Queen Elizabeth II 25th Anniversary Coronation First Day Cover, Aitutaki postmarked on June 15, 1978.
Aitutaki
Aitutaki is situated in the South Pacific, about 170 miles north of Rarotonga in the southern Cook Islands. The main island, formed by volcanic action, rises to a maximum height of 450 ft., but the other off-shore islets are low-lying and composed of coral. The total land area is only 7 sq. miles. The islands' 75 inches of rain each year permit the growth of oranges, bananas, tomatoes and copra and their export from the main settlement, Arutunga.
This issue by Aitutaki consists of three designs, each with face value $1. The central design consists of a formal portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, that on the left the heraldic 'Yale of Beaufort' and on the right an Aitutaki ancestral carved figure.
$1 — Yale of Beaufort. The yale made its first appearance in English heraldry as a supporter of the arms of Henry IV's son, John, Duke of Bedford. Suggestions as to the reason for his choice include the idea that it was a variant of his mother's Bohun Antelope, and that it was a pun on his earl- dom of Kendal (Kend-eale). The origin of the mythical beast is equally obscure; it appears in bestiaries as an African animal, perhaps based on secondhand reports of North African wild goats, and also occurs in Hindu mythology as the Tali', occasionally depicted as a lion with a snout and horns. As a supporter it passed through the Beaufort family to Henry VII, and it was thus that it came to be used as one of the Queen's Beasts guarding her entrance to Westminster Abbey on Coronation Day, 1953.
$1 — Ancestral Figure. Polynesian ancestors, as in most pre-urban societies, were considered to retain their links with the community after death, and to mediate between the world of the senses and that of the gods, myths and potentiality. Similar figures can be found in Maori art, since the Maoris spread to New Zealand from the Society and southern Cook Islands; and Maori decorative patterns used on statues, beams and tattooed on the body were associated with particular ancestors. The Maoris soon developed a distinctive style of their own, however, based on the scroll, crescent and double spiral rather than on the rectilinear patterns seen in this design.
