honoring the carcass, part I

Siobhan and I were at the student center a couple weeks ago having one of our philosophical chats to procrastinate working on our thesis papers and I thought it would be appropriate to share it in honor of Thanksgiving.

Have you ever pondered the tradition of breaking a wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey? Think about it, you buy this huge bird, cook it up, eat it, root around in its flesh for the v-shaped prize, wait about a week or more for the bone to dry out and then proceed to break it with another person - the victar getting their wish come true.

ok.

First of all, how did this whole practice even come about? what is it about the wishbone that made people look at it and think, "hey, if we break this while making a wish and one of us gets the larger piece then that person will get their wish"? when Siobhan and I were discussing it we didn't spend too much time on speculating the thought process, we were more interested in the human drive toward hope... how we go through this lengthy process of finding, preserving and then destroying this small piece of fowl anatomy for the sake of making a wish. Are we that intent on having something to signify our hopes for a wish coming true? I suppose the same could be said for birthday candles and other means of making wishes, but I don't know of any others that involve so much process in their undertaking as that of the wishbone.