The First Thanksgiving

Alright, alright, alright, one down, two to go!! Congratulations on making it through the first round of You v. The Holidays.We hope that everyone had a safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving.With a minimum of conflict political or otherwise. In short, we hope you made it out in one piece or at least had enough Cali Craft CBD on hand to keep you chilled, focused and centered.

We know that all of you are probably out there doing Black Friday stuff. Or simply just chillaxing with a plate of left overs and some pumpkin pie. Whatever the case we know that reading this weeks blog is not high on your to do list, but we are just going to leave this here for your future reading pleasure.

The First Thanksgiving

There is a great deal of speculation about the first Thanksgiving dinner. When exactly was it? Who was there? Why did the Anti-Thanksgiving movement in the mid-1800’s think that Thanksgiving was too woke of a holiday to be celebrated as a public holiday?

But for us there is one outstanding question that is largely ignored. Was there cannabis at the first Thanksgiving Dinner?

I know it sounds like we are just playing around here, maybe too L tryptophan in that last turkey sandwich. But the possibility exists.

On the One Hand

The die hard pro-cannabis crew like to make claims that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson smoked cannabis for pleasure (not proven). Or that the constitution was written on hemp paper (it wasn’t). Or that the inhabitants of Jamestown in Virginia were forced to grow cannabis and if they didn’t they would be punished (totally and weirdly true).

As a matter of fact the last one is so true that the inhabitants of Jamestown were actually allowed to pay their taxes to the colony with, you guessed it, cannabis. So cannabis cultivation was alive and well on the continent by the time the pilgrims arrived.

It is also believed that the pilgrims themselves brought cannabis seeds over on the Mayflower. This has never been definitively proven but I am guessing that it was actually true given the importance that hemp had for the sailing industry and animal feed and bedding and clothes and, well, you get the point.

On the Other Hand

On the other hand we have the indigenous inhabitants of the region that the pilgrims landed in. Namely the Wampanoag tribe. The tribe like many other Native American tribes used the smoking of the pipe for a variety of purposes. From medicinal to the sealing of agreements. They used a mixture of soothing medicinal plants and herbs. Some of which had psychoactive properties. Its not a stretch to imagine that cannabis was a part of that group.

It is also worth noting that the real reason for the first Thanksgiving was not to give thanks. It was to strengthen the relations between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims.

The Pilgrims had a lot of guns and were given to running around in the woods popping off rounds. This made the Wampanoag understandably nervous (little did they know). So, they agreed to join the Pilgrims for their annual harvest festival in order to ensure better relations in the future.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I am going to chow down with a bunch of gun happy religious folk from across the scary great water, I am definitely going to make sure my traditional pipe smoking mixture has a LOT of soothing and calming herbs in it.

So What is The Truth?

All joking aside, there is zero evidence that cannabis was present at the first Thanksgiving Feast. However it was a harvest feast and the Pilgrims in all probability were growing hemp. And being Puritans alcohol was a big no. So its not a stretch to imagine that the hemp farmers might have tried smoking the dried flower. You see where this is going.

As for the Wampanoag, they were all about smoking the medicinal herbs and keeping the gun happy Pilgrims as chill as possible so maybe they threw a little cannabis into the mix to facilitate the process.

The truth is we will never know for sure what went on during that three day first Thanksgiving feast. We do like to think that the Wampanoag shared their medicinal wisdom with the Pilgrims and that cannabis was a part of that process. On a side note the current leader of the Wampanoag nation is actively seeking a cannabis license for the tribe. His name?  Brendan Weeden, you do the math.

That’s all for this week. Next week we have a surprise from our European cousins that may very well change everything, forever. Enjoy the weekend and see you next week.