The Swastika Part 18

Of the other cult of the peoples I have mentioned, those who worship the sun as the deity and not the habitation, I know nothing. They are secret, suspicious, and gloomy, and do not wear the "luck." I have never seen old people wear the "luck."

Now, I have told you all I know, except that it [the Swastika] used in ancient times to be made in quill embroidery on herb bags.

Miss Owen spoke of other garters with Swastikas on them, but she said they were sacred, were used only during certain ceremonies, and she knew not if she could be able to get or even see them. During the prolongation of the preparation of this paper she wrote two or three times, telling of the promises made to her by the two Sac women who were the owners of these sacred garters, and how each time they had failed. Yet she did not give up hope. Accordingly, in the winter of 1896, the little box containing the sacred garters arrived. Miss Owen says the husbands of these two Sac women are Pottawatomies on the Cook County (Kans.) Reservation. They are sun worshippers. These garters have been sketched and figured in pl. 16.

_The Pueblos._--The Pueblo country in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, as is well known, is inhabited by various tribes of Indians speaking different languages, separated from one another and from all other tribes by differences of language, customs, and habit, but somewhat akin to each other in culture, and many things different from other tribes are peculiar to them. These have been called the "Pueblo Indians" because they live in pueblos or towns. Their present country includes the regions of the ancient cliff dwellers, of whom they are supposed to be the descendants. In those manifestations of culture wherein they are peculiar and different from other tribes they have come to be considered something superior. Any search for the Swastika in America which omitted these Indians would be fatally defective, and so here it is found. Without speculating how the knowledge of the Swastika came to them, whether by independent invention or brought from distant lands, it will be enough to show its knowledge among and its use by the peoples of this country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 256. DANCE RATTLE MADE OF A SMALL GOURD DECORATED IN BLACK, 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.]

In the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for the year 1880-81 (p.

394, fig. 562) is described a dance rattle made from a small gourd, ornamented in black, white, and red (fig. 256). The gourd has a Swastika on each side, with the ends bent, not square, but ogee (the tetraskelion).

The U. S. National Museum possesses a large number of these dance rattles with Swastikas on their sides, obtained from the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. Some of them have the natural neck for a handle, as shown in the cut; others are without neck, and have a wooden stick inserted and pa.s.sed through for a handle. Beans, pebbles, or similar objects are inside, and the shaking of the machine makes a rattling noise which marks time for the dance.

The Museum possesses a large series of pottery from the various pueblos of the Southwest; these are of the painted and decorated kind common to that civilization and country. Some of these pieces bear the Swastika mark; occasionally it is found outside, occasionally inside. It is more frequently of the ogee form, similar to that on the rattle from the same country (fig. 256). The larger proportion of these specimens comes from the pueblos of Santa Clara and St. Ildefonso.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 16. CEREMONIAL BEAD GARTERS WITH SWASTIKAS. Sac Indians, Cook County (Kansas) Reservation.]

Dr. Schliemann reports:[260]

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

G. Nordenskiold,[261] in the report of his excavations among the ruined pueblos of the Mesa Verde, made in southwestern Colorado during the summer of 1891, tells of the finding of numerous specimens of the Swastika. In pl. 23, fig. 1, he represents a large, shallow bowl in the refuse heap at the "Step House." It was 50 centimeters in diameter, of rough execution, gray in color, and different in form and design from other vessels from the cliff houses. The Swastika sign (to the right) was in its center, and made by lines of small dots. His pl. 27, fig. 6, represents a bowl found in a grave (_g_ on the plan) at "Step House." Its decoration inside was of the usual type, but the only decoration on the outside consisted of a Swastika, with arms crossing at right angles and ends bent at the right, similar to fig. 9. His pl. 18, fig. 1, represented a large bowl found in Mug House. Its decoration consisted in part of a Swastika similar in form and style to the Etruscan gold "bulla," fig. 188 in this paper. Certain specimens of pottery from the pueblos of Santa Clara and St. Ildefonso, deposited in the U. S. National Museum (Department of Ethnology), bear Swastika marks, chiefly of the ogee form.[262]

_The Navajoes._--Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. A., than whom no one has done better, more original, nor more accurate anthropologic work in America, whether historic or prehistoric, has kindly referred me to his memoir in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, comprising 82 pages, with 9 plates and 9 figures, ent.i.tled "The Mountain Chant; a Navajo ceremony." It is descriptive of one of a number of ceremonies practiced by the shamans or medicine men of the Navajo Indians, New Mexico. The ceremony is public, although it takes place during the night.

