IT’S AMAZING HOW MAESHOWE AMAZES

We visited Maeshowe in September 2019 somewhat reluctantly. Our first visit some years ago was special. We were the only folk on the tour. The guide had the nouse to leave us alone, to give us as much time as we needed in the neolithic tomb. There were no restrictions on photography. The experience was astonishing, never to be repeated, it seems, in our era of increasing tourism. How might one feel with 23 others crowded into this subterranean void, this chambered cairn? Claustrophobic fear?; might one panic? Then there were the ravages of time on the body: one was not as mobile or as agile as one was ten years ago. Could one manage the 10 metre, 1 metre high snug shuffle through the tunnel access? There were thoughts of pulling out with cold sweats before entering this time, ideas that needed a cool head and deep breathing to be calmed.

Well, one did enter with an awkward, hunched shuffle and did not panic. Indeed, the space was surprisingly relaxing, comfortable, allowing one to feel at ease, good about being there, no concerns at all, although one did make sure one stood near the cool air of the low entrance tunnel escape. It is indeed a tight fit. One was surprised that the mandatory guide made no mention by way of warning of this entry challenge. The guide at Newgrange had emphasised the tightness of the approach and the possible claustrophobic concerns, allowing visitors to reconsider. Who knows the implications of a panic attack on the group?

Inside the chambered cairn - “No photographs please!” - the guide gave his blurb as 24 tourists filled the space, making only the top portion of the tomb visible. One thought of how 3000 visitors from a cruise ship can only experience a place as it is with 3000 visitors. Here we had Maeshowe with 24 visitors and a guide. The crude Victotian-repaired/reconstructed, white-painted stone vault, a rough arch supporting another rough arch with clumsy infills, dominated the deliberate, massive slabs of the lower walls and roof. Oddly, the guide made a big deal out of this definition, showing where the wall stopped and became roof. It seemed a trivial matter in the idea of place and purpose. One wondered why a new, maybe fibreglass dome might not conceal the rebuilt bitsy mess and provide a sleek efficient light diffuser. Such a shroud would be no different to the guide's presence in this place, and would clearly identify the original and the new without having to endure the shambles of a botched repair.

What was important was the guide's performance, as it gave an insight into the tourist mind. One says 'performance' because it was. The guide on the New York river cruise, (apologies for sounding like a boastful tourist), made this clear. His ambition was to be an actor, but it was not to be. He found his niche as tour guide where he could perform in front of tourists every day, and give them what they wanted; Mr Maeshowe did likewise. Every second of the time spent in the cairn was filled with rehearsed facts, anecdote, humour, and games. One was never given time or space for contemplation, reverie, questioning. It was a safe void to be in.

“Ask me anything. When I do not know, the answer will be 42.” “Ha, ha, ha.” Did he think of 42 as being the reverse of the number in the group? Of course it came later: “How many stones are there?” “42!” “Ha, ha, ha!” again. Isn't he clever; so much fun! The guide had a cheeky, cockney-like accent. “Hands up if you have been here before. . . . It has not changed much! Ha, ha, ha.” The question was a mere starter for the joke. There was no personal interest in anyone’s experience.

There was a strange, a surreal something in his blurb. Its supreme, assured confidence was obvious, emboldened, as he presented everything as quantitative facts about Maeshowe, mingled with his games, fun, and jokes. “This stone is the full width, two metres deep, and the thickness of my hand. It is the heaviest stone here. It weights 5 metric tonnes.” “How many stones overall?” “How much might it all weigh?” etc. as if there might be prizes at a party for being close when the answer was always going to be "42". The guide suggested he was a research scholar who held opinions on everything - runes, their reading and meaning; the height and origin of the scribe; etc., etc. - he gave ‘his personal opinions’ as though they were meaningful, useful. What was this person other than an actor who had learned his words, even his jokes? What did his opinions really mean? Why even pretend to be authoritative, to be concerned with anything but the act, when the role was tour guide, not researcher? His opinions would never be published in any refereed journal.

His performance was for entertainment. The tourists seem to expect this act which had all of the same characteristics of the New York guide on the boat trip around Manhattan: loud and certain; jokey, smart; brash; bolshie. Both acts were acknowledged at their completion with spontaneous clapping! It was pure theatre. The only difference was that Mr New York used his position as a personal fund-raiser, seeking donations for his son who had a particular medical condition requiring treatment. He also stood at the exit to collect the tips. At least Mr Maeshowe had no such expectations of his audience.

