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Show 34 SIGNS HAVING SPECIAL INTEREST. with the hands closed. An invitation to a general or systematic barter or trade, as. distinct from one transaction, is expressed by repeated taps or the use of more fingers. The rough resemblance of this sign to that for " cutting * has occasioned mistakes as to its origin. It is reported by Captain BURTON as the conception of one smart trader cutting into the profits of another-" diamond cut diamond." The trade sign is, on the plains, often used to express the white man- vocally named Shwop- a legacy from the traders, who were the first Caucasians met. Generally, however, the gesture for white man is by designating the hat or head- covering of civilization. This the French deaf- mutes apply to all men, as distinct from women. INSTANCES OP SIGNS HAVING SPECIAL INTEREST. A few signs have been selected which are not remarkable either for general or limited acceptance, but are of interest from special conception or peculiar figuration. The relation of brothers, sisters, and of brother and sister, children of the same mother, is signified by putting the two first finger tips in the mouth, denoting the nourishment taken from the same breast. ( Burton; Dorsey.) One of the signs for child or infant is to place the thumb and fingers of the right hand against the lips, then drawing them away and bringing the right hand against the left fore- arm, as if holding an infant. { Dunbar.) The Cistercian monks, vowed to silence, and the Egyptian hieroglyphers, notably in the designation of Horus, their dawji- god, used the finger in or on the lips for " child." It has been conjectured in the last instance that the gesture implied, not the mode of taking nourishment, but inability to speak- in- fans. This conjecture, however, was only made to explain the blunder of the Greeks, who saw in the hand placed connected with the' mouth in the hieroglyph of Horus ( the) son, " Hor-( p)- chrot," the gesture familiar to themselves of a finger on the lips to express " silence/' and so mistaking both the name and the characterization, invented the God of Silence, Harpokrates. A careful examination of all the linear hieroglyphs given by CUAMPOLLION ( Dictionnaire Egyptien), shows that the finger or the hand to the mouth of an adult ( whose posture is always distinct from that of a child) is always in connection with the positive ideas of voice, mouth, speech, |