Nauvoo rendezvous

JUL 01 -

My first encounter with Mormons was in a classic adventure tale called “Around the world in 80 eighty days.” The comic character Passepartout wanders into a lecture by a Mormon prophet and finds that he is the only person in the room. The elated prophet offers to convert him, but Passepartout jumps out of the room as if scalded by hot water. Ever since, I have been curious to find why Passepartout acted so.

At my university, two smartly dressed Mormon missionaries once approached me to deliver a quiz. “What are Mormons famous for?” they asked. I guessed that it was polygamy. They laughed. “Yes, that is what we used to be known for, but it is not practiced anymore” they replied. Soon rumors swirled that the Stephenie Meyer, writer of the famous Twilight series, was Mormon, and the series was full of Mormon philosophy.

That made me even more curious about Mormons. I found that I could learn more about the mysterious Mormons by visiting Nauvoo, a reconstructed historic Mormon settlement.

Nauvoo was full of ancient looking houses. Missionaries wandered around, dressed up in historical costumes to guide visitors. We visited the buildings one by one, starting from spinning center. Cotton did not grow in the harsh winters of Nauvoo, so they grew hemp instead. It took two full years before the hemp could be cured. It had to be painstakingly hacked and spun on a spinner before clothes could be made of it.

The candle section was next. Animal fat was repeatedly boiled in water to remove its impurities. Then they would take strings, tie a stone on its end, dangle the other end from wooden sticks, and dip the strings in the fat. The strings would have to be dipped many times, maybe 300 times, to get a good sized candle. The candles would have to be stored in a secure place, because animal fat attracted mice.

The barrel making was a piece of complicated workmanship. First of all, the wood is cut and rubbed to make it concave on one side and convex on the other. It is dried in the sun for months so that it doesn't shrink after the barrel is made. Then the wood pieces are all fit snugly inside a metal hoop, without any nails. The two ends are hammered in, and a hole is made on one of the ends for a tap to pour the liquid out.

Our guides were focused on family; they believed that family is sealed together for eternity. The candle maker emphasised how candle making was a family effort, the rope maker put three ropes together and told us how they were stronger than one, and the barrel maker told us that a family is held together just like the barrel.

Finally, we attended a play about their history. Mormons had first settled in Nauvoo and were ostracised by the community. Their prophet led them to Utah, which is now a major Mormon settlement. They seemed determined to rewrite the popular version of their history, because one Mormon worried that “people will say we were cowards for moving.” But others convinced him that this was not so, and their parting song’s chorus was “we went willingly o, willingly we went o o.”

It is rumored that the Mormons were driven away because of their prophet’s involvement in conspiracies and their practice of polygamy.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the play did not dwell on these issues. Apparently, today mainstream Mormon Church takes care to dissociate itself from these issues, and those who practice polygamy today are a minority sect. Recently, an American book called “Sister Wives” based on reality TV made a splash in the media, because it is about a polygamous family. Four wives would not be remarkable in some parts of the world, but this family is White, American, and Mormon, proving that polygamy is still practiced in small religious pockets of America.

The Mormons’ faith in their religion was the single most important thing that I brought home from Nauvoo.  The original town had been destroyed, but was reconstructed by faithfuls, making it the largest reconstructed town of its type in America. Our tour guides were volunteering their time for 18 months just to support their faith.  One lady told me that she flew in from Canada every year just to cook for young volunteers. The quizzing missionaries had told me that when young men and women were nineteen years of age, they were encouraged to go out into the world and preach their faith. Though it was not required, most complied. Faith can indeed move mountains, but perhaps I was not expecting such an ardent display of it in the heart of America.

Source: http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/07/01/oped/nauvoo-rendezvous/356429/