THE TURKEY WAS AN IMMIGRANT
If the Pilgrims had landed at Independence Rock, about fifty miles southwest of Casper, Wyoming on the Great Plains, instead of at Plymouth Rock they probably would have served buffalo for their first official dinner of giving thanks.
When the Pilgrims celebrated that first recorded, though yet to be officially proclaimed, Thanksgiving in 1623 they, like the golden-brown foul they served, were new to this country. However, the turkey had been here longer than the pilgrims had. In fact, the turkey had been in the United States long enough for many to assume they were native to the new nation. This is not the case.
The bronze variety of this delicacy was first observed by so-called civilized man when the Spaniards conquered Mexico. The turkey, then being domesticated and bred by the Aztec and Zuni Indians, was the bird that some three hundred years later Benjamin Franklin would propose should be designated the national emblem.
When the Spaniards made their return voyage to Spain these swarthy sailors had some new feathered shipmates aboard. Thus, turkeys became Mexican immigrants to Spain.
By 1530 Turkeys were well established throughout Europe. One source states that when the English colonists came to America they brought some descendants of the Mexican turkeys with them. You might say the big birds sort of immigrated a round-trip migration to where their natural habitat became centered in the lower, east to west, portion of the United States. Considering that turkeys prefer to walk or run, rather than fly, evidently some of the birds took a long stroll northward to be introduced by the Indians as honored guests at the homes of the Pilgrims. This is reasonable since the turkeys had about one hundred years to get there.
Just how these birds came by their name is uncertain. Some believe the name comes from one of its calls which is described as a soft "turk, turk, turk." Having raised these bronze beauties myself I have yet to hear any one of them make such an utterance, at least not in my presents. To me their sound is more like the musically timed bubblings from a somewhat plugged water hose. A more logical explanation of the origin of their name comes from a possible confusion of the turkey with the guinea cock that was imported into Europe from Africa by way of Turkey.
Another idea of their name source is that the head of a turkey resembles a Turkish fez. And the nickname "gobbler" relates to the loud "gobble, gobble, gobble" sound the male's make. I have observed this sound, though I didn't attempt to investigate whether a male or a female turkey made it. They didn't exist long enough for me to make the distinction by their appearance before they, themselves, were "gobbled."
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