THE SWASTIKA
[Illustration: FIG. 38.–The swastika in its simplest rectangular form.
It may turn to the right, as here, or to the left, a less usual thing,
but without significance.]
A good many people have never heard of the Swastika. It is an emblem
or device such as is the Cross or the Crescent. Here it is (Fig. 38)
in its most simple and most common form. In India it is in common use
at the present day, and has been so for ages. It is the emblem of good
luck. The name "Swastika," by which it is widely known, is a Sanskrit
word meaning "good luck." The word is composed of Su, the equivalent
of the Greek _eu_, signifying "well" or "good," and asti (like the
Greek _esto_), signifying "being," whilst ka is a suffix completing
the word as a substantive. The sign or emblem called Swastika must
have existed and been largely used in decoration of temples, images,
swords, banners, utensils, and personal trinkets of all sorts long
before this name was given to it. It has a name in many widely separate
languages. It is often referred to by English writers as the fylfot,
the gammadion, and the "crux ansata," also as the "croix gammée." It is
often found more roughly drawn (on pottery or cloth) as shown in Fig.
39. Often the arms of the cross are bent rigidly at right angles as
in Fig. 38, but they are often only curved as seen in Fig. 39, C, or
curled spirally as in B, when it is called an "ogee." The arms of the
Swastika are sometimes bent to the right as in Fig. 38, and sometimes
to the left as in Fig. 39. This difference does not appear to have any
symbolic significance, but to depend on the fancy of the artist.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.–Three simple varieties of the swastika.
_A_, the normal rectangular. _B_, the ogee variety (with spiral
extremities). _C_, the curvilinear or "current" variety.]
[Illustration: FIG. 40.–Footprint of the Buddha, from an ancient Indian
carving, showing several swastikas. (Fergusson and Schliemann.)]
In Figs. 40 to 45 a few examples are shown of the Swastika from various
places and ages. It was in use in Japan in ancient times, and is
still common there and in Korea. In China, where it is called "wan,"
it was at one time used, when enclosed in a circle, as a character
or pictograph to signify the sun. It has been employed in China from
time immemorial to mark sacred or specially honoured works of art,
buildings, porcelain, pictures, robes, and is sometimes tattooed on
the hands, arms, or breast. In India it is widely used in decoration
by both Buddhists and Brahmins; children have it painted on their
shaven heads, and it is introduced in various ceremonies. The gigantic
carved footprints of Buddha from an Indian temple drawn in Fig. 40 show
several Swastikas on the soles of the feet and on the toes. In the
Near East and in Europe the Swastika is no longer in use: it is not,
in fact, popularly known. But in ancient and very remote times it was
in constant use in these regions, especially by the Mykenæan people
and those who came under their influence, and also by the people of
the Bronze Age–before the use of iron in Europe. Fig. 41 shows a vase
of Mykenæan age (about 1200 years B.C.) from Cyprus ornamented with
Swastikas. Hundreds of terra-cotta "spindle-whorls" like Fig. 42 were
found by Schliemann in excavating Hissarlik and the site of ancient
Troy, and some of them date from 3000 B.C. in layers of different ages.
The vase on which is painted the ornament shown in Fig. 43 is from
Bœotia, and belongs to the same early period–the "Mykenæan" or "Ægæan"
before that of the Hellenes. It still survives in the pottery of the
Dipylon period (_circa_ 800 B.C.), as is seen in the fragment drawn
in Fig. 6, Chapter I. The later Greeks of the great classical period
(Hellenes) did not use the Swastika. Nor has it been found on the works
of art of the ancient Egyptians, nor in the remains of Babylonia,
Assyria or Persia. It, in fact, seems to have belonged especially to
that ancient "Minoan" civilization, the remains of which are found
in Crete and the other Greek islands. The same culture and the same
race is revealed to us by the discoveries of Schliemann at Mykenæ and
other spots in Greece, and at Hissarlik, the seat of ancient Troy. The
Mykenæan art seems not to have been transmitted to the post-Homeric
Greeks, nor to Egypt, nor to Babylonia and Assyria. The Swastika seems,
like the "flying gallop" of Mykenæan art, to have travelled in very
ancient times by a north-eastern route to the Far East. I have given
some account of the latter, with illustrations, in "Science from an
Easy Chair," Second series. Like the representation of the galloping
horse, with both fore and hind legs stretched and the hoofs of the hind
legs turned upwards, the Swastika is found in the remarkable metal work
(Fig. 43 _bis_) discovered in the necropolis of Koban, in the Caucasus,
dating from 500 B.C. The Swastika and the "flying gallop" probably
travelled together across Asia to China and the Far East, and so
eventually to India on the one hand and Japan on the other–the Swastika
thus escaping altogether, as does the pose of the "flying gallop," the
Near East and later Greece. This is a very remarkable and interesting
association.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.–Vase from Cyprus (Mykenæan Age, _circa_ 1200
B.C.); painted with lotus, bird and four swastikas (Metropolitan
Museum, New York City).]
[Illustration: FIG. 42.–Terra-cotta spindle-whorl marked with
swastikas. Troy, 4th city (Schliemann).]
