ndians of the Plains and Mountains, at the time the Corps of Discovery traveled through, are extremely adept at sign language. By the time they reach the Shoshones, Meriwether Lewis notes that sign language "seems to be universally understood by all the Nations we have yet seen". He goes on to say that "this language is imperfect and liable to error but is much less so than would be expected. The strong parts of the ideas are seldom mistaken" (Lewis, from Moulton V.5, 88).

INSTANT HISTORY — EXAMPLE

Mays Creek in the Stanley Basin, Idaho

"In 1863 a party of prospectors reached Stanley Basin in Custer County. While traveling along the old Indian trail they met a party of about sixty Indians. After a council wherein the whites and Indians exchanged mutual confidences, each proceeded on their respective journey.

"Three days after this meeting, the prospectors again passed the council grounds and were surprised to see a freshly blazed tree near the trail, on which the adventurers read a history of their meeting with the Indians in a pictograph. It was about five feet long and eighteen inches wide, and on its surface the artist had done his work so well in red and black pigment that every one of the ten men read it at once.

"On the upper end of the blaze he had painted the figures of nine men and horses, representing the number the white men had, and their only dog. On the lower end of the pictograph six mounted Indians and one riderless horse appeared; not far from these the artist had painted a rifle and the accoutrements of which the Indian had divested himself. In the middle of the picture the two ambassadors were represented with clasped hands.

"Between them and the figure representing the white company, the artist had painted a miner's pick, near which was an arrow pointing in the direction the white men had gone. There was no mistaking the object of the pictograph; it was to advise their people passing that way that there might be or had been a party of gold hunters in the country" (Hailey: 1910).

Fur trader, Warren Ferris, reports that signing was the universal language, making possible communication in a multi-cultural camp in the 1830s:

...we understood each other sufficiently well, to prevent mistakes; and the Indians comprehended one another, though they cannot be induced to convey their ideas in any tongue except their own. This custom would in a great measure prevent a proper understanding in many instances, were it not for their numerous signs, which constitute a kind of universal communication, not to say language, at once understood by all the various Indians in the mountains. (Ferris 254)