Fig. 237.SHELL GORGET WITH ENGRAVED SWASTIKA, CIRCLES, AND DOTS.Fains Island, Tennessee. Cat. No. 62928, U. S. N. M.
Fig. 238.ENGRAVED SHELL WITH SWASTIKA, CIRCLES, AND DOTS.Toco Mound, Monroe County, Tenn. Cat. No. 115624, U. S. N. M.
The peculiar form of this Swastika is duplicated by a Runic Swastika in Sweden, cited by Ludwig Müller and by Count d’Alviella.[248]
The following objects were found in the mound on Fains Island associated with the Swastika shell (fig. 237) and described, and many of them figured:[249]A gorget of the sameFulgurshell (fig. 239); a second gorget ofFulgurshell with an engraved spider (fig. 278); a pottery vase with a figure of a frog; three rude axes from four to seven inches in length, of diorite and quartzite; a pierced tablet of slate; a disk of translucent quartz 1¾ inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch in thickness; a mass of pottery, much of it in fragments, and a number of bone implements, including needles and paddle-shaped objects. The shell objects (in addition to the disks and gorgets mentioned) were pins made from the columellæ of Fulgur (Busycon perversum?) of the usual form and about four inches in length. There were also found shell beads, cylindrical in form, an inch in length and upward of an inch in diameter, with other beads of various sizes and shapes made from marine shells, and natural specimens ofIo spinosa,Unio probatus.
Plate 10.Engraved Fulgur(?) Shell, Resembling Statue of Buddha.Toco Mound, Tennessee. Cat. No. 115560, U. S. N. M.
The specimen represented infig. 238is a small shell from the Big Toco mound, Monroe County, Tenn., found by Mr. Emmert with skeleton No. 49 and isfig. 262, Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1890-91, page 383, although it is not described. This is a circular disk ofFulgurshell, much damaged around the edge, 1½ inches in diameter, on which has been engraved a Swastika. It has a small circle and a dot in the center, around which circle the arms of the Swastika are interlaced. There are also circles and central dots at each turn of the four arms. The hatch work in the arc identifies this work with that of other crosses and a triskelion from the same general locality—figs.302,305, and306, the former being part of the same find by Mr. Emmert.Fig. 222, a bronze gilt fibula from Berkshire, England, bears a Swastika of the same style asfig. 238from Tennessee. The circles and central dots offig. 238have a similarity to Peruvian ornamentation. The form and style, the broad arms, the circles and central dots, the lines of engravings, show such similarity of form and work as mark this specimen as a congener of the Swastika from Fains Island (fig. 237). The other objects found in the mound associated with this Swastika will be described farther on.
There can be no doubt of these figures being the genuine Swastika, and that they were of aboriginal workmanship. Their discovery immediately suggests investigation as to evidences of communication with the Eastern Hemisphere, and naturally the first question would be, Are there any evidences of Buddhism in the Western Hemisphere? When I found, a few days ago, the two before-described representations of Swastikas, it was my belief that no reliable trace of Buddha or the Buddhist religion had ever been found among the aboriginal or prehistoric Americans. This statement was made, as almost all other statements concerning prehistoric man should be, with reserve, and subject to future discoveries, but without idea that a discovery of evidence on the subject was so near. In searching the U. S. National Museum for the objects described in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology under the title of “Art in Shell among the Ancient Americans,” the writer discovered a neglected specimen of a mutilated and damaged shell (pl. 10), marked as shown on the back, found by Mr. Emmert, an employé of the Bureau of Ethnology, in the year 1882. Its original field number was 267, Professor Thomas’s 6542, the Museum number 115562, and it was found in the Big Toco mound, Monroe County, Tenn. It is not figured nor mentioned in any of the Bureau reports. It is greatly to be regretted that this shell is so mutilated. In its present condition no one can say positively what it is, whether a statue of Buddha or not; but to all appearances it represents one of the Buddhist divinities. Its material, similar to the hundred others found in the neighborhood, shows it to have been indigenous, yet parts of its style are different from other aboriginal North American images. Attention is called to the slim waist, the winged arms, the crossed legs, the long feet, breadth of toes, the many dots and circles shown over the body, with triple lines of garters or anklets. All these show a different dress from the ancient North American. The girdle about the waist, and the triangular dress which, with its decorations and arrangementof dots and circles, cover the lower part of the body, are to be remarked. While there are several specimens of aboriginal art from this part of the country which bear these peculiarities of costumes, positions, appearance, and manner of work, showing them to have been in use among a portion of the people, yet they are not part of the usual art products. There is a manifest difference between this and the ordinary statue of the Indian or of the mound builder of that neighborhood or epoch.
