image by Kjell Roll Elgsaas, 14 December 1997
Last modified: 2020-12-26 by rob raeside
Keywords: qulla suyu | aymara |
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image by Kjell Roll Elgsaas, 14 December 1997
See also:
External sites:
Flag which have squares in the rainbow colors instead of stripes
is for Kollasuyo.
Laila Holtet
(of tawantinsuyu.com),
09 Jul 2001
This is the flag of Qullasuyu, one of the Inca
“quarters”.
António Martins, 17 July 2004
The square flag with seven squared checkers colored diagonally from top
hoist to bottom fly in white, yellow, orange, red, violet, blue and green
(the complete diagonal being white) is widely used Inca-descent identity
manifestations, much more than any of the other three
(with complete diagonals in yellow, red, and green).
António Martins, 11 July 2004
See also:
Bolivia does correspond more or less to
Qullasuyu, so an identification with the local Inca flag with the whole
Empire/community is understandable.
António Martins, 20 December 2005
The winner of today’s Bolivian presidential election is Evo Morales
of the Movimento al Socialismo — MAS,
who will be the first Indian president of Bolivia. Morales was shown at the
election party with the Bolivian flag and the
“Bolivian
Indian flag” [i.e., the 7×7 white-diagonal square flag]
behind him.
J. Patrick Fischer, 19 December 2005
The current Head of State of Bolivia, Evo Morales,
uses the flag of the Inca Empire [the Qulla Suyu flag] as
a State flag on most official events.
Esteban Rivera, 31 July 2016
These four 7×7 squares square flags are hard
to tell apart at a distance, their interchangeable use is likely: An
example of this in
this
Morales/MAS banner, where a Kuntisuyu flag (yellow
diagonal) is used, blending smartly with a Bolivian
national flag.
António Martins, 20 December 2005
This square flag, purported to be that of the Aymara people, is
popular with native South American ethnic independence
movements, sometimes referred to as indigenous, or indigenismo
movements. It is also sometimes called the Whipala of Qulla
Suyu (Estandarte del Collasuyo) and has been called a
dual “official” flag of Bolivia since
2009. (Sources:
Katari.org:
Tawantinsuyu,
Ask.com: Wiphala,
Katari.org:
Wiphala)
Pete Loeser, 19 May 2014
The Aymara are a native American tribe that live in the Andes regions
of South America. It is estimated that over 2 million still live in
their ancestral homelands. They have lived in the region for centuries.
They were conquered by the Inca in the late 1600s, and then the Spanish
in the 1700s. After the Wars of Independence, their lands became part of
Bolivia, Peru, and later Chile. (Sources:
Katari.org:
Tawantinsuyu,
Ask.com: Wiphala,
Katari.org:
Wiphala)
Pete Loeser, 19 May 2014
This
webpage [mmfXX] shows the
7×7-chequered white-yellow-orange-red-purple-blue-green
flag (with white “diagonal”) and calls it the Emblema
Nacional del Pusinsuyo = Tawantinsuyo —
which contradicts all other sources.
António Martins, 11 July 2004
The 1994 Flags of Aspirant Peoples chart
[eba94], shows as flag No. 198
(«Tawantinsuyo Liberation Front») the chequered flag, which at
the time was believed to be used in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Ralph Bartlett, 18 August 2005
It is noteworthy that, in Bolivia, the 7×7 squares
square flag with white squares (Qullasuyu quarter) is seen more often
(than the other three), apparently standing for the
whole of native andeans (Quechua and
Aymara), not for a specific quarter.
António Martins, 20 December 2005
On a
page
that reports and illustrates (by means of photos) the hoisting of the
Qullasuyu Inca regional flag in a Buenos Aires
school, after a field trip to the Aymaras in Jujuy,
northwestern Argentina, aiming to educate the students (non-Indians) about
the nature of native/conqueror relationship in South America and to avert
discrimination, the Qullasuyu Inca regional flag is named «LA
WIPHALA, el emblema de los aborígenes andinos» —
note that the Tawantisuyu territory in Argentina is
within the Qullasuyu “quarter” (the southern quadrant).
António Martins, 11 July 2004
Mapuche do use the square rainbow Whipala
flag as a kind of “symbol of Native peoples from South America”.
The whipala flag is a symbol associated with the Inca
Empire. The wiphala flag has become a kind of general symbol used by
native American people in South America. (However this present day use is
the opposit of the original relations between the Inca Empire and its
neighbors.) In Argentina the wiphala flag is usually used by northern
native peoples.
Francisco Gregoric, 17 July 2004
See also:
This Kara Chukiwanka’s article
[qch9X] quotes also an interesting report
(referenced as «Razzini: 193» with no bibl. ref.), by
researchers Portugal Zamora and Ibarra Grasso (apparently bona fide
archeologists / historians), 1957: (…)« parecido con
la bandera del Kollasuyu que esta compuesta por una serie de cuadrilateros,
de distintos colores, muy semejante en su composición gráfica
a un tablero de ajedrez. En aymara o Kolla, se llama
Wip’ala».
This seems to describe the chakana symbol
with moon ("◐") on the center, and
compares it to the checkered Kollasuyu flag (thus reported as
common place already in 1957).
António Martins, 03 June 2008
An article [nsb0X] (Bruno Serrano Navarro: “Bandera y emblema de las >
culturas andinas” (=in English: “Flag and emblem of the Andean > cultures”)
Revista Serindígena (2005?), quoted by Jaume Ollé on 29 Jun 2008 and
available archived online
http://patch.tigblog.org:80/post/33568 also states the following:
Durante muchos años la colonia española prohibió la sagrada Whipala que hoy
vuelve a ser reconocida y comprendida a pesar de las eras de persecución y el
intento de borrar su significado. <...>
La Whipala está compuesta de 49
espacios con los siete colores del arco iris. En el centro está atravesada por
una franja de siete cuadrados blancos
(my translation:)
For many
years, the Spanish colony forbid the sacred wiphala, which today is
again recognized and understood in spite of the times of oppression and drive to
erase its meaning.<...>
The wiphala is made of 49 areas with the
seven colors of the rainbow. On the middle it is crossed by a striped with seven
white squares.
António Martins, 27 October 2017
![[flag]](../images/x/xi-q14ch.gif)
image by António Martins, 30 October 2017
On photos (here and
here)
of a MAS (Bolivian party) rally in early 2017,
among a few Bolivian tricolors, many party flags,
and a couple of regular 7×7 yellow-diagonal (Qulla
Suyu) wiphalas, we can see two unusual checkered flags:
This one and a 14×14 square flag with all
four rotations of the Qulla Suyu pattern stitched
together (with the original at top fly), creating a sort of very compact
(lozenge) chakana as outlined by the white
squares (as an extended version of this
one), leaving a 2×2-squares yellow center and four single green
squares at the corners.
It seems to be made of four flags stitched together, probably printed:
not likely these are appliquéd, although it’s also possible. The
result is a pattern that clearly refers to the Qulla Suyu flag and includes
the chakana symbol in kaleidoscopic superimposition/stacking —
from an orange-outlined 2+4+4+2-square chakana at the center
outwards to a white-outlined 2+4+6+8+10+12+14+12+10+8+6+4+2-square
chakana.
António Martins, 30 October 2017
