WEBVTT - Part One: Behind the Swastika 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:05.760 H what trafficking? But no, wait, Sophie, we can't uh, 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:07.840 we can't. We can't open like that, can we? 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.400 No, that's not what are you even attempting to do 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:10.920 right now? 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:13.119 Well? You know how like you know how like back 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:14.960 in like the sixties, you'd be like if you were 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:16.680 like getting up on the stage, you're gonna be like 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:18.640 a beat poet or somebody be like, what's up children, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:20.720 like something like that. You know, I was gonna be like, 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.400 what's trafficking my children? But that's not a good introduction. 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:24.840 Terrible introduction. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:26.599 It's a terrible introduction. 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.720 I mean, I like, conceptually, I like that vibe for you, 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:31.760 but yeah, but the execution was not there. 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.160 I'm sorry because you and I are both big, big 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:35.200 into beat poetry. 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:38.360 That is things that people know about us. 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.880 That is what Yeah classic, yeah, big big beat. Anyway, 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.280 this is Behind the Bastards, podcast about the worst people 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.440 in all of history, one of whom is me for today? Yeah, 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:51.960 that introduction, And to distract from my incompetence, we have 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.960 a wonderful guest today, Chelsea Weber Smith. Chelsea, you are 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.720 the host of American Hysteria, a podcast about how fantastical 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.040 thing has shaped our culture. You deal with a lot 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.840 of stuff like hoaxes and moral panics, which is just 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.920 a wonderful premise for a show. How are you doing today, Chelsea. 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.000 I'm doing great. Thank you so much to you both 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:13.560 for having me. I'm really excited. 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:15.800 That was a really professional introduction. 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:21.480 I just want to say when I met Chelsea, I 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.040 met Melsea in person. It was like a week before 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.480 Lauren Lauren. How do we describe Lauren? Lauren? 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.880 Yeah, Lauren is somebody who does a lot of like 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:34.679 pr stuff for us. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.560 Lauren's like, really the patron saint of podcast. 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.959 Yeah, Lauren's like yeah, yeah, Lauren's Lauren reached out to 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:42.919 I was like, I want to get Lauren. Lauren deserves 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.480 all the credit. I want to get Lauren's proper introduction. 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:47.280 It was like, do you want to have this person 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:48.800 on your podcast? I was like sure. And then a 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.560 week later I was at a very strange bar with 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.440 our mutual friend Sarah Marshall, and I met Chelsea likes 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:58.640 several jello shots and it was great. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:01:59.520 It was such a good. 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.600 Time, complete like happenstance, not brand. 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.320 You've just seen the Wickerman, which Sarah has been obsessed 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.840 with and we all see trafficking. 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:10.560 Yeah, I love the Wickerman was very cool. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:15.760 Wait, wait, which one Nicholas Cage the original? Okay, okay, okay, good. 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:23.400 Anoint the They're actually both charming in their own ways. 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.280 Things to recommend both well. Chelsea. First off, welcome to 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.799 the show. Sorry I introduced it with a child trafficking bit. 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:34.160 More to the point, I want to ask you a 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.040 question that I ask all of my friends, all my 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.760 family members, kids at the playground near my house. How 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:43.160 do you feel about swastika's? 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.239 I feel bad about them, bad. 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:48.360 Bad about swastika's. 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.959 Okay, I generally don't like seeing them. I don't like 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:56.480 hearing about them being seen anti swastika here, have. 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.360 You ever in the world seen a swastika that was like, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.520 definitely not a Nazi swastika? 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:03.960 Hmm? 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.680 Do you mean sort of perhaps like an attempt to 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:11.880 shock by a teenager. 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:15.000 No, I mean that that is also a thing that happens. 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.280 But I mean, what do you know about the origins 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.880 of the swastika pre oh, okay, Hitler, et cetera. 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.280 I know, I know, sort of the cliche answer of 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.440 that it was originally I believe an Indian symbol of 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:30.560 something like good luck. 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:32.880 Is that true? Is that right? 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.400 It is? It is a Hindu symbol, it's also a 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.120 Buddhist symbol. It actually goes back much further than that. 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.640 So that's that's what we're talking about today. The working 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.800 title of this week's episodes are What's Up with Swastikas? 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.360 Because obviously this is behind the Bastards, So we're going 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:54.000 behind the Nazis by talking about the origins of the swastikas, 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.560 how it became a symbol for the Nazis. But also 0:03:57.520 --> 0:03:59.360 when we're talking about the swastika, we're talking about like 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.720 a religious symbol that goes back real far. And so 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.640 the fact that it's primarily most people have the same 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.760 reaction you have, which is like swasika, that's like the 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.240 Nazi thing, which causes problems for people for whom it's 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.640 like an old a religious symbol that goes back a 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.760 long time. So that's that's what we're going to talk 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.480 about this week because there's a lot of history here 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.600 that most people are unaware of. So, yeah, are you 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:25.640 ready to learn all about swastika's? 