Appalachian History

Please welcome guest blogger Lynn Salsi, author of "The Jack Tales" and "Young Ray Hicks Learns the Jack Tales." She has received the American Library Association's Notable Book Award, six Willie Parker Peace History Book Awards for her non-fiction books about North Carolina, and was named the North Carolina Historian of the Year in 2001.


In the newly published memoir "Power in the Blood" (Ohio University Press), author Linda Tate reflects on her life’s experiences, expertly weaving in historical facts and settings that she acknowledges came to her through years of research. This is not a handed-down oral tale passing between generations. Rather, it proceeds from snippets of information, flashbacks, dreams, and mysteries surrounding lost Cherokee-Appalachian family members.

The trauma following her parents’ divorce amplified the author’s longing for a continuous relationship with her father, even though he ceased communication when she was twelve. Bereft of relationships on her father’s side of the family, Tate dwelled on what might have been as she grew older.

Tate threads the story of her father by hanging her text on females in the family, especially her great-great grandmother, great grandmother, and grandmother. Through them she skillfully weaves personal memories and family recollections (including those gleaned from newly met relatives). The author melds her personal memories, interviews, and formal research into an engaging story. She captures place, colloquial language, and facts while placing herself, her parents, and her grandparents into believable scenes.

Even though Tate states that she combined her imagination with research to flesh out her story, she bravely includes the personal “flaws” and shortcomings of her subjects, revealing struggles with power, abandonment, abuse, sex, discrimination, and divorce. In fact, there is little joy in the lives of her female ancestors, who are trapped in cycles of early marriage, too many children, hard work, and no conveniences.

These facts are not lost on the author as she brings forth females who “had to give up being a girl.” Their histories provide contrasts to the accomplishments and success of the author as she overcame family disappointments, earned a PhD, and became an established writing professor.

"Power in the Blood's" storytelling strategy does not pursue the unfolding of a seamless timeline. The five chapters begin in modern times (1988 to 1993), then flash back to 1902 before returning to 1964, more dramatically emphasizing the differences of the generations of women.

Pay close attention to how Tate uses voice. She frames her personal story in current day vernacular. Likewise, she puts Louisiana and Fannie within their own setting and within their own language skills. This heightens contrast as well as tension. The author examines the difficulties of each generation as they confront their lives and times within social expectations, religious beliefs, male domination, and ethnic limitations.

Linda Tate has brought forth gripping pictures of how her female ancestors from three generations sought something more than a hard scrapple life. The women in "Power in the Blood" bear successive witness in this tale of seeking and finding.



Power+in+the+Blood Linda+Tate Cherokees appalachia +appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Like many locations in Georgia, many of Rabun County's place names are derived from Indian names. In Rabun County that would be the Cherokees. In most Indian place names, we know the English spelling of how the Cherokees pronounced the word, but no actual translation of what the word means. For example, both Chattooga and Chechero were the names of villages. Chattooga was derived from the town which once stood on the South Carolina side of the river, near the mouth of War-woman Creek.

It was abandoned, probably in 1760, because it lay on the route of two British Army expeditions. When explorer John Bartram passed by in 1776, he noted town ruins in the area.

The area where Clayton is now located was once an important intersection of major Indian trails known as Dividings. One route that branched to the southeast, along what is now Highway 76 East, passed an Indian village mapped by Henry Mouzon in 1777 and called "Chichirohe." That derivation is easy to see in the community we call Chechero.

The word "Tallulah" has often been said to mean 'terrible.' There was an Indian village near the great falls and gorge in the late 1600s called 'Talulu.' By 1725 there was another village in the same area called 'Turura,' a variation of 'Talulu.'

Some Indian names are Anglicized; Warwoman is one example. The most important route out of Dividings ran along War-woman Creek to the east, forded the Chattooga River, and forked in South Carolina to trails that then led to Virginia and Charleston. The creek name (later the community's name also) came from an honored titled among the Cherokee. It was their custom to take a woman along on war parties, primarily to cook and sew, but when one proved her mettle on several expeditions, she was given the designation 'War Woman.' We don't know which specific woman was referred to because the Warwoman Creek has held that name for more than 200 years.

Timpson Creek's name does not seem to have an Indian connection at first glance. But it is, in fact, name for a Cherokee, John Timson, who was the first convert made by Baptist missionaries in 1823.

Other Indian names abound in Rabun County. Stekoe Creek was first called 'Sticcoa' by the Cherokees, and Hiawassee Street is named for the great trail known as 'Hiwassee' that connected the Cherokee settlements around Franklin, NC to those of the valleys further south and west. Even Savannah Street, which many believe to be named for Savannah Bleckley, may actually be of Cherokee derivation because it is the English equivalent of 'Hiwassee,' meaning grassy valley.

When the Cherokee were removed and Rabun County was created in 1819, the white settlers started their own naming. Rabun comes from Governor William Rabun, who died in office shortly before the county came to be. Clayton, originally Claytonville, was named for Supreme Court Judge and Congressman Augustus Clayton of Clarke County. Dillard was named for the Dillard family, among the first white settlers in that locale. Mountain City was originally called 'Pass Over' by settlers because it was part of the great valley pass through the Blue Ridge. By 1915, it was known as Mountain City.

