Glen Duncan shows the Louisiana flag, which he helped research and design, at Tuesday's Berwick Town Council meeting. Three red drops, representing blood, appear on the pelican's breast.
The Review/Bill Decker
Berwick gets new state flag with a touch of pelican lore
BERWICK – Louisiana has had a new state flag, technically at least, for 13 years. Now Berwick has a new state flag, too.
Glen Duncan of Quality Engineers and Surveying of Denham Springs appeared Tuesday before the Berwick Town Council not as an engineer, but as a literal flag-bearer. He gave the council a Louisiana flag with the familiar blue background, the slogan “Union Justice Confidence” and the white pelican.
On the pelican’s breast are three red drops, representing blood. And thereby hangs a tale.
According to a booklet prepared by Duncan, the blood drops come from pelican lore. A mother pelican is, or was, believed to tear her breast so that her young could feed on the blood. And the image seems to have appeared somewhere in the long and murky history of Louisiana flags.
The self-sacrifice, called "vulning," doesn't seem to be based on actual pelican behavior. But it makes a compelling symbol of motherly love and selflessness.
In 2005, a Houma eighth-grader named David Louviere indulged his interest in flags by looking into the state banner of Louisiana. Working on a social studies project, Louviere found an old flag showing a pelican with four drops of blood on the breast.
In October that year, Louviere wrote to then state Rep. Damon Baldone of Houma to request some specificity about what the flag should look like. That went nowhere until the following February, when Baldone relented and introduced a bill requiring the state flag to display the three drops of blood, the number Louviere decided was historically correct.
In that post-Katrina time, the bill, which embraced that symbol of sacrifice, passed both chambers and was signed into law by Gov. Katherine Blanco.
Later still, Duncan saw a state flag with an unbloodied pelican, and documented at least 10 different versions of the state flag flying over Baton Rouge. He researched the history and connected with artist Curtis J. Vann Jr. They presented a design to then-Secretary of State Jay Dardenne in 2010.
In November that year, Dardenne was sworn in as lieutenant governor, and at the old State Capitol he “offered the citizens of Louisiana their new flag and seal, the first to be exactly specified an captured in digital files for reproduction.”