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Rethinking Thanksgiving

THE NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING
http://www.pilgrimhall.org/daymourn.htm
 
On Thanksgiving Day, many Native Americans and their supporters gather at the top of Coles Hill, overlooking Plymouth Rock, for the "National Day of Mourning."
 
The first National Day of Mourning was held in 1970. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts invited Wampanoag leader Frank James to deliver a speech. When the text of Mr. James’ speech, a powerful statement of anger at the history of oppression of the Native people of America, became known before the event, the Commonwealth "disinvited" him. That silencing of a strong and honest Native voice led to the convening of the National Day of Mourning.
 
The historical event we know today as the "First Thanksgiving" was a harvest festival held in 1621 by the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors and allies. It has acquired significance beyond the bare historical facts. Thanksgiving has become a much broader symbol of the entirety of the American experience. Many find this a cause for rejoicing. The dissenting view of Native Americans, who have suffered the theft of their lands and the destruction of their traditional way of life at the hands of the American nation, is equally valid.
 
To some, the "First Thanksgiving" presents a distorted picture of the history of relations between the European colonists and their descendants and the Native People. The total emphasis is placed on the respect that existed between the Wampanoags led by the sachem Massasoit and the first generation of Pilgrims in Plymouth, while the long history of subsequent violence and discrimination suffered by Native People across America is nowhere represented.
 
To others, the event shines forth as an example of the respect that was possible once, if only for the brief span of a single generation in a single place, between two different cultures and as a vision of what may again be possible someday among people of goodwill.
 
History is not a set of "truths" to be memorized, history is an ongoing process of interpretation and learning. The true richness and depth of history come from multiplicity and complexity, from debate and disagreement and dialogue. There is room for more than one history; there is room for many voices.
 
COMMENTS ON THE DAY OF MOURNING
 BY RUSSELL M. PETERS
 
Russell Peters is Wampanoag, born and raised in Mashpee, less than twenty miles from Plymouth Rock. Mashpee was considered an Indian community and was, in fact, an Indian District within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, until it was illegally dissolved in 1870.
 
Mr. Peters has been involved in Native American issues at a state, local and national level. He is the President of the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1976 to 1984, a member of the Harvard Peabody Museum Native American Repatriation Committee, a member of the White House Conference on Federal Recognition in 1995 and 1996, a board member of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, a board member of the Pilgrim Society, and the author of Wampanoags of Mashpee (Nimrod Press), Clambake (Lerner Publications), and Regalia (Sundance Press).
 
Mr. Peters’ notes that the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council is constantly working to improve the spiritual and material lives of their people. They are not opposed to demonstrations but are opposed to needless confrontations that serve no purpose for the Native American people they purport to serve.
 
"When Frank James, known to the Wampanoag people as Wampsutta, was invited to speak at the 1970 annual Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth, he was not prepared to have his speech revised by the Pilgrims. He left the dinner and the ceremonies and went to the hill near the statue of the Massasoit, who as the leader of the Wampanoags when the Pilgrims landed in their territory. There overlooking Plymouth Harbor, he looked at the replica of the Mayflower. It was there that he gave his speech that was to be given to the Pilgrims and their guests. There eight or ten Indians and their supporters listened in indignation as Frank talked of the takeover of the Wampanoag tradition, culture, religion, and land.
 
"This was a missed opportunity to begin a dialogue between the Wampanoags and the Pilgrims. Instead the `Day of Mourning’ began, and continues to this day. I commend Frank for taking the stand that he took, and we and our supporters recognize the token role the Wampanoags had played in this pageantry. It was not appropriate for the native people to feast in thanksgiving; instead we decided to fast and show by contrast our way of remembering our history.
 
"As the years went by, the numbers at the Massasoit statue increased and the presentations, skits and demonstrations did indeed show a contrast between feasting and fasting. Reporters arrived from local news media as well as the New York papers, the Atlanta Constitution, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times, and told the stories of the Wampanoag to the American people.
 
"Some of the Wampanoag people who live in the vicinity of Plymouth began to look at positive ways in which we could impact our lives, both past and present. It occurred to us that the Europeans had a history of the colonists, well documented, albeit quite Eurocentric. The history of the Wampanoag people in southeastern Massachusetts and Martha’s Vineyard was barely mentioned. Ironically, the Indian communities of Mashpee, Aquinnah (Gay Head) and Herring Pond still exist just a short distance away from the Plymouth Rock.
 
"The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head is a Federally Recognized Indian Tribe. Their Tribal roll lists 1000 Wampanoags. Under the leadership of their chief, the tribe conducts daily business, economic development, as well as community and social activities for its tribal members. The Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council, of which I am President, has a tribal roll of 1200 Wampanoags. It conducts business and other related activities on a daily basis. Our annual Pow Wow took place in Mashpee on July 3, 4 and 5, 1998. We own and maintain the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Museum with plans to expand the facilities. We are very active in revitalization of our language which was taken from us by the colonists. And we are doing research and writing of the Wampanoag history, particularly concerning the relationship with the English and other European colonists during the early seventeenth century up to the present.
 
"These are some of the positive ways in which we can balance the scale of history and establish pride in the Wampanoag identity and heritage. Ours is as much a part of the American story as that of the Pilgrim, in fact more so since it was our land.
 
"While the `Day of Mourning’ has served to focus attention on past injustice to the Native American cause, it has, in recent years, been orchestrated by a group calling themselves the United American Indians of New England. This group has tenuous ties to any of the local tribes, and is composed primarily of non-Indians. To date, they have refused several invitations to meet with the Wampanoag Indian tribal councils in Mashpee or in Gay Head. Once again, we, as Wampanoags, find our voices and concerns cast aside in the activities surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday in Plymouth, this time, ironically, by a group purporting to represent our interests.
 
"The time is long overdue for the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags to renew a meaningful dialogue about our past and look towards a more honest future. Our history is a vital and dynamic part of pre-American and American history. We must be the ones who research, write, and interpret that history."
 
Fast and Thanksgiving Days
of Plymouth Colony
 
by Carolyn Freeman Travers, Research Manager
 
The Separatists who founded Plymouth Colony observed three holy days; the weekly Sabbath, the Day of Humiliation and Fasting, and the Day of Thanksgiving and Praise. The latter two were held for special circumstances. A series of misfortunes meant that God was displeased, and the people should both search for the cause(s) and humble themselves before him. Good fortune, on the other hand, was a sign of God’s mercy and compassion, and therefore he should be thanked and praised. Over time, with the influx of new colonists and new faiths, as well as the political changes in England and New England, the holiday changed, becoming more secular. By the end of the century, the colonial government established a cycle of annual spring Fast Days and autumn Thanksgivings.
 
Early fast days and thanksgiving days were similar in many respects. They were called by either church or civil officials or the two working together. Occasionally, officials reacted to one overwhelming situation, such as an epidemic. More frequently, there were a number of reasons. For example, causes for a 1641 Day of Humiliation in the Barnstable church were: “In regard of the wett & very cold Spring, as also for the quelling of Strange & heretical tenets raised principally by the Ffamilists, as also for the healing of the bloodye Coffe amonge children especially at Plimouth.”1 A 1685 Day of Thanksgiving in the Plymouth church was held for “continuance of spirituall & civill liberties, a good harvest notwithstanding a threatening drought, & for health.”2 In the minds of the Plymouth colonists, that mixture of events were all traceable to one source – God – and his relationship with the community. Relief from misfortune would come (they hoped) after reconciliation with God through fasting, prayer and repentance. Fortunate events required public expression of gratitude with praise and thanksgiving.
 
The first Day of Humiliation for the Plymouth colonists actually occurred before the Separatist congregation left the Netherlands. As described in Bradford’s history, “So being ready to depart, they had a day of solemn humiliation, their pastor taking his text from Ezra viii.21: ‘And there by the river, by Ahava, I proclaimed a fast, that we might humble ourselves before our God, and seek of him a right way for us, and for our children, and for all our substance.’ Upon which he spent a good part of the day very profitably and suitable to our present occasion, the rest of the time was spent in pouring out our prayers to the Lord with great fervency, and with abundance of tears.”3 This type of fast day was not a response to misfortune, but an appeal for God’s aid at the beginning of a new enterprise. Later colonial churches would call these fast days when choosing new officers and creating or renewing their covenant.
 
While the harvest celebration held in Plymouth Colony in 1621 has been mistakenly referred to as the “First Thanksgiving” since the 1800s, the first Thanksgiving Day as the Separatists understood it occurred in 1623. As with many later New England Days of Thanksgiving, it followed a Day of Humiliation. The events of that summer, described in colonist Edward Winslow’s Good Newes from New England, show clearly how the Separatists saw their relationship with God and used these two holidays to reconcile and affirm that relationship.
 
