Thanksgiving is for Everyone

Probably before history started in the form of told stories, mankind has celebrated harvest time with rituals and ceremonies. For the individual faced with the turning of the season, this seems only a reasonable assumption. Probably these rites were far from uniform and certainly didn’t represent an established religion as we understand it today.

Before first goddesses (they came first) and gods took over the business called religion, ancient farmers believed that their gatherings and crops contained spirits which caused the living plant to grow, bear fruit, and die. These spirits were released when the crops were harvested and they had to be either destroyed or appeased as otherwise they would take revenge. Some harvest festivals celebrated the defeat of these spirits; others were held to honour and mollify them.

Such rites survived into modern times through superstitions, like the Irish Pooka described in Ireland: Beware of the Pooka. They also are faithfully carried out by Christian religious groups around the world, as they were integrated into the Christian calendar at an early stage to convert the heathen more easily. Harvest festivals and thanksgiving celebrations were held by all ancient civilisations, so let’s look back a bit at what we are celebrating today.

The Greeks

The ancient Greeks were rules by a rowdy gaggle of gods and goddesses. Incest, rape, thievery, and plunder were part of the book of etiquette if you wanted to belong to this illustrious gang. One of these goddesses was Demeter; as a holy trinity she was represented as virgin spring, mother summer, or hag winter. In her incarnation as mother summer she was responsible for grain and good harvests. Funnily enough, she was not responsible for good farming, which was the department of her sister Hestia.

Demeter was honoured in November each year at the festival of Thesmosphoria hailing her as the bringer of agriculture (at which point obviously Hestia showed more promise in farming), the law-giver, and the ruler of just marriage. The feast was one for married women, as Demeter was honoured in her form of mother summer.

The Romans

The Romans were the Chinese of their days. Disregarding any form of copyright, they imported and copied gods and goddesses from the known world and hobbled them together to one or more new religions. They also celebrated a harvest festival called Cerialia, which started yearly on April 19^th and went over three days. And yes, I mean April, because April was at the time when this feast was instituted in autumn. The old Roman calendar was a bit unsteady in the seasons.