God only gave me two hands. The rest he gave to the Indians.

[Charles Doyle]

"God only gave me two hands" (with various placements of "only" or "just") gets about 160 Google hits--not many, to be sure.  There are significantly more for "I only have two hands" (12,500), "I've only got two hands" (2,770), "I only got two hands" (450), etc.  Of course, not all of those instances are germain. Still, we can identify a set expression, which is often uttered as a retort to being urged to hurry at some manual task. The "Indians" part is probably an innovative addendum, without much occurrence in oral tradition.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 13:16:32 -0400
>From: Grant Barrett <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
>Subject: Re: God only gave me two hands. The rest he gave
>
>On Aug 4, 2008, at 12:58, Charles Doyle wrote:
>
>> Yes, like Mark, I'd say it's a proverb or catch phrase + a variable) coda.
>
>Perhaps, but I've tried numerous searches in which I wildcarded the nouns or verbs, or tried different, common ones, and others in which I changed or wildcarded the pronouns, to no avail. I've also tried stripping it down to the basics, taking it down the minimum form in which any meaning is still retained.
>
>For example, "two hands" is likely to be unchanged whatever form this saying might have taken elsewhere, though perhaps "ten fingers" or >"two arms" or "one body" might be possible.
>
>For example, I've searched for the lord|almighty|jesus|holy father|He in the place of "God," and Injuns|heathens|pagans|natives|Native Americans in place of "Indians."
>
>Grant

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