A Alaska, was trapping on one of the Islands of the Four Mountains at

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1 ALEUT SEMAPHORE SIGNALS By JAY ELLIS RANSOM BOUT 1900 Afenogen Ermeloff, Fox Island Aleut native of Umnak, A Alaska, was trapping on one of the Islands of the Four Mountains at roughly 170 degrees west longitude and 53 degrees north latitude in the Bering Sea. He and his partner were trapping on adjacent islands separated by a narrow, tide-rip channel over which verbal communication was possible by raising the voice. Sometime during the course of the winter s operations a terrific gale arose at a time when Afenogen wanted very much to effect communication with his partner. Standing on opposite sides of the channel, both natives gesticulated and shouted, but the sound of their voices was carried away by the force of the storm. Realizing that in cases of emergency, or when conditions prevented easy access between two communicants, a means of effecting favorable communication might prove of value, Afenogen decided to develop some sort of semaphore wig-wag series which could be used to spell out messages in his native Aleut language. Two things enabled him to reach this conclusion. First, in 1828 Bishop Ivan Veniaminoff began the study of the Aleut language and reduced it to writing by adapting Russian symbols to Aleut phonetics. In his ten years of labors among the Aleuts he erected schools and churches and, besides teaching the speaking, reading and writing of Russian to the natives, taught them to use their own language in its written form. No rules of spelling were devised, except in Veniaminoff s private consistency of transcription, nor needed where the script was wholly phonetic. Religious books were published in Russia and distributed through the islands, and via the agencies of the Russian church the Aleut written language spread rapidly to common use. Second, it is probable that Afenogen received his idea for a semaphore code from observation of the United States Coast Guard at Unalaska, and on tour, at Umnak. Especially at the latter place where all ships must anchor a half mile out from shore, it is likely that at various times wig-wag conversations were carried on between ship and shore. It is conceivable, but doubtful, that Afenogen evolved the semaphore-code concept independently of any extraneous stimuli, simply because he possessed a written language. Where the Coast Guardsmen were familiar to the native population, the observations by keen Aleut minds would undoubtedly have solved the communication problem. From whatever source Afenogen received the stimulus for reducing his 42 2

2 RANSOM] ALEUT SEMAPHORE SIGNALS 423 written language to code symbols, it is obvious that his signs were independently invented and bear no relationship to the American semaphore. After returning home to Umnak Village from his winter s sojourn on his trapping grounds, Afenogen devoted approximately two weeks, according to my informant, to working out, perfecting, and practicing with his partner a wig-wag code. This is no easy task, as anyone who has mastered the use of the American Boy Scout wig-wag knows. Compared with the American code his signals are awkward to produce and not capable of the speed of the former. It is very probable that Kroeber s theory of stimulus diffusion finds corroboration here. The idea of code communication reached the Aleuts without any of the American symbols. Furthermore the construction of the code is on a radically different principle. The American semaphore is built on a regular succession of arm movements which, taken in order, were assigned alphabetical equivalents from A to Z. No attempt was made to form the signals upon the configuration of the letters themselves. But Afenogen, possessed of a written language and the stimulus for reducing it to signals, utilized the simple scheme of coordinating arm movements with the most characteristic lines that make up the letters of Aleut script. As far as possible Afenogen attempted to reproduce his letters by arm position leaving the uncertain letters v, 6, i, q, c, ya, and x to inverse arm positions of some other letter, or to independent invention of a recognizable position. Once having arrived at a satisfactory complex of symbols he taught others the new means of communication. Within a surprisingly short time the entire male population, youths and adults, were using the code for all sorts of communication. Even today it is not infrequent that two men at opposite ends of the village can be seen wig-wagging back and forth, communicating without the necessity of verbal contact. The informant who gave me the code also stated that in recent years the American Morse code was being put in use for night communication by means of flashlights. The language used, however, is English and principally by the younger generation who may have picked up the code from a Boy Scout Handbook in the government school library. The concept of night communication was, obviously, an outgrowth of the daylight semaphore and came, seemingly, at a later date when therewas no necessityfor the use of the Aleut language. As far as my informant knows,no formal instruction by any white person introduced the Morse. The native Aleuts took up the written language with great enthusiasm, more so than any other Alaskan native people with whom the early missionaries came into contact, and the written language is used widely today.

