What is The Gathering? The Gathering is an experiment in humanity. The Gathering is: a traditional Native American Harvest Dance; Virginia Gourd Festival; Military Veteran & Uniformed Services Tribute; Multicultural Thanksgiving; Kidz Harvest Fest; Trader's Village; and Living History Exhibitors – with invitation to all to participate. The Gathering is a Seed of Thanksgiving and new possibilities being planted in the hearts & minds of the people. The people of this and neighboring (regional & international) communities are the Land. The sponsors, participants, partners, teachers, musicians, dancers, volunteers, exhibitors and hopefully you are the Planters of this all-exciting seed of possibilities. The Gathering is October 30 – November 1, 2015 (launching Native American Heritage Month) at the Clarke County Fairgrounds in Northern Virginia along the Blue Ridge Mountain Shenandoah Valley.

What the seed produces is determined by the level and caliber of commitment to Thanksgiving and humanity that the Planters bring. We are not seeking to recapture the Spirit of the first Thanksgiving. That was then. This is now. Creating space for a new and elevated “spirit in humanity” with level and intensity fueled by deep personal questions: “How can I participate? How much can I contribute of myself and my resources? Who do I know that would want to be part of this all exciting ‘seed of possibilities’ in Thanksgiving and humanity? Response defines the “state of community” within our community and greatly impacts the fruit of the Harvest.

We are trying to be cost sensitive to large families by keeping the entrance fee low; providing honorariums to our Native American dancers, singers and performing artists who travel great distances to support The Gathering; utilizing volunteers to bring The Gathering; and keeping registration fees low for our living history exhibitors and trading post vendors.

Let the Spirit of The Gathering catch you.

Together we can plant seed to transform the ideal of “Thanksgiving” within our communities; while bringing back traditional harvest festivals like The Gathering, helping create a new legacy.

Our goal is an attendance and transformation not to make a money.

News media interested in covering preview events or for more information about The Gathering check out the Harvest Basket online magazine at www.HarvestGathering.org or contact our Executive Director René White [email protected].

Press Kits are available online http://harvestgathering.org.

By Sue Peoples
Co-Chair “The Gathering” Education Committee

     The state of Virginia established the Bureau of Vital Statistics in 1912 ensuring all babies born in Virginia received a birth certificate that included a racial designation. Dr Walter Ashby Plecker (1861 - 1947) was instated as the head of this organization because of his work with midwife education and helping to bring better health practices to the poor.  
     When the Racial Integrity Act was passed in 1924, Plecker’s focus shifted from health and hygiene to racial classification. The doctrine of “Eugenics”; the belief that a pure race contributed to a more stable society, was advocated by Dr. Plecker, which lead to a White Supremacy agenda within Virginia’s statistical record keeping.
     In the Bureau’s perspective, there were only two races, white; which applied to such persons who had no trace of any other then Caucasian blood, and colored; the “catch all” term for anything in-between.
     Due to the limits of the law and it’s “one drop” rule, Native Americans in Virginia, were considered “colored” and not able to claim their Native American identity even though the Racial Integrity Act had one exception because many white Virginians considered themselves descendants of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.

     Not only did Plecker advocate the current records to indicate either white or colored, he also “amended” racial classification to records prior to 1924 indicating “Indian” were changed to “colored” asserting that “there are no descendants of Virginia Indians claiming or reputed to be Indians who are unmixed with Negro blood” and wiping out an entire race with the wave of a pen.