In 1623, the colony was still struggling to survive. The colonists were critically low on food. For months they had been expecting a ship with supplies and additional colonists. The spring planting of Indian corn and beans began well. By mid-July, however, “it pleased God, for our further chastisement, to send a great drought, insomuch as in six weeks after the latter setting there scarce fell any rain; so the stalk of that which was first set began to send forth the ear, before it came to half growth, and that which was later was not like to yield any at all, both blade and stalk hanging the head, and changing color in such a manner, as we judged it utterly dead. Our beans also ran not up according to their wonted manner, but stood at a stay, many being parched away, as though they had been scorched before the fire. Now were our hopes overthrown, and we discouraged, our joy being turned into mourning.” Additionally, the expected ship had not been heard of for three months, “only the signs of a wreck were seen along the coast, which could not be judged to be any other than the same.” The colonists were devastated. “The most courageous were now discouraged, because God, which hitherto had been our only shield and supporter, now seemed in his anger to arm himself against us.”
 
These misfortunes “moved not only every good man privately to enter into examination with his own estate between God and his conscience, and so to humiliation before him, but also more solemnly to humble ourselves together before the Lord by fasting and prayer. To that end a day was appointed by public authority,....” Winslow did not describe the religious exercises, but stated that they lasted “some eight or nine hours.” The next morning “distilled such soft, sweet, and moderate showers of rain, continuing some fourteen days, and mixed with such seasonable weather, as it was hard to say whether our withered corn or drooping affections were most quickened or revived.” Captain Myles Standish, returning from the north, brought further good news. The supplies and new colonists were safe, although delayed, and again on their way.
 
Their prayers answered, the colonists thought “it would be great ingratitude, if secretly we should smother up the same, or content ourselves with private thanksgiving for that, which by private prayer could not be obtained. And therefore another solemn day was set apart and appointed for that end; wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, with all thankfulness, to our good God, which dealt so graciously with us;....”4
 
This, then, was the first Thanksgiving Day held in Plymouth Colony. It occurred most likely at the end of July and consisted of a lengthy church service. Probably, there was no feasting. Bradford lamented in his history, that when the new colonists arrived soon after, the “best they could present their friends with was a lobster or a piece of fish without bread or anything else but a cup of fair water.”5 Descriptions of later observances in surviving church records provide more details of the probable structure of the services.
 
Reverend Cotton described a 1684 Plymouth Fast Day service “May 2: the day of Fasting & Prayer was solemnly attended by the whole church in the Pastors house. The Pastour first prayed & preached, then Mr Fuller prayed: Afternoone the Elder prayed, Secretary Morton, Deacon Finney & Thomas Faunce; ... Deacon Morton spake to the church about Intemperance, & long sitting at ordinaryes etc the Elders & Bretheren that spake to it all agreed in their Testimony against those evills & their desires that God would helpe all to more care & watch fullnesse in all respects: the 122 Psalme was sung, & the Pastour minding of the Lords supper to be the next Sabbath, he then ended with a prayer;...”6 Reverend Cotton did not mention food in connection with this fast day, although it was permissible to eat after the final prayer on a fast day. An English visitor to a 1660 Salem fast day for the ordinations of a teacher and elder said, “After the exercise, I was invited to the elder’s house, where was good company and good cheer [food].”7
 
At a 1636 Day of Thanksgiving held by Reverend Lothrop’s Scituate church: “in ye Meetinghouse, beginning some halfe an houre before nine, & continued until after twelve a clocke, ye day beeing very cold, beginning with a short prayer, then a psalme sang, then more large in prayer, after that an other Psalme, & then the Word taught [sermon], after that a prayer – and then a psalme, - Then makeing merry to the creatures, the poorer sort beeing invited of the richer.”8 About a 1639 Thanksgiving Lothrop said, “our praises to God in publque being ended, wee devided into 3 companies to feast togeather.”9 As early as the 1630s, therefore, some congregations were feasting after the service.
 
Over the 17th century, Plymouth Colony held many of these special observances as circumstances required. Beginning in the 1680s, officials called for public thanksgiving and fast days “for the mercies of the yeare” on an annual basis. In the 1700s, they settled into a cycle of spring Fast Days and autumn Thanksgivings. The Massachusetts government abolished the state’s April Fast Day in 1894. Its annual Thanksgiving Day, held on the last Thursday of November, was absorbed by the national Thanksgiving Day established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The latter was the first nationally declared Thanksgiving Day for the United States, which is still observed on the fourth Thursday each November to the present day.
 
NOTES:
 
 1. John Lothrop, “Scituate and Barnstable Church Records,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 10 (January, 1856):p. 38.
 
 2. John Cotton, Jr., “Plymouth Church Records, Volume I, Part V,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts: Volume XXII: Collections (Boston: The Society, 1920), p. 257.
 
 3. William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, Ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), p. 47.
 
 4. Edward Winslow, Good Newes from New England, [1624], ed. Alexander Young (Bedford: Applewood Books, 1996), pp. 54-56.
 
 5. Bradford, p. 130.
 
 6. Cotton, p. 255.
 
 7. Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, ed. Lawrence Mayo, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936), I:359.
 
 8. Lothrop, p. 39.
 
 9. Lothrop, p. 39.
 
Andre Cramblit, Operations Director
Northern California Indian Development Council
andrekaruk@ncidc.org
241F Street Eureka California 95501
http://ncidc.org
(707) 445-8451

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THANKSGIVING A CELEBRATION OF GENOCIDE
By Laura Eliff, Vice President Native American Student Association 
 
Thanksgiving is a holiday where families gather to share stories, football games are watched on television and a big feast is served. It is also the time of the month when people talk about Native Americans. But does one ever wonder why we celebrate this national holiday? Why does everyone give thanks? History is never simple. The standard history of Thanksgiving tells us that the "Pilgrims and Indians" feasted for three days, right? Most Americans believe that there was some magnificent bountiful harvest. In the Thanksgiving story, are the "Indians" even acknowledged by a tribe? No, because everyone assumes "Indians" are the same.
 
So, who were these Indians in 1621? In 1620, Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower naming the land Plymouth Rock. One fact that is always hidden is that the village was already named Patuxet and the Wampanoag Indians lived there for thousands of years. To many Americans, Plymouth Rock is a symbol. Sad but true many people assume, "It is the rock on which our nation began." In 1621, Pilgrims did have a feast but it was not repeated years thereafter. So, it wasn't the beginning of a Thanksgiving tradition nor did Pilgrims call it a Thanksgiving feast. Pilgrims perceived Indians in relation to the Devil and the only reason why they were invited to that feast was for the purpose of negotiating a treaty that would secure the lands for the Pilgrims.
 
 The reason why we have so many myths about Thanksgiving is that it is an invented tradition. It is based more on fiction than fact. So, what truth ought to be taught? In 1637, the official Thanksgiving holiday we know today came into existence. (Some people argue it formally came into existence during the Civil War, in 1863, when President Lincoln proclaimed it, which also was the same year he had 38 Sioux hung on Christmas Eve.) William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not "a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children."
 
 In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children." It was signed into law that, "This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots."
 
 Most Americans believe Thanksgiving was this wonderful dinner and harvest celebration.
 
 The truth is the "Thanksgiving dinner" was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre. Was Thanksgiving really a massacre of 700 "Indians"? The present Thanksgiving may be a mixture of the 1621 three-day feast and the "Thanksgiving" proclaimed after the 1637 Pequot massacre. So next time you see the annual "Pilgrim and Indian display" in a shopping window or history about other massacres of Native Americans, think of the hurt and disrespect Native Americans feel. Thanksgiving is observed as a day of sorrow rather than a celebration. This year at Thanksgiving dinner, ponder why you are giving thanks.
 
William Bradford, in his famous History of the Plymouth Plantation, celebrated the Pequot massacre:  "Those that scraped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte, and very few escapted. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente there of, but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemise in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enimie."
 
 The Pequot massacre came after the colonists, angry at the murder of an English trader suspected by the Pequots of kidnapping children, sought revenge. rather than fighting the dangerous Pequot warriors, John Mason and John Underhill led a group of colonists and Native allies to the Indian fort in Mystic, and killed the old men, women, and children who were there. Those who escaped were later hunted down. The Pequot tribe numbered 8,000 when the Pilgrims arrived, but disease had brought their numbers down to 1,500 by 1637. The Pequot "War" killed all but a handful of remaining members of the tribe.
 
Proud of their accomplishments, Underhill wrote a book (above) depicted the burning of the village, and even made an illustration (below) showing how they surrounded the village to kill all within it. - John K. Wilson Link to Above Report The First Thanksgiving The year was 1637. 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe, gathered for their "Annual Green Corn Dance" in the area that is now known as Groton, Conn. While they were gathered in this place of meeting, they were surrounded and attacked by mercenaries of the English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came forth, they were shot down. The rest were burned alive in the building. The next day, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared :
 
 A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children. For the next 100 years, every "Thanksgiving Day" ordained by a Governor or President was to honor that victory, thanking God that the battle had been won. Source: Documents of Holland, 13 Volume Colonial Documentary History, letters and reports form colonial officials to their superiors and the King in England and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian agent for the New York colony for 30 years Researched by William B. Newell (Penobscot Tribe) Former Chairman of the University of Connecticut Anthropology Department. 1637-When the Green Corn Dance Turned to Blood
 
Happy Thanksgiving 
Date:11/21/03
From:Cherokawa 
 
We're talking turkey - and Thanksgiving
by Terri Jean
 
The Native Truth: A column dedicated to historical truth and human rights activism of the American Indian
http://www.terrijean.com
Contact: terrijean@bright.net
 
Okay, so "Dead Indian Day" may be a bit much, but it is said with tongue in cheek.
 
