MALLERY.] COLLECT FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES. 395 
not necessarily a proof of accuracy in any one of its forms. The proper 
inquiry is not what a sign might, could, would, or should be, or what is 
the best sign for a particular meaning, but what is any sign actually 
used for such meaning. If any one sign is honestly invented or adopted 
by any one man, whether Indian, African, Asiatic, or deaf-mute, it has 
its value, but it should be identified to be in accordance with the fact and 
should not be subject to the suspicion that it has been assimilated or 
garbled in interpretation. Its prevalence and special range present con- 
siderations of different interest and requiring further evidence. 
The genuine signs alone should be presented to scholars, to give 
their studies proper direction, while the true article can always be adul- 
terated into a composite jargon by those whose ambition is only to be 
sign talkers instead of making an honest contribution to ethnologic and 
philologic science. The few direct contributions of interpreters to the 
present work are, itis believed, valuable, because they were made with- 
out expression of self-conceit or symptom of possession by a pet theory. 
MODE IN WHICH RESEARCHES HAVE BEEN MADE. 
It is proper to give to all readers interested in the subject, but par- 
ticularly to those whose collaboration for the more complete work above 
mentioned is solicited, an account of the mode in which the researches 
have thus far been conducted and in which it is proposed to continue 
them. After study of all that could be obtained in printed form, and a 
considerable amount of personal correspondence, the results were em- 
braced in a pamphlet issued by the Bureau of Ethnology in the early 
part of 1880, entitled ‘“ Introduction to the Study of Sign Language among 
the North American Indians as Illustrating the Gesture Speech of Man- 
kind.” In this, suggestions were made as to points and manner of ob- 
servation and report, and forms prepared to secure uniformity and 
accuracy were explained, many separate sheets of which with the pam- 
phlet were distributed, not only to all applicants, but to all known and 
accessible persons in this country and abroad who, there was reason to 
hope, would take sufiicient interest in the undertaking to contribute 
their assistance. Those forms, TYPES oF HAND PosITIONS, OUTLINES 
oF ARM POSITIONS, AND EXAMPLES, thus distributed, are reproduced 
at the end of this paper. 
The main object of those forms was to eliminate the source of confu- 
sion produced by attempts of different persons at the difficult descrip- 
tion of positions and motions. The comprehensive plan required that 
many persons should be at work in many parts of the world. It will 
readily be understood that if a number of persons should undertake 
to describe in words the same motions, whether of pantomimists on the 
stage or of other gesturers, even if the visual perception of all the ob- 