The Mykenæans and their island relatives obtained the Swastika either
from the ancient Bronze-age people of Europe or else gave it to them,
since it is very nearly as common as a decoration or symbol on the
bronze swords, spear-heads, shields, and other metal work of these
prehistoric people of the middle and north of Europe (also occurring
in the pottery of the Swiss Lake dwellings), as it is in the islands
and adjacent lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Swastika is also
found abundantly on the early work of the Etruscans, but disappeared
from general use in Italy, as it did from the rest of Europe, before
historic times, although occasionally used (as in the decoration of
the walls of a house at Pompeii). All over Germany, Scandinavia,
France, and Britain it is found (Fig. 44) on objects of the Bronze
period–sometimes on stone as well as on bronze utensils, ornaments,
and weapons. A few objects of Anglo-Saxon age are ornamented with
it–especially remarkable is a piece of pottery of that age from Norfolk
(Fig. 45).
[Illustration: FIG. 43.–Ornament from an archaic (pre-Hellenic) Bœotian
vase, showing several swastikas, Greek crosses and two serpents (from
Goodyear).]
[Illustration: FIG. 43. (_bis_).–Swastika in bronze repoussé, from the
necropolis of Koban, Caucasus (after Chantre "Le Caucase"), about 500
B.C.]
[Illustration: FIG. 44.–Silver-plated bronze horse-gear from
Scandinavia, showing two swastikas, and below a complex elaboration of
a swastika. (Bronze Age, about 1500 B.C.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 45.–Anglo-Saxon urn from Shropham, Norfolk,
ornamented by twenty small hand-made swastikas stamped into the clay.
(British Museum.)]
The history of the "Swastika" would be remarkable enough if it ended
here with the disappearance of its use in Europe in prehistoric times
and its continued use in the Far East and India. But the most curious
fact about it is that we find it as a very common and favourite
decoration and device among the native tribes in North America and
Mexico, and exceptionally in Brazil. It is found in use among the
Indians of Kansas and other tribes–as a device in pottery, in bead-work
(Fig. 46), patch-work, quill-embroidery, and other decorative fabrics.
The Indians called Sacs, Kickapoos, and Pottawottamies, who worship
the sun (which is associated with the Swastika in China), call it by
a native name signifying "the luck." It is also found as a decorative
design in the most ancient remains of man in America, dating (so far as
can be guessed) from a thousand years or more before Columbus (Fig. 47).
[Illustration: FIG. 46.–Piece of a ceremonial bead-worked garter,
showing star and two swastikas made by the Sac Indians, Cook County,
Kansas. (Modern.)]
It is generally held that the Swastika must have been introduced into
America in prehistoric times by early redskin immigrants from Asia. The
question has been raised as to whether this introduction was before or
after the worship of Buddha in Asia. It is only amongst Buddhists that
the Swastika has a religious or sacred character. Elsewhere it seems to
have been a mark or sign carrying "good luck." A representation of a
sitting human figure incised on shell has been found in a prehistoric
burial-mound in Tennessee, which has remarkable resemblance to the
Asiatic statues of the Buddha. Shell ornaments have also been found
here decorated with sharply-cut Swastikas, and in a mound in Ohio thin
plates of copper were found cut into simple Swastika shapes like that
of Fig. 38, four inches across. Modern Mexican Indians make brooches of
gold and turquoise in the form of the Swastika, and it is a favourite
device among the Indians of neighbouring territory. Swastikas occur as
decorations or lucky marks on the small terra-cotta "fig-leaf," which
was worn by the women of some of the aboriginal tribes of Brazil, and
have also been found on native pottery from the Paraguay River.
Some students of this subject have held the opinion that the "Swastika"
has been invented independently at different times in different
parts of the world. It is a fairly simple device, it is true; but
the view which is accepted at present is that it has spread from
one centre–probably European in the late Stone period–through the
Mykenæans, across Asia, and so with early immigrants across the Pacific
into the American continent.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.–A stone slab from the ancient city of Mayapan
(Yucatan, Central America), on which (right side) a curvilinear
swastika is carved. (From the American Antiquarian Society, 1881.)]
Apart from this problem, there is an interesting question as to how
the device probably took its origin. The "Swastika" is sometimes
called the "gammadion," because it may be regarded as four individuals
of the Greek letter gamma (which has this shape [Greek: G]) joined
at right angles to one another. The old English name for it, dating
from Anglo-Saxon times, was fylfot–an old Norse word of doubtful
meaning, which has no currency at the present day.
A method of making the Swastika by piling up sand or grain on a flat
surface, actually in use at the present time in India, is shown in Fig.
48. The artist makes first of all a circle with a cross drawn within it
(A). Then the circle is rubbed out or cut away at four corresponding
points where the arms of the cross touch the circle, and so we get
B. Then by the straightening of the curved pieces we get the correct
rectangular Swastika, C. It is not probable that this is the way in
which the Swastika was originally devised, though it is not possible to
arrive at any certainty on the subject.
In these matters concerning the origin of simple ornamental patterns,
designs, and symbols, we always have to deal with certain natural
opposing tendencies on the part of the artist-draughtsman or designer,
one or other of which may be variously called into prominence by the
softness or hardness or other quality of the material he has to use,
or by the individual fancy for elaboration or for simplification which
exists in him. I will call four of these tendencies which concern us
in regard to the Swastika: 1, the rectilinear as opposed to 2, the
curvilinear, and 3, the grammatizing as opposed to 4, the naturalizing
tendency, and will show what bearing they may have on the origin of the
device known as the Swastika.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.–Diagram to show the derivation of the swastika
from a Greek cross enclosed by a circle. In India the swastika is
actually modelled in this way–in native ceremonies with rice-grain
spread on the ground. The successive figures drawn above are produced
by moving the rice with the hand.]