Thanksgiving, puerile conflict? No thanks!

Discussion in 'General chat' started by christopher, Nov 24, 2005.

  1. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    I don't know what festivals they were celebrating but when we were in southern Thailand the little teenage Buddhist monks constantly seemed to be letting off firecrackers late into the night. At first it was a bit shocking, like an insurgency was breaking loose, then it was amusing for a while, and then it became sort of tiresome... :lol: My Mum and Dad never let me get within throwing distance of anything more exciting than a sparkler...
     
  2. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Richard,

    Once I was in Guatemala and we heard fireworks. The fireworks seemd to go in staccato bursts, and we laughed that it sounded like machine guns ha, ha, ha,... until everyone started closing up shops and stuff. It turned out the fireworks were an insurgency.... :lol:

    C
     
  3. bjgnome

    bjgnome Junior Member

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    Re: Christopher really?

    Wampanoag was spelled incorrectly.

    I knew a wampanaog elder, who pretty much concurred with the standard story of Thanksgiving here in the U.S., that is to say it was born as a mutual celebration by both natives and pilgrims. I am biased, as my ancestors were sitting at the table of the first American thanksgiving. Yes, I am grateful for the birth of the welfare state, if that's what it was.

    I'm not saying there isn't a conection with some previous English holiday, but American thanksgiving certainly has it's own unique history and foods which distinguish it from any other celebration.

    An analogy might be to say that Shakespeare drew on previous English texts, but Chaucer is not Shakespeare.

    Jonathan
     
  4. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Thank you, Jonathan. That was my point.... and the first bunch of entrees that I found of the Googled 48,000,000 references to the "first Thanksgiving" were about this event. (I didn't have time to read them all...)

    I don't doubt that the 5,600,000 references to "Thanksgiving England" that Mike found refer to another, related English holiday, but the American association of "Thanksgiving" with pumpkin pie, turkey, cranberries, corn and sweet potato, all crops and animals that did not exist in Europe before that time, make a specific holiday tied to the confluence of two traditions, a European one, in the case of the settlers, and the traditional Native American observances and, especially, foods of the Wampanoag people. Hence the term, "the First Thanksgiving" (and the forty eight million google responses). Thanksgiving in the context of the beginning of this thread is a holiday that has geographic, dietary and cultural distinctions and origins unique to the New England coast and the meetings of two cultures and traditions.

    Sorry for mispelling it, Mike, but Wampanoag is not part of my regular vocabulary! I think any confusion has now been cleared up :lol: .

    And Jonathan, I didn't mean to be totally flippant about the first Thanksgiving being welfare, especially as you have a direct tie to those events, but subsequent events to native people in the colonies and what would become the United States could justifiably make their descendents wish they had murdered the lot of them and threw their corpses into the bay...
     
  5. earthbound

    earthbound Junior Member

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    In a similar vane to this discussion, don't a few christian celebrations borrow rather heavily from original pagan holidays and festivals..? I guess it's handy to continue on traditions and then add your own bent to it....

    It's alright to continue with a similar theme, but this can also be used in detremental ways, like the fact that imagery of the christian devil just happens to look very similar to one of the main pagan gods.....

    As long as a celebration is a celebration for celebrations sake, thats all that matters..... :partyman:
     
  6. Ichsani

    Ichsani Junior Member

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    I my opinion they do! But its old and its politics. Hairy sexey goat man/fertility god = devil

    Ergotamine poisonong = witchcraft.............

    any more?
     
  7. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Hi Ichsani and Joel, (You are a part of my favorite things.....)

    Christmas is my favorite pagan holiday that has become "Christian", being a Northern hemisphere kind a guy...

    It was a pagan celebration that the Church tried to get rid of, and since that wasn't happening, the "Christianized" it, making a Christian holiday where none eexisted.

    Now Christians in the US put on "Remember Jesus, Not Santa" bumper stickers and other stuff around Christmas. Attempts to bring up the true nature of the holiday result in a n arguement that basically boils down to "if you paint it with enough Christian coats of paint, by golly, it becomes Christian! (Hallellujah!)"

    Interestingly, my father in law, who takes the enough-paint-makes-it-so POV, is a theologian, with a Phd in Biblical studies from a seminary, etc. He reads Greek and Hebrew, has been many times to Israel, very knowledgable. He concedes that Jesus never said anything about remembering His birth, and that it is unlikely Jesus was born anytime around Christmas... but to him, even with all of that knowledge, its still Christmas, with the celebration of Jesus birth as a central theme...

