Flag
The flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand was originally created in 1834. It features a St George's Cross throughout, with a canton featuring a smaller red cross on a blue background fimbriated in black, and with a white eight-pointed star in each quarter of the canton. When officially gazetted in New South Wales in 1835, some of these features were altered, to fit with more standard heraldic patterns - the fimbriation was made white, and the eight-pointed stars were changed to five-pointed stars. This altered version of the flag served as the de facto national flag of New Zealand from 1835 until the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in February 1840.
The earlier version of the flag, with black fimbriation and eight-pointed stars, is widely used today as a flag by Māori groups throughout New Zealand, who also refer to it as the He Whakaputanga flag. In July 2009 it was proposed as one of four possible designs for an official Māori flag at a series of hui around New Zealand. The flag is also occasionally encountered with black or white fimbriation and six-pointed stars.
Read more about this topic: United Tribes Of New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word flag:
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.”
—Stephen Crane (1871–1900)
“Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And shall not evening call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night,
To mark this day in Heaven? At last, we are
A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant port
Another flag unfurled!”
—Henry Timrod (1828–1867)