The Twisted History of Thanksgiving. And its connection to the KKK. (Yup.)

Cultures around the world have historically celebrated their harvests with thanksgiving ceremonies. The Greeks thanked Demeter, goddess of grain. The Romans had a similar goddess called Ceres, from whom we get the word cereal, her festival was called Cerelia and was held on Oct 8th. The ancient Egyptians celebrated their harvest festival in honor of Min, their god of vegetation and fertility. The Chinese celebrated their harvest festival called Chung Ch'ui. The Jewish autumnal celebration is called Sukkoth, the English have autumnal feasts, the Germans have Oktoberfest.


We Americans are the only turkeys who actually celebrate with turkeys.


So some history:
Thanksgiving is the preeminent American holiday. It deals with our forefathers being led by God to this virgin land and through hard work and fair play turning the wilderness into one of the world's great civilizations.


It's a nice story. However, several important things were left out of the story. It's pretty obvious that the Native Americans have their own version of events. But there’s another group left entirely out of the story -- the Spanish. They had settlements in the New World a full hundred years before the English. More to the point, the first known thanksgiving feast in North America was celebrated by Francisco Vasquez De Coronado when he dined with the Teya people in May of 1541--- in of all the non-New Englandy places but Texas.


French Huguenots in Jacksonville Florida held the 2nd Thanksgiving celebration in 1564. There were no known native guests but I’ll bet the Frenchies ate better than the Puritans up in New England. The third Thanksgiving was held by Spaniards right after they massacred those French Huguenots, when Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles put on a feedbag with the natives in St. Augustine, Florida in 1565.


Despite these facts, we nail our hat to the notion that America is a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation and so went looking for a proper English origin for our country and settled upon the Pilgrims. Yet even the English had earlier settlements than Plymouth. Jamestown, Virginia was founded 12 years prior. We don't trace our origins back to Jamestown because it was a disastrous failure ---those pilgrims feasted upon each other. Cannibalism makes a poor foundation to build a myth upon.


So selected history has skipped over the Spanish, the French and Jamestown and instead chosen the Pilgrims.


Okay, let's start with them.




They were called Pilgrims.


Incorrecto


The term "Pilgrims," referring to religious travelers, wasn't used to describe the early Plymouth colonists until the early 1800s, when someone found a phrase used by the 2nd Governor of the Colony, William Bradford "they knew they were pilgrims" and that became their cleaned- up alias as we reinvented the Puritans. Before we discover why America needed to reinvent the Puritans, let’s find out a thing or two about them. By the way, a great way to learn about them is to read MAYFLOWER by Nathan Philbrick.

The Pilgrims were Puritans. Puritans were religious fundamentalists (Did someone say Taliban?) who believed that the Protestant Reformation hadn’t gone far enough to eradicate the influence of the Catholic Church in merry Ole England. They felt the Church of England was merely the Catholic Church dressed up in other vestments. They intended to purify the Church of England. The people we call Pilgrims called themselves ‘Separatists.” Because they were on the radical fringe of the Puritan sect. They didn’t believe that the Church of England could be made more “pure”. Instead they wanted to separate and form their own religious haven somewhere outside of England. First in the Netherlands and then the land of the free, home of the five-dollar footlong.


Puritans didn't celebrate standard Christian holidays, no Christmas, Easter, no nothin'. They celebrated the Sabbath and had two other religious days held whenever warranted. There was a day of fasting that was held when bad things happened. When good things happened, they had a day of thanks for God's providence. These two special days were never held on the Sabbath, instead they were usually held on meeting day - Thursday. Which is how Thanksgiving Day wound up on a Thursday.


They were also millenialists; people who believed the end times were at hand. And that in 1620, as foretold in Revelations, the world was entering into the Time of the Saints. In 1618 a comet had appeared across Europe. It was considered the starting gun for the end times. But first there would be a thousand year reign by Christ before the final judgment. At first they felt that England was the New Jerusalem and later decided that America was the New Jerusalem. (They wouldn’t be the last religious group to hold that belief. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons –another separatist who would take his congregation outside the United States to the Indian territory of Utah-- not only believed that America was the New Jerusalem, he thought it was also the old one. He claimed that the Garden of Eden had been in Missouri. Hmmm. Adam and Eve walked around naked; maybe that’s why it’s called the Show Me State.)


