Wampanoag Thanksgiving -- Answer Key
Name:__________________________________________Date:_______________________
The Children's Museum in Boston has created a website
about the Wampanoag people, including their current culture and history. Let’s
look at a few pages from this site in order to learn more about what
Thanksgiving means to the Wampanoag Indians. Use the information you find on the
site to answer the following questions.
I. Go to the page “Thanksgivings”: http://www.bostonkids.org/educators/wampanoag/html/w-thanks.htm
1) To the Wampanoag, is Thanksgiving just one day?
- Wampanoag people have always held many seasonal thanksgiving
ceremonies. There are several times throughout the year when thanks is given
for various harvests and the gathering, hunting, and fishing of food
products.
2) Did the Wampanoag have enough food before and around the time when the Pilgrims arrived in America?
-
The Wampanoag had plenty of food and relied on many sources, including hunting,
fishing, and harvesting of planted crops.
3) According to Ramona Peters, what does "Thanksgiving" mean to the Wampanoag traditionally?
- “Thanksgiving is a commitment to all living things we accept as food to
sustain our lives. More important than a feast or occasion, Thanksgiving is a
concept from ancient times.”
4) Why does Frank James think Thanksgiving is for white people? Why is this day difficult for him?
-
White people celebrate the beginning of their time in America on Thanksgiving.
The holiday makes him sad because of what has happened to his people since that
time.
II. Now go to the page “Information on Foods”: http://www.bostonkids.org/educators/wampanoag/html/w-foods.htm
5) What is a seasonal diet?
- Things are eaten as they’re in season, such as berries and wild
greens.
6) How were the Wampanoags able to have enough food during the winter months?
- They dried food that they had in abundance, such as fish, in order to
eat it during months when less was available.
7) Name two foods that Earl Mills mentions that you’ve never eaten.
- Answers will vary from student to student.
8) Name two foods that Earl Mills mentions that you have eaten.
- Answers will vary from student to student.
III. Questions for yourself
9) What does Thanksgiving mean to you?
- Answers will vary from student to student.
10) Do you have a seasonal diet? If not, why?
- Although many of us do eat seasonal fruits and vegetables today,
especially if we have a garden, few of us have a seasonal diet in the way the
Wampanoags did. We eat canned peaches in January, frozen sweet corn in
December, and apple cider from last year’s apple crop in May. We also import
food from around the globe, eating things that are out of season in our own
home region but are currently in season in Australia or Israel, for example.
Food preservation, transportation, and trade between nations have all changed
the way we eat.
11) If you could invent another national holiday to accompany the harvesting or growing of food, when would it occur and what would it be? For example, you might celebrate planting seeds in the spring.
- Answers will vary from student to student.
