Turkey.

Yeah, thanks, I think. I was in Ye Olde Plimoth Plantation yesterday, next town over, when my rust rocket shitbox stalled at a light, stuck in a traffic choked tourist trap on its biggest holiday.

I never had much use for the place as a kid. Joyriding sailors on liberty were forever asking directions, determined to piss their beer on "The Rock" before shipping off to 'Nam. The all-knowing almighty had the uncommon good sense to deprive Plymouth of the Gulf Stream and swimmable water, the North Atlantic takes a direct shot at its rocky shore every winter storm and only perfect idiots would ever settle there.

As my car sparked back to life, I discovered I'd stalled at the very corner where town elders once stuck the heads of unruly injuns on spikes.

Yes, indeedy, boys & girls. Happy Thanksgiving.

Last edited by choad (2011-11-24 11:04:12)

My UK business associate told me that he was going to celebrate a traditional US Thanksgiving this year... He was going to invite his neighbours over for dinner, slaughter them, then go to their house and steal all their stuff.

whosasailorthen wrote:

My UK business associate told me that he was going to celebrate a traditional US Thanksgiving this year... He was going to invite his neighbours over for dinner, slaughter them, then go to their house and steal all their stuff.

All them naysayers claiming the first shared meal with the local indians never happened. It sure did but salted pork was the treat offered to the special guests. And it actually happened a year before in the late winter then the claimed blessed fictional event we all celebrate. Though not in Plymouth, but in a failing English merchant colony in the next watershed north. And inside a cozy cabin a small group of 8 puritans and their military captain cooked up a feast, served it on the table and invited in a Indian warlord Pecksuot known for his strong opinions about the white man. Not a Sachem he was a minor but possibly rising player in Indian politics.

Where after saying welcome and grace, Miles Standish reached over to Pecksuot, snatched the french knife hanging from a lanyard on his chest and slit the warriors throat to the man's disbelief. The sudden surprise of the action and the amount of blood so shocked the other indians that they were struck dumb. Whereupon the rest of the Puritans lept behind them and ran them through. Reportedly the amount of blood on the walls of the small room was staggering. Meanwhile the other indians and their women outside waiting for their taste of the gift pork were spun into a tizzy at the shrieks of horror and death emanating from inside and began to flee into the woodline as the outnumbered 9 Englishman opened fire to on Standish's orders to execute 2 more of the younger men.

Wacking off the head of the ex leader Standish set out for the next indian village to execute its chief, just for good measure. Choosing to turn back rather then press the skirmish which ensued. They returned to Plymouth with their prize head.

This so panicked the local indians, who mostly were peaceful and living in coexistence with the settlers, including taking in the colonists to the north of Plymouth when their farm failed the previous fall and they faced starvation, that they fled into the swamps. Believing that the white man was about to set the apocalypse upon them. They abandoned their villages  preferring to risk starvation in the frozen and barren New England month of March. And many died in those weeks from deprivation.

And that my friends, was the first thanksgiving shared with the local inhabitants of this exceptional country.

Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2011-11-24 18:49:31)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_IA3stJRoE

Emmeran wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

All them naysayers claiming the first shared meal with the local indians never happened

I'm quite sure the event didn't quite measure up to your Hollywood delusions as much so as I'm sure it wasn't the kumbaya event we were taught as children.  The pre-bronze age tribesmen were not the sort to be fooled so easily nor chased off without a fight.  Machoism was the order of the age and counting coup was a central concept.

Well I wasn't there, but much was written by the people who were as they debated the blowback of such brutal methods. So it was apparently that dramatic. People are capable of the most horrifying things when pressed.

A family friend delved into the historical record and put together quite the tale of what appears to have gone down.

And it was all about counting coup, which is why the tribesman's leader was able to be lured into what he thought would be a situation he could comtrol and count coup on smaller men.

Although Standish claimed simply to be in Wessagusset on a trading mission, Pecksuot said to Hobbamock, "Let him begin when he dare...he shall not take us unawares."[46] Later in the day, Pecksuot approached Standish and, looking down on him, said, "You are a great captain, yet you are but a little man. Though I be no sachem, yet I am of great strength and courage."

