Tonopah daily bonanza. [volume] (Tonopah, Nev.) 1906-1929, 1907-09-22
origin OF The
old SWASTIKA
PRIMITIVE MAN WORSHIPED 1T,
AND NOW THE SUMMER
GIRL WEARS 1T.

vogue as an ornament for
woman's dress. AS q brooch, belt
buckle, stick pin, collar fastener, or
hat pin, this upright cross, with each
of its four arms bent to right angle
at the end, meets everywhere the
eye.
Nearly every woman who buys one
knows that 1t is In some sense a
good luck pin," but how it came to
be considered such and where the Pc
culiar and curiously attractive SYM
Dol originated not so many know.
What is the swastika?
1t is one of the great religious sym
bols of the world. 1t has been recog-
nized as religious emblem by more
people, very likely, than has the
cross itself. AS such symbol it is
very many hundreds of years older
than the Christian era; in fact, 1t, is
perhaps the very earliest of religious
signs or characters. 1t has been rev.
cred all over Europe and Asia, and
long before the dawn of Christianity
our pagan ancestors looked up to it
as the emblem of what they wor-
SHIPPED. 1t is one of the oldest things
in history, and there is scarcely a
land in whose ruined temples it is NOT
found.
"Swastika," the name given it by
the Brahmins and Buddhists of India,
is Sancrit word signifying "of good
fortune" In the Pail tongue 1t is
suit" which means sit is well,' or
$50 be it," which is much the same
meaning as the Sancrit word. The
Japanese call it mani" and the Chi
nese know it as ''ouan' or ivan. "
The French call it 'le croix pattee,"
the footed cross, while the ancient
English name is 'fylfot," meaning
either four-footed or many-footed.
The most puzzling and most in
teresting thing about the swastika is
that it is found in nearly all parts of
the world, in this country as we'll as
in Europe and Asia, wherever arch
biologists dig up the buried cities OF
the remote past. Drawn, painted,
cut, woven, scratched or otherwise
designed, not only upon burial urns
and sacrificed stone, but also upon
utensils and objects Of everyday use,
the curious symbol appears.
1t has been found among relics
that mark the bronze ages in Europe
and some antiquarians believe they
have discovered the fact of its eX-
istence in the so-called polished stone
age of man.
Prof. Schliemann found it at His
sarlik in the buried cities that under
lay the ancient Troy, of which Homer
sang, which indicates its existence at
a period from 5000 to $500 years
ago.
BY those who, look upon the region
to the northwest of India as the
primal home of the blonde races of
the world, that ancient land is also
looked upon as the birthplace OF this
swastika. r. P. Greg, an eminent
English authority, argues that 1T
was a much used and favorite re-
ligious symbol among the earlier
Aryan races, and was intended by
them, in the first instance to repre-
Nsent in cruciform form an ideo-
graph or symbol suggested by the
forked lightning" Our primal white
forbears worships Dyausoitar (Jupi-
teri, the sky father, and the jagged
lightning was the natural emblem OF
this awful power.
So with the successive emigrations
of the Aryans from northern India all
over Europe, the swastika spread
and, adopted as a symbol of Buddha
in the seventh century before Christ
it was later carried into China and
Japan. The Arabs and Jews knew il
not, nor did the ancient Egyptians
but they We're not of Aryan blood.
Thus the hammer of Thor, the
Scandinavia deity for whom Thurs
day is named, was this very swastika
which the maiden of today is using
to ornament q summer shirt waist
1t was with his mighty hammer
Miollner, that Thor is tabled to have
crushed the head of the Midgard ser.
pent, destroyed the giants, restorea
to life the dead goats which drew his
car, and consecrated the pyre of Bal
dur the beautiful. And SO it was tho
great religious emblem of all thu
Scandinavian peoples. Longfellow
describing in his verse how the newl,
converted King Olaf kept Yuletide a
Drontheim says:
Ger his drinking horn the sign
He made of the cross divine,
AS he drank and muttered his