May Our Myths Become Us

Happy Thanksgiving! And by that I mean “Happy Day to Eat Turkey and Pretend American History is Not So Bad After All.” That is, of course, separate from the other day, back in October, when we pretended that some lost guy actually discovered something and our history was not so bad.

Thanksgiving is a screwy holiday that I actually really like. I like the cooking, and the fuss, and the football, and especially the pie. But as an historian, I am also very aware that America’s fantasized “Pilgrim-Indian Thanksgiving Feast” is far removed from the reality of 17^th century life in what is now known as Massachusetts. To put it bluntly, this is not your kindergarten hand-turkey story.

There are many articles out there that can break down the real story of “The First Thanksgiving,” but let me give you an abbreviated version: there had previously been feasts of thanksgiving in St. Augustine and in Jamestown; Squanto (Tisquantum) had previously been enslaved by Europeans; the Pilgrims settled in an abandoned Wampanoag village whose inhabitants had been killed off  by European diseases; the “Indians” were not one monolithic group, but several rival nations competing for territory & trade; there had already been attacks by the English on the Narragansett.

In essence, the Pilgrims along with their Wampanoag, Narragansett and Pequot neighbors all lived a precarious existence in Eastern Massachusetts built on negotiating alliances, trade deals and territorial claims, against all the others. The story we like involves two of these groups coming together to celebrate a successful harvest, and it’s a lovely story, but it’s more myth than reality. Within a generation, the Pilgrim and Puritan settlers would fight several devastating wars against all of these native peoples and launch a campaign of conquest that led to nationwide genocide.

So does Thanksgiving mean anything at all? To me, identifying it as a myth does not diminish its importance. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. The fact that we make a big fuss over this national myth of Thanksgiving tells us how we want to think of ourselves, what we want to believe about ourselves. You can say that it’s (literally) white washed history, but I think it’s more than that. It tells us who we want to be … We want to be those people who sat down with folks who were different from us, and shared a meal. The people who acknowledged with thanks all the ways in which “others” had enriched our lives. We want to be the people who live in openness and gratitude, rather than in fear.

And I think we need that myth now more than ever. We are now living in a precarious time, a time in which rival groups are being pitted against each other for resources and there are people stoking the fires of hatred and violence. We need Thanksgiving. Not so you can talk sense into your crazy Trump-supporting relatives, or so you can drown your sorrows in a tryptophan-induced haze. No, we need Thanksgiving because we need to remember how the Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims to survive, to plant, to harvest.

The Pilgrims could have a feast because the Wampanoag had taught them to grow the Three Sisters – corn, beans and squash. These plants thrive when grown together, each complimenting the others, each contributing to the successful growth of the others. Together, they also contain all of the basic nutrients necessary for human survival.

And this is what we need to do … to use our individual strengths in service to each other and to the survival of our country. That is where we will find strength, support, growth, stamina, survival, and ultimately thanksgiving.

At the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving, they had no crystal ball. We don’t either, but we know enough to know that there are dangerous times ahead. It is now that we need to cling to that myth of Thanksgiving, because it is now that we can give it meaning. Forget the hand turkeys … it’s time to extend a hand of peace, of solidarity, of friendship.

And we can start by standing with the Standing Rock Sioux …