    So Happy, um, Universal Harvest Celebration (with whatever historical overtones you care to drape it in), and I hope that your Merry Post Solstics Pagan Celebrations, dripping in Christian paint (and smothered in a jelly made of consumerism) is as wonderful as can be.....

    Ho, Ho, Ho!

    C
     
  8. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    MYTHBUSTING!

    BJ.... Go back to Christopher's original post and you will see who mispelled ''wampaonag''. It was for that reason that I cut and pasted it AND put it in parenthesis. I would have also inserted an obligatory [SIC] after it but did not want to appear offensive or even go down that line. Maybe you two should settle on a correct spelling, I dont care either way but Christopher used his spelling in more than one post.

    Christopher, Of course if you put a different request in Google the alogarithms are going to produce a different number but having done that you failed to draw any evidence past that point. I was merely pointing out the disparity, in numbers, between ''wampaonag''[SIC]/
    wampanaog theory and the English one.

    The date has been explained to you [unless someone can explain the use, by the Wampanaog, of the Gregorian Calender]. I also made the point about Easter being a week apart. It is still Easter. For example, on the island of Kalymnos in Greece where Easter is heralded by all the menfolk exploding prodigious amounts of dynamite and eating a particular weed yet they dont claim to have invented the concept of Easter, yet celebrate Easter at a different time.

    I didnt bring this up earlier but I cannot find evidence of anyone [at the first Pilgrim celebration of Thanksgiving], eating sweet potato or pumpkins.

    Christopher, just FYI, it was ABRAHAM LINCOLN who mandated THANKSGIVING as a national holiday. ''the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise." Until Lincoln did this I cannot even find any information if the custom of Thanksgiving was very widespread or not.

    To be honest I read Lincoln's proclamation and could find no reference to 'new world food' or 'wampanaog' or even Pilgrim. I know why modern americans celebrate Thanksgiving. My point was, merely, why the PILGRIMS celebrated it and from where the tradition sprang.

    Hate to play mythbusters but the Pilgrims sat down to THANKSGIVING, a concept they brought with them from England. What happened after Lincoln is a whole 'nuther' story.

    So what's next? Halloween, the spanish attack on the USS Maine or even the Vietnamese canoe that attacked 2 US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. There is always 'imminent threat' and 'WMDs' that also spring to mind. I have also often wondered why Grenada was a threat to 'world peace'? Have you ever wondered why it is called 'america' and not Columbia, Columbusland or even New India?. Myths are invented to shroud facts not the converse. Often for reasons of pride. I will also point out that dominant cultures have done this throughout the ages.

    Cheers,

    Mike
     
  9. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    WHAT A BASTARD, I HAVE NOW FOUND A DEFINITIVE LINK!!!

    DON'T YOU JUST HATE THAT!!

    https://members.aol.com/calebj/thanksgiving.html


    This has it all to do with Thanksgiving including political information and even food information. The author of that link has done a fine job and even has posted excerpts of 1622 letters on Thanksgiving.

    Cheers

    Mike
     
  10. bjgnome

    bjgnome Junior Member

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    Re: Christopher really?

    :lol: :lol: I spelled it two different ways myself, within a space of 8 words! :lol:

    You are right, Floot, sweet potatoes probably weren't around at the first thanksgiving. They are from central america, like warmer climates and are not likely to have made it to Massachusetts that early on. I believe it was the spanish who spread them around the world... maybe we could edit a spaniard into the "first thanksgiving" story...

    Thanks for the informative link, quoting primary sources. That settles it. Screw the 35 pound turkey. I am a bringing a whole deer to my folks house next thanksgiving.

    Christopher, no offense taken regarding your feelings about pilgrims. I don't imagine there is one of us here who hasn't got a few cold-blooded murderers for predecessors. We are one, big dysfunctional human family. Let's put the fun back in dysfunctional!

    Jonathan
     
  11. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Hi Mike,

    Um, you seem to be pretty excited. I'm happy for you! :hello1:

    My point was, and still would be, that the Thanksgiving we were talking about, of turkey, sweet potato, corn, tomatos, cranberries, etc, etc, none of which were known in Europe, were a part of Thanksgiving as it is celebrated in America. I was not referring to fireworks or celebrating the execution of rebellious Catholics.