Last year's 79th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade drew in an estimated 44 million television viewers and 2.5 million spectators who lined the streets of New York City to stand in awe of the gigantic balloons, Pilgrim bobble heads, melodious marching bands, and beautiful floats, one of which featured two-time Grammy winner, Rita Coolidge (Cherokee). She was riding on top of an eagle head that poked out from underneath an enormous headdress, which sat atop a canoe. Dancers from Spirit: The Seventh Fire accompanied her. Though Coolidge's voice was amazing, it wasn't her singing that piqued my attention, rather it was knowing that while she smiled her beautiful indigenous smile at millions of people who truly believe the friendly Indian/brave Pilgrim banquet tale, hundreds of dissenters marched - for the 35th straight year - through Plymouth, Massachusetts in protest of this manufactured myth in what they refer to as a National Day of Mourning.
 
It all started in 1970 when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts invited Wampanoag leader Frank James to deliver a speech pertaining to the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. He agreed, but they later dis-invited him once they read a copy of his speech and strongly disagreed with his contrary perception of the historic event. Refusing to remain silent, Frank James took his speech outside and spoke to hundreds of supporters on top of a Coles Hill, which overlooks Plymouth Rock and a replica of the Mayflower. He spoke about the land theft, slave-trading, deception, oppression, and the struggle for historical truth. Each year since indigenous people and their non-Native supporters gather together each year to honor Frank James and his spirit of justice and an end to the idealized whitewashed fantasy that is, today, known as Thanksgiving.
 
For those of you unfamiliar with the truth, here goes:
 
In 1620 a group of English political revolutionaries and outcasts who moved to Holland after an unsuccessful plot to take over the English government, came to the "New World" with the intent to found an entirely new nation founded on their strict, religious interpretation of the Bible. They believed that they were the Biblical "Chosen Elect," and the already inhabited western continent was theirs. The invading Pilgrims built homes near Pawtuxet village ruins, a town desecrated by diseases from a 1614 British Expedition. Except for the ex-slave/friendly Christian Squanto, the Pilgrims viewed the indigenous inhabitants as heathen children of the devil, and one colonist said the plaque was "the Wonderful Preparation of the Lord Jesus Christ by His Providence for His People's Abode in the Western World." Squanto helped negotiate land settlements between them and the Wampanoag, in a 1621 a three-day 'conference' in which the charitable Wampanoag's brought most of the food, which was tradition among such meetings. In the end, peace between the two people's would continue for more than 15 years.
 
In 1622 propaganda started to circulate about the friendly Natives, the "wonderfulness"of Plymouth, and the vast opportunities found only in the "New World" in an effort to encourage a greater influx of Pilgrim and Puritan colonists. By the mid 1630's tension broke out between the indigenous communities and the invading colonists, resulting in one of the most brutal crimes in our nation's history: colonist trapped an estimated 700 Pequots near Mystic River in 1636 and attacked their camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Most were burned alive, and those that escaped were either butchered or sold into slavery. The invaders celebrated with the a large feast, and the very first Thanksgiving Proclamation was given in honor of their God allowing them to murder the local residents. Scalping was soon introduced to the Americas by the Dutch who offered twenty shillings for each Indian scalp, and forty shillings for every prisoner sold into slavery. Raping indigenous women was permitted and colonial law gave permission to "kill savages on sight at will." Soon massacres and slavery were common throughout the New World, which was often celebrated with a Thanksgiving Feast.
 
The town of Plymouth, Massachusetts is mighty proud of their English immigrants, so much so that the town hosts and annual re-enactment known as the Pilgrim's Progress. Local historians and townspeople, dressed in long black robes and beating drums, retell the romanticized tale of the welcoming Indians and the poor, brave pilgrims and the peace between their communities for five decades. $1.5 million in tourism dollars is made each year in Plymouth, partaking in the pilgrim march, watching the decade-old parade, buying Pilgrim merchandise or eating at an re-enactment dinner that's advertised as being just like the original diner.
 
Millions are made from this fictional tale. No where does the truth about that 1621 meeting come out, nor do they tell what happened 50 years later. It seems that knowing that the first Thanksgiving Proclamation - which is, in my opinion, the real first Thanksgiving - was actually in praise of the burning alive of children, women and men. Apparently, the truth is a pill that's just too hard to swallow, because who really wants to decorate their table with a cardboard cutouts of sword carrying Pilgrims jamming weapons into frantic Pequots running for lives while their family and fellow villagers screamed from inside burning buildings?
 
In 1970 Frank James wanted to tell the truth, but he was censored. And to this day, the pilgrims remain American icons representing religious freedom and peaceful coexistence to most, but to those who know better, the fantasy (presented as history) myth represents justification of imperialism, land theft, forced colonization, and genocide.
 
So given all that... why would Rita Coolidge sing in the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade? Surely she knows the truth about Thanksgiving, and she has to know about the National Day of Mourning... so why would she ride in a parade that celebrates indigenous slavery, slaughter and it's historical coverup?
 
I asked a few readers what they thought, and most gave her a head shake and a big thumbs down. A few were upset that millions would see her and her Native American float and believe that indigenous people are generally happy with Thanksgiving, and that the fictional story is actually historic fact. Others were angry that, again, almost no media attention was brought to those mourning in Plymouth.
 
So, what do YOU think about all this? Should indigenous people assimilate, demonstrate, capitulate, retaliate or celebrate? Should folks honor the Wampanoag and their attempt to live peacefully next to the unassuming Pilgrims? Should Native's take pity on ignorant Americans brainwashed with historic lies and feel-good propaganda, because, like the Wampanoag, taking pity on the sick and stupid is often an indigenous ethic? Should we all go to Plymouth this year and protest, or write our fellow congressmen and demand an end to Thanksgiving? Or are we all to give in and celebrate our lives today, and all that we are thankful for?
 
Most of the people I spoke to about this national holiday said it is often bittersweet. Those who put a turkey on the table made the day their very own by either remembering family and friends who have since crossed over, or for strictly focusing on why they are thankful. A few spent the day at charitable institutions or delivering meals to the needy, while others fasted, ignored the day altogether or joined the protesters in Plymouth. But with everyone I spoke to, a common thread was a day of remembrance and/or mourning.
 
So why a Thanksgiving column in March? Well, I was unable to attend the 2005 National Day of Mourning, but I fully intend to participate in the next one. I'm inviting each of you to join me and together we can stand in solidarity, representing historical truth and indigenous justice. And for those of you who cannot attend, you can raise your voice in protest whenever you hear the lies being spread in newspapers, magazines, classrooms, television shows, and so on. You can write to the media and ask why they aren't covering the Native Day of Mourning, or why they choose to lie to their viewers and readers. And why they choose to celebrate our indigenous people on Thanksgiving - in the Macy's Day parade and with children dressed up as pilgrims and Indians in school plays - rather than with educational programs and events celebrating American Indian Heritage Month.
 
My point is, Thanksgiving will be here before we know it and it's up to you to decide what you're actually celebrating, and from that, what you're truly grateful for. As for me, I'd be eternally grateful if my Native Truth readers joined me at the 2006 National Day of Mourning. We can all stand together - united.
 
If you're going, please let me know.
 
Until then...
 
Terri Jean
Andre Cramblit, Operations Director
Northern California Indian Development Council
andrekaruk@ncidc.org
241F Street Eureka California 95501
http://ncidc.org
(707) 445-8451

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Teaching Thanksgiving

Teaching About Thanksgiving

 
 Dr. Frank B. Brouillet Superintendent of Public Instruction State of Washington
 
 Cheryl Chow Assistant Superintendent Division of Instructional Programs and Services
 
 Warren H. Burton Director Office for Multicultural and Equity Education
 
Dr. Willard E. Bill Supervisor of Indian Education
 
 Originally written and developed by Cathy Ross, Mary Robertson, Chuck Larsen, and Roger Fernandes  Indian Education, Highline School District
 
 With an introduction by:  Chuck Larsen  Tacoma School District
 
 Printed: September, 1986
 
Reprinted: May, 1987
 
  AN INTRODUCTION FOR TEACHERS
 
This is a particularly difficult introduction to write. I have been a public schools teacher for twelve years, and I am also a historian and have written several books on American and Native American history. I also just happen to be Quebeque French, Metis, Ojibwa, and Iroquois. Because my Indian ancestors were on both sides of the struggle between the Puritans and the New England Indians and I am well versed in my cultural heritage and history both as an Anishnabeg (Algokin) and Hodenosione (Iroquois), it was felt that I could bring a unique insight to the project.
 