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.160 I have never been more ready in my life. 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:28.880 That's good. 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:29.520 I'm buckled in. 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.280 It would be probably kind of problematic if you had 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:38.000 been just shamp it at the bit and learn about swastika. 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:38.400 I was. 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:39.560 That's why I read a book. 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:41.960 You know, I do read books about World War Two 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:42.279 a lot. 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.720 So yeah, yeah, yeah. The big idea, like. 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:46.760 It's kind of this kind of history, and it's so 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.680 important to know the origins of things, because you can't 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:51.800 understand the thing unless you understand the thing it came 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:52.120 out of. 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.360 All right, well, let's let's go back in time. Everyone 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.600 can imagine your your particular favorite time machine noise, and 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:04.520 we're we're going back way back to the mid nineteen thirties. Okay, 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:09.159 it's a rough period for all Homo sapiens. Hitler has 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.360 just risen to power in Germany. He started the process 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.240 of crushing his enemies, which obviously includes everyone in the 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.080 country who is of Jewish ancestry. He introduces the Nuremberg 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.840 Laws and I think nineteen thirty five, which bring international 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.520 attention to a growing stream of outrages that are going 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.440 to culminate in the Holocaust. And while all this is 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.359 happening over in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, the congregants of 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.640 the Adath emmanual synagogue watch in stultified horror is Hitler's 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.640 bigotry empowers anti Semites across the globe like many Ds 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:42.839 for a Jews, they raise money to help their relatives 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.400 immigrate from Europe. They write furious letters to newspapers ignoring 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:51.680 Hitler's crimes. And you know, they worry more than anything else, right, 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.440 which is understandable. You know, how much further will this 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.839 hate spread? Are they safe even in New Jersey? And 0:05:57.920 --> 0:05:59.920 while they're coping with all this, which is a lot 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.960 to have on your mind, your conscience, one of their 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.640 congregants notices something during a service, which is that in 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.680 the vestibule of their synagogue there's a mosaic, a beautiful 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:15.320 handmade mosaic that features dozens and dozens and dozens of swastikas. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.600 Now this is obviously a problem, right, you don't want 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.080 to have that in your synagogue in the nineteen thirties, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:24.279 and after a quick discussion, they decide to pave the 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.280 swastikas out. Fast forward about one hundred years, you know, 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.039 you have World War Two, all that that horrible stuff happens. 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.880 You know, the rebuilding process occurs afterwards, you know, life 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.839 goes on, and on December fifth, twenty twenty one, for 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:41.359 the first time in like ninety years or so, the 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.360 Adath Emmanual Synagogue finds itself again with a swastika near 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:47.960 the vestibule. Now this one had been applied by a 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.479 sticker wielded by some unknown Nazi who adds in writing 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:56.920 the message we are everywhere. Now that's a chilling, horrifying, 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:59.919 depressing story. But in between those two incidents, the the 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:04.080 swastikas that had been placed inside the vestibule of the 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.839 synagogue long before the rise of Hitler, and the swastika 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.680 added there in the twenty twenties by a Nazi. In 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.520 between those two incidents is a really fascinating and strange story, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.480 and that's what we're going to be talking about today. 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.480 Unlike a lot of you know, the swastika is almost 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.040 certainly the most well known hate symbol in the world. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.400 But unlike a lot of other particularly famous hate symbols, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.920 the Confederate flag, for example, the Klansman's hood, the SS 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:33.960 lightning bolts, the swastika is not in and of itself problematic. 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.240 And what I mean by that is the swastika was 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.840 not created as a symbol of hate. It was turned 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:43.760 into one later. And one of the things that you understand, 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:45.360 like you start to learn when you look into this, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:47.560 is that not only is the swastika something that predates 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.080 the Nazis, it may be one of, if not the 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:55.000 oldest complex symbols created by human beings. Now there's a 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.280 lot of debate about this. Scholarship over the swastika has 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.080 invited vigorous debate for very obvious reasons, over both the 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.640 geographic and the temporal nature of its origins. When it 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:07.760 comes to the word itself, we do have a lot 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.239 clearer of an origin. We know exactly where the word 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.800 swastika came from, and its origins are Sanskrit, and it 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.880 does mean, as you noted, well being, good luck, and fortune. 