Jim Bradshaw: Pilgrims weren't the first to throw a big feast

=When I was in school, this was the time of year when we learned about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower and how they held the first Thanksgiving feast.
None of my teachers told me that the Acadians sat down for a big feast with their Indian friends a long time before the Pilgrims even got to the New World.
Furthermore, if you read the  contemporary accounts of the two celebrations, it sounds like the Cajuns-to-be had a lot more fun.
Both celebrations had roots in religion. The Puritans who settled in New England were firmly convinced that Divine Providence had sent them across the sea.
If it had not been for their faith, many of the Puritans would probably have returned to the more civilized life they left behind.
By the same token, many of the early Acadians crossed the ocean for the same reason as did the Pilgrims — to build a new life for themselves and to escape the religious intolerance rampant in Europe.
It may have been more than simple coincidence that one of the ships that brought early Acadian settlers across the ocean was La Grace de Dieu, The Grace of God.
But the Acadians were not a puritanical bunch.
Their feasts were put on by the Ordre de Bon Temps, the Order of Good Cheer, thought up by Samuel de Champlain to help get his handful of settlers through the cold winter of 1606-1607 at the tiny Port Royal settlement on the Acadian peninsula.
That was a dozen years before the Mayflower got to the New World until 1620.
There were 15 officers at the little Port Royal colony  that winter and, according to historian Francis Parkman, “Each was grand master in turn, holding office  for one  day. It was his function to cater for the company; and, as it became a point of honor to fill the post with credit, the prospective Grand Master was  usually busy, for several days before coming to his dignity, in hunting, fishing, or bartering provisions with the Indians. Thus did ... [the] table  groan beneath all the luxuries of the winter forest: flesh of moose, caribou, and deer, beaver, otter, and hare, bears and wildcats; with ducks, geese, grouse, and plover; sturgeon, too, and trout, and fish innumerable, speared through the ice.”
At the end of the meal, the grand master of the day   turned over his badge of honor to his successor for the following day, toasting him, of course, with yet another cup of wine.
Then the members of the order gathered around the fire  and sang old songs, or, as Lescarbot tells us, made up new ones on the spot.
We know that Champlain’s Indian friends were at the table, because Marc Lescarbot, one of the men at the feast, recorded that the Micmac leader Membertou particularly liked the wine. Membertou said  he liked it because “when he had drunk of it, he sleepeth well, and hath no more fear nor care.”
Membertou  may not have been the only one to sleep without care.
Parkman tells us, “Most bountiful provision had been made for the temporal wants of the colonists. ... Of wine, in  particular, the supply was so generous that every man in Port Royal was served three pints daily.”
Champlain wrote later, “We spent this winter very pleasantly.”
Have a happy Thanksgiving and pleasant winter yourself.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.