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Signs in Speare's The Sign of the Beaver
The Sign of the Beaver is a masterful title for Elizabeth George Speare's historical frontier novel aboutthe developing relationship between young Matt Hallowell and an Indian youthnamed Attean. In the novel, the words sign or signs come tosymbolize the different communication systems of the two boys, and thesecommunication systems, in turn, reveal the boys' contrasting cultural values.
Many years ago Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure recognized the importanceof signs to communication. He believed that
since language was a system of signs linguistics ought to be part of a largerscience of signs, "a science which would study the life of signs withinsociety.... We call it semiology from the Green semeion (`sign').It would teach us what signs consist of, what laws govern them." (Culler, p.22)
Semiology, or semiotics as it is now called, has since been developed byJonathan Culler, Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco and others to a level way beyondmy ken or desire to learn, but these scholars still return to Saussure's basicprinciples of langue and parole. Saussure viewed langue as"the total language-system each speaker carries with him totally present atevery moment" and parole as "the individual speech act, temporallysuccessive, largely constrained by the langue but ultimately modifyingit" (Holtz, p. 276). Thus, langue is the system of signs itselfwhile parole is the individual expression of the system.
The importance of signs as expressed in Matt's langue, especially in hiswritten language system, is shown early in the book. Soon after twelve-year-oldMatt has been left to guard his family's new cabin in the Maine woods while hisfather returns home to bring the rest of the family, he encounters variousdifficulties. These problems include a dishonest visitor named Ben, who stealshis rifle; a marauding bear, who scatters his flour and eats his molasses; anda swarm of bees, whose poison might have killed him if he had not beenbefriended by Attean and his grandfather Saknis. In return for the Indians'kindness, Matt offers them the only thing he has to offer -- his worn copy ofRobinson Crusoe. Almost immediately, Matt regrets his gift, for herealizes that the Indians cannot read. However, Saknis realizes that the bookholds a kind of power, for it contains the signs -- the written words --that have stolen his people's land. Eagerly, he proposes that Matt teach hisgrandson the "signs" in the book:
"Attean learn," he said. "White man come more and more to Indian land. Whiteman not make treaty with pipe. White man make signs on paper, signs Indian notknow. Indian put mark on paper to show him friend of white man. Then white mantake land. Tell Indian cannot hunt on land. Attean learn to read white man'ssigns. Attean not give away hunting grounds." (p. 31)
Saknis realizes that his people have been cheated because they have notunderstood the language system, the langue, of the white men who havemade treaties with them.
Saussure's definition of a sign within a language system is also helpful here,for he recognized that each sign was "made up of a `signifier' (a sound-image,or its graphic equivalent), and a `signified' (the concept or meaning)"(Eagleton, p. 96). Certainly, Saknis understands and expresses, if imperfectly,the oral language system of white society; but he does not understand the"graphic equivalents" and does not bring to the signs the same set of culturalvalues. Therefore, his interpretation of the "signified," or the meaning, hasbeen different to that of the white men with whom he has signed treaties.
As Matt begins to teach Attean his written language, the importance oflangue, or a system, becomes more apparent. He recalls that he hadlearned his own alphabet in the religious context of "A" standing for "InAdam's fall/We sinned all" (p. 32). Shrewdly, he decides to use lessethnocentric references for the letters, such as arm for "A" andbone for "B"; but significantly enough, these isolated fragments of thelanguage system mean nothing to Attean. It is only after Matt begins to readhim Robinson Crusoe, which shows the language system in action, thatAttean becomes interested enough to begin to learn.
