All Comments (17)

Der Schwarze Ritter
Karankawas, what a charming people. Some cowboys claim to have run upon a few of them out Norias way. They were just kidding,--right?

Human sacrifice? Hardly a hallmark of the Wampanoag, ...just more defamation.

If you want human sacrifice in old Mass Bay colony, how about publicly killing 'witches' to turn away the anger of a wrathful God?

Granted, the Pilgrims had a closed religion in their society. But..they maintained a peaceful and harmonious relationship with their neighbors, the Wampanoags for 54 years. Unfortunately, they take the blame for the actions of those who came after them.

"The Pilgrims' religion conquered the Indians' religion? Where does that come from??"

I don't know, I'd like to ask them, but we seem to have killed most of them. Yay for us!

Snotnosedb@st@ard:

"well, indeed, I don't believe God is a God of the white people. However, given the religions of many of the indiginous peoples, if you'd been invited to dinner by them, the festivities would begin by sacrificing your neighbors. Your sanctimony is missing some points for me, Mr. Stevens-Arroyo."

You're an f'n hoot! 40 million native North and South American indigenous peoples EXTERMINATED and you're worried about a little ritual sacrifice. I would vote to send your ignorant arse down the volcano. Seems more benevolent than christianitys' idea of sacrifice.....GENOCIDE.

Thank goodness the Pilgrims didn't land ashore at Galveston or Corpus Christi, Texas. Otherwise, they might have been served as dinner for a Karankawa Indian feast that first Thanksgiving.

The Ghosts at the feast

How often is our fortune someone else’s misfortune? Usually there are ghosts at any feasts when *we* give thanks. The most solemn thanksgiving feast of Judaism is Passover: Jews giving thanks for their deliverance from the angel of death. The Jews were delivered from Egyptian slavery, but the ghosts at Passover feasts were every (innocent) first born Egyptian boy child killed by the God of the Jews.

Still, we are told not to judge, and, maybe wisdom consists of allowing the past its own integrity. So—what to say about the ghosts at American thanksgiving? For sure the Amerindians of the North, who did not gain from the coming of the English colonists, are there...being infected at that first Thanksgiving by the European germs that would kill almost all of them.

The Amerindians of central and south America have a different history. In Mexico, for example, the Spanish conquerors almost immediately took Indian wives and mistresses, had mixed race children who inherited their European fathers’ immunity from the plagues that decimated the rest of America’s native population: measles, smallpox, some kind of gastro-enteritis about which we can only guess.

The professor does not mention the other event that would save the Amerindians of Central and South America from extinction: the appearance of Our Lady of Guadeloupe to St Juan Diego...Carlos Fuentes has said, “If you are Mexican you need not believe in God, but you must believe in the Virgin of Guadeloupe.” So we must give thanks for her...but it is another story although maybe one time the Professor might tell it

Thanksgiving is about family, friends and human bonds. Religion matters only if it is part of the fabric of these relationships.

To any historians I ask that you remember the different public significance of religion in previous eras. Today religion remains a private force but very different from its historical significance. Thanksgiving celebrations have retained their family and kinship meanings across time and so have transcended their religious origins to become the private celebrations of today. Thanksgiving is more inclusive today because of that transformation.

As someone who lives among many Native Americans as neighbors and colleagues, I can say that most of them do not make much of a hoopla over the thanksgiving holiday. The non-activists among them (the majority) find it a little embarrassing and amusing. They do have their own yearly harvest festivals but those celebrations follow a different calendar, as do Sukkoth and other non-Christian observations. Thanksgiving may not be a specifically "Christian" holiday but it is a custom of Euro-American society.
Snotty, you seem to be well named. Bronze-age Europeans also practiced human sacrifice; should I therefore expect it at a Scandinavian holiday? The people of the American continent were as varied in their customs as were the Europeans and Asians. The Zuni are as different from the Beothuk as the Irish, say, are from the Syrians. I'm not sure why that concept is so hard to grasp.

Anthony,

Wow, you've got a lot of anger in you. My parents came over as immigrants and we've enjoyed thanksgiving as a holiday with family. Its been joyous and happy (except for an occasional unhappy relative). We've never thought of it is a white holiday that oppressed and denied human rights. Man, that was 400 years ago, can you forget it and stop trying to remind people to hate each other ?
Its time we tried to live together instead of throwing gasoline on each other and trying to light it up with 400 year old history. That's what those morons in Serbia and the middle east do. Relax with the anti white puritan stuff, I'm not white but I dont dump on my white friends with 400 year old history. You are a teacher, you should know better.

