Plimoth is stuck (willingly) in time

Press, 19 December 1989, Page 13

Plimoth is stuck (willingly) in time

By

DERRICK MANSBRIDGE

HE SAT ON a plain, wooden chair at a plain, wooden table. His wife was preparing a meal on a plain, wooden bench in the background. There was no other chair available, so I stood before him. It was a strange feeling, for worlds of difference stretched before us.

I asked him what part of England he came from. Worcestershire, he said, did I know of it? I said I had a passing-through knowledge of the county. In fact, he came from Droitwich and did I know of that town? I did. Droitwich was mentioned in the Domesday Book for its famous brine springs, used as a treatment for rheumatism and allied complaints. It was not of the brine that he now began reminiscing but of the cider. “Aye, that were famous,” he said, almost smacking his lips in fond memory. And where do you come from, he asked. Originally, Surrey, I replied. He “knowed” of Surrey. But now I live in New Zealand, I foolishly added. His face went blank, eyes perplexed and brow deeply furrowed. “I doan’t know that place: New Zealand you say.” My God, I thought, another ruddy American who has never heard of New Zealand.

Then a second thought: Hold on, this must be the first American to make such a ridiculous claim. And he was not, in any case, just "another ruddy’ American.” He had not only never heard of New Zealand — New Zealand was not even known to Englishmen of his day.

“Tell me,” he said (and this was the question I knew was coming and was beginning to frighten me speechless and senseless— “where is New Zealand?” How in the blazes, I thought desperately, am I going to do that? I should have been prepared for such a question before I blundered, paddleless, up this particular creek. We had been warned what to expect on arrival at the living museum of seventeenth century Plymouth, Massachusetts.

It was in such surroundings in 1627 that the settlers from the Mayflower, followed later by the Fortune, the Anne, and the Little James, established the first successful English colony in New England. They came to be known as the Pilgrims and they called their settlement Plimoth Plantation.

Everyone, we were told, knows how the first colonists who arrived on the Mayflower in the late autumn of 1620 survived only by the skin of their teeth, how more than half of the group died in the first terrible winter (perhaps not so well-known that the rest were probably saved by the humane intervention of the nearby Wampanoag Indians), and how the world was never the same again. The 1627 Plimoth Plantation has been artistically and most believably recreated, populated by costumed people talking in the dialect of the day, living (at least during admission hours) in the custom of the day, and representing residents of the original English colony.

Visitors are warned that the “residents” disclaim any historical or geographical (as I quickly found out) or other knowledge after 1627. Of course, they might enjoy making life a little difficult for the tourists. So there I stood, New Zealand’s place in the universe in my hands, my mind a blank as I stared helplessly at this man from 372 years ago, who was now “living” 15 years before Abel Tasman made European history by his discovery of New Zealand on December 13, 1642. How much does he know, I asked myself. I tentatively suggested that New Zealand was on the opposite side of the globe to England — and vaguely wondered if he knew the world was round. Of course he did, Magellan and Drake came years before. I started spluttering and looked for my wife. She had gone to take a photograph, she claimed later.

He could see I was stuck (he was not the fool in the room) and tried to help me out — this gifted actor who must have been inwardly busting a gut trying not to laugh and outwardly showing only magnificently-feigned bewilderment. “Is New Zealand near the Spice Islands?” he asked. It was all so innocently said. At least he didn’t say Australia — it was some consolation that he had not heard of Australia either.

Now it was my turn to switch on bewilderment. For a moment I wanted to ask: “I doan’t know that place; Spice Islands you say. And where might they be?” Instead I coaxed my brain. “Think, think,” I pleaded. Spice

Islands — remember. Is that what they called the West Indies? Please let it be no. How do you get from the West Indies to New Zealand? Sanity prevailed — not west, but east; the Dutch East Indies. Got it, at last.

The “oldest resident” had been watching these mental exertions most carefully, surely helping me to get the right answer with some of the neatest body language anyone has ever seen. Just for a moment I thought I saw his eyes both twinkle in merriment and flicker in relief.

“Oh, some thousands of miles (thank goodness he didn’t ask how many) south of the Spice Islands,” I said, feeling better with every word. Then I tried to put my foot in it again — “Not too far from the South Pole,” I added gratuitously. Oh, no, don’t ask me anything about the South Pole. He didn’t. He was as much relieved we had touched bottom as I was.

I thanked him for the sparkling conversation we had enjoyed. “It has been my pleasure, friend,” he concluded. “Go with God.” I went willingly. The punishment was not repeated, and the rest of the trip around Plimoth Plantation went smoothly. We talked to a young lady from the Anne, who had since their arrival married a man from Yorkshire. She was “pleased” that little “hard drink” had come into the settlement at that date, although she was “much afeared” that it would arrive soon. Most settlers willingly attended church; others had to be “persuaded.”

Most interesting was an older man whittling away at a piece of wood who told us that he was not a member of the ruling church community. Over half of the colonists were not. But his people lacked leadership and were easily exploited. “Do you mean that you are being persecuted by the people who came all this way, and suffered all the terrors, to get away from religious persecutors in England?” I asked. He said that it was so. He, too, asked me to “Go with God.” Was it the same God?

Companion to the Plimoth Settlement is a village of the Wampanoag Indians, the tribe that had taught the colonists the basic necessities of survival after the first disastrous winter on American soil. In a straw and bark hut, an Indian woman answered questions on behalf of her people, but as a descendant of the tribe instead of a “living relic.” We asked her what the Wampanoag found was the greatest difference between themselves and the colonists. Her strong, purposeful answer might have come from a Maori, an Aborigine, a Bantu.

“The settlers’ concept of the Land; their desperate urge to have it, to fence it, to call it their own. My people never understood that feeling of the Colonists, and in the years, to, come, when the friendship that had been forged by the two groups’ leaders in the early days had died, it was to lead to bitter Wars.”' ■ She explained that her people looked upon the land as belong-

ing to everyone and to none. It was there for the good of all and was sacred to everyone’s life. Very soon after the colonists arrived, they wanted to buy land from the Indians who told them to use — not take — what they needed. “But the colonists had this need to buy the land. We had to sell it before they could own it. It meant that they had to give something in exchange — anything. Then they fenced the land and told us we must keep out. Nothing divided us more than this approach to the Land.”

This time we were sent on our way with a light nod of the head. It had been an absorbing venture into the past, the pulling back of a curtain to reveal history in all its stimulating detail: compelling, beautifully constructed, “staffed” by a highlyintelligent, excellent tutored, imaginative cast. There was one final scene to be played out, on board a replica of the Mayflower three miles down the road. How its complement of 102 passengers and 24 crew managed to cross the Atlantic in such a small, vulnerable craft without the loss of more than one passenger and one of the crew is another story, one well-documented. On the kitset Mayflower, crew and passengers also act their original parts — but with a difference.. They are pegged on their arrival year, 1620, and have no knowledge of what was yet to happen on Plimoth Plantation. No wonder it sometimes became confusing, even for the players. Even, in this case, for the Master of the Mayflower

himself, Captain Jones. Talking to one tourist about - the time of the year of the Mayflower’s arrival on the American coast, he called it the “Fall.” It made our day even more delightful to ascertain “ that “Fall” for “autumn” came into the Ameri-

can language many years wards.-;-We didn’t have the courage, thought, to report the matter to the bearded giant playing the part of Captain Jones. We stepped ashore, back into the autumn of 1989. . i .i..