Figs. 351, 352, and 353.
PREHISTORIC TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORLS.
Orvieto, Italy. Cat. Nos. 101671, 101672, U. S. N. M.

Wurtemburg.—Dr. Charles Rau procured for, and there is now in, the U. S. National Museum a spindle (fig. 356) with its whorl which had been in use for spinning from 1860 to 1870, and which he obtained in Wurtemburg, Germany, from the woman who had used it.

France.—The author has seen the French peasants in Brittany spinning their thread in the same way, and once took a photograph of one in the hamlet of Pont-Aven, Morbihan, but it failed in development. In 1893 Mr. Harle purchased at St. Gerons, Ardeche, a merchant’s entire stock of modern porcelain spindle-whorls. The manufactory was located at Martres-Tolosane, and the trade extended throughout the Pyrenees. He presented a series to the Société d’Anthropologie at Paris, July, 1893.[313]

The U. S. National Museum has lately received, through the kindness of the École d’Anthropologie, a series of nine of these porcelain whorls (pl. 21). The wheel and modern machines for spinning have penetrated this corner of the world, and these whorls are the last emblem of an industry dating slightly after the advent of man on earth and already old in that locality when Roland crossed the mountain pass near there and sounded his “Oliphant,” calling for help from Charlemagne. These are the death chant of the industry of hand spinning in that country.

NORTH AMERICA—PRE-COLUMBIAN TIMES.

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.

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.

These specimens are chosen because they are the largest and most elaborately decorated. It will be perceived at a glance how the style of decoration lends itself to the Swastika. It consists mostly of geometric figures, chief of which is the Greek fret, the labyrinth, the circle, and the volute, but as in the color stamps (pp. 946-947) there is no Swastika.

CENTRAL AMERICA.

Nicaragua.—The specimen shown in fig. 359, from Omotepe Island, Lake Nicaragua, is one of a series of pottery spindle-whorls, bearing, however, great resemblance to those of stone. Fig. 360 shows a specimen from the same locality. It is of pottery and bears much resemblance in form to the earliest whorls found by Schliemann on the site of Troy on the hill of Hissarlik. Both these were collected by Dr. J. F. Bransford, and are in the U. S. National Museum. Fig. 361 shows a specimen from Granada, Nicaragua. It is of the common shape of the European prehistoric spindle-whorl. Its flat surface is decorated with a Greek cross in incised lines, two quarters of which are filled with hatch marks. Fig. 362 shows a terra-cotta spindle-whorl from Malacate, Nicaragua. It is cone-shaped. Both these specimens were collected by Dr. Earl Flint.

Chiriqui.—Figs. 363, 364, and 365 show terra-cotta spindle-whorls from Chiriqui, the most northern territory in South America and adjoining the Isthmus of Panama. They are engraved natural size, with ornamentation similar to that on the pottery of that country.

Colombia.—Fig. 366 shows a cone-shaped terra-cotta whorl from Manizales, Colombia, South America. It has a star-shaped design on the face and a three-line zigzag or chevron pattern.

Peru.—Plate 23 represents a series of spindles and whorls from Peru. They were furnished to the U. S. National Museum by I. V. Norton, of Plainville, N. Y. The whorls were originally considered to be beads, and were without further description. The spindles were not inserted in them as at present. The spindles, as well as whorls, are exceedingly small. Some of the whorls are decorated by incised lines in the clay, and many of the spindles are decorated in the middle with paint in different colors, in lines, scrolls, and chevrons. These are the only whorls from Peru which the U. S. National Museum has, though it possesses an extensive series of the spindles, several of which still have the spun thread wrapped upon them.

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.

BOBBINS.

EUROPE.

We have already seen how an increase in the number of correspondences between objects from distant countries increases the weight of their evidence in favor of contact or communication between the peoples. If it should be found upon comparison that the bobbins on which thread is to be wound, as well as the spindle-whorls with which it is made, had been in use during prehistoric times in the two hemispheres, it would add to the evidence of contact or communication. The U. S. National Museum possesses a series of these bobbins, as they are believed to have been, running from large to small, comprising about one dozen specimens from Italy, one from Corneto and the others from Bologna, in which places many prehistoric spindle whorls have been found (figs. 367 and 368). These are of the type Villanova. The end as well as the side view is represented. The former is one of the largest, the latter of middle size, with others smaller forming a graduating series. The latter is engraved on the end by dotted incisions in three parallel lines arranged in the form of a Greek cross. A similar bobbin from Bologna bears the sign of the Swastika on its end (fig. 193).[314] It was found by Count Gozzadini and forms part of his collection in Bologna.