It is not claimed that this shell proves the migration of Buddhism from Asia, nor its presence among North American Indians. “One swallow does not make a summer.” But this figure, taken in connection with the Swastika, presents a set of circumstances corresponding with that possibility which goes a long distance in forming circumstantial evidence in its favor.
M. Gustave d’Eichthal wrote a series of essays in the Revue Archæologique, 1864-65, in which he collated the evidence and favored the theory of Buddhist influence in ancient America. Other writers have taken the same or similar views and have attributed all manner of foreign influence, like the Lost Tribes of Israel, etc., to the North American Indian,[250]but all these theories have properly had but slight influence in turning public opinion in their direction. Mr. V. R. Gandhi, in a recent letter to the author, says of this specimen (pl. 10):
While Swastika technically means the cross with the arms bent to the right, later on it came to signify anything which had the form of a cross; for instance, the posture in which a persons sits with his legs crossed is called the Swastika posture;[251]also when a person keeps his arms crosswise over his chest, or a woman covers her breast with her arms crossed, that particular attitude, is called the Swastika attitude, which has no connection, however, with the symbolic meaning of the Swastika with four arms. The figure [pl. 10], a photograph of which you gave me the other day, has the same Swastika posture. In matters of concentration and meditation, Swastika posture is oftentimes prescribed, which is also called Sukhasana, meaning a posture of ease and comfort. In higher forms of concentration, the posture is changed from Sukhasana to Padmasana, the posture which is generally found in Jain and Buddhist images. The band around the waist, which goes from the navel lower on till it reaches the back part, has a peculiar significance in the Jain philosophy. The Shvetamber division of the Jain community have always this kind of band in their images. The object is twofold: The first is that the generative parts ought not to be visible; the second is that this band is considered a symbol of perfect chastity.
There can be no doubt of the authenticity of these objects, nor any suspicion against their having been found as stated in the labels attached. They are in the Museum collection, as are other specimens. They come unheralded and with their peculiar character unknown. They were obtained by excavations made by a competent and reliable investigator who had been engaged in mound exploration, a regular employé of the Bureau of Ethnology, under the direction of Prof.Cyrus Thomas during several years, and always of good reputation and unblemished integrity. They come with other objects, labeled in the same way and forming one of a series of numbers among thousands. Its resemblance to Buddhist statues was apparently undiscovered or unrecognized, at least unmentioned, by all those having charge of it, and in its mutilated condition it was laid away among a score of other specimens of insufficient value to justify notice or publication, and is now brought to light through accident, no one having charge of it recognizing it as being different from any other of the half hundred engraved shells theretofore described. The excavation of Toco mound is described by Professor Thomas in the Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pages 379-384.
