Could you celebrate Thanksgiving every day?

The Wampanoag do.

I recently visited Plimoth Plantation and met the modern descendants of this tribe of American Indians, who once had villages scattered across the North and South shores, as well as Cape Cod.

For the Wampanoag, every day is a day to give thanks to the Creator for the blessings of life, food and family. They've carried on this beautiful tradition for generations - way before Lincoln made the holiday official in 1863.

This can be a hard time of year for American Indians. They know the rosey picture of Thanksgiving we all get from grammar school isn't a true snapshot of early relations between natives and European settlers.

The truth is, things didn't go well from the first meetings of these two groups. Some European traders came to these shores years before the Mayflower docked. They captured Wampanoags and brought them to England as slaves. Those left behind died from diseases these traders brought.

The Pilgrims then hit these shores with a bad reputation. The first Thanksgiving - which historians date around late September or early October in 1621 - didn't include a few Wampanoag and a lot of Pilgrims breaking bread, in a romantic Rockwellian sense. It was a three-day feast, likely spread throughout the early town, with about 50 Pilgrims and 90 Wampanoags taking part.

It's hard to know what the atmosphere was like, but it can't have been too jovial.

Unfortunately, the two groups didn't live happily ever after. A generation later, they went to war. Things only got worse from there.

So instead of celebrating a feast on Thanksgiving, Wampanoag fast. It's called a National Day of Mourning. They use this time to reflect on the suffering of Indians and the loss of their way of life.

My visit to Plimoth was the first time I had heard about this. I admit I never thought about those early days or what things might have been like from the Indian perspective. I've lived here my whole life, and I never heard the name Wampanoag, which now seems a little unforgivable.

Now that I have heard it, it's not a name I'll forget soon. I'm grateful I've learned this and that members of this tribe are still here. I'm also grateful I live in this region, which owes so much to the Wampanoag.

Rosemary Ford is the arts and entertainment reporter for The Eagle-Tribune. Reach her at 978-946-2188, or via e-mail, rford@eagletriibune.com.