Thanksgiving is not a Christian holiday in the USA
 

In fact it is a secular observance of the generosity that the Native Americans showed to the Puritans who were starvin'. Thanks to the Natives they survived and proceeded to do their best to wipe their benefactors out. Shameful acts that our country has yet to atone for and to make amends.:o

Bet if they could go back and redo things, they'd let the bastards starve! :)

Oh, we'd have -- eventually -- screwed this place up ourselves.

You know where the bulk of that whole "Constitution thing" came from, right? :D

Not a religious holiday, not a political holiday. And as a nation we show some grace. My favorite holiday. The turkey is good too.

If the holiday did not exist and if a democratic congress raised the idea of it and tried to create it what would have happened?

Algonquins, Mohawks, Cherokees-if IIRC, the Sioux weren't consulted;). I could be all wet as we started with the Chardonnay and I'm eyeing that bottle of Jim Beam right now.:D

The Iroquois Confederacy. And, yes, the Amerindian people had their share of problems like hunting the horse and the mammoth to extinction but they had a cultural reverence for nature that's totally missing in white Eurocentric cultures.

John

Was there a mammoth version of the bison?

White eurocentric culture very much had a cultural reverence for nature at 3000 or 4000 BC, e.g. cave paintings. The institution of law and the advancement of agriculture killed it.

Yes, there was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Bison

There is also a European species, the wisent, that still exists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_bison

Then there's a Canadian subspecies of bison called the wood bison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_Bison

Both it and the wisent are larger than the American plains bison.

John

Those Giant Bison would have inspired a crap your pants moment in anyone meeting up with one suddenly!