Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-02-21

B
swAsTIKA. right angle at the
/ end, meets the eye everywhere.
/ Nearly every woman who buys one
knows that ii is in some sense good
luck PIN" but how it came to be con-
] sidered such and where the peculiar
and curiously attractive symbol origi-
mated Is known to comparatively few
{ persons
| The swastika is one of the great re-
I ligious symbols of the world. 1t has
/ been recognized as religious emblem
by more people. very likely. than has
the cross itself As such symbol lt is
very many hundreds Of years older
! than the Christian era, in fact, it is
perhaps, the very earliest of religious
/ signs or characters. 1t has been re-
yered 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 worship
ed 1t is one of the oldest things i'm
history, and there is scarcely land
/ IN whose ruined temples il is not
| found
Swastika," the name given il by
the Brahmins and Buddhsts o. India.
is Sanscrit word signifyihg "of good
| fortune" In the Pail tongue Il is
suit" which means 1T is we'll" or
so be IT," which Is much the same
meaning as the Sanscrlt word. The
japanese call it ''manji' and the Chi
nese call it "manil" and the Chinese
know 1t as "ouan" or wan" The
French call it lie croix pattee," the
footed cross, while the ancient Eng
fish name is "fiy-fot," meaning either
four-footed or many-footed.
The most puzzling and most inter-
esting thing about the swastika Is that
ii is found in nearly all parts of the
world, In this country as well as in
| Europe and Asia, wherever archaeolo-
| gists dig up the buried cities of the
! remote past. Drawn. painted, cut,
woven scratched or otherwise design
ed. not only upon burial urn and sacri-
| fetal stone. but also upon utensils and
objects of everyday use. the curious
/ symbol appears.
1t has been found among relics that
! mark the bronze age in Europe and
some antiquarians believe they have
discovered the fact of its existence in
the so-called polished stone age of
man.
Prof Schlieman found it at Hissar-
liz in the buried cities that underlay
the ancient Troy. of which Homer
sang which indicates it's existence at
a period from 1900 to $500 years ago.
/ Those who look upon the region TO
he northwest of India as the primal
/ home of the blonde races of the world
! also consider that ancient land as be-
| ing the birthplace of the swastika. r.
| T. Greg an eminent English authority,
/ argues that 1T was a much-used and
/ favorite religious symbol among the
/ by them, in the first instance, to rep
| resent in a cruciform shape an ideo-
graph or symbol suggested by the fork
ed lightning" Our primal white for
| bears worshiped Dyausoitar (Jupiter)
the sky father, ahd the jagged light
ming was the natural emblem Of this
awful power.
With the successive emgrations 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 it not, nor
did the ancient Egyptians. but they
were not of Aryan blood
Thus the hammer of Thor the Scan
dinavian deity for whom Thursday is
named. was this very same swastika
which the maiden Of to-day is using to
ornament a summer shirt waist 1t
was with his mighty hammer, Mioll-
ner that Thor is tabled to have crush
ed the head of the Midgard serpent,
! destroyed the giants restored TO life
the dead goats which drew his car and
consecrated the pyre of Bladur, the
beautiful