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The Varieties of Contemporary Pilgrimage

2009; Wiley; Volume: 59; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cro.2009.a782452

1939-3881

S. Brent Plate,

Travel Writing and Literature

The Varieties of Contemporary Pilgrimage S. Brent Plate Pilgrimages seem to be almost instinctive, or at least derived from behaviors now so ingrained in our species that it’s difficult to distinguish between genetic and social origins. Of all the animals that migrate, we are surely among the most restless. But humans retain the influence of the geophysical habitat in which they pass their formative years. And often, it seems, we are drawn back to our childhood homes—if not physically, then mentally; if not out of love, then out of curiosity; if not by necessity, then by desire. Through such returnings we find out who we are. —John Janovy, Jr., Vermilion Sea: A Naturalist’s Journey in Baja California1 Two days out of every year, on the first Saturdays of October and April, over a thousand people drive through cactus and sage, across narrow roads in central New Mexico. They drive as far as they can and then walk another quarter mile to find what they are seeking: desert sand surrounded by a chain link fence. This is the Trinity Atomic Test Site, where the world’s first nuclear device was exploded on July 16, 1945. These atomic tourists are modern‐day pilgrims, looking to re‐experience a place of power, to bask in the now‐extinguished presence of an awesome display of scientific determination and dominance, even though there is almost nothing there (see Figure 1). Reports on the events indicate that while a somber mood would be expected, there have been some revelries as well, alongside sales of refreshments, T‐shirts depicting mushroom clouds, and other Trinity‐appropriate paraphernalia. Click for larger view View full resolution 1. Obelisk at Ground Zero of the Trinity Atomic Test Site. Photo by Gregory Walker (see http://www.abomb1.org/) used with permission. On August 15, 2002, tens of thousands of people from all over the world gathered in rainy weather. They lit candles, cried, and prayed as they passed in front of a gravesite outside Memphis, Tennessee. This was the twenty‐fifth anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, and the “candlelight service” for the evening included hymn‐singing, a speaker, a reading of the 23rd Psalm, and a time of silence, before visitors filed up to the “meditation garden” in Graceland. The altar‐like displays accompanying the memorial event included devotional imagery such as a black‐velvet Elvis weeping alongside Jesus and Mary. While the twenty‐fifth anniversary was a big event, smaller scale happenings occur every “Elvis Week” in mid‐August in Memphis as fans/mourners/tourists/pilgrims come to pay their respects. New Zealand’s online tourism guide contains multiple links to tours of the settings for the filmed trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels. The website is emphatic that, following a purported comment by actor Elijah Wood (Frodo), “New Zealand is middle earth.”2 Since the films have been produced, the island country’s tourism revenues have increased dramatically, as travelers are encouraged to plan their “own epic.” In other words, a mid‐twentieth century English/Catholic/Oxford academic‐novelist writes about a very fictional place called “middle earth,” which is then made into a series of movies that happen to be made by a New Zealand director and thus set in his homeland, and now people from around the world desire to travel to this place. The bones of bodhisattvas, splinters of Jesus’s cross, gravesites of Sufi saints, and holy cities, mountains, and rivers once held the power to attract pilgrims to them. In the current age, we find a new global environment in which the status and meanings of sacred places are being redefined. People are finding ever‐new places that beckon, enticing the pilgrim to pack a bag and voyage into unknown, unexperienced spaces. Films like Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004) have stimulated journeys to Santa Barbara county’s vineyards, and books like The Bridges of Madison County (Robert James Waller) have promoted mass visits to that Iowa county; in both examples, the local economies saw great influxes of tourist money. New museums and memorial spaces, from the Frank Gehry‐designed Guggenheim Bilbao to Peter...