Perry Ground, a Turtle Clan member of the Onondaga Nation of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, will present A Native American Perspective on Thanksgiving: A New Way of Thinking at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Bradford Area Public Library.
Is everything you know about the holiday of Thanksgiving a myth? Was any of the history taught in school true? Ground has studied the misunderstood holiday in depth. He will deliver a historical and cultural overview through a Native American lens.
Ground’s presentation offers an alternative perspective on the history of Thanksgiving. He opens the presentation with a quiz-style format where participants respond to questions about pilgrims, Native Americans, the First Feast and more. From there, the audience will learn about the only primary source document that chronicles the First Thanksgiving and gain insight into the English settlers at Plymouth as well as the Wampanoag, the Native people who inhabited the area. Although not present in Plymouth in 1621, Ground will discuss connections to the Haudenosaunee concepts of Thanksgiving.
“People think all Native Americans are the same,” he has said at previous presentations. “But it was the Wampanoags that would have been at the first New England feast. My tribe, which belongs to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in New York State, wasn’t even present in that part of the country.”
The informative and engaging presentation will delve into the actual events of 1621 in Plymouth, the relationship between the English settlers and the Wampanoag, and how this story became
the holiday known today. The presentation will emphasize the concept of thanksgiving as
held by many Native Americans throughout. Both Thanksgiving, the American holiday, and thanksgiving, the act of giving thanks, are important, Perry said. Giving thanks is something Perry believes should be part of everyone’s everyday.
And, yes, Perry enjoys a turkey dinner with all the trimmings on the American holiday with his family. He has been quoted previously, “It doesn’t matter what your religion or ethnicity is. Thanksgiving is for everyone who wants to celebrate it.”
Perry has been a master storyteller and cultural educator for more than 25 years and enjoys working with people of all ages to teach about the history and culture of Native Peoples. His presentations are lively, engaging, inclusive and filled with cultural and historical information that audiences young and old will enjoy.
