28 INSTANCES OF PREVALENT SIGNS. 



bases of the left-hand fingers) and draw them downward, still closed, until 

 it is entirely drawn away. This sign seems to represent the act of smooth- 

 ing down the fusiform tuft at the end of the animal's tail. {Matthews.) 



White-tailed deer \_Cariacus virginianus macrurus (Raf), Coues]. 



Hold the right hand upright before the chest, all fingers but the index 

 being bent, the palm being turned as much to the front as possible. Then 

 wag the hand from side to side a few times rather slowly. The arm is 

 moved scarcely, or not at all. This sign represents the motion of the deer's 

 tail. {Matthews.) 



For dog, one of the signs gives the two forefingers slightly opened, 

 drawn horizontally across the breast from right to left. {Burton.) This 

 would not be intelligible without knowledge of the fact that before the 

 introduction of the horse, and even 3^et, the dog has been used to draw the 

 tent-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 perhaps have compre- 

 hended this sign, and the more general one is the palm lowered as if to 

 stroke gently in a line conforming to the animal's head and neck. It is 

 abbreviated by simply lowering the hand to the usual height of the wolfish 

 aboriginal breed {Wied; TitcMemdtski), and suggests the animal par excel- 

 lence domesticated by the Indians and made a companion. The French 

 and American deaf-mutes more specifically express the dog by snapping 

 the fingers and then patting the thigh, or by patting the knee and imi- 

 tating barking with the lips. 



INSTANCES OF PREVALENT SIGNS. 



Among the signs that are found generally current and nearly identical 

 may be noted that for horse, made by the fore and middle finger of the right 

 hand placed by some astraddle of ihe left forefinger. and by others of the 

 edge of the left hand, the animal being considered at first as only service- 

 able for riding and not for draft. Colonel Dodge mentions, however, that 

 these signs are used only by Indians to white men, their ordinary sign for 

 horse being made by drawing the right hand from left to right across the 

 body about the heart, all the fingers being closed excepting the index. It 



