they'd have to use these signs.

For example, some of the basics was like, “yes” and “no”...

“good” and “bad.”

[light, rhythmic music]

This is one of the oldest languages in North America.

[rhythmic music persists]

This is a “Crow Indian.”

This was a “white person.”

It's called Plains Indian Sign Language.

One of many indigenous sign languages, broadly known as “Hand Talk,”

that were once used widely by both deaf and hearing people.

It was the means for commerce.

It was the means for economics.

[music builds]

Variations of Hand Talk were so commonly used

that it would influence the formation of American Sign Language, or ASL,

the predominant sign language used today in the US and Canada.

But Hand Talk has mostly been written out of history.

[music fades out]

[quick and rhythmic piano notes, urgent but persistent]

When a Spanish colonizer first reached one indigenous community in the southwest,

he noted that indigenous people knew signs so well

“that there was no need for an interpreter.”

[rhythmic piano continues]

That sign language was likely a variation of Hand Talk.

And these journals can trace it back to at least the 1500s.

But if you take a look at a different kind of writing,

the evidence suggests it goes back even further.

[urgent and rhythmic music continues]

There's also rock writing depicting “prayer,” versus a similar sign for “prayer.”

Or a symbol for “elder”, indicating a person with a walking stick,

versus a sign for “elder.”

And this: a symbol for “hunger,” versus a sign for “hunger.”

Hand Talk, which researchers also call

“North American Indian Sign Language,” has many regional variations,

like Northeast Indian Sign Language here,

or Southwest Indian Sign Language here;

as well as tribe-specific variations within those regions.

And here — from the Gulf Coast region, up through the Great Plains into Canada,

[music stops]

was the home of Plains Indian Sign Language.

[curious music begins]

PISL is one of the most well- documented Hand Talk variations,

probably because of how widely it was used.

Plains Indian Sign Language was the medium for communication of intertribal nations.

And that had a lot to do with how those tribes lived.

By the 19th century, tens of thousands of indigenous people

were reported to have known PISL.

It was the standard language used just as English is used today at the United Nations,

especially in commerce, in gaining intelligence, in hunting,

[music stops]

even in warfare.

[urgent staccato music starts]

In PISL, there's no finger-spelled alphabet like you find in other sign languages.

Its building blocks are roughly 4,000 basic words

that form its vocabulary.

For the word “war,” you'd sign “big” and “fight.”

For the word “beautiful," you'd sign “face” and “good.”

Or for “stream," you'd sign the words “river” and “little”.

There is...

a stream...

on the other side of some bluffs over there.

The way PISL works also shows indigenous ways of thinking about the world.

For example, let's take the simple question:

How old are you?

First, there's a single sign for “question.”

So for a question about someone's age,

you'd use the motion for question with the motion for “winter”.

How many winters are you?

That's what I ask.

In PISL you measure months by moons, days by the sun.

And to refer to different times of day,

you would show hand placement according to the position of the sun in the sky.

So this sign for morning, afternoon, or night.

If you look at some of this side-by-side with American Sign Language,

you'll notice some similarities.

Like that sign for moon, along with other similar words.

Researchers believe another form of Hand Talk, Northeast Indian Sign language,

was one of the contributors to ASL.

[music builds]

[bass note rings and music fades]

[film reel static and ominous string music begins]

This film from September 1930

shows one of the largest gatherings of intertribal indigenous leaders ever filmed.

They were brought together by General Hugh L. Scott

to document and preserve PISL.

[music fades]

“I have brought you from every direction to sit in this council."

"I have come myself from very far in the east to sit with you."

"Young men are not learning your sign language, and soon it will disappear from this country.”

[music holds an ominous tone and fades]

By the time this gathering took place,

Scott's predictions were already coming true.

[slow, somber music begins]

In the late 1800s, the US government began sending

Native children to government residential schools,

where administrators enforced a strict “English-only” policy

explicitly designed to cut off children from their families,

their culture, and their native identities.

They were punished severely for speaking their languages.

And that also meant signing.

And if they signed, sometimes many of these kids were beaten,

and they were systematically...

psychologically destroyed.

In the violent pursuit of standardizing language in the US,

[music fades to silence]

we lost tens of thousands of indigenous signers.

There are only a few dozen fluent PISL signers left.

[piano notes start to play]

Today, many indigenous deaf Americans use ASL.

But many of ASL's signs are rooted in a cultural experience that isn't theirs.

Even though ASL has an extensive vocabulary,

there's one big thing it doesn't have signs for:

names of tribes.

In ASL, you'd have to spell out tribe names.

But with PISL, there's a sign for every Native American tribe,

with gestures connected to their meanings.

For example, this sign for Crow imitates a knotted hairstyle.

[music fades out]

This sign for Shoshoni imitates the movement of a snake.

And this sign for Cheyenne shows a striped arrow.

That's why Melanie and other Deaf native people

are beginning to use a mix of PISL and ASL.

[rhythm double times, becoming more urgent]

Okay, Hand Talking.

Plains Indian Sign Language is still endangered.

But many indigenous people are working to incorporate it more into everyday life.

[hopeful music builds]

And pushing for it to be included in more mainstream education.

Because as a language, PISL is more than words.

It carries their history.

We not only can hear a native language.

We can do it.

We can see it.

And we can also feel it.

Plains Indian Sign Language is almost in our DNA.

[first song of curious, driving tones plays]

[music fades to silent]