by Michael Auld
Taquitock (tah-qui-tock) , n.
Algonquian, 1. The Harvest. The
fourth of the five seasons of the year in which celebrations occurred.
Thanksgiving, n, English, 1.
The time set aside for showing appreciation.
If on December 4th, you can’t
find one of the above persons, thank an indigenous Bahamian, a Dominican,
Haitian, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Jamaican, or Virgin Islander. Or thank an Amerindian
Mexican, Virginian or New Englander.
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(Above)
Etched 17th Century images by DeBrey of the First American Thanksgiving and the more likely, the meal that
followed. (L) Although this first illustration may have been a Springtime
festival, Taquitocok, it is one of the 5 Algonquian seasons and the
indigenous name for the harvest. (R) “The manner of feeding is in this
way. They lay a mat made of reeds on the ground and set their meat in the
middle thereof, and then the men sit around on one side, and the women on the
other. Their main dish is boiled maize/corn, and tastes good [in such a way
that I described in an earlier treatise] with venison, and other animals and
fish. They are very sober in their eating, and drinking, and consequently long
lived because they do not oppress nature.” - The New Found Land
of Virginia
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(Above)
The typical image of the idealized “First Thanksgiving”. A 1914 painting by the English artist Jennie A. Brownscombe. Here the artist used one of the traditional painting and advertising compositional formulas in which figures of primary importance are made the largest and placed in the foreground; secondary figures are smaller and placed in the middle ground; figures of less importance are placed in the background. All figures, except the mother, bow or face towards the standing religious person. The artist’s depiction of a Madonna and Christ-like image of a child in a cradle in the foreground of the composition may portray the artist’s suggestion of a birth of a new nation. Also, notice the symbolism of subservience and religious overtones in the
middle and backgrounds. The Indians at the table have Plains headdress not
Wampanoag regalia.
At the ending of National Native American
Month, why should we thank an Indigenous American? Because their ancestors made
America
and Thanksgiving possible. It is also a form of adoration or showing gratitude.
Why not thank one of the descendants of the First Americans to our south, the
Taíno. They were the first to fall victim to Spanish and Portuguese commercial
exploitation of their conucos
(gardens). Have you ever wondered about the billions of dollars that many of
the planet’s economies garner yearly from Amerindian agricultural products? Think
latex rubber; corn/maize; potatoes (sweet and Inca); yucca/cassava; dried
beans; peppers (capsicum); pineapples; tomatoes; etc., etc. China heads up the list of producers of corn in Asia. Corn/maize that we know today is a grain that
Ancient Mexican horticulturalists “invented” to suit a variety of soils and
climates. Many African countries continue to grow, export and feed millions with
byproducts of plants that are endemic to the Tropical Americas.
At the Thanksgiving dinner that we just celebrated, we ate
Taíno gifts that were the first contributions of the 1492 Encounter. Their
gardens added the pumpkin, peanuts, sweet potato, corn/maize, peppers, pineapple, and
allspice to the menu. Our Thanksgiving menu also called for the domesticated
Mexica (me-she-kah) or Mexican turkey and vanilla bean (ice cream) complemented
by the Native American cranberry sauce. Since Columbus
was searching for the Indian Subcontinent, we added nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves
from that other part of Asia.
This is November and the real Thanksgiving is not yet over!
The Thanksgiving Day that we now observe was decreed by
President Abraham Lincoln. The Pilgrims of New England have become the main
actors from the elementary school stages to the lavish street parades. However,
a more accurate Thanksgiving Day observance was included in a statement by Virginia’s Governor Douglas
Wilder. At an annual pre-Thanksgiving treaty ceremony that was held on the
steps of the Governor’s Mansion with the descendants of the two surviving
Powhatan Confederacy reservations (America’s first Indian
reservations), the Pamunkey and Mattaponi of King William County, Governor
Wilder stated the following:
“The Pilgrims of Massachusetts ate
the bones from the first Thanksgiving meal that was held in Virginia”.