Anybody read 1491?

sigmoid freud wrote:

Anybody read 1491?

Ah that is some demented stream of conscious writing there. That guy could have founded the Mormon religion with his talk of chinese treasure ships laden with the real booty of harems of concubines acquired by adopting the mysterious social customs of the middle east
Arriving in the new world to populate the shores of Newport RI.

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

choad wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

People are capable of the most horrifying things when pressed.

Speak for thyself, Johnnie!

Heh, humans, always up to the same old tricks. We really haven't learned much through the ages. Societies' veneer remains thin.

I worried that reference to Longfellow's fiction of unrequited lust for Priscilla Alden was too oblique.

How about Guns,  Germs, and Steel?

Darwinism at it's very best, all hail the victor!

sigmoid freud wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

sigmoid freud wrote:

Anybody read 1491?

Ah that is some demented stream of conscious writing there. That guy could have founded the Mormon religion with his talk of chinese treasure ships laden with the real booty of harems of concubines acquired by adopting the mysterious social customs of the middle east
Arriving in the new world to populate the shores of Newport RI.

???? I don't recall a damn thing about "chinese treasure ships", just Mound Builders, the Amazon,  maize (which ought not to exist), smallpox and hepatitis,  environmental manipulation with fire,  bison  near Buffalo,  NY, etc.

Cool. Maize shouldn't exist but smallpox and hep get a pass.

Bigcat wrote:

Cool. Maize shouldn't exist but smallpox and hep get a pass.

Toss an ear of corn on the ground and see how many plants grow in the spring. Maize (corn) can't grow unless humans pull the husks off the ear and pull the kernels off and plant them.  Nobody's even sure which wild plant was the ancestor.

The mutation must have happened just as folks in the Americas got the idea of planting crops.  It's the kind of fucking miracle the jeebus folk ought to promote as evidence of Yahweh,  except it happened to the benefit (initially) of heathen savages, not White Protestant Europeans.

icangetyouatoe wrote:

My father reads "Christ Climbed Down" every christmas before we eat.

Toe is alive!!!

icangetyouatoe wrote:

My father reads "Christ Climbed Down" every christmas before we eat.

What the hell is that?  I grew up in the buckle of the Bible Belt and I've never heard of it...

*off to search the Web*

...Oh.  That's actually kind of cool.  I now understand why I've never heard of it.

P.S.  Come by more often, toe.

Whatever.  There's no such thing as a native American.  Even the American Indians stole the land.  Probably from these guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzia_Woman
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38384521/ns … -americas/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Cave_mummy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buhl_woman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Verde
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujer_de_Las_Palmas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadowcroft_rockshelter

Dmtdust wrote:

Whatever.  There's no such thing as a native American.  Even the American Indians stole the land.  Probably from these guys:

I enjoyed going over some of these again, and thanks for the ones that were new to me, esp Meadowcroft.

Darwinism, win or die.

Fucking liberals and their embarassment about being the winners in a game of survival.  Fuck the losers for their epic fail.

Tall Paul wrote:

I do have embarrassment about being descended however tenuously from the morally bankrupted shits who unnecessarily murdered and cheated their way to the top.

I have no guilt or responsibility whatsoever for any of the things done by some of my ancestors.  This includes owning slaves, leading invasions of other countries, assassinations, poisonings, breaking treaties and betraying alliances, torturing enemies to death, forcing themselves upon unwilling partners in arranged dynastic marriages, cheating on said unwilling partners, and a number of other shitty activities.

In any case,  we stole it fair and square.

choad wrote:

fnord wrote:

Tall Paul wrote:

I do have embarrassment about being descended however tenuously from the morally bankrupted shits who unnecessarily murdered and cheated their way to the top.

I have no guilt or responsibility whatsoever for any of the things done by some of my ancestors.

No noblesse oblige?

Nobless Oblige has nothing to do with accepting the guilt of the long dead and groveling before idiots who obsess over bad things that happened to their ancestors, who somehow have the weird idea they deserve compensation presented on a silver platter.  I can't take personal credit for the good things done by ancestors and I will not accept personal blame for their misdeeds.