e-culture: Thanksgiving Misgivings, Events, Travel Opportunities, Mexico
November 23, 2004


IN THIS ISSUE

- Thanksgiving Misgivings
- Houston Events
- Travel Opportunities
- The Colorado Plateau
- Giving to Mexico
- Coming Attractions



Thanksgiving Misgivings

Thanksgiving is often represented by three common myths: 1) Thanksgiving has been celebrated continuously since 1621; 2) The Thanksgiving feast commemorates good relations between colonists and Native Americans; and 3) It was established by the first European colonists in the New World, the English.

Here are a few truths about Thanksgiving:

1) Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November beginning in 1863. Some have speculated that the date was set to coincide with the November landing of the Mayflower in 1620, or the fall harvest festival in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621.

Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the third Thursday in 1939, to provide more time between it and Christmas, and a better chance for weather favorable to merchants. Thanksgiving has been continuously celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November since 1941, when Congress designated it an official American holiday.


2) The earliest Thanksgivings celebrated English and Dutch war victories over Native Americans. Thanksgiving was a religious occasion for giving thanks to God for events such as victories or safe returns.

Historical accounts, such as Nicholael Van Wassenaer's Historisch Verhael (1624-1630) offer insight into the indigenous people encountered by Europeans during the colonial period: "(There is little) authority known among these nations. They live almost all equally free... all are well fashioned people, strong and sound of body, well fed, and without blemish."

The English colonists, who came to be known as Pilgrims, established New Plymouth by the Wampanoag village of Patuxet, which was previously abandoned due to a plague brought by earlier European explorers.

Near the end of 1621, 52 of the original 101 English settlers at New Plymouth survived. They were joined by Wampanoag Indians, of which several were able to speak English because previous European explorers had captured them and taken them to Europe to work as slaves. A three-day harvest festival was celebrated by the Pilgrims and Native Americans, in which the Native Americans brought most of the feast from their hunting activities and corn crops. A fall harvest was not mutually celebrated in 1622, but the English colonists held a Thanksgiving in 1623 at the end of a drought.

The colonists held a Thanksgiving after defeating a neighboring Pequot garrison in 1737, setting off a bitter conflict between Native Americans and colonists, and another at the end of King Philip's War (between allied Native American groups and colonists) in 1676.

As a nation, the United States celebrated Thanksgiving in 1777 after victory over the British at the Battle of Saratoga. A Thanksgiving was declared by George Washington in 1789 to honor ratification and implementation of the U.S. Constitution (June 21, 1788). Abraham Lincoln declared the first of two Thanksgivings during his presidency for the Union victory at Gettysburg.

For ordinary people - colonial settlers and Native Americans - plentiful food after the fall harvest was reason enough for giving thanks; traditional harvest celebrations existed in both cultures. Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, campaigned for the national Thanksgiving holiday beginning in 1846.

Modern Thanksgiving traditions stem from American idealized versions of the three-day harvest festival that took place in the fall of 1621. The traditional foods of modern Thanksgiving - corn, pumpkin, and turkey - are the only real reminders of the feast the Indians, who brought most of the food, shared with the Pilgrims in 1621.


3) The Spanish defeated the Aztecs at Tenoctitlan (modern Mexico City) and Alonso Alvarez de Pineda surveyed the Gulf of Mexico along the coast of Texas 100 years before the Pilgrims settled New Plymouth.

Nine decades prior to the Pilgrim's landing, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lived among Coahuiltecan Indians in the interior of Texas for more than five years, and Jacques Cartier had established a colony in Quebec, planting the seeds for New France. Eight decades prior to the Pilgrims' landing, conquistadors Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and Hernando de Soto explored the southern portion of the modern United States between Florida and Arizona. Creating a network of trade routes spanning thousands of miles from the port of Veracruz, Mexico to the farthest reaches of New Spain, including Juan de Onate's route to northern New Mexico, the Spanish established the capitol of its northern territory near modern Santa Fe.

By the time the Pilgrims settled in Massachusetts, the first English colony of Roanoke had been lost, while the Spanish had maintained settlements in New Mexico, for three decades. The English were latecomers to the conquest of the "New World."

