The Swastika mark appears both in its normal and ogee form in the Persian carpets and rugs.[311] While writing this memoir, I have found in the Persian rug in my own bedchamber sixteen figures of the Swastika. In the large rug in the chief clerk’s office of the National Museum there are no less than twenty-seven figures of the Swastika. On a piece of imitation Persian carpet, with a heavy pile, made probably in London, I found also figures of the Swastika. All the foregoing figures have been of the normal Swastika, the arms crossing each other and the ends turning at right angles, the lines being of equal thickness throughout. Some of them were bent to the right and some to the left. At the entrance of the Grand Opera House in Washington I saw a large India rug containing a number of ogee Swastikas; while the arms crossed each other at right angles, they curved, some to the right and some to the left, but all the lines increased in size, swelling in the middle of the curve, but finishing in a point. The modern Japanese wisteria workbaskets for ladies have one or more Swastikas woven in their sides or covers.
Thus, it appears that the use of the Swastika in modern times is confined principally to Oriental and Scandinavian countries, countries which hold close relations to antiquity; that, in western Europe, where in ancient times the Swastika was most frequent, it has, during the last one or two thousand years, become extinct. And this in the countries which have led the world in culture.
If the Swastika was a symbol of a religion in India and migrated as such in times of antiquity to America, it was necessarily by human aid. The individuals who carried and taught it should have carried with it the religious idea it represented. To do this required a certain use of language, at least the name of the symbol. If the sign bore among the aborigines in America the name it bore in India, Swastika, the evidence of contact and communication would be greatly strengthened. If the religion it represented in India should be found in America, the chain of evidence might be considered complete. But in order to make it so it will be necessary to show the existence of these names and this religion in the same locality or among the same people or their descendants as is found the sign. To find traces of the Buddhist religion associated with the sign of the Swastika among the Eskimo in Alaska might be no evidence of its prehistoric migration, for this might have occurred in modern times, as we know has happened with the Russian religion and the Christian cross. While to find the Buddhist religion and the Swastika symbol together in America, at a locality beyond the possibility of modern European or Asiatic contact, would be evidence of prehistoric migration yet it would seem to fix it at a period when, and from a country where, the two had been used together. If the Swastika and Buddhism migrated to America together it must have been since the establishment of the Buddhist religion, which is approximately fixed in the sixth century B. C. But there has not been as yet in America, certainly not in the localities where the Swastika has been found, any trace discovered of the Buddhist religion, nor of its concomitants of language, art, or custom. Adopting the theory of migration of the Swastika, we may therefore conclude that if the Swastika came from India or Eastern Asia, it came earlier than the sixth century B. C.
If a given religion with a given symbol, both belonging to the Old World, should both be found associated in the New World, it would be strong evidence in favor of Old World migration—certainly of contact and communication. Is it not equally strong evidence of contact to find the same sign used in both countries as a charm, with the same significance in both countries?
The argument has been made, and it has proved satisfactory, at least to the author, that throughout Asia and Europe, with the exception of the Buddhists and early Christians, the Swastika was used habitually as a sign or mark or charm, implying good luck, good fortune, long life, much pleasure, great success, or something similar. The makers and users of the Swastika in South and Central America, and among the mound builders of the savages of North America, having all passed away before the advent of history, it is not now, and never has been, possible for us to obtain from them a description of the meaning, use, or purpose for which the Swastika was employed by them. But, by the same line of reasoning that the proposition has been treated in the prehistoric countries of Europe and Asia, and which brought us to the conclusion that the Swastika was there used as a charm or token of good luck, or good fortune, or against the evil eye, we may surmise that the Swastika sign was used in America for much the same purpose. It was placed upon the same style of object in America as in Europe and Asia. It is not found on any of the ancient gods of America, nor on any of the statues, monuments, or altars, nor upon any sacred place or object, but rather upon such objects as indicate the common and everyday use, and on which the Swastika, as a charm for good luck, would be most appropriate, while for a sacred character it would be singularly inappropriate.
The theory of independent invention has been invoked to account for the appearance of the Swastika in widely separated countries, but the author is more inclined to rely upon migration and imitation as the explanation.
