Thanksgiving Day
Part Of The Ancient Pagan Harvest Festivals

The observance of occasions of religious significance has long been of great importance in the lives of all peoples. In primitive rites to propitiate evil spirits, to enlist the aid of benevolent ones, to ensure fertility in the fields, to celebrate the harvest, and to celebrate seasonal changes, can be seen the degree to which primitive religion was concerned with the phenomena of nature.

When one studies the significance and origin of today's Christian religious observances, one then realizes that primitive pagan rites have been perpetuated in and combined with Christian traditional celebrations.

From the propaganda of public schools every American knows how Thanksgiving originated; in 1620 the small band of pilgrims of Plymouth Colony braved the perilous North Atlantic in quest of religious freedom. They landed in November and faced winter with meager supplies of food that dwindled rapidly. Fifty-five of the original one-hundred two people who came on the Mayflower died before spring. Because the summer was blessed with rain and the autumn harvest was plentiful, the pilgrim colony, appropriately grateful, established a day of thanksgiving and invited the local Indians to share their bounty. Supposedly, this is the origin of the holiday known as Thanksgiving and it is so pure and holy that everyone can now observe this Thanksgiving day with a clear conscience, thinking that it is pleasing to Yahweh.

The truth is rather different. The Plymouth Colony was not the first English Colony to land on American shores, nor was it the first to offer thanks. The first Thanksgiving day service in what was to become the United States was held on August 9, 1607, by colonists en route to found the short-lived Popham Colony at what is now Phippsburg, Maine. After their two ships had reached one of the Georges Islands off the Maine coast, they gave thanks to God for their 'happy meeting and safe arrival into the country.'

The first permanent English settlement in America was founded at Jamestown, on the James River in Virginia, also in 1607. As early as December 4, 1619, the settlers set aside a day to give thanks for the survival of their small company. Their day of thanks continued to be observed on December 4 until 1622, when a conflict with Indians almost devastated the colony. [The American Book of Days, by Jane M. Hatch, 1978, pages 1053-1054]

When they chose exile from England rather than persecution for their beliefs, the pilgrims escaped to Holland. This was in 1608, twelve years before they sailed to the New World. They fully intended to live out their ordained lives among the Dutch.

When they left England, they also took their religious difficulties with them. They divided into quarreling sects, and even found fault with the doctrines of the Dutch Reformed Church. Their religious and financial problems drove them to the decision to leave Holland. The financial blessings brought to the Virginia Colony in Jamestown by the new commodity tobacco, led them to select North America. [Celebrations: The Comprehensive Book of American Holidays, by Robert J. Myers, pages 272-273]

The official historical pilgrim Thanksgiving day was not even a day completely given to thanks and praise, as the pilgrims were accustomed to doing. This day was primarily a show of military power for the Indians.

Thanksgiving, An American Holiday, An American History, by Diana Karter Applebaum, pages 7-11, tells us the true story of the pilgrims' feast in the fall of 1621.

The first autumn, an ample harvest insured that the colony would have food for the winter months. Governor Bradford, with one eye on the divine Providence, proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to God, and with the other eye on the local political situation, extended an invitation to neighboring Indians to share in the harvest feast. In order to guarantee that the feast served to cement a peaceful relationship, the three-day long meal was punctuated by displays of the power of English muskets for the benefit of suitably impressed Indian guests.
   This "first Thanksgiving'' was a feast called to suit the needs of the hour, which were to celebrate the harvest, thank the Lord for His goodness, and regale and impress the Indians.
  Had the governor proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God, Edward Winslow, one of the Pilgrim Fathers, would have written about the religious services the settlers held. Thus this feast was more harvest celebration than prayerful day of thanksgiving.
...but far from epicurean, the feast the celebrators would have been more likely to call a "harvest home'' than a "thanksgiving" celebration.