    (Incidentally, the English love celebrating killing Catholics. At the battle of the Boyne on 12th July, 1690, Protestant King William III beat Roman Catholic King James II, and subejegated Ireland, and these idiots, the Orange Order, still insist in marching through Catholic neighborhoods every year to rub their noses in it and get incensed when the Catholics throw rocks at them..... Strange holiday...)

    Thanksgiving, okay, as it is practiced in America, you with me so far? derived from other traditions, including the ones brought over on the Mayflower. It was also a Wampanoag holiday, and has become a uniquely American tradition, being a hybrid of Old World and New World traditions.

    I also pointed out in my post
    that I had been the one to mispell Wampanoag! So telling Jonathan about is is a waste if time as I am sure he knows that already.

    I don't think there is any "next". If you have read much of what I have written you would know that I am a Belizean citizen, with a Belize passport, and that I have lived in Belize for one month short of 20 years. My entire adult life has been spent in Central America.

    You would also know that I think George Bush is the biggest piece of shit to oooze his way into the Whitehouse, much stupider and more clueless than that war criminal Reagan, and thats REALLY stupid and clueless, and sleazier than either Nixon or Lyndon Johnson (who escalated the Vietnam war on the spurious Golf of Tonkin incident you somehow want me to argue about, which isn't going to happen because I am into history...). I have repeatedly said here that the invasion of Iraq was illegal, immoral, based on bullshit self serving propaganda, that there were no WMDs or BLTs, and, since my brother still lives up there and is in the US Navy, and HE hates it, too (why he is pursuing his Masters in part is to avoid participating in this idiocy) a stupid and wasteful squandering of the international good will that was showered on the US in the wake of 9/11.

    As for dominant cultures, I don't think of the Wampanoag as a dominant culture. In fact, most Americans do not even know which Native American nation were the ones to interact with the Pilgrims, and use the blanket misnomer of "Indian" for all native peoples, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego (in Argentina).

    Yet the Wampanoag claim the holiday as their own. I would hardly qualify the Wampanoag (who I know so little about I mispelled their name) as a dominant culture.

    I am sure that Jonathan knows more about that as he is descended from people who were present at that event, and I would be interested to hear what he might say, though I would completely uderstand if he decided to avoid you altogether.

    I would suggest that a single web site on line is not definitive, and I would trust an elder of the Wampanoag nation more than that of someone on line. Irregardless of wether or not their was wide spread observance of the holiday in the years after the first Thanksgiving on Cape Cod by Anglo and other immmigrants, it has remained a Wampanoag holiday since that time, and was another holiday before that time. This holiday is a hybrid!

    From your post: [/code][/quote] I didnt bring this up earlier but I cannot find evidence of anyone [at the first Pilgrim celebration of Thanksgiving], eating sweet potato or pumpkins
     
  12. earthbound

    earthbound Junior Member

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    You'll be gettin sick of that movie C.... :D

    I'd be interested to know a little more about native american diets and what they grew, did they grow stuff?? Can anyone recommend a good site on the subject?
     
  13. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Christopher,

    Quote:

    ''I also pointed out in my post Quote:
    Sorry for mispelling it, Mike, but Wampanoag is not part of my regular vocabulary! I think any confusion has now been cleared up .
    that I had been the one to mispell Wampanoag! So telling Jonathan about is is a waste if time as I am sure he knows that already. ''

    I did address that to Jonathan and whilst you assure me ''he knows that already'', its just an assumption on your part and for me to decide. FYI I found 3 spellings for, dare I say it, WOMPANAOG. I also checked online for a WOMPANAOG dictionary. I would have considered it paramount, if I were citing them as a source to check spelling.

    I posted the DEFINITIVE link out of intellectual honesty for all to read but I do note you found a 'word', namely, pumpkin to make a point. If you [ and to help me out here I will borrowed your phraseology] ''and I'm gonna say this re-e-e-al slo-o-ow, okay, so you catch my meaning... so please pay close attention''. I posted exactly this ''I didnt bring this up earlier but I cannot find evidence of anyone [at the first Pilgrim celebration of Thanksgiving], eating sweet potato or pumpkins. ''

    Now when I did find something, I simply decided to share it and I am pleased you noticed the word pumpkin, I certainly did. I also note you made 6 paragraphs out of it. Verbosity rules!!, huh?

