A pall is a Y

Y

Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet and represents either a vowel or a consonant in English.-Name:In Latin, Y was named Y Graeca "Greek Y". This was pronounced as I Graeca "Greek I", since Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing , which was not a native sound...

-shaped heraldic charge

Charge (heraldry)

In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...

. An example of a pall placed horizontally (fesswise

Fess

In heraldry, a fess or fesse is a charge on a coat of arms that takes the form of a band running horizontally across the centre of the shield. Writers disagree in how much of the shield's surface is to be covered by a fess or other ordinary, ranging from one-fifth to one-third...

) is the green portion of the Flag of South Africa

Flag of South Africa

The current flag of the Republic of South Africa was adopted on 27 April 1994, at the beginning of the 1994 general election, to replace the flag that had been used since 1928...

.

A pall that stops short of the shield's edges and that has pointed ends to its three limbs is called a shakefork, although some heraldic sources do not make a distinction between a pall and a shakefork.

A pall on a shield may indicate a connection with the clergy, particularly archbishoprics

Archbishop

An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...

, although in these cases the pall's lower limb usually stops short of the bottom of the shield and is fringed. Such a pall is often called an ecclesiastical pall or pallium

Pallium

The pallium is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Roman Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the Pope, but for many centuries bestowed by him on metropolitans and primates as a symbol of the jurisdiction delegated to them by the Holy See. In that context it has always remained unambiguously...

. This is in reference to the ecclesiastical vestment from which this heraldic charge derives.