Fig. 313.POTTERY VASE FINELY DECORATEDIN RED AND WHITE GLAZE.Maltese cross with sun symbol (?).Cat. No. 132975, U. S. N. M.
It would be an excellent thing to dissect and analyze the Swastika material we have found; to generalize and deduce from it a possible theory as to the origin, spread, and meaning of the Swastika and its related forms, and endeavor, by examination of its associated works, to discover if these were religious symbols or charms or mere decorations; and, following this, determine if possible whether the spread of these objects, whatever their meaning, was the result of migration, contact, or communication. Were they the result of similar, but independent, operations of the human mind, or were they but duplicate inventions, the result of parallelism in human thought? This investigation must necessarily be theoretical and speculative. The most that the author proposes is to suggest probabilities and point the way for further investigation. He may theorize and speculate, but recognizes what many persons seem not able to do—that speculation and theory are not to be substituted for cold facts. He may do no more than propound questions from which other men, by study, experience, philosophy, or psychology, may possibly evolve some general principle, or a theory pointing to a general principle, concerning the mode of extension and spread of culture among separate and independent peoples. When the facts shall have been gathered, marshaled, arranged side by side, and each aggregation of facts shall have been weighed,proandcon, and its fair value given “withoutprejudice or preconceived opinion,” then will be time enough to announce the final conclusion, and even then not dogmatically, but tentatively and subject to future discoveries.
Throughout this paper the author has sought but little more than to prepare material on the Swastika which can be utilized by those who come after him in the determination of the difficult and abstruse problems presented.
Fig. 314.GREEK CROSSREPRESENTING WINDSFROM CARDINAL POINTS.Dakota Indians.Tenth Annual Report ofthe Bureau of Ethnology,fig. 1255.
It is rare in the study of archæology and, indeed, in any science, that a person is able to assert a negative and say what does not exist. The present investigations are rendered much more comprehensive by the appearance of the extensive and valuable work of Col. Garrick Mallery in the Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, on the subject of “Picture Writing of the American Indians.” It is a work of about 800 pages, with 1,300 illustrations, and is the result of many years of laborious study. It purports to be a history, more or less complete, of the picture writing, signs, symbols, totems, marks, and messages of the American Indian, whether pictographs or petroglyphs. A large portion of his work is devoted to ideography, conventional signs, syllabaries and alphabets, homorophs and symmorophs, and their respective means of interpretation. Among these he deals, not specifically with the Swastika, but in general terms with the cross. Therefore, by looking at Colonel Mallery’s work upon this chapter (p. 724), one is able to say negatively what has not been found.
Aproposof the meanings of the cross among the North American Indians Count Goblet d’Alviella says:[286]
It is nevertheless incontestable that the pre-Columbian cross of America is a “rose des vents,” representing the four directions whence comes the rain, or the cardinal points of the compass, etc., etc.
Colonel Mallery’s volume shows that it meant many other things as well.
The four winds.—The Greek cross is the form found by Colonel Mallery to be most common among the North American aborigines, possibly because it is the simplest. In this the four arms are equal in length, and the sign placed upright so that it stands on one foot and not on two, as does the St. Andrew’s cross. The Greek cross (fig. 314) represents, among the Dakotas, the four winds issuing out of the four caverns in which souls of men existed before the incarnation of the human body. All the medicine men—that is, conjurors and magicians—recollect their previous dreamy life in these places, and the instructions then received from the gods, demons, and sages; they recollect and describe their preexistent life, but only dream and speculate as to the future life beyond the grave. The top of the cross is the cold,all-conquering giant, the North Wind, most powerful of all. It is worn on the body nearest the head, the seat of intelligence and conquering devices. The left arm covers the heart; it is the East Wind, coming from the seat of life and love. The foot is the melting, burning South Wind, indicating, as it is worn, the seat of fiery passion. The right arm is the gentle West Wind, blowing from the spirit land, covering the lungs, from which the breath at last goes out gently, but into unknown night. The center of the cross is the earth and man, moved by the conflicting influences of gods and winds.
Fig. 315.THE CROSS IN CONNECTION WITH THE CIRCLE.Sun symbols (?). Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 1118, 1120, 1126.
Fig. 316.FIGURES OF CIRCLES AND RAYS PROBABLY REPRESENTING SUN SYMBOLS.Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, figs. 1118-1121, 1123.
Rev. John McLain, in his work on the “Blackfoot Sun-dance,” says:
On the sacred pole of the sun lodge of the Blood Indian is a bundle of small brushwood taken from the birch tree, which is placed in the form of a cross. This was an ancient symbol evidently referring to the four winds.
Fig. 317.FIGURES OF CROSSES AND CIRCLES REPRESENTING STAR SYMBOLS.Oakley Springs, Ariz. Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 1129.
Sun and star symbols.—Great speculation has been made, both in Europe and America, over the relation between the Swastika and the sun, because the two signs have been associated by primitive peoples. Colonel Mallery gives the Indian signs for the sun, stars, and light.[287]These have been segregated, and it will be seen that the cross and circle are used indiscriminately for one and the other, and the fact of the two being found associated is no evidence of relationship in religious ideas (figs. 315-319).
Fig. 318.STAR SYMBOL.Circle and rayswithout cross.Oakley Springs,Ariz. TenthAnnual Reportof the Bureauof Ethnology,fig. 1129.
Fig. 319.FIGURES OF CROSSES, CIRCLES, ANDSQUARES REPRESENTING LODGES.Dakota Indians. Tenth Annual Reportof the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 1203.
Fig. 320.LATIN CROSSESREPRESENTINGTHE DRAGON FLY.Dakota Indians.
