Paging Gazhekwe

[Pam]

About Jaylen, is it possible that since he was such a "star" in his family and tribe he never learned how to deal with failure or disappointment? Then when something didn't go his way in high school he got angry and lashed out? Also even though he learned traditions, the greater American culture is still out there. I think a lot of these school shootings now have a "copy cat" element to them. Some kid gets pissed off and it's something that comes to their mind since it happens so often.

On a side note, why don't all schools have metal detectors and security by now??

[gazhekwe]

Thank you, Pam. I really appreciate you taking the time to comment on this. It is really bothering me. We put so much evidence on traditions to give our young people some framework, it is really hard to see how little it really matters in the end when someone cracks.

I think you are onto something, he had a severe disappointment, maybe more than one, all in a short time period, and he was not used to it, having been groomed for power and leadership all his life. It a sad sad thing, hard to know when holding someone to a standard is too much. That he tried to take out two of his own cousins, with whom he was very close, says a lot.

[Pam]

My Mom always told us- "Life's not fair", something all kids need to learn.

[gazhekwe]

It sure isn't but amazing how the more it isn't fair, the better we learn to handle it. Another thing my mom always said, You have to stand up and take your lumps.

[gazhekwe]

Legends from the Sky | Official Movie Trailer | Holt Hamilton Productions
Published on Oct 28, 2014


A Native American Veteran, burdened by survivor’s guilt after a disastrous military tour, is forced to search for his missing grandfather after his ancestral land is mysteriously taken over by an Unknown Federal Organization.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4xt9TZMxJk

[gazhekwe]

In this beautiful short film, Russell Means presents the Creed written by the artist George Catlin on his experiences living among the people of the West as he recorded their ways in his paintings in the 1840s.

[gazhekwe]

Ghostly space sounds from NASA set the tone for a hair-raising Halloween.

10/31/14 ICTMN Staff

As the tagline for the movie Alien said, “In space, no one can hear you scream.”

But no one said anything about singing.

The planets and other heavenly bodies, as it turns out, have been warbling away since before time immemorial, though not via sound waves. Their tunes had to be transposed from radio waves and plasma waves so as to be rendered audible to human ears. But NASA has graciously done this for us with Spooky Space Sounds, much the way Earth’s siren song was translated from radiowaves to sound a few years ago.

RELATED: Listen to Mother Earth's Siren Song, Recorded by NASA

The sounds, apropos of Halloween, are downright spooky.

Jupiter sounds somewhat like a mix between a chirping bird and scraping metal, and its moon Ganymede combines the sounds of R2-D2 with the internal-body noises that one might hear during an ultrasound.

Earth is part foghorn, overlaid with high-pitched electronic whale-type tones. That’s “the strange whistle of ultra-cold liquid helium-3 that changes volume relative to the North Pole and Earth's rotation,” according to NASA.
Check out the video version, with dramatic space scenes, for a hair-raising listening experience.

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Read more at

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...lloween-157548

[gazhekwe]

Celebrate With First Nations’ Favorite Native American Quotations and Movies

November is National Native American Heritage Month 2014, and Nov. 15 in particular is “Rock Your Mocs Day” in which Native people stand together by wearing their moccasins [[there's also "Moc Mondays" every week during the month). In recognition, the 20-member staff of First Nations Development Institute has created a list of their favorite Native American quotations and films.

“Many of us here are prolific readers and movie-goers, especially when it comes to things by Native authors and filmmakers or about Native history and experiences,” noted First Nations President Michael E. Roberts. “In doing so, we often bookmark certain quotes or passages that speak to us, both from historical figures or contemporary authors, or we recommend films that, for one reason or another, we think are worth seeing. We think Native American Heritage Month is a great time to share these quotes and movies with both the Native and non-Native worlds.”

First Nations is a 34-year-old, Native-created and led organization that works to build stronger Native American economies and communities. It is based in Longmont, Colorado, but serves American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities across the U.S.

Favorite Movies

[[Staff said their reasons vary – some films are historical, some shine a light on media stereotypes, others provide interesting insights, and some just have great performances by Native actors.)

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner Chiefs [[documentary on Wind River Indian Reservation basketball team) Flags of Our Fathers For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska [[documentary) Frozen River Geronimo: An American Legend Lakota Woman Naturally Native

Powwow Highway Rabbit-Proof Fence Reel Injun Skins Smoke Signals The Shirt Thunderheart Whale Rider

Favorite Quotations

[[Quotes come from Native authors, historical figures and contemporary leaders in Indian Country.)

• "Every society needs educated people, but the primary responsibility of educated people is to bring wisdom back into the community and make it available to others so that the lives they are leading make sense." -- Vine Deloria, Jr.
• "Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children" – Sitting Bull
• “You don't have anything if you don't have the stories.” ― Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
• “What happens when you let an unsatisfactory present go on long enough? It becomes your entire history.” ― Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
• “The economic piece is still missing, since it's so hard to attract industry to reservations, but spiritually and educationally, they're doing just fine. Each tribe has a community college now, and they teach the language, they teach the traditions.” – James Welch, author of Winter in the Blood and Fools Crow
• "Grown men can learn from very little children, for the hearts of the little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show them many things which older people miss."— Black Elk
• “When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours.” ― Vine Deloria, Jr.
• "The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die. That is, the Indian in us dies" -- Mary Brave Bird, Brule Lakota
• “I don’t think anybody anywhere can talk about the future of their people or of an organization without talking about education. Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future.” – Wilma Mankiller
• “We Indians really should be better liars, considering how often we've been lied to.” ― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
• "I'm not saying we don't want to give our kids a modern education, and we don't want to go back in time and live in wigwams. We want to move forward, but we need to embrace our culture and history and still move forward.” – Jasen Benwah, Mi'kmaq
• “Things which do not grow and change are dead things.” ― Louise Erdrich
• "I'm just a human being trying to make it in a world that is very rapidly losing its understanding of being human." – John Trudell
• “Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.” – Sitting Bull
• "A vision without execution is nothing but a hallucination." – Kim Krokodilo, Elk Valley Rancheria
• “Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.” ― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
• "Because woman lives so close to our first mother, the Earth, she emanates the strength and harmonious nature of all things.” – Larry P. Aitken, Chippewa
• ''You will never get the culture unless you get the language. And it will never really be carried on unless the language is carried on. It will just be like a shell of what once was.” – Lance Twitchell, Tlingit
• “Cherokee national identity is and always has been about how multiple forms of difference come together in socially and politically meaningful ways to constitute complex subjects. These differences of identity among Cherokees — whether they are defined in terms of blood, race, culture or some other national substance — are not innate possessions, nor are they passing illusions. Instead, they reflect the meaningful interactions between groups of people struggling with themselves and others over access to power, including the rights of self-determination and self-definition that have long been promised to them.” – Circe Sturm, Blood Politics
• “If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one’s chances of survival increase with each book one reads.” – Sherman Alexie
• “They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse.” – Sitting Bull
• Religion is for people who're afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who've already been there.” ― Vine Deloria Jr.
• “Even small things we do with our original diet – every time we eat corn or squash – we are moving away from the most oppressive means of our colonization.” – Dr. John Mohawk, Pinewoods Community Farming/Iroquois White Corn Project
• “Preserving a culture does not stop with buildings. It does not start in language classes. It is the entire landscape.” – Roberta Conner, Tamátslikt Cultural Institute
• “The essence of the problem is about consumption, recognizing that a society that consumes one-third of the world’s resources is unsustainable. This level of consumption requires constant intervention into other people’s lands. That’s what’s going on.” – Winona LaDuke
• “I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place.” – Sitting Bull
• "We are not as isolated and uneducated as we once were. We have lawyers; we have political rights and a special political status. No longer do we allow encroachment within our own boundaries.” – Ken Davis, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa
• “Books and beer are the best and worst defense.” ― Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
• Before, Indian people had been so defeated, they were always looking for outsiders, for the government, to somehow come in and fix things. But now, they seem to realize that they're the only ones who can save themselves. – James Welch
• ''The treaties are the recognition of tribal rights, not gifts.'' – Ron His Horse is Thunder, Standing Rock Sioux
• “Words are the most powerful shaping tool. Writing, speech, language don’t just communicate fact, they create fact.” – David Treuer, Ojibwe, author of Rez Life
• “Never has America lost a war ... But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies.” ― Vine Deloria, Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto
• “These Indians are fierce, they wear feathers and grunt. Most of us don't fit this idealized figure since we grunt only when overeating” ― Vine Deloria, Jr.
• "Culture, as Indian people understood it, was basically a lifestyle by which a people acted. It was self-expression, but not a conscious self-expression. Rather, it was an expression of the essence of a people." – Vine Deloria, Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto
• “I will tell you something about stories ... They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.” ― Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
• “But as long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone. As long as you remember, it is part of this story we have together.” ― Leslie Marmon Silko,Ceremony
• “The only way to get change is not through the courts or — heaven forbid — the politicians, but through a change of human consciousness and through a change of heart. Only through the arts — music, poetry, dance, painting, writing — can we really reach each other.” ― Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
• Before, Indian people had been so defeated, they were always looking for outsiders, for the government, to somehow come in and fix things. But now, they seem to realize that they're the only ones who can save themselves. – James Welch
• “When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.” ― Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
• “Society is like this card game here, cousin. We got dealt our hand before we were even born, and as we grow we have to play as best as we can.” ― Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
• “... don't read anything except what destroys the insulation between yourself and your experience ...” ― Louise Erdrich
• “And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.” ― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
• “Poetry = Anger x Imagination” ― Sherman Alexie, One Stick Song
• “I didn't literally kill Indians. We were supposed to make you give up being Indian. Your songs and stories and language and dancing. Everything. We weren't trying to kill Indian people. We were trying to kill Indian culture.” ― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
• “It's a weird thing. Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten the reservations were meant to be death camps.” ― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
• "There are bad and foolish people in every race. You have to judge them one by one and then you have to give them a second chance." – Imogene Bowen, Upper Skagit Tribe

