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| Witchvox Chapter: Wren's Nest News | Chapter Page Views: 56,555,467 |
 Giving Thanks For Thanksgiving Author: Becky O'Malley Source: Berkeley Daily Planet Title: GIVING THANKS FOR THANKSGIVING Somehow someone’s gotten the idea lately that Thanksgiving is all about food. Well, no, not exactly. It’s the successor to a whole variety of traditional festivals going back at least to the Jewish Sukkot (sometimes transliterated as Succoth). Here’s how the “Judaism 101” website describes it: “Sukkot has a dual significance: historical and agricultural. Historically, Sukkot commemorates the 40-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. Agriculturally, Sukkot is a harvest festival…” The Pilgrim mothers and fathers, well-versed as they were in what Christians call the Old Testament, must have had similar ideas when they put together what schoolkids call The First Thanksgiving. The actual facts could be significantly different, but the myth of The First Thanksgiving is that European immigrants and American natives living in Plymouth Plantation threw a party to celebrate both the harvest and their mutual harmony in a safe environment, concepts clearly related to the dual message of Sukkot. But the family reunion aspect of Thanksgiving takes its lumps in the chatty media. | |
| Community Thoughts: There are 2 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Good Article | Nov 25th. at 11:13:53 pm EST |
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nasionnaich (Stanchfield, Minnesota) - Email Me Interesting comparison between the "American" Thanksgiving and the Jewish Sukkot -- with a mixture of California dreaming thrown in. Kind of gives a new insight into the November holiday. However... If History rejects Socialism, and working the fields in common just doesn't work, how to explain the Historical Fact (very well documented by at least 10 individuals, all working independently, at at differing times) that most "American Indian" Nations pooled their resources. The individual families may have had their "privately owned" fields, and individual hunters may have been awarded the greater share of the kill, but they didn't hoard what they grew or killed for only themselves; they did not allow everyone else in the village to just go hungry. They shared what they had, for the good of the entire village. One of my sources, and it is only one of at least 20, is "Corn Among The Indians of the Upper Missouri" by George F. Will & George E. Hyde; University of Nebraska Press (originally published by the W.H. Miner Co., in St. Louis, MO, in 1917) ISBN 0-8032-9826-9 --nasionnaich "Sitting Bull", after returning from his travels with "Buffalo Bill" Cody, was regularly criticized for giving what money he earned to the children and needy people of the Standing Rock Reservation. The criticism always came first from the White Man, who thought far more of money than of anything else. |
| Got Any Beer? | Nov 25th. at 7:40:51 pm EST |
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Ahr-Ohn (Bridgeport, Connecticut) - Email Me The first thing, the indian did, when he walked up to the Pilgrims, was to ask for Beer. Since Enki, there's been a fine tradition, of offering Beer, to civilize the Savage. Not to mention, his buddy spoke English and Spanish, having been a slave to both cultures. The First Thanksgiving, however, was a bit after that, when George Washington proclaimed a day of thanksgiving for the passage of The Constitution of the United States of America. As to why the Pilgrims spent the winter after their first harvest starving, it's because they attempted a scientific theory, that they'd have better results in Cooperation, than in Individual Responsibility. Working the fields in Common just didn't work; History rejects Socialism. Arawn Graalrd |
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