Seagulls and Crickets

MH mentioned in his summary of the Sunstone Symposium on Wheat and Tares blog the “myth” of seagulls and crickets discussed in one session…I was just thinking of this story the other day, and wondering what we know about it, and how much was word of mouth legend, and how much we have documented by respectable sources…Who knows more about the details behind these events and if they are real, and miraculous as I remember them being from my primary days?

I don’t know that much about the development of this story but even if it actually happened almost exactly the way we are told it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was divine intervention. Seagulls already live in the area so I don’t see what is so extraordinary about them suddenly showing up and eating some crickets. Theologians sometimes refer to this kind of perceived lucky coincidence as providence which they distinguish from miracles that are so out of the ordinary they would theoretically depend on an act of God. This faith-promoting rumor is right up there with the one about the Salt Lake temple having elevator shafts built-in before elevators were supposedly invented. Actually, elevators had been invented before that but people hear this kind of thing and want to repeat it and with each re-telling it seems like the stories become more fantastic and interpreted as proof that almost everything the Church says is true.

What Sam said. Things that are monumentous to people at the time of their struggles – especially extreme struggles – often look silly or coincidental to those removed from the time and actual experience.

In the context of this story, I have no doubt the seagulls saved the pioneers in a very real way. That’s enough for me. If they wanted to chalk it up to divine intervention, I’m totally fine with that. I’m open also to the possibility that it really was divine intervention in some way.

I’m not a historian and maybe MH can add more to this but…it was my impression that the eyewitnesses didn’t consider it a miracle at all. I understood that they very nearly starved to death and though the seagulls did help some to eat some crickets the harvest for that year was very lean indeed.

Sometimes myths like these are encouraging. Alright, they don’t stand up to scrutiny necessarily, but they’re valuable, wholesome and harmless.

In the context of this story, I have no doubt the seagulls saved the pioneers in a very real way. That’s enough for me. If they wanted to chalk it up to divine intervention, I’m totally fine with that. I’m open also to the possibility that it really was divine intervention in some way.

Would it change the situation if the immediate witnesses did not see it as miraculous, but later generations found great meaning in it? I don’t think so. A miracle is not dependant on humans to claim it as a miracle for it to be miraculous. “A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.”Or from the other perspective, the story/myth has had a profound effect on real people, became meaningful for them, and even became an important legend in the cultural identity of a whole people. Either way you look at it the story has value and should be respected (perhaps not enshrined or revered, but respected).

Thanks for all the good replies. I am not one to mock or make fun of a story others feel such a sacred nature about.

Why, then, does Paul H Dunn get such a bad rap? Stories seem to be embellished all the time to make a point or try to promote faith.

Maybe as you’ve pointed out, it was miraculous for farmers. Maybe it was something truly amazing to the poor, weak souls that were desperate and in need of something to cling to for hope to get them through their plight. I don’t begrudge them that or mock them for that. And I could even argue that such things effectively help strengthen them in an important way to get through their crisis. I think it is also likely the story is embellished, as people start telling how seagulls would vomit the crickets and return to get more, or other aspects of it that seem fantastic.

But to continue telling the story in church for decades seems misleading and irresponsible. Like the elevator story at the temple. Like the Paul H Dunn war stories. Like many of the Joseph Smith accounts of visions and miracles.

I have had spiritual experiences that are meaningful to me. It doesn’t seem they would hold up to others if I passed them on for generations. They are just mine.

I guess that is just part of religion. Faith-promoting is not historical accuracy or scientifically proven facts … they are stories. The bible and BOM is full of them, in very much the same tone as the Seagull/Cricket story.

Hence, I am sympathetic to atheists or those that want little to do with religion. If you don’t WANT to hear those stories, they don’t promote faith. If you are not one to be moved by embracing myth, then they are of little value. This is also taught in the scriptures. You must have a desire to believe, in order to let the seeds grow within you.

I’ve always wondered why they didn’t just eat the crickets themselves. It apparently worked for the natives.

I should have blogged about this last year. The session was actually rather dry, but the Q&A was quite memorable when the woman got irate at the presenters (some of whom were non-Mormon and literally stunned by her strong reaction.) My memory is a bit hazy, but as I recall, there were seagulls that ate the crickets. The woman I’ve mentioned said she had read pioneer journals of her ancestors praising the miracle, so there is something to the story. However, in subsequent years, the crops were decimated by the crickets and the seagulls just couldn’t keep up. The farmers tried all kinds of ways to keep the crickets at bay, but nothing worked very well. Of course this part of the story doesn’t get told. But the first year did seem like a miracle, and that apparently is typical seagull behavior.

As for Paul Dunn, there was a Mormon Stories podcast with Greg Prince, and he is writing a biography of Dunn. Prince strongly defended Dunn, and basically said that lots of GA’s embellish stories, but Dunn got caught. As I recall, Prince said that Dunn’s stories were making a point in much the same way of Jesus’ parables. Yes some stories were embellished, but it shouldn’t have been as big of a deal as everyone made it out to be.

Perhaps we need to redefine what we think of as a miracle. Sometimes we can be too literalist, and expect supernatural intervention. Anything that comes in and saves people is a miracle.

I find it interesting that the seagulls ate the locusts one year, but in subsequent years couldn’t keep up.

Maybe we need to factor in an environmental shift here. As far as I can tell the indigenous people of the valley were semi-nomadic, and there is no evidence of agriculture before the Mormons settled the area. Presumably, the crickets found large amounts of cultivated crops, which were fertilized/irrigated etc, more palatable than the natural, and somewhat less nutritious vegetation that would have been there before. This would have caused a population explosion, in the sense that more eggs would have been laid, and more larvae survived, than in natural conditions.

As for Doyle, I happen to know a bit about him. He was credulous in some ways – people who are skeptical in some ways can be credulous in others – and spiritualism was the rage at the time because numerous British people had lost relatives in the Boer War and WWI.