Folk Material Culture of the Sanpete-Sevier Area: Today's Reflections of a Region Past

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 47, 1979, No. 2

Folk Material Culture of the Sanpete-Sevier Area: Today's Reflections of a Region Past

BY RICHARD C. POULSEN

A RECENTLY READ A STATEMENT by anthropologist Clifford Geertz that began a revolution and a rejuvenation in my perception and understanding of folk material culture. According to Geertz, "meanings can only be stored in symbols." When applied to folk material culture this suggests that the meaning and significance of folk artifacts lie beyond what we normally perceive as history; that u, the discrete items of folk material culture have meaning outside the historical mainstream that produced them; they represent thoughts, reactions, and feelings as much as they represent historical movements or processes. Without understanding the symbolic meaning of cultural artifacts, we cannot come to an adequate understanding of the past since these items embody a vitality and immediacy unattainable by the printed word, or even the spoken word in stories, yarns, and facts narrated by the teller of history. The symbolic immediacy of folk artifacts is of quintessential importance to our understanding of Utah's past and, in particular, the past and perhaps present of the Sanpete-Sevier communal chain.

Man's need for and use of symbols is very likely the single most important element that distinguishes him from the animals. My central thesis here is that the material culture of the folk is a direct product of the symbolic process and that these symbolic artifacts represent much more than simply houses, barns, gravestones, wagons, or other material art forms; they, in fact, represent the latent desires, aspirations, and hostilities of communal human beings. In Utah this is perhaps especially true among the Scandinavian settlements of Sanpete and Sevier counties.

According to S. I. Hayakawa, "the symbolic process permeates human life at the most primitive and the most civilized levels alike. There are," he continues, "few things that men do or want to do, possess or want to possess, that have not, in addition to their mechanical or biological value, a symbolic value."'However, for human beings the symbols of value are constantly changing and fluctuating according to societal pressures, family wants and needs, religious changes and discoveries, and, indeed, any influence that works a change in our basic perceptions of reality.

Let me illustrate this fluctuating symbolic process by discussing an item of material culture found in Spring City, Utah. The building in Spring City, known now by residents as the Old Rock Schoolhouse, was built of local limestone in 1870, apparently as a schoolhouse. Because of three symbolic signs that were caned in a shaped stone in the front facade (fig. 1), the building was also known—and still is by some, I might add— as the Endowment House. These symbols from left to right were of the square, the beehive, and the compass: symbols of transcendent importanee in Mormonism as well as in Masonry. To early Mormon settlers the beehive symbolized industry, as in the work of the bee. The compass and square are significant not only as marks in the Mormon temple garment but as symbols in the Mormon temple ceremony, representing truth, moral accuracy, and "unbending" obeisance to the Lord and his gospel.

Sometime within the last few years, someone effaced the compass and the square from the structure. Interestingly, the beehive was left untouched. This "symbolic" act raises some important and at the same time difficult questions. Why was the symbolic beehive allowed to remain untouched, and why did the symbolism inherent in the square and the compass cause embarrassment, even anger and indignation, in the minds of zealous moderns, when these very symbols had obviously proven a source of civic pride to these people's progenitors in the last century? It seems important to add again that these marks were set in a building evidently intended as a schoolhouse, not a religious edifice.

Likely, the answers to these questions are twofold: first, the square and compass were destroyed because of their importance in the Mormon temple ceremony, while the beehive, which has little symbolic significance in the ceremony itself, was allowed to remain; second, because of a cultural lag from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, these vernacular symbols, openly displayed, have proven a profanation to some twentieth-century Mormons. As Mark Leone has written,

Artifacts from the past symbolize attitudes and behavior of the past, symbols motivate behavior. Therefore, the artifacts (symbols) of the past may conflict and even impede new and different behavior.

Whereas the square and compass may have outwardly symbolized accuracy and precision (thus their placement on a school building) during the last century, they have now come to represent highly esoteric, secret rituals that may only be seen and discussed within the confines of a Mormon temple. When viewed in this light, the destruction of these symbols is understandable.

This single instance of symbolic destruction has larger meaning for the folk material culture of the Sanpete-Sevier region than we might expect. Many have wondered why this region, settled and populated by Scandinavians fresh from their motherlands, is so leanly endowed with Scandinavian artifacts. Such musings are based in fact; for, beyond the cemeteries of the two counties, which are richly supplied with markers bearing the names of deceased Scandinavians, Scandinavian material influence is not abundant.

