T H A N K S G I V I N G (DAY)

On November 24, 2011, Thanksgiving will be celebrated around the United States. Informally known as Turkey Day, it is a national holiday and a form of harvest festival, celebrated primarily in the United States and Puerto Rico. Historically it was a religious holiday. Traditionally, Thanksgiving Day was a holiday to express thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation to God, family and friends, and has been a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. This holiday has since moved away from its religious roots and has become a time of family gatherings and holiday meals. A time of turkeys, apples, peaches and pumpkin pies, and a time of holiday parades and giant balloons.
In the United States, Thanksgiving Day falls on the fourth Thursday of November.
In Canada it is celebrated on the second Monday in October. The precise historical origin of the holiday is disputed. Although Americans commonly believe that the first Thanksgiving was the well-known 1621 harvest celebration of the Pilgrims in New England, happened at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, there are other claims to the first American Thanksgiving celebration.
During Thanksgiving Day family and friends usually gather for a large meal or dinner. Consequently the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest travel periods over the year. Thanksgiving is a four-day or five-day weekend vacation for schools and colleges. Most business and government workers are given Thanksgiving and the day after as paid holidays. Thanksgiving Eve, the night before Thanksgiving, is one of the busiest nights of the year for bars and clubs, as many college students and others return to their hometowns to reunite with friends and family.

“We Gather Together” – A traditional Thanksgiving Hymn:

Native Americans had a rich tradition of commemorating the fall harvest with feasting and merrymaking long before Europeans set foot on their land. To many Native Americans Thanksgiving holiday is The National Day of Mourning. Since it was first organized (1970), social changes have resulted in major revisions to the portrayal of United States history, the government’s and settlers relations with Native American peoples, and renewed appreciation for Native American culture.

“In The Stone Circle” – Native American Flute Music by Ronald Roybal

“In The Stone Circle” is from the film “The Blood Cries Out” which was nominated Best Long Form Music Video in the 2007 Native American Music Awards. Photography is by Edward S. Curtis. The music is composed and performed by Ronald Roybal. Ronald is a six-time Native American Music Award Nominee who makes his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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DIFFERENT HISTORICAL ORIGINS

Thanksgiving falls under a category of festivals that spans cultures, continents and millennia. The offering of thanks at harvest time is not unique to America. Such observances are known to have been held by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and many other cultures throughout history by feasting and paying tribute to their gods after the fall harvest.
Although Americans commonly believe that the first Thanksgiving was the well-known 1621 harvest celebration of the Pilgrims in New England, happened at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, there are other claims to the first American Thanksgiving celebration. These include Juan Ponce De Leon’s landing in Florida in 1513, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s service of Thanksgiving in the Texas Panhandle in 1541, as well as two claims for thanksgiving observances in Jamestown, Virginia — in 1607 and 1610.

1621, Plymouth

Mayflower in Plymouth, by William Halsall (1882)

In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers—an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.
Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring.
In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit.
Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving” — although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations. (from www.history.com)
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1565, Florida
Author and teacher Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida have argued that the earliest attested “thanksgiving” celebration in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida

1619, Virginia
A day of thanksgiving was codified in the founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia in 1619
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1576 Canada

Thanksgiving (Canadian French: Jour de l’Action de grâce), occurring on the second Monday in October, is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. Although the original act of Parliament references God and the holiday is celebrated in churches, the holiday is also celebrated in a secular manner.
Canadians adamantly deny any connection between their Thanksgiving and the American Pilgrim tradition.
They prefer to claim the English explorer Martin Frobisher and his 1576 Thanksgiving on what is now Baffin Island – which they assert was the “real” first Thanksgiving in North America, beating the Pilgrims by 45 years (but not the Florida or Texas claims).
The explorer Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean. Frobisher’s Thanksgiving celebration was not for harvest, but for homecoming.
He had safely returned from a search for the Northwest Passage, avoiding the later fate of Henry Hudson and Sir John Franklin. In the year 1576, Frobisher held a formal ceremony in Newfoundland to give thanks for surviving the long journey.

New France
French settlers who came to New France with explorer Samuel de Champlain in the early 17th century also took to celebrating their successful harvests. They even shared their food with the indigenous people of the area as well as setting up what became known as the “Order of Good Cheer”.

Other influences
As many more settlers arrived in Canada, more celebrations of good harvest became common. New immigrants into the country, such as the Irish, Scottish and Germans, would also add their own harvest traditions to the harvest celebrations. Most of the American aspects of Thanksgiving (such as the turkey) were incorporated when United Empire Loyalists began to flee from the United States during the American Revolution and settled in Canada.
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The Official Holiday

Illustration of American Thanksgiving (1889)

The American celebration itself is a historically recent development, in fact connected only tenuously to any of the so-called “first” thanksgivings. The American thanksgiving of 1621 was all but forgotten until the 19th century. The 1621 event was not repeated, and what many consider the first authentic Calvinist, religious thanksgiving did not take place until 1623 in Plymouth Colony. Even then it was celebrated only occasionally in some regions for decades…
Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a long drought that had threatened the year’s harvest and prompted Governor William Bradford to call for a religious fast. Days of fasting and thanksgiving on an annual or occasional basis became common practice in other New England settlements as well.
During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States; in it, he called upon Americans to express their gratitude for the happy conclusion to the country’s war of independence and the successful ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of thanks during their presidencies.

