theredish.com image published in Indian Country News Growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, my childhood was steeped in the whitewashed origin story of Thanksgiving.
As summarized by educator-activist Sarah Sunshine Manning: Pilgrims came to America, in order to escape religious persecution in England. Living conditions proved difficult in the New World, but thanks to the friendly Indian, Squanto, the pilgrims learned to grow corn, and survive in unfamiliar lands. It wasn’t long before the Indians and the pilgrims became good friends. To celebrate their friendship and abundant harvest, Indians in feathered headbands joined together with the pilgrims and shared in a friendly feast of turkey and togetherness. Happy Thanksgiving. The End.
While my understanding of the truth of those times matured as I grew older, it wasn't until I researched this blog post that I learned how Thanksgiving became a national holiday. As Manning explains, "Truth be told, this beloved lie was packaged solely for nationalistic consumption when, following the bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. Back then, Americans were desperately in need of unity and inspiration. Hence, the myth of the first Thanksgiving was born to inspire and unite."
Today, at a time when we again feel the desperate need for unity and inspiration, what myths colonize our minds? And what stories offer another way?
There's been some awareness during my lifetime of the debt the American political system - mythologized as the world's first participatory democracy - owes to the Iroquois Confederacy (now known by their historically accurate name, the Haudnosaunee). US Senate Resolution 331, introduced in 1988 by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the highest ranking Asian American politician in U.S history, acknowledged, “the confederation of the original thirteen colonies into one republic was influenced…by the Iroquois Confederacy, as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the constitution itself.”
Of the many shameful developments resulting from traumatized Europeans reenacting their trauma on this continent, on this Thanksgiving I mourn, in particular, that the founding fathers weren't equally influenced by the Haudenosaunee relationship with the rest of creation.
The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address is one expression of that relationship. Ramona Peters, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Mashpee Wampanoag (descendants of those mythologized in the "pilgrims' first Thanksgiving" story), explains: "We give thanks more than once a year in formal ceremony for different seasons, for the green corn thanksgiving, for the arrival of certain fish species, whales, the first snow, our new year in May—there are so many ceremonies; and I think most cultures have similar traditions. It’s not a foreign concept. Human beings who recognize greater spirit would have to say thank you in some formal way."
An understanding of the world as alive had been burned out of the pilgrims' culture; for the Puritans, there was one God only. Early Thanksgiving combined the austere thanks owed to that God with the older European traditions of harvest festivals.
Perhaps what we really need now is less unity - one God, one superior race, the false pride of nationalism - and more radically inclusive diversity: a valuing of the life in all things, a pledge of allegiance to the divine's many faces, praise like that practiced by the Standing Rock Water Protectors, gratitude like that voiced in the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address.
As summarized by educator-activist Sarah Sunshine Manning: Pilgrims came to America, in order to escape religious persecution in England. Living conditions proved difficult in the New World, but thanks to the friendly Indian, Squanto, the pilgrims learned to grow corn, and survive in unfamiliar lands. It wasn’t long before the Indians and the pilgrims became good friends. To celebrate their friendship and abundant harvest, Indians in feathered headbands joined together with the pilgrims and shared in a friendly feast of turkey and togetherness. Happy Thanksgiving. The End.
While my understanding of the truth of those times matured as I grew older, it wasn't until I researched this blog post that I learned how Thanksgiving became a national holiday. As Manning explains, "Truth be told, this beloved lie was packaged solely for nationalistic consumption when, following the bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. Back then, Americans were desperately in need of unity and inspiration. Hence, the myth of the first Thanksgiving was born to inspire and unite."
Today, at a time when we again feel the desperate need for unity and inspiration, what myths colonize our minds? And what stories offer another way?
There's been some awareness during my lifetime of the debt the American political system - mythologized as the world's first participatory democracy - owes to the Iroquois Confederacy (now known by their historically accurate name, the Haudnosaunee). US Senate Resolution 331, introduced in 1988 by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the highest ranking Asian American politician in U.S history, acknowledged, “the confederation of the original thirteen colonies into one republic was influenced…by the Iroquois Confederacy, as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the constitution itself.”
Of the many shameful developments resulting from traumatized Europeans reenacting their trauma on this continent, on this Thanksgiving I mourn, in particular, that the founding fathers weren't equally influenced by the Haudenosaunee relationship with the rest of creation.
The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address is one expression of that relationship. Ramona Peters, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Mashpee Wampanoag (descendants of those mythologized in the "pilgrims' first Thanksgiving" story), explains: "We give thanks more than once a year in formal ceremony for different seasons, for the green corn thanksgiving, for the arrival of certain fish species, whales, the first snow, our new year in May—there are so many ceremonies; and I think most cultures have similar traditions. It’s not a foreign concept. Human beings who recognize greater spirit would have to say thank you in some formal way."
An understanding of the world as alive had been burned out of the pilgrims' culture; for the Puritans, there was one God only. Early Thanksgiving combined the austere thanks owed to that God with the older European traditions of harvest festivals.
Perhaps what we really need now is less unity - one God, one superior race, the false pride of nationalism - and more radically inclusive diversity: a valuing of the life in all things, a pledge of allegiance to the divine's many faces, praise like that practiced by the Standing Rock Water Protectors, gratitude like that voiced in the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address.
Click image to listen to a conversation about the purpose and uses of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address.
Click image to view Mohawk storyteller Kay Olan's spoken version of the Thanksgiving Address along with images created by Tuscarora graphic artist Melanie Printup Hope, from the Iroquois Indian Museum's on-line Learning Longhouse
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