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Heritage Programs

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

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Celebrate November!  National Native American Indian Heritage Month!

Native American Heritage Day - the Friday after Thanksgiving Day
       leaf 3Kilchilachqoak - Autumn - Time of the Grasshoppers

leaf 1Pooxit - Time of the falling leaves             Tachquoak - Fall  leaf 2

 

Corn & pumpkin 1Due to space limitations, the following links will be available through November only.  

Donations are gratefully accepted to maintain and expand this website.  You can contribute via PayPal at http://www.whentheshadbushblooms.net
Please send Elen an e-note with your donation. 
You can also purchase a signed & dedicated copy of
When the Shadbush Blooms at
http://www.whentheshadbushblooms.net. 

There are a lot of links on this page!  It will be updated in mid November.

 

"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.  sobarierecipe Plimoth Plantation

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

November as Native American Indian
History Month - An Introduction
(start here)

http://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/index.html

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

Census Facts Nov. 2010


Native Women Warriors in the Military - visit Women's Pages


Code Talkers in WWII - visit Warriors Page


Issues to Consider

NAHM Note


Thanksgiving Day Background & Native Points of View 

Links to Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian

These links have resources for teachers, parents and group leaders, copy & paste them into your browser -

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/american-indian-heritage.html?utm_source=smithsonianinsider&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20101104-insider

http://nmai.si.edu/education/files/thanksgiving_poster.pdf

http://nmai.si.edu/education/files/SelfGuide_Beauty_en.pdf

http://nmai.si.edu/education/files/NMAI_Harvest_Study_Guide.pdf

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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