In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition.

Sarah Josepha Hale, painted by James Reid Lambdin (1807-1889)

In 1827, the noted magazine editor and prolific writer Sarah Josepha Hale (editor and founder of the Ladies’ Magazine) in Boston —author, among countless other things, of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians.
Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November. (www.history.com)
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Native Americans

Squanto (c. 1580s – November 1622)

Tisquantum (better known as Squanto) was a Patuxet. He was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival. The Patuxet tribe was a tributary of the Wampanoag Confederacy. Squanto died of a fever in 1622.
Squanto was originally from the village of Patuxet (Pa TUK et) and a member of the Pokanokit Wampanoag nation. Patuxet once stood on the exact site where the Pilgrims built Plymouth. In 1605, fifteen years before the Pilgrims came, Squanto went to England with a friendly English explorer named John Weymouth. He had many adventures and learned to speak English. Squanto came back to New England with Captain Weymouth. Later Squanto was captured by a British slaver who raided the village and sold Squanto to the Spanish in the Caribbean Islands. A Spanish Franciscan priest befriended Squanto and helped him to get to Spain and later on a ship to England. Squanto then found Captain Weymouth, who paid his way back to his homeland. In England Squanto met Samoset of the Wabanake (Wab NAH key) Tribe, who had also left his native home with an English explorer. They both returned together to Patuxet in 1620. When they arrived, the village was deserted and there were skeletons everywhere. Everyone in the village had died from an illness the English slavers had left behind. Squanto and Samoset went to stay with a neighboring village of Wampanoags.
One year later, in the spring, Squanto and Samoset were hunting along the beach near Patuxet. They were startled to see people from England in their deserted village. For several days, they stayed nearby observing the newcomers. Finally they decided to approach them. Samoset walked into the village and said “welcome,” Squanto soon joined him. The Pilgrims were very surprised to meet two Indians who spoke English.
(From: THE PLYMOUTH THANKSGIVING STORY
-The Center For World Indigenous Studies – Washington, USA)
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Native American flute music, drum and blessing “Thanksgiving”
Lowery Begay does a blessing as the Jeff Ball Band performs their song “Dog Days”

Native Americans had a rich tradition of commemorating the fall harvest with feasting and merrymaking long before Europeans set foot on their land.
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Squanto

Thanksgiving – A Native American Teacher reports

By Chuck Larsen
Tacoma Public Schools
September, 1986

For an Indian, who is also a school teacher, Thanksgiving was never an easy holiday for me to deal with in class. I sometimes have felt like I learned too much about “the Pilgrims and the Indians.” Every year I have been faced with the professional and moral dilemma of just how to be honest and informative with my children at Thanksgiving without passing on historical distortions, and racial and cultural stereotypes.
The problem is that part of what you and I learned in our own childhood about the “Pilgrims” and “Squanto” and the “First Thanksgiving” is a mixture of both history and myth. But the THEME of Thanksgiving has truth and integrity far above and beyond what we and our forebearers have made of it. Thanksgiving is a bigger concept than just the story of the founding of the Plymouth Plantation…
I have come to know both the truths and the myths about our “First Thanksgiving,” and I feel we need to try to reach beyond the myths to some degree of historic truth…

The Wampanoag Indians were not the “friendly savages” some of us were told about when we were in the primary grades. Nor were they invited out of the goodness of the Pilgrims’ hearts to share the fruits of the Pilgrims’ harvest in a demonstration of Christian charity and interracial brotherhood. The Wampanoag were members of a widespread confederacy of Algonkian-speaking peoples known as the League of the Delaware. For six hundred years they had been defending themselves from my other ancestors, the Iroquois, and for the last hundred years they had also had encounters with European fishermen and explorers but especially with European slavers, who had been raiding their coastal villages. They knew something of the power of the white people, and they did not fully trust them. But their religion taught that they were to give charity to the helpless and hospitality to anyone who came to them with empty hands. Also, Squanto, the Indian hero of the Thanksgiving story, had a very real love for a British explorer named John Weymouth, who had become a second father to him several years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth. Clearly, Squanto saw these Pilgrims as Weymouth’s people. To the Pilgrims the Indians were heathens and, therefore, the natural instruments of the Devil. Squanto, as the only educated and baptized Christian among the Wampanoag, was seen as merely an instrument of God, set in the wilderness to provide for the survival of His chosen people, the Pilgrims. The Indians were comparatively powerful and, therefore, dangerous; and they were to be courted until the next ships arrived with more Pilgrim colonists and the balance of power shifted.
The Wampanoag were actually invited to that Thanksgiving feast for the purpose of negotiating a treaty that would secure the lands of the Plymouth Plantation for the Pilgrims. It should also be noted that the INDIANS, possibly out of a sense of charity toward their hosts, ended up bringing the majority of the food for the feast.

