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AuthorTopic: THE SWASTIKA, THE EARLIEST KNOWN SYMBOL, by Wilson, Thomas, 1832-1902/1896  (Read 18223 times)

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Swastikas turning both ways are on one

POTTERY URN ORNAMENTED WITH SUC-
CESSIVE BANDS IN INTAGLIO, TWO
OF WHICH ARE COMPOSED OF SWAS-
TIKAS.

Xorropolis Arnoaldi, Bologna.
Museum of'*Bologna.

Gozzailini, “ Scavl Arolm'olo^id,” etc., pi. 4, fitf. S.

Fig. 192.

FRAGMENT OF POTTERY WITH ROW
OF SWASTIKAS IN INTAGLIO.
Xecropolo Felsmea, Italy.
Museo Bologna.

Gozzadini, “ Due Sepolcrl,” eto., )>. 7.

% natural size.



or both extremities of many terra-cotta cyl-
inders found in the terranmre at Coazze,
province of Verona, de-
posited in the National
(Kirclieriano) Museum at
Borne. (See figs. 380 and
381 for similar bobbins.)

The museum at Este, Italy, contains an elegant
1 lottery 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, espe-
cially 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

Fig. 193.

SWASTIKA SIGN ON OLAY
BOBBIN.

Typo Villanova, Bologna.

De Mortillet, “ Musee Prehistu-
rique,” Hg. 1230.
 THE SWASTIKA.

861

as lias been found in Scandinavia and also among tlie Pueblo Indians
of the United States, is in the museum at Este.

When in the early centuries of the Christian era the Huns madejl
their irruption into Europe, they apparently possessed a knowledge or)
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 assim-
ilated with the population. They have re-
mained in northern Italy under the title of
Longobards. In this Longobardian civiliza\/
tion or barbarism, whichever we may call it,
and in their style of architecture and orna-
ment, the Swastika found a prominent place,
and is spoken of as Longobardian.

It is needless to multiply citation s of the S was-
tika in Roman and Christian times. It would/
would appear as though the sign had descended^
from the Etruscans and Samnites along tliej

coast and had continued in use during Roman times.
Schliemann says1 that it is found frequently in the
wall paintings at Pompeii; even more than a liun-

Fig. 195.

FRAGMENT OF POTTERY WITH
SWASTIKA STAMPED IN RE-
LIEF.

Fig. 194.

POTTERY VASE ORNAMENTED WITH
BRONZE NAIL HEADS IN FORM OF
SWASTIKA.

Este, Italy.

Materiaux pour l’Histoire Primiiive et Na-
turelle de l’Homme, 1884, p. 14.

dred 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 Creek letter P (fig. G) 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 Arelii-
episcopal chair in the cathedral at Milan.2

Siviss lake dwellings.—Figs. 195 and 19G 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. 19G repre-
sents the stamp, also in pottery, with which the
imprint was made. They are figured by Keller,3
and are described on page 339, and by Chan tie.4
They were found in the Swiss lake dwelling of Bourget (Savoy) by the
Hue de Chaulnes, and are credited to lfis Museum of Chambery.

J“Ilios,”p. 352.

2There are bronze hatchets from Italy, with Swastikas in intaglio and in relief, in
Mus6e St. Germain. De Mortillet, “Musee Preliistoricpie,” tigs. 1153, 1154.

3   “ Lake Dwellings,” pi. 161, figs. 3, 4.

4   “Age du Bronze,” pt. 2, figs. 53-55, p. 195,

Fig. 196.

STAMP FOR MAKING SWASTIKA
SIGN ON POTTERY.

Swiss lake cl welling of Ilourget,
Savoy.

Mus6e de Cliambdry.

Chantre, “ Age du Bronze,” figs. 53, 55,
and Keller, “Lake Dwellings of Eu-
rope,” pi. 161, fig. 3.
 862

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

FRAGMENT OF CEINTURE FROM A TUMULUS IN ALSACE.
Thin bronze repousse with Swastikas of various kinds.
Bronze Age, Ilalstattien epoch.

I)e Mortillet, “ Mus^e I’rehistorique,” fig. 1255.

Germany and Austria.—Fig. 197 represents a fragment of a cein-
ture of thin bronze of the Ilalstattien epoch of the Bronze Age from a
tumulus in Alsace. It
is made after the style
common to that period;
the work is repousse and
the design is laid off by
diagonal lines which
divide the field into loz-
enges, wherein the Swas-
tika is represented in va-
rious 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 tire making, and
which Zmigrodzki calls the Croix sicas-
icalc. This specimen is in the collec-
tion Xessel at Ilaguenau. 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
crosslines, 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, Wiirtemberg,
and is in the Museum of
Stuttgart. It is not re-
pousse, but is cut in open-
work 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

FRAGMENT OF A UEINTURE FROM THE TUMU-
LI'S OF METZSTETTEN, WURTEMBF.RG.
Thin bronze open work with intricate Swas-
tikas.

Ilalstattien epoch.

I>e Mortillet, "Musee Prehistoiique,” fig. I-J5T, anti
Chantre, “ Le Cuuease," n, p. 50, fig. 25.

Fig.109.

RRONZE FIBULA,
THE BODY OF
WHICH FORMS
A SWASTIKA.
Museum of May-
ence.

De Mortillet, “Must-*
Prehistorique,” fig.

Fig. 200.

SEPULCHRAL URN WITH SWASTIKA.

North Germany.

Waring, “Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pi. 7, fig. 94.
 THE SWASTIKA.

863

Bologna (fig. 103). It is reported l>y Liscli and Sehrdter, 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
Kdnigswalde, on the right bank of the Oder,
and on a vase from Reichersdorf, near Guben;1
^on a vase in the county of Lip to, Hungary,1 2
and on pottery from the Cavern of Barathegy,

Hungary.3 Fig. 201 represents a spearhead of
iron from Brandenburg, Rortli Germany. It
bears the mark of the Swastika with the ends
turned to the left, all being at right angles,
f£he ends ornamented with three dots recalling
/Zmigrodzki’s Croix stvasticaJe (figs. 12 and 13).
ny the side of this Swastika is a triskelion, or
tliree armed ogee sign, with itsends also dec-
orated 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 Ilalstattien cemeteries in Italy
and Austria.4 At San Margarethen, on the
road between Rudolfswerth and Kronau, Ba-
varia, he encountered a group of tumuli.

Many objects of the “ bel age du bronze”

were found:

Fig. 202.

among others,
a bronze pin
(fig.202) with a
short stem, but
large, square,
fiat head, was

SPEARHEAD WITH SWASTIKA (CROIX
SWASTICALE) AND TRISKELION.
Brandenburg, Germany.

Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pi.
44, fig. 21, and “ Viking Age,’ i, fig. 336   .

found, with a normal Swastika engraved
with small dots, pointille, such as has
been seen in Italy, Austria, and Armenia.
Belgium.—The Museum of Xanmr,
Belgium, possesses a small object of bone, both points of which havei

BRONZE PIN WITH SWASTIKA, POINT!LLK,
FROM MOUND IN BAVARIA.

Chantre, Materiaux pour l’Hi.stoire Primitive et Nat-
urelle de I’llomme, 1884, pp. 14, 120.

1   Zeitsclirift fur Etlmograpbie, Berlin, 1871 and 1876.

2   Coll. Majlath Bela; Hampel, “Antiquittfs Pr<5historiques de la Hongrie;” Erzter-
gom, 1877, pi. 20, No. 3.

3Hampel, “Catalogue de l’Exposition des Musses des Provinces,r Budapest, 1876,
p. 17; Schliemann, “Ilios,” p. 352.

4 Materiaux pour PHistoire Primitive et Naturelle de l’llomme, 1884, pp. 14,120.
 864

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

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 fiat 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 Swas-
tika, 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 Paleo-
lithic times, and one, the Grotto de Spy, has furnished the most cele-
brated specimens of the skeletons of Paleolithic man. lint 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 re-

( semblance 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.

A bronze sword is reported by Mr. George Stephens 1 as having been
found at Sa*bo, Norway, with runes and a Swastika inlaid with silver.
This specimen (fig. 203) was the subject of discussion before the Inter

RUNIC INSCRIPTION CONTAINING A SWASTIKA.

Inlaid with silver on a bronze sword.

Saebo, Norway.

national Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology,1 2 at
Budapest, 1S7G. Its runes were translated by Stephens, and being
read from right to left, “oh thuemuth,” or “owns me Thurmutk.”
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

1   “01<l Northern Runic Monuments,” pt. 3, p. 407.

2   Proceedings of the Eighth Session, i, pp. 457-460.
 THE SWASTIKA.

865

iro

Fig. 204a.

SWASTIKA WITH DOTS.
Torcollo, Italy.

Du Chaillu,

1. *G N   E   TH   C

Fig. 204&.

RUNIC INSCRIPTION ON SPEARHEAD.

Toroello, Italy.

“Viking Age,” I, fig. 335.

years displayed in the museum at Torcello, near Venice, Italy, with a
Swastika sign (fig. 204u) prominent as an engraved sign.1 Associated
with it, but not a part of it, was an inscription (fig, 204 &), which has
always been attrib-
uted to the Etrus-
cans. Mr. I. Undset,
an archaeologist i n
the museum of Chris-
tiania, made an ex-
tended visit through
Italy in 1883, and on
seein g thi s spearh ead
recognized the inscription as runic and belonging to Scandinavia. The
arras 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

___   Croixswasticalc(fig. 12). Figs. 205 and 20G

represent articles of dress, or toilet, and
bear the Swastika. The first shows a red-
ding comb, the Swastika on which turns to
the right. It was probably of bone or
horn, as are those of modern times. Fig.
200 shows a brooch, the interior decora-
tion of which is a combination of Swas-
tikas 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 Swas-
tikas, four of which turn to the left and two to the right. Another is
a triskelion, the arms of which turn to the right.

Si * mill

wmmmm

Fig. 205.

REDDING COMB WITH SWASTIKA.
Scandinavia.

BRONZE BROOCH OR FIBULA WITH COMBINATION OF SWASTIKAS.
Scandinavia.

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.

1 Du Chaillu, “ Viking Age/7 i, fig. 335.

H. Mis. 00, pt. 2---55
 866

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

These are found more frequently on fibula? or brooches and oil swoi'ds
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 (^etraskelions). In this and
fig. 207 the border and accessory decoration con-
sist largely of ogee curves, which, here repre-
sented 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 repre-
sents a gold brooch from a grave at Fyen, re-
ported by Worsaae and figured by Waring.1
The brooch with ogee
Swastika bears inter-
nal evidence of Scan-
dinavian workman -
ship. There are other
Swastikas of the same
gen oral form and style
in distant localities,
and ~this speciTnon
serves to emphasize
the extent of possible
communication be-
tween 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.2
It is not seen that
these fanciful ad-
ditions serve any
purpose other than
decoration. They
do not appear to
have changed the
symbolic meaning
of the Swastika.
Fig. 214represents
a sword scabbard belonging to the Vimose find, with a normal Swas-
tika. Ludwig Muller reproduces a Swastika cross from a runic stone

BRONZE BROOCH WITH SWAS
TIKAS.

Tetraskelions (right and left)
triskelioii (left).
Scandinavia.

WITH

Fig.

PLACQUE FOR CEINTURE,

BUCKLE.

Two ogee Swastikas (tetraskelions;.

Fig.209.

SCANDINAVIAN SWORD SCAB-
BARD.

Two ogee. Swastikas (tetra-
skelions), right and left.

Fig.210.

SCANDINAVIAN
SWORD SCAB-
BARD.

Ogee Swastika.

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Fig. 211.

SCANDINAVIAN SWORD
SCABBARD.

Two triskelions, right
and left.

1   “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pi. 43, fig. 11:
hardt, “L’Aucien Age de Fer,” fig. 28.

2   Du Chaillu, “ Viking Age,” i, fig. 379.

“ Viking Age,” u, fig. 1311; Engle-
 THE SWASTIKA.

867

in Sweden. In an ancient church in Denmark, the baptismal font is
decorated with Swastikas, showing its use
(See p. 878 for continuation of Swastika on
Scandinavian or Danish gold bracteates.)

Mr. Paul du Ghaillu, in his u Viking Age,”
mentions many specimens of Scandinavian
and Norse antinuities 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. 33G5 another of the same, Yolhynia,

Russia, fig. 3373 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. 797JT I11 the churchyard of Aglish,
county Kerry, Ireland, stand two stones
bearing Ogam inscriptions. At the tou
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.
Oil two corners of the stone are inscrip-
tions of the usual Ogam characters. The
translation may be given, but seems to
be unimportant and without apparent
They are somewhat obliterated and their
reading difficult. So far as made out, they are as follows: Maqimaqa
and Apiloggo.

SCANDINAVIAN HORSE-GEAR.

Silver plated on bronze.

Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pi. 44, tig. 16 ;
Du Chaillu, “ Viking Age,” i, fig. 379.

bearing upon this question.

in early Christian times.

Fig.212.

GOLD BROOCH WITH OGEE SWASTIKA.
Island of Fyen.

Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pi. 43,
fig. 11.

t



y\\\\v

3—C

if

Fig. 214.

SCANDINAVIAN SWORD SCABBARD WITH NORMAL SWASTIKA.

Vjmose bog find.

In Scotland, the Newton stone, in the grounds of the Newton House,
bears an Ogam inscription, the meaning of which has no bearing upon
 868

REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

i

I

Greek cross in circle, normal Swastika in square, and ogee
Swastika in quatrefoil.

Ireland.

tlie 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 decipher-
ment. The late Alexander
Thomson, esq., of Banchory,
Scotland, circulated a pho-
tograph and description
of this monument among
antiquarians with a re-
quest for their decipher-
ment of it. Various readings have been given by the learned gentle-
men, who have reported it to be Hebrew, Phenician, Greek, Latin,
Aryan, Irish, and Anglo Saxon respectively. Brash1
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 sub-
sequent 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 an-
gles, two of the ends are enrved, aud the two
others bent at a wider than right angle.
There are four characters in the line closely
following each other. (See p. 71)7.)

The Logie stone, in Aberdeenshire, Scot-
land, bearing Ogam characters, contains a figure or mark reported
by George M. Atkinson
as a Swastika.1 2

On the Celtic crosses
of Scotland certain
marks appear which are
elsewhere found asso-
ciated with Swastika,
and consequently have some relation therewith. The “Aimam Stone”
bears the mark of a Swastika (left) within three concentric circles,
around the outside of which is a circle of dots.3

Fig. 216.

FRAGMENT OF THIN
BRONZE KEPOU&SK.

Ogee Swastika.
Ireland.

Munro, “ Lake Dwellings of
Europe,” pi. 124, figs.
20-22.

FRAGMENT OF THIN BRONZE.
Triskelion.

Ireland.

Munro, u Lake Dwellings of Europe,”
384, pi. 124, figs. 20-22.

Fig.218.

BRONZE PIN WITH SMALL NORMAL SWASTIKA ON HEAD.

Crannog of Loclilee, Tarbolton, Scotland.

Munro, “ Lake Dwellings of Europe,” p. 417.

1   “ Ogam Inscribed Monuments,” p. 359, pi. xlix.

2Ibid., p. 358, pi. xlviii.

3Greg, Archaiologia, xlviii, pt. 2, pi. 19, fig. 27.
 THE SWASTIKA.

869

Ludwig Miiller reports the Swastika in Scotland and Ireland on J
Christian tombs, associated with Latin crosses.1

A sculptured stone in Ireland (fig. 215) shows on the face three r
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 qnatrefoil.1 2

An Irish bowl showed a Swastika thus
Dr. R. Munro3 reports from the Crannog of
Lesnacrogliera country, Antrim, Ireland?
two pieces or disks of thin bronze, repousses
(fig. 21G), bearing the sign of the Swastika
and having the four arms of the spirals
turned to the deft. The similarity of this
figure with those shown on the shields of
the Tima Indians of New Mexico and Ari-
zona (figs. 257 and
258) is to be re-
marked. Fig. 217
shows a triskelion
of symmetric spi-
rals turned to the

Fig.219.

CARVED TRISKELION FOUND ON FRAG-
MENT OF ASH WOOD.

Fig.220.

STONE ALTAR WITH SWASTIKA ON

Crannog of Lochlee, Tarbolton, Scot-
land.

Munro, “ Lake Dwellings of Kuro]ie,” p. 415.

right. In the Crannog of
Lochlee, near Tnrbolton, 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 Swas-
tika 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.

PEDESTAL.

France.

Museum of Toulouse.

De Mortillet, “ Musee Pr£historique,” fig.
12G7.

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

1 “La Migration des Symboles,” p. 49.

2Zmigrodzki “Zur Gescbiclite der Suastika/’ taf. 6, fig. 248.

3 “Lake Dwellings of Europe/’ p. 384, pi. 124, figs. 20-22.
 \

870   REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

apparent. Fig. 221 represents a pottery battle with another specimen
of Swastika belonging to the same (Gallo-Roman) epoch, but coining
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. Schlie-
mann on the spindle-whorl of Troy, and is yet
^employed in making the Jain Swastika (fig. 33).

M. Alexander Bertrand1 speaks of the dis-
covery at Yelaux, in the department of Bouches-
du-Rhdne, of the headless statue of a crouching
or squatting guard which has a row of Swas-
tikas across his breast, while beneath is a range
of crosses, Greek or Latin. The newest exam-
ples of the Swastika belonging to this epoch
have been found at Estinnes, Ilainaut, and at
Ant-lice, Xamur, Belgium, on pieces of Roman
tile; also on a tombstone in the Roman orBelgo-
Koman cemetery of Jusleiiville near Pepinster.1 2 *
This is a Pagan tomb, as evidenced by the in-
scriptions commenced u 1). M.’’ (DUs Manibus).*

ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD.

Britain.—Greg reports4 * a silver disk 1.4 inches
in diameter, with a triskelion made by punched
dots, in the same style as the pin heads from Armenia (figs. 35 and 3G).

This was from grave 95 in an Anglo-Saxon ceme-
tery 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 Swas-
tika (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
Wittenliam, Berkshire, was reported in Arehreologia,6 and is figured

1 “L’Autel de Saintes et les triades gauloises,” Revue Archieol., 1880, xxxix, p. 343.

Unstitut Arch.eologique Liogeois, x, 1870, p. 106, pi. 13.

saLa Migration des Symboles,” p. 47, iig. 13.

4Arch;eologia, L, pt. 2, p. 406, pi. 23, fig. 7.

5See fig. 238.

6Archaeologia, xxxi.

Fig.222.

ANGLO-SAXON BRONZE GILT
FIBULA.5

Simulation of Swastika.
Long Wittenliam, llerk-
shire, England.

POTTERY BOTTLE OF DARK GRAY
WITH SWASTIKA AND DECORA-
TION IN WHITE BARBOTINE.
Gallo-Roman Epoch.
Museum of Rouen.

I).- Mortillet, “ Musee Prehistorique,” fi^.
1240.
 THE SWASTIKA.

871

by Waring.1 A figure having great similarity to this, even in its pe-
culiarities and called a Swastika, was found on a shell in Toco Mound,
Tennessee (fig. 238). Tig. 223 represents an Anglo-Saxon urn from
Sliropham, 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
tlie stamp. They are white on a blackish
ground. The original, which is in the
British Museum, is cited by Kemble and
figured by Waring.2

THE SWASTIKA ON ANCIENT COINS.

