Frontierland, early 1970s
A trip on the Mark Twain is always time well spent. Here are two familiar vignettes to jog your memories! Over on Tom Sawyer Island, there is an Indian burial visible on that structure in the middle of the image. Wanting to know a little more about this ceremony, I did some Googlin'! One site said: When someone passed away, women of Teton Sioux Indians will first dress the body in the best garments before wrapping the body tightly in blankets or robes. Family and friends will then assemble and begin crying at the lodge. The mourning is continued until the body is removed. After mourning and chanting the body will then be places either in the branches of some tree or on a scaffold made for the purpose. Family members often placed food and valuables of all kinds with the body. Some family who can afford will also sacrifice several horses to place under the scaffold.
And... you knew it was probably going to be a photo of the Friendly Indian Village! The surrounding trees have almost engulfed the scene, but the young Indian boy (not so shiny!) and his faithful pooch observe us curiously, while the rest of the tribe performs necessary chores.
13 comments:
Hey, Major-
You taught us some learnin' today. Well, thank you.
It's hard to make fun of a scene depicting a burial site, even one that isn't real. So I won't. Did we ever discuss what that circle with the skulls was for? There appears to be a mound of ashes in the center.
Not So Shiny Boy is the brother of Shiny Boy. They took turns standing guard on the canoe. At first I thought there weren't any papeeses in the scene. But I think I see one (maybe two) through the water reeds on the left edge of the photo. As usual, they are curing in the sun. Also, the elk (deer?) in the background are still doing the conga.
Thanks, Major.
Not to be a wet blanket Nanook, but the Major gives us ‘learnin every day. We can now tell blurzzles from snoozles, how to properly wear a bubuska ( but not how to spell it) we are all now experts in where to place trash cans, and telephone poles. (Why do they need poles again?) we also know to stop and smell the Mickey shaped flowers when riding the monorail, people mover and trains and where to find the best place to get a burrito.
I forgot to thanks the Major for the learnin today, and some great pictures. Not to mention the junior grollias for the insightful comments
“….over on the island is the Indian bed of death …. At night Indians will return to show respect to the brave warriors who brought great honor to their tribe ….”
“That village of friendly Indians will probably let us pass …. They call our steamboat PENELOR ; which means “fire canoe” — probably because of the smoke coming from our stacks - They believe our steamboat is their “comet of the Summer” returning to bring good luck to their tribe.”
“Walt Disney once said ‘Disneyland. Will never be completed as long as there is imagination left in the world - and that imagination is going to work again because Big thunder Runaway Railroad is moving in! Big thunder runs the fastest trains in the wilderness ! And You can experience them for yourself when the construction walls come down in the fall of 1979…”
Major, thank you for the back story on this scene. I recall some time back, the Long Forgotten blog had a series on the Graveyards of Disneyland, where this scene also featured. I don’t recall if the circle of bull skulls was part of the burial or a separate shrine, but all made up some more of the “Hard Facts” that are now sadly missing in the Park, where the Hardest Fact™️ we might experience now is a momentary WiFi outage or a run-down phone battery.
This is a great pic of the FIV, good to see that Shiny Boy gets a break now and then. See how the forest has filled in over the years too. I’m always somewhat amazed at the detail of scenic design here, where even the campfire locations must have been scaled out in advance to construct the gas lines that drive the flames. Nothing left to chance in the old Park.
Thanks Major!
JG
Great views from what would, 50 years later, become the only Disney river voyage left on the American continent.
The scenes are fun, but also thoughtful. They're a great example of how Disney suggested little things that stuck with you. How many millions of people learned about this form of "burial" while riding the Mark Twain as kids? Quite a few, I'd wager.
If only current management could understand the importance of such quiet, reflective moments.
Nanook, my next lesson will teach you how to do macramé!
JB, I’ve always wondered if that burial scene was removed because some people felt it was disrespectful? Because it doesn’t feel disrespectful at all. I’m afraid I don’t know about the circle of buffalo skulls, though I assume it would be Google-able. That photo of the papooses (from years ago) is still one of my all-time favorite Disneyland details, they looked so weird!
Budblade, well now I had to look up “babushka”, and as far as I can tell I’ve been spelling it correctly. Maybe it’s one of those words with more than one accepted spelling? Kate Bush misspelled it too, if I’m wrong - so I’m in good company!
Budblade, you are welcome.
Mike Cozart, I used to listen to recordings of various Mark Twain spiels (as well as many other attraction spiels), I can hear the narration in my head so vividly. I think maybe Thurl Ravenscroft did the version I am thinking of, though I know that the narration was updated many times over the years. I’m guessing that by the time of Big Thunder, Thurl’s recording was no longer in use.
