A story of two cultures; Plimoth Plantation committed to accurate portrayal of native and colonial life.

Byline: Laura Porter

Sitting on the ground in a small clearing, a young native woman dressed in deerskin pulls apart dried cattail reeds that will be used for weaving. Nearby, a baby sleeps in a nest of furs. In front of a lean-to, two women tend a cooking fire where lunch, a traditional stew of quail, corn, squash, wild onions and beans, simmers in a clay crock. This is the homesite of Hobbamock, the Pokanoket Wampanoag man who served as a conduit between the Wampanoag and the English colonists.

The English village lies a half mile or so away, along a path that meanders through the woods and past the marshy flats of the Eel River. Here, colonist Phineas Pratt is trimming clapboards for a new house. It is a fair but cloudy day, and bedding is draped across fences to air out. In her cottage, Julian Kempton works flour in a wooden bowl, preparing bread dough to bake in one of the village's common ovens. Up the road, Marah Priest minds two horned heifers in a paddock, taking care to "keep my eye to them" should they approach her too quickly. A number of men pause in the lane to discuss the issue of religion, never far from anyone's mind in the 1600s.

Across town, on the Mayflower berthed at Plymouth Harbor, John Crackston the elder grouses that the "people are (being) treated like cargo" on their passage from England. Below, the wooden hold is dark and close, its low ceiling and sparse, narrow berths more than bearing out Crackston's complaints. It is not difficult to imagine the discomfort of the long voyage, 102 prospective settlers crammed together along with goats, pigs, chickens and dogs. Nor that Crackston himself, along with fully half of the company, will die of disease during their first, hard winter in their new village.

But, of course, it is no longer 1620.

The ship is actually the Mayflower II, a 1957 replica of the original vessel that bore the people, who later became known as the Pilgrims, to the shores of Massachusetts.

And though they wear meticulously accurate early 17th-century dress, the native people and colonists in these reconstructed settlements circa 1627 are all very much of the 21st century.

They are interpreters and role players employed by Plimoth Plantation, the living history museum devoted to telling the multifaceted "story of two cultures," both Wampanoag and English.

The museum, the dream of passionate amateur historian Henry Hornblower II, was incorporated in the late 1940s to educate "the public with respect to the struggles of the early settlers in the town of Plymouth." That original mission has long since expanded. Now affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, Plimoth Plantation constantly works to enrich its offerings, responding to developments in historical research and shifts in museum culture.

For many years, there has been an effort to sharpen the focus on native history and culture. That evolution has recently taken root in a formal bicultural initiative, intended, says public relations director Jennifer Monac, "to hold the museum accountable to telling both sides" of the story. A short introductory film produced last year by the History Channel, shown in one of two state-of-the-art high definition theaters in the Henry Hornblower II Visitor Center, emphasizes the museum's dedication to "going beyond the myth to see two different perspectives."

As they travel through the museum's separate sites, visitors themselves are key participants in this exploration of the past. They stroll at their leisure, sitting on the fur-covered woven platforms used for sleeping in the native wetus (homes), or climbing into a mishoon (dugout canoe) hewn from a tree. In the thatched, daub-and-wood cottages that line the village lane, old world blends with new, carved wooden chests like those brought from England side-by-side with woven eel catchers and bowls of dried corn.

In both homesite and village, interpreters go about their business just as their counterparts might have in 1627, preparing meals, tending crops and animals, or mending clothing. Yet they are also there to answer questions from their modern guests. Indeed, in many ways a visit to Plimoth Plantation hinges on the unstructured nature of those personal interactions.

In the Wampanoag homesite, the interpreters are not role players assuming the identities of specific natives who might have once lived here. Instead, they are contemporary representatives of several different native nations, speaking in the third person about the life and culture of their ancestors. In contrast, colonial interpreters are trained to speak from the perspective of a 17th-century man or woman whom they represent.

Jonathan Perry has been a part of the Wampanoag Indigenous Program for 12 years. An Aquinnah Wampanoag from the Gay Head area of Martha's Vineyard, Perry notes that most of the current WIP staff of 22 is either Aquinnah or from Mashpee; there are also some Chappaquiddick and Assonet Wampanoag as well as members of other nations such as Cherokee and Micmac, from Canada.

