That’s A Bunch of Turkey!

I don’t want to come across as blasphemous, but Thanksgiving is a bunch of hooey . . . at least in the way that most Americans observe and celebrate it.  Pilgrims, Indians, turkeys, mashed potatoes, great revelry . . . the ultimate party giving “thanks” at the invitation of the colonists.  A real “Hallmark” affair.  But it is just not true.  It is hooey.

Okay . . . I’ve looked.  I have scoured my Bible (all the translations I have) and I still cannot a reference to the holiday we refer to and celebrate as Thanksgiving.  Couldn’t find it in the Old Testament.  Rumor has it that it might have been on the tablet that Moses dropped and broke while coming down off the mountaintop after conferring with God.  This conspiracy theory banks on the idea that there were originally more than ten commandments, but Moses was kind of a klutz . . . he tripped and dropped a tablet.  Whatever the case, Thanksgiving did not come down from the mountain of God.  Couldn’t find any references through the “kingdom” parts of the Old Testament, though there were often decrees calling for days of giving thanks.  There might have been references at some point in the good old part of the Bible, but they have somehow disappeared . . .  probably under the dogmatic supervision of the Moses Seminar.

 

Couldn’t find it in the New Testament either.  You would have thought that at some point in the ministry of Jesus he would have made a reference to it . . . and, maybe he did.  Certainly, we do not have everything that Jesus said and did in our New Testament due to some creative editing here and there throughout the centuries.  You would have thought Jesus would have said something religious like: “A day should be set aside on the fourth Thursday of the eleventh month of the year, a day to offer thanks for the bounty of the earth.  It should be a day of great feasting, partying, and watching football after the Macy’s parade.”  Maybe at the tail end of the Last Supper.  I looked but couldn’t find such a reference.  Maybe that was the “yada, yada, yada” that got dropped.  After all, you know the tenacity of those who call themselves the Jesus Seminar.

 

Same with the Epistles . . . nothing there.  Apparently, it was not “God mandated” as there is nothing in the scriptures . . . the holy word of God straight out of the Holy’s mouth.

 

So . . . what is all of this hullabaloo about Thanksgiving?

 

First, though there are no references to the celebration and holiday we observe as Thanksgiving, the scriptures are filled with admonishments for the people to pause and give thanks.  Sometimes it is for a few minutes and at other times its days if not weeks of observing giving thanks.  God’s people are to be a “thankful” people and should practice the art of gratitude on a regular basis.  Because of this history is filled with days of giving thanks . . . Thanksgiving.  Shoot!  Even observing the Lord’s Supper, more theologically known as the Eucharist, is an act of thanksgiving.  Look it up . . . “eucharist” is a Greek work meaning thanksgiving.

 

Second, observing a day or celebration of giving thanks is not solely the property of us Americans . . . of the good ol’ U.S. of A.!  No, just about all cultures, if not all, have set aside days in which to give thanks for a lot of different reasons.  Other cultures and religions have celebrations of gratitude and giving thanks . . . probably going all the way back to the start of humanity.  The celebration of thanksgiving of we observe it is not original with us, though we might want to think that it is.  Giving thanks probably spans the consciousness of the human race.

 

I probably should tread lightly . . . Thanksgiving in America is the second favorite holiday after Christmas.  What’s not to like? Feasting, family, Macy’s parade, football . . . it’s a wonderful party!  Yet, as the story goes, it all started with the Pilgrims and Indians sitting down for a happy meal together and becoming BFFs.  Even Pocahontas gave it “thumbs up” . . . except for the fact that she wasn’t there that is a pretty good endorsement.  She was a member of a completely different tribe and had died four years prior to the actual event in 1617.  As good as it sounds, this isn’t quite the “real” story behind the story.

 

Settlers, like the Pilgrims, were hardly the kindly, giving group that most of us learned about in our youth.  Far from it.  As the story goes, the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock where they established a colony and began going about existing.  After a year they were pretty happy with the harvest of their crops and decided they should take the time and give thanks with a three-day celebration.  And that is what they did.  The Indians were not invited.

 

What we often forget is that the Pilgrims were not the first to be in this new land.  There were other explorers before them.  With the explorers came illnesses and disease that were foreign to the natives who had been there for centuries.  Such a calamity had happened to the Wampanoag tribe wiping out great numbers of its people and leaving them weak in defending themselves against their enemies.  Because of this, and obviously the weapons of the Pilgrims, the chief of the tribe—Ousamequin—saw this as an opportunity to forge an alliance with them.  A sort of mutual protection order. 

