The True Story of the Thanksgiving Turkey

Many 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
*** 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.
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