"Tis a gift to be simple..."

I found this novel on the sale table at Barnes and Noble. The haunting photograph of a Shaker girl on the cover caught my eye.  The story takes place in 19th century New England and centers around an abused farm girl who is taken in by a Massachusetts Shaker community.  It has an interesting plot line and describes the extreme hardship and poverty of early rural America.

I enjoyed learning more about the Shakers.  I knew nothing really, other than they make beautiful, expensive chairs and boxes.  The religion is sometimes confused with the Luddites (Mennonites) but Shakers are an off-shoot of the Quakers.  As we know, all these sects emigrated to America in search of religious freedom.  For want of a better description,  their practices were just too "wacky" for old Europe.

Group of Shaker men and women

The Shakers were celibate and sex (including thoughts of) was considered evil and filthy.  Marriage was forbidden, so they maintained the community size by "adopting" orphans and abandoned children. The kids were indoctrinated and cared for, but kept as basically indentured servants until the age of 18, when they were given the choice to stay or go out into "The World."  

In other ways, the Shakers were quite progressive. Unlike the Amish, they embraced new technology and were responsible for many inventions, like the clothes pin, flat broom, rotary washing machine and threshing machine.  They were the first to package and sell seeds. Extremely industrious and business-minded, they sold high quality food products, natural medicines, furniture and household goods. They had no problem making money off the sinful outside world.

Men and women lived in separate buildings and were forbidden to interact on a daily basis.  But oddly, their worship meetings were filled with singing and ritual group dancing.  The famous hymn, "Lord of the Dance" is a Shaker tune.  The Shakers got their name because they would sometimes fall to the floor, speaking in tongues or twitching with religious ecstasy.

With all that repression (and human nature being what it is) you have to wonder if things got a bit steamy in those meeting halls.  And what on earth did these dances look like?

YouTube to the rescue. Here's a tamer example of modern Shaker dance and worship: