Note 185 — PART II. MYTHOLOGY AND FOLK-LORE.

See Worsaae, Danish Arts, and Virchow, in various numbers of the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie. The ring-cross is a common figure in American symbolism and decorative art. It frequently occurs on the shields depicted in the Bologna Codex, and the two codices of the Vatican (Kingsborough’s Antiquities of Mexico, Vols. ii. and iii). Dr. Ferraz de Macedo says that the most common decorative design on both ancient and modern native Brazilian pottery is the ring-cross in the form of a double spiral, as in Fig. 19 (Essai Critique sur les Ages Prehistorique de Bresil, p. 40). A very similar form will be found in the Bologna Codex, pl. xviii, in Kingsborough’s Mexico, Vol. ii.