There lias 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
persornTthat the triskelion which formed
the armorial emblem of the island of Sicily,
and also of the Isle of
Man, is but an evolu-
tion from or modification of the_ Swastika. In
the judgment of the author this is based ratlier
upon the similarity of the designs than upon any
likeness in their origin and history. The accept-
ance by modern writers
of this theory as a fact
is only justified from its
long-continued repetition.

Triskelion, Lycia.—The
triskelion onjincient coins first appears on the
coins of Lycia, in Asia Minor, about B. C. 480.

It was adoptedTor~Sici 1 y by Agathocles, B. 0.

317 to 307. The coins of Lycia were first three
cocks’ heads and necks joined together equidis-
tant in the center of the field, as shown in fig. 224, while figs. 225 and
22G 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

Fig.223.

POTTERY URN.

Hand of twenty hand-made Swastikas,
white, on hlackisli ground.
Sliropham, Norfolk, England.
Jlritisli Museum.

Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pi. 3,
fig. 50.

Fig. 224.3

LYCIAN COIN.

Triskelion with three arms
representing cocks’ heads
and necks.

Figs. 225 and 226.3
LYCIAN COINS.

Triskeiions with central dots and
circles.

Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,”
pi. 42, figs. 12, 13.

1 “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages/’ pi. 43, fig. 10.
2Tbi(l., pi. 3, fig. 50.

3 See p. 787.
 872

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

outward and are largest at the outer ends. In fig. 22G there is a mint
mark or counter mark of the same design as the triskelion, exeei>t that
it has but two arms or rays (diskelion).

Perrot and Cliipiez,1 speaking of Lycia, say:

The device of many of her coins is the “triskelis” or so-called “ triquetra ” (liter-
ally, three-cornered, triangular), a name derived from three serpents’ heads, which
usually ligure in the field, much after the fashion of those supporting the famous
tripod at Delphi,1 2 consecrated by the Greeks to Apollo after the battle of Plata*a.
The number of heads is not constant, some coins having as many as four, “ tetras-
kelis,” while others have but two, “diskelis.”3

The Greeks connected the symbol witli 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-qn coins of Alexander. B. C. 333 to 323. A
comparison of these designs \vTfnniTel$wastika will, it is believed, show
theTFiTiisnnilavi tyj 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
rsmall circle and dot which might represent the axle on which the
(jnacliine 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
alm<>sCalway sTsquare7is always a cross at riglTL 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 thjjidea
<>fjuauss. 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 tlie design or machine could be
made to reyulye, as Til these Lycian triskelions; nothing of the central
boss, cup, or nave, which forms what the Germans call the uliad-
Kreiiz,*1 wheel cross, as distinguished from the square cross.

In this regard Greg says:

If R. Hi'own’s lunar and Semitie 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
ashore widely spread symbol than the triskele, asjwelLagJ*. more purely Aryan one.

Waring, explaining the tetraskelion (four-armed), declares it to have
preceded the triskelion (three-armed), and he explains its meaning,4
citing Sir Charles Fellows, as being a harpago, a grappling iron, a cant-
ing sign for ILarpagus, who conquered Lycia for Cyrus, circa, 5G4 B. C.

1   “History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia,” p. 391.

2   An unique cast of this tripod is in the U. S. National Museum, Department of
Oriental Antiquities.

3   The number of heads may have been regulated by the size of the coins in ques-
tion, probably answering to different values.

4   “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” p. 85.
 THE SWASTIKA.

873

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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 Swas-
tika was well known throughout the Trojan peninsula and the iEgean
Sea, and the difference be-
tween them was so well rec-
ognized that one could not
possibly have been mistaken
for the other.

Trislelion, Sicily.—N o w
we pass to the consideration
V the triskelion of Sicily.

Pig. 227 represents a coin of
Sicily. "On the obverse the
^ head of Persephone, on the
(/^reverse the quactnga, 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 u 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. Pig. 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,1
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 simi-
larity of appearance. This is rendered clearer
by Waring,2 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, refer-
ence 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, any1^
revolution. It is asserted that originally the triskelion of Sicily, pos-'b

1 “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pi. 13, fig. 24.

Ibicl., pi. 13, fig. 21.

From a Greek vase, represent-
ing Achilles and Hector.

Agrigentum, Sicily.

Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Remote
Ages,” pi. 42, fig. 24.

& __

Fig. 227.

SICILIAN COIN WITH QUADRIGA AND TRISKELION.
British Museum.

Barclay Head, “ Coins of the Ancients,” etc., pi. 35, fig. 28.
 874

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

sibly of Lycia, was a symbol of the sun, morning, midday, aiul afternoon,
respectively. But this was purely theoretical and without other foun-
dation than the imagination of man, and it accordingly gave way in due
course. Phny denies this theory and attributes the origin of the tris-
kelion 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 Lilybmum. This statement, dating to so early a period,
accounting for the triskelion emblem of Sicily, is much more reasonable
and ought to reeeiye greater credit than that of its devolution from the
Swastika, which theory is of later date and has none of these corrobo-
rations 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 inTiie islands and countries about Sicily.

Among hundreds of patterns of the Swastika belonging to both
>hemispheres"affd TcTaTI 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 how ever the triskelion occurred, by whom it was in-
vented, 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 anv 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 wras a modification of the Swmstika. But its migra-
tion direct from Sicily to the Isle of Man can be traced through the
pages of history, and Mr. John Newton,1 citing the Manx Note Book
for January, 1SSG, has given this history at length, of which the follow-
ing is a resume:

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 (1245,1240
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. 13. 12GG, 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,77 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 1 Tre Cassyn7
as the distinguishing arms of the Isle of Man.” He then explains how
this probably came about: Frederick II (A. 13.1197-1250), the Norman
King of Sicily, married Isabella, the daughter of Henry III of England.

1 Athena;urn, No. 3385, September 10, 1892, p.353.
 THE SWASTIKA.

875

A quarrel between tlie 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 Koyal 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 125G, 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-indaw, the King of Sicily, and was received with great honors.
About that time Haco, the Korse king of the Isle of Man, was defeated
by Alexander III of Scotland, and killed, soon after which event (1200)
the Isle of Man was ceded to the latter. The Xorse coat of arms disap-
peared from the escutcheon of the Isle of Man, and, being replaced by
the three legs of Sicily, Mr. Kewton inquires:

Wliat more likely than that the King (Alexander III), when he struck the Norwe-
gian 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 17G5, sold his rights to the Crown of England, still bears the arms of
Man as the fifth quartering, “The three human legs in armor, con-
joined at the upper part of the thigh and flexed in triangle, proper
garnished,” being a perpetuation of the triskelion or triquetrum of
Sicily.1

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 evolu-
tion from and migration of the Swastika is a failure.

Punch marks on Corinthian coi?is 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. 0.) 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,

•Debrett’s “ Complete Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”
 876

[

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1891.

while Lyeia, 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 “Plectrum.” 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 owl5 Corinth, Pegasus; Metapontine, a sheaf of wheat; Naples, a
liuman-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 22C>). A
series of these punch marks is
given for demonstration on pi. 9.
A favorite design was a square
punch with a cross of two arms
passing through the center, di-
viding the field into four quar-
ters. 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.1

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 inter-
pretation 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 1>. C. The obverse represents a Pegasus standing, while,
the reverse is a punch mark, said to have been a Swastika; but, exam-
ining 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 gam-
mas, 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

1 Snowden, “Mint Manual of Coins of all Nations/’ Introduction, pp. ix-xiv; Ack-
erman, “Roman Coins,” pi. 14.

CORINTH I AX COINS.

Obverse and reverse.

Punch mark resembling Swastika.
 

I

I
 EXPLANATION OF PLATE 9.

t   o   3
4   5   6
4   8   9
to   11   12

Punch Marks on Reverse of Ancient Coins.

Fig. t. Coin of Lydia. Electrum. Oblong sinking between two squares.
Babylonian stater. Tlie earliest known coinage. Circa TOO B. C.

2. Pheniciax Half Stater. Electrnni. Incuse square with cruciform
ornament.

8. Silver Coin of Teos. Incuse square. Circa 544 B. C.

4.   Silver Coin of Acanthus. Incuse square.

5.   Silver Coin of Mexde. Incuse triangles.

6.   Silver Coin of Teroxe. Incuse square.

7.   Coin of Bisaltas.1 Incuse square. Octadrachm.

8.   Silver Coin of Orrescii.1 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.

1 The Bisalta* and Orrescii were Thracian tribes who dwelt in the valleys of the Stryinon and
the Angites, to the north of the Pangrean Range.
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.

Plate 9,

Punch Marks on Reverse of Ancient Coins.
 1
 THE SWASTIKA.

877

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.

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 inde-
pendent 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. 231-231) are
attributed to Cunningham by Waring.1 2 These are said by Waring to
be Buddhist coins found at Behat near Scliaraupur. Mr. E. Thomas,
in his article on the “Earliest Indian Coinage,”3 ascribes themjto the

Fig. 230.

ANCIENT HINDU COIN IN
THE FORM OF A CROSS
WITH A SWASTIKA ON
TIIE EXTREMITY OF
EACH ARM.1

Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Re-
mote Ages,” pi. 41, fig. 18.

ANCIENT HINDU COINS WITH SWASTIKAS, NORMAL AND OGEE.
Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pi. 41, figs. 20-24.

rejgnjjf Krananda, a Buddhist Indian king contemporary with or prior
to Alexander, about 330 B. C.

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The coins of lvrananda,4 contenqiorary of Alexander the Great,5
bear the Swastika mark, associated with the principal Buddhist marks,
the trisulaj the stupha..sacred tree, sacred cone, etc. Waring says6
that according to Prinsep’s u Engravings of Hindu Coins,” the Swastika
seems to disappear from them about 200 B. C., nor is it found on the

1   See p. 788.

2   “Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,’’ pi. 41, figs. 20-23.

3   Numismatic Chron.(new series), iv.

4   “La Migration des Symboles,” figs. 17, 123.

5   Edward Thomas, Journ. Royal Asiatic Soc.Cnew series), i, p. 175.

6“Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” p.83.
 878

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

Indo-Bactrian, the Indo-Sassanian, or the ]ater Hindu or subsequent
Mohammedan, and he gives in a note the approximate dates of these
dynasties: Early native Buddhist monarchs from about 500 B. 0. to the
conquest of Alexander, about 330 B. 0.; the Indo-Bactrian or Greek
successors of Alexander from about 300 to 120 B. O.; the Indo-Parthian
or Scythic from about 120 B. 0.; the second Hindu dynasty from about
50 B. 0.; the Indo-Sassanian from A. D. 200 to G30,
and subsequent to that the Indo-Mohammedan from
the eleventh to the close of the thirteenth century;
the Afghan dynasty from A. 1). 1290 to 152G, and the
Mongol dynasty to the eighteenth century, when it was

Fig.235.

ANCIENT COIN WITH
SWASTIKA.

Gaza, Palestine.

Waring, “Ceramic Art in
Remote Ages,” |>l. 42, fig. <>.

destroyed by Nadir Shah. (See p. 772.

Swastika on coins in Mescmbria and Gaza.—Mr. Percy
Gardner, in Ins article, “Ares as a Sun-god.”1 finds the
Swastika on a coin of Mesembria in Thrace. He ex-
plains that “Mesembria is simply the Grcek-word
for noon, midday (jneGfjjuppla)? TlnTcoins of this city
bear the inscription   Greg1 2 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 evi-
dence in support of it. .Max Miillcr3 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 deter-
mine 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 attrib-
uted to E. Pochette, 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 bractcatcs.—Fig. 230
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.4 Some of them bear signs referring to
Christian civilization, such as raising hands in prayer; and from a
j 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 dis-

Fig.236.

GOLD RRACTEATE WITH JAIN
SWASTIKA.

Denmark.

Waring, “ Ceramic Art in Remote
Ages,” pi. 1, fig. 9.

1   “Numismatic Chron./’ pt. 1,1880. See p. 788 of this paper.

2   Arclneologia, xlviii, pt. ii, 1885, p. 800.

3   Atlieiuemn, August 20, 1892.

4   “Viking Age/’ ii, figs. 1307, 1309.
 THE SWASTIKA.

879

covery 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 archaeology 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 Ave
have such notable examples 021 specimens of pottery from the hill of Ilis-^ ^
sarlik, in Greece) did not terminate before coinage began, or before
480 B. 0., 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 commoneiMise, or those having greater relation to supersti-
tioii and folklore wherein the possible ATilue of the Swastika as an
amulet dt^lTAvith 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, Teun. It is figured and
described in the Third Annual Iieport of the Bureau of Ethnology,1 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 bo formed by two rectangular tablets or slips slit longitudinally and inter-
laced 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 SAvastika
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 A^alue on further investigation, but not to be con-
founded with the dots or points in Avhat M. Zmigrodzki calls the Croix
sicasticale. The mound from which this specimen came, and the objects
associated with it, show its antiquity and its manufacture by the abo-
rigines untainted by contact with the whites. The mound is on the

H'ago 4G6, fig. 140.

I
 880

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

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 uo regularity in
placing the bodies.

The peculiar form of this Swas-
tika is duplicated by a Runic
Swastika in Sweden, cited by
Ludwig Muller and by Count
d’Alviella.1

Tliefollowing objects were found
in the mound ou Fains Island as-
sociated with the Swastika shell
(fig. 237) and described, and many
of them figured:* 2 A gorgetof the
same Fulgur shell (fig. 239); a
second gorgetof Fulgur shell with

SHELL GOUOET WITH ENGRAVED SWASTIKA, CIRCLES,
ANI) DOTS.

Fains Island, Tennessee.

Cat. No.   IT. S. N. M.

an engraved spider (fig. 278):

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 ljj
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 ob-
jects. The shell objects (in addition to
the disks and gorgets mentioned) were
pins made from the columelhe of Fulgur
(Busycon pervcrsum?) 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.

202, Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1890-91, page
383, although it is not described. This is a circular disk of Fulgur

ENGRAVED SHELL WITH SWASTIKA, CIRCLES,
AND DOTS.

Toco Mound, Monroe County, Tenn.

Cat. No. II5624, U. S. N. M.

^roc. Royal Danish Acad. Sci., 5th ser., in, p.94, tig. a; “La Migration des Sym-
boles,” p. 50, fig. 16.

2Third Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82, p. 464 et seq., figs. 139-141.
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.

Plate 10.

Engraved Fulgur(?) Shell, Resembling Statue of Buddha.

Toco Mound, Tennessee.

Cat. No. 115560, U. S. N. M.
 E

1

i

II

I

?
 THE SWASTIKA.

881

shell, much damaged around the edge, 1£ inches in diameter, on which
lias been engraved a Swastika. It has a small circle and a dot in
the center, around which circle the arms of the Swastika are inter-
laced. There are also circles and central dots at each turn < f the
four arms. The hatch work in the are 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 ornamenta-
tion. 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 Swas-
tika 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 representa-
tions of Swastikas, it was my belief that no reliable trace of Buddha or
ihe 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 evi-
dence 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 (pi. 10), marked as shown on the back, found by
Air. Emmert, an employe of the Bureau of Ethnology, in the year 1882.
Its original field number was 267, Professor Thomas’s 6512, 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. Atten-
tion 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
H. Mis. 90, pt. 2---------56
 882

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

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, appear-
ance, 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.’7 But this figure, taken in connec-
tion with the Swastika, presents a set of circumstances corresponding
with that possibility which goes a long distance in forming circum-
stantial evidence in its favor.

M. Gustave d’Eiehthal wrote a series of essays in the Bevue Archm-
ologique. lSfkt-Oo, in which he collated the evidence and favored the
theory ot 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,1 but all these theories have properly had but slight
influence in turning public opinion in their direction. Mr. V. K.
Gandhi, in a recent letter to the author, says of this specimen (pi. 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; -
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 atti-
tude, which has no connection, however, with the symbolic meaning of the Swastika
with four arms. The figure [pi. 10], a photograph of which you gave me the other
day, has tho same Swastika posture. In matters of concentration and meditation,
Swastika posture is oftentimes prescribed, which is also called Sukhasana, mean-
ing 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 hand around the waist, which goes from the navel
lower on till it reaches the hack part, has a peculiar significance in the Jain phi-
losophy. The Shvetamber division of the Jain community have always this kind
of hand in their images. The object is twofold: The first is that the generative
parts ought not to he visible; the second is that this hand 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
employe of the Bureau of Ethnology, under the direction of Prof.

‘This theory was first announced by Antonio de Montezinos and published by
Maxasseh ben Ishael in Amsterdam, 1636. In Leser Library, Phil., and Cohen
Library, Balto. Catalogued by Dr. Cyrus Adler. First English Ed. by Moses Wall,
London: 1651, republished by Dr. Grossmann, Am. Jews’ Annual, 1889, p.83.

2 Max Muller and Olinefalsch-Richter agree with this. See pp. 772, 773 of this paper.
 THE SWASTIKA.

883

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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 lteport of the
Bureau of Ethnology, pages 370-384.

We can now be governed only by the record as to the objects asso-
ciated with this shell (pi. 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. 40. Toco mound
contained fifty-two skeletons, or, rather, it contained buried objects
reported as from that many skeletons. Those reported as with skele-
ton 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 consid-
erable importance. Association of discovered objects is one of the
important means of furnishing evidence in prehistoric archaeology. 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 Xo.

4.   Two polished stoiie 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, pi. 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 (orna-

mented), 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.
 884

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

Skeleton No.

37. One polished stone chisel, one stone pipe, one shell mask (ornamented).

41. One polished stone hatchet, one stone pipe, pottery vase with ears (orna-
mented), one shell mask, one shell pin, four arrowheads (two with serrated
edges), two stone perforators.

43. Lot of shell heads.

49. One polished stone hatchet, one spade-shaped stone ornament (perforated), one
spear-head, one stone pipe, one pottery howl with two handles, two shell
masks (ornamented), twenty-seven hone needles, two heaver teeth, one hone
implement (raccoon), piece of mica, lot of red paint, two shell gorgets (one
ornamented with Swastika, tig. 238), thirty-six arrow-heads, lot of hint
chips, fragment of animal jaw and hones, lot of large shells, one image pot.

51.   One shell pin, one shell mask, one arrow-head, two small shell heads.

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 compar-
ing the objects with this description and find their general agreement.
Dr. Palmer, the finder, was an employe of the Bureau of Ethnology, is
a man of the highest character, of great zeal as an arelueologist 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 employe 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 belong-
ing to the mound-building epoch in the valley of the Tennessee.

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 estab-
lish 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 Deport 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. 230).
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,
 THE SWASTIKA.

885

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

Fig.239.

SHELL GORGET.

Two fighting figures with triangular breech-clout, garters an<l 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.

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 vigor-
ously 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, aud 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
 88(1

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

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 pu-
pil being almost obliterated.
The ankles and legs just be-
low the knee and the wrists
each have three lines repre-
senting bracelets or anklets.
It is uncertain whether the
leg is covered or naked; but
between the waistband and
the leggings, over the abdo-
men, is represented on both
figures a highly decorated
triangular garment, or, pos-
sibly coat of mail, to which
particular attention is called.1
In the center, at the top, just
under the waistband, are four
circles with dots in the cen-
ter arrangedin a square; out-
side 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 trian-
gle, with certain decorations
of incised lines, completes
the garment. This decora-
tion is the same on both fig-
ures, 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 (pi. 10). Another

Fig. 240.

COPPER PLATE.

Entowah Mound, Georgia.

Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 42.
Cat. No. 91113, U. S. N. M.

Cf. Gliandi, p. 882, of this paper.
 THE SWASTIKA.

887

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 iii all their peculiarities of construction and design with the

Fig. 1241.

COPPEK PLATE.

