Prehistory The earliest known swastikas are from 10,000 to 17,000 BCEpart of "an intricate meander pattern of joined-up swastikas" found on a late
Paleolithic figurine of a bird, carved from
mammoth ivory, found in
Mezine, Ukraine. It has been suggested that this swastika may be a stylised picture of a
stork in flight. As the carving was found near
phallic objects, this may also support the idea that the pattern was a fertility symbol. Mirror-image swastikas (clockwise and counter-clockwise) have been found on ceramic pottery in the
Devetashka cave, Bulgaria, dated to 6,000 BCE. In South Asia, swastika symbols first appear in the archaeological record around It also appears in the
Bronze and
Iron Age cultures around the
Black Sea and the
Caspian Sea. In all these cultures, swastika symbols do not appear to occupy any marked position or significance, appearing as just one form of a series of similar symbols of varying complexity. In the
Zoroastrian religion of
Persia, the swastika was a symbol of the revolving sun, infinity, or continuing creation. It is one of the most common symbols on
Mesopotamian coins. Swastikas have also been found on pottery in archaeological digs in Africa, in the area of
Kush and on pottery at the
Jebel Barkal temples, in
Iron Age designs of the northern
Caucasus (
Koban culture), and in
Neolithic China in the
Majiayao culture. Swastikas are also seen in Egypt during the Coptic period. Textile number T.231-1923 held at the V&A Museum in London includes small swastikas in its design. This piece was found at Qau-el-Kebir, near
Asyut, and is dated between 300 and 600 CE. The
Tierwirbel (the German for "animal whorl" or "whirl of animals") is a characteristic motif in Bronze Age Central Asia, the
Eurasian Steppe, and later also in Iron Age
Scythian and
European (
Baltic and
Germanic) culture, showing rotational symmetric arrangement of an
animal motif, often four birds' heads. Even wider diffusion of this "Asiatic" theme has been proposed to the Pacific and even North America (especially
Moundville). File:The Archaeological Monuments and Spaciments of Armenia Volume 6 Armenia Yerevan 1971 p 198.jpg|Rock painting in the caves of
Gegham mountains, Armenia File:Samarra bowl.jpg|The
Samarra bowl, from Iraq, circa 4,000 BCE, held at the
Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. The swastika in the centre of the design is a reconstruction. File:Machang Period Pottery (Swastika symbol).jpg|Machang Period Pottery, late-
Majiayao culture (c.3300 to 2000 BC), Western China. File:IndusValleySeals swastikas.JPG|Swastika seals from
Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, of the
Indus Valley civilisation, circa 2,100–1,750 BCE, preserved at the
British Museum File:Swastika iran.jpg|A swastika necklace excavated from
Marlik,
Gilan province, northern Iran, circa 1,200–1,050 BCE Swastika in Ashoka Barabar Caves edict.jpg|Swastika monogram at the end of
Karna Chaupar Cave edict of Ashoka
Caucasus '' In Armenia the swastika is called the "
arevakhach" and "kerkhach" () Swastikas can also be seen on early Medieval churches and fortresses, including the principal tower in Armenia's historical capital city of
Ani. Old
petroglyphs of four-beam and other swastikas were recorded in
Dagestan, in particular, among the
Avars. According to
Vakhushti of Kartli, the tribal banner of the
Avar khans depicted a wolf with a standard with a double-spiral swastika. Petroglyphs with swastikas were depicted on medieval
Vainakh tower architecture (see sketches by scholar Bruno Plaetschke from the 1920s). Thus, a rectangular swastika was made in engraved form on the entrance of a residential tower in the settlement
Khimoy,
Chechnya. File:Swastika of Avars Daghestan.JPG|
Avar old petroglyph
Indo-Iranians,
Celts,
Greeks,
Italics,
Germanic peoples and
Slavs. In
Sintashta culture's "
Country of Towns", ancient
Indo-European settlements in southern Russia, it has been found a great concentration of some of the oldest swastika patterns. An
Ogham stone found in Aglish,
County Kerry, Ireland (
CIIC 141) was modified into an early Christian gravestone, and was decorated with a
cross pattée and two swastikas. The
Book of Kells () contains swastika-shaped ornamentation. A number of swastikas have been found embossed in
Galician metal pieces and carved in stones, mostly from the
Castro culture period, although there also are contemporary examples (imitating old patterns for decorative purposes). '' motif The ancient
