Chris Bertram learns what a fylfot is, and why nobody today can wear a brooch that has one on it:
Crooked Timber: Unfortunate symbol :Pauline and I have an interest in Art Nouveau, and, surfing ebay to see what there was for sale, she stumbled on an exquisite brooch designed by Charles Horner of Chester in 1895 or 6. From the description:
The brooch is decorated with a [fylfot] symbol. In Western traditions, the [fylfot's] arms each represent one of the four elements, and the extention symbolizes that element in motion; thus representing life and movement. It was also used by the Maya, Navajo, Jains and Buddhists. In Scandinavia mythology it represents Thor’s hammer.
Did you know what a flyfot is? No, neither did I.
Now he does...
Let me just remark that every single day I worked in the Main Treasury Building, I was weirded out by the fasces--the bundled rods and axes carried by the lictors of every Roman Republican official with imperium--that supported the handrails on the big staircases. Another symbol that was once innocent...
Posted by DeLong at March 21, 2004 04:04 PM | TrackBack
The swastika has been used for a long time in Asia by Buddhists and I believe also Hindus. I saw it now and then in Taiwan. Here in Portland there are at least two house chimneys with swastikas in the brickwork. I don't know the story, but they were from considerably pre-WWII.
It'll be awhile before that symbol recovers.
Posted by: Zizka on March 21, 2004 04:23 PMRobert Graves says that it was a fire wheel, it is also known as a tetragamma, but it was a sacred image.
Posted by: big al on March 21, 2004 05:24 PMzizka> The swastika has been used for a long
zizka> time in Asia by Buddhists and I believe
zizka> also Hindus. I saw it now and then in
zizka> Taiwan. Here in Portland there are at
zizka> least two house chimneys with swastikas in
zizka> the brickwork. I don't know the story,
zizka> but they were from considerably pre-WWII.
zizka> It'll be awhile before that symbol
zizka> recovers.
1) Apparently you can see it in some apartment buildings in the D.C. area that were made during the Art Deco period. I'd guess that the Portland buildings were also Art Deco/Art Deco inspired.
2) At least in the Hindu context, the swastika is square-shaped, not diamond-shaped, and of an opposite direction (usually). I'd draw an ASCII picture, but it's not coming out, for some reason.
3) I knew a kid, about my age (i.e. -- born later than 1970) who was named "Swastik". Hindu tradition or not, I still marvel at the stupidity of his parents.
Take a look at the reverse side of an old silver dime(Mercury Head).
Wonder what people will think of the American flag in a couple of centurys.
Odd I didin't notice the one time I was in the Main Treasury Building.
I thought there were only two fasces in the Roman republic. One for each consul.
Posted by: Robert Waldmann on March 21, 2004 07:23 PMHere's another odd acronym, now in DoD currency:
BLEVE - Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion
As in, "Why, I BLEVE that LNG supertanker in Long Beach Harbor is about to cook off, dude!"
http://www.arfarfarf.com/safety/distances.shtml
Posted by: Arf Arf on March 21, 2004 07:40 PMI could be wrong, but I believe that praetors also had lictors who carried the fasces. And I believe the proconsuls did as well: I seem to remember something about Cicero returning from Cilicia with his lictors...
Posted by: Brad DeLong on March 21, 2004 07:41 PMBrad,
I don't know if the fasces in Treasury as as innocent as you think they are. If I remember, a lot of the public works in DC were built in the early 30's, especially during Roosevelt's First New Deal. This could include Treasury. The First New Deal was quite sympathetic to fascism. Not the castor oil purge part, but the corporatist part of fascism, at least. Of course, this mostly disappeared with the Second New Deal, but architecture long outlasts its builders.
I've known what t Fyflot was for some time, but I'm in a midieval group that does heraldry, and there is a rule for coming up with one's on arms that reads something to the effect of, "No Fyflots (Swasticas).
Posted by: Matthew Saroff on March 21, 2004 08:28 PMNah. Main Treasury dates back to the nineteenth century--and I'm sure the banisters are original. The building curators are fanatics (in a good way). What they did to the office of the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs in the name of early Gilded Age historical authenticity... I remember Laura Tyson saying that she would only go into that office if she was allowed to wear a costume...
Posted by: Brad DeLong on March 21, 2004 08:30 PMOnly a matter of time before the gammadion recovers. Its age, its universality and the sheer weight of all the different positive and neutral things it still means far dwarfs any thirty-year plagiarism. There's this crazy Canadian, calling ah, themself ManWoman, wrote a book on the numerous different things swastikas once decorated (including pillars in an ancient synagogue, a women's hockey team called "the swastikas", etc).
Posted by: g-dwina on March 21, 2004 09:48 PMI actually saw a kid named Swastika in the newspaper just the other day. I imagine that she'll get a nickname.
Among Hitler's acolytes was a Greek-French woman who spent a long time in India and hade connections with the Hindu nationalist Bose. She continued her Nazi activities during the fifties, and some of her books can stll be found. According to a frind of mine, some New Age spiritual groups had a real Nazi connection -- the Aquarian foundation was one.
Posted by: Zizka on March 21, 2004 09:54 PMThe small town of Swastika, Ontario, defiantly kept its name -- unlike sauerkraut ("liberty cabbage") and other such Americanisms.
I think the theory was that it was theirs, not Shicklegruber's.
http://m-w.com/mw/art/fasces.htm
i dunno, seems rather innocent to me :D
the return of the fylfot'll prolly occur when naming your kid(s) 'adolf' becomes appropriate again!
Posted by: drk on March 22, 2004 01:55 PM