Dwellings.—Among the Hidatsa, the cross and the circle represent neither the sun nor any religious ideas, but merely lodges, houses, or dwellings. The crosses infig. 319represent Dakota lodges; the small circles signify earth lodges, the points representing the supporting poles. Buildings erected by civilized people were represented by small rectangular figures, while the circles with dots in a square represent earth lodges, the home of the Hidatsa.
Dragon fly (Susbeca).—Among some of the Indian tribes, the Dakotas among others, the Latin cross is found, i. e., upright with three members of equal length, and the fourth, the foot, much longer. The use of this symbol antedates the discovery of America, and is carried back in tradition and myth. This sign signifies the mosquito hawk or the dragon fly (fig. 320). It is called in that language the “Susbeca,” and is a supernatural being gifted with speech, warning man of danger, approaching his ear silently and at right angles, saying, “Tci,” “tci,” “tci,” an interjection equivalent to “Look out!” “You are surely going to destruction!” “Look out!” “Tci,” “tci,” “tci!” The adoption of the dragon fly as a mysterious andsupernatural being is on account of its sudden appearance in numbers. In the still of the evening, when the shades of darkness come, then is heard in the meadows a sound as of crickets or frogs, but indistinct and prolonged; on the morrow the Susbeca will be hovering over it. It is the sound of their coming, but whence no one knows. The cross not only represents the shape of the insect, but also the angle of its approach. It is variously drawn, but usually as infig. 320aorb, and, in painting or embroidery,c, and sometimesd.
Fig. 321.DOUBLE CROSS OFSIX ARMS REPRESENTINGTHE DRAGON FLY.Moki Indians, Arizona.Tenth Annual Reportof the Bureau ofEthnology, fig. 1165.
Fig. 321is described in Keam’s MS. as follows:
This is a conventional design of dragon flies, and is often found among rock etchings throughout the plateau [Arizona]. The dragon flies have always been held in great veneration by the Mokis and their ancestors, as they have been often sent by Oman to reopen springs which Muingwa had destroyed and to confer other benefits upon the people.This form of the figure, with little vertical lines added to the transverse lines, connects the Batolatci with the Ho-bo-bo emblems. The youth who was sacrificed and translated by Ho-bo-bo reappeared a long time afterwards, during a season of great drought, in the form of a gigantic dragon fly, who led the rain clouds over the lands of Ho-pi-tu, bringing plenteous rains.
This is a conventional design of dragon flies, and is often found among rock etchings throughout the plateau [Arizona]. The dragon flies have always been held in great veneration by the Mokis and their ancestors, as they have been often sent by Oman to reopen springs which Muingwa had destroyed and to confer other benefits upon the people.
This form of the figure, with little vertical lines added to the transverse lines, connects the Batolatci with the Ho-bo-bo emblems. The youth who was sacrificed and translated by Ho-bo-bo reappeared a long time afterwards, during a season of great drought, in the form of a gigantic dragon fly, who led the rain clouds over the lands of Ho-pi-tu, bringing plenteous rains.
Fig. 322.FIGURES OF CROSSESAS USED BY THEESKIMO TO REPRESENTFLOCKS OF BIRDS.Tenth Annual Reportof the Bureau ofEthnology, fig. 1228.Cat Nos. 44211 and45020, U. S. N. M.
Fig. 323.PETROGLYPH FROM TULAREVALLEY, CALIFORNIA.Large white Greek cross.Tenth Annual Report of theBureau of Ethnology, fig. 1229.
Midēᐟ or Shamans.—Colonel Mallery (or Dr. Hoffman) tells us (p. 726) that among the Ojibways of northern Minnesota the cross is one of the sacred symbols of the Society of Midēᐟ or Shamans and has special reference to the fourth degree. The building in which the initiation is carried on has its opening toward the four cardinal points. The cross is made of saplings, the upright poles approaching the height of four to six feet, the transverse arms being somewhat shorter, each being of the same length as the top; the upper parts are painted white or besmeared with white clay, over which are spread small spots of red, the latter suggesting the sacred shell of Midēᐟ, the symbol of the order. The lower arm of the pole is square, the side toward the east being painted white to denote the source of light and warmth; the face on the south is green, denoting the source of the thunder bird which brings the rains and vegetation; the surface toward the west is covered with vermilion, relating to the land of the setting sun, the abode of the dead; the north is painted black, as the direction from which comes affliction, cold, and hunger.
Flocks of birds.—Groups of small crosses on the sides of Eskimo bowdrills represent flocks of birds (Cat. Nos. 45020 and 44211, U. S. N. M.). They are reproduced infig. 322. Colonel Mallery’s fig. 28, page 67, represents a cross copied from the Najowe Valley group of colored pictographs, 40 miles west of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, Cal. The cross measured 20 inches in length, the interior being painted black while the border is of a dark red tint. This design, as well as others in close connection, is painted on the walls of a shallow cave or rock shelter in the limestone formation. Fourteen miles west of Santa Barbara, on the summit of the Santa Ynez Mountains, is a cavern having a large opening west and north, in which are crosses of the Greek type, the interior portion being painted a dull earthy red, while the outside line is a faded-black tint. The cross measures nearly a foot in extent. At the Tulare Indian Agency, Cal., is an immense bowlder of granite. It has been split, and one of the lower quarters has been moved sufficiently to leave a passageway six feet wide and nearly ten feet high. The interior walls are well covered with large painted figures, while upon the ceilings are numerous forms of animals, birds, and insects. Among this latter group is a white cross about 18 inches in length (fig. 323), presenting a unique appearance, for the reason that it is the only petroglyph in that region to which the white coloring matter has been applied.
