October 8 2009: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthread.php?t=24316
Most people do not know the real history of Thanksgiving, and I don't begrudge you that completely. We are simply not taught what really happened during the course of our education. Last year, I wrote an article about the real History of Thanksgiving. I suggest you check it out.
As part of one of my classes this week, we learned more things about the real history of Thanksgiving that I didn't cover in the article last year. What I learned mostly pertained to the "original" US Thanksgiving, which is the one ours is modeled after. Nevertheless, I learned some things I hadn't learned before. We also watched a clip from The Addams Family Values. You can check it out below.
YouTube Video.
Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned was about the Haudenoshonee Thanksgiving Address, also known as Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen, or "words that come before all else". This ceremony is important to the Haudenoshonee peoples and is a means of thanking the natural world for all of the things it provides. Traditionally, the address can go on for days at a time, and is recited in one of the six Haudenoshonee languages. You can find out more information about Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen here and read a short summation of it in English here.
Thanksgiving and/or Columbus Day also happens to be a day of protest for Indigenous persons, which I mentioned briefly last year. This year will be the twelfth annual papal bulls burning, where copies of the May 4th 1493 Papal Bull "Inter Caetera"; the document that allowed colonizers divine rule over North America. The Papal Bull basically stated that only Christians had rights to the land, and since the continent was inhabited by heathens their rights were revoked as possessors of the land. The myth of terra nuellis followed and also "allowed" Europeans their claim to North America.
I firmly believe, and have for some time, that we should all be giving thanks every day, instead of once a year.
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