Chapter XX: Front Matter (20)

In connection with the swastika and five-dot group it is interesting to examine some ancient Egyptian seals exhibiting crosses with four dots or strokes (fig. 72, 3-5), and to compare these with Rhodian specimens (10-13). On vases found by Schliemann on the site of Troy (8 and 9), we find, in one case a swastika and in the other a cross and four dots in a circle forming the nave. It is interesting to compare the Athenian nos. 6 and 7, one being a swastika and the other a cross in a lozenge.(122) An extremely curious instance of an entire decoration of a building consisting of crosses and five-dot groups, is furnished by the cenotaph erected by a late king in honor of Midas, king of Phrygia (fig. 72, 2), which, curiously enough, offers much resemblance to the geometrical style of stucco decorations of the ruins of Mitla, Mexico.(123) The presence of the swastika on coins assigned to about B.C. 700 and its use in Greece, where plain cross-symbols had previously been employed, naturally leads to the inquiry as to the oldest-dated swastikas which have hitherto been found in Greece and Egypt.

In his important work on the subject already referred to, Prof. Thomas Wilson (_op. cit._ pp. 806 and 833), cites the opinions of Prof. Max Müller and Count Goblet d’Alviella as agreeing with that of Waring, who states that “the swastika is sought for in vain in Babylonia, Assyria and Phœnicia,” and “had no foothold in Egypt.” The same authority says that: “the only sign approaching the fylfot in Egyptian hieroglyphics ... is not very similar to our fylfot ... and forms one of the hieroglyphs of Isis” (Ceramic Art in Remote Ages, p. 82). On the other hand, Professor Goodyear says (Grammar of the Lotus, p. 356): “The earliest dated swastikas, hitherto found in Egypt, occur on the foreign Cyprian and Carian [?] pottery fragments of the time of the twelfth dynasty [B.C. 2466-2266] discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie in 1889. In the Third Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund, Prof. Flinders Petrie published illustrations of Greek vases showing unmistakable swastikas which, though found at Naukratis in Egypt, are not Egyptian, but Greek.”

The only other examples of the swastika in Egypt cited by Prof. Thomas Wilson are those woven on Coptic grave cloths made of linen and reproduced in “Die Gräber- und Textilfunde von Achmim-Panopolis by R. Forrer.” These grave cloths pertained to the Christian Greeks who migrated from their country during the first centuries of our era and settled in Upper Egypt, in Coptos and the surrounding cities. I am able to add another instance of the employment of the swastika in Egypt, which, although of Coptic origin, attaches itself to ancient Egypt.

I have already pointed out that, in Lepsius’ Book of the Dead, the foremost of the gods of the four quarters, represented in mummy form, exhibited a cross on his right shoulder. During a recent visit to the Berlin Museum, my attention was arrested by seeing a swastika painted in precisely the same position, on the right shoulder of the stucco mummy case of a man, from Hermopolis, dated from the second century after Christ (Catalogue No. 11649). This remarkable coincidence seems to furnish conclusive evidence that, long before the introduction of Greek culture and Christian influence, the plain cross was employed by the ancient Egyptians in precisely the same way as, subsequently, the swastika by the Copts. To some of my readers the question will perhaps suggest itself whether some early Christian sects and, amongst them, communities of Greek Copts, did not interpret the mission of Christ literally, as an attempt to reëstablish an earthly “kingdom of heaven” on the ancient plan, the knowledge of which had been preserved at Heliopolis, by the sages and philosophers of Egypt and the large Hebrew colony established there.

Returning to the swastika: From the account given by Prof. Thomas Wilson (_op. cit._, 810) of Schliemann’s observations on the swastikas he discovered, during his excavations on the site of Troy, we learn that, whereas the swastika occurs on thousands of whorls found in the third, fourth and fifth cities, but few whorls were found in the first and second cities, which were the deepest and oldest and _none of these bore the swastika mark_. These observations, added to the appearance of the swastika in Egypt at a comparatively late period, appear to prove that, whereas the cross-symbol was known in remotest antiquity in Asia Minor and Egypt and expressed the same meaning as the swastika, _i. e._ Polaris and circumpolar rotation and the quadruplicate organization of the Cosmos suggested by these natural phenomena, it was only the form or shape of the cross which underwent a change at a certain period. The earliest-dated specimens of this new form, given to a more ancient symbol, occur on the pottery fragments found in Egypt by Prof. Flinders Petrie. The presence of the swastika, on the whorls found in the ruins of the third city built on the site of Troy, also indicates that its adoption occurred at a fixed date and marked a new departure.

Referring back to page 21, where I show that the observations which led to the adoption of the swastika as a symbol could not possibly have been made until after Ursa Major had become circumpolar, about B.C. 4000, I point out that the oldest swastikas which have hitherto been found corroborate this view, since they are all posterior to the time when Ursa Major became circumpolar. Long anterior to its adoption, however, the primordial set of ideas, suggested to the human mind by the observation of natural phenomena, had reached an advanced stage of development, and had been worked out, applied to the regulation of human life and symbolized, in various ways, in widely separated countries.

It is impossible to conclude my comparative research, which has been rewarded by a most unexpected wealth of material, without enumerating a few facts connected with the earliest histories of Rome, ancient Ireland, Britain, Wales and Scandinavia. These brief and doubtlessly imperfect résumés will have fulfilled their purpose if they stimulate inquiry and evoke authoritative statements by learned specialists.

ANCIENT ROME.

