Christmas Season Starts With a "BER"

At night, the strong winds continued to roar like sirens outside the ‘tween deck aboard the Mayflower. At least we had firewood and the galley stove could be kept running, but our food rations were being stretched thinner each day. No one celebrated on Christmas Day. I was told by thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Tilley that Christmas didn’t mean much to the Separatists.

“Religious holidays like Christmas are pagan in origin,” she told me, “and therefor an abomination on the name of Jesus Christ.”

I found that impossible to comprehend. Filipino families adore Christmas. We begin preparations for that wonderful holiday at the start of what we call the “Ber” months: September, October, et cetera, all the way up to New Year’s. 

Not celebrating Christmas sounded like an abomination to me. 

-- Christmas season starts with a "Ber"

from Time Trip #3: Witness to the First Thanksgiving

 

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4

KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

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Tisquantum's Journey

All stills from the film Squanto: A Warrior's Tale

On our long walk from Patuxet, Tisquantum had told me about his experience of being kidnapped by an Englishman named Thomas Hunt about seven years earlier. He was going to be sold into slavery in Spain along with nearly twenty other Indians. After a brutal cross-Atlantic venture, Hunt succeeded in selling off several of the Indians in Spain until a collection of Catholic friars were able to use what local political powers they had to free the remaining Patuxet natives from Hunt’s control. The friars brought these last few Indians to a monastery near the Spanish city of Malaga so they could be taught the Catholic faith.

Eventually, Tisquantum was able to talk one of the friars into helping him escape the monastery to England where he began living with a man named John Slaney in London.  That was where he began learning the English language. John Slaney worked for the Newfoundland Company which had been managing a colony in Newfoundland since 1610. Newfoundland is an eastern part of modern day Canada, just north of Maine. Mr. Slaney employed Tisquantum as an interpreter and sent him to Newfoundland to work with a sea captain named John Mason who was also the governor of the Newfoundland colony. Apparently, there were a lot of men named John during this time. 

          While in Newfoundland, Tisquantum met another captain named Thomas Dermer.  This time, Capt. Dermer was the one to hire Tisquantum as an interpreter in hopes that he could also act as a peacemaker between the English and the enraged Patuxet and Nauset Indians.  These Natives were still sore over having members of their tribes stolen from them. Capt. Dermer and Tisquantum returned to England to finalize their plans and then sailed back to Patuxet with high hopes of establishing peaceful commerce with the local Indian population. Instead they found most of the people dead from a disease that had ravaged the area while Tisquantum was away. The lack of meaningful contacts in the Cape Cod area caused Capt. Dermer to move on, but Tisquantum was developing his own ideas of how the tribes should be organized during this era of rebuilding.

Massasoit wasn’t convinced of Tisquantum’s pro-English arguments yet, but over the next few days Tisquantum would continue to build his case. Eventually the chief began to give in to Tisquantum’s point of view, especially with regards to the growing imbalance of power the people of Sowams had to deal with. The rising tributes being demanded by Canonicus was becoming unbearable. Maybe the white, hairy-faced visitors from the east could be useful to them after all. They just had to find a group willing to trade with the Natives.

-- Tisquantum's Journey 

from Time Trip #3: Witness to the First Thanksgiving

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

From the Time Trip Family 

Oguina Builds a Fire

That night I had to sleep outside on the ground near the edge of the village. I could hear the Natives singing songs in gentle, melancholy tones near their large campfire. Quadequina had left me with some sticks to build my own fire, but I didn’t know how. When some of the Indians walked by and saw that I had yet to build a fire I guess it confirmed their suspicion that I was helpless.

They had shared some corn soup and bread with me for supper, but I was still hungry. I felt exhausted, but it was difficult to sleep. I lay down on the grass and tried to relax, but the thought of moving on to another village in the morning had me worried. A fresh, cool breeze began to rustle through the tree tops. I could smell rain. Perfect.

“Zammie.”

“I sat up and saw Quadequina’s sixteen-year-old daughter standing over me. Her lean legs seemed to rise up forever.

“Oguina?”

“Where’s your fire?” she asked me.

“I can’t build one.”

“Here.” She handed me a thin strip of cooked deer meat. “I grabbed this for you.”

“Thank you.” I ate the venison quickly. It was warm and delicious.

Oguina knelt down and picked up the flint rocks from the pile that her father had left me. “Let me show you. First you need a pit.” She took one of the larger sticks and dug out a shallow hole in the ground maybe two feet wide and a few inches deep. Then she grabbed some of the smaller sticks and some dried moss and put them together in a pile in the middle of the pit. Then she began chipping the flint rocks creating sparks until the weeds began to smolder. She gently blew on the smoking embers, holding her long hair back with her hands, until a small flame began to grow. Then she placed some of the larger sticks into the flame and it started to really burn.