Oddly enough after they were settling in New England and lost half of their colony to disease, the plain old Puritans back in England actually took over the place. Oliver Cromwell one hard-ass Puritan defeated the Royal forces in the English Civil War, had the King executed and made himself Lord Protector and began instituting a Puritan nation. And as an aside he slaughtered untold tens of thousands in Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell was the cause of “The Troubles” in Ireland. He gave his protestant soldiers most of the land in Northern Ireland as payment for services rendered. He died and was buried in Westminster Abbey. When the Royalist took over again, his body was disinterred, beheaded, and left hanging outdoors for a few years.


So to wrap it up-- the name "Puritan" doesn't hold a lot of positive connotations. Their reputation wasn't enhanced much after the Salem Witch hunts. "Pilgrim" sounds so much nicer.




Americans have been celebrating Thanksgiving non-stop since T-1 back in 1621 


Their 1621 three-day potluck dinner was the first Survivor Cast Party.
Half the colony had died over their first winter. In 1621 thanks to the injuns they had a good harvest -- they’d live another winter, let’s party on down.


1622 went without a Thanksgiving.


Then in 1623 a drought ending rain sent by God was reason enough for a 2nd Thanksgiving party. It’s unclear if any Natives attended.


From then on it there wasn’t an annual autumnal feast, just the sporadic Day of Thanks when something good happened.


I’m getting the impression that some of what I learned about the first Thanksgiving isn't true.


Pretty much. But what's important isn't that you were taught a false history. The interesting thing is why you were taught this little morality play.


You undoubtedly learned back in grade school that:


A. The Pilgrims carved a civilization out of an uninhabited wilderness. 
The New World wasn't uninhabited land waiting to be settled. The estimated population of Europe at the time of Columbus was 70 million. The population of the Americas (North & South) is put at 100 million. History acknowledges the advanced societies of the Aztecs and Mayans and their vast cities. But we are told that the North American natives were wild savages. Did anyone ever tell you about Cahokia, Illinois, a Native American settlement with a population of 40,000? No, of course not, if the Natives had settlements then we really couldn't call the Pilgrims "settlers" could we?


The truth is there were no cloven-hoofed animals in the Americas and thus when the East Coast natives began having contact with European traders they had no immunity to the garden-variety anthrax and other diseases like smallpox that the Europeans brought with them.


(They did have some payback though, they gave Europeans venereal disease. In Native Americans it manifested itself as a minor flu virus. When it hit Europe it became deadly. So it's somewhat odd that the Europeans gave the disease a humorous name. The word “venereal” comes from Venus the goddess of love.)


In Massachusetts members of the well-established Wampanoag settlement had been wiped out by plague contracted from Europeans. King James II gave thanks to "Almighty God in his great goodness and bounty towards us for sending this wonderful plague among the savages." When the Puritans arrived they took over the homes, possessions and most important-- the already cleared fields. The remaining natives were kind to the Puritans because their decimated tribe desperately needed allies to protect them against their enemy, the Narragansetts. The Puritans had guns.

Actual Photo taken by Mayflower Passenger Ezikiah Kodak

B. The Pilgrims were headed for Virginia but a storm blew their tiny Mayflower off-course and God guided them to Plymouth. 


Well kinda.


They were headed for the future site of New York City, which the English considered the northern boundary of Virginia; the western boundary was the Pacific Ocean. But Henry Hudson working for the Dutch had already sailed up the river that bears his name in 1609. And the Dutch were already making plans to start a colony there. Which they did 4 years after the Puritans landed in Plymouth. While the Puritans were living in the Netherlands the Dutch offered them a patent to colonize New York. When the Puritans turned down the offer it’s believed that the Dutch sabotaged their efforts to sail, delaying their journey so that they arrived in winter.


They got lost along the way and couldn’t get the Mayflower to clear the shoals off Cape Cod and instead just went ashore.


There’s also an unlikely conspiracy theory out there that the Puritans were headed to New England all along. Remember Squanto from the story, the kind Indian who taught them how to place a fish in the ground when they planted corn? He really did exist. He had been kidnapped by sailors and brought to Europe as a slave. He learned English and met with Fernando Gorges, the leader of the Plymouth Company BEFORE they left England for Holland and told them about his beautiful village of Pawtucket, which the Puritans would later rename "Plimouth."


