I have just read this book, having often come across the title and the name of the author. A record number of “westerns” have been based on his work, however loosely. It took a sale offer from Amazon to persuade me to download it on to my Kindle. ( Yes, you can take the girl out of Scotland, but you can’t take Scotland … )
The story is set in Utah around a Mormon community in the 1870s and does not paint a very flattering picture of the followers of Joseph Smith. Their attitude to women closely resembles that of Muslims, which is not a compliment to anyone. In fact Grey’s publishers originally edited it very considerably in order not to offend. (Sounds familiar.) The brutal Mormon elder is ready to stoop to any crime to force the heroine to become wife number X and his band of god-fearing Mormon thugs terrorises the local community into helping him. As the story unfolds, we discover just how appalling these self-appointed “bishops” and “elders” can be when they set eyes on a woman who attracts them. Mormonism seems to be or at least have been a licence to rape. What is pleasant in the book is the description of the countryside and the animals, with some passages of “purple prose” – no pun intended.
The author was christened Pearl Zane Grey, so it’s understandable that he dropped his first name. (What is it with the inhabitants of Ohio? John Wayne was originally christened Michael Marion.) Grey trained as a dentist, married a graduate in English who was able to help him with his work, and had his first book published in 1910. Having always associated him with cowboy films, though one gets some good storylines there, I was impressed with this book and I may even go back to Amazon and splash out another 99p. But if anyone comes round to the door to proselytise for Mormons, they will get an earful. It seems they have not changed. Our niece in Colorado is married to a former Mormon, who refused to obey orders and no longer has contact with his family. Still, the lucky girl doesn’t have to deal with a mother-in-law.
Boadicea's Chariot 
On the Utah/Arizona border the Colorado, both river and canyon wanders about and makes road construction very difficult indeed considering their is virtually no population to serve. The is an area that is technically in Arizona but cannot be accessed from Arizona. It is a very long drive through Utah to get there. Needless to say no-one bothers! The County sheriff does not bother to cross the State lines.
This area has been colonised by Mormons who still practise polygamy. Of recent years this area has had various girls emerge telling stories of forced marriages of near geriatrics to 12 year olds and to be fair the State of Arizona has been in there and nicked a good few who are currently in jail. Evidently they ran off all the boy children at the age of 16, kept all the girls and parcelled them round each other, filthy bastards!
I am personally still in a state of disbelief that they had the effrontery to have one of these weirdos stand as president. I have seen a couple of interviews with Romney who is obviously in a state of shock that he wasn’t elected. It was obvious that as a ‘magic knicker bishop’ he was totally used to having his every whim obeyed promptly, jump- how high! Very few people I knew objected to him on the grounds of his religion.
there are seriously a lot of Mormons in the West and in BC. I have never been able to understand that anyone can believe such total trash! I have made a point of reading their ‘bible’ They miss out Genesis and then it is a straight crib of the next 4 books, total gibbering crap! An interesting exercise is to read it with a James VI version alongside.
Joseph Smith produced 12 witnesses to the existence of the magic golden plates with signed statements. Wonder of wonders all were admitted as founding ‘bishops’ into his ‘church’ and were allowed the first pick of the women in the polygamy stakes for the rest of their lives. I have always thought the whole religion was founded to provide a raison d’etre for aberrant sexual behaviour and perversion. Since they have formally given up on the polygamy they are still into sexual freakery , control issues and the routine subjugation of women. Mucky buggers.
Marion is a regular male name in the South, especially to the East of the Mississippi, with an o = boy, with an a= girl. It is pronounced differently and nobody finds it peculiar. I think John Wayne only made an issue of it because he was in California, can’t imagine why, probably just to make publicity. I knew several Marions in Memphis, not the type of men to take the piss out of their names!! Rather think you would have been looking down the barrel of a .357 PDQ!
If you think the Mormons are bad news, check out The community of Bountiful in BC, even the Mormons have disowned them! In fact Canada has been far slower than the USA in attempting to stamp out polygamy, Too much PCitis too little too late!
Frankly the whole lot are strictly in the ‘load for bear’ category, wouldn’t want them sullying one’s doorstep.
Went to school with one. Seemed a nice boy. His dad played rugby. never heard about his mum or was it mums. 🙂
Thanks for that very informative comment, Christina. Will now go and check Bountiful.
Well, if most of the inhabitants of Bountiful are descended from only half a dozen men, they’re going to get into the “inbred mutant” stage soon.
