The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migration: With Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric TimesWilson, Thomas
Religion
The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migration: With Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times
Wilson, Thomas
Industries, Primitive; Swastikas; Symbolism
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, Pottawatomies, Iowas, and (I have been told) by the
Winnebagoes. I have never seen it on a Winnebago. 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 thinking it
an emblem of fire 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 you 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 service.
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 intercede for the people. There are many
malicious little demons who thwart the ancestors 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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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