Fig. 324.PETROGLYPHS FROM OWEN’S VALLEY, CALIFORNIA.(a,b) Greek crosses, (c) double Latin cross, (d-f) Latin crosses representing human figures.Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 1230.
An interesting example of rock sculpturing in groups is in Owens Valley, south of Benton, Cal. Among them are various forms of crosses, and circles containing crosses of simple and complex types. The most interesting in this connection are the groups infig. 324,aandb. The larger one,a, occurs upon a large bowlder of tracite 16 miles south of Benton, at the “Chalk grave.” The circle is a depression about one inch in depth, the cross being in high relief. The small crossb, found three miles north from this is almost identical, the arms of the cross, however, extending to the rim of the circle. In this locality occurs also the cross,c, same figure, and some examples having more than two cross arms.
Fig. 325.CROSS IN ZIGZAGLINES REPRESENTINGTHE HUMAN FORM.Navajo Indians.
Human forms.—Other simple crosses represent the human form.Some of these are engraved or cut on the rocks of Owens Valley and are similar to those above described (fig. 324), but they have been eroded, so that beyond the mere cross they show slight relation to the human body (fig. 324,d,e,f). Col. James Stevenson, describing the Hasjelti ceremony of the Navajoes,[288]shows the form of a man drawn in the sand (fig. 325). Describing the character shown infig. 326, Keam says: “The figure represents a woman. The breath is displayed in the interior.”[289]
Fig. 326.MALTESE CROSS(?)REPRESENTINGA WOMAN.The figure in thecenter is intended toindicate the breath.
Fig. 327.MALTESE AND SAINTANDREW’S CROSSES.Emblems of maidenhood.Moki Indians.
Maidenhood.—Concerningfig. 327Keam, in his manuscript, says the Maltese cross was the emblem of a virgin, and is still so recognized by the Moki. It is a conventional development of the common emblem of maidenhood, wherein the maidens wear their hair arranged as in a disk three or four inches in diameter on each side of the head (fig. 327b). This discoidal arrangement of the hair is typical of the emblem of fructification worn by the virgin in the Muingwa festival. Sometimes the hair, instead of being worn in the complete discoidal form, is dressed upon two curving twigs, and presents the form of two semicircles upon each side of the head. The partition of these is sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical. The combination of these styles (fig. 327aandb) present the forms from which the Maltese cross was conventionalized.[290]
Fig. 328.CROSS WITHBIFURCATED FOOT.Used by the Innuitsto represent ashaman or evil spirit.
Shaman’s spirit.—Among the Kiatéxamut and Innuit tribes, a cross placed on the head, as infig. 328, signified a shaman’s evil spirit or demon. This is an imaginary being under the control of the shaman to execute his wishes.[291]
Divers significations.—The figure of the cross among the North American Indians, says Colonel Mallery,[292]has many differing significations. It appears “as the tribal sign for Cheyenne” (p. 383); “as Dakota lodges” (p. 582); “as a symbol for trade or exchange” (p. 613); “as a conventional sign for prisoners” (p. 227); “for personal exploits while elsewhere it is used in simple enumeration” (p. 348). Although this device is used for a variety of meanings when it is employed ceremonially or in elaborate pictographs of the Indians both of North and South America, it represents the four winds. This view long ago was suggested as being the signification of many Mexican crosses, and it issustained by Prof. Cyrus Thomas in his “Notes on Mayan Mexican Manuscript,”[293]where strong confirmatory evidence is produced by the arms of the crosses having the appearance of conventionalized wings similar to some representations of the thunder bird of the northern tribes; yet the same author, in his paper on the study of the “Troano Manuscript,”[294]givesfig. 329as a symbol for wood, thus further showing the manifold concepts attached to the general form of the cross. Bandelier thinks that the cross so frequently used by the aborigines of Mexico and Central America were merely ornaments and not objects of worship, while the so-called crucifixes, like that on the Palenque tablet, were only the symbol of the “new fire,” or the close of the period of fifty-two years. He believes them to be representations of the fire drills more or less ornamented. Zamacois[295]says that the cross was used in the religion of various tribes of the peninsula of Yucatan, and that it represented the god of rain.
Fig. 329.ST. ANDREW’SCROSSES, USEDAS A SYMBOLFOR WOOD.Tenth AnnualReport of theBureau ofEthnology,fig. 1233.
It is a favorite theory with Major Powell, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, that the cross was an original invention of the North American Indian, possibly a sign common to all savages; that it represented, first, the four cardinal points, north, south, east, and west; and afterwards by accretion, seven points, north, south, east, west, zenith, nadir, and here.
Capt. John G. Bourke, in his paper on the “Medicine Men of the Apache”[296]discourses on their symbolism of the cross. He says it is related to the cardinal points, to the four winds, and is painted by warriors on their moccasins when going through a strange district to keep them from getting on a wrong trail. He notes how he saw, in October, 1884, a procession of Apache men and women bearing two crosses, 4 feet 10 inches long, appropriately decorated “in honor of Guzanutlí to induce her to send rain.”
