THE ORIGIN OF THE SWASTIKA 205 



it is the tongue. That one significant thing suggesting 

 defiance alone persists. The study of this process in 

 human art covers a very wide field, including all races 

 and all times. An excellent example is that given in 

 Fig. 51. It shows the step by step "grammatizing" of 

 a favourite decorative drawing that of an alligator, as 

 painted by the Chiriqui Indians of Panama on pottery. 

 We start in Fig. 51, A, with an alligator, already con- 

 siderably "schematized" or conventionalized. The Indians 

 could do better than that, but it served for pottery 

 decoration. The figures B, C, D show three stages of 

 further " grammatiz- 

 ing " of the design 

 (from different parts 

 of the surface of a pot) 

 till, in D, we get the 

 alligator reduced to a 

 yoke-like line and a 



dot ! FIG. 51. Four stages in the simplification 



Familiar modern of a decorative design the Alligator 



- , . as painted on pottery by the Chiriqui 



examples of this re- Ind f ans (Ho imes.) 

 duction of an animal 



figure to one or two lines, with mysterious-looking branches 

 (representing limbs or horns), are seen in the scattered 

 devices on the Turkey carpets so largely used at the 

 present day. A comparison of various examples of such 

 carpets of different age and locality reveals the true nature 

 of these queer-looking patterns as representations of 

 animals ! Another familar instance of the grammatizing 

 of an animal form is that shown in Fig. 52, D, which is 

 the common symbol in modern European art for a flying 

 ,bird. Fig. 52 shows, however, some more important 

 simplifications of animal form. The series marked E are 

 a few examples from hundreds painted on the walls of 

 caves in Cantabria (Spain) by perhistoric men. They 



