Thanksgiving 2012

Ready for our meal

Thanksgiving Holiday 2012

The cooking

Corn bread

Roasted vegetables

Creamed pumpkin apple soup

Mushroom tomato stew

Mashed potato

Ilana and Debbie

The table

Deserts: pumpkin pie, apple crumble, sweets

Another treat

More to eat

Eating

The Thanksgiving Story

The Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1620 and landed on the rocky shores of a territory inhabited by Wampanoag Indians, a tribe of the Algonkian nation. The Wampanoag lived in round-roofed wigwams made of poles covered with flat sheets of elm or birch bark.

The Wampanoag moved several times each year in order to get food. In the Spring they fished in the rivers for salmon and herring. The planting season was the time to begin cultivating corn, squash, beans, and native vegetables. While the women took care of the crops, the men moved to the forest to hunt deer and other animals. At the end of the hunting season, the Wampanoag moved inland where there was greater protection from the severe weather. From December to April, they lived on food that they stored during the earlier months.

Any visitor to a Wampanoag home received a share of whatever food the family had, even if the supply was low. The Wampanoag extended this courtesy to the Pilgrims.

It was because of Wampanoag kindness that the Pilgrims survived at all. The wheat the Pilgrims had brought with them to plant would not grow in the rocky New England soil. They needed to learn new ways for a new world, and the man who came to help them was Tisquantum or Squanto.

In 1605, 15 years before the Pilgrims came, Squanto traveled to England with a friendly English explorer named Captain John Weymouth. He had many adventures and learned to speak English. Squanto came back to New England with Captain Weymouth.

A British slaver raided Squanto’s village, captured Squanto, and sold him in the Caribbean. A Spanish Franciscan priest befriended Squanto and helped him to get to Spain and later onto a ship to England. Squanto found Captain Weymouth, who paid his way back to his homeland. Squanto returned to his home village called Patuxet in 1620. The village was deserted. Only skeletons remained. The members of the village had died from a European illness the English slavers had brought.

In the Spring of the next year, Squanto, while hunting with his friend Samoset, along the beach near Patuxet was surprised to see people from England. His friend Samoset walked into the village and said, "Welcome". Squanto soon joined him. The Pilgrims were amazed 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. Nearly half of them had died during the prior Winter. They obviously needed help. 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. He brought deer meat and beaver skins. He taught them how to cultivate corn and other native vegetables and how to build Indian-style houses. He pointed out poisonous and medicinal plants. He explained how to dig and cook clams, how to get syrup from the maple trees, use fish for fertilizer, and dozens of other skills needed for survival.

By Fall, things were going much better. The corn they planted had grown well. There was enough food to last the winter. They were living comfortably in their Indian-style homes. They were now in better health, and they knew more about how to survive. The Pilgrims decided to make a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune.

The Algonkian tribes held six thanksgiving festivals during the year. They celebrated the beginning of the Algonkian year with 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, when the seeds were blessed. The strawberry festival was next, celebrating the first fruits of the season. The summertime green corn festival gave thanks for the ripening corn. In late Fall, the harvest festival gave thanks for the food they had grown and hunted. Mid-winter was the last ceremony for 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 Wampanoag), 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. Squanto and Samoset brought 90 relatives. The Pilgrims were not prepared to feed so many for three days. Seeing this, Massasoit gave orders to his men to bring 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 at the table with the Indian men. 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 Wampanoag feasted with the Pilgrims. It was a special time of friendship between two very different people.

It would be very good to say that this friendship lasted a long time. However, unfortunately, that was not to be. More English came to America. Mistrust grew and the friendship weakened. The Pilgrims displayed intolerance and hostility toward the Indian religion. The relationship deteriorated. 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, Massachusetts has a Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the “first” Thanksgiving. Wampanoag still live in Massachusetts. In 1970, the town asked one of them to speak at the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival. Here is part of what he said:

"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first days of Europeans in America. However, 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 Wampanoag, 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 die from diseases that we caught from them.

Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the European.

Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoag, 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."