[Jewelry making - Article 00901] - Re: [Orchid] Jewelry and "Cultural Property"

[Kim Griffith]

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>     The way that the swastika was made 'evil' was by reversing the
>     design. The native peoples that used it in the past as a good luck
>     symbol had it going the other way. The nazi's turned it around
>     which thus produced a negative of a good symbol. 

    For what its worth, I have to disagree with this post. According to
    the information immediately available to me, the reversed swastika
    was used long prior to Hitler's use, in Mesopotamia it appears on the
    pubis of the great Semitic goddess Ishtar and was linked with female
    generative power, in China the reversed swastika is a yin symbol -
    Hitler didn't use it until August 1920 when it first appeared on the
    Nazi banner. 

    The swastika is a very old ideogram. The first examples are found in
    Sumeria and in earlier cultures that existed in what is now Pakistan
    about 3000 BC. It was used BC in China, India, Japan and Southern
    Europe, among the Hittites in Greece and did not appear in the Nordic
    countries until after the birth of Christ. 

    The swastika can rotate in either direction. Swastika in Sanskrit
    means well-being or positive being....both signs are found in
    pre-Columbian America. A search of any dictionary of symbols will
    turn up a wealth of information regarding this ancient and widespread
    symbol. 

:-) Kimmyg
http://www.northcoastbeadmakers.com
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