Happy Thanksgiving Options

[malpaso]

I have silly non-US-citizen question... Why turkey? And... why to thanks? To who?

This is all U.S. History stuff.

The Pilgrims came over to what is now New England in North America to search for new land and religious freedom since they were being persecuted by the Catholics in England. They sailed over in 1620 and created the Mayflower Compact, basically giving themselves the right to the land. They settled in an area they named Massachusetts Bay Colony, and since they were new to the area, they relied on the local Indians to teach them how to farm and harvest. Therefore, they had a feast with the only wild animal available, turkey, to give thanks for the new life they were about to live.

Therefore, Thanksgiving Day.

That's not entirely it though. If I remember correctly, I don't think the "first"/original Thanksgivings in the early 1600s actually even involved turkey. When the Puritans (English ex-patriots thumbing their noses at the Church of England ) settled, they actually banned Christmas as a celebration in the "festive" sense. As a sort-of consolation prize, a very small group of Puritans started Thanksgiving (I don't remember when it originally was) as a religious day to give thanks to God, which was concluded with a meal that included some of the traditional foods that were otherwise eaten at Christmas, like plum pudding and mincemeat pie. The really hardcore puritans actually wanted the holiday to not include food at all, and some even thought people should fast. But that didn't really happen, as the idea of the "giving thanks" feast continued to evolve and became more about the meal than the religious aspect of it.

As colonists left Massachusetts and spread south, they took the Thanksgiving idea with them, which helped spread the idea. Skip ahead about 100 or so years to the 1700s when George Washington was president - and bam, Washington declares Thanksgiving an official holiday. As for why the turkey - probably because they're big, they feed a lot of people, and there were plenty of wild turkeys running around (still are in some parts of the country). Seeing as how they can't fly, they're a pretty easy target to hunt, too. My guess as for the timing of Thanksgiving would be that it probably traces back to some leftover pagan rituals that included a harvest feast, maybe November as a "last harvest" since that's about when the final harvest would be in some parts of Europe. But that's totally a theory of my own.

Thank you so much folks my world is bigger again

This post has been edited by malpaso: Dec 2, 2008 - 7:27 AM