II Dispersion of the Swastika
Extreme Orient
JAPAN.
The Swastika was in use in Japan in ancient as well as modern times. Fig. 29 represents a bronze statue of Buddha, one-fifteenth natural size, from Japan, in the collection of M. Cernuschi, Paris. It has eight Swastikas on the pedestal, the ends all turned at right angles to the right. This specimen is shown by De Mortillet107 because it relates to prehistoric man. The image or statue holds a cane in the form of a “tintinnabulum,” with movable rings arranged to make a jingling noise, and De Mortillet inserted it in his volume to show the likeness of this work in Japan with a number of similar objects found in the Swiss lake dwellings in the prehistoric age of bronze (p. 806).
The Swastika mark was employed by the Japanese on their porcelain. Sir Augustus W. Franks108 shows one of these marks, a small Swastika turned to the left and inclosed in a circle (fig. 30). Fig. 9 also represents a mark on Japanese bronzes.109
KOREA.
The U. S. National Museum has a ladies’ sedan or carrying chair from Korea. It bears eight Swastika marks, cut by stencil in the brass-bound corners, two on each corner, one looking each way. The Swastika is normal, with arms crossing at right angles, the ends bent at right angles and to the right. It is quite plain; the lines are all straight, heavy, of equal thickness, and the angles all at 90 degrees. In appearance it resembles the Swastika in fig. 9.
CHINA.
In the Chinese language the sign of the Swastika is pronounced wan (p. 801), and stands for “many,” “a great number,” “ten thousand,” “infinity,” and by a synecdoche is construed to mean “long life, a multitude of blessings, great happiness,” etc.; as is said in French, “mille pardons,” “mille remercîments,” a thousand thanks, etc. During a visit to the Chinese legation in the city of Washington, while this paper was in progress, the author met one of the attachés, Mr. Chung, dressed in his robes of state; his outer garment was of moiré silk. The pattern woven in the fabric consisted of a large circle with certain marks therein, prominent among which were two Swastikas, one turned to the right, the other to the left. The name given to the sign was as reported above, wan, and the signification was “longevity,” “long life,” “many years.” Thus was shown that in far as well as near countries, in modern as well as ancient times, this sign stood for blessing, good wishes, and, by a slight extension, for good luck.
The author conferred with the Chinese minister, Yang Yu, with the request that he should furnish any appropriate information concerning the Swastika in China. In due course the author received the following letter and accompanying notes with drawings:
* * * I have the pleasure to submit abstracts from historical and literary works on the origin of the Swastika in China and the circumstances connected with it in Chinese ancient history. I have had this paper translated into English and illustrated by india-ink drawings. The Chinese copy is made by Mr. Ho Yen-Shing, the first secretary of the legation, translation by Mr. Chung, and drawings by Mr. Li.
With assurance of my high esteem, I am,
Very cordially,
Yang Yu.
Buddhist philosophers consider simple characters as half or incomplete characters and compound characters as complete characters, while the Swastika is regarded as a natural formation. A Buddhist priest of the Tang Dynasty, Tao Shih by name, in a chapter of his work entitled Fa Yuen Chu Lin, on the original Buddha, describes him as having this mark on his breast and sitting on a high lily of innumerable petals. [Pl. 1.]
Empress Wu (684-704 A. D.), of the Tang Dynasty, invented a number of new forms for characters already in existence, amongst which was the word for sun, for moon, for star, and so on. These characters were once very extensively used in ornamental writing, and even now the word sun may be found in many of the famous stone inscriptions of that age, which have been preserved to us up to the present day. [Pl. 2.]
The history of the Tang Dynasty (620-906 A. D.), by Lui Hsu and others of the Tsin Dynasty, records a decree issued by Emperor Tai Tsung (763-779 A. D.) forbidding the use of the Swastika on silk fabrics manufactured for any purpose. [Pl. 3.]
Fung Tse, of the Tang Dynasty, records a practice among the people of Loh-yang to endeavor, on the 7th of the 7th month of each year, to obtain spiders to weave the Swastika on their web. Kung Ping-Chung, of the Sung Dynasty, says that the people of Loh-yang believe it to be good luck to find the Swastika woven by spiders over fruits or melons. [Pl. 4.]
Sung Pai, of the Sung Dynasty, records an offering made to the Emperor by Li Yuen-su, a high official of the Tang Dynasty, of a buffalo with a Swastika on the forehead, in return for which offering he was given a horse by the Emperor. [Pl. 5.]
Plate 1. Origin of Buddha according to Tao Shih,
with Swastika Sign.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.
Plate 2. Swastika Decreed by Empress Wu
(684-704 A. D.) as a Sign for Sun in China.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.
Plate 3. Swastika Design on Silk Fabrics.
This use of the Swastika was forbidden in China
by Emperor Tai Tsung (763-779 A. D.).
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.
Plate 4. Swastika in Spider Web over Fruit.
(A good omen in China.)
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.
Plate 5. Buffalo with Swastika on Forehead.
Presented to Emperor of Sung Dynasty.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.
Plate 6. Incense Burner with Swastika Decoration.
South Tang Dynasty.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S National
Museum Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.
Plate 7. House of Wu Tsung-Chih of Sin Shui,
with Swastika in Railing.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.
Plate 8. Mountain or Wild Date.—Fruit
Resembling the Swastika.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.
The Ts’ing-I-Luh, by Tao Kuh, of the Sung Dynasty, records that an Empress in the time of the South Tang Dynasty had an incense burner the external decoration of which had the Swastika design on it. [Pl. 6.]
Chu I-Tsu, in his work entitled Ming Shih Tsung, says Wu Tsung-Chih, a learned man of Sin Shui, built a residence outside of the north gate of that town, which he named “Wan-Chai,” from the Swastika decoration of the railings about the exterior of the house. [Pl. 7.]
An anonymous work, entitled the Tung Hsi Yang K’ao, described a fruit called shan-tsao-tse (mountain or wild date), whose leaves resemble those of the plum. The seed resembles the lichee, and the fruit, which ripens in the ninth month of the year, suggests a resemblance to the Swastika. [Pl. 8.]
The Swastika is one of the symbolic marks of the Chinese porcelain. Prime110 shows what he calls a “tablet of honor,” which represents a Swastika inclosed in a lozenge with loops at the corners (fig. 31). This mark on a piece of porcelain signifies that it is an imperial gift.
Major-General Gordon, controller of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, England, writes to Dr. Schliemann:111 “The Swastika is Chinese. On the breech chasing of a large gun lying outside my office, captured in the Taku fort, you will find this same sign.” But Dumoutier112 says this sign is nothing else than the ancient Chinese character c h e, which, according to D’Alviella,113 carries the idea of perfection or excellence, and signifies the renewal and perpetuity of life. And again,111 “Dr. Lockyer, formerly medical missionary to China, says the sign is thoroughly Chinese.”
The Swastika is found on Chinese musical instruments. The U. S. National Museum possesses a Hu-Ch’in, a violin with four strings, the body of which is a section of bamboo about 3½ inches in diameter. The septum of the joint has been cut away so as to leave a Swastika of normal form, the four arms of which are connected with the outer walls of the bamboo. Another, a Ti-Ch’in, a two-stringed violin, with a body of cocoanut, has a carving which is believed to have been a Swastika; but the central part has been broken out, so that the actual form is undetermined.
Prof. George Frederick Wright, in an article entitled “Swastika,”114 quotes Rev. F. H. Chalfont, missionary at Chanting, China, as saying: “Same symbol in Chinese characters ‘ouan,’ or ‘wan,’ and is a favorite ornament with the Chinese.”
TIBET.
Mr. William Woodville Rockhill,115 speaking of the fair at Kumbum, says:
I found there a number of Lh’asa Tibetans (they call them Gopa here) selling pulo, beads of various colors, saffron, medicines, peacock feathers, incense sticks, etc. I had a talk with these traders, several of whom I had met here before in 1889. * * * One of them had a Swastika (yung-drung) tattooed on his hand, and I learned from this man that this is not an uncommon mode of ornamentation in his country.
Count D’Alviella says that the Swastika is continued among the Buddhists of Tibet; that the women ornament their petticoats with it, and that it is also placed upon the breasts of their dead.116
He also reports117 a Buddhist statue at the Musée Guimet with Swastikas about the base. He does not state to what country it belongs, so the author has no means of determining if it is the same statue as is represented in fig. 29.
INDIA.
Burnouf118 says approvingly of the Swastika:
Christian archæologists believe this was the most ancient sign of the cross. * * * It was used among the Brahmins from all antiquity. (Voyez mot “Swastika” dans notre dictionnaire sanskrit.) Swastika, or Swasta, in India corresponds to “benediction” among Christians.
The same author, in his translation of the “Lotus de la Bonne Loi,” one of the nine Dharmas or Canonical books of the Buddhists of the North, of 280 pages, adds an appendix of his own writing of 583 pages; and in one (No. 8) devoted to an enumeration and description of the sixty-five figures traced on the footprint of Çakya (fig. 32) commences as follows:
1. Svastikaya: This is the familiar mystic figure of many Indian sects, represented thus,, and whose name signifies, literally, “sign of benediction or of good augury.” (Rgya tch’er rol pa, Vol. 11, p. 110.)
* * * The sign of the Swastika was not less known to the Brahmins than to the Buddhists. “Ramayana,” Vol. II, p. 348, ed. Gor., Chap. XCVII, st. 17, tells of vessels on the sea bearing this sign of fortune. This mark, of which the name and usage are certainly ancient, because it is found on the oldest Buddhist medals, may have been used as frequently among the Brahmins as among the Buddhists. Most of the inscriptions on the Buddhist caverns in western India are either preceded or followed by the holy (sacramentelle) sign of the Swastika. It appears less common on the Brahmin monuments.
Mr. W. Crooke (Bengal Civil Service, director of Eth. Survey, Northwest Provinces and Oudh), says:119
The mystical emblem of the Swastika, which appears to represent the sun in his journey through the heavens, is of constant occurrence. The trader paints it on the flyleaf of his ledger, he who has young children or animals liable to the evil eye makes a representation of it on the wall beside his doorpost. It holds first place among the lucky marks of the Jainas. It is drawn on the shaven heads of children on the marriage day in Gujarat. A red circle with Swastika in the center is depicted on the place where the family gods are kept (Campbell, Notes, p. 70). In the Meerut division the worshiper of the village god Bhumiya constructs a rude model of it in the shrine by fixing up two crossed straws with a daub of plaster. It often occurs in folklore. In the drama of the Toy Cart the thief hesitates whether he shall make a hole in the wall of Charudatta’s house in the form of a Swastika or of a water jar (Manning, Ancient India, 11, 100).
Village shrines.—The outside (of the shrines) is often covered with rude representations of the mystical Swastika.
On page 250 he continues thus:
Charms.—The bazar merchant writes the words “Ram Ram” over his door, or makes an image of Genesa, the god of luck, or draws the mystical Swastika. The jand tree is reverenced as sacred by Khattris and Brahmins to avoid the evil eye in children. The child is brought at 3 years of age before a jand tree; a bough is cut with a sickle and planted at the foot of the tree. A Swastika symbol is made before it with the rice flour and sugar brought as an offering to the tree. Threads of string, used by women to tie up their hair, are cut in lengths and some deposited on the Swastika.
Mr. Virchand R. Gandhi, a Hindu and Jain disciple from Bombay, India, a delegate to the World’s Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, remained for some time in Washington, D. C., proselyting among the Christians. He is a cultivated gentleman, devoted to the spread of his religion. I asked his advice and assistance, which he kindly gave, supervising my manuscript for the Swastika in the extreme Orient, and furnishing me the following additional information relative to the Swastika in India, and especially among the Jains:
The Swastika is misinterpreted by so-called Western expounders of our ancient Jain philosophy. The original idea was very high, but later on some persons thought the cross represented only the combination of the male and the female principles. While we are on the physical plane and our propensities on the material line, we think it necessary to unite these (sexual) principles for our spiritual growth. On the higher plane the soul is sexless, and those who wish to rise higher than the physical plane must eliminate the idea of sex.
I explain the Jain Swastika by the following illustration [fig. 33]: The horizontal and vertical lines crossing each other at right angles form the Greek cross. They represent spirit and matter. We add four other lines by bending to the right each arm of the cross, then three circles and the crescent, and a circle within the crescent. The idea thus symbolized is that there are four grades of existence of souls in the material universe. The first is the lowest state—Archaic or protoplasmic life. The soul evolves from that state to the next—the earth with its plant and animal life. Then follows the third stage—the human; then the fourth stage—the celestial. The word “celestial” is here held to mean life in other worlds than our own. All these graduations are combinations of matter and soul on different scales. The spiritual plane is that in which the soul is entirely freed from the bonds of matter. In order to reach that plane, one must strive to possess the three jewels (represented by the three circles), right belief, right knowledge, right conduct. When a person has those, he will certainly go higher until he reaches the state of liberation, which is represented by the crescent. The crescent has the form of the rising moon and is always growing larger. The circle in the crescent represents the omniscient state of the soul when it has attained full consciousness, is liberated, and lives apart from matter.
The interpretation, according to the Jain view of the cross, has nothing to do with the combination of the male and female principle. Worship of the male and female principles, ideas based upon sex, lowest even of the emotional plane, can never rise higher than the male and female.
| Fig. 34a. THE FORMATION OF THE JAIN SWASTIKA—FIRST STAGE. Handful of rice or meal, in circular form, thinner in center. | Fig. 34b. THE FORMATION OF THE JAIN SWASTIKA—SECOND STAGE. Rice or meal, as shown in preceding figure, with finger marks, indicated at 1, 2, 3, 4. |
The Jains make the Swastika sign when we enter our temple of worship. This sign reminds us of the great principles represented by the three jewels and by which we are to reach the ultimate good. Those symbols intensify our thoughts and make them more permanent.
Fig. 34c.
THE FORMATION OF THE JAIN
SWASTIKA—THIRD STAGE.
Ends turned out, typifying animal, human,
and celestial life, as shown in fig. 33.
Mr. Gandhi says the Jains make the sign of the Swastika as frequently and deftly as the Roman Catholics make the sign of the cross. It is not confined to the temple nor to the priests or monks. Whenever or wherever a benediction or blessing is given, the Swastika is used. Figs. 34 a, b, c form a series showing how it is made. A handful of rice, meal, flour, sugar, salt, or any similar substance, is spread over a circular space, say, 3 inches in diameter and one-eighth of an inch deep (fig. 34a), then commence at the outside of the circle (fig. 34b), on its upper or farther left-hand corner, and draw the finger through the meal just to the left of the center, halfway or more to the opposite or near edge of the circle (1), then again to the right (2), then upward (3), finally to the left where it joins with the first mark (4). The ends are swept outward, the dots and crescent put in above, and the sign is complete (fig. 34c).
The sign of the Swastika is reported in great numbers, by hundreds if not by thousands, in the inscriptions on the rock walls of the Buddhist caves in India. It is needless to copy them, but is enough to say that they are the same size as the letters forming the inscription; that they all have four arms and the ends turn at right angles, or nearly so, indifferently to the right or to the left. The following list of inscriptions, containing the Swastikas, is taken from the first book coming to hand—the “Report of Dr. James Burgess on the Buddhist Cave Temples and their Inscriptions, Being a Part of the Result of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Seasons’ Operations of the Archæological Survey of Western India, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879:”120
| Plate. | Inscription number. | Direction in which ends are bent. | |
| Bhaja | XLIV | 2 | To right. |
| Kuda | XLVI | 26 | Do. |
| Do | XLVI | 27 | To left. |
| Kol | XLVI | 5 | To right. |
| Karle | XLVII | 1 | Do. |
| Do | XLVII | 3 | Do. |
| Junnar | XLIX | 5 | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 6 | To left. |
| Do | XLIX | 7 | To right. |
| Do | XLIX | 8 | To left. |
| Do | XLIX | 9 | To right. |
| Do | XLIX | 10 | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 11 (?) | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 12 | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 13 (?) | Do. |
| Do | XLIX | 13 (?) | To left. |
| Do | XLIX | 14 | Do. |
| Do | L | 17 | To right. |
| Do | L | 19 | Do. |
| Nasik | LII | 5 | Do. |
| Do | LV (Nasik 21) | 5 (?) | Do. |
| Do | LV (Nasik 24) | 8 (?) | Do. |
Chantre121 says:
I remind you that the (East) Indians, Chinese, and Japanese employ the Swastika, not only as a religious emblem but as a simple ornament in painting on pottery and elsewhere, the same as we employ the Greek fret, lozenges, and similar motifs in our ornamentation. Sistres [the staff with jingling bells, held in the hand of Buddha, on whose base is engraved a row of Swastikas, fig. 29 of present paper] of similar form and style have been found in prehistoric Swiss lake dwellings of the bronze age. Thus the sistres and the Swastika are brought into relation with each other. The sistres possibly relate to an ancient religion, as they did in the Orient; the Swastika may have had a similar distinction.
De Mortillet and others hold the same opinion.122
CLASSICAL ORIENT.
BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA, CHALDEA, AND PERSIA.
Waring123 says, “In Babylonian and Assyrian remains we search for it [the Swastika] in vain.” Max Müller and Count Goblet d’Alviella are of the same opinion.124
Of Persia, D’Alviella (p. 51), citing Ludwig Müller,[125] says that the Swastika is manifested only by its presence on certain coins of the Arsacides and the Sassanides.
PHENICIA.
It is reported by various authors that the Swastika has never been found in Phenicia, e. g. Max Müller, J. B. Waring, Count Goblet d’Alviella.126
Ohnefalsch-Richter127 says that the Swastika is not found in Phenicia, yet he is of the opinion that their emigrant and commercial travelers brought it from the far east and introduced it into Cyprus, Carthage, and the north of Africa. (See p. 796.)
LYCAONIA.
Lempriere, in his Classical Dictionary, under the above title, gives the following:
A district of Asia Minor forming the southwestern quarter of Phrygia. The origin of its name and inhabitants, the Lycaones, is lost in obscurity. * * * Our first acquaintance with this region is in the relation of the expedition of the younger Cyprus. Its limits varied at different times. At first it extended eastward from Iconium 23 geographical miles, and was separated from Cilicia on the south by the range of Mount Taurus, comprehending a large portion of what in later times was termed Cataonia.
Count Goblet d’Alviella,128 quoting Perrot and Chipiez,129 states that the Hittites introduced the Swastika on a bas-relief of Ibriz, Lycaonia, where it forms a border of the robe of a king or priest offering a sacrifice to a god.
ARMENIA.
M. J. de Morgan (the present director of the Gizeh Museum at Cairo), under the direction of the French Government, made extensive excavations and studies into the prehistoric antiquities and archæology of Russian Armenia. His report is entitled “Le Premier Âge de Métaux dans l’Arménie Russe.”130 He excavated a number of prehistoric cemeteries, and found therein various forms of crosses engraved on ceintures, vases, and medallions. The Swastika, though present, was more rare. He found it on the heads of two large bronze pins (figs. 35 and 36) and on one piece of pottery (fig. 37) from the prehistoric tombs. The bent arms are all turned to the left, and would be the Suavastika of Prof. Max Müller.
CAUCASUS.
