How the Yuppie Grinch stole Thanksgiving
I don't know if anyone noticed this year but the Christmas shopping season started right after Halloween. For years the yuppies have plotted to do this with earlier and earlier displays of Christmas gifts and by playing Christmas tunes. By time Christmas actually gets here Christmas music is going to make me vomit. You see the so called My Generation, the In Crowd, has turned into a bunch of perverts. They have shunned any involvement with the sixtie's spirituality and have become cold materialists. They replaced their pot and acid with behind the counter mood drugs and viagra. But their still on dope if you ask me. This was the year to kill Thanksgiving, it was in their stars. Thanksgiving is just a long weekend were yuppies can meet and plot the day after Thanksgiving which they prize more. Its the busy Christmas buying day. Thanksgiving is just not that important to them anymore. Not like in the sixties when Thanksgiving was held in the deepest respect. At that time the Indians and their spirituality had become important to us. A greater appreciation of the Native American was emerging and the stereotypes were dying. Dustin Hoffman's "Little Big Man" showed us the the Indians were not the heathens we were brought up to believe. Movies after that time show a better light on the Native culture and their plight. Not to say they are such a rosy bunch nowadays. I might bring up the plight of the yuppie casino Indian one day. But many brave Native Americans are dead because of the greed that is again being manifest in the yuppie culture. So as the last child of the sixties let me remind you of Thanksgiving and what it means to us as Americans.
In the fall of 1621, 90 Wampanoag Indians and 52 English colonists gathered for a three-day harvest feast. the Wampanoag, Wôpanâak in their language, are a Native American people. In 1600 they lived in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, in an area also encompassing Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Elizabeth Island. Their population numbered about 12,000. Wampanoag leaders included Squanto, Samoset, Metacomet (King Philip), and Massasoit. Modern Thanksgiving traditions are based on the Wampanoag’s interaction with the Pilgrims. John Smith named the Wampanoag Pakanoket in 1616, after their chief’s village, which was located near present-day Bristol. This name was used frequently in early records and reports. The name currently used by ethnologists means ‘’Eastern People’’. The word Wapanoos was first seen on Adrian Block's 1614 map and was probably a description of all tribes living in the Wampanoag's general area. Other synonyms include ‘’Wapenock, Massasoit’’ and ‘’Philips Indians’’. The Pilgrims set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621. At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance; harvest festivals were existing parts of English and Wampanoag tradition alike. Several American colonists have personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Massachusetts such as this one by Edward Winslow:
"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."
Massasoit was actually a title, Great Sachem, used by Ousamequin, sachem of the Pokanoket, and Great Sachem, or "Massasoit," of the Wampanoag Confederacy. "Massasoit" was born in Montaup, a Pokanoket village at the site of today's Warren and Bristol, Rhode Island. He held the allegiance of seven lesser Wampanoag sachems. He visited Plymouth in 1621 and negotiated a treaty guaranteeing the English their security in exchange for their alliance against the Narragansett. Massasoit actively sought the alliance since two significant outbreaks of smallpox brought by the English had devastated his people. Massasoit prevented the failure of Plymouth Colony and the almost certain starvation that the Pilgrims faced during the earliest years of the colony's establishment. He forged critical political and personal ties with the colonial leaders, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Winslow and William Bradford which culminated in the peace treaty on March 22, 1621.