In a very real sense, I feel that we ought to be a bit more charitable about the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, particularly if we are Jocks. There is, after all, a very good chance that many of our ancestors are strolling around in the Kingdom of God as fully paid-up Mormons, having been blessed with posthumous Baptism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_for_the_dead
it doesn’t get talked about a lot now but forty or fifty years back the Mormon Church paid to have many of the records of the National Registers of Scotland put on microfiche in exchange for getting to keep a set so that they could do the dead baptism thing for those pious members of their flock who wanted to catch up with their ancestors in the afterlife.
JM you are behind the times, they have done it to most of the western world now!
That is why the Mormon genealogical sites are the best there are!
Of course it is quite disgusting that they should have done this without permission of either the living or the dead but what do you expect from such creeps?
A vast invasion of privacy.
You should see Salt Lake City, vast temples, ludicrous grandiose buildings in the middle of nowhere for block after block. The only amusing thing about the place is that it lies in a high intermontane basin, all their pollution sits on the like a big brown pancake. It is a great pity that it does not asphyxiate them!
We have seen the place several time as it is a convenient place to cross the Rockies and run down the East side to Texas, a much shorter route than creeping all the way down to California and going round the bottom so to speak. Plus I like Wyoming, nothing there except cows, just wonderful! Plus one of the best restaurants in the USA that I know is situated in the Cheyenne stockyards, (seriously weird place to be!)
Must depart for another CT scan!
I’m with Christina on this, JM. Posthumous baptism is not admirable. I trust that my Wee Free ancestors, if they have been subjected to this, are strolling around the kingdom of heaven with very dour expressions and some strong words for any descendants who suggested it.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time with Australian Mormons.
They have, as Christina points out, microfilmed vast numbers of parish and other records from all around the world. They have Family History Centres all round Australia, which anyone of any faith (or even none!) can use with no cost. One can hire films at a minimal price. Consequently, I have used their facilities for many years in whatever city I’ve lived in.
I have to say, that they have, without exception, been the most courteous group of people I have ever met. And not once has any one of them ever involved me in a ‘religious’ discussion.
I also have to say that at the Utah level, I have far less respect for them! Having spent many years sorting out my family tree, one of my relatives decided to put the lot on the Mormon family history site, despite assurances that she would not do so. I got very short shrift from the Mormon ‘elders’ when I pointed out that they had, in fact, stolen my intellectual property. My only consolation was that the copier was extremely inaccurate.
I once asked why it was so important for the Mormons to research their family history and why they indulged in posthumous baptism. I was told that on the Day of Judgement, ie Bodily Resurrection, God would know who belonged to which family and He would then Resurrect members of the same family at the same time…
I didn’t get into a discussion on that, beyond mentioning that there were members of ‘my family’ I’d really want to give as great a miss in the next life as I did in this.
There are a couple of Record Offices in the UK who have not allowed their records to be filmed by the LDS Church. I recall some time ago Jews kicked up a huge fuss about posthumous baptism – but I never heard the end of the story.
Strangely, I have just been talking about a Mormon family in this part of the world. Delightful family. The father captained the Rhodesian rugby team some decades ago.
I was reminded on an incident when two friends of mine who were in their mid-to-late teens at the time, saw the very pretty daughters at a party. The older brother went over to attempt to talk to them. After about 10 minutes of trying to persuade them to have a drink, the young man’s only route to seduction, he returned to his brother who asked him if he had been having any success.
‘Not much. They don’t drink’.
‘Why not?
‘They are Normans’.
I have been to Salt Lake City several times. It is a pretty grim place, though the people are surprisingly good looking and friendly and they produce some very bright entrepreneurs. The one thing that used to crack me up though was the look of disdain shown by the barman at the Hilton Hotel when I ordered an alcoholic beer. He would reach into an unmarked refrigerator with a cloth and grab the offending item, so as not to touch it and place it in front of me unopened. The hotel was utterly soulless.
I watched a documentary on the Mormons about a year ago. There were some horrific goings on between them, the US military and various other immigrants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
Rightly or wrongly the, Mormons were a persecuted bunch prior to their exodus to Utah and persecution makes societies behave strangely. I suggest it is the same with the Jews and the Afrikaners both of which tribes have had to up sticks as it were. Afrikaners are gradually losing their identity as they integrate with other tribes, but Jews who remain segregated will always attract criticism.
I am not sure that there is any more logic attached to the objecting of posthumous baptism than there is to posthumous baptism itself. Nor do I think we have any rights to the records and history of our ancestors, though I accept that one does have a right to one’s own research.
The state of Utah has some very dramatic scenery and Park City has possibly the best skiing in the US.
