Happy Thanksgiving 2023

Chances are good that if you have paid attention to the news the past many years, you probably know that many Native Americans do not care for the holiday of Thanksgiving. And as someone who is part Cherokee, in some ways I am ambivalent about Thanksgiving myself.  If one knows American history, this should come as no surprise. The Wampanoag, who legend has it dined with the Pilgrims, suffered greatly for their contact with the British colonists. It is for that reason that many Native Americans view Thanksgiving as a celebration of the genocide of Native Americans at the hands of European settlers and observe it as a day of mourning. As I see it, the problem is that the mythology of Thanksgiving has traditionally been tied to that of Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Indeed, contrary to popular belief, the Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims was not even the first Thanksgiving celebrated in North America. Among British colonists, a Thanksgiving was celebrated at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia two years before the Pilgrims celebrated their Thanksgiving. And before that, in 1541, Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his men observed a Thanksgiving. Of course, before Europeans ever arrived on North American soil, many indigenous peoples had their own Thanksgivings. For example, the Seneca have Thanksgiving rituals that last four days, and other Iroquois nations have their own Thanksgiving rituals as well.

For me then, the answer is not to do away with the holiday of Thanksgiving, but to divorce it from the imagery of the Pilgrims. We should stop celebrating the Pilgrims, who ultimately brought grief to the Wampanoag. Ultimately, my point of view on the holiday is best expressed by Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, who said of the holiday, "We celebrate Thanksgiving along with the rest of America, maybe in different ways and for different reasons. Despite everything that's happened to us since we fed the Pilgrims, we still have our language, our culture, our distinct social system. Even in a nuclear age, we still have a tribal people." I think it is important to set aside a day to express gratitude. We just have to make sure that we are not celebrating genocide when we do so.

Anyway, I know most of you probably want to see the various vintage pinups I post every holiday, so without further ado, here they are.

First up is Leila Hyams and a friend.

And here is Joan Leslie taking her turkey for a walk.

And here Peggy Diggins is cuddling a turkey.

Fay Webb apparently prefers eating turkey to making pets out of them.

As does Frank Sinatra.

And it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without Ann Miller!

Happy Thanksgiving!