This is the second article in our series of posts examining the use of the swastika worldwide.
The swastika arose independently in the New World and has been in use for thousands of years in both North and South America. For the first time on the internet (and perhaps the first time since Thomas Wilson's attempt 125 years ago), we have compiled a high-quality study of the swastika in the New World.
The article has over 200 images of artifacts and documents swastikas from over 50 cultures and geographic areas--spanning from Alaska to Chile and from the American Southwest to the Atlantic coast of Canada. No doubt there are many more that were overlooked and are awaiting to be uncovered!
With this series of articles, we will once and for all demonstrate that Neo-Nazis and other ethno-tribalists have no claim to this universal Aryan symbol.
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This blog post is for discussion on the article, and we especially welcome any information on the artifacts in the "Unknown and Unconfirmed" section or swastikas from additional cultures.
Read the full article here:
https://aryan-anthropology.blogspot.com/p/native-american-swastikas-and-swastikas.html
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To see the other articles in our series on the swastika, click here:
https://aryan-anthropology.blogspot.com/p/the-swastika-aryan-symbol.html
The article has now entered version 2, as significant additions, improvements to clarity, and some corrections have been made.
ReplyDeleteI added figure numbers to all the images. This should help when trying to discuss specific artifacts.
I have also attempted to make a list of the known names and meanings of the swastika in North and South America. If you are familiar with any of these cultures, please help us expand this section:
https://aryan-anthropology.blogspot.com/p/native-american-swastikas-and-swastikas.html#NamesAndMeanings
I came across this website while researching a tip tray I bought from a local Antique store. It is Native American, made in early 1900s and has several Swastikas within the artwork. I bought this piece because I know it's hard to find Native American artwork with Swastikas, considering they banned the symbol in the 1940s. Now, I'm hoping to find more information on it, like which tribe might have made it, is it the only one, ect.. Hoping to find someone to point me in the right direction! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI think the first thing to consider is whether it really is Native American, or whether it was designed to "look" Native American. It may have been a consumer good intended to look "exotic". There are many examples of postcards, lighters, and other products with Native "themes" that were made by non-Natives.
DeleteAs racist as people were back then, they did like Native American styled products. One example that comes to mind is this photo of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dressed up in a "Native" costume with a large swastika while she was in the Camp Fire Girls of America organization, around the 1930s:
https://i.imgur.com/EN8u9Wx.jpg
If the tip tray is Native American, it would probably be impossible to attribute it to a specific culture without other symbols or a better idea of where it was originally made.
Trying to answer the question as to why the swastika arose independently in the New World is difficult, since we don't know the original meaning of the swastika in the New or Old World.
ReplyDeleteThe Hopi used it to represent their ancestral migrations. I believe archaeologist Zelia Nuttall speculated it could have arisen from astronomical observations of the rotation of constellations around the pole star. It could have also arisen as a modification of a simple motif (the cross). Some cultures are recorded as using it as a symbol of the sun.
It likely meant different things to different cultures, but the basic ideas that gave rise to it would have been accessible to different cultures, allowing the swastika to be invented independently, possibly with similar meanings.