For generations New Englanders, and some Mayflower families
that moved south and west, practiced a quaint little tradition at their
Thanksgiving table. Each place setting
was given five kernels of parched corn, often along with a card that had this
little poem, or a similar one:
Five Kernels
The first winter in Plymouth was very cold
And hunger abounded as the the year unrolled.
Some days each only had five kernels of corn.
Their lives were becoming sad and forlorn.
But then spring came and their harvest grew.
The pilgrims began to thrive and their spirits did,
too.
But they never forgot the bleak times they did abate
So on Thanksgiving they’d put five kernels on each
plate.
The first kernel reminded them of the autumn beauty.
The second one of the freedom that they held dearly.
The third reminded of their love and care for each
other
And the fourth was for dear friends like the Indian
brother.
The fifth kernel reminded of God’s love and care for
all.
So as you prepare and celebrate Thanksgiving this
fall,
Remember to put five little kernels on each dinner
plate
To honor the pilgrims and give thanks for our good
fate.
Families that follow this tradition don’t use
popcorn (you would break your teeth), but they purchase roasted sweet corn.
You can make this yourself or search for it online or in your local market. Or open up a can of corn and count it out onto the plates. This tradition was passed on for many, many
years, and is mentioned in books, such as the Little House books by Laura
Ingalls Wilder (which makes sense because I have Ingalls ancestors from Lynn,
Massachusetts, just like the author).
It’s very true that the Mayflower passengers
suffered greatly during their first winter here in 1620 until the spring of
1621. Half of their company, fifty out
of 102 passengers died of sickness and exposure. It is also true that the following spring they
planted a crop with help from several native members of the Wampanoag nation,
which was followed by a successful first harvest. They celebrated a traditional English “Harvest
Home” celebration that fall, just like they always did at home in Europe, and
were joined by many members of the local Wampanoag tribe.
You can learn more about how the myth of the Five
Kernels started in a pamphlet published by the General Society of Mayflower
Descendants in the 1950s. Jim Baker, a
former research at the Plimoth Plantation Museum, wrote this in 1998.
From Jim Baker:
"However, this never happened. There is no mention of the supposed division
in any of the contemporary sources, nor is there any reason to believe that the
colonial leaders would actually issue a daily corn ration of five kernals,
which was not enough to be of any nutritional benefit. Instead, they simply ran
out at the end of the spring season in April when they planted what they had put
aside as seed." As J. A. Goodwin (1888) observed concerning the tradition,
"the story rests on no foundation, and is opposed to common-sense."
1
Similarly, the effect of the suffering may be exaggerated. Bradford simply
notes they were very badly supplied and lacked corn entirely for two or three
months, being reduced to living on water, fish, shellfish, ground nuts and a
few water fowl, and "now and then a deer."
2 As this was a
healthy if highly unsatisfactory diet to the colonists, no one died or
"succombed." Winslow does mention that he had seen "... some
seasons at noon I have seen men stagger by reason of faintness for want of
food", yet he does not give a specific date for this. As he then continues
"...yet ere night, by the good providence and blessing of God, we have
enjoyed such plenty as though the windows of heaven had been opened unto us.”
3
the use of the phrase may be more a general comment that a specific
description.
Just as Plymouth Rock came to symbolize the heroic and providential nature
of the Mayflower voyage, some icon was required to celebrate the Plymouth
colonists’ courageous perseverance through their suffering and deprivation. The
five kernals were adopted to point this moral at some point after the American
Revolution. Their appearance is first recorded at the 1820 Forefathers’ Day
dinner when the five symbolic parched corns was placed on each plate to remind
the diners of "the time in 1623, when that was the proportion allowed to
each individual on account of scarcity."
4
The story was related by subsequent writers such as Frances Baylies (1866)
5
and Joseph Banvard (1851)
6 , but after the Bradford manuscript had
been found and published and no evidence for the tradition was discovered, the
Five Kernals myth gradually faded from public memory, and is seldom referred to
today.
Another reference to five kernals of corn occurs in quite a different
context. The Harlow Old Fort House (ca. 1677) Museum in Plymouth has been
holding an annual juvenile pageant called "The Corn Planting" each
May since before 1928.
7 A group of costumed school children enact a
short re-enactment of the planting of corn by Squanto and the colonists which
is witnessed by other students from local schools.
As part of this tradition, the hills of corn are each supplied with five
kernals of corn, and the following rhyme is recited:
Five kernals of corn in a row
One for the blackbird, one for the crow,
One for the cutworm and two to grow.
8"
JWB 12/14/98
1. Godwin, John A.
The Pilgrim Republic. Boston:
Ticknor & Co., 1888, p. 242.
2. Bradford, William.
Of Plymouth Plantation. S.E.
Morison, ed. NY: Knopf, 1970, p. 123
3. Winslow, Edward. "Good Newes from New England" in
Alexander Young.
Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers. Boston: Charles C.
Little and James Brown, 1844, pp. 354-55
4. Thacher, James.
History
of Plymouth. Boston: Marsh, Capon & Lyon, 1832, p. 248.
5. Frances Baylies.
An Historical Memoir of the Colony of
New Plymouth Boston: Wiggin & Lunt 1866, p. 121
6. Joseph Banvard.
Plymouth and the Pilgrims, Boston:
Gould and Lincoln, 1851, p. 136
7. Barker, Amy H.
A History of the Plymouth Antiquarian
Society. Plymouth: Plymouth Antiquarian Society, 1959.
8.
Plimoth Colony Cook Book . Sally Erath, ed. Plymouth:
Plymouth: Antiquarian Society, 1981, p. 41
There are many myths surrounding the Pilgrims. Plymouth Rock is definitely a myth. Who would land a boat on a rock? But now it
is a National Historic Site. Myles Standish did not court Priscilla Mullins, but Longfellow's poem is one of the most famous he ever wrote. Although
the myth of the Five Kernels was debunked in the 1950s, many families continue
this tradition. Americans love to count their blessings at Thanksgiving, and this little story and poem is part of that custom. I know that we still do
it at our Thanksgiving table, but I usually follow up with “Here’s what really
happened” 30 second explanation. Perhaps
it is time for someone to write up a new, more accurate poem?
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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "The Five Kernels of Corn Myth at Thanksgiving", Nutfield Genealogy, posted November 28, 2013, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-five-kernels-of-corn-myth-at.html: accessed [access date]).
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