The celebrators would have been more likely to call this feast a harvest home rather than a Thanksgiving. This American holiday gradually grew up in the unique culture of Puritan New England, an origin more complex than the legend the public schools have nurtured for generations.

The Harvest Home

The Encyclopedia Britannica, 1980, Volume 5, tells of harvest home:

Harvest Home, also called Ingathering, traditional English harvest festival, celebrated from antiquity and surviving to modern times in isolated regions. Participants celebrate the last day of harvest by singing, shouting, and decorating the village with boughs. The cailleac, or last sheaf of corn, which represents the spirit of the field, is made into a harvest doll and drenched with water as a rain charm. This sheaf is saved until spring planting.

Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, by John Brand, George Bell and Sons, pages 16-33 gives a complete description of harvest home. A few excerpts are displayed here:

HARVEST HOME
Alias Mell Supper, Kern or Churn Supper, or Feast of Ingathering 

Macrobius tells us that, among the Heathens, the heads of families, when they had got in their harvest, were wont to feast with their servants who had laboured for them in tilling the ground. In exact conformity to this, it is common among Christians, when the fruits of the earth are gathered in and laid in their proper repositories, to provide a plentiful supper for the harvest-men and the servants of the family.             Bourne thinks the original of both these customs is Jewish, and cites Hospinian, who tells us that the heathens copied after this custom of the Jews, and at the end of the harvest offered up their first fruits to the gods. For the Jews rejoiced and feasted at the getting in of the harvest...
  The respect shown to servants at this season seems to have sprung from a grateful sense of their services. Everything depends at this juncture on their labour and despatch. Vacina (or Vacuna, so called as it is said a vacando, the tutelar deity, as it were, of rest and ease), among the ancients, was the name of the goddess to whom rustics sacrificed at the conclusion of harvest.
   Moresin tells us the popery, in imitation of this, brings home her chaplets of corn, which she suspends on poles; that offerings are made on the altars of her tutelar gods, while thanks are returned for the collected stores, and prayers are made for future ease and rest. In a Journey into England, by Paul Hentzner, in the year 1598, ed. 1757, p.79, speaking of Windsor, he says: 'As we were returning to our inn, we met some country people celebrating their Harvest Home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres: this they would keep moving about, while men and women, men and maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn.'
   Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, ii. ad finem, 17, says, 'I have seen in some places, an image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, and a scycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with music and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres.'
  An old woman, who is a respectable authority on a subject of this nature, at a village in Northumberland, informed that, not half a century ago, they used everywhere to dress up something similar to the figure above described at the end of harvest, which was called a Harvest Doll, or Kern Baby. This northern word is plainly a corruption of Corn Baby, or Image, and is the Kern supper, which we shall presently consider of Corn supper. In Carew's Survey of Cornwall, f. 20 b, 'an ill-kerned or saved harvest' occurs.

The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, Clarendon Press, London, England, pages 108-109, tells us of harvest home and the harvest queen.

Harvest home, harvest-home.
1. The fact, occasion, or time of bringing home the last of the harvest; the close of the harvesting.
2. The festival or merry-making to celebrate the successful homing of the corn, called in Scotland 'the kirn'. (Now rarely held.)

Harvest queen. A name given a. to Ceres, the goddess of agriculture and crops; b. to a young woman chosen from the reapers (or an image or doll dressed up, cf. harvest-doll), to whom was given a post of honour at the harvest-home.

Thanksgiving, An American Holiday, An American History, Applebaum, pages 19-29, tells us the truth about the ancestors of this holiday.

...Neither created intentionally nor copied from a paradigmatic "first Thanksgiving,'' the new celebration was a synthesis of four distinct and ancient traditions... The newborn Thanksgiving holiday had a Puritan "mother'' from Connecticut, a Pilgrim "father'' from Plymouth and, for "grandparents,'' four traditions from the Old World.

