shaking the head have been learnt from Europeans, and are not naturally
employed. They express affirmation by describing with the hand (all the
fingers except the index being flexed) a curve downwards and outwards
from the body, whilst negation is expressed by moving the open hand
outwards, with the palm facing inwards. Other observers state that the
sign of affirmation with these Indians is the forefinger being raised,
and then lowered and pointed to the ground, or the hand is waved
straight forward from the face; and that the sign of negation is the
finger or whole hand shaken from side to side.[1126] This latter
movement probably represents in all cases the lateral shaking of the
head. The Italians are said in like manner to move the lifted finger
from right to left in negation, as indeed we English sometimes do.
On the whole we find considerable diversity in the signs of affirmation
and negation in the different races of man. With respect to negation,
if we admit that the shaking of the finger or hand from side to side is
symbolic of the lateral movement of the head; and if we admit that the
sudden backward movement of the head represents one of the actions
often practised by young children in refusing food, then there is much
uniformity throughout the world in the signs of negation, and we can
see how they originated. The most marked exceptions are presented by
the Arabs, Esquimaux, some Australian tribes, and Dyaks. With the
latter a frown is the sign of negation, and with us frowning often
accompanies a lateral shake of the head.
With respect to nodding in affirmation, the exceptions are rather more
numerous, namely with some of the Hindoos, with the Turks, Abyssinians,
Dyaks, Tagals, and New Zealanders. The eyebrows are sometimes raised in
affirmation, and as a person in bending his head forwards and downwards
naturally looks up to the person whom he addresses, he will be apt to
raise his eyebrows, and this sign may thus have arisen as an
abbreviation. So again with the New Zealanders, the lifting up the chin
and head in affirmation may perhaps represent in an abbreviated form
the upward movement of the head after it has been nodded forwards and
downwards.
CHAPTER XII. SURPRISE ASTONISHMENT FEAR HORROR.
183