388 SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
invented by Indians for each new product of civilization brought to 
their notice. 
An interesting instance is in the sign for steamboat, made at the request 
of the writer by White Man (who, however, did not like that sobriquet 
and announced his intention to change his name to Lean Bear), an 
Apache, in June, 1880, who had a few days before seena steamboat for 
the first time. After thinking a moment he gave an original sign, de- 
scribed as follows: 
Make the sign for water, by placing the flat right hand before the face, 
pointing upward and forward, the back forward, with the wrist as high 
as the nose; then draw it down and inward toward the chin; then with 
both hands indicate the outlines of a horizontal oval figure from before 
the body back to near the chest (being the outline of the deck); then 
place both flat hands, pointing forward, thumbs higher than the outer 
edges, and push them forward to arms’-length (illustrating the power- 
ful forward motion of the vessel). 
An original sign for telegraph is given in NATCY’S NARRATIVE, infra. 
An Indian skilled in signs, as also a deaf-mute, at the sight of a new 
object, or at the first experience of some new feeling or mental relation, 
will devise some mode of expressing it inpantomimic gesture or by a com- 
bination of previously understood signs, which will be intelligible to 
others, similarly skilled, provided that they have seen the same objects 
or have felt the same emotions. But ifa number of such Indians or 
deaf-mutes were to see an object—for instance an elephant—for the first 
time, each would perhaps hit upon a different sign, in accordance with 
the characteristic appearance most striking tohim. That animal’s trunk 
is generally the most attractive Imeament to deaf-mutes, who make a 
sign by pointing to the nose and moving the arm as the trunk is moved. 
Others regard the long tusks as the most significant feature, while others 
are struck by the large head and small eyes. This diversity of concep- 
tion brings to mind the poem of ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant,” which 
with true philosophy in an amusing guise explains how the sense of touch 
led the ‘‘six men of Indostan” severally to liken the animal to a wall, 
spear, snake, tree, fan, andrope. A consideration of invented or original 
signs, as Showing the operation of the mind of an Indian or other un- 
civilized gesturer, has a psychologic interest, and as connected with the 
vocal expression, often also invented at the same time, has further value. 
DANGER OF SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION. 
In the examination of sign language it is important to form a clear 
distinction between signs proper and symbols. The terms signs and 
symbols are often used interchangeably, but with liability to miscon- 
struction, as many persons, whether with right or wrong lexical defini- 
tion, ascribe to symbols an occult and mystic signification. All charac- 
ters in Indian picture-writing have been loosely styled symbols, and, as 
there is uo logical distinction between the characters impressed with 
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