[Header image via Holy Warbles]
It started with a post in one of the Dull Men’s Groups that have become popular on Facebook – a member had a hardcover edition of the rules and practices for the United States House of Representatives, also known as a Jefferson Manual, and wanted help identifying the symbol along the spine. It looked like a spear with an oversized head and a large decorative bow and, while I’m by no means an expert, I hadn’t seen anything quite like it used in the iconography of American politics before. Other group members were putting forth a number of suggestions but nothing seemed like a convincing match.
Based on the provenance the most reasonable explanation would have been the Mace of the United States House of Representatives – a ceremonial object stylized after the Roman fasces. This formidable looking weapon has been used historically to quell disorder in legislative proceedings. (As a symbolic deterrent rather than literal cudgel) During the attempted insurrection of January 6th 2021, a specially appointed Keeper of the Mace rushed it from the Senate floor to ensure it couldn’t fall into the wrong hands. Nonetheless there was no mistaking the mysterious icon for even a crude attempt to illustrate the distinctive eagle and globe that sit atop the mace.
The other theories revolved around depictions of either the Caduceus or Rod of Asclepius. While a medical symbol would make little sense for a legislative body, technically only the second of these symbols should be confined to this context. The Caduceus is a symbol of the Greek God Hermes and all trades associated with him – including commerce, negotiation and printing. The lower part of the symbol does resemble a winding serpent but neither of these interpretations accounts for the shape crowning the pole and I focused on that feature in my search for a closer match.
I tried to think of the best art history term for the shape at the apex and a Google search for “acorn tipped scepter” immediately pulled up the thyrsus – an icon of Dionysus and his followers. The visual match was immediately apparent – both the ribbons in a bow and a tapered tip, usually identified as a pine cone, artichoke or fennel bulb, are persistent features of this icon. At first glance Dionysus, associated with fertility and hedonism, was far from an appropriate symbol for the House of Representatives, but upon digging deeper I found a certain degree of congruence.
In a blog named after this same symbol I found a compelling possible explanation – Dionysian Theater seemed to have played an important role in the development of democracy in Ancient Greece. Both the theater itself as a public gathering place and the social power of comedies as a vehicle for dissenting opinions made me feel like I was on the right track. The patron and symbol of this theater was not just Dionysus but specifically Dionysus Eleuthereus, the liberator, a name that spoke to the founding ideals of the United States.
Between this explanation and the clear resemblance in the unidentified symbol I would have considered the mystery solved if not for one nagging detail – no matter how hard I searched I could find no documentation or precedent for the use of the thyrsus in this context. If this was truly the intention of the Jefferson Manual’s illustrator you’d think the connection would be written about somewhere. I reached out to the Library of Congress, the House Historian and Markos Gage – a prominent Dionysian and author of the aforementioned blog.
At first, only Gage wrote back. While he agreed with me in terms of both the resemblance and the apposite nature of Dionysus as a symbol for “liberty”, he had not heard of any comparable usage either. He put forth a brief list of symbols referencing the Classical World that did have political precedent: the House Mace, the fasces and the Phrygian cap. At this point in my research I should have dug deeper into the last of these suggestions but a couple of factors proved to be obstacles.
First off I had always seen Phrygian caps illustrated in profile, as seen on Papa Smurf and the cult figure Mithras, and from this angle there seemed to be little resemblance with the image from the book’s spine. I must also admit that I fell victim to a certain fallacy – the idea that I had correctly identified the thyrsus where others had failed was seductive, as was the prospect of Dionysian worship hidden in plain sight among the icons of American Democracy. While I should have kept my focus on identification I shifted instead to searching for explanation of what was ultimately a flawed premise.
I posted the image across several Reddit communities dedicated to symbols, Dionysus and the Ancient World. Initial responses took me back over familiar ground – the suggestion that the illustrator’s intention was a House Mace, generic fasces or Rod of Asclepius. One user was oddly convinced that the book in question must be a fake, an extremely dry parody of the Jefferson Manual printed by a small but dedicated group of Dionysian tricksters. Even when another user found an identical use of the symbol from 1931 (the original example is from the 115th Congress of 2017/18), they remained committed to the concept of this fakery.
In a way this wasn’t too different from my own inflexibility regarding the symbol as a Dionysian one in the first place. Finally a user on r/ancientgreece cracked the case: we were looking at a drawing of a Liberty pole. This political symbol dates back to the assassination of Julius Caesar, when it was paraded through the streets of Rome, but was also an important image during the French and American revolutions. While the hat in question has come to be conflated with the Phrygian cap, the original design featured a pileus – the symbol of freed slaves in Ancient Rome.
While it is unlikely that any political use of the Liberty Pole has intended to reference this, I’d like to mention that this is the reason a certain species of psychoactive psilocybin mushrooms are commonly called “Liberty Caps”. Not only does the cap of the fungus resemble the pileus in shape, the way it sits atop the stipe, or stem, resembles the Liberty Pole in entirety. In fact, pileus is the generic name for any mushroom’s cap. I have not seen concrete evidence that psychedelic mushrooms were ever used in Dionysian rites or mysteries but this is the closest we are likely to get to the symbolism I first sought out.
This was my first time learning about the pileus and, although any similarities may be coincidental, I was immediately reminded of 1993 rap parody film Fear of Black Hat. In the movie a fictional rap group called Niggaz with Hats also use a hat as a symbol for manumission from slavery. Their reasoning is outlined in the following exchange between the rappers and an interviewer:
- Nina Blackburn: So, guys, what’s the deal with the hats?
- Ice Cold: That’s what NWH is all about. We got a whole hat philosophy, you know what I’m saying? I mean, see, back in the days when there was slaves and stuff, they would work in the hot sun all day, you know, with the sun beating down them. Hatless. I mean, not even a babushka.
- Tone Def: Word. Heads totally exposed to the sun.
- Ice Cold: You know, so by the time they got back to the plantation from being in all the heat, they was too tired to rebel against their masters, right? So what we saying with Niggaz With Hats is, “Yo, we got some hats now, muh-fuckers.”
- Tasty Taste: And we ain’t too tired to bust a cap in yo ass
I have not so far been able to determine when the image was first adopted for use on the Jefferson Manual but I did come across some interesting details concerning the pileus and House of Representatives.
The Statue of Freedom, designed by Thomas Crawford, has sat atop the Congressional Dome since 1863. While the finished statue features a military helmet with stars and feathers, often mistaken for a Native war bonnet, Crawford’s initial design employed the pileus.
The person in charge of decorations for the Capitol was Jefferson Davis – United States Secretary of War when the work was first commissioned and future President of the Confederacy. Davis’s objections seem not to be that the pileus might serve as a symbol of Abolition, but rather the implication that slave owners and the enslaved might ever be seen as equals. He sent an aide, Montgomery Meigs, to Crawford who asked for the symbol’s removal with the following words:
“its history renders it inappropriate to a people who were born free and would not be enslaved”.
Nonetheless Davis would also almost certainly have objected to any slaves receiving any hats, pileus or otherwise, that might inspire or symbolize liberty.
The final statue was cast in the workshop of a Clark Mills, located on the outskirts of the Capitol. Work began in 1860 and was soon disrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War. During the casting process, Mills’ foreman went on strike and, rather than pay the higher wages, Mills turned the project over to a slave named Philip Reid. By the time Reid worked with Mills to install the statue in 1863 he had been freed by the 1862 District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act but he remained enslaved, and therefore both compelled and uncompensated, for the entire casting process.
These details concerning the design, construction and installation of this monument speak to our country’s complicated relationship with the concepts of freedom and slavery – especially because it was built by enslaved labor within the Union even as the Civil War was being fought. In this article, historian Erin L. Thompson discusses the statue and why she believes it should be viewed through the same critical lens as monuments that more directly glorify Confederate leaders.
I’ve been getting back into booking touring bands in my rural corner of the world, and one of them recently loaned me a book called MOR from Monday Press. In a series of anonymous e-mails from a Russian noise artist, it tells the story of what it is like to be a largely nihilistic and apolitical artist under Putin’s increasingly oppressive regime at the outbreak of the Ukraine War. At first simple acts, like packaging a noise release with pieces of cut up sex toys, make the author realize he is technically breaking the law but soon even using the word “war” in all but the most laudatory contexts becomes an actionable offense.
The entire time I read it, I was struck with the chilling sensation that I was staring into my own future but I couldn’t have imagined how quickly the abstract would become immediate. Civil liberties of both United States citizens and immigrants have been under steady erosion and attack since the beginning of the current administration, since 9/11 and markedly during Trump’s first term and under Biden as well really, but things have hit a fever pitch since the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The visceral moment came when I was doing something that felt largely apolitical – mailing a zine and physical music release to a friend in Canada. I briefly considered writing “United States of Gilead” on the parcel as a joke when it hit me that this would make me feel conspicuous and unsafe. It doesn’t help that my red county in a nominally progressive state just voted to become a charter county but I don’t think writing it would have felt safe anywhere in the United States. I can’t write this article and read the news at the same time so I’m in the awkward position of not knowing if the thing I am writing has become outlawed speech even as I am writing it.
It was probably unnecessary to black out the names of the bands and venue on the flyer I used as scrap paper but this is the new reality. Any risks I take by writing and sharing my opinions feel like I need to take them on alone, and not even indirectly involve my friends and associates. I enjoy an incredible amount of privilege as a citizen by birth, as a landowner and, most importantly, as a white cisgendered heterosexual male. Countless people I love do not share these privileges.
The reality is nobody is safe. The reality is that art is never truly apolitical and that reality is becoming more urgent by the hour like an oncoming train. Even the academic research into our nation’s political symbols I began this piece with feels like it could become outlawed at any moment. Since I began this piece several weeks ago the Library of Congress and House Historian have both written me back but neither has independently confirmed that the illustration on the Jefferson Manual is intended as a Liberty Pole.
It seems ironic to think of the House Mace, itself a fasces, being protected from encroaching fascists during the 2020 Insurrection but the symbol predates the Twentieth Century version of fascism by many centuries. In France’s First Republic it represented the power of the people over the government, rather than the inverse, which is why it was depicted crowned with the Phrygian cap of Liberty as seen in this article’s header. Early American usage was similarly intended. It should, of course, be noted that the United States was founded with slavery intact and although France’s First Republic abolished it by decree in 1794, it was re-established by Napoleon in French colonies in 1802.
This “Liberty” has always been conditional and now, more than ever, we must fight for it to be the natural birthright of every human being on Earth. In the United States, in Palestine, in Russia, in First Nations still deprived of territories that are theirs by both birthright and treaty, in all nations recognized and unrecognized. For citizen and noncitizen alike. None are free where any are oppressed.
Of course the pileus is no longer the most prominent red hat in politics and the MAGA hat that has usurped it means anything but Freedom. In looking towards these symbols of our imperfect past I hope we can take strength, wisdom and humility to look toward our future and build a better, safer and more just world for everyone we share it with and the generations to come.
During the American Revolution, Liberty Poles were not just symbols but functioned as public billboards where notices such as “No Taxation Without Representation” were displayed. A good friend of mine recently compared the internet to a telephone pole where one might display flyers and notices for shows, physical media and various facets of offline reality. His intention was to disparage the usefulness of the internet but I think he hit upon a truth that ultimately does the opposite.
The internet has become the highest and most public pole in the world and we should use it as such, as long as we can and even as those that would impeach our liberties might try to take this usage away.
Further Reading here:
Adventures in the Undiscovered Interior of Underground America 