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.
 
So what do we teach to our children? We usually pass on unquestioned what we all received in our own childhood classrooms. 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. This text is an attempt to do this.
 
At this point you are probably asking, "What is the big deal about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims?" "What does this guy mean by a mixture of truths and myth?" That is just what this introduction is all about. I propose that there may be a good deal that many of us do not know about our Thanksgiving holiday and also about the "First Thanksgiving" story. I also propose that what most of us have learned about the Pilgrims and the Indians who were at the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation is only part of the truth. When you build a lesson on only half of the information, then you are not teaching the whole truth. That is why I used the word myth. So where do you start to find out more about the holiday and our modern stories about how it began?
 
A good place to start is with a very important book, "The Invasion of America," by Francis Jennings. It is a very authoritative text on the settlement of New England and the evolution of Indian/White relations in the New England colonies. I also recommend looking up any good text on British history. Check out the British Civil War of 1621-1642, Oliver Cromwell, and the Puritan uprising of 1653 which ended parliamentary government in England until 1660. The history of the Puritan experience in New England really should not be separated from the history of the Puritan experience in England. You should also realize that the "Pilgrims" were a sub sect, or splinter group, of the Puritan movement. They came to America to achieve on this continent what their Puritan bretheran continued to strive for in England; and when the Puritans were forced from England, they came to New England and soon absorbed the original "Pilgrims."
 
As the editor, I have read all the texts listed in our bibliography, and many more, in preparing this material for you. I want you to read some of these books. So let me use my editorial license to deliberately provoke you a little. When comparing the events stirred on by the Puritans in England with accounts of Puritan/Pilgrim activities in New England in the same era, several provocative things suggest themselves:
 
1. The Puritans were not just simple religious  conservatives persecuted by the King and the Church of  England for their unorthodox beliefs. They were  political revolutionaries who not only intended to  overthrow the government of England, but who actually  did so in 1649. 
 
2. The Puritan "Pilgrims" who came to New England were not  simply refugees who decided to "put their fate in God's  hands" in the "empty wilderness" of North America, as a  generation of Hollywood movies taught us. In any culture  at any time, settlers on a frontier are most often  outcasts and fugitives who, in some way or other, do not  fit into the mainstream of their society. This is not to  imply that people who settle on frontiers have no  redeeming qualities such as bravery, etc., but that the  images of nobility that we associate with the Puritans  are at least in part the good "P.R." efforts of later  writers who have romanticized them.(1) It is also very  plausible that this unnaturally noble image of the  Puritans is all wrapped up with the mythology of "Noble  Civilization" vs. "Savagery."(2) At any rate, mainstream  Englishmen considered the Pilgrims to be deliberate  religious dropouts who intended to found a new nation  completely independent from non-Puritan England. In 1643  the Puritan/Pilgrims declared themselves an independent  confederacy, one hundred and forty-three years before  the American Revolution. They believed in the imminent  occurrence of Armegeddon in Europe and hoped to  establish here in the new world the "Kingdom of God"  foretold in the book of Revelation. They diverged from  their Puritan brethren who remained in England only in  that they held little real hope of ever being able to  successfully overthrow the King and Parliament and,  thereby, impose their "Rule of Saints" (strict Puritan  orthodoxy) on the rest of the British people. So they  came to America not just in one ship (the Mayflower) but  in a hundred others as well, with every intention of  taking the land away from its native people to build  their prophesied "Holy Kingdom."(3)
 
3. The Pilgrims were not just innocent refugees from  religious persecution. They were victims of bigotry in  England, but some of them were themselves religious  bigots by our modern standards. The Puritans and the  Pilgrims saw themselves as the "Chosen Elect" mentioned  in the book of Revelation. They strove to "purify" first  themselves and then everyone else of everything they did  not accept in their own interpretation of scripture.  Later New England Puritans used any means, including  deceptions, treachery, torture, war, and genocide to  achieve that end.(4) They saw themselves as fighting a  holy war against Satan, and everyone who disagreed with  them was the enemy. This rigid fundamentalism was  transmitted to America by the Plymouth colonists, and it  sheds a very different light on the "Pilgrim" image we  have of them. This is best illustrated in the written  text of the Thanksgiving sermon delivered at Plymouth in  1623 by "Mather the Elder." In it, Mather the Elder gave  special thanks to God for the devastating plague of  smallpox which wiped out the majority of the Wampanoag  Indians who had been their benefactors. He praised God  for destroying "chiefly young men and children, the very  seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way  for a better growth", i.e., the Pilgrims.(5) In as much  as these Indians were the Pilgrim's benefactors, and  Squanto, in particular, was the instrument of their  salvation that first year, how are we to interpret this  apparent callousness towards their misfortune?
 
4. 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.(6) 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.(7) 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.(8) 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.(9)
 
5. 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.(10)
 
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. Our country was desperately trying to pull together its many diverse peoples into a common national identity. To many writers and educators at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, this also meant having a common national history. This was the era of the "melting pot" theory of social progress, and public education was a major tool for social unity. It was with this in mind that the federal government declared the last Thursday in November as the legal holiday of Thanksgiving in 1898.
 
In consequence, what started as an inspirational bit of New England folklore, soon grew into the full-fledged American Thanksgiving we now know. It emerged complete with stereotyped Indians and stereotyped Whites, incomplete history, and a mythical significance as our "First Thanksgiving." But was it really our FIRST American Thanksgiving?
 
Now that I have deliberately provoked you with some new information and different opinions, please take the time to read some of the texts in our bibliography. I want to encourage you to read further and form your own opinions. There really is a TRUE Thanksgiving story of Plymouth Plantation. But I strongly suggest that there always has been a Thanksgiving story of some kind or other for as long as there have been human beings. There was also a "First" Thanksgiving in America, but it was celebrated thirty thousand years ago.(11) At some time during the New Stone Age (beginning about ten thousand years ago) Thanksgiving became associated with giving thanks to God for the harvests of the land. Thanksgiving has always been a time of people coming together, so thanks has also been offered for that gift of fellowship between us all. Every last Thursday in November we now partake in one of the OLDEST and most UNIVERSAL of human celebrations, and THERE ARE MANY THANKSGIVING STORIES TO TELL.
 
As for Thanksgiving week at Plymouth Plantation in 1621, the friendship was guarded and not always sincere, and the peace was very soon abused. But for three days in New England's history, peace and friendship were there.
 
So here is a story for your children. It is as kind and gentle a balance of historic truth and positive inspiration as its writers and this editor can make it out to be. I hope it will adequately serve its purpose both for you and your students, and I also hope this work will encourage you to look both deeper and farther, for Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving all around the world.
 
Chuck Larsen Tacoma Public Schools September, 1986
 
FOOTNOTES FOR TEACHER INTRODUCTION
 
(1) See Berkhofer, Jr., R.F., "The White Man's Indian," references to Puritans, pp. 27, 80-85, 90, 104, & 130.
 
(2) See Berkhofer, Jr., R.F., "The White Man's Indian," references to frontier concepts of savagery in index. Also see Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of America," the myth of savagery, pp. 6-12, 15-16, & 109-110.
 
(3) See Blitzer, Charles, "Age of Kings," Great Ages of Man series, references to Puritanism, pp. 141, 144 & 145-46. Also see Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of America," references to Puritan human motives, pp. 4-6, 43- 44 and 53.
 
(4) See "Chronicles of American Indian Protest," pp. 6-10. Also see Armstrong, Virginia I., "I Have Spoken," reference to Cannonchet and his village, p. 6. Also see Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of America," Chapter 9 "Savage War," Chapter 13 "We must Burn Them," and Chapter 17 "Outrage Bloody and Barbarous."
 
(5) See "Chronicles of American Indian Protest," pp. 6-9. Also see Berkhofer, Jr., R.F., "The White Man's Indian," the comments of Cotton Mather, pp. 37 & 82-83.
 
(6) See Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving," pp. 3-4. Also see Graff, Steward and Polly Ann, "Squanto, Indian Adventurer." Also see "Handbook of North American Indians," Vol. 15, the reference to Squanto on p. 82.
 
(7) See Benton-Banai, Edward, "The Mishomis Book," as a reference on general "Anishinabe" (the Algonkin speaking peoples) religious beliefs and practices. Also see Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving," reference to religious life on p. 1.
 
(8) See Graff, Stewart and Polly Ann, "Squanto, Indian Adventurer." Also see Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving." Also see Bradford, Sir William, "Of Plymouth Plantation," and "Mourt's Relation."
 
(9) See Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving," the letter of Edward Winslow dated 1622, pp. 5-6.
 
(10) See "Handbook of North American Indians," Vol. 15, pp. 177-78. Also see "Chronicles of American Indian Protest," p. 9, the reference to the enslavement of King Philip's family. Also see Larsen, Charles, M., "The Real Thanksgiving," pp. 8-11, "Destruction of the Massachusetts Indians."
 
(11) Best current estimate of the first entry of people into the Americas confirmed by archaeological evidence that is datable.
 
