THE GESTUEE-LANGUAGE. 45 



denote wliat a gesture or a tone would express. Perhaps it is 

 because we read and wi'ite so mucli, and have come to tliink 

 and talk as we should wi"ite, and so let fall those aids to speech 

 which cannot be carried into the wi'itten language. 



The few gesture-signs which are in common use among our- 

 selves are by no means unworthy of examination ; but we have 

 lived for so many centuries in a highly artificial state of society, 

 that some of them cannot be interpreted with any certainty, 

 and the most that we can do is to make a good guess at their 

 original meaning. Some, it is true, such as beckoning or mo- 

 tioning away with the hand, shaking the fist, etc., carry their 

 explanation with them ; and others may be plausibly explained 

 by a comparison with analogous signs used by speaking men 

 in other parts of the world, and by the deaf-and-dumb. Thus, 

 the sign of " snapping one's fingers " is not very intelligible as 

 we generally see it ; but when we notice that the same sign 

 made quite gently, as if rolling some tiny object away between 

 the finger and thumb, or the sign of flipping it away with the 

 thumb-nail and fore-finger, are usual and well-understood deaf- 

 and-dumb gestures, denoting anything tiny, insignificant, con- 

 temptible, it seems as though we had exaggerated and con- 

 ventionalized a perfectly natural action so as to lose sight of 

 its original meaning. There is a curious mention of this ges- 

 ture by Strabo. At Anchiale, he writes, Aristobulus says there 

 is a monument to Sardanapalus, and a stone statue of him as if 

 snapping his fingers, and this inscription in Assyrian letters : — 

 "' Sardanapallus, the son of Anacyndaraxes, built in one day 

 Anchiale and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play ; the rest is not worth 



Shaking hands is not a custom which belongs naturally to 

 all mankind, and we may sometimes trace its introduction into 

 countries where it was before unknown. The Fijians, for in- 

 stance, who used to salute by smelling or sniffing at one 

 another, have learnt to shake hands from the missionaries. ^ 

 The Wa-nika, near Mombaz, grasp hands ; but they use the 



' Strabo, xiv. 5, 9. 



2 Eev. Thos. Williams, ' Fiji and the Fijians,' 2ucl ed. ; London, 1860, ¥ol. i. 

 p. 153. 



