810-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 7, 2002
Kids , Korner
Talking Turkey: Myth And Truth About The All-American Bird
WOOSTER. Ohio Today,
most of us think of turkeys only
as a delicious Thanksgiving meal.
But there was a time when the
snooded-and-wattled creatures
soared above the dinner table to
play the role of deities.
Long before becoming an in
dispensable part of the Thanks
giving tradition and the holiday’s
most recognizable symbol, tur
keys had amassed a popularity
and significance of mythological
proportions among the many and
diverse original cultures of North
and Central America.
In fact, the Mayas of southern
Mexico and northern Central
America were the first to domes
ticate the colorful bird some
1,800 years before the Pilgrims
had a taste of it at Plymouth.
Turkeys were served to the
Mayan elite and were also used
in ceremonies for healing, plant
ing and praying for rain.
The Aztecs of central Mexico
also raised turkeys. The bird was
held in such high esteem that a
religious festival in its honor took
place every two hundred days.
On the day of the celebration,
people arose before dawn to pave
the streets with the collected
shells of turkey chicks that had
hatched during that period of
time.
Turkey (huaxolotl in the Na
hualt language) was also a hot
buy at the markets of Tenochtit
lan, capital of the Aztec Empire.
Franciscan missionary Toribio de
Benavente Motolina, in his Histo
ry of the Indians of New Spain,
tells us that in the suburban mar
ket of Tepeyacac alone, over
8,000 turkeys were sold every five
days. The royalty also appreciat
ed the turkey’s succulent meat
—one hundred turkeys were sent
daily to the court of the poet-king
Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco, a
nearby metropolis.
In the early 16th century,
along with tomatoes, peppers, po
tatoes, chocolate and com, tur
keys were loaded onto Spanish
galleons and carried back to Eu
rope. The king of Spain decreed
that every returning ship was to
bring back 10 turkeys, five male
and five female. In what may
have been the fastest-rising gas
tronomical popularity of all New
World products, turkey quickly
replaced the stringy European
peacock on banquet tables.
Much like the Thanksgiving
account, the history and mythol
ogy of the turkey are full of fasci
nating tales and plenty of confu
sion. Here’s a platterfull:
What’s in a name is not what’s
on the plate
The turkey (Meleagris gallopa
vo) bears names, both common
and scientific, that have nothing
to do with its American origin.
Turkeys didn’t come from
Turkey. Nonetheless, they were
given the name of this Eurasian
country because they were at first
confused with the guinea fowl,
once believed to have originated
in Turkish territory. Some
sources claim that Columbus de
cided to call the birds tuka,
which was the word for peacock
in the language of India. Still,
others say that the name turkey
came from Native Americans
who called the birds firkee, which
sounds like turkey, or from tha
The turkey is a respectable bird, a true original native of America, Ben Franklin once
wrote to his daughter. “He is besides, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage,
and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume
to invade his farmyard with a red coat on.” Photo by Michele Kunjappu, staff writer.
sound turkeys make when they
are afraid —‘turk, turk, turk.”
The scientists who named the
turkey didn’t get it right, either,
but added some more mythology
into the stuffing mix. The genus
name, Meleagris, comes from a
Latin word for guinea fowl and
from the Greek name Meleager,
hero of the Caledonian boar hunt
in Greek mythology. The species
name, gallopavo, is made up of
the Latin words for a cock (gal
lus) and a peafowl (pavo), mean
ing a chicken-like peafowl or
guinea fowl.
Pavo is the “official” name of
turkey in Spanish-speaking coun
tries, but most folks still prefer
indigenous names such as guajo
lote, totole, chompipe and chun
to. Another type of turkey, the
ocellated turkey (Agriocharis
ocellata), still roams wild in the
Yucatan Peninsula and Guate
mala. The Mayas used to call it
cutz.
Blessed bird of abundance
Among Native North Ameri
cans, the turkey has a long histo
ry of association with spirituality
and the honoring of the Earth
Mother. It’s a symbol of all the
blessings that the Earth contains,
along with the ability to use them
to their greatest advantage.
