Thanksgiving.
A day of family celebration for some; a day of mourning for others. It is a time when our Native children will be asked at school to participate in plays and performances about Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution in England, and coming to our country for religious freedom.
They were met by Indians who saw that they were cold and hungry and they all sat down together around a long table and had the first Thanksgiving dinner together.
That is the story of the first Thanksgiving that most people are familiar with...the story we learned in school, the one we will see enacted in school plays, television skits and even cartoons.
But is that the real story of the Pilgrims and Indians?
First, they did not call themselves Pilgrims. They were not even Puritans, since Puritans were those who remained in the Angelican Church, but wished to "purify" it. They were Separatists, since they had left the Church of England. But they called themselves "Saints", and called others "Strangers".
They arrived in the winter of 1620, in December, and didn't step off on Plymouth Rock, but went ashore at a nearby sheltered islet. They were not met by Indians who brought them food and saved them from the first winter. In fact, though the "Saints" spotted several Indians, the Indians would flee from them. It wasn't until February of March, 1621, (after many "Saints" had already died), that a tall Native man walked into the Plymouth settlement and probably scared them to death by saying, "Welcome, Englishmen."
His name was Samoset, and he was an Abenaki from the Maine coast. He had learned a few words of English from fishermen, since European fishing fleets had been visiting the Northeastern waters of America for 120 years before the Mayflower docked. Samoset was visiting his Patuxet friend Tisquantum at the nearby Wampanoag village. He returned to Plymouth with Tisquantum (who the Whites called Squanto.)
Tisquantum's English was perfect. He'd been kidnapped twice by the English - once to work for nine years in England, returning to America as an interpreter for John Smith's 1613 voyage. After a brief homecoming, Tisquantum was kidnapped a second time by another Englishman, along with 23 others of his tribe, where they were sold as slaves in Spain. He worked for three years as a house slave for Spanish monks before escaping to England.
In 1619, he was able to return to New England with another expedition, only to find that his Patuxet Nation had been wiped out by an epidemic spread by the Whites. He joined a village of Wampanoags who had survived the disease. It was two years later when his friend Samoset brought him to his former village that was now inhabited by the White "Saints."
Massasoit, the Grand Sachem of the Wapanoag also paid a visit to the "Saints" that day, along with 60 warriors. Tisquantum and Samoset acted as translators, and by the end of the day a peace treaty had been signed between the Wampanoags and the "Saint's" governor, John Carver. The "Saints" now had allies in a strange land, and the Wampanaogs had an alliance with a people with superior weaponry, who were now pledged to defend them against their enemies. They traded food for guns, tools and other items they considered useful.
It was at this point that Tisquantum decided to return to the Patuxent village of his birth, the village of his people who now lay buried beneath the soil that was now "Plymouth" and occupied by English.
Either he taught them...or perhaps they learned by watching him..how to plant corn, beans and other indigenous crops. They also learned, probably from Tisquantum, of the traditional feast held at the end of the harvest by Native peoples.
The "Saints" held a harvest feast, which was joined by Massasoit and ninety of his people. It was more of a "pot-luck" dinner, since the Native guests brought the deer meat and much of the rest of the meal.
The celebration was a combination of Wampanoag and English prayers and ceremony, games and contests. They promised each other to celebrate together every year.
It was a good beginning, but eventually the English showed their true colors. Their greed for land stretched far beyond their original boundaries and the Wampanoags loyal to Massasoit were many times forced to fight against other Native nations who wanted to stop the English from expanding into their territories.
By the time of Massasoit's death, the English had completely worn out their welcome. Whites in the area now outnumbered the Native 2 to 1 and the English needed more and more land for their farms and villages. There were sporadic outbreaks of the diseases that followed White people wherever they went, and Natives now had to deal with the problems that alcohol had brought to their people.