Whether Rome “was founded by the common resolve of a Latin confederacy or by the enterprise of an individual chief, is beyond the reach even of conjecture. The date fixed upon for the commencement of the city is, of course, perfectly valueless in its precision” (Chambers’ Encyclopædia). “According to Varro the city of Rome was founded B.C. 753, but Cato places the event four years later.... The day of its foundation was the 21st of April, which was sacred to the rural goddess Pales. There seems to be some uncertainty whether Romulus gave his name to the city or derived his own from it, but those who ascribe to the city a Grecian origin ... assert that Romulus and Roma are both derived from the Greek word for ‘strength.’ The city, we are assured, had another name which the priests were forbidden to divulge; but what that was it is now impossible to discover.(124) There is, however, some plausibility in the conjecture that it was Pallanteum, and from the great care with which the Palladium, or image of Pallas, was preserved, it seems probable that the city was supposed to be under the care of that deity. If this conjecture be correct, the Pelasgic origin of Rome cannot be doubted, for Pallas was a Pelasgic deity....

“The institution of the vestal virgins was older than the city itself and was regarded by the Romans as the most sacred part of their religious system. In the time of Numa there were but four ... their duty was to keep the sacred fire on the altar in the temple of Vesta from being extinguished and to preserve a certain sacred pledge on which the very existence of Rome was supposed to depend.(125) What this pledge was we have no means of discovering; some supposed that it was the Trojan Palladium; others, some traditional mystery brought by the Pelasgi from Samothrace. One fact is certain: that the Palatine is regarded as the oldest portion of the city and the original site and centre of the embryo mistress of the world and mother of cities, the _Roma quadrata_, fragments of whose walls have been brought to light.(126)

“Tradition relates that it was on the Palatine that Romulus marked out the Pomœrium, a space around the walls of the city, on which it was unlawful to erect buildings.... The next ceremony was the consecration of the comitium, or place of public assembly. A vault was built under ground and filled with the firstlings of all the natural productions that sustain human life and with earth which each foreign settler had brought from his home. This place was called _Mundus_” (History of Rome, Goldsmith’s abridgment, 21st edition, by W. C. Taylor, p. 13).

This fact furnishes evidence that the sacred central cosmical vault over which a mound may have been formed by the earth contributed from different quarters, was regarded as a synopsis of all, and that sanctity was also attached to the central place of assembly where justice was administered at regular intervals, weekly markets were held and religious rites were celebrated.(127)

Tradition relates that, after the foundation of the central “Mundus,” the founder of Rome established the Sabine town which occupied the Quirinal and part of the Capitoline hills. “The name of this town most probably was Quirium ... the two cities were united on terms of equality and the double-faced Janus, stamped on the earliest Roman coins was probably a symbol of the double state.” It is significant to find not only that Janus was sometimes depicted with four faces instead of two, in which case he was called Janus Quadrifrontis, but that references are also made to the female form of Janus=Jana, the latter being identified with Diana. Considering that it was from Quirium that the Roman youths obtained Sabine wives by force, which had been refused to their entreaties, it would seem as though, originally, as elsewhere, the men and women of the community resided separately and that stringent laws regulated their intercourse. In other ancient communities it has been shown how the separation of the sexes created in time an upper and lower class, and to the same origin may perhaps be assigned the most remarkable feature of the Roman constitution, _i. e._ the two-fold division of the people into patricians and plebeians.

While the foregoing statements throw light upon the ideas associated with the Middle and show that Rome was originally a dual state, the following facts furnish indications of a quadruplicate division. At an early period Rome was laid out and enclosed in a square, the population _was divided into four tribes_ and mention is made of “the state, under Servius Tullius, being an entity divided into _four cities_ and twenty-six tribes ... this being strictly a geographical division analogous to our parishes. The division of the city into four tribes continued until the reign of Augustus (B.C. 29)....”(128)

The four chief religious corporations of ancient Rome, mentioned in the Century Dictionary, evidently correspond to this fourfold division and it is specially stated of one of these corporations that it was represented and governed by a group consisting of seven “septemvir epulones” who formed a “septemvirate.”

The number of septemvirs corresponded to the “seven hills” which were enclosed by Tullus Hostilius, and it is stated that there were seven places of worship in ancient Rome. It is interesting to find that between A.D. 193 and 211, Septimius Severus, a native of an ancient Punic colony in Africa, erected a Septizonium (an edifice consisting, like the Babylonian zikkurat, of seven stories) on the Palatine, where a large temple of Apollo had previously been built.(129)

Although it is thus evident that, at different periods, seven-fold division was carried out in ancient Rome, it was not until after the reign of Theodosius, according to some authors, that the seven-day period was imported from Alexandria and the term “septimana” adopted in Rome. “Previously to this Rome had counted her periods by eight days, the eighth day itself being originally called Nundinæ—a term later applied to the whole cycle” (Chambers’ Encyclopædia). Noting that the period of eight (=2×4) days accords with the quadruplicate system applied to the primitive state, I draw attention to the numerical classification of the citizens of Rome employed during centuries, which so curiously agrees with the system carried out in Peru at a widely sundered period (see p. 141).

Ten households formed a gens (clan or family); ten clans or one hundred households formed a curia or wardship; and ten wardships, or one hundred clans, or one thousand households formed a populus, civitas or community. As it is stated that, at one time, Rome consisted of four cities, it is obvious that the above numbers, quadrupled, constituted the state which thus included forty wardships, four hundred gentes and four thousand households. As each gens possessed a chieftain, endowed with paternal authority over its members, there must, at one time, have been four hundred of these “patricians,” whose number is thus found to correspond to the Greek “Council of 400” and curiously enough to the “four hundred Tochtli” or governors of the ancient Mexican commonwealth.