Dr. Brinton[297]tells of the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape who first drew on the earth the figure of a cross. Captain Bourke quotes from Father Le Clerq[298]as to the veneration in which the cross was held by the Gaspesian Indians, also from Herrara to the same effect. Professor Holmes[299]makes some pertinent observations with regard to the meanings of the cross given by the American Indians:
Some very ingenious theories have been elaborated in attempting to account for the cross among American symbols. Brinton believes that the great importance attached to the points of the compass—the four quarters of the heavens—by savagepeoples, has given rise to the sign of the cross. With others, the cross is a phallic symbol derived, by some obscure process of evolution, from the veneration accorded to the procreative principle in nature. It is also frequently associated with sun worship, and is recognized as a symbol of the sun—the four arms being remaining rays after a gradual process of elimination. Whatever is finally determined in reference to the origin of the cross as a religious symbol in America will probably result from exhaustive study of the history, language, and art of the ancient peoples, combined with a thorough knowledge of the religious conceptions of modern tribes, and when these sources of information are all exhausted it is probable that the writer who asserts more than a probability will overreach his proofs. * * * A study of the designs associated with the cross in these gorgets [figs. 302-304] is instructive, but does not lead to any definite result; in one case the cross is inscribed on the back of a great spider [figs. 275-278]; in another it is surrounded by a rectangular framework of lines, looped at the corners and guarded by four mysterious birds [figs. 263-266], while in others it is without attendant characters, but the workmanship is purely aboriginal. I have not seen a single example of engraving upon the shell that suggested a foreign hand, or a design, with the exception of this one [a cross], that could claim a European derivation. * * * Such delineations of the cross as we find embodied in ancient aboriginal art, represent only the final stages of its evolution, and it is not to be expected that its origin can be traced through them.
Fig. 330.GRAPHIC DELINEATION OF ALLIGATOR.From a vase of the lost color group. Chiriqui.Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 257.
Fig. 331.GRAPHIC DELINEATION OF ALLIGATOR.From a vase of the lost color group. Chiriqui.Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 258.
Continuing in his “Ancient Art in Chiriqui,”[300]presenting his “Series showing stages in the simplification of animal characters,” and “derivation of the alligator,” Professor Holmes elaborates the theory how the alligator was the original, and out of it, by evolution, grew the cross. His language and accompanying figures are quoted:
Of all the animal forms utilized by the Chiriquians, the alligator is the best suited to the purpose of this study, as it is presented most frequently and in the most varied forms. In figs. 257 and 258 [figs.330and331in the present paper] I reproduce drawings from the outer surface of a tripod bowl of the lost color group. Simple and formal as these figures are, the characteristic features of the creature—the sinuous body, the strong jaws, the upturned snout, the feet, and the scales—are forcibly expressed. It is not to be assumed that these examples represent the best delineative skill of the Chiriquian artist. The native painter must have executed verymuch superior work upon the more usual delineating surfaces, such as bark and skins. The examples here shown have already experienced decided changes through the constraints of the ceramic art, but are the most graphic delineations preserved to us. They are free-hand products, executed by mere decorators, perhaps by women, who were servile copyists of the forms employed by those skilled in sacred art.
Of all the animal forms utilized by the Chiriquians, the alligator is the best suited to the purpose of this study, as it is presented most frequently and in the most varied forms. In figs. 257 and 258 [figs.330and331in the present paper] I reproduce drawings from the outer surface of a tripod bowl of the lost color group. Simple and formal as these figures are, the characteristic features of the creature—the sinuous body, the strong jaws, the upturned snout, the feet, and the scales—are forcibly expressed. It is not to be assumed that these examples represent the best delineative skill of the Chiriquian artist. The native painter must have executed verymuch superior work upon the more usual delineating surfaces, such as bark and skins. The examples here shown have already experienced decided changes through the constraints of the ceramic art, but are the most graphic delineations preserved to us. They are free-hand products, executed by mere decorators, perhaps by women, who were servile copyists of the forms employed by those skilled in sacred art.
Fig. 332.CONVENTIONAL FIGURE OF ALLIGATOR.From a vessel of the lost color group. Chiriqui.Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 259.
A third illustration from the same group of ware, given in fig. 259 [fig. 332of the present paper] shows, in some respects, a higher degree of convention. * * *
Fig. 333.CONVENTIONAL FIGURE OF ALLIGATORCROWDED INTO A SMALL GEOMETRICAL FIGURE.Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of theBureau of Ethnology, fig. 265.
I shall now call attention to some important individualized or well-defined agencies of convention. First, and most potent, may be mentioned the enforced limits of the spaces to be decorated, which spaces take shape independently of the subject to be inserted. When the figures must occupy a narrow zone, they are elongated; when they must occupy a square, they are restricted longitudinally, and when they occupy a circle, they are of necessity coiled up. Fig. 265 [fig. 333of the present paper] illustrates the effect produced by crowding the oblong figure into a short rectangular space. The head is turned back over the body and the tail is thrown down along the side of the space. In fig. 266 [fig. 334of the present paper] the figure occupies a circle and is, in consequence, closely coiled up, giving the effect of a serpent rather than an alligator. * * *
Fig. 334.CONVENTIONAL FIGURE OFALLIGATOR CROWDEDINTO A CIRCLE.Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Reportof the Bureau of Ethnology,fig. 266.
I present five series of figures designed to illustrate the stages through which life forms pass in descending from the realistic to highly specialized conventional shapes. In the first series (fig. 277) [fig. 335of the present paper] we begin witha, a meager but graphic sketch of the alligator; the second figure,b, is hardly less characteristic, but is much simplified; in the third,c, we have still three leading features of the creature—the body line, the spots, and the stroke at the back of the head; and in the fourth,d, nothing remains but a compound yoke-like curve, standing for the body of the creature, and a single dot.
