475 



the error of writing: "Among the Kiatéxamut and Innuit tribes, 

 a cross placed on the head signified a shaman's evil spirit or 

 demon etc.", where the simple fact that the cross occurs in a 

 single drawing in southern Alaska has been generalised to hold 

 good of all Eskimo. As a matter of fact the drawing brought to 

 light by Mallery, who does not inform us on what implement or 

 object it was found, is a quite isolated product of an Eskimo's 

 imagination and, of course, does not prove anything as to the 

 cross having been known as a symbol or ornament among this 

 people as a whole. 



The cross on the comb brought by Amdrup from East Green- 

 land is of quite another type than the isolated ornamental crosses 

 which, as has been mentioned above, are found here and there 

 on Eskimo objects from different places. It is a pronounced Maltese 

 cross, a type which in Europe is of mediæval origin ^): in North 

 America it occurs now and then as an ornament. I have only found 

 it in a medicine-case lid^), illustrated in Kroeber, from the Arapho 

 Indians (Algonkin family), in a Siouan awl from Nebraska illustrated 

 in Mac Guire-''), and on a 'mantle of invisibility', illustrated in Mal- 

 lery^) made by Apache Indians (the most southerly group of the 

 Athapascan family); on this mantle it occurs six times as an 

 ornament. Finally, Mallery^) referring to Keam's manuscript informs 

 us that this type of cross was used by the Moki Indians (^= Mo- 

 quelumnan?) as an ornament. "The Maltese cross is the emblem 

 of a virgin; still so recognized by the Moki. It is a conventional 

 development of a more common emblem of maidenhood, the form 

 in which the maidens wear their hair arranged as a disk of 3 or 

 4 inches in diameter upon each side of the head. This discoidal 

 arrangement of their hair is typical of the emblem of fructification 

 worn by the virgin in the Muingwa festival". So among these 

 Indians this peculiar form of cross has been developed as an 

 imitation of the women's head-dress. 



Inv. Amd. 87 (Fig 56), from Dunholm, is a flattish tube 



') Wilson 111, 760 and 950 (Fig. 7) "The Maltese Cross was the symbol 

 of the knichts of Malta, and has become, in later years, that of the 

 Masonic fraternity. 



*) Handbook Amer Ind. I, p. 366. 



^ Mac Guire I, 67f3, fig. 60 



', Mallery PI. XXXIll. 

 I Mallery 12Я—Т2<), fig. 1232. 



