^"^Qif"^^] Wright, Early Records of the Wild Turkey. 345 



proverb wee doe, to call a coward a henne . . . . : wee may conceive 

 that a henne being so tame a fowle and so profitable, men might 

 carry them with them when they passed from one place to another 

 as we see at this day the Indians in their travel carry their henne 

 with them or chicken, upon the burden they have on their shoulders : 

 and likewise they carry them easily in their cages of reedes or wood." 



These foregoing notes pertain to northern South American coasts 

 and to the region from Darien southward. The average ornitho- 

 logist would logically believe them applicable to curassows or guans, 

 and no doubt this is the better interpretation. Still, the Wild Tur- 

 key was domesticated by the Aztecs before the discovery of America 

 and it might have been distributed to the northern South American 

 coasts and the West Indies by the Indian method described by 

 Acosta. Furthermore, the Spanish introduction of the turkey 

 into more interior provinces of South x\.merica may have been but 

 an extension of the custom possibly begun about the Gulf of 

 Mexico and the Caribbean Sea before the Spanish arrival. In 

 this connection, the Inca G. de la Vega says,^ " With the fowls and 

 pigeons, that the Spaniards brought to Peru, came also the turkey 

 of Mexico, which was not known before." 



In the early days, as at later periods, the two types of bird 

 were often confused and both were dubbed "Wild Turkey." As 

 late as 1825, Schoolcraft writes,^ "The Powhe or Crax alector of 

 South America, which we have seen mounted in some of our 

 museums under the name of ' Wild Turkey ' is a bird belonging to a 

 different genus in ornithology; and if alluded to, by the Scottish 

 historian, (Robertson, Wm. The History of America) would have 

 been mentioned by its popular name of Indian hen." 



We can now turn to the more certain records. According to 

 Pietro Martire,^ Franciscus Fernandez of Corduba Lupus Ocho 

 and Christophorus Morantes seek new lands west of Cuba and 

 come to Yucatan on its northern coast (1517). Here they find 

 the natives are " accustomed to eate fleshe, and have great plentie 



1 The Royal Commentaries of the Yncas. By Ynca Garcilasso de la Vega. 

 Transl. and Edit, by C. R. Markham. Hakluyt Soc. 1871, Vol. II, p. 485. (Orig. 

 1609-1617.) 



2 Schoolcraft, H. R. Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley. 

 [Performed in 1821.] New York, 1825, p. 71. 



' Eden, Richard, p. 187. 



