---

Gallos calecutenses

Kalakùtas - Kalkoen - Peru

From letters to Dr Edmund Hoffmann   and Prof Roy Crawford - Canada

26-1-1996

Now, a little problem about which I desire your ideas. I think that you are competent not only in Muscovy duck (as your superlative job demonstrates) but even in other problems regarding animals as turkey.

In this moment it’s open a bridge Valenza-Paris-Lisboa about the etymology of the word peru as is called the turkey in Portuguese - only by this word - and the female is perua. My thesis would demonstrate that the Portugueses called the turkey Ave do Peru, may be in contraposition of the Spaniards, who called it Pavo. My thesis arises from the affirmation reported in Crawford’s book:

“Schorger (1966) states that they (turkeys) were present in Peru before arrival of the Spanish and may have be taken there from Nicaragua.”

Do you agree with Schorger?

I don’t know his works, and I think that it’s a little difficult for me to find them. I am also studying the history of the Amazonas conquest by the Portugueses. They were in Peru, in Quito, now Ecuador, in 1637, when Teixeira overstepped the Tordesilla’s line.

The presence of the word peru in India, in Dravidian language, is too much easy to explain: Goa was Portuguese. Interesting also the true possibility of the arrival of the turkeys via Asia. As you can read in Latin (from the ancient book I have, printed in Pavia, Ticinum in Latin, because of its river), the turkey was called Gallos indicos, seu calecutenses. Calecutenses not from Calcutta in Bangladesh, but from Calicut (today also called Kozhicode - 420,000 inh.), near Goa, Kerala State.

If you agree with Schorger, then peru for turkey arises from Peru. It would be easier for the Portugueses to call the turkey Mexican bird, Spanish bird. They called it peru. Each nation called the birds in different ways: Numida meleagris is Guinea fowl in English, Galinha d’Angola em Portuguese, Faraona (note the abbreviation, right is Gallina del Faraone) in Italian. And Faraona, is not the wife of the Faraon, but it’s implied the word Gallina del, Hen of the etc.

The same is for peru, which was Ave do Peru.

But, when the turkey was called peru? Because I think that the Portugueses knew this bird the first time in Europe, when Colombo or others took it in Spain. Why the Portugueses preferred peru? In the beginning of 1500 they don’t was in Peru, but only in 1637.

Note the big confusion about the birds’ names in 1779:

Gallos indicos......alii ex Numidia primum venisse volunt

others tell that the first time these cocks came from Numidia.

But, Numidia is the land of Guinea fowl!

Right is this German Archiatra of the King of England, Georg Gottlob, when he tells about India:

quos ex India (seu novo orbe) i.e. or from the New World.

This annotation and specification is a clear contraposition to calecutenses, because Calicut is in India, the old India, the true India. The German Welscher Hahn is most generic, because it means Foreign fowl. This welscher may becoming from anywhere.

Yesterday, when I was in Pavia, 58 km from Valenza, to enter in the first touch with the Editor, I found a very interesting thing: in Lithuania the turkey is called Kalakùtas. Obviously, from Calicut. The Professor who gave me the information told also that the Lithuanian language is an old interesting language, i.e. Indo-European of Baltic group.

5-3-1996

Very interesting your meditation on the use of pavo by Portuguese Intelligentsia. I hope that, when you will be in possess of the Schorger book, it will be possible to go in depth of this problem, because I am collecting a dossier on the argument, and may be a day it could arise a job with your collaboration, because I saw that you are very interested in the field. Yes, may be that Belon was referring to the Old World regarding Coq d’Indie, but I think that the turkey was already in Europe in 1555 (Italy - 1520, France - 1538).