Harvest Home
New Englanders came from Old England, where the Harvest Home - one of the "grandparents" of Thanksgiving_was celebrated. The Harvest Home was a holiday on which the villagers joined together to bring together the last loads of grain from the fields and share a merry feast when the work was done. English villages followed local harvest customs; some dressed a maiden in white to ride atop a loaded cart as "Queen of the Harvest." Others fashioned a figure from the grain itself to be robed in a white gown and set in the center of a circle of rejoicing farmers. There was sufficient taint of idol worship and evidence of licentious behavior in the old English Harvest Home for Puritans to reject the custom summarily.

Christmas
Like the Harvest Home, Christmas - another of the old-world "grandparents" of Thanksgiving_was remembered but not celebrated by the Puritans.

Civil Proclamations
Thanksgiving Day, our unique American holiday, ought not to be confused with still a third "grandparent," the special days of thanksgiving proclaimed by civil authorities in Europe and throughout the American colonies.
   Puritan New England undoubtedly drew upon the tradition of civic thanksgivings in creating the new holiday.

Religious Proclamations
Fourth "grandparent" to the American Thanksgiving Day was the tradition of individual Puritan congregations declaring days of thanksgiving and prayer.

Synthesis of the Traditions
The Thanksgiving holiday born in Puritan New England in the 1630's and 1640's was shaped by four tra-ditions:_the Harvest Home, Christmas, proclamations of civic thanksgiving and congregational days of thanksgiving and prayer.
   When Connecticut made Thanksgiving Day an annual festival for general causes, however, a new holiday was born. Thanksgiving in Connecticut was held every autumn, not for special reasons, but in gratitude for the ordinary blessings of the "year past" and for the "fruits of the earth." It was held whether the harvest was abundant or meager and regardless of events that had befallen the colony since the previous Thanksgiving Day.

Connecticut made Thanksgiving day an annual festival for the ordinary blessings of the year past and for the fruits of the earth, a new holiday was born which was based upon ancient, pagan practices. The American Book of Days, page 1053, tells us:

Although Thanksgiving is one of the most popular holidays in the United States, the idea of setting aside a day to express gratitude for good fortune did not originate in this country. In ancient times many peoples held special festivals in the autumn to give thanks for bountiful harvests. The Greeks honored Demeter, their goddess of agriculture, with a nine-day celebration, and in a similar fashion the Romans paid tribute to Ceres (identified with Demeter). After the crops had been gathered, the Anglo-Saxons rejoiced at a "harvest home,'' which featured a hearty feast. In Scotland the harvest celebration was known as a kirn and included special church services and a substantial dinner.
   Thus, since most of the settlers who came to America probably had known some form of thanksgiving day in their homelands, it is not surprising that they transplanted this custom to the New World.

Celebrations: The Comprehensive Book of American Holidays, by Robert J. Myers, pages 271-272, tells us:

The Pilgrims, who in 1621 observed our initial Thanksgiving holiday, were not a people especially enthusiastic about the celebration of festivals. In fact, these austere and religious settlers of America would have been dismayed had they known of the long and popular history of harvest festivals, of which their Thanksgiving was only the latest.
   The harvest festival, with its attendant rites, seems to have spread out from a relatively small area of land, from Egypt and Syria and Mesopotamia. The first or the last sheaf of wheat was offered to the "Great Mother,'' or the "Mother of the Wheat''—for the earth-power was essentially a feminine force. Astarte was the Earth Mother of the ancient Semites; to the Phrygians she was Semele; under the name of Demeter she was worshiped by the Greeks at the famous Eleusinian Mysteries; Ceres, the Roman goddess of corn, presided over the October Cerelia.
   The Jews celebrate two harvest festivals: Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks in the spring, and Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, which is in the fall.
   In our own hemisphere, among the Aztecs of Mexico, the harvest took on a grimmer aspect. Each year a young girl, a representation of Xilonen, the goddess of the new corn, was beheaded. The Pawnees also sacrificed a girl. In a more temperate mood, the Cherokees of the American Southeast danced the Green Corn Dance and began the new year at harvest's end.

