OCR Text |
Show REMARKS ON THE SIGNS IN THE STORY. 53 of the wick'- i- up has survived in gestures Nos. 3 and 23 ( the latter referring to more than one, i. e, an encampment) The sign for Bannock, No. 25 ( also 32 and 59), has its origin from the tradition among the Pah- Utes that the Bannocks were in the habit of cutting the throats of their victims. This sign is made with the index instead of the similar gesture with the flat hand, which among several tribes denotes the Sioux, but the Pah- Utes examined had no specific sign for that body of Indians, not having been in sufficient contact with them. " A stopping place," referred to in Nos. 6, 12, 52, and 54, represents the settlement, station, or camp of white men, and is contradistinguished by merely dotting toward the ground instead of indicating a circle. It will also be seen that in several instances, after indicating the nationality, the fingers previously used in representing the number were repeated without its previously accompanying specific gesture, as in No. 61, where the three fingers of the left hand represented the men ( white), and the tliree movements toward the ground signified the camp or tents of the three ( white) men. This also occurs in the gesture ( Nos. 5t9, 60, and 71) employed for the Bannocks, which, having been once specified, is used subsequently without its specific preceding sign for the tribe represented. The rapid connection of the signs Nos. 57 and 58, and of Nos. 74 and 75 indicates the conjunction, so that they are severally readily understood as " shot and killed," and " the white men and I." The same remark applies to Nos. 15 and 16, " the nine and I." In the examination of the sign- language it is important to form a clear distinction between signs proper and symbols. All characters in Indian picture- writing have been loosely styled symbols, and as there is no logical distinction between the characters impressed with enduring form, and when merely outlined in the ambient air, all Indian gestures, motions, and attitudes might with equal appropriateness be called symbolic. While, however, all symbols come under the generic head of signs, very few signs are in accurate classification symbols. S. T. COLERIDGE has defined a symbol to be a sign included in the idea it represents. This may be intelligible if it is intended that an ordinary sign is extraneous to the concept, and, rather |