The figures of the second series (fig. 278) [fig. 336of the present paper] are nearly all painted upon low, round nodes placed about the body of the alligator vases, and hence are inclosed in circles. The animal figure in the first example is coiled up like a serpent [fig. 334], but still preserves some of the well-known characters of the alligator. In the second example [fig. 336b] we have a double hook near the center of the space which takes the place of the body, but the dotted triangles are placed separately against the encircling line. In the next figure the body symbol is omitted andthe three triangles remain to represent the animal. In the fourth there are four triangles, and the body device being restored in red takes the form of a cross. In the fifth two of the inclosing triangles are omitted and the idea is preserved by the simple dots. In the sixth the dots are placed within the bars of the cross, the triangles becoming mere interspaces, and in the seventh the dots form a line between the two encircling lines. This series could be filled up by other examples, thus showing by what infinitesimal steps the transformations take place. * * *We learn by the series of steps illustrated in the annexed cuts that the alligator radical, under peculiar restraints and influences, assumes conventional forms that merge imperceptibly into these classic devices.
The figures of the second series (fig. 278) [fig. 336of the present paper] are nearly all painted upon low, round nodes placed about the body of the alligator vases, and hence are inclosed in circles. The animal figure in the first example is coiled up like a serpent [fig. 334], but still preserves some of the well-known characters of the alligator. In the second example [fig. 336b] we have a double hook near the center of the space which takes the place of the body, but the dotted triangles are placed separately against the encircling line. In the next figure the body symbol is omitted andthe three triangles remain to represent the animal. In the fourth there are four triangles, and the body device being restored in red takes the form of a cross. In the fifth two of the inclosing triangles are omitted and the idea is preserved by the simple dots. In the sixth the dots are placed within the bars of the cross, the triangles becoming mere interspaces, and in the seventh the dots form a line between the two encircling lines. This series could be filled up by other examples, thus showing by what infinitesimal steps the transformations take place. * * *
We learn by the series of steps illustrated in the annexed cuts that the alligator radical, under peculiar restraints and influences, assumes conventional forms that merge imperceptibly into these classic devices.
Fig. 335.SERIES OF FIGURES OF ALLIGATORS SHOWING STAGES OF SIMPLIFICATION.Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 277.
Fig. 336.SERIES SHOWING STAGES IN THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ANIMAL CHARACTERS,BEGINNING WITH THE ALLIGATOR AND ENDING WITH THE GREEK CROSS.Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 278.
Professor Holmes’s theory of the evolution of the cross from the alligator and its location in Chiriqui is opposed to that of Professor Goodyear, who, in his “Grammar of the Lotus,” ascribes the origin of the cross to the lotus and locates it in Egypt. I file what in law would be an “interpleader”—I admit my want of knowledge of the subject under discussion, and leave the question to these gentlemen.
INTRODUCTION OF THE CROSS INTO AMERICA.
Professor Holmes is, in the judgment of the author, correct when he insists upon the aboriginal character of the cross in America. We all understand how it is stated that the Spanish missionaries sought to deny this and to connect the apparition of St. Thomas with the appearance of the cross. Professor Holmes[301]says:
The first explorers were accompanied by Christian zealots who spared no effort to root out the native superstition and introduce a foreign religion of which the cross was the all-important symbol. This emblem was generally accepted by the savages as the only tangible feature of a new system of belief that was filled with subtleties too profound for their comprehension. As a result, the cross was at once introduced into the regalia of the natives, at first probably in a European form and material, attached to a string of beads in precisely the manner they had been accustomed to suspend their own trinkets and gorgets; but soon, no doubt, delineated or carved by their own hands upon tablets of stone and copper and shell in the place of their own peculiar conceptions.
There is sufficient evidence, and to spare, of the aboriginal use of the cross in some of its forms, without resorting to the uncertain and forced explanation of its introduction by Christian missionaries. It is possible that the priests and explorers were, like Colonel Mallery’s missionary, mistaken as to the interpretation given to the cross by the Indians. Dr. Hoffman, in his paper on the “Midēᐟwiwin or Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa,”[302]states the myth of the re-creation of the world “as thrown together in a mangled form by Hennepin.” Dr. Hoffman observes:
It is evident that the narrator has sufficiently distorted the traditions to make them conform as much as practicable to the Biblical story of the birth of Christ.
And on the same page he quotes from Pêre Marquette, who says:
“I was very glad to see a great cross set up in the middle of the village, adorned with several white skins, red girdles, bows, and arrows, which that good people offered to the Great Manitou to return him their thanks for the care he had taken of them during the winter, and that he had granted them a prosperous hunting.”Marquette [comments Dr. Hoffman] was, without doubt, ignorant of the fact that the cross is the sacred post, and the symbol of the fourth degree of the Midēᐟwiwin, as is fully explained in connection with that grade of society. The erroneous conclusion that the cross was erected as an evidence of the adoption of Christianity and, possibly as a compliment to the visitor was a natural one on the part of the priest, but this same symbol of the Midēᐟ society had probably been erected and bedecked with barbaric emblems and weapons months before anything was known of him.
“I was very glad to see a great cross set up in the middle of the village, adorned with several white skins, red girdles, bows, and arrows, which that good people offered to the Great Manitou to return him their thanks for the care he had taken of them during the winter, and that he had granted them a prosperous hunting.”
Marquette [comments Dr. Hoffman] was, without doubt, ignorant of the fact that the cross is the sacred post, and the symbol of the fourth degree of the Midēᐟwiwin, as is fully explained in connection with that grade of society. The erroneous conclusion that the cross was erected as an evidence of the adoption of Christianity and, possibly as a compliment to the visitor was a natural one on the part of the priest, but this same symbol of the Midēᐟ society had probably been erected and bedecked with barbaric emblems and weapons months before anything was known of him.