C. The Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock.

Sorry. Never happened. The exploring party landed in Plimouth/Plymouth/Patuxet on December 21, 1620. Not one of them ever mentioned anything about a rock in their journals. William Bradford, one of those “pilgrims” wrote the seminal book: Of Plimouth Plantation. He never mentioned a rock. In later years, the rock part was dreamt up to add a "Upon this rock I will build my church/ nation" twist to the story. This supported the theme that America was the New Jerusalem.

Whatareyatalkinabout? I’ve seen it. I’ve been to Plymouth Rock, stood on the marble altar looking down at it, the very bedrock of our nation.

Yeah, well that rock was plopped there in 1920. Remember that year when we talk about immigration later on in this post.   The first recorded mention of the rock was in 1741, a full 121 years after the supposed event. Some 94-year-old coot told folks that his pappy told him that a rock in the harbor was where the “Pilgrims” had set foot.  Townsfolk dug up a portion of the rock and put it into storage and forgot it. 300 years after the landing when the Pilgrims had been rediscovered it was rediscovered and placed at its present site. An “altar” was built around it so that Americans had a proper place to worship our newly minted origin myth.

D. Thanksgiving was the very first Woodstock

Peace and love between Whites and Natives. The Puritans were only slightly less brutal to the Native Americans than other colonists. They took a few shots at the first native they sighted. They then immediately looted the homes and graves of the natives. Up until the Mid-1800's the few visuals that depicted Puritans, were usually battle scenes. One you may have seen is of Puritans fleeing a shower of arrows. They didn't carry those cute little muskets for nuthin. Within 50 years of the Mayflower’s landing most of the New England natives were decimated. You know about the Mayflower carrying a ship full of colonists, but have you ever heard of the Seaflower? It was a ship that left Plymouth fifty years later loaded to the gills with Indians being sold as slaves to work in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean.

To recap: 
They weren't called Pilgrims, it wasn't called Plymouth, there was no Plymouth Rock, and they didn't get along too well with the natives. They didn't carve a civilization from out of the wilderness. And God didn't lead them there. There was however turkey and some tasteless sugar-free pumpkin pie if that makes you feel any better.


Okay, so then how did this one shot celebration of a few religious extremists become a beloved national holiday?


It's pretty simple. All cultures have an origin myth. Whether it is Romulus and Remus being raised by wolves and founding Rome, or Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. (And before I get comments from those who believe in the literal existence of Adam and Eve --remember the definition of a myth: a traditional story accepted as history that serves to explain the worldview of a people)


Anthropologists lay out certain rules for origin myths:

1. It constitutes the history of the acts of the founders
2. It is considered to be true.
3. It tells how an institution came into being
4. In performing the ritual associated with the myth (think of turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie) one experiences knowledge of the origin and claims one's patriarchy.
5. Thus one lives "the myth" as a religion.


So Thanksgiving has become our quasi-religious holiday, where our families gather around the altar (the dining room table) and recount the story of how God gave this land to us Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or if you prefer –us White folk.


The odd thing is that the Father of our Country, George Washington would be totally lost if you invited him to your Thanksgiving Dinner with the cute little cardboard cutouts of Pilgrims on the table. Why? Because the Pilgrim story of Thanksgiving really didn't take hold in America until the late 1880's.


George would have known that up in New England they celebrated an autumnal feast. But it was strictly a regional celebration. There was good reason why Thanksgiving was big in New England. When the Puritans controlled the Colony, they disliked the pagan origins of Christmas celebrations and so for many years it was illegal to take off on Christmas Day in Massachusetts.


"For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county."

From the records of the General Court,
Massachusetts Bay Colony
May 11, 1659 


In England the Christmas feast was traditional. So New Englanders who weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas coped by turning the New England Thanksgiving celebration into a food feast, an oral orgy with traditional Christmas foods and pies.


Other regions of the country where Christmas was indeed celebrated began looking jealously at New England. Why couldn’t they have a food orgy in autumn too? It kind of reminds me of Christian children who complain that they don’t get 8 days of Hanukkah gifts, too.


If you Google Days of Thanksgiving the results are very confusing, because there were other days in other colonies called Days of Thanksgiving, but these had nothing to do with Puritans.


On Nov. 1, 1777 The Continental Congress suggested a National Thanksgiving be held. But it was in response to the defeat of the British General Burgoyne in Saratoga, New York. For that matter the Queen of England declared a Thanksgiving Day when the Spanish Armada was defeated.


After the War of 1812, New York State declared a Statewide Day of Thanksgiving.


