Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/428

 HISTORY OF THE SWASTIKA.

BY MICHEL dE ZMIGKODZKI.


 * I have prepared a diagram, destined for the Columbian Exposition. On this diagram I have gathered 1360 objects, all bearing a certain symbolic sign belonging to the oldest form of worship.

What was that worship? and according to what rules have I made choice of the objects represented on the diagram?

The first teacher of mankind was death and the grave. The first and greatest impressions that man was forced to feel were caused by death and by the sudden destruction of beings which live or increase. What must he have remarked in such cases? He perceived that by death the warmth of the body vanishes, and also that plants grow better in warmth and in the light of the sun, than without it, or in the cold. The present conclusion was that all life on earth depends on warmth and light. He also perceived that warmth, and subsequently fire and flame with light—let us say artificial light in opposition to the natural light of the sun—can everywhere be produced by friction.

On the other hand, I am of the conviction that at first existed the conception of simply Deity, of the one and highest Being, which afterwards degenerated into polytheism. Let us put together all of those primitive conceptions and we shall conclude by the synthesis: that God-Creator of the world, maintains all of his creatures by warmth and light. It is, I think, a simple religious philosophy which was comprehensible to the most primitive human mind.

The most natural necessity of all religious thought is everywhere to form a corresponding symbolism. What thought could be nearer to those men, than to take as a symbol of their supreme Being—of their Creator—the two instruments of fire: the heavenly instrument in the hand of God—the sun; and 360