A noteworthy feature of the attempt to institute the Decemvirate in Rome (5th century B.C.) was the arrangement that the ten chosen men exercised office in prescribed rotation for one day, each ruling, in consequence, for thirty-six days in the year which, like the Egyptian, then consisted of three hundred and sixty days and of an epact of five days. The assignment of a day to each chieftain finds its parallel not only in Assyria but also in ancient America (see p. 181).

In connection with the Roman communal organization, attention is drawn to what appears to be a remarkable survival of an extremely ancient and natural mode of distinguishing the wardships. It is well known that, according to tradition, the republic of Siena, Italy, was founded at a remote period “by the sons of Remus, the twin brother of Romulus.” The following facts prove that, to this day, certain features of its social organization exhibit an affinity to that of primitive Rome. “Siena, from the earliest day, has been divided into contrade or parishes. Each contrada has its special church, generally of great antiquity, and each contrada is named after some animal, or natural object, these names being symbolical of certain trades or customs. There are now the wolf, giraffe, owl, snail, tower, wave, goose, tortoise, etc., in all seventeen. Each has its colors, heralds, pages, music, flags; all the mediæval paraphernalia of republican subdivision” (Frances Eliot, Diary of an idle woman in Italy I, p. 19).

The employment of the names of animals and natural objects as distinctive marks for a wardship offers a curious analogy to the American institution of tribal names and totems.

The circumstance that, in remotest times, the king of Rome, the acknowledged metropolis or mother city, was accompanied, on public occasions, by _twelve_ lictors or administrators of justice, each carrying the axe tied in a bundle of rods, shows that, at one time, the government was administered by thirteen individuals—a method we shall find again in ancient Ireland and Scandinavia. The history of Rome reveals that the different variants of governmental scheme adopted, one after the other, under influences emanating from Greece and Egypt, were reared upon the familiar universal plan. The most striking instance of this is, however, furnished by the details preserved of the groundwork on which Constantine founded (A.D. 330) the city he intended to be the capital of a universal empire, and named the New or Second Rome.

Historians relate that the peninsula of Byzantium offered striking resemblances to the sites of Carthage and Rome. The design of Constantine embraced the entire peninsula with the seven hills upon it. “On foot, with a lance in his hand, professing to be under the guidance of divine inspiration, the emperor directed the line which was traced as the boundary of the destined capital.” ... “In imitation of Rome at that period, the city was divided into 2×7=fourteen wards (regiones).... Its centre was marked by a column ... surmounted by a bronze colossus of Apollo. The church of S. Sophia, built on the site of an ancient temple of Wisdom, was subsequently dedicated to ’the Holy Eternal Wisdom’ by Justinian. In the court called the Forum Augusteum, one side of which was formed by the palace and the other by the church, stood the Milliarium Aureum, not, as at Rome, a gilt marble pillar, but a spacious edifice, the centre from which all the roads of the empire were measured and on the walls of which the distances to all the chief places were inscribed.... In the new reunited empire quadruple division was maintained, _the __ empire being divided into four parts_, each forming a prætorian prefecture under a prætorian prefect, who, being the lieutenant of the emperor, ruled over the governors and people of the province with absolute power. The four prefectures were subdivided into thirteen dioceses, each governed by a vice-prefect named vicarius, the total number of dioceses being fifty-two.”

This system of numeration is of particular interest as it is not only identical with the system of a modern pack of cards, the origin of which is unknown, but is also the same as the Mexican year cycle (see p. 297). Vestiges of sevenfold organization are traceable in the appointment by Constantine, of “seven ministers of the palace” who exercised “sacred” functions about the person of the emperor, and the division of all Gaul into seven provinces placed under the governorship of the Vicar of the Seven Provinces. In conclusion I venture to point out that the four-storied amphitheatre of Vespasian (A.D. 71), the Pantheon of Agrippa (A.D. 23) and the Mausoleum of Hadrian (A.D. 138) appear to have a cosmical character, the first having been planned to hold the entire population of Rome, around a central space in which, originally, the circling chariot simulated the circuit of the celestial “plaustrum” or “carro”=chariot, the Latin name given to Ursa Major.

While, on public festivals, the amphitheatre must have appeared as a synopsis of the whole empire and may also have been originally used for nocturnal, religious or political assemblages, the great Pantheon enclosing the images of twelve deities, may well have been a conscious attempt to represent the all-embracing Cosmos of Egyptian and Greek philosophy, the framed view of the heaven, seen through the central opening in the dome, being the symbol of the “hidden and invisible god,” of the initiated. To Hadrian, who visited Egypt twice and was undoubtedly acquainted with the idea of Plato’s Cosmos or Theos, the idea of building a great circular structure in the centre of which he would be laid to rest, would naturally have suggested itself. Passing from a consideration of the buildings which, with the pyramids, appear to be among the grandest exponents of natural philosophy and religion ever reared by the hand of man, and clearly appear to have been planned under the direct influence of Egyptian and Greek philosophy, let us briefly glance at the mode in which the identical fundamental scheme was perpetuated among some northern peoples.

ANCIENT IRELAND, BRITAIN AND WALES.

It is a remarkable fact that, in ancient Ireland, we find distinct traces of a state, founded on the same crystallized artificial system that has been found at the basis of the most ancient civilizations of the world. “There is really no authentic history of Ireland before the introduction of Christianity into the country, but there are some genuine traditions which appear based upon truth, because they accord with and explain the peculiar customs which were found to prevail in the island at the time of the English invasion. These traditions declare, that the original Celtic inhabitants were subdued by an Asiatic colony, or at least by the descendants of some Eastern people at a very remote period; they aver that the conquerors were as inferior to the original inhabitants in numbers as they were superior in military discipline and the arts of social life; they describe the conquest as a work of time and trouble and assert that, after its completion, an hereditary monarchy and hereditary aristocracy were for the first time established in Ireland....”

