meet tomás

Let's call him Tom.

Or, better yet, considering where he lives, let's call him Tomás.

One of the joys of living in Mexico is being awakened in the morning, not by city noises, but by the trumpeting of fighting cocks, honking geese, and gossiping hens from the lot across the street. A couple of months ago, a new voice was heard in the land.

Initially, I thought the neighbors had captured a chachalaca. But the call was not quite right. It sounded more like a turkey's gobble. For good reason. It was.

He was not the first turkey I have seen gracing a farmyard in Mexico. Even though they are not in every yard (like chickens), they are not rare. What is rare, at least, in this part of Mexico, is whole turkeys on sale at the many village butcher shops here. Not even, turkey parts. There are plenty of chickens,, but no turkeys on offer.

There is a bit of irony in that -- considering the history of domesticated turkeys. A lot of our foods were developed by the pre-Columbian tribes in Mexico. They were the first to develop the big three -- corn, tomatoes, and long chilies. Turkeys were also one of their accomplishments.

When the Spanish arrived, they stole and took home a lot of silver and gold. But they also took all of those exotic foods to Europe. It took time for corn and tomatoes to catch on, but turkeys were an immediate hit -- probably because the Europeans were already familiar with eating game birds.

From the early 1500s, the Spanish king decreed that a minimum number of turkeys would be required for import in each ship that sailed from Mexico to the Old World, and with the help of the imperial Portuguese, turkeys, chilies, and tomatoes soon became common on each of the world's continents.
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Mexican tribes had been domesticating and eating the two species of wild turkeys indigenous to Mexico since at least 800 BC. Most of the tribes consumed what is commonly known as the North American wild turkey. But the Maya domesticated the far more colorful ocellated turkey found only in the areas that were once part of their city-state "empire:" the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, and Guatemala. Tomás's head betrays an ocellated background. 

Both the Aztec and the Maya prized turkeys, not only for their meat, but for their feathers. When the Spanish saw toms in full strut, they named the turkey for the only other bird that had a similar look: the peacock. Pavo is still the most common word used for the bird -- even though it is not uncommon to hear Mexicans refer to the birds as guajolote, the Spanish transliteration of the Nahuatl word used by the Aztec.

Those imported turkeys quickly made their way to England where they became common enough that a flock of them were thrown into the hold of the Mayflower 1n 1620 on its voyage to Massachusetts -- only 100 years after the first turkey set foot in Spain. Not only had the pilgrims ended up in a land where they had not intended to land, they also had not planned well on their choice of fowl provisions. 

In comparison with the flocks of hefty wild turkeys that were there for the shooting, the European breed was a rather weedy lot. But the domesticated turkeys were retained just in case. Some of them were the forbearers of the domesticated turkeys that eventually became common as celebratory birds on American holiday tables in the 19th century.

That brings us back to poor Tomás. He has no turkey hens of his own. His only companions are chickens and ducks. That may explain why he is constantly puffed up.

But he does have a role. If any of you have ever encountered a tom wild turkey, you will know they are quite aggressive and will chase and attack any person silly enough to ruin from them.

My neighbors have funneled that aggression into a role for Tomás. He is the watchdog of the flock. Whenever, I get near his charges, he fluffs himself up like an angry cat to let me know that he is not a mere feather duster; he is cock of the walk.

He is wise enough to know that his ancestors were gobbling around the Mexican landscape while my relatives were still coming out of Africa, and I need to recall my place in his social hierarchy.

I do not know what his eventual fate will be. I should ask my neighbors if he is destined to be dinner some fine Easter -- or if he will simply live out his days as The Shepherd of Chickens and Exotic Alarm Clock.