Iieponssp work.
Kntowali Mound, Georgia.

wings on the copper and shell figures from the Etowah mound, Georgia
(figs. 240, 241, and 242)1. Behind the left-hand figure is an ornament
resembling the spreading tail of an eagle which, with its feather arrange-
ment and the detail of their mechanism, correspond to a high degree
with the eagle effigies in repousse copper (fig. 243) from the mound in

1 Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1&33-84, pp. 36-100, ligs. 12,43,45.
 888   REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

Union County, 111., shown in the Fifth Annual Report of the Rureau
of Ethnology (p. 105) and in the Twelfth Annual Report (p. 309).

IIopciccll 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 Talley—was that of Prof. Warren K. Moore-
liead, in the fall and winter of 1891-92, in his excavations of the Hope-
well mound, seven miles northwest of Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio.1
The locality of this mound is well shown in Squier and Davis’s work on
the “Monuments of the Mississippi Valley” (pi. 10, p. 2G),under the name
of “Clark’s Works,” here reproduced as pi. 11. It is the large irregular

unnumbered triple mound
just within the arc of the
circle shown in the center
of the plan. The excava-
tion contemplated the de-
struction of the mound by
cutting it down to the sur-
rounding level and scat-
tering the earth of which
it was made, over the sur-
face; and this was done.
Preparatory to this, a sur-
vey and ground plan was
made (pi. 12).   1 assisted

at this survey and can
vouch for the general cor-
rectness. The mound was
surrounded by parallel
lines laid out at right an-
gles 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 10 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 Air. Moorehead to cut it down in trenches, commencing on the north-
east. 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 hat one atop the other, in a rectangular space, say three
by four feet square. These objects are unique in American prehistoric
archeology. Some of them bore a resemblance in form to the scalloped
mica pieces found by Squier and Davis, and described by them in

1 These explorations were made for the Department of Ethnology at the World a
Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.

Triangular hreecli-elout with dots ami circles.
Entowah Mouml, Georgia.

Cat. Xo. 91443, I\ S. X. M.
 Ross County, Ohio.

Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. I, PI. X.

f

Museum, 1894.—Wilson.   PLATE 11.
 1

I

1

r
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.

Plate 12,

S

E

Plan of Hopewell Mound, in which Aboriginal Copper Swastikas were Found.

Ross County, Ohio.

Moorehead, “Primitive Man in Ohio, ” PI. xxxiv.
 1

I

I

1

I

1

I
 THE SWASTIKA.

889

their “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley” Q>. 240), and

also those of the same material found
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
live similar designs
traceable on the re-
verse; smaller mass

bv Professor Putnam in the

Fig. 241.

SWASTIKA CROSS OJ
COPPER.

Hopewell Mound, 3 toss
County, Ohio.

*i natural size.

Fig. 243.

COPPER PLATE SHOWING FIGURE OF EAGLE,
llepousse work.

Union County, 111.

Cat. No. 91507, U. S. X. M.

of copper; eighteen single
ber of double copper rings

copper rings; a num-
, 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 tig. 245, orig-
inally placed in a pile and now oxidized together;

also large circular,
stencil-like orna-
ments, one (fig.

240) inches in
diameter; another
(fig. 247) somewhat
in the shape of a
St. Andrew’s cross,
the extreme length

over the arms
being 8| inches.

About five feet below the deposit of
sheet copper and 10 or 12 feet to the
west, two skeletons lay together. They
Avere covered with copper plates and
fragments, copper hatchets, and pearl
beads, shown in the list below, laid in rectangular form about seven

Fig. 245.

FLAT RING OF THIN COPPER.
Hopewell Mound, Hosa

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County, Ohio

g natural mzo.

Fig.246.

STENCIL ORNAMENT OF THIN COPPER.
Hopewell Around, lio.ss County, Ohio.

y natural size.

feet in length and
overlap.

five feet in widtli? and so close as to frequently
 890

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

STENCIL ORNAMENT OK
TIUN COPPER.
Hopewell Mon ml, lio.ss
County, Ohio.

natural size.

FIS1I ORNAMENT OF THIN COPPER.
Hopewell Hound, I loss County, Ohio.

}?; natural size.

There were also found sixty-six copper hatchets, ranging from 14
to 224 inches in length; twenty-three copper plates and fragments;

one copper eagle; eleven semicircles, bars, etc.;
two spool-shaped objects; four comb-sliaped 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 hu-
man jaw, very large; a
fragmentary fish resem-
bling 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, sawshaped;
twenty ceremonial objects, rusted or oxidized copper; two diamond-
shaped stencils, copper (fig.
249); four peculiar spool-
shaped copper ornaments,
perforated, showing re-
pousse 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 ob-
tained, 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

Hopewell Mound, lioss County, Ohio.

34 natural size.
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.

Plate 13.

Human Skull with Copper-covered Horns.

Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.
Moorehead, “ Primitive Man in Ohio,” frontispiece.

I
 

I
 Fouu<l near the copper Swastika shown in fig. iM4.

Moorehead. “Primitive Man in Ohio”, Fig. xxxvn. Cat. No. 14806-4, U. S. N. M.

Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.   PLATE 14.
 i

I
 THE SWASTIKA.   891

head of the “leather-back” turtle. Fig. 253 probably represents an
otter with a fish in his mouth.

In trench No. 3, 15 skeletons (numbered 261 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 pi.
13. It was a most remarkable specimen, and forms the frontispiece of
Prof. W. K. Mooreliead’s volume u Primitive Man in Ohio,” where it is
described (p. 195) as follows:

At liis 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

Repousse and intaglio decoration.
Hopewell Mound, Ross County, Ohio.

Natural size.

high and 19 inches across from prong to prong. They fitted into a crown of copper
Lent to fit the head from occipital to upper jaw. Copper plates were upon the hreast
and stomach, also on the hack. The copper preserved the bones and a few of the
smews. It also preserved traces of cloth similar to coffee sacking in texture, inter-
woven 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 spear-
head of agate were near the right shoulder. The pipe was of very fine workman-
ship and highly polished.

While digging out skeletons 280 to 284, Professor Moorehead says
they touched the edge of an altar (pi. 14). It was on the base line and
15 feet north of the copper find before described. On the 5th of Janu-
ary, 1892, the altar was uncovered, and the earth, charcoal, and objects
within it put into five soap boxes and transported to headquarters,
 892

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

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 orna-
ments, copper balls, frag-
ments 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 af-
fected by heat, the copper
being fused in many cases.
The teeth and tusks were
charred, split, and cal-
cined. There were no
ashes. All the fuel was
charcoal, and from the ap-
pearance of the debris, es-
pecially 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 Atlan-
tic Coast COO 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 obsid-
ian, which could not have been found
nearer than theBocky 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 (pi. 13) made
in semblance of elk horns, 1G inches high, and other wonderful things.
Those not described have no relation to the Swastika.

Fig.251.

FRAGMENT OF ENGRAVED RONE REPRESENTING A PAROQUET.

Hopewell Mound, Hoss County, Ohio.

Nutiir.il size.

Fig.252.

FRAGMENT OF ENGRAVED BONE PROBABLY REP-
RESENTING A MISSISSIPPI KITE OR LEATHER-
BACK TURTLE.

Hopewell Mound, lloss County, Ohio.

Natural size.
 THE SWASTIKA.

893

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 undeter-
mined. It is strange to find
so many objects brought such
long distances, and we may not
be able to explain the problem
presented j but there is no
authority for injecting any
modern or European influ-
ence 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 bot-

FRAGMENT OF ENGRAVED BONE PROBABLY REPRESENTING
AN OTTER WITH A FISH IN ITS MOUTH.

Natural size.

I

I

I

i

I

Fig. 254.

WATER JUG WITH FIGURE OF SWASTIKA.
Decoration, red on yellow ground.
Poinsett County, Ark.

Cat. No. 91230, U. S. N. M.

tom 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 IT. S.
National Museum (fig. 254) was obtained in 1883 by 1\ W. Norris, of
 894

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

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 sur-
faces. 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 Nadaillac1 describes and figures a grooved ax from Pember-
ton, N. J., on which some persons have recognized a Swastika, but
which the Marquis doubts, while Dr. Abbott1 2 denounces the inscrip-
tion as a fraud.

NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

The Kansas.—The Rev. J. Owen Dorsey3 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 pi. 20, page G7G. 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
A   of another old man who gives success to the

I) ^   hunters; No. 4 (fig. 255 in the present paper)

C|   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 dei-
ties; they are Bazanta (at the pines), the east wind;
Ak'a, the south wind; A'k'a jinga 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 lire as a sacrifice to the winds.

Fig. 255.

KANSA INDIAN’ WAR CHART.
Swastika sign for winds and
wind songs.

Owen Dorsey, American Naturalist,
July, 1SK5, l>. 670.

J.

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 chart4 was drawn for him,
with the Swastika as represented, by Pakanle-gaqle, the war captain,

1   “ Prehistoric America,” p. 22, note 24, fig. 9.

2   “Primitive Industry,” p.32.

3   American Naturalist, xix, July, 1885, p. 670.

4   Ibid., pi. 20.
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.

Plate 1 5.

Ceremonial Bead Necklace with Swastika Ornamentation.

Sac Indians, Cook County (Kansas) Reservation.
 I

>

I

i

n
 THE SWASTIKA.

895

who had official charge of it and who copied it from one he had inher-
ited from his father and his ufather’s fathers”; and Mr. Dorsey assured
me that there can be no mistake or misapprehension about this Indian7 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.1

The Sac Indians.—Miss Mary A. Owen, of St. Joseph, Mo., sending
some specimens of beadwork of the Indians (pi. 15) from the Kansas
Reservation, two of which were garters and the third a necklace 13
inches longhand 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, Pottawat-
omies, Iowas, and (I have been told) by the Winnebagoes. I have never seen it on
a Winuebago. 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 think-
ing it an emblem of tire 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 yon 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
j service.

1 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 inter-
cede for the people. There are many malicious little demons who thwart the ances-
tors 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 w ho 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. Dur-
ing 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

^his was the last time I ever saw Mr. Dorsey. He died within a month, beloved
and regretted by all who knew him.
 896

REPORT OF* NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1&)4.

had failed. Yet she did not give up hope. Accordingly, in the winter
of 1800, 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 pi. 10.

The Pueblos.—The Pueblo country in Colorado, Utah, Yew 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 some-
what 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 spec-
ulating 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 Eth-
nology for the year 1SS0-S1 (p. 304, fig. 5G2) is
described a dance rattle made from a small gourd,
ornamented in black, white, and red (fig. 2oG).
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 Yew Mexico and Ari
zona. 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, occasion-
ally inside. It is more frequently of the ogee form, similar to that on
the rattle from the same country (fig. 25G). The larger proportion of
these specimens comes from the imeblos of Santa Clara and St. llde-
fonso.

Fig. 256.

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DANCE RATTLE MADE OF A
SMALL GOURD DE< oRATED
IN RLACK, WHITE, AND RED.
Ogee Swastika on each side.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau
of Ethnology, fig. 526.

Cat. No. 42042, U. S. N\ M.
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson

Plate 16.

Ceremonial Bead Garters with Swastikas.

Sat* Indians, Cook County (Kansas) Reservation.
 1

I
 THE SWASTIKA.

897

Dr. Schliemann reports:1

We also see a Swastika (turned to the left) scratched on two terra cotta howls
of the Puehlo Indians of New Mexico, preserved in the ethnological section of the
Royal Museum at Berlin.

G. Nordenskiold,1 2 in the report of his excavations among the ruined
pueblos of the Mesa Verde, made in southwestern Colorada during
the summer of 1891, tells of the finding of numerous specimens of the
Swastika. In pi. 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 ot small dots. His pi. 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 pi.
18, fig. 1, represented a large bowl found in Mug House. Its decora-
tion 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 Swas-
tika marks, chiefly of the ogee form.3

The Navqjoes.—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 Moun-
tain 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
“dsilyidje qagal”—literally, “chant toward (a place) within the moun-
tains.” The word udsiJyiv 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. “ Qagal” 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 sous, and two daughters, dwelt in ancient times near the
Carrizo Mountains. They lived by hunting and trapping; but the

1 “Troja,77 * * p. 123.

2“The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, Southwestern Colorado/7 P. A. Norstedt
& Son, Chicago, 1893.

3From letter of Mr. Walter Hough, Winslow, Ariz. “I send you two pieces of

pottery [bearing many ogee Swastikas] from the ruins near here formerly inhabited
by the Moki. Many of the bowls which we have found in this ruin had the Swastika

as a major motif in the decoration.77

See also The Archaeologist, III, No. 7, p. 248.

H. Mis. 90, pt. 2-----57
 898

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

place was desert, game scarce, and they moved up the river farther
iuto the mountains. The father made incantations to enable his two
sons to capture and kill game; he sent them hunting each day, direct-
ing 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 Yaybicliy (Qastceelp) 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 fete being
organized, stories are told, speeches made, and sacred songs are sung
(the latter are given by Hr. 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 Avood.” 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 (Qastceeh;i 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 Qastcecl<p
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
 f

I

i

i

I
 Report of National Museum, 1894.- Wilson.
 Plate 1 7.

ontaining Swastikas.

Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-84, PI. xvii.
 I
 THE SWASTIKA.

899

morning, the bears again offered food, which he again declined, saying
he was not hungry. Then they showed him how to make the bear
Icethawnsj 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.

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 pi. 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 cdbitlol 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 north-
east. Each of the sacred plants grows from five white roots in the cen-
tral 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 arm-
lets, 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 rea-
I sons, reversed. The gods have, respectively, a rattle, a charm, and a
basket, each attached to his right hand by strings. This basket, repre-
sented 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
i 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.

Dr. Matthews informs me that he has no knowledge of any peculiar
meaning attributed by these Indians to this Swastika symbol, and we
 900

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

WAB SHIELD UsKD I5Y THU I'lMA INDIANS.

Ogee Swastika (tetraskclion) in three colors: (1) blue, (2) red, (3) wliito.
Cut. No. :»7)r. 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.
 THE SWASTIKA.

901

know not whether it is intended as a religious symbol, a charm of bless-
ing, or good luck, or whether it is only an ornament. We do not know
whether it has any hidden, mysterious, or symbolic meaning j 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 longitudi-
nally 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
(tig. 257) is almost an exact reproduction of the Swastika from Myceme
(tig. 101), from Ireland (fig. 21G), 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. IIodge,of the Bureau of Ethnology.
He obtained it from a Fima 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 en'emy.

COLONIAL PATCH WORK.

In Scribner’s Magazine for September, 1891, under the title of “ Tap-
estry in the New World,” one of our popular writers has described, with
many illustrations, the bed quilt 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 in-
vented combination of patch-
work which formed a new pat-
| tern, and while it bears a slight
: resemblance to the Swastika,
lacks its essential elements.

It was not a symbol, and rep-
resents 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 resem-
blance 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

prills   SI
jfk jr jAjihk.   VA
r A   Upr  Ikii
   

Fig. 259.

COLONIAL PATCHWORK WITH FIGURES RESEMBLING
SWASTIKAS.

Scribner’s Magazine, September, 1N94.
 902

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

cross on his slnte, 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
rliomboidal and triangular quilt patches as would produce a new orna-
mental pattern.

CENTRAL AMERICA.

NICARAGUA.

The specimen shown in fig. 2(50 (Oat. No. 2372G, U.S.N.M.) is a frag-
ment, the foot of a large stone nictate from Zapatero, Granada, Nica-
ragua. 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 Mod-
ern,7’ by W. AY. 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 enthu-
siast, Orozco y Terra, claims
at first glance that it shows
Buddhist origin, but I have not
been able as yet to verify the
quotation.

YUCATAN.

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Dr. Scliliemann 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,1 citing Le Plon-
geou, “Fouilles an Yucatan,’7 that uduring the last excavations in
Yucatan this sign was found several times on ancient pottery.77

Le Plongeon discovered a fragment of a stone slab in the ancient
Maya city of Mayapan, of which he published a description in the Pro-

FUAGMENT OK THE FOOT OF A STONE METATE WITH
FIGURE (JF SWASTIKA.

Nicaragua.

('at. No. 237'26, U. S. N. M.

1 “ Troja,” p. 122.
 THE SWASTIKA.

903

ceedings 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 If, making the whole to be Cliacli or
KaJc, which, he says, is the word fire in
the Maya language.1

COSTA MCA.

A fragment of a metate (Cat. No. 9693,

U. S. N. M.) found on Lempa River, Costa
Rica, by CapL J. M. Dow, has on its bot-
tom a Swastika similar to that on the
metate from Nicaragua. Specimen No. ANC1ENX MAyA CITY OP MAYAPAN.
59182, U. S. JM. N., is a fragment of a pot- Ogeo Swastika (tetraskelion).
tery vase from Las Hliacas, Costa Rica,   of the American Antiquarian S.K-iely,

collected by Dr. J. F. Bransford. It is   pn ’

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 Nana2 of Chaldea, Saycej statuettes
of the Cyclades, Lenorinant) 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 pol-
ished. 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 presence of the Swastika is the only purpose of this citation. The correct-
ness of the translation is not involved and is not vouched for.

Equivalent to Istar of Assyria and Babylon, Astarte of Plienicia, to the (Jreek
Aphrodite, and the Roman Venus.
 904

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

The consideration of the leaden idol of Ilissarlik, with a Swastika,
as though for good luck, recalled to the author similar plaques in
his department from Brazil. Some arc of common yellow ware, others
were finer, were colored red and rubbed smooth and hard, but were
without decoration. The specimen shown in pi. IS (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 liivcr, Brazil, was col-
lected by Prof. J. B. Steere. The body color, clay, and the decoration
paint are much the same as the former. The ornamentation is princi-
pally 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. S30-S32.)

These specimens were submitted by the author to the Brazilian min-
ister, Senor Mendonga, himself an archaeologist 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 Tambvao or TamatiaUmg, accord-
ing to the dialects of different provinces. The later dialect name for
apron is reported as tunga, and the minister makes two remarks hav-
ing 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, relat-
ing, 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 Cein-
tures de Chastete, specimens of which are privately shown at the Musee
de Gluny at Paris. These are said to have been invented by Fraugoise
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. I). 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 ceiutures with their locks
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.

Plate 18.
 
 



      v /,~J                  m   ./ \ #   nT-5
         X   Vi  69      n      _   l J. L \ ^3 ^ <gPr^  W/I ? ..   . P
      ggs u                        
-fc        % Jr      q—   [A/\   _\W   j   Tj               
-ir*   V>1      % yp   tan-H      ir      ^gf—      JSL i   1
?      Wjf         J   s__   %      =. W ^   
   y ^   f      riggr            i      
       —      Jk_!      r     -=a      r ”~fj         X. /#   
   -?%         —   • — -a-—               3   
—   1p^            j   r ^         %»5; 0 '^r   #
) ———=         Map showing            ff         illlilli   
—         Distribution of the Swastika.                  •|   I      ^ •   
o J     0            ;2<?      50 i   SO 150 J20 90 60 30 O         

Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.
 
 THE SWASTIKA.

905

attached, which were represented as des pieces de conviction of this
monster.1 Voltaire describes his hero Uqui ticnt sous la clef, la verta de
sa femme.1'

PARAGUAY.

Dr. Schlieinann reports that a traveler of the Berlin Ethnological
Museum obtained a pumpkin bottle from the tribe of Lenguas in Para-
guay which bore the imprint of the Swastika scratched upon its sur-
face, and that he had recently sent it to the Royal Museum at Berlin.

O]   o   A   L- LJ   
A   1   uJ      1

III.—Forms Allied to the Swastika.

