THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 567 



when entering a house or church as a sign of good luck or good wishes, 

 or the occasion of a wedding or fete.' 



The diffusion of a sign so complicated as the Swastika throughout all 

 time and in all countries is something to be remarked, and of which 

 we should recognize the importance. Our astonishment is doubled 

 when we find the same symbol among the Ashantes on the western 

 (!oast of Africa,- and then see it figured in America among the most 

 ancient civilization of which we have any knowledge. By what migra- 

 tion has it crossed the Atlantic, by what migrations has it penetrated 

 such distant countries and appeared among races of men so different? 

 And if, as we believe, all these representatious are due to an indigenous 

 art, either Indian or African, where did they obtain their model? Our 

 ignorance on these points is complete, and the most we can do is to give 

 a resume of the principal known facts. 



The Swastika has been found engraved on a shell from a mound in 

 Tennessee which contained 32 human burials,-^ on plates (five) of cop- 

 per from the mounds of Chillicothe, Ohio,* a stone hatchet from Pem- 

 berton, IST. J., on an Arkansas vase in the National Museum, on a silver 

 ornament, the authenticity of which appears incontestable, and which 

 was shown in 1887 at the reunion of the Association Franyaise at 

 Toulouse.^ 



« 



Nordenskiold cites numerous examples of the Swastika now engraved 

 in straight lines, other times indicated by dots, among the cave dwell- 

 ers of Mesa Verde, and the same is done by Max Miiller in Yucatan 

 and Paraguay, while other savants have found it under the huacas of 

 Peru and among savage tribes of Brazil, where the triangular pieces of 

 pottery, sometimes bearing the mysterious Swastika sign, often form 

 the only dress of the women.*' 



We find it in the paintings of the ISTavajos'^ and on the ornaments of 

 the Pueblo Indians, while the Sac Indians of the Southwest wear it on 



1 It has been contended by some persons that the triskelion was an evolution from 

 or to the Swastika. The triskelion consists of three human legs bent at the knee 

 and joined at the thigh. It is found on the Lycian coins about 480 B. C, and thence 

 was carried by Agathocles to Sicily, (Barclay Head, Coins of the Ancients, PL 

 XXXV. ) It is also found on a vase from Agrigentum. (Waring, Ceramic Art in Remote 

 Ages, pi. 42.) Newton explains how the symbol (triskelion) is found on the arms of 

 Sicily, and also those of the Isle of Man. (Athenajum, September, 1892.) The Duke 

 of Athol, proprietary of the Isle of Man, sold in 1765 his right to the Crown of Eng- 

 land, but because he had been its sovereign he kept the triskelion in his coat of 

 arms. 



2 It is not possible to admit, says Count Goblet d'Alviella (Migration des Symboles, 

 page 108), that this lias been spontaneously conceived and executed. Of all a priori 

 hypotheses, this is certainly the most difficult to accept. 



^ III Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 140. 



* XII Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology. Other similar discoveries have been 

 made in Ohio. 

 ■' Compte rendu, I, page 284. 



'■ Wilson, Swastika, Report U. S. Nat. Mus., 1894, PI. XVIII. 

 ^Wilson, I.e., PI. XVII. 



