![\"\"](\"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/keepunumuk.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAt the Educational Resource Center, where we support the needs of the Lynch School of Education and its social justice mission, we recognize that the First Peoples play a role not only in how we remember the first European contact with the New World, but in how we remember the first Thanksgiving. Keepunumuk <\/em>tells the story of the first Thanksgiving from the Native perspective, and also incorporates the perspectives of plants and animals such as the seagull who first spots the \u201cnewcomers\u201d and the corn, beans, and squash or \u201cthree sisters\u201d who send dreams to the First Peoples with a message, asking that they extend their hospitality to the hungry white settlers, and teach them how to use the land they share in order to feed themselves. This technique of giving voice to other species emphasizes the rootedness of the First Peoples, as well as their landedness, their spirituality, and their deep scientific knowledge of the natural world.<\/p>\n\n\n Of course, the story culminates with the feast we all remember, but not without the reminder: \u201cMany Americans call it a day of thanksgiving. \/ Many of our people call it a day of mourning.\u201d Such an ending marks a pronounced contrast between new books such as this one, and older ones in our collection such as Don\u2019t Know Much about the Pilgrims<\/a> (2002), which closes with the question \u201cWhat happened after the Pilgrims\u2019 Thanksgiving party?\u201d and neglects to mention how the \u201cIndians\u201d it depicts faced disease and violence during the era of colonization that actually followed the first Thanksgiving. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This weekend, Boston College recesses for Fall Break, and on Monday, everyone will enjoy a public holiday. While the university officially observes Columbus Day, many community members prefer to honor Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day, in recognition of the First Peoples who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":2713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"series":[],"coauthors":[112],"class_list":["post-2702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2702"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2714,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702\/revisions\/2714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2702"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=2702"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Fortunately, in recent years, there has been a trend in children\u2019s publishing around the Thanksgiving holiday towards teaching critical history. One great picture book to share with students this holiday season is Keepunumuk: Wee\u00e2chumun\u2019s Thanksgiving Story<\/a> (2022) available at the ERC. Wee\u00e2chumun means corn in W\u00f4pan\u00e2ak, the language of the Wampanoag people who lived at Plymouth where the settlers we know as the Pilgrims landed, near where the federally recognized Mashpee Wampanoag and Tribe and Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head still live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/pilgrims.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n