“At some unknown period Ireland was divided into five kingdoms, Ulster, Leinster, Connaught, Munster and Meath ... the latter being the property of the paramount sovereign ...” (W. C. Taylor, History of Ireland, 1837).

John O’Neil cites “the very oldest Irish books, according to which two brothers, the leaders of the Milesian colonization, divided Ireland into Northern and Southern kingdom.” Elsewhere he relates how a prince of the north had been united in marriage to the princess of the south and that “the mythical Niall-Navi-giallach of the nine treasures had had a Northern king for father and a Southern princess for mother.” Besides this subdivision which strikingly recalls the ancient Egyptian, O’Neil brings out the remarkable fact that definite positions in relation to each other and the cardinal points were assigned to the five Irish kings and tells us that “we have a fuller and later division when, in the central hall, the miodh-chuarta of Tara, the king of Erinn sat in the centre, with his face to the East, the king of Ulster being at his North, the king of Munster at his South, while the king of Leinster sat opposite to him and the king of Connaught behind him” (_op. cit._ I, 463).

I refer the reader to his extremely interesting comparison (I, p. 369) of ancient Ireland being “an Irish instance of a Chinese ‘Middle Kingdom,’ ” and to the data given in connection with the great hall of Tara, which was called Meath or Mid-court, Miodchuarta (pronounced Micôrta), and the Northern hill of Miodhchaoinn (or Midkena), guarded by Miodhchaoinn and his three sons, the guardians of the hill being thus four in all. O’Neil also refers to “the great idol or castrum of Kilair ... which was surrounded by twelve smaller ones and was called the stone and umbilicus of Hibernia and, as if placed in the midst and middle of the land, ‘medio et meditullio’....” “Meath itself, where this Kilair navel stood, was anciently the central one of the five divisions of Ireland and is called Media by Giraldus Cambrensis, ... and connected with the words medi-tullium and medi-tullus.” The legend states that “the castrum of Kilair and the stones around it were transported by Merlin to Stonehenge and ‘set up in the same order.’ ”(130) “At Mag Slecht was the chief idol of Ireland, called Cenn Craich (Mound-chief) covered with gold and silver, and twelve other idols about it, covered with brass” (O’Neil, p. 273).

“The five Irish kingdoms were again subdivided into several principalities inhabited by distinct ‘septs,’ each ruled by its own carfinny or chieftain. The obedience of these local rulers or toparchs to the provincial sovereign was regulated, like his to the general monarch, by the powers that he possessed for enforcing authority.... The succession to every degree of sovereignty was regulated by the law of tanistry, which limited heredity right to the family but not to the individual.... Each district was deemed the common property of the entire sept; but the distribution of the several shares was entrusted to the toparch.... The lower orders were divided into freemen and hetages, or as they were called by the Normans, villanis. The former had the privilege of choosing their tribe; the latter were bound to the soil and transferred with it in any grant or deed of sale.”

Ruined groups of buildings, consisting of seven sanctuaries or churches, situated around a round, high tower, usually with four windows near the top, opening to the cardinal points, exist in various parts of Ireland, the Seven Churches in County Wicklow being the most famous example. The cosmical character of the round towers has been set forth by John O’Neil, to whose work I refer the reader. According to my views the groups testify to the establishment, at one time, of several septarchies in Ireland, the geographical centres of which, as in Assyria and elsewhere, were marked in this case by the cosmical round tower, figuring the axis or spindle, around which each sept built its council house, for religious and political assemblies.(131) In connection with such it is interesting to read what Cæsar says of the priests and judges of Gaul, which was organized into seven provinces, as late as at the time of Constantine: “These Druids held a meeting at a certain time of the year in a consecrated place in the country of the Carnutes [modern Chartres] which country is considered to be in the centre of all Gaul.” It is well known that anterior to the Roman Conquest there existed in Britain a long-established, seven-fold state, governed by seven kings, compared by John Speed (1630) to seven crowned pillars.

The kingdom of Mercia included the counties in the centre of the kingdom and is said to have been founded by Crida or Creoda. The central and chief ruler of Britain was styled Bretwalda. It is well known that Stonehenge, which is associated in folk-lore with the number seven, is situated in the heart of the plain region of England and is supposed to have been the seat of central religion and government.(132)

It is moreover acknowledged by Knight that the ancient Britons were a people who evidently had some great principle of association in their religion as in their industry. The familiar fact, that at one period the ancient Kent, Cantium, was governed by four kings, also styled “the four princes of Cantii,” furnishes an indication that quadruplicate division was also known to the ancient Britons.

A few instructive facts concerning Welsh Druidism may be appropriately cited here.

Morien has pointed out that the Druidic Celi Ced corresponds to Amen-Ra, the Egyptian Hidden Sun. According to Welsh system the universe was born of Celi-Ced, a dual power, Celi being the masculine and Ced the feminine principle. Ceridwen is termed the Welsh Isis, and her name translated as “the producing woman.” Celi is invariably represented as _hidden_, the three Hus representing him in manifestation.

“The three Hus are: Hu cylch y Cengant=the Hu of the circle of infinitude; Hu cylch y Sidydd=the Hu of the circle of the zodiac and Hu yn Nghnawd=Hu incarnate. The latter was incarnate in the Arch Druid. He, standing in the middle of the Gorsedd circle, where the triple life lines met, implied by his action that the three emanations which had their root in the dual Ced-Celi, focussed themselves in him. He stood facing the east where the sun rises” (_cf._ the ceremonial position assumed by the king of Erin in council and that of the Roman augur on drawing his templum). “The name for the physical sun was Huan, translated as ‘the abode of divinity.’ ” “The Druidic bards of N. Wales worshipped Beli.”(133)

In Welsh legend a god named Peredur Paladye Hir (of the long spear or pal) is associated with his brother, both sons of Eliffer, one of the _thirteen princes of the north_. Peredur is one of seven brothers; there were seven profound mysteries of Druidism, _i. e._ seven divisions of the reverberations of the Word, emanating from Ced, and the seven Tattaras or seven rays.