Contact with Europeans had decimated Indian populations across the Americas, including modern New England, which was first visited by French-employed Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524. With the expedition of Henry Hudson for the Dutch East India Company in 1609, competition for territory in New Amsterdam (New York), New England and New France was fiercely underway between the English, Dutch, French, and Swedish.

As Separatists from the Church of England, the Pilgrims were exiled to Leidon, Holland before deciding to try settlement in the New World. With the Virginia Company, the Protestant colony of Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England, financed by English merchants, who required settlements for trade and further exploration. The expedition aimed for the largely Dutch controlled Hudson River region near New Amsterdam (later New York), though they hoped to establish a "New England." Winter weather forced the Pilgrims to settle farther north in Massachusetts.

Interesting note: Wall Street in lower Manhattan once had a wall to separate the rival colonies: Dutch below Wall Street and English above Wall Street.


Great sources for more information on Thanksgiving:

Plimouth Plantation and the Wampanoag Indian Program, Massachusetts
Mayflower 1620: A New Look at a Pilgrim Voyage, National Geographic Society
1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving, National Geographic Society
"The History of Thanksgiving," The History Channel, www.historychannel.com


To learn more about the history of indigenous people in colonial times under Spanish rule, see our latest educational resources provided by John Schmal.

The Aztecs' Nahuatl Language in Mexico
http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/nahuatl.html

The Indigenous People of Central Mexico
http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/mexico.html

Mexican-American Genealogical Research
http://www.houstonculture.org/hispanic/research.html


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Houston Events

The Thanksgiving Day Parade
Thursday, November 25, 2004, 9:00am
Downtown Houston

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Vegetarian Potluck Thanksgiving Gathering

Bring a veggie potluck dish if you wish! Super happy Fun Land is Houston's venue for experimental electronic music, underground jazz, outsider art and much much more!

Free Admission
Thursday, Nov 25, 2004
Doors open at 3:00pm; Feeding Starts at 6:00pm
Entertainment at 7:00pm
Super happy Fun Land
2610 Ashland Street (@ W27th Street in the Heights)
Houston, TX 77008
713-880-2100
http://www.superhappyfunland.com

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Matir Moina / The Clay Bird

Presented by Voices Breaking Boundaries, Border Crossings and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Set against the backdrop of the turbulent period in the late 1960s leading up to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan, The Clay Bird tells the story of a family torn apart by religion and war. Anu, a shy young boy from rural East Pakistan (Bangladesh, as it is now known) is sent away by his father Kazi, an orthodox Muslim, to a Madrasah ­ or Islamic ­ school. Far from his family and the warmth of his regionšs Hindu festivities, Anu struggles to adapt to the school's harsh monastic life.

As the political divisions in the country intensify, an increasing split develops between moderate and extremist forces within the Madrasah. Back in the village, these same tensions create a growing divide between the stubborn but confused Kazi and his increasingly independent wife, Ayesha.

Touching upon themes of religious tolerance, cultural diversity, and the complexity of Islam, The Clay Bird has universal relevance in a crisis-ridden world.

Dir, Tareque Masud, France/Bangladesh. 2002. 98 minutes. Color.

Admission: $6.00
Friday, December 3 and Saturday, December 4, 2004, 7:00pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Caroline Wiess Law Building
1001 Bissonnet
http://www.voicesbreakingboundaries.org

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston contact information:
http://www.houstoncultuure.org/listings/mfah.html

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Travel Opportunities

We are planning great educational adventures for 2005. Several more will be added as they are planned. Please contact us at info@houstonculture.org if you are interested.

A Winter Wonderland, December 23, 2004 - January 2, 2005

Winter and the Christmas holiday traditions of the Southwest are special in New Mexico. Following Christmas in Santa Fe, we will take off on a weeklong journey through the Pueblos and the Navajo Nation.


Multicultural New Orleans, March 16 - 20, 2005

We will arrive in New Orleans in time for St. Patrick's Day celebrations and the building St. Joseph's Day altars, tour the marshlands of Cajun and Native American southern Louisiana, and we will conclude this great multicultural experience with the Super Sunday parade of the Mardi Gras Indians.


