A popular Thanksgiving hymn begins, “We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.” This Thanksgiving we might consider asking a blessing or two on behalf of our Native Americans, for without their help during the formative years of our history, we might neither be gathering nor asking blessings.

Perhaps the best-known example of that help involves the Pilgrims, English separatists who piled on the Mayflower in 1620 to flee persecution and, after a harrowing journey, landed on Cape Cod in November of 1620. Over the next year they might have starved had it not been for an English-speaking member of the Patuxet tribe of the Wampanaog nation named Tisquantum. Known more familiarly as Squanto (check out more about him on Google), he served as a go-between, convincing his people to help the food deprived Europeans. Our Thanksgiving tradition kicked off in the fall of 1621 as a celebration of thanks for a successful harvest. Pilgrims and Wampanaogs partied together. Too bad the amicable relationship couldn’t have continued. But that’s another story.

Since Thanksgiving and food go hand and hand, we should be eternally grateful for the crops first grown by Native Americans: corn, potatoes, manioc, the sweet potato, peanuts, tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, several varieties of beans, squashes and peanuts. Imagine meals without them.

Also, Natives taught our forefathers how to plant, hunt and fish “Indian” style, instructed them in the making of implements, tools and clothing, gave us cotton, over fifty varieties of lifesaving drugs and, to the delight and/or detriment of millions of Americans, tobacco.

The list of “gifts” goes on and on. Native American devices utilized by Americans over the years include hammocks, kayaks, smoking pipes, toboggans, moccasins and snowshoes. Their words enrich our language: papoose, chipmunk, pecan, tobacco, wigwam, succotash, moose, skunk, raccoon, woodchuck, hickory and opossum. Their names grace many cities and villages, rivers, states, mountains and other geographical sites and features across the nation. Our own Mohawk Valley serves as a case in point with villages (Mohawk, Canajoharie), a river (Mohawk), a county (Oneida) and various streets bearing Native American names.

Some writers, including the noted historian Alvin Josephy, Sr., have intimated that our government might have been influenced by the Iroquois Confederacy ( Haudenosaunee-League of Six Nations). The latter included the sharing of power between the Confederacy and individual nations (e.g. Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora). It predated our government which divides power between the federal government and individual states. Also, the methods by which congressional conferees work out bills in compromise sessions mimicked ways in which the League functioned. Uniquely, veto power was in the hands of the clan mothers who, unlike the men, were less given to emotion in rendering decisions, especially those related to war. The Iroquois had a respect for women still sadly lacking in our society.

Native American influence can be noted in several other areas. Former Secretary of the Interior, Stuart Udall, stated in his book, The Quiet Crisis: “It is ironic that today the conservation movement finds itself turning back to ancient Indian land ideas, to the understanding that we are not outside of nature, but of it.” Along with the idea of living in harmony with nature, Native Americans have provided many movies and TV producers, authors (e.g. Cooper and Longfellow), and painters (Catlin and Remington), with publicly appealing themes. American folklore is all the better for numerous stories gleaned from their rich oral tradition including the tales of “Lover’s Leap” and “The Big Dipper.”

So, on Thursday, when we dig into the drumsticks, corn, sweet taters and squash-topped off with that slice of pumpkin pie-let’s not forget the vast debt we owe our Native American brothers and sisters. The foods, villages, rivers, literature, art, government and very land upon which we tread should always remind us of their contributions to this country. I’d like to finish with this poem, the words of which resonate today, by Peter Blue Cloud (Lakota), in the hope that his prophesy will be fulfilled so that we all might enjoy Thanksgivings in the future.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Tomorrow

We have wept the blood of countless ages as each of us raised high the lance of hate…

Now let us dry our tears and learn the dance and chant of the life cycle.

Tomorrow dances behind the sun in promise of things to come for all children not yet born,

For ours is the potential of truly lasting beauty born of hope and shaped by deed.

Now let us lay the lance of hate upon this soil.

Ray Lenarcic is a 1965 State University of New York at Fredonia graduate and is a resident of Herkimer.