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TechnoratiThanksgiving A Loaded Holiday for Many Native-Americans
When Bobbi Webster, a member of the Oneida Nation, talks about being thankful, she mentions the strawberry harvest, tapping maple trees for syrup, the summer solstice and seasonal change. Feasting, family and giving thanks are the root of multiple thanksgiving celebrations spread throughout the year for the Oneida and other American Indians.
![[Mark Anthony Rolo, left, and his nephew Nick Rolo pick out a bagged turkey at Sentry Hilldale for their Thanksgiving family gathering. (Wisconsin State Journal)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/rolothanksgiving1127.jpg "rolothanksgiving1127.jpg")
And
on this fourth Thursday in November, Webster, like millions of
Americans, will gather with her family for a feast, make her mother's
recipes for chocolate cake and cranberries, talk about gratitude and
celebrate Thanksgiving.
"This time of year we all celebrate Thanksgiving, but we have 13 ceremonies of thanksgiving ongoing throughout the year," Webster said. "Sometimes you have to take the best of the worlds around you, draw from all the cultures. Thanksgiving is a time we see what we have in common."
But because of the roots of today's holiday in the early encounters between European settlers and native populations, there's a multiplicity of viewpoints among American Indians about Thanksgiving.
"Some see it with hostility. Some celebrate it with guilt, while others see it as an opportunity to educate and get in touch with our Americana," said Patty Loew, a historian, journalist and member of the Bad River Ojibwe.
She's in the latter camp. If you entered her kitchen, she said, "you would probably mistake me for any other American celebrating a day of food, friends and family." Her family table includes red cabbage from her German ancestors and Korean kimchee from her brother who loves spicy foods.
But Loew understands why some American Indians choose to fast or protest the holiday because it is rooted in a mythical image of the 'first' Thanksgiving feast in 1621 as a "hands across the waters, friendly, wonderful experience." Squanto, she noted, learned English as a slave. And by the time Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, tribes were already decimated by diseases likely brought by earlier European settlers.
So she uses Thanksgiving, and November's National American Indian Heritage Month, as a chance to correct that image and replace it with a deeper understanding of native culture.
"In mainstream America, sometimes we just give thanks for our football teams and the extra notch on our belts," Loew said. "But this one time of year is a real chance for me to share the native spirit and talk about thanksgiving in a broad, spiritual way."
Loew cited an Iroquois thanksgiving prayer as embodying Indian sentiment on thanks. It gives thanks to the waters, birds, plants, moon, people, teachers, the creator and more, beginning:
"Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people."
Prayers of thanks to the creator are said every day of the year, said Anne Thundercloud, public relations officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation.
"We're a very spiritual people who are always giving thanks," Thundercloud said. "The concept of setting aside one day for giving thanks doesn't fit. We think of every day as Thanksgiving." She added that her family, and many Ho-Chunk, have adopted today's Thanksgiving holiday as well, drawn to another chance to gather for a feast with family. And the celebration continues Friday, which is Ho-Chunk Day, celebrated in Black River Falls with a large community event.
Mark Anthony Rolo, a member of the Bad River Band of Ojibwe and a UW-Madison lecturer in the School of Human Ecology, counts Thanksgiving as one of his favorite holidays, despite its challenges for American Indians.
"It's hard to figure out how to be," Rolo said. "So I don't want to talk about Native American politics on Thanksgiving Day."
He stressed that not all American Indians "view Thanksgiving as a downer" but said conflicting expectations from non-Indians can be exhausting. So he focuses on enjoying the time with his brothers, avoiding people who might want to overanalyze the holiday's meanings.
"Liberals want us to mourn and be angry or feel bad about commemorating our own cultural death," Rolo said. "Meanwhile conservatives blame us for our condition. Can you imagine having to sit around a Thanksgiving table with those folks telling us how to be while trying to digest a meal?"
Rolo spends much of the rest of the year wrestling with such topics as he writes and speaks about the plight of American Indians.
Thanksgiving is a day of rest.
"Now Thanksgiving dinner is such an easy meal to make, even for a lousy cook like me," Rolo joked. "You have cranberries in a can that actually taste good, heat-up pumpkin pie and turkey that comes preseasoned that bastes right in its bag. Native people are very grateful. And I'm thankful for turkey in a bag."
The food most Americans have on their table today has Native American origins. Dana Jackson, education director for the Bad River Band Ojibwe and an American Indian language teacher, cited turkey, pumpkin, corn, cranberries and wild rice as providing a cultural connection.