 HIGHLINE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
 
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES and ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER 15675 Ambaum Boulevard S.W. Telephone 206/433-0111 Seattle, Washington 98166
 
November 13, 1985
 
Dear Colleague:
 
As educators, we continually strive to improve the clarity and accuracy of what is taught about the history of our country. Too often, we have presented what is considered to be a traditional mono-cultural perspective of history to our students. Our celebrations and observances have borne this out. We are, however, becoming increasingly aware of the need for greater cultural accuracy in historical studies. This is consistent with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction's commitment to multi-cultural education for all students.
 
With this in mind, the Highline Indian Education program designed these instructional materials last year to be used in teaching about Thanksgiving in grades K-6. The response to these materials has been very positive and we are happy to have the opportunity to share them with districts in the state. We trust that you will find them to be a valuable addition to your instructional resources.
 
Dr. Kent Matheson Superintendent
 
Dr. Bill McCleary Assistant Superintendent, Curriculum and Instruction
 
 The Thanksgiving holiday season is a time when Indian history and culture are frequently discussed in the schools. Unfortunately, the information and materials available to teachers are often incomplete or stereotyped in their presentation. For example, some commercially- produced bulletin board posters depict Plains-style Indians with feather warbonnets, tipis in the background, and horses tied nearby, sitting down to dinner with the Pilgrims. While these images are popular, they do not accurately represent the unique culture of the New England tribes, whose lifestyle was quite different than that of the Plains Indian stereotype. In addition, some books make brief mention of the critical assistance given by the Indians to the Pilgrims and tend to leave readers with the mistaken impression that all participants at the Thanksgiving feast remained friends for many years to come.
 
This unit provides additional information about the Indians of the North-east culture area where the first Thanksgiving took place. It includes art projects and other activities teachers can use for expanding and enriching their instruction. It is hoped that these materials will enable teachers to better portray the events surrounding the first Thanksgiving.
 
-- Cathy Ross, Mary Robertson and Roger Fernandes
THE PLYMOUTH THANKSGIVING STORY
 
When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1620, they landed on the rocky shores of a territory that was inhabited by the Wampanoag (Wam pa NO ag) Indians. The Wampanoags were part of the Algonkian-speaking peoples, a large group that was part of the Woodland Culture area. These Indians lived in villages along the coast of what is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They lived in round- roofed houses called wigwams. These were made of poles covered with flat sheets of elm or birch bark. Wigwams differ in construction from tipis that were used by Indians of the Great Plains.
 
The Wampanoags moved several times during each year in order to get food. In the spring they would fish in the rivers for salmon and herring. In the planting season they moved to the forest to hunt deer and other animals. After the end of the hunting season people moved inland where there was greater protection from the weather. From December to April they lived on food that they stored during the earlier months.
 
The basic dress for men was the breech clout, a length of deerskin looped over a belt in back and in front. Women wore deerskin wrap-around skirts. Deerskin leggings and fur capes made from deer, beaver, otter, and bear skins gave protection during the colder seasons, and deerskin moccasins were worn on the feet. Both men and women usually braided their hair and a single feather was often worn in the back of the hair by men. They did not have the large feathered headdresses worn by people in the Plains Culture area.
 
There were two language groups of Indians in New England at this time. The Iroquois were neighbors to the Algonkian-speaking people. Leaders of the Algonquin and Iroquois people were called "sachems" (SAY chems). Each village had its own sachem and tribal council. Political power flowed upward from the people. Any individual, man or woman, could participate, but among the Algonquins more political power was held by men. Among the Iroquois, however, women held the deciding vote in the final selection of who would represent the group. Both men and women enforced the laws of the village and helped solve problems. The details of their democratic system were so impressive that about 150 years later Benjamin Franklin invited the Iroquois to Albany, New York, to explain their system to a delegation who then developed the "Albany Plan of Union." This document later served as a model for the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States.
 
These Indians of the Eastern Woodlands called the turtle, the deer and the fish their brothers. They respected the forest and everything in it as equals. Whenever a hunter made a kill, he was careful to leave behind some bones or meat as a spiritual offering, to help other animals survive. Not to do so would be considered greedy. The Wampanoags also treated each other with respect. Any visitor to a Wampanoag home was provided with a share of whatever food the family had, even if the supply was low. This same courtesy was extended to the Pilgrims when they met.
 
We can only guess what the Wampanoags must have thought when they first saw the strange ships of the Pilgrims arriving on their shores. But their custom was to help visitors, and they treated the newcomers with courtesy. It was mainly because of their kindness that the Pilgrims survived at all. The wheat the Pilgrims had brought with them to plant would not grow in the rocky soil. They needed to learn new ways for a new world, and the man who came to help them was called "Tisquantum" (Tis SKWAN tum) or "Squanto" (SKWAN toe).
 
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.
 
The Pilgrims were not in good condition. They were living in dirt-covered shelters, there was a shortage of food, and nearly half of them had died during the winter. They obviously needed help and the two men were a welcome sight. Squanto, who probably knew more English than any other Indian in North America at that time, decided to stay with the Pilgrims for the next few months and teach them how to survive in this new place. He brought them deer meat and beaver skins. He taught them how to cultivate corn and other new vegetables and how to build Indian-style houses. He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how other plants could be used as medicine. He explained how to dig and cook clams, how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for fertilizer, and dozens of other skills needed for their survival.
 
By the time fall arrived things were going much better for the Pilgrims, thanks to the help they had received. The corn they planted had grown well. There was enough food to last the winter. They were living comfortably in their Indian-style wigwams and had also managed to build one European-style building out of squared logs. This was their church. They were now in better health, and they knew more about surviving in this new land. The Pilgrims decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune. They had observed thanksgiving feasts in November as religious obligations in England for many years before coming to the New World.
 
The Algonkian tribes held six thanksgiving festivals during the year. The beginning of the Algonkian year was marked by the Maple Dance which gave thanks to the Creator for the maple tree and its syrup. This ceremony occurred when the weather was warm enough for the sap to run in the maple trees, sometimes as early as February. Second was the planting feast, where the seeds were blessed. The strawberry festival was next, celebrating the first fruits of the season. Summer brought the green corn festival to give thanks for the ripening corn. In late fall, the harvest festival gave thanks for the food they had grown. Mid-winter was the last ceremony of the old year. When the Indians sat down to the "first Thanksgiving" with the Pilgrims, it was really the fifth thanksgiving of the year for them!
 
Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit (the leader of the Wampanoags), and their immediate families to join them for a celebration, but they had no idea how big Indian families could be. As the Thanksgiving feast began, the Pilgrims were overwhelmed at the large turnout of ninety relatives that Squanto and Samoset brought with them. The Pilgrims were not prepared to feed a gathering of people that large for three days. Seeing this, Massasoit gave orders to his men within the first hour of his arrival to go home and get more food. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied the majority of the food: Five deer, many wild turkeys, fish, beans, squash, corn soup, corn bread, and berries. Captain Standish sat at one end of a long table and the Clan Chief Massasoit sat at the other end. For the first time the Wampanoag people were sitting at a table to eat instead of on mats or furs spread on the ground. The Indian women sat together with the Indian men to eat. The Pilgrim women, however, stood quietly behind the table and waited until after their men had eaten, since that was their custom.
 
For three days the Wampanoags feasted with the Pilgrims. It was a special time of friendship between two very different groups of people. A peace and friendship agreement was made between Massasoit and Miles Standish giving the Pilgrims the clearing in the forest where the old Patuxet village once stood to build their new town of Plymouth.
 
It would be very good to say that this friendship lasted a long time; but, unfortunately, that was not to be. More English people came to America, and they were not in need of help from the Indians as were the original Pilgrims. Many of the newcomers forgot the help the Indians had given them. Mistrust started to grow and the friendship weakened. The Pilgrims started telling their Indian neighbors that their Indian religion and Indian customs were wrong. The Pilgrims displayed an intolerance toward the Indian religion similar to the intolerance displayed toward the less popular religions in Europe. The relationship deteriorated and within a few years the children of the people who ate together at the first Thanksgiving were killing one another in what came to be called King Phillip's War.
 
It is sad to think that this happened, but it is important to understand all of the story and not just the happy part. Today the town of Plymouth Rock has a Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the first Thanksgiving. There are still Wampanoag people living in Massachusetts. In 1970, they asked one of them to speak at the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival. Here is part of what was said:
 
"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people.
 
Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important."
 
STUDY AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
 
1.  Who lived on the rocky shores where the Pilgrims landed?
 
2.  The Wampanoags were part of what culture area?
 
3.  In what type of homes did the Wampanoags live?
 
4.  Explain what the Wampanoags did to obtain food during the different seasons of the year?
 
5.  What was the basic dress for the Wampanoag people?
 
6.  Describe the Iroquois system of government.
 
7.  Who later used this system of government as a model?
 
8.  What courtesies did the Wampanoag people extend toward all visitors?
 
9.  Who was "Tisquantum" and what village was he from?
 
10. Explain how Squanto learned to speak English.
 
11. Why did Squanto and Samoset go to live with another Wampanoag village?
 
12. Tell four ways in which Squanto helped the Pilgrims.
 
13. Describe the "First Thanksgiving" in your own words.
 
14. Why was this really the fifth thanksgiving feast for the Indians that year?
 
15. What do you think would have happened to the Pilgrims if they had not been helped by the Indians?
 
16. After studying about the culture of the Wampanoags, how would you react to a thanksgiving picture showing tipis and Indians wearing feathered headdresses?
 