In Caucasus, M. E. Chantre131 found the Swastika in great purity of form. Fig. 38 represents portions of a bronze plaque from that country, used on a ceinture or belt. Another of slightly different style, but with square cross and arms bent at right angles, is represented in his pl. 8, fig. 5. These belonged to the first age of iron, and much of the art was intricate.132 It represented animals as well as all geometric forms, crosses, circles (concentric and otherwise), spirals, meanders, chevrons, herring bone, lozenges, etc. These were sometimes cast in the metal, at other times repoussé, and again were engraved, and occasionally these methods were employed together. Fig. 39 shows another form, frequently employed and suggested as a possible evolution of the Swastika, from the same locality and same plate. Fig. 40 represents signs reported by Waring133 as from Asia Minor, which he credits, without explanation, to Ellis’s “Antiquities of Heraldry.”
The specimen shown in fig. 41 is reported by Waring,134 quoting Rzewusky,135 as one of the several branding marks used on Circassian horses for identification.
Mr. Frederick Remington, the celebrated artist and literateur, has an article, “Cracker Cowboy in Florida,”136 wherein he discourses of the forgery of brands on cattle in that country. One of his genuine brands is a circle with a small cross in the center. The forgery consists in elongating each arm of the cross and turning it with a scroll, forming an ogee Swastika (fig. 13d), which, curiously enough, is practically the same brand used on Circassian horses (fig. 41). Max Ohnefalsch-Richter137 says that instruments of copper (audumbaroasih) are recommended in the Atharva-Veda to make the Swastika, which represents the figure 8; and thus he attempts to account for the use of that mark branded on the cows in India (supra, p. 772), on the horses in Circassia (fig. 41), and said to have been used in Arabia.
ASIA MINOR—TROY (HISSARLIK).
Many specimens of the Swastika were found by Dr. Schliemann in the ruins of Troy, principally on spindle whorls, vases, and bijoux of precious metal. Zmigrodzki138 made from Dr. Schliemann’s great atlas the following classification of the objects found at Troy, ornamented with the Swastika and its related forms:
Fifty-five of pure form; 114 crosses with the four dots, points or alleged nail holes (Croix swasticale); 102 with three branches or arms (triskelion); 86 with five branches or arms; 63 with six branches or arms; total, 420.
Zmigrodzki continues his classification by adding those which have relation to the Swastika thus: Eighty-two representing stars; 70 representing suns; 42 representing branches of trees or palms; 15 animals non-ferocious, deer, antelope, hare, swan, etc.; total, 209 objects. Many of these were spindle whorls.
Dr. Schliemann, in his works, “Troja” and “Ilios,” describes at length his excavations of these cities and his discoveries of the Swastika on many objects. His reports are grouped under titles of the various cities, first, second, third, etc., up to the seventh city, counting always from the bottom, the first being deepest and oldest. The same system will be here pursued. The first and second cities were 45 to 52 feet (13 to 16 meters) deep; the third, 23 to 33 feet (7 to 10 meters) deep; the fourth city, 13 to 17.6 feet (4 to 5½ meters) deep; the fifth city, 7 to 13 feet (2 to 4 meters) deep; the sixth was the Lydian city of Troy, and the seventh city, the Greek Ilium, approached the surface.
First and Second Cities.—But few whorls were found in the first and second cities139 and none of these bore the Swastika mark, while thousands were found in the third, fourth, and fifth cities, many of which bore the Swastika mark. Those of the first city, if unornamented, have a uniform lustrous black color and are the shape of a cone (fig. 55) or of two cones joined at the base (figs. 52 and 71). Both kinds were found at 33 feet and deeper. Others from the same city were ornamented by incised lines rubbed in with white chalk, in which case they were flat.140 In the second city the whorls were smaller than in the first. They were all of a black color and their incised ornamentation was practically the same as those from the upper cities.141
Zmigrodzki congratulated himself on having discovered among Schliemann’s finds what he believed to be the oldest representation of the Swastika of which we had reliable knowledge. It was a fragment of a vase (fig. 42) of the lustrous black pottery peculiar to the whorls of the first and second cities. But Zmigrodzki was compelled to recede, which he did regretfully, when Schliemann, in a later edition, inserted the footnote (p. 350) saying, that while he had found this (with a companion piece) at a great depth in his excavations, and had attributed them to the first city, yet, on subsequent examination, he had become convinced that they belonged to the third city.
The Swastika, turned both ways and, was frequent in the third, fourth, and fifth cities.
The following specimens bearing the Swastika mark are chosen, out of the many specimens in Schliemann’s great album, in order to make a fair representation of the various kinds, both of whorls and of Swastikas. They are arranged in the order of cities, the depth being indicated in feet.
| Fig. 43. SPINDLE-WHORL WITH TWO SWASTIKAS AND TWO CROSSES. Depth, 23 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1858. | Fig. 44. SPINDLE-WHORL WITH TWO SWASTIKAS. Depth, 23 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1874. |
The Third, or Burnt, City (23 to 33 feet deep).—The spindle-whorl shown in fig. 43 contains two Swastikas and two crosses.142 Of the one Swastika, two arms are bent to the right at right angles, while the other two are bent to the right in curves. The other Swastika has but two bends, one at right angles, the other curved, both to the right. The specimen shown in fig. 44 has two Swastikas, in one of which the four arms are bent at right angles to the left. The entire figure is traced in double lines, one heavy and one light, as though to represent edges or shadows. The second Swastika has its ends bent at an obtuse angle to the left, and at the extremities the lines taper to a point. The whorl shown in fig. 45 is nearly spherical, with two Swastikas in the upper part. The ends of the four arms in both are bent at right angles, one to the right, the other to the left. Fig. 46 represents a spindle-whorl with two irregular Swastikas; but one arm is bent at right angles and all the arms and points are uncertain and of unequal lengths. The rest of the field is covered with indefinite and inexplicable marks, of which the only ones noteworthy are points or dots, seven in number. In fig. 47 the top is surrounded by a line of zigzag or dog-tooth ornaments. Within this field, on the upper part and equidistant from the central hole, are three Swastikas, the ends of all of which turn to the left, and but one at right angles. All three have one or more ends bent, not at any angle, but in a curve or hook, making an ogee. Fig. 48 shows a large whorl with two or three Swastikas on its upper surface in connection with several indefinite marks apparently without meaning. The dots are interspersed over the field, the Swastikas all bent to the right, but with uncertain lines and at indefinite angles. In one of them the main line forming the cross is curved toward the central hole; in another, the ends are both bent in the same direction—that is, pointing to the periphery of the whorl. Fig. 49 shows a sphere or globe (see figs. 75, 88) divided by longitudinal lines into four segments, which are again divided by an equatorial line. These segments contain marks or dots and circles, while one segment contains a normal Swastika turned to the left. This terra-cotta ball has figured in a peculiar degree in the symbolic representation of the Swastika. Greg says of it:143
We see on one hemisphere the standing for Zeus (= Indra) the sky god, and on the other side a rude representation of a sacred (somma) tree; a very interesting and curious western perpetuation of the original idea and a strong indirect proof of the standing for the emblem of the sky god.
Fig. 50 represents one of the biconical spindle-whorls with various decorations on the two sides, longitudinal lines interspersed with dots, arcs of concentric circles arranged in three parallels, etc. On one of these sides is a normal Swastika, the arms crossing at right angles, the ends bent at right angles to the left. The specimen shown in fig. 51 contains four perfect Swastikas and two inchoate and uncertain. Both of the latter have been damaged by breaking the surface. The four Swastikas all have their arms bent to the right; some are greater than at right angles, and one arm is curved. Several ends are tapered to a point. Fig. 52 shows a whorl of biconical form. It contains two Swastikas, the main arms of which are ogee forms, crossing each other at the center at nearly right angles, the ogee ends curving to the right. In fig. 53 the entire field of the upper surface is filled with, or occupied by, a Greek cross, in the center of which is the central hole of the whorl, while on each of the four arms is represented a Swastika, the main arms all crossing at right angles, the ends all bent to the right at a slightly obtuse angle. Each of these bent ends tapers to a point, some with slight curves and a small flourish. (See figs. 33 and 34 for reference to this flourish.) The specimen shown in fig. 54 has a center field in its upper part, of which the decoration consists of incised parallel lines forming segments of circles, repeated in each one of the four quarters of the field. The center hole is surrounded by two concentric rings of incised lines. In one of these spaces is a single Swastika; its main arms crossing at right angles, two of its ends bent to the left at right angles, the other two in the same direction and curved.
| Fig. 51. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH SIX SWASTIKAS. Depth, 33 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1859. | Fig. 52. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH TWO OGEE SWASTIKAS. Depth, 33 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1876. |
| Fig. 53. SPINDLE-WHORL WITH FOUR SWASTIKAS. Depth, 33 feet. De Mortillet, “Musée Préhistorique,” fig. 1240. | Fig. 54. SPINDLE-WHORL WITH ONE SWASTIKA. Depth, 33 feet. De Mortillet, “Musée Préhistorique,” fig. 1241. |
The Fourth City (13.2 to 17.6 feet deep).—Schliemann says:144
We find among the successors of the burnt city the same triangular idols; the same primitive bronze battle-axes; the same terra-cotta vases, with or without tripod feet; the same double-handled goblets (σέπα ὰμφικύπελλα); the same battle-axes of jade, porphyry, and diorite; the same rude stone hammers, and saddle querns of trachyte. * * * The number of rude stone hammers and polished stone axes are fully thrice as large as in the third city, while the masses of shells and cockles accumulated in the débris of the houses are so stupendous that they baffle all description. The pottery is coarser and of a ruder fabric than in the third city. * * * There were also found in the fourth city many needles of bone for female handiwork, boar tusks, spit rests of mica schist, whetstones of slate, porphyry, etc., of the usual form, hundreds of small silex saws, and some knives of obsidian. Stone whorls, which are so abundant at Mycenæ, are but rarely found here; all of those which occur are, according to Mr. Davis, of steatite. On the other hand, terra-cotta whorls, with or without incised ornamentation, are found by thousands; their forms hardly vary from those in the third (the burnt) city, and the same may be generally said of their incised ornamentation. * * * The same representation of specimens of whorls are given as in the third city, and the same observations apply.
| Fig. 55. CONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH THREE OGEE SWASTIKAS. Depth 13½ feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1850. | Fig. 56. CONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH FOUR SWASTIKAS OF VARIOUS KINDS. Depth 13½ feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1879. | |
| Fig. 57. CONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH SWASTIKAS. Depth. 13⅓ feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1894. | Fig. 58. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH ONE SWASTIKA. Depth, 13½ feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1983. |
| Fig. 60. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH TWO SWASTIKAS. Depth, 16½ feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1863. | Fig. 61. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH FIVE OGEE SWASTIKAS. Depth, 18 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1905. |
Fig. 55 shows a simple cone, the upper surface being flat and without other decoration than three Swastikas equidistant from the hole and from each other, all made by the two crossed ogee lines with ends curved to the right. This specimen is much like that of Fig. 71 (Madam Schliemann collection in the U. S. National Museum, Cat. No. 149704). Fig. 56 shows a remarkable spindle-whorl. Its marks greatly excited the interest of Dr. Schliemann, and he devoted much space to the discussion of these and similar characters. The whorl is in the form of a cone. It bears upon its conical surface four Swastikas, the ends of three of which bend to the right and one to the left. There are but two of these ends which bend at right angles. Most of them are at an obtuse angle, while the ends of two are curved. Some taper to a point and finish with a slight flourish. The other marks which so interested Dr. Schliemann were the chevron ornament (zigzag), drawn in parallel lines, which, he strongly argued, and fortified with many authorities, represented lightning. The second series of marks he called a “burning altar.” This assertion he also fortified with authorities and with illustrations of a similar sign from different countries. (See fig. 101.) The third series of marks represented an animal, name and character unknown, with a head or tusks with two large branching horns or ears, a straight back, a stiff but drooping tail, four legs, and two rows of the remarkable dots—seven in one, six in the other—placed over the back of the animal. (See figs. 99 and 100.) Fig. 57 represents another cone-shaped whorl, the flat surface of which is engraved with one perfect Swastika, the two arms crossing each other at right angles and the two ends bending at right angles to the right; the other two are curved, also to the right. Two of the other figures Dr. Schliemann calls Swastikas, although they are uncertain in some of their arms and angles. The fourth character he imagined to be an inchoate or attempted Swastika. Fig. 58 shows a biconical whorl with curious and inexplicable characters. One of them forms a crude Swastika, which, while the main arms cross at right angles the ends are bent at uncertain angles, three to the left and one to the right. These characters are so undetermined that it is doubtful if they could have had any signification, either ornamental or otherwise. Fig. 59 is almost conical, the flat surface thereof being only slightly raised at the center. It is much the same form as the whorls shown in figs. 55 and 71. The nearly flat surface is the top, and on it, equidistant from the center hole and from each other, are three ogee Swastikas of double lines, with their ends all curved to the right. In the alternate spaces are small incised circles, with dots in the centers. In fig. 60 a biconical whorl is shown. It has three of the circle segments marked in equilateral positions, with three or four parallel lines, after the style shown in Fig. 54. In the spaces are two Swastikas, in both of which the two main arms cross at right angles. Some of the ends bend at a right, and others at an obtuse, angle. In one of the Swastikas the bent ends turn toward each other, forming a rude figure 8. The specimen shown in fig. 61 is biconical, but much flattened; it contains five ogee Swastikas, of which the ends of four bend to the right and one to the left. In an interval between them is one of the burning altars. Fig. 62 shows three Swastikas with double parallel lines. The main arms cross each other at right angles; the ends are bent at nearly right angles, one to the left, one to the right, and the other both ways. Fig. 63 represents a spindle-whorl with a cup-shaped depression around the central hole, which is surrounded by three lines in concentric circles, while on the field, at 90 degrees from each other, are four ogee Swastikas (tetraskelions), the arms all turning to the left and spirally each upon itself. The specimen shown in fig. 64 is biconical, though, as usual, the upper cone is the smallest. There are parallel lines, three in a set, forming the segments of three circles, in one space of which appears a Swastika of a curious and unique form, similar to that shown in fig. 60. The two main arms cross each other at very nearly right angles and the ends also bend at right angles toward and approaching each other, so that if continued slightly farther they would close and form a decorative figure 8. The specimen shown in fig. 65 is decorated with parallel lines, three in number, arranged in segments of three circles, the periphery of which is toward the center, as in figs. 60 and 64. In one of the spaces is a Swastika of curious form; the main arms cross each other at right angles, but the four ends represent different styles—two are bent square to the left, one square to the right, and the fourth curves to the left at no angle. Fig. 66 shows a biconical whorl, and its top is decorated to represent three Swastikas and three burning altars. The ends of the arms of the Swastikas all bend to the left, some are at right angles and some at obtuse angles, while two or three are curved; two of them show corrections, the marks at the ends having been changed in one case at a different angle and in another from a straight line to a curve. Fig. 67 shows four specimens of Swastika, the main arms of all of which cross at right angles. The ends all bend to the right, at nearly right angles, tapering to a point and finishing with the slight flourish noted in the Jain Swastika (fig. 34c). They are alternated with a chevron decoration. Fig. 68 shows three Swastikas, the ends of the arms of which are all bent to the left. One Swastika is composed of two ogee lines. Two arms of another are curved, but all others are bent at right angles, some of them tapering to points, finishing with a little flourish (figs. 67 and 34c). One of these ends, like that in fig. 66, has been corrected by the maker. Fig. 69 represents one Swastika in which the main arms cross at nearly right angles. Both ends of one arm turn to the left and those of the other arm turn to the right in figure 8 style. One of the ends is curved, the others bent at different angles. Fig. 70 shows the parallel lines representing segments of a circle similar to figs. 60, 64, 65, and 69, except that it has four instead of three. It has one Swastika; the main arms (of double lines) cross at right angles, the ends all curving to the left with a slight ogee.
| Fig. 62. SPINDLE-WHORL WITH THREE SWASTIKAS. Depth, 19.8 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1855. | Fig. 63. SPINDLE-WHORL HAVING FOUR OGEE SWASTIKAS WITH SPIRAL VOLUTES. Depth, 18 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1868. |
| Fig. 65. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH ONE SWASTIKA. Depth, 19.8 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1866. | Fig. 66. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH THREE SWASTIKAS AND THREE BURNING ALTARS. Depth, 19.8 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1872. | |
| Fig. 67. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH FOUR SWASTIKAS. Depth, 19.8 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1873. | Fig. 68. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH THREE SWASTIKAS OF DIFFERENT STYLES. Depth, 19.8 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1911. |
The U. S. National Museum was, during 1893, the fortunate recipient of a collection of objects from Madame Schliemann, which her husband, before his death, had signified should be given to the United States as a token of his remembrance of and regard for his adopted country. He never forgot that he was an American citizen, and, preparing for death, made his acknowledgments in the manner mentioned. The collection consisted of 178 objects, all from ancient Troy, and they made a fair representation of his general finds. This collection is in the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology. In this collection is a spindle-whorl, found at 13½ feet (4 meters) depth and belonging to the fourth city. It had three Swastikas upon its face, and is here shown as fig. 71.145
The Fifth City.—Schliemann says:146
The rude stone hammers found in enormous quantities in the fourth city are no longer found in this stratum, nor did the stone axes, which are so very abundant there, occur again here. Instead of the hundreds of axes I gathered in the fourth city, I collected in all only two here. * * * The forms of the terra-cotta whorls, too, are in innumerable instances different here. These objects are of a much inferior fabric, and become elongated and pointed. Forms of whorls like Nos. 1801, 1802, and 1803 [see figs. 72, 73, and 74], which were never found before, are here plentiful.
The Sixth and Seventh Cities.—The sixth city is described in “Ilios,” page 587, and the seventh on pages 608 and 618. Both cities contained occasional whorls of clay, all thoroughly baked, without incised or painted ornamentation, and shed no further light on the Swastika.
Fig. 75 represents the opposite hemispheres of a terra-cotta ball, found at a depth of 26 feet, divided by incised lines into fifteen zones, of which two are ornamented with points and the middle zone, the largest of all, with thirteen specimens of and.
