SHADA—Native American For Pelican

Evolution Of  A Name

I purchased Traveller (J-109 #44) in November 2005 an-ticipating I would change the name, but to what? Nothing really stuck until a concept evolved to merge a pelican, Florida and sailing. What do the three have in common? It begins with our honeymoon on Marco Island, Florida. Christine and I admired the pelicans effortlessly “sailing” just above the waves every evening at sunset. Since then, we exchange a pelican at every anniversary—whether a sculpture, jewelry, painting, or figurine—whatever type of  pelican would symbolize the time on Marco Island. After nearly 18 years, we have quite a collection. I felt it only fitting the tradition continue with our J-109 and sailing.

I wanted the association to pelicans but didn’t like any of the Latin or English derivations. I then tried to imagine— if early natives in Florida had been watching pelicans as we had, what would they have called them? Unfortunately, my research found many of the languages weren’t written and names were hard to find. Shada was the only word for pelican I could find in other Native American languages.

Interesting though, in the investigation I did find two references to Shada, pelicans and sailing. Shada is mentioned in Longfellow’s poem “Song of Hiawatha” comparing a pelican to a canoe riding on the water ..."O'er the water floating, flying, something in the hazy distance, something in the mists of morning, loomed and lifted from the water, now seemed floating, now seemed flying, Coming nearer, nearer, nearer...Was it the pelican, the Shada?” And last, in a 1901 book, Birds and Nature  “The White Pelican as it calmly floats on the surface of the water, some distance from the shore, has been mistaken for the sail of a boat as the moist white feathers glisten in the sunshine”.

In the end, Shada became the moniker that merged Marco Island, pelicans, sailing and our new J-109

JWo - 1/07