http://www.firstnations.org/HeritageMonth

[jiminnm]

Another perspective on "Redskins":
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...9a2_story.html

[gazhekwe]

Ya know, Native Americans have always been a diverse group. And if there are some who prefer to adopt a word most find offensive and apply it honoratively to themselves, well, there is precedent for that among other minority groups.

No matter what, though, that word, in the mouths of uneducated majority group members, who would just as soon come all Privilege Power over any hapless Native who has the nerve to oppose them, is nothing but OFFENSIVE. For an example of the offensive privilege power in action, see Migizin Pensoneau's tale of his experiences at a Redskins' tailgate event.

http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/...the-daily-show

[gazhekwe]

Short NASA video composition, shows a Category 4 Typhoon building off China for seven days. The planet is a living being.

[gazhekwe]

GHOST SUPPERS – PART OF OTTAWA TRADITION & CULTURE STILL ALIVE

BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF / CURRENTS / 02 NOV 2014

HARBOR SPRINGS, MICHIGAN – The following two glimpses into the Ottawa [[Odawa) tradition and culture of commemorating the ancestors who have walked on during annual Ghost Suppers, held annually during the first week of November, were written in 1943 and 1992, respectively.

The first glimpse was written by Chief Fred Ettawageshik, who passed in 1969 at the age of 73. He served as a ogema, leader, to the Odawa during a time before the Little Traverse Bay Bands of the Odawa Indians Tribe, based in Harbor Springs, Michigan, was yet to be reaffirmed by the federal government.

His son, Frank, was instrumental in leading the Tribe during the reaffirmation process. The Little Traverse Bay Bands of the Odawa Indians was reaffirmed by the federal government in September 1994. He served two terms as tribal chairman. Currently, he is the executive director of the United Tribes of Michigan.

1943
Ghost suppers are held each year during the first week of November by the Ottawas in the northern regions of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. To mention a few places, there is Cross Village, Middle Village [[the oldest Indian settlement in the region), Five Mile Creek, Harbor Springs, Petoskey and Burt Lake.

At this time one or two families in the community will cook a large supper, to which is generally understood all the Indians are invited. The word just gets around that some family is getting up a supper commemorating the spirits of their departed, hence, the name Ghost Suppers. To especially honor the memory of those who have gone to the “Happy Hunting Ground,” the family will invite a few people approximately of the same age of the deceased. Tobacco will be given to them if the person they are supposed to represent was a tobacco user; if not, some gift will be presented. Children are given candies or some little gift. Custom requires that these few especially invited guests come early enough, if possible, so that they will be among the first served.

The Indians go from one supper to the other, until they have made the rounds. Etiquette requires that they eat at least a little of each kind of food offered. After the last guest has been served, the remaining food is left on the table until midnight, or in some cases until morning so that the spirits may come and eat.

Years ago, it was not uncommon for as many as six or eight households in a community to have these suppers during an evening. Today with the smaller Indian population, fewer suppers are held, and an effort is being made to spread them more evenly throughout the week. From fifty to seventy-five and as many as a hundred guests are served in some homes. Because of the limited space in the average home, the guests are served in relays. The first table is set and ready around six o’clock, seating from twelve to sixteen people; when these have finished, a second table is set, and so on until the last have been served.

These feasts were not always held during the first week in November. They were held during the late spring and early summer and were accompanied with much dancing and singing and peace offerings. Groups of grown people and children would go from place to place saluting each other, saying, “We are going around in spirits.” At each place they would feast, dance and sing, and throw food into the fire, believing that the spirits would come and eat the food as it was consumed by the fire.

The change in the time for these feasts from the early part of the year to the first week of November was brought through the influence of missionaries, who saw the feasibility of aligning this custom with the feast days of their church, All Souls Day and All Saints Day.

- Chief Fred Ettawageshik – 1943

1992
In the time since my father wrote about ghost suppers much has changed in the world: we fly faster than sound, men walk on the moon, and we look deep into space with orbiting telescopes seeking to look back into the very beginnings of our universe. Our Odawa world has changed as well: the council fires once again are burning and the beat of the drums again echoes from the powwows where people are dancing for themselves, for their communities, and for Mother Earth. Those who have been keeping and guarding our ways have been reawakening the honor and respect for creation that is the central gift of our people.

Ghost suppers are still held all over northern Lower Michigan. In parish halls and in private homes, from Cross Village to East Jordan, from Peshawbestown to Petoskey, in Charlevoix, Harbor Springs, and Burt Lake, families are honoring their ancestors and keeping sacred fires burning. The people come by the hundreds to visit each other, tell stories, and honor the ancestors, teaching our children the old ways while preparing to walk with pride into the future.

- Frank Ettawageshik – 1992

Editor’s Note: A portion of this material appears in “Star, Songs and Water Spirits: A Great Lakes Native Reader.” Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[gazhekwe]

An emotional and passionate rendition of this Sam Cooke classic. All proceeds from the sale of "A Change is Gonna Come" go to Jana's 501[[c)[[3) non profit foundation Jana's Kids, which awards scholarships to Native Youth to help them to achieve their dreams.

<span style="color: rgb[[96, 99, 109); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12.2880001068115px;">

[Jimaz]

Very well done. You know a video's good when it keeps tearing you away from other things you're doing. At 80k views since 2009, it would probably benefit from more promotion.

JanaMashonee.com

I like the line "Just like the river, I've been running ever since." It conveys a sense of relentlessness and inevitable destiny.

Great integration of photos too.

[gazhekwe]

[gazhekwe]

[gazhekwe]

This tasty vegetable dish can be a light lunch, served with tortillas and cheese, or used as a side dish with your favorite Southwestern meal:



Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...ge-fund-157703

[gazhekwe]

[gazhekwe]

I would cut the sugar in half and if I was out of blue cornmeal I would use yellow.

[gazhekwe]

When I make posole, I add some nice pork, usually leftover pulled pork with no sauce.

[gazhekwe]

In any case, the people who were already here get no respect or recognition, as usual.

assoud Hossaini/AP

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cites Columbus’ memoirs, in which he ‘mentions the existence of a mosque atop a hill on the coast of Cuba.’

