Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

[Jack]

Native American is silly. By definition of the word native, anyone born in the US is a native American.

[Lestat]

From an outside perspective, it makes more sense than 'native american' applying to anyone born there, yes they may be born there but when in need of a historical context it makes greater sense IMO for the term 'native' to represent those  present before colonists arrived and either conquered or integrated (not that I can think of a case of the latter in white/spanish contexts mind you)

[Gopher Gary]

In Canada, Aboriginal or First Nations are preferred but we (as in Native people, of which I am one) are okay with Native as well.

Does Canadian Thanksgiving have anything to do with the first nations people? 

[Lestat]

Maybe giving thanks for when they are well-cooked at that time of year's celebrations?

['andersom']

Isn't Thanksgiving a harvest celebration in origin in most nations?

[Lestat]

Didn't know there was a canadian version. We certainly don't have it here in the UK.

[Pyraxis]

According to the internet, Canadian thanksgiving was a harvest celebration long before pilgrims got into it with the native folk to the south.

[Gopher Gary]

According to the internet, Canadian thanksgiving was a harvest celebration long before pilgrims got into it with the native folk to the south.

I wasn't asking if American Indians are related to Canadian Thanksgiving. I was asking if Canadian tribes peoples are related to Canadian Thanksgiving. 

[Pyraxis]

Ah ok. In that case I have no idea.

[Phoenix]

According to the internet, Canadian thanksgiving was a harvest celebration long before pilgrims got into it with the native folk to the south.

I wasn't asking if American Indians are related to Canadian Thanksgiving. I was asking if Canadian tribes peoples are related to Canadian Thanksgiving. 

Here's a good quick explanation: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/indigenous-thanksgiving-history-1.4345348



For many Canadian families, Thanksgiving means getting together with family, sharing a meal, and perhaps stressing out about plans.

For Indigenous people, the holiday is also one with deep significance in history and culture, as well as controversy.

Brian Rice, an assistant professor in the department of religion at the University of Winnipeg and a member of the Mohawk nation, said Thanksgiving is originally an Indigenous ceremony.

"All of our ceremonies, all of the things that we do, have to do with giving thanks. So it's part of a continuum of something that's been practised for thousands of years," Rice said in an interview on CBC's Weekend Morning.

Many people are familiar with the story of the "first" Thanksgiving in 1621, celebrated after British colonists arrived in Plymouth, Mass. Rice said they were starving and unfamiliar with the land and how to find food, and received help from members of the Wampanoag nation.

"It was a coming together of Indigenous Peoples really feeding the colonizers, or the colonists," Rice said.

That meal included many of the now-traditional Thanksgiving foods, like corn, beans, squash, wild turkey, cranberries and pumpkin.

Despite the positive nature of the first Thanksgiving with the colonists, relations quickly deteriorated over the next year. The colonists brought infectious diseases, which ravaged Indigenous populations. Tensions also increased when the colonists allowed their pigs to forage into Indigenous lands, eating their crops.

Today, many Indigenous people feel "ambivalent" towards the holiday, Rice said.

"Because for a lot of people, it isn't a celebration and certainly the original people who had that first Thanksgiving, the Wampanoags and all of those other groups, the Powhatans, obviously not. Many of them don't even exist any longer."

Some families, like Rice's own, choose to celebrate, but it's up to the individual.

"If you are part of a traditional-based culture that still retains some of those ceremonies, like the longhouse ceremonies of harvest, you'll continue it in that way. Although, perhaps you'll be bringing in cans of corn instead of the corn that you might have grown," Rice said.

[DirtDawg]

Hey, Pyraxis,

How many other Canadians are on this site? I wonder.  I wish you a belated happy day in general and specifically on your Thanksgiving.

I see that you have gained a nickname from a prominent poster; Raxy?

Honestly, if I was going to "bless" you with one of my nicknames, I might call you Pyra and associate a bonfire at your command as an type extension of your name (awesomeness?).

I have a "friend" who is considered Native American by some but he prefers to be called just an "Indian" (the nomenclature, Native American has no meaning to him since he is native to a land that was existing centuries before it took the name America) and he despises the capitalized word "Thanksgiving."
In his belief system the tradition of thanksgiving was more like a thanksTAKING.
He claims to be Algonquin from southern New York and he rejects the whole white people thing we do every year.
In his view the thanks that is owed has never been offered.

He has told me what his original people were called but it is too many syllables to remember. It has nothing at all to do with York, but their native tongue name for a river there.

Just wondering if you had any thoughts upon the notion of thanksTAKING by so many of us whites.

[Gopher Gary]

According to the internet, Canadian thanksgiving was a harvest celebration long before pilgrims got into it with the native folk to the south.

I wasn't asking if American Indians are related to Canadian Thanksgiving. I was asking if Canadian tribes peoples are related to Canadian Thanksgiving. 

Here's a good quick explanation: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/indigenous-thanksgiving-history-1.4345348



For many Canadian families, Thanksgiving means getting together with family, sharing a meal, and perhaps stressing out about plans.

