Full Disclosure: I am not Indigenous or from New Zealand. I actively encourage those who are Indigenous to give your opinion especially if you are from New Zealand. I am just an amateur flag enthusiast :)I have a suggestion for an addition to the free New Zealand set! I know incorporating Indigenous flags is a tall ask, especially since we don't even have a full set of national flags (which would be a mountain of effort in itself), but I feel adding the
Tino Rangatiratanga Flag (otherwise known as the Māori flag) alongside the New Zealand flag would be really cool, especially since The Manatū Taonga Ministry of Culture and Heritage published
guidelines describing the appropriate way to fly the Māori flag in relation to the New Zealand flag. For those who have never seen the flag I highly recommend checking out the links above because it is definitely striking.
For those who worry that this might constitute some kind of favoritism I don't think this should be considered an issue since the site is based in New Zealand. There is already a
free pack centered entirely on New Zealand, which includes a New Zealand flag bigger than any other
national flag. And to be clear I do not think this is a bad thing! It's 100% okay to be proud of your country and its a really cute idea for a free pack.
TLDR: The end result I want to see the most is an update to the pack with an equal number of Tino Rangatiratanga flags, to create a pack that "expresses a spirit of mutual respect and nationhood" (quote taken from the
Principles of flying the national Māori flag section of The Manatū Taonga Ministry of Culture and Heritage site). Obviously i'd be overjoyed if we ended up receiving more Indigenous flags, but I feel that this could be a really meaningful first step in providing Indigenous representation on Chicken Smoothie
To finish this off I hope it's appropriate to boost a few relevant suggestions. If this is not the place mods please edit my post. I'm pretty new at using forums so I apologize for the way I'm linking them (please let me know if there is a better way). Here is a suggestion to add a stamp that simply states
Indigenous. And here is a suggestion to include stamps catered towards speakers of specific
Native languages.
I actively encourage Indigenous folks to provide input ESPECIALLY Māori