Note 48 — Chapter X

One of the most extraordinary specimens of the ingenuity of the tribes who inhabit the Great Missouri wilderness, and who speak many languages, so different that they can have with each other no verbal communication, is the language of Signs, common to them all, by which Pawnees, Dahcotahs, Osages, Black–feet, Upsarokas, or the Crows and other Western nations, can understand each other quite sufficiently for the ordinary purposes of their simple life. The sign for “all right” is made by holding the hand with the palm downwards, in a horizontal position, and waving it slowly outwards.