Camp Dos Cabezas, May 16 - June 20, 2005

An educational youth camp in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. Please contact us at info@houstonculture.org if you are interested in serving as a volunteer.


The Land of Enchantment, August 6 - 14, 2005

On a tour of the culturally rich landscape of New Mexico, we will enjoy the Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial and attend Matachines dances commemorating the Fiesta de San Lorenzo, on the anniversary of the Pueblo Revolt, at area puebloes. We will also visit Museum of International Folk Art and other units of the Museum of New Mexico, and enjoy great southwestern food.


DC Latino Music Initiative and NYC Adventure, July 1 - 9, 2005

We will set out for a Manhattan and Staten Island tour book-ended by two weekend adventures to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and great museums on the National Mall. We will enjoy two weekends in Washington, DC during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Latino Music Initiative, visit the National Museum of the American Indian, take in a DC United soccer match (schedule permitting), and Caribbean Carnival in the nation's capitol. Taking the Amtrak to New York, we will tour the historic Lower East Side, enjoy international restaurants and traditional delis, hear Puerto Rican plena and bomba music in the parks, and enjoy some Italian traditions on Staten Island.


West Indian Celebration and NYC Adventure, September 1 - 6, 2005

If you can't get enough of New York when we visit Manhattan in July, you can join us for this tour of Brooklyn and Queens, as we go for the liveliest party in America, the West Indian Day Celebration. We'll enjoy West Indian roti shops on Liberty Avenue in Queens, museums in Brooklyn, and a great Labor Day weekend tradition, Coney Island.


El Dia de los Muertos, October 28 - November 4, 2005

We will experience Mexico's traditional Day of the Dead remembrances in communities around Taxco and in the state of Michoacan.

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The Colorado Plateau

If you would like to learn more about our travel adventures, please join us at REI's new Willowbrook location for a presentation on one of our favorite destinations - the Colorado Plateau.

The Four Corners region is the land of the Anasazi, the Ute, Escalante and Dominguez, the Mormons, Kit Carson and John Wesley Powell. When Brigham Young looked down into the Salt Lake Valley, he reportedly said, "This is the place," and the Mormons settled there. When Ebenezer Bryce looked out across the pinnacles and mesas of southern Utah, he said, "This is a hell of a place to lose a cow." Scarce people populated this spectacular region that includes ancient ruins, pioneer sites and great expanses of protected National Park lands. The few who did brought with them an interesting social fabric so rarely described by journalists of the region, Elizabeth Forster and Edward Abbey.

Join us Tuesday, November 30 to discover what so few know about the Colorado Plateau.

HIKING AND PHOTOGRAPHING THE COLORADO PLATEAU
A visual presentation of the scenic beauty and cultures of the American Southwest.
Tuesday, November 30, 7:00pm
REI Willowbrook, 17717 Tomball Parkway, Houston, TX 77064
(832) 237-8833
http://www.rei.com/stores/willowbrook/index.html

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Giving to Mexico

On Saturday, December 4, we will deliver the last of the many donated items we collected for people living in colonias along the Texas-Mexico border in Reynosa and Rio Bravo. We will begin collecting donations of Toothbrushes, Toothpaste, Spanish-language Educational Materials, Food Supplies, Stuffed Animals for Children, etc., for delivery in February and June.

To learn more, please see:
http://www.houstonculture.org/border/help.html

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Coming Attractions

Tune in the World Music Show on Monday, November 29, 7:00 - 9:00pm to hear some of the best international artists of 2004.

In the upcoming e-culture newsletter:

2004 Holiday Gift Recommendations - We aren't in the business of promoting mad consumerism during the holidays, but if you plan to give, please remember to support the diverse and independent artists trying to compete in the world today. We will recommend some great musicians, writers and filmmakers to consider for your gift giving during the holidays.

Color Capsule: The Color Conference - We will offer a recap of the many interesting presenters who gave their time and unique insight during the first Color Conference.


Thank you for supporting diverse activities in Houston.

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M  a  r  k @houstonculture.org


Traditions of Mexico:
http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico

Latino Music Initiative:
http://www.houstonculture.org/musica

Texas-Mexico Border Issues:
http://www.houstonculture.org/border