The Swastika Part 21

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VARIOUS FORMS OF CROSSES IN USE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, FROM GREEK CROSS TO SWASTIKA.

Fig. 1. GREEK CROSS.

2. GREEK CROSS.

3. CROSS ON COPPER.

4. CROSS ON Sh.e.l.l.

5. GREEK CROSS.

6. GREEK CROSS.

7. LATIN CROSS (Copper).

8. GREEK CROSS.

9. LATIN CROSS (Copper).

10. SWASTIKA ON Sh.e.l.l.

11. SWASTIKA ON Sh.e.l.l.

12. SWASTIKA ON POTTERY.

13. SWASTIKA ON POTTERY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 304. ENGRAVED Sh.e.l.l DISK GORGET. Rude cross with many dots. Lick Creek, Tenn. Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pl. 52, fig. 2.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 305. ENGRAVED Sh.e.l.l WITH FIGURE OF GREEK CROSS.

Caldwell County, N. C. Cat. No. 33169, U. S. N. M.]

The U. S. National Museum possesses a small sh.e.l.l ornament (fig. 305) in the form of a cross, from Lenoir's burial place, Fort Defiance, Caldwell 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 sh.e.l.l, while they are brought to view by the field being cross-hatched. The specimen has, unfortunately, been broken, and being fragile has been secured in a bed of plaster.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 306. ENGRAVED Sh.e.l.l WITH THREE-ARMED CROSS (TRISKELION). Lick Creek, Tenn. Cat. No. 83170, U. S. N. M.]

This and the foregoing specimens have been introduced into this paper that the facts of their existence may be presented for consideration, and to aid in the determination whether the cross had any peculiar or particular meaning. The questions involuntarily arise, Was it a symbol with a hidden meaning, religious or otherwise; was it the totem of a clan, the insignia of a ruler, the charm of a priesthood, or did it, with all the a.s.sociated sh.e.l.l engravings, belong to the category of trinkets? Those questions may be partially answered in the section on the meanings given to the cross by the North American Indians (p. 933).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 307. DRILLED AND ENGRAVED Sh.e.l.l OR "RUNTEE." Dotted Greek cross and circle. Arizona.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 308. DRILLED AND ENGRAVED Sh.e.l.l OR "RUNTEE." Dots and rings forming circle and Greek cross. Ohio.]

There is also introduced, as bearing on the question, another sh.e.l.l ornament (fig. 306), 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 their ident.i.ty of origin, yet the latter specimen has but three arms instead of four. This might take it out of the category of crosses as a symbol of any religion of which we have knowledge. Many of the art objects in sh.e.l.l heretofore cited were more or less closely a.s.sociated; they came from the same neighborhood and were the results of the same excavations, conducted by the same excavators. In determining the culture status of their makers, they must be taken together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 309. DRILLED AND ENGRAVED Sh.e.l.l OR "RUNTEE." Dots and rings forming circle and Greek cross. New York.]

When we consider the variety of the designs which were apparently without meaning except for ornamentation, like the circles, meanders, zigzags, chevrons, 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 manatee, 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 clan, insignia of ruler, or potent charm of priesthood; when we consider these things, why should we feel ourselves compelled to accept those 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.l ornaments, interspersed at regular intervals with about fifty small porcelain beads (fig. 307).[284] It was obtained by Capt. George M.

Whipple from the Indians of New Mexico. These sh.e.l.l ornaments are similar to objects described by Beverly in his work on the "History of Virginia,"

page 145, as "runtees" and "made of the conch sh.e.l.l; only the shape is flat as a cheese and drilled edgewise." It is to be remarked that on its face as well as on figs. 308 and 309[284] 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. Y. Similar specimens have been found in the same localities.

THE CROSS ON POTTERY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 310. POTTERY JAR WITH CROSSES, ENCIRCLING RAYS AND SCALLOPS. Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 188.]

Fig. 310 shows a small globular cup of dark ware from the vicinity of Charleston, Mo.; height, 2-1/2 inches; width, 3-1/2 inches. It has four large nodes or projections, and between them, painted red, are four ornamental 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, shield-like decoration. In fig. 312 (Cat. No. 39518, U. S. N. M.) is shown a Cochiti painted water vessel, same collection, showing a Maltese cross.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 311. OLLA DECORATED WITH GREEK AND MALTESE CROSSES.

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 708.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 312. POTTERY WATER VESSEL. Maltese cross. Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 642.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 20. PALENQUE CROSS, FOLIATED. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. XXII, fig. 7.]

Dozens of other specimens are in the collections of the U. S. National Museum which would serve to ill.u.s.trate the extended and extensive 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 supposition that these are the only specimens. Fig. 313 (Cat. No. 132975, U. S. N. 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 concentric 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, pl. 20, from the temple at Palenque.[285]

SYMBOLIC MEANINGS OF THE CROSS.