If you note, in the Gottlob’s text there is a big confusion:

Gallos indicos

(Coq d’Indie of Bellon), today Dindon in French (= d’Indon, d’Indie). Dindo even in some part of Italy, near Torino for example. Gallos indicos may mean Guinea fowls, because in the past time also the Abissinia was called India (I don’t remember when and where I had this notice).

seu calecutenses

or from Calicut

This second name is given by Gottlob as a current name to indicate the gallos indicos, not as dubitative. This second name is alternative as in the following phrase, Gallus gallus or Red Junglefowl. The Latins don’t had this adjective, calecutensis, (checked in Latin Dictionary, Georges, 1957) and so I think that this country was unknown to the Romans.

quos ex India (seu novo orbe)

which from India (or from the new world)

This phrase is alternative between India and new world (novo orbe), and meanwhile is dubitative, because Gottlob thinks that the most important origin’s land is the India, and the new world is less important. Gottlob, may be, was aware that the origin of this bird (what bird?) was from America, but he writes in first place the most important belief on the origin, the India (where is located Calicut) and he was not an ornithologist (I think) to have the possibility to discuss the origin of a bird.

alii ex Numidia primum venisse volunt

others from Numidia, first time, affirm that they came

(excuse the bad sequence, but it’s to give you the possibility to better understand the Latin words)

There we find the big confusion between Numidia, the land of the Roman’s Guinea fowl, and India. Never the Numida meleagris became from India. Thus, India = Abissinia? Abissinia is the central nucleus of Ethiopia, and in Italy this bird is called Gallina del Faraone, and the Pharaoh’s kingdom was bordering upon Ethiopia.

horum pulli duorum aut trium mensium tenerrimi, saporis suavissimi

these fowls, two or three months aged, are very tender, very taste

This is very important, and I read it only today. I think that Gottlob is referring to the Guinea fowl, because never I heard that the turkey is eaten when it’s three months aged; may be this happened in 1799, but, in Italy, in 1996, absolutely not. Re the Guinea fowls, I am unaware if they are eaten so young, but I think that it’s possible also nowadays.

Synthesis: I have checked rapidly the Gottlob Richter list of birds, and I have not found neither the turkey nor the Guinea fowl, or, better, these two birds are mixed, and in the description of the medicamental properties it seems that Gottlob is referring to the Guinea fowl (2-3 months old). The confusion of Gottlob Richter is very big and he leaves an open door, i.e. (seu novo orbe). This door is open on the America, but this possibility is expressed into parenthesis. This India is the Abissinia or is Calicut? I think that he was aware that from the new world was becoming a bird, the turkey, aware because all the scientists was thinking in this way, but he accepts calecutenses as alternative name. Do he was aware that the Guinea fowl don’t existed in India?

We have an Atlantic mentality, and Nova Scotia is surrounded by the Atlantic, and currently we think only on trans-atlantic exchanges, and a ship is called Transatlantico and not Transpacifico!!!. Why Gottlob had not this mentality? Only once he speaks novo orbe, and the other mentioned localities are African (Numidia, India = Abissinia?) or Indian (calecutenses). May be that, truly, the turkey becomes from Asia.

An ask: do you think that Richter saw one of these birds during his life? I think not. They are very different. He was sure only on one thing: the gallos indicos was named also calecutenses.

Obviously, the discussion is open whether the turkey becomes from America via Columbus or from America via Asia. Why the adjective Calecutenses? Why Kalakùtas in Lithuanian? Why Kalkoen in Dutch? Why Turkey in English? (I think that the reference to the fez is wrong, as I found in a book of Plant’s library, and that Turkey as Asiatic country it’s true).

Today I was explaining this problem to a colleague of mine, and rightly he noted that GALLOS INDICOS are not grouped as Genus gallinaceum, Genus Columbarum, Genus Pavonum. Why? Because in 1799 there was still a big confusion in this matter.

For example: the Indian corn, or maize, in Italy we call granoturco.