The three following figures represent clay and stone bobbins, all from the State of Kentucky. Fig. 369 shows a bobbin elaborately decorated, from a mound near Maysville, Ky. It has a hole drilled longitudinally through the center. The end shows a cross of the Greek form with this hole in the center of the cross. Fig. 370 shows a similar object from Lexington, Ky., sent by the Kentucky University. It is of fine-grained sandstone, is drilled longitudinally through the center and decorated as shown. The end view shows a series of concentric circles with rows of dots in the intervals. Fig. 371 shows a similar object of fine-grained sandstone from Lewis County, Ky. It is also drilled longitudinally, and is decorated with rows of zigzag lines as shown. The end view represents four consecutive pentagons laid one on top of the other, which increase in size as they go outward, the hole through the bobbin being in the center of these pentagons, while the outside line is decorated with spikes or rays extending to the periphery of the bobbin, all of which is said to represent the sun. The specimen shown in fig. 372, of fine-grained sandstone, is from Maysville, Ky. The two ends are here represented because of the peculiarity of the decoration. In the center is the hole, next to it is a rude form of Greek cross which on one end is repeated as it goes farther from the center; on the other, the decoration consists of three concentric circles, one interval of which is divided by radiating lines at regular intervals, each forming a rectangle. Between the outer lines and the periphery are four radiating rays which, if completed all around, might form a sun symbol. Bobbins of clay have been lately discovered in Florida by Mr. Clarence B. Moore and noted by Professor Holmes.

Thus we find some of the same objects which in Europe were made and used by prehistoric man and which bore the Swastika mark have migrated to America, also in prehistoric times, where they were put to the same use and served the same purpose. This is certainly no inconsiderable testimony in favor of the migration of the sign.

VIII.—Similar Prehistoric Arts, Industries, and Implements in Europe and America as Evidence of the Migration of Culture.

Figs. 373 and 374 illustrate textile fabrics in the Bronze Age. Both specimens are from Denmark, and the National Museum possesses another specimen (Cat. No. 136615) in all respects similar. While prehistoric looms may not have been found in Europe to be compared with the looms of modern savages in America, yet these specimens of cloth, with the hundreds of others found in the Swiss lake dwellings, afford the most indubitable proof of the use of the looms in both countries during prehistoric times.

Complementary to this, textile fabrics have been found in America, from the Pueblo country of Utah and Colorado, south through Mexico, Central and South America, and of necessity the looms with which they were made were there also. It is not meant to be said that the looms of the two hemispheres have been found, or that they or the textile fabrics are identical. The prehistoric looms have not been found in Europe, and those in America may have been affected by contact with the white man. Nor is it meant to be said that the textile fabrics of the two hemispheres are alike in thread, stitch, or pattern. But these at best are only details. The great fact remains that the prehistoric man of the two hemispheres had the knowledge to spin fiber into thread, to wind it on bobbins, and to weave it into fabrics; and whatever differences there may have been in pattern, thread, or cloth, they were finally and substantially the same art, and so are likely to have been the product of the same invention.

While it is not the intention to continue this examination among the prehistoric objects of the two hemispheres in order to show their similarity and thus prove migration, contact, or communication, yet it may be well to mention some of them, leaving the argument or proof to a future occasion.

The polished stone hatchets of the two hemispheres are substantially the same. There are differences of material, of course, for in each country the workman was obliged to use such material as was obtainable. There are differences in form between the polished stone hatchets of the two hemispheres, but so there are differences between different localities in the same hemisphere. Some hatchets are long, others short, some round, others flat, some have a pointed end, others a square or nearly square or unfinished end; some are large, others small. But all these differences are to be found equally well pronounced within each hemisphere.

Scrapers have also been found in both hemispheres and in all ages. There are the same differences in material, form, and appearance as in the polished stone hatchet. There is one difference to be mentioned of this utensil—i. e., in America the scraper has been sometimes made with a stem and with notches near the base, after the manner of arrow- and spear-heads, evidently intended to aid, as in the arrow- and spear-head, in fastening the tool in its handle. This peculiarity is not found in Europe, or, if found, is extremely rare. It is considered that this may have been caused by the use of a broken arrow- or spear-head, which seems not to have been done in Europe. But this is still only a difference in detail, a difference slight and insignificant, one which occurs seldom and apparently growing out of peculiar and fortuitous conditions.

The wheel was unknown in both hemispheres, and in both the manipulation of clay was by hand. True, in the Western Hemisphere there was greater dexterity and a greater number of methods employed. For example, the vase might be built up with clay inside a basket, which served to give both form and decoration; it was coiled, the damp clay being made in a string and so built up by a circular movement, drawing the side in or out as the string of clay was laid thereon, until it reached the top; it may have been decorated by the pressure of a textile fabric, real or simulated, into the damp clay. A few years ago it would have been true to have said that pottery decorated in this manner was peculiar to the Western Hemisphere, and that it had never been found in the Eastern Hemisphere, but Prince Poutjatine has lately found on his property, Bologoje, in the province of Novgorod, midway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, many pieces of prehistoric pottery which bear evidence of having been made in this manner, and while it may be rare in the Eastern Hemisphere, it is similar in these respects to thousands of pieces of prehistoric pottery in North America.

