328 SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
to be whether the latter had many horses, which was answered in the 
affirmative. Thence ensued a misunderstanding on the subject of hip- 
pophagy, which was curious both as showing the general use of signs as 
a practice and the diversity in special signs for particular meanings. 
The surprise of the agent at the unsuspected accomplishment of his 
charges was not unlike that of a hen who, having hatched a number of 
duck eggs, is perplexed at the instinct with which the brood takes to 
the water. 
The denial of the use of signs is often faithfully though erroneously 
reported from the distinct statements of Indians to that effect. In that, 
as in other matters, they are often provokingly reticent about their old 
habits and traditions. Chief Ouray asserted to the writer, as he also 
did to Colonel Dodge, that his people, the Utes, had not the practice of 
sign talk, and had no use for it. This was much in the proud spirit in 
which an Englishman would have made the same statement, as the idea 
involved an accusation against the civilization of his people, which he 
wished to appear highly advanced. Still more frequently the Indians 
do not distinctly comprehend what is sought to be obtained. Some- 
times, also, the art, abandoned in general, only remains in the memories 
of a few persons influenced by special circumstances or individual fancy. 
Tn this latter regard a comparison may be made with the old science 
of heraldry, once of practical use and a necessary part of a liberal edu- 
cation, of which hardly a score of persons in the United States have 
any but the vague knowledge that it once existed; yet the united mem- 
ories of those persons could, in the absence of records, reproduce all 
essential points on the subject. 
Another cause for the mistaken denial in question must be mentioned. 
When travelers or sojourners have become acquainted with signs in any 
one place they may assume that those signs constitute the sign language, 
and if they afterwards meet tribes not at once recognizing those signs, 
they remove all difficulty about the theory of a “‘one and indivisible” 
sign language by simply asserting that the tribes so met do not under- 
stand the sign language, or perhaps that they do not use signs at all. 
This precise assertion has, as above mentioned, been made regarding 
the Utes and Apaches. Of course, also, Indians who have not been 
brought into sufficient contact with certain tribes using different signs, 
for the actual trial which would probably result in mutual comprehen- 
sion, tell the travelers the same story. It is the venerable one of 
“dyhwocos,” **Njemez,” “barbarian,” and “stammering,” above noted, 
applied to the hands instead of the tongue. Thus an observer possessed 
by a restrictive theory will find no signs where they are in plenty, while 
another determined on the universality and identity of sign language 
can, as elsewhere explained, produce, from perhaps the same indi- 
viduals, evidence in his favor from the apparently conclusive result of 
successful communication. 