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.480 That is like the meaning of the word swastika. And 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.840 in fact, the first recorded instance of the word swastika 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.440 predates the first recorded instance of the symbol swastika in 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.160 the Mdus Valley, right so in you know, India, that 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.320 kind of region. The word swastika seems to predate the 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:38.839 actual use of the symbol. This is again, whenever you're 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.600 talking about stuff that's old, the dates are kind of fluid. 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.960 But best sort of assumption is that like around the 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.600 fourth millennium BCE is when the swastika first shows up 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.320 in the Indus Valley, right, So that's pretty old, you know. 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.040 Yeah, I feel like this. 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.080 I don't know, Chelsea, I feel like this is not 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.000 something like if you hearing it's one of the old 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:02.760 symbols ever created by human beings. 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.360 Was not something I knew. 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.079 No, no, I did not expect that at all. 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.800 I've been reading a lot of books lately about kind 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.960 of the origins of the conception of God, which includes 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.960 like so much religious symbolism, and this feels like right 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.720 right in my interests right now, and I'm so excited 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:24.160 about this, And we'll talk. 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.080 A little bit later about why. But there there were 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.080 starting kind of the eighteen hundreds, which is when scholarship 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.120 around the swastika and kind of the modern recognized sense 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.200 of the word really starts, there was a belief among 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.960 some anthropologists that it was probably the oldest complex symbol, 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.040 the oldest symbol that's not just a simple shape, right, 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:43.480 you know, you see the sun, you draw a circle 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.640 or whatever, but like the oldest complex shape. There's no 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.760 way to prove that right, that's an absolutely unprovable just 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.080 because of the age of everything involved here. But there's 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:58.640 not really anything that's like a clearer like like bet 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.600 for the oldest symbol. By the way, we're talking about 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.559 like this within the context of the swastika arising in 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.360 the fourth millennium BCE in the Indus Valley. It goes 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.560 back way further than that now for a long time. 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:14.720 And most people, if you ask, most people who are 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:16.839 kind of casually familiar, they say, oh, yeah, it was 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.720 a symbol in India right well before the Nazis picked 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.680 it up. That is not the oldest recorded instance of 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.240 the use of the swastika. And I'm going to quote 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.079 now from an article in the BBC. If you want 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.839 to see just how deeply rooted the swastika pattern is 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.480 in Europe, a good place to start is Kiev, where 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.760 the National Museum of the History of Ukraine has an 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.120 impressive range of exhibits. Among the museum's most highly prized 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.400 treasures is a small ivory figurine of a female bird 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:45.320 made from the tusk of a mammoth. It was found 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.160 in nineteen oh eight at the Paleolithic settlement of Mizine 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:50.720 near the Russian border. On the torso of the bird 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.120 is engraved an intricate meander pattern of joined up swastikas. 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.199 It is the oldest identified swastika pattern in the world 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.400 and has been radiocarbon dated to an astonishing fifth teen 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.720 thousand years ago. Whoa, So we were making swastikas way 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.360 before we had cities, right Like, there's yeah, like, this 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:12.520 is an ancient, ancient symbol. It was found with a 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.000 bunch of phallic a bunch of dicks, right like, it 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:16.400 was found with a bunch of dicks, because it's a 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.800 fertility symbol. You know, you see that kind of stuff 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.720 all over the world. Now, I think people might expect 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:23.520 us to given the present war in Ukraine and the 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.600 fact that both Ukraine and Russia have serious problems with 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.280 far right neo Nazi combat organizations, you might expect us 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:32.440 to go into that here, but it's not really relevant. 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.079 We're talking fifteen thousand years ago, so one way or 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.400 the other, it has nothing to do with the present 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.760 issues with the far right in that part of the world. Again, 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:43.880 this is it like predates the First City by like 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.920 five thousand years and despite the shocking age of the 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.679 Ukrainian swastik is. This does not mean that they originate, 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.160 that the symbol itself was first used near Kiev or 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.559 any you know, anywhere in that region, Because there's a 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.320 fascinating theory, and I was completely unaware of this until 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.320 I started doing my research as to where the swastika 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:08.640 came from. Now, again, when scholarship around the swastika starts 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.240 in kind of the eighteen hundreds, one of the assumptions 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.199 is that, and this is going to play into the 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.880 Nazis later, it has to have started at a single place. 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:17.240 Right. 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:21.000 The idea that these anthropologists have is the swastika is 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:24.120 so complicated, such a complex symbol, it can't have arisen 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.280 in multiple places simultaneously. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:26.560 Right. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.440 It must have been originated by us at one place 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.360 and then carried over to the rest of the world. Now, 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:34.280 this happens to gel with a lot of theories at 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.359 the time about like this kind of Atlantis super civilization 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.640 that's seed in culture and whatnot. This is probably not 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.840 the case. The swastika probably arose independently in a number 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.280 of parts of the world, and the kind of best 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.240 explanation as to how came in nineteen sixty five from 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:56.320 a paleontologist named Valentina Bibikova, who was looking at this 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.920 Ukrainian piece of art with swastikas in it, depositive that 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.000 a probable origin for the symbol itself is the actual 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.840 structure of mammoth ivory, because when you cut mammoth ivory 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:13.000 into cross sections, there's a naturally occurring pattern within the 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.400 ivory that looks kind of like a swastika. And that 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.720 could explain very easily why there's variations of the same 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:21.720 symbol all over the world. It was people hunting that 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:23.959 and other kind of animals with ivory that might make 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:25.800 a similar pattern in the cross sections. 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:26.839 Wow, that's so cool. 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:28.880 That's yeah, I have no idea about this, isn't. 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.320 That I was thinking of like a collective consciousness, like 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:34.120 if we were a little bit far out into like 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:39.240 a Youngian universe like these some sort of primordial symbol 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.400 being expressed in different places. But what you said sounds 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:43.280 a little bit more polive. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.880 Bunch of a bunch of ladies and dudes fucking around 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:46.960 with bones for a. 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.800 Long time, being like this represents the bones, which represents 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:52.160 the animal which I want to eat. 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.200 So it's everything And again you got to think about 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.480 like what sort of options people have for entertainment at 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.480 the time. We often say this, but Bone were the 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:05.520 original podcast. Oh yeah, you know it is no yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.000 just a fact. Yeah, this brings me to our sponsors 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.600 for this week, Bone Box. Just a lot of Honestly, 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:14.760 it's just a bunch of illegal livery. You will get 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.200 in a lot of trouble if that's catch you ordering. 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:21.960 I believe I believe the month first Barbie was carved 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:23.160 out of mammoth bone. 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:25.960 Yeah, that's absolutely true. 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.720 We just did a whole episode on Barbie and yeah yeah. 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:33.320 By Greta Gerwick. She actually goes back about fifteen thousand 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:34.640 years too. People don't know this. 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.400 She's actually a mortal. Yeah, yes, she continues to prove it. 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.880 And for those keeping track, it did take us only 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:44.560 fifteen minutes to make a Barbie reference. 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.080 You're welcome, that's right. 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:47.800 Right, we know what the people want. 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:54.440 The origin of all human culture, So yeah, I think 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.160 that's really interesting. Rather than kind of have being transferred 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:01.280 all obviously, cultural exchange happens too. People take their swastikas 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.840 and they conquer or move to other parts of the world, 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:05.880 and that spreads it as well. It's not just one thing, 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.200 but it's very likely that multiple different parts of the 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:14.040 world kind of arrive at the swastika independently. One noteworthy 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.400 example of the use of the symbol comes from the 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.400 Akan people of Ghana, who used it in their gold 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.680 weights at around fourteen hundred a d. You can find 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.080 some photos of these online and they look like Nazi gold, right, 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.560 Like look that you would guess that's probably like some 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.280 stolen Nazi gold, But these predate the Nazis by you know, 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:37.480 five hundred something years. Fascinating, right, so fascinating, yeah, yeah, 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:39.400 and it is kind of we'll be talking about this. 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:41.720 But it also the fact that when you see this 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.200 you immediately are like, oh, that's some stolen Nazi gold 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.560 does point to how potent the symbol remains as a 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.480 symbol of evil too, just like because of you know, 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:57.560 dem Nazis. But yeah, So in eighteen ninety four, a 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.360 historian named Thomas Wilson wrote one of the it might 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.040 have been the first modern histories of the swastika, attempting 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.040 to use kind of modern historiography and scientific method to 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.400 determine where it came from. And it was Thomas Wilson, 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:12.960 who first made the claim that the swastika was quote 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.880 probably the first symbol made with definite intention in human history. 