Pilgrims Progress

Perhaps no American tradition draws as many questions from the folks here in Oz as does the Thanksgiving holiday. As a nation Australia always ranks in the World Top Three for holiday appreciation, so there's a natural professional curiosity (and perhaps a tinge of envy) here about this American holiday that seems to be little more than an excuse for massive excess.

So, as a public service, I will try to explain the American Thanksgiving experience over the next few days as we lead up to the big celebration on Thursday.

"Part One - Pre-Thanksgiving"

Thanksgiving celebrates the survival of a group of people we now call Pilgrims, although no one called them that in their day 400 years ago. The English government called them criminals, and the Dutch called them illegal immigrants. They called themselves Puritans. Today we would call them the Religious Far Right.

Having fled England where they were committing criminal acts by not following the Church of England, these folks settled in Amsterdam. It is unclear if Amsterdam had cafes that allowed pot smoking in those days, but it probably did because eventually the Puritans decided their kids were losing their religion. Many of you will be familiar with REM's Thanksgiving song about this topic.

Anyhow, at some point the religious leaders decided that it would be better to pack up and move to North America. This showed great foresight, since they realized that if they moved there early enough their ancestors would be able to protest immigration hundreds of years later without appearing hypocritical. So all aboard the Mayflower and on to Massachusetts.

Most Americans think the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Well, it wasn't quite at Plymouth Rock, but even more interesting is that only about 25% of those who sailed on the Mayflower were part of that religious group. Early on this established the tradition that the religious right in America can re-write history to make themselves the heart of the story and claim that their values are the only real American values.

In one sense these people established patterns that continue to this day. As a far-right religious group, they overcame severe hardship - in this case, the fact that talk radio and automated telemarketing hadn't been invented - and still managed to get control of the government even though they were in the minority.

These early settlers were pretty well understocked and unprepared for survival in the cold of Cape Cod and Massachusetts. So they did what anyone would do. They dug up the graves of the local native Indians and ate the food that had been buried with the bodies. This is generally considered the start of fast food in North America. It is also believed to have led, centuries later, to Chex Mix and dry roasted peanuts.

So where's the feast with the happy Puritans and Indians drinking cider and eating turkey, you ask? Having been sold into slavery by the English just a few years earlier, why did the natives decide to help these folks out?  Were there any Indian casinos at the time? If there were, would the Puritans play? Stay tuned for Part Two tomorrow.