Black Voice News Online - Thanksgiving Originated In Africa

Thanksgiving Originated In Africa

Thursday, 02 August 2007

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.

It was Very Ancient Interior Africans, and not the Euro-American Pilgrims, who invented Thanksgiving as a display of appreciation for Amen's (i.e. the one universal high God) providence. This display stemmed from two of the earliest and most fundamental pan-African beliefs about God--that God created all real things and that God supplies the needs of His creatures independently of man's beliefs or actions. Thanksgiving was done to honor life, fertility, rain, health, and those other necessities providing for their ordered and continued existence. This display, called Providence (a word sometimes considered a synonym for God) alluded to the Deity's foreknowledge and all-foreseeing care over the cosmos. In particular, thanks was given to Rain as the most widely acknowledged token of goodness and blessing of God's providence. It is seen as the eternal and mystical link between past, present, and future generations. Since rain is one of the most concrete and endless rhythms of nature, it illustrates God's Self-Perfect Reason-a reason which gives rise to Necessity and Fate. As it has always come, rain and other evidences of providence will continue to come from above to link man with God. Therefore, God is known as the "Rain Giver" or "Water Giver" among the Akan, Ila, Ngoni, Mende, Tswana, Akamba, and Tiv.

Another expression of God's providence esteemed by African Tradition is sunshine. The sun appears everyday and provides the vital functions of light, warmth, change of seasons, and the growth of crops. Hence, the Akan call God "the Shining One" to signify that He is involved in the light of the celestial bodies whose shining symbolizes His presence in the universe. One of the Ankore names for God means "Sun" because the people believe that God makes the sun to shine by day and the moon by night. For the Igbira, the sun symbolizes God's benevolence, an expression of His providence (Mbiti, African Religions, p41, 177). It was also believed God shows providence through fertility; through health of humans, cattle, and fields; and through the plentiful-ness of children, cattle, food, and other goods.

Thus, African Tradition says all things come and go according to Providence and by Necessity, the hand-maiden of Foreknowledge. All things are born by Nature and by Fate and there is not a single space deprived of Providence (Mead, Thoth, iii: 37). A prominent gift to newborn humans is that God has endowed each with the ability to choose his/her activities on earth. Freedom of choice-the exercise of Free Will-is not the freedom to chart the course of one's Fate (because this is determined in the spiritual realm before one's incarnation) but rather the ability to either embrace truth or embrace that which is disharmonious, destructive, and evil to oneself and/or to others (Amen, Metu Neter I:154, 188, 223). As a result, the Predestination for a given human being is within the context of his/her own Free Will before reaching his/her ultimate Fate.

website: www.jablifeskills.com

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.