Turkeys have an intricate my
thology among the early inhabit
ants of the United States and
Canada. Among other things,
they helped create the world and
showed humans how to raise
corn and fight off evil spirits. The
gobbler is shown outsmarting the
owl (a common representation of
death and the underworld) and
challenging the powerful eagle in
combat.
Some stories tell how Indian
shamans would turn themselves
into turkeys and prowl around
other villages. In Hopi creation
myths, a male turkey was the
first bird to try to raise the sun in
the sky —that’s how he burnt his
head, which remained bald for
posterity.
There is also the popular Zuni
tale of the Turkey Girl. In it, a
ragged turkey herder hears that a
Dance of the Sacred Bird is to be
held in a nearby village. Her
avian friends use their magic to
turn her clothes into splendid
garments, hawk up silver and
jewelry they had collected in
their crops for years, and send
her off —charging her to return
before sunset or prove herself
“mean of spirit.”
As an animal totem, the turkey
is called the “giveaway eagle” or
the “life giver.” Thus, it is associ
ated with shared blessings, har
vest, fertility, grounding and self
sacrifice.
Mesoamerican god of grace
Among the ancient cultures of
Mesoamerica —which comprises
modern-day Mexico and most of
Central America— the turkey oc
cupied a place of honor.
It was, first of all, the most
common embodiment of the
Aztec god Tezcatlipoca —a pow
erful warrior, magician and di
viner who saw prophetic visions
in his mirror of obsidian, from
which his name (which means
“smoking mirror 1 ) was derived.
Tezcatlipoca is typically re
garded as a dark and sinister
god. However, when the deity
manifested himself as Chalchiuh
totolin (‘the jeweled turkey 1 ), he
conferred good fortune upon peo
ple. In Christian terms, Chal
chiutotolin’s powers can be seen
as a type of grace. Although Tez
catlipoca could tempt humans
into self-destruction, when he as
sumed his turkey form he could
also cleanse them of contami
nation, absolve them of guilt, and
mitigate their otherwise inexor
able calender-based fate. No
other god could perform this last
function.
To the Aztecs, the deified bird
also resided over ritual self-mor
tification. The ornament he wore
over the beak was emblematic of
blood sacrifice and the head and
neck skin suggested evisceration.
The turkey was a walking sacri
fice, whose rituals could be cop
ied by humans.
The turkey was also a repre
sentation of the Sun God, which
takes on different disguises as he
travels daily from the east to the
west. It has been observed that
the color of a turkey’s wattle
darkens from morning till noon,
then lightens as the sun sinks to
ward the western horizon.
Just like in North America,
turkeys were associated with fer
tility among the Mesoamericans.
When describing the animal in
his General History of the Things
of New Spain, Spanish mission
ary Bernardino de Sahagn re
ports that “those people who
wish harm on others give them to
eat or drink that beak of flesh
(snood) the bird has over its beak,
which makes them unable to use
the virile member.”
The Mayas also revered the
turkey. In the Temple of Inscrip
tions of the ancient city of Pale
nque (Guatemala), there’s an
image of a sacred turkey, or
“Emerald Fowl,” to which offer
ings of maize paste were made.
Eagle out, turkey in
It’ true that the turkey became
the chosen bird of one of the
United States’ most significant
holidays. However, it’s also true
that it lost the race to becoming
the country’s national symbol of
pride —an honor that went to th«
magnificent bald eagle.
In the late 17705, Benjamin
Franklin suggested that the tur
key should be the symbol for the
fledgling United States. He ar
gued that the bald eagle was no
better than a pirate and a fish
eater.
‘The turkey is in comparison a
much more respectable bird, and
withal a true original native of
America,” Franklin wrote in a
letter to his daughter. ‘He is be
sides, though a little vain and
silly, a bird of courage, and
would not hesitate to attack a
Grenadier of the British Guards
who should presume to invade
his farm yard with a red coat
on.”
In the end, the turkey lost to
the bald eagle by a single con
gressional vote.