The sign of the pipe or of smoking is made in a different manner, when used to mean _friend_, as follows: (1) Tips of the two first fingers of the right hand placed against or at right angles to the mouth; (2) suddenly elevated upward and outward to imitate smoke expelled. (_Cheyenne_ II). "We two smoke together." This is illustrated in the Ojibwa pictograph, Fig. 228, taken from Schoolcraft I, pl. 59.
A ceremonial sign for _peace, friendship_, is the extended fingers, separated (R), interlocked in front of the breast, hands horizontal, backs outward. (_Dakota_ I.) Fig. 229 from the _Dakota Calendar_ exhibits the beginning of this gesture. When the idea conveyed is peace or friendship with the whites, the hand shaking of the latter is adopted as in Fig. 230, also taken from the _Dakota Calendar_, and referring to the peace made in 1855 by General Harney, at Fort Pierre, with a number of the tribes of the Dakotas.
It is noticeable that while the ceremonial gesture of uniting or linking hands is common and ancient in token of peace, the practice of shaking hands on meeting, now the annoying etiquette of the Indians in their intercourse with whites, was not until very recently and is even now seldom used by them between each other, and is clearly a foreign importation. Their fancy for affectionate greeting was in giving a pleasant bodily, sensation by rubbing each other on the breast, abdomen, and limbs, or by a hug. The senseless and inconvenient custom of shaking hands is, indeed, by no means general throughout the world, and in the extent to which it prevails in the United States is a subject of ridicule by foreigners. The Chinese, with a higher conception of politeness, shake their own hands. The account of a recent observer of the meeting of two polite Celestials is: "Each placed the fingers of one hand over the fist of the other, so that the thumbs met, and then standing a few feet apart raised his hands gently up and down in front of his breast. For special courtesy, after the foregoing gesture, they place the hand which had been the actor in it on the stomach of its owner, not on that part of the interlocutor, the whole proceeding being subjective, but perhaps a relic of objective performance." In Miss Bird's _Unbeaten Trades in Japan, London_, 1880, the following is given as the salutatory etiquette of that empire: "As acquaintances come in sight of each other they slacken their pace and approach with downcast eyes and averted faces as if neither were worthy of beholding each other; then they bow low, so low as to bring the face, still kept carefully averted, on a level with the knees, on which the palms of the hands are pressed. Afterwards, during the friendly strife of each to give the _pas_ to the other, the palms of the hands are diligently rubbed against each other."