DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 39!
Chinese character for "eye" (pronounced mo) has likewise the form of a small, upright ladder. Scalariform marks frequently occur on the escutcheons of western Europeans, just as, likewise, the human eye is at times represented. These signs evidently signify man, the human being. The same may be said of various forms of crosses and "T "-shaped signs. They represent man, just as today the illiterates represent their person on a document by the making of a cross. A great number of present day family names contain the designation "man" in a great variety of forms. Probably, therefore, the old inscriptions or escutcheons, which were originally indications of names, represent this designation in manifold forms. The collection of Brazilian figures, which was greatly increased by the ceramic examples of Marajo (cf., Archive do Museo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Vol. II, 1885) contain to a surprising extent the following forms, which are commonly found also on European escutcheons: viz., angles, crenellated and horseshoe or antler-like forms, three or four- leaved drawings, -etc. Of importance also in the case of the Brazilian figures is the phallus, which has its counterpart on various western European coats-of-arms and is, in the latter case, at times popularly supposed to represent candles, arrow-points, etc. It seems that also in western Europe there remained evidences of the veneration of the genera- tive forces as was commonly the case among ancient peoples. In Altamira there are further many hand impressions, many of them in a mutilated condition. They were perhaps originally intended as marks of recognition and served the same general purpose as fingerprints do today. Whether the arms, hands, claws, etc., appearing on escutcheons were at first intended to serve a similar purpose is not so readily to be accepted as a fact, and yet it is quite possible that this was the case. It is certain, at least, that many of the forms appearing on certain coats- of-arms are exceedingly ancient. If we should succeed in proving an actual connection between the prehistoric drawings such as those under discussion and the oldest forms appearing on our escutcheons, a matter which must be left to further investigations, then a new field would be opened to students of prehistoric inscriptions and heraldry. The many so-called secondary signs in the forms of suns, hearts, rings, arrows, birds, dragons, etc., which appear on coins and seals seem to point to such a connection.
FREDERICO SOMMER SAO PAULO, BRAZIL, September, 1920.
(Translated and communicated by B. F. Schappelle, Univ. of Pa.) 26
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