HM-MHW Thanksgiving & Harvest Festivals
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1942
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Thanksgiving and Harvest Festivals
77?? Metropolitan Museum of Art Neiv York • 1942 COPYRIGHT BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART SEPTEMBER 1942
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'6« Thanksgiving and Harvest Festivals
HARVEST FESTIVALS to celebrate the gathering in of the year's grain, with rites in honor of a deity of fruitfulness, are among the most an cient of human customs. The Greek worship of Demeter, goddess of grain, and the Hebrew celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, or In gathering, are outstanding examples. The worship of Demeter and her daughter Persephone the Maiden was built about the theme of "seed time and harvest!' and tne Greeks' artistic genius recorded the story in painting and sculpture as well as in poetry and legend. Wherever grain was cut and threshed in ancient Greece, Demeter was honored, but the center of her worship was at Eleusis. Here, ac cording to legend, she had rested and been welcomed kindly on her search for Persephone, who, lost in the Underworld, symbolized the seed grain covered by the earth. In gratitude the goddess gave the king's son, Triptolemos, her sacred gift of grain, and a chariot drawn by winged dragons in which he could carry this gift throughout the land. And after Triptolemos became king himself he established Demeter's worship at Eleusis. These Mysteries at Eleusis, held early in October, were both the most sacred rites of Demeter and her greatest festival. Besides Demeter, Persephone and Iacchos (who was Dionysos, god of wine and vintage, by another name) were honored at this festival. Little is known of what happened at the Mysteries, except that there were sacrifices, processions, and mystical ceremonies which dramatized the stories of the three deities. Greek vase paintings show Triptolemos in his winged car, with Demeter and Persephone and sometimes other deities, and in a few reliefs Triptolemos stands between Demeter and Persephone. These may have been suggested by scenes in the Mysteries. Besides these formal celebrations, the Greeks held local festivals at their own threshing floors when the harvests were gathered in. The Greek poet Theocritus in his Seventh Idyll described such a festival in the island of Cos more than two thousand years ago. Three friends who had set out from the city to attend this feast were met by a goat herd, who asked whither they were bound. "We are going" answered one, "to the harvest-feast, for, look you, some friends of ours are paying a festival to fair-robed Demeter, out of the first-fruits of their increase, for verily in rich measure has the goddess filled their threshing-floor with barley grain!' The goatherd went his way, and the three kept on to the farm through a day warm and full of the sights and sounds of summer. "On shadowy boughs the burnt cicalas kept their chattering toil, far off the little owl cried in the thick thorn brake, the larks and finches sang, the ring-dove moaned, the yellow bees were flitting round the springs. All breathed the scent of the opulent summer, of the season of fruits; pears at [their] feet and apples by [their] sides were rolling plentiful, the tender branches, with wild plums laden, were earthward bowed" And when the friends came to the feast, "by the altar of Demeter of the threshing-floor" maidens brought them cooling drinks as they reclined "on deep beds of fragrant lentisk...and...new stript leaves of the vine" while the image of Demeter stood "smiling by, with sheaves and poppies in her hands!' TRIPTOLEMOS IN HIS WINGED CHARIOT BETWEEN DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE. Greek vase, V century B. C. Triptolemos holds in one hand the grain given him by Demeter, which he is ready to carry throughout the land. In the other hand is a cup for the wine which Persephone carries. Demeter stands behind Triptole mos, holding grain and a torch. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Romans had many deities of grain and fruitfulness, some of whom they borrowed from other lands, at times calling them by the names of their own gods. In this way they adopted the worship of Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysos, identifying them with three an- cient deities of Italy who were connected with the crops—Ceres, Libera, and Liber. The most important of these was the goddess Ceres, the Roman Demeter, from whose name comes the English word "cereal!' Games called "Cerealia" in her honor were held during April, but other festivals of Ceres were celebrated in August and October. The country men of Italy offered to her the first fruits of their grain as the Greeks did to Demeter. Roman paintings of Ceres, "fair-robed" and stately, crowned with ears of grain, may have been copied from lost Greek paintings showing Demeter "with sheaves and poppies in her hands!' The Latin poet Ovid in his Fasti, or Calendar, says that "white robes are given out at the festival of Ceres" and "white is Ceres' proper color" because "the harvest whitens when the ears are ripe!' In the early centuries of Christian Europe the celebrations of the harvest season changed from regular religious ceremonies to popular customs, although some traces of the old practices lingered even in the Church. Priests blessed the harvest and the fields as a natural part of their own religion, and peasants carried their last sheaf of grain home with music to the harvest feast because their fathers and grandfathers had done so. Though they were not consciously remembering the wor ship of any pagan deities of grain and harvest, they knew that their customs had grown out of some very ancient usage, and that they were associated with good luck in raising crops. The old ideas lived on in their different forms all the more easily be cause things closely connected with the seasons, the earth, and its crops changed little. The grains harvested in the Middle Ages and, indeed, until after the discovery of the New World, were much the same as those of ancient Egypt and Greece—barley and wheat first, with rye and oats becoming more important as time went on. "Corn" was the word used for all kinds of grain in England, as it still is today, and other countries of Europe had some word of close kin to it. Indian corn, or maize, was still unknown. Methods and tools of harvesting, too, remained much CERES, OR DEMETER, GODDESS OF GRAIN. Roman wall painting from a house in Pompeii. National Museum, Naples the same as in the ancient world. Like the men of Egypt and Greece, the mediaeval peasants used the short-handled sickle, as well as the long- handled scythe, swung with both arms, which had come into use in Roman times. Threshing was done by beating with a flail or treading with the feet. Scenes of harvest are often pictured in mediaeval art, but they are not
REAPING GRAIN WITH A SICKLE: THE MONTH OF AUGUST. French, XIII century. Carving on one of the west portals of the cathedral at Amiens. THRESHING GRAIN WITH A FLAIL. Woodcut from Crescentius's book on agriculture, printed in 1493 -The Metropolitan Museum of Art
scenes of festival. They show the harvest as it has always been—hard work, driven by the need to make the most of good weather to get the grain under cover. The labors of harvesting are enumerated realistically in The Vision of Piers Plowman, written by an English poet more than five hundred years ago. There Conscience asks the laborers:
"Canst mow or stack or bind the sheaves? Canst reap or guide the reapers? Canst rise early? Canst blow the horn and keep the kine together; Lie out o' nights, and save my corn from thieves?" Some of the laborers hasten to excuse themselves in words that suggest the backbreaking toil of harvesting:
"I am too weak to work with sickle or with scythe, I am too long, believe me, to stoop down low!'
Cutting grain with a short-handled sickle does indeed require the har vester to "stoop down lowj' and being "long" would be a disadvantage. Yet to the able-bodied and energetic there was satisfaction in this honest, rewarding toil and its accompanying feasts, as one man recalls from his youth:
".. .when I had my health, in hot harvest time, And my limbs to labour with, and loved good fare!'
Pictures of harvesting in the Middle Ages appear usually in scenes illustrating the twelve months with their appropriate occupations- haymaking for June, reaping or threshing grain for July or August, picking grapes and making wine for October. Such series of pictures decorated the illuminated books of clergy and nobles, were carved in stone about cathedral doors, and painted on castle walls. In the fifteenth century they were also used as woodcut illustrations in printed books. The Middle Ages passed and were followed by centuries in which the civilizations of Greece and Rome were studied, and educated men began to understand the relation between their ancient customs and their still more ancient past. The harvesters themselves probably had no idea of the connection between the worship of Demeter and Per sephone the Maiden and the dressing up of a sheaf of grain called "the Maiden!' which was carried with rejoicing to the harvest feast. But those who had read of Greece and Rome could draw their own con clusions. In 1598 Paul Hentzner, the tutor of a young German noble man traveling in England, wrote: "As we were returning to our inn, we happened to meet some coun try people celebrating their Harvest-home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres!' An English harvest-home celebration is vividly described by Robert Herrick in a poem called "The Hock-Cart, or Harvest-Home" which was published in his Hesperides in 1648. Summoning the "rurall young lings" and the lord of the manor "to make the merry cheere" Herrick wrote:
HARVESTING GRAIN: THE MONTH OF AUGUST. Detail from an early XV century wall painting. The reapers "stoop down low" to cut the grain with short-handled sickles, for, like those in Piers Plowman, they are very "long!" One man binds the sheaves and a second stacks them. In the foreground is a wagon hauling grain toward the barn, into which a man tosses the sheaves. From a building at the right a priest blesses the harvest. Bishop's Palace, Trent, South Tyrol SUMMER: CUTTING GRAIN WITH SCYTHES. Engraving after a drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Netherlands, 1525-1569. While some of the harvesters swing their scythes, others gather the cut grain and bind it into sheaves. Haymakers, fruit pickers, and men with baskets of vegetables suggest the riches of the sum mer season. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
"Come, sons of Summer, by whose toile We are the lords of wine and oile, By whose tough labours and rough hands, We rip up first, then reap our lands, Crown'd with the eares of corne, now come, And to the pipe sing harvest-home; Come forth, my lord, and see the cart, Dressed up with all the country art.... The horses, mares, and frisking fillies, Clad all in linen white as lillies!' The poem continues with a description of the English harvest feast:
"You shall see, first, the large and cheefe Foundation of your feast, fat beefe; With upper stories, mutton, veale, And bacon (which makes fulle the meale) With sev'rall dishes standing by, As, here a custard, there a pie!'
Just such lusty harvesters, whom Herrick calls "sons of Summer!' and Shakespeare "sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary!' appear in the paint-
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THE HARVESTERS. Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Netherlands, 1525-1569. Most of the harvesters here are eating their noonday meal or snatching a nap, but some still swing their scythes or bind the grain into sheaves. In the distance a load of grain is being hauled to shelter. The Metropolitan Museum of Art ings of Pieter Bruegel and other artists of the Netherlands in the six teenth and seventeenth centuries. But though they eat and drink heartily at their work, the celebrations which these artists show are weddings and fairs and saints' days rather than harvest festivals. From such a background in England and Holland, the Pilgrims came to Plymouth in 1620. They brought with them not only memories and traditions of harvest celebrations but also those of political celebra tions, held in honor of a special event or in remembrance of a famous occasion. Only three years before the Pilgrims sailed for Holland a political thanksgiving had been held in England commemorating the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot on November 5, 1605, which was afterwards observed for more than two hundred years as Guy Fawkes Day. And in Holland they must have shared in the annual celebration, held on October 3, of the end of the Siege of Leyden in 1574. These political observances may have influenced the later colonists in their appointment of thanksgiving days for various purposes. But the first Thanksgiving in the New World, held by the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621, seems to have been entirely a harvest festival with feasting and games and small emphasis on religious services. Edward Winslow, one of the Pilgrim company, wrote to a friend in England in December of 1621 describing this joyous time, when fear of starvation had been lifted by the successful gathering in of the first crops: "Our corne did prouve well, & God be Praysed we had a good in crease of Indian corne, and our Barly indifferent good, but our Pease not worth the gathering....Our harvest being gotten in, our Governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a more special man ner reioyce together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming EDWARD WINSLOW (1595-1655). Painting by an unknown artist, dated 1651. This is the only original authentic portrait known of one of the Mayflower Pil grims. Winslow wrote the account of the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth in a letter to an English friend in 1621. The next year this letter was printed with other papers in Mourt's Relation, or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth. Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest King Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine, and others!' The exact date of this Thanksgiving is unknown, but it was probably in October. The number of people fed is estimated at a hundred and forty, including the Indians, and the celebration lasted for three days. The idea of expressing joy over the harvest with feasting and games as in the English homeland was evidently uppermost in the Pilgrims' minds—indeed, it was to keep their English ways and nationality that they had left friendly Holland. To the Indian guests such a celebration would have seemed natural and proper, for they, too, had ancient har vest rites with feasts and ceremonial dances in honor of the Spirit of the Corn. "Indian corne" Winslow calls it, but this new grain, maize, native to the New World, presently came to be the only grain called "corn" in this country. The Pilgrims held another Thanksgiving connected with their crops in 1623—a religious one this time, in gratitude for the rain which broke a long drought and saved their food supply. Edward Winslow has de scribed this Thanksgiving, too, as a solemn day "set apart and ap pointed" for returning "glory, honour, and praise, with all thankfulness, to our good God!' From this time on the Plymouth colony and the other English col onies which settled in New England often appointed days of thanks, sometimes for the blessings of harvest, sometimes for favorable public events. These were proclaimed as holy days by the governors and an nounced through the churches, which held special services, so that they were more formal religious occasions than the Thanksgiving of 1621, although not without feasting. Indeed the churches found it nec essary to warn their members against gluttony. GEORGE WASHINGTON (1732-1799). Painting by Gilbert Stuart, American, 1755- 1828 (the Gibbs-Chamiing-Avery portrait, painted in 1795). Washington issued the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation, setting aside November 26, 1789, as a day of thanks for the adoption of the Constitution. He also declared another nationwide thanksgiving for "the happy course of public affairs" for February 19, 1795, after which the idea of such proclamations lapsed until Lincoln's time. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Then came the Revolution, uniting the colonies in a common cause. During this war the Continental Congress passed several resolutions calling upon all to give thanks upon one day for some special event. Chief among these special Thanksgivings was that of December 8, 1777, celebrating the surrender of Burgoyne. The peace with England was also celebrated with thanksgiving in December, 1783, but after that the custom lapsed for a few years. The first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by George Washington at the request of Congress. It set apart November 26, 1789, as a day of thanksgiving for the adoption of the Constitution. This, a political celebration rather than a harvest festival, was not uni versally observed, as some were opposed to the new Constitution. On January 1, 1795, Washington proclaimed another day of thanksgiving for the "happy course of our public affairs in general!' to be observed on February 19. After this year the custom of national Thanksgivings lapsed again, and with a few exceptions for special events, no more presidential Thanksgiving proclamations were issued until Lincoln's time. However, the custom of having governors proclaim Thanksgiving for their respective states continued to grow, especially in New Eng land, although there was no agreement or regularity of date. De Witt Clinton, as Governor of New York, tried to establish a regular Thanks giving in that state in 1817, but the custom failed to take root. Never theless, it was during these years between the Revolution and the Civil War that Thanksgiving developed in New England its special character as a family celebration—a day for returning to the old home. The charms of such a Thanksgiving are described by Samuel Woodworth in his appendix to Horatio Smith's book on Festivals, Games, and Amuse ments, published in 1847: "A New England Thanksgiving (and south of Connecticut such holy- days hardly deserve the name) is dear to the heart of every son and daughter of that favored region. It is sweet in the anticipation in the enjoyment, and in the remembrance....The first or second Thursday in December is generally appointed by the governor of the state, who issues a proclamation to that effect, a printed copy of which is sent to every clergyman in the state. On the first Sabbath after its reception, at the conclusion of the sermon, this proclamation is read from the pulpit, and in some parishes, on each succeeding Sabbath until the time appointed. "When the happy day arrives, the people assemble in their respec tive places of worship, dressed in their best attire. Here they listen to an appropriate sermon, and join in prayer, hymns, and anthems ex pressly adapted to the occasion. These services generally occupy about two hours, and then are over for the day; the remainder of which is devoted to feasting, sports, games, and amusements.... "The 'Thanksgiving dinner! however, forms a prominent feature of the picture. Every farmer's table now literally 'groans with the weight of the feast! Flesh and fowl of his own raising and fattening—fish and game from his own streams and woodlands—vegetables of his own planting—butter, milk, and cheese, the product of his own dairy, are now found in luxuriant profusion upon his hospitable table; while the delicious 'pumpkin pie' leads a host of other dainties in the bountiful dessert....Apprentices in the metropolis, who are only permitted to visit their rural homes once or twice in the year, are now sure to be present.... It is a jubilee that draws together members of the same family who have been long separated; and as a ball invariably succeeds the festivi ties of the day, there is no small excitement among the village lassies. "In the cities and populous towns of New England this festival is not observed with the same strictness, nor enjoyed with the same zest, that distinguishes it in country villages" The day was not, of course, celebrated by all exactly as Samuel Wood- worth describes it. Some attended neither church service nor ball—but all who observed the day had the dinner. One new and distinctly American harvest celebration, separate from Thanksgiving and with no religious associations, flourished during these same years. This was the cornhusking, which was really a com munity method for getting a task done easily by bringing together many people for a good time as well as work. But as the good times seemed to outweigh the toil, it may fairly be called a celebration. The cornhusking, of course, included a good meal, was likely to end with a dance, and had such popular customs as the right belonging to any one finding a red ear of corn to take or give a kiss. Joel Barlow de scribed the cornhusking in his poem on Hasty Pudding, written in 1793:
"For now, the corn-house filled, the harvest-home, The invited neighbors to the husking come; A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play Unite their charms to chase the hours away.
"Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall, The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall, Brown, corn-fed nymphs, and strong, hard-handed beaux, Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, Assume their seats, the solid mass attack, The dry husks rattle, and the corn-cobs crack, The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound, And the sweet cider trips in silence round.
"The laws of husking every wight can tell, And sure no laws he ever keeps so well: For each red ear a general kiss he gains, With each smut-ear she smuts the luckless swains!'
Cornhusking parties died out in most places with the wide introduc tion of farm machinery in the second half of the nineteenth century, when methods and customs of harvest changed more in a few years than in all the centuries before. CORNHUSKING. Painting by Eastman Johnson, American, 1824-1906. The huskers in the foreground are merely the fringe of a large group, lost in the shadows of the barn where the husking bee is in full swing. This picture, painted in 1860, was reproduced the next year by Currier and Ives as one of their popular series of lithographs showing American scenes. The Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts
During the first half of the nineteenth century, there was a grow ing desire for a national Thanksgiving day which could be celebrated throughout the country by those of any religion as a sign of national unity. One of the leaders in crusading for such a holiday was Mrs. Sarah Hale, editor of the Ladies' Magazine in Boston and later of Godey's Lady's Book in Philadelphia. By letters and published articles she urged that the suggestion for such a Thanksgiving should come first from the President and that it should then "be applied by the governors of
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>>_j -ft. III i J3 J3 r & u 6 • o —• -a a a •0.2 x c W 3 each and every state in accordance with the chief executive's advice!' Abraham Lincoln, on October 3, 1863, issued the first nationwide presidential Thanksgiving proclamation since Washington's day, with the exception of the few called for special national events. His procla mation, which set the custom followed ever since, was based on thanks for the general prosperity of the nation, including the blessings of harvest. Although the grave background of the Civil War shows clearly in the proclamation, the Battle of Gettysburg, in July, 1863, is not mentioned. However, the victory won there for the Union was probably among Lincoln's reasons for issuing a call for national thanksgiving. The text combines moderation of judgment with faith in the country and its destiny: "The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordi nary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of al mighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of mili tary conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the ad vancing armies and navies of the Union. "Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settle ments, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in fa3? .3 > -3 > l_l fa u -1 S C J* CJ fcjo »" C S: •W ,3 C -a c •S "^.fa •i °J3 *\_ fa -» O* 1-H _?<• 3 l-H. |. CO _, S <- „ 60 ^ -. G <" ^•S 2 w « T3 -t! •- •_ 2 g«HH S _- -» C fe •" |-a •a.fa3 O -T3 c Si So "> OO ._ •S >.!2 0 o S u B u fa,- 3 „ •fa! U V) OJ - 'P pe «