For Indigenous people, the holiday is also one with deep significance in history and culture, as well as controversy.

Brian Rice, an assistant professor in the department of religion at the University of Winnipeg and a member of the Mohawk nation, said Thanksgiving is originally an Indigenous ceremony.

"All of our ceremonies, all of the things that we do, have to do with giving thanks. So it's part of a continuum of something that's been practised for thousands of years," Rice said in an interview on CBC's Weekend Morning.

Many people are familiar with the story of the "first" Thanksgiving in 1621, celebrated after British colonists arrived in Plymouth, Mass. Rice said they were starving and unfamiliar with the land and how to find food, and received help from members of the Wampanoag nation.

"It was a coming together of Indigenous Peoples really feeding the colonizers, or the colonists," Rice said.

That meal included many of the now-traditional Thanksgiving foods, like corn, beans, squash, wild turkey, cranberries and pumpkin.

Despite the positive nature of the first Thanksgiving with the colonists, relations quickly deteriorated over the next year. The colonists brought infectious diseases, which ravaged Indigenous populations. Tensions also increased when the colonists allowed their pigs to forage into Indigenous lands, eating their crops.

Today, many Indigenous people feel "ambivalent" towards the holiday, Rice said.

"Because for a lot of people, it isn't a celebration and certainly the original people who had that first Thanksgiving, the Wampanoags and all of those other groups, the Powhatans, obviously not. Many of them don't even exist any longer."

Some families, like Rice's own, choose to celebrate, but it's up to the individual.

"If you are part of a traditional-based culture that still retains some of those ceremonies, like the longhouse ceremonies of harvest, you'll continue it in that way. Although, perhaps you'll be bringing in cans of corn instead of the corn that you might have grown," Rice said.

It's the same here. Most people it's about a family gathering, eating ungodly amounts of food and watching football. Being thankful for what I have and then trampling people the very next day to get more stuff.  I think I'm a little disappointed Canadian Thanksgiving is based in the same folklore as American Thanksgiving. 

[Pyraxis]

Hey, Pyraxis,

How many other Canadians are on this site? I wonder.  I wish you a belated happy day in general and specifically on your Thanksgiving.

I see that you have gained a nickname from a prominent poster; Raxy?

Honestly, if I was going to "bless" you with one of my nicknames, I might call you Pyra and associate a bonfire at your command as an type extension of your name (awesomeness?).

I have a "friend" who is considered Native American by some but he prefers to be called just an "Indian" (the nomenclature, Native American has no meaning to him since he is native to a land that was existing centuries before it took the name America) and he despises the capitalized word "Thanksgiving."
In his belief system the tradition of thanksgiving was more like a thanksTAKING.
He claims to be Algonquin from southern New York and he rejects the whole white people thing we do every year.
In his view the thanks that is owed has never been offered.

He has told me what his original people were called but it is too many syllables to remember. It has nothing at all to do with York, but their native tongue name for a river there.

Just wondering if you had any thoughts upon the notion of thanksTAKING by so many of us whites.

*grin*

Heyyy, you're back. It's good to see you. I like both Raxy and Pyra so no objections here. As far as I know it's just me and Phoenix, there have been a few others but no one who's currently active. We're fire people up here, got to be with all the snow. 

WolFish was some small part Blackfoot - any more knowledge than that has been lost - his family, a couple generations back, set out to pass for black because there was less stigma, and even then his father wouldn't admit to the connection directly. He said something like "my aunt is part Blackfoot" and yet the aunt is a full sister to the grandfather. I might have the relations wrong. But the gist of it is that the family hid it, and WolFish was the only one who had any interest in going to powwows or reconnecting with roots. One of the things that's hitting me hard is that he was so excited that we were moving out here closer to Blackfoot territory and then he never made it. He wanted to see what the land was like.

WolFish liked to play fast and loose with holidays, like with names - the idea that a name was not a permanent thing and you earned or took on different ones at different times of your life. He made up holidays too - we used to celebrate Homters instead of Valentines 'cause neither of us gave a shit for pink sugar overload. I think he would have just as soon called it Gatherday instead of Thanksgiving. These all have stories behind them. But he loved Thanksgiving as the start of the Christmas season which was his favourite time of year. We always did a turkey (well mostly him, I did the pumpkin pie) and listened to Alvin Ailey and his mother's traditional Christmas CD that I can't actually think of the name of, but I know the songs very well. It starts with this superspeed rendition of the Handel's Messiah Alleluia chorus which he said she would always play at top volume and catapult everyone out of bed. 

I see it as a harvest festival more than any kind of political thing between Indians and whites. I wasn't even aware of the sickening extent to which people in the USA play that up until I saw the scene in the Addams Family movie where Wednesday sets the whole damn thing on fire (which is awesome,  ) and realized that it was parodying something that actually happens.

I think your friend is right, though, there's not much thanks to be had to the people that actually deserve it.

