| Fig. 364. SPINDLE-WHORL OF GRAY CLAY WITH FIGURES OF ANIMALS. Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 219. | Fig. 365. SPINDLE-WHORL OF DARK CLAY WITH PERFORATIONS AND INCISED ORNAMENTS. Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 220. |
Fig. 366.
TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL.
Manizales, Colombia.
Cat. No. 16838, U. S. N. M.
There are certain distinguishing peculiarities to be remarked when comparing the spindle-whorls from the Western Hemisphere with those from the Eastern Hemisphere. There is greater diversity in size, form, and decoration in the American than in the European whorls. A series of European whorls from any given locality will afford a fair representation of those from almost every other locality. But it is different with the American specimens. Each section in America has a different style, not only different from the European specimens, but different from those of neighboring sections. Among the eighteen thousand whorls found by Dr. Schliemann on the hill of Hissarlik, there is scarcely one so large as those here shown from Mexico, while, on the other hand, there were only a few as small as the largest of the series from Peru. The difference in size and material in the Pueblo whorls has already been noticed. The ornamentation is also peculiar in that it adopts, not a particular style common to the utensil, but that it adopts the styles of the respective countries. The Mexican whorl has a Mexican style of ornamentation, etc. The Nicaragua specimens resemble the European more than any other from America in their forms and the almost entire absence of decoration.
The foregoing are the differences; but with all the number and extent of these differences the fact remains that the whorls of the two hemispheres are practically the same, and the differences are insignificant. In style, shape, and manner of use they are so similar in the two hemispheres as to be the same invention. The whorls, when put upon their spindles, form the same machine in both countries. They were intended for and they accomplish the same purpose, and the method of their performance is practically the same. While the similarity of the art of spinning and the mechanism (i. e., the spindle and whorl) by which it is accomplished may not prove conclusively that it migrated from the Eastern Hemisphere, nor yet show positive connection or communication between the two peoples, it goes a long way toward establishing such migration or communication. The similarity in the art and its mechanism appears to the author to show such resemblance with the like culture in the Eastern Hemisphere, and is so harmonious with the theory of migration or contact or communication, that if there shall be other objects found which either by their number or condition would prove to be a well-authenticated instance of migration from or contact or communication between the countries, the evidence of the similarity of the spindle-whorls would form a valuable addition to and largely increase the evidence to establish the main fact. Until that piece of well-authenticated evidence has been obtained, the question must, so far as concerns spindle-whorls, remain only a probability. The differences between them are of manner, and not of matter; in size and degree, but not in kind, and are not other or greater than might easily arise from local adaptation of an imported invention. Compare the Navajo spindle ([pl. 22]) with that from Wurtemburg, Germany ([fig. 356]), and these with the spindles and whorls from Peru ([pl. 23]). These facts are entirely in harmony with the possibility that the spindle and whorl, as a machine for spinning, was a single invention, and that its slight differentiations resulted from its employment by different peoples—the result of its intertribal migrations. For purposes of comparison, and to show the similarity of these objects in Europe, the author has introduced a series of spindle-whorls from Troy, Hissarlik (pls. [24] and [25]). These belong to the U. S. National Museum, and form part of the valuable collection from Mme. Schliemann, the gift by her talented husband to the people of the United States as a token of his remembrance and grateful feelings toward them.
Plate 24.
Selected Specimens of Spindle-whorls from
the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Cities of Troy.
U. S. National Museum.