honoring the carcass, part II

The Wishbone, a history.

The importance of the wishbone was brought over by European settlers and began in a different form as an act of divination. As early as 320 BC chickens and roosters were believed to have the ability to predict the future because a "hen would squawk before laying an egg, and a rooster would crow to announce the dawning of a new day." Chicken bones began to be used as divination tools and the special psychic bird was usually sacrificed after completing her duty. The breast bone was then hung to dry and as it was believed to bring good fortune, people were invited to come up and touch the magical bone.
The practice spread to other fowl. People in Medieval Europe believed that geese "had supernatural powers as oracle birds through which a deity might speak about the future." The breast bone of ducks and geese were believed to be able to predict upcoming weather with the belief that a light bone meant good weather and a darker bone meant bad weather. Others held so tightly to the divinity of the power of the breast bone that they based the wars they waged on its predicitons.

With such a magical and superstitious past it is no wonder that early peoples would become obsessed with touching and fighting over the bone. This practice became such an obsession in fact, that the bones would often break and well... we know the rest.

the articles that this information was taken from can be found here:
www.knoxnews.com/news/2006/Nov/19/davis-wishbone-myth-has-long-history/
www.bridesvillage.com/lucky-wishbone1.html (don't get fooled by the link, it does direct you to a wedding site, this particular link leading to a page that sells synthetic wishbones to be used as favors, but scroll down... the history piece is included at the bottom)