3 424 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 43, 1941 Essentially it is male property although a few women are able to read it. All village bulletins and church orders are posted on a central bulletin board. Today adult Aleuts keep comprehensive diaries, especially when away trapping. They are excellent letter writers, maintaining constant communication with their distant friends and relatives, not a few of whom journey as far distant as Seattle, more generally ranging from Attu to the Priboloffs, Bristol Bay, and Kodiak. The older natives write entirely in the Aleut language, sometimes in Russian, less frequently in English. The youngsters, through the recent influence of the United States Government schools write most of their letters in English although among themselves, that is, among the boys, they may, and frequently do, write the script taught them by their parents without the sanction of the Federal schools. Following is a description of the Aleut semaphore code. The Russian letters are followed by their phonetic equivalents. Russian Phonetic Letter Equivalent Description A B a V r, 7, 7 A a H 1 Ic Ic** k q JI 1,! Left hand extended horizontally at side, right hand over left chest at shoulder. *Left arm extended horizontally at side, right finger tips on right ear tip. Left arm extended horizontally at side. (This is obviously equal to the written Russian symbol in which the body represents the vertical stroke and the arm the horizontal.) Left arm horizontal at side, right fingers on right hip. Both arms horizontal at side, right elbow bent down at a 90 degree angle. Right hand across body down at 45 degrees; left hand extended up to side at 45 degrees. (The positions represent the two oblique strokes of the letter K. See Boy Scout letter I.) Both arms horizontal at sides; left elbow bent up at 90 degrees, right bent down at 90 degrees. Right hand down at side, extended at 45 degrees. The position of arm and body is almost identical with the ordinary strokes of the Slavonic L.) * Russian letters which do not occur in Aleut proper but are used to spell words of Russian or English derivation. ** Barred K.

4 ALEUT SEMAPHORE CODE

5 RANSOM] M H Hr OlY n P C T cp m n rj OlU Pl b r S t tc f ALEUT SEMAPHORE SIGNALS 425 Both arms extended downward at sides at 45 degrees. (Arms plus body represent the strokes of the capital M. See Boy Scout letter N.) Both arms at fullest extension above head. (Probably represent the vertical strokes of the letter.) Right arm fully extended above head. (Either arm may be used depending on which is easiest to make from the preceding letter. Probably represents the upward curl stroke which Veniaminoff diacritically attached to the ordinary N to distinguish it phone tically. *Fingertips each hand meet above head, arms delimiting a circle. *Right arm extended horizontally at side. (Probably that part of the Russian nwhich is characteristic and different from the r.) *Left, or right, finger tips to cranium above left, or right, ear. (Either arm may be used as there is no distinction except ease of formation. Obviously represents the Russian P.) Both arms extended horizontally at sides, elbows bent up at 90 degrees. This signal may represent the Russian sh (m), considering both arms in relation to the head. Aleut S is intermediate between phonetic c and s, the former being equivalent to the Russian Ill.) Both arms extended horizontally at sides. (Boy Scout letter R. The code representation is close to the actual T.) Right arm horizontal, elbow bent up at 90 degrees. (Unmistakably the Russian cha.) *Both hands to hips, palms up, finger tips touching. (The body represents the vertical stroke through the circle delimited by the arms.) Left finger tips to cranium above left ear, right hand palm up to right hip, finger tips touching. (This is very close to the script appearance of a figure eight which is the old form mostly used. The 8 alternates today with y in Aleut for this phonetic and is of Slavonic antiauitv.)

