Table Talk.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 21 February 1911, Page 4

Table Talk.

At last "\vo have hold of something quite definite—though it is no more than a definite conjecture—about that in tores ting .symbol, tihc Swastika, which we feel by this time as if we had known intimately from our cradle. Mr Powell Hers has forwarded us (says an English newspaper) a- pamphlet 'bv 'himself, which •lie published in 1908, under the title "The Swastika : An Attempt to account' for its widespread appearance in time and latitude." The problem, as we have already intimated, is to account for the practically world-wido occurrence of tihis de\ r icc, and its apparent dating from the earliest beginnings of human society. Like the Egyptian civilisation, the Swastika appears at its very earliest as an already traditional religious symbol of definite meaning, and often with its own peculiar rites.

Tho theory of Mr Rees, lie maintains, "includes tibe facts, and is founded 011, if not substantiated by. numerous traditions." _ Mis theory is, in 0110 word, Atlantis.

Like many other scholars, he sees strong reasons for .supposing that Atlantis, the Continent, iii the Atlantic, in part described by Plato, had a real existence, in days remoter than antiquity. Reference to it in some form or another may 'be found, he holds, in the literature and traditions of nearly every race of people. "By the red man of the Western World it is called tho ' Land across "the Great Water,! .whence the return of ' The Groat White Father' is still expected. It was tho original of the submerged ' St. Brendan's Isle' of the Irish legend, and "fihe western ' Paradise' of the Hindoo must be referred to the same source. Tt was the ' Aztlan ' which Montezuma described to Cortes as heing where ''his fathers dwelt.' The Miztecgs of Mexico referred to it as tho 'place of Heaven.' ft was the ' Olympus' of the Athenians j the 'Asgard' of the Vikings; the classic Hesporides ; the" Golden Land with its Golden Age. the common tradition of peoples in all countries, olimos and times."

What other scholars would say to this comprehensive statement we do not know. Tt is, of course, possible to believe that Atlantic existed without believing that it was Olympus. Mr Roes's next point is that Atlantic was the cradle of human civilisation; which opinion also others have maintained. He says:

Tho hroad Atlantic now rolls indifferently over tthe scene where naught but a few islands mark the top of the highest mountains around whose base tho infant human intellect first drew its sustenance from the breast of Mother Earth.

It was there, according to this view, that .agriculture first arose ; there that' the horse, the cow, and the do * were first- pressed into the servi-,'3 of mankind. There our groat cersals, wheat, barley, etc., were cultivated from their now unknown originals: there man.first pictured thoughts cv stone, metal, and wood; tbe,re metallurgy was first practised ; there arose the germ of all that makes mao intellectually great; there developed the parent prototypes of all the arts and sciences, and tihenee were tluy caiTied in ships hy early ad (.'lit K'ers to the uttermost ends of ilu l earth. rt'is pointed out that the traditions of all peoples tell that the knowledge of the alphabet, of agri•culture, of the use of metals, etc., was brought to them from with>:i f " Wherever tradition has preserved the name of the benefactor who brought it he may be trace;! to ;>n Atlantean origin," declares o::i author. The Atlanteans are assum. od, then, to have been a colotiis:n 2, race as well as the founders >t i-ir-lisation. They took their ideas everywhere. But whore did the Swastika come in? This is the heart- of the theory: The Continent of Atlantis is inscribed; in many of the legends <:s roughly circular in form, =:»r:f»iOidod by th esea and having a mountainous centre on which th? paiiu'es of its rulers were built amidst beau-tiful-gardens and peace-liA l inieel fountains. From this mountain there flowed four rivers, North, East, South', and West, which watered a fertile country beneath boneficent skies. Thus the home land was readily pictured as a circle or wheel with four spokes at right angles, whiohi subsequently became conventionalised in the shape called the Swastika; a form which had most

vitality, possibly because more easily woven into a fabric with rectangular warp and woof, and more readily incised in stone or wood. This was the sym'bol of Atlantis. This was the device which those courageous self-decreed exiles from the delightful land of tihedd origin made familiar in the most distant places. Tt was to the Atlantean pioneers what the Union Jack is to ourselves; the outward, visible sign of a civilisation which they loved and believed in. And as they were as gods to the rest of the world, their symbol remained when Atlantis had perished.

For the legendary faite of Atlantis, of course, was submersion by the sea. Says Mr Rees: "A calamity befell, greater than any other of which (history or tradition gives us a. glimpse. Volcanic forces caused, its sudden, subsidence into the depths of the ocean, all but tho highest mountain peaks, now known as the Azores, "being submerged in the flokxl of waters."

The colonists were cut off from their root. "Naught remained to them and the'people of their pupilage but-.memory and the symbol of the lost fountain-head of their civilisation. It speaks volumes for. the work this wonderful people had accomplished that mankind did not thereafter slip irrecoverably back into the darkness of pre-Atlantean times. But in the constant presence of the. emblem and what it stood for, the habit of obstacle-con-quering was Continued in tho most widespread parts of the earth; and so nations, with dimming memory of their origins, but retaining various legends of their initial endeavours and early /benefactors, were evolved aos the slow-slipping centuries rolled With differentiated nations came individual natio'nal emblems, but in the background of human memory the first symbol of good fortune, remained persistent."..

Such is Mr Rces's explanation of the fact that the Swastika turns up Mvteever; the 'spade of the archaeologist turns the earth save in Central Africa, which tho desert and the swamp seem always to have closed to the advance of any' sort k>f civilisation. It is an interestijng conjecture, and ihis pamphlet's argument ,is , illustraitedi by examples of perfect Swastikas found on ornaments, weapons, coins, etc., in Ini! a ' £ a P an ) Arabia, Armenia, Troy, the < Caucasus, Cyprus, Greece, Etruria, France,_ Germany, Denmark. Sweden, Algeria, Ashanti, -Mexico, Ohio, Arizona apd elsQwfaoro,