38 THE GESTURE-LANGUAGE, 



winking accepted as a gesture-sign, meaning to pretend not to 

 see. But tlie Atnericanism is interesting as being caught so 

 near its source. 



I noted down a few signs from Burton as not self-evident, 

 but it will be seen that they are all to be explained. They are, 

 " yes," Wave the hands straight forward from the face ; " no," 

 wave the hand from right to left as if motioning away. These 

 signs correspond with the general practice of mankind, to nod 

 for "yes," and shake the head for "no." The idea conveyed 

 by nodding seems to correspond with the deaf-and-dumb sign 

 for "' truth," made by moving the finger straightforward from 

 the lips, apparently with the sense of " straightforward speak- 

 ing," while the finger is moved to one side to express "lie," 

 as " sideways speaking." The understanding of nodding and 

 shaking the head as signs of assent and denial appears to 

 belong to uneducated deaf-and-dumb children, and even to 

 those who are only one degree higher than idiots. In a very 

 remarkable dissertation on the art of thrusting knowledge into 

 the minds of such children, Schmalz assumes that they can 

 always make and understand these signs. ^ It is true they may 

 have learnt them from the "people who take care of them. 



This explanation is, however, somewhat complicated by the 

 Indian signs for " truth " and " lie>" given by Burton, who 

 says that the fore-finger extended from the mouth means to 

 " tell truth," "one wordj^^ but two fingers mean to tell lies," 

 " double tongue." So to move two finj^ers before the left 

 breast meanSj " I don't know," that is to say, " I have two 

 hearts." I found that deaf-and-dumb children understood this 

 Indian sign for " lie " quite as well as their own. 



" Good," wave the hand from the mouth, extending the 

 thumb from the index, and closing the other three fingers. 

 This is like kissing the hand as a salutation, or what children 

 call " blowing a kiss," and it is clearly a natural sign, as it is 

 recognized by the deaf-and-dumb language. Dr. James gives 

 the Indian sign as waving the hand with the back upward, in 

 a horizontal cui've outwards, the well-known gesture of bene- 

 diction. At Berhn, a gesture like that of patting a child on 

 ' Sckmalz, pp. 267-277. But see Bastian, vol. i. p. 395. 



