CHAPTER XVIII 

 THE ORIGIN OF THE SWASTIKA 



THE Swastika is, we have seen, a very early device 

 or symbol in use among ancient races in Europe, 

 Asia and America. Though it has been found 

 on an ingot of metal in Ashanti it was of late foreign 

 introduction there, and is not known in Africa, nor in 

 Polynesia and Australia, nor among the Eskimos. How 

 did it as a mere matter of shape and pattern come into 

 existence? One might suppose that such combinations 

 of lines as the simple cross and this modified cross, with 

 the arms bent each half-way along its length to form a 

 right angle, would be very natural things for a primitive 

 man — or a child — to make when trying to produce some 

 ornamental effect by tracing simple rectilinear and sym- 

 metrical figures. No doubt such a " playing with lines " 

 is a common phase or stage of the human search for 

 decorative design. It leads by gradual steps to very 

 complex line-decoration in early pottery and woven work, 

 which is sometimes called " geometrical design." 



It is, however, the fact, and a very interesting one, 

 that the tendency to make geometrical design is not so 

 pronounced in the very earliest examples of human 

 drawing and ornament known to us, as is the tendency 

 to copy natural objects. And this would appear to be 

 especially the case where the drawing is to be a symbol 

 or significant badge. In the earliest art-work known to 

 us — that of the cave-men of the late Pleistocene period in 



