American Sign Language Of Times Gone By
As a culture, we often depict the lives of American Indians when they lived free on the land in movies and television. Have you ever noticed in those movies, when the Indian communicates, there seems to be a heavy emphasis on hand signals and sign language? And as the story unfolds, the “Indian guide” or the hero of the story who makes peace between the two peoples often does so using signs and body gestures which he then has to interpret for the audience.
Of course now that we are trying to be more culturally sensitive, we recognize that old time western movies got it wrong a lot about Native American life as it really was. In this effort not to use such stereotypes, its easy also to think that the sign language scenes we remembered were also just made up for the sake of the movie to make Indians look exotic and a little scary.
It might be surprising to find out that some of the ways that Indians are portrayed in the movies has some basis in fact and that is true about how they communicated long before they had to talk to European peoples. Each Native American tribe that dwelt where our states now are had a very unique culture and language that were as distinct as the Germans are from the Chinese. Because the distances between where the tribes lived were relatively far off, the languages of the Native American tribes were distinct and often not understood between the tribes.
Another fact we know about the majority of Native American tribes is that they didn’t very often stay in the same place year after year like we do now. They moved around to follow good hunting or to get away from bad weather, disease or other dangers to the tribe. And this nomadic behavior often brought different tribes in contact with each other. Contrary to what “the westerns” would have us believe, however, many times different tribes tried to work together and were not hostile as they tried to share important information that could be a big help to another tribe trying to get by in a sometimes hostile environment.
So in order to do some basic communications to get around the language barriers, a Native American sign language was developed so each tribe could speak to the other tribes when there was need for cooperation or negotiation. So when tribal leadership met to discuss territory issues or to learn from one another, this Native American sign language was about more than just saying hello. Being able to help one other was a vital way that all of the Native American tribes survived and prospered.
People who study history and language have determined that this Native American sign language was not just kept in reserve for when the tribes came across each other. It was refined and used quite a bit within tribal life to communicate important information when speaking was not possible such as when hunting for food or when spying on an enemy.
Looking back and imagining how Native Americans used sign language is interesting and fun. And it’s instructive that their sign language grew naturally in their culture as part of a need to learn to live in harmony with neighbors and to cooperate with others so the tribes prospered and got though hard times by working together.
And along with learning these details of Native American life out of our own fascination with another time and people, it’s a good thing to learn all we can about other cultures because we so often come in contact with people with Native American lineage. And the more you know about the history of the peoples who are our fellow citizens, the more we can appreciate and enjoy the diversity that surrounds us.
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