We can now be governed only by the record as to the objects associated with this shell (pl. 10), which shows it to have been found with skeleton No. 8, in Big Toco mound, Monroe County, Tenn., while the Swastika offigure 238was found with skeleton No. 49. Toco mound contained fifty-two skeletons, or, rather, it contained buried objects reported as from that many skeletons. Those reported as with skeleton No. 8 were, in addition to this gorget: One polished stone hatchet, one stone pipe, and one bowl with scalloped rim. Toco mound seems to have been exceedingly rich, having furnished 198 objects of considerable importance. Association of discovered objects is one of the important means of furnishing evidence in prehistoric archæology. It is deemed of sufficient importance in the present case to note objects from Toco mound associated with the Buddha statue. They are given in list form, segregated by skeletons:
Skeleton No.4. Two polished stone hatchets, one discoidal stone.5. One polished stone hatchet.7. Two large seashells.8. One stone pipe, one polished stone hatchet, one ornamented shell gorget (the Buddha statue,pl. 10), one ornamented bowl, with scalloped rim.9. Two polished stone hatchets.12. A lot of small shell beads.13. Four bone implements (one ornamented), one stone pipe, two shell gorgets (one ornamented), one bear tooth.17. One polished stone hatchet.18. Two polished stone hatchets, one stone pipe, one boat-shaped bowl (ornamented), one shell gorget (ornamented), one shell mask, one shell pin, one shell gorget, one bear tooth, lot of shell beads.22. Two polished stone chisels, one stone disk.24. One polished stone hatchet.26. Two polished stone hatchets, one waterworn stone, two hammer stones.27. One polished stone hatchet.28. Two polished stone hatchets, one ornamented bowl.31. One polished stone hatchet, one polished stone chisel.33. Two polished stone hatchets, one two-eared pot, one small shell gorget, three shell pins, fragments of pottery.34. Three polished stone hatchets.36. One discoidal stone.37. One polished stone chisel, one stone pipe, one shell mask (ornamented).41. One polished stone hatchet, one stone pipe, pottery vase with ears (ornamented), one shell mask, one shell pin, four arrowheads (two with serrated edges), two stone perforators.43. Lot of shell beads.49. One polished stone hatchet, one spade-shaped stone ornament (perforated), one spear-head, one stone pipe, one pottery bowl with two handles, two shell masks (ornamented), twenty-seven bone needles, two beaver teeth, one bone implement (raccoon), piece of mica, lot of red paint, two shell gorgets (one ornamented with Swastika,fig. 238), thirty-six arrow-heads, lot of flint chips, fragment of animal jaw and bones, lot of large shells, one image pot.51. One shell pin, one shell mask, one arrow-head, two small shell beads.52. One shell mask, one shell gorget, one shell ornament.
Skeleton No.
4. Two polished stone hatchets, one discoidal stone.
5. One polished stone hatchet.
7. Two large seashells.
8. One stone pipe, one polished stone hatchet, one ornamented shell gorget (the Buddha statue,pl. 10), one ornamented bowl, with scalloped rim.
9. Two polished stone hatchets.
12. A lot of small shell beads.
13. Four bone implements (one ornamented), one stone pipe, two shell gorgets (one ornamented), one bear tooth.
17. One polished stone hatchet.
18. Two polished stone hatchets, one stone pipe, one boat-shaped bowl (ornamented), one shell gorget (ornamented), one shell mask, one shell pin, one shell gorget, one bear tooth, lot of shell beads.
22. Two polished stone chisels, one stone disk.
24. One polished stone hatchet.
26. Two polished stone hatchets, one waterworn stone, two hammer stones.
27. One polished stone hatchet.
28. Two polished stone hatchets, one ornamented bowl.
31. One polished stone hatchet, one polished stone chisel.
33. Two polished stone hatchets, one two-eared pot, one small shell gorget, three shell pins, fragments of pottery.
34. Three polished stone hatchets.
36. One discoidal stone.
37. One polished stone chisel, one stone pipe, one shell mask (ornamented).
41. One polished stone hatchet, one stone pipe, pottery vase with ears (ornamented), one shell mask, one shell pin, four arrowheads (two with serrated edges), two stone perforators.
43. Lot of shell beads.
49. One polished stone hatchet, one spade-shaped stone ornament (perforated), one spear-head, one stone pipe, one pottery bowl with two handles, two shell masks (ornamented), twenty-seven bone needles, two beaver teeth, one bone implement (raccoon), piece of mica, lot of red paint, two shell gorgets (one ornamented with Swastika,fig. 238), thirty-six arrow-heads, lot of flint chips, fragment of animal jaw and bones, lot of large shells, one image pot.
51. One shell pin, one shell mask, one arrow-head, two small shell beads.
52. One shell mask, one shell gorget, one shell ornament.
These objects are now in the U. S. National Museum and in my department. The list is taken from the official catalogue, and they number from 115505 to 115684. I have had the opportunity of comparing the objects with this description and find their general agreement. Dr. Palmer, the finder, was an employé of the Bureau of Ethnology, is a man of the highest character, of great zeal as an archæologist and naturalist, and has been for many years, and is now, in the employ of the Bureau or Museum, always with satisfaction and confidence. Mr. Emmert was also an employé of the Bureau for many years, and equally reliable.
