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 
 

October Is The Start Of Flu Season

"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
 
 

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.

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