In hiring interpreters, he says, "we're looking for native people who have maintained connection with their people and with their community." Such a task can be challenging. "We're looking for a native staff, but we make up only 1 percent of the population. And then we need to find people who have traditional hand skills in the arts or who can be trained as artisans. They have to be able to withstand hot and cold temperatures, to work with fire. And of course they have to have the ability to work with the public. It takes a specific type of person to do that."

Perry, an artist, storyteller and dancer who lectures throughout the country on native history and culture, works both in the native site and in administration as the assistant program manager. To prepare for on-site work, staff study manuals filled with historical and archaeological records as well as information about native ways. They might be asked to field questions about anything from the explorers to slavery to King Philip's War. Perry himself "tends to speak heavily of whaling. I'm from a very well-known whaling family." But if someone asks a very specific question, "we might point to someone else and say, `He is Aquinnah. Why don't you ask him?' We work together as a team. No one is expected to have all of the answers."

By working in the native program, staff members take on a very visible role. "You're putting your family life and your race and everything you hold dear out there," says Perry. "In this society, when someone sees one native person, they judge them as a representative of all native peoples." The museum has become increasingly proactive in working to combat racial stereotyping and racial undertones. As visitors walk toward the homesite, signs urge respect toward the native people whom they are about to encounter. The bicultural initiative has "made a huge difference," says Perry. "There is still room for change, but it's a learning experience for visitors and staff."

In the Pilgrim Village, the museum's 35 colonial interpreters each play the role of a specific colonist who lived in the village. Roles rotate yearly and staff members sometimes alternate between the Mayflower II and the Pilgrim Village. (There are also museum guides on board ship to answer questions from a modern perspective.)

John Kemp, associate director of Colonial Interpretation, emphasizes the rigor of the lengthy apprenticeship necessary to become a full-fledged interpreter.

Apprentices must become experts not only on their specific roles but also the context of the era. Mentored by lead interpreters, they work closely with specialists from various sectors, including food ways, wardrobe, gardening and agriculture. And they must learn one of the 17 dialects spoken by the colonists, who hailed from many different parts of England.

A former English professor who answered a museum advertisement for "time travelers" 25 years ago and has "never really left," Kemp has played "just about everybody." This year, he is John Billington, the first man in the colony hanged for murder.

Kemp calls the use of accurate dialect, developed for the museum by British linguistic historian Martin Wakeland, "one of our treasures. No one quite notices but everyone is affected by it."

The Wampanoag Interpretive Program has also begun a reconstruction of Wampanaog dialect. Indeed, Jennifer Monac notes that the film shown to visitors marks the first time the Wampanoag language has ever been publicly spoken. "Many staff members are taking weekly lessons," she says, "working with linguists from MIT."

As the leaves turn, the focus at the museum shifts to the harvest. Family harvest activities fill the weekends through October and November. The season culminates in Thanksgiving Day events that recognize the three-day harvest celebration - not thanksgiving - that we now know the English and the Wampanoag shared in 1621. (The colonists themselves would have marked an actual thanksgiving by fasting, not feasting. And the natives gave thanks to the creator every day.)

"Plimoth Plantation is the quintessential Thanksgiving experience," says Jennifer Monac. Without "diminishing what the modern holiday is to people," the museum takes its Thanksgiving visitors "back in time while also bringing a full correction" of the myths that have arisen around the holiday. The goal, says Monac, echoing the museum's general mission, "is correcting the story. People find it brings a whole new understanding."

Plimoth Plantation and Mayflower II

Plymouth, Mass.

www.plimoth.org

[phone]

Open from the third week in March through the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day. For hours, directions, ticket information and details about events, call or visit the Web site.

For Thanksgiving Day, reservations are now closed for the museum's sit-down Victorian Thanksgiving Dinner as well as the Thanksgiving Day Buffet. However, Thanksgiving in the Courtyard, held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., offers roast turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and squash; more informal a la carte offerings are also available all day. In addition, harvest dinners are held throughout the fall as well as during Thanksgiving week. Reservations will be accepted for Thanksgiving 2008 beginning in June.

ART: PHOTOS

CUTLINE: (1) Visitors walk in a reconstructed Pilgrim settlement, circa 1627, at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth. (2) Opposite page, Paulette Holbrook, who plays Ellen Billington, walks around the village. (3) About 300,000 people visit Plimoth Plantation each year. (4) Below, Dylan Lach, a Wampanoag, talks to visitors inside a nushweety, which means "house with three fires." (5) Christopher Hall, who plays Captain Standish, visits with Plimoth Plantation guests.

PHOTOG: PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM RETTIG