“Wow. Do all the kids know how to do that?”

“Of course.” Her eyes sparkled in the light of the small fire.

“I guess that’s why they’re sending me away. They can tell I don’t belong here, can’t they?”

“It wasn’t always like this,” she said. Her smile faded. “A few years ago they would have let you stay and be trained by one of the smaller families. But we’ve had so many die from sickness. I guess my uncle feels there’s no one here willing to help teach you.” She had a beautiful face. Her skin color was similar to mine, but her facial features were longer and better defined.

“Is he right? Is there no one here? I don’t wanna hafta go to another village. What if they turn me away, too?”

“I think there is room for you, but it doesn’t matter what I think. You’d have to convince Massasoit somehow.”

“How can I do that?”

“I don’t know. But I hope you think of something soon.” She looked back towards the center of the village. “I have to go back now before my father comes looking for me. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As quickly as she had arrived, she sprung up and darted away.

“Thank you,” I said.

It was hopeless. I couldn’t even build a fire much less hunt or build a hut. But there must have been a reason for me being here. Why would the Arjuna send me somewhere that I didn’t belong?

-- Oguina Builds a Fire

from Time Trip #3: Witness to the First Thanksgiving

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

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Food from Time Trip #3: Pottage Stew

The celebration lasted through the night. Additional bonfires were made along the beach and everyone gathered in groups and told ghost stories and sang old songs. The Indians sang songs of their ancient heroes, and the non-Separatist Pilgrims sang the catchy drinking songs they remembered from back home. It was early morning before everyone was asleep, but it wasn’t long the next day before the festivities began again.

One of the most popular dishes the next morning (especially for those men who drank too much the night before) was the hot vegetable soup. The vegetables and grains were prepared in medieval stews called pottages. Pieces of meat were boiled with the veggies and the soup simmered and was reduced until a thick broth was formed. Both adults and children lined up for large helpings, ate until they were full, and then went back for more. 

-- from Time Trip Adventure 3: Witness to the First Thanksgiving 

 

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4

KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

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Adventure 3 Launch Day!

LAUNCH DAY!

Time Trip Adventure 3: 

Witness to the First Thanksgiving

Now available for Kindle at Amazon.com! 

Learn about the history surrounding one of our most treasured holidays through the eyes of young Zammie and Kyla as they travel back in time in search of what actually unfolded when the English Separatists first met a small group of Wampanoag Indians.

Experience both the suffering and the joy of the fledgling Plymouth settlement as the surviving families work themselves to near extinction in order to build their new home.

Spend time in a Native village deep within the forests west of Cape Cod where hunting is a way of life and peaceful relations must be developed with neighboring tribes in order to secure continued growth.

Let Zammie and Kyla be your guide as you'll journey with them through both the familiar and the unknown. 

Think you know everything about the First Thanksgiving?

Think again.

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4

KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

Available at Amazon.com!  

Time Travelers

“It’s like a parallel universe. Except that what you are seeing has already happened in the past. It’s not happening now.”

          Mister G paused for a second to take a sip of hot chai tea. The elderly man sat comfortably in his favorite recliner, and he was attempting to explain to the two young cousins exactly how their time travels worked. The looks on their faces, however, told him they were growing more confused.

          “But we’re experiencing it now,” said Zammie “Not now now, but now then. When we were there.”

          “How can it be another universe?” asked Kyla. “You mean like the Milky Way?”

          “Milky Way’s a galaxy,” said Zammie. “It’s inside the universe.”

          “Oh, yeah. So how can there be another universe? Wouldn’t that be inside this universe, too?”

          “It’s not another universe outside of this one,” said Mister G. “You aren’t leaving earth. You are still here. Just at another point in time. A point in time that has already left its mark on the world.”

          “So we can’t go into the future?” asked Zammie.

          “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

Mister G had given the metallic Arjuna doll to Zammie as a reward for being such an astute history student at school. It was a doll that he had owned since he was a child growing up in India. It had been given to him by his father who had, in turn, received it from his father. He wasn’t exactly sure the age of the doll, but if he were to find out that it was over a thousand years old it would not have surprised him in the least.

The doll, which was made in the form of an ancient Indian archer, had magical properties that gave the owner the ability to travel back into time. Typically, based on what Mister G’s father had told him, users of the Arjuna would travel back into time and only have the ability to see the past for short moments, like looking through someone’s window into their living room for a few hours. They could not interact with the people. They couldn’t talk to them or even be seen by them. It was similar to Scrooge’s journeys in A Christmas Carol. When Mister G first used the statue as a child, however, he discovered that he could interact with the people in the past. He could talk to them, be understood, share their food, and by all other standards live in the past just as the actual people in time did.