Baltic thunder cross symbol (
pērkona krusts or
perkūno kryžius (cross of
Perkūnas); also fire cross,
ugunskrusts) is a swastika symbol used to decorate objects, traditional clothing and in
archaeological excavations. In
Lithuania since
ancient times the swastika—found on objects crafted from antler, wood, metal, and clay—served as a significant cultural and religious emblem deeply rooted in Baltic tradition for the
Lithuanians. The researchers of
Klaipėda University discovered that there was no standardized or canonical form of the symbol: on single-sided artifacts, the swastika’s arms could rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise, whereas two-sided items might display both orientations simultaneously, suggesting an inclusive or multifaceted symbolic intention. Importantly, the contexts in which the swastika appears often linked the symbol to two deities in
Lithuanian mythology: Perkūnas, the god of thunder, and
Kalvelis, the blacksmith. This association reinforces the concept of the swastika as a manifestation of the “fire cross”—an equilateral cross symbolizing fire or thunder—an enduring motif within Baltic and ancient Lithuanian religious iconography. According to painter Stanisław Jakubowski, the "little sun" (Polish:
słoneczko) is an
Early Slavic pagan symbol of the Sun; he claimed it was engraved on wooden monuments built near the final resting places of fallen Slavs to represent eternal life. The symbol was first seen in his collection of Early Slavic symbols and architectural features, which he named
Prasłowiańskie motywy architektoniczne (Polish:
Early Slavic Architectural Motifs). His work was published in 1923. According to
Boris Kuftin, the
Russians often used swastikas as a decorative element and as the basis of the ornament on traditional weaving products. Many can be seen on a women's folk costume from the
Meshchera Lowlands. An object very much like a hammer or a double axe is depicted among the magical symbols on the drums of
Sami noaidi, used in their religious ceremonies before Christianity was established. The name of the Sami thunder god was
Horagalles, thought to derive from "Old Man Thor" (
Þórr karl). Sometimes on the drums, a male figure with a hammer-like object in either hand is shown, and sometimes it is more like a cross with crooked ends, or a swastika. File:Laimas krusts Lielvardes josta.jpg|Swastika on the
Lielvārde Belt, Latvia File:POL COA Boreyko.svg|
Boreyko coat of arms File:Pagan Lithuanian 13th-14th century ring with a solar symbol (found in Kernavė, Lithuania).jpg|Pagan Lithuanian 13th–14th century ring with a swastika found in
Kernavė. The swastika has historically been widely used in Lithuanian jewelry among other objects.
Southern and eastern Asia The icon has been of spiritual significance to Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. In the diverse traditions within Hinduism, both the clockwise and counter-clockwise swastika are found, with different meanings. The counter-clockwise or left hand symbol is sometimes called
sauwastika or
sauvastika. Jaipur 03-2016 38 Garh Ganesh Temple.jpg|A Hindu temple in
Rajasthan, India हनुमान जयन्ति.png|A swastika design made using
Diyas inside a Hindu temple A Hindu Swastika at Goa Lawah Temple Bali Indonesia.jpg|The
Balinese Hindu pura Goa Lawah entrance Bali 014 - Ubud - swastika.jpg|A Balinese Hindu shrine
Buddhism Buddhist temple (Japan) In
Buddhism, the swastika is considered to symbolise the auspicious footprints of the Buddha. In East Asia, the swastika is prevalent in Buddhist monasteries and communities. It is commonly found in Buddhist temples, religious artifacts, texts related to Buddhism and schools founded by Buddhist religious groups. It also appears as a design or motif (singularly or woven into a pattern) on textiles, architecture and various decorative objects as a symbol of luck and good fortune. The icon is also found as a sacred symbol in the Bon tradition, but in the left-facing orientation. use the swastika in reliefs or logos. In 693, during the
Tang dynasty, it was declared as "the source of all good fortune" and was called by
Wu Zetian becoming a Chinese word. and infinity. It was also a representation of
longevity. The character can also be stylized in the form of the , Chinese auspicious clouds. (family crest) of the
