Colonial House

Cafe Society
61

I don’t see how the religious elements could not be emphasized; religion was a much larger part of life in 1628. To recreate a 17th century village without including the religious aspect would be about as authentic as, say, recreating modern-day America but leaving out the mass media aspect. Religion was so intertwined that to not go to church or admit to atheism would be met with about as much tolerance as we give child molesters nowadays.

Zut posted

If that’s the point of the show, I missed it. I thought the point of the show was to accurately “live” a 17th century colonial life, as close as the villagers and show producers could recreate one. The contrast lies in us watching the show and discussing it; not in watching a bunch of people pick and choose which aspects of the 17th century they want to live in and which they’re going to dismiss.

Hell, if I were them and had to flat out refuse one aspect of the 17th century, I’d be asking for a fridge WAY before I’d be refusing to go to church. Rotting meat? No thanks!

62

Agree totally. They picked a religious mayor for a good reason.

63

And some of us ‘normal’ people are admiring of your knowledge.

64

I don’t have the text of the colonist’s agreement handy, but the Plymouth Bay Colony, upon which this one seems heavily based, was democratic (to an extent). The signatories of the Mayflower Compact:

Plymouth Bay Colony is often cited as the first settlement in America based on a social contract, not divine right:

One could also argue that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution we live under today were strongly influenced by the Mayflower Compact.

65

I don’t understand how Jonathon’s being gay is not accurate? I don’t believe his coming out was in that he was not punished, but I’m sure gay people were outed from time to time. Had he not, it’d only be one less thing to discuss, nothing has changed about the colony. With this issue on the table, it brought to the fore a very real situation that a colonist might have faced back then. I think it’s a learning opportunity, something I view as a plus.

On the topic of scoring, I don’t even understand where that comes from. How does I am gay, this is who I am = I am looking to score? From a producer at the PBS site:

66

<channel darth vader’s voice>
come to the dark side…anybody is welcome to come to events as long as you follow the rules and either contact the local group and borrow clothes or make you rbest attempt at making a good attempt at pre1600 clothing…</channeling>

Really, all it takes is an enquiring mind willing to have fun and see learning as fun. If youa re willing to expend a little curiosity in understanding why [for example] Braveheart is about 50% crap by reading online now the internet is here and making things easier and thinking Hm, why would a 9 year old french princess who hasn’t even come over to Britain and married Edward get knocked up by a scots rebel…hmmmmmm… :dubious:

If you like a particular movie - say Braveheart is a decent example…buy a copy an watch it=) Note the people [Robert the Bruce, Edward, anybody mentioned by name.] Note the places [bannockburn, York, London] and the years it is happening in. Go online and start googling things. Read up on the border wars, Edward, Bannockburn. Take what you read, and see how it is different from the movie, get together with people [online is good, yahoogroups has all sorts of interest groups, rec.org.sca is the Rialto, sca usenet group] and talk about things. Try making something to eat from a 14th century recipe, how about oatcakes like Robert the Bruce was reputed to have let burn one night when he was on the run…get 9 yards of fabric and have a go at making a great kilt=) Go to some Scottish games and toss around rocks and trees, but above all have fun learning about something.

Honestly, when I get into a museum to look at artifacts for my research, i am humbled to think of the years past when people made and used items…a thousand years ago. You know? They were just like ME! They had a family, they got hungry, tired, happy, sad, sleepy…told jokes and farted. when I make something in the same way that someone did a thousand years or 500 years ago, using the same materials and then using it, it makes me part of history also.

Of course, the sca does also field a major battle every august where 5000 peoplestrap their asses in armor, grab rattan weapons and duke it out…

http://sca.uwaterloo.ca/~praetzel/war.html

http://www.pbase.com/darter02/pennsic32

and finally, a website with enough historical information for the worst info-junkie alive

http://www.florilegium.org/

67

I thought that was Alfred the Great. Robert the Bruce saw the spider spinning its web again and learned that he had to keep trying too.