 

During the celebration among the Pilgrims weapons were fired off.  The Wampanoags hear this noise.  The chief gathered up some warriors (90 to be exact) and headed off towards the noise to offer protection to their neighbors. Turns out it was just drunken boys being boys shooting off their guns.  Ousamequin used this as an opportunity to form an alliance.  It was not because he was friendly, but because it was to the tribe’s advantage against their enemies.  It was great while it lasted, but it did not last long.  The relationship deteriorates and eventually leads to one of the most horrific colonial Indian wars on record, King Philip’s War.  The big losers in all of this were the Indians.

 

So, the Wampanoags stumbled into the party uninvited and took advantage of the situation to create an alliance.  A meal was shared.  It just wasn’t the meal we associate with Thanksgiving.  Warriors were sent out to get meat—mostly deer when their numbers overwhelmed the Pilgrims.  So, there was venison, and some sort of cooked fowl (though it was not turkey).  There were no mashed potatoes, not even baked because that was not a crop in the area and wouldn’t be for years.  It is true that there were cranberries, but they did not come out of a can in jelly form.  There was also pumpkin, but no pie.  It was not a potluck affair.

 

Also, there were few women at the celebration.  The warriors came as a war party minus any women from the village.  Nor were there many women on the Pilgrim side as very few survived the trip to the “new world”.  It was largely a male thing and far from what we were taught as children.  Nor was it a “stately” affair with the best china being used.  Far from it . . . there were few buildings, little furniture, and most people ate outside while sitting on the ground or on a barrel with plates on their laps.  The men fired guns, ran races, and drank liquor, while struggling to speak in broken English and Wampanoag.  A fairly disorderly affair that resembles nothing of the pious picture we have in our minds of sitting at long tables, quietly passing plates and bowls of food between the Pilgrims and Indians.  None the less, it served its purpose of creating a treaty between the two groups.

 

For the next 50 years, the alliance was tested as the colonials kept expanding their land acquisitions, spread diseases, and basically exploited the Wampanoag land.  Such a relationship dissolves into tension between the two groups.  The tensions eventually ignited into war.  This war was known as King Philip’s War or the Great Narragansett War.  This war devastated the Wampanoags and forever shifted the balance of power in favor of the invading colonists.  The Wampanoags of today remember the Pilgrims’ entry to their homeland as a day of deep mourning, rather than a moment of giving thanks.

 

That’s a story we should lift a few for!  Not!  That is not the story we celebrate.  Instead, we celebrate the mythic . . .

 

The myth is that friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new land, sit down to dinner with them and then disappear.  It is a handoff . . . the Indians are handing off America to the white people so they can create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity, and Christianity for the rest of the world to profit.  At least that is how it is remembered.  The great Manifest Destiny conspiracy. 

 

And unfortunately, too many of us buy into the myth and not the reality.  Too many of us accept without questioning.  Lock, stock, and barrel.  And it is hooey!

 

For a long time, the days of giving thanks were sporadic.  Our history shows that they were called here and there by communities, states, and even the nation as a need was felt. Nothing was really organized for a long time, but the idea was planted . . . and, surprise . . . it involved a lot of politics as it ran its course towards acceptance and becoming acknowledged.  So, the seeds were planted and throughout history it gained steam.

 

One of the biggest advocates for declaring a National Day of Thanksgiving was Sarah Josepha Hale.  Though the name is not recognizable, all of us know Sarah.  Sarah was a magazine editor who had a number one children’s hit . . . Mary Had a Little Lamb.  Yea, that was Sarah.  She was really hooked on the idea of Thanksgiving as a national day of observance and she lobbied hard through five different presidencies to make it a federal holiday.  She finally struck gold when President Abraham Lincoln declared it a holiday in 1863.  He thought it would be a good idea and a step towards reuniting the fractured country after the Civil War.  He put it on the calendar for the last Thursday of November.  Had nothing to do with pilgrims, Indians, or turkey.  In fact, Lincoln declared in his proclamation that it would be a day to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.”

 

Our nation celebrated this day of thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November until 1939.  That year the President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression.  Of course, with change there comes opposition . . . in this case, passionate opposition.  Caving to this opposition Roosevelt eventually signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.  Again, had nothing to do with that first Thanksgiving.