17. Quickly re-read the lesson and as you read, make a list of vocabulary words that are new to you and write a definition for each one.
 
 IDEAS FOR ENRICHMENT
 
* Study harvest celebrations in other cultures: Asia (New Year), Northwest Coast Indians (salmon feast), and Europe (Oktoberfest). For further information, contact the Ethnic Heritage Council of the Pacific Northwest, 1107 NE 45th, Suite 315A, Seattle, Washington, 98105, 206/633-3239.
 
* Imagine for a moment that people from different cultures have come to your neighborhood. How will you make them feel welcome? How might you share your possessions with them? What kinds of things could you do to build feelings of friendship and harmony with them?
 
* Investigate agriculture in your local community. What crops are grown? What time of year are they harvested? What harvest fairs are celebrated in your area?
 
* Discuss religious and cultural intolerance as evidenced by the problems that developed between the Indians and the Pilgrims in the years following the first thanksgiving at Plymouth. How do the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights safeguard the freedom of religion and the rights of all citizens in America today?
 
 HOW TO AVOID OLD STEREOTYPES
 
If you enact the story of the first thanksgiving as a pageant or drama in your classroom, here are some things to consider:
 
* Indians should wear appropriate clothing (see dolls on pages 31 and 35). NO WARBONNETS! A blanket draped over one shoulder is accurate for a simple outfit.
 
* Squanto and Samoset spoke excellent English. Other Indians would have said things in the Algonkian language. These people were noted for their formal speaking style. A good example of their oratory would be the prayers on page 23. Someone could read this as part of the drama.
 
* Indians in the Woodlands area did not have tipis or horses, so these should not be part of any scenery or backdrop.
 
* Any food served should be authentic. The following would be appropriate:
 
 -- corn soup (see recipe on page 28)  -- succotash (see recipe on page 28)  -- white fish  -- red meat  -- various fowl (turkey, partridge, duck)  -- berries (including whole cranberries)  -- maple sugar candies  -- corn starch candy (believe it or not, candy corn is almost authentic except for the colored dyes)  -- watercress  -- any kind of bean (red, black, green, pinto)  -- squash  -- corn  -- sweet potato  -- pumpkin
 
  BIBLIOGRAPHY
 
"An Educational Coloring Book of Northeast Indians," Spizzirri Publishing Company, Illinois, 1982.
 
Arber, Edward, "Plymouth Colony Records," Boston, Massachusetts, 1897.
 
Armstrong, Virginia Irving, "I Have Spoken," Pocket Books, New York, 1972.
 
Benton-Banai, Edward, "The Mishomis Book," Indian Country Press, Inc., Saint Paul, Minn., 1979.
 
Berkhofer, Jr., Robert F, "The White Man's Indian," Vintage Books, Random House, New York, 1978.
 
Blitzer, Charles, "Age of Kings," Great Ages of Man Series, Time-Life Books, Time, Inc., New York, 1967.
 
Bradford, Sir William, and Winslow, Edward, "Of Plymouth Plantation" and Mourt's Relation," Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Tri-centennial Edition, 1922.
 
"Chronicles of American Indian Protest," The Council on Interracial Books for Children, Fawcett Pub. Inc., Greenwich, Conn., 1971.
 
Epstein, Sam and Beryl, "European Folk Festivals," Garrand Publishing Company, Champagne, Illinois, 1968.
 
Dalgliesh, Alice, "The Thanksgiving Story," Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1954.
 
Forbes, Jack D., "The Indian in America's Past," Prentice Hall, Inc., 1964.
 
Graff, Stewart and Polly Ann, "Squanto, Indian Adventurer," Garrard Publishing Company, Illinois, 1965.
 
"Handbook of North American Indian series, Volume 15, "History of the Indians of the Northeast," Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., 1978.
 
"Harpers' Popular Cyclopaedia of United States History," Vol. 1 & 2, Harper and Brothers, Pub., Franklin Square, New York, 1892.
 
Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of America," W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., New York, 1976.
 
Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving," Tacoma Public Schools, Tacoma, Washington, 1981.
 
Leiser, Julia, "Famous American Indians and Tribes," Youth Publications, Saturday Evening Post Company, 1977.
 
Ross, Cathy and Fernandes, Roger, "Woodland Culture Area," Curriculum Associates, Seattle, Washington, 1979.
 
Russell, Howard S., "Indians in New England Before the Mayflower," University Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1986.
 
Simmons, William S., "Spirit of the New England Tribes, Indian History and Folklore 1620-1984," University Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1985.
 
 A THANKSGIVING PRAYER FROM THE IROQUOIS (SENECA) PEOPLE
 
Gwa! Gwa! Gwa! Now the time has come! Hear us, Lord of the Sky! We are here to speak the truth, for you do not hear lies, We are your children, Lord of the Sky.
 
Now begins the Gayant' gogwus This sacred fire and sacred tobacco And through this smoke We offer our prayers We are your children, Lord of the Sky.
 
Now in the beginning of all things You provided that we inherit your creation You said: I shall make the earth on which people shall live And they shall look to the earth as their mother And they shall say, "It is she who supports us." You said that we should always be thankful For our earth and for each other So it is that we are gathered here We are your children, Lord of the Sky.
 
 Now again the smoke rises  And again we offer prayers  You said that food should be placed beside us  And it should be ours in exchange for our labor.  You thought that ours should be a world  where green grass of many kinds should grow  You said that some should be medicines  And that one should be Ona'o  the sacred food, our sister corn  You gave to her two clinging sisters  beautiful Oa'geta, our sister beans  and bountiful Nyo'sowane, our sister squash  The three sacred sisters; they who sustain us.
 
 This is what you thought, Lord of the Sky.  Thus did you think to provide for us  And you ordered that when the warm season comes,  That we should see the return of life  And remember you, and be thankful,  and gather here by the sacred fire.  So now again the smoke arises  We the people offer our prayers  We speak to you through the rising smoke  We are thankful, Lord of the Sky.
 
 (Liberally translated)  Chuck Larsen, Seneca
Indigenous Studies Publication Catalogue sent to you via e-mail, send a request to
 
 jburrows@halcyon.com
 
 FTP ftp.halcyon.com /pub/FWDP/CWIS
 
 Center For World Indigenous Studies P.O. Box 2574  Olympia, WA U.S.A.  98507-2574
 
BBS: 206-786-9629
 
 OCR Provided by Caere Corporation's PageKeeper 
 

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American Indian family discusses Thanksgiving.
http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061123/News01/611230314/-1/NEWS01
 
MAY LEE JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Writer
 
At home in Niles on Wednesday evening, Jim Topash, 75, center, and his daughters, Jane Olsen, left, and Monica Topash, talk about how they spend Thanksgiving and what it means to them. They are all members of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians.
 
NILES -- Jim Topash, his wife, Mariann, and their family will enjoy a feast today.
 
"Thanksgiving is an American tradition," said the 75-year-old Topash, a member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. "Thanksgiving was a native tradition long before the Pilgrim feast."
 
The Topash family will gather for a traditional Indian dinner that includes deer or squirrel.
 
His daughters, Jane Olsen and Monica Topash, will join the family, but they will not celebrate Thanksgiving.
 
Their view of Thanksgiving is quite different from the fable of Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a friendly feast in 1621.It's a day for them to remember how Indians suffered as North America was colonized, and it is also a day to be thankful.
 
"When I was young," Olsen said, "whenever my sister and I heard the words 'land of the Pilgrim's pride' in 'America the Beautiful,' we just hummed through it instead of saying the words."
 
For them, it's a reminder that the European invasion led to the death of some 10 million to 30 million people.
 
"Most people think of the first Thanksgiving and the Indians and the Pilgrims sitting down to eat together, all eating happily together," Monica Topash said. "That was not how it was at all. These were not merely 'friendly Indians.'
 
"They had already experienced European slave traders raiding their villages for a hundred years or so, and they were wary -- but it was their way to give freely to those who had nothing."It wasn't until more than 200 years after the popularized "first" Thanksgiving that the day was given special recognition.
 
Thanksgiving was first established nationally by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 as a way of mending a war-torn country. Congress did not sanction it as a national holiday until 1941.
 
The sisters would prefer that Thanksgiving be an opportunity to educate and to honor the contributions American Indians have made to this nation and the Michiana area that they have been a part of all of their life."When my sister and I go to do presentations at school, we try to wear our regalia (traditional outfits)," Olsen said. Olsen is a teacher at St. Bavo School in Mishawaka
 
"It allows us to explain that this is what we wear on special occasions, not all the time. Sometimes, children think of Indians with the feathers, and that's just not who we are."
 
