Last modified: 2017-11-25 by antónio martins
Keywords: guaraní | guarany | guaranee | doubt | ñandutí | nandutí | spider web | lace |
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![[flag]](../images/x/xg.gif)
image by Francisco Gregoric, 08 May 2008
See also:
“El
pueblo guaraní: unidad y fragmentos”, by Bartomeu Melià,
says that: «En sus escuelas ondean las banderas de los países
que se establecieron en su territorio; naturalmente no hay bandera
guaraní», meaning that «In their schools, they
fly the flags of the countries that have established themselves in their
territory, naturally there is no Guarani flag.»
Unless this is a convoluted and misleading way to say that the Guarany
people has no independent state of its own, Bartomeu Melià seems
to be quite wrong or at least outdated:
There is a Guaraní flag. Even more than one, it seems. Most
references to actual Guarany flags are from Argentina,
not from Paraguay.
António Martins, 22 Apr 2008
There are variants of Guarani flags raised by Guarani people in
Argentina.
Francisco Gregoric, 08 May 2008
There are two versions reported:
These accounts of use of a green-brown-red flag by Guaranies in
northern Argentina dovetail with the red-green-coffee horizontal tricolor
of the proposed Chaco Boliviano department, in
(neighbouring) SW Bolivia, as put forward by the
local Assembly of the Guarany Nation.
The apparent contradiction green-brown-red vs. red-green-brown may be
due to inaccurate reporting or an actual vexillological variation.
António Martins, 22 Apr 2008
Indeed this tricolor flag does exist. Also at
Indymedia.ORG,
a photo of the flag appears. However the order there is
red-brown-green. Therefore there is a contradiction in the order of
the colors: the flag in the photo may be upside down, or the description
made before could be wrong. As reported before, the colors are the same
ones of the proposed Chaco Boliviano department
flag but with different order.
Francisco Gregoric, 08 May 2008
![[flag]](../images/x/xg2.gif)
image by Francisco Gregoric, 08 May 2008
At the
Coaj.ORG,
the necrology of Gloria “Chocha” Pérez, Cuña
Campinta, of Fraile Pintado, Ledesma department, Jujuy
province, Argentina. The
photo
is captioned as showing «Gloria portando la bandera
Guaraní junto a su pueblo» («Gloria carrying
the Guarany flag among her/its people»). It shows what seems to be
a red over dark green flag, but too limp to show any more details.
António Martins, 22 Apr 2008
At another event held at the same village — Fraile Pintado,
Ledesma department, Jujuy province, Argentina
— a different (?) flag was used.
António Martins, 23 Apr 2008
![[flag]](../images/x/xg3.gif)
image by António Martins, 15 Nov 2017
In this
article, an officially sponsored gathering of native peoples in
Jujuy province, Argentina, held in April 2008,
is reported. This included ceremonial hoisting of the
Argentine national flag, of the «Bandera
Whipala» in this case probably the Qulla
Suyu western Inca — white-diagonal chequered flag, and of a
Guarany flag (presented as «la Bandera Guaraní»,
the Guarany flag) — see
photo.
The latter seems to be a red over light blue bicolor, although the photo
is too unclear to be sure. It may be the mentioned red-green
flag, oddly litten and/or bleached. Both events reported were held at
the same village — Fraile Pintado, Ledesma department,
Jujuy province, Argentina.
António Martins, 23 Apr 2008
![[logo]](../images/p/py_gua.gif)
Other sites:
Clearly a derivative of the Paraguayan national
flag, charged over all with a native artistic motive.
António Martins, 06 Nov 1999
The symbol in the middle of the Guarani flag appears to be a piece
of nanduti or “spider web” lace. (To see examples of nanduti
lace patterns, go to
onParaguay.COM.)
I question whether this is a “real” flag. I spent several
weeks in Paraguay on two separate occasions, and never saw the flag
pictured here, though the Paraguayan flag was prominently displayed in many
places. I realize that this doesn’t prove anything, but it does make
me wonder if the flag pictured here is just a nice design to decorate a
web page, rather than a flag the Guarani people consider their own.
Terry Jaisy, 27 Apr 2001
Has anyone actually seen this flag other than on the website referred
to above? Is there any literature or news reports of its use? Is there a
definition or construction sheet someplace?
Terence Martin, 29 Apr 2003
Apparently not. At worse this is the usual Paraguay
national flag pattern (tricolor without the
emblem) charged with a traditional Guarani ornament, used just once as
a flag analogue. It might be something more solid than that, though. I
don’t know.
António Martins, 29 Apr 2003
I saw no evidence that this flag exists in any form. It appears this
design is used on just this website, and has never been created in
cloth.
Terence Martin, 21 Apr 2008
It is not really a (officially recognized) flag. It is an invention
of mine which uses a symbol of the Guarani culture based on a drawing
realized by a member of a Guarani community, first published by the
Hispano-Paraguayan scholar Bartomeu Meliá.
I wanted it to symbolize and to recognize the Guarani roots of the
Paraguayan nation, which actually are not at all represented through the
official symbolism of the Paraguayan State.
Wolf Lustig (editor of the website where the flag design
appears), 21 Apr 2008
Wolf Lustig needed a Guarany language icon to go with the
flags used to symbolize other language versions
of his website, and he pasted a Guarany “national ornament”
on the flag of that country where Guarany language enjoys the best status
(Paraguay).
António Martins, 22 Apr 2008
Anything below this line was not added by the editor of this page.