Each year Jackson asks his students at Northland College in Ashland to write a Thanksgiving oration or prayer in the Ojibwe language. Some students give thanks for things like their cats or dogs, but he encourages a broad world view.
"The speaker at our feasts is speaking for everyone," Jackson said. "We thank the turkey or deer for dying, for sacrificing its life to feed us. We don't ask for much for ourselves. This isn't a chance to ask for a new Corvette."
Students find much to be thankful for as they write the orations, he said. And Jackson hopes other cultures will adopt the American Indian tradition of multiple thanksgiving ceremonies throughout the year.
"I would personally encourage people to do it more often," Jackson said. "Please, borrow that. Feel free."
46 Comments so far
Show AllThanksgiving Day is just a JOKE day given that the word gratitude has been rendered a dirty word ever since the settlers killed the Natives despite the help they got from them. Even today, we're a nation of gluttons and we're borrowing money from China and grabbing the oil from the Middle East to produce all this over-processed food and to wrap in plastics and transport. Instead of making one day a Thanksgiving Day and then being ungrateful, let's all learn from the Natives to show long term gratitude.
"I reckon that if white Americans got down from their 'high horse' and 'wallowed in anger, bitterness and shame' it might do them some good, rockyhill."
It doesn't do anyone any good.
"And given that Americans consume more resources than any other nation on the planet, it seems that your claim of there being a majority of 'have-nots' is not quite accurate."
And if you look even closer you'll find that it's only 1% of the population that has the majority of the wealth.
Demonization and identity politics are only useful to the elites. And they certainly aren't my friends. The white man is not the demon of human history. No one racial group is better than the other. If you foster that kind of thinking, you only become a mirror image of the right-wing.
Let's all stop demonizing and putting each other on pedestals. The left is as guilty of that as the right, and as a result, you really just alienate the majority of people who want solutions. Identity politics are divisive and leave people hurt, impotent, and paralyzed.
If you look at the history of every racial, ethnic, or religious group, every culture, every nation, you will find an underbelly just as you will find a bright side.
So resent me, attack me if you must. I get into it with racist right-wingers all the time since I won't endore their garbage either. And comments like the ones found here only rile them up all the more. So keep the ball rolling. The ruling class loves the discord.
Thank you. Finally some common sense.
Nice comment.
At the risk of seeming insensitive, I paraphrase the author and say, "We thank the [Native American} for dying, for sacrificing its life to [sustain] us."
But I'm not insensitive, and I'm told I'm 1/16th Native American myself. My point is not to insult or be trite, but to illustrate how all humanity acts in its own self-interest and then sanctimoniously rationalizes its own beliefs and causes. I believe, subject only to varying degree and purpose, all peoples are this way, and that the nobility and honor that might be attributed to any of it exists largely in the eye of the beholder.
The white man has spread a contrived religion and set forth to conquer all the indigenous peoples of the Earth. Sometimes, the words and actions of white folk cause me to wonder if they are indigenous to this planet at all. How can their exploitation and utter lack of spiritual regard for home and fellow kind be explained any other way? It is interesting to me how modern science confirms the existence of an empathy gene in individuals, but that so many of those with power (white man power) act with virtually no compassion and empathy at all. It is interesting to me that so many common everyday folk seem utterly incapable of anything other than subservient compliance.
Thanksgiving and most holiday traditions have become little more than commercialized consumer rituals. Deep thought, reflection and storytelling are overshadowed and rendered insignificant, even boring and tedious. Honor has given way to ceremony, appreciation has been largely lost to gratification, respect is corrupted and disguised through humor, and meaningful blessings have well yielded to material superficial desires.
The Native American, as most indigenous peoples are highly spiritual. Their spirituality is ontological to them in that it exists and is recognized as an inner awareness, a truth that resonates with them much in the same way a singer's voice resonates musically. White man's religion is externalized, and although it claims to possess this same "tuning fork of truth" through the Holy Spirit, it often cannot recognize it.
Ultimately, white man's self-glorification and conquest gives way to spiritual truth, because the greatest spirit of all is life itself. Without the miracle and truth of this spirit, none survive. As we all seek to understand and reconcile what this day of Thanksgiving is supposed to be about, let us recognize that it is Life itself that nurtures and binds us. And let us be thankful that at least once a year we forget our differences and our most immediate troubles in order to recognize that which we all share together - the blessings of Life.
Thank you.
Lets get this "genocide" canard clear once and for all. Check the historical records, what you will find is that all the Native Americans or first immigrants killed by settlers in massacres, murders, wars, uprisings, etc was a small percentage of the deaths. Most were caused by disease.