Please, hear the etymology of granoturco (maize):

prima, grano di Turchia, ma il nome era già diffuso nel Cinquecento, come nei latini De Historia Stirpium Commentarii di L.Fuchs (Basilea, 1542) : “E Grecia autem et Asia in Germania venit, unde Turcicum frumentum appellatum est” (pag 824), o nella traduzione dallo spagnolo all’italiano della Historia naturale e morale delle Indie (Venezia, 1596): “Il Maiz, che in Castiglia chiamano Formento d’India, et in Italia Formento Turco”

Translation:

before, grain of Turkey, but the name was already spread in ‘500, as in the Latin De Historia Stirpium Commentarii of L.Fuchs (Basel, 1542): “From Greece and Asia came into Germany, whence Turcicum frumentum was called” (pag 824), or in the translation from Spanish into Italian of the Historia naturale e morale delle Indie (Venezia, 1596): “The maize, which in Castillia they call Formento d’India, and in Italy Formento Turco”

Another problem: when began the extensive cultivation of the American maize in Europe, so extensive to be cited by Fuchs in 1542? If we feel that Bellon, when speaking on the Coq d’Indie in 1555, he is referring to an Indian bird (old world, the Asiatic India), we must agree that Fuchs is referring to a maize becoming from Asia in his treatise dated 1542.

But, the conclusion suggested and agreed by Cortelazzo, the author of the Italian Etymological Dictionary, is that, as says Missaglia (1924), the Italian turco = foreign. Absolutely I don’t agree, and this is not the moment to discuss why the wood tool to warm the bed during the winter, in Italy is currently and frequently called prete, i.e. priest. For me, in the past times the priest was warming the bed and the wife when her husband was working away, but Cortelazzo has a different point of view, a much kindly point of view. Supporting my idea there is that in Cataluña this tool is called monjo, i.e. monk, monaco in Italian, and the Italian surnames Monaco, Prete, Vescovo (bishop), Papa, are indicating the work of the ancestors, and even the paternity. Do you remember the Ius primae noctis? So, the Italian adjective TURCO given to the GRANO is due to the maize origin from Greece and Asia, as tells Fuchs.

I think that the Germans are right with their words, which are indefinite about the origin:

welsch = foreign, Italian, French, but disdainful, as the Italians call Terrone (big earth) an inhabitant of the South, may be because frequently here you find a dark skin, dark and brown as the earth (not cited by Cortelazzo, I have thought myself this etymology in this moment)

Welscher Hahn = turkey (or = Guinea fowl?), as called by Gottlob Richter, i.e. foreign fowl

Welschhuhn, even nowadays it means turkey, the turkey only

Welschland is the Italy and even the French Switzerland, i.e. all the countries different from Germany, as the Romans called Gallus a foreign people, because gallo and allo are Indo-Europeans words, meaning foreign (Joze Harrieta, La Lingua Arpitana, 1976). In Greek àllos = different, another, i.e. alias also used in English (Corti, 1996!!!).

Welschkorn = maize, and in this way do we can suppose that the maize becomes from Italy and Switzerland? Not, it’s foreign!

I have read that the India had the maize in the 1,000 A.D. (true or not?). Do it’s difficult to think that the maize arrived in Europe via Turkey?

At this point, don’t worry, I affirm that genetics they are also linguistic and history.

If you are interested in the translation of some part of the Richter book, let me know. I will be very happy and I will find the time to do. The use of the Gallos Indicos (turkey - Guinea fowl): they are of easy digestion, they give force, and they are also useful in any age and for the sex (omni aetati et sexui congruens). Not other particular use.

---

I received the answer from Netherlands about kalkoen, and I quote from the letter of Dr Schippers:

5-3-1996 - The name is mentioned in our Dutch etymoligic dictionary as follows: “The word KALKOEN exists officially since 1567 in Holland as a degeneration of the word Calcoen, Kalkoensche henne (Junius, 1567) and Callecoetsche hinne (Plantijn, 1573). The bird was named after the town of Calcutta, India, in the past known as Calcoen, Calcoet or in the Indian language: Kolikkodu. Misunderstood was that the bird came from Middle America, but came for the first time by boat from Calcutta to Europe.”

My reply to Dr Schippers:

14-3-1996 - I must tell you that your Dutch etymological dictionary is wrong about Calcutta. I confess that in a first time I was thinking in the same way about the origin’s city.

I quote from Grolier Encyclopaedia on CD:

Calcutta was founded by the British East India Company, which purchased the villages of Sutanati, Kalikata, and Govindapur in 1698. The name Calcutta is possibly derived from Kalikata, which was the mythological landing place for the goddess KALI.

