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Show 1 IPt?mf?v kwfinsff' J 'fV liUVr . T-"V ?"r-f " hl.scott, captaw seventh - GZjY. SCOTT TALKMGTO CAPT. ' SUriKJf' jjyf: Ll I v . A TJME INDIAN WARRIORS Ct i 03 " Photo International "-ilij!l V xi vi ? I- V h f lr feet in diameter. Knowing that, he was able to X k " , x" J r l " '"MiJril-' get at t,ie heart of tlie mattei". "smooth down" the s v v k&ft fci?.-5l5fs irate' chief and perhaps saved many lives, both x s y?jv y&'&f' rtSit--' '. " white and red, through his intimate knowledge iCiy jfZtv.;w 1 1 y. y' Thrce 'n Ian" of tlle sign-language. rlewymier - -y JzP . ll W i s""8" v;rd'Tr, Of the origin and development of the sign lan- X. s 'TT-iS r 1 E '.-iS (above) boat, . - ;i M iyr) ) Y: (at the left) guage General -Scott says : rrr- TTfF PrrnisA I 'I "h(heTo'w)nd Whenever persons cf alien speech encounter V Ut Jfi. JVCJym irj, "tepee" others with whom they cannot communicate they 4 Sty icr first endeavor to make themselves understood by By ELMO SCOTT WATSON D-i IV. raising the voice. When this proves inadequate, ... . , .,, , , few Pa'V they stage a little drama or pantomime by ges- TW.IK Indian sign language, which tures that will serve to put 'their idea into the 1,1 is rapidly becoming a lost art , ilfc2P S8& minds of others by the imitation of acts or quali- - ns the old-time Indians pass jAC' ties- lf this pantomime proves apt and easily un- vaJ away, is to be preserved for W JgRi5 derstood in the two alien groups it .would be used M'Ui Jl . 1 ' rf i!r again on meeting other groups, the signs acting Xty 1 future generations if congress -tg&Wsair and reacting on each other for ages; the fittest feet in diameter. Knowing that, he was able to get at the heart of the matter, "smooth down" the irate chief and perhaps saved many lives, both white and red, through his intimate knowledge of the sign language. Of the origin and development of the sign language lan-guage General "Scott says: Whenever persons of alien speech encounter others with whom they cannot communicate they first endeavor to make themselves understood by raising the voice. When this proves inadequate, they stage a little drama or pantomime by gestures ges-tures that will serve to put 'their idea into the minds of others by the imitation of acts or Qualities. Quali-ties. Jf this pantomime proves apt and easily understood un-derstood in the two alien groups it would be used again on meeting other groups, the signs acting and reacting on each other for ages; the fittest only surviving until the language had spread and become stabilized over all the plains, the habitar of the buffalo, long before the arrival of European? on this continent. The sign language obeys all the general laws or linguistic science, save those of sound. It appeals to the same human brain through the eye rather than through the ear. It is therefore akin to al human tongues and has its own place in the hierarchy hier-archy of all the languages of the human race. The Indian seizes the most salient quaiities to give an object a name and you will be surprised at the aptness and skill with which they pick out these qualities. The law of the sign language is to give a name that belongs to something and to nothing else. Of some of the commoner symbols in the sign language, James Mooney of the bureau of American Amer-ican ethnology, writing in the "Handbook of . American Indians," says: The signs in every case are founded on some tangible or symbolic characteristic, although by abbreviation or "wearing down," as in a spoken language, the resemblance has frequently been ob scured and conventionalized. Thus the sign for .man is made by throwing out the hand, back outward, out-ward, with index finger extended upward, apparently appar-ently having reference to .in old root word in many Indian languages which defines man as an erect animal. Woman is indicated by a sweeping downward down-ward movement of the hand at the side of the head, with fingers extended toward the hair to denote de-note long flowing hair or the combing of flowing locks. A white man is distinguished as the hat wearer, either by drawing the index finger across the forehead or by clasping the forehead with outstretched out-stretched thumb and index finger. For Indian the speaker rubs the back of his left hand or perhaps hia cheek with the palm of the right to indicate a person whose skin is of the same color. The sign having obtained this conventional meaning may be used equally by a white man to convey th same idea. A