(R) Governor Douglas
Wilder (who served from 2005 to 2009) in front of the Governor’s Mansion in Richmond, Virginia
welcoming the chiefs of Virginia’s Pamunkey and Mattaponi Indian Reservations.
He accepted the annual payment of deer as part of the annual treaty ceremony
the week before Thanksgiving. The gift to the Colonial English governor was
originally 20 beaver pelts.
Governor Wilder was referring to the
celebratory English who began arriving in 1607. Englishmen and women sat down
at Berkley Plantation in Virginia’s Powhatan
territory to have a Thanksgiving that predated New England’s Pilgrim arrival at
Plymouth. The New England version was the third of this kind of
celebration on American soil. The first American Thanksgiving (and maybe the
second) at Berkley Hundred, a 8,000 acre property that later became Berkley
Plantation,
was held in the extensive Powhatan Chiefdom’s tri-state “tribal” territory (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Hundred). At
the plantation, Powhatan’s people may have provided the main dishes, since the
English relied on Powhatan corn and game for survival. However, no enslaved
Africans had yet graced the table since in that year only indentured Africans,
confiscated from a Dutch ship, were to arrive in the new colony.
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| Pictograph of the Pamunkey Treaty
observance. Although the time when “the geese fly” may refer to Spring and not
Fall. |
Undoubtedly, Native Americans had the
earliest Thanksgivings in the United
States. The first official colonial Thanksgiving was on 4 December 1619 at the
Berkley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia located between Richmond
and Jamestown.
The third, “more official”
Thanksgiving was a food fest that is still promoted as “The event that some
Americans commonly call the ‘First Thanksgiving’". It was celebrated by
the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World
in 1621. However, this may have occurred in July after another arrival of immigrants
in 1623. “The event now commemorated in the United States at the end of
November each year is more properly termed a "harvest festival". Another
source stated that the original festival was probably held in early October
1621 and was celebrated by the 53 famine-surviving Pilgrims, along with the [sachem (leader)] Massasoit and 90 of his
[Wampanoag] men.” The first New England Thanksgiving was not likely a religious
event and was a feast that lasted three days and was a typical English method
of thanksgiving after a battle or an important event.
The confusion about the true thanksgiving is why we see Pilgrims at the Macy’s
Day parade instead of 17th Century English “venture capitalists”
waving at the gullible consumers in the crowd lining Park Avenue in New York City. As an advertising
major, I secretly love to watch the televised fictitious commercial spectacle
with cartoon characters, marching bands and Broadway previews. This year among
the multitude of floats, flying balloons and marching feet, I saw one Oneida
Indian Nation float with Native Americans standing on a large turtle or “Turtle Island”
(their name for the United
States) representing Mother Earth, on whose
back stood the “Tree of Peace”. This *float represented the Native Americans who were actually the majority
present (in the woods) at the truly first, first,
first
Thanksgivings.
Wikipedia sights: “Berkeley
Plantation was originally called Berkeley Hundred and named after the Berkeley
Company of England.”
The article also includes the following by Captain John Woodleaf [who] held the
[first] service of thanksgiving. “The Charter of Berkeley Plantation specified
the thanksgiving service by decreeing; ‘Wee ordaine that the day of our ships
arrival [on December 4, 1619] at the place assigned for plantacon in the land
of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving
to Almighty God.’" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Plantation)
So, Thanksgiving Day has not yet really arrived.
Why aren’t we taught these points in the history of the creation of America? Apparently,
we prefer to delete that which is embarrassing. It seems that, in our education
system, we have chosen to promote religious Pilgrims over America’s first
capitalists. Building a myth on “religious freedom” soothes the conscience and
puffs up the chest more than the reality of a country founded on a business
proposition initiated by the Virginia Company of London.
Glossary of terms:
Taíno = one of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean. The other is the Island Carib.
Mexica (Me-she-kah) = Also called Aztec, a people of Mexico.
Powhatan = The indigenous people of Tidewater Virginia whose
territory included Jamestown and lay within present day North Carolina,
Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC.
Wampanoag = One of the indigenous peoples of New
England