You could of course argue that if the Europeans hadn't come there would have been no disease. The answer to that of course is, that is correct.
Yes, those small-pox infected blankets really did their job, didn't they. You know, the ones the "nice" white settlers gave to the trusting natives to "keep warm." They kept "warm," alright, with fevers that killed them off.
But hey, Native people of this country are forgiving people; it's part of their spirituality. They are not into getting revenge, bless them. Not everyone of them is a saint of course, but that's true for every race. Most of them are not greedy and into materialism.
What small-pox infected blankets? Do you have a citation of such? The only scholar that proposed this was Ward Churchill and he is absolutely discredited.
LOL, you've got to be kidding. It's a well-known fact that the Native people of this country were given small-pox carrying blankets on purpose, to kill them off. I don't need a "citation of such." Ward Churchill is not the only one who knows about history. But keep on with your revisionist history; some low IQ people who are easily brainwashed will believe you.
Yep, you whites brought the diseases.
Was there a point to your post?
I didn't see it.
serena
Other than to point out the "genocide" BS needs to stop. It's never been true. If you want to say if the white man had never come the first immigrants wouldn't have died from disease, that would be correct. Of course if you folks hadn't come the animals living here in peace wouldn't have been killed or mutilated. Andc when we got here we wouldn't have lost any people. Chicken and Egg.
The real point is that its gone on too long. Time to move on.
I certainly wish people would move on.....but they don't.
http://www.akha.org/content/humanrightsdocs/thecanadiangenocide.html
I read in our local paper under the religious section a quote from a pastor that said, referring to Thanksgiving, god put the Indian here to help the white man. How arrogant and ignorant is that? All humans need to treat each other and the Earth with more respect or we may yet get the white man's self-fulfilling prophecy of Armageddon.
This year, again, count me out for Thanksgiving dinner. I will be in Plymouth with the Native Americans, commemorating Day of National Mourning. People often ask me: what is wrong with nice family gathering, what’s wrong with thanking God for all our blessings?
What is wrong is called genocide. We are being told, that this great nation is built on the foundation of freedom and liberty. This is lie, for we immediately should ask: freedom and liberty for whom? What is certain though, is the fact that this country was founded on the genocide of Native Americans. And this is not one of many – we are talking about biggest genocide in the history of human kind. Truth is so terrifying, injustice so great, that our inventive government decided to change pages of history. So kids in schools, adults in front of big TV screens were administered strong drug of propaganda and were told alternative, fantastic story of the past. Real events were dumped into the big “ memory hole”. Yes, American society is doped and dreaming.
Europeons come here, Kill Injun, Steal land. End of story.
"Native Americans were peaceful people. Europeans were war-mongering murderers. End of story."
No, you're just taking the bait by oversimplifying American history as much as any right-winger would. No one racial or ethnic group is exclusively good or evil. While teaching a candid account of American history would never in a million years put the pilgrims on a pedestal, it wouldn't put Native Americans on one either. And most importantly, it would ask WHY? WHY did all of that happen? WHY was all of that done? It wasn't because one group was "peaceful" and another was made up of "war-mongering murderers."
It's a "loaded holiday" for everyone. However, wallowing in anger, bitterness, and shame isn't going to cure America's fundamental ills.
If anything, if you really wanna break it all down, American history is basically a tale of the minority of haves vs. the majority of have-nots.
I reckon that if white Americans got down from their 'high horse' and 'wallowed in anger, bitterness and shame' it might do them some good, rockyhill.
And given that Americans consume more resources than any other nation on the planet, it seems that your claim of there being a majority of 'have-nots' is not quite accurate.
Happy Thanksgiving anyway!
www.dangerouscreation.com
Strange, but it's only theory, not fact, that tribes came to land from other lands & yet of course people want to state this thing as if it is a fact. As usual they need their lies. Most peoples of native tribes do not have asiatic features.
Regardless I happy every day to be a part of Creator/God's creation. This doesn't have anything to do with any day being a special day or history either one. To me it is interesting that this is the world Creator/God is bringing to it's end. Interesting to see native prophecies fulfilled, some long ago, some within 60 to 70 years.
Interesting to me the tribes called this land Turtle Island & many or most still do & yet the terminology Native Americans is still used???
Interesting the problems of the world the white folks built has so many problems that never existed for the 1000's & 1000's of years when the land belonged to the tribes.
