I was in India a couple of weeks ago during the Hindu "Dawha", or, "Festival of Light". The employees of the hotel I was staying made "rangoli", which are elaborate pictures made from spices, colored salts, and rice. The guests were asked to judge the rangoli. Several of the rangoli had swastika displayed in them. I asked the hotel manager and he explained that the swastika is a symbol of peace in the Hindu religion.
Several years ago while staying at a historic old hotel in Rapid City, SD I noticed swastika enlayed in the wonderful old wood work in the lobby of the hotel. Evidently, the Lakota Sioux thought the symbol brought good luck.
Of course we know the Nazi used it as their symbol, which changed the world view of the swastika.
Anybody seen it elsewhere?

Swastikas were symbols since Jesus was a baby. The Nazis started using it, and destroyed the traditional meaning.

At New Mexico State University, where I graduated, "The Swastika" was the name of the year book, honoring the traditional meaning of the symbol.

Until the late 20s the Arizona State Highway Department placed swastikas on their official highway markers.

The symbol was very important to the Navajo. Until the late 1930s a lot of southwestern souvenirs were made with swastikas. After the start of WWII the Navajo, Hopi and Apache published a decree saying they would no longer use the swastika in their art. Try this link for more info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...e_early_20th_century

A symbol has no good or evil significance by itself, it's how man cares to use it. After Hitler's use, the swastika will never be "rehabilitated" in the western world.

I lived close to Paris, Kentucky for a year as an exchange student, on an old brick builiding possibly a tobacko store-house there was several big swastikas made out of black brick set in a white circle in a red brick house, you sort of could not miss it. I felt it quite strange that it still stood, but I guess the house had been there from long before Nazis and whatnot.

In Farmington, NM several years ago, some siding was removed on an old building , built in the early 1900's, in the downtown area. There were several swastikas incorporated into the old brickwork high up on the building. In Navajo the symbols it represents running water.

I was taught at school that the left handed swastika meant peace etc and that Hitler actually got it wrong, but that clever Mr Wiki seems to think my teacher was wrong..... and I guess that's more than possible because he was a bit of a pillock.

Here's what Mr Wiki has to say about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

Funny I just had this exact conversation with someone over lunch on Monday!

My comment was that Hitler kinda ruined the swastika the same way that Al Qaeda has ruined hijacking for everyone else (i.e. you're not going to see some punk hijack a plane to Cuba anymore because his girlfriend broke up with him, etc..)

It did get me thinking though, as I didn't really know the how or why of the swastika being adopted by the Nazis, so I did some reading about it. I still have the page saved in my history folder so here are a relevant couple of paragraphs if anyone is interested:

A Change in Meaning

In the 1800s, countries around Germany were growing much larger, forming empires; yet Germany was not a unified country until 1871. To counter the feeling of vulnerability and the stigma of youth, German nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century began to use the swastika, because it had ancient Aryan/Indian origins, to represent a long Germanic/Aryan history.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be found on nationalist German volkisch periodicals and was the official emblem of the German Gymnasts' League.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism and could be found in a multitude of places such as the emblem for the Wandervogel, a German youth movement; on Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels' antisemitic periodical Ostara; on various Freikorps units; and as an emblem of the Thule Society.

Hitler and the Nazis

In 1920, Adolf Hitler decided that the Nazi Party needed its own insignia and flag. For Hitler, the new flag had to be "a symbol of our own struggle" as well as "highly effective as a poster." (Mein Kampf, pg. 495)

On August 7, 1920, at the Salzburg Congress, this flag became the official emblem of the Nazi Party.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler described the Nazis' new flag: "In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work, which as such always has been and always will be anti-Semitic." (pg. 496-497)

Because of the Nazis' flag, the swastika soon became a symbol of hate, antisemitism, violence, death, and murder.

http://history1900s.about.com/.../swastikahistory.htm

Something else too:

During World War I, the swastika could even be found on the shoulder patches of the American 45th Division and on the Finnish air force until after World War II.