Legendary Love
36”x36” original acrylic on canvas
Bird of Ultimate sacrifice
Growing up in Louisiana I was quite young when I noticed the state flag standing proudly in the corner of the cafeteria, and wondered aloud what that bird was doing. Why is she bleeding? (And what a thing to choose for a flag!)
Apparently, there is a legend that dates back millennia, found in illuminated manuscripts of real and imagined animals tied to Christian allegories, and the story of the sacrificial pelican is one of these.
The legend describes the devoted mother bird piercing her own flesh in order to feed her young brood whenever there was a scarcity of food available. Many of the earliest pelicans depicted were native to the areas surrounding the Nile, where in addition to fish, these birds would catch and eat venomous snakes and young crocodiles— also representing the triumph of good over evil.
Some stories go further and say that if a young hatchling was killed by a snake or other predator, the mother bird would draw blood from herself to cover her chick and resurrect her young by sacrificing herself.
It’s not hard to draw parallel lines from here.
Because of this belief, the pelican became a symbol of charity and self-sacrifice, leading Christians as early as the 2nd century to use the pelican as a symbol of charity and Christ-like devotion in both images and texts.
In the Catholic tradition, this mother bird with her young is referred to as Pelican in Her Piety, with a range of images that include sculptural reliefs found in cathedral corners to the jewelry of Queen Victoria.
©2021 Alexis Castillo
