THANKSGIVING DAY
By RICHARD HOL,LANDER
WHAT is this Thanksgiving Day which Americans at home and abroad, civilians and troops, have been observing this week? What is this tradition which all Americans hold in common, and which they will renew this year alike under the blasted palms of Guadalcanal and in the vaulted vastness of Westminster Abbey? Is it a day of solemnity or of rejoicing? Truthfully, it is both. It dates from remote times—as these things go in the New World— and it has passed from being a simple spontaneous outpouring of gratitude to the Almighty into a national festival ranking with America's Independence Day and, almost, with Christmas. Each year since 1863 Presidents of the United States have issued pro- clamations appointing a certain Thursday in November as Thanks- giving Day—a day to be given over to feasting among families and solemn prayers of thanksgiving in churches and synagogues and cathedrals. But the first American Thanksgiving was observed more than two hundred years before Abraham Lincoln established the custom of presidential proclamation during the grimmest year of America's Civil War.
The first Thanksgiving was observed in the autumn of 1621, in the brilliance of New England's first harvest. And the men and women who observed it and ettablished the custom were people from Britain—the Pilgrims from Plymouth who had journeyed to America a year earlier in the tiny 'Mayflower.' That first Thanks- giving bore within itself all of the seeds of today's observance. It was at once joyous and solemn. Joyous because those hardy men and women saw around them, in the maize and other produce of the earth, the first true signs of the permanence of their venture to new shores. Solemn because the Pilgrims were solemn men and women, who remembered the grimness of their first winter and the place of the will of God in human endeavour.
For the first winter had been grim. Winter in New England today is a winter of deep snows from late autumn to spring. In the winter of 162o-21 there were cabins to build against the bitter- ness of Nature, and Indians to repel, and the slender stores brought in the ' Mayflower ' must be made to carry through until the soil could be planted and the harvest reaped. Even before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock on the .Massachusetts shore, which to this day is kept as an American shrine, they had signed in the cabin of the ship their " Mayflower Compact," in which the men pledged themselves, each to the other, to build a community which would be permanent and self-respecting and governed by the laws of England and of humanity.
But between the signing of a parchment and actuality lay the winter and the Indians and all the age-old perils of pioneering. During the first winter an appalling number of the tiny 'Mayflower ' party died and were buried in the frozen earth of New England. In one point the Pilgrims were fortunate An Indian chief of the neigh- bourhood, Massosoet by name, found it in his heart to assist the little colony. While Captain Miles Standish and the men protected their pitiful log cabins from other marauding tribes, Massosoet was kind. He brought food and helped Ahem build the tiny village.
When the first spring came to melt the snow, the 'Mayflower' hoisted her sails and stood put to the east and Plymouth—home to those who remained of the Pilgrims. Every man and woman who.survived was given the opportunity to return with the 'Mayflower.' None did.
From the violence of the winter which had decimated their band they had gathered the strength and tenacity to struggle against the virgin violence of the New World. They waved the ' Mayflower ' on her way and set about the business of making good the winter's gains. They built their cabins sturdier and with more skill. They felled the trees and planted their crops. They found the wild turkeys in the circling woods and shot them with wide-mouthed blunder- busses. They defended their village and watched the maize grow to tasselled green.
Through the warm New England summer they tended and husbanded and consolidated their victories over hardship. When the autumn came the first harvest was full and good, sufficient to stand them against the second winter. And because the Pilgrims were men and women of solemnity, they chose a day for especial thanks to the Almighty for what had come to them. And because the Pilgrims were also ordinary men and women who had borne much, they set the same day for a joyous festival as their right after so much hardship. First, on that day, they prayed fervently in their little log church, prayers of men and women who, though they had little of the world's goods, were thankful for the serenity that stems from freedom and life come by the hard way. And after church, in the bright New England afternoon, they sat at long rude tables in the open and banqueted on what they had. grown and harvested, on corn and pumpkin, on wild turkey and fish from Massachusetts Bay. It is recorded that the chief Massosoet, who had been their friend, banqueted with them and smoked his long pipe in approval of what the white men and women had done.
That, then, was the first thanksgiving. America has come a long way in the years between. In New England the custom of its observance never languished. In other colonies is was longer in becoming a true tradition of a people. Throughout the War of the American Revolution Congress annually recommended Days of Thanksgiving for prayers for peace. In 1789, after the adoption of the American Constitution, President George Washington named a day. In that year also the Episcopal Church in America formally recognised the civil Government's right to appoint such a feast. The Roman Catholic Church did the same in 1588.
Through times of peace and times of national crisis, Thanksgiving Day in America has retained its dual character of joy and religious significance. As a Bank holiday it permits families to join together in morning churchgoing and noonday feasting. Because the Pilgrims dined on turkey, the turkey (roasted) has become the favourite Thanksgiving dinner piece. As such, too, it is, almost officially, the national bird. Several thousand turkeys were shipped to Britain by the United States Army for the troops' Thanksgiving Dinner, but these have been given to British hospitals. As in times of peace, the observance of Thanksgiving in America is one more of joy than solemnity, so this year Americans everywhere are observing their wartime Thanksgiving more in its religious character. American troops in the London area have offered their prayers in Westminster Abbey, graciously placed at their disposal. Elsewhere they have gathered for prayer in huts and shelters huddled against the northern blast, or on the sands of North Africa, or on the flight-decks of' aircraft-carriers rolling in heavy seas.
Wherefore, mindful of the solemnity of the time, President Roose- velt admonished the people of America in his proclamation on November 12th:
". . . In giving thanks for the greatest harvest in the history of our nation, we who plant and reap can well resolve that in the year to come we will do all in our power to pass that milestone, for, by our labours in the fields, we can share in some part of the sacrifices with our brothers
and sons who wear the uniform of the United States. ."
The Thanksgiving Day of 1942 may well be historic.
Previous page
