Posted on 11/19/2001 2:14:04 PM PST by k2blader
Thanksgiving: The Whole Story
By Barbara Curtis
Ever hear the story about the young bride who caused a stir when her new husband found her preparing their first Thanksgiving turkey by cutting it in half?
"That`s how Mama always did it," she said.
"That`s how Grandma always did it," Mama said.
So they called Grandma. Grandma couldn`t remember why the turkey was cut in half. She thought back over all the past Thanksgivings. She remembered the turkeys her mother had heaved out of the wide old-fashioned oven in their cozy kitchen. Her mother had never cut the turkey in half. But for at least 40 years, she and her children and now grandchildren had been cutting their turkeys in half. When had they decided it was better that way? Her mind kept going back to her mother`s kitchen . . . it was the oven! The first years of her marriage her own oven was too small to accommodate a whole turkey.
Sometimes I wonder if our Thanksgiving turkey has been cut in half. In the oven of multiculturalism, there has been less room for the complete story of our nation`s heritage. It`s just not acceptable to emphasize the role of faith in the first Thanksgiving. Yet that`s what it was all about. The faith of the first Thanksgiving celebrants was as real as the bowls and baskets of food they prepared, as up close and personal as the events that had led them to this moment, as compelling as their pursuit of religious freedom.
Thanksgiving in a Nutshell
The story of the first Thanksgiving begins in 1608, when a group of people called the Separatists, persecuted for forming a church apart from the Church of England, left their homeland to settle in Leyden, Holland. There they found religious freedom but also poverty, grueling work and a secular culture that threatened to undo the values they had carefully instilled in their children. After seeking God`s guidance, under the leadership of William Bradford they sold everything and, to finance their journey, indentured themselves to an English company for their first seven years in America. On the Mayflower, the Separatists joined others seeking the new land for other reasons; these they called the Strangers. These two groups, a passenger list of 102, together were the Pilgrims.
The journey lasted nine weeks. Along the way their ship lost its course and, instead of reaching Virginia, landed at Cape Cod, Mass. This took the Pilgrims outside the territory covered by the King`s Charter, thus they were responsible for their own government. After much prayer, the Pilgrims wrote a set of laws, called The Mayflower Compact. Only after all had signed it, on Nov. 11, 1620, did they leave the Mayflower to begin their new life at the place they named Plymouth.
Half the Pilgrims died that first winter. The survivors clung to their faith in God, and when the Mayflower returned to England the next spring, not one Pilgrim chose to return. That spring the little colony literally put down roots with the help of Squanto, an Indian who years before had been kidnapped and taken to England, where he had learned English and become a Christian. Squanto taught them how to grow corn, use fertilizer, stalk deer and catch fish. William Bradford, the governor, wrote of Squanto that he was "a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectations."
The first harvest brought plenty. In October, Gov. Bradford set aside a day for everyone to thank God for meeting their needs through that arduous year. Squanto, his chief, Massasoit, and other members of his tribe were their invited guests. The Indians brought deer and turkeys, while the Pilgrim women cooked vegetables and fruit pies.
Faith Above All
Which one of us in these far too comfortable times could imagine freezing and starving through a harsh winter, losing half of our community, then lifting such joyous celebration to God? What an inspiring picture of our Christian faith.
Unfortunately, this picture is lost in the watered-down versions of Thanksgiving that pass the tests of political correctness, including those offered in recently published books and encyclopedias. In some public school classrooms, children are taught that the Pilgrims offered the first Thanksgiving to thank the Indians, or worse yet, Mother Earth.
In many ways, our situation as Christians is drawing closer each year to that of the English Separatists. As the Church of England at the time disregarded biblical truths, our nation is no longer acknowledging its spiritual history. We can`t ignore our personal responsibility to transmit our cultural heritage to the next generation. It`s a responsibility with many rewards.
Sharing our country`s heritage will inspire and give meaning to your children`s lives, enriching the legacy of your own family as well as that of our nation. But you need to know that heritage well to pass it on. Check your library for books and encyclopedias published before 1970 to find the authentic history of our nation, as well as the inseparable role of faith in our history.
As Woodrow Wilson said in 1913, "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.
"America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."
In short, America has always been a nation of faithful people. Now we need faith that the current reign of revisionist history will be followed by a remembrance of our authentic past. Until then it is our responsibility to see that our legacy is not forgotten.
[END]
A friend of mine is taking care of a little Navajo boy, and I was invited last year to go to his 3rd grade Thanksgiving play. I looked forward to it, because when I was in school, back East in the 1950s, we never had any real Indians to act in our classic “Indian and Pilgrim” Thanksgiving plays. But this little Indian boy I know is in a class that is about 50-50 white and Indian, so I thought their classic Thanksgiving play would be just right.
But was it? Nooooo. It seems that “Indian and Pilgrim” plays are not “PC” out here in the West nowadays, so their teacher insisted that they act out the old Navajo myth of the “Stone Soup”. The setting was an early pioneer village containing a group of starving village people (some of whom were Indian and some were white). Then a smart Indian comes along into the village and talks everyone in the village into making “Stone Soup”. Each poor person adds what little he has to the soup. A couple of carrots, a few potatoes, some peas, etc., etc. And the “smart” Indian who had the idea adds his stone, which is nothing more than a rock. And they all had “Thanksgiving dinner”, thanks to the “smart” Indian with the rock.
