There have been numerous European or Catholic crosses, as well as many other objects of European manufacture or objects of civilized types, found among the Indians. There have been silver crosses found with images of the Virgin thereon, with Latin inscriptions, or of Roman letters; there have been glass beads, iron arrowheads, and divers other objects found in Indian graves which bore indubitable evidence of contact with the whites, and no one with any archæological experience need be deceived into the belief that these were aboriginal or pre-Columbian manufacture. As a general rule, the line of demarkation between objects of Indian manufacture and those made by the whites is definite, and no practiced eye will mistake the one for the other. There may be exceptions, as where the Indian has lived with the whites or a white man with the Indians, or where an object is made with intent to deceive. In such cases one may have more trouble in determining the origin of the object.
There were many Indians who died and were buried within a century past, whose graves might contain many objects of white man’s work. Black Hawk and Red Jacket are examples, and, possibly, King Philip. Indian graves have been opened in New England and New York containing the gun or firelock of the occupant of the grave buried with him, and that this was evidence of European contact there can be no doubt. So there have been hundreds, possibly thousands, of Indians buried since the Columbian discovery down to within the last decade whose graves contain white man’s tools or implements. But no person with any archæological experience need be deceived by these things. The theory that the Latin or Greek crosses or Swastikas shown on these gorgets, disks, and pottery furnish evidence of contact by the aborigines with Europeans in post-Columbian times is without foundation and inadmissible.
DECORATIVE FORMS NOT OF THE CROSS, BUT ALLIED TO THE SWASTIKA.
COLOR STAMPS FROM MEXICO AND VENEZUELA.
The aborigines of Mexico and Central and South America employed terra-cotta color stamps, which, being made into the proper pattern in the soft clay, were burned hard; then, being first coated with color, the stamp was pressed upon the object to be decorated, and so transferred its color, as in the mechanical operation of printing, thus giving the intended decoration. Patterns of these stamps are inserted in this paper in connection with the Swastika because of the resemblance—not in form, but in style. They are of geometric form, crosses, dots, circles (concentric and otherwise), lozenges, chevrons, fret, and labyrinth or meander. The style of this decoration lends itself easily to the Swastika; and yet, with the variety of patterns contained in the series of stamps belonging to the U. S. National Museum, shown in [figs. 337 to 342], no Swastika appears; nor in the similar stamps belonging to other collections, notably that of Mr. A. E. Douglass, in the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History, Central Park, New York, are any Swastikas shown. Of the foregoing figures, all are from Tlaltelolco, Mexico (Blake collection), except [fig. 339], which is from the Valley of Mexico, and was received from the Museo Nacional of Mexico.
TERRA-COTTA COLOR STAMPS WITH DESIGNS SIMILAR TO THE SWASTIKA.
Mexico. Cat. Nos. 99124, 99127, 27887, 99115, 99118, 99122, U. S. N. M.