Read Ebook: The Swastika the Earliest Known Symbol and Its Migration With Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times by Wilson Thomas

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It is a favorite theory with Major Powell, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, that the cross was an original invention of the North American Indian, possibly a sign common to all savages; that it represented, first, the four cardinal points, north, south, east, and west; and afterwards by accretion, seven points, north, south, east, west, zenith, nadir, and here.

Capt. John G. Bourke, in his paper on the "Medicine Men of the Apache" discourses on their symbolism of the cross. He says it is related to the cardinal points, to the four winds, and is painted by warriors on their moccasins when going through a strange district to keep them from getting on a wrong trail. He notes how he saw, in October, 1884, a procession of Apache men and women bearing two crosses, 4 feet 10 inches long, appropriately decorated "in honor of Guzanutl? to induce her to send rain."

Dr. Brinton tells of the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape who first drew on the earth the figure of a cross. Captain Bourke quotes from Father Le Clerq as to the veneration in which the cross was held by the Gaspesian Indians, also from Herrara to the same effect. Professor Holmes makes some pertinent observations with regard to the meanings of the cross given by the American Indians:

Continuing in his "Ancient Art in Chiriqui," presenting his "Series showing stages in the simplification of animal characters," and "derivation of the alligator," Professor Holmes elaborates the theory how the alligator was the original, and out of it, by evolution, grew the cross. His language and accompanying figures are quoted:

Of all the animal forms utilized by the Chiriquians, the alligator is the best suited to the purpose of this study, as it is presented most frequently and in the most varied forms. In figs. 257 and 258 I reproduce drawings from the outer surface of a tripod bowl of the lost color group. Simple and formal as these figures are, the characteristic features of the creature--the sinuous body, the strong jaws, the upturned snout, the feet, and the scales--are forcibly expressed. It is not to be assumed that these examples represent the best delineative skill of the Chiriquian artist. The native painter must have executed very much superior work upon the more usual delineating surfaces, such as bark and skins. The examples here shown have already experienced decided changes through the constraints of the ceramic art, but are the most graphic delineations preserved to us. They are free-hand products, executed by mere decorators, perhaps by women, who were servile copyists of the forms employed by those skilled in sacred art.

We learn by the series of steps illustrated in the annexed cuts that the alligator radical, under peculiar restraints and influences, assumes conventional forms that merge imperceptibly into these classic devices.

Professor Holmes's theory of the evolution of the cross from the alligator and its location in Chiriqui is opposed to that of Professor Goodyear, who, in his "Grammar of the Lotus," ascribes the origin of the cross to the lotus and locates it in Egypt. I file what in law would be an "interpleader"--I admit my want of knowledge of the subject under discussion, and leave the question to these gentlemen.

INTRODUCTION OF THE CROSS INTO AMERICA.

Professor Holmes is, in the judgment of the author, correct when he insists upon the aboriginal character of the cross in America. We all understand how it is stated that the Spanish missionaries sought to deny this and to connect the apparition of St. Thomas with the appearance of the cross. Professor Holmes says:

The first explorers were accompanied by Christian zealots who spared no effort to root out the native superstition and introduce a foreign religion of which the cross was the all-important symbol. This emblem was generally accepted by the savages as the only tangible feature of a new system of belief that was filled with subtleties too profound for their comprehension. As a result, the cross was at once introduced into the regalia of the natives, at first probably in a European form and material, attached to a string of beads in precisely the manner they had been accustomed to suspend their own trinkets and gorgets; but soon, no doubt, delineated or carved by their own hands upon tablets of stone and copper and shell in the place of their own peculiar conceptions.