"Most people don't understand our culture," Monica Topash said. "Our family is very religious, and we are not like the Indians seen on television.
 
"Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. It is about family getting together and enjoying each other."
 
"As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors," Monica Topash said. "And I learned that my family possessed some 'inside' knowledge of what really happened to those poor, tired masses."So, let's get educated and the healing can begin."
 
Staff writer May Lee Johnson:
mjohnson@sbtinfo.com
(574) 235-6326
 
http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061123/News01/611230314/-1/NEWS01
 
Oakland Tribune
 
 Blessings counted by Native Americans, despite misgivings 
Many remember horror stories
 
By Julissa McKinnon STAFF WRITER
 
 Thursday, November 28, 2002 - As many schoolchildren around the Bay Area impersonate Pilgrims and talking turkeys, some Native Americans can't recall the first legendary Plymouth encounter without also remembering the horror stories of the past 500 years.
 
 Eighth-grade teacher Barbara Potter at Archway School in Oakland sets time aside every year to share the less-often-heard side of the Thanksgiving story.
 
 On the one holiday when mainstream America reflects on relations between white settlers and native inhabitants, there is no mention of the violence, disease, smallpox, boarding schools or any struggle, she said. Instead, there are idyllic scenes of Pilgrim-Indian harmony emblazoned on greeting cards, cartoons, coloring books, house decorations and dish towels.
 
 Potter says she tries to balance out the myth with a grain of truth.
 
 On Tuesday, Potter gave her eighth-grade class a history lesson about the origin of the word "thanksgiving." With 13 pairs of eyes fixed on her, Potter opened the National Geographic book titled "1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving," and relayed the following:
 
 In July 1637, 16 years after the Pilgrims shared a feast with members of the Wampanoag tribe, Captain John Mason ordered the burning of the Pequot fort, killing 700 men, women and children. The survivors were then sold into slavery. Mason then declared a day of "thanksgiving to God for subduing the Pequots," Potter read.
 
 When she opened the floor for class comments, a few students asked why they had never before been taught about the origin of the word "thanksgiving."
 
 Grace Anderson, 14, sat back with crossed arms as she shared her soft-spoken response:
 
 "I think it's really awful what happened to the people when the Europeans came," she said. "But it's almost more awful how it's still being covered up, and most kids don't know the real story."
 
 Potter knows the story may shock and disturb some students. But she says the history lesson also teaches her kids to question everything they are told and to check sources.
 
 But the irony of "Thanksgiving" for some native people is that in indigenous culture, thanksgiving is every day, said Bill "Jimbo" Simmons, an organizer of the 26-year-old Thanksgiving sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz Island. But all of America joins them in this ritual now, said Simmons, of the Choctaw tribe, who now lives in San Francisco.
 
 But while the Alcatraz gathering is a thanking to the creator for air, water, plants, animals and all life, the event also takes stock of everything native people have to be unthankful for.
 
 "All the promises the government gave to us, they broke from Day 1. We're thankful every day, so what makes this day different is America calls it Thanksgiving," he said. "After what was done to our people and other people in the world, they use this day to say it's a holy day. But we are here to remember what we have to be unthankful about -- the hundreds of thousands of acres of land that were stolen, the economic and social conditions faced on reservations."
 
 But by no means is there a Native American consensus on how to interpret Thanksgiving -- responses are as diverse as the tribes, traditions and languages found throughout native America.
 
 "The Pilgrims came here because of religious persecution, and I see myself all these centuries later benefiting from the coming of Christianity to America," she said. "I don't approve of the methods used by missionaries of various religions, but being Christian has made a difference in my life."
 
 Others such as Larry Swimmer, a Lakota father of eight who lives in Hayward, see Thanksgiving as an opportunity to feast, drum, sing, and most importantly laugh with family and friends. And Swimmer said that although the story told on Thanksgiving is mythical, it holds a worthwhile message.
 
 "In the mythical celebration of sharing the bounty with Pilgrims, we recognize they were guests in our land, and from a spiritual standpoint sharing and helping each other is something we should always aspire to do," he said.
 
 "We are here for a short time, and we should learn to enjoy to appreciate each other as human beings, not because we're white or native but for the specific unique qualities each human being has. It's the protocol for respect."
 
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Turkey Day (holidaze)

Turkey Day (holidaze)
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Another Turkey Day

R-I-P to our Natives Ancestors.
 
In 1620, the pilgrims arrived on the east coast and within two days they had received assistance from the local Wampanoag Indian tribe: The pilgrims stole their stored crops, dug up graves for dishes and pots, and took many native people as prisoners and forced them to teach crop planting and survival techniques to the colonists in their new environment.
 
In 1621 the myth of thanksgiving was born. The colonists invited Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags, to their first feast as a follow up to their recent land deal. Massasoit in turn invited 90 of his men, much to the chagrin of the colonists. Two years later the English invited a number of tribes to a feast "symbolizing eternal friendship." The English offered food and drink, and two hundred Indians dropped dead from unknown poison.
 
The first day of thanksgiving took place in 1637 amidst the war against the Pequots. 700 men, women, and children of the Pequot tribe were gathered for their annual green corn dance on what is now Groton, Connecticut. Dutch and English mercenaries surrounded the camp and proceeded to shoot, stab, butcher and burn alive all 700 people. The next day the Massachusetts Bay Colony held a feast in celebration and the governor declared "a day of thanksgiving." In the ensuing madness of the Indian extermination, natives were scalped, burned, mutilated and sold into slavery, and a feast was held in celebration every time a successful massacre took place. The killing frenzy got so bad that even the Churches of Manhattan announced a day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the "heathen savages," and many celebrated by kicking the severed heads of Pequot people through the streets like soccer balls.
 
The proclamation of 1676 announced the first national day of thanksgiving with the onset of the Wampanoag war, the very people who helped the original colonists survive on their arrival. Massasoit, the chief invited to eat with the puritans in 1621, died in 1661. His son Metacomet, later to be known by the English as King Phillip, originally honored the treaties made by his father with the colonists, but after years of further encroachment and destruction of the land, slave trade, and slaughter, Metacomet changed his mind. In 1675 "King Phillip" called upon all natives to unite to defend their homelands from the English. For the next year the bloody conflict went on non-stop, until Metacomet was captured, murdered, quartered, his hands were cut off and sent to Boston, his head was impaled on a pike in the town square of Plymouth for the next 25 years, and his nine-year-old son was shipped to the Caribbean to be a slave for the rest of his life.
 
On June 20, 1676 Edward Rawson was unanimously voted by the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts, to proclaim June 29th as the first day of thanksgiving. The proclamation reads in part: "The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the present War with the Heathen Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgments he hath remembered mercyÖ The council has thought meet to appoint and set apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day of solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favor..
 
Almost Everytime these people have had thanksgivings on OUR lands it has been about destroying us, enslaving us or keeping us down...There is only one thing I give thanks for everyday that I wake up. That my ancestors survived these people to bring me into this world....about 96% of at least 100 million native people didn’t make it AFTER having contact with these people.. Being the descendant of the 4% who somehow managed to survived the evil things that were done. Why is it so many native people are content to celebrate this day. By this celebrating are we truly doing justice to pains of survival our ancestors had to go thru only to celebrate the enemy society's "holydays" the very enemy society that to this day marginalizes us and still profits off the genocide they committed and continue to commit. Realize the destruction and chaos they have created in our own lives and culture.
 
This very "holyday" feeds off their nationalism. Their nationalism=Manifest Destiny..
By CAROL W. KIMBALL Day Staff Columnist Published on 11/24/2003
 
Thanksgiving is here, and according to my annual custom, I offer another chapter of Pilgrim history. You remember that we learned in school about Samoset, the Indian who appeared in Plymouth soon after the Pilgrims had settled in. They were surprised that he greeted them in English. He had learned the language from English fishermen on the coast of Maine, his original home. After visiting with the Pilgrims. Samoset informed the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit that the Pilgrims wished to make peace with the neighboring tribes.
 
Samoset later returned to Plymouth, bringing another Indian whom we know as Squanto, a corruption of his true name Tisquantum. Squanto was a native of the Patuxet tribe which once lived on the site of Plymouth. They were allied with the Wampanoags, but had been wiped out by a plague in 1617.
 
By several quirks of fate Squanto had escaped the fatal plague. In 1605 Capt. George Weymouth was exploring the Massachusetts coast on behalf of some English merchants. Deciding to bring back some real live natives for the edification of the English at home, he virtually kidnapped young Squanto and brought him to London.
 
There the lad lived with entrepreneur Sir Ferdinando Gorges and learned to speak English. Squanto eventually became a guide and interpreter for British explorers.
 
Seizing of a friend
 
In 1614 Squanto came to America to assist Captain John Smith with the mapping of Cape Cod. Smith went on to other chores, leaving Capt. Thomas Hunt in charge.
 
Hunt seized Squanto and other Indians and sailed to Spain, where he tried to sell the natives into slavery for 20 pounds each. His scheme was foiled by monks from a nearby monastery who took them to safety in the cloisters.
 
