A poor fisherman went out in his boat to catch what he could to support his family. A lazy pelican who hated the effort of searching for and catching fish flew over the poor fisherman’s boat and saw the small pile of the fisherman’s catch for the day. As the fisherman started to guide his boat back to shore, the pelican dived down and stole a fish out of the pile. The fisherman shooed the pelican away. The pelican flew up into the air, waited until the fisherman was not looking, and dived down again to steal another fish. The pelican kept this up, stealing more and more fish. The pelican’s thefts depleted so much of the fisherman’s meager catch that he did not have enough to both feed his family and sell fish at the market for money to buy other necessities.

The fisherman kept a lifelike wood carving of a fish stow­ed in his boat as a good luck charm. He knew that his success really depended mostly on his own hard work, but his father and grandfather had carried the wooden fish with them every day when they went out to sea, and so he brought it with him to continue the tradition. Seeking solace, he took out the wooden fish and held it, despairing the meager remnants of his catch. If ever he needed luck, he thought, it was then. He then set down the wooden fish and started guiding his boat again back to shore.

The pelican, still circling overhead, saw the wooden fish. The fish looked real, and it was larger than the rest. Greedily, he swooped down and plucked it up in his beak. He tried to swallow it as he flew back into the air, but the fish caught in his throat. The pelican fell down to the water’s surface, choking. The wooden fish was firmly lodged in his throat, and he could not get it out. He expended much effort struggling to get the fish out of his throat—far more than he would have spent just working to catch his own fish. But, his efforts were in vain. The pelican soon choked to death. The fisherman used his net to get the pelican. He returned to shore with his wooden fish retrieved from the pelican’s throat, a small pile of fish to sell, and a pelican for his family to eat.

The pelican died because it failed to learn the simple lesson that each must work for his own sustenance, rather than living off the labors of others. The fisherman and his family did not go hungry that night because the fisherman had learned to value tradition, even though he could not initially recognize its purpose.