Revisionist Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving I am thankful for many things in my life: My wife, family, friends, job, heath, where I live, my country, etc., etc. I really am.

This is what it is all about right? Right?

In America thanksgiving is about arriving in the new world and starting a new life. In Canada there are variety of things, it became an official holiday apparently because of some British king got better or something, and about the harvest, etc., etc.

But listen to the story of the aboriginal side of things.

In America, the aboriginal suffered greatly because of the European influx, bringing deceases that decimated their population, pushing, starving them out of their own land. No less than Genocide.

In Canada? Now working with a First Nation, I heard their side of Thanksgiving. Now of course they celebrate it as family and community. But their story: A village was getting larger and pushing the aboriginal people out of their land. The Chief and a few warriors went to the village to ask them to stop. The village people didn’t like this and beheaded the Chief and put his head on a pike at the edge of the village. Then they celebrated their victory over the “savages”.

Now whether this is true or not is of no consequence, the truth is that this clearly represents how the aboriginal peoples in Canada. Working for a First Nation I see the results of this, everyday. No less than Genocide.

In our revisionist world, the conqueror re-writes history to make him look good right?

© 2012 by DC Lessoway