MALLERY.] SOCIOLOGIC AND HISTORIC SIGNS. 387 
make a cirele, but leaving between thema smallinterval; afterward move 
them from above downward simultaneously. The villages of the tribes 
with which the author was longest resident, particularly the Mandans 
and Arikaras, were surrounded by a strong circular stockade, spaces or 
breaks in the circle being left for entrance or exit. 
Signs for dog are made by some of the tribes of the plains essentially 
the same as the following: Extend and spread the right, fore, and middle 
fingers, and draw the hand about eighteen inches from left to right across 
the front of the body at the height of the navel, palm downward, fingers 
pointing toward the left and a littledownward, little and ring fingers to be 
loosely closed, the thumb against thering-finger. (DakotalV.) The sign 
would not be intelligible without knowledge of the fact that before the 
introduction of the horse, and even yet, the dog has been used to draw 
the tent- or lodge-poles in moving camp, and the sign represents the 
trail. Indians less nomadic, who built more substantial lodges, and to 
whom the material for poles was less precious than on the plains, would 
not have comprehended this sign without such explanation as is equiv- 
alent toa translation from a foreign language, and the more general one 
is the palm lowered as if to stroke gently ina line conforming to the ani- 
mal’s head and neck. It is abbreviated by simply lowering the hand 
to the usual height of the wolfish aboriginal breed, and suggests the ani- 
mal par excellence domesticated by the Indians and made a companion. 
Several examples connected with this heading may be noticed under 
the preceding head of gestures connected with pictographs, and others 
of historic interest will be found among the TRIBAL SIGns, infra. 
NOTABLE POINTS FOR FURTHER RESEARCHES. 
It is considered desirable to indicate some points to which for special 
reasons the attention of collaborators for the future publication on the 
general subject of sign language may be invited. These now follow: 
INVENTION OF NEW SIGNS. 
It is probable that signs will often be invented by individual Indians 
who may be pressed for them by collectors to express certain ideas, 
which signs of course form no part of any current language; but while 
that fact should, if possible, be ascertained and reported, the signs so 
invented are not valueless merely because they are original and not 
traditional, if they are made in good faith and in accordance with the 
principles of sign formation. Less error will arise in this direction than 
from the misinterpretation of the idea intended to be conveyed by spon- 
taneous signs. The process resembles the coining of new words to which 
the higher languages owe their copiousuess. It is observed in the signs 
