The Turkey Shoot

Turkey has long been the focus of Thanksgiving feasts in New England. In the colonial era, both domestic turkeys and their wild cousins wound up on the Thanksgiving table.

Unfortunately for them, wild turkeys aren't the smartest birds. The famous naturalist James Audubon relates how he once killed three turkeys with one shotgun blast. Rather than fly away to save their lives, the other members of the flock strutted around their dead friends. Clearly they aren't too bright.


Given their small brains and our ancestors' propensity to shoot anything that moved, the wild turkey became nearly extinct in New England by the middle of the 19th century. One author claimed at the time that the last wild turkey in Massachusetts was killed on Mount Tom in 1847. Its taxidermied corpse was displayed at the Yale museum.

A turkey shoot, by John Whetten Ehninger.

There were still abundant domestic turkeys available in the 19th century, but some men in New England preferred shooting their Thanksgiving dinner. This led to a somewhat barbaric practice: the turkey shoot.

A farmer would tie one of his turkeys to a fence post or a tree, and then gather together a group of men. Each man was charged a fee, and whoever shot the turkey was allowed to take it home for dinner. It was not as easy as it sounds, since guns at that time were not particularly accurate, and the distance between shooters and turkey was around 300 feet. As James Baker writes in his book Thanksgiving: the Biography of an American Holiday,

"As in shooting galleries at modern carnivals, it took luck and skill to hit one's target, considering the distance, the movement of the bird, the firearms of the day, and the amount of alcohol consumed."

Happily, times have changed. Wild turkeys have made a comeback in New England and most turkey shoots now feature paper targets. For a Thanksgiving totally free of cruelty, I would suggest tofurkey. It may not taste exactly like turkey but it will be easier to shoot if you tie it to a tree.

Why Babies Shouldn't See Mirrors and Vampires Have No Reflection

Okay, here are three interesting folk facts about mirrors:

1. Farmers in 19th century Massachusetts believed that a baby shouldn't look into a mirror until it's at least a year old. If it does, "that means death to it." (From Johnson's What They Say in New England.)


2. Everyone knows that vampires don't have reflections.


3. In parts of Europe, it was traditional to cover all the mirrors in the house when someone had died. (From Lecouteux's Witches, Werewolves and Fairies).

These are all connected by an old belief that a person's reflection, or even their shadow, is their soul. Given this, here are the reasons for these three:

1. You shouldn't let your baby look into a mirror, because its young soul is more loosely connected to its body than an adult's, and could get stuck in the mirror.


2. Vampires have no reflection because they don't have souls anymore.


3. You should cover the mirrors when someone dies so their soul doesn't get stuck in the mirror, rather than moving on to the next world. (Many modern Jews still cover the mirrors when someone dies, but they have other reasons for the practice.)

According to Roger Williams, the local Narragansett had two words for the soul. One of them was michachunck, which was similar to their word for mirror. Maybe the connection between reflections and souls was found in many different cultures?

Jeff Berlanger's Weird Massachusetts

Author Jeff Berlanger has an article on Boston.com about weird attractions in Massachusetts. He covers a mix of places historic (Dungeon Rock), paranormal (the Bridgewater Triangle), and kitschy (the birthplace of tupperware in Leominster).



Berlanger is the author of the book Weird Massachusetts , which is brought to us by the same people who produced Weird New England. I own Weird New England - it's an entertaining and heavily illustrated coffee table book. Weird Massachusetts is the same type of book. It would make a good gift for a kid who's interested in these things, or someone who wants a quick overview of the bizarre things in the Bay State. Joseph Citro and Dianne Fould's Curious New England covers similar content, but is aimed at an older audience, is a small paperback, and includes explicit driving directions to the various locations.

It's interesting that all these books use words like "weird" or "curious" to describe things that in the past would have been part of everyday life. "Of course there are little monsters in the woods, sea monsters on the beach, and ghosts almost everywhere else", our ancestors would say. "What else would there be?" It would be weird for them if the world were otherwise. John Josselyn wouldn't be surprised by any of it!