The Swastika Part 25

_The Greek fret._--This has migrated in the same manner. As to its invention or origin, we have little to do in the present argument. Whether the fret was the ancestor or the descendant of the Swastika is of no moment to our present question. It has been demonstrated in the early part of this paper that both it and the Swastika had a common existence in early if not prehistoric Greece, and that both were employed in perfected form on the same specimen of Archaic Greek pottery. Figs. 133 and 134 demonstrate that these two signs migrated together from Greece to Egypt, for the particular specimen mentioned was found at Naukratis, Egypt. From this high antiquity the Greek fret has migrated to practically every country in the world, and has been employed during all historic time by the peoples of every civilization. The fret is known historically to have pa.s.sed by means of teachers, either through speaking, writing, or drawing, and never yet a suggestion that its existence or appearance in distant countries depended upon separate invention or independent discovery.

Why strain at the gnat of independent invention of the Swastika when we are compelled to swallow the camel of migration when applied to the Greek fret and architecture? The same proposition of migration applies to Greek art, whether of sculpture, engraving, or gem carving. These ancient Grecian arts are as well known in all quarters of the civilized globe at the present day as they were in their own country, and this was all done by communication between peoples either through speaking, writing, or drawing. So far from being separate inventions, the modern sculptor or engraver, with full historic knowledge of the origin or, at least, antiquity of these arts, and with an opportunity for inspection and study of the specimens, is still unable to reproduce them or to invent original works of so high an order. The imaginary and newly invented theory that culture is the result of the psychologic nature of man manifesting itself in all epochs and countries, and among all peoples, by the evolution of some new discovery made to fit a human need--that as all human needs in a given stage are the same, therefore all human culture must, _per se_, pa.s.s through the same phases or stages--is a theory to which I refuse adhesion.

It receives a hard blow when we take down the bars to the modern sculptor, requiring of him neither original invention nor independent discovery, but permitting him to use, study, adapt, and even servilely copy the great Greek art works, and we know that with all these opportunities and advantages he can not attain to their excellence, nor reach their stage of art culture.

VII.--PREHISTORIC OBJECTS a.s.sOCIATED WITH THE SWASTIKA, FOUND IN BOTH HEMISPHERES, AND BELIEVED TO HAVE Pa.s.sED BY MIGRATION.

SPINDLE-WHORLS.

Spindle-whorls are first to be considered. These are essentially prehistoric utensils, and are to be found in every part of the world where the inhabitants were sufficiently cultured to make twisted threads or cords, whether for hunting or fishing, games, textile fabrics, or coverings, either for themselves, their tents, or other purposes. In western Asia, all of Europe, in the pueblos of North America, and among the aborigines--by whatever name they are called--of Mexico, Central America, and the north and west coast of South America, wherever the aborigines employed cord, cloth, or fiber, the spindle-whorl is found.

Where they used skins for the coverings of themselves or their tents, the spindle-whorl may not be found. Thus, in the Eskimo land, and among certain of the North American savages, spindle-whorls are rarely if ever found.

The spindle-whorl was equally in use in Europe and Asia during the Neolithic Age as in the Bronze Age. It continued in use among the peasants in remote and outlying districts into modern times. During the Neolithic Age its materials were stone and terra cotta; during the Bronze Age they were almost exclusively terra cotta. They are found of both materials.

Recently a Gallo-Roman tomb was opened at Clermont-Ferrand and found to contain the skeleton of a young woman, and with it her spindles and whorls.[312]

The existence of spindle-whorls in distant and widely separated countries affords a certain amount of presumptive evidence of migrations of peoples from one country to another, or of contact or communication between them.

If the people did not themselves migrate and settle the new country, taking the spindle-whorls and other objects with them, then the spindle-whorl itself, or the knowledge of how to make and use it, must in some other way have gotten over to the new country.

This argument of migration, contact, or communication does not rest solely on the similarity of the whorls in the distant countries, but equally on the fact of spinning thread from the fiber; and this argument is reenforced by the similarity of the operation and of the tool or machine with which it was done. It has been said elsewhere that the probability of communication between widely separated peoples by migration or contact depended for its value as evidence, in some degree, upon the correspondence or similarity of the object considered, and that this value increased with the number of items of correspondence, the closeness of similarity, the extent of the occurrence, and the difficulty of its performance. So we pa.s.s to the similarity in size, appearance, mode of manufacture, and, finally, the use of the whorls of the two continents.

EUROPE.

_Switzerland--Lake dwellings._--Figs. 345 and 346 show stone spindle-whorls from prehistoric Swiss lake dwellings. These are in the U.

S. National Museum, and with them are dozens of others of the same kind and style from all other parts of Europe. Fig. 347 shows a stone spindle-whorl from Lund, Sweden. It is in the U. S. National Museum and was contributed by Professor Jillson. Figs. 348, 349, and 350 represent terra-cotta spindle-whorls from the Swiss lakes. These specimens were selected to show the different patterns, to ill.u.s.trate their unlikeness instead of their likeness, to give an understanding of the various kinds of whorls rather than that they were all one kind, a fad which should be kept in mind during this argument.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figs. 345 and 346. STONE SPINDLE-WHORLS. Neolithic. Swiss lake dwellings. U. S. National Museum.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 347. STONE SPINDLE-WHORL. Neolithic. Lund, Sweden.

Cat. No. 5281, U. S. N. M.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 348. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL. Neolithic or Bronze Age. Swiss lake dwellings. Cat. No. 100642, U. S. N. M.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 349. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL. Neolithic or Bronze Age. Swiss lake dwellings. Cat. No. 190642, U. S. N. M.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 350. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL. Swiss lake dwellings.

Cat. No. 100647, U. S. N. M.]

_Italy._--Figs. 351, 352, and 353 show terra-cotta spindle-whorls from Orvieto, Italy, 78 miles north from Rome. Figs. 354 and 355 represent spindle-whorls from Corneto, Italy, 63 miles north from Rome. As remarked above, they have been chosen to represent the different kinds. There are thousands of these whorls found in Italy. In the Archaeological Exposition at Turin, 1884, the number was so great that they were twined about the columns, thereby providing a place of storage as well as a place of display.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figs. 351, 352, and 353. PREHISTORIC TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORLS. Orvieto, Italy. Cat. Nos. 101671, 101672, U. S. N. M.]

_Wurtemburg._--Dr. Charles Rau procured for, and there is now in, the U.

S. National Museum a spindle (fig. 356) with its whorl which had been in use for spinning from 1860 to 1870, and which he obtained in Wurtemburg, Germany, from the woman who had used it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figs. 354 and 355. PREHISTORIC SPINDLE-WHORLS. Corneto, Italy. Cat. No. 101773, U. S. N. M.]

_France._--The author has seen the French peasants in Brittany spinning their thread in the same way, and once took a photograph of one in the hamlet of Pont-Aven, Morbihan, but it failed in development. In 1893 Mr. Harle purchased at St. Gerons, Ardeche, a merchant's entire stock of modern porcelain spindle-whorls. The manufactory was located at Martres-Tolosane, and the trade extended throughout the Pyrenees. He presented a series to the Societe d'Anthropologie at Paris, July, 1893.[313]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 21. SPINDLE-WHORLS OF MODERN PORCELAIN FROM SOUTHERN FRANCE. Cat. No. 169598, U. S. N. M.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 356. MODERN SPINDLE AND WHORL USED FOR SPINNING THREAD. Wurtemburg, Germany.]

The U. S. National Museum has lately received, through the kindness of the ecole d'Anthropologie, a series of nine of these porcelain whorls (pl.

21). The wheel and modern machines for spinning have penetrated this corner of the world, and these whorls are the last emblem of an industry dating slightly after the advent of man on earth and already old in that locality when Roland crossed the mountain pa.s.s near there and sounded his "Oliphant," calling for help from Charlemagne. These are the death chant of the industry of hand spinning in that country.

NORTH AMERICA--PRE-COLUMBIAN TIMES.

The North American Indians employed rushes and animal skins as the princ.i.p.al coverings for themselves and their tents. They used sinews and thongs for thread and cord, and thus avoided largely the necessity for spinning fiber or making textiles; for these or possibly other reasons, we find few spindle-whorls among them compared with the number found in Europe. Yet the North American Indians made and used textile fabrics, and there are pieces of woven cloth from mounds in Ohio now in the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology, U. S. National Museum. The Pueblo Indians spun thread and wove cloth in pre-Columbian times, and those within the States of Colorado and Utah and the adjoining Territories of Arizona and New Mexico, particularly the Navajoes, have been long noted for their excellence in producing textile fabrics. Specimens of their looms and thread are on display in the National Museum and have been published in the reports. Special attention is called to that by Dr. Washington Matthews in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82.