 

There are a lot of traditions related to the holiday.  For example, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  There was no parade at the first Thanksgiving (they forgot to unpack the floats off the Mayflower, and they ended back in England) . . . the Macy Parade grew out of a parade that Macy put on as a promotion to kick off the holiday shopping season in 1924. Of course, Santa has been a part of it from its start and was declared the “king of the kiddies”.  Such is the tradition of Thanksgiving.

 

We need to understand that a lot of what we think of as “Thanksgiving” are myths of a grand illusion we celebrate.  Those myths are not true, and we need quite perpetuating them.  The Pilgrims and Native Americans were not friends who worked together . . . nope it was a political and survival necessity.  Their relationship, at best, was tense.  The Pilgrims did not teach the “uncivilized” Indians about Thanksgiving.  Native Americans were not “uncivilized” having large and complex societies long before the settlers arrived.  They already had their own harvest celebrations, feast traditions and holidays of their own.  Giving thanks was a big part of their religious practices.  There are a lot of myths that surround this holiday that are detrimental to Native Americans that are just wrong and perpetuate the colonial view and treatment of this population.  Don’t believe me, well then, I suggest that you do a little homework.  Take the time to research the origins of Thanksgiving . . . take a Google adventure. Learn for yourself what it is that you are actually celebrating.

 

I do not think that most people want to observe and celebrate something that is harmful to another.  Thanksgiving is such an observance as we understand it.  Setting aside days of giving thanks are not relegated to the fourth Thursday of November.  Throughout history people, communities, states, and nations have declared days to be thankful.  On those days the people were asked to “give thanks” . . . to “give thanks” for bountiful harvests, blessings, family, community . . . for another day, another opportunity. 

 

As we gather around tables for Thanksgiving with family and friends, let us focus on the reasons we need to “give thanks” and not rely upon some mythic understanding of why we are gathered.  The reality and facts point to a completely different story and outcome.  I believe that we should all be thankful because there is much to be thankful for.  We should pause more often in our lives . . . even on a daily basis . . . to “give thanks”.  Someone once said that simplest prayer that anyone could ever utter is to say, “thank you.”  I certain you can find that in the Bible.  That is a Thanksgiving I believe we can all support and get behind.  May yours be a joyful celebration of life and all the blessings it brings.  Besides, who needs turkey to be thankful?    

 

In the Whisper . . . a Shout

There is a tendency to speak of unpleasant or nasty things in a whisper . . . to speak about things that upset us is done in a whisper . . . to speak of things that embarrass us is done in whispers . . . to speak of that which we do not want to acknowledge publically is spoken in whispers.  It is in whispers that we utter that which we hope no one else will hear . . . and, hope that we will never have to explain.  In the whisper there is the hope of secrecy.  It is with the whisper that we quickly pass over the guilt in hopes that the past is quickly forgotten.  In the whisper . . . we hope no one hears or remembers.  In a whisper . . . we long to forget.

Sometimes, though, a whisper becomes a shout.

I recently came across a whisper that shouted out.  Several years ago I read Neither Wolf nor God: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn.  It was a wonderful book written by an author who has written sixteen books, thought I doubt if too many people have read him.  Having read that book I was curious when I saw that he had a new book, The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo: A Child, an Elder, and the Light from an Ancient Sky . . . which turns out to be the third in a trilogy . . . of which Neither Wolf nor Dog was the first.  The title caught my attention as I am a sucker for anything related to Native American . . . knowing the author raised my curiosity . . . so I bought the book and began reading.  The book begins in the soft voice of a whisper that comes in a dream.  A terrible secret is revealed . . . and the adventure begins.

What starts as a whisper  . . . becomes a shout!

Montana is a land rich in Native American culture, history, and presence.  There are eight official tribes recognized by the state of Montana.  There are seven official reservations recognized by the federal government.  Years ago the legislature of the state of Montana created a constitutional charge to the educators and people of the state that Indian education was a requirement for all students in kindergarten through twelfth grade in all subjects.  A part of my job at the university where I work is to provide professional development in Indian Education for All for educators .  The Native American culture, history, and presence is a big part of our lives here in the state of Montana.  Yet, outside of the glaring “bad news” that popular media likes to report about Indians, most of it is spoken in a whisper.

No one—in particular those of us who are white—likes to talk of the royal treatment  that was and continues to be perpetuated upon the Indians.  Winners get to write the history books . . . but, they often leave out the perspectives of others . . . especially those who get the short end of the stick.  Yet, the whispers become shouts, and what was attempted to be done to the Native Americans of our nations was nothing short of a holocaust . . . the wiping out of a people.  From the herding and storing of the Indians on reservations to shipping their children off to boarding schools to indoctrinate them into the “white way” is nothing short of ridding a nuisance with the penalty of death.  The whispers are slowly being spoken out loud . . . the truth is beginning to be heard.

