century."

One of the most conclusive instances of the general knowledge of
sign language, even when seldom used, was shown in the visit of five
Jicarilla Apaches to Washington in April, 1880, under the charge of
Dr. Benjamin Thomas, their agent. The latter said he had never heard
of any use of signs among them. But it happened that there was a
delegation of Absaroka (Crows) at the same hotel, and the two parties
from such widely separated regions, not knowing a word of each other's
language, immediately began to converse in signs, resulting in a
decided sensation. One of the Crows asked the Apaches whether they ate
horses, and it happening that the sign for _eating_ was misapprehended
for that known by the Apaches for _many_, the question was supposed
to be whether the latter had many horses, which was answered in
the affirmative. Thence ensued a misunderstanding on the subject of
hippophagy, which was curious both as showing the general use of
signs as a practice and the diversity in special signs for particular
meanings. The surprise of the agent at the unsuspected accomplishment
of his charges was not unlike that of a hen who, having hatched a
number of duck eggs, is perplexed at the instinct with which the brood
takes to the water.

The denial of the use of signs is often faithfully though erroneously
reported from the distinct statements of Indians to that effect. In
that, as in other matters, they are often provokingly reticent about
their old habits and traditions. Chief Ouray asserted to the writer,
as he also did to Colonel Dodge, that his people, the Utes, had not
the practice of sign talk, and had no use for it. This was much in
the proud spirit in which an Englishman would have made the same
statement, as the idea involved an accusation against the civilization
of his people, which he wished to appear highly advanced. Still more
frequently the Indians do not distinctly comprehend what is sought
to be obtained. Sometimes, also, the art, abandoned in general,
only remains in the memories of a few persons influenced by special
circumstances or individual fancy.

In this latter regard a comparison may be made with the old science
of heraldry, once of practical use and a necessary part of a liberal
education, of which hardly a score of persons in the United States
have any but the vague knowledge that it once existed; yet the united
memories of those persons could, in the absence of records, reproduce
all es