Casgliadau Arlein

Small hand-held double-sided Chilean flag.

German Miric Vega, a member of the Communist Party, was elected mayor of Antofagasta, a city in northern Chile, aged 30, and he served two-terms. When the military coup of 1973 overthrew the democratically elected Allende government on 11 September, Miric Vega was arrested. A well known figure in Chile, he was to be shot but instead was sent into internal exile to the southern region of the country, over a thousand miles away. His wife, Gladys Astorga Diaz and five children followed but, as he was forbidden to have a job, they lived in poverty. The Miric Astorga family became political refugees in Swansea in 1977 and brought this small Chilean flag with them. The family left Swansea in the 1980s, some to return to Chile, while some stayed in Britain. Before leaving Swansea, German gave this flag to Paul Elliott, who was active in Chile solidarity movement. Source: Alun Burge (Honorary Research Fellow, Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales, 2023).

The flag is sandwiched between two sticks of wood which are wrapped tightly in twine above and below (as well as further down) to hold the fabric in place. The flag is machine stitched from blue, white and red satin fabric. All three different colour fabrics are folded along the top or bottom edges so even though the flag is double-sided, it is made from only one piece of each colour fabric. The star on the blue square is printed in white. The flag has an edging of a fine rope of blue, white and red silk (?). The end of the rope is left to hang: the end is knotted and there is a length of unwound rope fibre/floss below. The shape of the sticks suggests that lengths of ovolo beading were used. A length of grey and black wool cord with a tassel at front end is fed between the two sticks, around the edge of the banner and back through the sticks on the reverse. A black wool cord is attached to the top of the sticks. At the end of it there is a tassle made of red and grey wool. At the stick-end, the black cord wraps around the stick twice and also wraps around a tassle made of red, black and cream yarn. A length of red wool yarn is also wrapped several times around stick and tassle.