When signs or symbols, myths or fables, habits or customs, utensils, implements or weapons, industries, tools or machinery, have been found in countries widely separated from each other, both in countries bearing characteristics so much alike as to make them practically the same objects or industries, and which are made in the same way, they present a question to which there are only two possible solutions: Either they are independent discoveries or inventions which, though analogous, have been separately conceived, or else they have been invented or discovered in one of the countries, and passed to the other by migration of the object or communication of the knowledge necessary to form it, or by contact between the two peoples. Of these inventions or discoveries said to have been made in duplicate, each of which is alleged to have sprung up in its own country as a characteristic of humanity and by virtue of a law of physics or psychology, it is but fair to say that in the opinion of the author the presumption is all against this. Duplicate inventions have been made and will be made again, but they are uncommon. They are not the rule, but rather the exception. The human intellect is formed on such unknown bases, is so uncertain in its methods, is swayed by such slight considerations, and arrives at so many different conclusions, that, with the manifold diversities of human needs and desires, the chances of duplicate invention by different persons in distant countries, without contact or communication between them, are almost as one to infinity.
The old adage or proverb says, “Many men of many minds,” and it only emphasizes the differences between men in regard to the various phenomena mentioned. There are some things sure to happen, yet it is entirely uncertain as to the way they will happen. Nothing is more uncertain than the sex of a child yet to be born, yet every person has one chance out of two to foretell the result correctly. But of certain other premises, the chances of producing the same result are as one to infinity. Not only does the human intellect not produce the same conclusion from the same premises in different persons, but it does not in the same person at different times. It is unnecessary to multiply words over this, but illustrations can be given that are satisfactory. A battle, a street fight, any event happening in the presence of many witnesses, will never be seen in the same way by all of them; it will be reported differently by each one; each witness will have a different story. The jurors in our country are chosen because of the absence of prejudice or bias. Their intellect or reason are intended to be subjected to precisely the same evidence and argument, and yet how many jurors disagree as to their verdict? We have but to consider the dissensions and differences developed in the jury room which are settled, sometimes by argument, by change of conviction, or by compromise. What would be the resources of obtaining justice if we were to insist upon unanimity of decision of the jury upon their first ballot or the first expression of their opinion and without opportunity of change? Yet these jurors have been charged, tried, and sworn a true verdict to render according to the law and evidence as submitted to them. There is no doubt but that they are endeavoring to fulfill their duty in this regard, and while the same evidence as to fact, and charge as to law, are presented to all of them at the same time, what different impressions are made and what different conclusions are produced in the minds of the different jurors. Illustrations of this exist in the decisions of our Supreme Court, wherein, after full argument and fair investigation, with ample opportunity for comparison of views, explanations, and arguments, all based upon the same state of facts, the same witnesses; yet, in how many cases do we find differences of opinion among the members of the court, and questions of the gravest import and of the most vital character settled for the whole nation by votes of 8 to 7 and 5 to 4? The author has examined, and in other places shown, the fallacy of the rule that like produces like. Like causes produce like effects is a law of nature, but when the decision rests upon the judgment of man and depends upon his reason and his intellect, our common knowledge testifies that this law has no application. When the proposition to be determined has to be submitted to individuals of widely separated and distinct countries between whom there has been neither communication nor contact, and who have received no suggestion as to their respective ideas or needs, or the means of satisfying them, it seems to the author that no rule can be predicated upon the similarity of human condition, of human reason, or of human intellect, certainly none which can be depended on to produce the same conclusion.
Consideration of the facility with which symbols, signs, myths, fables, stories, history, etc., are transmitted from one people to another and from one country to another, should not be omitted in this discussion. It may have slight relation to the Swastika to mention the migrations of the present time, but it will give an idea of the possibility of past times. In this regard we have but to consider the immense number of articles or objects in museums and collections, public and private, representing almost every country and people. We there find objects from all quarters of the globe, from the five continents, and all the islands of the sea. Some of them are of great antiquity, and it is a matter of wonderment how they should have made such long passages and have been preserved from destruction by the vicissitudes of time and space. We have but to consider how money passes from hand to hand and is always preserved to be passed on to the next. Every collection of importance throughout the world possesses a greater or less number of Greek and Roman coins antedating the Christian era. We have an excellent illustration of those possibilities in the word “halloo,” commonly rendered as “hello.” A few years ago this word, was peculiar to the English language, yet an incident lately occurred in the city of Washington, within sight of my own residence, by which this word, “hello,” has traveled the world around, has spread itself over land and sea, has attached itself to and become part of most every spoken language of civilization, and without much consideration as to its meaning; but being on the procrustean bed of imitation, there are people, foreigners, who believe that the telephone can be only made to respond when the demand is made “hello!”
MIGRATION OF CLASSIC SYMBOLS.