Ologies with Alie Ward - Smologies #17: FLAGS with E. Tory Laitila

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

A kid-friendly, shortened version of our classic episode on …flags! E. Tory Laitila, a textile expert who has also handled Honolulu's flag protocol, gives the skinny on the oldest flags, skull and crossbone Jolly Rogers, his favorite state flag, Scandinavian simplicity, the hardest flags to draw, who designed our modern American flag and how you too can have ... fun with flags all year round. A donation went to: Connecting to Collections via CulturalHeritage.org More Smologies episodes! Full length Vexillology (FLAGS) episode + links hereSponsors of OlogiesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, masks, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramSound editing by Steven Ray Morris,  Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions, and Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam MediaMade possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Emily White, & Erin TalbertSmologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

Oh, hey, it's a lady who went to Hawaii on a squid research expedition and fit-in and allergies interview while I was there. Hi, it's Allie Ward. This is Smologies and Smologies are kid-friendly all-ages episodes that we have cut down and sculpted to be shorter. And this week, we bring you a lovely fellow who was a joy to meet up with on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. So get ready for him. This dude loves flags. I love him for it. Okay, vexillology. Aren't you glad that there's a parenthetical flags after that? Because who knows what vexillology means? Where does this word even come from? Okay, buckle up. It's about to get cute. So vexillology has its roots in Latin for little sale, vellum is a sale or a curtain, and it's related to veil. It was

coined in 1959 by a flag enthusiast and designer and political scholar, the late Whitney Smith Jr. And if you're like, I wish I were a vexillologist, but you're just a flag fan, don't worry, you're still a vexillophile. You're about to go through quite a journey hearing about everything from why flags exist to what flags have to do with conspiracy theories to some pirate trivia, why Hawaii has a union jack on its flag, the hardest flags to draw, which colors we don't see on flags and why, how to design a flag, who designed our modern American flag, and how you too can have fun with flags all year round. So get ready to fly high with flag professional and vexillologist Tori Lytola. Okay, so this vexillologist got his bachelors in museum studies

at the University of Manoa in Hawaii and spent 17 years as a registrar in Honolulu's mayor's office of culture and the arts. He was an expert in charge of public art collections and who flies, what flags, when. The dude digs flags, he loves fabric. I always think of how easy Japan has it when you're a kid and you have to draw your flag. You're like, I got a dot in the middle, I'm good to go. And then Mexico's like, I got to draw a serpent and some kind of bird. Some flags are just geometric blocks. And then others have these drawings on them that are difficult to replicate. Who decided what goes on a flag? So it's usually the country or the head of state. So if you look at a lot of older flags,

they are just sometimes one, two, three colors, horizontal lines or vertical lines, stripes. And that goes back to Heraldry, where there was the king and he might have a coat of arms and it might have one or two colors. So you replicate that on the flag. Okay, quick aside about the Japanese flag, also called the Hinomaru. So that big crimson dot is representing the sun because Japan is known as the land of the rising sun. And while their big signature red dot on a field of white has been used since the 1400s, it was designed formally in 1870. It wasn't legally adopted until 1999. That's like being engaged for 129 years. Everyone just assumes you're married, but really there's drama at home. So folks opposed didn't like a certain

shift toward post-war nationalism. So adopting it officially was a big deal, but it's been 20 years since it's been the flag of Japan. Bonus, it's pretty easy to draw though. Why is this a bonus? According to the North American Vexillological Society's 2006 edict, good flag, bad flag. There are a few key principles to designing a good flag. The five principles are keep it simple. The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory or an adult who's bad at drawing. Two, use meaningful symbolism. Number three, use two or three basic colors. Number four, no lettering or seal. Never use writing of any kind or an organization's seal. Wow, that law is broken a lot. Number five, be distinctive or be related.

So avoid duplicating other flags, but use some similarities to show connections. Now, Mexico, I love you. Your flag, growing up, trying to draw the flag of Mexico with this ordinate eagle eating a serpent while perched on a prickly pear. This was an exercise of childhood artistic humility or really for anyone without a studio art degree. But I did some reading and knowing it's a symbol delivered by a god of war via a dream to an Aztec leader about where to settle. What's now Mexico City? I'm like, all right, yes, this flag is very beautiful and I love it. Mexico, please don't be offended if my rendition looks like a cat eating a noodle. Now, what are you going to do for 4th of July? 4th of July, I will fly the Betsy Ross flag.

