MALLERY.] MISTAKEN DENIAL—PERMANENCE OF SIGNS. 329 
PERMANENCE OF SIGNS. 
In connection with any theory it is important to inquire into the per- 
manence of particular gesture signs to express a special idea or object 
when the system has been long continued. Many examples have been 
given above showing that the gestures of classic times are still in use 
by the modern Italians with the same signification; indeed that the 
former on Greek vases or reliefs or in Herculanean bronzes can only be 
interpreted by the latter. In regard to the signs of instructed deaf- 
mutes in this country there appears to be a permanence beyond expecta- 
tion. Mr. Edmund Booth, a pupil of the Hartford Institute half a cen- 
tury ago, and afterwards a teacher, says in the “ Annals” for April, 
1880, that the signs used by teachers and pupils at Hartford, Philadel- 
phia, Washington, Council Bluffs, and Omaha were nearly the same as 
he had learned. ‘We still adhere to the old sign for President from 
Monroe’s three-cornered hat, and for governor we designate the cock- 
ade worn by that dignitary on grand occasions three generations ago.” 
The specific comparisons made, especially by Dr. Washington Matthews 
and Dr. W. C. Boteler, of the signs reported by the Prince of Wied in 
1832 with those now used by the same tribes from whom he obtained 
them, show a remarkable degree of permanency in many of those that 
were so clearly described by the Prince as to be proper subjects of any 
comparison. If they have persisted for half a century their age is prob- 
ably much greater. In general it is believed that signs, constituting as 
they do a natural mode of expression, though enlarging in scope as new 
ideas and new objects require to be included and though abbreviated as 
hereinafter explained, do not readily change in their essentials. 
The writer has before been careful to explain that he does not present 
any signs as precisely those of primitive man, not being so carried away 
by enthusiasm as to suppose them possessed of immutability and immor- 
tality not found in any other mode of human utterance. Yet such signs 
as are generally prevalent among Indian tribes, and also in other parts 
of the world, must be of great antiquity. The use of derivative mean- 
ings to a sign only enhances this presumption. At first there might 
not appear to be any connection between the ideas of same and wife, 
expressed by the sign of horizontally extending the two forefingers side 
by side. The original idea was doubtless that given by the Welsh cap- 
tain in Shakspere’s Henry V: “Tis so like as my fingers is to my 
fingers,” and from this similarity comes “equal,” “companion,” and 
subsequently the close life-companion “ wife.” The sign is used in each 
of these senses by different Indian tribes, and sometimes the same tribe 
applies it in all of the senses as the context determines. It appears also 
in many lands with all the significations except that of “wife.” It is 
proper here to mention that the suggestion of several correspondents 
that the Indian sign as applied to “wife” refers to “lying together” is 
rendered improbable by the fact that when the same tribes desire to 
express the sexual relation of marriage it is gestured otherwise. 
