Quote Originally Posted by ShadeHonestus
I have to back Anti up on this one a little bit from my study of Native American cultures. Many of the designs in culturally distinctive NA weavings actually have their source in the language. You can look at the Dakota language as a sound color language and their decorations on everything as an extension of that. The SW Native Americans who are recognized the most for their weaving has its foundation in their religion, language and culture with nothing borrowed outside of its Native trade structures. The swastika as found in Native American art has been traced to a very old pre-contact independent emergence. The type of thing we see with pyramid building and other forms of architecture and art that appears at different stages of cultural development but independent of contact between these cultures.
I never said ALL of what we consider Indian, I said MOST. You say you study Native American culture? Then you should be able to confirm that. Almost all of Native American commercial "cultural items" was thrown upon them by Westerners. Of course they had their own culture...it just wasn't marketable. For that reason, much of what is thought of as Indian today is not Indian at all.

P.S. The course I took on it said that the SW was introduced to them, not invented by them.