From owner-snuffit-l@majordomo.netcom.com Sun Nov 24 04:17:19 1996 Received: from majordomo.netcom.com (listless.netcom.com [206.217.29.105]) by locust.cic.net (8.8.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id EAA19749 for ; Sun, 24 Nov 1996 04:17:18 -0500 (EST) Received: by majordomo.netcom.com (8.7.5/8.7.3/(NETCOM MLS v1.01)) id WAA05827; Sat, 23 Nov 1996 22:25:34 -0800 (PST) From: coe@netcom.com (CoE) Message-Id: <199611240621.WAA10613@netcom3.netcom.com> Subject: Stuffed Pilgrim To: snuffit-l@majordomo.netcom.com (post2snuffit) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 22:21:58 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-snuffit-l@majordomo.netcom.com Errors-To: owner-snuffit-l@majordomo.netcom.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: snuffit-l@netcom.com Status: RO To remove yourself from the SNUFFIT-L mailing list, send an e-mail to listserv@netcom.com containing only the line: unsubscribe snuffit-l ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Euthanist, I hope this letter finds you well. We have entered that difficult time of year known as the "holiday season," beginning with the obscene and historically inaccurate ritual of Thanksgiving, followed by rampant consumerism and the hideous spectacle of Christmas. For many of us the enforced proximity to "family members" will only serve to remind us of what is missing, and what has been lost. To be American or European today is to be rootless, and without connection to the land: few of us have any tradition to return to, oral or otherwise. Nowhere is the celebration of Thanksgiving more inappropriate than here, in Massachusetts. I hope that after reading what Russell Means has to say, you will be inspired to join me in a Thanksgiving day of fasting, prayer, and mourning. I also hope that you will join me in boycotting Christmas, by celebrating the Winter Solstice instead, in the traditional manner, without false sentiment, disposable dead trees, wrapping paper, plastic trinkets or gadgets, but with reverence, and in good company. Yours, Rev. Chris Korda ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When we met with the Wampanoag people, they told us that in researching the history of Thanksgiving, they had confirmed the oral history passed down through their generations. Most Americans know that Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag, had welcomed the so-called Pilgrim Fathers--and the seldom mentioned Pilgrim Mothers--to the shores where his people had lived for millennia. The Wampanoag taught the European colonists how to live in our hemisphere by showing them what wild foods they could gather, how, where, and what crops to plant, and how to harvest, dry, and preserve them. The Wampanoag now wanted to remind white America of what had happened after Massasoit's death. He was succeeded by his son, Metacomet, whom the colonists called "King" Philip. In 1675-1676, to show "gratitude" for what Massasoit's people had done for their father and grandfathers, the Pilgrims manufactured an incident as a pretext to justify disarming the Wampanoag. The whites went after the Wampanoag with guns, swords, cannons, and torches. Most, including Metacomet, were butchered. His wife and son were sold into slavery in the West Indies. His body was hideously drawn and quartered. For twenty-five years afterward, Metacomet's skull was displayed on a pike above the white's village. The real legacy of the Pilgrim fathers is treachery. Most Americans today believe that Thanksgiving celebrates a bountiful harvest, but that is not so. By 1970, the Wampanoag had turned up a copy of a Thanksgiving proclamation made by the governor of the colony. The text revealed the ugly truth: After a colonial militia had returned from murdering the men, women, and children of an Indian village, the governor proclaimed a holiday and feast to give thanks for the massacre. He also encouraged other colonies to do likewise--in other words, every autumn after the crops are in, go kill Indians and celebrate your murders with a feast. The Wampanoag we met at Plymouth came from everywhere in Massachusetts. Like many other eastern nations, theirs had been all but wiped out. The survivors found refuge in other Indian nations that had not yet succumbed to European diseases or to violence. The Wampanoag went into hiding or joined the Six Nations or found homes among the Delaware or Shawnee nations, to name a few. Some also sought refuge in one of the two hundred eastern-seaboard nations that were later exterminated. Nothing remains of those nations but their names, and even some of those have been lost. Other Wampanoag, who couldn't reach another Indian nation, survived by intermarriage with black slaves or freedmen. It is hard to imagine a life so terrible that people would choose instead, with all their progeny, to become slaves, but that is exactly what they did. --Russell Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Church of Euthanasia http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/coe/ P.O.Box 261 ftp.etext.org /pub/Zines/Snuffit Somerville, MA 02143 coe@netcom.com