Anhinga

Joe Liles, standing next to the cupola on top of Watts Hall.

Anhinga

1977

This offset lithography print features the Anhinga commonly known as the snakebird. Its oily feathers allow it to swim under the water to catch fish to eat. When it swims on top of the water, only its curved neck and head come out of the water, making it look like a snake with a beak! The Anhinga is regarded as the Spirit Bird of the Native American Church. I did a pen-and-ink drawing of this bird, drying its wings while sitting on a cypress tree branch with Spanish moss. Out of the Anhinga's mouth comes a night sky with a crescent moon and the image of the owl. Many people are superstitious about the owl. They think that the owl brings a forewarning of impending death. The Native people I worked with in the Great Lakes area regarded the owl as a powerful spiritual being that lived in an opposite world to us. We are most active during the day, the owl at night. The physical world to many traditional Native people is represented by the day, the spiritual world by the night. These traditional people believed that, because of the owl’s life in the nighttime, it was a creature of profound spiritual knowledge. The owl knows things before we ever do. The owl knows of deaths that are coming, but also knows of births that are coming. The owl knows everything. It should be respected, but not feared.