Thanksgiving for the plentiful foods did not just come into the mind of Governor Bradford in the year 1621 c.e. as some imagine. On the contrary, the pagan harvest festivals can be traced to the land of Ancient Babylon and the worship of the original Great Mother. Unger's Bible Dictionary tells us that Astarte is the Greek name for Ashtoreth, the Canaanite Goddess of sensual love, maternity, and fertility. Licentious worship was conducted in her honor at her shrines.

Our Wonderful World, by Grolier Incorporated, Volume 17, page 220, tells us of the harvest festivals.

The Harvest Festivals
We often think of Thanksgiving as an American holiday, begun by the Pilgrims in Plymouth in 1621. Actually a thanksgiving for the annual harvest is one of the oldest holidays known to mankind, though celebrated on different dates.
  The Romans celebrated their Thanksgiving early in October. The holiday was dedicated to the goddess of the harvest, Ceres, and the holiday was called Cerelia.

From Rome to the New World
The Christians took over the Roman holiday and it became well established in England, where some of the Roman customs and rituals for this day were observed long after the Roman Empire had disappeared.
  In England the "harvest home'' has been observed continuously for centuries. The custom was to select a harvest queen for this holiday. She was decorated with the grain of their fields and the fruit of their trees. On Thanksgiving Day she was paraded through the streets in a carriage drawn by white horses. This was a remnant of the Roman ceremonies in honor of Ceres. But the English no longer thought of Ceres or cared much about her. They went to church on this day and sang their Thanksgiving songs.
  The Pilgrims brought the "harvest in" to Massachusetts. But they gave it a slightly new meaning, since they were thankful for much more than their harvest.

Collier's Encyclopedia, 1980, Volume 13, page 309, tells us of Isis, an ancient Egyptian Goddess who absorbed the attributes of Ernutet (Thermuthis), the harvest Goddess:

ISIS [ai'sis], an ancient Egyptian goddess whose name may indicate that she was originally a deification of the royal throne. Isis absorbed numerous other divinities, especially the harvest goddess Ernutet (Ther-muthis), and was frequently equated with the cow-goddess Hathor. Owing to Isis' role as faithful wife of Osiris and protector of the infant Horus, she became a powerful source of magical protection, much sought by worshipers in sickness and trouble.

Isis was identified with Hathor, the Horned Cow Goddess. The Yearbook of English Festivals, by Dorothy Gladys Spicer, 1954, page 145, shows that horns are still used in the pagan harvest festivals today.

Most pleasing of all the decorations are four spirally woven straw cones hanging from the pulpit stand. Each cornucopia is tasseled with ears of wheat. 'Those are horns of plenty,' the old vicar explains. Each year they are loaned as harvest decorations.

The Universal World Reference Encyclopedia, 1948, Volume 5-6, tells us of Demeter, the Greek version of the Egyptian Goddess Isis:

Demeter (de-me'ter), one of the principal Grecian deities, the great mother goddess, the nourishing and fertilizing principle of nature... By the Romans she was called Ceres.

Collier's Encyclopedia, Volume 8, page 74, then says:

DEMETER She was the corn goddess, and her name has been explained as "grain-mother" or "earth-mother." The mother of Persephone by Zeus, Demeter left Olympus when her daughter was carried off to the underworld by Pluto; she searched for Persephone throughout the world and the earth grew barren from neglect. When Persephone was restored to her for two thirds of each year, the earth again became fruitful for that period.

The Universal World Reference Encyclopedia, Volume 3-4, tells us of Ceres, the Roman version of Greek Demeter and Egyptian Isis:

Ceres (se'rez), the daughter of Saturn and Vesta, and goddess of grain, harvests, and tillage. To Jupiter she bore a daughter, Proserpine. Ceres corresponds with the Isis of the Egyptians and the Demeter of the Greeks.

