ONCE PROBABLY UNIVERSAL IN NORTH AMERICA.
The conclusion reached from the researches made is to the effect that before the changes wrought by the Columbian discovery the use of gesture illustrated the remark of Quintilian upon the same subject (l. xi, c. 3) that "_In tanta per omnes gentes nationesque linguæ diversitate hic mihi omnium hominum communis sermo videatur._"
Quotations may be taken from some old authorities referring to widely separated regions. The Indians of Tampa Bay, identified with the Timucua, met by Cabeça de Vaca in 1528, were active in the use of signs, and in his journeying for eight subsequent years, probably through Texas and Mexico, he remarks that he passed through many dissimilar tongues, but that he questioned and received the answers of the Indians by signs "just as if they spoke our language and we theirs." Michaëlius, writing in 1628, says of the Algonkins on or near the Hudson River: "For purposes of trading as much was done by signs with the thumb and fingers as by speaking." In Bossu's _Travels through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana_, _London_, 1771 (Forster's translation), an account is given of Monsieur de Belle-Isle some years previously captured by the Atak-apa, who remained with them two years and "conversed in their pantomimes with them." He was rescued by Governor Bienville and was sufficiently expert in the sign language to interpret between Bienville and the tribe. In Bushmann's _Spuren_, p. 424, there is a reference to the "Accocessaws on the west side of the Colorado, two hundred miles southwest of Nacogdoches," who use thumb signs which they understand: "_Theilen sich aber auch durch Daum-Zeichen mit, die sie alle verstehen._"
Omitting many authorities, and for brevity allowing a break in the continuity of time, reference may be made to the statement in Major Long's expedition of 1819, concerning the Arapahos, Kaiowas, Ietans, and Cheyennes, to the effect that, being ignorant of each other's languages, many of them when they met would communicate by means of signs, and would thus maintain a conversation without the least difficulty or interruption. A list of the tribes reported upon by Prince Maximilian von Wied-Neuweid, in 1832-'34, appears elsewhere in this paper. In Frémont's expedition of 1844 special and repeated allusion is made to the expertness of the Pai-Utes in signs, which is contradictory to the statement above made by correspondents. The same is mentioned regarding a band of Shoshonis met near the summit of the Sierra Nevada, and one of "Diggers," probably Chemehuevas, encountered on a tributary of the Rio Virgen.