But by the mid-1800’s other states began to celebrate a Thanksgiving Day. This had nothing to do with Pilgrims, Indians or the NFL. It was merely the growing popularity of a Yankee celebration that moved west with settlers from the Northeast. Kind of like the present day growing popularity amongst Anglos of the Mexican Cinco de Mayo celebration.


Which is where Sarah Josepha Hale comes into the picture.
She was a New England gal. A writer. You know one of her poems: Mary had a little lamb. She was the Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey of her day. She was also the editor of a very influential women’s magazine called Godey’s Ladies Book. It not only contained articles like “Refreshing Drinks for Summer ” It also introduced women readers to the likes of Goethe and Cervantes. She became a one-woman committee to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. She wrote non-stop letters to legislators. As tensions heated up before the Civil War she promoted a National day of Thanksgiving as a way to prevent hostilities. Didn’t work.


Here’s one of her editorials if you’re interested:


We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different States -- as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, and which, we hope, will this year be adopted by all -- that the LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the DAY Of NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people.
Let this day, from this time forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY of our nation, when the noise and tumult of wordliness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart…

Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing. These seasons of refreshing are of inestimable advantage to the popular heart; and if rightly managed, will greatly aid and strengthen public harmony of feeling. Let the people of all the States and Territories sit down together to the "feast of fat things," and drink, in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace and good-will to all men. Then the last Thursday in November will soon become the day of AMERICAN THANKSGIVING throughout the world. 


During the Civil War the South declared a National Day of Thanksgiving after their victory at Bull Run. Not to be outdone, President Lincoln declared a National Day of Thanksgiving for April 13th, 1862 to celebrate the Union victory at Shiloh, and again on Aug. 6th, 1863 for the victory at Gettysburg.


But the idea of a national holiday where we sat down ate and gave thanks for our abundant blessings didn’t take traction until ole Abe declared a National Day of Thanksgiving for the fourth Thursday of November in 1863.


Here’s the Proclamation in Abe’s own words:


The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

After Abe, every single President would annually declare a National Day of Thanksgiving. (It took many years before Thanksgiving became popular in the South. It was considered just another piece of Yankee cultural imperialism being forced upon poor Dixie.) The date of Thanksgiving would hop around. Eventually it fell upon the last Thursday in November. But more important, as you may have noticed in the above proclamation there was no mention of the first Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, Puritans or any of that crap.


They weren't mentioned until Hebert Hoover's proclamation in 1931.


How did the Pilgrims reappear after 300 years?


Beginning in the late 1800's the Puritans began to re-emerge, repackaged and repositioned. They were characterized as religious pilgrims on a divine mission to carve a civilization out of the wilderness. Considering the fact that the West had just been "won" and the Native Indian population wiped out, this was a very convenient myth to bandy about. It was our Destiny, our Manifest Destiny to own this land.


The myth of the Pilgrims (like the myth of Columbus) was rediscovered and refashioned to fit America's new concept of itself. The country was flush with money; many Americans were enjoying the fruits of the Industrial Revolution. It is no coincidence that by the late 1800’s the emerging Middle Class could afford factory made chairs and dishes and so hold a proper Thanksgiving Feast. Look at all these consumer goods –look at this civilization we’ve carved from the wilderness! Praise the Lord and pass the Sears-Roebuck catalog.


By the time old Herbie Hoover was in office in the 1930's the myth of the Pilgrims had taken hold.

In the early 1900's America was being overrun with immigrants. 1,280,000 entered the country in 1907. Worst yet, they were Catholics and Jews! The myth of different ethnic groups sitting down peaceably at the same table, a Protestant table no less, was mighty potent. And so the story was taught to American schoolchildren. The story became one of the most important founding myths of our nation. As schoolchildren we were all taught to take part in the myth by cutting up paper plates to make turkeys.

Ku Kluxgiving

In 1915, eight years after that peak year of immigration, the KKK came out of the linen closet.  There are two things about their re-emergence that are quite interesting.  One:  their first act was a lynching.  No big shock. But it was of a Jewish man, not a black man. And number two, they were officially and intentionally rededicated on Thanksgiving Day.

The second coming of the Klan was an anti-immigrant movement. It was anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, Pro-protestant.  The Thanksgiving story of the Puritan origins of America was proof positive to the boys in da ‘hoods that they were on a mission from God and so chose that as their born again birthdate.

