Read the beginning of The Sacred White Turkey by Frances Washburn:
"On easter Sunday in 1963, a white turkey appeared on Hazel Latour’s doorstep, pecking at the door as if demanding entrance. That turkey set in motion a series of events that would rock the community from end to end, upset the established order, and make some of the most traditional among us question our beliefs. Had I not been there, I would not have believed what was to come, and even after all these years, I still doubt my own senses, wonder about where the turkey came from, why it came to my grandmother, of all people, and where it went. That white turkey was wakan, and you know, some of our people say that word means holy, and some say, no, it just means something unexplainable, and a lot of things can be unexplainable without being holy. Some people make jokes and say that the BIA is wakan because nothing that bureaucracy does is explainable, and that makes the people who think the word means holy and sacred pretty mad. Disrespectful. Sacrilegious even, if you can apply that word to a belief system that isn’t Christian. I believe the turkey was both holy and unexplainable. I’ve tried a thousand explanations over more than forty years for all the things that happened, and none of them make sense. I can’t prove anything. I only know what I saw, me, with my own two eyes. Once you’ve heard the story, you can believe it or not.
A gentle knocking more like a tapping awoke me from my dreams of candy eggs delivered by a pink bunny, even though I was twelve years old and knew better. Hazel was a medicine woman, which meant that people were likely to show up at any hour of day or night with a sick relative or an injured animal asking for her help. I thought sure that was what the tapping was. It was early, the sun barely up, so I knew Hazel would be down milking the cow, but I could open the door and make a welcome.
I leaped out of the heavy comforters and into the crispness of the spring morning, ran to the door, and there stood not a person but a white turkey, cocking its head from side to side, darting its beak at the cats that dared annoy it, and pecking at the door. I had heard that some people bought their children colored chicks for easter, but Hazel would never stoop to such foolishness, not when our own hens hatched out perfectly lovely yellow babies every spring; nor was there likely to be a basket of candy eggs hidden in the flour bin for me to find, and certainly she would not have gotten me a turkey for easter.
Hazel almost dropped the milk pail she was carrying up from the shed, where the cow stood outside the battered wooden door placidly chewing her cud.
“What’s this?” she said to me, and then to the turkey, “And where did you come from?”
The turkey trotted over to her, sure the pails contained grain, but Hazel pushed the turkey away with her rubber-booted foot. It danced sideways, pecking at her boot.
“Hmm,” she said with her brows lowered at me, standing there shivering in my skivvies. “Is this your doing, Stella?”
I shook my head.
“Strange timing. It’s months and months until thanksgiving,” Hazel said as she opened the door and deposited the pail of milk on the table. Outside the cats clawed at the screen, yowling, demanding their share of the fresh, steaming milk. The white turkey pecked at the cats, pecked at the screen.
“Grandma,” I started, but no sooner was the word out of my mouth than her hand shot out and slapped me across the mouth hard enough to sting.
“The name is Hazel,” she said, “even though I am a grandmother, yours.” I did know better, but the appearance of the turkey had addled my brain, made me want some comfort, even if only in naming her as my grandmother.
Quickly, she pulled me to her cow-sweat-smelling shirt and hugged me so tight I could barely breathe.
“I love you more than life, little one,” she said. “But I don’t like to be reminded of—things.” She held me a moment more, than pushed me toward the door. “Go get some oats for that turkey. No. Wait, get yourself dressed first.”
I ran back to the bedroom, pulled on the knees-out jeans I had shed on the floor the night before, stomped my feet sockless into my old worn boots while pulling on an old blue checkered shirt of Hazel’s that hung on me like a sack.
She was putting together the parts of the cream separator when I came back through the kitchen, glancing through the screen from time to time.
I hesitated.
“Hazel? Is it special?”
“Is what special?”
“The turkey. It’s white. I’ve never seen a white turkey. Does that make it special? And it came on easter Sunday.”
She was just sitting down on the bench with the cream separator mounted on it, ready to turn the crank. The corners of her mouth turned up in amusement.
“You mean some spiritual being?”
I nodded doubtfully, fiddling with a button on the baggy shirt.
“Don’t be silly. It’s just a turkey. It probably escaped from a truck going through on the highway or wandered off from somebody’s place around here.”
“But I never heard of anyone around here raising turkeys.”
“Doesn’t mean somebody hasn’t just got a flock recently,” she said, putting the steel bowl on top of the separator, laying the clean filter cloth over the top of that, fastening it on with clothes pins.
“And it’s white,” I said, “Aren’t turkeys always brown or black? Like the ones we color in school at thanksgiving.”
She shook her head.
“No, dear. These days turkey farmers breed for white ones. They’re easier to clean for the market. Not so many pinfeathers.”
Pinfeathers. I knew about those. Little feathers just emerging that had to be picked out of the chicken’s skin when we dressed them, a tedious job, but not so nasty as having to kill the chickens and pull out the guts, saving back the liver, the gizzard, and the heart.
I heard the slow hum of the separator as Hazel started turning the crank.
The turkey picked at the oats I put out for it as if it was starving. It was a real creature, then; it had to eat, could not live off air, but I couldn’t help noticing how very white and clean this turkey was. The chickens that we kept had dusty feathers in spite of constant preening and pecking to rid themselves of mites, and there were always traces of manure around their butts. This turkey looked as if it had been bathed in bleach water and polished with car wax. It gleamed.
When it had finished all the oats I had scattered for it, it strolled off as if taking a tour of the place. I followed it, half expecting it to speak to me, but of course, it only uttered the usual turkey nonsense. I thought that perhaps I had not the wisdom to understand whatever message it had. Maybe the message was not for me at all. At the chicken house, it stopped, looked inside, strolled in, promptly appropriating the end roost, the one that the black rooster had claimed as his territory. He did not object, but only gave a little dip of his head as he moved aside. In spite of Hazel’s words, I believed that turkey was sent for a purpose, or was a spirit that had sent itself. More than forty years later, no matter what Hazel said, I still believe that or something like it even though I have no evidence to prove it."
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