All intimate meaning was squashed; the core was the performance, not the place. The cairn was merely the material fact, the set, the site for the act that astonishingly made time fly. Over half an hour went in what felt like minutes as the actor carried on giving tourists a laugh and a stack of facts for regurgitation, and his opinions. Maeshowe, the place, was merely a quirky, time-filling difference for tourist dalliance. “We're going to Maeshowe today; X tomorrow.” Thoughts about the next hype are never far away.

Now, back on the shuttle bus, bucket partially emptied, a subdued group became ready for the next item on the Orkney list. The tourist mind had been pumped up so successfully that the release was applause, not for Maeshowe, but for the actor. Tourists are audiences wanting to watch, to be effortlessly, mindlessly entertained. Tour guides fulfill this role and ensure that there is not one millisecond where the tourist might be bored or exposed to any personal reverie or doubt, or delight stimulated by the wonder and beauty of place. There was no chance for empathy here. Maeshowe might as well have been a replica. The visitor centre, which was really a shop with toilets, did have 3D headsets available to entertain tourists waiting for the shuttle bus. Perhaps, instead of bastardizing the tomb, defacing and devaluing it with distracting, poor performances, tourists should all be put into a space with individual headsets and a recorded blurb. Maybe many would find this an exciting variation to crawling into a stone cavity. Tourists rarely interact, they meander as strangers, so isolation would be no problem.

Did anyone ask themselves about the original, 5000 year old experience and feeling for this place beyond this skimpy, flashy text of Mr Maeshowe? Did anyone wonder about bones and meanings; death itself? Death, where is thy sting . . . Did anyone question the extent of Victorian interference? Didn't the top corner stones look as though they had been set in cement? It would have been pointless to ask. Guides gave such a repertoire of learned responses that they crush doubt with their demeaning certainty. One can recall asking the guide at Roslin Chapel whether the coloured sandstones had been deliberately used, perhaps as bandings or in some other predetermined pattern. Through the broken cement render wash, a Victorian disaster, one could see red and yellow ochre sandstone. The guide's response was a forceful, learned lecture on the render. He had no idea what the issue was, but his bravado put one in one's place. One was an itinerant interloper.

What the Maeshowe visit did make clear was that questions other than those involving quantity - how many years, how heavy, etc., had no role here. "42" was as good as these contemplations got. This promo was all about positive entertainment, feeling good about one's self, being happy, given things to laugh at and be amazed with: "This is 5000 years old” . . . “This rune uses the F word." “WOW”: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/03/wow-world-and-me.html

In one sense the guide was an artist. As for personal meaning and intimate understanding, well, this was all successfully abolished. There were no worries here, no Thou to mysteriously interact with and enrich the I. The tourist world drowns out all reality and all possibilities of contemplation and intimacy. The core is easy distraction. It is sad that the world of wonder has become its tool as this world lies at the heart of the spirit and serious revelation, touching it. Tourism enshrines meaning with a shallow, shifty shroud, turning it into an amorphous haze that can be manipulated to suit the gaze.

The tourist arrives as a lost soul, willing to and wanting to give up everything to be the receptacle for the fun and games that use specific, sundry facts as the ground for humorous stories, entertainment. Being left alone in Maeshowe was a startlingly different experience to that of the second visit. It was allowed by a guide who had different priorities too, who respected and understood Maeshowe and its identity and soul, beyond the blind brashness of simple amazement, the “WOW” factor that makes its own different demands. Might it stand for: ‘We Only Want’ . . . more and more distracting entertainments? “WOW!”

While waiting in the visitor centre for the return of the shuttle bus, the loud speaker declared: "Would those going on the next tour please use the other door so that they do not crowd out those coming in from the last tour." It seemed like a production line; one could feel a sense of anticipation, like the quiet before the storm. The next bucket list item was imminent - “WOW” was about to happen again. "Mmmm, I must go to the toilet before the bus leaves. Do you need to go?”

Such is tourism - the boring, everyday effort to track down listed "WOW"s; the relentless struggle to be "WOW"ed.

For more on THE MIND OF THE TOURIST – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-mind-of-tourist.html