The Swastika
Preface
The Swastika.
The Earliest known Symbol and its migrations with observations
on the migration of certain industries in prehistoric times.
by Thomas Wilson
Curator, Department of Prehistoric Anthropology, U.S. National Museum.
Preface
An
English gentleman, versed in prehistoric archaeology, visited me in the
summer of 1894, and during our conversation asked if we had the Swastika
in America. I answered, "Yes," and showed him two or three specimens
of it. He demanded if we had any literature on the subject. I cited him
De Mortillet, De Morgan, and Zmigrodzki, and he said, "No, I mean
English or American." I began a search which proved almost futile,
as even the word Swastika did not appear in such works as Worcester's
or Webster's dictionaries, the Encyclopaedic Dictionary, the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Johnson's Universal Cycopaedia, the People's Cyclopaedia,
nor Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, his Greek and Roman
Biography and Mythology, or his Classical Dictionary of Art and Archaeology,
Fairholt's Dictionary of Terms in Art, "L'Art Gothique," by
Gonza, Perrot and Chipiez's extensive histories of Art in Egypt, in Chaldea
and Assyria, and in Phenicia; also "The Cross," Ancient and
Modern," by W.W. Blake, "The History of the Cross," by
John Ashton; and a reprint of a Dutch work by Wildener. In the American
Encyclopaedia the description is erroneous, while all the Century Dictionary
says is "Same as fylfot," and "Compare Crux Ansata and
Gammadion." I thereupon concluded that this would be a good subject
for presentation to the Smithsonian Institution for "diffusion of
knowledge among men."
The principal object of
this paper has been to gather and put in a compact form such information
as is obtainable concerning the Swastika, leaving to others the task of
adjustment of these facts and their arrangement into an harmonious theory.
The only conclusion sought to be deduced from the facts stated is as to
the possible migration in prehistoric times of the Swastika and similar
objects.
No conclusion is then
attempted as to the time or place of origin, or the primitive meaning
of the Swastika, because these are considered to be lost in antiquity.
The straight line, the circle, the cross, the triangle, are simple forms,
easily made, and might have been invented and re-invented in every age
of primitive man and in every quarter of the globe, each time being an
independent invention, meaning much or little, meaning different things
among different peoples or at different times among the same people; or
they may have had no settled or definite meaning. But the Swastika was
probably the first to be made with a definite intention and a continuous
or consecutive meaning, the knowledge of which passed from person to person,
from tribe to tribe, from people to people, and from nation to nation,
until, with possibly changed meanings, it has finally circled the globe.
There are many disputable
questions broached in this paper. The author is aware of the differences
of opinion thereon among learned men, and he has not attempted to dispose
of these questions in the few sentences employed in their announcement.
He has been conservative and has sought to avoid dogmatic decisions of
controverted questions. The antiquity of man, the locality of his origin,
the time of his dispersion and the course of his migration, the origin
of bronze and the course of its migration, all of which may be more or
less involved in a discussion of the Swastika, are questions not to be
settled by the dogmatic assertions of any individual.
Much of the information
in this paper is original, and relates to prehistoric more than to modern
times, and extends to nearly all the countries of the globe. It is evident
that the author must depend on other discoveries; therefore, all books,
travels, writers, and students have been laid under contribution without
scruple. Due acknowledgment is hereby made for all quotations of text
or figures wherever they occur.
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