A generation later, after the balance of power had indeed shifted, the Indian and White children of that Thanksgiving were striving to kill each other in the genocidal conflict known as King Philip’s War. At the end of that conflict most of the New England Indians were either exterminated or refugees among the French in Canada, or they were sold into slavery in the Carolinas by the Puritans. So successful was this early trade in Indian slaves that several Puritan ship owners in Boston began the practice of raiding the Ivory Coast of Africa for black slaves to sell to the proprietary colonies of the South, thus founding the American-based slave trade.

Obviously there is a lot more to the story of Indian/Puritan relations in New England than in the thanksgiving stories we heard as children. Our contemporary mix of myth and history about the “First” Thanksgiving at Plymouth developed in the 1890s and early 1900s…
What started as an inspirational bit of New England folklore, soon grew into the full-fledged American Thanksgiving we now know. It emerged complete withstereotyped Indians and stereotyped Whites, incomplete history, and a mythical significance as our “First Thanksgiving”.

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National Day of Mourning

40th National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, 2009 (photo: © The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research)

Some Native Americans and others take issue with how the Thanksgiving story is presented to the American public, and especially to schoolchildren. In their view, the traditional narrative paints a deceptively sunny portrait of relations between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people, masking the long and bloody history of conflict between Native Americans and European settlers that resulted in the deaths of millions.
Since 1970, protesters have gathered on the day designated as Thanksgiving at the top of Cole’s Hill, which overlooks Plymouth Rock, to commemorate a “National Day of Mourning.” Similar events are held in other parts of the country.

Thanksgiving: A Native American View

The National Day of Mourning is an annual protest organized since 1970 by American Indians of New England on the fourth Thursday of November. The organizers consider the national holiday of Thanksgiving Day as a reminder of the perceived democide and continued suffering of the Native American peoples. Participants in the National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. They want to educate Americans about history.

Sacred Mountain – Native American Flute Music
by Ronald Roybal, a six-time Native American Music Award Nominee

The event was organized in a period of Native American activism and general cultural protests. The protest is organized by the United American Indians of New England (UAINE). Since it was first organized, social changes have resulted in major revisions to the portrayal of United States history, the government’s and settlers relations with Native American peoples, and renewed appreciation for Native American culture.
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Thanksgiving Customs & Traditions

For many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of its original religious significance; instead, it now centers on cooking and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving was originally a religious observance for all the members of the community to give thanks to God for a common purpose. Historic reasons for community thanksgivings are the 1541 thanksgiving mass after the expedition of Coronado safely crossing part of Texas and finding game, and the 1777 thanksgiving after the victory in the revolutionary battle of Saratoga.
In his 1789 Proclamation, President Washington gave many noble reasons for a national Thanksgiving, including “for the civil and religious liberty”, for “useful knowledge”, and for God’s “kind care” and “His Providence”. The only presidents to inject a specifically Christian focus to their proclamation have been Grover Cleveland in 1896, and William McKinley in 1900. Several other presidents have cited the Judeo-Christian tradition. Gerald Ford’s 1975 declaration made no clear reference to any divinity.

The tradition of giving thanks to God is continued today in various forms. Various religious and spiritual organizations offer services and events on Thanksgiving themes the weekend before, the day of, or the weekend after Thanksgiving.

At home, it is a holiday tradition in many families to begin to begin the Thanksgiving dinner by saying grace ( a prayer before or after a meal). Traditionally grace was led by the hostess or host, though in later times it is usual for others to contribute.
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Turkey & other traditional Food

Turkey, a Thanksgiving staple so ubiquitous it has become all but synonymous with the holiday, may or may not have been on offer when the Pilgrims hosted the inaugural feast in 1621.
Today, according to the National Turkey Federation, nearly 90 percent of Americans eat Turkey —whether roasted, baked or deep-fried—on Thanksgiving. Regional twists offer variations on the traditional roasted bird, including coffee rubbed turkey from Hawaii, salt encrusted turkey from New England, and deep fried turkey from the South.
Beginning in the mid-20th century and perhaps even earlier, the president of the United States has “pardoned” one or two Thanksgiving turkeys each year, sparing the birds from slaughter and sending them to a farm for retirement. A number of U.S. governors also perform the annual turkey pardoning ritual.