Wamsutta, (whom the English preferred to call Alexander), was Massasoit's eldest son. He saw through the English, and knew they were no true friends of the Native People. But, then as now, loyalty to his people was viewed as disloyalty to Whites, and shortly after his first year as Grand Sachem; he was taken under guard to Plymouth for questioning by the English. There at Plymouth, where years earlier his father Massasoit and the remnant group of "Saints" enjoyed their "Thanksgiving Dinner" and pledged to defend one another; Wamsutta was poisoned by the English. Sickened, he was allowed to leave, though the English kept two of his sons as hostages.
He died before he could reach his village.
Now the title passed to 24-year-old Metacom, whom the Puritans insisted on calling "King Phillip." (By this time the Puritans had settled among and outnumbered the original "Saints".)
Metacom raised as a traditional, was a hunter and a warrior, and no admirer of White people. He was proud of his race, his culture and his religion, and spoke out against the racist White superiority of the Puritans. Native traditionalists were being persecuted and prosecuted by the Puritan Christian fanatics. They were arrested for hunting or fishing on the Christian Sabbath, for following Native healing practices or for being married in the traditional Native manner instead of by a Christian minister.
Like his brother Wamsutta before him, Metacom was brought before the Puritans for questioning in 1671. They forced him to surrender his weapons, acknowledge the sovereignty of the King of England, and to pay a yearly fine. But as soon as he was free, he continued to speak out for Indian sovereignty and their right to their lands, beliefs, and their own traditional governments. For the next four years he met with the Wampanaog Confederacy and Natives from other nations. But by this time, leaders of many other Native nations had also made alliances with the Whites. I'm sure that Metacom also had regrets the many wars the Wampanoags waged against other tribes under his father's leadership.
There were many who did support Metacom and his Wampanoag alliance, and when "King Phillip's War" as the Whites called it, finally began in 1675, the Nipmuck, Pocumtuck, Pocasets, Sokokis, and Hassanamesitts had joined him. By the war's end, it had reached through Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Six hundred English are recorded killed, but in the end, our New England Native nations were terribly decimated, with losses in the thousands.
The Wampanoags and Narragansetts, once large powerful nations, were left numbering in the hundreds. Many smaller nations were completely exterminated by the Whites. Christian Indians and other allies of the Whites were suddenly turned on by their former friends and massacred. Six hundred neutral Narragansetts, men, women and children, were burned to death in a single night. This event caused the remaining Narragansetts to join forces with their former enemies, the Wampanoags, to fight the English.
After initial victories, the Allies suffered several major defeats, including the loss of their food supplies, and several massacres of Wampanoag camps.
Indian leaders who were defeated were usually mutilated, their heads cut off or their bodies quartered. Other Natives who surrendered or were captured, were sold into slavery all around the world - in the Caribbean, Spain, Portugal, the Azores, Algiers and here at home in Virginia and other southern colonies. Metacom's wife and nine-year-old son were captured and put on a slave ship headed for Bermuda.
"Now I am ready to die" Metacom said, when he was told.
Metacom died on August 12, 1676, when a dawn raid was carried out against his sleeping camp by the English army. He was shot through the heart by an Indian, who received his beautiful regalia as payment.
Metacom's head was cut off, and displayed on a pole in Plymouth, home of the first Thanksgiving, for the next twenty years.
Happy Thanksgiving?
October 1998
Happy Indigenous People's Day! (Oct.12th)
Happy Cherokee New Year! (Oct.24th)
It feels good to open this column on a brighter note than last months. (*July-Aug.1998 BTTB Journal). I know there may be a few of you who think - "hey, I thought this BTTB Journal was going to tell us old traditional tales from the old days and other Indian things like that! And there she goes talking about the government and war, and Native American prisoners! I can't wait for this subscription to run out!"
Well, I did warn you, didn't I? Everyone who was welcomed into the BTTB family circle was told that they were going to get some bitter with the sweet.
That is traditional!
