It 
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poe care 
Fic. 102. Fic. 103. 2 
has been conjectured in the last instance that the gest- 
ure implied, not the mode of taking nourishment, but 
inability to speak—in-fans. This conjecture, however, 
was only made to explain the blunder of the Greeks, 
who saw in the hand placed connected with the mouth in the hiero- 
glyph of Horus (the) son, ‘“ Hor-(p)-chrot,” the gesture familiar to 
themselves of a finger on the lips to express ‘‘silence,” and so, mis- 
taking both the name and the characterization, invented the God of 
Silence, Harpokrates. A careful examination of all the linear biero- 
glyphs given by Champollion (Dictionnaire Egyptien) shows that the 
finger or the hand to the mouth of an adult (whose posture is always 
distinet from that of a child) is always in connection with the positive 
ideas of voice, mouth, speech, writing, eating, drinking, &c., and never 
with the negative idea of silence. The special character for child, Fig. 
105, always has the above-mentioned part of the sign 
with reference to nourishment from the breast. 
Fig. 106 is a forcible negation. The outer ends of 
the fingers united in a point under the chin 
are violently thrust forward. This is the re- 
jection of anidea or proposition, the samé con- 
ception being executed in several different 
Fic. 105. modes by the North American Indians. 
Fig. 107 signifies hunger, and is made by extending the thumb and 
index under the open mouth and turning them horizontally and verti- 
_ cally several times. The idea isemptiness and desire to be filled. It is 
also expressed by beating the ribs with the flat hands, to show that the 
sides meet or are weak for the want of something between them. 
Fig. 108 is made in mocking and ridicule. The open and oscillating 
oy 
2 yy er 
Fic, 104. 
Fic. 106. 