The Mormons’ practices are no more or less logical than those of any other lovers of supernatural ideas. Baptism itself is essentially a ‘rite’ practised by such people.
What emerges in Grey’s book is the Mormons’ utter contempt for the Gentiles, ie non-mormons, and their lack of christian charity, even among themselves, and their readiness to cooperate with criminals to achieve their ends. I’m not sure Jesus Christ would want to know these “latter-day saints”!
I think you all overlook the Mormon’s worst facet. The treatment of women within their ‘church’.
One only has to read the New Testament to see that Jesus was in no way prejudiced against women. Women were free to preach during the Apostolic church period and in fact several ladies kept the church going financially. They were treated as equals.
However, by the Council of Nicaea, 325 AD, when the codification of the hierarchical nature of the church occurred, women were sidelined and barred from office and administration of the sacrament. It has taken a long time to regain any equality at all. I think it fair to say that the mainstream Churches have not seriously attempted to repress women since the 1920s.
The same cannot be said of the aberrant sects on the fringes of Christianity. It is pretty well a given that nearly all these sects repress women every way they can.
Forcing them to wear weird clothing
Denying contraception and abortion within their sect thus giving the controlling of fertility to men.
The deliberate production of overlarge families.
Marrying under the legal age of consent.
Practising polygamy when they can get away with it.
Refusing to allow married women to work outside the home.
Inferring that women are responsible alone for the ‘original sin’ and need to be constantly atoning for such.
Need I go on?
The Mormons today promulgate pretty well all of the above. They present, or try to, a very washed and scrubbed wholesome image to society at large that covers some very unpleasant private lives.
I sincerely believe that the whole thing was a set up to pursue polygamy and perversion. Now they pursue money with the same assiduity! It is interesting to note that their acts of charity never seem to benefit anyone else except themselves, mostly in the form of self aggrandisement of their ‘religion’!
Their religion is extremely secretive, only men can be admitted into the inner secrets, somewhat akin to Freemasonry.
I do recommend that you try to read their ‘bible.
Whether you believe or not in Christianity, it is unpleasant to say the least to see it traduced into this disgusting, dirtied pastiche of others beliefs. I can just imagine what would happen if someone tried a rewrite to the Koran!!!
Before you dismiss this as another of Tina’s rants I would like it known that my first husband came from a family of nutter religionists, even worse than the Mormons. I’ve been there done it and got the tee shirt! He too was supposedly lapsed. (The hell he was! Such an upbringing permeates the soul)
I have always made a point since of knowing my enemies, normal people are far too accepting of these nutters without actually investigating them. I have to say I was shocked rigid at the choices of the Republican party for their presidential nominations, 80% religious nutters!
How to guarantee a Democratic president for the foreseeable future.
Tina:
1. Utah is a very, very strange place. It has a strong economy and greater civil liberties than many
other states. It’s also very oppressive in many ways. The atmosphere is depressing and creepy. I’ve only
been there very briefly but had no desire to explore or return. It was a place I enjoyed leaving. Colorado is another place with a similar atmosphere — I don’t even like flying above them.
2. Mormons are very, very nice people and they’ve often been very helpful to me. At the same time there is an invisible wall with most of them. Before they begin treating you as an equal you have to join their church. There are a lot of problems in Utah with non-Mormons facing employment discrimination from Mormon employers/businesses. Much like more fanatic Muslims they will generally keep their money within their own communities, although they are more than willing to take money from anyone.
3. Religious nutters in general are unpleasant. I’ve had to deal with it a lot. My father has periodic fits of devotion in which everything revolves around God and Jesus. In these fits he’s prone to puttering about his garden refusing contact with anyone else in order to away a vision or a message whispered into his ear by the good Lord. He once went to a fundamentalist church for years and only stopped going when they insisted that he force my mother to go whether she wanted to or not. His father also moved to southern Idaho and became a Mormon. His family, other than his older brother, are much the same.
Chris I do think that the ability to be a religious fanatic has a degree of hereditary/genetic input into it!
It does seem to run in families. It never seems to get them all but a goodly amount of them. First husband’s sister was a nutter too, wouldn’t marry outside the church etc etc. I had come from a family that regarded the whole thing with a healthy degree of scepticism, when one is young one really does not see these things for what they really are, zealotry in any way shape of form has to be a type of mental illness (at least in my book!) I put my head into that noose without a qualm and took years to get out of it one way and another!
Since then I have run screaming from such, spent a lifetime avoiding any that exhibited symptoms!
