It is Thanksgiving, and one of the best times to be a food lover. In fact, by this time you may already be halfway through your family celebrations. I mean really, if you are reading this and haven’t had a piece of pumpkin pie yet, go get yourself some. Unless you’re saving room for the main course, then I suppose I can understand it. Regardless, I happened upon this Thanksgiving wondering what other societies and nations do during their Thanksgiving seasons. Surely other parts of the world have to be celebrating such an amazing holiday! With that line of thought, I dove deep into reading about Thanksgiving in our past, and Thanksgiving among other cultures of the world.
First of all, starting with Thanksgiving in our past, which actually tended to be more related to the harvest cycle than anything else. In November of 1621, the pilgrim’s first corn harvest proved successful, the celebratory feast that followed was a great way to bring the community together, not only that but bring in Native American allies from the outskirting regions. It’s important to also note that Plymouth was not the only place where such a celebratory feast was had. In fact, many historians find that in 1565 a Spanish fleet of ships came ashore planted a cross, and formed the new settlement of St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States. From this discrepancy, we could reason that there we’re plenty more Thanksgiving harvest feasts that were had during the infancy of European settlement in the Americas.
However, the idea of a harvest festival was never one that was introduced by European settlers. In fact historians have noted that there are many different Native American tribes that have long histories of celebrating the fall harvest with feasting and merry-making. Indigenous people and tribes from that time oriented their calendar around the natural order of the world, as such they were the first farmers of the America’s. It’s only natural that they had the first harvest festivals. I can only imagine how rich the harvest must have been for the pilgrims to have shared in the more experienced Indigenous traditions.
Now, many of you know that other nations also celebrate Thanksgiving. Canada is an easy one that comes to mind, but outside of North America there are plenty other nations that also celebrate the harvest rites. Liberia is one such nation, as a land that was founded by freed American Slaves, some of the American traditions found there way back overseas. While there’s not necessarily a staple food in this area, a typical Liberian Thanksgiving would consist of Staples like rice, yams, or collard greens.
Across the Pacific, the Japanese celebrate Kinrõ Kansha no Hi each year on November 23rd. The public holiday honors laborers and holds festivals for those who work bringing awareness to environmental rights issues, and human rights. Emergency service workers are heavily celebrated during this time as well.
In Germany, Switzerland, and Austria there is a festival held in late September or October that is known as Erntedankfest. It features similar themes of gratitude filled concepts from American Thanksgiving and is held in rural, farm oriented towns all over these countries.
There are so many more different nations and traditions that I could have mentioned here, but unfortunately do not have the space to do so. I would encourage you to share these stories and perhaps stories of other cultures that you can find with your family, kids, or even grandkids. We
live in a global society, and it’s important that we know each other and appreciate one another in our differences.