One of the great puzzles for archæologists has been the prehistoric jade implements found in both countries. The raw material of which these were made has never been found in sufficient quantities to justify anyone in saying that it is indigenous to one hemisphere and not to the other. It may have been found in either hemisphere and exported to the other. But of this we have no evidence except the discovery in both of implements made of the same material. This material is dense and hard. It is extremely difficult to work, yet the operations of sawing, drilling, carving, and polishing appear to have been conducted in both hemispheres with such similarity as that the result is practically the same.

Prehistoric flint-chipping was also carried on in both hemispheres with such similarity of results, even when performing the most difficult and delicate operations, as to convince one that there must have been some communication between the two peoples who performed them.

The bow and arrow is fairly good evidence of prehistoric migration, because of the singularities of the form and the intricacies of the machinery, and because it is probably the earliest specimen of a machine of two separate parts, by the use of which a missile could be sent at a greater distance and with greater force than if thrown by hand. It is possible that the sling was invented as early as the bow and arrow, although both were prehistoric and their origin unknown.

The bow and arrow was the greatest of all human inventions—greatest in that it marked man’s first step in mechanics, greatest in adaptation of means to the end, and as an invented machine it manifested in the most practical and marked manner the intellectual and reasoning power of man and his superiority over the brute creation. It, more than any other weapon, demonstrated the triumph of man over the brute, recognizing the limitations of human physical capacity in contests with the brute. With this machine, man first successfully made up for his deficiency in his contests with his enemies and the capture of his game. It is useless to ask anything of history about the beginnings of the bow and arrow; wherever history appears it records the prior existence, the almost universal presence, and the perfected use of the bow and arrow as a weapon. Yet this machine, so strange and curious, of such intricacy of manufacture and difficulty of successful performance, had with all its similarities and likenesses extended in prehistoric times almost throughout the then inhabited globe. It is useless to specify the time, for the bow and arrow existed earlier than any time of which we know; it is useless for us to specify places, for it was in use throughout the world wherever the world was occupied by neolithic man.

Imitative creature as was man, and slow and painful as were his steps in progress and in invention during his infancy on earth, when he knew nothing and had everything yet to learn, it is sufficiently wonderful that he should have invented the bow and arrow as a projectile machine for his weapons; but it becomes doubly and trebly improbable that he should have made duplicate and independent inventions thereof in the different hemispheres. If we are to suppose this, why should we be restricted to a separate invention for each hemisphere, and why may we not suppose that he made a separate invention for each country or each distant tribe within the hemisphere? Yet we are met with the astonishing but, nevertheless, true proposition that throughout the entire world the bow and arrow existed in the early times mentioned, and was substantially the same machine, made in the same way, and serving the same purpose.

CONCLUSION.

The argument in this paper on the migration of arts or symbols, and with them of peoples in prehistoric times, is not intended to be exhaustive. At best it is only suggestive.

There is no direct evidence available by which the migration of symbols, arts, or peoples in prehistoric times can be proved, because the events are beyond the pale of history. Therefore we are, everybody is, driven to the secondary evidence of the similarity of conditions and products, and we can only subject them to our reason and at last determine the truth from the probabilities. In proportion as the probabilities of migration increase, it more nearly becomes a demonstrated fact. It appears to the author that the probabilities of the migration of the Swastika to America from the Old World is infinitely greater than that it was an independent invention.

The Swastika is found in America in such widely separated places, among such different civilizations, as much separated by time as by space, that if we have to depend on the theory of separate inventions to explain its introduction into America we must also depend upon the same theory for its introduction into the widely separated parts of America. The Swastika of the ancient mound builders of Ohio and Tennessee is similar in every respect, except material, to that of the modern Navajo and Pueblo Indian. Yet the Swastikas of Mississippi and Tennessee belong to the oldest civilization we know in America, while the Navajo and Pueblo Swastikas were made by men still living. A consideration of the conditions bring out these two curious facts: (1) That the Swastika had an existence in America prior to any historic knowledge we have of communication between the two hemispheres; but (2) we find it continued in America and used at the present day, while the knowledge of it has long since died out in Europe.