MEANDERS, OGEES, AND SPIRALS, BENT TO THE LEFT AS WELL

AS TO THE RIGHT.

There are certain forms related to the normal Swastika and greatly
resembling itA-meanders, ogees, the triskelion, tetraskelion, and live
and six armed spirals or volutes. This has been mentioned above (page
7C8), and some of the varieties are shown in lig. 13. These related forms
have been found in considerable numbers in America, and this investi-
gation would be incomplete if they were omitted. It has been argued
(p. 839) that the Swastika was not evolved from the meander, and this
need not be reargued.

The cross with the arms bent or twisted in a spiral is one of these
related forms. It is certain that in ancient, if not prehistoric, times the
cross with extended spiral arms was frequently employed. This form
appeared in intimate asso-
ciation with the square
Swastikas which were
turned indifferently to the
right and left. This asso-
ciation of different yet
related forms was so inti-
mate, and they were used so indiscriminately as to justify the contention
that the maker or designer recognized or admitted no perceptible or
substantial difference between the square and spiral forms, whether
they turned to the right or left, or whether they made a single or many
turns, and that he classed them as the same sign or its equivalent. A
Greek vase (fig. 174) shows five Swastikas, four of which are of dif-
ferent form (fig. 202). Curiously enough, the design of this Greek vase
is painted maroon on a yellow ground, the style generally adopted iu
the vases from the mounds of Missouri and Arkansas, which mostly
represent the spiral Swastika.

In Ireland a standing stone (fig. 215) has two forms of Swastika side
by side. In one the arms are bent square at the corners, the other has
curved or spiral arms, both turned to the right. These examples are
so numerous that they would seem convincing in the absence of any
other evidence (figs. 1G6 to 17G).

‘Cited in “Misson Voyage dltalie,” tome 1, p. 217; Dnlaure, “Histoiredes Dif-
ferensCultes,” ii; Brautone, “ Dames Galantes”; Rabelais, “Pantagruel,”3, chap. 35.

Fig. 262.

DIFFERENT FORMS OF SWASTIKA FOR COMPARISON.
 906

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ENGRAVINGS AND PAINTINGS.

These allied forms of Swastika appear on prehistoric objects from
mounds and Indian graves in different parts of the country and in
times of high antiquity as well as among modern tribes. This paper
contains the results of the investigations in this direction.

DESIGNS ON SHEI.L.

The Department of Prehistoric Anthropology in the IT. S. National
Museum, contains a considerable number of large shells of aboriginal

Fig. 263.

SHELL GORGET.

Cross, circle, sun’s rays( ?), and heads of four ivory-billed woodpeckers (?) arranged to form a Swastika.

Mississippi.

workmanship. The shell most employed was that of the genus Fulgur,
a marine shell found on the coast from Florida to the capes. The Unio
was employed,* as well as others. These marine shells were transported
long distances inland. They have been found in mounds and Indian
 THE SWASTIKA.

907

graves a thousand miles from tlieir original habitat. They served as
utensils as well as ornaments. In many specimens the whorl was cut
out, the shells otherwise
left entire, and they
served as vessels for liold-
ing or carrying liquids.

When intended for or-
naments, they were cut
into the desired form
and engraved with the
design; if to be used
as gorgets, holes were
drilled for suspension.

Frequently they were
smoothed on the outside
and the design engraved
thereon. The prefer-
ence of the aborigines
for the Fulgur shell may
have been by reason of
its larger size. Among
the patterns employed
for the decoration of
these shells, the Swastika, in the form of spirals, volutes, or otherwise,
appeared, although many others, such as the rattlesnake, birds, spiders,

and human masks were em-
ployed. Ho detailed descrip-
tion of the patterns of this
shellwork will be attempted,
because figures will be re-
quired to give the needed in-
formation for the interpreta-
tion of the Swastika. Many
of the cuts and some of the
descriptions are taken from
the annual reports of the
Bureau of Ethnology and, so
far as relates to shell, mostly
from Mr. Holmes’s paper on
“Art in Shell of the Ancient
Americans.” I desire to ex-
press my thanks for all cuts
obtained from the Bureau pub-
lications.

Ivory-billed tvoodpeclcer.—A

Figs. 264.

SHELL GORGET FROM TENNESSEE.

Square figure with ornamental corners and heads of ivory-
hilled woodpecker arranged to form a figure resembling the
Swastika.

Fig. 265.

SHELL GORGET FROM TENNESSEE.

Square figure with ornamental corners and heads of
ivory-billed woodpecker arranged to form a figure
resembling the Swastika.

series of gorgets in shell have been found ornamented -with designs
.resembling the Swastika, which should be noticed. They combine
 908

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

the square and the cross, while the head and bill of the bird form
the gamma indicative of the Swastika. Fig. 2G3, taken from the Sec-
ond Annual Eeport of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81 (pi. 58),
shows one of these shell gorgets from Mississippi, which “was, in all
probability, obtained from one of the multitude of ancient sepulchres
that abound in the State of Mississippi.’7 The design is engraved on
the convex side, the perforations are placed near the margin, and show
much wear by the cord of suspension. In the center is a nearly sym-
metrical Greek cross inclosed in a circle of 1J inches. The spaces
between the arms are emblazoned with radiating lines. Outside this
circle are twelve small pointed or pyramidal rays. A square framework
of four continuous parallel lines looped at the corners incloses this sym-
bol ; projecting from the center
of each side of this square,
opposite the arms of the cross,
are four heads of birds repre-
senting the ivory-billed wood-
pecker, the heron, or the swan.
The long, slender, and straight
mandibles give the Swastika
form to the object. Mr. Ilolmes
says (p. 282) that he has been
able to find six of these speci-
mens, all of the type described,
varying only in detail, work-
manship, and finish.

Figs. 204, 205, and 2GG,1 rep-
resent three of these shell gor-
gets. The first was obtained by
Professor Putnam from a stone
grave, Cumberland Biver, Ten-
nessee. It is about 2J inches in diameter and, like the former, it has
a Greek cross in the center. The second was obtained by Mr. Cross
from a stone grave near Nashville, Tenn. The third is from a stone
grave near Oldtown, Tenn. All these have been drilled for suspension
and are much worn.

The trishele, triskelion, or triquetrum.—These are Greek and Latin
terms for the spiral volute with three branches or arms. The coins of
Lycia were in this form, made originally by the junction of three cocks’
heads and necks. The armorial bearings of the island of Sicily, in
ancient times, consisted of three human legs joined at the thigh and
flexed, sometimes booted and spurred (p. 873).

Aboriginal shell gorgets have been found in the mounds of Tennes-
see and the adjoining country, which were engraved with this design,
though always in spiral form. There seems to have been no distinction

1 Second Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 59.

SHELL (JOKOET FROM TENNESSEE.

Square figure -with ornamental corners and tends of
ivory-billed woodpecker arranged to form a figure
resembling the Swastika.
 THE SWASTIKA.

909

in the direction of the volutes, they turning indifferently to the right
or to the left. Because of their possible relation to the Swastika it has
been deemed proper to introduce them.

Fig. 267 1 shows a Fulgur shell specimen obtained by Major Powell
from a mound near Nashville, Tenn.. It was found near the head of a
skeleton. Its substance is well preserved; the surface was once highly
polished, but now is pitted by erosion and discolored by age. The
design is engraved on the concave surface as usual, and the lines are

Fig. 267.

SCALLOPED SHELL DISK (FUL(iUK) FROM A MOUND NEAR NASHVILLE, TENN.
Three spiral volutes (triskeliou).

accurately drawn and clearly cut. The central circle is three-eighths of
an inch in diameter and is surrounded by a zone one-half an inch in
width, which contains a triskeliou or triquetrum of three voluted lines
beginning near the center of the shell on the circumference of the inner
circle of three small equidistant perforations, and sweeping outward spi-
rally to the left as shown in the figure, making upward of half a revolu-
tion. These lines are somewhat wider and more deeply engraved than

1 Second Ann. liep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, p. 273, pi. 51.
 910

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

the other lines of the design. In some specimens they are so deeply cut
as to penetrate the disk, producing crescent-shaped perforations. Two
medium-sized perforations for suspension have been made near the
inner margin of one of the bosses next the dotted zone; these show
abrasion by the cord of suspension. These perforations, as well as the
three near the center, have been bored mainly from the convex side of
the disk.

Fig. 2G81 represents a well-preserved disk with four volute arms form-
ing the tetraskelion, and thus allied to the Swastika. The volutes (to

the right) are deeply cut and for about one-third their length pene- |
tratc the shell, producing four crescent-shaped perforations which show j
on the opposite side. This specimen is from a stone grave near Nash-
ville, Tenn., and the original is in the Peabody Museum. Fig. 269*
shows a specimen from the Brakebill mound, near Knoxville, Tenn. It
has a dot in the center, with a circle five-eighths of an inch in .diame-
ter. There are four volute arms which start from the opi>osite sides of

1 Second Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, pi. 55, fig. 1.

3 Ibid., pi. 55, fig. 2.
 THE SWASTIKA.

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911

Fig. 269.

SHELL DISK FROM I5RAKEBILL MOUND, NEAR KNOXVILLE, TENN.

Dot and circle in center and ogee Swastika (tetraskelion) marked but not completed.

Three-arlned volute (triskelion).
 912

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

this circle, and in their spiral form extend to the right across the field,
increasing in size as they approach the periphery. This is an inter-
esting specimen of the tetraskelion or spiral Swastika, in that it is

unfinished, the outline

heen cut in the shell sufficient
to indicate the form, hut not per-
fected. Figs. 270 and 271 show
obverse and reverse sides of the
same shell. It comes from one of
the stone graves of Tennessee, and
is thus described by Dr. Joseph
Jones, of Jscw Orleans,1 as a spec-
imen of the deposit and original
condition of these objects:

In a carefully constructed stone sar-
cophagus in which the face of the skel-
eton was looking toward the setting
sun, a beautiful shell ornament was
found resting upon the breastbone of
the skeleton. This shell ornament is
4.4 inches in diameter, and it is orna-
mented on its concave surface with a
small circle in the center and four concentric bands, differently figured, in relief.
The first band is filled up by a triple volute; the second is plain, while the third is
dotted and has nine small round bosses carved at unequal distances upon it. The
outer band is made up of fourteen
small elliptical bosses, the outer
edges of which give to the object a
scalloped rim. This ornament, on
its concave figured surface, has been
covered with red paint, much of
which is still visible. The convex
smooth surface is highly polished
and plain, with the exception of the
three concentric marks. The mate-
rial out of which it is formed was
evidently derived from a large flat
seashell. *   *   * The form of the

circles or “suns” carved upon the
concave surface is similar to that of
the paintings on the high rocky cliffs
on the banks of the Cumberland and
Harpeth rivers. *   *   * This or-

nament when found lay upon the
breastbone with the concave surface
uppermost, as if it had been worn in
this position suspended around the
neck, as the two holes for the thong
or string were in that portion of the border which pointed directly to the chin or cen-
tral portion of the jaw of the skeleton. The marks of the thong by which it was
suspended are manifest upon both the anterior and posterior surfaces, and, in addition
to this, the paint is worn off from the circular space bounded below by the two holes.

Laving

ENGRAVED SHELL DISK.
Tennessee.

Three-armed volute (triskelion).

ENGRAVED SHELL DISK.
Tennessee.

Three-armed volute (triskelion).

Second Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, p. 276, pi. 56, figs. 1, 2.
 THE SWASTIKA.

913

Fig. 271 represents tlie hack or convex side of the disk shown in
fig. 270. The long curved lines indicate the laminations of the shell,
and the three crescent-shaped figures near the center are perforations

resulting from the deep en-
graving of the three lines of
the volute on the concave side.
The stone grave in which this
ornament was found occupied
the summit of a mound on the
banks of the Cumberland Hi ver,
opposite ^Nashville, Tenn.

Figs. 272, 273, and 274 are
other representations of shell
carved in spirals, and may
have greater or less relation
to the Swastika.1 They are
inserted for comparison and
without any expression of opin-
ion. They are drawn in out-
line, and the spiral form is thus
more easily seen.

Mr. Holmes1 2 makes some ob-
servations upon these designs
and gives his theory concerning their use:

I do not assume to interpret these designs; they are not to he interpreted. All I
desire is to elevate these works from the category of trinkets to what I believe is
their rightfnl place—the serious art
of a people with great capacity for
loftier works. What the gorgets
themselves were, or of what partic-
ular value to their possessor, aside
from simple ornaments, must he, in
a measure, a matter of conjecture.

They were hardly less than the to-
I terns of clans, the insignia of rulers, or
the potent charms of the priesthood.

The spider.—The spider was
represented on the shell gor-
gets. Figs. 275 to 2783 present
four of these gorgets, of which
figs. 275 to 277 display the
Greek cross in the center, sur-
rounded by two concentric in-
cised lines forming a circle which

. ...... n   . .   -r-,.   Figure representing a spiiler: circles ami Greek crosses.

is the body of a spider. Fig. 27G p

shows the same spider and circle, and inside of it a cross much resem-

1   Op. cit., p. 276, pi. 56, figs. 3, 5, 6.

2   Op. cit., p. 281.

3Second Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, pi. 61.

n. Mis. 90. Dt. 2-----58

Tennessee.

Tliree-armecl volute (ti’iskelion).
 1

914

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

1'ig. 27ti.

KNCKAYEI) SHELL

bling the Swastika, in that the arms are turned at their extremities to
the right and form, in an inchoate manner, the gamma. Fig. 278 rep-
resents the shell with
the spider, and, though
it contains no cross nor
semblance of the Swas-
tika, derives its value
from having been taken
from the same mound
on Fains Island, Ten-
nessee, as was the true ,
Swastika. (Seefig.237.)

The rattlesnake.—The
rattlesnake was a fa-
vorite design on these
gorgets, affording, as it
did, an opportunity for
the aborigines to make
a display of elegance of
design, and of accuracy
and fineness in execu-
tion. Fig. 279 is a spec-
imen in which the snake is represented coiled, the head in the center,
the mouth V-shaped in strong lines, the body in volute fashion; on the
outside of the circle
the tail is shown by
its rattle.. This speci-
men is represented
three-fourths size, and
comes from McMahon
mound, Tennessee.

Four others of similar
design are also from
Tennessee and the ad-
joining States, but the
locality is more re-
stricted than is the
case with other shell
disk ornaments.

The human faee and
form. — These were
also carved and
wrought upon shells
in the same general
locality. The engrav-
ing is always on the

convex side of the shell which has been reduced to a pear-shaped form.1

Fig.277.

ENGRAVED SHELL GORGET.

1 Second Aim. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pis. 69-73.
 THE SWASTIKA.

915

ENGRAVED SHELL GORGET.

Fains Island, Tennessee.

* Fig. 279. *

ENGRAVED SHELL GORGET REPRESENTING A RATTLESNAKE.

McMahon Mound, Tennessee.

Second Annual Rejiort of the Jiureau of Ethnology, 1>1. lxiii.
 916

REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1&94.



These human faces and forms (tigs. 2S0-2S8), as well as the others,
belong to the mound builders, and are found with their remains in the
mounds. The figures are inserted, as is the rattlesnake, for compari-

ENUKAVEU Ml ELLS WITH REPRESENTATIONS OK THE HUMAN FACE.

McMahon Mound, Tennessee.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pi. lxix.

Tennessee.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pi. lxix.

son with the shell designs and work shown in the Biuldlia figure
(pi. 10) and its associates. Slight inspection will show two styles,
differing materially. To decide wdiicli was foreign and which domestic,
 THE SWASTIKA.

917

ENGRAVED SHELLS WITH REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HUMAN FACE.

Virginia

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pi. i.xix.

Fig. 286.

ENGRAVED SHELL WITH REPRESENTATION OF A HUMAN FIGURE

McMahon Mound, Tennessee.

Second Aunual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pi. lxxi.
 918

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

wlii<ili was imported and wliieli indigenous, would be to decide the entire
question of migration, and if done off-hand, would be presumptuous.
To make a satisfactory decision will require a marshaling and consid-
eration of evidence which belongs to the future. The specimens shown

Tennessee.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Kthnolo^y, pi. t.xxii.

in figs. 280 to 285 are from Tennessee and Virginia. They are all masks,
bearing representations of the human face. The first two are from the
McMahon mound, Tennessee; that in fig. 282 from Brakebill mound,
Tennessee, and that represented in fig. 283 from Lick Creek mound,
Tennessee. The shell shown in fig. 284 is from Aqnia Creek, Virginia,
 THE SWASTIKA.

919

and that in fig. 285 is from a mound in Ely County, Ya. The Avork-
mansliip on these has no resemblance to that on the Buddha figure
(pi. 10), nor does its style compare in any manner therewith.

On the contrary, figs. 280 to 288, representing sketches (unfinished) of
the human figure, from mounds in Tennessee and Missouri, have some
resemblance in style of work, though not in design, to that of the
Buddha and Swastika figures. The first step in execution, after the
drawing by incised lines, seems to have been to drill holes through

Fig. 288.

ENGKAVKD SHELL GORGET WITH REPRESENTATION OF A HUMAN FIGURE.

Missouri.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pi. lxxiii.

the shell at each corner and intersection. The work on the specimen
shown in fig. 286 has progressed further than that on the specimens
shown in figs. 287 and 288. It has twenty-eight holes drilled, all at
corners or intersections. This is similar to the procedure in the Buddha
statue (pi. 10). In fig. 287 the holes have not been drilled, but each
member of the figure has been marked out and indicated by dots in the
center, and circles or half circles incised around them in precisely the
same manner as in both Swastikas (figs. 237 and 238), Avhile fig. 288
continues the resemblance in style of drawing. It has the same peculiar
 920

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

garters or bracelets as the Buddha, the hand is the same as in the
fighting figures (fig. 239), and the implement he holds resembles closely
those in the copper figures (figs. 240 and 241).

DESIGNS ON POTTERY.

Spiral-volute designs resembling the Swastika in general effect are
found on aboriginal mound pottery from the Mississippi Valley. The
Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1882-83,1 shows

Fig. 289.

POTTERY VSSSEL.

Four-armed volute, ogee Swastika (tetraske-
liou).

ArkansUvS.
natural size.

Fig.290.

POTTEKY VESSEL.

Four volutes resembling Swastika
I’ccan Point, Ark.

natural size.

many of these. Fig. 289 represents a teapot-shaped vessel from Ar-
kansas, on the side of which, in incised lines, is shown the small
circle which we saw on the shell disks, and springing from the four
opposite sides are three incised lines, twisting spi-
rally to the right,
forming the four
volutes of the Swas-
tika (tetraskelion)
and coveringthe en-
tire side of the ves-
sel. The same spiral
form of the Swas-
tika is given in fig.
290, a vessel of ec-
centric shape from
Pecan Point, Ark.
The decoration is in
the form of two lines
crossing each other

'Sf'v ?jsfg.

Fig. 291.

POTTERY VESSEL MADE IN THE FORM OF AN ANIMAL.
Spiral volutes, nine arms,
recan Point, Ark.

,'j natural size.

and each arm then
twisting to the
right, forming volutes, the incised lines of which, though drawn close

1 Figs. 402, 413, 415, 416.
 THE SWASTIKA.

921

together and at equal distances, gradually expand until the ornament
covers the entire side of the vase. It is questionable whether this or
any of its kindred were ever intended to represent either the Swastika
or any other specific form of the cross.

