East New Britain Province (Papua New Guinea)

Former Neupommern Island

Last modified: 2001-09-08 by santiago dotor
Keywords: east new britain | papua new guinea | neupommern | stars: 4 | shell | mask |
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by Mark Sensen

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• Papua New Guinea

The sources available to me do not agree on the colours of the flag of East New Britain in Papua New Guinea, though they are in agreement on the design. An image of the flag is shown at Mark Sensen's site. In that image the field of the flag has a white diagonal stripe with a red lower field and black upper field. Both Flagmaster [1] and the Flag Bulletin [2] reported a green diagonal stripe. The poster Flags of Paradise [3] also has a green diagonal stripe but shows the upper field as blue. The upper field is black according to both Flagmaster and the Flag Bulletin. All my sources agree that the stars in the upper field are white. Can anyone help me out with the correct colours of the diagonal stripe and the upper fly triangular field?

Sources: [1] Provincial Flags of Papua New Guinea, Flagmaster, No. 40, 1983; [2] Wolfgang G. Jilek, Symbols in New Guinea - Tribal, Colonial, National, and Provincial, The Flag Bulletin, No. 130, 1989, pp. 190-223; [3] Flags of Paradise (poster), Vexventures, 1996.

Jan Oskar Engene, 12 October 1998

My source was Flaggenmitteilungen no. 96, March 1984. I checked it and saw I made an error. Indeed the diagonal stripe should be green. The upper field is indicated "N" (noir), so it is black. The [emblem] description says:

Embleme central á fond blanc, Cercle rouge bordé d'accolades alternées noires et blue clair. Quatre motifs noirs, blue clair et blans et rectangle rouge au centre. Au milieu á gauche masque noir, reflets gris-bleu. Yeux blanc á ovals blue ciel. A droite masque dessine en blue clair, yeux entourn es d'ovals blue clair et rouges. Décors á la base en forme de plumes noires. Le tout entourné d'accolades rouges et noires.

Mark Sensen, 12 October 1998

I have a copy of handwritten notes sent by Lucien Philippe to a German-speaking magazine, probably Flaggenmitteilungen. The colours indicated in his East New Britain drawing are: black upper field and green diagonal stripe. The mask in the central design is black with "blue-grey shades".

Thanh-Tâm Lê, 12 October 1998

So its seems clear that the colour of the vertical stripe is green. As for the colour of the upper fly field, I am still in doubt. The most recent source, the Flags of Paradise poster, has the upper field as blue, whereas all the other, older, sources agree that it is black. Is there a chance that the flag may have been chan