Native People, especially Cherokee and other Southeastern Nations would have the Black Drink, or some kind of bitters periodically, to clear the blood, cleanse the liver. So when I speak about some of those unpleasant things, it is so we can do something to remove the problems, to restore harmony to Turtle Island.
Cherokee religion is primarily about restoring natural balance and harmony in our lives and in our world. That is why we dance counter-clockwise at Cherokee ceremonies..to erase the negativity that sometimes surrounds us. The anger, the unkind word, the resentment, sadness, frustration or loss. This is why certain Native nations "purged", not just for a physical cleansing but for the spiritual cleansing you also feel after your body has released certain toxins.
If I spoke harshly about the Occupation Gov't's recent military escapades,
it is because this is what we would do, traditionally.
Whenever war was considered, or even an attack in retaliation against another
Native nation, it was discussed for a long time, and by every one who would
be affected. Our ancestors thought long and hard before they entered into
the Yonega wars, whether on the side of the British, French or Americans.
Even when we tried to remain neutral, we still lost land to the victor,
whoever it was. So, actually, these are still traditional words I am giving
to you, because they are describing a situation that our ancestors went
through. So let us look at this foreign, yes FOREIGN, U.S. military in the
same way that our ancestors did. Analyze. Don't "blindly accept".
Like it or not, we are part of today's world. We must be aware of what is really going on. We must teach our children what is really going on. It is easy for a young person who is raised with stories of our proud warriors and War Chiefs; who honored our Native War Veterans at Pow-wows, to confuse fighting for someone elses oil, or for the right to run someone elses country, with fighting for freedom and honor.
It is our duty, as Native American People, to teach our children the difference, so that their young lives will not be squandered. Especially you veterans, tell the young people what war is really about. What really happens before, during and after. Tell them the reasons that the U.S. has gone to war in Vietnam, in Grenada, Panama, Somalia, and why the recent bombs were dropped in Africa and Afghanistan.
Maybe that should be a new part of the pow-wows, after we honor the veterans, we should let them speak. Or set up a table or tent where young people can ask questions of them. Let them tell what it really meant to go to war. Especially you Desert Storm vets, because that is the type of war they will be fighting today. Firing missiles and bombs based on the computer screen in the war plane. Never having to see the results. The Warriors of the past had to deal with the results. They looked into the eyes of the survivors, they saw the bodies. It was not "war at a distance."
So please, teach our children the truth. And if you don't know the truth yourself, if there are questions that you cannot answer, then do the necessary investigation.
The cycle must be broken...the cycle of our young people feeling that their is nothing for them in the communities from which they come; and that the military is the only place that can offer them a job, a chance to travel, a chance to buy a family home..a higher education...the only place where they can be treated with respect...the only place they can feel the sense of power.
Walk In Harmony, *Noquisi* (Day Starr)
September 1998
Osiyo...
My heart is heavy with the bombing of another dark Nation done in our name.
Yes, it was a horrible tragedy for the embassies to be blown up, and for so
many people to be injured and killed. Yes, we need to do whatever it takes to
bring an end to terrorism. But is going to a foreign country with scanty
evidence and a burning desire for revenge the way to end terrorism?
What if it was the other way around? What if another country bombed one of the MANY biotech centers where we make chemicals that can be used in chemical or germ warfare? What if they bombed Brookhaven in Long Island, New York; or one of our nations many universities that research biotech, or one of the factories where we make the jet fighters that have rained death on many countries without a single declaration of war by Congress.
We, the indigenous people of Turtle Island, should know better than anyone else, the lengths that the Occupation Government will go to dominate someone elses country. To take the resources, land, manpower, or whatever it is that they are after.
We, the Cherokee people, were forced to give up our traditional Blood Law, that gave the family or clan of a victim, the right to take the life - or in some cases, to spare the life - of a killer. But the Yonega government in all of it's paternal superiority, convinced some of our leaders that the Blood Law was savage and inhumane. So the Cherokee Nation renounced our Blood Law, and threw away our Clan Mothers and Beloved Women and Men, to follow the Yonega's law of courts and trial, even though we were not allowed to testify against a Yonega in court.
