[NYer]

I've posted about the Pelican of Piety in this blog back in 2012, and Laura Strolia, researcher and author, sent me a couple of excellent articles on the Pelican which I posted.

Appraised at $885,000

The following article is well worth the read. It delves into the transport of relics.

11/4/12 More Revealed on the Pelican in Piety Story from Laura Strolia

Ping!

[Islander7]

That ain’t a pelican.

[livius]

Wonderful! Thanks for this post - the Spanish sent tons (literally) of liturgical and religious ornaments to the Spanish territories, of which Florida was one, and actually the indigenous peoples got so good at making them that the New World actually shipped things back to Spain.

It would be a pelican, btw. “Pie Pelicano” was a phrased used to refer to Our Lord, because in the middle ages, pelicans were thought to feed their young with their own blood by piercing into the chests. This was because pelicans feed their young mouth to mouth and they actually regurgitate the food, but they dip their heads in a way that must have looked to mediaeval naturalists as if they were plunging their beaks into their own breasts. Hence the sacrificial connection.

The pelican was frequently used as a Eucharistic symbol throughout Europe and the New World.