Customer Reviews

The Indian Sign Language

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One language connected all tribes of Americans not long ago. This book is filled with translations from English to Native American Sign Language as well the historical facts related to the period that this book was written. Even tribal accents are noted as certain tribes expressed the same words using their own habitual pronunciations in sign. This book not only clearly explains the language but paints a picture alphabetically of the subjects, abstract and tangible, that Native Americans talked about in 1877.

I bought the book since I read about it in "Wooden Leg" biography. The old Cheyenne describes the author as a very knowledgeable "sign speaker". Actually the book is much more than a dictionary since the author has collected a huge number of stories and information about different indian tribes. Definitely a precious information source on the life of American indians as seen from a white soldier who spent lots of time with them during the last years of their freedom.

The content of the book is valuable and presumably accurate as it was first published in 1885. The hand signs themselves are described verbally rather than demonstrated visually (no illustrations). This can be disappointing to some readers. The concepts/words/phrases are entered alphabetically, but interspersed with long disquisitions on American Indian history, culture, and anecdotes. This makes locating a specific sign somewhat challenging. Worse, the book seems to have escaped any editing whatsoever. Typographical errors abound, and the index is absolutely worthless as page references are wildly inaccurate. The author, William Philo Clark, was a Captain in the Second Cavalry. His compilation of sign language was commissioned by Lieutenant General P. H. Sheridan. Clark's experience and interaction with a wide variety of tribes gives his compilation great authority. Using the book is troublesome and frustrating, but it is a major source for the common sign language of the time, and its accounts of life among the American Indians of the Great Plains and the Southwest is absorbing.