![[flag of the Ninilchik Traditional Council, Alaska]](../images/x/xa-ninil.gif)
image by Ben Cahoon, 30 January 2018
Last modified: 2021-04-17 by rick wyatt
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image by Ben Cahoon, 30 January 2018
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My tribal flag (Niqnalchint, modern anglicized name Ninilchik) design from
last year is now official thanks to positive public
feedback in the past year. The governing council decided to make it official and
gave the administration permission to use it as a standard. It's VERY cool
because it means it wasn't pushed to any sort of long referendum style process.
It's already being used in a few more buildings and I have heard it's going to
be used for our team in the next native youth Olympics, a youth/teen multi
sports event for tribes in Alaska and sometimes the Yukon.
This flag is a
symbol for the Ninilchik Tribe that incorporates elements of the tribe’s history
and cultural makeup into a unifying visual identity. Its purpose is to serve as
a national and cultural icon of the Ninilchik people, their traditional
territories, and all friends and allies in today’s towns and neighborhoods who
recognize the Ninilchik tribe’s presence, heritage, and governance as an
integral part of public discourse and direction.
Imagery
The overall image of the flag represents a faceted yellow agate stone reflecting
direct sunlight on an ocean shore, emblematic of the Ninilchik tribe’s waterways
and history. Nudech’ghela, agate in the Dena’ina language, has been collected in
the form of loose stones washed on the region’s shores since the first known
origins of prehistoric Kachemak culture millennia ago. In Dena’ina culture it is
heralded as a sign of luck or good fortune given from sky spirits and tribes and
families continue to collect these stones today. For many children, their first
memories of being at one of the many beaches or tidal flats is being taught
about agates and their significance and how they glow in sunlight, and
prominence of that pastime on the flag is a connection between the past and
future generations.
Colors
The agate is on a dual
field of copper and jade, precious metal and stone iconic of the tribal region.
The joining of these two colors represent the tribe’s history as being a
cultural meeting place for generations and its continuing identity as indigenous
people of mixed heritage connected by a common homeland.
Copper is the warm
wood color of fresh birch bark peeling, which is emblematic of the tribe and the
etymology of the tribe’s name. The name Ninilchik originated from the Dena’ina
name Niqnalchint, meaning “place by Ninilchik river”, which itself is derived
from Niqnalchintnu, meaning “lodge at a river”. The root word in this geographic
name is nichił, a traditional partially subterranean lodge home. In the Dena’ina
language the word is the same word used for freshly peeled birch bark, which
shows the importance of the connection between the concept of home and the
symbol of birch bark being a dynamic material and a home for the living tree
inside.
Jade is the color of the most iconic precious stone in the region and
represents the tribe’s connection to the natural world. It is the color of the
combination of the sky, sea, and forests and its flora, fauna, and marine life.
This color’s aquatic hue also represents the tribe’s position geographically as
the only Déné family culture to have oceanic territories and marine traditions.
The three colors of agate, copper, and jade are all among the distinct colors in
Dena’ina thought and language: agate is neither yellow nor orange, copper is
neither red nor brown, and jade is neither blue nor green. Last of the colors is
cloud white at the center of the flag, representing the traditional creation
story of the land and its people from the cloud of creation.
Shape
By having five sides and points the nudech’ghela itself is
symbolic of five sets of five aspects in the Ninilchik tribe’s heritage and
lands
1. The five main river systems within Ninilchik lands: Ggasilatnu (Kasilof),
Niqnalchintnu (Ninilchik), Taqidnatnu (Deep Creek), K’kaq’atnu (Anchor),
Q’anul’atnu (Fox)
2. The five directions in the Dena’ina directional system
historically used by all tribes in the Outer Inlet dialect area that are based
around the vantage point of Tuyan, also known as the Ninilchik Dome: Yunch’,
Yutsen, Yunit, Yuneq, and Yudut.
3. The five current seats of the tribe’s
governing council.
4. The five major periods of tribal history: Prehistoric
Kachemak origins, early Dena’ina, colonial eras, contemporary tribe, and the
future.
5. The five architectural lines visible from looking inside the
entrance to a nichił: Two along where the ground meets the first walls, two from
where the top walls meets the roof, and the main pole and smoke opening at the
top.
Flag Specifications
Aspect ratio: 2:3
Shaping
and construction: Squared agate pentagon centered on a vertically bisected field
of copper and jade. Pentagon is 1/3 of the flag’s height and roughly 1/4 of the
flag’s width. Pentagon is centrally inset with a white pentagon that is roughly
3/5 the size of the agate pentagon, creating a border of agate of uniform width.
HTML/Hex color codes:
• Agate #FFCC00
• Copper #AA4400
• Jade #008066
• White #FFF FFF
Design drafted on 6/2/20 by Argent Kvasnikoff
Argent Kvasnikoff, 11 April 2021