One evidence of this is that these orna-
ments shade off indefinitely until they ar-
rive at a form which was surely not intended
to represent any form of the cross, whether
Swastika or not. The line of separation
is not now suggested by the author. An
elaboration of the preceding forms, both of
the vessel and its ornamentation, is shown
by the vessel represented in fig. 291, which
is fashioned to represent some grotesque
beast with horns, expanding nostrils, and
grinning mouth, yet which might serve as
a teapot as well as the former two vessels.

The decoration upon its side has six incised lines crossing each other
in the center and expanding in volutes until they cover the entire side
of the vessel, as in the other specimens. Fig. 292 shows a pot from

Arkansas. Its body is
decorated with incised
lines arranged in much
the same form as fig.
291, except that the
lines make no attempt
to form a cross. There
are nine arms which
springfrom the central
point and twist spi-
rally about as volutes
until they cover the
field, which is one-
third the body of the
bowl. Two other de-
signs of the same kind
complete the circuit of
the pot and form the
decoration all around.
Fig. 2931 represents
these volutes in incised
lines of considerable
fineness, close to-
gether, and in great
numbers, forming a decoration on each of the sides of the vase, sepa-
rated by three nearly perpendicular lines.

1 Third Ann. liep. Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 157,

Fig.292.

POTTERY BOWL ORNAMENTED WITH
MANY-ARMED VOLUTES.
Arkansas.

bj natural size.
 922

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

The spiral Swastika, form appears painted upon the pottery from
Arkansas. The specimen shown in fig. 2941 is a tripod bottle. The
decoration upon the side of the body consists of two lines forming the
cross, and the four arms expand in volutes until the ornament covers
one-third of the vessel, which, with the other two similar ornaments,
extend around the circumference. This decoration is painted in red
and white colors on a gray or yellowish ground. Fig. 295 shows a bowl
from mound Xo. 2, Thorn’s farm, Taylor Shanty group, Mark Tree,

ViS.294.

TlilPOl) I'OTTKKY VASK.
volutes making spiral Swastika.

Arkansas.

natural size.

Poinsett County, Ark. It-is ten inches wide and six inches high. The
clay of which it is made forms the body color—light gray. It has been
painted red or maroon on the outside without any decoration, while on
the inside is painted with the same color a five-armed cross, spirally
arranged in volutes turning to the right. The center of the cross is at
the bottom of the bowl, and the painted spiral lines extend over the
bottom and up the sides to the rim of the bowl, the interior being

1 Fourth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1882-83, iig. 442.
 THE SWASTIKA.

923

entirely covered with the design. Another example of the same style
of decoration is seen on the upper surface of an ancient vase from the
province of Cibola.1

The specimen shown in fig. 29G is from the mound at Arkansas Post,
in the county and State of Arkansas.1 2 It represents a vase of black
ware, painted a yellowish ground, with a red spiral scroll. Its diam-

Fig.295.

POTTERY ROWE WITH FIVE-ARMED SPIRAL SWASTIKA OX TIlE ROTTOM.

Poinsett County, Ark.

Cat. No. 114035, U. S. X. M.

eter is inches. These spiral figures are not uncommon in the
localities heretofore indicated as showing the normal Swastika. Pigs.
297 and 2983 show parallel incised lines of the same style as those

1 Fourth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1882-83, p. 313, fig. 331.

2Third Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82, fig. 105.

»Ibid., pp. 502, 503, figs. 186, 189.
 924

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

forming the square in the bird gorgets already noted (figs. 2G3-2G7).
Fig. 297 shows a bowl
nine inches in diameter;
its rim is ornamented
with the head and tail
of a conventional bird,
which probably served
as handles. On the out-
side, just below the rim,
are the four incised par-
allel lines mentioned.

In the center of the side
is represented a rolling
under or twisting of the
lines, as though it repre-
sented a ribbon. There
are three on each quar-
ter of tliebowl, that next
the head being plain.

Fig. 298 represents a
bottle GJ inches in di-
ameter, with parallel
incised lines, three in
number, with the same
twisting or folding of
the ribbon like decora-
tion. This twists to the left, while that of fig. 297 twists in the oppo-
site direction. Both specimens are from the vicinity of Charleston, Mo.

Fig. 296.

VESSEL. OP BLACK WARE.
Spiral scroll.
Arkansas.

DESIGNS ON BASKETRY.

The volute form is particularly adapted to the
decoration of basketry, of which fig. 299 is a

Fig. 297.

BIRD-SHAPED POTTERY BOWL.

Three parallel incised lines with ribbon fold.
Charleston, Mo.

specimen. These motifs were favorites with the Pueblo Indians of
New Mexico and Arizona.
 THE SWASTIKA.

925

Fig. 298.

POTTERY BOWL.

Three parallel incised lines with ribbon fold.
Charleston, Mo.

Fig. 299.

BASKETWOR1C WITH MANY-ARMED VOLUTES.

Ennrtl. innn.l   U------C   ___ .«r
 926

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

IV.—Tiie Cross Among- the American Indians.

DIFFERENT FORMS.

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The foregoing specimens are sufficient evidence of the existence of
the Swastika among the aboriginal North Americans during the mound-
building period, and although there may be other specimens of the
Swastika to be reported, yet we might properly continue this investi-
gation for the purpose of determining if there be any related forms of
the cross among the same peoples. This is done without any argument

Creek eross with incised lines resembling a Swastika.
Union County, 111.

as to the use of these designs beyond that attributed to them. The
illustrations and descriptions are mainly collected from objects in and
reports of the IJ. S. National Museum and the Bureau of Ethnology.

THE CROSS ON OBJECTS OF SHELL AND COPPER.

The shell gorget presented in fig. 300 belongs to the collection of Mr.
F. M. Perrine, and was obtained from a mound in Union County,
111. It is a little more than three inches in diameter and has been
ground to a uniform thickness of about one-twelfth of an inch. The
surfaces are smooth and the margin carefully rounded and polished.
 THE SWASTIKA.

927

Near the upper edge are two perforations, botli well worn with cord-
marks indicating suspension. The cross in the center of the concave
face of the disk is quite simple and is made by four triangular perfora-
tions which separate the arms. The face of the cross is ornamented
with six carelessly drawn incised lines interlacing in the center as
shown in the figure, three extending along the arm to the right and
three passing down the lower arm to the inclosing line. Nothing has
been learned of the character of the interments with which this speci-

ENGRAVED SHELL GORGET.

Greek cross.

Charleston, Mo.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pi. 1,1, fig. 2.

men was associated.1 The incised lines of the specimen indicate Inc
possible intention of the artist to make the Swastika. The design i»
evidently a cross and apparently unfinished.

The National Museum possesses a large shell cross (fig. 301) which,
while quite plain as a cross, has been much damaged, the rim that
formerly encircled it, as in the foregoing figure, having been broken
away and lost. The perforations are still in evidence. The specimen

1 Second. Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, p. 271, pi. 51, fig. 1.
 928

REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

Fig. 302.

EIJ. GORGET AVITH ENGRAVING OK GREEK CROSS ANI)
INCHOATE SWASTIKA.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1>1. 1.11, fig. 3.

is much decayed and came to the National Museum with a skull from
a grave at Charleston, Mo. $ beyond this there is no record. The speci-
men shown in fig. 302 is quoted
as a “typical example of the
cross of the mound-builder.”
It was obtained from a mound
on Lick Creek, Tennessee, and
is in the Peabody .Museum,
Cambridge, Mass. While an
elaborate description is given
of it and figures are mentioned
as “devices probably signifi-
cant,” and “elementary or un-
finished,” and more of the same,
yet nowhere is suggested any
relationship to the Swastika,
nor even the possibility of its
existence in America.

A large copper disk from an
Ohio mound is represented in
fig. 303. It is in the Natural History Museum of New York. It is eight
inches in diameter, is very thin, and had suffered greatly from corro-
sion. A symmetrical cross,
the arms of which are five
inches in length, has been
cut out of the center. Two
concentric- lines have been
impressed in the plate, one
near the margin and the
other touching the ends of
the cross. Pig. 301 shows
a shell gorget from a mound
on Lick Creek, Tennessee.

It is much corroded and
broken, yet it shows the
cross plainly. There are
sundry pits or dots made
irregularly over the surface,
some of which have perfor-
ated the shell. FI. 19 rep-
resents a recapitulation of
specimens of crosses, thir-
teen in number, “most of
which have been obtained from the mounds or from ancient graves
within the district occupied by the mound-builders. Eight are engraved
upon shell gorgets, one is cut in stone, three are painted upon pottery,

Fig. 303.

FRAGMENT OF COFFER DISK WITH GREEK CROSS IN INNER CIRCLE.
Ohio.

American Museum of Xatviral History, New York City.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pi. lit, fig. 4.
 
 EXPLANATION OF PLATE 19.

t 2   8

4   5

8

10 11   12 13

Various Forms of Crosses in use among North American Indians, from Greek Cross

      to Swastika.   
Fig. 1.   Greek Cross.   Fig. 8.   Greek Cross.
o   Greek Cross.   9.   Latix Cross (Copper).
3.   Cross ox Copper.   10.   Swastika ox Shell.
4.   Cross ox Shell.   11.   Swastika ox Shell.
5.   Greek Cross.   12.   Swastika ox Pottery.
G.   Greek Cross.   13.   Swastika ox Pottery.
7.   Latix Cross (Copper,.      
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.

Plate 19.

Various Forms of Crosses in use Among North American Indians, from Greek Cross

to Swastika.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, PI. liii.
 I

I

I
 THE SWASTIKA.

929

and four are executed upon copper. With two exceptions, they are
inclosed in circles, and hence are symmetrical Greek crosses, the
ends being rounded to con-
form to a circle.”1 Figs. 7
and 9 of pi. 19 represent forms
of the Latin cross, and are
modern, having doubtless
been introduced by European
priests. Figs. 10 to 13 are
representatives of the Swas-
tika in some of its forms.

TheU. S. National Museum
possesses a small shell orna-
ment (fig. 305) in the form of
a cross, from Lenoir’s burial
place, Fort Defiance, Cald-
well County, N. C., collected
by Dr. Spainhour and Mr.

Rogan, the latter being an
employe of the Bureau of
Ethnology. It is in the form
of a Greek cross, the four
arms crossing at right angles
and being of equal length.

The arms are of the plain shell, while they are brought to view by the

field being cross-hatched. The speci-
men has, unfortunately, been broken,
and being fragile has been secured in
a bed of plaster.

This and the foregoing specimens
have been introduced into this paper
that the facts of
their existence
may be pre-
sented for con-
sideration, and
to aid in the
determination
whether the
cross had any
peculiar or par-
ticular meaning.

The questions

involuntarily arise, Was it a symbol with a hid-
iden meaning, religious or otherwise; was it the * II.

Fig. 304.

ENGRAVED SHELL DISK GORGET.

Rude cross -with many dots.

Lick Creek, Term.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pi. 52, fig. 2.

ENGRAVED SHELL

WITH FIGURE OF
CROSS.

Caldwell County, X. C.

Oat. No. 3:’. I fill, IT. S. N. M.

Fig.306.

ENGRAVED SHELL WITHTHREE-
ARMED CROSS (TRISKELION).

Lick Creek, Tenn.

Cat. No. 83170, U. S. N. M.

1 Second Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, pp. 272,273.

II. Mis. 90, pt. 2---59
 930

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

totem of a clan, the insignia of a ruler, the charm of a priesthood, or did
it, with all the associated shell engravings, belong to the category oJ
trinkets! These questions maybe partially answered in the section on
the meanings given to the cross by the i^ortli American Indians (p. 933).

There is also introduced, as bearing on the
question, another shell ornament (tig. 30G).
the style, design, and workmanship of which
has such resemblance to the foregoing that
if they had not been (as they were) found
together we would be compelled to admit tlieii
identity of origin, yet the latter specimen hafc
but three arms
instead of four.

This might take
it out of the cat-
egory of crosses
as a symbol of
any religion of
which we have
knowledge. Many of the art objects in
shell heretofore cited were more or less
closely associated; they came from the
same neighborhood and were the results
ot the same excavations, conducted by

the same

Fig. 307.

DRILLED AND ENGRAVED SHELL
“KUNTEE.”

Dotted < i

>ek cross and
Arizona.

?in-1.

e x e a v a
tors. 1 n
determinin

DRILLED AND ENGRAVED SHELL OR
“RUNTEE.”

Dots and rings forming circle and
(.rook cross.

Ohio.

the culture status of their
makers, they must be taken together.

When we consider the variety of the
designs which were apparently without
meaning except for ornamentation, like

the circles, meanders, zigzags, chev-

rons.

, herringbones, ogees, frets, etc.,
and the representations of animals
such as were used to decorate the pipes
of the aborigines, not alone the bear,
wolf, eagle, and others which might be
a totem and represent a given clan,
but others which, according to our
knowledge and imagination, have never
served for such a purpose, as the man-
atee, beaver, wildcat, heron, finch, sparrow, crow, raven, cormorant,
duck, toucan, goose, turkey, buzzard, cardinal, parroquet, conies,
lizard; when we further consider that the cross, whether Greek, Latin,
or Swastika form, is utterly unlike any known or possible totem of elan,
insignia of ruler, or potent charm of priesthood $ when we consider

DRILLED AND ENGRAVED SHELL OR “RUNTI
Dots and rings forming circle and Or
cross.

New York.
 THE SWASTIKA.

931

these things, why should we feel ourselves compelled to accept these
signs as symbols of a hidden meaning, simply because religious sects in
different parts of the world and at different epochs of history have
chosen them or some of them to represent their peculiar religious ideas?
This question covers much space in geography and in time, as well as
on paper. It is not answered here, because no answer can be given
which would be accepted as satisfactory, but it may serve as a track
or indication along which students and thinkers might pursue their
investigations.

The U. S. National Museum possesses a necklace consisting of three
shell ornaments, interspersed at regular intervals with about fifty small
porcelain beads (fig.307).1 It avus obtained by Capt. George M. Whipple
from the Indians of New Mexico. These shell ornaments are similar to
objects described by Beverly in his work on the “ History of Virginia,”
page 145, as “runtecs” and “made of the conch shell; only the shape
is flat as a cheese and drilled edgewise.” It is to be remarked that on
its face as Avell as on figs. 308 and 3091 appears a cross of the Greek
form indicated by these peculiar indentations or drillings inclosed in a

small circle. The specimen shown
in fig. 308 is from an ancient grave
in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and that
shown in fig. 309 from an Indian
cemetery at Onondaga, N. V. Similar
specimens have been found in the
same localities.

THE CROSS ON L’OTTERY.

Fig. 310 shows a small globular
cup of dark ware from the vicinity of
Charleston, Mo.; height, 2£ inches;
width, 3J inches. It has four large
nodes or projections, and between
them, painted red, are four orna-
mental circles, the outside one of which is scalloped or rayed, while the
inside one bears the figure of a Greek cross. The specimen shown in
fig. 311 (Cat. No. 47197, U.S.N.M.) is a medium-sized decorated olla with
scalloped margin, from New Mexico, collected by Colonel Stevenson.
It has two crosses—one Greek, the other Maltese—both inclosed in
circles and forming centers of an elaborate, fanciful, sliield-like decora-
tion. In fig. 312 (Cat. No. 39518, U.S.N.M.) is shown a Cocliiti painted
water vessel, same collection, showing a Maltese cross.

Dozens of other specimens are in the collections of tlieU. S. National
Museum which would serve to illustrate the extended and extensive

1 Schoolcraft, “History of the Indian Tribes,” in, pi.25; Second Aim. Rep. Jlureau
of Ethnology, 1880-81, pi. 30.

Fig. 310.

POTTERY JAR WITH CROSSES, ENCIRCLING RAYS
ANU SCALLOPS.
 932

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894,

Pig.312.

POTTERY AVATER ArESSEL.

Maltese cross.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 642.
 Report of National Museum, 1894.—Wilson.

Plate 20.

Palenque Cross, Foliated.

Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. xxn, fig. 7.

(
 
 THE SWASTIKA.

use of the cross in great variety of forms, so that no argument as to
either the meaning or the extent of the cross can be based on the sup-
position that these are the only specimens. Fig. 313 (Cat. Ho. 132975,
IJ.S.H.M.) shows a vase from Mexico, about 8 inches high, of fine red
ware, highly polished, with an elaborate decoration. Its interest here
is the Maltese cross represented on each side, with a point and concen-
tric circles, from the outside of which are projecting rays. This may be
the symbol of the sun, and if so, is shown in connection with the cross.
This style of cross, with or without the sun symbol, is found in great
numbers in Mexico—as, for example, the
great cross, pi. 20, from the temple at
Palenque.1

SYMBOLIC MEANINGS OF THE CROSS-

It would be an excellent thing to dissect
and analyze the Swastika material we
have found; to generalize and deduce from
it a possible theory as to the origin, spread,
and meaning of the Swastika and its re-
lated forms, and endeavor, by examination*
of its associated works, to discover if these
were religious symbols or charms or mere
decorations; and, following this, determine
if possible whether the spread of these
objects, whatever their meaning, was the
result of migration, contact, or communi-
cation. Were they the result of similar^
but independent, operations of the human/
mind, or were they but duplicate in veil-(
tions, the result of parallelism in lmmaiy'
thought? This investigation must neeesA
sarily be theoretical and speculative. The)
most that the author proposes is to sug-
gest probabilities and point the way for
further investigation. He may theorize
and speculate, but recognizes what many persons seem not able to
do—that speculation and theory are not to be substituted for cold facts.
He may do no more than propound questions from which other men,
by study, experience, philosophy, or psychology, may possibly evolve
some general principle, or a theory pointing to a general principle, con-
cerning the mode of extension and spread of culture among separate
and independent peoples. When the facts shall have been gathered,
marshaled, arranged side by side, and each aggregation of facts shall
have been weighed, pro and con, and its fair value given uwithout

Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, p. 33, pi. 14, fig, 7.

Fig. 313.

POTTERY VASE FINELY DECORATED IN
REI) AND WHITE GLAZE.
Maltese cross with sun symbol (?).
Cat. No. 132975, IT. S. X. M.
 934

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

prejudice or preconceived opinion,” then will be time enough to an-
nounce the final conclusion, and even then not dogmatically, but tenta-
tively and subject to future discoveries.

Throughout this paper the author has sought but little more than to
prepare material on the Swastika which can be utilized by those who
come after him in the determination of the difficult and abstruse prob-
lems presented.

It is rare in the study of arclueology and,.indeed, in any science, that
a person is able to assert a negative and say what does not exist. The
present investigations are rendered much more comprehensive by the
appearance of the extensive and valuable work of Col. Garrick Mallery
in the Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, on the subject
of u Picture Writing of the American Indians.” It
is a work of about 800 pages, with 1,300 illustra-
tions, and is the result of many years of laborious
study. It purports to be a history, more or less
p4 ®   ^7 complete, of the picture writing, signs, symbols,

totems, marks, and messages of the American In-
dian, whether pictographs or petroglyphs. A large
portion of his work is devoted to ideography, con-
ventional signs, syllabaries and alphabets, homo-
roplis and symmorophs, and their respective means
of interpretation. Among these he deals, not spe-
cifically with the Swastika, but in general terms
with the cross. Therefore, by looking at Colonel
Mallory’s work upon this chapter (p. 721), one is able to say negatively
what has not been found.

Apropois* of the meanings of the cross among the North American
Indians Count Goblet d’Alviella savs:1


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Fig.314.

GREEK CROSS REPRESENTING
WINDS FROM CARDINAL
POINTS.

Dakota Indians.

Tenth Animal R<port of the Rureaii
of Ethnology, tiff. 1255.

