textfiles/magazines/EUTHANASIA/stuffed.pilgrim

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From: coe@netcom.com (CoE)
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Subject: Stuffed Pilgrim
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Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 22:21:58 -0800 (PST)
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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

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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

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The Church of Euthanasia           http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/coe/      
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