…A young child born deaf in an indigenous North American nation grew up nearly always being able to communicate with her community. She would not be physically segregated. The expectation would be that if she survived the vagaries of life to which all were exposed, she could find and enjoy a partner, and she would eventually grow old as a treasured elder who tickled and guided the children around her. If all were in balance, she would find her gift—perhaps weaving, perhaps gathering particularly delicious herbs—and share that with her community, who would then share their gifts with her. A successful healing ceremony, if one was needed, would balance and resolve whatever unease might have existed—but certainly no one would expect the young girl to hear, for such a result was unnecessary.

Nearly every indigenous-language group used signed communication to some degree, and many nations shared singed languages despite their verbal difference. Europeans documented use of signed language among North American indigenous peoples as early as the sixteenth century, and anthropologists and linguists agree that it was employed long before contact with Europeans. Signed language has been identified within at least forty different language groups. Today, we know about indigenous signed languages because of its continued use by some elders, the anthropological work of scholars such as the Smithsonian’s Garrick Mallery in the late nineteenth century, films made by Hugh L. Scott in 1930 at the Indian Sign Language Council, and the tenacious scholarship and activism of contemporary linguists such as Jeffery E. Davis.

The most widely used signed language spread across an extensive region of the Great Plains, from Canada’s North Saskatchewan River to the Rio Grande, from the Rocky Mountain foothills to the Mississippi-Missouri valley. What is now referred to as Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL) enabled communication across communities regarding trade, in critical political negotiations, and even in courtship. Great Plains used this “signed lingua franca” as Davis has characterized it, within their communities as an alternative to spoken language for ritual or storytelling purposes—and of course as a primary language for deaf people and those around them.