Muslims and Christians Fight Over Which Was Discovered First

Steve Russell, 11/22/14

When Cherokee cowboy Will Rogers said his relatives did not come over on the Mayflower but “we met the boat,” he did not imagine that Europeans and Asians or Christians and Muslims would get into fights in the 21st century over the nationality of that first boat. It’s fairly well known that Norsemen were not only discovered by Indians in what is now Canada, but left evidence of their genetic material and the material ruins of a defunct Norse colony at L’Anse aux Meadows.

This month, several news sources have reported that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took on the Christopher Columbus myth in a televised speech to a November 15 meeting of Latin American Muslim leaders in Istanbul. His criticism, however, has little in common with what American Indians have to say.

Quoth Erdogan: “Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus….Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast.” The conservative Turk referred to a mention in Columbus’ diary of a hill in Cuba shaped like a mosque.

Spain was busy ejecting Muslims from Spanish land, pushing them back to the Strait of Gibraltar. The Moorish Kingdom of Granada surrendered to Spanish King Ferdinand V in 1492, the year that lives in infamy among the surviving Taino people in the Caribbean. Columbus would have known what a mosque looked like, but finding Muslims in the “New World” would have been a terrible calamity, since his King was at war with Muslims and his “right” to claim the land and enslave the occupants was based on the Doctrine of Discovery.

Erdogan’s remarks were met with derision among academics and quickly became a partisan political issue in Turkey. On November 18, The Guardian reported that Erdogan was doubling down, quoting him, “very respected scientists in Turkey and in the world…supported his claim. Some youth of our country have begun objecting to this without doing any research or paying attention to discussions.”

Mehmet Yilmaz, of the Hurriyet newspaper, suggested that Erdogan’s next claim should be that a Muslim, rather than Isaac Newton, discovered gravity.

Most Indian reaction could be summed up, “Pass the popcorn!” We’ve never bothered to compare notes to determine which non-Indians we discovered trespassing first.

Craig Considine, graduate student at Trinity College, Dublin, seemed to get our point when he wrote in The World Post, “People lived in North America 12,000 years ago! … How, then, can anyone discover a land which has been populated for so long, by so many different groups of people?”
Considine has gotten the timeline wrong, but he seems to have grasped the point of Will Rogers’ bon mot about the Mayflower: Who discovered whom?

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...d-first-157942

[gazhekwe]

The New Yorker has weighed in on the Washington Redskins controversy with a poignant new cover for its Dec. 1 issue.
The magazine hit newsstands Monday as much of the country readies itself for Thanksgiving festivities. Its cover depicts jubilant pilgrims dressed in Redskins jerseys -- cheering, drinking beer and smoking cigars -- as their Native American guests look on with what appears to be stoic disapproval.
The cover is a clear comment on the controversy surrounding the NFL team in recent months, with many condemning the term "Redskins" as a racial epithet for Native Americans and calling for the team to change its name.
“This is 2014, and it seems a little late to be dealing with that stuff,” Bruce McCall, the artist behind the cover, said in a statement on Friday. “It should have been quashed a long time ago. We did everything to the Indians that we could, and it’s still going on. It seems crude and callous. Names like the Atlanta Braves come from another time. So, in my cover, I’ve brought the cultural arrogance of one side back to the sixteen-hundreds and the first Thanksgiving dinner, just to see what would happen.”



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...n_6211598.html

[gazhekwe]

Do all black and brown people really belong in jail?



As much as we’d like to think we’ve evolved as a society, racism still appears and must be called out by those who refuse to tolerate such behavior. At Central Michigan University, we saw an act of racism before our annual football battle with Western Michigan University.

What was supposed to be a “joke” on the part of a spirited Broncos fan quickly turned vile as word spread that a WMU graphic artist created a T-shirt depicting a Native American solemnly behind bars. The tagline on the shirt said “Caught a Chippewa ’bout a week ago,” with “Hot Bronco” emblazoned on the back.

Within a matter of days, the media had jumped all over the incident, forcing Western’s president to make a statement denouncing the shirt. That statement was coupled with expressions of disappointment from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, CMU’s administration, its Student Government Association and even the CMU marching band.

