Swastica still part of Indian art form

Generations of American world history students since the end of World War II might have only viewed the swastika as a symbol of what was once Nazi Germany.

In reality the swastika was and still is part of the American Indian art form particular in the southwest.

The forces of fate had this letter writer seeing the light of day in a very small town actually named Swastika, New Mexico and my parents had their wedding reception in the local Hotel Swastika while the guests danced the evening away on the dance floor decorated with swastikas.

I still raise eyebrows when I fill out a form listing my place of birth as such. This ancient symbol was and still is common place in New Mexico viewed as being a symbol of peace.

An early Hitler spotted the Navajo Indian logo in 1935 and incorporated it as the Nazi flag thinking it would serve as an instrument of fear instead of peace in his future war plans to grab a piece of this and a piece of that.

This very small New Mexico town quickly viewed Hitler as a war monger and the town was renamed Springer but by 1950 a poor economy turned it into another western ghost town.

There is poetic justice after all. The Navajo swastika logo still lives on in our southwest and Hitler's plans of expanding his country with territorial gains via a war and populating it with a master race he would create by "eliminating" millions he deemed inferiors went down in total defeat alongside his "borrowed " American Indian logo.

Epilogue: There is presently a committee in place to put the American Indian logo back in its respectable place in history.

Walter Santi

Bloomingdale