Anyway, thanks for your lovely description of making the tunic. Fascinating! Now, does anyone know what colonists usually did right off the boat in the clothing area? Did they bring spinning wheels (wool and flax, and the flax ones are very large), or someone who could make one? Shouldn’t these Colonial House people be planting flax and raising sheep?

68

it should be interesting to see how things end up next week. i’m wondering why the gov. leaves again.

i thought it was very nice of the dogs to help paul in his punishment time. really cute to see the dog leaning on his leg and him giving the dog ear skritches.

the keg party kinda cracked me up. welcome to the colony, by the way we drank up your rations already.

i could understand that you may not want to attend a formal sabbath service, but for goodness sake, you could do something other than skinnydipping.

i read a bit of the chat that pbs/wash post had today with amy-kristine and jonathan. turns out a romance did occur, but after the show was over for a bit. amy is dating one of the freemen now. see what happens after you use shampoo!

in an article in a philly paper, julie (servant with paul at the gov’s house) said that when they left the site on the way to the hotel they stopped at a rite aid type place, the group nearly bought out the store on defoliants, perplexed the locals (they were still dressed as prilgrims) and spent hours in showers.

69

Did you perhaps mean deodorants? A defoliant is a chemical that is sprayed on plants and causes their leaves to fall off.

70

LOL, probably my bad, not particularly interested in scots history that late=)

Well, any decent carpenter would know how to actually make a spinning wheel, they really arent that difficult. They also planned on having commercial intercourse with Britain, so they could purchase fabrics if and when they needed to…but they also did bring livestock including sheep. In general, if you look at Plymouth and Jamestown, they planned on having regular supply ships bringing supplies for 5 to 10 years as they got set up. They would have been more likely to raise sheep than grow flax, as retting flax stinks like you would not believe=\

I am sure I could wander over to the mayflower site, I vaguely remember reading a bill of lading sometime…but keep in mind they didnt change outer garments as frequently as we do - it wold not be unusual to have 3 or 4 daily wear outfits and one sunday best clothing…the standards of cleaning ones clothing were very different - inner garments were the only clothes that would get washed after being worn only a time or 2. outer garments if muddy were allowed to dry and brushed clean, many accounts of using fullers earth to get greasy stains to the surface so they could be brushed off, so it was not common to actually wash the garment more frequently than once or twice a month as you would hang you garment to air out and brush it off thoroughly before wearing it again. The sweat went into your underclothing. You wore aprons to keep cooking and chore stains off your regular clothes. These would get washed more frequently=)
Can you tell if I was in Colonial House, butts would get kicked and people would be made to work … and if it were composed up of serious re-enactors people would understand how much work it actually was to survive, and how comfortable it could actually be if things were done in the same mater-of-course way that it was done in that time and place!

71

Did they mention why she’d planned on leaving the show early?

72

aruvqan, when the world ends and we are left to live in caves and eat bugs, seriously, can I *please, please * come live with you? Whether you think your skills are impressive or not, I certainly do!

Do we know yet why the Governor’s family leaves again? And why didn’t the 16 year old daughter come back? If anyone shouldn’t have returned, it should have been Bethany.

73

She said that she thought that 'This is where God wants me to be", I guess God corrected her. I’m thinking she was in kind of denial about the accident and then the trials of the colony just makes her break down again.

It looks like the new govenor will be more of a hard case.
It’s interesting that this is further back in time then any of the other ‘House’ shows. I think these people have the harder adjustments and right now it seems that they aren’t really trying.

What is the next ‘House’ show? Does anybody know?

74

And for that reason, if child molestation is an accepted part of the future, I still wouldn’t take on child molestors on a show about twenty-first-centure America. Gotta say I don’t much like the analogy, though.

My point is not that religion wasn’t an important part of the sixteenth century, but that the project didn’t start off emphasizing it. It’s a little unfair to atheists to start requiring mandatory Jesus sermons halfway through the experiment. Require them from the beginning and let applicants know they’ll be required? Sure. But that’s not what happened.

They make allowances for black people on the show by not having blacks as slaves. I’m guessing that the preacher isn’t going to give sermons about the evils of Jews, especially not if there are Jewish community members. I’m just sayin’ that they were right to find a compromise with the religious beliefs of the Voorhees, and the Voorhees were entirely correct to look for that compromise.

Daniel

75

Damn, was it on last night (Wednesday), and I missed it?
When is it supposed to be on again? Monday?

76

sorry about that ginger, what a typo! exfoliates, as in bought out all the various scrubbs.

amy’s character was married, the husband died on the way to the colony. as a widow she had to stay with a married couple. the only thing she could decide independantly was whether to stay or go. if she stayed she would have to remarry at some point to one of the freemen. she decided that she wouldn’t (and a rather cute scene when one of the guys swimmes after her proposing) marry one of the freemen so was returning to england.

she returned to england sooner than they had planned (pbs and amy) due to a death in her family off the show.

i was amused to hear that she is now dating one of the freemen (dan) and that they watched the show together this week.

bibliocat, the next episodes will be on monday and tuesday. i’m sure you will be able to catch up on the show during a fund raiser sometime.

77

Thanks. Was there a show on Wednesday, or was it just Monday and Tuesday? I saw those two days, so hopefully I’m all caught up.

78

AFAIK it was just Monday and Tuesday.

On Wednesday I did see a little ‘making of’ on the show. The production people commented that this group adapted to the clothing better than any of the previous shows.

79

I kindly reject nearly all of the content of your post. Reductum ad absurdum on the child molester idea. Red herring with regards to “…but the project didn’t start off emphasizing it…”. “Unfair to atheists” - just irrelevant, since the purpose of the show wasn’t to be fair to atheists, and indulgent because 21st century sensibilities in a 17th century context aren’t what we’re here to observe.

I do agree that the producers should have made it abundantly clear that religion would play a central role in the show, and that people’s attitudes should completely support this. Although absurd, it would be as though some of the actors decided that they just couldn’t eat meat, or that jeans were more appropriate than corsets and heavy dresses, or that they couldn’t do without their cell phones.

The Voorhees acted like a bunch of whiney, indulgent 21st century twits whose only concern was to bring the focus onto themselves. What a lesson for their kid - “watch us act like annoying twits in front of millions because WE HAVE PRINCIPLES.” But it’s understandable - that’s what they are obviously used to doing. God - if I’d had to endure one more little smug look from the Voorhees chick relative to the religious issue, I think I woulda puked. Their little stunts detracted from the entire purpose of the series, and only served to show how self-centered and immature they are, and how they view it as “all about them”. It’s one thing to have values and a belief system - but applying them with common sense is a skill they need to learn.

The show declined into a PBS-style version of Survivor - a barely intellectual reality-type show that holds no interest for me. I would have paid money to see them just summarily kick the Voorhees off the series in the form of “they had to go back to England for something…”, and get on with it. Or, at least I wish that Mr. Voorhees had just stepped up and told his wife to shut up, pull her head outa her butt, and get with the program.

The other PBS series along these lines (the Montana homestead thing, the upstairs/downstairs show, etc.) were interesting. This one should have stayed on the shelf.

80

The punishments are interesting in that they are completely failing because they are missing the main component that made them effective in period, which is shame.

The colonists do not find the scarlet letters shameful and don’t look down on those who wear them. They don’t find it shameful to have to sit in the “stocks,” so, while it’s probably boring and all, and maybe you’d get a crick in your back having to sit on that little stool, the major result of the punishment does is remove people from the work force for a couple of hours.

And of course they can’t escalate to actual physical punishments.

I was disappointed to see the Sabbath rule suspended, though given the lack of effective punishments, that was probably a wise decision. The “religious dissenters” are whiny jerks. They don’t have to pray to a god they don’t believe in, as Ms. Vorhees implied. It was only attendance that was manditory. It’s hardly a compromise of principles to just sit quietly through the service unless you follow some wussy-ass religion that forbids you from every allowing mention of other faiths to fall upon your delicate pagan earses.

I’m curious whether Wyers will ever say anything to the homosexual kid about fighting his urges to sin. I think he’s too smart for that, though.