Great, fine, wonderful…the first Thanksgiving was an autumn harvest celebration that took place in November 1621. It was attended by members of the Wampanoag Indian tribe and the new kids in town, aka the Pilgrims. For all I know, they also exchanged Christmas gifts, wore Halloween masks, and drank too much Irish beer. I mean, if you’re going to invent a holiday, why stop at one?
Except I’m not buying any of it. For starters, the Cape Cod mall in Hyannis was still under construction, hence no Black Friday shopping. Busted!
No Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, either…the original drawings for the first float were still under review by the US Patent Office. Were scalloped potatoes served at this alleged feast? Show me the recipe. How about the Detroit Lions…were they dressed and ready to play football? Wrong again: they were still deciding on a team logo. As for pumpkin pie? Not much good without Cool Whip, wouldn’t you say?
So enough already with this perverse lie about the so-called first Thanksgiving.
The fact is, no one really knows when or how it came to be. Which makes you wonder what else went on in and around Plymouth and ol’ Cape Cod between those wily Wampanoags and pesky Pilgrims.
First Encounter Beach
Take, for example, First Encounter beach in Eastham, MA, so named because that’s where the men of the Mayflower first received a shower of arrows – aimed squarely at their butts and other bodily parts – as they ventured inland in search of food. Once again, I find the truth being stretched if not downright reinvented. “First Encounter” is very chummy sounding, right? Well, if the cry baby Pilgrims really had been attacked, wouldn’t they have named that spot “Run for Your Lives Beach” or “Fuck this Arrow Shit Beach” instead?
Here’s what I think happened when the Pilgrims laid anchor for a brief respite. A few of the women brought blankets, food items, plastic forks and knives, and other essentials to shore and invited the curious, onlooking Wampanoags to come join them for a little friendly sign language and a bite to eat. All at once, Miles Standish had a brainstorm. “Gents,” he said, “what’s our number one need…land, right? And it sure looks like these locals could use some worthless beads. So, whaddya say we rob ‘em blind, especially since it will take a century or more before they realize they’ve been had?!”
His travel mates nodded their approval and thus, the first land snatch in American history took place while ample quantities of English tea and cranberry wine were consumed in the spirit of fair trade.
Meet the Easterners
The point is, forget all that nonsense you’ve heard and read about a hostile greeting by the Wampanoags.
Which brings me to my next point, that being the very name “Wampanoags”. It means “Easterners”. And yet who or what did they believe they were east of? Or, what if they had expanded their territory westward from Eastern Mass. and Rhode Island into, say, Connecticut and New York; would they have held a tribal council to rethink the whole name thing? If so, wouldn’t “Northerners” and “Southerners” also have been on the table? After all, there was plenty of real estate in both directions to make either name viable.
At the same time, even I can’t argue that today, the 3,000 or so surviving members of this tribe call themselves Wampanoags. They have a reservation on Martha’s Vineyard to prove it.
Even so, I’m convinced their tribal name wasn’t firmly etched in sand until 1924 following the grand opening of Wampanoag Country Club in West Hartford, CT. For the record, it was so named for the time-honored practice of braining people who pissed you off with a golf club; hence, “whomp a nog(in)”.
The True Origin of Thanksgiving Day?
Let’s return to those days of yore and the first Thanksgiving dinner. We know there had to be one, that much I’ll concede. After all, plenty more have followed and there’s now more football to watch than ever.
Care to guess when the first Thanksgiving really took place? Here are today’s most likely scenarios, forensically speaking:
- Mid-Civil War, 1863, when Sarah Josepha Hale convinced Abraham Lincoln to declare war on turkeys that were then causing an increasing number of airplane accidents by flying into propellers. Lincoln agreed but soon realized something had to be done with all the dead turkeys. So, he designated the last Thursday of every November as Thanksgiving Day and demanded that turkey be served as the main dish. North and South alike cheered his decisiveness.
- The day following Custer’s Last Stand when soldiers under the command of Captain Frederick Benteen realized they had picked the right hiding place.
- October 15, 1923 when the New York Yankees won their first World Series in six games over the New York Giants.
- October 16, 1923, when Yankee fans around the world woke up and realized the team’s victory was not a cruel hoax.
Despite each convincing argument, the sad truth is we still don’t know how or when Thanksgiving Day came into being.
So, the best I can do is wish you and yours a wonderful holiday. But first, would someone please return all my lost or stolen Mickey Mantle cards? I know they’re out there somewhere, most likely in or around Plymouth, MA.
Your Mantal cards are gone forever, they were traded to the Wampanoags for Lobster.