The cute story of Demeter going into the underworld to find her kidnaped daughter, Proserpina-Persephone is rehearsed through the Eleusian Mysteries—the ancient Mystery Fertility Religion. Collier's Encyclopedia, Volume 16, pg. 349-350, tells of the Mystery Religions of The Great Mother:

In spite of the protests of such men as Euripides and Plato the mystery religions continued to make converts because they supplied something which neither the religion of the Olympic gods nor the philosophers of Greece could offer. This was especially true of the Eleusinian mysteries which may have had their origin in Egypt. In these ceremonies, Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, was represented as weeping over her daughter Persephone... By a natural development, these mysteries came to teach that, just as the vegetation was reborn in the spring, after its death in the autumn, so the initiates might be reborn after death.

Collier's, Volume 9, page 83, then tells us the significance of the Mystery Religions in the lives of those who participated in this worship of the Great Mother:

The mysteries represented to the ancients the deepest religious experience and the only means to divest death of its terror.

Pagan men and women offered up sacrifices and prayers to these forces of the mystery religion, which they believed controlled the workings of nature. Their hope in offering this worship was to ward off catastrophe, ensure fine hunting, obtain bountiful harvests, and live beyond the grave.

The primitive mystery worship was set in the cycle of sun worship. In the spring of the year, man sought fertility for himself and for his land. Bountiful crops would assure food for himself and his household. It was during this springtime of the year, at the vernal equinox, that the Goddess he worshiped was fertilized by the God he worshiped.

In the summer of the year, the hot, arid land he lived upon became brown and barren. At this summertime, directly on the summer solstice, Proserpina-Persephone went into the underworld to remain until the time for vegetation to begin growing in the fall of the year.

At the autumn of this yearly cycle the sun started dying. The days grew shorter as the nights grew longer. At the fall of the year, directly on the autumn equinox, the Goddess he worshiped began to weep for the lost (or murdered in other mythologies) Goddess (or God).

At the winter solstice the sun started to come back to life as the days started growing longer and the nights shorter. Life would be assured for another year. The Goddess who had been fertilized at the previous vernal equinox gave birth to a son at the winter solstice. The God had been reborn.

Such was the cycle of the primitive fertility religions portrayed through cute stories which effectively hid the vile, hideous meaning behind them. Thanksgiving day worship is merely the ancient fertility rites veneered with the respectability of Christianity. However, the fact still remains, that it is ancient fertility worship.

The Apostle Shaul has told us emphatically that the things the Gentiles sacrifice are sacrificed to the demons, and we are not to have any fellowship with this demon worship. How much plainer can we be told?

Romans 12:2—
And do not be conformed to the pattern of this world; but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may be able to test and prove what is the righteous, and acceptable, and perfect will of Yahweh.

Yaaqob 1:27—
Religion that is pure and undefiled before Yahweh our Father, is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

In effect, what the Apostle Yaaqob was telling us was to keep ourselves undefiled from the ways of this world.

I Yahchanan 2:15-17—
15 Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
17 And the world passes away, with the lust that is in it; but he who does the will of Yahweh abides forever.

I Yahchanan 5:19—
We know that we belong to Yahweh, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

Like so many churches and denominations today, the pilgrims wanted to do it their way and not Yahweh's way. Is it any wonder then, that the pilgrims were just as deceived as the churches and assemblies are today?

The world still loves this holiday, for it is now the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, which is so dear to merchants everywhere, and the signal for innumerable football games, so dear to fans everywhere.

When anyone, or any book, tries to tell you that Thanksgiving day is really in honor of Yahweh, you will know differently.

Yahweh has given us, through His Holy Scriptures, His Holy Feast Days. The Feast of Tabernacles is the Feast of Ingathering for the people of Yahweh. Yahweh tells His people to keep His Feasts in Leviticus 23. Yahweh's people do not defile themselves with the holidays of this world.