holding the palm inwards and shaking the head is a sign of prohibition, holding up the thumb means contemptuous refusal, wagging the middle finger provokes a person to anger, and holding up the open palm is a great insult. Why this last gesture should be insulting does not appear.[1] The tracts in question are peopled by dominant Muhammadan tribes, and the open hand is common on the standards of their Afghan co-religionists across the north-west frontier. In beckoning the hand is held up, palm outwards and the fingers moved downwards and inwards—just the reverse of our gesture. But these differences are readily explicable. The Indian's palm is always much lighter than the back of his hand, so the colour of the palm must attract the attention of the person whom he wishes to call to him much more than the less conspicuous complexion of the back would do. Then the extensor muscles being weaker in all Orientals than the flexor, a great many muscular opposites occur among them: notably in pulling instead of pushing a saw, and the like.
The middle-finger gesture seems to be an attempt to represent a snake's tongue. In Indian art we find a very similar gesture styled the Suchi-hasta or "needle-pointed hand."[2] This term is so translated by Mr. Gangoly, but the resemblance to a needle is not very great. The middle-finger seems to be intended for the tongue as the two fingers on either side of it seem to represent the hood of a cobra. Were putting out the tongue and hissing derived from a similar imitation of the poisonous snakes? Seeing that we find a Sinha-karna hasta or "tiger-making hand" and a gaja-hasta or "elephant's trunk" among the Indian mudras or finger-poses, just as we find children still making shadow-pictures of rabbits, etc., on the wall with their hands, this conjecture seems justified. Other mudras are the half-
- ↑ See Punjab District Gazetteer, Attock, 1907, p. 113, quoting Sir James Wilson's Shahpur Gazetteer. The local words for thumb, thuth, and middle finger, dhiri, may have some significance. In sitting the two most usual postures have separate names: athrūtha, "sitting on the heels," and patthalti, "squatting on the ground cross-legged."
- ↑ Bronzes of Southern India, p. 45. It is also called Suchi-mukha hasta, which suggests that it is intended to represent a mouth and fangs.