SCANDINAVIA.

According to the Icelandic historian Snorri Sturlesson, whose opinion was the re-echo of ancient traditional beliefs, Odin and his eight sons and four companions, twelve in all, were earthly kings and priests of a sacerdotal caste, who had emigrated from Asia—perhaps from Troy—and who conquered and ruled over various parts of Scandinavia and Northern Germany where, after their death, they were regarded by the people as deities (Chambers’ Encyclopædia).

O’Neil states “that Odin was named Mith-Odinn (Mid-Odin?) by Saxo Grammaticus,” and quotes the following: “Odinn died in his bed, in Sweden, and when he was near his death he made himself be marked with the point of a spear and said he was going to Godheim” (Ingliga Saga). “The twelve _godes_ or diar or drotnar of Odin were obviously cognate to our _god_ as a name of a deity. They (or the priests who represented them) directed sacrifices and judged the people, and all the people served and obeyed them” (O’Neil I, p. 76).

A strange reality is given to Odin and his twelve “godes,” when it is realized that at Mora, near Upsala, Sweden, there exists the ancient stone throne on which the ancient kings of Sweden were crowned and this central stone is surrounded by twelve lesser stones, just as the Irish “Mound-chief” was surrounded by twelve idols.

While the above facts suffice to indicate that, in remotest antiquity, the government of the state was vested in one supreme and twelve minor chiefs, the following brief extracts from the Eddas reveal the cosmical beliefs of the Norsemen: “In the cold north existed Niflheim in the middle of which was a well from which sprang twelve rivers. In the south existed the warm Muspelheim. There was a contention between both of these worlds.... The union of heat and cold produced Oergelmer or Chaos, and the first human being, Ymir. The revolving eye of the Norse world-millstone was directly above Oergelmer and through it the waters flowed to and from the great fountain of the Universe waters.” Ymir drew his nourishment from four streams of milk proceeding from the mythical cow Aedhumla. Subsequently he was slain by three divine brothers who carried his body to the _middle_ of Ginnungagap, and formed from it the earth and the heavens ... of his skull they formed the heavens, at each of the four corners of which stood a dwarf, viz: Austri at the East, Vestri at the west, Northri at the north and Suthri at the south.... When heaven and earth were formed, the chief gods or Oesir, of whom there were twelve, met in the Centre of the world and built Midgardr or Asgard, the yard, city or stronghold of the Middle and of the Asen=the gods. It was situated on the Himinbiorg, or Hill of Heaven, on the summit of which was the ash-tree, Yggdrasil, whose branches spread over the whole world and tower over the heavens.

The following is from the prose Edda: “Then the sons of Bõr built in the middle of the universe the city called Asgard, where dwell the gods and their kindred, and _from that abode work out so many wondrous things both on earth and in the heavens above it_. There is in that city a place called Hlidskjalf, and when Odin is seated there upon his lofty throne, he sees over the whole world.”

In the Eddas we find evidences that while Odin or All-fader was the ruler of heaven, his powerful son Thor was “the ruler of Thrudheim and drove through the world in a chariot and became the supreme god.”

The following facts, taken from Mr. Allen’s “Star-names,” established the association of Thor with Polaris and the Ursæ. “In ancient times the northern nations termed Ursa Major ‘the wagon of Odin, Woden or Wuotan, the father of Thor.’(134) The Danes, Swedes and Icelanders also knew it as Stori Vagn, the Great Wagon and as Karl’s Vagn; Karl being Thor, their chief god of whom the old Swedish Rhyme Chronicle of Upsala says ‘... The god Thor was the highest of them. He sat naked as a child, seven stars in his hand and Charles’ Wain.’ ”

The “throne of Thor” or “Smaller Chariot,” was the name given to Polaris (Ursa Minor) by the early Danes and Icelanders and their descendants still call it the “Litli Vagn,” the little wagon. The Finns, apparently alone among the northern nations of Europe in this conception, named Ursa Minor, Vähä Otawa, the Little Bear. They, however, termed Polaris, Taehti, “the star at the top of the heavenly mountain.”

It is striking how clearly, in Scandinavia, the Middle is associated with a sacred mountain and tree, the world axis, a heavenly city, an enthroned central god, and with Polaris, Ursa Major and the idea of eternal circumpolar rotation expressed by the wain eternally wheeled around the throne of Thor. To any one imbued with the ideas set forth above, the signification of the Scandinavian, Druidic, New Year festival, the name for which was “the wheel” (yule, yeol, yeul, hjol, hiugl, hjul), must clearly appear as the date on which the complete circuit of the Ursæ around the pole, was ceremonially registered. It is obvious that this could best be expressed by a circle being drawn around the swastika or cross, to which the fourth arm would be added, completing thus the registration of the four seasons, marked by the opposite positions assumed by the Ursæ at nightfall. It is well known that the wheel-cross, swastika, triskeles and S-figure constitute, with the winding serpent and the tau, named Thor’s hammer, the main symbols of ancient Scandinavia (see fig. 13, p. 29 and fig. 38, p. 119). I venture to point out how obviously Thor’s hammer symbolizes the union of the Above and Below, the heaven represented by the horizontal line resting on the perpendicular support, symbolizing the sacred pole, column, mountain and tree intimately associated with Polaris, the world axis.