Zmigrodzki says147 that there were found by Schliemann, at Hissarlik, fifty-five specimens of the Swastika “pure and simple” (pp. 809, 826). It will be perceived by examination that the Swastika “pure and simple” comprised Swastikas of several forms; those in which the four arms of the cross were at other angles besides right angles; those in which the ends bent at square and other angles to the right; then those to the left (Burnouf and Max Müller’s Suavastika); those in which the bends were, some to the right and some to the left, in the same design; where the points tapered off and turned outward with a flourish; where the arms bent at no angle, but were in spirals each upon itself, and turned, some to the right, some to the left. We shall see other related forms, as where the arms turn spirally upon each other instead of upon themselves. These will sometimes have three, five, six, or more arms, instead of four (p. 768). The cross and the circle will also appear in connection with the Swastika; and other designs, as zigzags (lightning), burning altars, men, animals, and similar representations will be found associated with the Swastika, and are only related to it by the association of similar objects from the same locality. A description of their patterns will include those already figured, together with Schliemann’s comments as to signification and frequency. They become more important because these related forms will be found in distant countries and among distant peoples, notably among the prehistoric peoples of America. Possibly these designs have a signification, possibly not. Dr. Schliemann thought that in many cases they had. Professor Sayce supported him, strongly inclining toward an alphabetic or linguistic, perhaps ideographic, signification. No opinion is advanced by the author on these theories, but the designs are given in considerable numbers, to the end that the evidence may be fully reported, and future investigators, radical and conservative, imaginative and unimaginative, theorists and agnostics, may have a fair knowledge of this mysterious sign, and an opportunity to indulge their respective talents at length. Possibly these associated designs may throw some light upon the origin or history of the Swastika or of some of its related forms.
| Fig. 78. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH IRREGULAR SWASTIKAS AND CROSSES. Fourth city. Depth, 13.6 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1871. | Fig. 79. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH UNCERTAIN AND MALFORMED SWASTIKAS. Third city. Depth, 33 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1870. | |
| Fig. 80. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH IRREGULAR AND PARTLY FORMED SWASTIKAS HAVING LARGE DOT IN CENTER. Fourth city. Depth, 23 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1875. | Fig. 81. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL, FLATTENED, WITH TWO SWASTIKAS AND INDEFINITE DECORATION. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1947. |
The specimen represented in fig. 76 is not a spindle-whorl, as shown by the number and location of the holes. It bears a good representation of a Swastika the form of which has been noticed several times. The two main arms cross each other at nearly right angles. The ends of the arms all bend to the right at a slightly obtuse angle and turn outward with a flourish somewhat after the style of the Jain Swastika (fig. 34c). Fig. 77 represents a spindle-whorl with a Swastika of the ogee style curved to the right. The center hole of the whorl forms the center of the sign. The figure is of double lines, and in the interspaces are four dots, similar to those in figs. 96-98, and others which Dr. Schliemann reports as common, and to which he attributes some special but unknown meaning. Swastikas and crosses of irregular shape and style are shown in the field of fig. 78. Two fairly well formed Swastikas appear, both of the ogee style, with the ends curved to the right. One is of the style resembling the figure 8 (see figs. 60 and 64). Two others are crudely and irregularly formed, and would scarcely be recognized as Swastikas except for their association. Fig. 79 represents uncertain and malformed Swastikas. The arms are bent in different directions in the same line. Two of the main arms are not bent. The inexplicable dots are present, and the field is more or less covered with unmeaning or, at least, unexplained marks. Fig. 80 also illustrates the indefinite and inchoate style of decoration. One unfinished Swastika appears which, unlike anything we have yet seen, has a circle with a dot in the center for the body of the Swastika at the crossing of the main arms. Fig. 81 shows two Swastikas, both crossing their main arms at right angles and the ends bending also at right angles—one to the right, the other to the left. This specimen is inserted here because of the numerous decorations of apparently unmeaning, or, at least, unexplained, lines. Fig. 82 shows four segmented circles with an indefinite Swastika in one of the spaces. The ends are not well turned, only one being well attached to the main arms. One of the ends is not joined, one overruns and forms a sort of cross; the other has no bend. Fig. 83 contains an unmistakable Swastika, the main arms of which cross at right angles, turning to the left with an ogee curve. The peculiarity of this specimen is that the center of the sign is inclosed in a circle, thus showing the indifference of the Swastika sign to other signs, whether cross or circle. The outer parts of the field are occupied with the parallel lines of the circle segment, as shown in many other specimens. The specimen shown in fig. 84 is similar in style to the last. The bodies of six Swastikas are formed by a circle and dot, while the arms of the cross start from the outside of the circle, extending themselves in curves, all of them to the right. (See fig. 13d.) It has no other ornamentation. The same remark is to be made about the indifferent use of the Swastika in association with cross or circle. We have seen many Swastikas composed of the crossed ogee lines or curves. Figs. 85 and 86 show the same ogee lines and curves not crossed; and thus, while it may be that neither of them are Swastikas, yet they show a relationship of form from which the derivation of a Swastika would be easy.
| Fig. 84. BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH SIX OGEE SWASTIKAS HAVING CENTRAL CIRCLE AND DOT. Third city. Depth, 23 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1862. | Fig. 85. SPHERICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH FLATTENED TOP AND OGEE LINES WHICH DO NOT FORM SWASTIKAS. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1890. |
Attention has been called to decorations comprising segments of the circles incised in these whorls, the periphery of which is toward their centers (figs. 60, 64, 65, 69, 70, 82 and 83). Also to the mysterious dots (figs. 46, 56, 75, 76, 77, 79, 84, 92, 96 and 97). Fig. 87 shows a combination of the segments of three circles, the dots within each, and two Swastikas. Of the Swastikas, one is normal, turning to the right; the other turns to the right, but at an obtuse angle, with one end straight and the other irregularly curved. Fig. 88 represents two sections of a terra-cotta sphere divided similar to fig. 49. Each of these sections contains a figure like unto a Swastika and which may be related to it. It is a circle with arms springing from the periphery, which arms turn all to the left, as they do in the ogee Swastika. One has seven, the other nine, arms. One has regular, the other irregular, lines and intervals. Fig. 89 represents a spindle-whorl of terra cotta nearly spherical, with decoration of a large central dot and lines springing thereout, almost like the spokes of a wheel, then all turning to the left as volutes. In some countries this has been called the sun symbol, but there is nothing to indicate that it had any signification at Hissarlik. One of the marks resembles the long-backed, four-legged animal (figs. 99 and 100).148 Figs. 90, 91, 92, and 93 show a further adaptation of the ogee curve developed into a Swastika, in which many arms start from the center circle around the central hole in the whorl, finally taking a spiral form. The relation of this to a sun symbol is only mentioned and not specified or declared. The inexplicable and constantly recurring dots are seen in fig. 90.
It is not contended that these are necessarily evolutions of the Swastika. We will see farther on many lines and forms of decoration by incised lines on these Trojan whorls, which may have had no relation to the Swastika, but are inserted here because persons rich in theories and brilliant in imagination have declared that they could see a resemblance, a relation, in this or some other decoration. As objects belonging to the same culture, from the same locality, and intimately associated with unmistakable Swastikas, they were part of the res gestæ, and as such entitled to admission as evidence in the case. The effect of their evidence is a legitimate subject for discussion and argument. To refuse these figures admission would be to decide the case against this contention without giving the opposing party an opportunity to see the evidence or to be heard in argument. Therefore the objects are inserted.
| Fig. 90. SPINDLE-WHORL. Central dot with ogee arms radiating therefrom in different directions, but in the form of a Swastika. Third City. Depth, 29 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1830. | Fig. 91. SPINDLE-WHORL WITH CENTRAL HOLE AND RADIATING ARMS. Third city. Depth, 23 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1842. |
Specimens of other crosses are presented because the Swastika is considered to be a form of the cross. There may have been no evolution or relationship between them; but no person is competent to decide from a mere inspection or by reason of dissimilarity that there was not. We have to plead ignoramus as to the growth and evolution of both cross and Swastika, because the origin of both is lost in antiquity. But all are fair subjects for discussion. There certainly is nothing improbable in the relationship and evolution between the Swastika and the cross. It may be almost assumed.
| Fig. 92. SPINDLE-WHORL WITH CENTRAL CIRCLE AND MANY ARMS. Fourth city. Depth, 19.8 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1837. | Fig. 93. SPINDLE-WHORL WITH CENTRAL HOLE, LARGE CIRCLE, AND MANY CURVED ARMS. Third city. Depth, 29 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1833. |
Evidence leading to conviction may be found in associated contemporaneous specimens. M. Montelius, an archæologist of repute in the National Museum at Stockholm, discovered eight stages of culture in the bronze age of that country, which discovery was based solely upon the foregoing principle applied to the fibulæ found in prehistoric graves. In assorting his stock of fibulæ, he was enabled to lay out a series of eight styles, each different, but with many presentations. He arranged them seriatim, according to certain differences in size, style, elegance of workmanship, etc., No. 1 being the smallest, and No. 8 the largest and most elaborate. They were then classified according to locality and association, and he discovered that Nos. 1 and 2 belonged together, on the same body or in the same grave, and the same with Nos. 2 and 3, 3 and 4, and so on to No. 8, but that there was no general or indefinite intermixture; Nos. 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 were not found together and were not associated, and so on. Nos. 7 and 8 were associated, but not 6 and 8, nor 5 and 7, nor was there any association beyond adjoining numbers in the series. Thus Montelius was able to determine that each one or each two of the series formed a stage in the culture of these peoples. While the numbers of the series separated from each other, as 1, 5, 8, were never found associated, yet it was conclusively shown that they were related, were the same object, all served a similar purpose, and together formed an evolutionary series showing their common origin, derivative growth and continuous improvement in art, always by communication between their makers or owners.
| Fig. 95. SPINDLE-WHORL. Hole and large circle in center with broad arms of Greek cross. Third city. Depth, 26.4 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1820. | Fig. 96. SPINDLE-WHORL. Hole and large circle in center. Extended parallel arms with dots, forming a Greek Cross. Third city. Depth, 23 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1817. | Fig. 97. SPINDLE-WHORL. Greek cross. Tapering arms with dots. Third city. Depth, 23 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1818. |
Thus it may be with the other forms of crosses, and thus it appears to be with the circle and spiral Swastikas and those with ends bent in opposite and different directions. Just what their relations are and at which end of the series the evolution began, is not argued. This is left for the theorists and imaginists, protesting, however, that they must not run wild nor push their theories beyond bounds. Fig. 94 represents four crosses, the main arms of which are at right angles, and each and all ends, instead of being turned at an angle which would make them Swastikas, are bifurcated and turn both ways, thus forming a foliated cross similar to the Maya cross, the “Tree of life.” Figs. 95, 96, and 97 show Greek crosses. The centers of the crosses are occupied by the central hole of the whorl, while the arms extend to the periphery. In the centers of the respective arms are the ubiquitous dots. The question might here be asked whether these holes, which represented circles, stood for the sun symbol or solar disk. The question carries its own answer and is a refutation of those who fancy they can see mythology in everything. Fig. 98 is the same style of figure with the same dots, save that it has three instead of four arms. Figs. 99 and 100 each show four of the curious animals heretofore represented (fig. 56) in connection with the Swastika. They are here inserted for comparison. They are all of the same form, and one description will serve. Back straight, tail drooping, four legs, round head showing eye on one side, and long ears resembling those of a rabbit or hare, which, in fig. 56, are called horns. The general remarks in respect to the propriety of inserting crosses and burning altars (p. 824) apply with equal pertinency to these animals and to the unexplained dots seen on so many specimens. Fig. 101 shows both ends of a spindle-whorl, and is here inserted because it represents one of the “burning altars” of Dr. Schliemann, associated with a Swastika, as in figs. 61, 66, and 68, and even those of figure-8 style (figs. 64 and 69).
Dr. Schliemann found, during his excavations on the hill of Hissarlik, no less than 1,800 spindle-whorls. A few were from the first and second cities; they were of somewhat peculiar form (figs. 72 and 74), but the greatest number were from the third city, thence upward in decreasing numbers. The Swastika pure and simple was found on 55 specimens, while its related or suggested forms were on 420 (pp. 809, 819). Many of the other whorls were decorated with almost every imaginable form of dot, dash, circle, star, lozenge, zigzag, with many indefinite and undescribable forms. In presenting the claims of the Swastika as an intentional sign, with intentional, though perhaps different, meanings, it might be unsatisfactory to the student to omit descriptions of these associated decorative forms. This description is impossible in words; therefore the author has deemed it wiser to insert figures of these decorations as they appeared on the spindle-whorls found at Troy, and associated with those heretofore given with the Swastika. It is not decided, however, that these have any relation to the Swastika, or that they had any connection with its manufacture or existence, either by evolution or otherwise, but they are here inserted to the end that the student and reader may take due account of the association and make such comparison as will satisfy him. (Figs. 102 to 124.)
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| 105. | 106. | 107. | ||
| 108. | 109. | 110. | ||
| 111. | 112. | 113. |
| 114. | 115. | 116. | ||
| 117. | 118. | 119. | ||
| 120. | 121. | 122. | ||
| 123. | 124. | |||
Leaden idol of Hissarlik.—Dr. Schliemann, in his explorations on the hill of Hissarlik, at a depth of 23 feet, in the third, the burnt city, found a metal idol (fig. 125), which was determined on an analysis to be lead.150 It was submitted to Professor Sayce who made the following report:151
It is the Artemis Nana of Chaldea, who became the chief deity of Carchemish, the Hittite capital, and passed through Asia Minor to the shores and islands of the Ægean Sea. Characteristic figures of the goddess have been discovered at Mycenæ as well as in Cyprus.
In “Troja” Professor Sayce says:
Precisely the same figure, with ringlets on either side of the head, but with a different ornament (dots instead of Swastika) sculptured on a piece of serpentine was recently found in Mæonia, and published by M. Salmon Reinach in Revue Archæologique. By the side of the goddess stands the Babylonian Bel, and among the Babylonian symbols that surround them is the representation of one of the terra-cotta whorls, of which Dr. Schliemann found such multitudes at Troy.
The chief interest to us of Dr. Schliemann’s description of the idol lies in the last paragraph:152
The vulva is represented by a large triangle, in the upper side of which we see three globular dots; we also see two lines of dots to the right and left of the vulva. The most curious ornament of the figure is a Swastika, which we see in the middle of the vulva. * * * So far as we know, the only figures to which the idol before us has any resemblance are the female figures of white marble found in tombs in Attica and in the Cyclades. Six of them, which are in the museum at Athens, * * * represent naked women. * * * The vulva is represented on the six figures by a large triangle. * * * Similar white Parian marble figures, found in the Cyclades, whereon the vulva is represented by a decorated triangle, are preserved in the British Museum. Lenorment, in “Les Antiquités de la Troade” (p. 46), says: “The statuettes of the Cyclades, in the form of a naked woman, appear to be rude copies made by the natives, at the dawn of their civilization, from the images of the Asiatic goddess which had been brought by Phœnician merchants. They were found in the most ancient sepulchers of the Cyclades, in company with stone weapons, principally arrowheads of obsidian from Milo, and with polished pottery without paintings. We recognize in them the figures of the Asiatic Venus found in such large numbers from the banks of the Tigris to the island of Cyprus, through the whole extent of the Chaldeo-Assyrian, Aramæan, and Phœnician world. Their prototype is the Babylonian Zarpanit, or Zirbanit, so frequently represented on the cylinders and by terra-cotta idols, the fabrication of which begins in the most primitive time of Chaldea and continues among the Assyrians.
It is to be remarked that this mark is not on the vulva, as declared by Schliemann, but rather on a triangle shield which covers the mons veneris.
Professor Sayce is of the opinion, from the evidence of this leaden idol, that the Swastika was, among the Trojans, a symbol of the generative power of man.
An added interest centers in these specimens from the fact that terra-cotta shields of similar triangular form, fitted to the curvature of the body, were worn in the same way in prehistoric times by the aboriginal women of Brazil. These pieces have small holes at the angles, apparently for suspension by cords. The U. S. National Museum has some of these, and they will be figured in the chapter relating to Brazil. The similarity between these distant objects is remarkable, whether they were related or not, and whether the knowledge or custom came over by migration or not.
| Fig. 126. TERRA-COTTA VASE WITH MAMELON. Fourth city. Depth, 16.5 feet. Cat. No. 149676, U. S. N. M. ⅓ natural size. | Fig. 127. TERRA-COTTA VASE WITH CIRCLE OR RING. Fourth city. Depth, 20 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 988. ⅓ natural size. |
Owl-shaped vases.—It is also remarkable to note in this connection the series of owl-shaped terra-cotta vases of the ruined cities of Hissarlik and their relation to the Swastika as a possible symbol of the generative power. These vases have rounded bottoms, wide bellies, high shoulders (the height of which is emphasized by the form and position of the handles), the mouth narrow and somewhat bottle-shaped, but not entirely so. What would be the neck is much larger than usual for a bottle, and more like the neck of a human figure, which the object in its entirety represents in a rude, but, nevertheless, definite, manner. At the top of the vase are the eyes, eyebrows, and the nose. It is true that the round eyes, the arched eyebrows, and the pointed nose give it somewhat an owlish face, but if we look at fig. 127, the human appearance of which is emphasized by the cover of the vase, which serves as a cap for the head and has the effect of enlarging it to respectable dimensions, we will see how nearly it represents a human being. The U. S. National Museum possesses one of these vases in the Schliemann collection (fig. 126). It has the face as described, while the other human organs are only indicated by small knobs. It and the three figures, 127, 128, and 129, form a series of which the one in the Museum would be the first, the others following in the order named. No. 2 in the series has the female attributes indefinitely and rudely indicated, the lower organ being represented by a concentric ring. In No. 3 the mammæ are well shown, while the other organ has the concentric ring, the center of which is filled with a Greek cross with four dots, one in each angle, the Croix swasticale of Zmigrodzki (fig. 12). No. 4 of the series is more perfect as a human, for the mouth is represented by a circle, the mammæ are present, while in the other locality appears a well-defined Swastika. The first three of these were found in the fourth city at 20 to 22 feet depth, respectively; the last was found in the fifth city at a depth of 10 feet. The leaden idol (fig. 125), with its Swastika mark on the triangle covering the private parts, may properly be considered as part of the series. When to this series is added the folium vitus of Brazil (pl. 18), the similarity becomes significant, if not mysterious. But, with all this significance and mystery, it appears to the author that this sign, in its peculiar position, has an equal claim as a symbol of blessing, happiness, good fortune, as that it represents the generative power.
| Fig. 128. TERRA-COTTA VASE WITH CIRCLE OR RING AND CROIX SWASTICALE. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 986. ⅙ natural size. | Fig. 129. TERRA-COTTA VASE WITH CIRCLE OR RING INCLOSING SWASTIKA. Schliemann, “Troja,” fig. 101. ⅖ natural size. |
From the earliest time of which we have knowledge of the thoughts or desires of man we know that the raising up “heirs of his body” constituted his greatest blessing and happiness, and their failure his greatest misery. The first and greatest command of God to man, as set forth in the Holy Bible, is to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”154 This was repeated after the Deluge,155 and when He pronounced the curse in the Garden, that upon the woman156 was, “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” God’s greatest blessing to Abraham, when He gave to him and his seed the land as far as he could see, was that his seed should be as the dust of the earth, “so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.”157 “Tell the stars, if thou be able to number them * * * so shall thy seed be. * * * As the father of many nations,” etc. We all know the story of Sarai, how, when she and Abraham had all riches and power on earth, it was as naught while they were childless, and how their greatest blessing was the Divine promise of an heir, and that their greatest happiness was over the birth of Isaac. This may be no proof of the symbolism of the Swastika, but it shows how, in high antiquity, man’s happiness in his children was such as makes the Swastika mark, in the position indicated, equally a symbol of good fortune and blessing as it was when put on the spindle-whorls of Hissarlik, the vases of Greece, or the fibulæ of Etruria.
The age of the Trojan cities.—It may be well to consider for a moment the age or epoch of these prehistoric Trojan cities on the hill of Hissarlik. Professor Virchow was appealed to by Schliemann for his opinion. He says:158
Other scholars have been inclined to ascribe the oldest cities of Hissarlik to the Neolithic age, because remarkable weapons and utensils of polished stone are found in them. * * * This conception is unjustified and inadmissible. To the third century A. D. belongs the surface of the fortress hill of Hissarlik, which still lies above the Macedonian wall; and the oldest “cities”—although not only polished stones but also chipped flakes of chalcedony and obsidian occur in them—nevertheless fall within the age of metals, for even in the first city utensils of copper, gold, and even silver were dug up. No stone people, properly so called, dwelt upon the fortress hill of Hissarlik, so far as it has been uncovered.
