Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/146

128 Good.—Wave the hand from the mouth, extending the thumb from the index and closing the other three fingers. This sign means also "I know." "I don't know" is expressed by waving the right hand with the palm outward before the right breast, or by moving about the two forefingers before the breast, meaning "two hearts."

Bad.—Scatter the dexter fingers outward, as if spirting away water from them.

Now (at once).—Clap both palms together sharply and repeatedly, or make the sign of "to-day."

Day.—Make a circle with the thumb and forefinger of both, in sign of the sun. The hour is pointed out by showing the luminary's place in the heavens. The moon is expressed by a crescent with the thumb and forefinger: this also denotes a month. For a year give the sign of rain or snow.

Many Indians ignore the quadripartite division of the seasons, which seems to be an invention of European latitudes; the Persians, for instance, know it, but the Hindoos do not. They have, however, distinct terms for the month, all of which are pretty and descriptive, appropriate and poetical; e.g., the moon of light nights, the moon of leaves, the moon of strawberries, for April, May, and June. The Ojibwa have a queer quaternal division, called Of sap, Of abundance, Of fading, and Of freezing. The Dakotah reckon five moons to winter and five to summer, leaving one to spring and one to autumn; the year is lunar, and as the change of season is denoted by the appearance of sore eyes and of raccoons, any irregularity throws the people out.

Night.—Make a closing movement as if of the darkness by bringing together both hands with the dorsa upward and the fingers to the fore: the motion is from right to left, and at the end the two indices are alongside and close to each other. This movement must be accompanied by bending forward with bowed head, otherwise it may be misunderstood for the freezing over of a lake or river.

To-day.—Touch the nose with the index tip, and motion with the fist toward the ground.

Yesterday.—Make with the left hand the circle which the sun describes from sunrise to sunset, or invert the direction from sunset to sunrise with the right hand.

To-morrow.—Describe the motion of the sun from east to west. Any number of days may be counted upon the fingers. The latter, I need hardly say, are the only numerals in the pantomimic vocabulary.

Among the Dakotahs, when they have gone over the fingers and thumbs of both hands, one is temporarily turned down for one ten; at the end of another ten a second finger is turned down, and so on, as among children who are learning to count. "Opawinge," one hundred, is derived from "pawinga," to go round in circles, as the fingers have all been gone over again for their respective tens; "kektopawinge" is from "ake" and "opawinge"—"hundred again"—being about to recommence the circle of their