Seagull & Frigatebird

A large seabird, the frigatebird is the pirate of the sea. It will not only steal food from other birds, but also steal material from nests. The frigatebird tends to be a black and white or black and red color. In Hawaii, the frigatebirds are called Iwa, meaning “thief.” The word is derived from Latin and Greek words that mean “undefended” and “open vessel.” One of those words is Aphra, which could have some connections to Aphrodite.

Researchers believe that ancient Polynesians may have trained and used frigatebirds for communication between the islands and that these could have been 70-80 miles apart.

For the Tairona people of Columbia, the frigatebird represented day, sky and water while the bat, which the silhouette of the frigatebird resembles, represented the night, earth and caves. The frigatebird is also depicted in the Nazca lines, as well as in art of the Solomon Islands and Easter Island. It is thought that these early people may have seen the frigatebird as the descendant or embodiment of an avian ancestor.

The frigatebird is also a similar shape to the birds of Aphrodite-the swallow and swift.

The frigate was also used in Rhodes. Rhodes is home to a Temple of Aphrodite and a famous statue of Aphrodite.

Oro is also the Spanish word for gold and similar to the name of a character in a well-known fictional vampire franchise.

Another seabird that looks like a frigatebird is the seagull. The seagull is interesting, less for mythology and more for the name seagull. This reminds me immediately of the sea people and possibly a branch of the gauls or gales that went to sea. And, similar to the frigatebird meaning “thief” in Hawaiian, to “gull” is to deceive. Cold this mean the Gaels and even Goidel Glass were pretending to be something/someone they weren’t and were, in fact, some type of pirate or “viking” of another culture that stole land, titles and status?

And when considering other contenders for the bird that might have been the black, white, and red crane, there should also be the thought that the bird in question could be extinct as was the case with a recently discovered goose.