MALLERY. ] ORIGIN FROM ONE TRIBE OR REGION. 317 
with or for any or all. It is certain that the Kiowas are at present 
more universally proficient in this language than any other Plains tribe. 
It is also certain that the tribes furthest away from them and with 
whom they have least intercourse use it with least facility.” 
Dr. William H. Corbusier, assistant surgeon United States Army, a 
valued contributor, gives information as follows: 
“The traditions of the Indians point toward the south as the direc- 
tion from which the sign language came. They refer to the time when 
they did not use it; and each tribe say they learned it from those south 
of them. The Comanches, who acquired it in Mexico, taught it to the 
Arapahoes and Kiowas, and from these the Cheyennes learned it. The 
Sioux say that they had no knowledge of it before they crossed the Mis- 
souri River and came in contact with the Cheyennes, but have quite 
recently learned it from them. It would thus appear that the Plains In- 
dians did not invent it, but finding it adapted to their wants adopted it 
as a convenient means of communicating with those whose language 
they did not understand, and it rapidly spread from tribe to tribe over 
the Plains. As the sign language came from Mexico, the Spaniards 
suggest themselves as the introducers of it on this continent. They are 
adepts in the use of signs. Cortez as he marched through Mexico 
would naturally have resorted to signs in communicating with the nu- 
merous tribes with which he came in contract. Finding them very nec- 
essary, one sign after another would suggest itself and be adopted by 
Spaniards and Indians, and, as the former advanced, one tribe after 
another would learn to use them. The Indians on the Plains, finding 
them so useful, preserved them and each tribe modified them to suit 
their convenience, but the signs remained essentially the same. The 
Shoshones took the sign language with them as they moved northwest, 
and a few of the Piutes may have learned it from them, but the Piutes 
as a tribe do not use it.” 
Mr. Ben. Clarke, the respected and skillful interpreter at Fort Reno 
writes to the same general effect : 
‘“The Cheyennes think that the sign language used by the Chey- 
ennes, Arapahoes, Ogallala and Brulé Sioux, Kiowas, and Comanches 
originated with the Kiowas. It is a tradition that, many years ago, 
when the Northern Indians were still without horses, the Kiowas 
often raided among the Mexican Indians and captured droves of horses 
on these trips. The Northern Plains Indians used to journey to them 
and trade for horses. The Kiowas were already proficient in signs, and 
the others learned from them. It was the journeying to the South that 
finally divided the Cheyennes, making the Northern and Southern 
Cheyennes. ‘The same may be said of the Arapahoes. That the Kiowas 
were the first sign talkers is only a tradition, but as a tribe they are 
now considered to be the best or most thorough of the Plains Indians.” 
Without engaging in any controversy on this subject it may be noticed 
that the theory advanced supposes a comparatively recent origin of sign 