Hachisuka clan When the Chinese writing system was introduced to Japan in the 8th century, the swastika was adopted into the Japanese language and culture. It is commonly referred as the
manji (). Since the Middle Ages, it has been used as a
mon by various Japanese families such as
Tsugaru clan,
Hachisuka clan or around 60 clans that belong to
Tokugawa clan. The city of
Hirosaki in
Aomori Prefecture designates this symbol as its official flag, which stemmed from its use in the emblem of the
Tsugaru clan, the lords of
Hirosaki Domain during the
Edo period. In Japan, the swastika is also used as a
map symbol and is designated by the Survey Act and related Japanese governmental rules to denote a
Buddhist temple. Japan has considered changing this due to occasional controversy and misunderstanding by foreigners. The symbol is sometimes censored in international versions of Japanese works, such as anime. Censorship of this symbol in Japan and in Japanese media abroad has been subject to occasional controversy related to freedom of speech, with critics of the censorship arguing it does not respect history nor freedom of speech. As the negative space between the lines has a distinctive shape, the sayagata pattern is sometimes called the
key fret motif in English. Many
Chinese religions make use of swastika symbols, including
Guiyidao and
Shanrendao. The
Red Swastika Society, formed in China in 1922 as the philanthropic branch of Guiyidao, became the largest supplier of emergency relief in China during
World War II, in the same manner as the
Red Cross in the rest of the world. The Red Swastika Society abandoned mainland China in 1954, settling first in Hong Kong then in Taiwan. They continue to use the red swastika as their symbol. The
Falun Gong qigong movement, founded in China in the early 1990s, uses a symbol that features a large swastika surrounded by four smaller (and rounded) ones, interspersed with
yin-and-yang symbols. File:Hasekura Tsunenaga banner.svg|Flag bearing the coat of arms of
Hasekura Tsunenaga File:Shou Swastika.svg|Chinese character integrated into one of the stylistic versions of the Chinese character File:Robe, dragon, man's (AM 9838-33).jpg|Paired character wan on a
dragon robe, Qing dynasty File:Swastika-seoel (xndr).jpg|Swastika on a temple in Korea File:Wanguo Daodehui.svg|Symbol of
Shanrendao, a
Confucian-Taoism religious movement in Northeast China File:Red swastika flag.svg|Flag of the
Red Swastika Society, the largest emergency relief group in China during
World War II File:Saisiyat_pattern_of_the_Goddess_of_Thunder.jpg|The pattern of the Goddess of Thunder (wa:on) of
Saisiyat people in Taiwan. File:Falun Gong emblem.svg|The symbol of the Falun Gong movement File:Flag of Vietnamese Democratic Socialist Party.svg|Flag of the
Vietnamese Democratic Socialist Party, a
Hòa Hảo political party in South Vietnam File:Sayagata motives on wall.jpg|A wall with both left- and right-facing, rotated 45° swastikas on a building in China.
Islamic usage The swastika was used in pre-Islamic lands and continued to be used into the Islamic era. Some of its earliest documented use back to the Palaces of
Umayyad Caliphs
Walid (705–715) and
Hisham (724–743). It would subsequently under the
Abbasids on the gates of
Raqqa, in
Muslim Spain at
Cordoba and particularly in
Persianate world (Anatolia to India) from the
Seljuk period (1037–1194) onwards. It was also used on textiles and metalwork. Its use on mausoleums, such as the
Gonbad-e-Sorkh (1147), seems to have been used to symbolize the soul and resurrection. Its use on gateways may have been used as an ancient sun symbol, symbolising the solstice as the gateway of heaven. In the 13th century
Mamluk lands, a complex
square Kufic design known as the 'Four Muhammad/Ali' became prominent; featuring a fourfold repetition of 'Muhammad' which can simultaneously be read as 'Ali' in the interstices, forming a swastika in the centre. The motif became very popular spreading widely throughout
Ottoman lands and to Iran. File:Swastika Konya Sircali Medresesi.jpg|
Sırçalı Medrese File:Swastika Córdoba Cathedral Puerta del Batisterio.jpg|
Cordoba Mosque File:Quadruple Swastika Kukeldash Madrasah (Tashkent).jpg|
Kukeldash Madrasah File:Tach Khaouli harem 04.jpg|
Toshhovli Palace, Khiva File:Swastika Akbar's Tomb.jpg|
Akbar's Tomb File:Swastikas Kashgar - Afaq Khoja Mausoleum gate 2.jpg|Main gate of
Afaq Khoja Mausoleum covered in swastikas, Kashgar
Classical Europe patterns, a.k.a.
