Amish Country - Indiana

My knowledge about the Amish community was quite limited. I've seen Witness, but that's about the extent of my research. I was very curious to have a look around Amish Country in northern Indiana.

Amish families from Pennsylvania arrived in the area in the mid 1800s, attracted by the rich soil and small population. They still speak a dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch, although they are taught American English as well. I spoke with an Amish woman outside a store and her accent was typical Midwestern. If not for the apron, bonnet and horse-drawn buggy she could have been any woman I met in the middle northern states. This intensely private community lives a simple, traditional lifestyle and rejects modern technologies such as cars, telephones and electricity in their homes. My National Geographic book informs me, however, that more than half of the Amish heads of households here work in factories.

My National Geographic guide book directed me to a route from Elkhart to Lagrange. It's only a short drive, just 28 miles (45 kilometres), but there is a lot to look at in that short distance. The changes are visible almost immediately. Outside the Forks County Line store there are hitching posts for buggies in the parking lot.

There is also a distinct slowing of the rate of traffic.

At one point I even saw a horse drawn semi trailer. Two double axle flat bed trailers were lashed together and being drawn by a single draft horse. These Amish horses are pretty tough.

The slower pace was welcome because it gave me more time to look out at the neat fields of corn, rye, hay and oats, and at horses grazing in green paddocks. The barns have gambrel roofs and trim and the houses have white frames, reminding me of the scene in Witness where the community gathers together to raise a barn.

The smallness of the distance and slowness of the pace are both connected with one of the key things I noticed about Amish Country. It's small. The farms are small, the towns are small. Unlike the huge rural landholdings common in Australia, where the nearest neighbours may be several hours away by car, these farmers can conveniently wave to their neighbours over the fence and chat while hanging out their washing. You could get the whole town together to raise a barn in fairly short order, on foot.

My first, literal, taste of Amish life was a traditional peach pie I bought at an Amish bakery. It was so good that I managed to eat more than half of it all by myself over the next 24 hours.

Just south of Shipshewana, an Amish market centre, I stopped by the Menno-Hof Amish-Mennonite Visitor's Centre. Although I learned a great deal about the history of the various types of Anabaptists, it was a somewhat depressing visit. It was a challenge to deal with the intense discomfort of the secular scientist surrounded by people who are talking about Biblical stories as historical fact. It is disquieting to come face to face with the fact that there are people who base their entire world view on the contents of one book and adjust or flatly reject all alternative evidence.

Like many religious stories, the story of the Anabaptists is weighted heavily towards misery, persecution and oppression. In the reproduction of a torture room (no, I'm not kidding) there are implements such as the Anabaptist Catcher below, and the tongue screw below that. The tour revels in the stories of good Anabaptists burned at the stake rather than renouncing their commitment to adult baptism and rejection of infant baptism. It was enough to make the peach pie sour in my mouth.

The horrors of the torture chamber were followed by the horrors of escape. We passed through a reproduction of a crowded and disease ridden ship that the Anabaptists took to escape to America. A recorded snippet from the story of one woman whose daughter died en route is played relentlessly as you pass through. The little girl dies telling her mother not to worry because they will soon both be free, the mother in the new country and the daughter in heaven (sniff, sniff, vomit).

Despite the oppressive doom and gloom there were some bright spots in the visit. There was a lot of talk about the charitable works done by modern Anabaptists, and even some glimpses of a sense of humour. John F Funk, a famous printer of bibles and doer of good works in his community drank several cups of coffee a day, despite the edict of his church that such stimulants are forbidden. When Funk was well into his 80s one of the devout young workers in his print shop came up and asked him if he didn't know that coffee was poison. Funk considered this for a moment and then replied, "Well, if it is, it must be a mighty slow one."