    Christopher, I had'nt just read any of your long posts until now. I deplore the 'He-who-writes-the-most-words-wins' method of debating so previously I had just ignored them. You obviously like to write and can write well. Sadly, I am the opposite.

    Having done that I found the bioagfarmer/rainbow farmer postings to be awful. Did not Rainbow Farmer ask you if you had any evidence of 'suicide by Round Up'? If so, personally, I would love to have access to it and take it up with both Monsanto and our regulatory authorities as to glyphosates ready availibility in the australian market place.

    In honour of intellectual honesty I did read somewhere that Round Up/glyphosate could be responsible for DNA changes in aquatic vertabrates but alas I cannot find it any more. I would happily quote it for you as I had long been lead to believe that glyphosate some how ''neutralised'' itself in water, which is pure crap. How else would you dilute it and it still be effective?

    Cheers.

    Mike

    E & OE...:D:D
     
  14. forest

    forest Junior Member

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    Oh please! Do you two know how idiotic you both sound? It's like being back in primary school.

    We can all be google "experts", most of us choose not to be. We know what we know and don't try to belittle others with what they don't know.

    At the risk of being flamed, I've found both of your posts to be childish and offensive and I'd like us all to get back to sharing information about growing food. Isn't that what we're here for?
     
  15. earthbound

    earthbound Junior Member

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    Here, here, forest.... :D

    Floot, as someone who was worried about acceptance and understanding within a new group, you've taken a rather aggressive and defensive stance early on... :? Ease up mate, we're generally a very friendly happy bunch in here.. :D


    Yes, please....... lets all get back to constructive discussions, besides that holiday, wherever it originated, has been n gone now......
     
  16. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Forest,

    I aplogise to you, and yes, this is silly. All I was trying to do is make a comment about Thanksgiving and turkeys with humour, and I had no ides this simpletone would push so hard. Several of us had a dialogue going on, and this proper charlie came in with an attitude, and I tried to be nice. I even said "you may be right". He came with more attitude, and, I tried to explain what I was saying, he didn't get it, so metaphorically I told him to fuck off. I think he got the picture, but, to make it plain, Hey, go blow your own floot, floot :lol: . :violent3: (and thats me flaming myself)

    I'm done with him.

    He did ask about sucide by glyphosate, so:

    https://www.abcbirds.org/pesticides/Prof ... hosate.htm
    from above:
    There are others web sites, but floot asked for an example. There it is.

    People have killed themselves right here in Belize with Round Up, and I have known people who have killed themselves with Round Up, tho not personally.

    Floot can go ahead and use Round Up if you want. Believe its safe, fine, whatever. Please, I encourage him to drink the stuff if if he questions its toxicity. Be my guest.

    Again, Forest, I apologize to you for wasting your time with this shit, and Floot, no wonder you left the last forum. You are a right proper asshole. :finga: :thefinger:

    Have a good evening,

    C
     
  17. bjgnome

    bjgnome Junior Member

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    Can't recommend any sites, but here are some basics of what I remember.

    You may have heard of corn, beans and squash, known as the three sisters, being grown together. From what I remember, among the Iriqouis, a small mound was made, inclduing soil and leftover fish carcasses. Corn was planted first, and when it had grown a little, beans and squash were planted. The beans would climb the corn, and also fix nitrogen. The squash would sprawl.

    I believe succotash is a sort of casarole-type dish which originated with the Cherokee (?), including those three sisters.

    Corn originated in Mexico, with a plant known as teocinte, which still grows wild in a few areas if I am not mistaken. There is some effort to mix teocinte with modern corn to make a viable perrenial corn.

    Corn spread northwards and eastwards, obviously at least as far as Massachusetts. Agriculture in general followed a similar pattern. Wherever agriculture went, civilization followed, replacing temporary hunter-gatherer camps with more permanent villages.

    Some legends say that the "blue corn" cultivated by the Hopi and other southwestern tribes were given to them by a female space alien or something like that.

    Hopi culture centers around corn, and they have many colors. In some cases, each family has it's own variety of corn, which can be identified by distinctive colored patterns.