Most aboriginal objects bearing crosses are from localities along the Ohio River and through Kentucky and Tennessee, a locality which the early Christian missionaries never visited, and where the cross of Christ was rarely, if ever, displayed until after that territory became part of the United States. Per contra, the localities among the Indians in which the early missionaries most conducted their labors—that is to say, along the Great Lakes and throughout northernIllinois—produce the fewest number of aboriginal crosses. This was the country explored by Fathers Marquette, Lasalle, and Hennepin, and it was the scene of most of the Catholic missionary labors. Professor Holmes seems to have recognized this fact, for he says:[303]
The cross was undoubtedly used as a symbol by the prehistoric nations of the South, and, consequently, that it was probably also known in the North. A great majority of the relics associated with it in the ancient mounds and burial places are undoubtedly aboriginal. In the case of the shell gorgets, the tablets themselves belong to an American type, and are highly characteristic of the art of the Mississippi Valley. A majority of the designs engraved upon them are also characteristic of the same district.
The author agrees heartily with Professor Holmes’s argument in this matter, and his conclusion, when he says of these objects (p. 270):
The workmanship is purely aboriginal. I have not seen a single example of engraving upon shell that suggested a foreign hand or a design, with the exception of one (cross), that could claim a European derivation.
There have been numerous European or Catholic crosses, as well as many other objects of European manufacture or objects of civilized types, found among the Indians. There have been silver crosses found with images of the Virgin thereon, with Latin inscriptions, or of Roman letters; there have been glass beads, iron arrowheads, and divers other objects found in Indian graves which bore indubitable evidence of contact with the whites, and no one with any archæological experience need be deceived into the belief that these were aboriginal or pre-Columbian manufacture. As a general rule, the line of demarkation between objects of Indian manufacture and those made by the whites is definite, and no practiced eye will mistake the one for the other. There may be exceptions, as where the Indian has lived with the whites or a white man with the Indians, or where an object is made with intent to deceive. In such cases one may have more trouble in determining the origin of the object.
There were many Indians who died and were buried within a century past, whose graves might contain many objects of white man’s work. Black Hawk and Red Jacket are examples, and, possibly, King Philip. Indian graves have been opened in New England and New York containing the gun or firelock of the occupant of the grave buried with him, and that this was evidence of European contact there can be no doubt. So there have been hundreds, possibly thousands, of Indians buried since the Columbian discovery down to within the last decade whose graves contain white man’s tools or implements. But no person with any archæological experience need be deceived by these things. The theory that the Latin or Greek crosses or Swastikas shown on these gorgets, disks, and pottery furnish evidence of contact by the aborigines with Europeans in post-Columbian times is without foundation and inadmissible.
DECORATIVE FORMS NOT OF THE CROSS, BUT ALLIED TO THE SWASTIKA.
COLOR STAMPS FROM MEXICO AND VENEZUELA.
The aborigines of Mexico and Central and South America employed terra-cotta color stamps, which, being made into the proper pattern in the soft clay, were burned hard; then, being first coated with color, the stamp was pressed upon the object to be decorated, and so transferredits color, as in the mechanical operation of printing, thus giving the intended decoration. Patterns of these stamps are inserted in this paper in connection with the Swastika because of the resemblance—not in form, but in style. They are of geometric form, crosses, dots, circles (concentric and otherwise), lozenges, chevrons, fret, and labyrinth or meander. The style of this decoration lends itself easily to the Swastika; and yet, with the variety of patterns contained in the series of stamps belonging to the U. S. National Museum, shown infigs. 337 to 342, no Swastika appears; nor in the similar stamps belonging to other collections, notably that of Mr. A. E. Douglass, in the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History, Central Park, New York, are any Swastikas shown. Of the foregoing figures, all are from Tlaltelolco, Mexico (Blake collection), exceptfig. 339, which is from the Valley of Mexico, and was received from the Museo Nacional of Mexico.
TERRA-COTTA COLOR STAMPS WITH DESIGNS SIMILAR TO THE SWASTIKA.Mexico. Cat. Nos. 99124, 99127, 27887, 99115, 99118, 99122, U. S. N. M.
Fig. 343.TERRA-COTTA COLOR STAMPS WITH DESIGNS SIMILAR TO THE SWASTIKA.Piaroa Indians, Venezuela.Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 982.
Marcano says:[304]
The present Piaroas of Venezuela are in the habit of painting their bodies by a process different from that of the North American Indian. They make stamps of wood, which, being colored (as types are with ink), they apply to their bodies. Fig. 982 shows examples of these stamps. [Seefig. 343of the present paper.] The designs are substantially the same as some petroglyphs. They either copied the models they found carved on the rocks by peoples who preceded them, or they knew the meaning and preserved the tradition. The former is the only tenable hypothesis. Painting is to the Piaroas both ornamentation and necessity. It serves, not only as a garment to protect them against insects, but becomes a fancy costume to grace their feasts and meetings.
These designs are not presented as Swastikas nor of any evolution or derivation from one. They show a style common enough to Central and South America, to the Antilles and the Canary Islands,[305]which might easily produce a Swastika. The aboriginal designer of these might, if we depend upon the theory of psychological similarity of culture among all peoples, at his next attempt make a Swastika. Yet, with the hundreds of similar patterns made during the centuries of aboriginal occupation and extending throughout the countries named, none of these seem ever to have produced a Swastika.
The origin and early history of the Swastika are lost in antiquity. All the author has been able to find on these subjects is set forth in the preceding chapters.