1915 happened to be the year that D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was released.

In it the Reconstruction Era Ku Klux Klan is pictured as the protector of southern civilization and female chastity protecting civil society from savage black animals.  The film shows the use of burning crosses.

That was historically inaccurate. In reality many of the original founders of the KKK were Scots-Irish, descendants of Cromwell’s soldiers.  There weren’t uneducated rednecks.  Their organizational name is Greek, the language of the learned. In Greek, kuklos means circle. Take "Ku Klux" and add a little Scottish word to fill out the alliteration and you have Ku Klux Klan.  Their symbol was a circle with a St. Andrews Cross, an X  the flag of Scotland.  In Scotland when they wanted to gather the klans they would light these X shaped crosses on hilltops. (By the by, the Confederate flag is a St. Andrews cross.)

But the second coming of the Klan took that Hollywood mistake and used it as a branding symbol. The Fiery Cross, symbol of their Christianity, read “Protestantism”.

You had to be a white protestant male to belong to the KKK.  And this was no small, inconsequential movement.  There were 14 million KKK members out of a population of 114 million Americans. There were also Junior KKK members and a women's organinzation-- the WKK, who aren’t counted in that number

The Reconstruction Era Klan was called the Invisible Empire.  But you’ll notice no one is hiding his face in the 1926 photo above.  These folks considered themselves patriots, America firsters. God gave this land to White Anglo Saxon Males and they weren’t going to let some greaseballs, micks and hymies take it over.

And this wasn’t just some southern hick thing.  The KKK was huge in the America's northern cities and states

(Indiana was ground zero). It was also big  in the outlying areas of major cities that were full of immigrants. At this time 1 in 6 people on Long Island were Ku Klux Klan members.

The 2^nd coming of the Klan died out just before World War Two, only to re-emerge in the 1950’s as an anti-civil rights organization.

But their connection to Thanksgiving is rather unsettling.It is the symbolism of Thanksgiving that were were trying to connect with.  In my opinion their biggest connection to Thanksgiving is that they were a bunch of turkeys.

So five years after the KKK is refounded on Thanksgiving Day, the Plymouth Rock is dusted off and immigrant children are spoon fed turkey, cranberries and a cute little story: that our forefathers were led by God to this virgin land and through hard work and fair play we turned the wilderness into one of the world's great civilizations. Pass the gravy.

Enough twisted history. The truth about the holiday is almost as depressing as the real story of Christmas which we'll learn next month.

So there you have it. 

Here we are approaching everyone's favorite holiday, one that centers on food, family and football.


You don't have to buy any presents, nor Valentine chocolates or flowers; all you have to do is buy into the myth of our Pilgrim forefathers.


But then, now you know better, you know the truth.


Gotta go, there are a bunch of cute little Pilgrims outside burning a woman alive at the stake.




Happy Bird Day Everyone.


Dano

Since you've read this far I'm impressed.  If you have friends who don't  like to read but you'd like them to know the true story of Giving then send them to pbs.org their American Experience division just aired a wonderful, pretty much no pulled punches explantion of the Thanksgiving Nuttiness.
Watch it online at www.pbs.org











New York Thanksgiving connections: (Well, this blog is called curious new york)

Within 30 years of the Puritans coming ashore in Plymouth they had spread south and were on the outskirts of the Dutch Colony of New Netherlands. They founded a city outside of New Amsterdam. They named it for the New Ark of the Covenant. You know that town as Newark. They also settled Suffolk County on Long Island and named one of their first towns after Oliver Cromwell’s birthplace: Huntingdon, England. Today, that town is known as Huntington, Long Island.

Of course NY’s biggest Thanksgiving Connection is The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. It began in 1924 when all those immigrants who had just flooded the island of Manhattan eagerly embraced the Pilgrim Myth. Macy’s immigrant employees marched down Broadway dressed like Indians. Herding a bunch of animals borrowed from the Central Park zoo. Eventually the animals would be replaced by Animal balloons. The entire interesting history of the parade can be found www.macys.com/campaign/parade/history.jsp


The film A Miracle on 34th Street has wedded Macy’s to not only Thanksgiving but also the American Christmas celebration. The parade scenes were shot at an actual 1946 Macy’s parade, which looks downright dorky.