The specimens of shell in this and several other mounds, some of which are herein figured, were in an advanced stage of decay, pitted, discolored, and crumbling, requiring to be handled with the utmost care to prevent disintegration. They were dried by the collector, immersed in a weak solution of glue, and forwarded immediately (in 1885), with other relics from the neighborhood, to the Bureau of Ethnology and National Museum at Washington, where they have remained ever since. There is not the slightest suspicion concerning the genuineness or antiquity of this specimen or of those bearing the Swastika as belonging to the mound-building epoch in the valley of the Tennessee.
Fig. 239.SHELL GORGET.Two fighting figures with triangular breech-clout, garters and anklets, and dots and circles.Fains Island, Tennessee. Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 452, fig. 128. Cat. No. 62930, U. S. N. M.
Other figures of sufficient similarity to the Swastika have been found among the aborigines of North America to show that these do not stand alone; and there are also other human figures which show a style of work so similar and such resemblance in detail of design as to establish the practical identity of their art. One of these was a remarkable specimen of engraved shell found in the same mound, Fains Island, which contained the first Swastika (fig. 237). It is described in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, page 301, under the name of McMahon’s mound. It is a large polished Fulgur shell disk which, when entire, has been nearly 5 inches in diameter (fig. 239). A little more than one-third has crumbled away, and the remaining portion has been preserved only by careful handling and immediate immersion in a solution of glue. It had been engraved on the concave side. The design represents two human figures plumed and winged,armed with eagles’ talons and engaged in mortal combat. The design apparently covered the entire shell, leaving no space for encircling lines. The two figures are in profile and face each other in a fierce onset. Of the right-hand figure, only the body, one arm, and one leg remain. The left-hand figure is almost complete. The outline of the face, one arm, and one foot is all that is affected. The right hand is raised above the head in the act of brandishing a long knife pointed at both ends. The other combatant, clutching in his right hand a savage-looking blade with its point curved, seems delivering a blow in the face of his antagonist. Of the visible portions of the figures, the hands are vigorously drawn, the thumbs press down upon the outside of the forefingers in a natural effort to tighten the grasp. The body, arms, and legs are well defined and in proper proportion, the joints are correctly placed, the left knee is bent forward, and the foot planted firmly on the ground, while the right is thrown gracefully back against the rim at the left, and the legs terminate in well-drawn eagles’ feet armed with curvedtalons. The head is decorated with a single plume which springs from a circular ornament placed over the ear; an angular figure extends forward from the base of this plume, and probably represents what is left of the headdress proper. In front of this—on the very edge of the crumbling shell—is one-half of the lozenge-shaped eye, the dot representing the pupil being almost obliterated. The ankles and legs just below the knee and the wrists each have three lines representing bracelets or anklets. It is uncertain whether the leg is covered or naked; but between the waistband and the leggings, over the abdomen, is represented on both figures a highly decorated triangular garment, or, possibly coat of mail, to which particular attention is called.[252]In the center, at the top, just under the waistband, are four circles with dots in the center arranged in a square; outside of this, still at the top, are two triangular pieces, and outside of them are two more circles and dots; while the lower part of the triangle, with certain decorations of incised lines, completes the garment. This decoration is the same on both figures, and corresponds exactly with the Buddha figure. An ornament is suspended on the breast which shows three more of the circles and dots. The earring is still another. The right-hand figure, so far as it can be seen, is a duplicate of the left, and in the drawing it has, where destroyed, been indicated by dotted lines. It is remarkable that the peculiar clothing or decoration of these two figures should be almost an exact reproduction of the Buddha figure (pl. 10). Anotherinteresting feature of the design is the highly conventionalized wing which fills the space beneath the uplifted arm. This wing is unlike the usual specimens of aboriginal art which have been found in such profusion in that neighborhood. But it is again remarkable that this conventionalized wing and the bracelets, anklets, and garters should correspond in all their peculiarities of construction and design with the wings on the copper and shell figures from the Etowah mound, Georgia (figs.240,241, and242)[253]. Behind the left-hand figure is an ornament resembling the spreading tail of an eagle which, with its feather arrangement and the detail of their mechanism, correspond to a high degree with the eagle effigies in repoussé copper (fig. 243) from the mound inUnion County, Ill., shown in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (p. 105) and in the Twelfth Annual Report (p. 309).
Fig. 240.COPPER PLATE.Entowah Mound, Georgia.Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,fig. 42. Cat. No. 91113, U. S. N. M.
Fig. 241.COPPER PLATE.Repoussé work. Entowah Mound, Georgia.Cat. No. 91117, U. S. N. M.