Greek keys Ancient Greek architectural, clothing and coin designs are replete with single or interlinking swastika motifs. There are also gold plate
fibulae from the 8th century BCE decorated with an engraved swastika. Related symbols in classical Western architecture include the cross, the three-legged triskele or
triskelion and the rounded
lauburu. The swastika symbol is also known in these contexts by a number of names, especially
gammadion, or rather the tetra-gammadion. The name
gammadion comes from its being seen as being made up of four Greek
gamma (Γ) letters. Ancient Greek architectural designs are replete with the interlinking symbol. In
Greco-Roman art and architecture, and in
Romanesque and
Gothic art in the West, isolated swastikas are relatively rare, and the swastika is more commonly found as a repeated element in a border or tessellation. Swastikas often represented perpetual motion, reflecting the design of a rotating windmill or watermill. A meander of connected swastikas makes up the large band that surrounds the
Augustan Ara Pacis. A design of interlocking swastikas is one of several
tessellations on the floor of the
cathedral of
Amiens, France. A border of linked swastikas was a common Roman architectural motif, and can be seen in more recent buildings as a neoclassical element. A swastika border is one form of
meander, and the individual swastikas in such a border are sometimes called
Greek keys. There have also been swastikas found on the floors of
Pompeii. File:Tetraskele.svg|Greek tetraskelion (
lauburu) Greek Silver Stater of Corinth.jpg|Swastika on a Greek silver
stater coin from
Corinth, 6th century BCE File:Ancient Roman Mosaics Villa Romana La Olmeda 007 Pedrosa De La Vega - Saldaña (Palencia).JPG|Roman mosaic of
La Olmeda, Spain
funerary stele from
Apulia showing
Paleo-Balkan tattooing. The stele depicts crosses and swastikas. Swastikas were widespread among the
Illyrians, symbolising the Sun and the fire. The Sun cult was the main Illyrian cult; a swastika in clockwise motion is interpreted in particular as a representation of the movement of the Sun. The swastika has been preserved by the
Albanians since Illyrian times as a
pagan symbol commonly found in a variety of contexts of Albanian folk art, including
traditional tattooing, grave art, jewellery, clothes, and house carvings. The swastika ( or , "hooked cross") and other crosses in Albanian tradition represent the Sun (
Dielli) and the fire (
zjarri, evidently called with the theonym
Enji). In
Albanian paganism fire is regarded as the offspring of the Sun and fire calendar rituals are practiced in order to give strength to the Sun and to
ward off evil.
Medieval and early modern Europe Middle Ages In Christianity, the swastika is used as a hooked version of the
Christian Cross, the symbol of Christ's victory over death. Some Christian churches built in the
Romanesque and
Gothic eras are decorated with swastikas, carrying over earlier Roman designs. Swastikas are prominently displayed in a
mosaic in the
Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv, dating from the 12th century. They also appear as a repeating ornamental motif on the so-called
Sarcophagus of Stilicho in the
Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in
Milan. A ceiling painted in 1910 in the
Grenoble Archaeological Museum (the former church of St Laurent) has many swastikas. A proposed direct link between it and a swastika floor mosaic in the
Amiens Cathedral, which was built on top of a pagan site at
Amiens, France in the 13th century, is considered unlikely. The
stole worn by a priest in the 1445
painting of the Seven Sacraments by
Rogier van der Weyden presents the swastika form simply as one way of depicting the cross. Swastikas also appear in art and architecture during the
Renaissance and
Baroque era. The fresco
The School of Athens shows an ornament made out of swastikas, and the symbol can also be found on the facade of the
Santa Maria della Salute, a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located at
Punta della Dogana in the
Dorsoduro sestiere of the city of
Venice. In the
Polish First Republic swastika symbols were also popular with the nobility. Several noble houses, e.g. Boreyko, Borzym, and Radziechowski from Ruthenia, also had swastikas as their
coat of arms. The family reached its greatness in the 14th and 15th centuries and its crest can be seen in many heraldry books produced at that time. The swastika was also a heraldic symbol, for example on the