Dr. Matthews is of the opinion that the work of the Pueblo Indians antedated that of the Navajoes, that the latter learned the art from the former since the advent of the Spaniards; and he remarks that the pupils now excel their masters in the beauty and quality of their work. He declares that the art of weaving has been carried to greater perfection among the Navajoes than among any native tribe in America north of the Mexican boundary; while with none in the entire continent has it been less influenced by contact with Europeans. The superiority of the Navajo to the Pueblo work results not only from a constant advance of the weavers'

art among the former, but from a deterioration of it among the latter.

This deterioration among the Pueblo Indians he attributes to their contact with the whites, their inclination being to purchase rather than to make woven fabrics, while these influences seem not to have affected the Navajoes. He represents a Navajo woman spinning (see pl. 22 of the present paper). She is seated, and apparently whorls the spindle by rubbing it on her leg. The spindle is of wood, as are all other spindles, but the whorl is also of wood. In this these people are peculiar and perhaps unique. The whorl, among most other savage or prehistoric peoples, as we have already seen, was of stone or clay. These wooden whorls are thinner and larger, but otherwise they are the same. An inspection of the plate will show that with it the spinning apparatus forms the same machine, accomplishes the same purpose, and does it in the same way. The sole difference is in the size and material of the whorl. The difference in material accounts for the difference in size. It is not improbable that the Indian discovered that the wooden whorl would serve as well as a stone or pottery one, and that it was easier made. The machine in the hands of the woman, as shown in the figure, is larger than usual, which may be accounted for by the thread of wool fiber used by the Navajo being thicker and occupying more s.p.a.ce than the flaxen thread of prehistoric times; so it may have been discovered that a large whorl of wood served their purpose better than a small one of stone. Stone whorls of large size might be too heavy. Thus may be explained the change from small stone or pottery whorls to large wooden ones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 357. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL WITH DESIGN SIMILAR TO SWASTIKA. Valley of Mexico. Cat. No. 27875, U. S. N. M.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 22. NAVAJO WOMAN USING SPINDLE AND WHORL. Dr.

Washington Matthews, Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82, Pl. x.x.xIV.]

_Mexico._--Fig. 357 represents the two sides and edge of a pottery terra-cotta spindle-whorl. It is the largest of a series of six (Cat.

Nos. 27875-27880) from the valley of Mexico, sent to the U. S. National Museum by the Mexican National Museum in 1877. Fig. 358 also represents one of a series from Mexico, obtained by W. W. Blake, July, 1886 (Cat.

Nos. 99051-99059). The National Museum possesses hundreds of these from Mexico, as well as the small ones from Peru.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 358. MEXICAN TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL WITH DESIGN SIMILAR TO SWASTIKA.]

These specimens are chosen because they are the largest and most elaborately decorated. It will be perceived at a glance how the style of decoration lends itself to the Swastika. It consists mostly of geometric figures, chief of which is the Greek fret, the labyrinth, the circle, and the volute, but as in the color stamps (pp. 946-947) there is no Swastika.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figs. 359 and 360. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORLS. Omotepe Island, Nicaragua. Cat. Nos. 28898, 28899, U. S. N. M.]

CENTRAL AMERICA.

_Nicaragua._--The specimen shown in fig. 359, from Omotepe Island, Lake Nicaragua, is one of a series of pottery spindle-whorls, bearing, however, great resemblance to those of stone. Fig. 360 shows a specimen from the same locality. It is of pottery and bears much resemblance in form to the earliest whorls found by Schliemann on the site of Troy on the hill of Hissarlik. Both these were collected by Dr. J. F. Bransford, and are in the U. S. National Museum. Fig. 361 shows a specimen from Granada, Nicaragua. It is of the common shape of the European prehistoric spindle-whorl. Its flat surface is decorated with a Greek cross in incised lines, two quarters of which are filled with hatch marks. Fig. 362 shows a terra-cotta spindle-whorl from Malacate, Nicaragua. It is cone-shaped.

Both these specimens were collected by Dr. Earl Flint.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 361. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL. Granada, Nicaragua.

Cat. No. 23295, U. S. N. M.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 362. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL. Malacate, Nicaragua.

Cat. No. 29009, U. S. N. M.]

SOUTH AMERICA.

_Chiriqui._--Figs. 363, 364, and 365 show terra-cotta spindle-whorls from Chiriqui, the most northern territory in South America and adjoining the Isthmus of Panama. They are engraved natural size, with ornamentation similar to that on the pottery of that country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 363. SPINDLE-WHORL MADE OF GRAY CLAY AND DECORATED WITH ANNULAR NODES. Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 218.]

_Colombia._--Fig. 366 shows a cone-shaped terra-cotta whorl from Manizales, Colombia, South America. It has a star-shaped design on the face and a three-line zigzag or chevron pattern.