The Beaded Moccasins: The Story of Mary Campbell by Lynda Durrant

Treasure Trove of Inspiration For the Unschooling Family

White Rose Publications

Jan 03, 2025

pres·ent·ism

/ˈpreznˌ(t)iz(ə)m/

noun

noun: presentism

uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.

Yesterday I read a book that I had picked up many years ago as a discard from a local library. Somehow life happened and the book got tucked away, unread, until I decided over Christmas to go through and reorganize my books. I not only rediscovered the book, but sat down and read it from cover to cover.

The story is based on the kidnapping of Mary Campbell on May 11, 1759, Mary’s 12th birthday, by a tribe of Delaware Indians. Like the author, I’ve been fascinated by the concept of being thrust into foreign cultures with foreign people speaking foreign tongues since I was a child, although the author was specifically drawn to the story of Mary Campbell after having visited the cave.

Although I’m hit or miss on historical fiction (I prefer primary sources instead), I was sold on the book because it contained an Afterward summary explaining what was historically documented versus what was fabricated, as well as a Glossary of words (I LOVE learning languages) and a Source section with books and resources the author relied upon to write her story. All good stuff.

From the perspective of a parent who ended up unschooling her children, I would start with saying that this book is a treasure trove for the un-schooler, home-schooler, or after-schooler, who enjoys starting with a story and expanding the curiosity it generates outward to parallel areas of learning. The book is filled with references to identifying bird calls and animals, plants & trees, all used to gauge time and see beauty in nature. There are tons of old school skills talked about for both the Colonialists and Native Americans (e.g. carding & spinning wool, churning butter, foraging, tanning hides, and gardening). Furthermore, as a mom of picky yet ravenous eaters, there were many references to what was eaten at the time, which opens the door for finding recipes, making and eating the foods mentioned in the book, all of which would be by today’s standards healthy and wholesome. All of this goes towards building children into having the foundation of skills necessary for basic survival and self-reliance, something not attended to by simply sending children to school. Again, good stuff.

In general, I enjoyed the descriptions and language used. My favorite quotes from the book are the following:

“Sunlight dapples the wavelets as though someone had scattered gold coins across the river.” She goes further, “What would I do with those gold coins?” Such a wonderful prompt when reading to children!

Or,

“Late in the morning, I see a bluebird singing in a little oak tree. His bright blue feathers are the same color as my dress and eyes. His silvery, liquid voice fills my ears with a promise: I will see my family again.” This is Mary trying desperately to seek in nature that which is familiar and comforting, all while trying to understand and process what is happening.

Or,

“We feast all night. I can’t remember a time when I was so full, except perhaps a Christmas years ago. My full stomach fills me with sleepy contentment, like a warm blanket, but on the inside.” There is so much to unpack here: there is nothing like being deprived of the basics in life (like food and shelter) to make one appreciate having them.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. With that said, I found myself quite often chaffing at the presentism in the book. It is very much written by one saturated in a feminist mindset and who is projecting her feminist views on to the young Mary Campbell. The repeated theme of grievance at men getting to “play” around while women do all the work was a tiresome trope, at best. The character of Mary is one who begins as something of a churlish child aggrieved at her perception that her brother gets special treatment, never mind how hard her parents are both working at surviving (only her mother’s work is mentioned) while creating a homestead and her own stubborn refusal to be of help to them in their joint survival. It is difficult to believe that any almost 12 year old who was actually living in this situation would not have noticed and appreciated how hard survival was and been mature enough by that age to have known better. In fact, by the age of 12, Mary would have hardly been considered a child young enough not to have been fluent in the skills she was just then being taught. To be fair, I found it even more difficult to believe that her 14 year old brother would have been allowed to sleep all day and not also been given incredible amounts of responsibilities and chores, like milking the cows and tending the fields (e.g. Farmer Boy). This seems more like a mindset contemporary to 1998 when the book was written, rather than 1759, the year the events took place. In this aspect, I found the book to be historically unbelievable. Then again, it is not as though spoiled children have never existed throughout history.

By taking the spoiled child approach, the author has then set up the story for Mary to have some pretty intense character growth: Mary is taken from a home of relative luxury (not what the character thinks at the time) and forced into making choices of surviving which means not whining and ultimately by taking on responsibility which assures her and the tribe’s survival…or remaining churlish and dying. The author’s ability to unveil and grow various characters, weaving a tale out of historical documentation and imagination, is ultimately one which deserves appreciation: Lynda Durrant gives us opportunity to experience what Mary Campbell may have seen, felt, and thought, in the time after her capture. For that alone, I appreciate the book.

Part of my quest in re-reading children’s literature specifically is to ascertain at what point children’s literature went sideways into stories our kids absolutely should be reading into stories which promote anti-social behaviors. On the one hand, I didn’t like the grievance attitude which has become so pervasive and which is somewhat artificially and anachronistically supplanted on top of the story. On the other hand, there is so much to be learned in terms of storyline.

I had almost decided to skip the book without writing about it and move on to another. Then, I went on X, and coincidentally got hit with this article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/

The article itself is not what compelled me to fully appreciate the book I had just read. No, what has been happening in academia in my opinion is a travesty beyond words. The prevailing attitudes, logical fallacies, and ideological possession is not new to me by any means and one which I have dealt with for a couple of decades already.

No, what compelled me to understand how critical it was to have read books just like this one was actually the comments, especially from male posters. The males (and some females) were completely perplexed as to why women would not be forced to go on a hunt because otherwise the women would be “sitting on their hands all day doing nothing”, to quote one of many posters. This attitudes clearly stems from a lack of historical perspective, a historical perspective one may have gained from reading such a book as The Beaded Moccasins, however historically inaccurate the attitude Mary’s character was given and certainly however historically inaccurate the brother’s character was made! We as women have so promoted the idea that we can outdo men on what men do best, that we have lost the appreciation for what women can and actually have done the best: multi-task with fine motor skills, with meticulous attention to detail and organization. Even more critically, we as women and mothers have outsourced our ability to be life-bringers, healers and caretakers, ironically handing these tasks over to usurpation by men. To say that women simply sat around and did nothing is to lack appreciation for what women actually did do and to value only what men do by saying that women must do it as well or better. This mindset really lacks an appreciation for both men and women. Men and women are complimentary to one another, not in opposition. To take the perspective espoused in the book that men did nothing all day is to look backwards and not appreciate the toil and struggle of man against nature. To take the perspective espoused currently that women need to stop being lazy, doing nothing and of course needed to have gone out and hunt and do anything a man could do is to not appreciate all that women did do to assure survival. A division of labor into who was better suited physically, spiritually, socially, & psychologically, was done not out of putting down women. In fact, it was because women were indeed considered too precious to lose to physical injury that they were protected. (see Caddie Woodlawn)