Welcome to the 'Myth of...' for November.

If you attended school in the United States, you are no doubt aware of the myth of the 'First Thanksgiving'. But before we delve too deeply into that, let me explain that the ritual of 'giving thanks' originated thousands of years ago, when human tribes stopped being nomadic hunters and began to settle into year-round communities. In order to survive in one place, man had to learn how to cultivate his own crops, so as to have enough food to survive the long and often harsh winter season. Early man gave thanks to the gods each fall, following the gathering in of their crops, for a good and bountiful harvest.

Our own Thanksgiving first became a holiday when the federal government declared the last Thursday in November as "Thanksgiving", in 1898. In this country, the traditional 'first' thanks giving was a feast which took place in November, 1621 and lasted three days. So the myth began.

When the first settlers arrived on the Northeast coast in 1620, they were extremely ill-prepared for life in the new world. The wheat that they brought with them (which was expected to be their staple crop) would not grow in the rocky, New England soil. These pilgrims were not skilled hunters, especially of game with which they were unfamiliar with and it turned out that some of the local plants were poisonous--they found this out the hard way, through trial and error.

Sickness also plagued the new settlers and by the time their second winter in the new world was fast approaching, nearly half of all the original arrivals were dead.

Fortunately, after their first disastrous winter, these Pilgrims were taken pity on and amazingly (and later, regrettably) befriended by the local natives, the so-called 'Indians'. Seeing how helpless and inept the settlers were in their land, the natives shared with them their precious crop, corn. They showed them how to plant the crop, tend it and helped with the harvest. They also taught them how to hunt the local wildlife, which wild plants were edible and how to prepare them.

Essentially, the 'Indians' saved the colony and gave them the knowledge to continue their survival.

By the end of November in 1621, their first harvest was in and the settlers were prepared to give thanks.

Being good-hearted Christians, they wanted to share their bounty with the natives who had saved their lives, so a feast of thanksgiving was planned and the 'Indians' were invited to join them.

No doubt the settlers expected a token number of braves to stop by, so imagine their surprise when more than 90 natives showed up, complete with women and children, to partake of the feast. They had taken in a decent harvest, but certainly did not have enough food to feed nearly 150 people and still have sufficient supplies to see their settlement through the coming winter.

Fortunately for all concerned, the natives, being both understanding and intelligent, sent out several braves to forage for additional eats. They returned with more than enough food (among which was the unfortunate 'turkey') to keep the feast going for a full three days.

Now, this is where the story usually ends in text books and in movies. Unfortunately, for every Native American born during the next 250 years, it did NOT end there; for we are not only dealing with the 'White Man' in this story, but also with Puritans.

Part of the 'text-book' story tells us that the Puritans left England due to religious persecution, which is partly true. A 'Puritan' is someone who seeks a great 'purity' or strictness of life and religious principles (hence the name). These puritans were a sect of English Protestants who demanded reforms in doctrine and worship, with a greater strictness in religious discipline that few people outside of their own sect agreed with.

They did not leave England seeking a place where 'everyone' could worship as they pleased (which is basically what we were taught in school)--they were seeking a place where they could practice their own fanatical religious doctrine in peace. (And "Fanatic" is defined as: Possessed by a deity; frenzied; mad; an unreasoning enthusiast or zealot in religious affairs). They 'were' persecuted in England, yes, but because of their fanatical religious beliefs--no one outside of their own sect wanted anything to do with them or their idea of how worship should be conducted.

So, they came to America, where they had the freedom to worship in their own way, without persecution and without anyone telling them how they should worship their chosen god. Ironically, shortly after they were saved by the wonderful, friendly natives and learned how to survive on their own, in true 'Puritan' fashion, they turned on the 'pagan heathens' and condemned them for the way they worshiped 'their' gods, as well as their lifestyle, in general.

In just a few months, the verbal arrows issued by the puritans toward their 'Indian' saviors, turned into real arrows, as well as lead shot and iron knives. By the time the second thanksgiving rolled around, the natives and pilgrims who had sat down to a feast, just the year before, were now killing each other in such numbers, that eventually, what was left of the tribe that had aided the first white settlers to survive in this new country, had been driven from their own land (a mere prelude to what was to come in the next 200 years).

And, their puritanical zeal that 'everyone' must believe as they did and 'everyone' must follow their set of laws concerning how a person's life must be conducted, continued on for more than 70 years. The epitome of their religious, fanatical madness reached a fever pitch with the witch trials of the early 1690s, when the puritanical church leaders executed (or murdered, depending on how you view history) 20 innocent people who had the misfortune to be accused of practicing witchcraft--which we know from last month is merely a separate and extremely old form of religious faith.

But, at least we have our Pilgrim Fathers to 'thank' for all of us getting a four day weekend at the end of November.