HISTORY DEPICTED IN FLAGS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23109, 6 August 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

HISTORY DEPICTED IN FLAGS

By MATANGA

]y[ore than Meets the Eye

lA.TELY a flag fluttered for a moment ill the news. It was *"■ the Czechoslovak flag, borne jn the march-past of Germany's athletic festival at Breslau. Herr Hitler, taking the salute, saw it coming and turned his back upon it, resuming his acknowledgment to the others, of various_ countries, when it had gone by. Whatever else we may think about his action, it had the virtue of declaring that there is in flags more than meets the eye.

That is tho chief fact about flags, about all flags properly so called: they mean something, represent something, unci should never be considered for their own snkes alone. Their relation to oilier departments of heraldry, their spacious place in history, their strong appeal to sentiment, nil arise from this.

' They themselves have, considered as a class of objects; a history. It is long and profoundly interesting. They have arisen from earlier things quite unlike them in oho respect, yet they carry on through time a central idea that those forerunners embodied.

The difference the? have acquired is notable. They are made to be flown, to fly, to bend, and wave in the moving air. Their descriptive name comes from a dim past, from a day older than the separation of tho peoples now occupythe northern lands of Europe. English, Swedish, Danish, Dutch and German have tlu> same term to" denote something that flutters or hangs loosely. This word is recognisable in spite of local variation. The flag that floats from a mast, the flag that waves its long leaf amid other growths of the marsh, and the flagging Sands that droop at their tasks are close kinsfolk in the world of words. Tho "flickering" flame is a sort of second cousin. They are all "flaccid" i—limp,• lax. Solid Tribal Emblems

But the earliest forebears of our brave bits of bunting were not at all flaccid. They were devices wrought in stone, wood or metal, and served as the badges of tribes by representing tho natural objects, usually animals, with which the several tribes were believed to have intimate relationship. They thus became distinguishing tribal emblems, and were carried, in each instance, at the top. of a pole or spear when the clan was on the march.

All the known nations of antiquity had badges of this kind. Tho Egyptian fan of feathers, the Assyrian bull, the owl of Athens, the pegasus of Corinth, the minotaur of Crete, aud the tortoise of Peloponnesus, were all represented in this very solid way. But the Egyptians had occasionally a small cloth streamer fastened below the device, probably to attract the eyes of the tribesmen to it, and this addition grew in use among other peoples,' eventually displacing the solid, unbending., "standard." Instead of being designed in stiff, fixed form, the totem - was figured on the flexible fabric.

Homer's Agamemnon, you may remember, hoisted a purple veil as a rallying symbol; that conies near our modern flag. The vexiilum or cavalry flag described by Livy was a square of woven material fastened to a cross-bar at the head of a spear. Constantino's

iaharum, which became adorned with the monogram signifying Christ, was of purple silk, embroidered with gold, and although it was at first hung bannerwise like the vexillum it was in later times displayed sideways, just as we now attach a flag to a staff f—a stylo adopted from the Saracens. Evidences of Transition

So the Hag, as we know it, came. The transition, from solid imago to fluttering flag, can be seen in many instances. The rampant white horse of the Jutes ras transferred to the flag of the Men of Kent; the dragon of Parthia, adopted •as a standard by the Emperors of the jWest, is seen in the Wessex and Welsh flags; and although the Danes carried at first a raven as an image, the device that Alfred the Great captured from them in 878 was a small triangular flag bearing a black raven on a bloodred field. Meaning, then, not haphazard choice, was in all these devices; and meaning of some sort is in every proper flag of subsequent times. If the meaning be not definitely embodied, the product of the designer falls short of success. An exception must be made of flags contrived as signals. Practical considerations dictate their employment of only simple colour and form. Nevertheless, meaning is present, albeit it is arbitrarily given. With international codes this must especially happen, since their ' purpose is to overstep the boundaries of particular groups of humankind. But in national or sub-national flags the agelong principle is still advantageously honoured. Putting aside as remotely technical, although not at all irrelevant, the principles of heraldic blazonry, we can easily see how the pictorial flags of our time took shape. Look at the badges that distinguish most of the ensigns of our Greater Britain. Ensign Badges In the fly (as that part most distant from the suoporting staff is technically • called) of South Africa's ensign were put the figure of Hope, two gnus, an orange tree and a trek waggon, standing respectively for Cape Colony (at first the Cape of Good Hope), Natal, Orange River Colony and the Transvaal. Canada'% ensign had similarly placed upon it the lions, lilies, maple sprays, thistles and salmon, contributed J).V tli-j separate devices of that Dominchief provinces. So elsewhere in the Emnire significant symbols characterise the ensign badges, making pictorial records of history. At times nlliances are commemorated. In the border of the Scottish standard

"7a standard is now a personal as distinguished from a national flag—are lilies of France, in token of the frioiuishin between Scotland and France. The lilies of Quebec's device recall the old French domain in North America.

Not without meaning do crosses form the pattern of our own national and in the blending of the three —-those of St George. St. Andrew and kt; Patrick—is recalled the political union achieved 111 the British Isles, the particular placing of them being in accordance with the sequence of the muting acts. America has provided, in the Stars aiuj Stripes, an impressive memory of the thirteen States originaj'y combining, seen in the thirteen mternative red and white bars, and of t'io growth in the whole 11 umber of the rpt os ' ' soon ' n the stars. "in .'modified constellation of the lout hern Cross—of which Brazil has made most use—is fittingly in the

Pnsicrns of the Commonwealth of Australia and of Now Zealand. In the jornior the chief stars are seven.-pointed, in ronipmliranee of the component units Ao wonder, with historv, social development and cherished ideals so Generally displayed, national flags are '.'eld in honour. To pay them courtesy is no idle duty.