According to Mrs. Della Watts' recollections, Tiger was once called 'Kerbytown,' after a prominent resident who ran a general store there. Some say the name 'Tiger' derived from a Cherokee chief named 'Tiger Tail;' other oral history says the panther’s cry from the mountains reminded early settlers of English origin of the eerie cry of the tiger of India.


Source: ‘Rabun County Place Names,’ by Carol Law Turner, The Vintage Rabun Quarterly, Vol 3 No 1, January 2009



Rabun+County+GA Cherokees place+names appalachia history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

(continued from yesterday...)

When the Union forces first reached Atlanta, Callahan sent his daughter word not to go in for more goods, but to stay home with the children. From 30 miles away the loud roar of cannon could be clearly heard. She declared in 1928 that she would never forget the battle sound. Callahan was killed during the battle of Atlanta, after having fought for the Confederacy for several years.

After the burning of Atlanta, Sherman's march took him through the Indian family's cornfields, which were "in roasting ear," and Nancy assumed full responsibility for providing food for the other fatherless children.

Nancy remained single for over 40 more years. In her seventies, she married Norman Dollar and moved to the Mentone area. Twenty years later, her husband died. She managed to buy his tombstone by selling her cow. From this time until her death eight years later, the legends grew around Granny Dollar. She enjoyed embellishing the stories told about her and encouraged their telling. She told fortunes and managed to survive by growing chickens and vegetables and by the generosity of friends and neighbors.

"Another race has taken our fields, our forests and our game. Their children now play where we once were so happy. The trouble with the white race," she mused, "is that they lay up so much for old age that they quit work at 50 or 60 years. When they stop working, they get out of touch with nature; all wear shoes in summer which keeps them from God's good earth; then they begin to fail, and soon they are dead."

Her last years were spent on Colonel Milford Howard's property. The ruins of her cabin are almost hidden from DeKalb County Highway 156, on the south side of the road a short distance east of DeSoto Parkway. The chimney still stands and vines have taken over the decaying ruins. Across the paved road a dirt road meanders up a hill to the former site of Colonel Howard's Master School.

Colonel Howard is responsible for much of the legend surrounding Granny Dollar. In 1928 he wrote a feature story about her for The Birmingham News. He met Granny upon his return from a long stay in California. She had then settled into one of his cabins. Although his own financial situation was precarious, Howard agreed to provide for Nancy, which included a bit of fat meat in her greens and biscuits, her baccy for her ever-present corncob pipe, and rations for her “Injun” chickens and mongrel dog Buster.

Buster was very old himself, having reached the age of 20. He'd long served as Granny's faithful guardian, ever ready to attack anyone who approached either him or his mistress. He had frightened so many people and had even bitten several children, Buster was despised by the neighbors as a mean, vicious beast, but Granny had loved him.

Preparing for her own demise, Granny had saved twenty-three dollars toward a tombstone, but the money was stolen from her. Three years to the day from the publication date of the Progressive Farmer article about Granny Dollar, the January 28, 1931 issue of the Fort Payne Journal announced her death.

People in the community arranged for her burial beside her husband in Little River Cemetery, and Colonel Howard delivered the eulogy.

After Granny's funeral no one wanted Buster and he was equally unwilling to have anything to do with any prospective new master or protector. When neighbors went to check on the old dog, they found him gnawing the door, his angry snarl revealing the gums which once had held dangerous teeth.

After he refused to be coaxed or driven from his vigil, the mountaineers decided it would be more humane to chloroform Buster than to allow him to grieve himself to death or slowly starve. When Buster’s body was buried, another funeral was held with Col. Milford W. Howard, famous lawyer, congressman and author, eulogizing Granny Dollar’s faithful mongrel dog.

In 1973, largely through the efforts of Annie Young of Fort Payne, Granny’s tombstone was erected. The head of an Indian woman is inscribed at the top and "Daughter of the Cherokee" is written at the bottom, next to the dates "1826-1931" (her exact birth date is uncertain.)


Sources: www.desotostatepark.com/lol-Granny%20Dollar.htm
www.mentonealabama.org/Strayhorn/StrayhornLegends.htm
http://www.mentonealabama.org/Granny.htm



Granny+Dollar Ft+Payne+AL Trail+of+Tears Cherokees appalachia appalachia+history appalachian+history

She said she was 101 at the time of the interview in the January 28, 1928 issue of the Progressive Farmer, but she remembered the early days of childhood well.

There is no doubt that Nancy Emmaline Callahan Dollar, who came to be known as "Granny Dollar," was what is known as a character. This friendly old woman, who lived on Lookout Mountain about nine miles from Fort Payne, AL, enjoyed reminiscing and talking to visitors.

Born in Buck's Pocket (a five-mile-long gorge on Sand Mountain spanning DeKaIb, Jackson and Marshall counties) eight miles east of Coffeetown, Nancy was the daughter of a Cherokee father named William Callahan and a half Cherokee Indian, half Scots-Irish mother named Mary Sexton.

