Nov 26 2006
Thanksgiving, Turducken, Native Indians and Russian Nesting Dolls
Sometimes imagination is a bad thing.
While chatting with Ben Peters online moments ago, pleasantry about “how-is-your-Thanksgiving” turned to Turducken, a supposedly Southern delicacy. Then I remembered the popular stuffed camel meal in Arabia and the very real ones (pig/chicken/pigeon) in China, etc.
Somehow my mind darkened and thought about how cannibals would have celebrated Thanksgiving had they so been inspired. Would they created something akin to nested Russian Dolls (except using real Russians perhaps)?
Anyway, then this old New Yorker story popped into my head and I couldn’t get rid of it until I write this blog down. The story is about archaeologists studying the cannibalism among native Americans in the Southwest B.C. (before Columbus that is). It read like a detective/suspense novel. Particularly the part about how the lawyer for the Indians challenged archaeologist to find fossilized human shit with bones in it–and lost! Totally fascinating.
In all fairness, as the archaeologists suspected, the natives performed cannibalism not so much because they found human flesh tastier than turkey (stop it Bing!), but because it is first an instrument of intimidation (to the rest of the enemies) and ultimately a symbol of domination.
In this regard, the same ritual was performed in China centuries later: after 袁崇焕 (Yuan Chong Huan) was executed in 1630 (or 200 years A.C.), the Ming emporer encouraged Beijing residents to eat his flesh Sushi style (I said stop it!) to show their loyalty to the court and hatred towards traitors.
Of course, if we look things structurally, the sacrifice-n-eat ritual is still live and well. Except we now find turkey as a scape goat—there you go.