View sign 'time'

time

Image

Description

Extend right and left 1 hands towards the left, hands tandem, then pull right hand about three inches backward to right.


References: after, before (in time), behind (in time), future, long time, moon, night, now, today, winter, year

Notes

Tomkins says that there has been some diversity of gesture in regard to passage of time. This is the description of abstract time. See also BEFORE, AFTER, FUTURE, PAST, BEHIND, and LONG TIME.

Clark notes:

In reckoning the age of a person, or in speaking of past or future time, the generate is to say "so many winters." "This year" would not necessarily be "this winter." (See YEAR)

For time of day make sign for SUN, holding hand toward the point in the heavens where the sun is at the time desired to be represented. To specify any length of time during the day, make space the sun passes over.

Time, as I have observed, is reckoned by the Indians,--days, by nights; months, by moons; and years, by winters.

Our expressions which convey ideas of present time are expressed by the Indians by NOW, or more frequently, TODAY.

It may very truthfully be said that Indians care very little about time; they seem to have more of it than anything else.