National Day of Mourning
When
The fourth Thursday of November (the same day as Thanksgiving)
Context
The National Day of Mourning began in 1970 with a group of Indigenous people of the Wampanoag Tribe gathering in protest on Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They were there combatting the false narrative that’s been constructed around this holiday, particularly the depiction of a kind of mutually beneficial and affectionate relationship that existed between the Pilgrims and those Native to this land. Because of this, the National Day of Mourning has likewise been established as an annual holiday on the fourth Thursday of November as a way for Native Americans to continually come together and both counter and grieve many of the culturally accepted lies rooted in American society today.
The First “Thanksgiving”
As the story goes, there was a 3-day feast and celebration that took place in 1621 shared by the Wampanoag people and a group of Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower - approximately 150 people combined. While there had been a treaty established between the two groups, the Pilgrims were the primary benefactors of the arrangement as recipients of the Wampanoag’s hospitality and protection, while the Wampanoag people were still writhing from several years of rabid decline and death due to the mysterious disease known to them as the Great Dying.
While the collective gathering did take place at Patuxet (known as Plymouth to the settlers), it’s questionable if the meal was even intended to be shared. As some documents have suggested, the colonists - in celebration of their successful harvest - had been raucously firing their arms in the air, causing the natives to quickly arrive on the scene to investigate the nature of the gunfire. Although they ultimately dined together, time would tell of the settler’s ulterior motives that would take precedence over any marginally meaningful relations that had formed. Those of the Mayflower - having more and more colonials joining them from Europe - would continue requiring additional land, and they would opportunistically push those of the Wampanoag tribe further and further to the margins of their territory for the sake of occupying it as their own.
The Stories We Tell
Devastatingly, “History is written by the victors,” and victor history often turns out to be a bit of an amalgamation of myth and fact. While there may have been isolated examples of amicable meals, relationships, and interactions among settlers and natives, such examples are the exception rather than the rule when juxtaposed with the colonial’s perennial exploitation, stealing, exiling, and even murder of Natives - often in the name of Jesus and the heretical Doctrine of Discovery (a doctrine not repudiated by the Vatican until March 30, 2023).
These things did not take place in isolation; this was the chronic experience of Native Americans for centuries among their new cohabitants.
Consider even the irony of President Lincoln’s founding of Thanksgiving in 1863 as a national holiday. Not one year after the US broke its promise to provide food and other supplies to the Dakota tribe in exchange for land - resulting in Lincoln directing the largest mass execution (hanging) in US history (known as the Dakota 38) - do we then see Thanksgiving being federally established. It’s hard to imagine a more gaslighting experience than that of indigenous men and women watching America brutalize their people and land while formalizing an overarching, positive depiction of their relationship through the use of celebration and tradition.
Lament
While only scratching the surface of the extensive history of harm across several centuries (which included millions of deaths and displacements), it’s clear that our first step towards this horrific past is an embodied response of grief and lament, not celebration. Practicing lament is our way of naming - and feeling - the weight of injustice and suffering, and allowing ourselves to be effected in such a way that aligns our response with the course of redemption, rather than that of complicity or perpetuation.
Lament is movement from indifference, avoidance, and abdication to an active participation in the story that’s both been and still being told.
And lastly, lament is giving voice and expression to the pain and sadness we feel internally, allowing it to flow through our bodies rather than compounding into hopelessness, despair, or dissociation.
Liturgy
This short Day of Mourning liturgy is a small way to lean into and practice holy lament of the suffering of Indigenous People in this land throughout history, as well as a protest against the ways our culture and ancestors have falsified or omitted the truth of colonial America’s actions towards those native to this land.
Ritual
Prayer
Letter Reading
Resources
Ritual
(Need 2 candles and a bowl of water)
Light the 2 Candles.
Leader: We light these 2 candles in remembrance of the many Indigenous People and Tribes who dwelled on these lands for centuries prior to the arrival of European settlers. These candles represent the light they carried within them as a people of values, profound wisdom and hospitality, and deep love for all of creation. While imperfect - like all humans - there is a richness to the beautiful way in which they lived and walked.
Blow out the 1st Candle.
Leader: We blow out this first candle in grief of the breach of trust, displacement from land, and loss of life that has cast a dark shadow across our history.
Blow out the 2nd Candle.