When Zammie and Kyla told Mister G that not only could they interact with people in the past, but they could bring back objects from their time travels as well, he was shocked. He had known of no one who had been able to do that, not even him. For whatever reason, the Arjuna doll reacted strongly with the two young cousins, giving them the ability to experience the past unlike anyone else he knew.

“Can we grow old in the past?” asked Zammie.

“Can we die?” asked Kyla.

          “It’s difficult to say. It’s almost as if the rules of the doll are being rewritten for you. In my experience, no, you cannot grow old. I once went back to see Gandhi in India. I was there for nearly nine months, and I never even had to shave my beard. But your experience is different from mine. I also do not think you can die, but I wouldn’t test it. Don’t be taking on unnecessary risks.”

-- Opening of 

Time Trip #3: Witness to the First Thanksgiving 

"The First Thanksgiving" by J.L.G. Ferris (early 1900s)

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

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Desperate Crossing

A History Channel Presentation

Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower 

in 3 parts

PART 1

             

PART 2

            

PART 3

          

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

Arriving this month!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Available at Amazon.com!

First Encounter Beach

“Hold your fire!” ordered Capt. Standish. “Hold your fire! No shooting until you can take aim. Until you can see them in the flesh!”

          It didn’t take long before the Indians came running out from the trees and we did have an opportunity to take aim. Even in the frigid morning air many of the Indians wore very little clothing. Their long hair was shaved along the sides of their heads and pinned up with feathers and beads, and their faces and bodies were painted all sorts of colors. Strings of shells or bones dangled from their necks and bounced around as they ran and jumped across the beach.

Several of the Pilgrims had left their muskets leaned up against the shallop outside the camp. When they ran out from the barricade to retrieve them they were quickly pinned in behind the boat by a group of attacking Indians coming from the far side of the beach. The Pilgrims couldn’t ignite their musket match cords without fire so they called to Capt. Standish who was still inside the barricade for help.

          “Fear not, soldiers!” yelled Capt. Standish. “Be of good cheer! Help is on the way!”

Robert Coppin picked up a smoldering log from the bonfire in the barricade and ran with it to the shallop. He dodged arrows right and left as he ran across the sand through the darkness to the safety of the boat and helped the trapped Pilgrims with their matchlocks.

At this same time I noticed one tall Indian in particular who stood up in full view of the encampment and yelled defiantly at the Pilgrims. The light of the campfire gave him an orange glow. The dawn was breaking behind him. His face was painted black with white stripes and he held a bow that was nearly as tall as he was. It was a magnificent sight. He was basically challenging us to come out from behind the fence and fight him. He didn’t flinch when one of the sailors fired a musket at him. Fortunately for him the sailor missed. The Indian immediately began showering the barricade with arrows from his bow before giving another primal scream and retreating back into the forest.

-- Zammie's account at First Encounter Beach

from Time Trip #3: 
Witness to the First Thanksgiving

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4
KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

Available at Amazon.com! 

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

Available at Amazon.com!  

Francis on the Mayflower

By early afternoon, I was going stir-crazy being stuck on the boat. The constant bobbing in the water had my insides doing backflips. We had barley gruel and salted dry herring for lunch, but I didn’t eat much. I was on the top deck staring off towards the curl of Cape Cod in the distance, wondering if the search party had found anything yet, when fourteen-year-old Francis Billington walked up next to me.

“Hello, Kyla.”

“Hi, Francis.” Francis was always up to no good. He father, John Billington, was a foul-mouthed and rude man who was not part of the Separatists. The Billington family gained passage on the Mayflower after some of the other Separatists decided not to make the journey from England. These were the people that Mr. Bradford and Mr. Brewster referred to as Strangers. Most of the Strangers got along okay with the Separatists, but the Billingtons were a different breed.

“I bet you never fired a musket before, ‘ave ya?” he asked me. His face was dirty with a mix of boat grime and cold gruel that had dribbled down his chin.

“No. I haven’t.”

“Well, I ‘ave. And if ya ask nicely, I might show ya how to operate one.”

“Where will you get a musket from?”

“My father ‘as one. He lets me shoot it sometimes when I want. Would you like to see?”

“No, I don’t believe you.”

“I’m tellin’ the truth,” he said (but he pronounced it “troof” in his thick, English accent). “It’s in our cabin!”

Francis bragged in front of the other children a lot. I had become pretty good at ignoring his empty boasting, but this time I decided to call his bluff. “Okay, Francis, let’s see it.”

I followed him down the deck hatch into the ‘tweens. We walked down the make-shift hallway between the thin-walled cabins until we reached the small room his family stayed in. Lying on one of the cots was a wooden musket. Francis picked it up with a confident grin on his face. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually quite impressed.

“See? Want me show ya how it works?”

