From: hays@ssd.intel.com (Kirk Hays)
Subject: Re: Nazi memoribilia
Nntp-Posting-Host: taos
Organization: Intel Supercomputer Systems Division
Lines: 38

In article <cmay.734085409@helium>, cmay@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Christopher C May) writes:
|> In <1993Apr2.232511.10711@raid.dell.com> mikepb@lupus.dell.com (Michael P. Brininstool) writes:
|> 
|> >Swatikas were also common in American Indian markings/painted walls etc.  Is
|> >it the Swastika that is bad?  
|> 
|> Just want to back this up with a personal anecdote.  My grandparents
|> have a Navajo rug made in the 1920's, which they received in trade 
|> from the weaver while living in Flagstaff, Arizona.  The decorative motif
|> consists of 4 large black swastikas, one in each corner.  What's more, the
|> color scheme is black, white, and red.  To the casual glance it would
|> undoubtedly appear to be a Nazi relic of some kind.  Yet they owned it
|> ten years before Hitler and the National Socialists came to power.  
|> 
|> As I recall, they took it down in the 30's, and didn't feel quite right
|> about putting it back up until the 60's.  It still draws comments from 
|> those who don't know what it is.

Having lived, played, and worked on and near the Navajo reservation
for a number of years, I can confirm this is an ancient pattern,
found in petroglyphs dated 800 to 1200 years old.

Also, the Indians never stopped making rugs with this pattern - they
just stopped selling them after the Nazi's pre-empted the swastika.

Note also that the Indian versions use both clockwise and
counter-clockwise swastikas.

Ob guns:  It's the rare Navaho family that doesn't own a rifle. 
They remember being "relocated" by the US Army, and don't intend to
do it again.  The Hopi, on the other hand, have a dislike for
weapons, from my experience.  Perhaps they just hide them better
from strangers.

-- 
Kirk Hays - NRA Life, seventh generation.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing."  -- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