The architecture of the region, for example, is largely Scottish- English, except for log construction, which probably had its genesis in northern Europe. The reasons, I think, for the conspicuous lack of Scandinavian folk material culture in the Sanpete-Sevier region can be traced to a loss of symbols, a loss conditioned by an earlier loss of language.

According to Hayakawa, "of all forms of symbolism, language is the most highly developed, most subtle, and most complicated." Indeed, without language the process of abstraction would be virtually impossible; and without abstraction there is no symbolism, since symbols always embody more than the things they represent.

It is a well-documented fact that in the early days of the Mormon settlement in Utah the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints actively campaigned against the retention of the mother tongues and folk customs of Scandinavian immigrants. A letter from the F'irst Presidency of the church dated as late as April 4, 1903, stated:

To the Swedish Saints: Instructions ... in Regard to the Holding of Meetings, Amusements, Social Gatherings, etc. . . . The counsel of the Church to all Saints of foreign birth who come here is that they should learn to speak English as soon as possible, adopt the manners and customs of the American people, fit themselves to become good and loyal citizens of this country, and by their good works show that they are true and faithful Latter-day Saints.

Earlier, the Deseret News, speaking of "The Scandinavian Element," had complimented these Utah immigrants on "the facility with which they—the younger portion especially—acquire the language and customs of the country." The message seems clear that Utah Scandinavians were to abandon mother tongue and liuropean folkways.

In my opinion, this severe acculturation of the Scandinavians led to a highly structured loss of symbols that I call the vernacular regression. It may be diagramed as follows:

[church, social pressures]

Mother County - Utah - Acculturation - Loss of culture - (cultural identity) - (loss of language) - (loss of symbols) - (loss of identity)

By acculturation I mean simply a process of intercultural borrowing between diverse peoples, resulting in new and blended patterns. With these new 7 and blended patterns, of course, arise symbols that are adopted from the blending culture. With the Utah Scandinavians the process was not organic but forced and severe, resulting in an abrupt abandonment of culture rather than a slow loss.

If one proceeds from north to south, say from Fairview to Richfield, one experiences a noticeable loss of symbols in historical artifacts. This is especially evident in the material culture of burial. The cemetery just west of Fairview is rich in symbols; numerous footstones accompany a large share of the markers (fig. 2), and the lamb as a burial motif is present on many of the stones. The picture of the grave of Robert Briggs shows not only the accompanying footstone but a burial mound to the west (fig. 3). Many primitive cultures heaped mounds of earth or stones over the final resting places of their departed dead, and the practice is still evident in parts of Utah today.

Footstones, which bear only the initials of the deceased, are almost always placed to the east of the headstone. This reinforces the symbolic Christian burial: face to the cast to greet the morning of the resurrection. The traditional shapes of grave markers, which have come to us from antiquity, are virtually unstudied. But the significance of the grave markers is largely if not exclusively symbolic, since they are monuments to those who have ceased to be, who have gone back to the earth. To my knowledge, there is no widely used set of symbols that represents living, or birth, or the notion of a prelife, like the gravestone represents death. Interestingly, our most abstract and symbolic use of language—poetry— is concerned largely with death. It is no surprise then that folk material culture in Utah and elsewhere reaches its most abstract and profound statements when connected with the dead; and in the cemeteries, cut in stone, etched in cement, and carved in wood, one sees depicted man's concern with what he feels is most important, most mysterious, and most terrifying.

As mentioned, a prevalent burial symbol in the Fairview cemetery is the lamb. Pictured here (fig. 4) is a set of lamb stones. Lambs and doves are prevalent burial motifs throughout Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; but to say that the lamb reliefs in Fairview have definite Scandinavian antecedents would be conjectural. It is true, however, that as one proceeds from north to south into Sevier County the lamb as burial symbol becomes less and less frequent.

The most ubiquitous burial symbol in Mormon cemeteries of the West is the handclasp motif. However, the handclasp motif does not predominate in the Fairview cemetery. But as one moves to the south the handclasp becomes the dominant symbol, as it is in most Utah-Mormon cemeteries. This provides a graphic representation of the loss of native burial symbols, accompanied by a subsequent adoption of the symbols of the dominant culture: one manifestation of the vernacular regression. This highly metaphoric symbol, the handclasp, represents the Mormon burial in much the same way the winged death's-head connotes Puritan burial. About Puritan burial symbols Alan I. Ludwig has noted:

By creating symbolic gravestones and the rituals surrounding them, the Puritans wanted to take a more dramatic role in bringing the eternal closer to a realization in form and thereby infusing the symbol with some of its power. They did so in an act of piety which significantly took place outside the apparatus of the institutionalized church.

