information:extraction, structural:scholar_edition
Cultural significance

The frigate bird appears on the national Flag of Kiribati. The design is based on its former colonial Gilbert and Ellice Islands coat of arms. The bird also appears on the flag of Barbuda, and is the national bird of Antigua and Barbuda.

There are anecdotal reports of tame frigatebirds being kept across Polynesia and Micronesia in the Pacific. A bird that had come from one island and had been taken elsewhere could be reliably trusted to return to its original home, hence would be used as a speedy way to relay a message there. There is evidence of this practice taking place in the Gilbert Islands and Tuvalu.

The great frigatebird was venerated by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island; carvings of the birdman Tangata manu depict him with the characteristic hooked beak and throat pouch. Its incorporation into local ceremonies suggests that the now-vanished species was extant there between the 1800s and 1860s.

Maritime folklore around the time of European contact with the Americas held that frigatebirds were birds of good omen as their presence meant land was near.