It is nevertheless incontestable that the pre-Columbian cross of America is a
“rose des vents” representing the four directions whence comes the rain, or the cardi-
nal points of the compass, etc., etc.

Colonel Mallory’s volume shows that it meant many other things as
well.

The four tv bids.—The Greek cross is the form found by Colonel
Mallery to be most common among the North American aborigines,
possibly because it is the simplest. In this the four arms are equal in
length, and the sign placed upright so that it stands on one foot and
not on two, as does the St. Andrew’s cross. The Greek cross (fig. 314)
represents, among the Dakotas, the four winds issuing out of the
four caverns in which souls of men existed before the incarnation of
the human body. All the medicine men—that is, conjurors and magi-
cians—recollect their previous dreamy life in these places, and the
instructions then received from the gods, demons, and sages; they recol-
lect and describe their preexistent life, but only dream and speculate
as to the future life beyond the grave. The top of the cross is the cold,

“La Migration des Symboles/’ p. 18.
 THE SWASTIKA.

935

all-conquering giant, the North Wind, most powerful of all. It is worn
on the body nearest the head, the seat of intelligence and conquering
devices. The left arm covers the heart; it is the East Wind, coming
from the seat of life and love. The foot is the melting, burning South

Sun symbols (?).

Tenth Annual Report of the Ihireau of Ethnology, figs. Ills, Had, llail.

Wind, indicating, as it is worn, the seat of fiery passion. The right
arm is the gentle West Wind, blowing from the spirit land, covering
the lungs, from which the breath at last goes out gently, but into
unknown night. The center of the cross is the earth and man, moved
by the conflicting influences of gods and winds.

/   g   h   i   h

Fig. 316.

FIGURES OF CIRCLES AND RAYS PROBABLY REPRESENTING SUN SYMBOLS.

Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, figs. I11N-1121, 112:i.

Rev. John McLain, in his work on the “Blackfoot Sun-dance,v says:
On the sacred pole of the ami lodge of the Blood Indian is a bundle of small
brushwood taken from the birch tree, which is placed in the form of-a cross. This
was an ancient symbol evidencly referring to the four winds.
 936

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

Sun and star symbols.—Great speculation lias been made, both in
Europe and America, over the relation between the Swastika and the
sun, because the two signs have been associated by primitive peoples.

XX

-f- ©

M Hh X

(I   e   /

Fig. 317.

FIGURES OK CROSSES AN1) C IRCLES REPRESENTIN'!} STAR SYMBOLS.

Oakley Springs, Ariz.

Tenth Annual Re]>ort of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. HOT.

Colonel Mallery gives the Indian signs for the sun, stars, and light.1
These have been segregated, and it will be seen that the cross and
circle are used indiscriminately for one and the other,
nJ-V   and the fact of the two being found associated is no evi

/T»   dence of relationship in religious ideas (figs. 315-319).

Dwellings.—Among the Hidatsa, the cross and the circle
represent neither the sun nor any religious ideas, but
merely lodges, houses, or dwellings. The crosses in fig.
319 represent Dakota lodges; the small circles signify
earth lodges, the points representing the supporting
poles. Buildings erected by civilized people were rep-
resented by small rectangular figures, while the circles
a square represent earth lodges, the home of the Hidatsa.

Drayon Jly (Susbeca).—Among some of the Indian tribes, the Dakotas
among others, the Latin cross is found, i. e., upright with three members
of equal length, and thefourth, the foot,
much longer. The use of this sym-
bol antedates the discovery of Amer-

Fig. 318.

STAR SYMBOL.
Circle* and rays
without cross.
Oakle*y Springs,
Ariz.

Tenth Annual Report
of the Bureau of Eth-
nology, fig. 11OT.

with dots in

ica, and is carried

x x

t T

Fig.319.

KICiURKS OK CROSSES, CIRCLES, AND SQUARES
REPRESENTING LODGES
Dakota Indians.

Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, lig. IOT3.

back in tradition
and myth. This
sign signifies the
mosquito hawk or
the dragon fly (fig.

320). It is called in that language the “Susbeca,’7
and is a supernatural being gifted with speech,
warning man of danger, approaching his ear silent-
ly and at right angles, saying, “Tci,” “tci,” “tci,”
an interjection equivalent to “Look out!” “You
are surely going to destruction!” “Look out!”
“Tci,” “tci,” “tci!” The adoption of the dragon fly as a mysterious and

C   (t

Fig.320.

LATIN CROSSES REPRESENT-
ING THE DRAGON FLY.
Dakota Indians.

‘Tenth Aun. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1888-89, figs. 1118-1129.
 THE SWASTIKA.

937

supernaturnal being is on account of its sudden appearance in numbers.
In the still of the evening, when the shades of darkness come, then is
heard in the meadows a sound as of crickets or frogs, but indistinct
and prolonged; on the morrow the Susbeca will be hovering over it.
It is the sound of tlieir coming, but whence no one knows.

The cross not only represents the shape of the insect, but ¥ *<
also the angle of its approach. It is variously drawn, but
usually as in fig. 320 a or &, and, in painting or embroidery,
c, and sometimes d.

Fig. 321 is described in Ream's MS. as follows:

1



Fig. 322

FIGURES OF CROSSES
AS USED BY THE
ESKIMO TO REPRE-
SENT FLOCKS OF
BIRDS.

Tenth Annual Report of
the Bureau of Ethnology,
fig. 1228.

Cat. Nos. 44211 and 4502(1,
U. S. N. .M.

Fig. 321.

DOUBLE CROSS
OF SIX ARMS
REPRESENTING
THE DRAGON
FLY.

Woki Indians,
Arizona.

Tenth Annual Re-
port of the Bureau
of Ethnology, fig.
1165.

This is a conventional design of dragon flies, and is often found
among roek etchings throughout the plateau [Arizona]. The dragon
flies have always been held in great veneration hy the Mokis and
their ancestors, as they have been often sent by
Oman to reopen springs which Muiugwa had de-
stroyed and to confer other benefits upon the people.

This form of the figure, with little vertical lines
added to the transverse lines, connects the Batol-
atei with the Ho-bo-bo emblems. Tho youth who

+   was sacrificed and translated by Ho-bo-bo reap-

peared a long time afterwards, during a season of great drought,
in the form of a gigantic dragon fly, who led the rain clouds over
the lands of Ilo-pi-tu, bringing plenteous rains.

Midc' or Shamans.—Colonel Mallery (or Dr. Hoffman)
tells us (p. 72G) that among the Ojibways of northern
Minnesota the cross is one of the sacred symbols of the
Society of Midc' or Shamans and has special reference
to the fourth degree. The building in which the initia-
tion is carried on has its open-
ing toward the four cardinal
points. The cross is made of saplings, the
upright poles approaching the height of four
to six feet, the transverse arms being some-
what shorter, each being of the same length
as the top; the upper parts are painted white
or besmeared with white clay, over which are
spread small spots of red, the latter suggest-
ing the sacred shell of Mide', the symbol of
the order. The lower arm of the pole is
square, the side toward the east being painted
white to denote the source of light and
warmth; the face on the south is green, de-
noting the source of the thunder bird which
brings the rains and vegetation; the surface
toward the west is covered with vermilion, relating to the land of the
setting sun, the abode of the dead; the north is painted black, as the
direction from which comes affliction, cold, and hunger.

Flocks of birds.—Groups of small crosses on the sides of Eskimo bow

Fig.323.

I’ETROGLYI’H FROM TULARE VAL-
LEY, CALIFORNIA.

Largo white Greek cross.

Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth-
nology, fig. 1229.
 938

RETORT OF NATIONAL

$

drills represent flocks of birds (Oat. Nos. 45020 and 44211, U.S.N.M.).
They are reproduced in fig. 322. Colonel Mallery’s fig. 28, page 07,
represents a cross copied from the Najowe Valley group of colored pic-
tographs, 40 miles west of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, Cal.

The cross measured 20
inches in length, the inte-
rior being painted black
while the border is of a dark
red tint. This design, as
well as others in close con-
nection, is painted on the
walls of a shallow cave or
rock shelter in the lime-
stone formation. Fourteen
miles west of Santa Bar-
bara, on the summit of the
Santa Ynez Mountains, is a



j-

Fig.324.

rETUOGLYPHS FROM OWENS VALLEY, CALIFORNIA.

(a, b) Greek crosses, (c) double Latin cross, (</-/) Latin
crosses representing human figures.

Toiith Animal Report of llte Uureaii of E hnolojry, fly. l’j:sn.

cavern having a large open-
ing west and north, in which
iire crosses of the Greek
type, the interior portion
being painted a dull earthy
red, while the outside line is a faded-black tint. The cross measures
nearly a foot in extent. At the Tulare Indian Agency, Cal., is an
immense bowlder of granite. It has been split, and one of the lower
quarters has been moved sufficiently to leave a passageway six feet
wide and nearly ten feet high. The interior walls are well covered with
large painted figures, while upon the ceilings are numerous forms of
animals, birds, and insects. Among this latter group is
a white cross about 18 inches in length (fig. 323), present-
ing a unique appearance, for the reason that it is the only   I

petroglyph in that region to which the white coloring
matter has been applied.

An interesting example of rock sculpturing in groups
is in Owens Valley, south of Beuton, Cal. Among them
are various forms of crosses, and circles containing crosses
of simple and complex types. The most interesting in
this connection are the groups in fig. 324, a and b. The
larger one, </, occurs upon a large bowlder of tracite 10
miles south of Benton, at the “Chalk grave.’’ The circle
is a depression about one inch in depth, the cross being
in high relief. The small cross b, found three miles north from this is
almost identical, the arms of the cross, however, extending to the rim
of the circle. In this locality occurs also the cross, c, same figure, and
some examples having more than two cross arms.

Human forms.—Other simple crosses represent the human form.

T

Fig. 325.

CROSS JN ZIGZAG
LINES REPRESENT-
ING THE HU3IAN
FORM.

Navajo T udians.
 THE SWASTIKA.

939

Fig.326.

MALTESE CROSS( ?)
REPRESENTING A
WOMAN.

The figuro in the
center is in-
tended to indi-
cate the breath.

Some of these are engraved or cut on the rocks of Owens Valley and
are similar to those above described (fig. 3:24), but they have been
eroded, so that beyond the mere cross they show slight relation to the
human body (fig. 324, d, e, /). Ool. James Stevenson, describing the
Hasjelti ceremony of the Navajoes,1 shows the form of a man drawn in
the sand (fig. 325). Describing the character shown in
fig. 326, Keam says: “The figure represents a woman.

The-breath is displayed in the interior.”2

Maidenhood.—Concerning lig. 327 Keam, in his manu-
script, says the Maltese cross was the emblem of a virgin,
and is still so recognized by the Mold. It is a conven-
tional development of the common emblem of maiden-
hood, wherein the maidens wear their hair arranged as
in a disk three or four inches in diameter on each side
of the head (fig. 327 b). This discoidal arrangement of
the hair is typical of the emblem of fructification worn by
the virgin in the Muingwa festival. Sometimes the hair,
instead of being worn in the complete discoidal form, is dressed upon
two curving twigs, and presents the form of two semicircles upon each
side of the head. The partition of these is sometimes horizontal,
sometimes vertical. The combination of these styles (fig. 327a and b)
present the forms from which the Maltese cross was conventionalized.3

Shamaids spirit.—Among the Kiatexamut
and Innuit tribes, a cross placed on the
head, as in fig. 328, signified a shaman’s
evil spirit or demon. This is an imaginary
being under the control of the
shaman to execute his wishes.4

Divers significations.—The fig-
ure of the cross among the North
American Indians, says Colonel
Mallery,5 has many differing sig-
nifications. It appears “as the tribal sign for Cheyenne”

(p. 383); “as Dakota lodges” (p. 582); “as a symbol for
trade or exchange” (p. 613); “as a conventional sign for
prisoners” (p. 227); “for personal exploits while elsewhere
it is used in simple enumeration ” (p. 348). Although this
device is used for a variety of meanings when it is employed
ceremonially or in elaborate pictographs of the Indians both of North
and South America, it represents the four winds. This view long ago was
suggested as being the signification of many Mexican crosses, and it is

Fig.327.

MALTESE AND SAINT ANDREW'
CROSSES.

Emblems of.maidenhood.
Moki Indians.

f

Fig. 328.

CROSS WITH
BIFURCATED
FOOT.

lTsed by the
Innuits to
represent a
shaman or
evil spirit.

1   Eighth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 283.

2   Tenth Ann. Rep. Bureau, of Ethnology 1888-89, lig. 1165.

3   Ibid., lig. 1232.

4   Ibid., lig. 1231.

5   Ibid., p. 729.
 940

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

sustained by Trot. Cyrus Thomas in his “ Notes on Mayan Mexican
Manuscript,”1 where strong confirmatory evidence is produced by the
arms of the crosses having the appearance of conventionalized wings
similar to some representations of the thunder bird of the northern
tribes; yet the same author, in his paper on the study of the “Troano
Manuscript,”1 2 gives fig. 329 as a symbol for wood, thus further showing
the manifold concepts attached to the general form of the cross. Ban-
delier thinks that the cross so frequently used by the aborigines of
Mexico and Central America were merely ornaments and not objects of
worship, while the so-called crucifixes, like that on the Palenque tablet,
were only the symbol of the “new fire,” or the close of the period of
fifty-two years. He believes them to be representations of the fire drills
more or less ornamented. Zamacois3 says that the cross was used in the
religion of various tribes of the peninsula of Yucatan, and
that it represented the god of rain.

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

Capt. John (I. Bonrke, in his paper on the u Medicine
Men of the Apache”4 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 Guzauutli to
induce her to send rain.”

Fig. 329.

ST. ANDREW’S
CROSSES, USED
AS A SYMBOL
FOR WOOD.

Tenth Annual Re-
port of the Bureau
of Ethnology, fi^.
1233.

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Dr. Brinton5 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 Clerq6 as to the veneration in which the cross was held by
the Gaspesian Indians, also from Herrara to the same effect. Profes-
sor Holmes7 makes some pertinent observations with regard to the
meanings of the cross given by the American Indians:

Some very ingenious theories have been elaborated in attempting to account for
the cross among American symbols. Brinton believes that the great importance
attached to the points of the compass—the four quarters of the heavens—by savage

1   Second Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 61.

2   Contrib. North American Ethnology, v, p. 144.

3   “ Historia de Mexico,” i, p. 238.

4Ninth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1887-88, p.479.

6 “Myths of the New World,” p. 96.

6   “Gaspesi,” London, 1691, pp. 170,172,199.

7   Second Ann. Rep, Bureau of Ethnology, 1880-81, p. 270.
 THE SWASTIKA.

941

peoples, has given rise to the sign of the cross. With others, the cross is a phallic
symbol derived, by some obscure process of evolution, from the veneration accorded
to the procreative principle in nature. It is also frequently associated with sun wor-
ship, and is recognized as a symbol of the sun—the four arms being remaining rays
after a gradual process of elimination. Whatever is finally determined in reference
to the origin of the cross as a religious symbol in America will probably result
from exhaustive study of
the history, language, and
art of the ancient peoples,
combined with a thorough
knowledge of the religious
conceptions of modern
tribes, and when these
sources of information are
all exhausted it is probable
that the writer who asserts
more than a pfobability
will overreach his proofs.

*   *   * A study of the de-

signs associated with the cross in these gorgets [figs. 302-304] is instructive, but
does not lead to any definite result; in one case the cross is inscribed on the back of
a great spider [figs. 275-278]; in another it is surrounded by a rectangular frame-
work of lines, looped at the corners and guarded by four mysterious birds [figs. 263-
266], while in others it is without attendant characters, but the workmanship is
purely aboriginal. I have not seen a single example of engraving upon the shell
that suggested a foreigu hand, or a design, with the exception of this one [a cross],
that could claim a European derivation. *   *   * Such delineations of the cross as

we find embodied in ancient aboriginal art, represent only the final stages of its
evolution, and it is not to be expected that its origin can be traced through them.

Continuing in bis “Ancient Art in Cliiriqui,771 presenting bis “ Series
showing stages in tbe simplification of animal characters,” and “ deri-
vation of tbe alligator,77 Professor Holmes elaborates tbe theory how
] tbe alligator was tbe original, and out of it, by evolution, grew tbe cross.
His language and accompanying figures are quoted: * 1

Of all the animal
forms utilized by the
Chiriquians, the alli-
gator is the best
suited to the purpose
of this study, as it is
presented most fre-
quently and in the
most varied forms.
In figs. 257 and 258
[figs. 330 and 331 in
the present paper] I
reproduce drawings

from the outer surface of a tripod bowl of the lost color group. Simple and

1 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 delinea-
tive skill of the Chiriquian artist. The native painter must have executed very

1 Sixth Ann. Kep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 173 et seq., figs. 257-278.

Fig. 331.

GRAPHIC DELINEATION OF ALLIGATOR.
From a vaso of tlio lost color group.
Cliiriqui.

Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. ‘25N.

Fig.330.

GRAPHIC DELINEATION OF ALLIGATOR.
From a rase of tlio lost color group.
Cliiriqui.

Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. ‘257.
 942

liEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1*9-1.

much superior work upon the more usual delineating surfaces, such as hark and
skins. The examples here shown have already experienced decided changes through
the constraints of the ceramic art, hut are the most graphic delineations preserved
to us. They are free-hand products, executed hy mere decorators, perhaps hy women,
who were servile copyists of the forms employed hy those skilled in sacred art.

A third illustra-
tion from the same
group of ware,
given in fig. 251)
[fig. 332 of the
present paper]
shows, in some re-
spects, a higher
degree of conven-
tion. *   *   *

I shall now call
attention to some
important individ-
ualized or well-
defined agencies
of convention.

First, and most potent, may he mentioned the enforced limits of the spaces to he
decorated, which spares take shape independently of the subject to he inserted.
When the figures must occupy a narrow zone, they arc elongated; when they must
occupy a square, they are restricted longitudinally, and when they occupy a circle,
they arc of necessity coiled np. Fig. 2(55 [fig. 333 of the present paper] illustrates
the etfcct produce
ure into a short rc
turned hack over t
down along the s
[fig. 334 of the pret
a circle and is, in <
giving the effect o
gator. v '?   *

I present five sei



Fig. 334.

CONVENTIONAL. FIGURE
OK ALLIGATOR
CROWDED INTO A CIR-
CLE.

Chiriqui.

Sixth Annual Report of toe
Bureau of Ethnology, fig.

U ti.

inclosed in circles. The animal figure in the first example is coiled np like a
serj|^^ <
;[fig- 334], hut still preserves some of the well-known characters of the
alligator. In the second example [fig. 336 ft] wo have a double hook near the center of
the space which takes the place of the body, hut the dotted triangles are placed sepa-
rately against the encircling line. In the next figure the body symbol is omitted and

d hy crowding the oblong iig-
ctangular space. The head is
lie body and the tail is thrown
ide of the space. In fig. 266
sent paper] t lie figure occupies
•onscqucncc, closely coiled up,

‘ a serpent rather than an alli-

Fig.333.

CONVENTIONAL El G CUE OF ALLIGATOR
CROWDED INTO A SMALL GEOMETRICAL
FIGURE.

Chiriqui.

Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, tig.
•Aio.

ies of figures designed to illus-
trate the stages through
which life forms pass in de-
scending from the realistic to
highly specialized conven-
tional shapes. In the first
series (fig. 277) [fig. 335 of the present paper] we begin with a,
a meager hut graphic sketch of the alligator; the second figure,
ft, is hardly less characteristic, but is much simplified; in the
third, c, avg have still three leadiug features of the creature—
the body line, the spots, and the stroke at the hack of the head ;
and in the fourth, d, nothing remains but a compound yoke-like
curve, standing for the body of the creature, and a siugle dot.

