Thursday, November 24, 2005

WILD Turkey SPIRITUALITY


HAPPY TURKEY DAY, all you North Americans south of the Canadian border. HERE'S an article that says many Native American peoples ...

"...[C]onsidered the turkey a shamanistic medium between the powerful sky spirits and the earth. As birds that seldom flew they were considered to be more closely linked to the earth than other birds yet, with their ability to fly, also on good terms with the sky. In the southwest the dead were wrapped in turkey feather robes for burial, since turkeys were considered as the guides which escorted the departed to the next world."

This article has a few errors, so I wouldn't trust every small detail. But you get the picture: Mr. Gobbler to us today was probably a semi-deity to those who came before us.

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Thnx to radagast89 for the turkey foto
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5 comments:

  1. Anne Johnson9:32 AM

    Woo Hoo! Another wonderful god to add to my pantheon! EXCELLENT!

    Ask anyone who's ever tried to hunt one of those wild turkeys. They are the most difficult prey in the world. So smart and canny. Whole flocks of them used to come into our pasture. We would never dream of shooting one.

    The fact that the Native Americans worshipped so many animals proves to me that they never thought of humans as the be-all and end-all. Frankly, I admire that and think it's a terrific way to view the cosmos.

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  2. Lisa12:54 AM

    I hate that we have this fake holiday created to eat poor turkeys. I celebrate this on the Wiccan harvest days with a clear conscience...

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  3. Athana8:28 AM

    Well, Lisa, it is dismaying that the one bird we kill and eat on one of our most important national holidays, is one of the primary birds the first Americans held sacred -- and did not kill or eat, as I understand it.

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  4. Anonymous12:53 PM

    Let's not forget that the Turkey was almost the National symbol for the USA!

    But we know how that ended up, that bald eagle had to be a showoff and get the title instead. ;-)

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  5. Athana10:15 AM

    Yep, it was ol Ben Franklin who pushed for the turkey. I've heard it was Ben, too, who picked up all the democratic traditions of the Iroquois and put them into the U.S. Constitution.

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