366 



CROSS 



[b. a. e. 



the swastika, was in common use all over 

 America in pre-Columbian times. N. of 

 the Rio Grande it assumed many forms, 

 had varied siKniticance and use, and 

 doubtless originated in many different 

 ways. Some of these ways may be briefly 

 suggested: (1) 

 '^ Primitive man 

 adjusts him- 

 self t ( ) h i s 

 environment, 

 real and imagi- 

 nary, Ijy keep- 

 ing in mind 

 the cardinal 

 points as he 

 understands 

 them. When 

 the Indian 

 considers the 

 world about 

 him he thinks of it as divided into the 

 four cjuarters, and when he communi- 

 cates with the mysterious beings and 

 powers with which his imagination peo- 

 ples it — the rulers of the winds and 

 rains — he turns his face to the four direc- 

 tions in stipulated 

 order and addresses 

 them to make his ap- 

 peals and his offer- 

 ings. Thus his wor- 

 ship, his ceremonies, 

 his games, and even 

 his more ordinary oc- 

 cupations in many 

 cases "are arranged to 

 conform to the cardi- 

 nal points, and the va- 

 rious symbolic repre- 

 sentations associated with them assume 

 the form of the cross (see Color symbolism, 

 Orientation ) . This was and is true of many 

 peoples and is well illustrated in the won- 

 derful altar paintings of the tribes of the 

 arid region (see Drii-iminting). (Such 

 crosses, although an 

 essential part of 

 S}'mbolism and reli- 

 gious ceremony, ex- 

 ist only for the pur- 

 poses of theoccasion 

 and are brushed 

 away when the cer- 

 emony is ended, but 

 nevertheless they 

 pass into permanent 

 form as decorations 

 of ceremonial ob- 

 jects — as pottery, 

 basketry, and costumes — retaining their 

 significance indefinitely. (2) Distinct 

 from the crosses thus derived in form and 

 significance are those having a pictorial 

 origin; such are the conventional delinea- 

 tions of animal and vegetal forms or their 

 markings, or those representing the cos- 



Shell gorget with Figure of 

 spider and conventional- 

 IZED Cross marking. (2-5) 



Navaho Basket Th 



CROSSES REPRESEh 



Four world-quar 

 Stars or Clouds. 



(.-..) 



Arapahomed 

 cine-case lh 

 ( kroeber) 



mic bodies, as the sun and the stars, par, 

 ticularly the morning and evening stars- 

 as among the triljes of the S. W. Tliese fig- 

 ures, generally very simple in form, may 

 be symbols of mythic powers 

 and personages; and when used 

 in non-symbolic art they may 

 in time lose the symbolic char- 

 acter and remain in art as mere 

 formal decorative patterns. ( 3 ) 

 Distinct from these again are a 

 large class of crosses and cross- 

 like forms which have an ad- 

 ventitious origin, being the re- 

 sult of the combined mechan- 

 ical and esthetic requirements 

 of embellishment. In nearly 

 all branches of art in which 

 surface ornament is an impor- 

 tant factor the spaces availa- 

 ble for decorative designs are 

 squares, rectangles, circles, and 

 ovals, or are borders or zones 

 which are divided into squares 

 or parallelograms for ready treatment. 

 When simple figures, symbolic or non- 

 symbolic, are filled into these spaces, they 

 are introiluced, not singly, since the result 

 would be unsatisfac- 

 tory from the point 

 of view of the deco- 

 rator; not in pairs, 

 as that would be lit- 

 tle better, but in 

 fours, thus filling 

 the spaces evenh 

 and synnnetrically. 

 This quadruple ar- 

 rangement in amul- 

 titude of cases pro- 

 duces the cross 

 which, although a 

 pseudo cross, is not always to be distin- 

 guished from the cross symbol. The sep- 

 arate elements in such crosses may be 

 figures of men, insects, mountains, clouds, 

 frets, and scrolls, or what 

 not, and of themselves 

 symbolic, but the cross 

 thus produced is an acci- 

 dent and as a cross is 

 withoutsignificance. (4) 

 In very many cases de- 

 signs are invented by the 

 primitive decorator who 

 fills the available spaces 

 to beautify articles man- 

 ufactured, and the ar- 

 rangement in fours is of- 

 ten the most natural and 

 effective that can be de- 

 vised. These designs, 

 primarily nonsignificant, 

 may have meanings read into them by the 

 woman as she works the stitches of her 

 l>asketry or beadwork, or by others sub- 

 sequently, and these ideas maybe wholly 



MA BASKET WITH PSEUDO CROSS 

 (swastika) FORMED ADVENTI- 

 TIOUSLY OF THE INTERSPACES OF 

 FOUR SCROLL-FRET UNITS. (1-12) 



«^ 



Silver Cross ( Roman 

 Catholic) from a 

 Mound in Wisconsin; 

 1-3. (thomas) 