Virchow’s opinion that none of the cities of Hissarlik were in the stone age may be correct, but the reason he gave is certainly doubtful. He says they come within the age of metals, for, or because, “utensils of copper, gold, and even silver were dug up among the ruins of the first city.” That the metals, gold, silver, or copper, were used by the aborigines, is no evidence that they were in a metal age, as it has been assigned and understood by prehistoric archæologists. The great principle upon which the names of the respective prehistoric ages—stone, bronze, and iron—were given, was that these materials were used for cutting and similar implements. The use of gold and silver or any metal for ornamental purposes has never been considered by archæologists as synchronous with a metal age. Indeed, in the United States there are great numbers of aboriginal cutting implements of copper, of which the U. S. National Museum possesses a collection of five or six hundred; yet they were not in sufficient number to, and they did not, supersede the use of stone as the principal material for cutting implements, and so do not establish a copper age in America. In Paleolithic times bone was largely used as material for utensils and ornaments. Bone was habitually in use for one purpose or another, yet no one ever pretended that this establishes a bone age. In countries and localities where stone is scarce and shell abundant, cutting implements were, in prehistoric times, made of shell; and chisels or hatchets of shell, corresponding to the polished stone hatchet, were prevalent wherever the conditions were favorable, yet nobody ever called it an age of shell. So, in the ruined cities of Hissarlik, the first five of them abounded in stone implements peculiar to the Neolithic age, and while there may have been large numbers of implements and utensils of other materials, yet this did not change it from the polished stone age. In any event, the reason given by Virchow—i. e., that the use, undisputed, of copper, gold, and silver by the inhabitants of these cities—is not evidence to change their culture status from that denominated as the polished stone age or period.
Professor Virchow subsequently does sufficient justice to the antiquity of Schliemann’s discoveries and says159 while “it is impossible to assign these strata to the stone age, yet they are indications of what is the oldest known settlement in Asia Minor of a people of prehistoric times of some advance in civilization,” and160 that “no place in Europe is known which could be put in direct connection with any one of the six lower cities of Hissarlik.”
Professor Sayce also gives his opinion on the age of these ruins:161
The antiquities, therefore, unearthed by Dr. Schliemann at Troy, acquire for us a double interest. They carry us back to the later stone ages of the Aryan race.
AFRICA.
EGYPT.
A consensus of the opinions of antiquarians is that the Swastika had no foothold among the Egyptians. Prof. Max Müller is of this opinion, as is also Count Goblet d’Alviella.162
Waring163 says:
The only sign approaching the fylfot in Egyptian hieroglyphics that we have met is shown in fig. 3, pl. 41, where it forms one of the hieroglyphs of Isis, but is not very similar to our fylfot.
Mr. Greg says:164 “In Egypt the fylfot does not occur.” Many other authors say the same. Yet many specimens of the Swastika have been found in Egypt (figs. 130 to 136). Professor Goodyear165 says:
The earliest dated Swastikas are of the third millenium B. C., and occur on the foreign Cyprian and Carian (?) pottery fragments of the time of the twelfth dynasty (in Egypt), discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie in 1889. (Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara, pl. 27, Nos. 162 and 173.)
Naukratis.—Figs. 130 to 135, made after illustrations in Mr. W. Flinders Petrie’s Third Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund (Pt. 1), found by him in Naukratis, all show unmistakable Swastikas. It should be explained that these are said to be Greek vases which have been imported into Egypt. So that, while found in Egypt and so classed geographically, they are not Egyptian, but Greek.
Coptos (Achmim-Panopolis).—Within the past few years great discoveries have been made in Upper Egypt, in Sakkarah, Fayum, and Achmim, the last of which was the ancient city of Panopolis. The inhabitants of Coptos and the surrounding or neighboring cities were Christian Greeks, who migrated from their country during the first centuries of our era and settled in this land of Egypt. Strabo mentions these people and their ability as weavers and embroiderers. Discoveries have been made of their cemeteries, winding sheets, and grave clothes. These clothes have been subjected to analytic investigation, and it is the conclusion of M. Gerspach, the administrator of the national manufactory of the Gobelin tapestry, Paris,166 that they were woven in the same way as the Gobelins, and that, except being smaller, they did not differ essentially from them. He adds:
These Egyptian tapestries and those of the Gobelins are the result of work which is identical except in some secondary details, so that I have been able, without difficulty, to reproduce these Coptic tapestries in the Gobelin manufactory.
Fig. 131.
POTTERY FRAGMENTS WITH TWO MEANDER SWASTIKAS.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Third Memoir of the Egyptian
Exploration Fund, part 1, pl. 5, figs. 15, 24.
Fig. 132.
FRAGMENT OF GREEK VASE WITH LION AND THREE MEANDER SWASTIKAS.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund,
part 2, fig. 7, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 30, fig. 2.
On one of these Coptic cloths, made of linen, reproduced in “Die Gräber- und Textilfunde von Achmim-Panopolis,” by R. Forrer, occurs a normal Swastika embroidered or woven, tapestry fashion, with woolen thread (fig. 136). It belongs to the first epoch, which includes portions of the first and second centuries A. D. There were on these cloths an enormous amount of decoration, representing many figures, both natural and geometric. Among them was the Swastika variously applied and in different sizes, sometimes inserted in borders, and sometimes adorning the corners of the tunics and togas as a large medallion, as shown in the figure.167
Fig. 133.
FRAGMENT OF GREEK VASE DECORATED WITH FIGURES OF SACRED
ANIMALS AND SWASTIKAS, ASSOCIATED WITH GREEK FRET.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt
Exploration Fund, part 2, pl. 6, fig. 1.
Fig. 134.
FRAGMENT OF GREEK VASE WITH FIGURES OF ANIMALS,
TWO MEANDER SWASTIKAS, AND GREEK FRET.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund,
part 2, pl. 8, fig. 1, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 30, fig. 10.
Fig. 135.
GREEK VASE WITH DEER, AND MEANDER AND FIGURE-8 SWASTIKAS.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt
Exploration Fund, part 2, pl. 5, fig. 1.
Waring, in his “Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” discoursing upon the Swastika, which he calls fylfot, shows in pl. 43, fig. 2 (quoting from Delamare), the base of a column from a ruined Roman building in Algeria (fig. 137), on the torus of which are engraved two Swastikas, the arms crossing at right angles, all ends bent at right angles to the left. There are other figures (five and six on the same plate) of Swastikas from a Roman mosaic pavement in Algeria. Instead of being square, however, or at right angles, as might ordinarily be expected from mosaic, they are ogee. In one of the specimens the ogee ends finish in a point; in the other they finish in a spiral volute turning upon itself. The Swastika has been found on a tombstone in Algeria.168
ASHANTEE.
Mr. R. B. Æneas McLeod, of Invergordon Castle, Ross-shire, Scotland, reported169 that, on looking over some curious bronze ingots captured at Coomassee in 1874, during the late Ashantee war, by Captain Eden, in whose possession they were at Inverness, he had found some marked with the Swastika sign (fig. 138). These specimens were claimed to be aboriginal, but whether the marks were cast or stamped in the ingot is not stated.
CLASSICAL OCCIDENT—MEDITERRANEAN.
GREECE AND THE ISLANDS OF CYPRUS, RHODES, MELOS, AND THERA.
The Swastika has been discovered in Greece and in the islands of the Archipelago on objects of bronze and gold, but the principal vehicle was pottery; and of these the greatest number were the painted vases. It is remarkable that the vases on which the Swastika appears in the largest proportion should be the oldest, those belonging to the Archaic period. Those already shown as having been found at Naukratis, in Egypt, are assigned by Mr. Flinders Petrie to the sixth and fifth centuries B. C., and their presence is accounted for by migrations from Greece.
| Fig. 139. VARIATION OF THE GREEK FRET. Continuous lines crossing each other at right angles forming figures resembling the Swastikas. | Fig. 140. GREEK GEOMETRIC VASE IN THE LEYDEN MUSEUM, WITH FIGURES OF GEESE AND SWASTIKA IN PANEL.170 Smyrna. Conze, “Anfänge,” etc., Vienna, 1870, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 56, fig. 4. |
| Fig. 141. GREEK VASE WITH FIGURES OF HORSES, GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTS AND SWASTIKAS IN PANELS. Athens. Dennis, “Etruria,” 1, p. cxiii. | Fig. 142. GREEK VASE WITH SWASTIKAS IN PANELS. Conze, “Anfänge,” etc., and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 60, fig. 13. |
The Greek fret and Egyptian meander not the same as the Swastika.—Professor Goodyear says:171 “There is no proposition in archæology which can be so easily demonstrated as the assertion that the Swastika is originally a fragment of the Egyptian meander, provided Greek geometric vases are called in evidence.”
Egyptian meander here means the Greek fret. Despite the ease with which he says it can be demonstrated that the Swastika was originally a fragment of the Egyptian meander, and with all respect for the opinion of so profound a student of classic ornament, doubts must arise as to the existence of the evidence necessary to prove his proposition.
| Fig. 143. DETAIL OF ARCHAIC GREEK VASE WITH FIGURE OF SOLAR GOOSE AND SWASTIKAS IN PANELS. British Museum. Waring, “Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pl. 41, fig. 15. | Fig. 144. CYPRIAN POTTERY PLAQUE WITH SWASTIKA IN PANEL. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Cesnola, “Cyprus, its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples,” pl. 47, fig. 40. | |
| Fig. 145. DETAIL OF CYPRIAN VASE WITH SWASTIKAS IN TRIANGLES. Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 1, fig. 11. | Fig. 146. DETAIL OF ATTIC VASE WITH FIGURE OF ANTELOPE (?) AND SWASTIKA. British Museum. Böhlau, Jahrbuch, 1885, p. 50, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 37, fig. 9. | |
| Fig. 147. CYPRIAN VASE WITH SWASTIKAS. Cesnola, “Cyprus, its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples,” appendix by Murray, p. 404, fig. 15. | Fig. 148. TERRA COTTA FIGURINE WITH SWASTIKAS IN PANELS. Cesnola, “Cyprus, its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples,” p. 300, and Ohnefalsch-Richter, Bull. Soc. d’Anthrop., Paris, 1888, p. 691. | |
| Fig. 149. TERRA COTTA VASE WITH SWASTIKA AND FIGURE OF HORSE.172 | Fig. 150. BRONZE FIBULA WITH SWASTIKA AND REPRESENTATIONS OF A GOOSE AND A FISH. Bœotia, Greece. De Mortillet, “Musée Préhistorique,” fig. 1265. |
Professor Goodyear, and possibly others, ascribe the origin of the Swastika to the Greek fret; but this is doubtful and surely has not been proved. It is difficult, if not impossible, to procure direct evidence on the proposition. Comparisons may be made between the two signs; but this is secondary or indirect evidence, and depends largely on argument. No man is so poor in expedients that he may not argue. Goldsmith’s schoolmaster “e’en tho’ vanquished, he could argue still.” The Greek fret, once established, might easily be doubled or crossed in some of its members, thus forming a figure similar to the Swastika (fig. 139), which would serve as an ornament, but is without any of the characteristics of the Swastika as a symbol. The crossed lines in the Greek fret seem to have been altogether fortuitous. They gave it no symbolic character. It was simply a variation of the fret, and at best was rarely used, and like it, was employed only for ornament and not with any signification—not a sign of benediction, blessing, or good luck, as was the Swastika. The foundation principle of the Greek fret, so far as we can see its use, is its adaptability to form an extended ornamental band, consisting of doubled, bent, and sometimes crossed or interlaced lines, always continuous and never ending, and running between two parallel border lines. Two interlacing lines can be used, crossing each other at certain places, both making continuous meanders and together forming the ornamental band (fig. 139). In the Greek fret the two lines meandered between the two borders back and forth, up and down, but always forming a continuous line. This seems to be the foundation principle of the Greek fret. In all this requirement or foundation principle the Swastika fails. A row or band of Swastikas can not be made by continuous lines; each one is and must be separated from its fellows. The Swastika has four arms, each made by a single line which comes to an end in each quarter. This is more imperative with the meander Swastika than with the normal. If the lines be doubled on each other to be carried along to form another Swastika adjoining, in the attempt to make a band, it will be found impossible. The four lines from each of the four arms can be projected, but each will be in a different direction, and no band can be made. It is somewhat difficult to describe this, and possibly not of great need. An attempt to carry out the project of making a band of Swastikas, to be connected with each other, or to make them travel in any given direction with continuous lines, will be found impossible. Professor Goodyear attempts to show how this is done by his figure on page 96, in connection with pl. 10, fig. 9, also figs. 173 and 174 (pp. 353 and 354). These figures are given in this paper and are, respectively, Nos. 21, 25, 26, and 27. Exception is taken to the pretended line of evolution in these figures: (1) There is nothing to show any actual relationship between them. There is no evidence that they agreed either in locality or time, or that there was any unity of thought or design in the minds of their respective artists. (2) Single specimens are no evidence of custom. This is a principle of the common law which has still a good foundation, and was as applicable in those days as it is now. The transition from the spiral to the Greek fret and from the Greek fret to the Swastika can be shown only by the existence of the custom or habit of the artist to make them both in the same or adjoining epochs of time, and this is not proved by showing a single specimen. (3) If a greater number of specimens were produced, the chain of evidence would still be incomplete, for the meander of the Greek fret will, as has just been said, be found impossible of transition into the meander Swastika. It (the Swastika) does not extend itself into a band, but if spread at all, it spreads in each of the four directions (figs. 21 and 25). The transition will be found much easier from the Greek meander fret to the normal Swastika and from that to the meander Swastika than to proceed in the opposite direction. Anyone who doubts this has but to try to make the Swastika in a continuous or extended band or line (fig. 26), similar to the Greek fret.
Fig. 151.
DETAIL OF GREEK VASE WITH SWASTIKAS AND FIGURES OF BIRDS.
Waring, “Ceramic Art In Remote Ages,” pl. 33, fig. 24, and
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 46, fig. 5.
Fig. 152.
DETAIL OF CYPRIAN VASE.
Sunhawk, lotus, solar disk, and Swastikas.
Böhlau, Jahrbuch, 1886, pl. 8; Reinach, Revue Archæologique,
1885, II, p. 360; Perrot and Chipiez, “History of Art in Phenicia
and Cyprus,” II; Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 45, fig. 3.
| Fig. 154. BRONZE FIBULA WITH LARGE SWASTIKA ON SHIELD. Greece. Musée St. Germain. De Mortillet, “Musée Préhistorique,” fig. 1264. ½ natural size. | Fig. 155. GREEK VASE, OINOCHOË, WITH TWO PAINTED SWASTIKAS. De Mortillet, “Musée Préhistorique,” fig. 1244. ¼ natural size. | |
| Fig. 156. CYPRIAN VASE WITH SWASTIKAS AND FIGURE OF ANIMAL.173 Cesnola, “Cyprus, its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples,” pl. 45, fig. 36. | Fig. 157. ARCHAIC GREEK POTTERY FRAGMENT. Santorin, Ancient Thera. Waring, “Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pl. 42 fig. 2. |
Figs. 133 and 134, from Naukratis, afford palpable evidence of the different origin of the Swastika and the Greek fret. Evidently Grecian vases, though found in Egypt, these specimens bear side by side examples of the fret and the Swastika, used contemporaneously, and both of them complete and perfect. If one had been parent of the other, they would have belonged to different generations and would not have appeared simultaneously on the same specimen. Another illustration of simultaneous use is in fig. 194, which represents an Etruscan vase174 ornamented with bronze nail heads in the form of Swastikas, but associated with it is the design of the Greek fret, showing them to be of contemporaneous use, and therefore not, as Professor Goodyear believes, an evolution of one from the other. The specimen is in the Museum at Este, Italy.
Fig. 158.
CYPRIAN VASE WITH LOTUS AND
SWASTIKAS AND FIGURE OF BIRD.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 60, fig. 15.
The Greek fret has been in common use in all ages and all countries adopting the Grecian civilization. Equally in all ages and countries has appeared the crossed lines which have been employed by every architect and decorator, most or many of whom had no knowledge of the Swastika, either as an ornament or as a symbol.175
Swastika in panels.—Professor Goodyear, in another place,176 argues in a manner which tacitly admits the foregoing proposition, where, in his endeavor to establish the true home of the Swastika to be in the Greek geometric style, he says we should seek it where it appears in “the largest dimension” and in “the most prominent way.” In verification of this declaration, he says that in this style the Swastika systematically appears in panels exclusively assigned to it. But he gives only two illustrations of the Swastika in panels. These have been copied, and are shown in figs. 140 and 142. The author has added other specimens, figs. 141 to 148, from Dennis’s “Etruria,” from Waring’s “Ceramic Art,” and from Cesnola and Ohnefalsch-Richter. It might be too much to say that these are the only Swastikas in Greece appearing in panels, but it is certain that the great majority of them do not thus appear. Therefore, Professor Goodyear’s theory is not sustained, for no one will pretend that four specimens found in panels will form a rule for the great number which did not thus appear. This argument of Professor Goodyear is destructive of his other proposition that the Swastika sign originated by evolution from the meander or Greek fret, for we have seen that the latter was always used in a band and never in panels. Although the Swastika and the Greek fret have a certain similarity of appearance in that they consist of straight lines bent at right angles, and this continued many times, yet the similarity is more apparent than real; for an analysis of the motifs of both show them to have been essentially different in their use, and so in their foundation and origin.
Fig. 162.
DETAIL OF GREEK VASE WITH FIGURE OF GOOSE,
HONEYSUCKLE (ANTHEMION), AND SPIRAL SWASTIKA.
Thera. “Monumenti Inedite,” LXV, p. 2, and
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 46, fig. 7.
| Fig. 163. DETAIL OF GREEK VASE. Sphinx with spiral scrolls, and two meander Swastikas (right). Melos. Böhlau, Jahrbuch, 1887, XII, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 34, fig. 8. | Fig. 164. DETAIL OF GREEK VASE. Ibex, scroll, and meander Swastika (right). Melos. Böhlau, Jahrbuch, 1887, XII, p. 121, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 39, fig. 2. |
Fig. 165.
DETAIL OF A GREEK VASE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
Ram, meander Swastika (left), circles, dots, and crosses.
Salzmann, “Necropole de Camire,” LI, and Goodyear,
“Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 28, fig. 7.
Swastikas with four arms, crossing at right angles, with ends bent to the right.—The author has called this the normal Swastika. He has been at some trouble to gather such Swastikas from Greek vases as was possible, and has divided them according to forms and peculiarities. The first group (figs. 140, 143, 146, 147, 148, and 150) shows the normal Swastika with four arms, all bent at right angles and to the right. In the aforesaid division no distinction has been made between specimens from different parts of Greece and the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, and these, with such specimens as have been found in Smyrna, have for this purpose all been treated as Greek.
Fig. 166.
CYPRIAN VASE WITH SWASTIKAS AND FIGURES OF BIRDS.
Perrot and Chipiez, “History of Art in Phenicia and Cyprus,” II, p. 300, fig. 237;
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 48, figs. 6, 12; Cesnola, “Cyprus, its
Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples,” Appendix by Murray, p. 412, pl. 44, fig. 34.
