TALKING HANDS: How to Use Indian Sign Language

The Plains Indians used sign language to communicate with other tribes; you and your friend can use it to freeze out your little sister (or, presumably, for Cub Scout projects and other worthy pursuits). This primer will teach you how to build a vocabulary from man (and woman) to fight (or war) and how to put the signs together into consecutive messages that approximate sentences. Layout, typography and illustration combine to instruct simply and clearly; the signs are concisely recapitulated for the sentences. Only one gives pause, coming as it does before the section on signs developed after the arrival of the white man, and that is stroking the back of one's hand--making it ""reddish""--to indicate Indian; certainly the Indian had no such indigenous conception of himself. (The later section has an appropriate gesture for white man, as well as signs for everything from dollars to telephone.) Designed more specifically as self-help than Hofsinde, with some take-it-from-here suggestions.