Boreyko coat of arms, used by noblemen in Poland and Ukraine. In the 19th century a swastika was one of the Russian Empire's symbols and was used on coinage as a backdrop to the
Russian eagle. Accordingly, Schliemann believed the Trojans to have been Aryans: "The primitive Trojans, therefore, belonged to the Aryan race, which is further sufficiently proved by the symbols on the round terra-cottas". Schliemann established a link between the swastika and Germany. He connected objects he excavated at Troy to objects bearing swastikas found in Germany near
Königswalde on the
Oder. In 1891, List began to claim that
heraldry's
division of the field was derived from the shapes of
runes. The British author and poet
Rudyard Kipling used the symbol on the cover art of a number of his works, including
The Five Nations, 1903, which has it twinned with an elephant. Once Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power, Kipling ordered that swastikas should no longer adorn his books. In 1927, a red swastika
defaced by a Union Jack was proposed as a flag for the
Union of South Africa. The logo of
H/f. Eimskipafjelag Íslands was a swastika, called "Thor's hammer", from its founding in 1914 until the
Second World War when it was discontinued and changed to read only the letters Eimskip. The swastika was also used by the women's paramilitary organisation
Lotta Svärd, which was banned in 1944 in accordance with the
Moscow Armistice between Finland and the
allied Soviet Union and Britain. (1934–1945) Also, the insignias of the
Cross of Liberty, designed by Gallen-Kallela in 1918, have swastikas. The 3rd class Cross of Liberty is depicted in the upper left corner of the standard of the President of Finland, who is the grand master of the order, too. Latvia adopted the swastika, for its
Air Force in 1918/1919 and continued its use until the
Soviet occupation in 1940. The cross itself was maroon on a white background, mirroring the colours of the Latvian flag. Earlier versions pointed counter-clockwise, while later versions pointed clock-wise and eliminated the white background. Various other
Latvian Army units and the Latvian War College (the predecessor of the
National Defence Academy) also had adopted the symbol in their battle flags and insignia during the
Latvian War of Independence. A stylised fire cross is the base of the
Order of Lāčplēsis, the highest military decoration of Latvia for participants of the War of Independence. The
Pērkonkrusts, an ultra-nationalist political organisation active in the 1930s, also used the fire cross as one of its symbols. during the
Interbellum The swastika symbol (
Lithuanian:
sūkurėlis) is a traditional Baltic ornament, found on relics dating from at least the 13th century. The
sūkurėlis for Lithuanians represents the history and memory of their Lithuanian ancestors as well as the
Baltic people at large. Starting in 1917,
Mikal Sylten's staunchly
antisemitic periodical,
Nationalt Tidsskrift took up the swastika as a symbol, three years before
Adolf Hitler chose to do so. The left-handed swastika was a favourite sign of the last Russian Empress
Alexandra Feodorovna. She wore a talisman in the form of a swastika, put it everywhere for happiness, including on her suicide letters from
Tobolsk, later drew with a pencil on the wall and in the window opening of the room in the
Ipatiev House, which served as the place of the last imprisonment of the royal family and on the wallpaper above the bed. The
Russian Provisional Government of 1917 printed a number of new bank notes with right-facing, diagonally rotated swastikas in their centres. The banknote design was initially intended for the Mongolian national bank but was re-purposed for
Russian rubles after the February revolution. Swastikas were depicted and on some Soviet credit cards (
sovznaks) printed with clichés that were in circulation in 1918–1922. During the
Russian Civil War, swastikas were present in the symbolism of the uniform of some units of the
White Army Asiatic Cavalry Division of
Baron Ungern in Siberia and
Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, which is explained by the significant number of Buddhists within it. The
Red Army's ethnic
Kalmyk units wore distinct armbands featuring a swastika with "РСФСР" (Roman: "RSFSR") inscriptions on them.
