Sven Bellamy
Features Editor

It’s difficult to say exactly when giving thanks
began. Perhaps it was when our ancestors
escaped a hungry predator, or survived a cold
winter. What is interesting is that cultures
throughout history have festivals and holidays
to give thanks. Most of these festivals occur,
following the harvest season. What better way
to give thanks for a successful harvest than by
running out to Safeway, buying a pre-plucked
turkey, stuffing it full of bread and spices,
steaming up vegetables, and simmering the
gravy—well, that’s how I
Thanksgiving. What follows are examples of

remember

how harvest festivals of thanks have been cele-
brated in different parts of the world and in
different times.

Some of the oldest harvest festivals were to
celebrate the defeat of the spirits that inhabit-
ed the crops. In ancient Egypt, when farmers
harvested their corn they wept, feigning grief.
The farmers hoped to deceive the spirits who
lived in the corn, and who might become
angry when the farmers cut down the corn
crops where the spirits lived. The Egyptian
harvest was held in honour of Min, their god
of vegetation and fertility. A parade was held
in which the Pharaoh participated. Following
the parade, a great feast was held, including
music, dancing, and physical tests of fitness.

Around the same time period, the people of
Israel had escaped into the deserts of the Sinai

where they wandered for 40 years. The
Hebrews lived in small huts called succots,
which were made from branches, leaves and
grasses. These shelters were easy to set up and
take down, and the Israelites transported the
shelters as they moved from camp to camp.
Today, the Jewish people celebrate the festival
of Sukkoth, which follows five days after Yom
Kippur. It is known by two names: hag ha suc-
cot—the feast of the tabernacles, and hag ha
asif—the feast of the ingathering. In some
Jewish communities, families build small huts
resembling the original succots. Inside the
huts, grapes, pomegranates, corn, and other
vegetables are hung to dry. During the first
two nights of Sukkoth, families eat their meals
in the huts under the evening sky. The eight-
day festival has been celebrated for over 3000
years.

The ancient Chinese celebrated the harvest
festival with the rising of the full moon, which
rises on the 15th day of the eighth lunar
month. This day was considered to be the
birthday of the moon, and special moon cakes
were delivered to family and friends. It was
believed that during the three-day festival,
flowers would fall from the moon and those
who saw them would be rewarded with good
fortune.

In the Celtic cultures of Ireland, Scotland
and Wales, the time of Harvest Home was
marked by selecting a Harvest Queen who
would be decorated with grain and fruit and
would preside over festivals of dancing, eating,
and much carousing.

During the time of the ancient Greeks,
Demeter, the earth mother and goddess of fer-
tility, was worshipped during the festival of
Thesmosphoria. On the first day of the festi-
val, married women would build leafy shelters
and furnish them with couches made from
plants. On the second day they fasted, then on
the third day gifts of seed, corn, fruit, and pigs
were offered to Demeter. It was hoped that the
offerings would please Demeter and ensure a
good harvest in the following year.

As with many other things, the Romans
copied the Greek harvest festival. The Roman
name for Demeter was Ceres, goddess of agri-
culture. Like the Greeks the Romans offered
up corn, grains, fruit and pigs to Ceres.
“Ceres” is also the origin for the English word
“cereal.”

During the medieval time period in many
parts of Europe, the Feast of St. Martin of
Tours, or Martinmas was recognized as the fes-
tival of giving thanks. This holiday occurred
on the 11th day of November and was carried
on into modern times up until the end of the

First World War, when Martinmas conflicted
with Armistice Day, which signified the end of
the Great War.

The European concept of Thanksgiving was
carried to the New World by the first explor-
ers. It is somewhat debated whether the first
Thanksgiving was celebrated. In
Newfoundland around 1576 when Sir Martin
Frobisher failed to find the spice islands of the
Caribbean, landing instead on the sub-zero
shores of Newfoundland, he held a feast in cel-
ebration of finding land, and spent two years
mining gold and filling his ships hold, only to
return to England and find out that he had
crossed the ocean carrying a ship load full of
iron pyrite (fool’s gold).

Around the Samuel de
Champlain had established a settlement which
he named Port Royale in the Bay of Fundy.
Champlain had to keep his men from mutiny
and established the “Order of Good Cheer,”

which entreated each member of the crew to

same time,

host a dinner and evenings entertainment.
The settlement at Port Royale failed, but
Champlain returned to found the settlements
of Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City early in the
1600s. He continued with his tradition of
Thanksgiving and invited the surrounding
Huron peoples to join in the festivities.
Making peace with the Indigenous peoples
around Quebec assured the Europeans’ sur-
vival in the New World.

1621, the Mayflower landed
Plymouth. This was, and in some cases still is,
claimed to be the first Thanksgiving in the
New World. The pilgrims who landed made
friends with the Aboriginals of the area and
shared the bounties of their first harvest in the
New World. There is another version of the

Plymouth story, where the pilgrims, half-

In in

starved and suffering from scurvy and dysen-
tery drag themselves off the Mayflower to be
nursed back to health by the Indigenous peo-
ples.

In 1879, ten years after confederation, the
Canadian Parliament formally declared
November 6 as Thanksgiving.

However, the end of the First World War
saw Thanksgiving being celebrated on a day
during the week before Armistice Day. The
November 6 date was changed in 1931, when
Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance
Day.

On January 31, 1957, the Parliament of
Canada proclaimed: “A Day of General
Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the boun-
tiful harvest with which Canada has been
blessed...to be observed on
Monday in October.”

the second

 

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