Unlike the Puritans, Mormons have retained the act of piety (evident in the handclasp symbol) within the institutional church. I recently heard a Mormon convert from New York express the surprise he experienced while strolling through one of the traditional cemeteries in Utah County. He found it very curious that nineteenth-century Mormons had openly displayed "their tokens" in a place open to public scrutiny. This is prima facie evidence that Mormons, at one time at least, institutionalized their burial symbols; that is, they were an important part of the religious life of the community. Like the winged death's-head in Puritan New England burial, wdiich represented the flight of the spirit from the soul, the handclasp motif among Mormons is a symbol of transformation—of transcendence.

This interesting symbol persists in the north-south movement from Fairview to Richfield and represents the adoption of non-Scandinavian symbols for the graphics of death. One variant in the large cemetery west of Spring City (fig. 5) bears the inscription "we hope to meet again," verbalizing the hoped-for reunion inherent in the handclasp itself. An ornate stone in Manti (fig. 6), unlike the previous example, does not portray the index finger extended. There are three or four stylistic variants of the position of the index and middle fingers in burial handclasps in Utah.

Another burial motif found occasionally in Mormon cemeteries is the open Book of Mormon. One marker in Gunnison (fig. 7) portrays the book as symbol of Benjamin Franklin Christensen's belief in the doctrines of the Mormon church, but the open Book of Mormon on P. O. Hansen's grave in Manti (fig. 8) represents an achievement, that of translating the book into Danish, and thus has little symbolic value. The difference between these two markers becomes clear if one remembers the distinctions C. G. Jung made between sign and symbol. According to Jung, the sign (seen here on P.O. Hansen's grave) is less than or simply equivalent to the concept it represents—in Hansen's case the open Book of Mormon simply represents his prowess as a translator. Jung went on to explain that the symbol, unlike the sign, always stands for something more than its obvious and immediate meaning—in Christensen's case the book represents his conversion, the revelation of the spirit, which cannot be quantified.

The kinds of stones some may find most interesting are often those with limited symbolic value—merely signs. Two stones, one found in a tiny cemetery on the east side of Spring City (fig. 9) and the other located in Manti (fig. 10) simply tell the onlooker that the dead were killed by Indians.

Popularly, folk housing is probably the most conspicuous segment of material culture in the Sanpete-Sevier region, and log housing is the most complex, yet understudied, subgroup. Evidently, true corner notching or timbering (i.e., where the notches at the ends of the logs are selflocking) originated in the Mesolithic with the Maglemosian culture, centered in Denmark, southern Sweden, and northern Germany. Although it is then correct to assert that horizontal log construction sprang up in Scandinavia, it would be a mistake to claim that the log buildings of Sanpete-Sevier were built by Scandinavians who brought the art from the mother country. The Irish, Scottish, and English practiced no traditional log architecture in their native lands; nevertheless, they were quick to adopt the Germano-Scandinavian introduction in the early days of United States settlement, and the art spread rapidly and was developed highly by these people.

Besides floor plan, height, and placement and size of rooms, log buildings are also identified and classified on the basis of corner notching used and whether or not the logs are shaped and hewn. One Spring City cabin (fig. 11) displays some rather primitive features. Although the logs are partly hewn, the corner notching is V, and the ends of the logs are protruding (fig. 12). According to Fred Kniffen and Henry Glassie, "Prehistoric horizontal log construction was universally characterized by round logs notched on the top or on both sides, a foot or more from the end of the log." 18 Most scholars agree that this type of notching, generally called saddle notching, is the most primitive.

Two log buildings, the Nathaniel Beach cabin in Manti (fig. 13) and a small log house in the Gunnison city park (fig. 14), display distinct English building tradition with the use of the external chimney. The wide interstices between the logs on the Beach cabin are typically American, but the closely hewn and fitted logs in the Gunnison cabin may mirror Scandinavian influence. A fine example of artistic log construction, found in Indianola (fig. 15), with its full dovetail corner notching and carefully hewn logs, may also represent Scandinavian log architectural influence, although such assertions must remain tentative.

A structure built partly of logs, the half-stone barn, is a prominent architectural type in the Sanpete-Sevier area. As a type, the barns are English, usually with two levels. The barns are quite common from Fairview to Manti. One barn in Fairview (fig. 16) with a roughly square floor plan was built half of logs, as was another rectangular barn (fig. 17).

