Squanto is BFFs with the Pilgrims

The 2010 edition of Thanksgiving Day has past, taking with it the few days when elementary school students from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream Waters get split into Pilgrim and Indian teams and are shown how to adorn themselves accordingly using colored craft paper. Also past for this year are those HUGE DEAL football games, the ones that are so much more important because they take place in conjunction with the bringing-home-and-sticking-to-the-refrigerator of those colored craft paper Pilgrim and Indian costumes. And the awesome trace-your-hand-and-make-a-turkey-out-of-it pieces go up on the fridge too. And then you watch football. And it's a HUGE DEAL.

The football game I watched this Thanksgiving actually did not disappoint. It involved both teams playing below their potential (apparently - according to the people who know many things about those teams) and then a blocked field goal with 4 seconds left in the game, which won the game for the team who blocked it. I never heard my Grandmother scream or yell until that game. I went a quarter of a century knowing her to be a composed woman. And then we watched that football game together. The reason she was so into it was because she wanted one team to win so she could rub it in the face of my cousin's husband, who is a die-hard fan of the other team. It was fun.

It seems like there is another reason Thanksgiving is a Day. Oh yeah, the food! Nope! Actually I was talking about the Native Americans who helped out the Pilgrims when they washed up on the shores and started to drop like flies because they couldn't find a Pizza Hut anywhere. Legend tells of a Native gentleman by the name of Squanto (or, if you asked my sister when she was six years old, "Squasho") who did fantastical things like show the Pilgrims how to build corn and fires, so they could avoid dying from starvation and exposure. This is my understanding from elementary school. Clearly, the public elementary education system has Thanksgiving down. The part that throws me though is the way the Natives are portrayed in popular Thanksgiving canon. The consensus seems to be that they were generally unfazed by the Pilgrims' arrival, and straightaway stepped in to shore them up in their time of need. There is little mention of any feelings of animosity or distrust, unless you watch Disney's Pocahontas, but that is not about Thanksgiving, so it doesn't count. Maybe the Thanksgiving Pilgrims just found a really nice, stand-up group of Natives who had no qualms about putting these squatters up on their tribal land. That's the impression I've gotten, at least. But my thought is that, even if the Natives were cheery and compliant on the face of it, the truth of the matter was a bit closer to this:

This picture tries to make you think, "Oh, check out Squanto, all he wanted was a fancy European rifle and for someone to tell him he was the boss of the tour group! Now he is BFFs with the Pilgrim men!" But we know what was really going on. One wonders if Squanto would have been so helpful had he been able to see into the future to review this weblog's top five list of atrocities perpetrated upon Native Americans by palefaces:

1) The Trail of Tears saga and all events related or similar to it.
2) The classification of them as "savages" to the wider world.
3) The alcohol and casinos. Enjoy your addictions!
4) Their portrayal in Disney's Peter Pan. Really, really sorry about that, guys. We tried to make up for it by doing Pocahontas, is that worth anything by way of an apology?
5) The performance (and logo) of the Cleveland Indians. Again, terribly sorry.

This should shed a fresh light on Thanksgiving. So thanks, Natives, for your patience.