The shield
of the Royal Palm
 Our nation has not had more than a shield,
although the current one presents slight modifications that
makes it different from the one created in 1849 by Miguel
Teurbe Tolón for request of Narciso López.
The shield is the symbol of the nation, which
is formed by two arches of equal circles that cut themselves
facing the concavity each other. It is divided until the two
thirds of its height, where a horizontal line cuts it. Three
spaces or quarters compose it. The upper represents a sea to
whose sides, right and left, there are two capes or headlands,
one in front of the other, between which, closing the strait
that they form, a solid key, with the bar downwards
extinguishes from left to right. At the background a rising
sun spreads its rays to the whole sky of the landscape.
In the quarter on the right inferior space
there are five bands, located alternatingly, of the same
width, deep blue and white, all inclined from left to
right.
In the quarter on the left inferior space
figures a landscape that represents a valley, where a royal
palm rises with the button of its central leaf to the highest
top, rising rightly, having at the bottom, in perspective, two
mountains and slight cloud effects.
The shield is supported by a sheaf of sticks
which inferior end, united by a narrow red band, stands out
below the vertex of the ogive. Upwards it stands out for the
central part of the shield head, being in this end, the sheaf
of sticks united by the narrow red circular band. The crown of
the sheaf of sticks is covered by a red Phrygian cap turned
toward the right, which is sustained by one of the sticks that
stands out lightly. The cap has a white five tips star in its
central part; one of the tips is guided up.
There are two branches that fringe the
shield, one of laurel to the left and another of oak to the
right, that intersect in the inferior end of the shield,
behind the sheaf of sticks. The branches don’t exceed the
arches of the shield.
Its parts also have certain patriotic
meaning:
It represents the geographical and politic
importance of Cuba by means of a key that closed the entrance
of the Gulf of Mexico, placed transversally between the
peninsulas of Florida and Yucatan.
The rising sun spreading twelve beams of
light means the incipient republic. For the birth of this
republic then, infinity of Cuban gave their blood. For its
bloom and freedom the best sons of Cuba have given their lives
later.
The inferior right quarter is allusive to the
stripes of the Cuban flag and it has the same significance of
that one.
The contiguous left quarter represents a
typical Cuban landscape, where a royal palm rises. It
represents the freedom and independence of the young Cuban
republic, symbol of the luxuriance and feracity of its
privileged land, as well as it is the most useful of Cuban
trees.
The sheaf of eleven visible sticks serves as
support to the shield, uniformly distributed, that symbolize
the union of the Cubans in the fight for freedom.
The Phrygian cap that crowns the sheaf of
sticks means the freedom, while the red color means the blood
that would spill and that has spilled out to fulfill
freedom.
The oak branches at the right and laurel at
the left means the strength and the victory.
The Cuban national shield, along our history,
has been good to complete official documents, so much of the
Government of the Republic of Cuba in Weapons, in the War of
the Ten Years, in the War of the 95, as well as of the current
Socialist State of Cuba.
National hymn
Run to the combat, Bayameses,
that the
Homeland contemplates you proud.
Don't fear a glorious
death
cause to die for the homeland is to
live!
To
live in chains is to live
disgrace in insult and
sunk.
Listen the sound of the trumpet,
Run to the
weapons, brave men!
 Our National Hymn was born on August of 1867
and it is indissolubly related with the process of genesis of
the first liberating war of Cuba.
On August 13, 1867, several revolutionaries,
gathered at the writer, musician and revolutionary Perucho
Figueredo´s office, debated important plans of the imminent
rising against the power of Spain. There Perucho was asked to
compose our hymn. In the dawn of August 14, 1867, Perucho
Figueredo composed the stanzas of the Hymn of Bayamo.
Our National Hymn was born. It was called La
Bayamesa by two reasons: with the objective of evoking the
Marsellesa, a hymn born in Marseilles, France, which had
become symbol of rebelliousness for all the oppressed ones and
also because it was born in our homeland, in the city of
Bayamo.
Later on the orchestration was asked to the
musician Manuel Muñoz Cedeño who led the orchestra of the
city, on May 8, 1868. Days later a group of patriots listened
to the performance of the notes of the Cuban national hymn for
the first time. Perucho decided to take advantage of the next
celebration of the traditional religious festivities in
Bayamo, to give to know in public the melody of the hymn.
This way, at the main church of Bayamo, in a
solemn Te Déum for the festivities of the Corpus Christie, on
Thursday 11 of June 1868 and before the concurrence of
personalities and people, our hymn made its début.