I strongly agree with all you have written above, people do not know them unless you are part of them.
Zane Grey certainly knew about the Mormons’ attitude to women. As you can see, I compared it to the Muslim one and also said “Mormonism seems to be or at least have been a licence to rape.” Why his publishers felt it necessary to tone down the original editions I don’t know.
Now that is interesting sheona. The copy you have, expurgated or unexpurgated? I intend to borrow a copy from the library and it would be useful to know which to ask for!
I doubt whether any religious belief or mania is genetic; although a tendency to seek comfort from non-natural sources may well be! I’ve mentioned before that my clan were devout Methodists and my sister remains a devotee. I can see her ‘need’ to do her thing – which has run in the family because each generation has ‘nurtured’ the next – maybe brainwashed is a better term. As the brainwashing exercised among fanatics gains in sophistication and effectiveness, escape becomes increasingly difficult. The ‘faith’ gets tied up with duty to parents and community. Escapers become traitors to the cause.
Yes, Christina, my version is the “uncut, uncensored” one. If you can get the one with an introduction by Jon Tusaka, the man credited with with restoring the original manuscript, you’ll have the real McCoy.
Sheona
Bearsy and I were discussing the resurgence of religion a few days ago. It seemed to us that when we were growing up religion was in its ‘right place’ – a personal matter of opinion. Unfortunately, in the last decade or so, religion has reared its wretched head and we are all expected to respect whatever crackpot ideas any religious group choose to believe or promulgate – so one can no longer criticise any religion – Grrr!
Janus
I, also, am inclined to think that fanatical religious belief might be due more to nurture than nature. Early brainwashing is hard to overcome. As the founder of the Jesuits is reputed to have said: “Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the Man”.
Bearsy and you are right, Boadicea. But it’s not just assorted religions that we are called upon to respect. We now have shoved in our faces the rights of the homosexual, the obese, the transvestites, all of whom were perfectly acceptable when they quietly got on with their own life styles and left the rest of us to get on with ours.
Sheona: speaking from my own observation there is a certain tyranny in these so-called “rights” movements. Homosexuals who do not agree with the “gay agenda”, who are content to be left alone and not cause a seen, are rebuked and scorned by their own “community”. They’re pressured into either toeing the line or being silent. If they do speak up they are in effect shunned and reviled. For all the talk of being “inclusive” they’re not very inclusive at all.
Christopher, indeed. It’s often the demonstrative exponents who cause the trouble!
What you say is very sad, Christopher. Here’s some more special cases.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2305225/What-insult-Christians-After-crucifixes-allowed-work-human-rights-quango-tells-firms-Give-vegans-pagans-special-treatment-too.html
Christopher is quite right – I recall some years ago listening to a guy who was bi-sexual complaining that he, and others like him, were not allowed to participate in the Sydney Gay Parade… because they weren’t really ‘gay’. It seemed very sad to me that those who had gained ‘acceptance’ were not prepared to accept those who were similar, but different.
I read that article too, Sheona. I was amused to read that ‘even atheists’ were to have their views respected! It has become quite a nightmare – especially since those of extreme opinions, who have won their right to be accepted, seem to be completely unable to be tolerant of those who are not of their persuasion.
I was also amused by the fact that the opposition from religious groups to vegans and other such groups having ‘equal rights’ seems to be based on the fact that they see such views as simply being a life-style choice… about time they realised that some of us see that adhering to a set of religious beliefs is also a life-style choice.
One is born black / white, female / male, heterosexual / homosexual – and so I have no problem with anti-discrimination laws that deal with physical differences. But one is not born a Christian / Muslim / Jew / Buddhist / or whatever. Those who follow religions are ‘choosing’ to do so – and I see no reason at all why anyone should have to make allowances for those choices. It really is time to put religion back into the cupboard.
Everyone should have his/her views respected, Boadicea, provided they do not stridently attempt to force them on other people. Interestingly all our homosexual friends live quietly in couples and have done for years. The one vegan of our acquaintance – husband’s cousin – is the pain. Every time we see him he seems to be unwell – unbalanced diet? So employers may have to be extra forgiving if their vegan employees need extra days off for minor ailments. It’s a bit like muslims fasting all day during Ramadan. Are they really able to give 100% to their work? If not, why should employers be expected to tolerate this and other workers expected to pick up the slack?
Having one’s views respected is fine, but I don’t think that one should expect employers or other workers should have to accommodate them. If someone believes that they can’t touch pork – then they should not take a job that involves touching pork. Equally I don’t think other workers should be expected to pick up the jobs that other people are unwilling to do.