THE SWASTIKA

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.

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 Boeotia, 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.

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).

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).

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.

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.