Summary

The prologue opens with a Bertolt Brecht poem about singing in dark times. The first-person plural narrator describes an Indian head television test pattern that persisted until the 1970s. Most people believe the origins of Thanksgiving lie in a meal shared by Wampanoag chief Massasoit and nearby colonists, but this feast sealed a land deal. At the anniversary two years later, two hundred Indians died “from an unknown poison” (4). Massasoit’s son Metacomet followed him as chief, but he was forced to sign a peace treaty despite the continuing murders of his people. After a war with the settlers, Metacomet was captured. His head is displayed on a pike and his hand is toured around the country in a jar of rum. In 1637, colonists gathered around a feasting Pequot village and slaughtered it. The Massachusetts governor declared a day...