[The Saginaw Chippewa have long worked with CMU to exchange respect and mutual benefit over the logo. The benefits remain unequal as racism continues and history is ignored. -- Gazhekwe]

We applaud all of these groups for speaking out against such behavior, however, the larger issue is still unresolved. It is ever apparent in the wake of this story to reopen the debate – with conviction and sincerity – on whether or not CMU should change its name. By simply having our sports teams associated with a minority group, we open ourselves to accidental racism. If CMU cares about being a progressive university, it will reopen its dialogue with the Tribe about changing our name.

Sport is probably the one institution left in America that can divide so many throughout the week, and then brings us back into perfect synchronicity with the click of a remote.

That’s why moments like these are just sad; sad because deep down, past the pomp, circumstance and furious fandom, the institutions of professional and college sports continue to fly the flag of racism in front of millions of viewers 365 days a year.

To say that sports entertainment has a problem getting past its own institutionalized and accepted racism is an understatement – the NFL, NHL NCAA are the very last in line when looking at groups that have flat-out ignored their bigoted caricatures of minority groups.

In the last year, sports personalities and football fans called on the Washington Redskins – the epicenter of the debate on mascots and race – to change the name of the team.

We get it. It’s tradition. These names have history. When groups the Tribe sanctions the use of its name, it makes it easier for sports teams to ignore the realities of using a minority as a mascot.

We contend that a name, with or without a character handing out hotdogs at halftime, is still viewed by most as a “mascot.” Calling ourselves Chippewas is not inherently racist, but is it right?

It’s time we face facts, the tide of public opinion is in opposition to having sports teams using Native Americans as symbols.

CMU is one of the most benign among a group of teams with much more harmful representations. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the lead in this debate.
Let’s help shape the conversation before the consequences of not taking a stand shape the narrative for us.

http://www.cm-life.com/article/2014/11/editorial-mascot-debate

[gazhekwe]

We are so Anglocentric, our history books begin with the Pilgrims and spread west with the Anglo colonists, ignoring other nations that were here earlier, from the 1000 plus native nations, to Spain, to France. Here we learn of an earlier Thanksgiving.

Did you know? First Thanksgiving was held in Florida
Ben Brotemarkle, FOR FLORIDA TODAY
3:50 p.m. EST November 24, 2014

Tradition holds that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621, as English Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts shared a bountiful harvest with their Native American neighbors.

The first Thanksgiving celebration in North America actually took place in Florida. Fifty-five years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, colonists in St. Augustine shared a feast of thanksgiving with Native Americans.

"Not until 42 years later would English Jamestown be founded," said eminent Florida historian Michael Gannon. "Not until 56 years later would the Pilgrims in Massachusetts observe their famous Thanksgiving. St. Augustine's settlers celebrated the nation's first Thanksgiving over a half century earlier, on September 8, 1565. Following a religious service, the Spaniards shared a communal meal with the local native tribe."

Hosting the first Thanksgiving celebration in what would become the United States is one of many "firsts" for the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in America.

"When the Spaniards founded St. Augustine nearly 450 years ago, they proceeded to found our nation's first city government, first school, first hospital, first city plan, first Parish church, and first mission to the native populations," Gannon said.

In 1965, Gannon was a priest and historian in St. Augustine, leading several projects to help celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the city. He oversaw the erection of the Great Cross. At 208 feet tall, the stainless steel structure is the largest freestanding cross in the Western Hemisphere.

"It was decided to build a cross, because that was central to the original ceremony, where Father Francisco López, the fleet chaplain, soon to be first pastor of the first Parrish, came ashore ahead of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the leader of the founding expedition, and then went forward to meet Menéndez holding a cross," says Gannon. "Menéndez came on land, knelt and kissed the cross."

Every year, the September 8, 1565, landing of Menéndez and the Catholic Mass that followed is reenacted in St. Augustine with dignitaries from around the world in attendance.

Today, visitors to the first permanent European settlement in North America can see a statue of Father Francisco López in front of the Great Cross. The statue is placed on the approximate site where Father López held the first Catholic Mass in the city, which was attended by Native Americans. Following the service, the European settlers and the native people shared a Thanksgiving meal.

The statue of Father López is carved out of indigenous coquina stone, a sedimentary rock comprised of compressed shells. The rough surface of the coquina symbolizes the difficult journey the Spanish endured on their voyage to Florida.

