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68 Symbolism of the East and West
The tmi, as we shall proceed to show, is a very wide-
spread emblem.
In 1886, at a meeting of the British Association, Mr G.
Halliburton read a paper containing notes on a cross on
the badge of a medicine-man of the Oueen Charlotte Isles.
"This symbol," he said, "was used by these people on
large sheets of copper, to which they attached a high value,
and each of which they called a tan. Their medicine-men
sometimes have the tmi impressed on their foreheads. The
ancients used to mark the captives who were to be saved
with a tau or cross."
"Figures of the tau" says Jomard, "are numerous in the
buildings, bas-reliefs, and even in the form of the lisfhts of
the ancient city of Palenque in Central America, although,"
he adds, "it is impossible to form an opinion upon them
in our present state of knowledge."
Again, Captain Bourke, U.S.A., in his work on the
Moquis of Arizona, says :
" Preparatory to taking part in
the snake dance, old and young of both sexes put on curious
head-dresses of boards, painted green or sky blue, with tips
of red or yellow, in which were incisions in the shape of
the crescent, the cross, or the letter X-
The order of St Antony of Ethiopia, one of the earliest
orders of foreign knighthood, is recorded to have been
founded by Prester John, the Christian Emperor in Africa,
circa a.d. 370. He formed certain monks, who had led
austere lives in the desert, into a religious order of knight-
hood. Its members wore a black habit, and had for their
ensign a blue cross edged with gold in the form of the
letter X.