The Language of Gesture.
Dr. J. P. Vogel has recently contributed to the Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, 5e Reeks, Diet iv.,[1] a valuable note (in English) on the Sign of the Spread Hand or "Five-finger token" (Pancangidika) in Pali Literature. This sign seems to have originated in gesture, and though few races are so dependent on that mode of expression as not to be able to converse without it, like the Bubis of West Africa who cannot talk in the dark, as among them "language depends so much on gesture,"[2] few races exist who use nothing but the tongue to communicate ideas. Gesture, elaborately conventionalised, plays a great part in Indian iconography.[3]
And such conventions must be of great antiquity, as is gesture itself. In a curious passage of the Jātakas[4] the Great Being meets the lady Amarā and thought, "Whether she be wed or not I do not know: I will ask her by hand gesture, and if she be wise she will understand." So standing afar off he clenched his fist. She understood that he was asking whether she had a husband, and spread out her hand—to signify that she was married. It would appear then that the original meaning of the open hand was freedom or liberty. But in Persia the clenched hand denotes, besides austerity or violence, close-fistedness, just as the spread hand signifies open handedness.[5]
The spread hand, however, may express a very different sentiment in modern India, where gesture is still much used. Thus, in the Western Punjab, at least in two districts of it, some of the gestures are peculiar, although, as in Europe a nod of the head means "yes," or "come," and a shake "denial." A backward nod means inquiry, a click with a toss of the head means "no," jerking the fingers means "I do not know";
- ↑ Available in an off-print. Amsterdam: J. Müller, 1919.
- ↑ Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa p. 439.
- ↑ The Bronzes of Southern India, O. G. Gangoly, 1915.
- ↑ Jâtaka, Cowell and Rouse, vi. p. 182.
- ↑ North Indian Notes and Queries, i. § 42.