As a suggestion only, I venture to point out how, the old Norse name for star being tjara and for tree=tar, the rôle of the tree in Druidic cult would be fully accounted for, the initiated only being aware that it was but a rebus symbol of the secret or hidden star-god Polaris.

It can readily be seen how natural or artificial elevations and erected stones, trees, staffs or poles must have been used as means of determining the positions of the Ursæ at the public celebration of the Yule festival and that the ceremony of kindling of new fire was observed at the time when the “wheel” was supposed to begin its new annual revolution.

Reflection clearly shows that pole-star worship must have taken a stronger hold upon the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia and their descendants, the seafaring Vikings, than upon any other nation. We are compelled to admit that the recognition that Polaris formed the centre of axial rotation and the middle of the sky, would have impressed itself most profoundly upon observers stationed in the latitude where winter darkness prevailed and the pole-star appeared to be nearly overhead. Under such conditions the association of the opposite positions of the Septentriones with directions in space, _i. e._, the cardinal points, would be most striking.

What is more: the re-appearance of the sun, after the long darkness of a northern winter, must have established the idea of a fixed relationship between certain positions of Ursa Major and the solstitial position of the sun. It may indeed be said that the observation of the solstices and equinoxes was forced upon the inhabitants of the north as nowhere else on the globe and that it may perhaps be therefore designated as the birthplace of primitive astronomy.

The origin of the idea of an all-pervading duality and the chains of association which linked Light and the Sun to air and water, and to the male element, whilst Darkness and the Nocturnal Heaven became connected with earth, fire and woman, are clearly accounted for in the circumpolar regions only, where the year divides itself into a period of light in which independent and roaming out-door life was possible, and a period of darkness during which family life, in underground fire-lit dwellings, was compulsory. If fathomed, the mind of the Eskimo to-day may possibly reveal the germs of identical associations of ideas, for it would seem as though existence in the polar regions would infallibly stamp them indelibly upon the consciousness of all living creatures, until they unconsciously pervaded their entire being and even affected the structural organization of the human brain.(135)

The tendency to believe that the human race must have spent its infancy near the pole and received there an intellectual stamp, which could not have been conveyed to it so clearly in any other latitude, is undoubtedly encouraged by the opinion of various authorities, that “all forms of life must have originated at the pole, this having been the first habitable portion of our world.” This view is exhaustively treated in William Fairfield Warren’s “Paradise Found, the cradle of the human race at the North Pole” (Boston, 1885), to which I refer the reader and which contains much valuable data which I would have incorporated in the present investigation had I had earlier access to the volume. It would seem as though Warren’s conclusions were in perfect accord with the conclusions arrived at by some leading palæontologists, geologists and botanists, concerning the distribution of life on the globe. These are conveniently summarized in the article on “Distribution” in the Encyclopædia Britannica, from which the following detached excerpts are made for the benefit of the reader.

“The general result arrived at is that the great northern continents represent the original seat of mammalian life and the regions of its highest development.... The tertiary fauna of North America, compared with that of Europe, exhibits proofs of a former communication between the two northern continents both in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, but always, probably, in rather high latitudes. This is indicated both by the groups which appear to have originated in one continent and then to have passed across to the other and also by the entire absence from America of many important groups which abounded in Europe (and _vice versa_) indicating that the communication between the two hemispheres was always imperfect and of limited duration.... On the other hand, the marked continuity of the Northern Flora (with only a gradual east and west change in the arctic regions, but with an increased divergency southwards) requires it to be treated as a whole, although it has long been divided into that of the old and new world by the severance of North America from Northern Asia and by the barrier to an interchange of vegetation in the upheaval of the Rocky Mountain range. The old and new world divisions of the flora which, no doubt, began to diverge from the mere influence of distance, have now had that divergence immensely increased by isolation.... Large American genera (of the intermediate flora) have sent off offsets into Eastern Asia which, gradually diminishing in number of species and sometimes slightly modifying their character, have spread over the whole of Asia and invaded almost every part of Europe.... With regard to the arctic alpine flora, Hooker found that, estimating the whole arctic flora at 762 species, arctic East America possessed 379 of which 269 are common to Scandinavia. Of the whole flora 616 species are found in arctic Europe and of these 586 are Scandinavian and this leads Hooker to the striking observation that ‘the Scandinavian flora is present in every latitude of the globe and is the only one that is so.’ According to Bentham, Scandinavia, which would, according to older rules, have been termed the centre of creation for the arctic regions, may now be termed the chief centre of preservation within the arctic circle owing, perhaps, to its more broken conformation and partly to that warmer climate ... which was, during the glacial period a means of preservation of some colder species which were everywhere expelled or destroyed.... We may infer that, towards the close of the Tertiary epoch, the continuous circumpolar land was covered with a vegetation also largely composed of identical plants, but adapted to a warmer climate. As the climate became less warm there would commence a migration southwards which would result in the modified descendants of these plants being now blended with the vegetation of central Europe and the United States. As the glacial period gradually advanced, the tropical plants will have retreated from both sides towards the equator followed in the rear by the temperate productions and these by the arctic. When the climate of the earth again ameliorated, the migration took place in a reverse direction and in this way mountain ranges became the havens of refuge for the fragments of the original arctic flora which were exterminated on the lowlands. An indication of the great antiquity of the arctic alpine flora is afforded by the fact of its absence in the comparatively modern volcanic mountains of France.... If it be granted that the polar area was once occupied by the Scandinavian flora and that the cold of the glacial epoch did drive this vegetation downwards ... in arctic America ... where there was a free southern extension and dilatation of land for the same Scandinavian plants to occupy, these would multiply enormously in individuals....”

