Fig. 256 represents a Sahaptin sign given to the writer by a gentleman long familiar with the northwestern tribes of Indians. The conception is the same union of the lodge poles at the top, shown in several other signs, differently executed.
Place the tips of the spread fingers of both hands against one another pointing upward before the body, leaving a space of from four to six inches between the wrists. Fig. 257. The fingers are sometimes bent so as to more nearly represent the outline of a house and roof. Fig. 258. This, however, is accidental. (_Pai-Ute_ I.) "Represents the boughs and branches used in the construction of a Pai-Ute 'wik-i-up.'"
Place the tips of the two flat hands together before the body, leaving a space of about six inches between the wrists. (_Ute_ I.) "Outline of the shape of the lodge."
Left hand and right hand put together in shape of sloping shelter (_Kutchin_ I.) Fig. 259.
Place both flat and extended hands in front of the shoulders, pointing forward, palms facing; then pass them straight upward and slightly inward near the termination of the gesture. This appears to combine the gestures for _much, large_, and _lodge_. (_Arikara_ I.)
Same as the sign for _entering a lodge_, only the fingers of the right hand point obliquely upward after passing under the left hand. (_Dakota_ I.) "Coming out from under cover."
Hold the open left hand a foot or eighteen inches in front of the breast, palm downward or backward, fingers pointing toward the right and pass the right, back upward, with index extended, or all of the fingers extended, and pointing forward, about eighteen inches forward underneath the left through an arc from near the mouth. Some at the same time move the left hand toward the breast. (_Dakota_ IV.)
The left hand is held with the back upward, and the right hand also with the back up is passed in a curvilinear direction down under the other, so as to rub against its palm, then up on the other side of it. The left hand here represents the low door of the skin lodge and the right the man stooping down to pass in, (_Long_.)
Pass the flat right hand in short curves under the left, which is held a short distance forward. (_Wied_.) I have described the same sign. It is not necessary to pass the hand more than once. By saying curves, he seems to imply many passes. If the hand is passed more than once it means repetition of the act. (_Matthews; McChesney_.) The conception is of the stooping to pass through the low entrance, which is often covered by a flap of skin, sometimes stretched on a frame, and which must be shoved aside, and the subsequent rising when the entrance has been accomplished. A distinction is reported by a correspondent as follows: "If the intention is to speak of a person entering the gesturer's own lodge, the right hand is passed under the left and toward the body, near which the left hand is held; if of a person entering the lodge of another, the left hand is held further from the body and the right is passed under it and outward. In both cases both hands are slightly curved and compressed." As no such distinction is reported by others it may be an individual invention or peculiarity.