You’ll remember that the film featured the rivalry between the two dept store giants: Macy’s & Gimbels. As in the phrase “Does Macy’s tell Gimbels?” The phrase is still alive but Gimbels isn’t, except for an old painted wall sign. Stand on the corner of 7th Ave at 31st street (near Penn Station) Look east and on your left up top you’ll see “Gimbels” calling out to you from Christmas past.

One other weird Macy’s thing. The Macy’s were an old whaling family. One of the first of the whalers had a star tattoo, which became the family emblem, and eventually Macy’s logo. When the whaling biz died out they turned their ships into cargo ships and brought goods to NY and sold them by the wharves of South Street. They did so well they opened a store. Then, many stores. And once a year you’ll notice that Macy’s still has “a whale of a sale” to honor their Whaling heritage. You are now one of six people in the world who knows this.


So what became of those cute little Puritans?
The United Church of Christ traces itself back to the Mayflower. Those Puritanical dudes dressed in black have become one of the most progressive, liberal congregations in America. A few years ago CBS refused to sell them air time on the Superbowl because the commercial showed, blacks, Latinos and gays in their congregation with the line Jesus didn’t discriminate, neither do we.
Apparently that was way too radical of an idea.


Liberal Puritans---- That’s something to be thankful for.

One other New York Thanksgiving weird thing.

When I was a kid in Brooklyn we actually went around to houses on Thanksgiving and Trick or Treated, saying "Anything for Thanksgiving"  People might give you some change or some cake.  It wasn't as lucrative

as Halloween so we stopped doing it.  But here's a link to a great site that explains the odd custom:

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/the-thanksgiving-ragamuffins-of-old-new-york/

Happy Armistice Day. 
Happy Veterans Day. 
Happy Happy.

You may have noticed that on your calendar November 11th is listed as:
Veterans Day - U.S. /Armistice Day - France.

It was originally called thus here in America.

The day is commemorated on November 11th, because it was on Nov. 11th 1918 that WW1 ended. The Armistice was symbolically signed at 11a.m. -- the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

Voila….. "Armistice Day".
It didn't become a federal holiday until 1938, just in time for World War 2 (Known in Advertising Agencies as "WWI Revised")

16 1/2 million Americans served in the military before WW2 ended. But, before folks could sit back,relax and enjoy their new little home in Levittown, the Korean Conflict broke out.

In 1954 President Eisenhower changed Armistice Day to Veterans' Day, a day to honor all Americans who have served their country in all its wars, "conflicts", Police Actions etc. 

(Veterans' Day has since lost its apostrophe.) Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day, when we remember all the members of the military who gave their lives for their country. Veterans Day is a day to honor those who served and survived.

Sounds like it should end there. Nah.

In 1968, a law was passed that changed the national commemoration of Veterans Day to the fourth Monday in October. Maybe it was because folks got spooked that it fell near Halloween, but a scant ten years later it was officially switched back to the old Armistice Day date…November 11th.

Which is where we stand today, saluting our veterans.


Dano

The curiously twisted history of Halloween & The Day of The Dead

The word "Halloween," is a corruption of the name "All Hallow’s Eve."

Say "Hallows Eve" three times fast, and quicker than a black cat can cross your path you've said "Halloween".

"Hallow’s" means: holy, as in "Hallowed be thy name."

On the Catholic calendar November 1st is "All Hallow’s Day" (or "All Saints Day") a day to honor the souls of departed saints. Therefore the evening before, Oct. 31st was called All Hallow’s Eve. It’s a short linguistic hop from “Hallow’s Eve” to “Halloween.” As I’ve pointed out in previous blog entries many Christian Holy days were instituted to override existing Pagan Holy days, and that is the case here

In Ireland in the 5th century, summer officially ended on October 31st. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New Year. In Irish folklore it was believed that the portal between this world and the next was left open for that one night. The disembodied spirits of all those who had died the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess. So on the night of October 31st, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes and dress up in ghoulish costumes and go wilding around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits.

An interesting aside…the reason people wore black at funerals was for very much the same reason. It was believed that when night fell the departed soul would roam around looking for a body to possess. If you wore black they couldn't see you in the dark. A variation of this is the concept of a wake. It was believed that evil souls would possess the body of a dead relative; so one family member or friend would sit by the coffin to ward off evil spirits. The trusted family member had to stay awake throughout the night and thus today we have "Wakes."

