Themes – birds and feathers
To learn more about the arms illustrated, click on the images.
FEATHERED creatures have always featured in heraldry. One of the most famous – and widely copied – devices was the black eagle of the Holy Roman Empire on a gold shield. Although it was the Emperor’s arms, it was also borne by free cities as a mark of their feudal allegiance to the Emperor alone, without any intervening lords. Today that same eagle is still familiar, since it is borne by the German Federal Republic. In this country, it was the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek that adopted an eagle as part of its arms. The eagle was part of the arms as described in the Grondwet (Constitution) of 1858, but did not make its appearance in a drawing of the device until the state’s first postage stamps were issued in 1869. Through most of the republic’s life the eagle faced the wrong side of the shield, but shortly before the South African War this was corrected. When the Transvaal Province adopted the arms of the ZAR in 1951, the eagle was correctly facing the dexter side.
Eagles are also found in the arms of South African educational institutions. When Westering High School adopted a coat of arms, it incorporated a crest which (in terms of heraldic description) was almost identical with that of the ZAR and Transvaal. When the arms were registered, it was shown standing on a pair of bulrushes, diagonally crossed, to ensure that it was unique. And eagles in flight are also found in the arms of a near neighbour, Morningside High School, and of the famous Healdtown Institution.
A falcon appears in a canting role in the arms of St Michael’s Church, Observatory, where it represents the Valkenberg (falcon-mountain) estate, now part of Observatory.
South Africa’s national bird is the blue crane (Anthropoides paradisea), although it is perhaps most familiar from the arms of the Ciskei Republic, in which it formed the crest – the blue crane was also the national bird of that state, and could be seen on its flag.
In 2000, when a new coat of arms was unveiled for South Africa, the secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius) came to prominence, since it now occupied most of the upper half of the device. This bird of newly national importance had, however, long been part of the crest of Roedean School in Johannesburg, where it is shown killing a snake – and is here also shown in its natural grey colouring, rather than the fanciful browns and “golds” of the 2000 device.
The dove has long been a symbol of peace. A word of explanation, however: the word dove is one of two that are applied to wild birds of the family Columbidæ. Doves are, generally speaking, the smaller species of Columbidæ, while pigeons are the the short-tailed species that are larger in size . . . with one exception, namely white-feathered (domesticated) pigeons – which also are called doves. It is the white bird that is the symbol of peace. Doves of peace can be found in the arms of Moregrove Primary School and Cape Recife High School, while an African rock pigeon (Columba guinea) appears as the crest in the arms of the town of Volksrust – an allusion to the nearby hill Majuba, the name of which means “Hill of Doves”.
A dove with a more spiritual connotation is that of the Holy Spirit which appears (in red) in the arms of the Rev Roy Snyman.
All the above birds fly, but South Africa is also one of a number of countries across Africa that are home to the world’s largest flightless bird, the ostrich (Struthio camelus). A running ostrich (an ostrich courant) was adopted as the crest of Grahamstown when it originally devised a coat of arms in 1862, and this was taken over by the town’s boys’ and girls’ public schools, now known as Graeme College and Victoria Girls’ High School. But when Grahamstown obtained a grant of arms in London in 1912, the ostrich (a symbol of the wildlife around the town) was dispensed with, and replaced with a crest incorporating three black ostrich wing plumes. Since these plumes are naturally white, they can only be black if dyed, so they symbolise the ostrich feather industry. Three plumes in different colours feature in the crest of Grahamstown’s Hoërskool P J Olivier. Two white plumes appear on either side of the shield in the arms of Oudtshoorn, the world centre of the ostrich farming and processing industry. Beaufort West, which like Oudtshoorn is in a dry region well suited to ostrich farming, also has an ostrich (this one is statant or standing) for a crest. Another coat of arms incorporating ostrich feathers is that of the Western Cape, where two golden wing plumes (again, dyed feathers) appear on either side of the motto scroll, against the background of the compartment of Table Mountain, on which the supporters stand.
An exotic bird found in a South African coat of arms is the Indian peacock (Pavo cristatus), one of which appears in the arms of the town of Stellenbosch.
Occasionally, coats of arms incorporate feathers that do not belong to a bird at all – usually in the form of wings on some other creature or object. The SA Broadcasting Corporation has a winged torch for its arms, Port Elizabeth man Warren Morris has an angel for his crest, the Diocese of St Mark the Evangelist displays a winged lion, and St Michael’s Church shows the archangel with wings.
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