Seeing an albino animal
Seeing an albino animal is rare, and the rarity changes how people treat it: white elephants were sacred in Burma and the white buffalo was sacred to the Dakota. The same creature in its usual color might pass unnoticed.
What it may mean
Put a brown raccoon and a white one side by side and people react completely differently. One is a pest at the trash cans; the other is photographed, named and discussed for weeks. Nothing about the animal's habits has changed, only its color. Across history, rare white animals have carried meanings far heavier than any creature could choose: the sacred white elephants of Burma, the white buffalo of the Dakota, the white hart that showed the Franks a ford. People who are the only one of their kind in a room know the feeling: the first in a family to go to college, the one woman on the crew, the newcomer from far away, suddenly expected to stand for everyone like them. An albino animal crossing your path can make you notice when you turn a person into a symbol, and when others do it to you.
Depending on how you saw it
Pink eyes or dark eyes
A truly albino animal has pink or red eyes, because without pigment the blood vessels show through. A white animal with dark eyes is most likely leucistic, missing color in its coat but not in its eyes. Where have you lumped two different things together because they looked alike at first?
A white bird among the flock
A white sparrow or robin among ordinary ones stands out at once. Old lore recorded in 1903 counted a white sparrow, or any albino, as a fortunate sight. Hawks spot pale birds easily, and the rest of the flock goes on as usual. How does a group you belong to treat the one who stands out?
A white raccoon or skunk at night
Pale mammals turn up now and then in yards, often caught on a trail camera or in headlights. People who have one nearby often watch for it every night. How does a nightly sighting change the way you feel about your own street?
Why it happens in nature
Albinism is an inherited lack of melanin, the main dark pigment, so the fur or feathers are white and the eyes look pink or red. Leucism is a different condition that removes color from the coat but leaves the eyes dark. Both are rare in the wild, partly because pale animals are easy for predators to see, and true albinos often have weak eyesight.
What folk beliefs say
Burma (Myanmar)
The white elephant was revered throughout the East, according to a 1903 collection; in Burma it was sacred, the representative of a god and a source of good fortune, and the monarch was called the king of the white elephants.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 1083. View the page
Dakota people (Great Plains)
The same collection compares the white bull Apis of ancient Egypt with the sacred white buffalo of the Dakota, which was believed to hold supernatural power.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 1082. View the page
Franks (early France)
Because a white hart showed the Franks the ford over the river Vienne, the same collection says, they considered such animals fortunate to own.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 613. View the page
To reflect on
When have you, or someone near you, been treated as a symbol rather than as a person?