Modern Christian archæologists have obstinately contended that the
Swastika was composed of four gamma, and so have called it the Croix
Gammée. But the Ramâyana placed it on the boat of the Rama long before
they had any knowledge of Greek. It is found on a number of Buddhist
edifices; the Sectarians of Vishnu placed it as a sign upon their
foreheads. Burnouf says it is the Aryan sign par excellence. It was
surely a religious emblem in use in India fifteen centuries before the
Christian era, and thence it spread to every part. In Europe it
appeared about the middle of the civilization of the bronze age, and
we find it, pure or transformed into a cross, on a mass of objects in
metal or pottery during the first age of iron. Sometimes its lines
were rounded and given a graceful curve instead of straight and square
at its ends and angles. [See letter by Gandhi, pp. 803, 805.]
M. Cartailhac notes[103] several facts concerning the associations of the
Swastika found by him in Spain and Portugal and belonging to the first
(prehistoric) age of iron: (1) The Swastika was associated with the
silhouettes of the duck, or bird, similar to those in Greece, noted by
Goodyear; (2) the association (in his fig. 41) on a slab from the lake
dwellings, of the Maltese cross and reproduction of the triskelion; (3) a
tetraskelion, which he calls a Swastika "flamboyant," being the
triskelion, but with four arms, the same shown on Lycian coins as being
ancestors of the true triskelion (his fig. 412); (4) those objects were
principally found in the ancient lake dwellings of Sambroso and Briteiros,
supposedly dating from the eighth and ninth centuries B. C. With them were
found many ornaments, borders representing cords, spirals, meanders, etc.,
which had the same appearance as those found by Schliemann at Mycenæ.
Cartailhac says:[104]
Without doubt Asiatic influences are evident in both cases; first
appearing in the Troad, then in Greece, they were spread through
Iberia and, possibly, who can tell, finally planted in a far-away
Occident.
A writer in the Edinburgh Review, in an extended discussion on "The
pre-Christian cross," treats of the Swastika under the local name of
"Fylfot," but in such an enigmatical and uncertain manner that it is
difficult to distinguish it from other and commoner forms of the cross.
Mr. Waring[105] criticises him somewhat severely for his errors:
He states that it is found * * * in the sculptured stones of Scotland
(but after careful search we can find only one or two imperfect
representations of it, putting aside the Newton stone inscription,
where it is probably a letter or numeral only); that it is carved on
the temples and other edifices of Mexico and Central America (where
again we have sought for it in vain); that it is found on the cinerary
urns of the terramare of Parma and Vicenza, the date of which has been
assigned by Italian antiquaries to 1000 B. C. (but there again we have
found only the plain cross, and not the fylfot), and, finally, he
asserts that "it was the emblem of Libitina or Persephone, the awful
Queen of the Shades, and is therefore commonly found on the dress of
the tumulorum fossor in the Roman catacombs," but we have only found
one such example. "It is noteworthy, too," he continues, "in reference
to its extreme popularity, or the superstitious veneration in which it
has been also universally held, that the cross pattée, or cruciform
hammer (but we shall show these are different symbols), was among the
very last of purely pagan symbols which was religiously preserved in
Europe long after the establishment of Christianity (not in Europe,
but in Scandinavia and wherever the Scandinavians had penetrated). * *
* It may be seen upon the bells of many of our parish churches, as at
Appleby, Mexborough, Haythersaye, Waddington, Bishop's Norton, West
Barkwith, and other places, where it was placed as a magical sign to
subdue the vicious spirit of the tempest;" and he subsequently points
out its constant use in relation to water or rain.
Mr. Waring continues:
The Rev. C. Boutell, in "Notes and Queries," points out that it is to
be found on many mediæval monuments and bells, and occurs--e. g., at
Appleby in Lincolnshire (peopled by Northmen)--as an initial cross to
the formula on the bell "Sta. Maria, o. p. n. and c." In these cases
it has clearly been adopted as a Christian symbol. In the same
author's "Heraldry," he merely describes it as a mystic cross.
Mr. Waring makes one statement which, being within his jurisdiction,
should be given full credit. He says, on page 15:
It [the Swastika] appears in Scotland and England only in those parts
where Scandinavians penetrated and settled, but is not once found in
any works of purely Irish or Franco-Celtic art.
He qualifies this, however, by a note:
I believe it occurs twice on an "Ogam" stone in the Museum of the
Royal Irish Academy, figured in Wilde's Catalogue (p. 136), but the
fylfots are omitted in the wood cut. [See fig. 215.]
Dr. Brinton,[106] describing the normal Swastika, "with four arms of equal
length, the hook usually pointing from left to right," says: "In this form
it occurs in India and on very early (Neolithic) Grecian, Italic, and
Iberian remains." Dr. Brinton is the only author who, writing at length or
in a critical manner, attributes the Swastika to the Neolithic period in
Europe, and in this, more than likely, he is correct. Professor Virchow's
opinion as to the antiquity of the hill of Hissarlik, wherein Dr.
Schliemann found so many Swastikas, should be considered in this
connection. (See p. 832, 833 of this paper.) Of course, its appearance
among the aborigines of America, we can imagine, must have been within the
Neolithic period.