The following remarkable results of recent botanical research will be found to be of profound interest to investigators and to support the foregoing conclusions. Amongst the many important discoveries of hitherto undescribed species of plants, made by the distinguished botanists Mr. Stephen Sommier and Dr. Emile Levier during their expedition in the Caucasus mountains, in 1890, was that of a species of fungus named _Exobasidium discoideum_ Ell., which was found growing on the _Rhododendron flaro_ L. This fungus was submitted to Prof. P. Magnus of Berlin, who pronounced it to be the identical Exobasidium which has been found growing on the _Azalea viscosa_ L. in New Jersey, U. S. A. The following is the authoritative statement of Prof. P. Magnus which appears in Messrs. S. Sommier and E. Levier’s Enumeratorio plantarum caucas: acta horti petropolitani, vol. XVI. St. Petersburg, 1899.

“The occurrence of the identical species of fungus on two closely related plants, which respectively grow in the Caucasus and in North America and are missing in intermediate countries, deserves our deepest interest.... These plants are relics of the Tertiary period, during which North America and Europe still formed a continuous floral area. While the plants, on which the fungus grew, differentiated into two closely related species, in two at present widely separated but formerly connected radii of distribution, the parasitical Exobasidium remained outwardly unaltered. This is exactly like the case of another fungus, _Uromyces glycyrrhizæ_, which I have described and explained in the ‘Berichten der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft’ (Bd. VII, 1890, S. 377-384). _Exobasidium disc._ is also a parasitical fungus which has been growing on the parent form of _Rhododendron viscosum_ and _Rhododendron flavum_ ever since that period when North America and Europe were continuous and possessed the same flora.”

I am also indebted to Professor Magnus and to Dr. Levier for the following names of closely allied species of plants which are found in America and Asia only, it being particularly noticeable that it is in Asia Minor and the Caucasus mountains that the relatives of the American species are most frequently met with.

_Platanus occidentalis_: North America. _Platanus orientalis_: Asia Minor. _Liquidambar styraciflua_: North America. _Liquidambar styraciflua_: Asia. _Rhododendron viscosum_: North America. _Rhododendron flavum_: Caucasus Mts. _Rhododendron maximum_: North America. _Rhododendron ponticum_: Causasus Mts.

Professor Magnus has, moreover, recently pointed out that the fungus Uropyxis, which is a widespread American species and grows in Mexico, has a representative in Manchuria. In his monograph on Uropyxis, Professor Magnus enumerates further species of fungi which occur in America and Asia only and are missing in other portions of the world (P. Magnus, Berichten der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft, Jahrgang 1899. Band XVII, Heft 3).

Referring the reader to Professor Edward S. Morse’s trite article, Was Middle America peopled from Asia? (Appleton’s Popular Science Monthly, November, 1898), I cite, from this, the following authoritative statements: “From the naturalist’s standpoint the avenues have been quite as open for the circumpolar distribution of man as they have been for the circumpolar distribution of other animals and plants, down to the minutest land snail and low fungus. The ethnic resemblances supposed to exist between the peoples of the two sides of the Pacific may be the result of an ancient distribution around the northern regions of the globe.”

The very remarkable survival of certain plants and fungi, dating from the Tertiary period, in two such widely sundered countries as Asia Minor and North America, certainly finds a curious and striking parallel in the analogy of the cosmical ideas and social organization of Babylonia and Assyria with those of Mexico.

What is more: A cosmical scheme, attributable to a prolonged observation of natural celestial phenomena, such as could best have been carried on in circumpolar regions, has been shown to be as widespread as the Scandinavian flora which “is present in every latitude and is the only one that is so.”

Many of my readers will doubtless be inclined to explain the identity of cosmical and religious conceptions, social organization, and architectural plans shown to have existed in the past between the inhabitants of both hemispheres, as the result of independent evolution, dating from the period when primitive man, emerging from savagery, was driven southward from circumpolar regions, carrying with him a set of indelible impressions which, under the influence of constant pole-star worship, sooner or later developed and brought forth identical or analogous results.

Those who hold this view may perhaps go so far as to consider the possibility that, before drifting asunder, the human race had already discovered, for instance, the art of fire-making and of working in stone, had adopted the sign of the cross as a year-register, and evolved an archaic form of social organization. To many this view may furnish a satisfactory explanation of the universal spread of identical ideas and the differentiation of their subsequently independent evolution.

On the other hand, another class of readers may prefer to think that, while both hemispheres may have originally been populated by branches of the same race, at an extremely low stage of intellectual development, civilization and a plan of social organization may have developed and been formulated sooner in one locality than in another, owing to more favorable conditions and thence have been spread to both continents by a race, more intelligent and enterprising than others, who became the intermediaries of ancient civilization.

The great problem of the origin of American peoples lies far beyond the scope of the present work and its final solution can only be obtained at some future day by the joint coöperation of Americanists and Orientalists. On the other hand certain incontrovertible facts which throw light upon the question of prehistoric contact have been coming under my observation during my prolonged course of study and the presentation of these may advance knowledge by acting as a stimulus to discussion, inquiry and research by learned specialists.

For ready reference I submit the following tabulated record of the widely sundered countries in which are found, applied to the governmental scheme, the same cosmical divisions, respectively consisting of four, seven and thirteen parts, the group being invariably associated with the idea of an all-embracing One, constituting the Four in One, Seven in One and Thirteen in One. It is superfluous to add that, in each country enumerated, the existence of more or less distinct traces of an ancient pole-star worship and the cult of the sacred Middle, the Above and Below and Four Quarters, _i. e._, the four, seven and thirteen directions in space, have been recorded in the preceding pages. Important additional facts, acquired by reference to Hewitt’s Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times, to which my attention was directed by Mr. Stansbury Hagar, and to other valuable works, will be found included in the following summary.

