This was the day we explored the Jamestown Settlement which is part museum and part living history re-creation.
The museum section was large….
But immediately pissed me off with the no photography allowed rule. (I took this one just because I’m ornery.)
We’d spent the last 2 weeks visiting museums filled with amazing artifacts and fine art, but this…. fake trees and cheesy dioramas…. was off limits? Go figure.
Okay….
Fast forward to the full immersion cinema we were learning were common in these parts.
Admittedly, when you’re there?
It’s pretty cool.
Especially when the smoke starts rolling along the floor.
Finished with the film, we headed outside.
Past whatever this was.
And into a Native American village.
It was basically the same thing we’d seen at Plymouth Plantation earlier this year.
Except there were no bare chested young Indian men to chat with.
Boo to that.
There were more huts.
And a couple of people making baskets.
And of course, because I find them everywhere…
Chickens.
Aggravated roosters…
And fluffy butted hens.
Next up was the harbor…
And the reconstructed vessels that brought the first settlers from England.
We toured the deck.
The husband chatted up a crew member.
We toured down below.
Where accommodations were small….
And pretty basic.
Unless you were the cook.
Who got his own room.
Of course it was also the kitchen, so there is that.
The husband chatted up another crew member.
And we enjoyed the views.
While marveling at how more than a hundred people could travel together for months on end in these small spaces.
(And before you laugh at my incorrect title spelling, it happens to be the old fashioned way Gov. William Bradford referred to the original colony and in order to differentiate it from the town of Plymouth, the museum chose the alternate version for it’s name. So there spelling Nazi’s!)
(And before you food picture screamers start screaming for food, here are the pics from the previous night’s dinner that I forgot to include in the last post.)
Wicked.
A restaurant and wine bar in Mashpee famous for their wood fired pizza.
The first thing I thought of when we walked in was why do they have candy corn lights hanging over the bar?
But then I tasted their fabulous Basil Lemon Fizz…
And couldn’t have cared less.
Since they’re famous for pizza, we had pizza.
Though the menu made me apprehensive about choosing the wrong combination. Who needs that kind of ridicule at the dinner table?
We went with the grilled portabella with spinach, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, mozzarella, roasted garlic and truffle combo… and in a word? Yum!
The morning of vacation day 3 dawned bright and sunny although cold, so we actually left the Cape Cod proper and headed north to Plymouth.
Yes, that Plymouth. Home of the Rock, the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. We were going to get our history geek on.
And just like Hyannis builds an economy around the Kennedys? Plymouth builds it’s entire town on the Pilgrims landing there first. ( The question is… did they? More on that later.)
Entering through the visitors center, we began our journey back in time to the 17th century. This is a living museum and replicates what life would have been like through interaction with Native American and Colonists. It was a blast!
First up… the Indian Village, where we saw a dug out canoe.
And a live demonstration of how they’re made.
By Native American twins.
No, they weren’t actors. Though their tribe was actually from New York state and not local to Plymouth. They patiently explained the process involved in crafting this sea going canoe and believe me when I tell you it was cold that day. All the tourists were bundled up and these guys were half naked. Which, to be honest…. wasn’t a hardship for me.
😈
This area is right on the water and there was a pretty stiff breeze. Yes, there was a little heat from the fire but not enough to make me strip… nope. Uh uh!
The fascinating part was, when I asked him why he wasn’t cold like the rest of us…. his answer astounded me. Diet, and conditioning. He told us that Indians traditionally pay close attention to nutrition, eating a mostly plant based diet supplemented by light fish and chicken in the summer and red meat only in the winter, when the body requires more fuel to maintain it’s internal temperature. He said the white man’s habit of covering himself in heavy clothing when it’s cold tricks the body to believing it’s summer all year long, therefor not allowing it acclimate naturally.
Seriously, I was shivering in 19 degree wind chill …. and he was bare chested.
Another interesting fact? They were getting ready to submerge all the canoes in the water for the winter so they would freeze and be preserved for next year.
Any guess what this is?
People were guessing hunting blind or something to do with food storage but believe it or not… it’s a jungle gym for children.
There were multiple structures to explore…
And I seriously hoped the husband wasn’t getting any construction ideas.
No, we don’t need one of these at home.
Though the dolls with their own dug out canoe were sweet.
It’s strange, you can read all the books you want…. but walking through the village and experiencing how the original Americans lived first hand? Gives you an entirely new understanding.
This was the winter long house….
Where multiple families spent the colder months.
Traditionally 3 fires would be burning at all times, and yes. It was a wee bit smokey.
The woman in the middle was our guide for this section…
And though in Native dress…
You can tell she didn’t subscribe to the bare chested boys diet regimen. Wool socks and furs for her, even inside.
I can’t imagine 20-30 people living and sleeping in there together for months on end… no less your entire family.
I’d be suicidal in a week.
We sat on these beds/benches and let me tell you….
I don’t care how many animals skins you throw on them…. they were hard as a rock.
Privacy? What’s that. You’d literally be head to toe with Uncle Joe and cousin Sue all winter.
And that my friends, is the Najavo nation reservation.
27,673 miles of nothing.
I’m not going to get political. I won’t rail against the government that stole their land and their culture. The government that forbade them to practice their religion or speak their language. The government that slaughtered the buffalo, settled the plains, destroyed their way of life and shunted them on to large tracts of inhospitable land.
No, not me.
But I will post these pictures of what we saw.
Poverty.
And a once proud people…
Now forced to try and make a few bucks off the passing tourists.
I could make a joke about the jerky…
But my heart isn’t in it.
As we drove through this bleak landscape, we remembered a recommendation someone gave us about a place called the Cameron Trading Post… supposedly rich in Native American history with authentic Navajo food in the restaurant and lots of Indian art in the gift shop.
Well, it certainly didn’t look Native American.
And it’s rich history was basically two white men who traded with (and took advantage of) the Navajo years ago and made a fortune.
The authentic food? Navajo taco salad was the closest I saw.
We ordered dinner, which I didn’t photograph because it was absolutely inedible and had to be sent back.
Oh, there was Indian art… some of it made in China.
What was authentic? Astronomically expensive, marked up for tourists jewelry that I’m sure the Navajo artists saw very little profit from.
The food wasn’t the only thing that left a bad taste in my mouth.
Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 