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In offering this book to the public after having had the manuscript actually on my desk for more than nine years, let me say frankly that no one realizes better than myself, now, the magnitude of the subject and the many faults of my attempt to handle it.

My attention was first directed to the Sign Language in 1882 when I went to live in Western Manitoba. There I found it used among the various Indian tribes as a common language, whenever they were unable to understand each other’s speech. In later years I found it a daily necessity when traveling among the natives of New Mexico and Montana, and in 1897, while living among the Crow Indians at their agency near Fort Custer, I met White Swan, who had served under General George A. Custer as a Scout. He had been sent across country with a message to Major Reno, so escaped the fatal battle; but fell in with a party of Sioux, by whom he was severely wounded, clubbed on the head, and left for dead. He recovered and escaped, but ever after was deaf and practically dumb. However, sign-talk was familiar to his people and he was at little disadvantage in daytime. Always skilled in the gesture code, he now became very expert; I was glad indeed to be his pupil, and thus in 1897 began seriously to study the Sign Language.

In 1900 I included a chapter on Sign Language in my projected Woodcraft Dictionary, and began by collecting all the literature. There was much more than I expected, for almost all early travellers in our Western Country have had something to say about this lingua franca of the Plains.

As the material continued to accumulate, the chapter grew into a Dictionary, and the work, of course, turned out manifold greater than was expected. The Deaf, our School children, and various European nations, as well as the Indians, had large sign vocabularies needing consideration. With all important print on the subject I am fairly well conversant, besides which I have had large opportunities in the field and have tried to avail myself of them to the fullest extent, carrying my manuscript from one Indian tribe to another, seeking out always the best sign-talkers among them, collecting and revising, aiming to add all the best signs in use to those already on record.

The following are the chief printed works on Sign Language:

1823. The Indian Language of Signs by Major Stephen H. Long, published in his Expedition to the Rocky Mts., 1823, Vol. I, pp. 378–394. Gives 104 signs. The earliest extensive vocabulary on record.

1880. Gesture Signs and Signals of the North American Indians by Lieut. Col. Garrick Mallery. An elaborate and valuable 330 page quarto compilation from many contributors; published by the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880.

It was preliminary to the much more extended work published the year following, and combines in itself all the important vocabularies published up to that time, including: Wm. Dunbar’s List pub. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., January 16, 1801; about 60 signs; Prince Maximilian von Wied-Neuwied’s List, Reise, Nord. Am., 1832–34, 1837; Capt. R. F. Burton’s List pub. in “The City of the Saints,” 1862; Dr. D. G. MacGowan’s List pub. in Historical Magazine, Vol. X, 1866, pp. 86–97; also Manuscript Lists supplied by Col. R. I. Dodge, Dr. William H. Corbusier, U. S. A., and about forty other contributors.

1881. Sign Language Among the North American Indians compared with that among other peoples and Deaf Mutes, by Col. Garrick Mallery; 290 page quarto, 286 illustrations, an elaborate examination of the history, origin, and nature of the Sign Language, with extensive vocabularies. Published in 1st Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1881.

1885. The Indian Sign Language by Capt. William Philo Clark, U. S. A., 244 pp. octavo, quite the best book on the subject, giving over 1,000 signs with photographic exactness; it is also one of the best early encyclopedic books on Indians in general; unfortunately, it is without illustrations and is out of print. Published by Hamersly & Co., of Philadelphia, 1885.

This is practically the only publication quoted in preparing this work. I have referred to it continually as a standard—as the highest available authority. (W. P. Clark was born July 27, 1845, at Deer River, Lewis Co., New York. Graduated from West Point June 15, 1868. Served on the Plains in 2d Cavalry during the Indian wars of 1876 to 1880. Died at Washington, D. C., September 23, 1884.)