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15.11.03, 13:45
from the November 27, 2002 edition ?
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1127/p13s02-lign.html
The first Thanksgiving
In the fall of 1621, 90 Wampanoag Indians and 52 English colonists gathered
for a three-day harvest feast. How did Americans get from that celebration
to the Thanksgiving 'traditions' we observe today?
By Elizabeth Armstrong | Special to The Christian
Science Monitor
PLYMOUTH, MASS. - Everyone knows about the Pilgrims and the Indians, right?
How the two groups gathered peacefully in Plymouth, Mass., to feast on
juicy turkeys and colorful pumpkin pies.
The trouble is, almost everything we've been taught about the first
Thanksgiving in 1621 is a myth. The holiday has two distinct histories -
the actual one and a romanticized portrayal.
Today, Americans celebrate a holiday based largely on the latter, whose
details of turkey and cranberry sauce decorating one long table stem from
the creative musings of a magazine editor in the mid-1800s.
The true history has been a difficult one to uncover.
Staff at Plimoth Plantation, which occupies several acres on the outskirts of
the city of Plymouth, just north of Cape Cod, have been in the vanguard of
researching the event. But a big obstacle remains: Everything historians know
today is based on two passages written by colonists.
Participants' accounts
In a letter to a friend, dated December 1621, Edward
Winslow wrote: "Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on
fowling, that so we might after a more special manner rejoice together,
after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed
as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the Company almost a
week, at which time, among other Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many
of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King
Massasoit, with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted
and they went out and killed five Deer, which they brought to the
Plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others."
Twenty years later, William Bradford wrote a book
that provides a few more hints as to what might have been on that first
Thanksgiving table. But his book was stolen by British looters during the
Revolutionary War and therefore didn't have much influence on how
Thanksgiving was celebrated until it turned up many years later.
No one is certain whether the Wampanoag and the colonists regularly sat
together and shared their food, or if the three-day
"thanksgiving" feast Mr. Winslow recorded for posterity was a one-time
event.
In the culture of the Wampanoag Indians, who inhabited the area around Cape
Cod, "thanksgiving" was an everyday activity.
"We as native people [traditionally] have thanksgivings as a daily, ongoing
thing," says Linda Coombs, associate director of the Wampanoag program at
Plimoth Plantation. "Every time anybody went hunting or fishing or picked a
plant, they would offer a prayer or acknowledgment."
But for the 52 colonists - who had experienced a year
of disease, hunger, and diminishing hopes - their bountiful harvest was
cause for a special celebration to give thanks.
"Neither the English people nor the native people in
1621 knew they were having the first Thanksgiving," Ms. Coombs says. No
one knew that the details would interest coming generations.
"We're not sure why Massasoit and the 90 men ended up coming to Plimoth,"
Coombs says. "There's an assumption that they were invited, but nowhere in
the passage does it say they were. And the idea that they sat down and lived
happily ever after is, well, untrue. The relationship between the English and
the Wampanoag was very complex."
Since they did not speak the same language, the
extent to which the colonists and Indians intermingled remains a mystery.
But a few details of that first Thanksgiving are certain, says Kathleen
Curtin, food historian at the Plimoth Plantation.
What was on the menu?
First, wild turkey was never mentioned in Winslow's
account. It is probable that the large amounts of "fowl" brought back by four
hunters were seasonal waterfowl such as duck or geese.
And if cranberries were served, they would have been used for their tartness
or color, not the sweet sauce or relish so common today. In fact, it would be
50 more years before berries were boiled with sugar and used as an
accompaniment to meat.
Potatoes weren't part of the feast, either. Neither
the sweet potato nor
the white potato was yet available to colonists.
The presence of pumpkin pie appears to be a myth, too. The group may have
eaten pumpkins and other squashes native to New England, but it is unlikely
that they had the ingredients for pie crust - butter and wheat flour. Even if
they had possessed butter and flour, the colonists hadn't yet built an oven
for baking.
"While we have been able to work out which modern dishes were not available
in 1621, just what was served is a tougher nut to crack," Ms. Curtin says.
A couple of guesses can be made from other passages in Winslow's
correspondence about the general diet at the time: lobsters, mussels, "sallet
herbs," white and red grapes, black and red plums, and flint corn.
"We have only one documented harvest feast that occurred between the
cultures," Curtin points out. "You don't hear about [any other] harvests
occurring between them. I assume that they did on some level, but it's
fascinating that it is just that one source, one sentence in one letter. I
wonder what else is there that someone just didn't jot down, and we now know
nothing about."
Until the early 1800s, Thanksgiving was considered to be a regional holiday
celebrated solemnly through fasting and quiet reflection.
But the 19th century had its own Martha Stewart, and it didn't take her
long to turn New England fasting into national feasting. Sarah Josepha
Hale, editor of the popular Godey's Lady's Book, stumbled upon Winslow's
passage and refused to let the historic day fade from the minds - or tables -
of Americans. This established trendsetter filled her magazine with recipes
and editorials about Thanksgiving.
It was also about this time - in 1854, to be exact -
that Bradford's history book of Plymouth Plantation resurfaced. The
book increased interest in the Pilgrims, and Mrs. Hale and others latched
onto the fact he mentioned that the colonists had killed wild turkeys
during the autumn.
In her magazine Hale wrote appealing articles about roasted turkeys, savory
stuffing, and pumpkin pies - all the foods that today's holiday meals are
likely to contain.
In the process, she created holiday "traditions" that share few similarities
with the original feast in 1621.
In 1858, Hale petitioned the president of the United States to declare
Thanksgiving a national holiday. She wrote: "Let this day, from this time
forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand
Thanksgiving holiday of our nation, when the noise and tumult of worldliness
may be exchanged for the length of the laugh of happy children, the glad
greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart."
Five years later, Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November
"as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth
in the Heavens."
"[Hale's] depiction is wrong much more often than it's right," says Nancy
Brennan, president of Plimoth Plantation. "When this idea [of the first
Thanksgiving] caught on, it became a big, popular subject for prints and
books and paintings, all of which used whatever people could gather about
what the environment might have been like in 1621."
A native view
With little mention of the native population, the Wampanoag presence was
virtually relegated to the background, and the Pilgrim p
