There’s another side of Thanksgiving — fasting
It is well known that the Thanksgiving story we recount today was fabricated in a book by Alexander Young in 1841 when he described a meal among the Pilgrims and friendly Wampanoag as the first Thanksgiving celebration. Only in 1863, after Sarah Josepha Hale petitioned President Abraham Lincoln, did it become a national holiday. How we celebrate Thanksgiving today bears little relation to that meal eaten by the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621, the supposed inaugural feast. Not only is there no record of turkey in the sole surviving account of the event written by Edward Winslow, but it wasn’t even called Thanksgiving and certainly wasn’t a regular holiday. Most surprisingly, a “thanksgiving” wasn’t a feast at all, but rather a solemn fast, a day spent in prayer and atonement.
Fasting from about the sixth to the 16th century meant regularly scheduled periods, such as Lent, the evenings before saints days, Saturdays and sometimes Wednesdays, too, when people abstained from meat, eggs and dairy products. The original logic was purely medical — these were considered the most nutritious foods available, which would generate a plethora of blood and sperm (in both men and women), which would in turn stimulate the libido and lead to sin. Only humorally cold and moist vegetables, salads and fish were suitable foods to restrain lust.
The Protestant Reformation largely abandoned these medieval fasts, though in England they officially stayed on the books as a “political Lent” intended to support the fishing fleet that could double for defense. The more radical Puritans, including the Pilgrims who came to Plymouth and the Calvinists who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wanted to live according to the word of the Bible, stripped of all the accretions of tradition. Because this particular type of fast is nowhere in the Bible, they banned it, along with Christmas, long before the Grinch got the idea.
However, they did recognize certain biblical fasts. Jesus himself fasted 40 days, as did Moses. David fasted, too, and a host of other Old Testament figures. Following the strict letter of the Bible, they decided to revive a particular type of Hebraic fast, which meant total abstinence from food for a specific emergent occasion.
When important decisions were made — before battle, during epidemics, or simply to avert God’s wrath — the entire community would be called to fast while they reflected upon their sins and showed their sincere contrition. The other occasion was for giving thanks and was anything but the harvest celebration of bountiful produce and game we imagine. It was an attempt to show God that they recognized their own shortcomings, and that they promised to improve, which could only be accomplished through self abnegation. More specifically, a “thanksgiving” was used to recognize God’s providence and acknowledge his blessings, once again through prayer and fasting.
It should seem odd that we mistook this originally dour sacred event for a celebratory harvest feast. On a certain level, we do perform similar acts of penitence, simply a day after the gutbusting ritual, when we forswear all indulgence — at least until the leftovers are gone. Moreover, we seem to miss that the original impetus for a thanksgiving was not about the meal at all, but now that is all that remains. Now it is the one secular feast all Americans share despite their religious or ethnic heritage. Originally, it was meant solely for the tight-knit Puritan community of the saved, who saw themselves as an exclusive and chosen people.
More importantly, do we actually give thanks? Not for the food, but for all the blessings we have received? And would it ever occur to us today to show gratitude to God by not eating?
Throughout the history of Christianity, a correlate of all fasts was exercising charity, giving others the food that one does not eat. Conversely the sin of gluttony was not self defilement, but the failure to perform one’s social duty to care for others.
I am certainly glad we can all share a national holiday and eat well and donate to those less fortunate, but there is something important we have also lost these past four centuries, not simply sharing with others, but communicating our thanks publicly to some transcendent being, to nature, or maybe even just to ourselves.