[Lestat]

I love the addams family. Lol a nickname I used to have for one of my ex fiancees, the older one (older of the two was about 18-19 at the time we were together.) was wednesday, Similarly dark, morbid and gothy. Not as hot as wednesday from the addams family herself, still, attractive (and had at least spectrum traits, or slightly aspie according to her, although not particularly obviously so).

Hilarious viewing too, wednesday and the little boy especially, along with...whatsisface, the bugger that sucked lightbulbs and turned them on..old guy, ugly old git and kinda vulgar, in manner more than words, in a pretty damn funny way, can't remember his name. Not morticia's husband, the uncle i think. The funny thing is, as I kid, if you put on an outer shell of combat pants/boots or big newrock goth boots and lots of spiked leather, what lived in the shell was kinda what you might expect to get if you mixed up the uncle and wednesday addams, particularly with her aloof, detached ways, and the slight delay in response (not developmental, I mean, when she talks in response, she kind of pauses for a moment, considering and calculating before delivery, in her manner. )

That, mixed with the eccentricity and mad scientist bit of the uncle...if the two were mixed and a kid made from the result, that would have been remarkably close to the mark

And I DEFINITELY, at that age, really did like things that sparked, flared, gave off concussive shockwaves or blasted craters into the ground. As a kid I was..not a pyromaniac, and certainly not an arsonist...I was quite an enthusiastic little...hmm...pyromancer...yes, that would fit me back then, pyromancer. Pyromaniac implies a derangement and not being mentally 'all there'. But pyromancer, I think that is much more suitable:D

You can surely imagine it the day I discovered (well, for myself that is, the first time I ever actually PREPARED some by my own hand) white phosphorus. With its eerie phosphorescent mid-dark kind of yellowy-whitish tinged green gloiw, and the way it bursts into flame so easily by the action of air, and coupled with its low melting point, the waxy consistency that enables it to be easily melt-cast under inert gas, as long as it is done with extreme caution (its highly toxic, at least as much, to slightly more so than cyanide [calculated as bioavailable free cyanide anion, C-=N- with a lethal dose of CN- being around 50-60mg and that of white phosphorus perhaps 40mg, although WP is a lot slower to kill, and a burn from the stuff is extremely painful, even in quantities insufficient to kill, and it has a nasty tendency to stick to skin and keep on burning, until it either burns out, burns straight through the exposed body part and out the other side or the afflicted party immerses the part under water to put the fire out whilst they dig the lump or blob of WP out of their fllesh...their arm for instance, around the top of the wrist, and seems to be capable of causing, in incidents involving accidental sublethal exposure causing a burn, neurological sequelae such as muscle weakness and severe motor tremor to borderline paralysis related to the toxicity of the white allotrope of elemental phosphorus rather than the physical burn...)

But, the one relatively speaking, minor mishap aside then there was so much fun to be had. Ever been able to write on things in the dark with it tipped on something, like a stick of chalk, and have your designs glow lurid green, before bursting into a searing white-green flare and burning them into whatever you just drew/wrote them on, becoming visible once your night vision recovers (although its possible to make it just glow, if not enough is applied to autoignite on air contact, takes a fair bit to give it enough mass for the self-heating to make it set itself ablaze)

And it does take a moment for the smoke to clear (burning phosphorus produces massive quantities of phosphorus pentoxide smoke, the acid anhydride of phosphoric acid, P2O5 (although it exists as the dimer P4O10) that is thick, dense, white and opaque, as well as highly corrosive. So it can be a lot of fun but anybody, child or adult must be damned careful with the white form)...but....glowing liquid luminous liquid self-igniting fire and huge clouds of smoke, to somebody with a penchant for chemistry and a child's delight in the world:D



And I presume, given the reference to the nickname 'raxy' (glad you like it my dear:)) that I am considered 'prominent' now then?

[Queen Victoria]

I love the addams family. Lol a nickname I used to have for one of my ex fiancees, the older one (older of the two was about 18-19 at the time we were together.) was wednesday, Similarly dark, morbid and gothy. Not as hot as wednesday from the addams family herself, still, attractive (and had at least spectrum traits, or slightly aspie according to her, although not particularly obviously so).

Hilarious viewing too, wednesday and the little boy especially, along with...whatsisface, the bugger that sucked lightbulbs and turned them on..old guy, ugly old git and kinda vulgar, in manner more than words, in a pretty damn funny way, can't remember his name. Not morticia's husband, the uncle i think...

Gomez Addams - the father, John Astin
Morticia Addams - the mother, Carolyn Jones
Puggsley Addams - the son, Ken Weatherwax
Wednesday Addams - the daughter, LIsa Loring
Uncle Festus- the uncle, Jackie Coogan
Grandmama - Gomez's mother, Blossom Rock
Cousin Itt - Felix Silla
Lurch - the butler, Ted Cassidy
Thing T. Thing - Ted Cassidy or Jack Voglin