Fig. 242.ENGRAVED SHELL.Triangular breech-clout with dots and circles.Entowah Mound, Georgia.Cat. No. 91443, U. S. N. M.
Hopewell Mound, Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio.—A later discovery of the Swastika belonging to the same period and the same general locality—that is, to the Ohio Valley—was that of Prof. Warren K. Moorehead, in the fall and winter of 1891-92, in his excavations of the Hopewell mound, seven miles northwest of Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio.[254]The locality of this mound is well shown in Squier and Davis’s work on the “Monuments of the Mississippi Valley” (pl. 10, p. 26), under the name of “Clark’s Works,” here reproduced aspl. 11. It is the large irregular unnumbered triple mound just within the arc of the circle shown in the center of the plan. The excavation contemplated the destruction of the mound by cutting it down to the surrounding level and scattering the earth of which it was made over the surface; and this was done. Preparatory to this, a survey and ground plan was made (pl. 12). I assisted at this survey and can vouch for the general correctness. The mound was surrounded by parallel lines laid out at right angles and marked by stakes 50 feet apart. The mound was found to be 530 feet long and 250 feet wide. Squier and Davis reported its height at 32 feet, but the excavation of the trenches required but 18 and 16 feet to the original surface on which the mound was built. It was too large to be cut down as a whole, and for convenience it was decided by Mr. Moorehead to cut it down in trenches, commencing on the northeast. Nothing was found until, in opening trench 3, about five feet above the base of the mound, they struck a mass of thin worked copper objects, laid flat one atop the other, in a rectangular space, say three by four feet square. These objects are unique in American prehistoric archæology. Some of them bore a resemblance in form to the scalloped mica pieces found by Squier and Davis, and described by them intheir “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley” (p. 240), and also those of the same material found by Professor Putnam in the Turner group of mounds in the valley of the Little Miami. They had been apparently laid between two layers of bark, whether for preservation or mere convenience of deposit, can only be guessed.
Larger Image
Plate 11.Plan of North Fork (Hopewell) Works.Ross County, Ohio. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. I, Pl.X.
Larger Image
Plate 12.Plan of Hopewell Mound,in which Aboriginal Copper Swastikas were Found.Ross County, Ohio. Moorehead, “Primitive Man in Ohio,” Pl.XXXIV.
Fig. 243.COPPER PLATE SHOWINGFIGURE OF EAGLE.Repoussé work. Union County,Ill. Cat. No. 91507, U. S. N. M.
Fig. 244.SWASTIKA CROSS OFTHIN COPPER.Hopewell Mound,Ross County, Ohio.¼ natural size.
Fig. 245.FLAT RING OF THIN COPPER.Hopewell Mound,Ross County, Ohio.⅕ natural size.
Fig. 246.STENCIL ORNAMENT OF THIN COPPER.Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.⅛ natural size.
The following list of objects is given, to the end that the reader may see what was associated with these newly found copper Swastikas: Five Swastika crosses (fig. 244); a long mass of copper covered with wood on one side and with squares and five similar designs traceable on the reverse; smaller mass of copper; eighteen single copper rings; a number of double copper rings, one set of three and one set of two; five pan lids or hat-shaped rings; ten circular disks with holes in center, represented infig. 245, originally placed in a pile and now oxidized together; also large circular, stencil-like ornaments, one (fig. 246) 7½ inches in diameter; another (fig. 247) somewhat in the shape of a St. Andrew’s cross, the extreme length over the arms being 8¾ inches.
About five feet below the deposit of sheet copper and 10 or 12 feet to the west, two skeletons lay together. They were covered with copper plates and fragments, copper hatchets, and pearl beads, shown in the list below, laid in rectangular form about seven feet in length and five feet in width, and so close as to frequently overlap.
There were also found sixty-six copper hatchets, ranging from 1½ to 22½ inches in length; twenty-three copper plates and fragments; one copper eagle; eleven semicircles, bars, etc.; two spool-shaped objects; four comb-shaped effigies; one wheel with peculiar circles and bars of copper; three long plates of copper; pearl and shell beads and teeth; a lot of extra fine pearls; a lot of wood, beads, and an unknown metal; a lot of bones; a human jaw, very large; a fragmentary fish resembling a sucker (fig. 248); one stool of copper with two legs; broken copper plates; one broken shell; bear and panther tusks; mica plates; forty fragmentary and entire copper stencils of squares, circles, diamonds, hearts, etc.; copper objects, saw-shaped; twenty ceremonial objects, rusted or oxidized copper; two diamond-shaped stencils, copper (fig. 249); four peculiar spool-shaped copper ornaments, perforated, showing repoussé work (fig. 250).