Swastikas with four arms crossing at right angles, ends bent to the left.—Figs. 141, 142, 144, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, and 157 represent the normal Swastika with four arms, all bending at right angles, but to the left. The vases on which they have been found are not described as to color or form. It would be difficult to do so correctly; besides, these descriptions are not important in our study of the Swastika. Fig. 155 represents a vase or pitcher (oinochoë, Greek—οῖνος, wine, and χέω, to pour) with painted Swastika, ends turned to the left. It is in the Museum of St. Germain, and is figured by M. De Mortillet in “Musée Préhistorique.” Fig. 156 represents a Cyprian vase from Ormidia, in the New York Museum. It is described by Cesnola177 and by Perrot and Chipiez.178 Fig. 157 is taken from a fragment of archaic Greek pottery found in Santorin (Ancient Thera), an island in the Greek Archipelago. This island was first inhabited by the Phenicians, afterwards by the Greeks, a colony of whom founded Cyrene in Africa. This specimen is cited by Rochette and figured by Waring.179
Swastikas with four arms crossing at other than right angles, the ends ogee and to the left.—Figs. 158, 159, and 160 show Swastikas with four arms crossing at other than right angles, many of them ogee, but turned to the left. Fig. 161 is a representation of a wooden button or clasp, much resembling the later gold brooch of Sweden, classified by Montelius (p. 867), covered with plates of gold, from Sepulcher IV, Mycenæ (Schliemann, Mycenæ, fig. 385, p. 259). The ornament in its center is one of the ogee Swastikas with four arms (tetraskelion) curved to the left. It shows a dot in each of the four angles of the cross similar to the Suavastika of Max Müller and the Croix swasticale of Zmigrodzki, which Burnouf attributed to the four nails which fastened the cross Arani (the female principle), while the Pramantha (the male), produced, by rotation, the holy fire from the sacred cross. An almost exact reproduction of this Swastika will be found on the shield of the Pima Indians of New Mexico (fig. 258).
Dr. Schliemann reports that the Swastika in its spiral form is represented innumerable times in the sculptured ceiling of the Thalamos in the treasury at Orchomenos. (See figs. 21 and 25.)
He also reports180 that Swastikas (turned both ways) may be seen in the Royal Museum at Berlin incised on a balustrade relief of the hall which surrounded the temple of Athene at Pergamos. Fig. 162 represents a spiral Swastika with four arms crossing at right angles, the ends all turned to the left and each one forming a spiral.
Waring181 figures and describes a Grecian oinochoë from Camirus, Rhodes, dating, as he says, from 700 to 500 B. C., on which is a band of decoration similar to fig. 130. It is about 10 inches high, of cream color, with ornamentation of dark brown. Two ibexes follow each other with an ogee spiral Swastika between the forelegs of one.
Meander pattern, with ends bent to right and left.—Figs. 163, 164, and 165 show the Swastika in meander pattern. Fig. 163 shows two Swastikas, the arms of both bent to the right, one six, the other nine times. The Swastika shown in fig. 164 is bent to the right eight times. That shown in fig. 165 bends to the left eight times.
Swastikas of different kinds on the same object.—The next group (figs. 167 to 176) is of importance in that it represents objects which, bearing the normal Swastika, also show on the same object other styles of Swastika, those turned to the left at right angles, those at other than right angles, and those which are spiral or meander. The presence on a single object of different forms of Swastika is considered as evidence of their chronologic identity and their consequent relation to each other, showing them to be all the same sign—that is, they were all Swastikas, whether the arms were bent to the right or to the left, ogee or in curves, at right angles or at other than right angles, in spirals or meanders.
Fig. 170.
DETAIL OF RHODIAN VASE.
Figures of geese, circles and dots, and Swastikas (right and left).
British Museum. Waring, “Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pl. 27, fig. 9.
Many examples of vases similar to fig. 172 are shown in the London, Paris, and New York museums, and in other collections. (See figs. 149, 159.) Fig. 174 shows an Attic painted vase (Lebes) of the Archaic period, from Athens. It is a pale yellowish ground, probably the natural color, with figures in maroon. It belongs to the British Museum. It bears on the front side five Swastikas, all of different styles; three turn to the right, two to the left. The main arms cross at right angles, but the ends of four are bent at right angles, while one is curved (ogee). Three have the ends bent (at right angles) four times, making a meander form, while two make only one bend. They seem not to be placed with any reference to each other, or to any other object, and are scattered over the field as chance or luck might determine. A specimen of Swastika interesting to prehistoric archæologists is that on a vase from Cyprus (Musée St. Germain, No. 21537), on which is represented an arrowhead, stemmed, barbed, and suspended by its points between the Swastika.182
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter presented a paper before the Société d’Anthropologie in Paris, December 6, 1888, reported in the Bulletin of that year (pp. 668-681). It was entitled “La Croix gammée et la Croix cantonnée en Chypre.” (The Croix gammée is the Swastika, while the Croix cantonnée is the cross with dots, the Croix swasticale of Zmigrodzki.) In this paper the author describes his finding the Swastika during his excavations into prehistoric Cyprus. On the first page of his paper the following statement appears:
The Swastika comes from India as an ornament in form of a cone (conique) of metal, gold, silver, or bronze gilt, worn on the ears (see G. Perrot: “Histoire de l’Art,” III, p. 562 et fig. 384), and nose-rings (see S. Reinach: “Chronique d’Orient,” 3e série, t. IV, 1886). I was the first to make known the nose-ring worn by the goddess Aphrodite-Astarte, even at Cyprus. In the Indies the women still wear these ornaments in their nostrils and ears. The fellahin of Egypt also wear similar jewelry; but as Egyptian art gives us no example of the usage of these ornaments in antiquity, it is only from the Indies that the Phenicians could have borrowed them. The nose-ring is unknown in the antiquity of all countries which surrounded the island of Cyprus.
Fig. 174.
ARCHAIC GREEK VASE WITH FIVE SWASTIKAS OF FOUR DIFFERENT FORMS.
Athens. Birch, “History of Ancient Pottery,” quoted by Waring in
“Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pl. 41, fig. 15; Dennis, “The
Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria,” I, p. 91.
The first pages of his memoir are employed in demonstrating that the specimens of the Swastika found in Cyprus, the most of which are set forth in this paper (figs. 177-182), show a Phenician influence; and according to his theory demonstrate their migration or importation. He does not specify the evidence on which he bases his assertion of Phenician influence in Cyprus, except in one or two particulars. Speaking of the specimen shown in fig. 177 of the present paper, he says:
It represents the sacred palm under which Apollo, the god of light, was born. * * * At Cyprus the palm did not appear only with the Phenicians; it was not known prior to that time (p. 674).
The design shown in fig. 178 he describes as representing two birds in the attitude of adoration before a Swastika, all being figured on a Greek cup of the style Dipylon.184
Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter adds:
On the vases of Dipylon the Swastikas are generally transformed into other ornaments, mostly meanders. But this is not the rule in Cyprus. The Swastika disappeared from there as it came, in its sacred form, with the Phenician influence, with the Phenician inscriptions on the vases, with the concentric circles without central points or tangents.
He says185 that the Swastika as well as the “Croix cantonnée” (with points or dots), while possibly not always the equivalent of the solar disk, zigzag lightning, or the double hatchet, yet are employed together and are given the same signification, and frequently replace each other. It is his opinion186 that the Swastika in Cyprus had nearly always a signification more or less religious, although it may have been used as an ornament to fill empty spaces. His interpretation of the Swastika in Cyprus is that it will signify tour à tour the storm, the lightning, the sun, the light, the seasons—sometimes one, sometimes another of these significations—and that its form lends itself easily (facilement) to the solar disk, to the fire wheel, and to the sun chariot. In support of this, he cites a figure (fig. 179) taken from Cesnola,187 in which the wheels of the chariot are decorated with four Swastikas displayed in each of the four quarters. The chief personage on the car he identifies as the god of Apollo-Resef, and the decoration on his shield represents the solar disk. He is at once the god of war and also the god of light, which identifies him with Helios. The other personage is Herakles-Mecquars, the right hand of Apollo, both of them heroes of the sun.
The supreme goddess of the Isle of Cyprus was Aphrodite-Astarte,188 whose presence with a preponderating Phenician influence can be traced back to the period of the age of iron, her images bearing signs of the Swastika, being, according to Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter, found in Cyprus. In fig. 180 the statue of this goddess is shown, which he says was found by himself in 1884 at Curium. It bears four Swastikas, two on the shoulders and two on the forearms. Fig. 181 represents a centaur found by him at the same time, on the right arm of which is a Swastika painted in black, as in the foregoing statue.
We have found, in the course of this paper, many statues of human figures bearing the mark of the Swastika on some portion of their garments. M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, on page 677, gives the following explanation thereof:
It appears to me that the priests and priestesses, also the boys who performed the services in the sacred places, were in the habit of burning or tattooing Swastikas upon their arms. * * * In 1885, among the votive offerings found in one of the sacred places dedicated to Aphrodite-Astoret, near Idalium, was a stone statuette, representing the young Adonis Kinyras in a squatting posture, with the Swastika tattooed or painted in red color upon his naked arm.
And, says Richter, when, later on, the custom of tattooing had disappeared, they placed the Swastika on the sacerdotal garments. He has found in a Greek tomb in 1885, near Polistis Chrysokon, two statuettes representing female dancers in the service of Aphrodite-Ariadne, one of which (fig. 182) bore six or more Swastikas. In other cases, says he (p. 678), the Croix cantonnée (the Croix swasticale of Zmigrodzki) replaced the Swastika on the garments, and he cites the statue of Hercules strangling the lion in the presence of Athena, whose robe is ornamented with the Croix cantonnée. He repeats that the two signs of the cross represent the idea of light, sun, sacrifice, rain, storm, and the seasons.
BRONZE AGE.
Prehistoric archæologists claim that bronze was introduced into Europe in prehistoric times from the extreme Orient. The tin mines of the peninsula of Burma and Siam, with their extension into China on the north, Malacca and the islands of the archipelago on the south, are known to have been worked in extremely ancient times and are believed to have furnished the tin for the first making of bronze. The latter may not be susceptible of proof, but everything is consistent therewith. After it became known that copper and tin would make bronze, the discovery of tin would be greatly extended, and in the course of time the tin mines of Spain, Britain, and Germany might be opened. A hundred and more prehistoric bronze foundries have been discovered in western Europe and tens of thousands of prehistoric bronze implements. If bronze came originally from the extreme Orient, and the Swastika belonged there also, and as objects of bronze belonging to prehistoric times and showing connection with the Orient, like the tintinnabulum (fig. 29) have been found in the Swiss lake dwellings of prehistoric times, it is a fair inference that the Swastika mark found on the same objects came also from the Orient. This inference is strengthened by the manufacture and continuous use of the Swastika on both bronze and pottery, until it practically covered, and is to be found over, all Europe wherever the culture of bronze prevailed. Nearly all varieties of the Swastika came into use during the Bronze Age. The objects on which it was placed may have been different in different localities, and so also another variety of form may have prevailed in a given locality; but, subject to these exceptions, the Swastika came into general use throughout the countries wherein the Bronze Age prevailed. As we have seen, on the hill of Hissarlik the Swastika is found principally on the spindle-whorl; in Greece and Cyprus, on the pottery vases; in Germany, on the ceintures of bronze; in Scandinavia, on weapons and on toilet and dress ornaments. In Scotland and Ireland it was mostly on sculptured stones, which are many times themselves ancient Celtic crosses. In England, France, and Etruria, the Swastika appears on small bronze ornaments, principally fibulæ. Different forms of the Swastika, i. e., those to the right, left, square, ogee, curved, spiral and meander, triskelion and tetraskelion, have been found on the same object, thereby showing their inter-relationship. No distinction is apparent between the arms bent to the right or to the left. This difference, noted by Prof. Max Müller, seems to fail altogether.
Greg says:190
About 500 to 600 B. C., the fylfot, (Swastika) curiously enough begins to disappear as a favorite device of early Greek art, and is rarely, if ever, seen on the regular Etruscan vase.
This indicates that the period of the use of the Swastika during the Bronze Age in Europe lay back of the period of its disappearance in the time of early Greek art, and that it was of higher antiquity than would otherwise be suspected.
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter says:191
The Swastika makes absolute default in Cyprus during all the age of bronze and in all its separate divisions according as the vases were decorated with intaglio or relief, or were painted.
Etruria and Italy.—The Etruscans were a prehistoric people. The country was occupied during the two ages of stone, Paleolithic and Neolithic, and during the Bronze Age. The Etruscans were probably the descendants of the Bronze Age people. The longest continued geographical discussion the world has heard was as to who were the Etruscans, and whence or by what route did they come to their country? It was opened by Herodotus and Dionysius Halicarnassus in the fourth century B. C.; while Dr. Brinton and the late President Welling have made the latest contributions thereto. The culture of the Etruscans was somewhat similar to that of the Bronze Age peoples, and many of the implements had great resemblance, but with sufficient divergence to mark the difference between them. There were different stages of culture among the Etruscans, as can be easily and certainly determined from their tombs, modes of burial, pottery, etc.
The Swastika appears to have been employed in all these epochs or stages. It was undoubtedly used during the Bronze Age, and in Italy it continued throughout the Etruscan and into the Roman and Christian periods.
While it may be doubtful if any specimen of Swastika can be identified as having belonged to the Neolithic Age in Europe, there can be no doubt that it was in common use during the Bronze Age. Professor Goodyear gives it as his opinion, and in this he may be correct, that the earliest specimens of Swastika of which identification can be made are on the hut urns of central Italy. These have been considered as belonging definitely to the Bronze Age in that country. Fig. 183 is a representation of one of these hut urns. It shows upon its roof several specimens of Swastika, as will be apparent from examination. There are other figures, incised and in relief. One of them is the celebrated “burning altar” mark of Dr. Schliemann. This specimen was found in the Via Appia near Rome, and is exhibited in the Vatican Museum. Similar specimens have been found in other parts of Etruria. The author saw in the Municipal Museum at Corneto many of them, which had been excavated from the neighboring cemetery of the prehistoric city of Corneto-Tarquinii. They were of pottery, but made as if to represent rude huts of skin, stretched on cross poles, in general appearance not unlike the cane and rush conical cabins used to this day by the peasants around Rome. They belonged to the Bronze Age, and antedated the Etruscan civilization. This was demonstrated by the finds at Corneto-Tarquinii. Tombs to the number of about 300, containing them, were found, mostly in 1880-81, at a lower level than, and were superseded by, the Etruscan tombs. They contained the weapons, tools, and ornaments peculiar to the Bronze Age—swords, hatchets, pins, fibulæ, bronze and pottery vases, etc., the characteristics of which were different from Etruscan objects of similar purpose, so they could be satisfactorily identified and segregated. The hut urns were receptacles for the ashes of the cremated dead, which, undisturbed, are to be seen in the museum. The vases forming part of this grave furniture bore the Swastika mark; three have two Swastikas, one three, one four, and another no less than eight.
Dennis figures a hut urn from Alba Longa,192 and another from the Alban Mount.193 He says (note 1):
These remarkable urns were first found in 1817 at Montecucco, near Marino, and at Monte Crescenzio, near the Lago de Castello, beneath a stratum of peperino (tufa) 18 inches thick. They were embedded in a yellowish volcanic ash and rested on a lower and earlier stratum of peperino.194
Curiously enough, the three or four pronged mark, called “burning altar” by Dr. Schliemann, is on both hut urns in Dennis’s “Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria.” Dr. Schliemann argues strongly in favor of the relationship between Swastika and the “burning altar” sign, but assigns no other reason than the similarity of the marks on the two objects. He appears unable, in “Ilios,” to cite any instance of the Swastika being found on the hut urns in connection with the “burning altar” sign, but he mentions the Swastika five times repeated on one of the hut urns in the Etruscan collection in the museum of the Vatican at Rome.195 The photograph of the hut urn from the Vatican (fig. 183) supplies the missing link in Schliemann’s evidence. The roof of the hut urn bears the “burning altar” mark (if it be a burning altar, as claimed), which is in high relief (as it is in the Dennis specimens), and was wrought in the clay by the molder when the hut was made. Such of the other portions of the roof as are in sight show sundry incised lines which, being deciphered, are found to be Swastikas or parts of them. The parallelogram in the front contains a cross and has the appearance of a labyrinth, but it is not. The other signs or marks, however, represent Swastikas, either in whole or in part. This specimen completes the proof cited by Schliemann, and associates the Swastika with the “burning altar” sign in the Etruscan country, as well as on the hill of Hissarlik and in other localities.
Dennis supposes the earliest Etruscan vases, called by many different names, to date from the twelfth century B. C. to 540 B. C.,196 the latter being the epoch of Theodoros of Samos, whose improvements marked an epoch in the culture of the country. He says:
These vases were adorned with annular bands, zigzag, waves, meanders, concentric circles, hatched lines, Swastikas, and other geometric patterns.
A fragment of Archaic Greek pottery is reported by Rochette from the necropolis of Cumæ, in the campagna of Italy, and is shown in fig. 184. Rochette reports it as an example of a very early period, believed by him to have been Phenician. When we consider the rarity of Phenician pottery in Italy compared with the great amount of Greek pottery found there, and that the Phenicians are not known to have employed the Swastika, this, combined with the difficulty of determining the place of origin of such a fragment, renders it more likely to have been Greek than Phenician. A reason apparently moving Rochette to this decision was the zigzag ornamentation, which he translated to be a Phenician sign for water; but this pattern was used many times and in many places without having any such meaning, and is no proof of his proposition.
Figs. 185 and 186 represent the one-handled cinerary urns peculiar to the Bronze Age in Italy. They are believed to have been contemporaneous with or immediately succeeding the hut urns just shown. The cinerary urn shown in fig. 185 was found at Marino, near Albano, in the same locality and under the same condition as the hut urns. The original is in the Vatican Museum and was figured by Pigorini in “Archæologia,” 1869. Fig. 186 shows a one-handled urn of pottery with Swastika (left) in intaglio, placed in a band of incised squares around the body of the vessel below the shoulder. A small though good example of Etruscan work is shown in the gold fibula (fig. 187). It is ornamented on the outside with the fine gold filigree work peculiar to the best Etruscan art. On the inside are two Swastikas. It is in the Vatican Museum of Etruscan antiquities. Fig. 188 represents another specimen of Etruscan gold filigree work with a circle and Swastika. It is a “bulla,” an ornament said to indicate the rank of the wearer among the Etruscan people. It is decorated with a circle and Swastika inside. The figure is taken from “L’Art pour Tous,” and is reproduced by Waring.
An ornamental Swastika (fig. 189) is found on a silver bowl from Cervetri (Cære), Etruria. It is furnished by Grifi, and reproduced by Waring. This specimen is to be remarked as having a small outward flourish from the extreme end of each arm, somewhat similar to that made by the Jains (fig. 33), or on the “Tablet of honor” of Chinese porcelain (fig. 31). Fig. 190 shows an Etruscan bronze fibula with two Swastikas and two Maltese crosses in the pin shield. It is in the Museum of Copenhagen, and is taken from the report of the Congrés Internationale d’Anthropologie et d’Archæologie Préhistorique, Copenhagen, 1875, page 486. This specimen, by its rays or crotchets around the junction of the pin with the shield, furnishes the basis of the argument by Goblet d’Alviella197 that the Swastika was evolved from the circle and was a symbol of the sun or sun-god. (See p. 785.)
Bologna was the site of the Roman city Bononia, and is supposed to have been that of Etruscan Felsina. Its Etruscan cemetery is extensive. Different names have been given to the excavations, sometimes from the owner of the land and at other times from the names of excavators. The first cemetery opened was called Villanova. The culture was different from that of the other parts of Etruria. By some it is believed to be older, by others younger, than the rest of Etruria. The Swastika is found throughout the entire Villanova epoch. Fig. 191 shows a pottery vase from the excavation Arnoaldi. It is peculiar in shape and decoration, but is typical of that epoch. The decoration was by stamps in the clay (intaglio) of a given subject repeated in the narrow bands around the body of the vase. Two of these bands were of small Swastikas with the ends all turned to the right. Fig. 192 shows a fragment of pottery from the Felsina necropolis, Bologna, ornamented with a row of Swastikas stamped into the clay in a manner peculiar to the locality.