We were discouraged from settling old scores with enemy Nations, unless those enemies were the enemies of the Yonega. But we saw the light, and we gave up the laws of our ancestors that had guided us for centuries.
So what is this we are hearing? That an eye for an eye is now appropriate?
What makes it so bad, in the case of the Sudan, is that the pharmaceutical company was just that - a factory that made medicine. It was not government owned, in fact it was owned by a British man. It was built by an American builder who insists it was not structurally designed for creating chemical warfare products. Hundreds of people have visited the site immediately after the bombing, including rescue teams, and the foreign press. (The U.S. has no permanent news bureau in Africa so they are always the last on the scene). No one suffered the immediate side-effects that would have occurred had the factory been manufacturing chemical warfare agents.
Why is it that the Occupation Gov't of the U.S. must always have an enemy?
When the Soviet Union fell, many optimists felt that there would be a "peace dividend". That all of the billions of dollars spent on guns, planes, star wars, chemical gas, germ warfare, guarded borders, and CIA would finally be put into programs that would benefit the people of this country. Programs for children, elders, healthcare, homelessness eliminated, the cost of a college education lowered, and so on.
But, no. Instead, the search went on for a new enemy. Preferably weak, and non-White. Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, the Sudan. And even before that - Panama, Grenada, Iraq. The "Wag The Dog" Syndrome did not originate with President Clinton. Remember, the Desert Shield/Desert Storm war with Iraq took place just as the Savings and Loan investigation (with George Bush's family heavily involved)was at it's peak. But some of us were so busy tying yellow ribbons that we didn't even notice.
We, as a Native People, must take a closer look at what is happening around us. Those in power are playing a dangerous game that can result in great destruction to our beloved country, and to all of the people now living here.
We, and our Native leaders, are Sovereign, are Vocal, when it comes to the right to open a casino, to sell untaxed cigarettes and gasoline. But when decisions are made that put this country in jeopardy, that make us a target, we are quiet, we are silent.
Who knows, some of us members of sovereign nations might even have been on the planes that bombed Africa; or been in troops that gunned down Indigenous people in Panama. And we would welcome them back home with an honoring dance.
A real sovereign nation has its own diplomatic ties with other nations. It does its own analysis of World Conditions and comes to its own conclusions. It's opinions are known and considered by sovereign nations. It makes its own friends and enemies.
I hope that one day, not too far from now, our Nations can enjoy real sovereignty again!
Walk In Harmony, Day Starr
May 1998
This Memorial Day Weekend was probably my best ever. Due to some of the recent buffets and blows that life sometimes brings, I have spent little recent time on fun and happiness. Well, I more than made up for it this weekend. On Saturday, May 23, Evergreen, Little Horse and I went to Chief Buffy Redfeather's Annual South Eastern Cherokee Pow-wow in Ambler, PA.
Evergreen and Little Horse did most of the dancing, I only danced twice. In case you were there, I was the cinnamon-colored sister wearing jeans, black moccasins, a fire-engine red shawl with yellow fringe, and her hair in two hundred long thin braids! I dance quite regally, I might add! (smile)
It was very good to be there. There was an incredible exchange of energy as I visited with Our People, as I danced upon Mother Earth, unpaved and natural, or lay upon her, absorbing her energy as Grandmother Sun shined down upon us all. It was good to see everyone, especially the ones that distance keeps me separated from; yet we get to meet and greet at least once a year during pow-wow season. It also felt good to see new faces, people I had yet to meet; and to see the children, especially the new small people attending pow-wow's for the first or second time.
My good husband Evergreen surprised me with tickets to the 1st Annual Native
American Music Awards at the Foxwoods Resort Casino. I had heard many times
about Foxwoods, but never went due to mixed feelings about the issue of gambling.
