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book review: Dean George
No need to apologize for Thanksgiving myths

No American holiday better symbolizes our national character than
Thanksgiving. While the Fourth of July celebrates America's proud spirit of
independence, democracy and patriotism, Thanksgiving is a spiritual holiday
commemorating gratefulness for our prosperity, freedom and collective
thankfulness to a beneficent God.

A GREAT AND GODLY ADVENTURE -- THE PILGRIMS AND THE MYTH OF THE FIRST
THANKSGIVING

o Author: Godfrey Hodgson
o Publisher: PublicAffairs
o Price: $22.00

Like many historic events, our shared views of Thanksgiving are seasoned
with indelible images: the Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims and
Indians feasting together shortly after the Pilgrims'arrival, plates piled
high with turkey and pumpkin pie.

Wrong, says British author Godfrey Hodgson in " Great and Godly Adventure."

"Thanksgiving is one of the most innocent and happiest of American
traditions," Hodgson writes. "There is absolutely no harm in that, but it
is a prime example of what historians have come to call 'the invention of
tradition.' "

Forget that it's a Brit writing about a beloved American holiday, not to
mention the irony that a native of the country that persecuted the Pilgrim
Fathers would dare to clarify our understanding of those historic events.
Nevertheless, Hodgson has done us a favor, but not before impishly smearing
our Thanksgiving myth with sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie to the face,
neither of which was present at the first Thanksgiving, he notes.

Even worse, he tells us that turkey couldn't have been served because the
Pilgrims' heavy matchlock muskets simply were no match for the few wild
turkeys inhabiting eastern Massachusetts at that time. It was, he tells us,
the Wampanoag Indians that produced the main course of venison. The last
(turkey in the) straw was noting that the Pilgrim Fathers didn't call
themselves Pilgrims, nor were they Puritans in the strict sense of the
word; they referred to themselves as Englishmen.

"The companions who splashed ashore through the freezing waters of
Provincetown Bay had no grandiose plans. Theirs was, from one point of
view, a modest enterprise. They set about no more than building a village,
and what mattered to them was that they were gathering together a church,
their church," Hodgson says.

Hodgson displays a historian's thoroughness when portraying the
Thanksgiving story against the earlier European backdrop of the
Reformation, the Separatists fleeing England for Holland due to persecution
by the Church of England, and finally the perilous four-month
trans-Atlantic journey begun in Delfshaven, Holland, and concluding in the
historic December 1620 landing in the midst of a snowstorm.

And that was just the beginning of the "planters'" struggles, as by January
half of the village population was in the grip of an epidemic (likely
pneumonia, poor diet and exposure) that eventually killed 44 of the
original 100 settlers. (Six others died within days of landing.)

As the remaining settlers perched precariously on the edge of the continent
fought starvation and illness, they didn't realize that surrounding tribes
like the Wampanoags, Pamunkeys, Ninnimissinuoks and Massachusetts were all
but decimated by various European epidemics over a three-year period
shortly before the English arrived. Only the Narrangansett tribe was able
to weather the crises, and it was their efforts to seize the weakened
Wampanoags' territory that led Samoset and Squanto to befriend and seek an
alliance with the Plymouth settlers -- prompting probably the most famous
dinner invitation in history.

Hodgson also inserts cameo appearances by Myles Standish, known as "Captain
Shrimp" due to his small stature; William Bradford and William Brewster,
early leaders of the Plymouth colony and signers of the Mayflower Compact;
and colorful characters like Adventurer Thomas Weston, Isaac Allerton, and
the un-Pilgrim-like scallywag Thomas Morton.

He concludes his fine historical account by recalling the cherished
imprints left by Presidents Washington and Lincoln on the annual harvest
observance, and a poetic acknowledgment that while Thanksgiving today is
drastically different from four centuries ago, it remains a universally
breathtaking and important story.

"One can deconstruct the idea of Thanksgiving as much as one likes,"
Hodgson says. "It remains as a domestic celebration of gratitude, humility,
and inclusiveness. These are not qualities for which anyone need
apologize."

George, of Brown County, is co-founder of Harris-George.com. Contact him at
dean@....

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