Fig. 193 shows the end view of one of the bobbins from Bologna, Italy, in the possession of Count Gozzadini by whom it was collected. The decoration on the end, as shown by the figure, is the Swastika. The main arms are made up of three parallel lines, which intersect each other at right angles, and which all turn to the right at right angles. The lines are not incised, as is usual, but, like much of the decoration belonging to this culture, are made by little points consecutively placed, so as to give the appearance of a continuous line.
Swastikas turning both ways are on one or both extremities of many terra-cotta cylinders found in the terramare at Coazze, province of Verona, deposited in the National (Kircheriano) Museum at Rome. (See figs. 380 and 381 for similar bobbins.)
The museum at Este, Italy, contains an elegant pottery vase of large dimensions, represented in fig. 194, the decoration of which is the Greek fret around the neck and the Swastika around the body, done with small nail heads or similar disks inserted in the clay in the forms indicated. This association of the Swastika and the Greek fret on the same object is satisfactory evidence of their contemporaneous existence, and is thus far evidence that the one was not derived from the other, especially as the authorities who claim this derivation are at variance as to which was parent and which, child. (See fig. 133.)
A Swastika of the curious half-spiral form turned to the left, such as has been found in Scandinavia and also among the Pueblo Indians of the United States, is in the museum at Este.
When in the early centuries of the Christian era the Huns made their irruption into Europe, they apparently possessed a knowledge of the Swastika. They settled in certain towns of northern Italy, drove off the inhabitants, and occupied the territory for themselves. On the death of Attila and the repulse of the Huns and their general return to their native country, many small tribes remained and gradually became assimilated with the population. They have remained in northern Italy under the title of Longobards. In this Longobardian civilization or barbarism, whichever we may call it, and in their style of architecture and ornament, the Swastika found a prominent place, and is spoken of as Longobardian.
It is needless to multiply citations of the Swastika in Roman and Christian times. It would appear as though the sign had descended from the Etruscans and Samnites along the coast and had continued in use during Roman times. Schliemann says199 that it is found frequently in the wall paintings at Pompeii; even more than a hundred times in a house in the recently excavated street of Vesuvius. It may have contested with the Latin cross for the honor of being the Christian cross, for we know that the St. Andrew’s cross in connection with the Greek letter P (fig. 6) did so, and for a long time stood as the monogram of Christ and was the Labarum of Constantine. All three of these are on the base of the Archiepiscopal chair in the cathedral at Milan.200
| Fig. 194. POTTERY VASE ORNAMENTED WITH BRONZED NAIL HEADS IN FORM OF SWASTIKA. Este, Italy. Matériaux pour l’Histoire Primitive et Naturelle de l’Homme, 1884, p. 14. | Fig. 195. FRAGMENT OF POTTERY WITH SWASTIKA STAMPED IN RELIEF. |
Swiss lake dwellings.—Figs. 195 and 196 are interesting as giving an insight into the method of making the sign of the Swastika. Fig. 195 shows a fragment of pottery bearing a stamped intaglio Swastika (right), while fig. 196 represents the stamp, also in pottery, with which the imprint was made. They are figured by Keller,201 and are described on page 339, and by Chantre.202 They were found in the Swiss lake dwelling of Bourget (Savoy) by the Duc de Chaulnes, and are credited to his Museum of Chambéry.
Fig. 197.
FRAGMENT OF CEINTURE FROM A TUMULUS IN ALSACE.
Thin bronze repoussé with Swastikas of various kinds. Bronze Age, Halstattien epoch.
De Mortillet, “Musée Préhistorique,” fig. 1255.
Germany and Austria.—Fig. 197 represents a fragment of a ceinture of thin bronze of the Halstattien epoch of the Bronze Age from a tumulus in Alsace. It is made after the style common to that period; the work is repoussé and the design is laid off by diagonal lines which divide the field into lozenges, wherein the Swastika is represented in various forms, some turned square to the right, others to the left, while one is in spiral and is turned to the left. Other forms of the cross also appear with dots in or about the corners, which Burnouf associates with the myth of Agni and fire making, and which Zmigrodzki calls the Croix swasticale. This specimen is in the collection Nessel at Haguenau. Another ceinture was found at the same place and is displayed with it. It bears representations of the cross of different forms, one of which might be a Swastika with dotted cross lines, with the arms turned spirally to the left. Fig. 198 represents another fragment of a bronze ceinture from the same country and belonging to the same epoch. It is from the tumulus of Metzstetten, Würtemberg, and is in the Museum of Stuttgart. It is not repoussé, but is cut in openwork of intricate pattern in which the Swastika is the principal motif. A bronze fibula (fig. 199) is in the museum at Mayence, the body of which has the form of the normal Swastika. The arms are turned to the right and the lower one is broken off. The hinge for the pin was attached at one side or arm of the Swastika and the retaining clasp for the point at the other. Fig. 200 represents a prehistoric sepulchral urn with a large Swastika, the arms being indicated by three parallel lines, after the same manner as the Swastika on the clay bobbin from Bologna (fig. 193). It is reported by Lisch and Schröter, though the locality is not given. It is figured by Waring. The form, appearance, and decoration are of the type Villanova, thus identifying it with northern Italy.
The Swastika sign is on one of the three pottery vases found on Bishops Island, near Königswalde, on the right bank of the Oder, and on a vase from Reichersdorf, near Guben;203 on a vase in the county of Lipto, Hungary,204 and on pottery from the Cavern of Barathegy, Hungary.205 Fig. 201 represents a spearhead of iron from Brandenburg, North Germany. It bears the mark of the Swastika with the ends turned to the left, all being at right angles, the ends ornamented with three dots recalling Zmigrodzki’s Croix swasticale (figs. 12 and 13). By the side of this Swastika is a triskelion, or three-armed ogee sign, with its ends also decorated with the same three dots.
What relation there is between all these marks or signs and others similar to them, but separated by great distances of both time and space, it would be mere speculation to divine.
M. E. Chantre reports his investigations in certain Halstattien cemeteries in Italy and Austria.206 At San Margarethen, on the road between Rudolfswerth and Kronau, Bavaria, he encountered a group of tumuli. Many objects of the “bel age du bronze” were found; among others, a bronze pin (fig. 202) with a short stem, but large, square, flat head, was found, with a normal Swastika engraved with small dots, pointillé, such as has been seen in Italy, Austria, and Armenia.
Belgium.—The Museum of Namur, Belgium, possesses a small object of bone, both points of which have been broken; its use is somewhat indeterminable, but it is believed by the curator of that museum and others to have been an arrowhead or spearhead. In form it belongs to Class A of stemmed implements, is lozenge-shaped, without shoulder or barb. It is a little more than two inches long, five-eighths of an inch wide, is flat and thin. On one side it bears two oblique or St. Andrew’s crosses scratched in the bone; on the other, a figure resembling the Swastika. It is not the normal Swastika, but a variation therefrom. It is a cross about three-eighths of an inch square. The main stem lines cross each other at right angles; the ends of each of these arms are joined by two incised lines, which gives it the appearance of two turns to the right, but the junction is not well made, for the lines of the cross extend in every case slightly farther than the bent end. The variation from the normal Swastika consists of the variation produced by this second line. This object was lately found by M. Dupont, of Brussels, in the prehistoric cavern of Sinsin, near Namur. Most, or many, of these caverns belong to Paleolithic times, and one, the Grotte de Spy, has furnished the most celebrated specimens of the skeletons of Paleolithic man. But the cavern of Sinsin was determined, from the objects found therein, to belong to the Bronze Age.
Scandinavia.—The evidences of prehistoric culture have great resemblance throughout Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; so it is believed that during the prehistoric ages their peoples had the same culture, and the countries have been classed together as Scandinavia.
| Fig. 204a. SWASTIKA WITH DOTS. Torcello, Italy. | Fig. 204b. RUNIC INSCRIPTION ON SPEARHEAD. Torcello, Italy. | |
| Du Chaillu, “Viking Age,” I, fig. 335. | ||
A bronze sword is reported by Mr. George Stephens207 as having been found at Sæbo, Norway, with runes and a Swastika inlaid with silver. This specimen (fig. 203) was the subject of discussion before the International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archæology,208 at Budapest, 1876. Its runes were translated by Stephens, and being read from right to left, “OH THURMUTH,” or “owns me Thurmuth.” But on the same page he gives another sign for Thu and renders as Odin or (W)oden. In the discussion before the congress it seems to have been agreed that the sign stood for “blessing,” “good luck,” or some beneficent charm or benediction. A spearhead has been for years displayed in the museum at Torcello, near Venice, Italy, with a Swastika sign (fig. 204a) prominent as an engraved sign.209 Associated with it, but not a part of it, was an inscription (fig. 204b), which has always been attributed to the Etruscans. Mr. I. Undset, an archæologist in the museum of Christiania, made an extended visit through Italy in 1883, and on seeing this spearhead recognized the inscription as runic and belonging to Scandinavia. The arms of the Swastika turned to the left, and the ends were finished with three dots of the same style as those described employed in the Croix swasticale (fig. 12). Figs. 205 and 206 represent articles of dress or toilet, and bear the Swastika. The first shows a redding comb, the Swastika on which turns to the right. It was probably of bone or horn, as are those of modern times. Fig. 206 shows a brooch, the interior decoration of which is a combination of Swastikas more or less interlaced. It is of bronze and was used as a dress ornament. Fig. 207 shows a large brooch, the bodies and bar of which are almost covered with the tetraskelion style of Swastika. There are six of the four-armed Swastikas, four of which turn to the left and two to the right. Another is a triskelion, the arms of which turn to the right.
In Scandinavia more than in other countries the Swastika took the form of a rectangular body with arms projecting from each corner and bending in a spiral form, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left. These are found more frequently on fibulæ or brooches and on swords and scabbards. In fig. 208 is shown a placque for a ceinture or belt, with a buckle to receive the thong. It contains two ogee Swastikas (tetraskelions). In this and fig. 207 the border and accessory decoration consist largely of ogee curves, which, here represented separate, would, if placed together as a cross, form the same style of Swastika as those mentioned. Figs. 209 and 210 show sword scabbards, with Swastikas turned both ways. Fig. 211 shows two triskelions. Fig. 212 represents a gold brooch from a grave at Fyen, reported by Worsaae and figured by Waring.210 The brooch with ogee Swastika bears internal evidence of Scandinavian workmanship. There are other Swastikas of the same general form and style in distant localities, and this specimen serves to emphasize the extent of possible communication between distant peoples in prehistoric times. Fig. 213 represents a piece of horse-gear of bronze, silver plated and ornamented with Swastikas. Two of these are normal, the ends bent at right angles to the left, while the other is fancifully made, the only specimen yet found of that pattern.211 It is not seen that these fanciful additions serve any purpose other than decoration. They do not appear to have changed the symbolic meaning of the Swastika. Fig. 214 represents a sword scabbard belonging to the Vimose find, with a normal Swastika. Ludwig Müller reproduces a Swastika cross from a runic stone in Sweden. In an ancient church in Denmark, the baptismal font is decorated with Swastikas, showing its use in early Christian times. (See p. 878 for continuation of Swastika on Scandinavian or Danish gold bracteates.)
| Fig. 209. SCANDINAVIAN SWORD SCABBARD. Two ogee Swastikas (tetraskelions), right and left. | Fig. 210. SCANDINAVIAN SWORD SCABBARD. Ogee Swastika. | Fig. 211. SCANDINAVIAN SWORD SCABBARD. Two triskelions, right and left. |
Mr. Paul du Chaillu, in his “Viking Age,” mentions many specimens of Scandinavian and Norse antiquities bearing Swastika marks of divers styles: Bronze vessels (vol. 1, p. 100, note 1); iron spear point with runes and Swastika inlaid with silver, discovered in a tumulus with burnt bones, Muncheburg, fig. 336; another of the same, Volhynia, Russia, fig. 337; pottery vessel containing burnt bones, pointed iron knife, bronze needle, and melted glass beads, Bornholm, fig. 210; iron spearhead, Vimose bog find, (p. 207); border of finely woven silk cloth with gold and silver threads, from a mound (vol. 2, p. 289, fig. 1150).
Scotland and Ireland.—Specimens of the Swastika have been found on the Ogam stones in Scotland and Ireland (p. 797). In the churchyard of Aglish, county Kerry, Ireland, stand two stones bearing Ogam inscriptions. At the top of one is an ancient Celtic cross inclosed in a circle similar to fig. 7; immediately under it are two Swastika marks of four arms crossing at right angles, each arm bent to the right also at right angles. On two corners of the stone are inscriptions of the usual Ogam characters. The translation may be given, but seems to be unimportant and without apparent bearing upon this question. They are somewhat obliterated and their reading difficult. So far as made out, they are as follows: Maqimaqa and Apiloggo.
In Scotland, the Newton stone, in the grounds of the Newton House, bears an Ogam inscription, the meaning of which has no bearing upon the subject. But on the upper part of one of its faces appears an inscription, boldly and deeply incised, of forty-four characters arranged horizontally in six lines. These are of so remarkable a type as to have puzzled every philologist and paleographer who has attempted their decipherment. The late Alexander Thomson, esq., of Banchory, Scotland, circulated a photograph and description of this monument among antiquarians with a request for their decipherment of it. Various readings have been given by the learned gentlemen, who have reported it to be Hebrew, Phenician, Greek, Latin, Aryan, Irish, and Anglo-Saxon respectively. Brash212 gives his opinion that the inscription is in debased Roman letters of a type frequently found in ancient inscriptions, its peculiarities being much influenced by the hardness of the stone at the time of cutting and of the subsequent weather wear of ages. The interest of this monument to us is that the third character in the fourth line is a Swastika. It is indifferently made, the lines do not cross at right angles, two of the ends are curved, and the two others bent at a wider than right angle. There are four characters in the line closely following each other, (see p. 797.)
The Logie stone, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, bearing Ogam characters, contains a figure or mark reported by George M. Atkinson as a Swastika.213
On the Celtic crosses of Scotland certain marks appear which are elsewhere found associated with Swastika, and consequently have some relation therewith. The “Annam Stone” bears the mark of a Swastika (left) within three concentric circles, around the outside of which is a circle of dots.214
Ludwig Müller reports the Swastika in Scotland and Ireland on Christian tombs, associated with Latin crosses.215
A sculptured stone in Ireland (fig. 215) shows on the face three varieties of the cross, a Greek cross in a circle, a Swastika with square ends turned to the right, within a rectangle, and an ogee (tetraskelion) turned to the right, inclosed in a quatrefoil.216
An Irish bowl showed a Swastika thus. Dr. R. Munro217 reports from the Crannog of Lesnacroghera country, Antrim, Ireland, two pieces or disks of thin bronze, repoussés (fig. 216), bearing the sign of the Swastika and having the four arms of the spirals turned to the left. The similarity of this figure with those shown on the shields of the Pima Indians of New Mexico and Arizona (figs. 257 and 258) is to be remarked. Fig. 217 shows a triskelion of symmetric spirals turned to the right. In the Crannog of Lochlee, near Tarbolton, a bronze pin was found (fig. 218), the head of which was inclosed in a ring. On one side of the head was engraved a Greek cross, on the other was a normal Swastika turned to the right. The same crannog furnished a piece of ash wood five inches square, which had been preserved, as were all the other objects, by the peat, on which was carved a triskelion (fig. 219) after the form and style of those on the Missouri mound pottery.
GALLO ROMAN PERIOD.
France.—The employment of the Swastika in France did not cease with the Bronze or Iron ages, but continued into the occupation of Gaul by the Romans.
Fig. 220 represents a stone altar erected in the south of France among the Pyrenees about the time of the advent of the Romans. It has a Swastika engraved on its pedestal. The upper arm has been carried beyond the body of the sign, whether by intention is not apparent. Fig. 221 represents a pottery bottle with another specimen of Swastika belonging to the same (Gallo-Roman) epoch, but coming from the extreme north of Gaul, the neighborhood of Rouen. It is to be remarked that the ends of this Swastika give the outward curve or flourish similar to that noticed by Dr. Schliemann on the spindle-whorl of Troy, and is yet employed in making the Jain Swastika (fig. 33).
M. Alexander Bertrand218 speaks of the discovery at Velaux, in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, of the headless statue of a crouching or squatting guard which has a row of Swastikas across his breast, while beneath is a range of crosses, Greek or Latin. The newest examples of the Swastika, belonging to this epoch have been found at Estinnes, Hainaut, and at Anthée, Namur, Belgium, on pieces of Roman tile; also on a tombstone in the Roman or Belgo-Roman cemetery of Juslenville near Pepinster.219 This is a Pagan tomb, as evidenced by the inscriptions commenced “D. M.” (Diis Manibus).220
ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD.
Britain.—Greg reports222 a silver disk 1½ inches in diameter, with a triskelion made by punched dots, in the same style as the pin heads from Armenia (figs. 35 and 36). This was from grave 95 in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Sleafors, England, excavated by George W. Thomas and sold at Boston; bought by A. W. Franks and given to the British Museum. Grave 143 had a large cruciform fibula of bronze, partly gilt, similar to those from Scandinavia, with a Swastika on the central ornament thus. The slight curve or flourish on the outer end of the bent arm of this specimen resembles the Jain Swastika (fig. 33), though this bends to the left, while the Jain Swastikas bend to the right. Fig. 222 shows an Anglo-Saxon bronze gilt fibula with a peculiar form of Swastika leaving a square with dot and circle in its center. It was found in Long Wittenham, Berkshire, was reported in Archæologia,223 and is figured by Waring.224 A figure having great similarity to this, even in its peculiarities and called a Swastika, was found on a shell in Toco Mound, Tennessee (fig. 238). Fig. 223 represents an Anglo-Saxon urn from Shropham, Norfolk. Its decorations consist of isolated figures like crosses, etc., arranged in horizontal bands around the vessel, and separated by moldings. The lower row consists of Swastikas of small size stamped into the clay and arranged in isolated squares. There are twenty Swastikas in the band; though they all turn to the right, they are not repetitions. They were made by hand and not with the stamp. They are white on a blackish ground. The original, which is in the British Museum, is cited by Kemble and figured by Waring.225
THE SWASTIKA ON ANCIENT COINS.
There has been much ink and imagination used, most of which has been wasted, in the discussion of this branch of this subject. The opinion has been expressed by many persons that the triskelion which formed the armorial emblem of the island of Sicily, and also of the Isle of Man, is but an evolution from or modification of the Swastika. In the judgment of the author this is based rather upon the similarity of the designs than upon any likeness in their origin and history. The acceptance by modern writers of this theory as a fact is only justified from its long-continued repetition.
Triskelion, Lycia.—The triskelion on ancient coins first appears on the coins of Lycia, in Asia Minor, about B. C. 480. It was adopted for Sicily by Agathocles, B. C. 317 to 307. The coins of Lycia were first three cocks’ heads and necks joined together equidistant in the center of the field, as shown in fig. 224, while figs. 225 and 226 bear a center dot and circle. This forms a hub and axle. Out of this hub spring three arms or rays, practically equidistant, the outer ends being bent to the left. They increase in size as they progress outward and are largest at the outer ends. In fig. 226 there is a mint mark or counter mark of the same design as the triskelion, except that it has but two arms or rays (diskelion).
