Fig. 58.—Scalloped Shell Disk, from a mound near Nashville, Tennessee, showing in the centre a tetraskelion with four curved arms, about four inches in diameter, made of polished shell. (Peabody Museum.)
We find in early work discovered in the ancient mounds of North America decorative circles (Fig. 58) in which two S-like lines at right angles to one another are inscribed as shown in Fig. 56, and we find also that these curved rays may be prolonged as a marvellous enveloping spiral coil or helix—especially in the painting of pottery. When the curved rays are many in number, as in Fig. 57, the design has been interpreted by some archæologists as symbolizing the sun, and it is important to remember that the Swastika itself was used in China as the pictograph of the sun. A single curved S-like line has been found cut on a great circular slab, an ancient altar-stone (Fig. 59) in Honduras (Copan)—so as to divide the circle as is done in the Japanese Tomoye. It is obvious that the exact geometric character of the S-like division is of great significance in these designs and requires careful study and explanation. I have briefly discussed this matter at the end of the chapter. In the common "ogee Swastika," Fig. 56, B, the more or less elaborately helicoid arms are merely careless flourishes of the painter's brush. The simple four-rayed figure, shown in Fig. 56, A, is often spoken of as a "tetraskelion," or four-legged scroll, and is associated with the three-legged figure or triskelion which I wrote of in the last chapter. If the curvilinear "tetraskelion" be angularized—that is to say, rectangles substituted for semicircles, we get the correct fully developed Swastika, Fig. 56, C. And if, abandoning the circle, the draughtsman rapidly drew with a brush or on soft clay lines like an S crossing one another at right angles, he produced what is common enough wherever the more formal rectangular Swastika is found, namely, the curvilinear or "ogee Swastika," Fig. 56, B.
It is not possible with our present knowledge to penetrate into the remote past and really ascertain the origin of the shape or device called a Swastika. But it is, I think, quite likely that in manipulating the "tomoye" symbol (whether copied from a section of shell or originating by more independent invention and "trying" of lines and curves and circles), very early man duplicated the symmetrical S by which he had divided a circle and produced the tetraskelion seen in Fig. 56, A. The conversion of this into the rectangular Swastika and into varieties of the ogee and menander (which I have not found space to describe) would be an easy and natural sequence.
Fig. 59.—An altar-stone of prehistoric age. The circular surface is cut into by a trough of S-shape, which divides it so as to resemble the Japanese "Tomoye." From Copan, Honduras.
At the same time, I have no conviction that this is the real origin of the Swastika, and await further evidence. The "flying-stork theory," which was put forward by Reinach, is very attractive. Birds as badges and "totems" are frequent among primitive mankind, and certain species are often regarded as sacred and bringing good luck. The stork is one of these. If the artists who marked the very ancient clay-pottery of Hissarlik with the Swastika and also with outlines of the flying stork, strongly resembling a Swastika, did not derive the Swastika from the stork, but had received it from some independent source, then it is probable that they purposely drew the flying stork, so as to make it resemble as much as possible a Swastika.
When we take account of the apparently arbitrary passage of human decorative design from the naturalistic to the linear, and from the linear to the naturalistic; from the curvilinear to the rectilinear, and from rectilinear to curvilinear; when we also reflect that some races and populations of men have been prone to seek for the forms of their decoration in the natural forms of plants and animals, whilst others have made use of mere mechanical patterns of parallel or interlacing lines, we must conclude that by the appeal to one or other of these various tendencies it is easy to invent a large variety of more or less plausible theories as to the origin of the Swastika. The truth of the matter can only be decided, if ever, by more direct and conclusive evidence than we at present possess. Nevertheless, it is a legitimate and fascinating thing to speculate on the origin of this wonderful world-pervading emblem coming to us from the mists of prehistoric ages, and to endeavour to arrive, if possible, at possible points of contact between it and other "devices" and "symbols," even though they may be of equally obscure birth. [8]