The figures of the second series (fig. 278) [fig. 336 of the
present paper] are nearly all painted upon Ioav, ronnd nodes
placed about the body of the alligator vases, and lienee are

Fig. 332.

CONVENTIONAL FIGURE OF ALLIGATOR.
From :i vessel of the lost color group.
Chiriqui.

Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, tig. V5W.
 943

^THE SWASTIKA.

the three triangles remain to represent the animal. Ill the fourth there are, four trian-
gles, ami the body device being restored in red takes the form of a cross. In the fifth
two of the inclosing triangles are omitted and the idea is preserved by the simple
dots. In the sixth the dots are placed within tlie bars of the cross, tho triangles
becoming mere interspaces, and in tho seventh the dots form a line between the two
encircling lines. This series eould be filled np by other examples, thus showing by



Fig. 335.

c

SERIES OF FIGURES OF ALLIGATORS SHOWING STAGES OF SIMPLIFICATION.

Chiriqui.

Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. ‘.'77.

d

wliat infinitesimal steps the transformations take place. *   *   *

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

Professor Holmes’s theory of the evolution of the eross from the alli-
gator and its location in Chiriqui is opposed to that of Professor Good-

^ FRIES SHOWING STAGES IN THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ANIMAL CHARACTERS, BEGINNING WITH THE ALLI-
GATOR AND ENDING WITH THE GREEK CROSS.

Cliiriqui.

Sixth Annual Rr[x>rt of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. '27^.

year, who, in his “ Grammar of the Lotus,” ascribes the origin of the
eross to the lotus and locates it in Egypt. I tile wliat in law would be
an “interpleader”—I admit my want of knowledge of the subject
under discussion, and leave the question to these gentlemen.
 944

REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

INTRODUCTION OF THE CROSS INTO AMERICA.

Professor Holmes is, in the judgment of the author, correct when he
insists ui)on 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 appear-
ance of the cross. Professor Holmes1 says:

The first explorers were accompanied hy 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.

Tliore 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 possi-
ble that the priests and explorers were, like Colonel Mallery’s mission-
ary, 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,”1 2 states the myth of the re-creation of the world
uas 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 IRblical story of the birth of Christ.

And on the same page he quotes from IY*rc Marquette, who says:

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

Marquette [comments Dr. Hoffman] was, without doubt, ignorant of the fact that
the cross is the sacred post, and the symbol of the fourth degree of the Mide'wiwin,
as is fully explained in connection with that grade of society. The erroneous conclu-
sion 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 Piver 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

1 Second Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 269.

2Seventh Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 155.
 THE SWASTIKA.

945

Illinois—produce the fewest number of aboriginal crosses. Tills was
the country explored by Fathers Marquette, Lasalle, and Hennepin,
and it was the scene of most of the Catholic missionary labors. Pro-
fessor Holmes seems to have recognized this fact, for he says:1

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 them-
selves 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 charac-
teristic of the same district.

The author agrees heartily with Professor Holmes’s argument in this
matter, and his eonelusion, when he says of these objects (p. 270):

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

There have been numerous European or Catholic crosses, as well as
many other objects of European manufacture or objects of civilized
types, found among the Indians. There have been silver crosses found
witli images of the Virgin thereon, with Putin inscriptions, or of Homan
letters; there have been glass beads, iron arrowheads, and divers other
objects found in Indian graves which bore indubitable evidence of con-
| tact with the whites, and no one 'with any archaeological experience
i 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
witli intent to deceive. In such eases 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 examides, and, possibly, King Philip.
Indian graves have been opened in New England and New York con-
taining the gun or firelock of the occupant of the grave buried witli
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 foun-
? dation and inadmissible.

1 Second Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p.269.

H. Mis. 90, pt,. 2---60
 94(j

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1891.

DECORATIVE FORMS NOT OF THE CROSS, BUT ALLIED TO THE

SWASTIKA.

COLOR STAMPS FROM MEXICO AND VENEZUELA.

The aborigines of Mexico and Central and South America employed
terra-cotta color stamps, which, being made into the proper pattern in

Fig. 337.   Fig. 338.

Fig.342.

TERRA-COTTA COLOR STAMPS WITH DESIGNS SIMILAR TO THE SWASTIKA.
Mexico.

Cat. Nos. 99124, 99127, 27S*7, 99115, 9911,9, 99122, IT. S. N. M.

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
 THE SWASTIKA.

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its color, as in tlie mechanical operation of printing, thus giving the
intended decoration. Patterns of these stamps are inserted in this
paper in connection with the Swastika because of the resemblance—not
in form, but in style. They are of geometric form, crosses, dots, circles
(concentric and otherwise), lozenges, chevrons, fret, and labyrinth or
meander. The style of this decoration lends itself easily to the Swas-
tika; 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 Swas-
tikas shown. Of the
foregoing figures, all
are from Tlaltelolco,

Mexico (Blake collec-
tion), except fig. 339,
which is from the Val-
ley of Mexico, and was
received from the Mu-
i   seoNacional of Mexico.

' Marcano says:1

The present Piaroas of
Venezuela are in the habit
I of painting their bodies by
a process different from
that of the North American
Indian. They make stamps
of wood, which, being col-
ored (as types are with ink),
they apply to their bodies.

Fig. 982 shows examples of
these stamps. [See ffg. 343 of the present paper.] The designs are substantially
the same as some petroglyphs. They either copied the models they found carved
on the rocks by peoples who preceded them, or they knew the meaning and preserved
the tradition. The former is the only tenable hypothesis. Painting is to the Piaroas
both ornamentation and necessity. It serves, not only as a garment to protect them
against insects, but becomes a fancy costume to grace their feasts and meetings.

These designs are not presented as Swastikas nor of any evolution
or derivation from one. They show a style common enough to Central
and South America, to the Antilles and the Canary Islands,2 which
might easily produce a Swastika. The aboriginal designer of these
might, if we depend upon the theory of psychological similarity of cul-
ture among all peoples, at his next attempt make a Swastika. Yet,
with the hundreds of similar patterns made during the centuries of
I aboriginal occupation and extending throughout the countries named,

! none of these seem ever to have produced a Swastika.

i •Mem. Soe. d’Antlirop., Paris, 1890, p. 200.

2De Quatrefages, “Histoire GemSralo du liaces llumaines,” Introduction, p. 239,

' figs, W-m, 193-194.

Fig. 343.

TERRA-COTTA COLOR STAMPS WITH DESIGNS SIMILAR TO THE
SWASTIKA.

Piaroa Indians, Venezuela.

Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fit;.
 948

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1891.

V.—Significance of the 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:

I.   As a symbol—

1,   of a religion,

2,   of a nation or people,

3,   of a sect with peculiar tenets;

II.   As an amulet or charm—

1,   of good luck, or fortune, or long life,

2,   of benediction, or blessing,

3,   against the evil eye;

III.   As an ornament or decoration.

It may have been (1) originally discovered or invented by a given
people in a given country, and transmitted from one generation to the
next, passing by migration from one country to another, and it may
have been transmitted by communication to widely separated countries
and among differently cultured peoples; or (2) it may have appeared
in these latter countries by duplicate invention or by accident, and
without contact or communication.

Positive evidence concerning its origin and earliest migration is not
obtainable, and in its absence we are driven to secondary and circum-
stantial evidence. This will consist (1) of comparison of known facts
directly concerning the subject; (2) of facts indirectly concerning it, and
(d) 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 arclneologists 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 coun-
tries, whether it was by migration and contact or by independent inven-
tion. In arguing this question, we must keep continually in mind the
rules of reason and of logic, and neither force the facts nor seek to
explain them by unknown, imaginary, or impossible methods. There
must be no dogmatic assertions nor fanciful theories. If we assume
certain migrations of the Swastika, we must consider those things
which might have (or must have) migrated with it; and we must admit
the means necessary to the assumed end.

The history of the beginning and first appearance of any of the
forms of the cross is also lost.in antiquity, and it would be hazardous
for any person to announce positively their origin, either as to locality
 THE SWASTIKA.

949

or time. The Swastika was certainly prehistoric in its origin. It was
in extensive use daring 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 u Swastika,” by which it is
recognized to-day in all literature, is a Sanscrit word, and was in com-
mon use among the Sanscrit peoples so long ago that it had a peculiar
or individual pronunciation in Panini's grammar prior to the fourth
century B. C. Some authorities are of the opinion that it was an
Aryan symboi 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 amu-
let, 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 llittite 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, Phenieia, or among the Egyptians.

Whether the Swastika was in use among the Chaldeans, Hittites, or
the Aryaus 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 u without prejudice
or preconceived opinion.'7

A consideration of the subject in the light of the material here col-
lected develops the following questions:

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

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

(3)   What lesson can be gathered from it concerning the early migra-
tions of the races of man?

Examples illustrating these questions are to be found in history as
well as in everyday life. The Scarabmus of Egypt and Etruria was
a symbol of eternity. The golden hoop on the lady’s finger represent-
ing a snake swallowing its tail, is also a symbol of eternity. These
 950

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

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.

Upon the evidence submitted, we must accept the Swastika first as
a symbol of that sect of Jains within the Buddhist Church originally
in Tibet, which spread itself in the Asiatic country under the names
of Tao-sse, Tirthankara, Ter, Musteg, and Pon or Pon-po, the last
signifying purity (ante, p. 771). This sect, or these sects, adopted the
Swastika as their symbol, giving it the translation su “ well,” asti, “it is,”
the whole word meaning “it is well,” or “so be it,” implying resignation
under all circumstances, the sect holding, in accordance with the mean-
ing given to their symbol, that contentment and peace of mind were
the chief objects of human life. In so far as it concerns this sect, the
Swastika was a symbol of both kinds. It represented a religions or
at least a moral and philosophic idea, and also the sect which held to
this idea.

Among the Buddhists proper, the Swastika seems to have been
employed as a holy or sacred symbol; its occurrence as one of the signs
in the footprint of l>uddha, 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 “mono-
gram of Christ” (fig. G), shows how naturally there may have been a
conflict of opinion in the selection of a cross which should be a repre-
sentative, while we know from history that there was such discussion,
and that different forms of the cross were suggested. Among other
forms was the Swastika, but to what extent or with what idea the
author is not informed. The Swastika was used, Burnouf says, a
thousand times on Christians’ tombs in the catacombs at Rome. This
is evidence of its use to a certain extent in a sacred or solemn and
funereal character, which would signify its use as the symbol of a
religious idea.

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

Whether among the Bronze Age people of western Europe—among
the Trojans, Greeks, or Etruscans—whether among the semicivilized
peoples of South or Central America, or among the savages (mound-
 THE SWASTIKA.

951

builders) of North America, there is apparently no instance of the
Swastika having been regarded as holy or used on a sacred object—
that is, holy and sacred in the light of godliness, piety, or morality.
It may have been or may yet be discovered that some of these wild
men used the Swastika upon objects serving at ceremonies or festivals
' of their religion, or which had, in their eyes, a semi-sacred character.
But it does not seem that it was used as a representative of a holy
idea or of any god or supernatural being who stood for such an idea.

I The meal used in the Zufii 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 dei-
ties. This question would be interesting if it could be determined Avith
certainty, or if the determination would be accepted by any considera-
ble 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
i among Orientals other than the Buddhists, was as a charm or amulet
signifying good fortune, good luck, long life, or benediction and bless-
ing.1 (See p. 780.)

Looking over the entire prehistoric world, avc iind the Swastika
' used on small and comparatively insignificant objects, those in com-
mon 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 pot-
tery, on gold and bronze ornaments, aud fibukc. In the Bronze Age in
Avestern Europe, including Etruria, it is found on the common objects
of life, such as pottery, the bronze libuhe, ceintures, spindle-whorls, etc.

In addition to the foregoing, there were peculiar uses of the SAvastika
in certain localities: In Italy on the hut urns in Avhich the ashes of the
i dead are buried; in the Swiss lakes stamped in the pottery; in Scandi-
I navia on the Aveapous, swords, etc., and in Scotland and Ireland on the
brooches and pins; in America on the nictates for grinding corn; the
A Brazilian women Avore it on the pottery fig leaf; the Pueblo Indian
painted it on* his dance rattle, Avhile 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

1 Goblet (l’Alviella, “ La Migration (lets Symboles,” pp. 56, 57.
 952

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

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, nictates, 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. Vet we know it was used on certain ceremonial
occasions which may themselves have had more or less a sacred char-
acter.

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
Y a bundl ed to one of a sacred kind. With this preponderance in favor
of the common use, it would seem that, except among the JJuddliists
and early Christians, and the more or less sacred ceremonies of the
North American Indians, all pretense of the holy or sacred character
of the Swastika should be given up, and it should (still with these
exceptions) be considered as a charm, amulet, token of good luck or
good fortune, or as an ornament and for decoration.

VI.—The Migration of Symbols.

MIGRATION OF THE SWASTIKA.

The question of the migration of the Swastika and of the objects on
which it was marked, which furnished its only means of transportation,
remains to be considered. It is proposed to examine, in a cursory
manner perhaps, not only the migration of the Swastika itself, but
some of these objects, spindle whorls especially, with a view to dis-
cover by similarity or peculiarity of form or decoration any relationship
they may have had with each other when found in distant countries
and used by different peoples. Thus, we may be able to open the way
' to a consideration of the question whether this similarity of Swastikas
or other decorations, or of the objects on which they were placed,
resulted from the migration of or contact or communication between
 THE SWASTIKA.

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distant peoples, or was it accidental and the result of independent dis-
coveries and duplicate inventions—an evidence of the parallelism of
human thought?

Dr. Brinton, in a communication before the American Philosophical
Socie~ty7"starts out with a polemical discussion upon the subject of the
migration of the Swastika and its possible American migration, as
follows:

My intention is to combat the opinion of those writers who, like Dr. Hamy, M.
Beauvois, and many others, assert that hecanse certain well-known Oriental sym-
bols, as the Ta Ki, the Triskeles, the Svastika, and the cross, are found among the
American aborigines, they are evidence of Mongolian, Buddhistic, Christian, or
Aryan immigrations previous to the discovery by Columbus, and I shall also try to
show that the position is erroneous of those who, like William II. Holmes, of the
Bureau of Ethnology, maintain “that it is impossible to give a satisfactory expla-
nation of the religious significance of the cross as a religious symbol in America.”

In opposition to both these views, I propose to show that the primary significance
of all these widely extended symbols is quite clear, and that they can be shown to
have arisen from certain fixed relations of man to his environment, the same every-
where, and~henee suggesting the same graphic 'representations among tribes mosj:
divergent in location and race, and, therefore, that such symbols are of little value
in tracing ethnic affinities or the currents of civilization.

I am jjorrv to be compelled to differ   in these views.

I may not attempt much argument upon this branch of the subject, but
wl 1 atcver argument is presented will be in opposition to this view, as
not being borne out by the evidence. Of course, the largest portion
of the discussion of this subject must consist of theory and argu-
ment, but such facts as are known, when subjected to an analysis of
reason, seem to produce a result contrary to that announced by Dr.
Brinton.

It is conceded that the duplication of the cross by different or distant!
peoples is no evidence of migrations of or contact between these!
peoples, however close their relations might have been. The sign of
the cross itself was so simple, consisting of only two marks or pieces
intersecting each other at a right or other angle, that we may easily
suppose it to have been the result of independent invention. The same
conclusion has been argued with regard to the Swastika. But this is
a non sequitur.

First, I dispute the proposition of fact thaUdie Swastika is. like the
cross, a simple design—one which would come to the mind of any person
and would be easy to"make. For evidence of this, 1 cite the fact that it
is not in common use, that it is almost unknown among Christian
peoples, that it is not included in any of the designs for, nor mentioned
in any of the inoderjLFiirot>eaii or Amerkiaik works on, decoration, nor
is it known to or practiced by artists or decorators of either country.1 2
For the truth of this, I appeal to the experience of artists and decora-

1 Proe. Am. Pkilosoph. Soe., xxvi, p. 177.

2For general lack of knowledge of Swastika in modem times, see Preface, p. 703.


 954

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

tors, and would put the question whether, of their own knowledge, by
their own inventions, they have ever discovered or made Swastikas, or
whether their brother artists have done so, and if they answer in the
affirmative, I would ask whether those cases were not rare. It maybe
granted that when the Swastika has been seen by an artist or decorator
it is easily understood and not difficult to execute, but, nevertheless, I

tInsist that its invention and use among artists and decorators during
the centuries since the Rennaissance is rare.

It is argued by Zmigrodzki that the Swastika on so many specimens,
especially the Trojan spindle-whorls, having been made regularly, some-
times turning one way, sometimes another, sometimes square, other
times curved, goes to show the rapidity with which the sign was made,
that it did not require an artist, that its use was so common that it had
become a habit and was executed in a rapid and sketchy manner, as evi-
denced by the appearance of the marks themselves upon the whorls.
He likens this to the easy and unconsidered way which men have of
signing their names, which they arc able to do without attention. He
likens it also to the sign of the cross made by Roman Catholics so
rapidly as to be unnoticed by those who are unaware of its significance.
"• With this line of argument, Zmigrodzki reasons that the Swastika was
in its time confined to common use and thus he accounts for the mim-
_Jber of ill-formed specimens. This only accounts for the comparatively
few ill formed specimens, but not for the great number, the mass of
those, well formed and well drawn. Instead of the Swastika being a
sign easily made, the experience of the writer is the contrary. A
simple cross like the Latin, Greek, St. Andrew’s^and other common
forms may be very easy to make, but a really good specimen of the
'^Swastika is difficult to make. Any one who doubts this has only to
make the experiment for himself, and make correctly such a specimen
as fig. t). While it may be easy enough to make the*. Greek cross with
two lines of equal length intersecting each other at right angles,
and while this forms a large proportion of the Swastikas, it is at its
conclusion that the trouble of making a perfect Swastika begins. It
will be found difficult, requiring care and attention, to make the pro-
jecting arms of equal length, to see that they are all at the same angle;
^hnd if it is bent again and again, two or three turns upon each other,
the difficulty increases. If a person thinks that the Swastika, either
in the^square or the ogee curves or the spiral volutes, is easy to make,
he has but to try it with paper and pencil, and, if that is his first
attempt, he will soon be convinced of his error. The artist who drew
^£he spirals for this paper pronounces them to be the most difficult of
all; the curves are parabolic, no two portions of any one are in the
same circle, the circle continually widens, and no two circles nor any
two portions of the same circle have the same center. To keep these
lines true and parallel, the curve regular, the distances the same, and at
the same time sweeping outward in the spiral form, the artist pro-
 THE SWASTIKA.

955

nounces a most difficult work, requiring care, time, and attention (fig.
295). Even the square and meander Swastikas (figs. 10, 11) require a
rule and angle to make them exact. All this goes to show the intention
of the artist to have been more or less deliberate; and that the object
he madewas for a special purpose, with a particular idea, either as a
symbol, charm, or ornament, and not a meaningless figure to fill a vacant



space.