Oh, nice. And now, I need to look up her story. Do you like her story? Is it worth telling or are you like, it's apocryphal? Apocryphal means it's doubtful or dubious. It's sketchy, a bit sus. You get it. Well, you know, there are theories on who or who came about with the flag and there is some evidence for that she did sew a flag. And with the stars and the circle arrangement, we'll acknowledge that as being the Betsy Ross design, although there were other designs at the time. Is there any truth in the fact that George Washington's wife would... So there's a story that's passed down through the Ross family that says, you know, there was a meeting and the generals got together and Betsy Ross was the wife of one of the generals and Washington was there. They

did a little sketch and so she sewed the flag. And so there is that story. Is that the truth? What do you think happened? There were other flags that were flown by American patriots at the time. I mean, we, some of them are sort of with like the Bunker Hill flag or the Gatson flag, the Don't Tread on Me flag. And so you have these other flags that were used during the American Revolution and the red and white or the stars and stripes as they came to be called, you know, really became the one that was accepted nationally. What do you think about the Don't Tread on Me flag? It's fine. You know, it's another flag that has its uses and some people have adopted it today to

mean other things. Right. Gatson's flag, side note, is primarily mustard yellow and it features this impossibly coiled and I guess ready to strike rattlesnake with 13 rattles representing the original colonies that dates back to that time. And it's sometimes used in modern day by conservative parties to harken back, I guess, to an era when the country was smaller and we didn't have indoor plumbing and like rattlesnakes were able to hover in the air like a broken mattress spring. Must have been a wild era, but there are some mocking Don't Tread on Me memes that are just a source of priceless parody. I suggest you, Google, is one of my favorites involves a cartoon baby snake that just says, please no Steppy. And then there's one that

retains the original Don't Tread on Me text, but just the image of a single Lego. Anyway, changing up flags for fun. So do you have a calendar memorized or do you have a planner that has like, Hey, change your flag today. I try and write significant dates on my calendar. That's smart. Do you check it every day? I still have a written calendar. Oh, God, me too. I'm very low tech. I have a wall calendar on my wallet home and a desk calendar on my desk at work and they're both handwritten notation. So they have to have big squares so you can put things in them. And I'll just go back and forth and check. And there are a few historical calendars out there that are really fun to look at, you know, that have like on this day in history. And so

you can, you know, add those to your calendars, whichever seem significant or that you enjoy and put them on your calendar. Do you have a favorite looking flag, one that you're just like, man, I wish we had that one. Well, one of my favorite flags is hard to tell which one is your favorite because there's a there's a flag I fly a lot at home, but a really cool looking flag is Ohio. What? Really? I'm sorry, Ohio, for doubting you. Okay, tell me about it. It's a swallowtail pennant. Ohio, I had no idea you had what patent holding flag designer, John Eisman, describes as a quote, triangular forked or swallowtailed flag corresponding to the shape generally known as a cavalry guidon or broad pennant. So beloved is Ohio's flag. It's

even sold as a necklace. So a patented pennant pendant, if I may be a pennant. So that means it's pointy, but then the end is in a point, it's got a swallowtail in it. So it can, you can fly it upside down. It still looks right side up. But who else has a swallowtail pennant? No one. How'd they get so fancy? They got tux tails. Well, it's all about the hills and the valleys and the rivers and of Ohio. Oh man. And ever the rest of us all just have squares? So there is a government specification on the ratio of the flag, the height and the width, but most of us in practical usage will fly what's referred to as the NATO standard. Okay. Some standard sizes, three by five, four by six, but what's the smallest flag you want to

know? Is it the size of like your thumbnail, maybe your pinky nail smaller? Is it the size of a crumb of banana bread? Oh, you have no idea. So I looked it up and according to the Guinness Book of World Records, there exists a flag that is 100th the width of a human hair. It's only viewable with an electron microscope. Who made this? What wizardry is this? What is on the flag? A maple leaf. And it was made with UV photolithography on a wafer coated with electron-sensitive hydrogen cilsaqueousane film by the Institute for Quantum Computing Nanofab in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. I'm pretty sure I said some of those words wrong. Please bear with me, nanotechnologists. Canadians, this achievement is small, but it is mighty. It's absurdly awesome.

