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

Turkey is not a sedative

[adeydas1]

... that's why the beer goes with it.

Re:Turkey is not a sedative

[Philip K Dickhead]

Culture is the sedative, or "opiate" if you prefer. I covered the TDay mythology in my JE http://slashdot.org/~Philip%20K%20Dickhead/journal /122836

Most of us associate the holiday with happy Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big feast. And that did happen - once.

The story began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery. They left behind smallpox which virtually wiped out those who had escaped. By the time the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their language. He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags...

The first broken myth...

[Rob Parkhill]

The first myth about Thanksgiving is that it occurs in November. Everyone knows that the real Thanksgiving happens in October.

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

The Pilgrims should have served steak

[toddbu]

I've gotten to the point where I can't stand turkey any more. You cook a huge bird and eat it for the next month, then do it all again for Christmas. This year I'm staging a revolt and eating steak.

Tell me...

[Dystopian Rebel]

What do the North American Indians celebrate?

Re:Tell me...

[oxi]

Good point.

Native people I know don't "celebrate" this country's history as is encompassed in the myth of "Thanksgiving" or it's twin, Columbus Day. They instead mourn for those whose lives were taken so long ago. The story as has been told in school rooms for decades is fallacy that doesn't hold water. It glosses over the horrors that people of the First Nations were subjected to in the Americas. By just focusing on Tisquantum (or Squanto) you get a glipse of what hundreds of thousands of more people would eventually be subjected to. A good television series that goes in depth on what the Wampanoag Nation experianced is "500 Nations", available on DVD at the usual places.

It would great if the geek brethren that assembled here on /. would take it upon themselves to dig beyond the official history and into reality's sad truths with as much zeal as we use in picking apart the latest FUD coming from the Micro$oft.

More on Tisquantum:
http://members.aol.com/calebj/squanto.html

And here's a more personal account of how one Native person spends the day with her family:
http://www.purewatergazette.net/nativeamericanthan ksgiving.htm

Re:Tell me...

[zulux]

What do the North American Indians celebrate?

Thanksgiving. But they drink their Wild-Turkey.

(one ticket to hell, window seat please)

Re:Tell me...

[Seumas]

You know, I don't particularly care to continue the "columbus" myth whatsoever, but at the same time . . . What the fuck do you want from me? It's not like this is the only country that was ever conquered or explored or founded or taken by force or anything else. Not the first and not the last.

Frankly, I'm tired of people trying to lay some trip on me because I'm a "white male". What the fuck did I have to do with buttraping the natives on this country and taking their land? Hey - I'm real sorry about how it all went down, but my family was from Russia and Germany - not Spain - and they only came over within the last century. And I'm pretty fucking sure they weren't royalty or had anything to do with or control to change what happened on this continent.

Should all the people who have migrated to Australia in the last decade be responsible for what Britain did to the aboriginies in the last century or two?

On the other hand, it does seem silly to celebrate. But isn't that the Christian way? Fuck someone over, make a holiday for it or take their holiday and make it their own.. voila. Kinda like the whole pagans and Christmas thing. Or the pagans and easter thing.

Interestingly enough, it does still seem to be what is tought in school, which is fairly amazing.

How am I going to play with my girlfriend's toys?

[moofdaddy]

Turkey doesn't make you sleepy?! Now how am I going to get my girlfriend to fall asleep so I can play with the antique toys she won't let me touch?

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

Re:another critical article

[ScentCone]

by 1637

Yes, I'm really going to have to talk to my grandparents about that. Oh, wait... that was almost 400 years ago.

Any chance we can just enjoy the tradition as it is currently enjoyed by millions of people? You know - in the general spirit of family togetherness, and blissfully minus too much of the commercialization (um, other than transportation use) that makes the rest of the holidays such a mess?

Re:another critical article

[ScentCone]

who cares about the bloody history of how america was founded? its not like it has any baring on americas conduct in the world today or anything

True, we could have just let the bloody regime that formed the colonies stay in power, and it could have had a non-stop, continual bloody fight with the French, the Spaniards, and everyone else with an interest in more land, gold, etc.

This will be easier: give me a run-down of the cultures and geographical spots that do not have a bloody history going back several centuries, so that we can get all of our societal guidance from them. Western Europe? Nope. Eastern Europe? Nope. Central/South America? Nope. Asia (in any quarter thereof? Nope. North America before the Europeans showed up? Nope. Australia? I could use a refresher on their history, but don't think that continent is free of bloodletting. Hmmm.

Yes, forgetting history can be an aspect of repeating it... but what makes you think that's a peculiarly American thing? Or that America's history is any more bloody than, say, the Middle East, or the Caucuses, or anyplace else? Now, review the most recent 200 or so years of global history, reviewing the frequency with which the people in each culture and country have had regular, peaceful, democratic changes in government every few years. The US has had its procession of leaders and representatives partially interrupted by one civil war, but has otherwise performed civilly, not bloodily.

At no point during that history has gathering around a table with family been somehow less about gathering around a table with family. Whether or not some sects or towns or states have made pronouncements along the way about other meanings of the (age old) harvest feasts held this time of year, such gatherings provide their own meaning - and for most people (not counting turkeys), it's peaceful and a moment to reflect on giving a damn about at least some members of our families.

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.

Tryptophan

[uberchicken]

From what I remember on my research into serotonin..

Tryptophan is an amino acid that is used by the brain to manufacture serotonin. It's present in all protein, and usually you have plenty of it in your bloodstream. However, it can only get into the brain piggybacked on another molecule, and it has to compete with other amino acids for this ride. One way to soak up the other amino acids is to produce insulin with a carbohydrate-only meal. The insulin removes enough of those amino acids to allow more tryptophan into the brain, thereby providing more raw material for serotonin production.

I'm sticking with the Prozac though.

Why did they starve, why did they have plenty?

[Bob_Robertson]

One of the other posters here is correct, the Virginia colony very likely had a harvest festival before the Plymouth colony did, if for no other reason than they started a dozen years earlier with exactly the same communal-property=starvation results.

However, if we are going to discuss the "why"s and "wherefore"s, it would be educational to remember that William Branford, the first governor of the Plymouth colony, wrote it all up.

Here are some articles with links to the original:

From http://www.mises.org/story/336

In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."

And from https://www.mises.org/story/1678

The Pilgrims' unhappiness was caused by their system of common property (not adopted, as often asserted, from their religious convictions, but required against their will by the colony's sponsors). The fruits of each person's efforts went to the community, and each received a share from the common wealth. This caused severe strains among the members, as Colony Governor William Bradford recorded:

" . . . the young men . . . did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong . . . had not more in division . . . than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes, etc . . . thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And the men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it."

Or if you really just want the undigested original:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1650bradford.ht ml

"The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; and that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."

Bzzzzttt....

[jpellino]

The "post-prandial dip" occurs in people who are bedridden and IV-fed, and is actually accompanied by a decrease in body temp - which means it's not due to a rise in body temp or a result of eating.

There is on top of that a sleepiness after meals that comes from a dip in blood sugar once insulin kicks in following the ingeston of sugars. The feedback loop of blood sugar and insulin is usually a bit laggy.