     Sharon Bryant, the first female chief of the Monacan Indian Nation in Amherst County, was a bear of a woman. Indeed, her tribal name was “Bear Woman,” and she cared as deeply for her people and their heritage as a mother bear would for her cubs.
    Not even a month ago, she was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer and given a grim prognosis.
    Tuesday morning, with her family and friends by her side, Chief Bryant passed away at the age of 54. She was elected chief in 2011 and was looking forward to a second term that would have begun this month had not cancer struck her down.
    A lifelong resident of Amherst County, the Monacan tribe was her world, and she would have done anything for it.
    The Monacans have had a long, troubled history in Amherst County and in Virginia. Discriminated against as viciously as African-Americans, the tribe’s members have always been a community unto themselves, mostly residing in the Bear Mountain area of the county near the St. Paul Mission Church.
    Their identity was almost wiped out — literally — by Dr. Walter Plecker, Virginia’s first registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912 to 1946. Plecker was a virulent racist and, among other things, didn’t believe the Monacan — or any other member of a Virginia Indian tribe — existed as a “real” people. Birth records for three and a half decades simply described them as “colored,” yet another indignity heaped upon this ancient people.
    Plecker’s infamous legacy, in a fascinating turn of history, fueled a revival of tribal culture in later years. And it also motivated Bryant in the great quest for federal recognition of Virginia’s first tribes during her term as chief and even before.

Because of Plecker’s altered birth records, the federal government has refused to grant official recognition to the Monacans, a move that would open up a flood of social and economic resources. Only an act of Congress could do that.
    Chief Bryant and other Indian leaders have been working with Virginia’s congressional delegation for years to gain that recognition. In that fight, Sen. Tim Kaine got to know Bryant back when he was governor and counted her as a friend.
    “I am deeply saddened to hear of Chief Bryant’s passing. Bryant was a strong leader for the Monacan people and a pioneer for women,” the senator said. “Her death is a loss to the entire Commonwealth of Virginia, and my heart goes out to the Monacan Nation during this time of mourning.”
    Today, with legislation to recognize Virginia’s tribes in political limbo, we hope Congress will take note of this special woman from Amherst County and do their duty by the Monacans and others. We have the perfect name for the bill: The Chief Sharon Bryant Tribal Recognition Act of 2015.

Barns of Rose Hill, Berryville VA - "Rocky Soul" Native American band Dark Water Rising has caught the spirit of The Gathering and plans to hold a live concert at Barns of Rose Hill community center Saturday, Oct. 17 as a preview to The Gathering.
    To the members of Dark Water Rising, kinship is essential. Ties of kinship within the band’s Native American communities helped to establish the band in 2008. Today, those same Native roots provide the framework for the band’s sound, which they describe as “rocky soul.” More online at the www.BarnsofRoseHill.org.

Donations are accepted for
"Giveaways" and "Raffles" to help offset costs for Indigenous Dancers' Food and Travel Costs
Mail to: The Gathering
    P.O. Box 123 Bluemont VA 20135

Many Thank Yous

This essay by Dennis Zotigh was widely commented on when he wrote it for Thanksgiving 2011. Each year, the National Museum of the Native American Indian adds readers' thoughts on the question, Do Indians celebrate Thanksgiving?

In thinking about my earliest memories of elementary school, I remember being asked to bring a brown paper sack to class so that it could be decorated and worn as part of the Indian costume used to celebrate Thanksgiving. I was also instructed to make a less-than-authentic headband with Indian designs and feathers to complete this outfit. Looking back, I now know this was wrong. The Thanksgiving Indian costume that all the other children and I made in my elementary classroom trivialized and degraded the descendants of the proud Wampanoags, whose ancestors attended the first Thanksgiving popularized in American culture. The costumes we wore bore no resemblance to Wampanoag clothing of that time period. Among the Wampanoag, and other American Indians, the wearing of feathers has significance. The feathers we wore were simply mockery, an educator’s interpretation of what an American Indian is supposed to look like.

The Thanksgiving myth has done so much damage and harm to the cultural self-esteem of generations of Indian people, including myself, by perpetuating negative and harmful images to both young Indian and non-Indian minds. There are so many things wrong with the happy celebration that takes place in elementary schools and its association to American Indian culture; compromised integrity, stereotyping, and cultural misappropriation are three examples.

When children are young, they are often exposed to antiquated images of American Indians through cartoons, books, and movies. But Thanksgiving re-enactments may be their most active personal encounter with Indian America, however poorly imagined, and many American children associate Thanksgiving actions and images with Indian culture for the rest of their lives. These cultural misunderstandings and stereotypical images perpetuate historical inaccuracy.