It would be an excellent thing to dissect and a.n.a.lyze the Swastika material we have found; to generalize and deduce from it a possible theory as to the origin, spread, and meaning of the Swastika and its related forms, and endeavor, by examination of its a.s.sociated works, to discover if these were religious symbols or charms or mere decorations; and, following this, determine if possible whether the spread of these objects, whatever their meaning, was the result of migration, contact, or communication. Were they the result of similar, but independent, operations of the human mind, or were they but duplicate inventions, the result of parallelism in human thought? This investigation must necessarily be theoretical and speculative. The most that the author proposes is to suggest probabilities and point the way for further investigation. He may theorize and speculate, but recognizes what many persons seem not able to do--that speculation and theory are not to be subst.i.tuted for cold facts. He may do no more than propound questions from which other men, by study, experience, philosophy, or psychology, may possibly evolve some general principle, or a theory pointing to a general principle, concerning the mode of extension and spread of culture among separate and independent peoples. When the facts shall have been gathered, marshaled, arranged side by side, and each aggregation of facts shall have been weighed, _pro_ and _con_, and its fair value given "without prejudice or preconceived opinion," then will be time enough to announce the final conclusion, and even then not dogmatically, but tentatively and subject to future discoveries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 313. POTTERY VASE FINELY DECORATED IN RED AND WHITE GLAZE. Maltese cross with sun symbol (?). Cat. No. 132975, U. S. N. M.]

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 314. GREEK CROSS REPRESENTING WINDS FROM CARDINAL POINTS. Dakota Indians. Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 1255.]

It is rare in the study of archaeology and, indeed, in any science, that a person is able to a.s.sert a negative and say what does not exist. The present investigations are rendered much more comprehensive by the appearance of the extensive and valuable work of Col. Garrick Mallery in the Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, on the subject of "Picture Writing of the American Indians." It is a work of about 800 pages, with 1,300 ill.u.s.trations, and is the result of many years of laborious study. It purports to be a history, more or less complete, of the picture writing, signs, symbols, totems, marks, and messages of the American Indian, whether pictographs or petroglyphs. A large portion of his work is devoted to ideography, conventional signs, syllabaries and alphabets, h.o.m.orophs and symmorophs, and their respective means of interpretation. Among these he deals, not specifically with the Swastika, but in general terms with the cross. Therefore, by looking at Colonel Mallery's work upon this chapter (p. 724), one is able to say negatively what has not been found.

_Apropos_ of the meanings of the cross among the North American Indians Count Goblet d'Alviella says:[286]

It is nevertheless incontestable that the pre-Columbian cross of America is a "_rose des vents_," representing the four directions whence comes the rain, or the cardinal points of the compa.s.s, etc., etc.

Colonel Mallery's volume shows that it meant many other things as well.

_The four winds._--The Greek cross is the form found by Colonel Mallery to be most common among the North American aborigines, possibly because it is the simplest. In this the four arms are equal in length, and the sign placed upright so that it stands on one foot and not on two, as does the St. Andrew's cross. The Greek cross (fig. 314) represents, among the Dakotas, the four winds issuing out of the four caverns in which souls of men existed before the incarnation of the human body. All the medicine men--that is, conjurors and magicians--recollect their previous dreamy life in these places, and the instructions then received from the G.o.ds, demons, and sages; they recollect and describe their preexistent life, but only dream and speculate as to the future life beyond the grave. The top of the cross is the cold, all-conquering giant, the North Wind, most powerful of all. It is worn on the body nearest the head, the seat of intelligence and conquering devices. The left arm covers the heart; it is the East Wind, coming from the seat of life and love. The foot is the melting, burning South Wind, indicating, as it is worn, the seat of fiery pa.s.sion. 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 G.o.ds and winds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 315. THE CROSS IN CONNECTION WITH THE CIRCLE. Sun symbols (?). Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 1118, 1120, 1126.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 316. FIGURES OF CIRCLES AND RAYS PROBABLY REPRESENTING SUN SYMBOLS. Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, figs.

1118-1121, 1123.]

Rev. John McLain, in his work on the "Blackfoot Sun-dance," says:

On the sacred pole of the sun lodge of the Blood Indian is a bundle of small brushwood taken from the birch tree, which is placed in the form of a cross. This was an ancient symbol evidently referring to the four winds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 317. FIGURES OF CROSSES AND CIRCLES REPRESENTING STAR SYMBOLS. Oakley Springs, Ariz. Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 1129.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 318. STAR SYMBOL. Circle and rays without cross.

Oakley Springs, Ariz. Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig.

1129.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 319. FIGURES OF CROSSES, CIRCLES, AND SQUARES REPRESENTING LODGES. Dakota Indians. Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 1203.]

_Sun and star symbols._--Great speculation has been made, both in Europe and America, over the relation between the Swastika and the sun, because the two signs have been a.s.sociated by primitive peoples. Colonel Mallery gives the Indian signs for the sun, stars, and light.[287] These have been segregated, and it will be seen that the cross and circle are used indiscriminately for one and the other, and the fact of the two being found a.s.sociated is no evidence of relationship in religious ideas (figs.

315-319).