Pilgrim's Thanksgiving; An American Legend

As a direct descendant of the Pilgrims, I am ashamed to admit that the American Thanksgiving that I was taught to celebrate was a myth. The Thanksgiving legend is retold more frequently and with more fabricated detail than "Pecos Bill" or 'Paul Bunyon". It all began in 1621 when the Pilgrims, having safely arrived at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, were able to gather in a bountiful harvest after their first year and to share a feast of Thanksgiving with the Indians.

As a child, I believed as a child, so I accepted the story of the "First Thanksgiving". Pilgrims, Indians, corn, wild turkeys, bounteous feast, long wooden plank tables overflowing with food, outdoors under the turning colored leaves of autumn. It never occurred to me to ask "hadn't anyone ever stopped to give thanks before the Pilgrims did?"

As an adult, my eyes were opened. I discovered the story of Juan de Onate. Apparently he held the first Thanksgiving on the American continent prior to 1600. No one knows what was served at his Thanksgiving feast, though we could make up a menu and be about as accurate with that creation as we are with our recreation of the "traditional" American Thanksgiving feast.

No one really knows what was served at the Pilgrim's Thanksgiving. The only foods specifically mentioned by the Pilgrims were corn (which really wasn't corn but wheat), Indian corn, barley, peas, "fowl" or "waterfall" according to William Bradford, deer, bass, cod and wild turkey. No mashed potatoes, no cranberry sauce, no giblet gravy, and most definitely no green-bean casserole with Durkee onions baked on top. Most notably there is no mention of pumpkin pie smothered with whip cream or brown-n-serve dinner rolls burning in the after-turkey-oven. It comes as a very disappointing revelation that the staples of the "traditional" Thanksgiving meal are merely a 20th century fabrication presented and enhanced by advertising and marketing departments across the land.

Abounding are also the stories of the Pilgrims themselves. We could draw pictures with our eyes clothes. Each of us was taught of the Pilgrim's manner of dress, worship, work and play. Most perturbing to me was when some wise 20th-centurian burst my bubble regarding the Pilgrim's point of arrival. Plymouth Rock, once revered as a travel destination is now of questionable historical significance. According to William Bradford's journal and the 1622 book popularly known as Mourt's Relation the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. That appears to be indisputable. However, there is no mention of a rock. The first references to Plymouth Rock are found over 100 years after the actual landing.

Regardless of facts that have come to light, it is inevitable that re-enactments of the First Thanksgiving will abound this year, once again. One act plays and grade school musicals of The Mayflower will be rehearsed and performed. Small children will rush home to their mothers with scripts to guide them as they recreate the Pilgrim characters. Little boys and little girls will take upon themselves the individual names of the Pilgrim settlers and attempt to imitate their manner of speech. Each play or skit will haphazardly reenact the legendary details of the Pilgrim's Plymouth settlement. The legend will once again be shared with a new generation of Americans while their beaming parents watch and applaud.

Walking the halls of grade schools nationwide we are sure to find walls covered in construction paper hands carefully transformed into turkeys of autumn color. Our little ones will adorn their designer tennis shoes with black paper lacings and gray paper buckles. A few young men will don tall black paper hats and the girls will construct white frilly aprons to pin to the fronts of their designer jeans. Paper cobs of corn and corrugated cardboard husks will adorn the blackboards in classrooms from coast to coast. Boys will plead to wear headbands with paper feathers and the girls will watch in earnest as a paper papoose is constructed of felt.

Every November the scene is repeated. We, the ancient of days, wrap ourselves in warm memories of seasons past, blissfully and intentionally ignoring the hidden truth beneath the perpetuity of myth while passing it gingerly and fully intact to the rising generations. Speaking for myself - as a direct descendant of four of the Pilgrims - I will also hold firm with the warm and fuzzy mythical stories of my youth and childhood. I am neither offended nor chagrined at the falsehoods that abound. One season each year, this nation celebrates my ancestry and I appreciate every rendition of it. For the most part, American schools and celebrations have done honor to the members of my family who sailed across the sea aboard the Mayflower. It is heart warming to hear the stories of my Pilgrim ancestors retold each year in glowing detail.

I am directly descended from Elizabeth Tilley. Elizabeth was the only member of her family to survive the first Pilgrim winter. She later married the infamous John Howland. A few years ago, the John Howland Society built a ship, or shallop, and named it for my multi-great grandmother. There is something respectable in naming a ship after an honored person in history. I appreciate the honor extended to Elizabeth Tilley by naming a beautiful ship after her. However, I simply cannot enjoy the same feeling of honor and respect when I see a carved replica of multi-great grandmother Elizabeth, set upon a Thanksgiving table along with the cornucopia centerpiece, with a candle set aflame atop her head