PROMETHEUS IN THE NEW WORLD

How can one not love a book that is peppered with words such as garth, bevins, baver and fanfarooons?

CALEB' CROSSING, by Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks, has all that and more. In this superior kind of historical novel there is, above all, a lesson about cultural assimilation and its unintended consequences. Its main character is based on a a real person, Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a member of the Wampanoag tribe of Martha Vineyard. Though his birth date, 1646, preceded by nearly thirty years John Dryden's introduction of the concept of the noble savage into the English language, Brooks painted him as an icon of tractability and lofty ideals. She had only a few facts on which to base her story—Caleb's date of birth, 1646, tribal affiliation, the dates of his graduation from Harvard, 1665, and his his death a year later. She also had a letter he allegedly wrote in Latin during his sojourn at Harvard College.

To these e wispy brush strokes Brooks added on her own vivid colors to create t a fascinating portrait of a young man's transition to a place that depended on the Old World for a cultural model although it existed, physically, in the New World. She chose an imagined character, Bethia Mayfield, a highly intelligent young girl who hungered for knowledge and who chafed at the socio-religious constraints her culture imposed upon women. Linguistically gifted, she eavesdropped on her older brother's Hebrew and Latin and of Wopanaak lessons, storing up information that had no practical use until, at age twelve, she met Caleb.

This is what she saw, “All else about him was open and naked, saved for three glossy feathers tied into a kind of topknot in his thick, jetty hair, which was very long, the forelock pulled hard from his coppery face and bound up as one would a horse's mane. His smile was unguarded , his teeth very white and something in his expression made impossible to fear him.” Of such contrasting figures—milky pale girl in ankle-length skirt, naked, sunburned young man, are romance novels made. But Brooks is way above such literary shenanigans. What she does, and she does is extremely well, is to explore the commonality and the difference between these two, adding a touch of philology, a touch a pinch of Anne Bradstreet's proto-feminist poetry, generous servings of history and large measures of theology. Bethia is a Puritan. Caleb is in line to follow his tribe's medicine man. This friendship is the first stage of Caleb's transformation into an English speaking, somewhat reluctant Christian, fit to join the privileged group of liberi liberaliter educati, gentlemen educated likegentlemen. Not only did he use his new language to speak of ordinary things, he also discussed concepts that must have been foreign to the Woponaog. This raises the question of how bethia transitions so quickly from a passive understanding of Woponaak to total fluency and the reader can assume that she is a linguistic prodigy. But then so seems to be Caleb. Else h can they discuss the fine points of theology? How do they bridge the linguistic gaps early on when they happen upon a concept that has no equivalent term in the other's native speech?

Besides learning new languages, Caleb must cut his hair, learn to wear hose, coat, bonnet, shoes and he must acquire a taste for unfamiliar food, as he adapts to his new, enclosed surroundings.

“So many things I loved I had to learn to hate,” he says. That, is no surprise to the assimilated immigrants who realize that in order to belong entirely to a culture other than their own, they must kill that which he once loved. Sometimes, that means leaving behind their their first language along with the notions civility, generosity, humor, honor, bravery, cowardice, hospitality, privacy, associated with it. It means replacing a collection of gestures--shrugs, hand waving, embraces—old ways of expressing emotion with new ones. Layer by layer of the old self must be peeled away so that a new one can emerge. The process is rarely gentle.

Then there is the question of how assimilated he be when it is impossible for him to change the angles of his or change radically the coppery tone of skin. Having left family and friends behind, he must have gone through a stage where he belonged nowhere. By the time he graduated from Harvard,--the first Native America to do so in Colonial times-- his heart must been torn as often as that Prometheus, to whom he compared himself. Yet when he talked of stealing the fire of knowledge to share with his people he stopped short of saying that such an act is at once a creative and destructive. Once he performed it, there was no turning back.

“You have done it, my friend. It has cost you your home, your health, and the estrangement from your closest kinsman. But after today, no man can say that the Indian mind is primitive and ineducable,” says Bethia. Her own crossing is no less than Caleb's is Bethia's as she moves from her beloved island home to Harvard's buttery and eventually, to Padua, Italy.

This is a luminous book, filled with reverence for the unsung heroes of Colonial America. Readers who might never have heard of Caleb owe Brooks a debt of gratitude.