New religious movements Besides its use as a religious symbol in
Hinduism,
Buddhism and
Jainism, which can be traced back to pre-modern traditions, the swastika was also incorporated into a large number of
new religious movements which were established in the West in the modern period. In the 1880s, the U.S.-origined
Theosophical Society adopted a swastika as part of its seal, along with an
Om, a hexagram or
star of David, an
Ankh, and an
Ouroboros. Unlike the much more recent
Raëlian movement, the Theosophical Society symbol has been free from controversy, and the seal is still used. The current seal also includes the text "There is no religion higher than truth." The
Raëlian Movement, whose adherents believe extraterrestrials created all life on earth, use a symbol that is often the source of considerable controversy: an interlaced
star of David and a swastika. The Raëlians say the Star of David represents infinity in space whereas the swastika represents infinity in timeno beginning and no end in time, and everything being cyclic. In 1991, the symbol was changed to remove the swastika, out of respect to the victims of
the Holocaust, but as of 2007 it has been restored to its original form. The swastika is a holy symbol in
neopagan Germanic Heathenry, along with the
hammer of Thor and
runes. This traditionwhich is found in Scandinavia, Germany, and elsewhereconsiders the swastika to be derived from a Norse symbol for the sun. Their use of the symbol has led people to accuse them of being a neo-Nazi group. File:Theosophicalsealfrench.svg|The seal of the Theosophical society File:Raelian_symbol.svg|The Raëlian symbol with the swastika File:Raelian_symbol_alternate.svg|The alternative Raëlian with the spiral
Nazism Before the Nazis, the swastika was already in use as a symbol of the German nationalist
Völkisch movement. In
post-World War I Germany, the newly established
Nazi Party formally adopted the swastika in 1920. The Nazi Party emblem was a black swastika rotated 45 degrees on a white circle on a red background. This insignia was used on the party's flag, badge, and armband.
Adolf Hitler also designed his personal standard using a black swastika sitting flat on one arm, not rotated. In his 1925 work , Hitler writes: "I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black hooked cross in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the hooked cross." When Hitler created a flag for the Nazi Party, he sought to incorporate both the swastika and "those revered colours expressive of our homage to the glorious past and which once brought so much honour to the German nation". (Red, white, and black were the colours of the
flag of the old German Empire.) He also stated: "As National Socialists, we see our program in our flag. In red, we see the social idea of the movement; in white, the nationalistic idea; in the hooked cross, 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." The swastika was also understood as "the symbol of the creating, effecting life" () and as "race emblem of Germanism" (). The concepts of
racial hygiene and
scientific racism were central to Nazism. High-ranking Nazi theorist
Alfred Rosenberg noted that the
Indo-Aryan peoples were both a model to be imitated and a warning of the dangers of the spiritual and racial "confusion" that, he believed, arose from the proximity of races. The Nazis co-opted the swastika as a symbol of the Aryan master race. On 14 March 1933, shortly after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the NSDAP flag was hoisted alongside Germany's national colours. As part of the
Nuremberg Laws, the NSDAP flagwith the swastika slightly offset from centrewas adopted as the sole national flag of Germany on 15 September 1935. File:Treu Deutsch Nr. 11 12 10. September 1918 Nachrichten des Deutschen Volksrates Einheit völkischer Verbände Herausgegeben von Dr. Heinrich Pudor. Hakenkreuz early swastika Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig (City Museum) 2015 adjusted.jpg|
Heinrich Pudor's
völkisch Treu Deutsch ('True German') 1918 with a swastika. From the collections of Leipzig City Museum. File:Pre-Nazi Swastika. Stahlhelm M 1916 mit Hakenkreuzbemalung. Marinebrigade Ehrhardt. Lüttwitz-Kapp-Putsch 1920. Deutsches Historisches Museum.jpg|German World War I helmet with swastika used by a member of the
Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, a right-wing paramilitary free corps, participating in the
Kapp Putsch 1920 File:Standarte Adolf Hitlers.svg|
Personal standard of Adolf Hitler (a
war flag or in German) used from 1934 to 1945 File:Deutsches Reich Mother's Cross of Honour.jpg|
Cross of Honour of the German Mother (1939–1945) given to German mothers of four or more children
Americas by the artist Herb Roe. Based on an engraved shell cup in the
Craig B style (designated
Engraved shell cup number 229) from
