The First Thanksgiving
For Christmas, 1996, my wife's mother gave us A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple. (Her ancestors Samuel Tubler and Edward Tubler appear in Remember's diary.) Remember, whose nickname became Mem, crossed the Atlantic from England with her family on the Mayflower and settled in Plymouth. (Mem spells it Plimoth.)
These Plymouth pilgrims planted their first crops in the spring of 1621, recently after Samoset and Squanto befriended them. An entry on October 10 explains that they have been harvesting this crop:
We have worked so hard during this harvest season, but praise be to the Lord for indeed with God's blessing we now shall have for each family a peck of meal a week as well as teh sam in corn for each family. My hands and fingers are sheathed in calluses from shucking all the corn. We had sown some twenty acres with Indian corn and all of it did excellently.
On October 11, Mem writes that Governor William Bradford has declared that they will have a special event to rejoice the "gathering of their fruits of our labors."
And it is not to last simply one day, or two, but three whole days. Squanto is sent to invite Massosoit and his people. We shall have feasting and entertainments! Four men have already been sent out to get fowl; others to hunt deer; and my father, with John Alden and Masters Winslow and Billington, are sent in the shallop to catch bass and cod and perhaps eels.
On October 13th, Mem describes the preparations that went into the festivities:
All the women have been cooking from dawn to dusk. Meat stews, fish soups. Squanto has shown me a new dish to make called succotash with a mixture of beans and corn. I promise to make pudding. Father and the men in the shallop did well. They brought in baskets brimming with fish.
The first Thanksgiving, more or less, is October 14th, 15th, and 16th. Mem records the events--
October 14: 'Tis the first day of the festivities. Massasoit has brought with him ninety Indians. We are busily cooking more. It was so exciting. The whole village bustles and everywhere Indians! The men have their faces painted deep red.... The air is laced with the scents of roasting meats and herbs. There are to be games and someone, I think it be Stephen Hopkins, has unearthed a pipe and drum and we ladies get to have a jigging match!
October 15: I thought I had eaten to the top yesterday, but here I be back for more at the table today. It has been a marvelous time. Mistress Billington jigged until she nearly swooned, but she never let up until finally, in fact, she did collapse. Her cheeks as red as the lobsters the Indians cooked in the kettle. I had never tasted lobster. It is my favorite. But you must wrestle with it to get the meat out of the claws. Johnny and Francis Billington made themselves lobster mustaches from the threadlike orange tentacles. 'Twas very funny.
As a closing ceremony of this event, Mem records the following dance the Indians performed--
The Indians did a most lovely and haunting dance at our festivities. It was full of quietness and we could only hear their soft humming and the click of their beads and their clamshell necklaces. It is called the deer dance and they do it this time of year, for soon they shall hunt in earnest for the deer.
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