    I have some hopi blue corn kernels, which I am supposed to plant sometime when I have a world of trouble on my hands.

    My mentor Grandpa Hollis was Ojibway, also known as Chippewa, from the great lakes region (in his case, minnesota). They were not farmers. Their diet consisted primarily of venison, fish from the lakes and whatever plants they would gather.

    Wild rice (which isn't technically rice, i think) was an important foodstuff. The elders of the village would assign each family group to a certain lake, or part of a lake, saying, "OK, you guys can gather rice for three days over there..." Over the decades the elders had a pretty good pulse on just how much rice could be sustainably gathered. They would gather it in canoes, padding through the lakes, bending the seed heads over the canoe and brushing them, so that some of the rice fell in the canoe, and the rest fell back in the lake, reseeding the lake.

    The ojibway also tapped sugar maple trees and drank their sap. Of course, berries, especially blueberries were important.

    Sweet potatoes are from central america, somewhere. Standard potatoes were grown by the inca, in what is now peru. Quinoa I think is also inca. Amaranth was grown in Mexico, as far as I know. Cocoa and hot peppers too.

    That's all I can come up with right now.

    Jonathan
     
  18. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Hi Joel, Forest, and Jonathan,

    Three sisters are also grown here with the Maya. The Lacandon still refer to them as three sisters (Lacandon are in Chiapis, in Mexico, and the Lacandon language is in the Yucatecan language group, with Itza, Yucatec and Mopan. They are all mutually (sort of) intelligible. My Mopan is not too good, but I can get through the formalities.

    The Maya grew cacao and exported it up to where the Aztec lived, in the post Classic Maya period when the remnants of the Great Tradition (my capitals) fled north from the southern Maya lowlands into what is now Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo in Mexico.

    The Maya also cultivated vanilla, tomatoes, corn, squash (pumpin) and beans. We got some vanilla from the bush near Jordan village a few months back... now we have about 130 vines growing out of about 150 planted. Not a bad success rate for an orchid.

    We have "a" traditional blue corn here that is ritually important to the Kekchi Maya (we live in a Kekchi community, part of greater Quichean language group, mostly highland Maya, Quiche, Cakchiquel Tzutuhil Uslpantec, Pocomchi, etc and I understand some of conversations inCakchiquel and Tzutuhil when I listen closely) that we grow. It has fallen out of favor because of introduced hybrids and agrotechnology and will be gone in a few more years. The other blade on that axe is Missionaries who see traditional Maya/Catholic observances as being satanic. It may be suitable for you in Fla, if you'd like some.

    We also grow ramon nut (brossimum allicastrum), very important for food in pre-colonial times, and still eaten when the corn crop fails in Yucatan... as well as cacao (we grow a variety called "Criollo" that we found growing at some ruins off in the bush nort of here).

    We grow many things here that our Kekchi neighbors grow, including various herbs and "monte" or bush foods, plants of seasonal importance that we encourage to grow rather than cultivate.

    In part because our land backs up into the Columbia River Forest Reserve, we get species of plants, xate palm, etc, that do not occur elsewhere in clutivated areas. (You can eat xate palm, too).

    Amaranth is several species, and we grow one called calaloo in English. It is grown for the greens, which are boiled and taset a lot like spinach. It is common throughout southern Mexico and Central and South America. In Brrazil it is considered a weed.

    Anyway, I suggested Changes in the Land earlier on by William Cronn, which you would like, Joel.

    Best,

    C
     
  19. murray

    murray Junior Member

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    if people can't settle the fuck down i'm gonna start deleting topics.

    i swear to god i'll do it!
     
  20. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    Joel,

    ATTRA has a bit on how to construct the traditional Amerindian mounds...right down to spacing and a bit on varieties...there are a few examples given which differed in style due to the differing climates.

    Go here https://www.attra.org/attra-pub/complant.html and you'll find it as an appendix right at the bottom of the page.

    I'm considering giving one a try for the last large bed (or mound!) I have to put in...still undecided.

    As far as I know, the groups which cultivated these gardens drew a great deal of their self-sufficiency and abundance from them (maize as the versatile staple). Almost all of them had spiritual beliefs which revolved around fertility and the Corn Mother...much more feminine societies all round than those groups who didn't cultivate the soil.

    Hmmmm...better chuck ATTRA on the link thread I guess... :lol:
     

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