MALUERY. ] SIGN LANGUAGE A PHASE OF EVOLUTION 319 
akin as to be comprehensible, or from any reason being separated from 
those of a strange speech, discontinued sign language for a time, and then 
upon migration or forced removal came into circumstances where it was 
useful, and revived it. It is asserted that some of the Muskoki and the 
Ponkas now in the Indian Territory never saw sign language until they 
arrived there. Yet there is some evidence that the Muskoki did use 
signs a century ago, and some of the Ponkas still remaining on their old 
homes on the Missouri remember it and have given their knowledge to 
an accurate correspondent, Rev. J. O. Dorsey, though for many years 
they have not been in circumstances to require its employment. 
Perhaps the most salutary criticism to be offered regarding the theory 
would be in the form of a query whether sign language has ever been in- 
vented by any one body of people at any one time, and whether it is not 
simply a phase in evolution, surviving and reviving when needed. Crit- 
icism on this subject is made reluctantly, as it would be highly interest- 
ing to determine that sign language on this continent came from a par- 
ticular stock, and to ascertain that stock. Such research would be sim- 
ilar to that into the Aryan and Semitic sources to which many modern 
languages have been traced backwards from existing varieties, and if 
there appear to be existing varieties in signs their roots may still be 
found to be sui generis. The possibility that the discrepancy between 
signs was formerly greater than at present will receive attention in dis- 
cussing the distinction between the identity of signs and their common 
use asanart. It is sufficient toadd now that not only does the burden 
of proof rest unfavorably upon the attempt to establish one parent 
stock for sign language in North America, but it also comes under the 
stigma now fastened upon the immemorial effort to name and locate the 
original oral speech of man. It is only next in difficulty to the old per- 
sistent determination to decide upon the origin of the whole Indian 
‘“‘race,” in which most peoples of antiquity in the eastern hemisphere, in- 
cluding the lost tribes of Israel, the Gipsies, and the Welsh, have fig- 
ured conspicuously as putative parents. 
IS THE INDIAN SYSTEM SPECIAL AND PECULIAR? 
This inquiry is closely connected with the last. If the system of signs 
was invented here in the correct sense of that term, and by a known and 
existing tribe, it is probable that it would not be found prevailing in 
any important degree where the influence of the inventors could not 
readily have penetrated. An affirmative answer to the question also pre- 
supposes the same answer to another question, viz, whether there is any 
one uniform system among the North American Indians which can there- 
fore be compared with any other system. This last inquiry will be con- 
sidered in its order. In comparing the system as a whole with others, 
the latter are naturally divided into signs of speaking men foreign to 
America and those of deaf-mutes. 