"That statue was erected in the 1950s. It was executed by a distinguished Yugoslav sculptor, Ivan Meštrović," says Gannon. "But it was placed in a copse of trees where it did not stand out against a dark background. The plan that the architects in 1965 came forward with was to move it to a site on open ground where the figure of Father López, with his arms in the air, would stand out against the sky. And now, at long last, the statue has been moved to that space. You can see the dramatic difference in the figure of Father López as he's seen completely and clearly now against the sky, and directly in front of the Great Cross, which stands behind him."

The Spanish had only just arrived in St. Augustine when their Thanksgiving dinner was served, and they did not have the benefit of having raised crops for a year as the English Pilgrims did more than half a century later.

The Spanish had to do the best they could with leftovers from their long voyage.

"The menu was a stew of salted pork and garbanzo beans, accompanied with ship's bread and red wine," says Gannon.

While Floridians should proudly proclaim ownership of the first Thanksgiving celebration held in what would become the United States, we may want to retain the traditional menu of turkey, stuffing, vegetables, and cranberry sauce.

About the Author
Dr. Ben Brotemarkle is executive director of the Florida Historical Society and host of the radio program "Florida Frontiers," broadcast locally on 90.7 WMFE Thursday evenings at 6:30 and Sunday afternoons at 4:00, and on 89.5 WFIT Sunday mornings at 7:00. The show can be heard online at myfloridahistory.org.

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/ne...tion/19487907/

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How Do Local Native Americans Celebrate Thanksgiving? November 27, 2014 By Luke Haase It's a true American holiday today, one with beginnings dating back to 1621, when it is said that 90 Native Americans invited 53 Pilgrims to celebrate their first harvest. Given the holiday's beginnings, The Ticker was curious if and how Thanksgiving is honored by the large local Native American population. So we went to the expert, Odawa historian and Benzie County resident John Bailey. Ticker: Do most Native Americans today celebrate the traditional "American Thanksgiving?" Bailey: Yes. I think people look at it and say, 'Yeah, we'll go ahead and do it. It's the best of both worlds." But the real traditions happen earlier in the season. Like the harvest dinner, which is usually done in the time of the harvest moon. As the tradition goes, when you brought the crops in from the fields, you brought all those in for families. Everyone would look at those fruits and vegetables and honor the spirit of those the day they ate them, praying and thanking each one and making gifts. It was and is a very spiritual feast. Ticker: So it's a big tradition. Bailey: Oh yes. And we begin by praying in seven directions; first to the grandfather sun and grandmother moon, then to the Mother Earth for all things we hold in common, then in the four cardinal directions, and finally to all our relations here on earth. The opening ceremony is very solemn. You have people come for the feast to honor and pray, and people speak, and then you have dinner and gift giving. The host gives gifts, and sometimes people who come will bring gifts for the host. It takes quite a while! It's how we began long ago. And then of course the Europeans were invited, which really began Thanksgiving. It was their first, but probably our ten thousandth! Ticker: So how and when did the holiday move to later in the year, after harvest? Bailey: That was done by Abraham Lincoln [note: noted as a federal holiday in 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens", to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.] Ticker: But you have another November tradition. Bailey: Yes, usually the first week of November we have a feast for those who have gone to the beyond...we feed those people and call them ghost suppers. All the Great Lakes tribes have those. You come in and eat and shake hands and have a meal and then move on to other places and friends' houses. Sometimes you'll go to dinners for a whole week. People will travel and come home from Detroit or Lansing for the ghost suppers. And the tradition is you have your meal and everyone leaves or goes to bed, but you leave out food and clean dishes on the table as though more guests are coming and you put food in the fire, all to feed your ancestors. Ticker: What about the traditional Christmas? Are most Native Americans celebrating that now, too? Bailey: I think more celebrate Thanksgiving than Christmas. You know, some have decided to do it over time, mostly because of the younger kids. But a lot of people won't, like many of the Western tribes. It isn't that long ago in their history when they were being very rudely treated. So more families here in the Midwest will. But for us, all three -- harvest dinners, ghost suppers, and Thanksgiving are very sacred to us.

http://www.traverseticker.com/story/...-thanksgiving/