Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 102; Edwin George interview, part 10 of 10

Q:

Edwin: You know what we honored? You know what we honored then? So uh... uh... I said uh, we honored the bird and the bird loves to be honored and one gives up and die for us so we can eat that, uh-huh. They didn’t go kill a bunch of it, go... not to sell the stuff. People hungry, go to the mountain, the bird can feel it that he’s hungry, then he just give up uh, let him be shot so he can feed the people, uh-huh. That’s the way they did, uh- huh. And uh, lot of... lot of tribe and um, they don’t eat turkey. Turkey saved ‘em. Like us, we (inaudible) we could honor too before the turkey. The lady was living in the cave, corn was coming in uh, in on the yard. A couple of... you do flowers, cut—kep—keep coming up every year, then uh, one day the turkey came along and start pulling off a corn and eat that. And the lady said the turkey can eat that. I couldn’t eat that. So, we... turkey, that’s where the lady started, turkey eating corn. Then we don’t have to eat turkey, (inaudible). He made us turkey can eat it, we can eat it, that’s why we started the cornmeal and the cornbread, turkey start it off and we can honor if we wanted to, but Thanksgiving Day we all eat turkey.

Q:

Edwin: Yea the... the man was ready to get up, the wolf disappeared before daybreak then they watch the man, he k—shot the wolf, I mean he shot the deer, then uh, he’d he’d just (inaudible) it out there and left some stuff, meat, he’d just pile it up, then I guess man that left knew that the wolf would eat that. So, that’s how they get fed, all the time, theyf— they find the wolf find the food somewhere. Somebody kill a deer, he’d just trash it right there and skinned it and everything and he... it’s for the wolf. You can leave meats uh, for the wolf uh-huh. See, if you got a wolf that eats meat, you got to give him meat once in a while. Even dog eats meat. You got to give him meat once in a while, if you don’t and uh, that made a... you can make better dogs, uh-huh. So anything that’s... but the dog was knew he came in uh-huh from overseas, see, it’s not really mm-hm, native uh- huh.

END