hitler stole the swastika symbol

8/8/2019 Hitler Stole the Swastika Symbol

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THE HISTORY OF ANANCIENT HUMAN SYMBOL

VISITORS TO NEWMEXICO in the late19th century would have been pleased topurchase a souvenir rug, pot or piece ofsilver jewelry decorated with a swastika.

The tourists loved the motif, wrote Margery

Bedinger in her popular 1973 book IndianSilver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers.

Between July,1905 and 1906, 60,000swastikas in various forms, some by Indians

and others not, sold to tourists in NewMexico as genuine

Indian articles.Todays tourists,

particularly thosefrom the Western

hemisphere, would beappalled. Our

association of the

swastika withAdolf Hitler and his

National SocialistParty is so

encompassing wewould immediately

assume any object soimprinted had a direct

link with Nazism.

Yet anyone who

looks at art or

architecture, no

matter how casually,

will eventually see the

symbol. The Navajos,

Tibetans and Turks

incorporated the

swastika into their

rugs. Arizonas

indigenous Pima and

Maricopa people

wove them into their

baskets and painted

them onto their pots.

In Asia the emblem is

found on everythingfrom clothing to

political ballots to the

thresholds of houses.

Swastikas are carved into the Capitol

Building in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia

Museum of Art and many ancient Buddhist

and Mayan temples. At Albuquerques KiMo

Theater, built in 1927 and recently restored,

swastikas adorn the proscenium, entryway

and the buildings exterior. Elsewhere in New

Mexico, they are evident in the architecture

of the Shafer Hotel in Mountainair and the

Swastika Hotel in Raton (now the

International Bank).

One of the oldest symbols made byhumans, the swastika dates back some

6,000 years to rock and cave paintings.Scholars generally agree it originated in

India. With the emergence of the Sanskrit

language came the term swastika, a

combination of su, or good, and asti,

to be; in other

words, well-being.

Theres no clear

answer on how the

figure migrated toother parts of Asia,

Europe, Africa andthe New World.

Early examples ofswastikas on pottery

and householdobjects in China

indicate that theswastika traveled

with traders and withthe spread of

Buddhism

throughout Asia.According to Jim

Clarke, an ancientAsian art expert and

owner ofClarke &Clarke Asian

Antiques and Tribal

Art in Santa Fe, earlyChristian inhabitantsof India and Iran

used the swastika asan amulet or

protective device.

In the 17th century,India and Iran were

exotic places toEuropeans, Clarke

remarks. Thingsbrought back from

these countries wereviewed as exotic. To incorporate these

symbols was considered very avant.

Clarke is intrigued by the notion that the

swastika might have made its way from

China to the New World with Chinese traders

lost on the seas. Remains of Chinese vessels

have been excavated in coastal communitiesin South America, he says, and along with

LOW-FIRED POTTERY BOWL FROM THE

BANSHAN CULTURE MAJIAWANVILLAGE, CHINA

NEOLITHIC PERIOD (21651965 BCE)

LARCE CENTRAL SWASTIKA PROBABLY INTENDED TO

SYMBOLIZE A SUN WHEEL. COURTESY CLARKE & CLARKE

DETAIL FROM LARGE GERMANTOWN PICTORIAL NAVAJO RUG

C1890 COURTESY SHERWOODS SPIRIT OFAMERICA
http://www.cabq.gov/kimohttp://www.cabq.gov/kimohttp://www.ethnoarts.com/http://www.ethnoarts.com/http://www.ethnoarts.com/http://www.ethnoarts.com/http://www.ethnoarts.com/http://www.ethnoarts.com/http://www.cabq.gov/kimohttp://www.cabq.gov/kimo


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THE HISTORY OF ANANCIENT HUMAN SYMBOL

Pueblo people. The two most popular motifs,according to author and antique Indian

jewelry dealer Cindra Kline, were Indianheads and swastikas.

Kline, who has written a book on Navajo

spoons to be published by the Museum ofNew Mexico Press in

September, 2001,

notes that the first

spoon shes located

with both a swastika

and an engraved date

coincides with the

opening of the

St. Louis Exposition in1904, though the

item was certainly

made years earlier.

The Charles M.

Robbins Co., a

commercial spoon

company, was

manufacturing so-

called Navajo spoons

as mementos of the fair. In 1906, Moore

was the first to offer swastika spoons in its

catalog. By the time the spoon craze died

out around 1915, Kline says, you had so

many stamps and dyes with swastikas that

the symbol appears on bracelets, sides of

rings, ash trays, salt cellars. Any silver-

stamped item was fair game for a swastika

stamp.

In the year 2001 in Santa Fe, swastikascan be found in myriad museums and

galleries. At the Museum of Indian Arts and

Culture, a ceramic rain god made at Tesuque

Pueblo circa 1900, proudly displays one.

At Clarke & Clarke, swastikas adorn 19th

century Thai garments and pre-historic

Chinese bowls. Navajo spoons can be pur-

chased at Kania Ferrin, Medicine Man and

Rainbow Man galleries and Navajo rugs atCristofs, Dewey, Packards and Sherwoods.

And there are many other venues displaying

Himalayan, Islamic, Asian and Native

American art in which swastikas connote the

natural world, good fortune or simply serve

as attractive decorative elements.

Often, however, these pieces will not be

on public view. Its a horrible symbol to

overcome, Kline remarks. But the swastika

can be such a beautiful design. Its a shame

to see all these beautiful pieces hidden

away. Given the difficulty of dating silver,

Kline says, If the viewer can look beyond

Hitlerization, if you have a swastika spoon its

an assurance of age. You know it pre-dates

WW II probably by a good number of years

and it has a fascinating history.How Hitler came

to adopt the swastika

is unclear. VariousGerman citizens are

said to havesuggested it as a

symbol of racialpurity. Hitler was

supposedly obsessedwith numerology and

Eastern religion and

may have seen theimage in Tibetan

manuscripts orpaintings.

Regardless, theswastikas original

meaning, which had

endured formillennia, was diametrically altered.

In 1940, in response to Hitlers regime,

the Navajo, Papago, Apache and Hopipeople signed a whirling log proclamation. It

read, Because the above ornament, which

has been a symbol of friendship among ourforefathers for many centuries, has been

desecrated recently by another nation ofpeoples, therefore it is resolved that

henceforth from this date on and forevermore our tribes renounce the use of the

emblem commonly known today as theswastika . . . on our blankets, baskets,

art objects, sand paintings and clothing.

References and suggested reading

The Swastika Symbol in Navajo Textiles

by Dennis J. Aigner. DAI Press, Laguna

Beach, California, 2000.

Navajo Spoons by Cindra Kline. Museumof New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico,2001.

Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo

Jewelers by Margery Bedinger. UNM Press,1973.

DOTTIE INDYKE LIVES IN SANTA FE AND WRITES REGULARLY

ABOUT THE ART AND CULTURE OF THIS REGION.2001 WINGSPREAD GUIDES OF NEW MEXICO, INC.

READ MORE ON THE WEB AT www.collectorsguide.com

SWASTIKA SHIELD KIMO THEATRE (1927) RESTORED 2000

423 CENTRALA VENUE NW IN DOWNTOWNALBUQUERQUE

PHOTO BY KIRK GITTINGS
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hitler stole the swastika symbol

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