One of the things I love about living in Anchorage is that is it home to so many different cultures and people from all over the world. This appeared yesterday in the Letters to the Editor column of the Alaska Dispatch: Happy Thanksgiving Day from Turkic Net As the Turkish-Americans prepare for the thanksgiving holiday, a quintessential American celebration, and will feast on Turkeys, some history that connects us all is in order. The homeland of the turkey bird, the fowl known as Meleagris gallopavo or Americana sybestris auis, is the North American Continent. The 1494 Tordesillas treaty, the work of the pope in Rome, granted the monopoly of commerce originating from the newly discovered continent to the Portuguese, who in turn then brought this fowl to their Goa colony in India. Melagris gallopavo was then introduced to Egypt, a province of the Ottoman Empire and entered the Turkic and other languages as ‘hindi’ (from India). When traders took a breeding stock from Ottoman (Turkish) Egypt to Spain and the British Isles, the bird was designated “turkey.” As a result, the pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620 were familiar with the “turkey” they encountered in their new home. Since thine, no Thanksgiving is complete without the Meleagris gallopavo, better known as “turkey.” Once again, wishing you a happy Thanksgiving from the members of the U.S. Turkic Network. – Jamila Scheve, Anchorage
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 02:48:16 +0000
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