There is sufficient evidence, and to spare, of the aboriginal use of the cross in some of its forms, without resorting to the uncertain and forced explanation of its introduction by Christian missionaries. It is possible that the priests and explorers were, like Colonel Mallery's missionary, mistaken as to the interpretation given to the cross by the Indians. Dr. Hoffman, in his paper on the "Mide'wiwin or Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa," states the myth of the re-creation of the world "as thrown together in a mangled form by Hennepin." Dr. Hoffman observes:

It is evident that the narrator has sufficiently distorted the traditions to make them conform as much as practicable to the Biblical story of the birth of Christ.

And on the same page he quotes from P?re Marquette, who says:

"I was very glad to see a great cross set up in the middle of the village, adorned with several white skins, red girdles, bows, and arrows, which that good people offered to the Great Manitou to return him their thanks for the care he had taken of them during the winter, and that he had granted them a prosperous hunting."

Marquette was, without doubt, ignorant of the fact that the cross is the sacred post, and the symbol of the fourth degree of the Mide'wiwin, as is fully explained in connection with that grade of society. The erroneous conclusion that the cross was erected as an evidence of the adoption of Christianity and, possibly as a compliment to the visitor was a natural one on the part of the priest, but this same symbol of the Mide' society had probably been erected and bedecked with barbaric emblems and weapons months before anything was known of him.

Most aboriginal objects bearing crosses are from localities along the Ohio River and through Kentucky and Tennessee, a locality which the early Christian missionaries never visited, and where the cross of Christ was rarely, if ever, displayed until after that territory became part of the United States. Per contra, the localities among the Indians in which the early missionaries most conducted their labors--that is to say, along the Great Lakes and throughout northern Illinois--produce the fewest number of aboriginal crosses. This was the country explored by Fathers Marquette, Lasalle, and Hennepin, and it was the scene of most of the Catholic missionary labors. Professor Holmes seems to have recognized this fact, for he says:

The cross was undoubtedly used as a symbol by the prehistoric nations of the South, and, consequently, that it was probably also known in the North. A great majority of the relics associated with it in the ancient mounds and burial places are undoubtedly aboriginal. In the case of the shell gorgets, the tablets themselves belong to an American type, and are highly characteristic of the art of the Mississippi Valley. A majority of the designs engraved upon them are also characteristic of the same district.

The author agrees heartily with Professor Holmes's argument in this matter, and his conclusion, when he says of these objects :

The workmanship is purely aboriginal. I have not seen a single example of engraving upon shell that suggested a foreign hand or a design, with the exception of one , that could claim a European derivation.

There have been numerous European or Catholic crosses, as well as many other objects of European manufacture or objects of civilized types, found among the Indians. There have been silver crosses found with images of the Virgin thereon, with Latin inscriptions, or of Roman letters; there have been glass beads, iron arrowheads, and divers other objects found in Indian graves which bore indubitable evidence of contact with the whites, and no one with any archaeological experience need be deceived into the belief that these were aboriginal or pre-Columbian manufacture. As a general rule, the line of demarkation between objects of Indian manufacture and those made by the whites is definite, and no practiced eye will mistake the one for the other. There may be exceptions, as where the Indian has lived with the whites or a white man with the Indians, or where an object is made with intent to deceive. In such cases one may have more trouble in determining the origin of the object.

There were many Indians who died and were buried within a century past, whose graves might contain many objects of white man's work. Black Hawk and Red Jacket are examples, and, possibly, King Philip. Indian graves have been opened in New England and New York containing the gun or firelock of the occupant of the grave buried with him, and that this was evidence of European contact there can be no doubt. So there have been hundreds, possibly thousands, of Indians buried since the Columbian discovery down to within the last decade whose graves contain white man's tools or implements. But no person with any archaeological experience need be deceived by these things. The theory that the Latin or Greek crosses or Swastikas shown on these gorgets, disks, and pottery furnish evidence of contact by the aborigines with Europeans in post-Columbian times is without foundation and inadmissible.

DECORATIVE FORMS NOT OF THE CROSS, BUT ALLIED TO THE SWASTIKA.

