UNIVERSAL INDIAN SIGN OF THE PLAINS INDI 5 OF NORTH AMERICA TOGETHER WITH A SIMPLIFIED METHOD OF STUDY, A LIST OF WORDS IN MOST GENERAL USE, A CODIFICATION OF PICTOGRAPHIC SYMBOLS OF THE SIOUX AND OJIBWAY A DICTIONARY OF SYNONYMS, A HISTORY OF SIGN LANGUAGE, CHAPTERS ON SMOKE SIGNALING, USE OF IDIOMS, ETC. AND OTHER IMPORTANT CO-RELATED MATTER BY WILLIAM TOMKINS Officially adopted by the Boy Scouts of America, and Sign Language made a Second-Class and First-Cl Scout requirement. Endorsed and recommended by the founder of Scouting, Sir Robert Baden Powell, Chief Scout of the World, to the Boy Scouts of all nations, 43 countries being interested in Scout ing. Received the unqualified endorsement of the Smithsonian. Institute. Endorsed by World Alliance Y. M. C. A. of Geneva, Switzerland by National Board of Direc tos of the Girl Scouts, Inc. by the Boy Rangers of America, and by Com missioner Chas. H. Burke, U. S. Indian Bureau, Washington, D. C. Adopted by the American Library Association and the American Indian Association. Approved by Society Internationale DPhilologie Sciences et Beaux Arts endorsed by the Pacific Coast Section National Camping Directors Association, and recommended by National Playground and Recreation Association and by the Boys Club Federation. Extensively used by Indian Schools and by the Boy Scout Associations of England and Canada. French and German Equivalents are Shown with Each Illustration PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM TOMKINS Wambali Wi Yuta, Sign Talking Eagle, Adopted Son of the Sioux, Otherwise William Tomkins. We Are Preserving the Sign Language to Posterity Through the Youth of America. INTRODUCTORY NOTES When a boy, from 1884 to 1894, the author lived on the edge of the Sioux Indian Reservation in Dakota Territory, located at Fort Sully, Cheyenne Agency, Pierre, and surrounding sections. He worked on the cow range and associated continuously with Indians. He learned some of the Sioux language, and made a study of sign. Since then, for many years, the interest has continued, and all known authorities on sign have been studied, as well as continued investigations with Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapa hoe, and other Indians of recognized sign-talking ability. Of later years this effort has been inspired by the fact that there does not exist today any publication in print that can readily be obtained, covering exclusively the so called Universal Indian Sign Language of the Plains Indians of North America. There is sentiment connected with the Indian Sign Language that attaches to no other. It is probably the first American language. It is the first and only American universal language. It may be the first universal language produced by any people. It is a genuine Indian language of great antiquity. It has a beauty and imagery pos sessed by few, if any, other languages. It is the foremost gesture language that the world has ever produced. The author has lectured on Indian problems to many audiences, and at all times the keenest interest was shown in sign language demonstrations, and he has been re quested, hundreds of times, to make the record permanent, and to thereby preserve and perpetuate the original American language which otherwise is fast passing away. This is shown by the fact that in 1885 Lewis F. Hadley, at that time a foremost authority on sign, claimed that as a result of extensive investigation he had determined that there were over 110,000 sign-talking Indians in the United States. Today there is a very small percentage of this number, due to the inroads of modern education, and many of our Indians, with college and university training, can speak better English than they can talk sign. This language was not created by anybody living today. If it belongs to anybody it belongs to Americans, and it is for the purpose of having it carried on by the youth of the United States that this little volume is compiled. Very few works on the Indian Sign Language have ever been published...
