For most of my life, all I knew of the First Thanksgiving story was that the Pilgrims invited over members of the Wampanoag tribe out of gratitude for helping them survive and produce a successful harvest.

Distilled to that simple theme, Thanksgiving is a benign and inspiring holiday that everyone can participate in. The broader, more accurate, story is darker and far more complicated than has been presented down through the decades. Embracing the full story would take a great bit of luster off the holiday.

It is our nature to think of historic events in contemporary contexts, so we imagine that the first Thanksgiving was similar to today’s holiday.

We imagine the Pilgrims and Wantanoags gathered together for a big feast, laid around in a stupor for a couple of hours, then went home because that is the script modern Thanksgivings follow.

This hardly scratches the surface, though. We know that because primary sources indicate the celebration was a three-day affair. As you sit around the Thanksgiving table tomorrow, imagine these folks sticking around for three days. You’ll have something new to be thankful about, I’m guessing.

A three-day Thanksgiving changes how we consider the holiday.

For one thing, it’s hard to plan out a three-day event. At some point, it’s bound to go off script.

It is likely that the first Thanksgiving was also the first Woodstock.

When people who are not related are in close proximity for that much time, conventions are put aside and inhibitions fall away. Things happen.

But I’m sure it started out innocently enough.

Aside from the recently-harvested crops, it is likely that the natives brought venison, perhaps a turkey or other game. We are less certain about the Pilgrims’ contributions.

The one thing I’m pretty sure the settlers brought was buckles.

Now, buckles are fine and useful things, as far as it goes. But the Pilgrims appear to have had some sort of buckle fetish. They wore buckles on their belts, naturally enough, but they also wore them on their shoes, their hats and just about every other item of clothing they owned. Buckles to the Pilgrims were what camo is to Alabamans today.

Given the esteem the Pilgrims held for buckles, it is likely they made a big production of presenting a buckle to each of the natives as the festivities began. I imagine the puzzled natives examining the buckles with intense curiosity, wondering what useful purpose they might serve, you know, like when somebody gives you a charcuterie board.

I’m sure they were pretty disappointed. Well, who wouldn’t be? They were hoping to get muskets, which would have been a far more practical gift. They should have read the room.

“Let’s see. We’re going to wipe out half your population with smallpox and drive the rest of you from your ancestral homeland and then what? Turn around and give you muskets? I don’t think so. But, here, have another buckle.”

The Native Americans were probably philosophical about this because — let’s face it – nothing makes a person philosophical faster than being outgunned. Ask a Democrat.

Like women today, I’m sure the Pilgrim women gave much thought to what they would wear for the festivities, ultimately deciding on – here’s a shocker – black!

We’ve seen pictures of these Pilgrim women in their black dresses whose hems stirred the dust as they walked, buttoned up to the neck, their hair pulled back in a severe bun. They sit there, pinch-faced, hands neatly folded in their laps, awaiting the arrival of their native visitors and especially curious about what the women would be wearing, eager to judge.

Then emerging into the clearing, the first of the Indian maidens. What a sight they must have been, these young and supple wonders, unconstrained as they were by the conventions of western religion, class distinction or decorum, all of them size 2s or 4s poured into form-fitting buckskin that Europeans – even the French – would have considered too revealing even for lingerie.

Their appearance would be quite disturbing to the Pilgrim women.

It would have been disturbing to the Pilgrim men, too, but in an entirely different way.

Thus begins The First Thanksgiving, Day 1.

The rest must be left to the imagination.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Buckle up.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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