2 Signs, Gestures and Body Language
Imagine – you have just arrived in a new country. How do you communicate? How do you “say” I am thirsty or hungry? I need help? I need to find a bank? Where can I find a bathroom? European and Native nations faced similar struggles during the colonial period, without our modern technological and institutional functions listed. So how did they do it? How did they communicate in those first days and weeks of interaction? What did they “say”?
When Native peoples, French missionaries, soldiers and/or explorers first encountered each other, their key to safety and peaceful interaction was through effective communication. One needed information and had to find a way to some desired piece of knowledge. Given that Europeans were regional strangers, only the Native people could assist them with the location of natural resources; the paths to the west or south, to the north or east; the location of other Native peoples; where to find game, wild fruits, fresh water; how best to traverse the rugged terrain; when to plant and what to plant; whether one was willing to be friend or foe. Although communication through signs, gestures, body language involved a tremendous amount of tedious visual information, nevertheless they served as primary conversation tools early on. These visual modes of communication would be far more comprehensible than any words uttered in early interactions. One communicated not by saying but by doing. Ultimately, when Frenchmen asked questions through signs, Native peoples did their best to respond. But Native peoples had their own questions, and the French did their best to reply in kind. Both cultures soon realized that signs would continue to serve as a primary source for gaining information in the Mississippi River Valley and beyond even as individuals verbally spoke to each other.[1]
Native peoples certainly communicated with others long before Europeans arrived. All Native communities used sign language–hand gestures, facial expressions, physical touch and the like–with universal signs almost certainly in place, though perhaps with some signs more unique to a given nation. As Europeans arrived, Native peoples would use these same signs thereby “integrating the newcomers into their semiotic world through both words and nonverbal means.”[2] As Thomas Jefferson described it in the very early 19th century: “Almost all the Indian nations living between the Mississippi, and the Western American ocean, understand and use the same language by signs, although their respective oral tongues are frequently unknown to each other.”[3] Indeed, a somewhat standard sign language existed among the Plains Indians west of the Mississippi. As thousands of unrelated Native peoples were forced into “Indian territory,” Plains Indian sign language books increased in availability so that those entering this region (primarily Americans) might have some way of communicating with the different Native peoples encountered.