252 PICTOGRAPHS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



Under the bead of errors some of the most marked have arisen from 

 the determination of enthusiastic symbolists to discover something mys- 

 tical in the form of the cross wherever found. 



The following- quotation is taken from a work by Gabriel de Mortillet, 

 entitled Le Signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme (Paris, Reinwald, 

 L866), p. 173: 



Ou voit qu'il ne pent, plus y avoir de doute sur l'emploi de la Croix coiuiue signe 

 religieux, bien longtemps avant le christianisme. Le culte de la Croix, repandu en 

 Gaule avant la conquete, existait dcja dans l'fimilie a l'epoque du bronze, plus de 

 inille aus avant Jesus-Christ. 



C'est snrtout dans les sepultures de Golasecca ou ce culte s'estr6ve'l<$delaniauie,re]a 

 plus complete; etla, chose strange, onatrouvgun vase portant le monogramtneancien 

 du Christ, figure 117 [reproduced in the present paper by Figure 209; the right- 

 hand figure being from the vase, and that on the left 

 the recoguized monogram of Christ], dessine' peut- 

 etre mille ans avant la venue de Jesus-Christ. La 

 presence isolee de ce monogramme du Christ an milieu 

 de nombreuses Croix est-elle un fait accideutel en- 

 titlement fortuit ? Des recherches plus completes 

 Fro. 209.-Symbols of the cross, peuvent seules permettre de repondre a cette question. 



Un autre fait fort curieux, tres-interessant a con- 

 stater, c'est que ce grand de'veloppenient du culte de la Croix, avant la venue du Christ, 

 semble toujonrs coincide!' avec ['absence d'idoles et meme de toute representation 

 d'objets vivants. Des que ces objets se montreut, on dirait que les Croix deviennent 

 phis rares et finisseut meme par disparaltre. 



La Croix a done 6t4, dans la haute antiquite", bien longtemps avant la venue de 

 Jesus-Christ, l'embleme sa.crr' d'une secte religieuse qui repoussait l'idolatrie! !! 



The author, with considerable naivete\ has evidently determined that 

 theform of the cross was significant of a high state of religious culture, and 

 that its being succeeded by effigies, which lie calls idols, showed a lapse 

 into idolatry. The fact is simply that, next to one straight line, the com- 

 bination of two straight lines forming a cross is the easiest figure to draw, 

 and its use before art could attain to the drawing of animal forms, or 

 their representation in plastic material, is merely an evidence of crude- 

 ness or imperfection in designing. It is wflrthy of remark that Dr. 

 Schliemann, in his " Troja," page 107, presents as Fig. 38 a much more 

 distinct cross than that given by M. Mortillet, with the simple remark 

 that it is " a geometrical ornamentation." An anecdote told by Dr. 

 Robert Fletcher, U. S. Army, in connection with his exhaustive paper 

 on Tattooing Among Civilized People, published in the Transactions of 

 the Anthropological Society of Washington, Vol. II, page 40, is also in 

 point. Some savants were much excited over the form of the cross found 

 in tattoo marks on an Arab boy, but on inquiry of the mother as to why 

 the cross had been placed there, she simply answered "because it looked 

 pretty." The present writer will add to the literature on the subject a 

 reference to the cross as shown upon the arm of a Cheyenne in Cloud- 

 Shield's winter count for the year 1790-'91, page 132, ante. (See also page 

 173.) This is explained fully by one of the common gestures tor the 

 tribal sign, Cheyenne. 



