odies of people, would
not always agree in the selection of those outlines and features.
Taking the illustration of the attempt to invent a sign for _bird_,
before used, any one of a dozen, signs might have been agreed upon
with equal appropriateness, and, in fact, a number have been so
selected by several individuals and tribes, each one, therefore, being
a synonym of the other. Another example of this is in the signs for
_deer_, designated by various modes of expressing fleetness, by his
gait when not in rapid motion, by the shape of his horns, by the
color of his tail, and sometimes by combinations of several of those
characteristics. Each of these signs may be indefinitely abbreviated,
and therefore create indefinite diversity. Another illustration, in
which an association of ideas is apparent, is in the upward raising
of the index in front of and above the head, which means _above_
(sometimes containing the religious conception of _heaven, great
spirit_, &c.), and also _now, to-day_. Not unfrequently these several
signs to express the same ideas are used interchangeably by the same
people, and some one of the duplicates or triplicates may have been
noticed by separate observers to the exclusion of the others. On
the other hand, they might all have been noticed, but each one among
different bodies. Thus confusing reports would be received, which
might either be erroneous in deducing the prevalence of particular
signs or the opposite. Sometimes the synonym may be recognized as an
imported sign, used with another tribe known to affect it. Sometimes
the diverse signs to express the same thing are only different trials
at reaching the intelligence of the person addressed. An account is
given by Lieut. Heber M. Creel, Seventh Cavalry, U.S.A., of an old
Cheyenne squaw, who made about twenty successive and original signs
to a recruit of the Fourth Cavalry to let him know that she wanted to
obtain out of a wagon a piece of cloth belonging to her, to wipe out
an oven preparatory to baking bread. Thus by tradition, importation,
recent invention, or from all these causes together, several signs
entirely distinct are produced for the same object or action.

This class is not intended to embrace the cases common both to sign
and oral language where the same sign has several meanings, according
to the expression, whether facial or vocal, and the general manner
accompanying its delivery. The sign given, for "stop talking" on page