“Are you sure you won’t get in trouble?” It was a plain looking brown musket with what looked like a long, thin rope tied to the bottom of it that wound up and connected to where the hammer should have been.

“Of course! My father trusts me all day. This ‘ere is the flash pan.” Francis pointed at small metal crevice near the trigger. “You put your powder in ‘ere.” Francis picked up the end of the rope and held it over a burning candle for a second until it started smoking. “This is ‘ere the match. You gotta be careful of this so’s it doesn’t touch the flash—

KA-POW!!

The gun went off and my heart leapt into my throat. I could feel the rush of the bullet as it zipped past my head and went through the cabin wall into the next room. The cabin was filled with white smoke that stung my eyes. The powder drifting in the air tasted like rotten eggs. Francis’s eyes were as big as boulders.

“What’d you do?” I asked. “Why’d you shoot it?”

“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”

“You almost shot me, Francis!”

“I said it was an accident!”

“Well where’d the bullet go?”

We heard one of the sailors on the upper deck yelling now. “Who fired that musket?!”

“You’re gonna get us in trouble, Francis!” I said. I followed the path of the bullet out of the cabin and into the hallway. It had passed to the other side of the hallway and into the next cabin room -- the powder room. We went inside and I found where the bullet finally stopped. It was lodged an inch deep into a tar-covered plank wall about six inches wide of a large keg of gun powder.

“If you had hit this powder, Francis, you would have blown the whole ship up!”

“Ha ha! That was close!”

His lack of understanding infuriated me. Some of the other passengers who had been sitting in the ‘tweens were now gathering around us. Everyone was curious as to what had happened. I also heard the sailors rushing down from the upper deck into the ‘tweens and I knew we were going to be in trouble. 

-- Francis on the Mayflower

from Time Trip #3: 
Witness to the First Thanksgiving

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4

KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

Available at Amazon.com!  

Finding the Pilot Whale

"Mayflower With Shallop" by William Halsall (1882)

“My coat looks as if it’s been frosted with sugar,” said Mr. Bradford.  

All of our overcoats were being glazed with ocean spray that was freezing in the wind. The spray felt like prickly ice fingers crawling across everything it touched. We were able to sail south with some success this time towards another small bay. The water was a menacing dark blue and lapped up vigorously against the sides of the shallop. The sky was covered in clouds, blotting out the sun. Please, no more snow, I prayed. The snow was pretty the first time I saw it, but one’s feelings about it can change quickly when there is no shelter or central heating to be found close by.  

“Look! Look! You see ‘em?!” One of the Mayflower’s sailors, a man named John Alden, had spotted ten or twelve Indians who were gathered around a large, dark blob on the beach that looked like a pile of black mud.

          “Miss Kyla,” said Capt. Standish. “Can you yell out to them? Tell them we wish to talk.”

          I cleared my throat and tried to project as loud as I could. We must have been nearly half a mile from the shore.

          “Hello!” I yelled. “Hello!” My voice was weak and didn’t carry well over the waves and wind. Although I was speaking English, I had learned on previous time trips that my speech was somehow automatically translated into the native tongue of whoever I was speaking to. It was a wonderful gift for these adventures and very useful. “Hello!” I yelled again and waved with both of my arms. I’m not sure they could hear me, but they certainly saw us. A moment after yelling for them they stopped what they were doing and stared out to our small boat. Then, as if on command, they entire group of Indians began running around the beach collecting their belongings and then dashing into the forest.

          “Where are they going?” asked Capt. Standish. “What did you say to them?”

          “I just said hello.”

          “Well, why are they running away?”

          “They’re afraid,” said Robert Coppin. “They’ve had bad experiences with English. That’s my guess.”

          “Even if that’s so, they have nothing to fear from us,” said Capt. Standish.

          By the time we reached the beach the Indians were long gone. The sailors jumped from the shallop and into the shallow surf and pulled the boat ashore. Then several of us gathered around the large black mass that had been left on the beach to discover it was the bloody remains of a bulbous-headed pilot whale. The Indians had been harvesting the blubber off of it when we had interrupted them.

          “These big fish sometimes get stranded in the tidal flats of the shallow areas,” said Mr. Coppin.

          “It’s not a fish,” I said. “It’s a mammal.”

          He gave me a blank look. “A what?”

          “A mammal. Like us.”

          Mr. Coppin laughed. “Sorry miss, but these fish ain’t nuttin’ like us.”

          “Well . . . nevermind.” I wasn’t sure how much these sailors had paid attention in biology class.

-- Finding the pilot whale

from Time Trip #3: Witness to the First Thanksgiving

Reproduction of the original shallop used by the Pilgrims by Brad Gorham

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

Arriving this month!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1
THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

Available at Amazon.com!

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Available at Amazon.com!