504 SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
I told them that rather than allow them to be scalped I would be scalped 
myself in defending them, for which action I would be considered as 
great a chief as Winnemukka by my people. When I tuld the Banaks 
to cease threatening the white men they all moved to one side a short 
distance to hold a war council, and after the sun went down the white 
men and I mounted our horses and fled toward the south, whence we 
came.” 
Some of the above signs seem to require explanation. Natci was 
facing the west during the whole of this narration, and by the right he 
signified the north; this will explain the significance of his gesture to 
the right in Nos. 11 and 17, and to the left in No. 75. 
No. 2 (repeated in Nos. 22, 27, 33, and 41) designates an Indian brush 
lodge, and although Natci has not occupied one for some years, the 
gesture illustrates the original conception in the round form of the 
foundation of poles, branches, and brush, the interlacing of which in 
the construction of the wik/-i-up has survived in gestures Nos. 3 and 23 
(the latter referring to more than one, i. ¢., an encampment). 
The sign for Banak, No. 25 (also 32 and 59), has its origin from the 
tradition among the Pai-Utes that the Banaks were in the habit of cut- 
ting the throats of their victims. This sign is made with the index 
instead of the similar gesture with the flat hand, which among several 
tribes denotes the Sioux, but the Pai-Utes examined had no specific 
sign for that body of Indians, not having been in sufficient contact with 
them. 
‘CA stopping place,” referred to in Nos. 6, 12, 52, and 54, represents 
the temporary station, or camp of white men, and is contradistinguished 
from a village, or perhaps from any permanent encampment of a number 
of persons, by merely dotting toward the ground instead of indicating a 
circle. 
It will also be seen that in several instances, after indicating the na- 
tionality, the fingers previously used in representing the number were 
repeated without its previously accompanying specifie gesture, as in 
No. 61, where the three fingers of the left hand represented the men 
(white), and the three movements toward the ground signified the camp 
or tents of the three (white) men. 
This also occurs in the gesture (Nos. 59, 60, and 71) employed for the 
Banaks, which, having been once specified, is used subsequently with- 
out its specific preceding sign for the tribe represented. 
The rapid connection of the signs Nos. 57 and 53 and of Nos. 74 and 
75 indicates the conjunction, so that they are severally readily under- 
stood as “shot and killed,” and “the white men and I.” The same re- 
mark applies to Nos. 15 and 16, “the nine and I.” 