It lasts for nine days and is called by the Indians "_dsilyidje qacal_"--literally, "chant toward (a place) within the mountains." The word "_dsilyi_" may allude to mountains in general, to the Carrizo Mountains in particular, to the place in the mountains where the prophet (originator of these ceremonies) dwelt, or to his name, or to all of these combined. "_Qacal_" means a sacred song or a collection of sacred songs.

Dr. Matthews describes at length the myth which is the foundation of this ceremony, which must be read to be appreciated, but may be summarized thus: An Indian family, consisting of father, mother, two sons, and two daughters, dwelt in ancient times near the Carrizo Mountains. They lived by hunting and trapping; but the place was desert, game scarce, and they moved up the river farther into the mountains. The father made incantations to enable his two sons to capture and kill game; he sent them hunting each day, directing them to go to the east, west, or north, but with the injunction not to the south. The elder son disobeyed this injunction, went to the south, was captured by a war party of Utes and taken to their home far to the south. He escaped by the aid of _Yaybichy_ (_Qastceelci_) 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 Dr. Matthews as "songs of sequence," because they must be sung in a progressive series on four certain days of the ceremony).

Mythological charts of dry sand of divers colors are made on the earth within the corrals after the manner of the Navajo and Pueblo Indians.

These dry sand paintings are made after a given formula and intended to be repeated from year to year, although no copy is preserved, the artists depending only upon the memory of their shaman. One of these pictures or charts represents the fugitive's escape from the Utes, his captors, down a precipice into a den or cave in which burnt a fire "on which was no wood."

Four pebbles lay on the ground together--a black pebble in the east, a blue one in the south, a yellow one in the west, and a white one in the north. From these flames issued. Around the fire lay four bears, colored and placed to correspond with the pebbles. When the strangers (Qastceelci 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, pa.s.sed it to the blue bear and immediately fell senseless. The blue bear took two whiffs and pa.s.sed the pipe, when he too fell over unconscious. The yellow bear succ.u.mbed 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 a.s.signed 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 Qastceelci warned him not to touch the food, and disappeared.

So, hungry as he was, the Indian lay down supperless to sleep. When he awoke in the morning, the bears again offered food, which he again declined, saying he was not hungry. Then they showed him how to make the bear _kethawns_, or sticks, to be sacrificed to the bear G.o.ds, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 17. NAVAJO DRY PAINTING CONTAINING SWASTIKAS. Dr.

Washington Matthews, "The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony," Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-84, Pl. XVII.]

In Dr. Matthews's memoir (marked third, but described on p. 447 as the second picture), is a representation of the painting which the prophet was believed to have seen at the home of the bears in the Carrizo Mountains.

This is here reproduced as pl. 17. In the center of the figure is a bowl of water covered with black powder; the edge of the bowl is garnished with sunbeams, while outside of it and forming a rectangle are the four _ca'bitlol_ of sunbeam rafts on which seem to stand four G.o.ds, or "yays,"

with the plants under their special protection, which are painted the same color as the G.o.ds 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 G.o.d is white, so is the stalk of corn at his left in the southeast; the body of the southern G.o.d is blue, so is the beanstalk beside him in the southwest; the body of the western G.o.d is yellow, so is his pumpkin vine in the northwest; the body of the north G.o.d is black, so is the tobacco plant in the northeast. Each of the sacred plants grows from five white roots in the central waters and spreads outward to the periphery of the picture. The figures of the G.o.ds 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 compa.s.s. The G.o.ds 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 compa.s.s, the faces look forward, the arms half extended on either side, the hands raised to a level with the shoulders. They wear around their loins skirts of red sunlight adorned with sunbeams. They have ear pendants, bracelets, and armlets, blue and red, representing turquoise and coral, the prehistoric and emblematic jewels of the Navajo Indians. Their forearms and legs are black, showing in each a zigzag mark representing lightning on the black rain clouds. In the north G.o.d these colors are, for artistic reasons, reversed. The G.o.ds have, respectively, a rattle, a charm, and a basket, each attached to his right hand by strings. This basket, represented by concentric lines with a Greek cross in the center, all of the proper color corresponding with the G.o.d to whom each belongs, has extending from each of its quarters, arranged perpendicularly at right angles to each other, in the form of a cross, four white plumes of equal length, which at equal distances from the center are bent, all to the left, and all of the same length. Thus are formed in this chart four specimens of the Swastika, with the cross and circle at the intersection of the arms. The plumes have a small black spot at the tip end of each.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 257. WAR SHIELD USED BY THE PIMA INDIANS. Ogee Swastika (tetraskelion) in three colors: (1) blue, (2) red, (3) white.

