46 THE GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 



Moslem variety of tlie gesture^ whicli is to press the thumbs 

 against one another as well/ and this makes it all but certain 

 that the practice is one of the many effects of Moslem influence 

 in East Africa. 



It is commonly thought that the Eed Indians adopted the 

 custom of shaking hands from the white men.^ This may be 

 true; but there is reason to suppose that the expression of 

 alliance or friendship by clasping hands was already familiar to 

 them^ so that they would readily adopt it as a form of saluta- 

 tion, if they had not used it so before the arrival of the Euro- 

 peans. More than a century ago, Charlevoix noticed in the 

 Indian picture-writing the expression of alliance by the figure 

 of two men holding each other by one hand, while each grasped 

 a calumet in the other hand.^ In one of the Indian pictures 

 given by Schoolcraft, close affection is represented by two 

 bodies united by a single arm (see Fig. 6) ; and in a pictorial 

 message sent from an Indian tribe to the President of the 

 United States, an eagle, which represents a chief, is holding 

 out a hand to the President, who also holds out a hand.* The 

 last of these pictured signs may be perhaps ascribed to Euro- 

 pean influence, but hardly the first two. 



We could scarcely find a better illustration of the meaning 

 of the gesture of joining hands than in its use as a sign of the 

 marriage contract. One of the ceremonies of a Moslem wed- 

 ding consists in the bridegroom and the bride's proxy sitting 

 upon the ground, face to face, with one knee on the ground, 

 and grasping each other's right bauds, raising the thumbs and 

 pressing them against each other,^ or in the almost identical 

 ceremony in the Pacific Islands, in which the bride and bride- 

 groom are placed on a large white cloth, spread on the pave- 

 ment of a marae, and join hands. ^ This as eyidently means that 



J Krapf, ' Travels, etc, in East Africa ; ' London, 1860, p. 138. 



^ H. R. Schoolcraft, 'Historical and Statistical Information respecting the 

 History, etc., of the Indian Tribes of the U. S. ; ' Pliiladelphia, 185] , etc., part 

 iii. pp. 313, 344. Burton, ' City of the Saints,' p. 144, But see also Schoolcraft, 

 part iii. p. 363, 



3 Charlevoix, vol. v. p. 440. * Schoolcraft, part i. pp. 403, 418. 



^ E. W. Lane, ' Modern Egyptians ; ' London, 1837, vol. i. p. 319, 



6 Jlev. W. Ellis, ' Polynesian Researches ; ' London, 1830, vol, ii, p. 569. 