Perrot and Chipiez,227 speaking of Lycia, say:
The device of many of her coins is the “triskelis” or so-called “triquetra” (literally, three-cornered, triangular), a name derived from three serpents’ heads, which usually figure in the field, much after the fashion of those supporting the famous tripod at Delphi,228 consecrated by the Greeks to Apollo after the battle of Platæa. The number of heads is not constant, some coins having as many as four, “tetraskelis,” while others have but two, “diskelis.”229
The Greeks connected the symbol with the cult of Apollo, which they represented as very popular and of hoary antiquity in Lycia. The three-rayed design appears to have gained the victory over the others, and came into commoner use. It is found on Assyrian coins, and also as a countermark on coins of Alexander, B. C. 333 to 323. A comparison of these designs with the Swastika will, it is believed, show their dissimilarity, and the non-existence of relationship. In the Lycian designs, whether with two, three, or four rays, there is a central hub out of which the spokes spring. In the center of the hub is the small circle and dot which might represent the axle on which the machine revolved. In fact, the Lycian design is a fair representation of the modern screw propeller, and gives the idea of a whirling motion.
Compare these peculiarities with the Swastika. The Swastika is almost always square, is always a cross at right angles or near it, and whatever may become of the ends or arms of the cross, whether they be left straight, bent at right angles, or in a curve, it still gives the idea of a cross. There is no center except such as is made by the crossing of the two arms. There is not, as in these triskelions, a central hub. There is no dot or point around which the design or machine could be made to revolve, as in these Lycian triskelions; nothing of the central boss, cup, or nave, which forms what the Germans call the “Rad-Kreuz,” wheel cross, as distinguished from the square cross.
In this regard Greg says:
If R. Brown’s lunar and Semitic or Asiatic origin of the triquetra, however, should be established, then the entire argument of the triquetra being derived from the fylfot, or vice versa, falls to the ground. * * * That the device arose out of the triskele and triquetra I do not think can be proved. It is clear the was a far older and more widely spread symbol than the triskele, as well as a more purely Aryan one.
Waring, explaining the tetraskelion (four-armed), declares it to have preceded the triskelion (three-armed), and he explains its meaning,230 citing Sir Charles Fellows, as being a harpago, a grappling iron, a canting sign for Harpagus, who conquered Lycia for Cyrus, circa, 564 B. C.
This, with the statement of Perrot and Chipiez (p. 872 of this paper), is a step in explanation of the adoption of the triskelion, and together they suggest strongly that it had no relation to the Swastika. At the date of the appearance of the triskelion on the Lycian coins the Swastika was well known throughout the Trojan peninsula and the Ægean Sea, and the difference between them was so well recognized that one could not possibly have been mistaken for the other.
Triskelion, Sicily.—Now we pass to the consideration of the triskelion of Sicily. Fig. 227 represents a coin of Sicily. On the obverse the head of Persephone, on the reverse the quadriga, and above, the triskelion. Other specimens of the same kind, bearing the same triskelion, are seen in Barclay Head’s work on the “Coinage of Syracuse” and his “Guide to the Ancient Coins in the British Museum.” They belong to the early part of the reign of Agathocles, B. C. 317 to 310. In these specimens the triskelion is quite small; but as the coins belong to the period of the finest engraving and die-sinking of Greece, the representation, however minute, is capable of decipherment. Fig. 228 is taken from the shield of a warrior on a Greek vase representing Achilles and Hector, in which the armorial emblem of Sicily, the triskelion, occupies the entire field,231 and represents plainly that it is three human legs, conjoined at the thigh, bent sharply at the knee, with the foot and toes turned out. Some of these have been represented covered with mail armor and the foot and leg booted and spurred. It is evident that these are human legs, and so were not taken from the screw propeller of Lycia, while they have no possible relation to the crossed arms of the Swastika, and all this despite their similarity of appearance. This is rendered clearer by Waring,232 where the armorial emblem on a warrior’s shield is a single human leg, bent in the same manner, instead of three. Apropos of Swastikas on warriors’ shields, reference is made to figs. 257 and 258, which represent two shields of Pima Indians, New Mexico, both of which have been in battle and both have the four-armed Swastika or tetraskelion. There is not in the Swastika, nor was there ever, any central part, any hub, any axis, any revolution. It is asserted that originally the triskelion of Sicily, possibly of Lycia, was a symbol of the sun, morning, midday, and afternoon, respectively. But this was purely theoretical and without other foundation than the imagination of man, and it accordingly gave way in due course. Pliny denies this theory and attributes the origin of the triskelion of Sicily to the triangular form of the island, ancient Trinacria, which consisted of three large capes equidistant from each other, pointing in their respective directions, the names of which were Pelorus, Pachynus, and Lilybæum. This statement, dating to so early a period, accounting for the triskelion emblem of Sicily, is much more reasonable and ought to receive greater credit than that of its devolution from the Swastika, which theory is of later date and has none of these corroborations in its favor. We should not forget in this argument that the Swastika in its normal form had been for a long time known in Greece and in the islands and countries about Sicily.
Among hundreds of patterns of the Swastika belonging to both hemispheres and to all ages, none of them have sought to represent anything else than just what they appear to be, plain marks or lines. There is no likeness between the plain lines of the Swastika and the bent form of the human leg, with the foot turned outward, incased in chain armor and armed with spurs.
Whenever or however the triskelion occurred, by whom it was invented, what it represented, how it comes to have been perpetuated, is all lost in antiquity and may never be known; but there does not seem to be any reason for believing it to have been an evolution from the Swastika.
Triskelion, Isle of Man.—The triskelion of Sicily is also the armorial emblem of the Isle of Man, and the same contention has been made for it, i. e., that it was a modification of the Swastika. But its migration direct from Sicily to the Isle of Man can be traced through the pages of history, and Mr. John Newton,233 citing the Manx Note Book for January, 1886, has given this history at length, of which the following is a résumé:
Prior to the thirteenth century the Isle of Man was under dominion of the Norse Vikings, and its armorial emblems were theirs; usually a ship under full sail. Two charters of Harold, King of Man (1245, 1246 in the Cotton MSS.), bear seals with this device. Twenty years later, after the conquest of the island by, and its cession to, Alexander III of Scotland, A. D. 1266, the Norse emblems disappeared entirely, and are replaced by the symbol of the three legs covered with chain armor and without spurs. “It appears then,” says Newton, “almost certain, though we possess no literary document recording the fact, that to Alexander III of Scotland is due the introduction of the ‘Tre Cassyn’ as the distinguishing arms of the Isle of Man.” He then explains how this probably came about: Frederick II (A. D. 1197-1250), the Norman King of Sicily, married Isabella, the daughter of Henry III of England. A quarrel between the King of Sicily and the Pope led the latter to offer the crown to Henry III of England, who accepted it for his son Edmund (the Hunchback), who thereupon took the title of King of Sicily and quartered the Sicilian arms with the Royal arms of England. The negotiations between Henry and the Pope progressed for several years (1255 to 1259), when Henry, finding that he could no longer make it an excuse for raising money, allowed it to pass into the limbo of forgotten objects.
Alexander III of Scotland had married Margaret, the youngest daughter of Henry III, and thus was brother-in-law to Edmund as well as to Frederick. In 1256, and while these negotiations between Henry and the Pope concerning Sicily were in progress, Alexander visited, at London, his royal father-in-law, the King of England, and his royal brother-in-law, the King of Sicily, and was received with great honors. About that time Haco, the Norse king of the Isle of Man, was defeated by Alexander III of Scotland, and killed, soon after which event (1266) the Isle of Man was ceded to the latter. The Norse coat of arms disappeared from the escutcheon of the Isle of Man, and, being replaced by the three legs of Sicily, Mr. Newton inquires:
What more likely than that the King (Alexander III), when he struck the Norwegian flag, should replace it by one bearing the picturesque and striking device of Sicily, an island having so many points of resemblance with that of Man, and over which his sister ruled as Queen and her brother had been appointed as King?
However little we may know concerning the method of transfer of the coat of arms from Sicily to the Isle of Man, we are not left at all in doubt as to the fact of its accomplishment; and the triskelion of Sicily became then and has been ever since, and is now, the armorial emblem of the Isle of Man.
The Duke of Athol, the last proprietary of the Isle of Man, and who, in 1765, sold his rights to the Crown of England, still bears the arms of Man as the fifth quartering, “The three human legs in armor, conjoined at the upper part of the thigh and flexed in triangle, proper garnished,” being a perpetuation of the triskelion or triquetrum of Sicily.234
The arms of the Isle of Man afford an excellent illustration of the migration of symbols as maintained in the work of Count Goblet d’Alviella; but the attempt made by others to show it to be an evolution from and migration of the Swastika is a failure.
Punch marks on Corinthian coins mistaken for Swastikas.—But is the Swastika really found on ancient coins? The use of precious metals as money dates to an unknown time in antiquity. Gold was used in early Bible times (1500 B. C.) among nearly every people as money, but it was by weight as a talent, and not as minted coin. The coinage of money began about 700 B. C. in Lydia. Lydia was a province on the western side of the peninsula of Asia Minor looking out toward Greece, while Lycia, its neighbor, was a province on the southern side looking toward the island of Rhodes. The Lydians began coinage by stamping with a punch each ingot or nugget of gold or silver, or a mixture of them called “Electrum.” In the beginning these ingots were marked upon but one side, the reverse showing plainly the fiber of the anvil on which the ingot was laid when struck with the punch. But in a short time, it may have been two hundred years, this system was changed so as to use a die which would be reproduced on the coin when it was struck with a punch. The lion, bull, boar, dolphin, and many other figures were employed as designs for these dies. Athens used an owl; Corinth, Pegasus; Metapontine, a sheaf of wheat; Naples, a human-headed bull. The head and, occasionally, the entire form of the gods were employed. During almost the entire first period of nigh three hundred years the punch was used, and the punch marks show on the reverse side of the coins. These punch marks were as various as the dies for the obverse of the coins, but most of them took a variety of the square, as it would present the greatest surface of resistance to the punch. Even the triskelion of the Lycian coins is within an indented square (figs. 225 and 226). A series of these punch marks is given for demonstration on pl. 9. A favorite design was a square punch with a cross of two arms passing through the center, dividing the field into four quarters. Most of the punch marks on the coins of that period were of this kind. These punch marks and the method and machinery with which they were made are described in standard numismatic works.235
It is believed by the author that the assertions as to the presence of the Swastika on these ancient coins is based upon an erroneous interpretation of these punch marks. Fig. 229 shows the obverse and reverse of a coin from Corinth. It belonged to the first half of the sixth century B. C. The obverse represents a Pegasus standing, while the reverse is a punch mark, said to have been a Swastika; but, examining closely, we will find there is no Swastika in this punch mark. The arms of the normal Swastika consist of straight lines crossing each other. In this case they do not cross. The design consists of four gammas, and each gamma is separated from its fellows, all forming together very nearly the same design as hundreds of other punch marks of the same period. If each outer arm of this mark is made slightly longer, the Swastika form disappears and the entire design resolves itself into the square habitually employed for that purpose. If the punch mark on this Corinthian coin be a Swastika, it depends upon the failure to make the extreme end of the bent arm an eighth of an inch longer. This is too fine a point to be relied upon. If this punch mark had these arms lengthened an eighth of an inch, it would confessedly become a square.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 9.
| 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 |
Punch Marks on Reverse of Ancient Coins.
| Fig. | 1. | Coin of Lydia. Electrum. Oblong sinking between two squares. Babylonian stater. The earliest known coinage. Circa 700 B. C. |
| 2. | Phenician Half Stater. Electrum. Incuse square with cruciform ornament. | |
| 3. | Silver Coin of Teos. Incuse square. Circa 544 B. C. | |
| 4. | Silver Coin of Acanthus. Incuse square. | |
| 5. | Silver Coin of Mende. Incuse triangles. | |
| 6. | Silver Coin of Terone. Incuse square. | |
| 7. | Coin of Bisaltæ.236 Incuse square. Octadrachm. | |
| 8. | Silver Coin of Orrescii.236 Incuse square. Octadrachm. | |
| 9. | Corinthian Silver Coin. Incuse square divided into eight triangular compartments. The earliest coin of Corinth, dating B. C. 625 to 585. | |
| 10. | Silver Coin of Abdera. Incuse square. | |
| 11. | Silver Coin of Byzantium. Incuse square, granulated. | |
| 12. | Silver Coin of Thrasos (Thrace). Incuse square. |
Punch Marks on Reverse of Ancient Coins.
Swastika on ancient Hindu coins.—It is not to be inferred from this opposition that the Swastika never appeared on ancient coins. It did appear, but seems to have been of a later date and to have belonged farther east among the Hindus. Fig. 230 shows an ancient (Hindu?) coin reported by Waring, who cites Cunningham as authority for its having been found at Ujain. The design consists of a cross with independent circles on the outer end of each of the four arms, the circles being large enough to intersect each other. The field of each of these circles bears a Swastika of normal form. Other coins are cited of the same style, with small center dots and concentric circles in the stead of the Swastika. What meaning the Swastika has here, beyond the possible one of being a lucky penny, is not suggested.
Other ancient Hindu coins bearing the Swastika (figs. 231-234) are attributed to Cunningham by Waring.238 These are said by Waring to be Buddhist coins found at Behat near Scharaupur. Mr. E. Thomas, in his article on the “Earliest Indian Coinage,”239 ascribes them to the reign of Krananda, a Buddhist Indian king contemporary with or prior to Alexander, about 330 B. C.
The coins of Krananda,240 contemporary of Alexander the Great,241 bear the Swastika mark, associated with the principal Buddhist marks, the trisula, the stupha, sacred tree, sacred cone, etc. Waring says242 that according to Prinsep’s “Engravings of Hindu Coins,” the Swastika seems to disappear from them about 200 B. C., nor is it found on the Indo-Bactrian, the Indo-Sassanian, or the later Hindu or subsequent Mohammedan, and he gives in a note the approximate dates of these dynasties: Early native Buddhist monarchs from about 500 B. C. to the conquest of Alexander, about 330 B. C.; the Indo-Bactrian or Greek successors of Alexander from about 300 to 126 B. C.; the Indo-Parthian or Scythic from about 126 B. C.; the second Hindu dynasty from about 56 B. C.; the Indo-Sassanian from A. D. 200 to 636, and subsequent to that the Indo-Mohammedan from the eleventh to the close of the thirteenth century; the Afghan dynasty from A. D. 1290 to 1526, and the Mongol dynasty to the eighteenth century, when it was destroyed by Nadir Shah. (See p. 772.)
Swastika on coins in Mesembria and Gaza.—Mr. Percy Gardner, in his article, “Ares as a Sun-god,”243 finds the Swastika on a coin of Mesembria in Thrace. He explains that “Mesembria is simply the Greek word for noon, midday (μεσημβρία).” The coins of this city bear the inscription ΜΕΣ, which Greg244 believes refers by a kind of pun to the name of the city, and so to noon, or the sun or solar light. The answer to this is the same given throughout this paper, that it may be true, but there is no evidence in support of it. Max Müller245 argues that this specimen is decisive of the meaning of the sign Swastika. Both these gentlemen place great stress upon the position which the Swastika held in the field relative to other objects, and so determine it to have represented the sun or sunlight; but all this seems non sequitur. A coin from Gaza, Palestine, ancient, but date not given, is attributed to R. Rochette, and by him to Munter (fig. 235). The Swastika sign is not perfect, only two arms of the cross being turned, and not all four.
Swastika on Danish gold bracteates.—Fig. 236 represents a Danish gold bracteate with a portrait head, two serpents, and a Swastika with the outer ends finished with a curve or flourish similar to that of the Jains (fig. 33).
There are other bracteates with the Swastika mark, which belong to the Scandinavian countries.246 Some of them bear signs referring to Christian civilization, such as raising hands in prayer; and from a determination of the dates afforded by the coins and other objects the Swastika can be identified as having continued into the Christian era.
The coinage of the ancient world is not a prolific field for the discovery of the Swastika. Other specimens may possibly be found than those here given. This search is not intended to be exhaustive. Their negative information is, however, valuable. It shows, first, that some of the early stamps or designs on coins which have been claimed as Swastikas were naught but the usual punch marks; second, it shows a limited use of the Swastika on the coinage and that it came to an end in very early times. Numismatics afford great aid to archæology from the facility and certainty with which it fixes dates. Using the dates furnished by the coinage of antiquity, it is gravely to be questioned whether the prolific use of the Swastika in Asia Minor (of which we have such notable examples on specimens of pottery from the hill of Hissarlik, in Greece) did not terminate before coinage began, or before 480 B. C., when the period of finer engraving began, and it became the custom to employ on coins the figures of gods, of tutelary deities, and of sacred animals. Thus the use of the Swastika became relegated to objects of commoner use, or those having greater relation to superstition and folklore wherein the possible value of the Swastika as an amulet or sign with power to bring good luck could be better employed; or, as suggested by Mr. Greg, that the great gods which, according to him, had the Swastika for a symbol, fell into disrepute and it became changed to represent something else.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
PRE-COLUMBIAN TIMES.
Fains Island and Toco Mounds, Tennessee.—That the Swastika found its way to the Western Hemisphere in prehistoric times can not be doubted. A specimen (fig. 237) was taken by Dr. Edward Palmer in the year 1881 from an ancient mound opened by him on Fains Island, 3 miles from Bainbridge, Jefferson County, Tenn. It is figured and described in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,247 as follows:
A shell ornament, on the convex surface of which a very curious ornamental design has been engraved. The design, inclosed by a circle, represents a cross such as would be formed by two rectangular tablets or slips slit longitudinally and interlaced at right angles to each other. The lines are neatly and deeply incised. The edge of the ornament has been broken away nearly all around.
The incised lines of this design (fig. 237) represent the Swastika turned to the left (though the description does not recognize it as such). It has small circles with dots in the center, a style of work that may become of peculiar value on further investigation, but not to be confounded with the dots or points in what M. Zmigrodzki calls the Croix swasticale. The mound from which this specimen came, and the objects associated with it, show its antiquity and its manufacture by the aborigines untainted by contact with the whites. The mound is on the east end of Fains Island. It was 10 feet in height and about 100 feet in circumference at the base. In the bed of clay 4 feet beneath the surface were found the remains of 32 human skeletons; of these, only 17 skulls could be preserved. There had been no regularity in placing the bodies.
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 same Fulgur shell (fig. 239); a second gorget of Fulgur shell 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 of Io spinosa, Unio probatus.
The specimen represented in fig. 238 is a small shell from the Big Toco mound, Monroe County, Tenn., found by Mr. Emmert with skeleton No. 49 and is fig. 262, Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1890-91, page 383, although it is not described. This is a circular disk of Fulgur shell, 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, and 306, 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 as fig. 238 from Tennessee. The circles and central dots of fig. 238 have 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 arrangement of 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 of figure 238 was 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.
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 curved talons. 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). Another interesting 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, and 242)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 in Union County, Ill., shown in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (p. 105) and in the Twelfth Annual Report (p. 309).
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 as pl. 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 in their “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.
