Last modified: 2025-09-27 by ian macdonald
Keywords: vanuatu | new hebrides | nouvelles-hébrides | fern | leaves | boar’s tusk | francophonie |
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![[Vanuatu]](../images/v/vu.gif)
19:36
image
by Zoltan Horvath, 15 December 2024See also:
Other sites:
At the British Columbia 1994 Commonwealth Games page I read:
"crossed leaves of the namele fern (peace) are within a boar's tusk (wealth and prosperity) on a black triangular field along the hoist; red and green are the other colours"The boar's tusk is a symbol of prosperity because (1) pigs are wealth (2) in the latter stages of getting the tusk to grow in a spiral the pig has to be hand fed, and you need status and wealth to have both the pig feeder and the food which are necessary.
The boar's tusk is apparently used as a pendant by the islanders. They remove the boar's upper tusks, which causes the lower tusks to grow in a circle (from National Geographic, December 1970).
Nathan Augustine, 4 March 1996
What is namele? A fern or a palm? It's certainly not the palm species
Phoenix sylvestris identified by
Znamierowski
(1999), as this is the Asian variant of the date palm, which does not
grow in Vanuatu. On the other hand, the fact that some do identify the namele as
"fern" (Crampton 1991) and some as "palm" (Herzog
& Hannes 1990, Hesmer 1992)does give the
impression, it might be a "palm fern". Indeed there is a plant group that is
referred by this name, the
Cycadales, a group of gymnosperm plants (like coniferous trees) "frequently
confused with and mistaken for palms or ferns".
If you google for namele pictures, you find for instance
http://www.positiveearth.org/vpai/loru_protected_area.htm where namele is
clearly identified as a cycad. At the Australian "Cycad
Pages" one can find two species that occur in the south-west Pacific, namely
Cycas seemannii and Cycas bougainvilleana. C. seemannii is
found in Vanuatu (obviously the only cycad there). A local name mentioned for
Eromanga island (part of Vanuatu) is "No-moll", which looks close to "namele".
So I suggest as identification of the plant leaves in the Vanuatu flag and arms:
Cycas seemannii
M. Schmöger, 6 September 2005
Symbolism of the colours:
The protocol manual for the London 2012
Olympics (Flags and Anthems Manual London 2012) provides
recommendations for national flag designs. Each NOC was sent an image of the
flag, including the PMS shades, for their approval by LOCOG. Once this was
obtained, LOCOG produced a 60 x 90 cm version of the flag for further approval.
So, while these specs may not be the official, government, version of each flag,
they are certainly what the NOC believed the flag to be.
For Vanuatu: PMS
186 red, 116 yellow, 347 green and black. The vertical flag is simply the
horizontal version turned 90 degrees clockwise.
Ian Sumner, 11
October 2012
Other sources for colors:
The Album des Pavillons 1990 [pay98]
gives approximate colors in Pantone and CMYK systems:
Red: Pantone 186c, CMYK
0-90-80-5
Yellow: Pantone 116c, CMYK 0-10-95-0
Green: Pantone 347c, CMYK
100-0-80-10
The Flag Manual - Beijing 2008 gives Pantone colors: PMS 032
(red), PMS 355 (green), PMS 109 (yellow), and Black.
The Album des
Pavillons 2000 [pay00] (Corr. No. 5.) gives
approximate colors in Pantone and CMYK systems:
Red: Pantone 186c, CMYK
0-90-80-5
Yellow: Pantone 116c, CMYK 0-10-95-0
Green: Pantone 342c, CMYK
100-0-70-40
The Flags and Anthems Manual London 2012 [g9b12]
gives Pantone colors: PMS 186 (red), PMS 116 (yellow), PMS 347 (green), and PMS
Black.
The Album des Pavillons 2023 already specifies the colors
of the flags in three color systems:
Blue: Pantone 285c, CMYK
83-49-0-0, RGB 0-119-212
Red: Pantone 186c, CMYK 10-100-74-2, RGB
210-16-52
Yellow: Pantone 116c, CMYK 0-19-93-0, RGB 255-206-0
Green:
Pantone 342c, CMYK 89-32-74-24, RGB 0-106-78
Vexilla Mundi gives colors in Pantone
system: PMS 186C (red), PMS 347C (green), PMS Black, and 116C (yellow).
Wikipedia illustrates
the flag, and construction details, and gives Pantone colors: Pantone 186C for
red, Pantone 116C for yellow, and Pantone 347C for green.
Flag Color Codes gives the following color
values:
Red: Hex #C8102E, RGB 200-16-46, CMYK 0-100-80-5, Pantone 186, RAL
3028
Black: Hex #000000, RGB 0-0-0, CMYK 0-0-0-100, Pantone Black, RAL 9005
Yellow:
Hex #FFCD00, RGB 255-205-0, CMYK 0-10-98-0, Pantone
116, RAL 2007
Green: Hex #009A44, RGB 0-154-68, CMYK 92-0-97-0, Pantone 347,
RAL 6024
Zoltan Horvath, 15 December 2024
The Vanuatu A-Z Visitors Guide says:
"A competition was held and won by Kalontas Mahlon from Emau Island (Kalantos
works in Vila Handprints)."
Source:
http://www.vanuatuatoz.com/f.html, entry Flag.
Emau Island is a tiny island located east off Efate, the island on which
Port-Vila, the capital city of Vanuatu, is located. Note that the former
district of Efat was called Efate and other minor islands.
Ivan Sache, 30 April 2003
On
http://www.vmdaily.ru/main/viewarticle.php?id=19274 is written (in Russian),
that the author of the flag and of the coat of arms of Vanuatu is artist Mr.
Nikolay Mishutushkin, the son of Ataman of the Terek Cossack Army, who emigrated
to the New Hebrides after the Civil War in Russia. Is there any validity to
this?
Mikhail Revnivtsev, 21 December 2005
![[Vanuatu]](../images/v/vu'.gif)
19:36
image
by Željko Heimer, 17 August 2003
National Flag. CSW/CS- 19:36 (39+6+5+6+39):(84+96)
Red over green bicolour with black triangle at hoist containing a yellow border
that is fimbriated black and extends in horizontal line towards fly, the
triangle contains yellow boar husk and two fern leaves within.
Željko Heimer, 17 August 2003
The flag pictured in the official annex of the law shows the flag with
proportion 3:5 but according to the document issued by the premier's bureau
concerning the dimensions of the flag, the official proportion is 19:36
(180:95). The length of the triangle must be 84 (using a flag length of 180),
the yellow is 5 and fimbriations 6 each. The upper and lower parts have heights
of 39 units.
Jaume Ollé, 14 August 2003
Several sources give 11:18 for dimensions - the reason is not quite clear to me,
one possibility is it a mathematical error that has been repeated. A good
rhetorical question is why did they choose these odd numbers? What was wrong
with pure and simple 3:5, or even 10:19? The manufacturers will surely ignore
the fact and produce whatever they like most - 1:2, 2:3, 3:5, and the government
will hardly be able to follow its own regulation (except if they decide to buy
flags by order that would make them much more expensive).
Željko Heimer, 15 August 2003
![[Vanuatu - detail of emblem]](../images/v/vu'd.gif)
image
by Željko Heimer, 17 August 2003
My construction shows 39 pairs of needles on each leaf - all the drawings that I
have seen, official or otherwise, have different representations of the leaves
but usually they are too small to be certain about any level of details. The
needles are sometimes even drawn as little leaves, something that certainly is
not supposed to be, but on a small blurred image even in the official
publication this may not matter.
Željko Heimer, 15 August 2003
![[Coat-of-Arms (Vanuatu)]](../images/v/vu).gif)
image by Zoltan Horvath, 15 December 2024
Source: Album des Pavillons 2000 [pay00].
Martin Grieve, 23 September 2002
The Coat of Arms was adopted in 1980, it shows a Melanesian warrior, armed
with a spear, standing before a mountain. Behind him a boar’s tusk and the
leaves of the namele (coconut palm) in saltire. All in natural colours. At the
bottom is the National Motto.
Christopher Southworth, 15 October
2024
A.H. asked, "Why would the flag of Vanuatu (a Pacific island chain) be flying at Port Canaveral (a United States city, on the Atlantic ocean)?" Vanuatu is one of the top ten flags of convenience if I remember correctly. I got this information from one of Britain's big flag makers who regularly has to make Vanuatu flags for ships, far more than you would expect for one of the world's smallest countries.
Graham Bartram, 13 December 1999
I recently received Lupant 1991, a book on Vanuatu flags. This book shows many flags of Vanuatu, from the colonial era, the time of independence and the present, and includes provincial flags. The book also shows the flag of Tanna, but according to this information, it is the same (or very similar, because the shade of blue is lighter) as the flag of the Vemerana Federation - a blue background with a green star in the center. But this is very strange: I saw the originally manufactured flag of Tanna on TV and around the star was a yellow circle (I posted the image some time ago). I think that the flag attributed to Tanna is only a proposal, a previous flag, or a mistake, because I'm sure that at the time of independence the flags (I know three patterns) hoisted included a yellow circle.
Jaume Ollé, 16 January 1997