You are absolutely correct! It *is* made up, and in fact is *not the original meaning of the holiday whatsoever*.
I don't mean to downplay the heinousness of that mythology *at all*.
But when people say the holiday has origins in that apocryphal story, that just isn't true. It was tacked on much later.
As far as I know, the original was a national feast of Thanksgiving that a woman asked Lincoln to declare as sort of a thanks for the country being unified again. I am 100% sure it had nothing to do with "pilgrims and Indians". In fact, here is Lincoln's declaration: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm Everything to do with reconciliation after the civil war, nothing to do with "pilgrims and Indians". So, my recollection was actually correct.
If the Puritans and the Wampanoag had such a feast, it was a small t thanksgiving feast and retconned by assholes into the awful mythology of the holiday.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 01:20 am (UTC)I don't mean to downplay the heinousness of that mythology *at all*.
But when people say the holiday has origins in that apocryphal story, that just isn't true. It was tacked on much later.
As far as I know, the original was a national feast of Thanksgiving that a woman asked Lincoln to declare as sort of a thanks for the country being unified again. I am 100% sure it had nothing to do with "pilgrims and Indians". In fact, here is Lincoln's declaration: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm Everything to do with reconciliation after the civil war, nothing to do with "pilgrims and Indians". So, my recollection was actually correct.
If the Puritans and the Wampanoag had such a feast, it was a small t thanksgiving feast and retconned by assholes into the awful mythology of the holiday.