6 426 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. S., 43, 1941 R X X*** Y X x b completion Both arms horizontal at sides, elbows bent down at 90 degrees. (Represents no script letter.) Left arm up at side extended at 45 degrees, right arm down at side at 45 degrees. (Boy Scout letter L. Arms represent the cross in relation to the body of ordinary X.) Both arms horizontal at sides; right elbow up at 90 degrees, left down at 90 degrees. (Represents no script letter but is the inverse of 9.) Both hands passed back and forth several times immediately in front of the breast. This sign concludes every message, and also represents the final Russian hard sign, b, which is silent but written after every final consonant of Aleut words. This sign is not used in modern Russian spelling having been discarded when the script was modernized but is retained in all church books still using the Slavonic script. Hence its use in Aleut since the most recent Aleut books date back to 1906 and the church books prior to In normal text Aleut words are rarely separated from each other, and this sign serves to distinguish between words. Words ending on vowels are separated by one space. The enclosed series of photographs were made of Ardelion Ermeloff, a relative of Afenogen, who has been convalescing in the Marine Hospital in Seattle, Washington, from tuberculosis. Artie, as he is familiarly known, knew Jochelson, who used his father as one of his principal informants at Umnak. He himself was my most valued informant in 1936 when I first began the study of Aleut at Nikolski, Umnak Island, Alaska. He is much interested in his own language and the preservation of ethnologic values, and like many of the older natives reads and writes Russian, Aleut, and English. The latter language he has taught himself. A study of these photographs discloses certain fundamental differences in Artie s hand positions from those employed by users of the American semaphore code. These differences may be of cultural significance and therefore I wish to draw attention to them. It will be noted in the majority of positions that Artie has his hands palm up. Users of the American system normally run through their signals palm down. In letters m and t where a choice of palm position might have been *** X with inverted brevity mark.

7 RANSOM] ALEUT SEMAPHORE SIGNALS 427 made either way, Artie placed his hands palm down, but upon other occasions in forming the signal t, he held his hands palm up. The position and use of the fingers is interesting for the delicate touch made by the finger tips against those portions of the body where contact is called for by the signal. In letter f Artie touches his hip only with the tips of his fingers on hands held palm up whereas the average American loosely doubles his fists and plants them firmly on his hips. Certain words have become conventionalized by use in a rapid shifting of the arms through their positions without recourse to the normal slight pause following each letter. Aleut yam, meaning yesterday, is produced virtually in one motion. Such conventionalizations are comparable to the American semaphore signaled turn which may be performed by one continuous motion. Needless to say these patterns are the result of a complex of signals which flow easily one into the other and play no important part in the code language. A strict adherence to phonetic spelling is not attempted. It is of linguistic interest to note that a single signal is used to represent the medial and velar gamma while two distinct signs are used for the corresponding surd phonetics, which leads one to postulate that a semantic association is more important in the latter case. In summarizing the development of the Aleut Semaphore Code three factors contributed to its origin. First there had arisen in historic times a written language which the Aleuts took up enthusiastically to fill some unexplained felt want in their daily lives. Secondly, the basic idea of code communication serving as a stimulus to set off the inventive ingenuity reached the Aleuts by probable diffusion through the Coast Guard within the twentieth century. And third, and very likely the most important single cause of development, was the economic and environmental necessity which demanded solution of a problem in communication. This problem may have existed prior to the arrival of the appropriate stimulus, probably as a felt but nonverbalized need, in which case the arrival of the stimulus served to set off the resultant reaction leading to a solution. For nearly two centuries the Aleuts have been in continuous association with white civilization, not always of the highest type, and their present culture is a curious blending of elements from widely divergent sources. It is therefore safest to assume that this form of communication is the direct result of stimulus diffusion rather than independent evolution although the form which the resulting product took may be attributed to the latter origin. SEATTLE, WASH~NGTON