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 in fig. 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. 251 shows an exquisite bone carving of a paroquet which belongs much farther south and not found in that locality in modern times. The design shown in fig. 252 suggests 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 the head of the “leather-back” turtle. Fig. 253 probably represents an otter with a fish in his mouth.
| Fig. 247. STENCIL ORNAMENT OF THIN COPPER. Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio. ¼ natural size. | Fig. 248. FISH ORNAMENT OF THIN COPPER. Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio. ⅙ natural size. |
Plate 14. Prehistoric Altar. Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.
Found near the copper Swastika shown in fig. 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 in pl. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, of the 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 Nadaillac255 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. Abbott256 denounces the inscription as a fraud.
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
The Kansas.—The Rev. J. Owen Dorsey257 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. 255 in 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 chart258 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
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.
Miss Owen spoke of other garters with Swastikas on them, but she said they were sacred, were used only during certain ceremonies, and she knew not if she could be able to get or even see them. During the prolongation of the preparation of this paper she wrote two or three times, telling of the promises made to her by the two Sac women who were the owners of these sacred garters, and how each time they had failed. Yet she did not give up hope. Accordingly, in the winter of 1896, the little box containing the sacred garters arrived. Miss Owen says the husbands of these two Sac women are Pottawatomies on the Cook County (Kans.) Reservation. They are sun worshippers. These garters have been sketched and figured in pl. 16.
The Pueblos.—The Pueblo country in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, as is well known, is inhabited by various tribes of Indians speaking different languages, separated from one another and from all other tribes by differences of language, customs, and habit, but somewhat akin to each other in culture, and many things different from other tribes are peculiar to them. These have been called the “Pueblo Indians” because they live in pueblos or towns. Their present country includes the regions of the ancient cliff dwellers, of whom they are supposed to be the descendants. In those manifestations of culture wherein they are peculiar and different from other tribes they have come to be considered something superior. Any search for the Swastika in America which omitted these Indians would be fatally defective, and so here it is found. Without speculating how the knowledge of the Swastika came to them, whether by independent invention or brought from distant lands, it will be enough to show its knowledge among and its use by the peoples of this country.
In the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for the year 1880-81 (p. 394, fig. 562) is described a dance rattle made from a small gourd, ornamented in black, white, and red (fig. 256). The gourd has a Swastika on each side, with the ends bent, not square, but ogee (the tetraskelion). The U. S. National Museum possesses a large number of these dance rattles with Swastikas on their sides, obtained from the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. Some of them have the natural neck for a handle, as shown in the cut; others are without neck, and have a wooden stick inserted and passed through for a handle. Beans, pebbles, or similar objects are inside, and the shaking of the machine makes a rattling noise which marks time for the dance.
The Museum possesses a large series of pottery from the various pueblos of the Southwest; these are of the painted and decorated kind common to that civilization and country. Some of these pieces bear the Swastika mark; occasionally it is found outside, occasionally inside. It is more frequently of the ogee form, similar to that on the rattle from the same country (fig. 256). The larger proportion of these specimens comes from the pueblos of Santa Clara and St. Ildefonso.
Dr. Schliemann reports:260
We also see a Swastika (turned to the left) scratched on two terra cotta bowls of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, preserved in the ethnological section of the Royal Museum at Berlin.
G. Nordenskiöld,261 in the report of his excavations among the ruined pueblos of the Mesa Verde, made in southwestern Colorado during the summer of 1891, tells of the finding of numerous specimens of the Swastika. In pl. 23, fig. 1, he represents a large, shallow bowl in the refuse heap at the “Step House.” It was 50 centimeters in diameter, of rough execution, gray in color, and different in form and design from other vessels from the cliff houses. The Swastika sign (to the right) was in its center, and made by lines of small dots. His pl. 27, fig. 6, represents a bowl found in a grave (g on the plan) at “Step House.” Its decoration inside was of the usual type, but the only decoration on the outside consisted of a Swastika, with arms crossing at right angles and ends bent at the right, similar to fig. 9. His pl. 18, fig. 1, represented a large bowl found in Mug House. Its decoration consisted in part of a Swastika similar in form and style to the Etruscan gold “bulla,” fig. 188 in this paper. Certain specimens of pottery from the pueblos of Santa Clara and St. Ildefonso, deposited in the U. S. National Museum (Department of Ethnology), bear Swastika marks, chiefly of the ogee form.262
The Navajoes.—Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. A., than whom no one has done better, more original, nor more accurate anthropologic work in America, whether historic or prehistoric, has kindly referred me to his memoir in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, comprising 82 pages, with 9 plates and 9 figures, entitled “The Mountain Chant; a Navajo ceremony.” It is descriptive of one of a number of ceremonies practiced by the shamans or medicine men of the Navajo Indians, New Mexico. The ceremony is public, although it takes place during the night. It lasts for nine days and is called by the Indians “dsilyídje qaçàl”—literally, “chant toward (a place) within the mountains.” The word “dsilyi” may allude to mountains in general, to the Carrizo Mountains in particular, to the place in the mountains where the prophet (originator of these ceremonies) dwelt, or to his name, or to all of these combined. “Qaçàl” means a sacred song or a collection of sacred songs. Dr. Matthews describes at length the myth which is the foundation of this ceremony, which must be read to be appreciated, but may be summarized thus: An Indian family, consisting of father, mother, two sons, and two daughters, dwelt in ancient times near the Carrizo Mountains. They lived by hunting and trapping; but the place was desert, game scarce, and they moved up the river farther into the mountains. The father made incantations to enable his two sons to capture and kill game; he sent them hunting each day, directing them to go to the east, west, or north, but with the injunction not to the south. The elder son disobeyed this injunction, went to the south, was captured by a war party of Utes and taken to their home far to the south. He escaped by the aid of Yàybichy (Qastcèëlçi) and divers supernatural beings. His adventures in returning home form the body of the ceremony wherein these adventures are, in some degree, reproduced. Extensive preparations are made for the performance of the ceremony. Lodges are built and corrals made for the use of the performers and the convenience of their audience. The fête being organized, stories are told, speeches made, and sacred songs are sung (the latter are given by Dr. Matthews as “songs of sequence,” because they must be sung in a progressive series on four certain days of the ceremony). Mythological charts of dry sand of divers colors are made on the earth within the corrals after the manner of the Navajo and Pueblo Indians. These dry sand paintings are made after a given formula and intended to be repeated from year to year, although no copy is preserved, the artists depending only upon the memory of their shaman. One of these pictures or charts represents the fugitive’s escape from the Utes, his captors, down a precipice into a den or cave in which burnt a fire “on which was no wood.” Four pebbles lay on the ground together—a black pebble in the east, a blue one in the south, a yellow one in the west, and a white one in the north. From these flames issued. Around the fire lay four bears, colored and placed to correspond with the pebbles. When the strangers (Qastcèëlçi and the Navajo) approached the fire the bears asked them for tobacco, and when they replied they had none, the bears became angry and thrice more demanded it. When the Navajo fled from the Ute camp, he had furtively helped himself from one of the four bags of tobacco which the council was using. These, with a pipe, he had tied up in his skin robe; so when the fourth demand was made he filled the pipe and lighted it at the fire. He handed the pipe to the black bear, who, taking but one whiff, passed it to the blue bear and immediately fell senseless. The blue bear took two whiffs and passed the pipe, when he too fell over unconscious. The yellow bear succumbed after the third whiff, and the white bear in the north after the fourth whiff. Now the Navajo knocked the ashes and tobacco out of his pipe and rubbed the latter on the feet, legs, abdomen, chest, shoulders, forehead, and mouth of each of the bears in turn, and they were at once resuscitated. He replaced the pipe in the corner of his robe. When the bears recovered, they assigned to the Navajo a place on the east side of the fire where he might lie all night, and they brought out their stores of corn meal, tciltcin, and other berries, offering them to him to eat; but Qastcèëlçi warned him not to touch the food, and disappeared. So, hungry as he was, the Indian lay down supperless to sleep. When he awoke in the morning, the bears again offered food, which he again declined, saying he was not hungry. Then they showed him how to make the bear kethàwns, or sticks, to be sacrificed to the bear gods, and they drew from one corner of the cave a great sheet of cloud, which they unrolled, and on it were painted the forms of the “yays” of the cultivated plants.
Plate 17. Navajo Dry Painting Containing Swastikas.
Dr. Washington Matthews, “The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony,”
Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-84, Pl. XVII.
In Dr. Matthews’s memoir (marked third, but described on p. 447 as the second picture), is a representation of the painting which the prophet was believed to have seen at the home of the bears in the Carrizo Mountains. This is here reproduced as pl. 17. In the center of the figure is a bowl of water covered with black powder; the edge of the bowl is garnished with sunbeams, while outside of it and forming a rectangle are the four ca’bitlol of sunbeam rafts on which seem to stand four gods, or “yays,” with the plants under their special protection, which are painted the same color as the gods to which they belong. These plants are represented on their left hand, the hand being open and extended toward them. The body of the eastern god is white, so is the stalk of corn at his left in the southeast; the body of the southern god is blue, so is the beanstalk beside him in the southwest; the body of the western god is yellow, so is his pumpkin vine in the northwest; the body of the north god is black, so is the tobacco plant in the northeast. Each of the sacred plants grows from five white roots in the central waters and spreads outward to the periphery of the picture. The figures of the gods form a cross, the arms of which are directed to the four cardinal points; the plants form another cross, having a common center with the first, the arms extending to the intermediate points of the compass. The gods are shaped alike, but colored differently; they lie with their feet to the center and heads extended outward, one to each of the four cardinal points of the compass, the faces look forward, the arms half extended on either side, the hands raised to a level with the shoulders. They wear around their loins skirts of red sunlight adorned with sunbeams. They have ear pendants, bracelets, and armlets, blue and red, representing turquoise and coral, the prehistoric and emblematic jewels of the Navajo Indians. Their forearms and legs are black, showing in each a zigzag mark representing lightning on the black rain clouds. In the north god these colors are, for artistic reasons, reversed. The gods have, respectively, a rattle, a charm, and a basket, each attached to his right hand by strings. This basket, represented by concentric lines with a Greek cross in the center, all of the proper color corresponding with the god to whom each belongs, has extending from each of its quarters, arranged perpendicularly at right angles to each other, in the form of a cross, four white plumes of equal length, which at equal distances from the center are bent, all to the left, and all of the same length. Thus are formed in this chart four specimens of the Swastika, with the cross and circle at the intersection of the arms. The plumes have a small black spot at the tip end of each.
Fig. 257.
WAR SHIELD USED BY THE PIMA INDIANS.
Ogee Swastika (tetraskelion) in three colors: (1) blue,
(2) red, (3) white. Cat. No. 27829, U. S. N. M.
Fig. 258.
WAR SHIELD WITH OGEE SWASTIKA IN CENTER.
Pima Indians. The hole near the lower arm of the Swastika
was made by an arrow. Property of Mr. F. W. Hodge.
Dr. Matthews informs me that he has no knowledge of any peculiar meaning attributed by these Indians to this Swastika symbol, and we now not whether it is intended as a religious symbol, a charm of blessing, or good luck, or whether it is only an ornament. We do not know whether it has any hidden, mysterious, or symbolic meaning; but there it is, a prehistoric or Oriental Swastika in all its purity and simplicity, appearing in one of the mystic ceremonies of the aborigines in the great American desert in the interior of the North American Continent.
The Pimas.—The U. S. National Museum possesses a shield (Cat. No. 27829) of bull hide, made by the Pima Indians. It is about 20 inches in diameter, and bears upon its face an ogee Swastika (tetraskelion), the ends bent to the right. The body and each arm is divided longitudinally into three stripes or bands indicated by colors, blue, red, and white, arranged alternately. The exterior part of the shield has a white ground, while the interior or center has a blue ground. This shield (fig. 257) is almost an exact reproduction of the Swastika from Mycenæ (fig. 161), from Ireland (fig. 216), and from Scandinavia (figs. 209 and 210). Fig. 258 shows another Pima shield of the same type. Its Swastika is, however, painted with a single color or possibly a mixture of two, red and white. It is ogee, and the ends bend to the left. This shield is the property of Mr. F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of Ethnology. He obtained it from a Pima Indian in Arizona, who assured him that the hole at the end of the lower arm of the Swastika was made by an arrow shot at him by an Indian enemy.
COLONIAL PATCHWORK.
In Scribner’s Magazine for September, 1894, under the title of “Tapestry in the New World,” one of our popular writers has described, with many illustrations, the bedquilt patterns of our grandmothers’ time. One of these she interprets as the Swastika. This is, however, believed to be forced. The pattern in question is made of patches in the form of rhomboids and right-angled triangles sewed and grouped somewhat in the form of the Swastika (fig. 259). It is an invented combination of patchwork which formed a new pattern, and while it bears a slight resemblance to the Swastika, lacks its essential elements. It was not a symbol, and represents no idea beyond that of a pretty pattern. It stood for nothing sacred, nor for benediction, blessing, nor good luck. It was but an ornamental pattern which fortuitously had the resemblance of Swastika. It was not even in the form of a cross. The difference between it and the Swastika is about the same there would be between the idle and thoughtless boy who sporadically draws the cross on his slate, meaning nothing by it, or at most only to make an ornament, and the devout Christian who makes the same sign on entering the church, or the Indian who thus represents the four winds of heaven. He who made the Swastika recognizes an occult power for good and against evil, and he thereby invokes the power to secure prosperity. She who made the quilt pattern apparently knew nothing of the old-time Swastika, and was not endeavoring to reproduce it or anything like it. She only sought to make such an arrangement of rhomboidal and triangular quilt patches as would produce a new ornamental pattern.
CENTRAL AMERICA.
NICARAGUA.
The specimen shown in fig. 260 (Cat. No. 23726, U. S. N. M.) is a fragment, the foot of a large stone metate from Zapatero, Granada, Nicaragua. The metate was chiseled or pecked out of the solid. A sunken panel is surrounded by moldings, in the center of which appears, from its outline, also by raised moldings, a figure, the outline of which is a Greek cross, but whose exterior is a Swastika. Its form as such is perfect, except that one bent arm is separated from its stem by a shallow groove.
“The Cross, Ancient and Modern,” by W. W. Blake, shows, in its fig. 57, a Swastika pure and simple, and is cited by its author as representing a cross found by Squier in Central America. The Mexican enthusiast, Orozco y Perra, claims at first glance that it shows Buddhist origin, but I have not been able as yet to verify the quotation.
YUCATAN.
Dr. Schliemann reports, in the Ethnological Museum at Berlin, a pottery bowl from Yucatan ornamented with a Swastika, the two main arms crossing at right angles, and he adds,263 citing Le Plongeon, “Fouilles au Yucatan,” that “during the last excavations in Yucatan this sign was found several times on ancient pottery.”
Le Plongeon discovered a fragment of a stone slab in the ancient Maya city of Mayapan, of which he published a description in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. It contains an ogee Swastika (tetraskelion), with ends curved to the left and an inverted U with a wheel (fig. 261). Le Plongeon believed it to be an Egyptian inscription, which he translated thus: The character, inverted U, stood for Ch or K; the wheel for the sun, Aa or Ra, and the Swastika for Ch or K, making the whole to be Chach or Kak, which, he says, is the word fire in the Maya language.264
COSTA RICA.
A fragment of a metate (Cat. No. 9693, U. S. N. M.) found on Lempa River, Costa Rica, by Capt. J. M. Dow, has on its bottom a Swastika similar to that on the metate from Nicaragua. Specimen No. 59182, U. S. M. N., is a fragment of a pottery vase from Las Huacas, Costa Rica, collected by Dr. J. F. Bransford. It is natural maroon body color, decorated with black paint. A band two inches wide is around the belly of the vase divided into panels of solid black alternated with fanciful geometric figures, crosses, circles, etc. One of these panels contains a partial Swastika figure. The two main arms cross at right angles in Greek form. It is a partial Swastika in that, while the two perpendicular arms bend at right angles, turning six times to the right; the two horizontal arms are solid black in color, as though the lines and spaces had run together.
SOUTH AMERICA.
BRAZIL.
The leaden idol (fig. 125) (Artemis Nana265 of Chaldea, Sayce; statuettes of the Cyclades, Lenormant) found by Dr. Schliemann in the third, the burnt city of Hissarlik, Troy, was described (p. 829) with its Swastika on the triangular shield covering the pudendum, with the statement that it would be recalled in the chapter on Brazil.
The aboriginal women of Brazil wore a triangular shield or plaque over their private parts. These shields are made of terra cotta, quite thin, the edges rounded, and the whole piece rubbed smooth and polished. It is supported in place by cords around the body, which are attached by small holes in each angle of the triangle. The U. S. National Museum possesses several of these plaques from Brazil, and several were shown at the Chicago Exposition.
The consideration of the leaden idol of Hissarlik, with a Swastika, as though for good luck, recalled to the author similar plaques in his department from Brazil. Some are of common yellow ware, others were finer, were colored red and rubbed smooth and hard, but were without decoration. The specimen shown in pl. 18 (upper figure) was from Marajo, Brazil, collected by Mr. E. M. Brigham. It is of light gray, slip washed, and decorated with pale red or yellow paint in bands, lines, parallels, geometric figures. The specimen shown in the lower figure of the same plate, from the Caneotires River, Brazil, was collected by Prof. J. B. Steere. The body color, clay, and the decoration paint are much the same as the former. The ornamentation is principally by two light lines laid parallel and close so as to form a single line, and is of the same geometric character as the incised decoration ornament on other pieces from Marajo Island. Midway from top to bottom, near the outside edges, are two Swastikas. They are about five-eighths of an inch in size, are turned at right angles, one to the right and the other to the left. These may have been a charm signifying good fortune in bearing children. (See pp. 830-832.)
These specimens were submitted by the author to the Brazilian minister, Señor Mendonça, himself an archæologist and philologist of no small capacity, who recognized these objects as in use in ancient times among the aborigines of his country. The name by which they are known in the aboriginal language is Tambeao or Tamatiatang, according to the dialects of different provinces. The later dialect name for apron is reported as tunga, and the minister makes two remarks having a possible bearing on the migration of the race: (1) The similarity of tunga with the last syllable of the longer word, atang, and (2) that tunga is essentially an African word from the west coast. Whether this piece of dress so thoroughly savage, with a possible ceremonial meaning relating to sex or condition, with its wonderful similarity of names, might not have migrated in time of antiquity from the west coast of Africa to the promontory of Brazil on the east coast of America where the passage is narrowest, is one of those conundrums which the prehistoric anthropologist is constantly encountering and which he is usually unable to solve.
The purpose of these objects, beyond covering the private parts of the female sex, is not known. They may have been ceremonial, relating, under certain circumstances, to particular conditions of the sex, or they may have been only variations of the somewhat similar covers used by the male aborigine. They bear some resemblance to the Ceintures de Chasteté, specimens of which are privately shown at the Musée de Cluny at Paris. These are said to have been invented by Françoise de Carara, viguier imperial (provost) of Padua, Italy, near the end of the fourteenth century. He applied it to all the women of his seraglio. He was beheaded A. D. 1405, by a decree of the Senate of Venice, for his many acts of cruelty. The palace of St. Mark contained for a long time a box or case of these ceintures with their locks attached, which were represented as des pieces de conviction of this monster.266 Voltaire describes his hero “qui tient sous la clef, la vertu de sa femme.”
Dr. Schliemann reports that a traveler of the Berlin Ethnological Museum obtained a pumpkin bottle from the tribe of Lenguas in Paraguay which bore the imprint of the Swastika scratched upon its surface, and that he had recently sent it to the Royal Museum at Berlin.