The aborigines of Mexico and Central and South America employed terra-cotta color stamps, which, being made into the proper pattern in the soft clay, were burned hard; then, being first coated with color, the stamp was pressed upon the object to be decorated, and so transferred its color, as in the mechanical operation of printing, thus giving the intended decoration. Patterns of these stamps are inserted in this paper in connection with the Swastika because of the resemblance--not in form, but in style. They are of geometric form, crosses, dots, circles , lozenges, chevrons, fret, and labyrinth or meander. The style of this decoration lends itself easily to the Swastika; and yet, with the variety of patterns contained in the series of stamps belonging to the U. S. National Museum, shown in figs. 337 to 342, no Swastika appears; nor in the similar stamps belonging to other collections, notably that of Mr. A. E. Douglass, in the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History, Central Park, New York, are any Swastikas shown. Of the foregoing figures, all are from Tlaltelolco, Mexico , except fig. 339, which is from the Valley of Mexico, and was received from the Museo Nacional of Mexico.

Marcano says:

The present Piaroas of Venezuela are in the habit of painting their bodies by a process different from that of the North American Indian. They make stamps of wood, which, being colored , they apply to their bodies. Fig. 982 shows examples of these stamps. The designs are substantially the same as some petroglyphs. They either copied the models they found carved on the rocks by peoples who preceded them, or they knew the meaning and preserved the tradition. The former is the only tenable hypothesis. Painting is to the Piaroas both ornamentation and necessity. It serves, not only as a garment to protect them against insects, but becomes a fancy costume to grace their feasts and meetings.

These designs are not presented as Swastikas nor of any evolution or derivation from one. They show a style common enough to Central and South America, to the Antilles and the Canary Islands, which might easily produce a Swastika. The aboriginal designer of these might, if we depend upon the theory of psychological similarity of culture among all peoples, at his next attempt make a Swastika. Yet, with the hundreds of similar patterns made during the centuries of aboriginal occupation and extending throughout the countries named, none of these seem ever to have produced a Swastika.

The origin and early history of the Swastika are lost in antiquity. All the author has been able to find on these subjects is set forth in the preceding chapters.

It is proposed to examine the possible uses of the Swastika in an endeavor to discover something of its significance. The Swastika might have served:

It may have been originally discovered or invented by a given people in a given country, and transmitted from one generation to the next, passing by migration from one country to another, and it may have been transmitted by communication to widely separated countries and among differently cultured peoples; or it may have appeared in these latter countries by duplicate invention or by accident, and without contact or communication.

Positive evidence concerning its origin and earliest migration is not obtainable, and in its absence we are driven to secondary and circumstantial evidence. This will consist of comparison of known facts directly concerning the subject; of facts indirectly concerning it, and reason, induced by argument, applied to these facts, presenting each truly, and giving to each its proper weight.

The possible migrations of the Swastika, and its appearance in widely separated countries and among differently cultured peoples, afford the principal interest in this subject to archaeologists and anthropologists. The present or modern scientific interest in and investigation of the Swastika as a symbol or a charm alone are subsidiary to the greater question of the cause and manner of its appearance in different countries, whether it was by migration and contact or by independent invention. In arguing this question, we must keep continually in mind the rules of reason and of logic, and neither force the facts nor seek to explain them by unknown, imaginary, or impossible methods. There must be no dogmatic assertions nor fanciful theories. If we assume certain migrations of the Swastika, we must consider those things which might have migrated with it; and we must admit the means necessary to the assumed end.