Spiro, Oklahoma. The swastika has been used in the art and iconography of multiple indigenous peoples of North America, including the Hopi, Navajo, and Tlingit. Swastikas were founds on pottery from the Mississippi valley and on copper objects in the
Hopewell Mounds in
Ross County, Ohio, and on objects associated with the
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (S.E.C.C.). To the
Hopi it represents the wandering Hopi clan. The
Navajo symbol, called ("whirling log"), represents humanity and life, and is used in healing rituals. A brightly coloured
First Nations saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the
Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada. Before the 1930s, the symbol for the
45th Infantry Division of the United States Army was a red diamond with a yellow swastika, a tribute to the large Native American population in the southwestern United States. It was later replaced with a
thunderbird symbol. In the 20th century, traders encouraged Native American artists to use the symbol in their crafts, and it was used by the US Army 45th Infantry Division, an all-Native American division. The symbol lost popularity in the 1930s due to its associations with Nazi Germany. In 1940, partially due to government encouragement, community leaders from several different Native American tribes made a statement promising to no longer use the symbol. The symbol was used on state road signs in
Arizona from the 1920s until the 1940s. The town of
Swastika, Ontario, and the hamlet of
Swastika, New York were named after the symbol. From 1909 to 1916, the
K-R-I-T automobile, manufactured in Detroit, Michigan, used a right-facing swastika as their trademark. The
flag of the Guna people (also "Kuna Yala" or "Guna Yala") of Panama, adopted in 1925, has a swastika symbol that they call . According to one explanation, this ancestral symbol symbolises the octopus that created the world, its tentacles pointing to the four cardinal points. In 1942, a ring was added to the centre of the flag to differentiate it from the symbol of the
Nazi Party (this version subsequently fell into disuse). In Ghana, the
adinkra symbol , used by the
Akan people to represent loyalty, takes the form of a swastika. symbols could be found on
Ashanti gold weights and clothing. File:Skastika symbol in the window of Lalibela Rock hewn churches.jpg|Carved fretwork forming a swastika on the
Biete Maryam in Ethiopia File:Ghana-nkontim.svg|
adinkra symbol from Ghana, representing loyalty and readiness to serve File:Brooklyn Museum 74.218.25 Weight.jpg|
Ashanti weight in Africa
Modern adoptions A ('fire cross') is used by the
Baltic neopagan religions
Dievturība in Latvia and
Romuva in Lithuania. In the early 1990s, the former dissident and one of the founders of Russian neo-paganism
Alexey Dobrovolsky first gave the name (, literally 'spinning wheel') to a four-beam swastika, identical to the Nazi symbol, and later transferred this name to an eight-beam rectangular swastika. The eight-beam swastika dates back all the way to Ancient Greece with some ceramics containing the eight-beamed symbol. A necklace found in Ukraine via metal detection is estimated to date back to the 11th century and also contained the symbol, providing some solid evidence of its presence among the Slavic people at the time. A six-beamed variant is located in the tower of the
Vang Church in
Karpacz,
Poland. According to the historian and religious scholar Roman Shizhensky, Dobrovolsky took the idea of the swastika from the work "The Chronicle of
Oera Linda" by the Nazi ideologist
Herman Wirth, the first head of the
Ahnenerbe. Dobrovolsky introduced the eight-beam as a symbol of "resurgent paganism." He considered this version of the a pagan sign of the sun and, in 1996, declared it a symbol of the uncompromising "national liberation struggle" against the "
Zhyd yoke". According to Dobrovolsky, the meaning of the completely coincides with the meaning of the Nazi swastika. The is the most commonly used religious symbol within neopagan
Slavic Native Faith (a.k.a. Rodnovery). In 2005, authorities in Tajikistan called for the widespread adoption of the swastika as a national
symbol. President
Emomali Rahmonov declared the swastika an
Aryan symbol, and 2006 "the year of Aryan culture", which would be a time to "study and popularise Aryan contributions to the history of the world civilisation, raise a new generation (of Tajiks) with the spirit of national self-determination, and develop deeper ties with other ethnicities and cultures". File:Fire Cross (Ugunskrusts).svg|The Baltic fire-cross File:Kolovrat (Коловрат) Swastika (Свастика) - Rodnovery.svg| ("little sun"); ("spinning wheel”) File:Kolovrat.svg|A flag, introduced by
Alexey Dobrovolsky. The flag's use of Red and Yellow intends to combine Dobrovolsky's ideology of neo-Nazism with Russian Imperialist-inspired Soviet nostalgia. File:Romuva symbol.svg|A solar symbol compossed of
grass snakes used by the Lithuanian Romuva ==Modern controversy==