Interesting to me that Wovoca stated Jesus visited him from the dimension Jesus resided in into this dimension. www.wovoca.com Interdimensional travel how interesting. Only means Jesus would have known what was going to happen in this land some 2000 years ago before his visitation to Wovoca thus appearing as time travel.
Not concerned about the destruction of the earth at all. The only way human beings would not have destroyed themselves by their own hand either through modern day weapons or the destruction of the earth would have been to have lived like the native tribes lived year in & year out.
Besides I don't know how much the destruction of the earth actually plays into Jesus doing away with this world or world's govts. Jesus was a tribal person, too, as he was born of the Tribe of Judah.
Interesting the white folk now weep, wail, & gnash their teeth over all the problems of their nation now only around 113 years after rounding up the last of the tribes. The idea appeared to me to be the peoples of native heritage participation in life was no longer required.
Interesting to me I read in a book the 7th Day Adventists considered the US to be the Beast of Revelation when they were murdering off the tribes & stealing the land? Who knows perhaps the US is a Beast Kingdom or Mystery Babylon that builds the globalist system of the Beast?
If the US is even a Beast Kingdom/Nation then it is ironic because that would mean God isn't worshipping the white folks or their world either one as they seem to require all people worship them & their world? I speak in generalities meaning not all white folk demand they & their world be worshipped.
Even many white folk have woken up and regard their nation to be a part of the Beast system, a Beast Kingdom or Mystery Babylon? They may be right?
Life is good & definately an experience.
Thanksgiving is a time to be happy, get together with family, give thanks for all our abundant blessings, prepare and eat delicious foods and enjoy the day. And yes, we should be thankful every day of the year, adopting an attitude of gratitude. It's good to be aware of the past, and learn from it, but not dwell in it. It's not a time to mourn over losses of the past, but to be fully present. We are here now. This is our time. Let's make the most of what we have now and go forward from here; with thanksgiving!
Great comment!
Here today, gone tomorrow, Ramm Dass.
Hey Native Person
What did the you Four fathers call their Nations lands before it was called America by Europeans?
History tells us, and has done for years, that the name of America came from one Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine transatlantic explorer who was a navigator with Christopher Columbus in 1499, and the first geographer to realize that the Americas were separate continents.
So now here you are Proud to be called Indian (Asian name) living in America (Italian named) ruled by Anglo-Saxon peoples and speaking their Language) while loosing yours language nationality and who you are completely
You have no idea where you came from, and no Idea where you are going as a people or person
Where are the spirited peoples of the Great Proud Nations of yes today years
Could you not muster the spirit of the phoenix and rise from the ashes of History
Do your Ancestors not deserve that their languages be spoken proudly again and their offspring trod proudly on their native earth
My FOREFATHERS (I didn't have FOUR fathers, only one) called it Turtle Island.
And my people are the People from where the Sun Rises.
Many of my group speak the language, Abenaki. More young peole learn it each year in summer camps for that prupose..
Your post was simply incoherent.
http://www.healingmagic.org/wbkm/30November2008.mp3
That is the link to today's episode of my radio show "Stories from the Road." It is relevant to this article. I hope you enjoy it.
Baruch
Who or what is an American Indian? Such a peoples do not and cannot exist . It is impossible to be a Native American Indian Indians originated in South central Asia
The history and Geography of the world tells us , Indians are peoples who lived along the Indus river valley in south central Asia
History of India . An overview : The people of India have had a continuous civilization since 2500 B.C., when the inhabitants of the Indus River valley are called Indians named from the region. This region is also called Hindustan and the peoples Hindustanis taken from the Hindu Religion
Is it not time Native Americans stop being ashamed of themselves and be proud of who they are and call themselves by their own Names
Native Americans are broke pathetic souls and they are devastatingly lost ...
How condescending of you. The tribal people of this country weren't the ones who named themselves "Indians."
This is a very racist comment.
They were our first immigrants, but as they were first here I think Native American is as good as any other designation, especially if thats what they prefer.
I don't know that I agree with your accessment of "Native American", the few friends I have that are mostly full blood are very proud of the fact.
Who or what is an American Indian? Such a peoples do not and cannot exist . It is impossible to be a Native American Indian Indians originated in South central Asia
The history and Geography of the world tells us , Indians are peoples who lived along the Indus river valley in south central Asia
History of India . An overview : The people of India have had a continuous civilization since 2500 B.C., when the inhabitants of the Indus River valley are called Indians named from the region. This region is also called Hindustan and the peoples Hindustanis taken from the Hindu Religion
Is it not time Native Americans stop being ashamed of themselves and be proud of who they are and call themselves by their own Names
Native Americans are broke pathetic souls and they are devastatingly lost ...
