838 SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
persons in the Godhead. He then closed his fingers, evidently to say 
these three are one.” After this explanation on the part of the noble- 
man the professors sent for the butcher and asked him what took place 
in the recitation room. He appeared very angry and said: “‘ When the 
crazy Iman entered the room where I was he raised one finger, as much 
as to say I had but one eye, and I raised two fingers to signify that I 
could see out of my one eye as well as he could out of both of his. 
When he raised three fingers, as much as to say there were but three 
eyes between us, I doubled up my fist, and if he had not gone out of 
that room in a hurry I would have knocked him down.” 
The readiness with which a significance may be found in signs when 
none whatever exists is also shown in the great contest narrated by 
Rabelais between Panurge and the English philosopher, Thaumast, com- 
mencing as follows: 
“Everybody then taking heed in great silence, the Englishman lifted 
his two hands separately, clinching the ends of his fingers in the form 
that at Chion they call the fowl’s tail. Then he struck them together 
by the nails four times. Then he opened them and struck one flat upon 
the other with a clash once; after which, joining them as above, he 
struck twice, and four times afterwards, on opening them. Then he 
placed them, joined and extended the one above the other, seeming to 
pray God devoutly. 
“Panurge suddenly moved his right hand in the air, placed the right- 
hand thumb at the right-hand nostril, holding the four fingers stretched 
out and arrayed in parallel lines with the point of the nose; shutting 
the left eye entirely, and winking with the right, making a profound 
depression with eyebrow and eyelid. Next he raised aloft the left with 
a strong clinching and extension of the four fingers and elevation of 
the thumb, and held it in line directly corresponding with the position 
of the right, the distance between the two being a cubit and a half. 
This done, in the like manner he lowered towards the ground both 
hands, and finally held them in the midst as if aiming straight at the 
Englishman’s nose.” 
And so on at great length. The whole performance of Panurge was 
to save the credit of Pantagruel by making fantastic and mystic motions 
im pretended disputation with the signs given by Thaumast in good 
faith. Yet the latter confessed himself conquered, and declared that he 
had derived inestimable information from the purposely meaningless 
gestures. The satire upon the diverse interpretations of the gestures 
of Naz-de-cabre (Pantagruel, Book III, chap. xx) is to the same effect, 
showing it to have been a favorite theme with Rabelais. 
ABBREVIATIONS. 
A lesson was learned by the writer as to the abbreviation of signs, 
and the possibility of discovering the original meaning of those most 
obscure, from the attempts of a Cheyenne to convey the idea of old man. 
