What’s the Deal With the Wishbone?

When it’s time for the turkey does your family fight over the wishbone? Breaking the wishbone has been an American tradition since the pilgrims came to America.

Every year people break a wishbone and hope to get good luck by getting the bigger half of the wishbone. Normally two people pull the bone at the same time and whoever gets the bigger part will get a wish.

Wishbones are found in turkeys and other fowl and are also known as the forked furcula bone. The Romans and the English also called the wishbone the “merrythought” in the 17th century. This bone is between the neck and the breast of the turkey.

The tradition of breaking the wishbone started with the Etruscans who lived in ancient Italy. They believed that fowl such as chicken and their birds were fortune tellers because roosters would squawk at the beginning of a new day and hens would when they were about to lay an egg.

When a fowl was killed its collarbone was thought of as holy and the body of the chicken or other bird was laid out in the sun. The Etruscans could touch the unbroken bone and make a wish and this is how the bone got its name as wishbone.

The Romans saw of the ancient Italians’ custom and took it as their own because they wanted good luck as well. The English then took the custom from the Romans. When English pilgrims moved to America they changed it to breaking the bone. Then they saw that there were many turkeys in the New World. This changed the custom from Chickens to Turkeys.

If this custom had never come, we wouldn’t have any good luck. Also, everyone loves some family competition.