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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. 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 life. 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. That's why I'm demanding justice for turkey girl. In my opinion she didn't do anything wrong.
I seriously want a shirt that says 'Justice For Turkey Girl'. No one may not what I'm talking about, but I'll know.
7845885 She had one job. One job.
7845909 I mean she didn't make it back in time. But it was only by a few hours. Given the fact that she's raised the turkey deities from birth and given them even better than what she had, seems kind of petty to not forgive her for staying out a little longer than she should have. I think the moral is something like you should keep your word and I can get behind that. But she did good things all up to that point so her punishment seems a bit harsh.
7845923 I don't know. If you miss your job or even a job interview by a few minutes it can have severe consequences (both for yourself and your co-workers), so a few hours seems like a pretty big deal to me. Just saying.
7845948 I do get the overall lesson which is to keep your word and also not to avoid your responsibilities. You are right that sometimes being late can have big consequences (depending on the situation). I think that was the overall message 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?
It's kind of the end punishment I have issues with which is that she will always be poor the rest of her days and miserable and the turkeys will never return to the tribe/ look after them. I mean like... dang. That's one harsh reality check.
7845951 Imagine this:
You have a child and one day she brings you fine clothes and jewelry and then she informs you that she's going to Australia because she's into araknofilia.
What do you say to her:
a) I took care of you and now you have to be my slave for the rest of my life and make me rich.
b) Parenting is a selfless job. You are your own person, and you owe me nothing.
?
7846007 The Turkeys watched over the tribe because they are deities and in gratitude for the girl taking care of them. They chose to be there. So they did do something nice in exchange for her taking care of them and then of course helped her to get a dress and jewelry for the festival.
They weren't servants, they were there of their own free will because of their love for the girl. But when she was late they decided she didn't love them anymore and returned her tattered clothes and left the tribe/ no longer looked over it.
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.
Maybe it was kind of fate that things would turn out that way since they are deities and they probably weren't destined to stay there forever anyway?
7846022 The way I see it, Turkeys didn't owe anybody anything.
Despite that, they gave her free stuff. They also gave her the option to be rich forever.
All Turkeys did was good. They didn't do a single bad thing.
You know those people whom you offer a finger and they try to bite off your whole hand? Well, that's what I see here. Turkeys offered her a finger, and even a hand under certain conditions. But the girl wanted the hand without fulfilling the conditions.
Personally, I think this story offers a valuable lesson. When you do a stupid mistake, the consequences could be dire.
Just because you believe it's just a stupid little mistake doesn't mean that the consequences will be such as well. This is the real world. Here, you do one little stupid mistake and you die. There are loads and loads of stupid ways to die, and this story tries to prevent those deaths.
7846030 Well that's a good point. I 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.
7845885
First glance I feared this was going to be about some new X-"Person" or Avenger that they've dreamed up to try to sell more comics or movies or something
But yeah I can support you
7846074 If Turkey Girl was a superhero, I wonder what their powers or abilities would be?
7846076 Her superpower is to stay poor even when she's offered a chance to become rich. Most people couldn't even handle such a superpower, but she can.
I also love how she had a foursome with rich guys and got no money out of it.
7846109 Technically she danced with three sons of tribal leaders who all thought she was the most beautiful person at the festival. However when she was given back her tattered clothes no one recognized her and she lived out the rest of her days in poverty and misery. I suspect the misery part is because people found out that she let the turkeys who watched over the tribe escape and gave her a hard time about it. Imagine being known as the person who let your tribal deities escape. That probably didn't end well for her.
7846247 In real life, there are no happy endings. Everybody dies. I'm glad this story reflects that.
Lots of people got an opportunity for a good life, but they wasted it, just like the girl did.
7846265 Well sadly, that's true. It also depends on what you think is a good life. Some people with the worst life possible can still see the good things in their lives. On the other hand, others who have everything and have a good life can often be miserable.
7846358 Every life that doesn't end in death is a good life.
All lives are bad lives.
7846362 Some ways of dying are worse than others. Any one of the medieval torture methods were not a good way to go.
7846463 I think painful deaths are more glorious than pussy deaths.
7846486 I want a peaceful death.
7846629 I want to go out feeling alive. Only painful death will suffice.