Thanksgiving approaches – that holiday in which we assemble beloved communities into oven-roasted spaces, decadent spreads of traditional dishes almost ensuring we’ll overeat.
Meanwhile, on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, hundreds of Native Americans and their allies will gather on Thanksgiving for a National Day of Mourning, as they’ve been doing since 1970. This community assembles for collective remembrance, spiritual connection and, according to the United American Indians of New England website, “a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience.”
The traditional narrative of Thanksgiving, purporting a collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship between Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation and the Wampanoag peoples is simplified and limited. For many, upholding this story of peaceful unity is like circling one paragraph in a dense history book that is rife with brutality and repeated assaults on indigenous lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness.
And yet, Thanksgiving also represents a fall harvest festival, a celebration central to most cultures for the very tangible gratitude of having enough. This predates our current paradigm where food is so readily available that we’ve become the nation that wastes 40% of our food annually. And, though many indigenous cultures have a daily practice of giving thanks, for many of us gratitude is a vague buzzword we like to strive toward when we’re not consumed with complaints about our imperfect lives; which is to say, we can use each opportunity we get.
So, how do we reconcile all of this? How do we, as Katie Kandarian-Morris, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango puts it, “focus on gratitude and togetherness, while being mindful to not cover up our complicated past?”
There is power and liberation, individually and systemically, in a nation of people acknowledging historical accuracy and taking stock of the past’s effect on the present. Majel Boxer, a member of the Sisseton and Wahpeton Dakota, Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Reservation, and associate professor of Indigenous Studies at Fort Lewis College, sees education as opportunity. “A better understanding of U.S. history and the founding of the nation can go a long way toward soothing racial tensions.” This points toward greater historical awareness leading to more honesty in understanding our past, which could permeate our national holidays, making them more authentic.
Boxer notes that Thanksgiving has become “less about fall harvest and more about Black Friday.” She suggests that people participate in one of the many local events celebrating November as Native American Heritage month. “Check out the booklists that celebrate indigenous culture. The burden is on all of us to be educated and look for accurate sources of information.”
Kandarian-Morris notes that “the common read” nationally for Unitarian Universalists this year is Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’ “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States.”
Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota Sioux, author, indigenous food activist and chef, offers his perspective on Thanksgiving this month in Time magazine: “People may not realize it, but what everybody in this country shares (the holiday meal) ... has been in front of us the whole time. Most of our Thanksgiving recipes are made with indigenous foods: turkey, corn, beans, pumpkin, maple, wild rice and the like. We should embrace this.”
For others, embracing painful truths is a path to celebrating Thanksgiving with integrity.
Joanie Trussel, a therapist in Mancos, feels moved to offer a public acknowledgment at Thanksgiving dinners she attends of the many Native American lives that were lost, bringing to light that “this was not a joyous celebration for them.” This contribution has left her guests “speechless,” possibly because we haven’t learned how to attend sufficiently to both grief and celebration. One we seek out; the other we avoid, though both are central to an authentic expression of life. Despite previous reception, Trussel is still compelled to offer this truth.
In his November 2014 message to the Wampanoag tribe, Chief Qaqeemasq wrote: “Historically, Thanksgiving represents our first encounter with the eventual erosion of our sovereignty and there is nothing wrong with mourning that loss. In fact, as long as we don’t wallow in regret and resentment, it’s healthy to mourn. It is a necessary part of the healing process.”
Maybe we can adopt a practice of collective mourning for the historical cycles of pain and trauma inflicted on the first people of this nation; and for the people who had to numb their own humanity to perform these brutal acts.
As historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz said: “Colonization dehumanizes both the colonized and the colonizer.”
Boxer advises patience for the long haul: “Change happens generationally.”
Taydn Muniz, Diné and Jicarilla Apache, is a freshman at The Big Picture High School in Durango and a student in the Manna Culinary Program. He hopes to combat diabetes by reviving healthy indigenous cuisine among Native Americans as a dietician. He said Thanksgiving is a day to “celebrate connection with people we love,” while understanding that “we (Native Americans) are still here with our own stories and histories.”
The future dietician also notes that blue corn is a healthy alternative to white flour.
Rachel Turiel blogs about growing food and a family at 6512 feet at http://6512andgrowing.com.
