Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/51

Rh but the finger put in the mouth means a "child." These are two very natural and distinct signs; but then the finger to the lips for "silence" may serve also quite fitly to show that a child so represented is an infant, that is, that it cannot speak. The confusion of the signs of "childhood" and "silence" once led to a curious misunderstanding. The infant Horus, god of the dawn, was appropriately represented by the Egyptians as a child with his fingers to his lips, and his name as written in the hieroglyphics (Fig. 1) may be read Har-(p)-chrot, "Horus-(the)-son." The Greeks mistook the meaning of the gesture, and (as it seems) Grecizing this name into Harpokrates, adopted him as the god of silence.

To conclude, the Cistercian lists contain a number of signs which at first sight seem conventional, but yet a meaning may be discerned in most or all of them. Thus, it seems foolish to make two fingers at the right side of one's nose stand for "friend;" but when we see that placed on the left side, they stand for "enemy," it becomes clear that it is the opposition of right and left that is meant. So the little finger to the tip of the nose means "fool," which seemingly poor sign is explained by the fore-finger being put there for "wise man." The fact of such a contrast as wise and foolish being made between the fore- finger and the little finger, corresponds with the use of the thumb and little finger for "good" and "bad" by the deaf-and- dumb, and makes it likely that both pairs of signs may be natural, and independent of one another. The sign of grasping the nose with the crooked fore-finger for "wine," suggests that the thought of a jolly red nose was present even in so unlikely a place. The sign for "the devil," gripping one's chin with all five fingers, shows the enemy seizing a victim. In a mediæval picture, an angel may be seen taking a man by the chin with one hand, and pointing up to heaven with the other. Thus, in a Hindoo tale, Old Age in person comes to claim his own. "In time then, when I had grown grey with years, Old Age took me