What is a Pelican?

What is a Pelican?

Anyone that SCA Royalty says is one. That's somewhat facetious, but is also deadly true. Royalty can make anyone they want a Pelican, using whatever criteria they want. In a more practical sense however, people know that there is more to being a true peer than the say so of the people who happen to be wearing the Crown at the moment. Traditionally, we say that Royalty do not create a Pelican, but rather, recognize an existing condition upon the advice of the order. Lets look at that existing condition.

SCA people reading this know that one becomes a Pelican because of service. So far, so good. How much service, over how much time, to who, and for what reasons are the hard parts of the discussion. It's a rare person that has only positives in these areas, so there is discussion about how much impact a negative point should have, and for how long it should count against one.

Plus, there is an indefinable attitude, some call it maturity, that Pelicans hope to see in candidates. This gets to the crux of Pelican-ness for me. It's more than doing something that needs to be done when it needs doing, although that is important. It's recognizing that something needs to be done to prevent a problem, or to mitigate an existing problem, and doing something about it before the symptoms are obvious.

Not just that, but doing it in a way that upholds the ideals of the society, and stirs up the minimum possible amount of shit. Such actions can be hard to see or to quantify. The test is whether the SCA is working better around those people. In a sense, this is a test for peerdom in general, since once you see that things are working better, you also have to look to see what specific activities that person is doing, in order to decide which peerage is applicable.

Unfortunately, sometimes a view of a problem runs up against what the local power structure thinks of as the status quo. When the power structure is in charge of deciding who gets talked about in Pelican council, and who gets elevated, we start hearing about "controversial candidates". I always try to remind myself that it's hard to know what is going on from even first hand reports, let alone second or third hand.

I use what I call the jerk or creep test to help sort things out. This test relies on the theory that any one person, or a small number of people can think a person is a jerk or a creep, even if they are a living saint. The status exists, but the sign is going the wrong way. However, if someone is truly a jerk or a creep, they act that way most of the time, to most people. They can't help it, even if they are trying to put on the charm. Such people may think they are solving a problem, but are in fact creating one. It's a tough sell to convince me a jerk or a creep is a Pelican.

That isn't to say that I want only saints to become Pelicans. It's a tough old world out there, and people that get results sometimes leave a few bodies neatly buried. People might be annoyed at them. That's ok, as long as they have a plan, and can explain what they were trying to do, and why this was the best way about it. Once or twice might be luck, but a string of such success indicates competence.

All too often Pelicans turn out to be the referee in the SCA. I note that a majority of the Directors are Pelicans as this is being written. So one of my answers to "what is a Pelican" is, would I trust this person to integrate the way the SCA is played with the rules as they are written, to decide how the SCA ought to be played in the future? Can I trust them to look beyond the politics of a particular place, and look at the bigger picture? Can I believe them when they tell me that a situation is such and such?

There is a view of Pelicans that is less flattering to the SCA at large. If one were to compose a list of the adult supervision for the SCA, that list would very largely be made up of Pelicans. That's just my opinion of course, and it's too bad if it offends you. However, it's an opinion based on over a decade and a half of watching who solved problems, and who created them.

There is another, more widely accepted answer to the question. It's one that I hadn't known the details of until I looked it up for this essay. Hope you enjoy it.

Pelican, common name for the species of a genus of large birds having a long, large, flattened bill, the upper mandible terminated by a strong hook that curves over the tip of the lower one. Beneath the lower mandible, a great pouch of naked skin is appended. The tongue is short and almost rudimentary. The face and throat are naked, the legs short, and the tail rounded. Pelicans may weigh up to 15 kg (33 lb), and the wings may span up to 3 m (10 ft).

Pelicans are widely distributed over most warm regions, frequenting the shores of seas, lakes, and rivers, and feeding chiefly on fish. Pelicans have two distinctive feeding methods. The brown pelican and the larger Peruvian pelican, often considered a subspecies of the brown pelican, plunge-dive from the air into the water for their prey. Most of the other species feed communally, swimming in an open circle in shallow water and driving the fishes into shallower and shallower water, where they snatch the fishes. The pelicans then store the catch in their pouches, from which they can bring it out at leisure either for their own eating or to feed their young. The birds live in large colonies and build crude nests of twigs and branches near a body of water.

The American white pelican, which breeds in the western part of the United States and Canada and winters east to Florida, is distinguished by its black wing tips. The brown and Peruvian pelicans are the only dark-coloured species; their bodies are dark brown and their heads paler. Seasonal changes take place in the colour pattern of the head and neck. There are four mostly whitish species with breeding ranges in southern Eurasia and Africa. One species, the Australian pelican, breeds only in Australia but wanders in winter to New Guinea, New Zealand, and other islands in the southwestern Pacific.

Scientific classification: Pelicans make up the genus Pelecanus and the family Pelecanidae, of the order Pelecaniformes. The brown pelican is classified as Pelecanus occidentalis, the Peruvian pelican as Pelecanus occidentalis thagus, the American white pelican as Pelecanus erythorhynchos,and the Australian pelican as Pelecanus conspicillatus.

Ragnar the Bold doesn't have a well defined persona. Norse, born late 900's, good administrator in a blunt but effective way, likes colourful clothing, especially plaid, and loves silver jewelry, is about as defined as it got.

He has lived in the West Kingdom, then An Tir, and now the Principality of Avacal without having to move out of Montengarde. In addition to several local offices he has served twice as Avacal Seneschal, as An Tir Seneschal, and was on the Board of Directors. He was elevated to the Order of the Pelican in 1991.

Keith Cartmell manages a large database and a web site for the corrosion control team in BP Canada. He is interested in writing, data organization, various kinds of glass work, wood work, stone work, and generally trying to enjoy life in a complicated world. He has lived in Calgary, Alberta for more than 20 years.