Pigeon Pie, Anyone?

Stories like the following are found in dark corners and dusty shelves, and when brought to light they can entertain, inform, or even disgust us.  As crude as some of the activity was, isn’t it unfair to judge people of the past when using today’s standards?

♢♢♢

I’m sitting here drinking a cup of coffee, remembering, absent-mindedly looking through the window at the yellow finches flitting in and out of the trees in the backyard.  I’ve lived long enough now to where I watch old friends pass, and I’ve forgotten much, but some scenes still replay.  Like the time I accompanied Grandpa and his partner and watched then spread a large net and hang it under the overhanging branches of the trees.  

While they fastened some weights to its edge, I was given the job of scattering kernels of corn on the ground beneath it.   When everything met with approval, Grandpa picked up a short block of wood that he’d brought in the wagon and propped it up under the net.  Then he did something I could never have imagined.  He reached into a burlap bag and brought out a pigeon, flapping and struggling until his large hand cradled the bird and pinned its wings.

Grandpa lived a purposeful life with little wasted motion.  He took a needle and thread from a small box in his shirt pocket and slid his thumb and forefinger to the bird’s head to hold it steady. I  couldn’t believe it, but he started sewing shut its eyelid with three or four stitches.  And then he repeated the procedure on the other eye, and all the while I’m just standing there looking dumbfounded. 

But more was to come this day.  From his shirt pocket he unraveled a few feet of cord and knotted one end to the pigeon’s leg and the other to the wood “stool.”  When it was anchored to the block, he released the pigeon to flutter helplessly in repeated attempts to fly and escape its blind confusion.  Two more pigeons emerged from that bag  and received the same treatment. Three birds flopping and flapping around at the end of their tethers made for a lively scene under that net which I soon learned was the object.

Finally he explained what we were going to do.  “We’re all set up, so now we’re gonna hide in those bushes over there.   Don’t move or talk cuz we’re waitin’ on a flight of pigeons to come in.”  My heart was pounding so fast in anticipation of this unknown that I struggled to sit still and be quiet.  Well, the time arrived; we heard a loud drumming sound in the distance that grew in volume and intensity over the next couple of minutes.  With the sun glinting off iridescent feathers, a flock of pigeons filled the sky swirling and turning and continually changing direction to look like they thought with one mind.  They kept lowering to land amongst the three pigeons that Grandpa had set for bait, and soon the ground was covered with them, dozens, maybe hundreds.  It was hard to estimate how many.  When the time was just right Grandpa and his partner pulled ropes with their slip knots and released the net.  The weighted edges brought it straight down on the top of the grounded pigeons and trapped so many of them.  

You can’t imagine such a flurry of flapping wings and squawking birds, so loud and jumbled that I could hardly hear Grandpa hollering, “Grab those branches and logs and lay them on the edges of the net.  Some are trying to crawl out from under it!”

Dear reader, don’t stop reading yet, our day wasn’t over.  The catch needed to be killed and cleaned for market.  Pigeon heads were sticking out through the netting, and the men grabbed each one by the neck and squeezed them hard between their thumb and forefinger.  Grandpa looked at me standing there and said, “Go to the wagon and find a pliers.  You’re not strong enough to kill them with your fingers, you can use that.”  I held that pliers in my hand but didn’t accomplish much with it.  It seemed so cruel.

♢♢♢

This story is imagined along the Sheyenne River where local historical evidence places it, but it could have been almost anywhere.  Pigeons could be found in many parts of the country numbering in the billions and when trapped, dressed, salted, and packed up in barrels they shipped them by the boxcar load to Eastern cities.  Pigeons sold for about a penny apiece in such places as New York City.  Slave owners didn’t spend much money to feed the slaves when such a cheap commodity existed.  Excess amounts were thrown to the hogs. 

Different reasons have been given for their numbers to decline from the billions to a state of extinction.  Of course, they were hunted, but deforestation robbed them of habitat, and diseases were thought to have played a part.

The term “stool pigeon”  is used today to identify someone who informs police of criminal activity and came from this era when pigeons were used to decoy others into a net.  At one time collecting pigeons in this manner for market became a cottage industry in which money could be earned by cash-strapped settlers.  

z1lynn.bueling@gmail.com