Behind The Curtain On T-Day

Ant writes "MSN Encarta has Columnist Martha Brockenbrough's article on the myths of this American holiday. From the article: 'A lot of what we know to be true about Thanksgiving really isn't. Determining exactly what did happen is difficult. For starters, we don't even know for certain if the Pilgrims served turkey, although it's a strong possibility.'" Additionally, maotx writes "Contrary to popular belief, turkey does not make you sleepy. While purified tryptophan is a mild sleep-inducing agent, there is not enough in turkey to have a sedative affect. And on top of that, turkey isn't even unusually high in tryptophan compared to other foods, such as beef or soybeans. So for those of us enjoying turkey today, bring on the turkey and have a Happy Thanksgiving!"

Comments

Re:The first broken myth...

[Doctor Crumb]

The first Canadian Thanksgiving was celebrated on April 15, 1872 in thanks for the recovery of the future King Edward VII from a serious illness. The next Thanksgiving didn't occur until 1879 when it was celebrated on a Thursday in November.

As for it being celebrated in October, it has more to do with Canada having a shorter growing season and that celebrating the harvest makes more sense near the end of harvest season in october. The holiday did bounce around a lot, but I don't think that Armistice day was the sole reason for the move to october.

http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/jfa-ha/action _e.cfm

another critical article

[Doviende]

"Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it's also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders."

from Robert Jensen's Give Thanks No More

here's another part of it i found interesting:

Any attempt to complicate this story guarantees hostility from mainstream culture. After raising the barbarism of America's much-revered founding fathers in a lecture, I was once accused of trying to "humble our proud nation" and "undermine young people's faith in our country."

Yes, of course -- that is exactly what I would hope to achieve. We should practice the virtue of humility and avoid the excessive pride that can, when combined with great power, lead to great abuses of power.

-doviende

You learn somthing everyday

[nagora]

As a Brit I had always assumed that the "thanks" were being "given" to the Indians for showing them how to grow corn and bringing all that nice food so they didn't starve. Just shows.

TWW

Re:You learn somthing everyday

[jd]

Given that much of the food had been brought to the Pilgrims, and what food the Piulgrims had had been grown only with Native American knowledge, you're essentially correct. I'd assumed that it had been a corruption of the English "Harvest Festival" and that the fetish with corn was related somehow to the ancient British tradition of making "corn dolls" out of the last corner of uncut crop.

(I don't know how old the tradition was, but the idea was you chased the spirit of the crop into a corner of the field, by harvesting the rest, then trapped it in a figurine made from the stalks of what was left. The following year, you planted the figurine, so releasing the crop spirits back into the field.)

Since Thanksgiving involves exactly the same basic elements, it seemed likely to me that the Pilgrims had borrowed from what they would already have known and merely shaped it to serve their purpose. I still believe there must have been some elements of that, but maybe nowhere near as much as I'd thought.