36 THE GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 



told of a man, who, being sent among the Cheyennes to qualify 

 himself for interpreting, retni'ned in a week and proved his 

 competence : all that he did, however, was to go through the 

 usual pantomime with a running accompaniment of grunts/^ 



In the Indian pantomime, actions and objects are expressed 

 very much as a deaf-mute would show them. The action of 

 beckoning towards oneself represents to ^' come ;" darting the 

 two first fingers from the eyes is to " see j" describing in the 

 air the form of the pipe and the curling smoke is to ^' smoke ;" 

 thrusting the hand under the clothing of the left breast is to 

 "^hide, put away, keep secret." " Enough to eat" is shown by 

 an imitation of eatinsf, and the forefingers and thumb form- 

 ing a C, with the points towards the body, are raised upward 

 as far as the neck; ''fear," by putting the hands to the lower 

 ribs, and showing how the heart flutters and seems to rise to 

 the throat ; " book," by holding the palms together before the 

 face, opening and reading, quite in deaf-and-dumb fashion, and 

 as the Moslems often do while they are reciting prayers and 

 chapters of the Koran. 



One of our accounts says that " fire " is represented by the 

 Indian by blowing it and warming his hands at it ; the other 

 that flames are imitated with the fingers. The latter sign was in 

 use at Berlin, but I noticed that the children in another school 

 did not understand it till the sign of blowing was added. The 

 Indian and the deaf-mute indicate " rain " by the same sign, 

 bringing the tips of the fingers of the partly-closed hand down- 

 ward, like rain falling from the clouds, and the Indian makes 

 the same sign do duty for " year," counting years by annual 

 rains. The Indian indicates " stone," if light, by picking it 

 up, if heavy, by dropping it. The deaf-mute taps his teeth 

 with his finger-nail to show that it is something hard, and then 

 makes the gesture of flinging- it. The Indian sign for mount- 

 ing a horse is to make a pair of legs of the two first fingers 

 of the right hand, and to straddle them across the left fore- 

 finger ; a similar sign among the deaf-and-dumb means to 

 ''ride." 



Anaong the Indians the sign for "brother" or "sister" is, 

 according to Burton, to put the two first finger-tips (that is, I 