HOW STUPID!!! The guy with the rock was nothing more than a con-man. There were no “Pilgrims” in the play, and no story about how the first Pilgrims and the early Eastern Indians got along quite well.
I’ll never go to another school play out here in the West.
Thanksgiving, Virginia Style
November 1998 FSO-11 (9/98)
Despite the popular conception that New Englanders held the first Thanksgiving, the first Thanksgiving in English-speaking America actually took place in Virginia - more than a year before the Mayflower set sail for Plymouth. Massachusetts-native President John F. Kennedy acknowledged Virginia's claim in his official Thanksgiving Day Proclamation for 1963 - less than three weeks before his death; and 100 years before that, President Abraham Lincoln, who visited Berkeley once, also acknowledged Virginia's first-Thanksgiving claim.
To this day, Virginia continues to commemorate its noteworthy event the first Sunday each November at Berkeley Plantation, the original Thanksgiving site.
The First Thanksgiving at Berkeley History records that the first Thanksgiving occurred when Captain John Woodlief - a veteran of Jamestown who had survived its "starving time" of 1608 and 1609 - led his crew and passengers from their ship to a grassy slope along the James River for the New World's first Thanksgiving service on Dec. 4, 1619. There, the English colonists dropped to their knees and prayed as the British company expedition sponsor had instructed.
Today, on the site where Woodlief knelt, a brick gazebo contains the following inscribed words: "Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God."
This year, visitors to Berkeley on Nov. 1 can witness the reading of a proclamation - commemorating Berkeley's first Thanksgiving 379 years ago - at 2 p.m. In addition, a traditional Thanksgiving meal will be served to patrons at the Coach House Tavern.
Visitors to Berkeley any time of year won't want to miss touring the grounds, gardens and the three-story manor house to learn other interesting Berkeley facts. For example, Berkeley stakes a claim as the site of the first distillation of bourbon whiskey in America, when Episcopal missionary George Thorpe produced the beverage and declared it "much better than British ale."
The brick home, built in 1726 and among the earliest of the Georgian plantation dwellings, has a number of presidential connections. Berkeley is the birthplace of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and of ninth U.S. President William Henry Harrison and the ancestral home of 23rd U.S. President Benjamin Harrison. In earlier days - and as one of the James River plantations that became the focal point of colonial Virginia's economic, cultural and social life - Berkeley hosted more than 10 presidents including George Washington.
Lincoln, the first president to designate a November Thursday as Thanksgiving Day, visited Berkeley on July 8, 1862, to confer with Union General George McClellan, headquartered in the mansion. That same summer, Berkeley garnered another first when Union General Daniel A. Butterfield composed the "Taps" melody, customarily used as a "lights out" bugle call, while camped on the grounds.
Eventually, decades later, liberal Eastern professors come out West here to “study the Indians in their natural habitat”. The Eastern professors often pick up what they think are “ancient Native American folk tales”. They take the stories back East where they publish them in books, claiming they are original and unique to Native Americans, whereas, in reality, they might actually have come from 18th or 19th Century (or earlier) Spanish, Anglo, or even French literature.
A good example of this phenomenon is the famous Navajo “Squash Blossom Necklace”, made out of turquoise and silver.
I lived out here a while before I learned that the “squash blossom” is actually a Middle-Eastern pomegranate blossom, and the “naja” at the bottom of the necklace is an ancient Arabic/Moorish crescent-moon symbol. The Moorish-influenced Spanish brought these designs to New Mexico as early as the 1500s, in the form of fancy show-off horse bridle gear. The Navajos wore parts of the horse bridle stuff as jewelry, and eventually began to combine various design features into what is known today as “unique” Navajo jewelry. In fact, it was the Spanish who taught the Navajos how to make “Indian jewelry” and how to weave “Navajo blankets”. Before that, the Navajos knew nothing about silver, silver mining, or soldering. They did find some turquoise on the ground in the old days, and they wore a little of it as simple jewelry, but they knew nothing of silver. The early silver jewelry that Navajos made was made from melted or hammered Spanish silver coins.
The Zapotec Indians in Southern Mexico still weave Navajo-style rugs from old Spanish-design hand looms.
I'll tell you my story that was something of a new perspective on Thanksgiving.
I started a new job in October, 1988. It was working with a group of Army officers, one of whom was a member of the Navajo nation. In November, as Thanksgiving approached, whenever I would interact with anyone, I would ask, "What are you planning for Thanksgiving?" FrogDad was also an army officer and I was looking for someone who might not have family close by and might like to join our big family sit-down.
Eventually I asked the Navajo man who was also a captain in the Army. He said, "Nothing special." Maybe he was my guest!
I asked if he and his wife would like to join us, I knew he was married, two more would be fine. He responded with a genuine harumph - I looked at him in surprise and he said, "Thanks anyway, but what the hell have WE got to be thankful for?"
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