Cat. No. 27829, U. S. N. M.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 258. WAR SHIELD WITH OGEE SWASTIKA IN CENTER. Pima Indians. The hole near the lower arm of the Swastika was made by an arrow.

Property of Mr. F. W. Hodge.]

Dr. Matthews informs me that he has no knowledge of any peculiar meaning attributed by these Indians to this Swastika symbol, and we know not whether it is intended as a religious symbol, a charm of blessing, or good luck, or whether it is only an ornament. We do not know whether it has any hidden, mysterious, or symbolic meaning; but there it is, a prehistoric or Oriental Swastika in all its purity and simplicity, appearing in one of the mystic ceremonies of the aborigines in the great American desert in the interior of the North American Continent.

_The Pimas._--The U. S. National Museum possesses a shield (Cat. No.

27829) of bull hide, made by the Pima Indians. It is about 20 inches in diameter, and bears upon its face an ogee Swastika (tetraskelion), the ends bent to the right. The body and each arm is divided longitudinally into three stripes or bands indicated by colors, blue, red, and white, arranged alternately. The exterior part of the shield has a white ground, while the interior or center has a blue ground. This shield (fig. 257) is almost an exact reproduction of the Swastika from Mycenae (fig. 161), from Ireland (fig. 216), and from Scandinavia (figs. 209 and 210). Fig. 258 shows another Pima shield of the same type. Its Swastika is, however, painted with a single color or possibly a mixture of two, red and white.

It is ogee, and the ends bend to the left. This shield is the property of Mr. F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of Ethnology. He obtained it from a Pima Indian in Arizona, who a.s.sured him that the hole at the end of the lower arm of the Swastika was made by an arrow shot at him by an Indian enemy.

COLONIAL PATCHWORK.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 259. COLONIAL PATCHWORK WITH FIGURES RESEMBLING SWASTIKAS. Scribner's Magazine, September, 1894.]

In Scribner's Magazine for September, 1894, under the t.i.tle of "Tapestry in the New World," one of our popular writers has described, with many ill.u.s.trations, the bedquilt patterns of our grandmothers' time. One of these she interprets as the Swastika. This is, however, believed to be forced. The pattern in question is made of patches in the form of rhomboids and right-angled triangles sewed and grouped somewhat in the form of the Swastika (fig. 259). It is an invented combination of patchwork which formed a new pattern, and while it bears a slight resemblance to the Swastika, lacks its essential elements. It was not a symbol, and represents no idea beyond that of a pretty pattern. It stood for nothing sacred, nor for benediction, blessing, nor good luck. It was but an ornamental pattern which fortuitously had the resemblance of Swastika. It was not even in the form of a cross. The difference between it and the Swastika is about the same there would be between the idle and thoughtless boy who sporadically draws the cross on his slate, meaning nothing by it, or at most only to make an ornament, and the devout Christian who makes the same sign on entering the church, or the Indian who thus represents the four winds of heaven. He who made the Swastika recognizes an occult power for good and against evil, and he thereby invokes the power to secure prosperity. She who made the quilt pattern apparently knew nothing of the old-time Swastika, and was not endeavoring to reproduce it or anything like it. She only sought to make such an arrangement of rhomboidal and triangular quilt patches as would produce a new ornamental pattern.

CENTRAL AMERICA.

NICARAGUA.

The specimen shown in fig. 260 (Cat. No. 23726, U. S. N. M.) is a fragment, the foot of a large stone metate from Zapatero, Granada, Nicaragua. The metate was chiseled or pecked out of the solid. A sunken panel is surrounded by moldings, in the center of which appears, from its outline, also by raised moldings, a figure, the outline of which is a Greek cross, but whose exterior is a Swastika. Its form as such is perfect, except that one bent arm is separated from its stem by a shallow groove.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 260. FRAGMENT OF THE FOOT OF A STONE METATE WITH FIGURE OF SWASTIKA. Nicaragua. Cat. No. 23726, U. S. N. M.]

"The Cross, Ancient and Modern," by W. W. Blake, shows, in its fig. 57, a Swastika pure and simple, and is cited by its author as representing a cross found by Squier in Central America. The Mexican enthusiast, Orozco y Perra, claims at first glance that it shows Buddhist origin, but I have not been able as yet to verify the quotation.

YUCATAN.

Dr. Schliemann reports, in the Ethnological Museum at Berlin, a pottery bowl from Yucatan ornamented with a Swastika, the two main arms crossing at right angles, and he adds,[263] citing Le Plongeon, "Fouilles au Yucatan," that "during the last excavations in Yucatan this sign was found several times on ancient pottery."