Thanksgiving Dinner Must-Haves

Three towns in the U.S. take their name from the traditional Thanksgiving bird, including Turkey, Texas (pop. 465); Turkey Creek, Louisiana (pop. 363); and Turkey, North Carolina (pop. 270).

Other traditional foods include stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet corn, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie.
All of these are actually native to the Americas or were introduced as a new food source to the Europeans when they arrived. Turkey may be an exception. In his book “Mayflower”, Nathaniel Philbrick suggests that the Pilgrims might already have been familiar with turkey in England, even though the bird is native to the Americas. The Spaniards had brought domesticated turkeys back from Central America in the early 1600s, and the birds soon became popular fare all over Europe, including England, where Turkey became a “fixture at English Christmases”.

Volunteering is a common Thanksgiving Day activity, and communities often hold food drives and host free dinners for the less fortunate.
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Making a Wish

The tradition of tugging on either end of a fowl’s bone to win the larger piece and its accompanying “wish” dates back to the Etruscans of 322 B.C. The Romans brought the tradition with them when they conquered England and the English colonists carried the tradition on to America
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Football

American Football is an important part of many Thanksgiving celebrations throughout the United States. Professional football games are often held on Thanksgiving Day, until recently, these were the only games played during the week apart from Sunday or Monday night. The National Football League has played games on Thanksgiving every year since its creation; the tradition is referred to as the Thanksgiving Classic.
The Detroit Lions have hosted a game every Thanksgiving Day since 1934, with the exception of 1939-1944.
The first time the Detroit Lions played football on Thanksgiving Day was in 1934, when they hosted the Chicago Bears at the University of Detroit stadium, in front of 26,000 fans. The NBC radio network broadcast the game on 94 stations across the country -the first national Thanksgiving football broadcast. In 1956, fans watched the game on television for the first time.

For many college football teams, the regular season ends on Thanksgiving weekend, and a team’s final game is often against a regional or historic rival. Most of these college games are played on the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving, but usually a single college game is played on Thanksgiving itself.
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P a r a d e s

Balloons are paraded down 7th avenue during the 83rd Macy's Thanksgiving day parade in New York, Nov. 26, 2009 (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/United States Society)

Macy’s Christmas Parade

Since 1924, launched by Macy’s employees, in New York City, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held annually every Thanksgiving Day from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square, and televised nationally by NBC. The parade features parade floats with specific themes, scenes from Broadway plays, large balloons of cartoon characters and TV personalities, and high school marching bands. The float that traditionally ends the Macy’s Parade is the Santa Claus float, the arrival of which is an unofficial sign of the beginning of the Christmas season and the launch of the Christmas shopping season.
New York City’s Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting some 2 to 3 million spectators along its 2.5 mile route and another 44 million watch it on television.
The parade typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 2009

Tony Sarg, a children’s book illustrator and puppeteer, designed the first giant hot air balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1927. He later created the elaborate mechanically animated window displays that grace the façade of the New York store from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
Snoopy has appeared as a giant balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade more times than any other character in history. As the Flying Ace, Snoopy made his sixth appearance in the 2006 parade.

Parades in other Cities:

McDonald’s Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago, Illinois. 6abc IKEA Thanksgiving Parade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, America’s Hometown Thanksgiving Parade in Plymouth, Massachusetts, America’s Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit, Michigan, H-E-B Holiday Parade in Houston, Texas, Ameren St. Louis Thanksgiving Parade in St. Louis, Missouri, First Light Federal Credit Union Sun Bowl Parade in El Paso, Texas, Belk Carolina’s Carrousel Parade in Charlotte, North Carolina, My Macy’s Holiday Parada in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Parada de los Cerros in Fountain Hills, Arizona, Parade Spectacular in Stamford, Connecticut – held the Sunday before Thanksgiving so it doesn’t directly compete with the Macy’s Parade 30 miles away.

Most of these parades are televised on a local station, and some have small, usually regional syndication networks, most also carry the parades via Internet television on the TV stations’ Web sites.
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Songs of family gatherings and thanks for the harvest have a long history in the American celebration of Thanksgiving.
The following song is one of the songs which has traditionally been sung to honor the season; it became a Christmas song later:

Over The River And Through The Woods

“Thanksgiving Song” by David Campbell,
born in Guyana, South America, of Arawak Indian and Portuguese ancestry. Resident of Vancouver, Canada.
“My own sense is that giving thanks is for all of the time…not only on one day of the year. I wrote this song in this spirit of “All the Time Thankfulness”. – David Campbell -

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I wish all who celebrate it
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Best wishes,

Angela Nilsson
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Sources:
http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/page3
http://german.about.com/cs/culture/a/erntedankf.htm
http://www.2020tech.com/thanks/temp.html
http://www.appleseeds.org/thankgiv.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_Mourning_(United_States_protest)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto
http://genealogy.about.com/od/holidays/tp/thanksgiving.htm

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