Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 279, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1915 — OLD AS THE RACE [ARTICLE]

OLD AS THE RACE

Setting Aside a Period for Thanksgiving Is a Custom . ot Remote Antiquity. THE idea is prevalent in the United States that our Thanksgiving is peculiarly an American custom of New England origin. This is true in part only. The general observance through many years of a set day on which to give thanks to Almighty God for his blessings has made the custom distinctively American; but its origin long antedates the settlement of the western continent, and we must look elsewhere for it. The idea of Thanksgiving day goes back to remotest antiquity. It is a part of natural religion, and is probably as old as the human race. In written records, we have ample evidence that the festival was celebrated in connection with “the fruits of the earth” by the ancient Egyptians, the Jews, the Greeks and the Romans. Long before Luther’s revolt from Rome in the sixteenth century it had been observed by the Christians; and after the Reformation, Thanksgiving days were in frequent use by the Protestants, especially those of England. The festival appears early in Jewish history, and, as it was connected with the land and its possession, may have had a Canaanitish prototype. Its celebration was annual, and each festival continued through seven days. At the beginning “two vessels of silver were carried in a ceremonious manner to the temple, one full of water, the other of wine, which were poured at the foot of the altar of burnt offerings, always on the seventh day of the festival.” Plutarch describes this ceremonial, which he believed was a feast of Bacchus. He says: “The Jews celebrate two feasts of Bacchus. In the midst of the vintage they spread tables, spread with all manner of fruits, and live in tabernacles made especially of palms and ivy together. ... A few

days later they kept another festival which was openly dedicated to Bacchus, for they carried boughs of palms in their hands, with which they went into the temple, the Levites going before with instruments of music.”

Analogous to the Jewish festival and possibly borrowed from it was that of the old Greeks, the Thesmorphia. This was a feast to Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. It lasted nine days and consisted of sacrifices of the products of the soil with oblations of "wine, milk and honey.” Theocritus refers to it in the “Seventh Idyll,” where Simichidas says: "Now, this is our way to the Thalysia; for our friends, in sooth, are making a feast to Demeter of the beautiful robe, offering the first fruits of their abundance, since for them in bounteous manner, the goddess has piled the threshing floor with barley.”