The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migration / With Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times

by Thomas Wilson

The North American Indians employed rushes and animal skins as the principal coverings for themselves and their tents. They used sinews and thongs for thread and cord, and thus avoided largely the necessity for spinning fiber or making textiles; for these or possibly other reasons, we find few spindle-whorls among them compared with the number found in Europe. Yet the North American Indians made and used textile fabrics, and there are pieces of woven cloth from mounds in Ohio now in the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology, U. S. National Museum. The Pueblo Indians spun thread and wove cloth in pre-Columbian times, and those within the States of Colorado and Utah and the adjoining Territories of Arizona and New Mexico, particularly the Navajoes, have been long noted for their excellence in producing textile fabrics. Specimens of their looms and thread are on display in the National Museum and have been published in the reports. Special attention is called to that by Dr. Washington Matthews in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82. Dr. Matthews is of the opinion that the work of the Pueblo Indians antedated that of the Navajoes, that the latter learned the art from the former since the advent of the Spaniards; and he remarks that the pupils now excel their masters in the beauty and quality of their work. He declares that the art of weaving has been carried to greater perfection among the Navajoes than among any native tribe in America north of the Mexican boundary; while with none in the entire continent has it been less influenced by contact with Europeans. The superiority of the Navajo to the Pueblo work results not only from a constant advance of the weavers’ art among the former, but from a deterioration of it among the latter. This deterioration among the Pueblo Indians he attributes to their contact with the whites, their inclination being to purchase rather than to make woven fabrics, while these influences seem not to have affected the Navajoes. He represents a Navajo woman spinning (see [pl. 22] of the present paper). She is seated, and apparently whorls the spindle by rubbing it on her leg. The spindle is of wood, as are all other spindles, but the whorl is also of wood. In this these people are peculiar and perhaps unique. The whorl, among most other savage or prehistoric peoples, as we have already seen, was of stone or clay. These wooden whorls are thinner and larger, but otherwise they are the same. An inspection of the plate will show that with it the spinning apparatus forms the same machine, accomplishes the same purpose, and does it in the same way. The sole difference is in the size and material of the whorl. The difference in material accounts for the difference in size. It is not improbable that the Indian discovered that the wooden whorl would serve as well as a stone or pottery one, and that it was easier made. The machine in the hands of the woman, as shown in the figure, is larger than usual, which may be accounted for by the thread of wool fiber used by the Navajo being thicker and occupying more space than the flaxen thread of prehistoric times; so it may have been discovered that a large whorl of wood served their purpose better than a small one of stone. Stone whorls of large size might be too heavy. Thus may be explained the change from small stone or pottery whorls to large wooden ones.

Fig. 357.
TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL WITH DESIGN SIMILAR TO SWASTIKA.
Valley of Mexico. Cat. No. 27875, U. S. N. M.

Plate 22. Navajo Woman Using Spindle and Whorl.
Dr. Washington Matthews, Third Annual Report of
the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82, Pl. XXXIV.

Mexico.—[Fig. 357] represents the two sides and edge of a pottery terra-cotta spindle-whorl. It is the largest of a series of six (Cat. Nos. 27875-27880) from the valley of Mexico, sent to the U. S. National Museum by the Mexican National Museum in 1877. [Fig. 358] also represents one of a series from Mexico, obtained by W. W. Blake, July, 1886 (Cat. Nos. 99051-99059). The National Museum possesses hundreds of these from Mexico, as well as the small ones from Peru.