A New Thanksgiving Narrative: Opting to "Act-knowledge"
Props to REI for taking the next step and mainstreaming an anti-consumerist initiative by calling us all to give back to the land on Black Friday. And yes, I recognize the inherent commodification, them being a retail outlet and all, but I'm not an economic purist.
Long time readers of my Facebook posts will know that Braiding Sweetgrass has been an important book to me. I've spend a lot of time this past summer and fall reflecting on its many themes, one of which is reciprocity with the natural world, i.e. giving back to the Earth and all its systems because the Earth gives so much to us.
Reciprocity is a particularly salient idea at this season of Thanksgiving. Before I go any further, I need to state the narrative around Thanksgiving—Pilgrims, Indians, feasts—needs to be rethought since this historical feast was clearly the exception in settler/Indigenous relationships rather than the rule. That mainstream America knows more about this exception than other Indigneous/settler interactions is telling. I would venture to say that most Americans don't even really get the idea that the Indian Wars are considered actual wars in US history, settled by treaty with sovereign nations.
But I digress. Back to Thanksgiving.
A day set aside to show gratitude for abundance, hopefully in the company of people we care about and for, is a worthy and excellent idea. Seasons and celebrations of this type, as far I can tell, are common throughout human history. The settler Pilgrims would have been familiar with harvest celebrations from England, some of which have their roots in pre-Christian practices according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. I can't speak to the history of Wampanoag but it would not surprise me to learn that they had a tradition of an autumnal feast. I suspect most cultures in the temperate zone, especially those that experience deep winter, did and do.
Sioux Chef Sean Sherman points out in his excellent 2018 Time essay that Thanksgiving, in many ways, is a celebration of Indigenous food. Turkey. Corn. Pumpkins. Beans. Nuts. Our food itself calls us to remember the land.
Thanksgiving can no longer be a day to consume mindlessly (food on Thursday, stuff on Friday) but a time to give thanks for the abundance of the land that gives to us every second of our lives in the form of air, water, food, fiber, and heat. When you eat that pumpkin or pecan pie, celebrate and be grateful for the land.
Gratitude tempers our consumption of these gifts because as Dr Robin Wall Kimmerer points out, "A gift asks something of you To take care of it." Therefore to our Thanksgiving gratitude we should also add a plan of how can we give to that which gave to us. This is the reciprocity. One idea: pick up trash on Black Friday. This is the least we can do. We can also make a plan to produce less of it. There is more, of course. But we can begin with this.
And finally, in giving back to the land we consider the Indigenous people since people and land, even in this industrialized, technology-centric world, are deeply interconnected. We, all of us, are literally made of land. In the land's wellbeing is our wellbeing and the health and wealth of land is in diversity. I'm speaking ecologically, of course, but also socially. We cannot and should not celebrate the land without acknowledging the first people.
What a full, people-included, land acknowledgement looks like goes far beyond a single day. But this is where it can start. Just one caveat. Acknowledgement is not appropriation, meaning we all rush to become Native and adopt their cultures and ways. No, no, no,. Rather land acknowledgement is a humility and openness to learn, to understand, and allow the land, including the people, to authentically teach us.
So when I #OptToAct on Thursday (traveling on Friday) I am doing this out of a new paradigm of what Thanksgiving is to me. Gratitude. Reciprocity. And acknowledgement. I call this act-knowledgement.