Leader: We blow out this second candle in lament of the place Native Americans find themselves in today, among a country that refuses to listen to the stories they have to tell and fails to make repair for the immeasurable wrong that’s been done.
Pass around the Bowl of Water to Dip Hands In.
Leader: We dip our hands in this bowl of water as a reminder of the countless tears that have been shed. Truly, we will never know just how deep the pain was and is that has been inflicted. Yet Great Spirit, you do. You see all, know all, feel all, and redeem all. You weep with all your children as they suffer.
Prayer
Great Creator, of land and sky and sea, we honor you as the spirit-life that flows through all things.
Like the stars in the sky and the waters that fill the Earth, we all belong to you.
On this Day of Mourning, we remember you as the great tear-catcher who holds all of our heartbreak and grief in your bottle. Great Man of Sorrows who had no shortage of weeping, let the cry of our souls be lifted heavenward for our indigenous sisters and brothers, children and elders - of both past and present.
Today we lament the loss of so many - four-leggeds and two-leggeds, trees and soils, fresh airs and clean seas - that resulted in the egregious conquest of European men ruled by bloodlust and greed.
Oh Great Spirit of mysterious ways, you made us cultivators of your creation, not conquerors; life-bringers, not killers. What has happened is not good, but it has happened. It is an interwoven thread in the tapestry that is our story together, and we wear it now with a heavy burden.
We call to mind these stories because they are true, and the truth sets us free, even when painful.
Lord, if we feel shame as we remember, would our shame lead us to repentance.
If we feel anger as we remember, would our anger be kindled in hatred of injustice.
If we feel numb as we remember, would our numbness be pricked by a compassion for others.
If we feel sadness as we remember, would our sadness be greeted with comfort and hope.
As we stand on this land once inhabited and stewarded by the (______________) Tribe, we grieve their loss and honor their care for creation.
Open up our hearts to resurrect all that was and is good, beautiful, and true in their tribe, and to be vessels of contrition and repair as we seek to honor their posterity who remain an integral part of these lands today.
Our Creator, as we remember all First Nation peoples who lost their lives being generous hosts to settlers from Europe, would you allow their lives to have an effect on us today?
Might we glean from their wisdom?
Might we appreciate the deep virtues and values of their culture?
Might we tend to the land as they did?
Might we lament their passing?
Might we protest faulty narratives about them?
Might we advocate for them at every level of society?
Might we upend and amend all chronic heresies that have Christianized such exploitation?
Lord, we still believe that you are merciful, and that your justice will role like a river.
Let it be.
All Together: May we walk in Beauty, my relatives, and in the Good Way that leads to life.
Light the 2 Candles.
Leader: We light these 2 candles again, not in fleshly optimism, but as a reminder of the hope that anchors us and the peace that binds us. Great and Mysterious Spirit, would you light our way and guide our steps as we carry our Indigenous brothers and sisters with us in our hearts - today and always.
The Letter of Chief Seattle, 1854
Context: In 1854, Chief Seattle of the Suquamish tribe is believed to have written this letter addressing President Franklin Pierce in the US government’s effort to negotiate the purchase of Native American land in the Pacific Northwest. His words are powerful, poetic, sobering, and worth reading.
The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land.
But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.
Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect.
All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins.
We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and people all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors.
If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father, my mother’s mother.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. …
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children?
That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the children of the earth.
This we know: Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. We did not weave the web of life.
We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
One thing we know: our God is also your God.
One thing we know, which white people may one day discover –
Our God is the same God.
You may think that you own God as you wish to own our land; but you cannot.
God’s compassion is equal for red people and white.
The earth is precious to God and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed?
What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many people and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires?
Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt?
The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red people have vanished with this wilderness, and their memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it.
Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.
As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know – there is only one God. No one, either Red or White, can be apart. We ARE all brothers and sisters after all.
Resources
Mark Charles’ wonderful (and sobering) book, Unsettling Truths, and his compelling lecture, *Why I No Longer Celebrate Thanksgiving (and Neither Should You)*
A beautifully-written First Nations Version of the New Testament
The Native-Land App which helps identify the tribe(s) that stewarded the lands we now dwell on
Other books: The Wolf at Twilight by Kent Nerburn, American Holocaust by David Stannard, Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys