CGM’s offices will be closed on Thursday 11/25 & Friday 11/26 for the Thanksgiving Holiday
CGM wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving. We are always here for you in the event of a glue-mergency!
Ever wonder why we wish on a turkey wishbone on Thanksgiving? Yep, we did too. We dug deep and got some answers to our questions!
*The tradition originated with the Etruscans, an ancient Italian civilization who believed that birds were oracles and could predict the future. Basically, they kept this bone—the furcula—in order to hold on to the bird’s supposed powers so they could continue making wishes.
A bird’s wishbone is technically known as the furcula. The custom of snapping these bones in two after dinner came to us from the English, who got it from the Romans, who got it from the Etruscans, an ancient Italian civilization. As far as historians and archaeologists can tell, the Etruscans believed that the birds were oracles and could predict the future. They exploited the chickens’ supposed gifts by turning them into walking ouija boards with a bizarre ritual known as alectryomancy or “rooster divination.” They would draw a circle on the ground and divide it into wedges representing the letters of the Etruscan alphabet. Bits of food were scattered on each wedge and a chicken was placed in the center of the circle. As the bird snacked, scribes would note the sequence of letters that it pecked at.
When a chicken was killed, the furcula was laid out in the sun to dry so that it could be preserved and so that people would still have access to the oracle’s power even after eating it. (Why the wishbone, specifically—and not, say, the femur or the ulna—is a detail that seems to be lost to history.) People would pick up the bone, stroke it, and make wishes on it, hence its modern name.
Who knew?
CGM wishes you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving and hope all your wishbone wishes come true!
*Sources: