The Handcarts Again..

[Guest]

My wife told me tonight that the stake is going to have their special Handcart Trek again this summer. I don't like it. I don't like what the leaders are attempting to teach my TBM teenagers.

For those that don't know what this is. The stake sponsors a 2 day/night trek in the wilderness where teenagers are assigned mothers/fathers/siblings and are to push a handcart for a load of miles - to strengthen their faith in the "church". Yes, I am expected to sign a waiver so that the church or it's leaders are not liable for negligence when my kid gets sucked under a wheel.

Here's some of what I am disturbed with:

Handcarting was an act of desperate poor people. People that should have been encouraged to prepare every needful thing for a season before a nearly impossible journey. But perhaps that would not have done. Maybe a season with outsiders would have educated them of the truth of Mormonism.

Imagine you are baptised in your native country. By the time you stand in front of your handcart (with your wife and children), you:

1) Have been disowned by your family in your native homeland
2) Sold all that you had to arrive at your handcart and now have nothing
3) Are seperated from your homeland by many miles of unfamiliar earth and a large ocean
4) May not even know the language
5) Really have no idea what is really in store for you and your family - on the journey or what is really waiting in Utah.

Now, 500 miles into the trek shoving a handcart, burying your children, caring for your sick wife, are you going to quit? Can you quit? No.

Turning around would be unthinkable:
1) The food, rifles, amunition are now being rationed by the teamster/scout. You only have what little you've mostly used up - because you are poor.
2) At least one of your family is very sick
3) You cannot seperate from the group. The territory is hostile. Lamanites (well, native asians), bandits, predatory animals, steep mountain passes that require the strength of more than one man to propell the handcart. AND the impending weather give you no choice but to trudge on.

You have no options. So you press on and hope to God that the handcart party leader's name is not DONNER.

Suppose you make it to Salt Lake. Odds are that you have come to know the God of the universe because you were one of the walking dead for these many hundreds of miles. Now your journey has just begun. It is not a land flowing with milk and honey. And there are strange new laws that no one had ever mentioned. Laws you thought were antimormon rumors.

Even if you wanted to leave, escape would be unthinkable. You are now 1500 miles from civilized society.

What other choice did these poor people have than to shutup and assimulate?

[_moksha]

You made no reference whatsoever about the Reptilian Overlords and their adamantium shackles.

[_bcspace]

Not being sentimental, I really don't get any spiritual uplift at all from visiting historic Church sites or recreating historic events, such as handcart treks. The scriptures are good enough and the spirit has already born witness.

That being said, I know others do (and some even seem to need it), so I don't complain when they have their fun (unless they try to drag me along).

[_Inconceivable]

You made no reference whatsoever about the Reptilian Overlords and their adamantium shackles.

I'm serious, you klingon, moksha (although that was kind of funny).

They will attempt to impress upon my kids that these good people were faithful latter day saints that never waivered in their testimony of the church. And they should follow their example. When in reality, they were just dedicated to keep themselves and their families alive. Many died of exposure, feeling, I imagine, betrayed and abandoned. What a travesty.

Their example wasn't an intelligent one at all - they were duped. Sadly, it was trusting in those that should have been more trustworthy.

[_Blixa]

You made no reference whatsoever about the Reptilian Overlords and their adamantium shackles.

I'm serious, you klingon, moksha (although that was kind of funny).

They will attempt to impress upon my kids that these good people were faithful latter day saints that never waivered in their testimony of the church. And they should follow their example. When in reality, they were just dedicated to keep themselves and their families alive. Many died of exposure, feeling, I imagine, betrayed and abandoned. What a travesty.

Their example wasn't an intelligent one at all - they were duped. Sadly, it was trusting in those that should have been more trustworthy.

I'm interested in this reinvention of the Handcarter's as a dominant Mormon narrative trope. It certainly seems on the rise. On one hand it makes sense as it fits with the persecution fixation/ancestor worship already at play in Mormon culture, on the other hand it seems strikingly ill chosen since it is also a story of the terrible abuse of members by leaders (I'm think not only of the poor planning but the verbal abuse heaped upon some of the survivors when they made it to SLC). The re-enactment part is also interesting as there are many, I would argue more useful, forms of pioneer life that could be the basis for such pedagogical rituals...

edited to add:

I just remembered the excellent way my third grade teacher used pioneer/utah history: we did much hand's on learning about the settling of Utah by going on local plant identification field trips and learning to dig for and cook edible roots---though not the Sego Lily, which although important historically was I guess eaten in such quantity that the state flower was (still is?) protected from picking. We also made "pioneer" toys. Of course this was taught in conjunction with lessons on native american culture and the history of the Spanish missionary explorers, French fur trappers and assorted mountain men. (She also taught "christmas" by including lessons on xmas traditions outside the US and Hannukah. Quite unusual for Utah in the early 60's, maybe par for the course now.)

[Guest]

Here's a link to the official manual for treks.

The most disturbing activity:

Baby Dolls (NOTE: permission is needed from trek site to perform this activity)

This can be a good experience but it needs to be handled with great respect and should be something that your group feels prompted to do.

Each family at the beginning of trek is given a baby doll that they name and take turns carrying throughout the trek. One effective way to give the families the baby is to have a woman along the trail who talks individually with each family as they pass. She explains that her husband and other children have died and that she is sick and can not go on, she asks the family to take her baby to Zion. Or a father holding his real daughter can say that his wife had died giving birth and he can not care for the new child and his other children.

Some groups on the day of the "solo" (described later) inform the families that the babies have died and that they are to bury them. It is important that the Ma’s and Pa’s are prepared beforehand for this experience. When they bury the doll the Ma’s and Pa’s explain that it is just a doll but to think of what the pioneers experienced. They may share pioneer stories and talk about the joy the knowledge of the resurrection brings us. Other groups have people come and take the dolls, asking the youth to report about how they have cared for the dolls.

[_Sethbag]

SICK. That's just sick. My God that's sick.

They're twisting young teenage minds into further and more committed belief in a religious sham by jerking at their heartstrings and having them bury a freaking baby doll as if it were a dead pioneer child. Man, it must have really sucked to have had to bury young dead babies on the trek out to Utah, so the Church must really have been true after all.

This reminds me, for some reason, of the emotional games played on some young Evangelical kids when their parents take them to a Hell House.

[_solomarineris]

SICK. That's just sick. My God that's sick.

They're twisting young teenage minds into further and more committed belief in a religious sham by jerking at their heartstrings and having them bury a freaking baby doll as if it were a dead pioneer child. Man, it must have really sucked to have had to bury young dead babies on the trek out to Utah, so the Church must really have been true after all.

This reminds me, for some reason, of the emotional games played on some young Evangelical kids when their parents take them to a Hell House.

What else do you want them to do?
As an Anti-mormon you took every goodies away from them, you exposed everyting they
behold holy/sacred.
Now it is time to play the most favorite CULT game with the impressionable minds.
"Us against the whole world".

[Anonymous]

Then there's the further commodification of tragedy as collectible: http://www.traildolls.com/morman-trails.html

The first doll represents Jane Manning who had a very interesting history of sealings. There is also a maimed doll and a Reverse Trek Re-enactor doll, too (with midget pony).

Perhaps, though, the most disturbing element of the webpage is the misspelling, "Morman."

[_Moniker]

From Blixa's link:



I don't know what to say about this thread without being offensive to LDS -- so I suppose I won't say anything.