Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1918 — CUSTOM AN OLD ONE [ARTICLE]

CUSTOM AN OLD ONE

Pages of History Filled With Record of Days Set Aside for Giving Thanks. THE idea is prevalent throughout the United States that our Thanksgiving day 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 this western continent and we must look elsewhere for it. In old Egypt, when the harvest had been gathered, it was the custom to observe a day of feasting and to lay offerings upon the altars of Isis, the goddess of agriculture. The Jewish festival was the “Ingathering," or the “Feast of the Tabernacle,” mentioned in Exodus and other parts of the Old Testament. This was more particularly a thanksgiving for the fruit harvest, but as it came at the close of the entire harvest it probably was Intended also as a general thanksgiving “for the bounty of nature.” The goddess of the Roman harvest was Ceres. Her festival was celebrated annually and was called Ceralia. It was a day of worslfcp and rustic sports. Men and women formed processions and went to the fields with music. In one way or another, a Thanksgiving day had been observed in Christian Europe for centuries before its celebration in New England. The early Christians kept such days as the bishops named them within their jurisdiction. On the continent, and for a time in England, It occurred at Martinmas, which was a day of feasting and drinking. Occasionally, too, civic authorities recommended the observance of some fixed day.