Yet it is practically this difficult form of the cross which appears to
have spread itself through the widest culture areas, extending almost
to the uttermost parts of the earth. All this is foundation for the
suggestion that the Swastika was not the result of duplicate invention
or independent discovery, that it is not an illustration of parallelism
in human thought, but that it was transmitted from person to person,
or passed’ from one country to another, either by the migration of its
people, by their contact or communication, or by the migration and
transmission of the symbol and the sign itself. Pushing the argument
of the difficulty of its making, to account for the rarity of the design,
it is alleged that in modern times the Swastika is practically unknown
among Christian peoples. It passed out of use among them nigh a
thousand years ago and has been supplanted by every other imaginable
geometric form. The fret, chevron, herringbone, crosses, and circles]
of every kind, spirals, volutes, ogees, moldings, etc., have all remained) ^
in use since neolithic times, but no Swastika. The latest use men-
tioned in the literature upon this subject appears to have been in the
arch-Episcopal chair in the cathedral at Milan, which bears the three
ancient Christian crosses, the Latin cross, the monogram of Christ, and
the Swastika, of which the first and last are carved in alternates around
the pedestal of the chair. Yet the knowledge of the Swastika has
been perpetuated in some countries and its use has not died out all
over the world; therefore, examples of its iiseTn modern times should
be notedIrTorder to prevent misapprehension and contradiction. The
double Greek fret made with two continuous lines (fig. 139) forms a
psuedo Swastika at each intersection, although we have seen that this
is not a real but only an apparent Swastika (p. 783). This is used in
modern timesbv carpetTancT linen weavers as borders for carpets and ^
tablecloths, and by tile makers in similar decoration. The Swastika
mark has continued in use among the Orientals; the Theosophists have
adopted it as a seal or insignia ; the Japanese (fig. 30), the Koreans
(p. 799), the Chinese (fig. 31), the Jains (figs. 33, 31), and, among the
North American Indians, the Navajo (pi. 17), and those of the Kansas
Reservation (pis. 15 and 16). It is not used bv European peoples in',
modern times, except in Lapland and Finland. The National Museum
lias lately received a collection of modern household and domestic
utensils from Lapland, some of which bear the marks of the cross and
one a churn, the lid of which bears a possible Swastika mark. Through
the kindness of Professor Mason and Mr. Cushing, I have received a
 956

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

drawing of this (fig. 344). Theodor Sclivindt, in “Suomalaisia koris-
teita,”1 a book of standard national Finnish patterns for the embroid-
eries of the country, gives the Swastika among others; but it is classed
among “oblique designs” and no mention is made of it as a Swastika
or of any character corresponding to it. Its lines are always at angles
of 45 degrees, and are continually referred to as “oblique designs.”

The Swastika ornaments Danish baptismal fonts, and according to Mr. J. A. Iljal-
talin it ‘‘was used [in Ireland] a few years since as a magic sign, hut with an
obscured or corrupted meaning.” It arrived in that island in the ninth century
A. D.*

The Swastika mark appears both in its normal and ogee form in the
Persian carpets and rugs.3 While writing this memoir, I have found
in the Persian rug in my own bedchamber sixteen figures of the Swas-
tika. In the large rug in the chief clerk’s office of the National Museum
there are no less than twenty-seven figures of the Swastika. On a
piece of imitation Persian carpet, with a heavy pile, made probably in
London, I found also figures of the Swastika.
All the foregoing figures have been of the normal
Swastika, the arms crossing each other and the
ends turning at right angles, the lines being of
equal thickness throughout. Some of them were
bent to the right and some to the left. At the
entrance of the brand Opera House in Washing-
ton I saw a large India rug containing a number
of ogee Swastikas; while the arms crossed each
other at right angles, they curved, some to the
right and some to the left, but all the lines in-
creased in size, swelling in the middle of the
curve, but finishing in a point. The modern
Japanese wisteria workbaskets for ladies have
one or more Swastikas woven in their sides or covers.

344.

MOItKIiX CHIMIN MI) WITH I)K
SIGN KF.SK.MtiUXO SWASTIKA.

Lapland.

C. s. Xat'on.il Musfuin.

Thus, it appears that the use of the Swastika in modern times is con-
fined principally to Oriental jmd_ Scandinavian countries, countries
which hold close relations to antiquity: that, in western Europe, where
in ancient times the Swastika was mosF7re(iueiTf7^J^as71UiriTrg~the"
last one or two thousand years, become extinct. And this in the coun-
tries which have led the world in culture.

i/ff the Swastika was a sj’mbol of a religion in India and migrated as
such in times of antiquity to America, it was necessarily by human aid.
The individuals who carried and taught it should have carried with it
thej^ehgious idea it represented^ To”*lo this required a certain use of
language, at least the name of the symbol. If the sign bore among the

---------------------- [ ______________________________________________

1 Finnischo Ornamente. 1. Stichornarnente. Heft 1-4. Soumalaisen Kirjallis-
uuden Senra Helsingissii, 1894.

?KarI Blind, “Discovery of Odinic songs in Shetland,” Nineteenth Century, June,
1879, p. 1098, cited by Alfred C. Iladdon in “Evolution in Art,” London, 1895, p. 285.
3Miss Fanny D. Bergen, in Scribner’s Magazine, September, 1894.
 THE SWASTIKA.

957

aborigines in America the name it bore in India, Swastika, the evidence
of contact and communication would be greatly strengthened. If the
religion it represented in India should be found in America, the chain
of evidence might be considered complete. But in order to make it so
it will be necessary to show the existence of these names and this religion
in the same locality or among the same people or their descendants as
is found the sign. To find traces of the Buddhist religion associated
with the sign of the Swastika among the Eskimo in Alaska might be
no evidence of its prehistoric migration, for this might have occurred
in modern times, as we know has happened with the Bussian religion
and the Christian cross. While to find the Buddhist religion and the
Swastika symbol together in America, at a locality beyond the possi-
bility of modern European or Asiatic contact, would be evidence of pre-
historic migration yet it would seem to fix it at a period when, and from
a country where, the two had been used together. If the Swastika and
Buddhism migrated to America together it must have been since the
establishment of the Buddhist religion^which is approximately fixed in
the sixtb^century_B^C. 1 Tut there has not been as yet in America,
certainly not in the localities where the Swastika has been found, any
trace discovered of the Buddhist religion, nor of its concomitants of
language, art, or custom. Adopting the theory of migration of tlitf ?
Swastika, we may therefore conclude that if the Swastika came from
India or Eastern Asia, it came earlier than the sixth century B. 0.   ^

If a given religion with a given symbol, both belonging to the Old
World, shouldboth be found associated lii the ]STew World, it would be
strong evidence in favor of Old World migration—certainly of contact
and communication. Is it not equally strong evidence of eontact^to
find the same sign used in both countries as a charm, with the same
significance in both countries?

The argument has been made, and it has proved satisfactory, at least
to the author, that throughout Asia and Europe, with the exception off
the Buddhists and early Christians, the Swastika was used habitually]
as a sign or mark or charm, implying good luck, good fortune, long lifeji
much pleasure, great success, or something similar. The makers and
i users of the Swastika in South and Central America, and among the
mound builders of the savages of Jsorth America, having all passed
away before the advent of history, it is not now, and never has been,
possible for us to obtain from them a description of the meaning, use,
or purpose for which the Swastika was employed by them. But, by the
same line of reasoning that the proposition has been treated in the pre-
historic countries of Europe and Asia, and which brought us to the
con(dn^imTWhaOlie Swastika was there used as a charm or token of
good luck, or good fortune, or against the evil eye, we may^surinise
that the Swastika sign was used in America for much the same purpose.
It was placed upon the same style of object in America as in Europe
and Asia. It is not found on any of the ancient gods of America, nor
 958

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

on any of the statues, monuments, or altars, nor upon any sacred place
or object, but rather upon such objects as indicate the common and
^^eferyday use, and on which the Swastika, as a cliarm for good luck,
would be most appropriate, while for a sacred character it would be
singularly inappropriate.

The theory of independent invention has been invoked to account
| for the appearance of the Swastika in widely separated countries, but
i the author is more inclined to rely upon migration and imitation as the
^explanation.

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When signs or symbols, myths or fables, habits or customs, utensils,
implements or weapons, industries, tools or machinery, have been
found in countries widely separated from each other, both in countries
f" bearing characteristics so much alike as to make them practically the
/^same objects or industries, and which are made in the same way, they
present a question to which there are only two possible solutions:
Either they are independent discoveries or inventions which, though
analogous, have been separately conceived, or else they have been
invented or discovered in one of the countries, and passed to the other
by migration of the object or communication of the knowledge neces-
sary to form it, or by contact between the two peoples. Of these
inventions or discoveries said to have been made in duplicate, each of
which is alleged to have sprung up in its own country as a character-
istic of humanity and by virtue of a law of physics or psychology, it
is but fair to say that in the opinion of the author the presumption is
all against this. Duplicate inventions have been made and will be
t^nade again, but they are uncommon. They are not the rule, but
rather the exception. The human intellect is formed on such unknown
bases, is so uncertain in its methods, is swayed by such slight consid-
erations, and arrives at so many different conclusions, that, with the
manifold diversities of human needs and desires, the chances of dupli-
cate invention by different persons in distant countries, without con-
^ tact or communication between them, are almost as one to infinity.

The old adage or proverb says, “3Iany men of many minds,” and it
only emphasizes the differences between men liTregar'd to the various
phenomena mentioned. There are some things sure to happen, yet it
is entirely uncertain as to the way they will happen. Nothing is more
uncertain than the sex of a child yet to be born, yet every person has
one chance out of two to foretell the result correctly. But of certain
other premises, the chances of producing the same result are as one to
infinity. Not only does the human intellect not produce the same con-
clusion from the same premises in different persons, but it does not in
the same person at different times. It is unnecessary to multiply
words over this, but illustrations can be given that are satisfactory. A
battle, a street fight, any event happening in the presence of many
witnesses, will never be seen in the same way by all of them; it will
be reported differently by each one; each witness will have a different
 THE SWASTIKA.

959

story. The jurors in our country are chosen because of the absence
of prejudice or bias. Their intellect or reason are intended to be
subjected to precisely the same evidence and argument, and yet how
many jurors disagree as to their verdict? We have but to consider
the dissensions and differences developed in the jury room which are
settled, sometimes by argument, by change of conviction, or by com-
promise. What would be the resources of obtaining justice if we
were to insist upon unanimity of decision of the jury upon their first
ballot or the first expression of their opinion and without opportunity
of change? Yet these jurors have been charged, tried, and sworn a
true verdict to render according to the law and evidence as submitted
to them. There is no doubt but that they are endeavoring to fulfill
their duty in this regard, and while the same evidence as to fact, and
charge as to law, are presented to all of them at the same time, what
different impressions arc made and what different conclusions are pro-
duced in thq minds of the different jurors. Illustrations of this exist
in the decisions of our Supreme Court, wherein, after full argument
and fair investigation, with ample opportunity for comparison of views,
explanations, and arguments, all based upon the same state of facts,
the same witnesses; yet, in how many cases do we find differences of
opinion among the members of the court, and questions of the gravest
import and of the most vital character settled for the whole nation by
votes of 8 to 7 and 5 to 4? The author has examined, and in other
places shown, the fallacy of the rule that like produces like. Like
causes produce like effects is a law of nature, but when the decision
rests upon the judgment of mail*and.depends upon his reason and his
intellect, our common knowledge testifies that this law has no applica-
tion. When the proposition to be determined has to be submitted to
individuals of widely separated and distinct countries between whom;
there has been neither communication nor contact, and who havcl
received no suggestion as to their respective ideas or needs, or the
means of satisfying them, it seems to the author that no rule can be
predicated upon the similarity of human condition, of human reason, or
of human intellect, certainly none which can be depended on to produce
the same conclusion.

Consideration of the facility with which symbols, signs, myths,
fables, stories, history,, etc., are transmitted from one people to another
aiid from one couptry_to another, should not be omitted in this discus-
sion. It may have slight relation to the Swastika to mention the
migrations of the present time, but it will give an idea of the possibil-
ity of past times. In this regard we have but to consider the immense
number of articles or objects in museums and collections, public and
private, representing almost every country and people. We there find
objects from all quarters of the globe, from the five continents, and all
the islands of the sea. Some of them are of great antiquity, and it is
a matter of wonderment how they should have made such long pas-
 960

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

sages and liave been preserved from destruction by the vicissitudes of
time and space. We have but to consider how money passes from hand
to hand and is always preserved to be passed on to the next. Every
collection of importance throughout the world possesses a greater or
less number of Greek and Roman coins antedating the Christian era.
We have an excellent illustration of these possibilities in the word
4halloo,” commonly rendered as “hello” A few years ago this word,
was peculiar to the English language, yet an incident lately occurred in
the city of Washington, within sight of my own residence, by which
this word, u hello,” has traveled the world around, has spread itself
over land and sea, has attached itself to and become part of most every
spoken language of civilization, and without much consideration as to
its meaning; but being on the procrustean bed of imitation, there are
people, foreigners, who believe that the telephone can be only made to
respond when the demand is made “hello!”

6l^M MIGRATION OF CLASSIC SYMBOLS.

Count Goblet d’Alviclla, in uLa Migration des Symboles,” traces
many ancient symbols from what he believes to be their place of origin
to their modern habitat. The idea he elucidates in his book is indi-
cated in its title.

The sacred tree of the Assyrians.—This he. holds to be one of the old-
est historic symbols; that it had its origin in Mesopotamia, one of the
earliest civilized (tenters of the world. Reginning with its simplest
form, the sacred tree grew into an ornate and highly complex pattern,
invariably associated with religious subjects. Two living creatures
always stand on either side, facing it and each other. First they were
monsters, like winged bulls or griffins, and after became human or
semihuman personages—priests or kings, usually in the attitude of
devotion. The Count says the migration of both these types can bo
readily traced. The tree between the two monsters or animals passed
from Mesopotamia to rndia, where it was employed by the Buddhists
ymd Brahmins, and has continued in use in that country to the present
.time. It passed to the Phenicians, and from Asia Minor to Greece.
fFrom the Persians it was introduced to the Byzantines, and during
the early ages, iuto Christian symbolism in Sicily and Italy, and even
penetrated to the west of France. The other type—that is, the tree
between two semi-human personages—followed the same route into
India, China, and eastern Asia, and, being found in the ancient Mexi-
can and Maya codices, it forms part of the evidence cited by the Count
as a pre-Columbian communication between the Old World and the
New. He argues this out by similarity of the details of attitude and
expression of the human figure, the arrangement of the branches of
the sacred tree, etc.

The sacred cone of Mesopotamia.—This was worshipped by the western
Semites as their great goddess, under the image of a conical stone.
 THE SWASTIKA.

961

Its figurative representation is found alike on monuments, amulets,
and coins. On some Phenician monuments there is to be seen, super-
added to the cone, a horizontal crossbar on the middle of which rests a
handle. This shape bears a striking resemblance to the Crux ansata
(fig. 4), and, like it, was a symbol of life in its widest and most abstract
meaning. The resemblance between them is supposed to have caused
them to have been mistaken and employed one for the other in the same
character of symbol and talisman. It is alleged that the Ephesian
Artemis was but the sacred cone of Mesopotamia anthropomorphized,
although, with the halo added to Artemis, the allegation of relationship
has been made in respect of the Crux ansata.

The Crux ansata, the key of life.—This is probably more widely known
in modern times than any other Egyptian symbol. Its hieroglyphic
name is Ankh, atid its signification is “to live.” As an emblem of life,
representing the male and female principle united, it is always borne in
the hands of the gods, it is i>ourcd from ajar over the head of the king
in a species of baptism, and it is laid symbolically on the lips of the
mummy to revive it. From Egypt the Crux ansata spread first among ^
the Phenicians, and then throughout the whole Semitic world, fronij
Sardinia to Susiana.

The winged globe.—This was a widely spread and highly venerated
Egyptian symbol. From Egypt it spread, under various modifica-
, tions, throughout the Old World. It is formed by a combination of
| the representations of the sun that have prevailed in different locali-
ties in Egypt, the mythology of which ended by becoming a solar
drama. Two uncus snakes or asps, with heads erect, are twisted
round a globe-shaped disk, behind which are the outstretched wings
of a hawk, and on its top the horns of a goat. It commemorates the
victory of the principle of light and good over that of darkness and
evil. It spread readily among the Phenicians, where it is found sus-
pended over the sacred tree and the sacred cone, and was carried
wheresoever their art was introduced—westward to Carthage, Sicily,
Sardinia, and Cyprus, eastward to Western Asia. Very early it pene-
trated on the north to the Ilittites, and when it reached Mesopotamia,
in the time of Sargonidjc, the winged circle assumed the shape of the
wheel or rosette, surmounted by a scroll with upcurled extremities and
with a feathered tail opening out like a fan, or a human figure in an
attitude sometimes of benediction, sometimes warlike, was inscribed
within the disk. Then it was no longer exclusively a solar emblem, but
served to express the general idea of divinity. From Mesopotamia it
passed to Persia, principally in the anthropoid type. It was, however,
never adopted by Greece, and it is nowhere met with in Europe, except,
as before stated, in the Mediterranean islands. When Greece took
over from Asia symbolic combinations in which it was originally repre-
| sen ted, she replaced it by the thunderbolt. But the aureole, or halo,

!   II. Mis. 90, pt. 2-G1
 962

REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1894.

which encircles the heads of her divinities, and which Christian art
lias borrowed from the classic, was directly derived from it.

The caduceus.—This is one of the interesting symbols of antiquity.
It appears in many phases and is an excellent illustration of the migra-
tion of symbols. Its classic type held in the hand of Mercury and used
to day as a symbol of the healing art—a winged rod round which two
serpents are symmetrically entwined—is due to the mytliographers of
later times, and is very remote from its primitive form. In the Homeric
hymn it is called uthe golden rod, three-petaled of happiness and
wealth,” which Phudms gave to the youthful Hermes, but on early
Greek monuments the three leaves are represented by a disk sur-
mounted by an incomplete circle. In this shape it constantly appears
on Phenician monuments: and at Carthage, where it seems to have
been essentially a solar emblem, it is nearly always associated with the
sacred cone. It is found on Hittite monuments, where it assumes the
form of a globe surmounted by horns. Numerous origins and manifold
antecedents have been attributed to it, such as an equivalent of the
thunderbolt, a form of the sacred tree, or a combination of the solar
globe with the lunar crescent. Some examples seem. to indicate a
transition from the sacred tree surmounted by the solar disk, to the
form of the caducous of the Hittites. Our author believes it was
employed originally as a religious or military standard or ilag, and that
it was gradually modified by coming in contact with other symbols.
Some Assyrian bas-reliefs display a military standard, sometimes con-
sisting of a large ring placed upon a stalf with two loose bandelets
attached, sometimes of a winged globe similarly disposed. This Assyr-
ian military standard may be the prototype of the labarum, which
Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity, chose for his own
standard, and which might equally well have been claimed by the sun
worshipers. Under its latest transformation in Greece, a winged rod
with two serpents twined round it, it has come down to our own times
representing two of the functions of Hermes, more than ever in vogue
among men, industry and commerce. It has survived in India under
the form of two serpents entwined, probably introduced in the track of
Alexander the Great. It was also met with in that country in earlier
times in its simpler form, a disk surmounted by a crescent, resembling
our astronomical sign for the planet Mercury. This earliest type of
the caduceus, a disk surmounted by a orescent, appears at a remote
date in India, and seems to have been confounded with the trisula.

The trisula.—This form of the trident peculiar to the Buddhists was
of great importance in the symbolism of the Hindus; but whether it was
an imitation of the type of thunderbolt seen on Assyrian sculptures, or
was devised by them spontaneously, is uncertain. Its simplest form,
which is, however, rarely met with, is an omicron (o) surmounted by an
omega (go). Nearly always the upper portion is flanked by two small
circles, or by two horizontal strokes which often take the axipearance of
 THE SWASTIKA.

963