Now, I have read about the boarding schools . . . not a place where I would have wanted my children or any children sent to be “educated”.  I have read the many treaties that were signed as promises that were broken.  I have read a lot of the stories, from both sides, and in the end it is pretty sad how our nation rose up to try and rid our country of the Indian.  Having said that, I was not prepared for the whisper that became a shout in Nerburn’s most recent book . . . the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians.

In Nerburn’s book he learns of the asylum for insane Indians as he is searching the resolution of a recurring dreams that disturbs his sleep and peace of mind.  It is a part of Native American history he . . . as apparently the majority of Americans . . . is aware of.  Yet, it existed in all of its dark, cruel, and inhumane presence in the small community of Canton, South Dakota . . . though it was spoken about in a whisper.  Closed in 1934, the main building was razed and eventually the community hospital was built . . . a golf course took up the remaining property . . . and, there are no historical markers acknowledging its existence.  Except for a small cemetery pretty much out in the middle of nowhere near the golf course . . . and, that is only acknowledged due the diligent work of Harold Ironshield who lobbied to have the cemetery set aside with reverence in honor of those who died at the asylum.  All the records were destroyed.  The community refused to speak.  Everything was spoken in whispers . . . the hope was to forget . . . to bury it forever.  Yet, the truth of the matter is, those who have suffered injustice will find their voices . . . the whisper becomes a shout.

The truth of the matter is that there were no “insane” Indians.  Instead the asylum was a warehouse to store unwanted and misunderstood Native Americans.  There was nothing about the asylum that worked towards healing and restoration for those who were supposedly insane.  The majority of those who were committed to this snake pit died . . . their only release from captivity was to die.  To read more about the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians read Pemina Yellow Bird’s penetrating article, Wild Indians: Native Perspectives on the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians; or, read The Hiawatha Diary as neither one paints a pretty picture of the atrocities that occurred there.

Someone once said that history has a tendency to repeat itself . . . that it was not linear, but circular.  Our history as a human race . . . reflected through periods of our own nation’s history . . . is one of what psychologist Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger points out as being “death-making”.  In simple terms, that which a society does not value is put to death . . . it is removed . . . buried . . . and, whispered about.  Wolfensberger points to those groups within society—in particular, those with disabilities, that are not valued as being put into the process of “death-making”.  His most poignant example of this is pre-World War II Germany and the Holocaust . . . differentiate, separate, remove, destroy.  He is adamant that this still happens today . . . he likes to point this out in the way that the elderly are viewed by society today.  He raises some interesting points that should make us all stop and think.  Yet, what he describes in his experience and research creates a shout out of the whisper of how the Native Americans have been treated for generations. 

What we don’t value . . . we get rid of.  Growing up with two siblings with disabilities I witnessed how devalued they were by the communities and society in which we lived . . . segregated education, services, recreation, and now group homes.  They were not treated like everyone else . . . and, after my brother was in an accident in which he broke his leg, the doctor refused to surgically repair the leg because, and I quote, “He has never walked and will never walk . . . why waste the time.”  This is the start of “death-making”.  I have seen the same attitude towards my own son who has a disability.  I have seen it in the treatment of those who are in nursing homes.  I have heard it in the whispers about people who are not white . . . racially different.  There seems to be a whole lot of whispering going on . . . and, it is scary.

The whispers cannot go on.  Voice must be given to those who are caught behind and in the whispers.  The cycle of history must be broken.  The whisper needs to become a shout.  People shout to be heard over all the other noise . . . people shout to be recognized and acknowledged.  Sadly, though, most of us are more comfortable with whispering . . . it is less offensive.  Less likely to piss someone off who might hurt us.

Yet, God also speaks in whispers . . . speaks to us in subtle ways . . . opens our eyes in ways we are not expecting.  So it was as I was reading Nerburn’s The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo . . . the whisper became a shout.  Softly and tenderly God is speaking to me . . . pleading to me . . . to rise above the whisper . . . to stand up to “death-making” . . . and, to shout out for all of God’s children.  God created all of us in God’s own image . . . we are all the children of God . . . God loves us for who God created us to be . . . and, without each and everyone us we can never fully realize God’s dream of wholeness and holiness.  Who are we to ignore the will of God?  In our voice the whisper can become a shout . . . and, God’s kingdom is that much closer than it was before.