A Thanksgiving Story From Before...
Nov. 26th, 2004 02:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penpusherThe dateline of this piece was before 9/11/01, and in a way, that makes it all the more poignant.
Thanksgiving: A Native American View
By Jacqueline Keeler
Pacific News Service
Saturday 01 January 2000
I celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving.
This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.
Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. When I was six, my mother, a woman of the Dineh nation, told my sister and me not to sing "Land of the Pilgrim's pride" in "America the Beautiful." Our people, she said, had been here much longer and taken much better care of the land. We were to sing "Land of the Indian's pride" instead.
I was proud to sing the new lyrics in school, but I sang softly. It was enough for me to know the difference. At six, I felt I had learned something very important. As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors, and I learned that my family possessed some "inside" knowledge of what really happened when those poor, tired masses came to our homes.
When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry - half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food.
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. Among many of our peoples, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father's people, they say, when asked to give, "Are we not Dakota and alive?" It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all - the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.
To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves.
Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the "first Thanksgiving" the Wampanoags provided most of the food - and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.
What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way "for a better growth," meaning his people.
In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop the evil.
I see, in the "First Thanksgiving" story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism.
Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused.
Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.
And the healing can begin.
Never mind that the Pilgrims were, in fact, religious fanatics; that in these 350 years, somehow, things haven't really changed a whole heck of a lot. It's still the Euro-Americans dictating how things should be in a foreign land, placating at first because they needed help, then rising up and attempting to demolish and force the will of what should happen in the lives of the natives. The parallels are the same, except now the foe has access to many of the same weapons, so the casualties will be higher on both sides. The history is clear, so there is a distrust. The dynamic is clear, so there is a desire for blood.
When will we share? Will we ever share, and will it only happen when we have to share?
I hope not.
Thanksgiving: A Native American View
By Jacqueline Keeler
Pacific News Service
Saturday 01 January 2000
I celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving.
This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.
Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. When I was six, my mother, a woman of the Dineh nation, told my sister and me not to sing "Land of the Pilgrim's pride" in "America the Beautiful." Our people, she said, had been here much longer and taken much better care of the land. We were to sing "Land of the Indian's pride" instead.
I was proud to sing the new lyrics in school, but I sang softly. It was enough for me to know the difference. At six, I felt I had learned something very important. As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors, and I learned that my family possessed some "inside" knowledge of what really happened when those poor, tired masses came to our homes.
When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry - half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food.
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. Among many of our peoples, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father's people, they say, when asked to give, "Are we not Dakota and alive?" It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all - the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.
To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves.
Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the "first Thanksgiving" the Wampanoags provided most of the food - and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.
What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way "for a better growth," meaning his people.
In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop the evil.
I see, in the "First Thanksgiving" story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism.
Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused.
Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.
And the healing can begin.
Never mind that the Pilgrims were, in fact, religious fanatics; that in these 350 years, somehow, things haven't really changed a whole heck of a lot. It's still the Euro-Americans dictating how things should be in a foreign land, placating at first because they needed help, then rising up and attempting to demolish and force the will of what should happen in the lives of the natives. The parallels are the same, except now the foe has access to many of the same weapons, so the casualties will be higher on both sides. The history is clear, so there is a distrust. The dynamic is clear, so there is a desire for blood.
When will we share? Will we ever share, and will it only happen when we have to share?
I hope not.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 12:11 am (UTC)Me: You know I really don't understand why America doesn't try to build an economy based on helping other countries instead of just donating money (or doing nothing). Just imagine how the food or clothing or whatever industry could boom with guaranteed business from the United States with expanded employment that would bring a full circle of more money to the government.
My boyfriend: And that's why you're not a republican.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 01:37 am (UTC)During the "Manifest Destiny" days, this was mostly accomplished by killing and/or interring natives, taking away their language, their culture, their people.
The reason this has been in place is because those that are in charge (and who have been in charge for all this while) know that the diversion of making the reason for doing this seem like something else would placate the general public's feelings and reduce the number of questions about what was REALLY happening.
Somehow, all of that is still happening, even now.
This is why the fall will be so great, when it happens. And it will happen.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 12:50 pm (UTC)This fall will lead to something worse. It will be chaos, war, constant fear, all brought right to our doorsteps. It's time to make changes.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 06:16 am (UTC)I was also just learning the other day that things haven't changed at all in the world. The Yanomami Indians in the rain forests of Brazil are being decimated by disease brought in by gold miners who are also strip mining and leaving mercury in their lakes and fish.
The miners counter that it would really be better if the Indians were all put on reservations (cause we know how well that worked here!)
So the ugly cycle continues. As one Yanomami man said, though: "The white man thinks he will win and only the Yanomami will die. But he will die too. Everyone will die and the sky will fall down."
no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 11:51 am (UTC)Never heard of "Black Robe," but it sounds fascinating. We know so little about the colonization of Canada here... we know so little about EVERYTHING... even our own histories.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 12:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 02:07 pm (UTC)