1 The Swastika. Report of the U. S. National Museum, 1894. Washington,
1896. During the preparation of this paper I also consulted the
following works, from which some forms of swastika are likewise
reproduced on pl. II: Le signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme.
Gabriel de Mortillet. Paris, 1866. Zur Geschichte der Swastika.
Zmigrodski, Braunschweig, 1890. La migration des symboles. Comte
Goblet d’Alviella. Paris, 1891.
2 I would insert here that it was only when the present investigation
was almost completed, that my attention was arrested by a reference
in Professor Wilson’s work, already cited, to a short article on the
Fylfot and the Futhorc tir by H. Colley March, M.D.
Having succeeded in obtaining a copy of the Transactions of the
Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society (vol. 4, pp. 1-12,
1886), in which it appeared, I had the extreme satisfaction of
finding that a specialist working in another field and approaching
the problem from another direction had come to two of the identical
conclusions that I had reached in a totally different manner. This
fact constitutes, in my opinion, the most powerful support of the
correctness of the views we hold in common after having formed,
expressed and worked them out in such a different way, as can be
verified by a comparison of our two works.
Referring the reader to his valuable and suggestive communication to
which I shall revert, I shall merely mention here that Dr. March
recognizes, as I do, that the “essential suggestion [of the swastika
and fylfot] is of axial rotation.” He attributes the original of the
swastika to the nocturnal (not as I do, to the annual) rotation of
the Ursa Major around Polaris, and likewise refers to the fact that
about four thousand years ago, the circular sweep of the circumpolar
constellations was far more striking than at present. After meeting
on this common ground our lines of investigation part company and go
wide asunder, nor am I able to follow some of Dr. March’s
conclusions such as, for instance, his opinion that the fylfot was a
sign of a “diurnal rotation” suggested by “the rising and setting of
the sun and moon when the spectator looked at them with his back to
the north.” On the other hand I am indebted to him for much valuable
information relating to the rune or futhorc tir, to which I shall
refer later.
3 Besides the word _coatl_=twin, the Mexicans had another term to
express some thing double, in pairs. A plant with two shoots was
named xolotl. Double agave plants, or maize when occasionally met
with, were regarded with superstition and named me-xolotl. The
pretty little parroquets, popularly known as “love-birds” from their
habit of constant association, in pairs, were named xolotl. The
circumstance that the term for birds’-down was also xolotl may
explain why the down-feathers of eagles and other birds were
employed and played a certain rôle in ritual observances. They
expressed and conveyed the sound of a word which meant something
double and could therefore be used to symbolize a variety of
meanings relating to multiplication or propagation. That the
Mexicans figuratively connected birds’-down with generation is
proven by the well-known myth of the birth of Huitzilopochtli from
the union of a ball of birds’-down and a goddess named “she with the
petticoat of serpents” (Sahagun, book III, chap. I).
Tufts of birds’-down figure, in the B. N. MS., on the shield of the
female ancestress of the human race, one of whose numerous titles
was toci,=“our grandmother,” to express which the figure of a citli
or hare was sometimes employed in pictography. Of her it was said,
that she bore only twins, a figure of speech meaning great
productiveness, just as the female divinity is also termed “the
woman with 400 breasts” (text to p. 29, Vatican Codex, Kingsborough,
vols. II and V). In the text to the Telleriano-Remensis Codex
(Kingsborough, vol. I, pl. 24), we find Xolotl, a deity wearing the
shell-symbol of Quetzalcoatl, directly named “the god of twins.”
4 The full meaning which may have been attached to the eye-symbol in
both Nahuatl and Maya languages is set forth in the following notes
which I give merely for the suggestion they convey of a deep meaning
having been attached to the eye-symbol. The Nahuatl word for eye is
_ix-telolotli_, but in pictography it represented the phonetic value
of _ix_ only. It may, therefore, have been employed as a cursive
sign for face=_ixtli_ and the fact that it figures in the centre of
the symbol _ollin_, where a face sometimes occurs, confirms this
surmise. In the Maya language the word for eye is _ich_, which is
practically identical with the Nahuatl _ix_, and this enters into
the composition of the following words, the meanings of which are
worth considering in connection with the fact that the eye is shown
to have been employed to convey the meaning of star, in both
languages: Ix-machun=eternal, without beginning, ix-mayam=forever,
continuously, without interruption. ix-maxul=perpetual, without end.
