Tomorrow We Give Thanks That Indigenous People Welcomed Us, Before We Killed Them & Took Their Land

[SoCalDavidS]

Now we just kill each other.

[mountain grammy]

1. Man Overboard

https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/QGgq5ravzJW9ORNtsxI8BYVmQ4HAdriAZE-soBSVJT9NjasVtbyO8dmL_Tjxaf7J-AFKHVHF6KEZPCmpcTKyzrexf7Lv0m4wjTYeGGbckKsYHxGbliLIVn-IlKRVJW6wPkDxtQL7b64s=s0-d-e1-ft#

[GreenWave]

2. The otiginal people have been pushed out of the discussion.

Not even remembered.

[albacore]

3. Jon commented on this...

[Docreed2003]

4. "I don't believe the Pilgrims, sat with Indians for a feast

A self-proclaimed holy sailor doesn’t break bread with his beast. But then again he had a musket and the Indian had a knife. And the musket man could make him eat for life"

[sarisataka]

5. Myself, I will be giving thanks

Is that my wife's mother has made it over a year with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and is still able to celebrate with us.

But you do you.

[BlackSkimmer]

6. ...

Fantastic!

I lost both my parents to cancer over the last 10:years, though both lived to a pretty good age. Not long enough.

Without my family, I really don’t celebrate the day as I used to. It used to be my favorite holiday. Anyway, my parents came here from the UK in 1956, so I really can’t shoulder all that guilt.

Your mother-in-law’s survival is definitely something worth giving thanks. Happy Thanksgiving.

[sarisataka]

7. Thank you, I appreciate that

Her cancer was discovered last year and confirmed just after last Thanksgiving. Even though pancreatic is one of the bad ones, not that there is a good cancer, the chemo has been working and she's a tough old bird.

I lost my own mother earlier this year so my brother will be joining us. Being that he is a lifelong bachelor we are the only family now he has left. We get along better now than when we were kids and my kids love him deeply.

[BlackSkimmer]

9. Lots to give thanks for there.

These are the kind of things that make me smile.

[republianmushroom]

8. Nailed it

[wnylib]

10. It's time to ditch the Indians and Pilgrims harmony BS.

Just call it a harvest festival and time for gratitude. Other nations do it.

The Pilgrims and Indians harmony story just serves to justify the disharmony that followed in the next few years. "See? We were good to then and getting along find but then those Indians started attacking us for no reason."

Or at the very least change the way the story is told. The usual tale says that the Pilgrims provided the cooked veggie dishes (civilized farmers) and some turkeys that they shot. Indians brought only deer that they hunted.

Yet, it was the Native people who taught the Pilgrims what crops to grow and how to fertilize them for best results. They also taught the Pilgrims how to harvest the corn, cook it, or grind it into cornmeal. That's because the Native Wampanoag farmed as well as hunted. They grew crops of domesticated plants.

We are told that the Pilgrims gave thanks to God for a good harvest. They owed a great deal of thanks to the Wampanoag, too. The focus is always on the Pilgrims gratitude to God. Long before colonists arrived, Native societies had festivals in late autumn that focused on gratitude. Gratitude is a big spiritual deal to most Native cultures of North America.

In the fall, the Native people held celebration feasts of gratitude before winter weather kept them more isolated and huddled in their homes, except when hunting. It was a time of winter preparation. They kept choice ears of corn to use for seed in the spring and ate their fill. They they hung the rest of the corn in bunches of ears tied together in their homes to dry for use during winter. They dried out meat with seasonings (pemmican) for use in winter. And they dried and preserved berries and seeds. They stored the food in bins and underground pits. So an autumn harvest festival of gratitude and winter preparation was not new to the Wampanoag. They chose to share it with their new neighbors as a sign of alliance and friendship.

Too little is ever told about that part of the harvest feast.