It would be of utmost assistance to me in my future researches and I would regard it as a personal favor if specialists would draw my attention to any deficiencies they may detect, and inform me of the latest results of their individual investigations bearing upon the subjects under consideration.

INDIA.

Seven zones, seven directions in space, seven sages.

“The conception of the confederated kingdom formed of six dependent and allied states surrounding the seventh ruling state in the centre.”... “It is this conception which is worked out in the six kingdoms surrounding the central kingdom of Jambudvipa, into which they divided India. This form of kingdom still survives in those which form the tributary states of Chota Nagpore, for in all of these the central province is ruled by the king and those surrounding it by his subordinate chiefs ...”(136) (Hewitt, Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times, p. 256).

Four lakes, four rivers, four cosmical divisions, four guardians, p. 320.

“In the Gond ‘Song of Lingal,’ it is related how, Lingal, having been slain by the confederacy [of six kingdoms surrounding seventh], came to life again, and with four new-born Gonds, founded a new race of Gonds; taught them to build houses and to grow millets.... He divided the people into _four tribes_.... With these he united the four tribes descended from the Gonds he had brought down in his first avatar.... These formed the eight united races of the tortoise-earth.... Lingal placed among them priests ... who married the new-comers to the daughters of the previous immigrants.... This ... marks the first stage of the union of the Kushikas and the Maghadas, the latter being the race who worshipped the mother-Maga as the sacred alligator (Hewitt).

“According to the Mahābhārata the two races of Kushikas and Maghadas were united under one king.... This land was called by Hindu geographers Saka-dvipa, said in the Mataya Purana to be the land of the mountain whence Indra gets the rain;” that is of the mountain called Khar-sah-kurra, Ushidhan and Savkanta. “This mountain stood as the meeting point of the two confederacies of the patriarchal tribes and the matriarchal races.... Each confederacy is formed by six kingdoms surrounding a seventh or ruling kingdom in the centre.... This, in the Iranian federation, is Khavaniras or Huaniratha and in India, Jambu-dvipa, the land of the Jambu tree.”

Hewitt publishes an interesting drawing (reproduced as fig. 73, _c_), formed “by the union of the four triangles representing the Southeastern and Northwestern races, who all looked on the mother mountain of the East, whence Indra gets the rain, as their national birthplace, where they became united as the Kushite race, the confederation of civilized man. It represents the Greek cross and the double dorje or thunderbolt of Vishnu and Indra and also a map of the Indian races, as distributed at the time of the union. It also forms, with spaces left open for the parent rivers, ... an octahedron or eight-sided figure ... and the angles of the tribal angles form the swastika ... the sign of the rain-god ..., the great Sar of the Phœnicians....” Referring the reader to Hewitt’s interesting discussion of this figure with which he associates the origin of the swastika, I point out a fact he barely notices, namely that the figure coincides with the description of Mt. Meru, associated with four lakes, four rivers, four mythical animals and four guardians (p. 320). It is in connection with the cosmical Middle Mountain that the foundation of an earthly kingdom on the same plan becomes significant and the distribution of races figured by Mr. Hewitt assumes utmost importance. The representation of the four races by “tribal triangles,” is of special interest when collated with the Egyptian sign for city or state and the pyramid, the building of which I have several times alluded to as an event facilitating, symbolizing and commemorating the foundation of a quadruplicate state (pp. 220 and 221).

ARABIA.

“In the land of Arabia, of the irrigating and building Minyans and star-worshipping Sabæans, the land of the Queen of Sheba, or the number seven (sheba) ... a fresh confederacy was formed, to rival that of the Kushite mountain of the East ...” (Hewitt, p. 291).

It is significant that among the Sabæans the seven-day period prevailed.

ASSYRIA.

Seven directions of heaven and earth, seven territorial districts, seven mountains, seven kings, seven-staged towers, seven year and day periods, etc., pp. 328, 348 and 358.

Four-god cities, square cities, square four-storied towers, four cities, four regions or provinces, four-fold power embodied in king wearing cross, tetrarchies (?).

EGYPT.

Seven classes of people, seven districts, seven-day period, pp. 300 and 375.(137)

Quadruplicate division of capital and state, four fields of heaven, p. 372.

Sacerdotal group consisting of 12+1=13 individuals, p. 437.

Division of the country, at one time, into twelve parts (Ast).

CHINA.

Seven Manchurian tribes, p. 302.

Four provinces, four mountains, four seas, p. 286; four classes of seven each, p. 292.

At the summit of the present administration in Pekin, Four Grand Secretaries, two of whom are Manchus and two Chinese.(138)

Twelve districts, p. 292.

ANCIENT JAPAN.

The “Seven divine generations,” each consisting of a god and goddess.

Four classes of people, 2×4=8 holy quarters, eight great islands.

Imperial council of twelve divided into the higher council of five called Golosew=“Imperial Old Men” and the lower council of seven members termed Waka Tosiyori=“Junior Old Men” (Chambers’ Encyclopædia). The imperial council, with the emperor, thus constituted the sacred thirteen.

PERSIA.

Seven divisions of Cosmos, seven regions, seven spirits personifying celestial bodies and moral qualities.

Ancient confederacy of Iran consisted of six kingdoms grouped around the central royal province, “situated under the pole-star,” and called Kwan-iras or Hvan-iratha, ruled by Susi-nag, the original father-god of the model state identified with the pole-star, Draconis, the serpent (Hewitt, _op. cit._ p. 253), see also Appendix III, list II.

Four-fold rule embodied in king, p. 325. Darius distributed Persian empire into 4×5=20 satrapies, each including a certain continuous territory (Grote).

GREECE.

Tenos divided into seven quarters, seven divisions of state.(139)