I made sketches of two or three of the bone carvings, for the purpose of showing the art of the people who constructed this monument, so that by comparison with that of other known peoples some knowledge may be obtained, or theory advanced, concerning the race or tribe to which they belonged and the epoch in which they lived.Fig. 251shows an exquisite bone carving of a paroquet which belongs much farther south and not found in that locality in modern times. The design shown infig. 252suggests a Mississippi Kite, but the zoologists of the Museum, while unable to determine with exactitude its intended representation, chiefly from the mutilated condition of the fragment, report it more likely to be thehead of the “leather-back” turtle.Fig. 253probably represents an otter with a fish in his mouth.
Fig. 249.LOZENGE-SHAPED STENCIL OF THIN COPPER.Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio. ¼ natural size.
Plate 13.Human Skull with Copper-covered Horns.Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.Moorehead, “Primitive Man in Ohio,” frontispiece.
Plate 14.Prehistoric Altar.Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.Found near the copper Swastika shown infig. 244.Moorehead, “Primitive Man in Ohio,” Fig.XXXVII. Cat. No. 148662, U. S. N. M.
In trench No. 3, 15 skeletons (numbered 264 to 278, inclusive), were found on the base line, all extended. Objects of coal, bone, shell, or stone, had been placed with nearly all of them. Nos. 265 and 266 were laid on blocks of burnt earth 3 inches higher than the base of the mound. One of the skeletons in this mound (No. 248) is shown inpl. 13. It was a most remarkable specimen, and forms the frontispiece of Prof. W. K. Moorehead’s volume “Primitive Man in Ohio,” where it is described (p. 195) as follows:
At his head were imitation elk horns, neatly made of wood and covered with sheet copper rolled into cylindrical forms over the prongs. The antlers were 22 inches high and 19 inches across from prong to prong. They fitted into a crown of copper bent to fit the head from occipital to upper jaw. Copper plates were upon the breast and stomach, also on the back. The copper preserved the bones and a few of the sinews. It also preserved traces of cloth similar to coffee sacking in texture, interwoven among the threads of which were 900 beautiful pearl beads, bear teeth split and cut, and hundreds of other beads, both pearl and shell. Copper spool-shaped objects and other implements covered the remains. A pipe of granite and a spearhead of agate were near the right shoulder. The pipe was of very fine workmanship and highly polished.
Fig. 250.SPOOL-SHAPED OBJECT OF COPPER.Repoussé and intaglio decoration. Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio. Natural size.
While digging out skeletons 280 to 284, Professor Moorehead says they touched the edge of an altar (pl. 14). It was on the base line and 15 feet north of the copper find before described. On the 5th of January, 1892, the altar was uncovered, and the earth, charcoal, and objects within it put into five soap boxes and transported to headquarters,where the material was assorted in my presence and with my aid. The mass on the altar had been charred throughout. It contained, in part, mica ornaments, beads, spool-shaped objects, whale, bear, and panther teeth, flint knives, carved effigies of bone and stone, some of which were broken, while others were whole. There were stone tablets, slate ornaments, copper balls, fragments of cloth, rings of chlorite, quartz crystals perforated and grooved, and a few pieces of flint and obsidian, with several thousand pearls drilled for suspension. These objects were heaped in the cavity of the altar without any regularity. All were affected by heat, the copper being fused in many cases. The teeth and tusks were charred, split, and calcined. There were no ashes. All the fuel was charcoal, and from the appearance of the débris, especially the wood, earth, and bone, one might suppose that after the fire had started it had not been allowed to burn to ashes as if in the open air, but had been covered with earth, and so had smoldered out as in a charcoal pit.
Fig. 251.FRAGMENT OF ENGRAVED BONEREPRESENTING A PAROQUET.Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.Natural size.
Fig. 252.FRAGMENT OF ENGRAVED BONE PROBABLYREPRESENTING A MISSISSIPPI KITE ORLEATHER-BACK TURTLE.Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.Natural size.