The author is not unaware of the new theories concerning the parallelism of human development by which it is contended that absolute uniformity of man’s thoughts and actions, aims and methods, is produced when he is in the same degree of development, no matter in what country or in what epoch he lives. This theory has been pushed until it has been said, nothing but geographical environment seems to modify the monotonous sameness of man’s creations. The author does not accept this theory, yet he does not here controvert it. It may be true to a certain extent, but it surely has its limitations, and it is only applicable under special conditions. As a general proposition, it might apply to races and peoples but not to individuals. If it builds on the hereditary human instincts, it does not take into account the will, energy, and reasoning powers of man. Most of all, it leaves out the egoism of man and his selfish desire for power, improvement, and happiness, and all their effects, through the individual, on human progress. In the author’s opinion the progress of peoples through consecutive stages of civilization is entirely compatible with his belief that knowledge of specific objects, the uses of material things, the performance of certain rites, the playing of certain games, the possession of certain myths and traditions, and the carrying on of certain industries, passed from one country to another by migration of their peoples, or by contact or communication between them; and that the knowledge, by separate peoples, of the same things, within reasonable bounds of similarity of action and purpose, and with corresponding difficulty of performance, may well be treated as evidence of such migration, contact, or communication. Sir John Lubbock expresses the author’s belief when he says,[315] “There can be no doubt but that man originally crept over the earth’s surface, little by little, year by year, just, for instance, as the weeds of Europe are now gradually but surely creeping over the surface of Australia.” The word migration has been used by the author in any sense that permitted the people, or any number thereof, to pass from one country to another country, or from one section of a country to another section of the same country, by any means or in any numbers as they pleased or could.

The theory (in opposition to the foregoing) is growing in the United States that any similarity of culture between the two hemispheres is held to be proof of migration of peoples. It appears to the author that these schools both run to excess in propagating their respective theories, and that the true condition of affairs lies midway between them. That is to say, there was certain communication between the two hemispheres, as indicated by the similarities in culture and industry, the objects of which could scarcely have been the result of independent invention; while there are too many dissimilar arts, habits, customs, and modes of life belonging to one hemisphere only, not common to both, to permit us to say there was continuous communication between them. These dissimilarities were inventions of each hemisphere independent of the other.

An illustration of the migration to America is the culture of Greece. We know that Greek art and architecture enter into and form an important part of the culture of Americans of the present day; yet the people of America are not Greek, nor do they possess any considerable share of Greek culture or civilization. They have none of the blood of the Greeks, nor their physical traits, nor their manners, habits, customs, dress, religion, nor, indeed, anything except their sculpture and architecture. Now, there was undoubtedly communication between the two countries in so far as pertains to art and architecture; but it is equally true that there has been no migration of the other elements of civilization mentioned.

The same thing may be true with regard to the migrations of prehistoric civilization. There may have been communication between the countries by which such objects as the polished stone hatchet, the bow and arrow, the leaf-shaped implement, chipped arrow- and spear-heads, scrapers, spindle-whorls, the arts of pottery making, of weaving, of drilling and sawing stone, etc., passed from one to the other, and the same of the Swastika; yet these may all have been brought over in sporadic and isolated cases, importing simply the germ of their knowledge, leaving the industry to be independently worked out on this side. Certain manifestations of culture, dissimilar to those of the Old World, are found in America; we have the rude notched ax, the grooved ax, stemmed scraper, perforator, mortar and pestle, pipes, tubes, the ceremonial objects which are found here in such infinite varieties of shape and form, the metate, the painted pottery, etc., all of which belong to the American Indian civilization, but have no prototype in the prehistoric Old World. These things were never brought over by migration or otherwise. They are indigenous to America.

Objects common to both hemispheres exist in such numbers, of such infinite detail and difficulty of manufacture, that the probabilities of their migration or passage from one country to another is infinitely greater than that they were the result of independent invention. These common objects are not restricted to isolated cases. They are great in number and extensive in area. They have been the common tools and utensils such as might have belonged to every man, and no reason is known why they might not have been used by, and so represent, the millions of prehistoric individuals in either hemisphere. This great number of correspondences between the two hemispheres, and their similarity as to means and results is good evidence of migration, contact, or communication between the peoples; while the extent to which the common industries were carried in the two continents, their delicacy and difficulty of operation, completes the proof and forces conviction.

It is not to be understood in the few foregoing illustrations that the number is thereby exhausted, or that all have been noted which are within the knowledge of the author. These have been cited as illustrative of the proposition and indicating possibilities of the argument. If a completed argument in favor of prehistoric communication should be prepared, it would present many other illustrations. These could be found, not only among the objects of industry, utensils, etc., but in the modes of manufacture and of use which, owing to their number and the extent of territory which they cover, and the difficulty of accomplishment, would add force to the argument.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE SWASTIKA.

ABBOTT, Charles C. Primitive Industry: | or | Illustrations of the Handiwork, | in stone, bone and clay, | of the | Native Races | of | the Northern Atlantic Seaboard of America. | By Charles C. Abbott, M. D. | Cor. Member Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., | Fellow Royal Soc. | of Antiq. of the North. Copenhagen. etc., etc., | Salem, Mass.: | George A. Bates. | 1881.