JG, yes, I remember the article on Disneyland’s graveyards on “Long Forgotten”. My favorite was the little cemetery near the little church in Rainbow Ridge. He used one of my photos to illustrate it, but it was credited to somebody else! Anyway, I’ve been hoping to find a better image of that cemetery ever since, and either trees are in the way or you can see that there are no grave markers. I’m trying to remember if there are any live flames in the current version of the Indian Village? I guess it would be hard to notice since I only see it during the day.
Stu29573, based on what I’ve read online, it feels like I am more upset about the removal of the river in WDW than many Floridians - and I’ve never been to WDW! The locals are thrilled to get new rides, and most don’t seem to care about the loss of that beautiful river, the steamboat, Tom Sawyer Island, and all the history. “Quiet” and “reflective” are four-letter words to today’s management!
Major: locals were devastated that the Florida Rivers of America was going forward……but Disney had already put things in motion to do so. They were pretty embarrassed when they found out the project was not met with pleasure. Disney was desperate to have something going on to complete with the hoopla of universal’s EPIC UNIVERSE … Abs Frontierland was the corporate sacrifice. There was no turning back for a few reason … one was that the Riverboat was due for a boiler overhaul … and I think management was concerned with having the attraction closed along with the big thunder track replacement . But in the end the area is still left with no attractions for the timeframe . I’ve mentioned before I had worked in several Frontierland projects before being moved over to “Shanghai DL” …. All the versions had the riverboat removed or as a static feature … and before I was on the project others had been working on earlier versions that all had one similarity; NO FUNCTIONING RIVERBOAT. WDW management felt the money in maintaining it wasn’t worth it and that 1/2 of the guests coming to the magic kingdom arrive via ferryboats. The one thing about all those NEW Frontierland and NEW Liberty Square concepts , plans and models is that a RIVER of some sort was kept in the master plan . So this low brow “cars racer” project is a double gut punch : it’s a modern car theme and it removes the river entirely. As former imagineers warn that this is changing the fabric of what a Disney “castle” park is. We already see “it’s a small world” and “Disneyland railroads” being left out of the communist red Chinese Shanghai Disneyland … Rivers of America being removed from Walt Disney world … Jungle Cruises being removed from Tokyo and magic kingdoms currently in development with NO castles …. The success of the Disney magic kingdoms relied on a basic fabric current Disney managed has abandoned … and they will undoubtedly learn a very expensive lesson .
MIke Cozart, I’m sure you’re right about many people in Florida being upset about the removal of the river in Frontierland. I just read some comments online that shocked me in regards to how much those particular people didn’t seem to care. “I don’t go to Tom Sawyer Island anyway”. “So excited for the new rides!”. That sort of thing. And… this is just my opinion, but I don’t think that Disney was embarrassed by any negative reaction to the news. I think they expected it - they always expect some displeasure by the die-hard fans - but are confident that it will all blow over in a few years. I really don’t believe that they dare AT ALL, especially after a conversation with a former Imagineer who had some pretty damning things to say about the culture at Imagineering. I am not happy that the riverboats have been removed in Asia… you’d think that the novelty of those boats would make them attractive to guests. But they are slow, and probably don’t have much guest capacity. And why not put in a TRON coaster or something sexier? I’ve only seen one piece of artwork for the Cars ride in the Magic Kingdom, and it looked nice for what it was (sort of a Nature’s Wonderland vibe in miniature), but it still kills me that WDW has hundreds of acres of land, but they’ve filled it with so many hotels and timeshares that there isn’t really much room to expand the MK. Remember when Walt said something about having “all the room they need” to realize their dreams (bad paraphrasing)? So much for that.
Major/Mike-
The obvious HUGE mistake the 'suits' happily ignore is the soothing qualities large bodies of water have on humans - not to mention providing vistas so needed in today's world. In a [not so] odd way, park management will have to deal with even MORE incivility amongst 'guests' merely due to the water's removal. (And they think overall they'll be saving money). Pennywise and pound foolish...
Not to mention, the cooling effect of a large body of water in a subtropical environment. I'm old enough to remember when EPCOT had a series of ponds behind Spaceship Earth. They were paved over so crowds of people could swarm through to the attractions, but it turned the area to a scorching hellscape. I suppose that's appropriate for how many cities of the future turned out...
Mike, ”There was no turning back for a few reason … one was that the Riverboat was due for a boiler overhaul … and I think management was concerned with having the attraction closed along with the big thunder track replacement.”. If they’d only had the foresight to build a second riverb- oh, wait…
Dean Finder, I remember as late as 1997 there were fountains all over the MK and Epcot, even small ones meant to evoke a village fountain in Europe or Morocco or the Caribbean. You could dip a handkerchief or your hand in the water and cool your forehead. By 2007 they seemed mostly to have been removed from the MK (we didn’t visit Epcot), I’m assuming a victim of maintenance costs.
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