Some eagerly awaited the night of the dead in the hopes they could party on down with former family members. In parts of Ireland, giant burial mounds called “sidhe” were opened and lined with torches to help the dead find their way home. Favorite foods and drink were placed on the family table for the visiting deadhead. (Remember that when we talk about the Mexican Day of the Day below.)

Over time, Celtic Halloween folklore was assimilated into the story of man. It is believed that Irish monks roaming through Europe brought the festival of Samhain along with them. The Christian Church would eventually institute All Hallows Day to replace this decidedly Pagan celebration. The Irish custom of costumes and rowdy behavior (tricks and pranks) clung to the Christian Holy Day like foam on a pint of Guinness.

Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine brought the custom of Halloween to America in the 1840's. At that time, favorite Halloween pranks included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates. This eventually became soaping windows, throwing eggs at houses, progressing on to shaving cream, silly string and the occasional arson if you lived in Detroit-Metro area.

The custom of trick-or-treating wasn't Irish.

It originated with a ninth-century European Christian custom called “Souling”. On November 2nd, All Souls Day, folks would walk around town begging for "soul cakes," (square pieces of bread with currants.) The more soul cakes the beggars collected in their goody bags, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives in purgatory. (For non-Christians, Purgatory was kind of like a Department of Motor Vehicles in the hereafter. You had to sit around waiting while folks on earth said prayers for you. After a sufficient number of prayers were accumulated, you got to pass "Go" and collect $200.)

The Jack-o'-lantern, however, does come from the Irish. The Irish love their stories and in this one a notorious drunkard and trickster named Jack, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. He then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil out on a limb. Jack cut a deal with Beelzebub, if he would never tempt him again, he'd let him down. When Jack died, God wouldn't let him into Heaven because of his evil ways and the Devil told him Hell had no vacancies (It was full of Advertising People). Instead, the Dark Prince gave Jack a single ember to light his way through the night. Jack put it inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it lit and roamed the land for eternity. The Irish carried illuminated turnips with designs of frightful faces carved on them to scare off the ghoulies. The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns". But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful and a hell of a lot easier to carve. And thus the Jack O' lantern pumpkin was born.

We Americans have not only added pumpkins to the collective myth but also candy corn as well as flashlights with Jack O' Lantern heads, and the horror movie "Halloween I, 2 and 3"

So to summarize, once again we've taken an old pagan myth and turned it into what in America has become a $5 billion a year industry.

This All Hallow's Eve as you scurry home in fear clutching your precious soul close to your shivering body, remember the old Scottish prayer:

From Ghosties and Ghoulies

And long leggety beasties,

And things that go bump in the night

Dear Lord preserve us

Happy Samhain everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Notice in your calendar that Nov. 1 st is listed as  “The Day of the Dead”

No, this is not Jerry Garcia’s Birthday.

Rather, La Dia de Los Meurtos is the Mexican Day of the Dead an ancient festival that predates the Spanish invasion. The original Aztec celebration, dedicated to children and the dead, can be traced to the festivities held during the Aztec month of Miccailhuitontli, The head deadhead at these festivities was the goddess Mictecacihuatl ("Lady of the Dead") In the Aztec calendar, this ritual fell near the end of July. The Spanish forced the Indians to covert to Christianity and moved the date of their celebration to coincide with the Christian holiday of All Hallows Eve (in Spanish: "Día de Todos Santos,") The result is that Mexicans now celebrate the day of the dead during the first two days of November, rather than at the beginning of summer. But the holiday remains a happy, joyous, festive celebration of the cycles of life and remembrance of ancestors---- as opposed to the Freddie Kruger blood, gore and ooze celebrations north of the border.

Basically families visit the graves of family members, clean up the place. decorate it with flowers, then spread out a blanket and party on down with the deceased member’s favorite food and drink. Families remember the departed by telling stories about them. They build family altars in the home and decorate them with bright flowers.

Gifts of sugar skeletons are passed around. A Mexican child’s favorite this time of year is the "Bread of the Dead" (pan de muerto). A plastic skeleton is hidden in a loaf of bread, whoever bites into it is blessed with good luck.

The original Aztec holiday was all about celebrating life, not fearing death. So to me this Pagan holiday was much more civilized than its Christian replacement.

Of course, the irony is that Halloween was invented to smother a Celtic pagan holy day ---Samhain and then in an attempt to smother an Aztec pagan Holy day it was moved to coincide with Halloween.

The result being Mexicans celebrating on an Irish Holy Day.