And it makes the palm size Hawaiian flag Tori gave me just seems gargantuan in comparison. And now, okay, tell me a little bit about the Hawaiian flag because what I know from being here this week is that there are great ways to make a statement with a flag that I didn't realize that you could do. And so the Hawaiian flag, how would you describe it? The Hawaiian flag is rectangular. The ratio is one to two. Okay. It has a field of eight stripes with white, red, and blue alternating and a union jack in the canton. Just a side note, a canton in vexillology is a quadrant of the flag, usually the upper left corner, which is like a position of fallen or on a flag. It's where on a US flag, the 50 stars are. It's like a picture and picture

buffer flags. How did they come up with this design? So it was during the reign of Kamehameha the first where Hawaii started trading. And so ships needed ways to recognize themselves when they went to foreign ports. And so when Hawaii started trading outside of Hawaii, it needed a flag to be recognized. And so they came up with the Hawaiian flag. And it was drafted by a British officer. Side note, Kamehameha the Great was a ruler who united the Hawaiian islands in the late 1700s. And here's a fun tidbit. His full name is Another fun tidbit. I did not say that. Hawaiian born patron Iris McPherson did, because I did not trust my mouth and brain and eyes to get it together on that. Anyway.

Rural through 1819. And this has nothing to do with anything. But one of his wives took their throne after his death. And among the things she changed was that women were finally allowed to eat bananas. It's bananas. She was also Protestant. There was a lot of badness with missionaries. Eventually the U.S. took control of the kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 in an overthrow that Congress assistance admitted was illegal, which is why just in general a Union Jack flag seems a little awkward. It's kind of like dating someone who still has their ex's name tattooed on their stomach. But also they never wanted to date you, but you're forcing them illegally. Anyway, everyone just shrugs like, wow, that's a lot of bad stuff.

And it does hold the Union Jack because of the close alliance between Hawaii and Britain at the time. Now, Kamehameha, the first liked flags, too. So he would just fly whatever flag he liked at his compound. Now, what is flown most commonly in Hawaii? You see the Hawaiian flag. Now, the Hawaiian flag, as far as I know, is the only flag that has flown unchanged for five different forms of government. Why is that? Why didn't they switch it up at all? I guess for continuity. I mean, it flew under an absolute monarchy, a constitutional monarchy, a republic, a territory and a state, and they did not change the flag.

When it became a state, the U.S. didn't say like, okay, real cute, you got a Union Jack. That air is over, people. Well, you know, it was there under the territory and they just, they kept the flag. And I have heard a little bit about the way the flag is flown, can express different viewpoints, sentiments, protestations, perhaps. Is it flown upside down, right side? What, what does it mean? So when a flag or any flag is flown upside down or visibly upside down, it's a sign of distress. A little help, please.

So it's usually like maybe sending out an SOS signal to somebody, because there was a time where flags were our communication. So when a ship came into port and you're expecting something to be on that ship, if you saw their flag at half-mast, just mast on a ship, you knew somebody had passed away. If it was flying upside down, you know that that ship was in trouble or distress. Oh, wow. You'd have to know a little bit about the flag that you're looking at. Correct. Right. And then some flags, they look the same right side, right side up or upside down. Oh, no. What do you do?

You're being trouble. Yeah. Did you ever play flag football? I did play flag football. Were you like, I'm only using American and Hawaiian flags? Well, you have to remember, when the term flag doesn't have to be these, these, these symbols, they can also be utilitarian, you know, like flag football, sprinkler flags, the checkered flag, you know, they have other meanings and they're more utilitarian, semaphore flags. What about surrender flags?

That's more of a utilitarian tool because it didn't stand for anybody, it was the white flag. Was that just someone taking gauze off and what? It could be anything. I mean, you know, if you have to surrender, you use whatever you have. If someone take their underpants off, I got to wave something here. Can I ask you questions from listeners? Sure. That's exciting. 105 questions about flags.

But before we unfurl your questions, a few words from sponsors of the show who make it possible for us to make a donation to a charity of each oligist choosing. And Tori said that he would like to go with connecting to collections care, which is a program under the American Institute for Conservation that helps smaller cultural institutions provide good care for valuable collections and artifacts. So we will include a link in the show notes and that donation is made possible by the following sponsors that I like very much. Okay, on to your flag questions.

People have been wanting this one for a while. You thought flags were boring, didn't you? People light them on fire, they die for them. So many of you wanted to know why they even exist. Like for example, Taryn Fernandes, Jack, Steph, Julie Bear, Heather Deckel, Erica, Ellen, Vasakeel, Holly Andrews, Deli Dames, and Jam Cruise, first-time question asker, says, was there a specific moment when flags became a thing for every country? Well, that's a good question because I would say flags and its use, I mean, go back to like

Babylonia and the Romans use them in different styles and different ways and penance and gonfalons as we use. But I think probably, and this is just my opinion, you know, with the United Nations, the League of Nations or the United Nations, and then the Olympics is where you really needed something to rally behind politically, not necessarily for military. So I think flags really became a more popular and more visible. And it's at the Olympics where you actually saw duplication, like there would be times where the country would have almost the same flag, sometimes the same color and the same.