The fact that these Sanpete barns follow English folk architectural plans is significant in a place settled largely by Scandinavians and supports my contention that the vernacular regression among Scandinavian immigrants can be seen in the absence of Scandinavian architectural symbols.

The same can be said of folk housing in the area. 2 " Although the region is rich in architectural styles of the folk, there is little obvious Scandinavian influence. An imposing stone house just south of Fairview (fig. 18) is a central-hall house, generally called an I or a Nauvoo house. The type was an outgrowth of Georgian architectural influences that profoundly affected American folk architecture. However, like the barns of the area, the I house is an English type.

A stone L house in Manti, besides representing the bisymmetry of Scottish-English and American folk architecture (fig. 19), displays an architectural oddity often seen in Utah: the second-story door that seems to lead nowhere. Notice here, however, that there are vestiges of a small balcony that once protruded over the ground-level door. Austin Fife has explained this trait (tongue-in-cheek) as a place for witches to land, since the doors do not lead anywhere obvious. However, I believe the upper-level door served some utilitarian purpose. At any rate, the secondlevel door is not a Scandinavian oddity.

An impressive bisymmetrical house in Manti (fig. 20), which is apparently comprised of two identical modular units, is called a polygamy house—if only because of the two front doors. Such bisymmetry is common statewide, as is the supposed architecture of polygamy.

Another folk architectural oddity seen in other parts of Utah, such as Beaver and Willard, is the rubble facade on cither the front, back, or side of a structure. There is no obvious preference of direction or placement of the fagade in the rubble wall construction, and with other Utah folk architectural anomalies this building trait likely came from the British Isles. Henry Glassie explains the rubble facade as a persistent folk architectural trait in parts of Scotland and Ireland. A "typical" Manti stone house (fig. 21) shows the rubble facade.

Although folk houses in the Sanpete-Sevier area vary widely in architectural style, many of them display motifs common to other parts of the state. These motifs are seen in such embellishments as brick trim above windows. One small Fairview house is embellished with a brick trim (fig. 22) prevalent in other parts of Utah, such as American Fork. A similar trim on a Manti house (fig. 23) is of the same basic motif, displaying again an absence of positive Scandinavian symbols, since similar trim is prevalent all along the Wasatch Front.

Many other folk artifacts, such as hay derricks (fig. 24), some of which are still operable in the Sanpete-Sevier area, deserve further study, not merely as items of material culture but as symbols of the values of a past generation. It must be noted again, however, that the folk material culture of the area does not overtly display distinct Scandinavian influences, and that the symbols used in burial and housing are symbols of the dominant English-Mormon culture, not the Scandinavian subculture.

I am not suggesting in my theory of vernacular regression that the Scandinavians of Sanpete-Sevier were a downtrodden, exploited group— although that is always partially true of a subordinate group that tries to exist within the confines of the dominant culture. Whatever the reason or reasons for their loss of native symbols, the Scandinavians were quick to adopt new modes of living and new styles of building as part of their process of adapting to the Mormon frontier.

For the Scandinavians of Sanpete-Sevier, the loss of native symbols made impossible a life that focused on the mores and habits of northern Continental Europe. But in place of the old symbols came the new, for without the language of symbol man cannot achieve communication with the world. Central in this idea is the notion that folk expression, although seemingly highly structured and strictured, becomes a liberating force in the lives of people. In repetition, in the establishment and reestablishment of order, the universe becomes vibrant and fulfilling rather than limiting and oppressing.

It is therefore somewhat disturbing that most of the work done in Utah in the recent past with Victorian housing focused almost exclusively on the mansion. These buildings were designed by professional architects and paid for by millionaires whose only relation with the area was exploitation of, rather than cohabitation with, the land and the region. The buildings symbolized only the power of money and greed, nothing of the human spirit, the need for symbolic repetition of forms.

What the study of folklore, and perhaps folk material culture in particular, can do is solidify and explain our cultural roots, the symbols of our progenitors, as well as our own in-group, esoteric symbols. Thus we may arrive at a better understanding not only of what it means to be humans but also of the psychological and moral significance of the matrix that forms and binds distinct folk groups.

Folklorist Alan Dundes has recently noted that "in folklore, one finds a people's own unself-conscious picture of themselves." This is perhaps especially true of the folklore of material culture, even though, as with the Scandinavians of the Sanpete-Sevier area, much of that culture was acquired through acculturation and adaptation of another tongue, through a degradation and loss of native symbols that were consciously and unconsciously sacrificed for the glory of God, for the establishment of Zion, for the dream of Americanization.

For full citations and images please view this article on a desktop.