The history of the beginning and first appearance of any of the forms of the cross is also lost in antiquity, and it would be hazardous for any person to announce positively their origin, either as to locality or time. The Swastika was certainly prehistoric in its origin. It was in extensive use during the existence of the third, fourth, and fifth cities of the site of ancient Troy, of the hill of Hissarlik; so also in the Bronze Age, apparently during its entire existence, throughout western Europe from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. It continued in use in Europe during the Iron Age, and also among the Etruscans, Greeks, and Trojans. The name "Swastika," by which it is recognized to-day in all literature, is a Sanscrit word, and was in common use among the Sanscrit peoples so long ago that it had a peculiar or individual pronunciation in P?nini's grammar prior to the fourth century B. C. Some authorities are of the opinion that it was an Aryan symbol and used by the Aryan peoples before their dispersion through Asia and Europe. This is a fair subject for inquiry and might serve as an explanation how, either as a sacred symbol or charm, an amulet, or token of good wishes or good fortune, the Swastika might have been carried to the different peoples and countries in which we now find it by the splitting up of the Aryan peoples and their migrations and establishment in the various parts of Europe. Professor Sayce is of the opinion that the Swastika was a Hittite symbol and passed by communication to the Aryans or some of their important branches before their final dispersion took place, but he agrees that it was unknown in Assyria, Babylonia, Phenicia, or among the Egyptians.

Whether the Swastika was in use among the Chaldeans, Hittites, or the Aryans before or during their dispersion, or whether it was used by the Brahmins before the Buddhists came to India is, after all, but a matter of detail of its migrations; for it may be fairly contended that the Swastika was in use, more or less common among the people of the Bronze Age anterior to either the Chaldeans, Hittites, or the Aryans. The additional facts in this regard have been set forth in the chapter on this subject, and need not be repeated here.

The question should, so far as possible, be divested of speculation, and the evidence accepted in its ordinary meaning "without prejudice or preconceived opinion."

A consideration of the subject in the light of the material here collected develops the following questions:

Was the Swastika, in any of its forms, the symbol of an ancient religion or philosophy, or was it only the sign of a particular sect, tenet, faith, or idea; or was it both?

Was it a charm or amulet to be used by anyone which derived its value from the signification given to it?

What lesson can be gathered from it concerning the early migrations of the races of man?

Examples illustrating these questions are to be found in history as well as in everyday life. The Scarabaeus of Egypt and Etruria was a symbol of eternity. The golden hoop on the lady's finger representing a snake swallowing its tail, is also a symbol of eternity. These represent a sentiment, and are symbols of that sentiment without regard to sect or organized body.

On the other hand, the Maltese cross was the symbol of the Knights of Malta, and has become, in later years, that of the Masonic fraternity; while the three links is the symbol of the Order of Odd Fellows. The Latin cross is a symbol of the Christian religion and, to a certain extent, of a Christian denomination.

Among the Buddhists proper, the Swastika seems to have been employed as a holy or sacred symbol; its occurrence as one of the signs in the footprint of Buddha, their founder, with some relation either to the mystery of his appearance as a leader, a missionary, or of the holy and sacred object of his mission, causes this to be inferred. Their use of it on the bronze statues of Buddha, and associating it with solemn inscriptions in the caves of India, leaves no doubt as to its use as a symbol more or less of this character.

Again, the use in the early Christian times of different forms of the cross, coupled with the extensive use by the Christians of the "monogram of Christ" , shows how naturally there may have been a conflict of opinion in the selection of a cross which should be a representative, while we know from history that there was such discussion, and that different forms of the cross were suggested. Among other forms was the Swastika, but to what extent or with what idea the author is not informed. The Swastika was used, Burnouf says, a thousand times on Christians' tombs in the catacombs at Rome. This is evidence of its use to a certain extent in a sacred or solemn and funereal character, which would signify its use as the symbol of a religious idea.

Beyond these instances the author is unable to find evidence of the Swastika having served as a symbol of any religious or philosophic idea or of any sect or organization.

