The True Story of the Thanksgiving TurkeyMany historians claim that turkey was originally domesticated in the Americas and Eurasia had its first taste of the bird on the first Thanksgiving. This is actually patently false, as recent scholarship has shown.
The wild turkey (Predatoris Terriblus) has been found in archaeological digs in Central Asia dating back over 50,000 years. It is believed to have descended from an ancient missing link between dinosaurs and birds known as Magnus Illegitimus Asinus Avis (Big Ass Bastard of a Bird) which grew up to 30 feet in length and whose fossils are found throughout Siberia. It is believed that wild turkeys were first domesticated somewhere in Central Asia around 10,000 years ago, at first to help in hunting other game, as the Eurasian wild turkey was much more aggressive than its current domesticated descendants.
The first written sources for the domesticated turkey come from India, where invading Aryans from Central Asia are believed to have terrified the inhabitants of the Indus Valley with the ferocious birds. Depictions of vicious turkeys eating the eyeballs of their victims appear on cylinder seals throughout Harrapan archaeological sights. Perhaps more will be learned if the writing of this ancient culture is ever deciphered.
Written Hindu sources began mentioning the bird around the 3rd Century B.C.E. The most famous passage is in the Bhagavad Gita, which portrays Siva annihiliating his enemies by transforming himself into a ferocious bird with an odd appenage hanging from his beak. The mistranslation "Behold I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" is actually more like "Behold I am become the terrible bird of your nightmares, the destroyer of smaller birds the world over". The quote became famous when Oppenheimer reportedly mentioned it after the first atomic bomb test. In fact Oppenheimer was referring to the delicious turkey sandwich he had just eaten while awaiting the results of the test.
The turkey was a mythical bird for many nomadic warriors throughout Central Asia. The Osmanli, or Ottoman, Turks revered the bird and were reoportedly guided by a large turkey on their journey from Central Asia to the coasts of Asia Minor in the 12th Century. The legend has it that a giant bird rested upon the shores and spoke "Here shall all have refreshment and gain, and lyeth upon the footstools and couches and watcheth greate sporte." The Ottomans thus became famous for reclining on their couches and footstools, which they named after their royal dynasty.
Europeans on the other hand, feared the ferocious military power of the Turks, and began calling them by the fearsome birds which accompanied their armies, the Turkey. Ottoman sultans reportedly kept large flocks of turkeys which they used to hunt falcons. The Ottoman professional soldiers, the Janissaries, were reported to have huge flocks of heavily trained "Kamikaze turkeys" which flew into enemy firepits the night before the battle, being then roasted and eaten by their enemies, and lulling them into a deep slumber.
Europeans got their first taste of the bird in 1683, when the Ottomans besieged Vienna. When the siege was lifted by Austrian and Polish armies, they plundered the Ottoman camp and captured many of the strange birds. The people of Vienna reportedly ate the bird until they were "stuffed" thus starting a tradition of "stuffed" turkey which continues to this day.
The turkey was brought to the new world in the 18th century by Hungarian turkey herders who sought new lands to develop large ranches, as by this time Central Europe was out of good turkey grazing land. These Hungarian "turkeyboys" had limited success at first, but later immigrants learned to domesticate the still vicious bird and make it more docile, as well as less afraid of wild cranberries. Later American myth gave the origin of the turkey to Native Americans in order to give them something to cover up all the useful things they had stolen from them. Instead of gunpowder and the printing press, inventions of Cahokian and Aztec culture respectively, European historians rewrote the books. Thus Europe takes credit for introducing the printing press to the world, whereas Native Americans get a large bird, now flightless and docile.
Courtesy Mark Hoolihan and the Hoolinet (www.hoolinet.com)
Copyright 2004 Boniface Bugle Productions. All Rights Absurd.