Prof. Anthony M. Stevens Arroyo,

Welcome back and Happy Thanksgiving.

Your essay on Thanksgiving is different from other essays here on it.

I should hope people continue to think equality and tolerance is possible. Of course many would contend that equality is not possible when one set of values or beliefs and one group of people is deem to be lesser than one's own or others, and hence, should not be tolerated and given equal rights.

After all, equality is not the same as equal opportunity. And tolerance does not necessarily mean we have to tolerate racism, sexism and bigotry.

I agree with what you said at the end - "What joins us now is recognition of how Mother Earth is the necessary material connection to what is spiritual."

Thank you and best regards

"J"

Violence, Exploitation and Bigotry. The way we all treat our neighbor, really, don't you think? The various indiginous people did nothing more than fight amongst themselves over the usual, land, food, slaves. So, the advent of white people here, nothing really changed did it?

The media and various tilted views like yours blame white people for the self same behavior shown world-wide.

What country in south america is not under this same onslaught? Violence and Exploitation lead those nations.

The other "one"? The indigenous peoples of North America being your primary discussion - they did not have one religion.

Earth religion? gag. Give me a mother nature break.

Your posts smells like bigotry sir. Clearly, though this continent suffered a great deal of violence before white people got here, you've somehow overlooked this fact. Would it be because of their color?

well, indeed, I don't believe God is a God of the white people. However, given the religions of many of the indiginous peoples, if you'd been invited to dinner by them, the festivities would begin by sacrificing your neighbors. Your sanctimony is missing some points for me, Mr. Stevens-Arroyo.

What I especially like about Thanksgiving is that it is a holiday that does not rest on any one particular religious tradition. It may very well take on different spiritual meanings from family to family, but it does not have to.

In the orthodox Jewish tradition I was raised in, we did not reference theology in our celebration, other than a prayer thanking G-D for allowing us to live long enough to see the day and spend time with our family. Now, as a follower of an Earth-based tradition my thanks are directed more thealogically - towards the Goddess Mother Earth / Mother Nature.

As with any other Earth-based tradition, reflection on our personal footprint on the Earth is appropriate. So is a reflection on human history, shining light on some of the darker places. I acknowledge with sadness what European people have done to the indiginous people of the Americas and their Earth-based traditions.

At times in my past I protested Thanksgiving for those reasons. These days - having a child may have helped shift my politics - I prefer to recognize the wrongs of history and teach in order to do my part to prevent them from reoccurring.

John Maass,
Where does that come from??

Well, among other things it comes from Indian children being put into mission schools, brainwashed with Christian doctrine and beaten if they spoke their native languages and/or didn't become sufficiently Christian...

From The Guardian,UK.

Teacher on blasphemy charge over 'Muhammad' teddy bear

James Sturcke and agencies
Monday November 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of blasphemy for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad, it emerged today.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was arrested yesterday at her home inside Unity high school, a British international school, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan's education ministry.

The school's director, Robert Boulos, said Gibbons had since been charged with blasphemy, an offence he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine.

Article continues
Gibbons's colleagues told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where she was being held.

Boulos said Gibbons was following a national curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and their habitats. This year's animal was the bear.

Gibbons, who joined Unity in August, asked the class of mostly seven-year-olds to name the toy.

"They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name." Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad.

Each child was allowed to take the bear home at weekends and was told to write a diary about what he or she did with the toy. The entries were collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover, next to the message "My name is Muhammad," said Boulos.

Boulos said the first he knew about the course was last week when he received a phone call from the ministry of education, saying a number of Muslim parents had made formal complaints.

A spokesman for the British embassy in Khartoum said it was still unclear whether Gibbons had been formally charged. "We are following it up with the authorities and trying to meet her in person," he said.

Boulos said he had decided to close down the school until January for fear of reprisals in Sudan's predominantly Muslim capital. "This is a very sensitive issue," he said.

"We are very worried about her safety," he added. "This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam."

Unity, an independent school founded in 1902, is governed by a board representing the main Christian denominations in Sudan but teaches both Christians and Muslims aged four to 18.

The Pilgrims' religion conquered the Indians' religion? Where does that come from??