Eventually, through the offices of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Squanto returned to the New World where he assisted Capt. Thomas Dermer to map the New England coast.
 
When they reached his former Patuxet home site Squanto learned that he was the only surviving member of his tribe.
 
With no family remaining, he moved in with a neighboring tribe at Pokanoket, the home of Massasoit.
 
When Samoset delivered the Pilgrim's message of peace to the sachem, Massasoit chose Squanto to be his interpreter, and on March 22, 1621, Massasoit and the Pilgrims met to negotiate a peace treaty. They agreed that the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags would not fight each other, and that they would support each other if either one were attacked by enemies.
 
This was a significant diplomatic step for the Pilgrims, for it brought about a peace that lasted until King Phillip's war in 1676.
 
Planting corn
 
When it was time to plant corn, wrote the Governor, “Squanto stood them in great stead, showing them both ye manner how to set it, and after how to dress & tend it. Also he tould them excepte they gott fish & set with it (in these old grounds) it would come to nothing ... all which they found true by triall & experience.” That's the part I remember from third-grade history — Squanto told them to put a fish in each hill to feed the corn so it would grow.
 
William Bradford was most appreciative of Squanto's assistance, writing, “Squanto continued with them (the Pilgrims) and was their interpreter, and was a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation. He directed them how to set their corne, wher to take fish and to procure other commodities, and was also their pilot to bring them to unknown places for their profit, and never left them till he dyed.”
 
After the harvest in the fall of 1622, the Governor and several of the company set out on a trading voyage to parts of Massachusetts. They took Squanto for a guide and interpreter. They had hoped to round Cape Cod, but because of flats and breakers they dared not venture further so they put into Manamoyack Bay. There, according to Bradford, Squanto “fell sick of an Indian fever, bleeding much at the nose (which ye Indians take for a simpton of death.)”
 
Within a few hours he died, asking the Governor to pray for him that he might go to the Englishman's God in heaven. Bradford wrote sorrowfully that his death was “a great loss.”
 
Squanto's last act was another service to the Pilgrims, for the journal notes “They got in this voyage, in one place & another, about 26 or 28 hogsheads of corne & beans, which was more than the Indians could well spare in these parts.”
 
Thus he had helped them prepare for the winter ahead.
 
It's really a very romantic tale, that of a kidnapped Native American boy. On turkey day give a thought to Squanto, friend of the Pilgrims.
 
mailto:carolkimball518@msn.com
 
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/newstand/re.aspx?reIDx=0A22568A-6DC7-446E-AE58-4080D1B8EC06
Andre Cramblit, Operations Director
Northern California Indian Development Council
andrekaruk@ncidc.org
241F Street Eureka California 95501
http://ncidc.org
(707) 445-8451

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It’s Flu Season. Information and Tips for Kids and Parents

 

Flu season starts as early as October. Getting a shot is the best way to protect kids against the flu. We have created a list of resources that explain to kids what the flu is and ways to help prevent getting and spreading the flu. We also have some tips for parents on how to prepare kids for getting their flu shots.

 

 

 

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Donate for r--skins Mascot Protests

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"People say that Indians have bigger problems than mascots and use of Native American images, but I disagree. If you can't see me as an individual, then how can you understand the problems we have as a people?" 
-- Frank LaMere, Winnebago

About EONM
 
TO DONATE GO TO: Largest r--skin Protest Ever
 
Check out Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry. Follow our twitter account @EONMAssoc and our Instagram @EONMNews! Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/eonmaim.
 
EONM (Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry) is a grassroots movement combating the damaging appropriation of Native American imagery. Native Americans are not mascots. Native Americans are modern, living human beings who deserve to be valued in our society. 
 

NO LONGER WILL WE BE SILENT ABOUT THOSE WHO PROFIT FROM BLATANT RACISM. 

 
Why We Need Your Help
On Nov. 2, Jacqueline Keeler and Jennie Stockle, two of the founding members of EONM, will be traveling to Minnesota to join the protest against the R-skins as they play the Minnesota Vikings at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium. You can read more about the protest at http://wapo.st/ZmqZsY. This campaign is to raise funds for their travel expenses, lodging and food. Members of EONM are entirely volunteer and self-funded. This is my first crowd-funding effort to help these amazing women, as they have already invested so much in this this important cause.
 
EONM has been critical part of raising the the conversation about mascotry and bringing the discussion to a national level. Jacqueline is a prolific writer and has written several published essays regarding the topic and given numerous interviews. Jennie works diligently writing about the cause and supporting the movement. 
 
Help Jennie and Jacqueline bring the powerful voice of presence of EONM to this important event. Jacqueline has been invited to speak, and Jennie will be posting live updates to social media.
 
More about Jacqueline
Jacqueline Keeler is a Navajo/Yankton Dakota Sioux writer living in Portland, Oregon and is a founder of EONM.org (Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry). She has been published in Salon.com, Indian Country Today and the Nation. She is finishing her first novel "Leaving the Glittering World" set in the shadow of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State during the discovery of Kennewick Man.
 
More About Jennie
Jennie Stockle is Cherokee-Muscogee Creek writer and activist who serves on the Executive Committee for EONM.org (Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry). Her columns about indigenous issues have been published in many national publications including Indian Country Today, RH Reality Check, Native News Online, and BlogHer. She lives in Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma.
 
TO DONATE GO TO: Largest r--skin Protest Ever
 
 

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Native Sacred Sites Bill Passes (politics)

Native American sacred site bill passes

Assemblyman Luis Alejo 'extremely pleased'

A bill that originally upset local Native Americans has been signed into law after significant changes.

AB 52, co-authored by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last week.

"The first few versions of this bill were contentious; however, we worked with all stakeholders and tribes," Alejo said in a statement. "I am extremely pleased to note that the bill includes support of almost all of California's tribes — both federally recognized and unrecognized — to ensure that the cultural heritage of all Native American people is protected."

Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, was the bill's principal author.

The legislation changes the California Environmental Quality Act to require the lead agency on a project for environmental assessments to consult with a Native American tribe within 30 days of receiving their request.

Click the link below to read the rest of the article, use your back button to return to this page:
<http://www.montereyherald.com/localnews/ci_26652910/native-american-sacred-site-bill-passes>
If the link isn't clickable please copy and past to the address bar of a new blank tab.
 
Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monitory gain to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the material for research and educational purposes. This is in accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. section 107..
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

Prayer Request

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Working Together to Provide Resources to Prevent Bullying This Month and Every Month

Asking for prayers for my son Kyle Brown. He is in his Freshman fall at Lewis & Clark College and just found out he has Mononucleosis. I think it must be Lewis and Clark. My sister-in-law had it while there. But then again it may be heredity as his Uncle Terry Supahan and I are one of the few people that have had it twice.

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columbus day (holidaze)

columbus day (holidaze)
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columbus day (holidaze)

September 26, 2003
 
Columbus Day
 
White supremacist mentalities guide the actions of whites who idolize individuals such as Columbus as heroes. How could any descent human being say otherwise? For example, Columbus’s staunch supporters steadfastly ignore the fact that he, by landing on a small Caribbean Island and capturing people to be sold as slaves, began what would be the world’s most horrendous human tragedy, the complete destruction of a great many of the civilizations of two continents, and the near destruction of the remainder, a process that included the massacre of tens of millions of First Nations Peoples.
 
The number of our Peoples who died, and in many cases who are still dying, because of the European invasion he initiated, is incalculable. The closest number one can estimate, when taking into consideration that the slaughter started in 1492 has continued to a certain degree to this day, is several hundred millions. And, the vast majority of the millions who are the remnant of the original great civilizations that once prospered across the two continents, live a poverty stricken existence. This is something that should instill in the people whose ancestors begot the horror shame, not pride.
 
The idolizing of such barbarians as Columbus by European descended populations is not restricted to any one corner of the Americas. For instance, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, there is a park named in honour of Edward Cornwallis, the Province’s eighteenth century blood thirsty British colonial Governor, who participated in an attempt to commit genocide - it contains a large statue of him. He, and his Council, on October 1, 1749, decided to try to exterminate the Mi’kmaq indigenous to what is now Canada’s Maritime provinces. The method chosen by them to try to realize their inhuman goal was to issue a Proclamation offering a bounty of ten pounds (British money) for the scalps of the people, including women and children. On June 21, 1750, perhaps because the scalps were not coming in fast enough, they issued another proclamation upping the bounty to fifty pounds.
 
Unfortunately, not knowing their histories, many of our Peoples innocently participate in the idolizing of these monsters. In view of this, I believe that it is time for us to undertake an in-depth education process that would instill in our Peoples the historic knowledge that would eventually see them undertake a complete boycott of any celebration, building, park, arena, etc. named in honour of the monsters who promoted the slaughter of our ancestors. In honour of the memories of our persecuted ancestors, can we in good conscience aspire to do anything less?
 
Daniel N. Paul
 
http://www.danielnpaul.com
 

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