I see it more as Native American's Holocaust Day. Clearly, nothing to be "Happy" about or for which to be "Thanksgiving."
On this day, our thoughts should go to those starving in Gaza and those who are wounded in Mumbai and those suffering elsewhere in the world.
We humans have not brought greatness or nobility to this world since we came down from the trees. We have instead brought endless death and destruction and continue to do so.
If only we humans weren't humans!
www.dangerouscreation.com
Native Americans are the proper stewards of the earth.
They are a peaceful people. They make their way not by ravages upon the earth, but by honest toil. In that regard they have nothing in common with Europeans.
Do more reserch, you will find that not all tribes were good stewards of the earth, found that out when I read the history of my people, the Muscogee creeks. You will also find very peacful tribes and very war like tribes who fought each other just for the joy of doing so.
I'll say it again, Native Americans are the proper stewards of the earth. Period.
Somehow I doubt you are really Native American.
Did tribes really "fought each other just for the joy of doing so"? Oh right, they did because they were all a bunch of heathen savages who were insane with blood lust, is that it? Is that what you learned in school? Get a grip. Native Americans were peaceful people. Europeans were war-mongering murderers. End of story.
Take your Euro-centric view of history someplace where gullible people will listen. I can't stand listen to any more apologists for genocide. I've heard too many already. It's heartbreaking to listen to such incredible ignorance.
I agree. There are so many people who now claim they have Native-American blood (usually to get free service at health clinics or some other financial gain). One look at them and you can tell they have no tribal blood or perhaps it's 1/64.....LOL. I think the cutoff as far as degree should be 1/2. The ones that are 1/4 are Caucasian, and there's nothing wrong with being Caucasian; I just have a problem with them cashing in on and helping themselves to what little the Native-Americans have.
Their favorite line is "I'm Cherokee."
You can doubt it as much as you want but I am on the rolls of the creek nation, but as I said some were quite peacful while others were very war like. They would raid each others camps that is the reason young men were considered warriors, they would prove there bravery by attacking other tribes. Some tribes would push others off hunting lands and take them over. I am not apologising for european genocide, it was wrong, my people were pushed off our traditional lands in Georgia and we were sold out by one of our own. The Creeks nearly wiped out the deer population so they could trade the furs for european goods which is anther scurge from europe. But to say all the Native Americans were peacful is just not true, you realy need to reads some books on the subject.
dagger
You are exactly correct. Ouir first immigrants Tribal practices weren't much different here than in their homelands.
billbe
Jackson says: "We thank the turkey or deer for dying, for sacrificing its life to feed us. We don't ask for much for ourselves . . . " Is this a SERIOUS statment? Did the 'turkey' or 'deer' have much of a choice in this 'sacrifice'?
How egregiously arrogant, if not blatantly stupid!
I doubt if the indigenous people of this country had degrees in nutrition and knew about vegetarian diets and combining grains and legumes to make a complete protein. Should they have been expected to starve to death instead? They knew that the protein from the animals kept them alive. At least they weren't cannibals who put people in big pots to boil and eat as they did in Africa.
It's like being grateful for your days and nights, your successes and your failures. Nietzsche says We receive and do not ask from whence it comes. Gratefulness is the opposite of resentment. It's an attitude toward life.
I'm not selling anything, just commenting on the philosophy.
Anyone who thinks this is a great article should read from my following post.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/25-5#comment-1083150
Along with that are the very recommendable www.mohawknationnews.com and www.hiddenfromhistory.org .
I appreciate reading nice things from words of American Indians, as reflected in this article today at CD; but when we weigh that to the historical [and] ongoing (and severe) genocides of indigenous peoples in the U.S., Canada, and worldwide, then we can and should wake up to the fuller or full real picture. Darkness prevails and extremely so for many indigenous populations, which of course includes Palestinians.
So, "thanksgiving"? My a**!
We can be thankful for ourselves, individually, for our own lives and health, and for people working to try to wake the rest of the world up and to try to bring aid to the oppressed and genocided; but we don't have anything to really be thankful about in other terms.
is thanksgiving for indians like the zeppelin burning for blimp fans? a reality check. actually being grateful for life happens moment by moment, not one dinner a year, but what a nice start. gratitude is the foundation underpinning of sane
As far as I know, Native Americans never fought about religion.
Very true, but they had many other things that they did fight about, hunting lands being the major one.
Thanksgiving: a day when we stuff ourselves, celebrating hunger in our midst and around the world.
Great article!