American Indian Sign Langauge - How It All Started
James Beckett
We probably have a lot of wrong information in our heads about how American Indians actually lived from the movies and TV. One thing that stands out of you watch a "western" is usually when an Indian shows up in a scene, he or she communicates to the other characters in a form of sign langauge and there is always an "Indian guide" or trapper who understands what was said and lets us in on it.
Of course television and movies sometimes did a poor job of showing the cultures of these great peoples who were native to this land long before the Europeans showed up. Often the actors who played Indians in these shows had no Native American blood so you wonder if the signage they show is also just another dramatic device to make Indians look exotic and mysterious.
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 langauge that were as distinct as the Germans are from the Chinese. Because the distances between where the tribes lived were relatively far off, the langauges of the Native American tribes were distinct and often not understood between the tribes.
If you studied Native American history in school, you also know that the tribes of North American were "nomadic" meaning they moved their place of habitat based on the weather, how much food could be found, disease or perhaps the abundance of enemies in one locale. So even though the tribes were separate cultures, they did come across each other on the plains from time to time. But contrary to the movies, many times these meetings were friendly and mutually supportive because both tribes had similar challenges in making their way in a sometimes hostile environment.
The sign langauges of the Native Americans were something that was developed at the time to help different tribes communicate more easily when that was needed. This "langauge" of sign was valuable for resolving disputes and cooperation in hunting or for giving each other trips to survive the winters. The leadership of the tribes also used signing to discuss and resolve land disputes and to avoid war when they could because that kind of conflict was not good for either tribe.
Scholars in Native American culture has also found out that this same sign langauge that was used to talk to other tribes had a lot of value in the every day life of a tribe member. There were many situations that talking out loud was not a good idea such as during the hunt or while doing some snooping on enemies and sign langauge was used to work together as teams to carry out those missions for the tribe.
Looking back and imagining how Native Americans used sign langauge is interesting and fun. And it's instructive that their sign langauge 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 it's helpful also to learn about other cultures because so often you will make a friend who is from that culture and knowing a little bit about their history makes you a more informed citizen and a better friend as well.
Start your adventure into ASL with (
http://www.AmericanSignLangaugeOnline.com/ ) American Sign Langauge Online.
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