William Holtz's connection of langue to culture and of parole to"concrete experience" (p. 277) clearly applies to Matt's reading of RobinsonCrusoe to Attean. At first, Matt accepts without question the cultural biasagainst "savages" expressed in the language system of the book. For example, hereads the following passage about Crusoe's first meeting with his man Friday toAttean without a thought to its being offensive:
The poor savage who fled, but had stopped, ...was so frightened with the noiseand fire of my piece, that he stood stock-still, and neither came forward norwent backward.... I beckoned to him again to come to me... and he came nearerand nearer, kneeling down every ten or twelve steps, in token ofacknowledgement for saving his life.... At length he came close to me, and thenhe kneeled down again, kissed the ground, and, taking my foot, set it upon hishead. This, it seemed, was a token of swearing to be my slave forever.... (pp.42-43)
Attean responds to this passage angrily: " `Never kneel down to whiteman!' ... `Not kneel down,' Attean repeated fiercely. `Not be slave. Betterdie'" (p. 43). As a result of Attean's reaction, Matt is left with new thoughtsand new questions, for, "Like Robinson Crusoe, he has thought it natural andright that the wild man should be the white man's slave" (p. 44).
Thus, this "concrete experience" with his language and its cultural bias causesMatt to look at Attean differently, and the next time he reads RobinsonCrusoe to his Indian friend, he begins to take freedoms with the book-- skipping over the parts where Friday calls Crusoe "master," for example.Thus, as Saussaur has observed, although the "system [is] determined ... theindividual is free...." This view of language
...grasps social pressures and determinants not so much as forces active in ouractual speaking, but as a monolithic structure which somehow stands overagainst us. It presumes that parole, individual utterance, reallyis individual, rather than an inevitably social and "dialogic" affairwhich catches us up with other speakers and listeners in a whole field ofsocial values and purposes. (p. 114)
When he decides to alter the written signs in Robinson Crusoe, Matt hasallowed his parole to alter the langue he is using. That is, hehas learned to place his own personal experience and friendship abovepreconceived cultural biases. He now sees Attean as an individual and views hisculture through the lens of humanity rather than through that of a specificcultural system.
But Matt's language is not the only communication system described in TheSign of the Beaver. Whereas Speare emphasizes Matt's written language, sheemphasizes Attean's oral language. Matt reads the story of RobinsonCrusoe to Attean; Attean, in turn, tells this and other stories tothe people of his village. In fact, this quality of oral storytelling isessential to the Indians' culture. The contrasting methods of expression --written for Matt and oral for Attean -- also reveal basic cultural contrasts.The Indian culture is based on the group, or the tribe, and, therefore,requires audience reaction and participation. Reading and writing, on the otherhand, are basically solitary pursuits, practices that, according to MarshallMcLuhan, separate and fragment individuals from one another -- as indeed anunrevised reading of Robinson Crusoe would have separated Matt andAttean. As McLuhan has further observed, "The patterns of the senses that areextended in the various languages of men are as varied as styles of dress andart. Each mother tongue teaches its users a way of seeing and feeling theworld, and of acting in the world, that is quite unique" (p. 83).
Indeed, as representatives of their cultures, Matt and Attean do see and feelthe world quite differently. For example, Matt and his father have "bought" theland where they have built their cabin. However, Attean does not understand theconcept of ownership of land because his culture views the land itself as aseparate entity like the sky or the sea:
"How one man own ground?" Attean questioned.
"Well, my father owns it now. He bought it."
"I not understand." Attean scowled. "How can man own land? Land same as air.Land for all people to live on. For beaver and deer. Does deer own land?" (p.117)
Another reason that Attean doesn't understand the white concept of landownership is that his entire village functions as a true community so thatindividual ownership of property is unnecessary and undesirable.
The Indians respect not only the land itself but also all of nature.Significantly, then, their signs are natural ones. For example, whenSaknis first introduces himself to Matt, he identifies himself as one of the"family of beaver" (p. 26). And later when the boys visit a beaver dam, Atteanexplains to Matt about his family's signs:
He pointed to a tree nearby. "Sign of beaver," he said. "Belong to family."
Carved on the bark Matt could make out the crude figure of an animal thatcould, with some imagination, be a beaver.
