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Heritage Programs

Native American Heritage Programs shares Lenape (Delaware Indian) culture & contributions of Native Americans.

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           Celebrate Native American Heritage Month- November                      Sign Up

 
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"The First Thanksgiving"

On Thanksgiving, you hear a lot of stories about first contact between Europeans and Native Americans on the East Coast. Most of the stories are from a non-native perspective and gloss over details that don't fit in to the mainstream narrative.

You have probably learned to call it "The First Thanksgiving." 
But that is not the right name. 

 First, the event wasn't a "first" at all. Native People had been giving thanks in this land for thousands of years before 1621. 

Second, as far as the word "Thanksgiving" goes, people in 1621 never called it a "Thanksgiving."  It was simply a harvest celebration.

So visit the links below.

Native American Heritage Day

sobarierecipe Plimoth PlantationNovember as Native American Indian History Month - An Introduction (start here)
This Month in History -
November in History

Links about the:
Wampanoag People - who met the Pilgrims
The First "Thanksgiving" Feast & Foods
Clothing & Food for Natives & Europeans at that time     
ABC's of Native Heritage Month

Celebrate Native Foods!

Contemporary -
Native Women Warriors in the Military
Issues to Consider
Thanksgiving Day Background & Native Points of View 

You Are the Historian – Investigating the First Thanksgiving!
An interactive website for students & teachers!
Visit this link http://www.plimoth.org/education/olc/index_js2.html# to reach Pilmoth Plantation for an interactive learning experience!  Teacher Resource Guide.  wild turkey 

Turkey 

The names of our traditional Thanksgiving bird reflect utter confusion about this Native American fowl.

First, of course, it is not from Turkey — it wasn't known outside the Americas until Spanish explorers brought some from the New World to Spain in the early 1500s.

A variety of stories explain the origin of the name.  One is that Europeans believed it came from Asia—the French name is dinde, from the phrase coq d'Inde meaning cock from India.  Another is that Europeans sometimes referred to anything exotic as coming from Turkey, and many exotic things did, given its position at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Another story claims that the Portuguese took the bird to their Asian colonies after discovering it in the New World, and from there it was spread east to Europe along traditional trade routes, appearing, therefore, to have actually hailed from Asia via Turkey.  More prosaically, several large birds, including grouse, pheasants, and peafowl, were known generically in English as turkeys, making it an obvious appellation for a similar large bird.  Or, people may have confused turkeys with peacocks, just as they sometimes confused guinea fowl with turkeys.  The bird's scientific name—Meleagris gallopavo—compounds the confusion: Gallo is Latin for jungle fowl, or chicken; pavo is Latin for peacock; and meleagris is Greek for guinea fowl, making the turkey a “guinea fowl chicken peacock.”       
From Smithsonian National Zoological Park, Wash, DC