tepee is shown by bringing both Index fingers together like an inverted V to indicate the conical shape and the crossing of the poles. An ordinary house would be distinguished by adding the sign for white man. The buffalo, and in later days a cow, is indicated by crooking the index fingers at the side of the head to resemble a horn. A dog is indicated by drawing the hand, with first and second sec-ond fingers spread apart, across in front of the body, typifying the old-time travois dragged by the animal when used as a beast of burden. Eating and drinking are indicated by signs easily eas-ily intelligible. Sleeping is indicated by inclining the head to one side, with the open palm held jut below, typifying the recumbent attitude of repose As days, or rather nights, are counted by "sleeps.' the same sign may mean a day when used in connection con-nection with enumeration, indicated by the motion of counting upon the fingers. In the same wa cold is indicated by a shivering movement of the clenched hands in front of the body and as Indians Indi-ans count years by winters or "cold" seasons, it signifies also a year in another context. The hand upright and turned upon the wrist with fingers apart and extended indicates the question sign and a somewhat similar but slower gesture means vacillation, i. e. "may be." Reduced to action the question "How old are you?" becomes (1) point finger at subject: you; (2) cold sign: winter or year; (3) counting sign: number; (4) question sign: how many? An expert ex-pert can go through the whole movement in about the time required to put the spoken question, with the advantage that he can be understood by an Indian of any language from Canada to Texas. Some signs are beautifully symbolic. Thus, fatigue fa-tigue is shown by a downward and outward sweep of the two hands in front of the body, index fingers fin-gers extended, giving a gesture picture of utter collapse. Bad is indicated by a motion throwing away; truth by signs for straight talk and falsehood false-hood by the talk sign with another for different directions, L "talking two ways." l-SZZ-O ormKIOWA5 By ELMO SCOTT WATSON m&'VUF9-Vj Indian sign language, which I I is rapidly becoming a lost art - ns the old-time Indians pass .A away, is to be preserved for 9 future generations if congress M o0'JL passes a bill introduced recently S y 1)y Representative Leavitt of (f-.-J Montana, chairman of the In-frihX) In-frihX) diml au"ilil's committee In the xWllt' V house. The bill asks for an ap-M'l ap-M'l propriation to make a perma- U nsSMlAo nent 1'eco,'a of tllis lansuage and Representative Leavitt has suggested that Maj. Gen. Hugh L. Scott, retired, who has been a student of the Indian sign language lan-guage since his graduation from West Point in 1S7CJ and who is one of the few white men who ever mastered its intricacies, is the one man liv ing today who is best fitted to handle this work. The Indian sign language is unique among methods of communication between human beings The white man has Invented a deaf-and dumb alphabet of more or less arbitrary sort which is practicable for the communication of Ideas but which must be learned by intellectual application and by a recollection of certain shapes of the fingers fin-gers which mean letters and thus spell out words Put that was not the red man's way. He thought in pictographs just as he wrote in pictographs and each of his signs was a whole word or a dis tinct sentence or a complete thought. It was old Jim Baker, the famous trapper, fur trader and guide, who once said : "An Injun will tell a long story In four grunts and the rest with his fingers." And that expresses It about as well as the statement by the bureau of American Ethnology Eth-nology experts that "A Sioux or a Blackfoot from the Upper Missouri has no difficulty in communicating communi-cating with a visiting Kiowa or Comanche from the Texas border on any subject from the negotiating nego-tiating of a treaty to the recital of a mythic story or the telling of a hunting incident." An interesting example of the efficiency of the sign language is related by General Scott in his book "Some Memories of a Soldier," published recently by the Century company. When Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces was being carried down the Missouri to Bismarck, N. D., as a prisoner of war after his surrender in the Bear Paws moun tains In Montana in 1ST7. a crowd of more than 1,500 Indians gathered to see such a famous chief. Joseph addressed them in the sign language