Justice For Turkey Girl · 1:54am Jun 11th, 2023
Justice For Turkey Girl
So I've been reading up on the Zuni Native American tribe mythology and I love the stories, they are very interesting and often times you can't really predict what will happen. They get pretty wild.
However there is this one tale that kind of bothers me because the moral is kind of like...dodgy?
This myth goes by different names, some people call it the Dance of the Sacred Bird.
You can read it here for yourself: https://amp.sunherald.com/living/article74909792.html
There are also different variations of this myth and I'm going to combine a few I've read into what I believe is the full story.
Long story short, there's this girl who is poor and wears tattered clothes. She's a kind of servant for a rich lady in the tribe and she tends to the turkeys so they call her the mother of turkeys. She has raised these turkeys from birth and they regard her as their mother.
The turkeys watch over the tribe in gratitude for the girl taking care of them.
One day the whole town is getting ready for a festival. The girl wishes she can go but she only owns tattered clothes, due to being poor and servant to a wealthy lady (who does treat her kindly, pays her fair and gives her what she can but it's not enough for extravagant things).
She keeps wishing she can go to the festival dressed in something nice and to her amazement one of the turkeys talks to her and says she and the other turkeys will help to dress her in beautiful clothes for the festival. This is to repay her for looking after them all of these years. If you are wondering why this turkey and the others can talk it's because they are actually these turkey spirit/ deity things who have been watching over the tribe.
Anyway the head turkey goddess thing says she and the other turkeys will dress her in fine clothes and jewelry however she has to promise to come back and care for them before midnight. This will show that she really cares. If she fulfils her end of the bargain the turkeys will bless her with a life of no hard work and will give her neverending wealth. However if she forgets, the turkeys will leave the tribe and she will return to being a poor servant. The girl agrees to the terms.
So the next day before the festival the turkeys dress her in beautiful clothes and jewelry and send her off to dance at the festival. While there she dances with so many people and even catches the eye of three different sons of clan chiefs. She's having so much fun she forgets to return at midnight. A few hours later she realizes her mistake and runs home to reunite with her turkeys but they are already gone.
She chases them up the mountain and when she catches up with them they basically say she didn't care enough to return at midnight so she will be poor the rest of her days. And right then and there she is given back her tattered dress, the beautiful clothes and jewelry disappear and the turkeys continue walking to the top of the mountain never to return.
My thoughts are... what the heck? This girl raised these turkeys their whole lives, lived in miserable conditions due to being a servant but still gave them all of her love.
She just happened to be a few hours late and the turkeys run away and even worse take back their gifts and say she will be poor for the rest of her ife. How is that fair??
These turkeys more come off as the ones who are petty and don't really care all that much for the girl, not the other way around.
I do get the overall lesson which is to keep your word and also not to avoid your responsibilities. It is true that sometimes being late can have big consequences (depending on the situation). I think these were the overall messages/ lessons of the myth but the punishment seems a bit harsh.
I mean she raised the turkey deities since birth, gave them all of the best things (even going without so the turkeys could be taken care of) and took care of them well for years. Shouldn't that kind of outweigh the fact that she was late one time?
Instead, she is stripped of the fine clothes and jewelry that were given to her by the turkeys and given back her old tattered clothes. She's doomed to always be poor and miserable for the rest of her days. The turkeys will never return to the tribe/ look after them. I mean like... dang. That's one harsh reality check.
Actually the girl did something else good by accepting that they wanted to go/ respecting their conditions. Because she could have just captured them and took them back against their will but she honored the agreement. So it seems like the girl through the whole story was doing the right thing besides the one time she stayed at the festival too long and the turkey deities left.
That's why I'm demanding justice for turkey girl. In my opinion she didn't do anything wrong. At the very least she deserves to have somewhat of a happy ending even if she faces some consequences for being late at least give her something good for taking care of the turkeys for all of those years.
I seriously want a shirt that says 'Justice For Turkey Girl'. No one may not what I'm talking about, but I'll know.
All this being said, the story does drive home the fact that sometimes making a mistake, even if it's small, could lead to some really serious consequences.
A thought I had when I initially read the story was, maybe the turkeys were testing her in a way with magic to see how much she really loved them. And maybe the fact that she stayed longer at the festival than she should have told them that she didn't love them as much as she claimed she did, or at least was taking their kindness in that moment for granted.
So you can kind of see why they chose to left. However I still think the punishment was kind of harsh. It's definitely memorable though! That girl has to explain how she drove away the turkeys that protect the clan because she was too busy dancing. That's probably not going to end well for her. This may be what contributes to why she will be miserable for the rest of her days.
