Flag

CHAPTER ONE

Antecedents

The flag of today represents many centuries of development. Probably no other inanimate object has excited so great an influence over the actions of the human race. It has existed in some form among all peoples and from the earliest times.

—Frederic J. Haskin, 1941

HISTORY DOES NOT record the first time a human being attached pieces of cloth to a staff to use as a symbol. But wooden, metal, and cloth flaglike objects—statues, standards, banners, guidons, ensigns, pennons, and streamers—date from the ancient Egyptians who flew carved elephants and other symbols mounted on poles on boats and perhaps in front of their temples more than five thousand years ago.

Other early prehistoric cultures also placed carvings or animal skins atop poles, sometimes accompanied by streamers or feathers. Among the oldest is an ancient Persian metal flagpole that had a metal eagle perched at its top. There also are recorded uses of flag predecessors—nearly always as communications or identification devices on the field of battle or to signify religious affiliations—among the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Saracens, Indians, Aztecs, and Mongolians.

It is believed that the ancient Chinese first used cloth banners in the second century BC. The founder of the Chou dynasty (ca. 1027 BC), for example, is thought to have displayed a white flag to announce his presence. The main use of flags by the Chinese, though, was as a military communications device. "Because they could not hear each other, they made gongs and drums. Because they could not see each other they made pennants and flags," the ancient Chinese military general and philosopher Sun Tzu wrote in his classic The Art of War. "Gongs, drums, pennants and flags are the means to unify the men's ears and eyes."

That was the case in China in the fourth century BC, according to Sun Pin, the military strategist and Sun Tzu descendant. "Commands should be carried out by using various colored banners," he advised. "Affix pennants to the chariots to distinguish grade and status. Differentiate among troops that can easily be mistaken for each other by using banners and standards."

The ancient Roman legions carried banners called vexilla. These were small square ensigns, most often red in color, that were attached to crossbars at the end of lances. They often were adorned with animal figures, such as horses, eagles, wolves, or boars. Flags in ancient India typically were carried on chariots and elephants. They were usually red or green triangularly shaped banners that had figures embroidered upon them and were surrounded by gold fringe.

The Vikings flew several types of flags, primarily on their famed sailing ships in the tenth and eleventh centuries AD. The most common was the Raven flag, in the shape of a triangle with two straight sides and a curved side. Historians believe that that emblem flew from the masts of Danish Viking ships and probably from the Norwegian Viking ships that landed in Newfoundland a thousand years ago. If so, the Viking Raven banner has the distinction of being the first flag to fly in North America.

The idea of flags as symbols of the rulers of nation states began to evolve in Europe in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. One of the banners that Christopher Columbus displayed when he reached the West Indies in 1492, for example, bore the Spanish royal standard: two lions and two castles representing the arms of Castile and Leon. Columbus also carried a special white expeditionary flag with a green cross. It consisted of the letters F and Y for Ferdinand (Fernando) and Isabella (Ysabel), each...