"Sign show beaver house belong to people of beaver," Attean explained. "By andby, when young beaver all grown, people of beaver hunt here. No one hunt butpeople of beaver."
"You mean, just from that mark on the tree, another hunter would not shoothere?"
"That our way," Attean said gravely. "All Indian understand." (pp. 55-56)
But, Matt wonders, "Would a white man understand?" (p. 56).
Then, almost immediately, Matt realizes that renegades such as Ben, the whiteman who had stolen his rifle, would never understand and respect the Indiansigns. One reason for this lack of understanding, perhaps, is that the Indiansand white men use totally different types of signs. That is, the Indians use acrude picture of a beaver, an "iconic" sign, which C. S. Peirce, the Americanfounder of semiotics, defines as one that "somehow resembled what it stood for(a photograph of a person, for example)"; in contrast, the white man's writtenlanguage uses a "symbolic" sign, which is "only arbitrarily or conventionallylinked with its referent" (Eagleton, p. 101).
Returning home from the beaver dam, Attean shows Matt more Indian signs --"secret signs" of a dislodged stone or a broken stick that he has made to showthe way through the forest. Matt recalls his father's way of making "blazes onthe trees with his knife," but Attean explains, "`That white man's way. Indianmaybe not want to show where he go. Not want hunters to find beaver house" (p.57). Semiotically speaking, these different sign methods of marking one's waythough the forest make us
think of our social and cultural world as a series of sign systems, comparablewith language. What we live among and relate to are not physical objects andevents; they are objects and events with meaning: ... not just physicalgestures but acts of courtesy or hostility. (p. 25)
As Matt and Attean get to know one another and become friends, they learn moreabout each other's sign systems. Matt knows that "he ought to feel grateful forAttean's teaching," for each day
Attean taught him some new thing -- a plant like an onion that he could dropinto his cooking pot to make his stew more tasty -- a weed with a small orangeflower and a milky juice in its stem that took away the sting of insect bitesor poison ivy -- a plant with brownish flowers and roots bearing a string ofnutlike bulbs that thickened his stew and made it more nourishing. (p. 66)
And Matt observes that
in spite of himself Attean had learned something from the white boy. He wasspeaking the English tongue with greater ease.... In return, Matt liked to tryout Indian words.... He didn't think he could ever quite get them right, but hecould see that though it amused Attean when he tried, it also pleased him. (p.67)
Thus, Matt and Attean have each learned more about the other's langue-- about the language or sign system with which each society communicates. Andin so doing, each boy has also learned to understand and respect the culture ofthe other. At the beginning of the book, Matt had viewed Attean as well as the"man Friday" in Robinson Crusoe as "savages." Later, after he observesAttean's self-sufficiency, knowledge, and skill in the forest, Matt seeshimself as a "puny sort of Robinson Crusoe" (p. 57). Finally, however, Mattgrows beyond the confines of his own written language as symbolized byRobinson Crusoe. At the end of Defoe's book, Crusoe leaves Friday behindwith hardly a thought for his welfare. In contrast, when Attean and his tribeleave in The Sign of the Beaver, Attean and Matt make symbolic gifts offriendship. Attean gives his dog to Matt; in response, Matt rejects hisoriginal gift to Attean, the culturally biased Robinson Crusoe, in favorof a family heirloom -- his father's watch. Each of these gifts represents theculture of its original owner, but even more importantly, each gift is a signof friendship. Matt has truly come to understand and respect "the sign of thebeaver."
Works Cited
Culler, Jonathan. The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature,Deconstruction. Cornell, 1981.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. University ofMinnesota Press, 1983.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. NAL,1964.
Speare, Elizabeth George. The Sign of the Beaver. Dell Yearling,1983.
Ann Mosley is a professor of literature and languages at East Texas StateUniversity and a former reviewer for The ALAN Review. She delivered thispaper at the Children's Literature Section of the South Central MLA meeting.