So crack out the Guinness and the Coronas and

Vaya con dios –even if that dios is Mictecacihuatl

Dano

The curiously twisted history of Memorial Day

“Memorial” from the Latin “memorilis”  belonging to memory.

Over the years the true meaning of Memorial Day has faded more and more from public consciousness. It began as a solemn day of mourning in honor of our Civil War dead. It has degenerated into a celebration of barbeques, baseball, and "top 100 songs of all time" on the radio.

Ironic isn't it, that the nation has forgotten the meaning of a national day of remembrance?

So as you sit on a beach this weekend slathering sunscreen, or dancing between raindrops, consider the following:
In 1865, Henry C. Welles, a druggist in the village of Waterloo, NY, mentioned at a social gathering that honor should be shown to the dead of the Civil War by decorating their graves.

A dead Confederate soldier.

Townspeople adopted the idea wholeheartedly. Wreaths and bouquets were made for each grave. The village was decorated with flags at half-mast, evergreen boughs and black streamers.

The commander of the Grand Army of the Republic issued the first national recognition of Memorial Day in 1868. This was General Order No. 11 establishing "Decoration Day" (because the idea was to decorate the graves of soldiers.)

Decoration Day was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. When the Civil War was raging the location of Arlington cemetery was a carefully chosen act of retribution. It was the confiscated estate of Robert E. Lee. Graves were place all the way up to his doorstep. 

The South initially refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days. Several southern states continue to have an additional, separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee. 

After World War I, the holiday was changed from honoring the Civil War dead, to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war. It was now called Memorial Day.

During World War 1, some particularly bloody fighting occurred in Flanders along the French-Belgian border. A Canadian Doctor, John McCrae, visited the battlefield and noticed the only sign of life on the scarred landscape was the resilient little poppy. He penned a famous poem on a page torn from an autopsy book. It was entitled "In Flanders Fields." 

In Flanders Fields 

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD Canadian Army (1872-1918) 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 

Between the crosses row on row, 

That mark our place; and in the sky 

The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the Dead. Short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie 

In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 

To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch; be yours to hold it high. 

If ye break faith with us who die 

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders fields.

The poem inspired Moina Michael an American War Secretary with the YMCA, she was moved by McCrae's work and replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial Day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She sold poppies to her friends with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France learned of this new custom, when she returned to France she made artificial red poppies to raise money for the war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries.

And it's why you will see men and women from American Legion Posts selling little plastic red poppies at street corners this weekend. On TV you may also see images of the soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry as they place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington. . The commemorations at Arlington on Memorial Day are a lasting connection back to its Civil War origins.

In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation that changed the observance date from May 30th and made it into a 3 day weekend.

Many Veterans groups contend that the weekend has weakened the meaning of the day. Turning it from a day of taking stock to one of taking off for the beach. From an end of life to a beginning of summer occasion. In 1999 Senator Inouye, a World War II veteran, introduced a bill to the Senate to restore the observance back to May 30th.

Instead, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that on May 30th at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps." 

“Taps” is another Civil War connection. The 24-note piece is a variation on a French military bugle call to tell soldiers to cork their bottles, close their taps and go to bed. During the Civil War the Union Army adapted it for their lights out command at bedtime and it quickly found its way into funeral services. It acquired lyrics along the way.

Day is done, 
gone the sun, 

from the Lakes from the hills from the sky, all is well,

safely rest, God is nigh.

Fading light, 
dims the sight, 
And a star gems the sky gleaming bright, From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.

Thanks and praise, 
For our days, 


Neath the sun, Neath the stars, Neath the sky, 


As we go, This we know, God is nigh."

If you do decide to honor our fallen, New York is awash with war memorials. There's the Vietnam Veterans memorial on Water Street in the Financial District. A monument to Korean War soldiers in Battery Park (financed by a Korean Electronics company.) There's a World War I monument on Fifth Ave just outside Central Park across from the Frick Museum, a memorial to The Spanish-American war at the 59th Street entrance to Central Park (paid for by William Randolph Hearst who played a major role in their deaths.). At 59th and Fifth you'll find Grand Army Plaza named for the Civil War's Grand Army of the Republic, as well as Grand Army Plaza at the entrance to Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

It doesn’t really matter where you do your remembering, just that you do.

So this weekend don't forget the sunscreen and the Kingsford charcoal, and try to remember the fallen as well.

Dano