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Re: chicken in America: from Asia? (cont.)

Yuri wrote:
Domingo Martinez-Castilla (agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu) wrote:

: In 1571, Diego de Trujillo wrote about his remembrances of the Conquest.

He : was present at Cajamarca at Atawalpa's capture.  Even though he was
an old man : when he dictated his chronicle, it is important to note the
following passage: 

: "Llegamos a Ca a que es una poblaci n grande, y de mucha comida, y ropa
de la : tierra, que av a silos llenos della; [...] En este asiento se
hallaron : gallinas de Castilla pocas, y todas blancas" 

: My translation: "We arrived at Za a, a large town, with much food and
local : clothes, with warehouses full of them; [...] In this place we
found chickens : of Castilla a few, and all of them white" 

>The fact that they were white chickens DOES NOT prove that they were
>European of "Castille". White chickens were highly prized by the Chinese
>for their feathers. White chickens were all over the Pacific islands
>pre-contact (see p. 197 in Carter).

Well, Carter makes a big point of saying that Asian chickens are easily
distinguishable from European ones, and not just by their color. While
color is the only criterion mentioned in the Trujillo quote, the author
clearly thinks the chickens are Castillian.

: It took me 30 minutes of almost random reading to stumble upon this.

>I bet you the dinner at the Indian restaurant took you even longer than
>this?

Yuri, is this sarcasm?  By your standards this seems like an ad hominem
attack to me.  I'm sure I'm wrong, since you never engage these tactics.

In any event, he went to a primary source to do his research, something
you have not shown any evidence of doing.  Furthermore,  you are confusing
Domingo Martinez-Castilla with Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, the latter being
the one who gave out that "Murgh" is a Hindi word for chicken a
facieciously pointed out that it could be found on any North Indian menu .
 In point of fact, Carter mentions this name in the article, though he
doesn't explain why those terms which can be seen as onomotapoeic made the
"transition" to the New World, spreading with the Chicken, while the
others -- like "Murgh" -- did not.


: I would : believe that other mentions of the Spaniards finding Castilla
chickens would : not be hard to come by

>The argument that just because the Spanish called them so they must have
>come from the Spanish is a little silly.

Not if they recognized them as being the kind of Chicken they were
familiar with.

By the way, where all the bones of all of these Chickens?  I think I
missed you adressing this.


>Regards,

>Yuri.

--Greg Keyes
References: