I've always undertood the swastika to be an Aboriginal North American symbol, as well as it being associated with other cultures - don't remember where I got that - but I do remember in the Classics Illustrated rendition of Hiawatha, one of the characters had a (backwards?) swastika on a wristband, and I was already, at whatever tender age I was reading the comic, aware of the Native connection with the symbol.

An auctioneer once hired me to clear out the household goods of an old lady who had died; the house was in rural Ontario, outside Peterborough somewhere. Among the items were a couple of stands for old-fashioned irons to sit on (or were they sits for old-fashioned irons to stand on?); in their ironwork were prominent designs swastikas. I had, and still have, no doubt that these pre-dated the Nazi takeover of the swastika.