My Encyclopaedia De Agostini, even on CD, reads that Calcutta was founded as farm in 1690 by Job Charnock, of British East India Company, and in 1696 was built Fort William in defence of Calcutta. The Treccani Encyclopaedia gives the same date, 1696,  for the foundation of the fort.

The Dutch word kalkoen exists officially from 1567. Thus, it’s not Calcutta, the city in Bangladesh, because this city don’t existed in 1567, but Calicut in Kerala State, founded in the IX century, and Vasco de Gama arrived here in 1498. I agree with the hypothesis of the arrival of the Turkey in Europe via Asia. My idea is based only on linguistic data.

From Grolier Encyclopaedia:

The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama led an expedition at the end of the 15th century that opened the sea route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He was born about 1460 at Sines, in southwest Portugal, where his father commanded the fortress. Entering the service of the Portuguese King John II, he helped to seize French ships in Portuguese ports in 1492. He was a gentleman at court when chosen to lead the expedition to India.

Many years of Portuguese exploration down the West African coast had been rewarded when Bartolomeu DIAS rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. The Portuguese then planned to send a fleet to India for spices and to outflank the Muslims in Africa. Vasco da Gama was placed in command of the expedition and carried letters to the legendary PRESTER JOHN [1] and to the ruler of Calicut, on India's Malabar coast.

Four ships left Lisbon on July 8, 1497--the São Gabriel, on which da Gama sailed, the São Rafael, the Berrio, and a storeship. They stopped in the Cape Verde Islands;  from there they did not follow the coast, as earlier expeditions had, but stood well out to sea. They reached the Cape of Good Hope region on November 7.

The cape was rounded on November 22. The expedition stopped on the East African coast, broke up the storeship, and reached Mozambique on Mar. 2, 1498. There they were assumed to be Muslims, and the sultan of Mozambique supplied them with pilots, who guided them on their journey northward. They stopped in Mombasa and Malindi before sailing to the east. They crossed the Indian Ocean in 23 days, aided by the Indian pilot Ibn Majid, and reached Calicut on May 20, 1498. The local ruler, the Zamorin, welcomed the Portuguese, who at first thought that the Indians, actually Hindus, were Christians.

Unfortunately, the trade goods and presents provided by the Portuguese king were suitable for Africa, not India, and the Arabs who dominated trade in the Indian Ocean region viewed the Portuguese as rivals. As a result, da Gama was unable to conclude a treaty or commercial agreement in Calicut. After one further stop on the Indian coast, the Portuguese set out to return with a load of spices. They took three months to recross the Indian Ocean, however, and so many men died of scurvy that the São Rafael was burned for lack of a crew.  The expedition made a few stops in East Africa before rounding the Cape of Good Hope on Mar. 20, 1499. The ships were separated off West Africa in a storm and reached Portugal at different times. Da Gama stopped in the Azores and finally reached Lisbon on Sept. 9, 1499.

Da Gama's success led to the dispatch of another Portuguese fleet, commanded by Pedro Alvares CABRAL. Some of the men Cabral left in India were massacred, so King Manuel ordered da Gama to India again.  He was given the title of admiral and left Portugal in February 1502 with 20 ships. The Portuguese used their naval power on both the East African and Indian sides of the Indian Ocean to force alliances and establish their supremacy. Da Gama's mission was a success, and the fleet returned to Lisbon in October 1503.

Da Gama then settled in Portugal, married, and raised a family. He may have served as an advisor to the Portuguese crown and was made a count in 1519.  King John III sent him to India in 1524 as viceroy, but he soon became ill and died in Cochin on Dec. 24, 1524. Vasco da Gama's first voyage to India linked that area to Portugal and opened the region to sea trade with Europe. On that foundation the Portuguese soon built a great seaborne commercial empire, with colonies in India and the Spice Islands.

Goa: Goa is a former Portuguese colony (1510-1961) located on the western coast of India about 400 km (250 mi) south of Bombay. It was part of the Union Territory of Goa, Daman, and Diu from 1961 to May 30, 1987, when Goa became the 25th state of India.