And so what do you do? It's like, you show up at the party with the same dress. What do you do? Same gown at the Oscars. You got to change it. Now, is that your favorite part of the Olympics? Are you there for the open ceremony? I like the opening ceremonies. Now, the next topic was also on the minds of patrons, Megan King and Aviva Elizabeth. Zane Lieberman wants to know, are there any vessels out there that still fly the Black Jolly Roger flag? And why do they do it? What is it? Okay, so there are different. So people think of the Jolly Roger as the one and I've actually

seen a Molly Roger. So it's actually a cut of nine tails and the skull has lipstick on it. The modern designer came with the Molly Roger. But you have these pirate flags and they were slightly different. Like I think Edward Teach had a skeleton and a heart. And so they actually had meanings, but they were the black flag of the pirates and not to endorse piracy, but you know, there are those pirate ships that you can go on parties on. They do fly the pirate flag. And why did they have that Jolly Roger? Was that just like a we're here and we're going to mess your stuff up? So watch out everyone. Well, that was that was the way that ships communicated with each other. And so sometimes a ship would fly a false flag to getting close.

Oh, my God. And then and when they attacked and they would fly up whatever flag that they're flying under. So privateers, remember, privateers were the legal pirates and then you had pirates. Oh, I didn't know that privateers were legal pirates. So a pirate would be rating other ships and a privateer was somebody rating for their country under they were sanctioned. Oh, so then they were just thieves and then they were like, I'm thieves for my country. Privateers. Meredith only wants to know, is there any significance in countries that have flags of the similar patterns and same colors, but in different order, like France versus Paraguay, Belgium versus Germany, etc. Well, you have a lot of those, we could say old world flags,

where they really are established and based on national colors. So they're very, very simple. And so those are older flags, as opposed to some of the modern flags where you have a little more iconography on or modern iconography. So you have like, like the Scandinavian cross like really all the countries of Scandinavia, it's that same cross pattern in different colors. So I know why do so many Scandinavian countries have that Nordic cross motif? I was like, this is going to be some old, like maybe where the land intersects with the sea or like the latitude of the summer sun. But no, it's just a straight up Christianity symbol. So what about flags that look like Neapolitan ice cream? You know, it's like the tricolor, you have the French tricolor.

I mean, you have Ireland and Italy, it's basically using national colors just on a flag. Oh, okay. So it's just kind of like, hey, we're cousins a little bit. Or the flags are old enough, we just needed a couple of colors on it. Back then. Back in the day, we just needed one or two colors on the flag and it was just one color or two colors. Now, what is the thing that you love the most about your job or your life as a vexillologist or about flags? It's just a bit of history and to recognize what's been, what's in the past and use some kind of visible symbol to recognize those dates. And I have a good job, I think. Do you think in the future we're just going to use space holograms for flags?

I don't know about holograms, but you know, how retro is becoming more popular, maybe we're going to go, maybe we'll, we'll regress a little bit. I love that you're keeping the past alive by continuing to make it cool because you're cool. Thank you so much for doing this. I love this. So ask well-dressed and informed people questions because there's weird trivia flying right over our heads all the time. You might as well ask about it. Go for it. Ask questions. Now, for more info on flags, navva.org, navva.org is a great resource. You can find a local vexillogical club, let your nerd flag fly. We are at oligies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Allie Ward with 1L on both. For tons more Smologies episodes, you can head to alleyward.com

Smologies, which is linked in the show notes. We have episodes on toads and dinosaurs and bugs and eating bugs and the moon and so much more. And the full credit list is also in the show notes. The special thanks to Mercedes-Maitland and Jared Sleeper of Mind Jam Media for all the work on this one. And if you stick around until the end of the episode, I give you a life tip. And this week's tip is, you know, sometimes if you're in a park or you're taking a walk, sometimes it's nice if you find a pretty leaf on the ground, take it home, put it in a heavy book. And chances are, you're going to forget about it until like a year later. And you open up the book and you go, well, look at this boy, howdy, a beautifully preserved leaf. And then you can frame it or you can make

a bookmark out of it. But it's always nice to tuck a leaf somewhere or a flower for yourself for later. And you go, oh, look at that. So pressed and flat and nice. Okay, that's it. Bye-bye. Someone got me a selection of flags.