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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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