Evidence was found of an extended commerce with distant localities, so that if the Swastika existed in America it might be expected here. The principal objects were as follows: A number of large seashells (Fulgur) native to the southern Atlantic Coast 600 miles distant, many of them carved; several thousand pieces of mica from the mountains of Virginia or North Carolina, 200 or more miles distant; a thousand large blades of beautifully chipped objects in obsidian, which could not have been found nearer than the Rocky Mountains, 1,000 or 1,200 miles distant; four hundred pieces of wrought copper, believed to be from the Lake Superior region, 150 miles distant; fifty-three skeletons, the copper headdress (pl. 13) made in semblance of elk horns, 16 inches high, and other wonderful things. Those not described have no relation to the Swastika.
Fig. 253.FRAGMENT OF ENGRAVED BONE PROBABLYREPRESENTING AN OTTER WITH A FISH INITS MOUTH.Natural size.
These objects were all prehistoric. None of them bore the slightest evidence of contact with white civilization. The commoner objects would compare favorably with those found in other mounds by the same and other investigators. Much of it may be undetermined. It is strange to find so many objects brought such long distances, and we may not be able to explain the problem presented; but there is no authority for injecting any modern or European influence into it. By what people were these made? In what epoch? For what purpose? What did they represent? How did this ancient, curious, and widespread sign, a recognized symbol of religion of the Orient, find its way to the bottom of one of the mounds of antiquity in the Scioto Valley? These are questions easy to ask but difficult to answer. They form some of the riddles of the science of prehistoric anthropology.
Fig. 254.WATER JUG WITH FIGURE OF SWASTIKA.Decoration, red on yellow ground. Poinsett County, Ark.Cat. No. 91230, U. S. N. M.
Mounds in Arkansas.—A water jug in the collection of the U. S. National Museum (fig. 254) was obtained in 1883 by P. W. Norris, ofthe Bureau of Ethnology, from a mound in Poinsett County, Ark. It is of yellow ground, natural color of clay, and decorated with light red paint. The paint is represented in the cut by the darkened surfaces. The four quarters of the jug are decorated alike, one side of which is shown in the cut. The center of the design is the Swastika with the arm crossing at right angles, the ends turned to the right, the effect being produced by an enlargement on the right side of each arm until they all join the circle. A similar water jug with a Swastika mark of the same type as the foregoing decorates Major Powell’s desk in the Bureau of Ethnology.
Marquis Nadaillac[255]describes and figures a grooved ax from Pemberton, N. J., on which some persons have recognized a Swastika, but which the Marquis doubts, while Dr. Abbott[256]denounces the inscription as a fraud.
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
Fig. 255.KANSA INDIAN WAR CHART.Swastika sign for winds andwind songs. J. Owen Dorsey,American Naturalist, July,1885, p. 670.
The Kansas.—The Rev. J. Owen Dorsey[257]describes the mourning customs of the Kansas Indians. In the course of his description he tells of a council of ceremony held among these Indians to decide if they should go on the warpath. Certain sacred songs were sung which had been arranged according to a chart, which Mr. Dorsey introduces as pl. 20, page 676. The outside edge of this chart bore twenty-seven ideographs, which suggest or determine the song or speech required. No. 1 was the sacred pipe; No. 2, the maker of all songs; No. 3, song of another old man who gives success to the hunters; No. 4 (fig. 255in the present paper) is the Swastika sign, consisting of two ogee lines intersecting each other, the ends curved to the left. Of it, Mr. Dorsey says only the following:
Fig. 4. Tadje wayun, wind songs. The winds are deities; they are Bazanta (at the pines), the east wind; Ak′a, the south wind; A′k′a jiñga or A′k′uya, the west wind; and Hnia (toward the cold), the north wind. The warriors used to remove the hearts of slain foes, putting them in the fire as a sacrifice to the winds.