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.120 By this, he means not just a representative image, but 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.120 one that was passed from person to person, tribe to tribe, 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:28.000 and traveled intentionally with meaning intact across cultures. There is 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.240 no way of proving this, and it seems like Wilson, 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.000 it's probably fair to say now he was coming on 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.640 a little strong, but it's not too much to say 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:38.200 that the swastika would have been one of the first 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.760 symbols to spread around the world. And there is some 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.440 mystery as to why. While these symbols presence in Southeast Asia, 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.680 Eastern Europe, and North Africa can be explained via the 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.200 known and documented patterns of trade, really kind of the 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.760 only way to just like it's also been found as 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.200 we're going to talk about all over the Americas. And 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.960 this is why I started by talking about that piece 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.560 of mammoth ivory, because this is really the only explanation, 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.760 right like there was not people were not like walking 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.600 from Kiev to or the location of modern day Kiev 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.439 to North America fifteen thousand years ago. From what we 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.719 can tell people indigenous people in the Americas who were 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.840 here much longer than that, we're using swastika's much further 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.840 back than that. Whenever you talk about kind of the 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:27.320 timing here, you know that's a complicated and very politically, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.000 shall we say, dicey story. But we do know that 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.480 swastikas were in use. And I'm going to stop calling 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:36.480 them swastikas in a second, because the people of the 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.360 Americas didn't call them that, But we're in use, particularly 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.480 in what is now the Americans southwest and West coast, 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.919 for a very long time. The Navajo people who have 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.399 for a considerable period of time inhabited a large portion 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.240 of modern Arizona, New Mexico southern California, have been using 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.320 the swastika since kind of the prehistoric period, and they 0:17:58.400 --> 0:17:59.959 called it, and what we'll be calling it when we 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.280 refer to their use of it, is the whirling log. 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.159 Right that is the name of the symbol, not just 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.120 for the Navajo, but for a number of other tribes 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:13.280 kind of in that part of the Americas, and it 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.000 is it is representative. It's called the whirling log because 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:20.120 it's representative of a specific story. And without getting into 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.600 too much detail about spiritual beliefs that are outside of 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:24.960 my depth. It's one of these tales where like you've 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.399 got a heroic character who is forced on a dangerous journey. 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.159 He receives the aid of gods, gods and spirits and 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.400 he kind of learns mystic lessons along the way, right, 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:38.359 and the whirling log is representative of this story. The 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.280 Navajo are not the only indigenous people of the Americas 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.120 to use variants of the whirling log, but they're probably 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.040 the most well documented ancient American users. We don't know 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.520 how long the symbol has been in use over here 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.320 because the primary way in which they used it was 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.880 for these kind of sand drawings as part of religious rituals. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:58.760 So it was in a way that most of the 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:00.359 time when it was used, it was not kind of 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:01.880 being preserved long term. 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:02.080 Right. 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.359 They weren't carving it into huge edifices. They were using 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.879 it for these kind of rituals in which it was 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.040 not meant to last, right, And it was his story 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:12.440 with it. 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.040 Was it like a way to give a narrative, like 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:16.720 that narrative that you just kind of told of a 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.320 hero's journey, Do you. 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.280 Know, I think it was it was representative of a 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.359 specific story that had religious significance for them, and it 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.600 was also like that kind of it was used in 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.040 a in a series of rituals that they carried out. 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.119 That's kind of the extent of I don't want to 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.919 like get too deep into the ways. I don't want 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.119 to be a culture that I, you know, is not 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.399 very far outside of my wheeledhouse. But it was. It 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.439 was used widely, and it was used widely in a 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.080 fashion that, like most of the uses, would not have 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.679 been preserved for long periods of time, because that was 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:51.160 not the point of using the symbol. So I want 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.520 to quote from an article in the Collector's Guide of 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.879 New Mexico talking about some of the historiography on the 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.919 use of the whirling log. In his book The Swastika 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.760 Symbol in Navajo Textiles, Dennis J. Anger cites Thomas Wilson's 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.359 research in the eighteen nineties that the earliest evidence of 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.720 the swastika in America was found in excavations in Tennessee 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.320 and Ohio. That the swastika found its way to the 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:17.280