It is proposed to examine the possible uses of the Swastika in an endeavor to discover something of its significance. The Swastika might have served:
It may have been (1) originally discovered or invented by a given people in a given country, and transmitted from one generation to the next, passing by migration from one country to another, and it may have been transmitted by communication to widely separated countries and among differently cultured peoples; or (2) it may have appeared in these latter countries by duplicate invention or by accident, and without contact or communication.
Positive evidence concerning its origin and earliest migration is not obtainable, and in its absence we are driven to secondary and circumstantial evidence. This will consist (1) of comparison of known facts directly concerning the subject; (2) of facts indirectly concerning it, and (3) reason, induced by argument, applied to these facts, presenting each truly, and giving to each its proper weight.
The possible migrations of the Swastika, and its appearance in widely separated countries and among differently cultured peoples, afford the principal interest in this subject to archæologists and anthropologists. The present or modern scientific interest in and investigation of the Swastika as a symbol or a charm alone are subsidiary to the greater question of the cause and manner of its appearance in different countries, whether it was by migration and contact or by independent invention. In arguing this question, we must keep continually in mind the rules of reason and of logic, and neither force the facts nor seek to explain them by unknown, imaginary, or impossible methods. There must be no dogmatic assertions nor fanciful theories. If we assume certain migrations of the Swastika, we must consider those things which might have (or must have) migrated with it; and we must admit the means necessary to the assumed end.
The history of the beginning and first appearance of any of the forms of the cross is also lost in antiquity, and it would be hazardous for any person to announce positively their origin, either as to localityor time. The Swastika was certainly prehistoric in its origin. It was in extensive use during the existence of the third, fourth, and fifth cities of the site of ancient Troy, of the hill of Hissarlik; so also in the Bronze Age, apparently during its entire existence, throughout western Europe from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. It continued in use in Europe during the Iron Age, and also among the Etruscans, Greeks, and Trojans. The name “Swastika,” by which it is recognized to-day in all literature, is a Sanscrit word, and was in common use among the Sanscrit peoples so long ago that it had a peculiar or individual pronunciation in Pânini’s grammar prior to the fourth century B. C. Some authorities are of the opinion that it was an Aryan symbol and used by the Aryan peoples before their dispersion through Asia and Europe. This is a fair subject for inquiry and might serve as an explanation how, either as a sacred symbol or charm, an amulet, or token of good wishes or good fortune, the Swastika might have been carried to the different peoples and countries in which we now find it by the splitting up of the Aryan peoples and their migrations and establishment in the various parts of Europe. Professor Sayce is of the opinion that the Swastika was a Hittite symbol and passed by communication to the Aryans or some of their important branches before their final dispersion took place, but he agrees that it was unknown in Assyria, Babylonia, Phenicia, or among the Egyptians.
Whether the Swastika was in use among the Chaldeans, Hittites, or the Aryans before or during their dispersion, or whether it was used by the Brahmins before the Buddhists came to India is, after all, but a matter of detail of its migrations; for it may be fairly contended that the Swastika was in use, more or less common among the people of the Bronze Age anterior to either the Chaldeans, Hittites, or the Aryans. The additional facts in this regard have been set forth in the chapter on this subject, and need not be repeated here.
The question should, so far as possible, be divested of speculation, and the evidence accepted in its ordinary meaning “without prejudice or preconceived opinion.”
A consideration of the subject in the light of the material here collected develops the following questions:
(1) Was the Swastika, in any of its forms, the symbol of an ancient religion or philosophy, or was it only the sign of a particular sect, tenet, faith, or idea; or was it both?
(2) Was it a charm or amulet to be used by anyone which derived its value from the signification given to it?
(3) What lesson can be gathered from it concerning the early migrations of the races of man?
Examples illustrating these questions are to be found in history as well as in everyday life. The Scarabæus of Egypt and Etruria was a symbol of eternity. The golden hoop on the lady’s finger representing a snake swallowing its tail, is also a symbol of eternity. Theserepresent a sentiment, and are symbols of that sentiment without regard to sect or organized body.
On the other hand, the Maltese cross was the symbol of the Knights of Malta, and has become, in later years, that of the Masonic fraternity; while the three links is the symbol of the Order of Odd Fellows. The Latin cross is a symbol of the Christian religion and, to a certain extent, of a Christian denomination.
Upon the evidence submitted, we must accept the Swastika first as a symbol of that sect of Jains within the Buddhist Church originally in Tibet, which spread itself in the Asiatic country under the names of Tao-sse, Tirthankara, Ter, Musteg, and Pon or Pon-po, the last signifying purity (ante,p. 774). This sect, or these sects, adopted the Swastika as their symbol, giving it the translationsu“well,”asti, “it is,” the whole word meaning “it is well,” or “so be it,” implying resignation under all circumstances, the sect holding, in accordance with the meaning given to their symbol, that contentment and peace of mind were the chief objects of human life. In so far as it concerns this sect, the Swastika was a symbol of both kinds. It represented a religious or at least a moral and philosophic idea, and also the sect which held to this idea.
Among the Buddhists proper, the Swastika seems to have been employed as a holy or sacred symbol; its occurrence as one of the signs in the footprint of Buddha, their founder, with some relation either to the mystery of his appearance as a leader, a missionary, or of the holy and sacred object of his mission, causes this to be inferred. Their use of it on the bronze statues of Buddha, and associating it with solemn inscriptions in the caves of India, leaves no doubt as to its use as a symbol more or less of this character.