In the Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (p. 525) Mr. Dorsey repeats this statement concerning the names of the winds, and shows how, in their invocations, the Kansas began with the east wind and went around to the right in the order here given. His fig. 195 illustrates this, but the cross has straight arms. In response to my personal inquiry, Mr. Dorsey says the war chart[258]was drawn for him, with the Swastika as represented, by Pahanle-gaqle, the war captain,who had official charge of it and who copied it from one he had inherited from his father and his “father’s fathers”; and Mr. Dorsey assured me that there can be no mistake or misapprehension about this Indian’s intention to make the sign as there represented. Asked if the sign was common and to be seen in other cases or places, Mr. Dorsey replied that the Osage have a similar chart with the same and many other signs or pictographs—over a hundred—but except these, he knows of no similar signs. They are not in common use, but the chart and all it contains are sacred objects, the property of the two Kansas gentes, Black Eagle and Chicken Hawk, and not to be talked of nor shown outside of the gentes of the council lodge.[259]
Plate 15.Ceremonial Bead Necklacewith Swastika Ornamentation.Sac Indians, Cook County (Kansas) Reservation.
The Sac Indians.—Miss Mary A. Owen, of St. Joseph, Mo., sending some specimens of beadwork of the Indians (pl. 15) from the Kansas Reservation, two of which were garters and the third a necklace 13 inches long and 1 inch wide, in which the Swastikas represented are an inch square, writes, February 2, 1895, as follows:
The Indians call it [the Swastika] the “luck,” or “good luck.” It is used in necklaces and garters by the sun worshippers among the Kickapoos, Sacs, Pottawatomies, Iowas, and (I have been told) by the Winnebagoes. I have never seen it on a Winnebago. The women use the real Swastika and the Greek key pattern, in the silk patchwork of which they make sashes and skirt trimmings. As for their thinking it an emblem of fire or deity, I do not believe they entertain any such ideas, as some Swastika hunters have suggested to me. They call it “luck,” and say it is the same thing as two other patterns which I send in the mail with this. They say they “always” made that pattern. They must have made it for a long time, for you can not get such beads as compose it, in the stores of a city or in the supplies of the traders who import French beads for the red folk. Another thing. Beadwork is very strong, and this is beginning to look tattered, a sure sign that it has seen long service.These sun worshippers—or, if you please, Swastika wearers—believe in the Great Spirit, who lives in the sun, who creates all things, and is the source of all power and beneficence. The ancestors are a sort of company of animal saints, who intercede for the people. There are many malicious little demons who thwart the ancestors and lead away the people at times and fill them with diseases, but no head devil. Black Wolf and certain ghosts of the unburied are the worst. Everybody has a secret fetish or “medicine,” besides such general “lucks” as Swastikas, bear skins, and otter and squirrel tails.Of the other cult of the peoples I have mentioned, those who worship the sun as the deity and not the habitation, I know nothing. They are secret, suspicious, and gloomy, and do not wear the “luck.” I have never seen old people wear the “luck.”Now, I have told you all I know, except that it [the Swastika] used in ancient times to be made in quill embroidery on herb bags.
The Indians call it [the Swastika] the “luck,” or “good luck.” It is used in necklaces and garters by the sun worshippers among the Kickapoos, Sacs, Pottawatomies, Iowas, and (I have been told) by the Winnebagoes. I have never seen it on a Winnebago. The women use the real Swastika and the Greek key pattern, in the silk patchwork of which they make sashes and skirt trimmings. As for their thinking it an emblem of fire or deity, I do not believe they entertain any such ideas, as some Swastika hunters have suggested to me. They call it “luck,” and say it is the same thing as two other patterns which I send in the mail with this. They say they “always” made that pattern. They must have made it for a long time, for you can not get such beads as compose it, in the stores of a city or in the supplies of the traders who import French beads for the red folk. Another thing. Beadwork is very strong, and this is beginning to look tattered, a sure sign that it has seen long service.
These sun worshippers—or, if you please, Swastika wearers—believe in the Great Spirit, who lives in the sun, who creates all things, and is the source of all power and beneficence. The ancestors are a sort of company of animal saints, who intercede for the people. There are many malicious little demons who thwart the ancestors and lead away the people at times and fill them with diseases, but no head devil. Black Wolf and certain ghosts of the unburied are the worst. Everybody has a secret fetish or “medicine,” besides such general “lucks” as Swastikas, bear skins, and otter and squirrel tails.
Of the other cult of the peoples I have mentioned, those who worship the sun as the deity and not the habitation, I know nothing. They are secret, suspicious, and gloomy, and do not wear the “luck.” I have never seen old people wear the “luck.”
Now, I have told you all I know, except that it [the Swastika] used in ancient times to be made in quill embroidery on herb bags.