The fact that each of these Maya words exhibits the prefix _ix_ and
that an eye is employed to express this sound and stands for star,
is certainly interesting, since it suggests that the natives
associated the idea of eternity with the stars.
5 This native belief is beautifully illustrated by the two “highly
artistic shell-gorgets representing winged human beings,” which are
described and figured by Mr. Wm. H. Holmes, in Part II of his
instructive and extremely useful “Archaeological Studies among the
Ancient Cities of Mexico,” which I have received just as this paper
is going to press. I am much pleased at the possibility of drawing
attention, by means of a footnote, to the interesting fact that in
one gorget the human head is figured with butterfly wings, whilst in
the other it is accompanied by conventionalized feathers and a
butterfly wing. There can be no doubt that both gorgets are attempts
to represent the resuscitated souls of departed warriors, according
to the native ideas concerning them. It is nevertheless very
remarkable to see actually that the ancient Mexicans employed the
butterfly as a symbol of an immortal soul and had also evolved the
idea of a winged head, analogous to that of a cherub, to represent a
blest spirit, dwelling in celestial regions.
It is noticeable that the name of the Mexican priests was papa,
which syllables are the first in the word papalotl=butterfly. It may
be that a distinction was made and that the souls of the dead
priests were supposed to assume the shape of butterflies or moths,
whilst the warriors became celestial humming-birds.
6 In connection with Montezuma’s use of a litter it should be noticed
that, in the picture-writings, only the culture-hero Quetzalcoatl
and the bird god Huitzilopochtli are represented as seated on
litters. The two bars of Quetzalcoatl’s litter, figured in Duran’s
atlas (Tratado 2, cap. 1 a) terminate at each end in a serpent’s
head. The pair of twin serpents thus rendered, evidently convey an
allusion to his name, which would be equally comprehensible in the
Maya or Mexican languages. In another portion of Duran’s Atlas
(Trat. 2, chap. 2), Huitzilopochtli is figured as seated on a litter
masked as a bird, and a finely-executed native picture of the
bird-god, being borne on a litter, is in the B. N. MS. where he is
named “the precious lord” and is represented with a sceptre in his
hand surmounted by a heart. This latter detail is of special
interest, since it indicates that the Mexicans employed the heart
with the same symbolical and metaphorical meaning as the
Maya-Quiches and Tzentals. The latter had named their culture-hero
“Votan”=“the Heart” (of the people). (Brinton Hero-myths, p. 217.)
In the Popol-Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiches, the supreme
divinity is named “the Heart of the heaven, whose name is Hurakan.”
He is also named the “Heart of the Earth,” a title whose equivalent
in Mexico=Tepe-Yollotl, was applied to Tezcatlipoca and associated
with the bodiless voice, the echo, which was supposed to proceed
from the “heart (or life) of the Mountain.” The above data
undoubtedly prove the important point that Huitzilopochtli and
Tezcatlipoca were respectively entitled “the Heart of the Heaven”
and “the Heart of the Earth.”
7 Short triangular capes are worn to this day by the Mexican women,
and are called quechquemitl=shoulder capes. It is curious to find in
Molina’s dictionary, the following: tzimpitzauac=something figured,
which is wide above and pointed below, and tzimmanqui=something
figured which is pointed above and wide below, words which seem to
indicate that they refer to triangles and that these had different
meanings according to position.
8 The production of this drink was limited to the area in which the
agave plant could be cultivated. As set forth in my commentary on
the “Lyfe of the Indians,” the natives employed many other kinds of
fermented liquors, made from different fruits and plants.
9 The sacred symbols and numbers of Aboriginal America in Ancient and
Modern times. (Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, no. 2,
1894.)
10 Tribes of California, Stephen Powers. Contributions to North
American Ethnology. Washington, 1877. vol. III, p. 79.