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
In addition to the foregoing, there were peculiar uses of the Swastika in
certain localities: In Italy on the hut urns in which the ashes of the
dead are buried; in the Swiss lakes stamped in the pottery; in Scandinavia
on the weapons, swords, etc., and in Scotland and Ireland on the brooches
and pins; in America on the metates for grinding corn; the Brazilian women
wore it on the pottery fig leaf; the Pueblo Indian painted it on his dance
rattle, while 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 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, metates, 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. Yet we know it was used on certain ceremonial occasions
which may themselves have had more or less a sacred character.
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 a
hundred to one of a sacred kind. With this preponderance in favor of the
common use, it would seem that, except among the Buddhists 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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