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Show 36 IIIDE- PEACE- STONE- PRISONER. transversely before the heart and rotating the wrist several times, indicating disturbance of the organ, which our aborigines, like modern Europeans, poetically regard as the seat of the affections and emotions, not selecting the liver or stomach as other peoples have done with greater physiological reason. To hide, conceal, is graphically portrayed by placing the right hand inside the clothing of the left breast, or covering the right hand, fingers hooked, by the left, which is flat, palm downward, and held near the body. The same gestures mean " secret? Peace, or friendship, is sometimes shown by placing the tips of the two first fingers of the right hand against the mouth and elevated upward and outward to mimic the expulsion of smoke-" we two smoke together." ( Titchkemdtski.) It is also often rendered by the joined right and left hands, the fingers being sometimes interlocked, but others simply hook the two forefingers together. Our deaf- mutes interlock the forefingers for " friendship," clasp the hands, right uppermost, for " marriage," and make the last sign, repeated with the left hand uppermost, for " peace." The idea of union or linking is obvious. It is, however, noticeable that while this ceremonial gesture is common and ancient, the practice of shaking hands on meeting, now the annoying etiquette of the Indians in their intercourse with whites, was never used by them between each other, and is clearly a foreign importation. Their fancy for affectionate greeting was in giving a pleasant bodily sensation by rubbing each other's breasts, arms, and stomachs. The senseless and inconvenient custom of shaking hands is, indeed, by no means general throughout the world, and in the extent to which it prevails in the United States is a matter of national opprobrium. The profession of peace, coupled with invitation, is often made from a distance by the acted spreading of a real or imaginary robe or blanket- " come and sit down." The sign for stone has an archaeological significance- the right fist being struck repeatedly upon the left palm, as would be instinctive when a stone was the only hammer. Prisoner is a graphic picture. The forefinger and thumb of the left hand are held in the form of a semicircle opening toward and near the |