and. recounting the whole story of his people's wrongs he made his merning clear to all these people, who spoke eight different languages Nez Terces Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Arikara, Mandan, Gros Ventre and English. Even more Interesting was the Incident which took place in 1925 in which General Scott himself figured. At the Old Fort Union celebration in Montana in that year there was a big gathering of Indians which General Bcott addressed, using the sign language. Thirteen Thir-teen different tribes were represented in his audience audi-ence and every member of every tribe understood everything he said ! General Scott's name among the Indians Is "Mole-Te-Qu-Op" (The Man Who Talks With His Hands or Sign Talker). It was given to him by Big Wolf, a Cheyenne chief, in 1S00 when Scott was sent among the Clieyennes in Montana to quiet the ghost dance excitement there. But his proficiency in the sign language dates back further fur-ther than thnt. Soon after his graduation from West Point he was assigned to the Ninth cavalry but obtained a transfer to the Seventh, which had been all but wiped out in the Battle of the Little Big Horn at about the time of his graduation. With the Seventh he served in the remainder of the Sioux campaign in 1S7G-77 and then in the Nez Perces war In 1S77. Early in his career on the plains Scott recognized recog-nized that one way to solve the Indian problem was to try to get the Indian point of view and In order to do that he had to learn to speak their language. Obviously it would be a lifetime job to learn the tongues of all the tribes. But the intertribal inter-tribal language, the sign language, offered a short cut and he set himself to learn that. He was fortunate for-tunate in gaining the friendship of a remarkable Indian, I-See-0 of the Kiowas, who became the "guide, philosopher and friend" of the young cavalry cav-alry lieutenant and also his instructor in the Intricacies Intri-cacies of the sign language. Both I-See-0 and Scott were fighting men hut they were also both peacemakers and they worked together in bringing bring-ing about a better understanding between the two races. In fact, General Scott is better known for his diplomatic victories which settled many troubles trou-bles with the Indians, than he Is as the greatest white exponent of the sign language. But it was his knowledge of the sign language which helped him In winning those victories. An example of that is shown in his interview with Red Cloud, the great chief of the Oglala Sioux. General Scott tells about It as follows : Going up to Red Cloud's vlllagre on White Clay Creek, I noticed ugly signs. Red Cloud was said to have five thousand yountr men, many recently from the hostile village, nnd I could see that they were in a very ugly mood. ... I could feei trouble in the air. There was no interpreter with the command, when one was needed most, nor any Indian scoutd. When the head of the column stopped at Red Cloud's lodge, they sent back in the column for me. . Red Cloud was in a most surly mood. There "he stood in the presence of eleven troops of cavalry and boldly asked: "What do you come looking for here? My young men don't want you here. If you come here looking for a fight my young men w.ll fight you. If you don't want to fight, you g.: home." It was a good deal of responsibility to throw on a young man. 1 not only had to act as interpreter, and extricate the commanding oHicer from the tense situation, but must still preserve his dignity. Fortunately I succeeded. We went a day's march away to camp, and J was sent back to live in Red Cloud's lodge for a few days to keep tab on what he was doing. Indians In-dians are always hospitality itself, and he made me welcome in his lodge. I stayed there three nigh's, watching. Red Cloud was an excellent sign talker, but he made his gestures differently from anyone I had ever seen before or since. While each w.-.s perfectly per-fectly distinct, they were all made within the compass com-pass of a circle a foot in diameter, whereas the are usually made in the compass of a circle two and a half feet in diameter. We talked about everything ev-erything under the sun, but he would not give me any clew to what made him so ill-humored, and to what was actuating his young men. The remarkable thing about this Is that the young officer knew that Red Cloud was holding back something because his sign talk swung only in a diameter of a foot Instead of in the large, open gestures within a circle two and one-half |