But I must say that Foxwoods is a beautiful place, and that I applaud them
for creating a venue where Native American musicians and artists could get
the acknowledgement and honor that is so richly deserved and so long overdue.
January 1998
Congratulations! You've done it again! You've made it through
another year! Give yourself a pat on the back! Did you get to see the Hale-Bopp Comet of 1997,
or the recent meteor showers? Our ancient Cherokee ancestors were very
knowledgeable about astronomy. We also had an astrology system similar to the
Mayan system that has been recently getting attention. In fact, all indigenous
nations were conscious of the stars, planets and their cycles. This was not
something just limited to the Greco-Roman or Babylonian societies; it was world
wide. We all lived in close contact with Mother Earth and Father Sky. Try to
revive that interest in your own lives, and the lives of the children. Point
out the beauty and history of the stars to them, because for this generation,
stars and planets are something to conquer or blow up on video games. That is
not our way. Even if you don't know about the stars, there are plenty of good
books for sale, and also in the library. There are astronomical sites here on
the internet. You don't have to start out with a scholarly book, you can begin
l tree that he had carved from a bar of soap, and sprinkled a little silver
glitter on it. A Yonega guard came by and watched the paper decorations go
up. It infuriated him that this criminal should DARE to have any holiday
spirit. He could not allow this to be. He stormed angrily into the cell and
ripped down the decorations and confiscated the soap tree. He "wrote up" the
prisoner on some fabricated infraction. As the guard left the cell, he laughed
"Merry Christmas". At the end of the poem, the brother described the pain
and anger in his heart as he thought of this guard returning home to enjoy
Christmas with his wife and family; to open gifts and drink a glass of eggnog.
But because of the senseless, brute viciousness of the guard, a man about to
go to sleep with the spirit of Christmas in his heart lay down instead with
anger and frustration. He vowed to himself that he would never allow the
little boy within himself to come out again. If this even took place in
China or Cuba, the American public would be up in arms about human rights
issues, and perhaps the denial of religious freedom. But things like this are
a daily occurrence in U.S. prisons. Most Native Americans do not get the right
to worship in the traditional manner, and destruction fo their personal
property is an all too common situation. Some of you may not know, but our
artist, "Rides Two Horses" is incarcerated in an Upstate prison in New York.
(The pictures of the bear on the front page of BTTB Journal and the picture
of that month's Moon is done by Rides Two Horses.
Many times the guards have take his artwork and destroyed them before he could
mail them to us. Sometimes they are just "missing", other times they have been dipped into the toilet and ruined, then left for him to find when he returns to his cell at the end of the day. But his spirit is strong, and he just picks up where he left off. What is the purpose of prison? Is it to torture and punish, is it to get the eye for an eye, to extract our pound of flesh? Or is it to offer a chance for rehabilitation, for healing? Yes, there is still punishment, they are still locked away from society. But will a better human being emerge when the last day of the sentence is served, or someone bubbling over with hatred from the unjust and inhuman day to day indignities that that they have been subjected to over the years? Someone who will then return to our community. What is your opinion? e-mail me at 1daystar@worldnet.att.net, or write me. Remember, Crazy Horse, Chief Osceola, John Horse, and many of our Native American heroes have been considered common criminals, prisoners by those in authority. Walk In harmony,
Native American Sites
RETURN TO BTTB HOMEPAGE
Oh, you wonder, what is so
special about that? Hey, don't take it for granted. There are a lot who didn't
make it to this space in time. The fact that you did, shows that no matter
what 1997 brought you, you were able to come out on top. For to live, is to
come out on top. What are the good things that 1997 brought you? Two goodies
it brought Evergreen and I are: a niece,
Naya Moonbeam Motta, (Wolf Clan),
and a nephew, Brenden Liu!
Day Starr, BTTB, Box 527-524, Flushing, NY.
11352-7524
Native American Support Group of NYC
On This Day in North American Indian History
EarthKeeper Medicine Society