At the start of warlike struggle on October
10th, 1868, after the failure of Yara, the mambí leadership
determined to seize Bayamo. This was considered the most
strategic place of the province for the first sure blow for
the Revolution to the Spanish forces. On October18 at seven in
the morning it began the seizure of Bayamo that lasted three
days, making the first victory possible. The capitulation was
signed at eleven in the evening of October 20, 1868 and it
marked the first victory of the mambí army for the history of
our Homeland.
It was there where Perucho Figueredo,
harassed by the tumult that requested with big screams the
letter of our hymn, took out pencil and paper from his pocket.
He crossed a leg over the saddle of his steed and emptied in
the molds of the stanza the ardent melody of its verses. Soon,
the copy flew from to hand, alternately with the music and the
hymn to the Homeland sprang at the same time from a hundred
lips.
This way, on October 20, 1868, in the first
free city of Cuba, the birth of our national hymn was
completed.
The flag of the solitary star
 Our national ensign is the one of the red
triangle and the solitary star; the one created by Narciso
López in 1849.
The symbolism of our national ensign is the
following:
The triangle, for its form, is the clear
allusion to the famous triptych of the French Revolution of
"freedom", "equality" and "fraternity". Its red color
represents the unit of the Cubans, given by the blood poured
in the common cause of making to Cuba free.
The solitary star, situated in the red
triangle, would be the light that would illuminate the
difficult and dark road toward the freedom and independence of
the Cubans.
The three blue stripes represented the
departments in which the Island was divided: West, Center and
East, and at the same time, for the color, it is indicative of
the altruistic aspirations of the Cubans of being free.
The white fringes mean the purity, the virtue
of the Cuban people.
The flag of the solitary star has meant and
it means a lot for each Cuban. Our national ensign has
preceded the main combats for our sovereignty and for the
construction of the new socialist society. It was hoisted by
the mambises who paid it with their blood in the battle
fields, it was protected from a hand over porpouse of the
mismanagements during the pseudo republic, and nowadays, it
waves victorious proclaiming to the world the socialist
character of our Revolution.
Butterfly
 The white Butterfly is the national flower of
Cuba, her scientific name is Hedychium coronarium, from the
Zingiberaceas family. It is native of Vietnam.
It became the symbol of the Cuban flora
because it was used as a key among the women that participated
in the independence wars of the XIX century.
It owes its name because of its similar form
to a butterfly. It has an exquisite perfume.
There are varieties in different colors. They
are used in fiancés' bouquets, altars and offers to the dead.
It is very abundant in the rainy season.
Royal palm
 The Royal palm (regal Roystonea) or Royal
Palm of Cuba is the distinctive tree of the country. It
appears in the national shield, it’s tall, it flourishes and
fructifies the whole year.
Its leaves have the form of big feathers.
Some 12 species are recognized, distributed from the south of
Florida and the Antilles islands up to Venezuela. There is a
great abundance of them and those of this gender are
considered the most beautiful among all the varieties.
The Royal palm is only one among the 70
species of indigenous palms that beautify the Cuban landscape.
If we add about 20 subspecies and keep in mind others that
have not been described still, we can affirm that the biggest
of the Antilles has more than one hundred native palms and
more than 90 percent are endemic from the national
territory.
It is one of the most useful plants for the
man. Its joints or leaves are good to cover the tobacco; the
trunk provides boards for houses, canals, corrals, furniture
and so forth. As a whole, it is used as bridges over streams
and rivers; from the yaguas (enlarged base of the leaves)
packages are made to pack tobacco in branch; the farmers use
it to make the walls of their houses with its boards; the
flowers give nectar to the bees.
The pick and the tender heart (sprout) serve
as food being used in soups and salads. The mambises went many
times to that food. The palmiche bunch give oil (from the
seeds) to feed pigs. They substitute the coffee when they are
toasted. The remaining portion that sustains the seeds is used
in the country like broom to sweep earth floors.
Tocororo
 With its beautiful white plumage in the
chest, red and blue in the rest of the body, the colors of the
Cuban flag, the Tocororo is considered the national bird of
Cuba.
Its wings have white strips. The tail shows a
peculiar aspect, as if it were cut with scissors. This bird
presents feathers and blackish in the superior jaw. The eyes
are vermilion. The bird is medium size (27 centimeters)
It cannot live in captivity, since it dies in
a short time from being captive. Its scientific name is
(Priotelus temnurus) and it has only been seen in the Cuban
forests. It builds the nest in the holes of the trees or palms
and it feeds with insects hunted during the flight.
The Cuban aboriginal population called it
guatini, name that is still given in some regions of
the oriental province. It is also known as tocororo or
tocoloro.
It inhabits in almost all the Cuban
provinces, in flat areas of Pinar del Río and in the Sierra
Maestra. (National Symbols, Periodico 26, Las Tunas, Cuba)
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