Whether among the Bronze Age people of western Europe--among the Trojans, Greeks, or Etruscans--whether among the semicivilized peoples of South or Central America, or among the savages of North America, there is apparently no instance of the Swastika having been regarded as holy or used on a sacred object--that is, holy and sacred in the light of godliness, piety, or morality. It may have been or may yet be discovered that some of these wild men used the Swastika upon objects serving at ceremonies or festivals of their religion, or which had, in their eyes, a semi-sacred character. But it does not seem that it was used as a representative of a holy idea or of any god or supernatural being who stood for such an idea. The meal used in the Zu?i ceremony may have been regarded as sacred, and it may, indeed must, have been made on a stone metate, yet neither the metate nor the stone thereby obtained any holy or sacred character. So, also, it may have been decorated with a fret, chevron, herringbone, or any of the numerous styles, none of which would receive any sacred character from such use. So it is believed to have been with the Swastika found on these objects; it was not holy or sacred because of this use.

The author declines to discuss the possible relation of the Swastika to the sun or sun god, to the rain or rain god, the lightning, to Dyaus, Zeus or Agni, to Phebus or Apollo, or other of the mythological deities. This question would be interesting if it could be determined with certainty, or if the determination would be accepted by any considerable number of persons. But this is left for some one more competent and more interested than the author.

The most probable use of the Swastika among prehistoric peoples, or among Orientals other than the Buddhists, was as a charm or amulet signifying good fortune, good luck, long life, or benediction and blessing.

Looking over the entire prehistoric world, we find the Swastika used on small and comparatively insignificant objects, those in common use, such as vases, pots, jugs, implements, tools, household goods and utensils, objects of the toilet, ornaments, etc., and infrequently on statues, altars, and the like. In Armenia it was found on bronze pins and buttons; in the Trojan cities on spindle-whorls; in Greece on pottery, on gold and bronze ornaments, and fibulae. In the Bronze Age in western Europe, including Etruria, it is found on the common objects of life, such as pottery, the bronze fibulae, ceintures, spindle-whorls, etc.

In addition to the foregoing, there were peculiar uses of the Swastika in certain localities: In Italy on the hut urns in which the ashes of the dead are buried; in the Swiss lakes stamped in the pottery; in Scandinavia on the weapons, swords, etc., and in Scotland and Ireland on the brooches and pins; in America on the metates for grinding corn; the Brazilian women wore it on the pottery fig leaf; the Pueblo Indian painted it on his dance rattle, while the North American Indian, at the epoch of the mound building in Arkansas and Missouri, painted it in spiral form on his pottery; in Tennessee he engraved it on the shell, and in Ohio cut it in its plainest normal form out of sheets of copper. So also among the modern Indians we find it employed on occasions of ceremony, as in the mountain chant by the Navajoes, and the war chant of the Kansas, on the necklace and ceremonial garters of the Sac woman, and on the war shields of the Pimas.

As we do not find it represented in America on aboriginal religious monuments, on ancient gods, idols, or other sacred or holy objects, we are justified in claiming that it was not here used as a religious symbol; while, as it is found only on trinkets, shells, copper plaques, spindle-whorls, metates, pottery bowls, jugs, bottles, or vases; as we find it sometimes square, sometimes spiral, now outside, now inside, of bowls and jars, etc.; at one time a small rectangular figure and at another of extensive convolutions covering the side of the vase; as we find it on the tools of the workmen, the objects in everyday use, whether in the house or the shop, used indiscriminately by men and women, or on gaming implements or dance rattles, the contention seems justifiable that it was used as an ornament or as a charm for good luck and not as a religious symbol. Yet we know it was used on certain ceremonial occasions which may themselves have had more or less a sacred character.

Thus, after the fullest examination, we find the Swastika was confined to the commoner uses, implements, household utensils, and objects for the toilet and personal decoration. The specimens of this kind number a hundred to one of a sacred kind. With this preponderance in favor of the common use, it would seem that, except among the Buddhists and early Christians, and the more or less sacred ceremonies of the North American Indians, all pretense of the holy or sacred character of the Swastika should be given up, and it should be considered as a charm, amulet, token of good luck or good fortune, or as an ornament and for decoration.

MIGRATION OF THE SWASTIKA.

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