10/03/02: The History of a Symbol
 

The swastika is universally known today as a symbol of racism and hate. But how many of you know that the swastika used to be a universal symbol of luck and prosperity? It held this meaning to numerous cultures for over 3000 years. It was only during World War II that people began to give the swastika negative connotations, and you can still find numerous pre-ww2 artifacts employing this symbol as a sign of good luck. Some examples are given below.


http://www.luckymojo.com/wgoodluck.gif
Unknown North American coin, minted during the Great Depression.

http://www.flashback.se/arkiv/pics/swastika/card1.jpg
Taken from this site.The caption reads "Amerikanskt vykort från 1920-talet". I have no idea what this means.

http://www.luckymojo.com/swastika.gif

A postcard, copyright 1907 by E. Phillips, a U.S. card publisher. Text on the back of the card reads:
<blockquote>GOOD LUCK EMBLEM

"The Swastika" is the oldest cross and emblem in the world. It forms a combination of four "L's" standing for Luck, Light, Love and Life. It has been found in ancient Rome, excavations in Grecian cities, on Buddhist idols, on Chinese coins dated 315 B.C., and our own Southwest Indians use it as an amulet.

It is claimed that the Mound Builders and Cliff Dwellers of Mexico, Central America consider "The Swastika" a charm to drive away evil and bring good luck, long life and prosperity to the possessor.
</blockquote>

Luckymojo.com notes that the text on the card is factually innaccurate. According to that site, the Mound Builders and Cliff Dwellers did not live in Mexico, though they did use the swastika.

http://www.flashback.se/arkiv/pics/swastika/card4.jpg

The caption on this one is, "Flower of Colorado. Amerikanskt vykort från 20-talet". I have no idea, but it's frightening, isn't it?

Some of these could be photoshopped, but from what i've gleaned from my Cultural Anthropology professor, the history behind this appears to be true. He himself has a pre-ww2 plate with various lucky-charms depicted on it, amoung them of course the giant, frightening swastika.

Not that I condone racism. I just think it's really fucked up how something we view very strongly as a symbol for hate, just 70 years ago was a symbol of good luck.

Also at a 45 degree angle and flipped it's a buddhist symbol.
I've heard various dumbass tourists (usually american - what is it with american tourists???) going 'ohmygod that grave has a swastika on it!!!'

North of Toronto, Canada, there's a town called Swastika.

There's a map and discussion in the Toronto thread of the Cellar.

http://cellar.org/showthread.php?s=&...2&pagenumber=3

Well, gee Jag, if I saw a 45-degree rotated flipped swastika, I'd still think it's a swastika. As juju has pointed out, most people these days don't know the history of the symbol, including myself up to 5 minutes ago.

So why do you call these tourists "dumbass"? Because they don't know the history of the symbol? Or because they don't know rotating it 45 degrees and inverting it makes it a different symbol?

Stupid fucking American tourists. I bet they go to Starbuck's too. Why don't you take a moment to enlighten them instead of calling names?

I call them dumbass because they spend thier time in air conditioned comfort and make no attempt whatsoever to take the slightest interest in local or regional culture. They also tend to be the type who are stupid enough to say, take a richchet after midnight adn then raise all hell when they get mugged and take no responsability for their actions. If you're going to do be that stupid do us all a favour and watch a doco on your tv at home instead and save the rest of us the trouble of having to explain to you that yes - toilets are different over here, isn't it terrible.

Do me a favor, then, and stay out of my country. We already have enough assholes; we don't need one more.

Who the fuck do you think you are?

This is MY country, bitch. :)

It sounds to me like they're visiting the damn site. That sounds like an interest to me. Excuse the hell out of them for not being experts in the matter.

OK, you're really babbling here and generally making no sense, but it sure sounds to me like you have a ton of pent-up agression towards foreigners. I didn't know toilets are different in Australia. Does that make me a dumbass?

You should really do something about that giant chip on your shoulder. Maybe some counseling or something, I dunno. If I went off about the Mexicans who live around my town as much as you go off about Americans, you'd probably call me a xenophobic prick. Learn to deal with those who are different already.

God forbid somebody might want to relaxe air conditioned comfort on their well earned vacation. Maybe the all tourists should head out to the country and live off the land while living in a cardboard box. Then they could take some interest in the regional culture.

Obviously these people are interested in local culture or they wouldn't be there.

Remember, ALL Americans are evil to non-Americans. We rape and pillage the world with a smile. :)

Oh yeah I forgot, I better go rob a poor canadian bloke tonight.

To be fair, Jag's opinions <i>are</i> shared by the majority of the world. So I hear, anyway.

Unfortunately, it's no better than the disdain many Americans seem to have towards foreigners.

Yeah it's a sad state of affairs. Hopefully someday we all realize we are different and that no one is better than the other. Until then I think we'll just have to keep our minds open to those differences.

While historically we can point to swastikas/fylfots/gammadions being oriented both sunwise and antisunwise, I regard the sunwise-turning fylfot as being considerably more auspicious in a sun symbol.

It'd be hard indeed to come up with a more apt symbol for general catastrophe than a sun-symbol reversed, be it black or any other color, and reversing it is what the Nazis went for. Comic book artist Donna Barr had an apt remark on it all in her comic The Desert Peach, where someone was bemusedly fingering a small Nazi Party flag and wondering, "Tibetan Socialists...?"

The swastika cocked saltirewise got used in a couple of places, notably the Nazi banner and armbands from senior Party to HitlerJugend, but the squared-off and still reversed swastika was on standards and suchlike.

And I've been to Western Australia. I don't recall anything different about any toilets. On-demand gas-fired hot-water heaters, yes; weird and wonderful things done with pancakes for lunch, yes; heavy cream for coffee, yes -- but nothing at all strange about any toilets.