Le Plongeon discovered a fragment of a stone slab in the ancient Maya city of Mayapan, of which he published a description in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. It contains an ogee Swastika (tetraskelion), with ends curved to the left and an inverted [U] with a wheel (fig. 261).

Le Plongeon believed it to be an Egyptian inscription, which he translated thus: The character, inverted [U], stood for _Ch_ or _K_; the wheel for the sun, _Aa_ or _Ra_, and the Swastika for _Ch_ or _K_, making the whole to be _Chach_ or _Kak_, which, he says, is the word _fire_ in the Maya language.[264]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 261. FRAGMENT OF STONE SLAB FROM THE ANCIENT MAYA CITY OF MAYAPAN. Ogee Swastika (tetraskelion). Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 21, 1881.]

COSTA RICA.

A fragment of a metate (Cat. No. 9693, U. S. N. M.) found on Lempa River, Costa Rica, by Capt. J. M. Dow, has on its bottom a Swastika similar to that on the metate from Nicaragua. Specimen No. 59182, U. S. M. N., is a fragment of a pottery vase from Las Huacas, Costa Rica, collected by Dr.

J. F. Bransford. It is natural maroon body color, decorated with black paint. A band two inches wide is around the belly of the vase divided into panels of solid black alternated with fanciful geometric figures, crosses, circles, etc. One of these panels contains a partial Swastika figure. The two main arms cross at right angles in Greek form. It is a partial Swastika in that, while the two perpendicular arms bend at right angles, turning six times to the right; the two horizontal arms are solid black in color, as though the lines and s.p.a.ces had run together.

SOUTH AMERICA.

BRAZIL.

The leaden idol (fig. 125) (Artemis Nana[265] of Chaldea, Sayce; statuettes of the Cyclades, Lenormant) found by Dr. Schliemann in the third, the burnt city of Hissarlik, Troy, was described (p. 829) with its Swastika on the triangular shield covering the pudendum, with the statement that it would be recalled in the chapter on Brazil.

The aboriginal women of Brazil wore a triangular shield or plaque over their private parts. These shields are made of terra cotta, quite thin, the edges rounded, and the whole piece rubbed smooth and polished. It is supported in place by cords around the body, which are attached by small holes in each angle of the triangle. The U. S. National Museum possesses several of these plaques from Brazil, and several were shown at the Chicago Exposition.

The consideration of the leaden idol of Hissarlik, with a Swastika, as though for good luck, recalled to the author similar plaques in his department from Brazil. Some are of common yellow ware, others were finer, were colored red and rubbed smooth and hard, but were without decoration.

The specimen shown in pl. 18 (upper figure) was from Marajo, Brazil, collected by Mr. E. M. Brigham. It is of light gray, slip washed, and decorated with pale red or yellow paint in bands, lines, parallels, geometric figures. The specimen shown in the lower figure of the same plate, from the Caneotires River, Brazil, was collected by Prof. J. B.

Steere. The body color, clay, and the decoration paint are much the same as the former. The ornamentation is princ.i.p.ally by two light lines laid parallel and close so as to form a single line, and is of the same geometric character as the incised decoration ornament on other pieces from Marajo Island. Midway from top to bottom, near the outside edges, are two Swastikas. They are about five-eighths of an inch in size, are turned at right angles, one to the right and the other to the left. These may have been a charm signifying good fortune in bearing children. (See pp.

830-832.)

These specimens were submitted by the author to the Brazilian minister, Senor Mendonca, 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 _Tambeao_ or _Tamatiatang_, according to the dialects of different provinces. The later dialect name for ap.r.o.n is reported as _tunga_, and the minister makes two remarks having a possible bearing on the migration of the race: (1) The similarity of _tunga_ with the last syllable of the longer word, _atang_, and (2) that _tunga_ is essentially an African word from the west coast. Whether this piece of dress so thoroughly savage, with a possible ceremonial meaning relating to s.e.x 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.e.x, is not known. They may have been ceremonial, relating, under certain circ.u.mstances, to particular conditions of the s.e.x, or they may have been only variations of the somewhat similar covers used by the male aborigine. They bear some resemblance to the _Ceintures de Chastete_, specimens of which are privately shown at the Musee de Cluny at Paris.

These are said to have been invented by Francoise de Carara, viguier imperial (provost) of Padua, Italy, near the end of the fourteenth century. He applied it to all the women of his seraglio. He was beheaded A. D. 1405, by a decree of the Senate of Venice, for his many acts of cruelty. The palace of St. Mark contained for a long time a box or case of these ceintures with their locks attached, which were represented as _des pieces de conviction_ of this monster.[266] Voltaire describes his hero "_qui tient sous la clef, la vertu de sa femme_."