Note: I prefer the version of the Prometheus legend in which it is his heart, rather than his liver, the eagle tears apart. 

Q&A WITH GERALDINE BROOKS

Q&A with Geraldine Brooks, author of
CALEB’S CROSSING


Caleb Cheeshahteamauk is an extraordinary figure in Native American history. How did you first discover him? What was involved in learning more about his life?

The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head/Aquinnah are proud custodians of their history, and it was in materials prepared by the Tribe that I first learned of its illustrious young scholar.   To find out more about him I talked with tribal members, read translations of early documents in the Wopanaak language, then delved into the archives of Harvard and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, especially the correspondence between colonial leaders and benefactors in England who donated substantial funds for the education and conversion to Christianity of Indians in the 17th century.   There are also writings by members of the Mayhew family, who were prominent missionaries and magistrates on the island, and John Cotton, Jr., who came here as a missionary and kept a detailed journal.


There is little documentation on Caleb’s actual life. What parts of his life did you imagine? Do you feel you know him better after writing this book, or is he still a mystery?

The facts about Caleb are sadly scant.  We know he was the son of a minor sachem from the part of the Vineyard now known as West Chop, and that he left the island to attend prep school, successfully completed the rigorous course of study at Harvard and was living with Thomas Danforth, a noted jurist and colonial leader, when disease claimed his life.  Everything else about him in my novel is imagined.  The real young man—what he thought and felt—remains an enigma.


Bethia Mayfield is truly a woman ahead of her time. If she were alive today, what would she be doing? What would her life be like with no restrictions?

There were more than a few 17th century women like Bethia, who thirsted for education and for a voice in a society that demanded their silence.  You can find some of them being dragged to the meeting house to confess their “sins” or defending their unconventional views in court.   If Bethia was alive today she would probably be president of Harvard or Brown, Princeton or UPenn.


The novel is told through Bethia’s point of view. What is the advantage to telling this story through her eyes? How would the book be different if Caleb were the narrator?

I wanted the novel to be about crossings between cultures.  So as Caleb is drawn into the English world, I wanted to create an English character who would be equally drawn to and compelled by his world.   I prefer to write with a female narrator when I can, and I wanted to explore issues of marginalization in gender as well as race.



Much of the book is set on Martha’s Vineyard, which is also your home. Did you already know about the island’s early history, or did you do additional research?

I was always intrigued by what brought English settlers to the island so early in the colonial period...they settled here in the 1640s.   Living on an island is inconvenient enough even today; what prompted the Mayhews and their followers to put seven miles of treacherous ocean currents between them and the other English—to choose to live in a tiny settlement surrounded by some three thousand Wampanoags?  The answer was unexpected and led me into a deeper exploration of island history


You bring Harvard College to life in vivid, often unpleasant detail. What surprised you most about this prestigious university’s beginnings?

For one thing, I hadn't been aware Harvard was founded so early.  The English had barely landed before they started building a college. And the Indian College—a substantial building—went up not long after, signifying an attitude of mind that alas did not prevail for very long.  It was fun to learn how very different early Harvard was from the well endowed institution of today.  Life was hand to mouth, all conversation was in Latin, the boys (only boys) were often quite young when they matriculated.   But the course of study was surprisingly broad and rigorous—a true exploration of liberal arts, languages, and literature that went far beyond my stereotype of what Puritans might have considered fit subjects for scholarship.


As with your previous books, you’ve managed to capture the voice of the period. You get the idiom, dialect, and cadence of the language of the day on paper. How did you do your research?

I find the best way to get a feel for language and period is to read first person accounts—journals, letters, court transcripts.  Eventually you start to hear voices in your head: patterns of speech, a different manner of thinking.  My son once said, Mom talks to ghosts.  And in a way I do.


May 2011, Tiffany Smalley will follow in Caleb’s footsteps and become only the second Vineyard Wampanoag to graduate from Harvard. Do you know if this will be celebrated?

In May Tiffany Smalley will become the first Vineyard Wampanoag since Caleb to receive an undergrad degree from Harvard College.  (Others have received advanced degrees from the university’s Kennedy school etc.)  I’m not sure what Harvard has decided to do at this year's commencement, but I am hoping they will use the occasion to honor Caleb’s fellow Wampanoag classmate, Joel Iacoomis, who completed the work for his degree but was murdered before he could attended the 1665 commencement ceremony.