A Thanksgiving Day Letter, 2024
from UUCB’s Honoring Indigenous Peoples Group (HIP)
As we enter this autumn time of rustling leaves, chillier evenings and softening light, HIP offers the following for our Thanksgiving celebrations, as we both celebrate the warmth of our gatherings and honor our Indigenous communities:
- include—dishes that feature traditional Indigenous ingredients, including corn, beans and squash, like Three Sisters Stew or recipes from Turtle Island.
- create—a spirit plate—before eating, place small portions of each dish onto a ceramic plate or bowl, describing each food and honoring your ancestors and the generosity of the land.
- acknowledge—begin your meal with a reading of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address: Greetings to the Natural World, honoring the Indigenous peoples on whose land you live (Ohlone for much of the Bay Area; see this link for a map).
- attend (click on blue font for more info)—
- 3 Mile Shellmound Prayer Walk, 11/29, 10 am, sponsored by Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, from the West Berkeley Shellmound to Emeryville Shellmound
- Thangs Taken, Rethinking Thanksgiving, 11/24, 6-9 pm, La Pena Cultural Center (tix needed)
- Indigenous Peoples’ Day Sunrise Gathering on Alcatraz, 11/28, organized by the International Indian Treaty Council (tix needed)
- learn more & share—
- The Invention of Thanksgiving
- Rethinking Thanksgiving
- Harvest Festival: Beyond the thanksgiving myth
- hold—the dichotomy of the holiday
- the warmth of gathering with family and friends, enjoying love and gastronomical fare and
- the myth of harmony between settlers and Indigenous peoples, obscuring the actual history of genocide and land theft. For this reason, many refer to this holiday as Thanksgrieving or Thankstaking.
Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people. Now our minds are one.
from the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address: Greetings to the Natural World
In Beloved Community,
The Honoring Indigenous Peoples Group