Tolerance of mockery by teachers is a great concern to Native parents. Much harm has been done to generations of Indian people by perpetuating negative and harmful images in young minds. Presenting Thanksgiving to children as primarily a happy time trivializes our shared history and teaches a half-truth. And while I agree that elementary-school children who celebrate the first Thanksgiving in their classrooms are too young to hear the truth, educators need to share Thanksgiving facts in all American schools sometime before high school graduation.

Let’s begin with Squanto (aka Tisquantum), a Patuxet, one of more than 50 tribes who formed the Wampanoag Confederacy. Around 1614, when he was perhaps 30, Squanto was kidnapped along with others of his people and taken across the Atlantic Ocean to Malaga, Spain, where they were sold into slavery. Monks in Spain bought Squanto, shared their faith with him, and made it possible for him to find his way to England in 1615. In England he worked for shipbuilder John Slany and became proficient in English. In 1619 Squanto returned to his homeland by joining an exploring expedition along the New England coast. When he arrived at the village where he has been raised, all his family and the rest of his tribe had been exterminated by a devastating plague.

What about the Pilgrims? Separatists who fled from England to Holland seeking to escape religious persecution by English authorities, and who later booked passage to North America, are now called "Pilgrims," though Americans did not widely use the term until the 1870s. In November, 1620, the Mayflower dropped anchor in present-day Provincetown Harbor. After exploring the coast for a few weeks, the Pilgrims landed and began building a permanent settlement on the ruins of Squanto’s Patuxet village, now renamed New Plymouth. Within the first year, half of the 102 Pilgrims who set out from Europe on the Mayflower had perished. In desperation the Pilgrims initially survived by eating corn from abandoned fields, raiding villages for stored food and seed, and robbing graves at Corn Hill.

Squanto was introduced to the Pilgrims in the spring of 1621, became friends with them, and taught them how to hunt and fish in order to survive in New England. He taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn by using fish as fertilizer and how to plant gourds around the corn so that the vines could climb the cornstalks. Due to his knowledge of English, the Pilgrims made Squanto an interpreter and emissary between the English and Wampanoag Confederacy.

What really happened at the first Thanksgiving in 1621? The Pilgrims did not introduce the concept of thanksgiving; the New England tribes already had autumn harvest feasts of thanksgiving. To the original people of this continent, each day is a day of thanksgiving to the Creator.  In the fall of 1621, William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, decided to have a Plymouth harvest feast of thanksgiving and invited Massasoit, the Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Federation, to join the Pilgrims. Massasoit came with approximately 90 warriors and brought food to add to the feast, including venison, lobster, fish, wild fowl, clams, oysters, eel, corn, squash and maple syrup. Massasoit and the ninety warriors stayed in Plymouth for three days. These original Thanksgiving foods are far different from the meals prepared in modern Thanksgiving celebrations.

Squanto died in 1622, but Massasoit outlived the era of relative peace in colonial New England. On May 26, 1637, near the present-day Mystic River in Connecticut, while their warriors were away, an estimated 400 to 700 Pequot women, children, and old men were massacred and burned by combined forces of the Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Saybrook (Connecticut) colonies and Narragansett and Mohegan allies. Colonial authorities found justification to kill most of the Pequot men and enslave the captured women and their children. Pequot slaves were sent to Bermuda and the West Indies. In 1975 the official number of Pequot people living in Connecticut was 21. Similar declines in Native population took place throughout New England as an estimated three hundred thousand Indians died by violence, and even more were displaced, in New England over the next few decades.

Looking at this history raises a question: Why should Native peoples celebrate Thanksgiving? Many Natives particularly in the New England area remember this attempted genocide as a factual part of their history and are reminded each year during the modern Thanksgiving. The United American Indians of New England meet each year at Plymouth Rock on Cole's Hill for a Day of Mourning. They gather at the feet of a statue of Grand Sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoag to remember and reflect in the hope that America will never forget.

I turn to the Internet to find out what Native people think of Thanksgiving. A few of the responses I received this year:

From Hydro, Oklahoma: Could we just start over and go forward? We can't change the past, but we can work for peace and unity in the future. History needs to be taught correctly in our schools—that is what needs to happen. My daughter had to write a paper about Big Tree, Satank, and Satanta. She interviewed Satanta's great-grandson, who was in his 90s, and told the story as he told it to her, including their transport from Fort Sill and how the feather was turned into a knife as they passed the giant tree, causing the soldiers to shoot and kill Satank. She got an AAA+ from her teacher.

Ecuador via Bozeman, Montana: It's important to share the whole, true story of the first Thanksgiving. Many of us were told a fairytale lie that led us to believe the same old story: Colonization was good for everyone and colonization was relatively peaceful (the violence was necessary, the ends justify the means). Now, a lot of us are learning more, and that comes from educating ourselves with the help from those who do know. I will say this, the generic idea of thanksgiving, or taking the time to be with family and friends and give thanks for all the blessings in our lives, the big and small, is a great practice and should happen more often. I wonder how we can turn a negative into a positive? Can we have an honest Thanksgiving? Can we move forward and, if so, where do we begin?

Santa Fe, New Mexico: My family and I celebrate Thanksgiving, not so much in the way that the "Pilgrims" may have done with the Indians. We give pause, and acknowledge all of the blessings that we received in the past year. We think of family and friends; of the homeless; of those away from family in hospitals, elders in nursing homes, those incarcerated, the soldier men and women overseas, around the world, standing watch and guarding our freedom. We think of those in mourning, whose family have gone ahead of them. We also think of those in school, no matter what age. And, finally, we pray for traveling mercies said for folks traveling home. We are thankful each day for Creator's gifts but on Thanksgiving, it seems we focus and are concentrated in our thoughts about these blessings.

Fairfax, Oklahoma: Our folks and ancestors left a good road to follow and prayed for gifts or successes for us that they may not have achieved. We have opportunities even more than them in these days and days to come. Long time ago we sat down in thanksgiving and had a great day. That's what Thanksgiving is to me, to enjoy and continue to achieve for yourself and them. They are smiling when we achieve. Aho.

Sevierville, Tennessee: Yes, I celebrate Thanksgiving. I have a thankful heart and feel blessed, so I give thanks.

Lawton, Oklahoma, with gentle humor: Do we have to feed the Pilgrims? Again?

And here are a few people's thoughts in 2013: 

Aylett, Virginia: It is good to celebrate the concept of gratitude and thankfulness. When the holiday story is based on a lie that covers up the national moral atrocity of genocide, the statement about the people who celebrate is not good. Shining light on the truth will always bring about healing. 

Montville, Connecticut: Thanksgiving was celebrated for murder and slavery rather than friendship and harvest. 

Greenbelt, Maryland: I don't necessarily look at the holiday as pilgrims-meet-Indians-and-chow-down. I celebrate it as the time the cycle of alcoholism was broken in our family, and we have a feast to celebrate that. 

Norman, Oklahoma: It's pretty much a family reunion for me, and there is eating, visiting, being thankful, and having a good time. Because of that, there is no reason to worry about the history. Similar to the idea that our dances fall on the 4th of July and instead of celebrating independence, it is more like a homecoming to our Kiowa people. 

California: When I went to school there was two Indians in our class me and a hopi girl neither one of us had to endure any of this because her mother and my mother both raised hell with the principal no fake headbands or feathers for us. 

Pala, California: When my kids were in pre-school is when I decided I needed to represent our people at this time of year more than any other. I would be damned if my kids were gonna wear paper bags like the other students. I wasn't having that. I learned to get the story across at their age level and show them the beauty and generosity of our people. I remember growing up and my mom getn upset with me because on Thanksgiving day I would come to the dinner table in my PJs and hair unbrushed, knowing the day was not a celebration. But now that I'm a mother of 3 and a grandmother of 1, I understand as Native people we give thanks to the Creator every day. On Thanksgiving Day I'm just grateful our people are still here and still stand strong. 

Salt Lake City, Utah: Thanksgiving, to me, is to be grateful for all the good blessings that came my way. Good health. Gift of family. Regardless of history, there are still many Natives in the land, and that shows how resilient we are. To honor those who went before us, let us share our culture and stories, teach the youth to learn from the past and to make our lives so our ancestors are proud of us. Example is a great educator. 

Alberta, Canada: It is an opportunity for those who do take note . . . . There will be those who roll their eyes, and others who may gain deeper appreciation, to honor (maybe even emulate) a more giving nature . . . , that of their Creator. 

Crow Agency, Montana: My Dad used to say, "We give thanks everyday, so if they want to give us a holiday to give thanks, I'll take it." 

Unfortunately, I didn't include where people were writing from in the essay when it first appeared in 2011:

I was infuriated when my daughter’s school had a mock feast complete with paper mache headdresses and Pilgrim hats!

When they did that to my kids in elementary, I TORE those items up and signed my kids out of school for that day.

For Thanksgiving I was the Indian. Umm Go figure . . . .

Someone took a picture of me in front of the class, and to this day . . . it bothers me. Don't get the whole making a fest in school.   

Tonight I have to lead a children's Bible class, and they want me to theme it around Thanksgiving. I will, but it's not going to be about the happy pilgrims and all that stuff. Thankfulness to God is one thing, but elevating pilgrims to hero status is out of the question.  

When my daughter Victoria was in grade school she had a teacher give them the assignment to write a report on Thanksgiving dinner, and Victoria wrote hers as to why our family doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving. Victoria got an F on the paper, and I threatened to go to the school board if the principal didn't get it changed. Victoria got an A, and the class got a lesson on Native American heritage. 

Ignorance and not near enough education in the school systems! It is very sad that a majority of what is taught is very superficial and the dark aspects of our history are neatly tucked away.Very sad!

Considered a day of mourning in our house.

For skins [American Indians], Thanksgiving should be The Last Supper. 

The United American Indians of New England meet each year at Plymouth Rock on Cole's Hill for a Day of Mourning. They gather at the feet of a statue of Grand Sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoag to remember and reflect in the hope that America will never forget.

Do I celebrate Thanksgiving? No, I don’t celebrate. But I do take advantage of the holiday and get together with family and friends to share a large meal without once thinking of the Thanksgiving in 1621. I think it is the same in many Native households. It is ironic that Thanksgiving takes place during American Indian and Alaskan Native Heritage Month. An even greater irony is that more Americans today identify the day after Thanksgiving as Black Friday than as National American Indian Heritage Day. 

By Victoria L. Kidd
The Observer

One of the best parts about living in the Northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia is that you don’t have to go far to experience history. While that experience is mostly received through exhibits, sightseeing, and other activities that are largely passive in nature, residents occasionally have an opportunity to experience history intimately. Such an experience is coming up this fall.

From October 30 to November 1, the Clarke County Fairgrounds will host The Harvest Gathering (referred to as “The Gathering”), an educational celebration of what’s being billed as “agri-culture.” The term speaks to the two facets of the event—a traditional indigenous outdoor Harvest Dance and living history/cultural exhibition partnered with the agriculturally significant Virginia Gourd Festival. This year marks the 14th year the Virginia Lovers’ Gourd Society has presented the Virginia Gourd Festival at the beginning of Native American Heritage month, and the synchronicity of the two serves to educate the public about the native roots gourds have while demonstrating their contemporary uses.

The weekend will be filled end-to-end with experiences that don’t come along everyday. Participants can join a gourd workshop, listen to Native American singers and drummers, eat foods that are culturally significant to native peoples, sample locally produced honey and other foods, and participate in a communal demonstration of thanks for the harvest before winter. The schedule includes many more activities than can be listed here, but perhaps the most significant opportunity attendees have is the chance to interact with Dennis Banks, a person considered to be a living legend among many Native Americans.

The fact that Banks will be the Master of Ceremonies for the event is “significant,” according to René White-Feather, president of the Native American Church of Virginia and executive director of The Harvest Gathering. In 1968, Banks cofounded the American Indian Movement (AIM) alongside other Native Americans in Minneapolis. He has a long history of advocacy (and at times controversial activism) seeking to address racism and to increase national awareness of Native American issues. He is perhaps best known for leading the 1973 armed occupation of Wounded Knee, the site where U.S. troops had murdered a band of Lakota men, women, and children just 83 years earlier.

Event organizers are excited to have a figure of such national and historical significance moderating an event they perceive to be historically significant in and of itself. For them, the event is comparative to a seed planted in the hope that an increased sense of brotherhood and community among local people and those travelling to the event will grow. Chris (Comes With Clouds) White, spiritual leader and Elder of the Native American Church of Virginia, says, “This is a seed of grand possibilities in human-hood that we are planting. It’s my hope that the seed finds good ground, and I rely on God to bring the increase.”

René uses the term “spiritual phenomenon” when referencing the event because it’s really a convergence of many people from different belief systems, backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultural identities. “Each of us on the Elders Council and others feels a calling towards an elevated spirit in humanity that is fueled by our deep personal desire to create something good for humanity,” she says.

That “something good” may share similarities to the iconic 1621 harvest celebration that school children learn about in school, but The Gathering is not intended to be a recreation of what is often referred to as the “first Thanksgiving.” René relays, “We look back at the first Thanksgiving as a spontaneous act of goodwill involving giving thanks to God by two culturally diverse peoples. It speaks to our heart and we commemorate it as an unprecedented way of being with strangers that are not like us. It strikes a chord in the core of humanity. That’s why we don’t want to act out or mimic what was, although that was good. ‘The Gathering’ is an experiment in humanity, to check the state of community within our community now.”

As such, the event is really one that will be defined by participation—participation by those who join the festivities, participate in the activities, and endeavor to witness firsthand the idea that we are all a lot more alike than we are different. “It’s about you and your participation,” Chris says. “When someone participates in planting seeds, they also have claim on a portion of the harvest.” In this case, the harvest is a greater sense of community, and as René says, “preserving our agri-culture, heritage, stories, and art is about sharing what we know and passing it on. This defines the richness of our culture for generations to come.”

Consistent with a generational view of the impact these types of events can have, the organizers have set aside the first day of the event as a “school day” when school-aged children and youth will be able to participate in planned activities. René explains, “Children will learn tons of things they didn’t know that they didn’t know.” From learning about various animals and plants to participating in activities related to humanities and anthropology, students will have a chance to engage in hands-on learning. (Students also have an opportunity to participate in available internships. For more information, visit http://harvestgathering.org/the-basket.html.)

The public is invited to Saturday and Sunday’s activities, and it is certain that attendees will experience something new. New activities and opportunities are being added each week, and interested persons should visit www.harvestgathering.org. While there, be sure to click on the Basket tab and subscribe to their online magazine, The Harvest Basket. Most importantly, mark your calendars to experience history and contribute to this culturally significant weekend.

Sanctuary on the Trail -- Raw-food-diet author Adam T. Gardener PhC shared his blueprint with The Gathering leadership this week.  Adam was visiting from Utah, where he is planning a premier biosphere botanical garden. Copies of Adam's Second Genesis diet books will be on sale at The Gathering here in Virginia Oct. 30 - Nov. 1.
    Adam's work provides "piercing insights" into human genetics and human food. He aims to introduce people to food in a connected way that helps them use a plant-based diet to heal  rheumatoid arthritis, kidney stones, fibromyalgia, acid reflux, cancer, diseases and much more.
    We are excited Adam and his lovely wife Eve have "Caught the Spirit of The Gathering" and are sharing their knowledge with people of all ages.