Edward Winslow (1595-1655) was an American Pilgrim leader on the Mayflower. He served as the governor of Plymouth Colony in 1633, 1636, and finally in 1644. He was also, in 1643, one of the commissioners of the United Colonies of New England. On several occasions he was sent to England to look after the interests of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colony, and defend these colonies from the attacks of such men as John Lyford, Thomas Morton and Samuel Gorton. He left on his last mission as the agent of Massachusetts Bay, in October 1646, and spent nine years in England, where he held a minor office under Cromwell, and in 1654, was made a member of the commission appointed to determine the value of certain English ships destroyed by Denmark. In 1655 he was the chief of the three English commissioners whom Cromwell sent on his expedition against the West Indies to advise with its leaders Admiral Venables and Admiral William Penn, but died near Jamaica on 8 May 1655, and was buried at sea. Winslow's portrait, the only likeness of any of the "Mayflower pilgrims" done from life, is in the gallery of the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth, Massachusetts. (source Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Well I hope this short history of Thanksgiving and biographies of a couple of its paticipants helps you understand the significance of this holiday. Hopefully some of you will protest the early start of the Christmas season, which by the way is not related to any American traditions except shopping malls, and help win back Thanksgiving from the yuppie Grinch.
In the fall of 1621, 90 Wampanoag Indians and 52 English colonists gathered for a three-day harvest feast. the Wampanoag, Wôpanâak in their language, are a Native American people. In 1600 they lived in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, in an area also encompassing Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Elizabeth Island. Their population numbered about 12,000. Wampanoag leaders included Squanto, Samoset, Metacomet (King Philip), and Massasoit. Modern Thanksgiving traditions are based on the Wampanoag’s interaction with the Pilgrims. John Smith named the Wampanoag Pakanoket in 1616, after their chief’s village, which was located near present-day Bristol. This name was used frequently in early records and reports. The name currently used by ethnologists means ‘’Eastern People’’. The word Wapanoos was first seen on Adrian Block's 1614 map and was probably a description of all tribes living in the Wampanoag's general area. Other synonyms include ‘’Wapenock, Massasoit’’ and ‘’Philips Indians’’. The Pilgrims set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621. At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance; harvest festivals were existing parts of English and Wampanoag tradition alike. Several American colonists have personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Massachusetts such as this one by Edward Winslow:
"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."
Massasoit was actually a title, Great Sachem, used by Ousamequin, sachem of the Pokanoket, and Great Sachem, or "Massasoit," of the Wampanoag Confederacy. "Massasoit" was born in Montaup, a Pokanoket village at the site of today's Warren and Bristol, Rhode Island. He held the allegiance of seven lesser Wampanoag sachems. He visited Plymouth in 1621 and negotiated a treaty guaranteeing the English their security in exchange for their alliance against the Narragansett. Massasoit actively sought the alliance since two significant outbreaks of smallpox brought by the English had devastated his people. Massasoit prevented the failure of Plymouth Colony and the almost certain starvation that the Pilgrims faced during the earliest years of the colony's establishment. He forged critical political and personal ties with the colonial leaders, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Winslow and William Bradford which culminated in the peace treaty on March 22, 1621.
Edward Winslow (1595-1655) was an American Pilgrim leader on the Mayflower. He served as the governor of Plymouth Colony in 1633, 1636, and finally in 1644. He was also, in 1643, one of the commissioners of the United Colonies of New England. On several occasions he was sent to England to look after the interests of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colony, and defend these colonies from the attacks of such men as John Lyford, Thomas Morton and Samuel Gorton. He left on his last mission as the agent of Massachusetts Bay, in October 1646, and spent nine years in England, where he held a minor office under Cromwell, and in 1654, was made a member of the commission appointed to determine the value of certain English ships destroyed by Denmark. In 1655 he was the chief of the three English commissioners whom Cromwell sent on his expedition against the West Indies to advise with its leaders Admiral Venables and Admiral William Penn, but died near Jamaica on 8 May 1655, and was buried at sea. Winslow's portrait, the only likeness of any of the "Mayflower pilgrims" done from life, is in the gallery of the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth, Massachusetts. (source Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Well I hope this short history of Thanksgiving and biographies of a couple of its paticipants helps you understand the significance of this holiday. Hopefully some of you will protest the early start of the Christmas season, which by the way is not related to any American traditions except shopping malls, and help win back Thanksgiving from the yuppie Grinch.
Labels: Edward Winslow, Massasoit, Native Americans, Thanksgiving, Yuppie, Yuppies
posted by saeberz @ 8:48 PM
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