Again, the use in the early Christian times of different forms of the cross, coupled with the extensive use by the Christians of the “monogram of Christ” (fig. 6), shows how naturally there may have been a conflict of opinion in the selection of a cross which should be a representative, while we know from history that there was such discussion, and that different forms of the cross were suggested. Among other forms was the Swastika, but to what extent or with what idea the author is not informed. The Swastika was used, Burnouf says, a thousand times on Christians’ tombs in the catacombs at Rome. This is evidence of its use to a certain extent in a sacred or solemn and funereal character, which would signify its use as the symbol of a religious idea.
Beyond these instances the author is unable to find evidence of the Swastika having served as a symbol of any religious or philosophic idea or of any sect or organization.
Whether among the Bronze Age people of western Europe—among the Trojans, Greeks, or Etruscans—whether among the semicivilized peoples of South or Central America, or among the savages(mound-builders) of North America, there is apparently no instance of the Swastika having been regarded as holy or used on a sacred object—that is, holy and sacred in the light of godliness, piety, or morality. It may have been or may yet be discovered that some of these wild men used the Swastika upon objects serving at ceremonies or festivals of their religion, or which had, in their eyes, a semi-sacred character. But it does not seem that it was used as a representative of a holy idea or of any god or supernatural being who stood for such an idea. The meal used in the Zuñi ceremony may have been regarded as sacred, and it may, indeed must, have been made on a stone metate, yet neither the metate nor the stone thereby obtained any holy or sacred character. So, also, it may have been decorated with a fret, chevron, herringbone, or any of the numerous styles, none of which would receive any sacred character from such use. So it is believed to have been with the Swastika found on these objects; it was not holy or sacred because of this use.
The author declines to discuss the possible relation of the Swastika to the sun or sun god, to the rain or rain god, the lightning, to Dyaus, Zeus or Agni, to Phebus or Apollo, or other of the mythological deities. This question would be interesting if it could be determined with certainty, or if the determination would be accepted by any considerable number of persons. But this is left for some one more competent and more interested than the author.
The most probable use of the Swastika among prehistoric peoples, or among Orientals other than the Buddhists, was as a charm or amulet signifying good fortune, good luck, long life, or benediction and blessing.[306](Seep. 780.)
Looking over the entire prehistoric world, we find the Swastika used on small and comparatively insignificant objects, those in common use, such as vases, pots, jugs, implements, tools, household goods and utensils, objects of the toilet, ornaments, etc., and infrequently on statues, altars, and the like. In Armenia it was found on bronze pins and buttons; in the Trojan cities on spindle-whorls; in Greece on pottery, on gold and bronze ornaments, and fibulæ. In the Bronze Age in western Europe, including Etruria, it is found on the common objects of life, such as pottery, the bronze fibulæ, ceintures, spindle-whorls, etc.
In addition to the foregoing, there were peculiar uses of the Swastika in certain localities: In Italy on the hut urns in which the ashes of the dead are buried; in the Swiss lakes stamped in the pottery; in Scandinavia on the weapons, swords, etc., and in Scotland and Ireland on the brooches and pins; in America on the metates for grinding corn; the Brazilian women wore it on the pottery fig leaf; the Pueblo Indian painted it on his dance rattle, while the North American Indian, at the epoch of the mound building in Arkansas and Missouri, painted it in spiral form on his pottery; in Tennessee he engraved it on the shell, andin Ohio cut it in its plainest normal form out of sheets of copper. So also among the modern Indians we find it employed on occasions of ceremony, as in the mountain chant by the Navajoes, and the war chant of the Kansas, on the necklace and ceremonial garters of the Sac woman, and on the war shields of the Pimas.
As we do not find it represented in America on aboriginal religious monuments, on ancient gods, idols, or other sacred or holy objects, we are justified in claiming that it was not here used as a religious symbol; while, as it is found only on trinkets, shells, copper plaques, spindle-whorls, metates, pottery bowls, jugs, bottles, or vases; as we find it sometimes square, sometimes spiral, now outside, now inside, of bowls and jars, etc.; at one time a small rectangular figure and at another of extensive convolutions covering the side of the vase; as we find it on the tools of the workmen, the objects in everyday use, whether in the house or the shop, used indiscriminately by men and women, or on gaming implements or dance rattles, the contention seems justifiable that it was used as an ornament or as a charm for good luck and not as a religious symbol. Yet we know it was used on certain ceremonial occasions which may themselves have had more or less a sacred character.
Thus, after the fullest examination, we find the Swastika was confined to the commoner uses, implements, household utensils, and objects for the toilet and personal decoration. The specimens of this kind number a hundred to one of a sacred kind. With this preponderance in favor of the common use, it would seem that, except among the Buddhists and early Christians, and the more or less sacred ceremonies of the North American Indians, all pretense of the holy or sacred character of the Swastika should be given up, and it should (still with these exceptions) be considered as a charm, amulet, token of good luck or good fortune, or as an ornament and for decoration.
MIGRATION OF THE SWASTIKA.
The question of the migration of the Swastika and of the objects on which it was marked, which furnished its only means of transportation, remains to be considered. It is proposed to examine, in a cursory manner perhaps, not only the migration of the Swastika itself, but some of these objects, spindle whorls especially, with a view to discover by similarity or peculiarity of form or decoration any relationship they may have had with each other when found in distant countries and used by different peoples. Thus, we may be able to open the way to a consideration of the question whether this similarity of Swastikas or other decorations, or of the objects on which they were placed, resulted from the migration of or contact or communication betweendistant peoples, or was it accidental and the result of independent discoveries and duplicate inventions—an evidence of the parallelism of human thought?
Dr. Brinton, in a communication before the American Philosophical Society,[307]starts out with a polemical discussion upon the subject of the migration of the Swastika and its possible American migration, as follows: