Thanksgiving in the islands

Thanksgiving Day is a universal celebration. While each society may have a different day of celebration, the traditional theme of giving of thanks is basically the same.

The people of these isles also share similar tradition since the olden days, i.e., a novena to give gratitude to our Savior for bountiful crops and catch from the sea.

By tradition, indigenous people are farmers. It was this traditional means by which they supported their families. It includes planting staple food, raising farm animals, and fishing. Up until the mid-sixties, most families still engage in subsistence farming, daily.

Islanders had their unique set of home-grown food which came from the family land they have cleared and planted throughout the year. Planting includes corn, assorted bananas and taro, tapioca, vegetables and fruits. This is complimented by raising farm animals such as chicken, goats, cows, and pigs.

Most families have their own patron saints to give thanks for a good year’s yield of crops. Perhaps the most famous is San Isidro, a farmer himself. There are others such Santa Lourdes, Santa Cruz, San Jose, San Francisco De Borja, among others. It is basically a family or a village event where each year, the entire clan or village joins in prayers and fiesta.

What the old folks have started by way of novenas (to give gratitude for all their blessings of the receding year) is passed on to their children. They in turn carry out what their parents and grandparents have begun. Thus, the perpetuation of a strong religious event that not only grants families opportunities to nurture spiritual development, but serves as a refresher in strengthening filial unity.

In the olden days and well into the fifties, families here have only heard of turkeys, the famous fowl eaten during the most festive of American traditions. Only a few would turn chicken into a virtual turkey to celebrate this day. It’s baked chicken set on the dinner table for all. And very families then had electric stoves to bake chicken. Otherwise, most families would turn to our local version of turkey–canned sardines. We call it “pabu”, local lingo for turkey.

How our turkey (sardine) is cooked calls for culinary creativity. But we never went past quick fries, Pacific soup–so that every family member had something to eat–or, well, barbecue. For some reason it tasted better when barbecued with tañgantañgan charcoal. Barbecued sardine, finadeni` and hot rice was as great a dinner that fills the tummy what after a long day at the farm or lagoon.

About the only families who celebrated Thanksgiving with turkey were dependents of the US Navy who lived on Navy and Capital Hills and along the Susupe and Oleai shoreline. It’s an American tradition that the people of these isles have adopted in the late sixties.

We recall in grammar school when our share of turkey never exited the sheet of paper where we drew this huge bird on. We didn’t even know it was one of the ugliest birds among the family of fowls. After drawing our ugly turkey, we go home and eat canned sardines, our version of that bland tasting and often dry turkey. And after painting pumpkin all day, most of us went home to ask mom if she could bake pumpkin pie (and she doesn’t even have an electric stove for it was a luxury then). It was a request that gave moms another pile of head ache. We were given either porridge or turnovers with pumpkin paste in it and were happy that we had something to eat.

While local farmers had plenty of pumpkin then, they were boiled into a form of porridge (atuli). Otherwise, it is used for pig food. Pumpkin pie was unheard of then. Only in modern day Marianas did we learn how to bake it into pie. It’s pumpkin tips that locals use a lot on fresh chicken soup. And the indigenous people still use it today even on this famous American tradition.

Thus, the annual gathering (spread out throughout the year based when certain novenas fall) is a day when we all give one big Si Yuus Maase` to the Lord for all our blessings. It is a unifying event that nourishes both our physical and spiritual being. Un` sumen na`magof na Haanen Thanksgiving to one and all!