She enjoyed the games played by Indian children, including one called "dog and fox" and liked to pitch quoits, an activity similar to pitching horseshoes. She never attended any kind of school.

Nancy's father hunted game while the rest of the family raised corn and potatoes. On one occasion after having killed a very large deer, her father appeared to be very sad and unable to eat. The concerned mother, after persistent questioning finally elicited the reason for his distress. "I cannot eat my meat," he said. "I fear my three poor little children in South Carolina are hungry. I have a wife and three children in South Carolina and I was forced to leave them there." Nancy's mother replied, "Go and fetch them. There is room and plenty to eat."

Thus, Nancy's family soon included another mother and sister and two more brothers. The Cherokees were allowed to have more than one wife and in Nancy's family, at least, there appeared to be no dissension or jealousy. "My father's hut was enjoyed by all," she recalled.

She remembered that her mother appeared as happy over the new arrivals as did the children and had her big dirt oven full of baked potatoes and venison ready for the ravenous children. The two women labored together in raising the crops and caring for the family. Together, they had a total of 26 children, including three sets of triplets born to Nancy's mother.

This large family ate wild turkey, deer and fish with vegetables, which included cabbage, pumpkin and corn. Their corn was roasted with the shuck on. Johnnie cake, sweetened with molasses and hominy, were also common foods. The oven used for cooking their meals was made of red clay and was used under a shed outside the home.

When most Indians left this area to join the forced march over the "Trail of Tears," William Callahan avoided moving his family from their beloved mountain home by hiding in a cave. He did leave later, however, after an altercation with a white man named Jukes, during which the Indian, his temper aroused by curses and a false accusation, bit off Jukes' nose and one ear. Fearing that the Jukes family might retaliate by burning his home, Callahan moved to Georgia and settled in Marthasville, near Atlanta.

When Nancy was about 21 years old she sought a way to make money in order to help provide food for her many younger brothers and sisters. One of the mothers was now dead (she did not specify which one.)

She began hauling goods from Marthasville to the country stores near her home, a distance of 30 miles. She made long trips over rough roads in a covered, or tar-pole, wagon drawn by two mules. The wagon axles were greased and the mules hitched, unhitched and fed by Nancy herself.

Slaves helped her load the goods at Kyle Brothers Wholesalers and storekeepers helped her unload the cases of molasses, meat, salt, powder, lead, gun caps, shoes, dishes and wagon tires which she hauled for some 15 or 20 years. She was never robbed or molested in any way during the many trips she made alone.

During this period she became engaged to a storekeeper's son named Thomas Porter, but the Civil War ended this romance. Porter joined the Confederate Army and was killed in battle.

(continued tomorrow...)

Sources: www.desotostatepark.com/lol-Granny%20Dollar.htm
www.mentonealabama.org/Strayhorn/StrayhornLegends.htm
http://www.mentonealabama.org/Granny.htm



Granny+Dollar Ft+Payne+AL Trail+of+Tears Cherokees appalachia appalachia+history appalachian+history

Old Fort: the name says it. It is indeed one of the oldest towns in western North Carolina, and it was originally a fort, built by the colonial militia before the Declaration of Independence. Once called “Gateway to the West,” the settlement served as the westernmost outpost of the early Thirteen Colonies.

Frequent skirmishes between the Scots-Irish settlers and the Cherokee and Catawba tribes took place along the banks of Mill Creek, which runs through the center of town. There is an old law still on the books that requires any traveler between Marion and Old Fort to notify the Constable of their intended trip and expected arrival time.

If a traveler was late, it was assumed that they had run into trouble, and a search party would be dispatched from the fort to rescue them.

The Native Americans, for their part, were so alarmed by the incursion of pioneers into their lands that they allied themselves with their old enemies the British in 1776.

Reacting to particularly heavy attacks on Old Fort that year, in late July American General Griffith Rutherford led 2,400 men out of Asheville to invade Cherokee country. Rutherford was joined by Colonel Andrew Williamson, supplying South Carolina troops, and Colonel William Christian with Virginia troops. The army slashed and burned all the way to what is now Murphy, destroying 32 Indian towns and villages. This expedition broke the power of the Cherokee and forced them to sue for peace.

Rather than raise a victory monument commemorating these early battles, the early twentieth century town fathers of Old Fort, perhaps in awareness of the lingering pall cast by the Trail of Tears episode, saw fit to instead create a monument to honor the ‘peace’ between the pioneers and the Native Americans.

And so in 1930, on the same date General Rutherford had originally set out on his march, the Arrowhead Monument on Highway 70 near the Southern Railway Depot was presented, with appropriate ceremonies. 
Nine year old Margaret Marie Nesbitt, who unveiled the marker, was the great-great granddaughter of Mrs. Martha Burgin, the only white child born in the fort. 


Twenty Indians, representing the Cherokee and Catawba tribes, were seated on the speakers’ platform. The two tribes, at one time bitter enemies, formally smoked the pipe of peace while 6,000 persons looked on.

The arrowhead, which was chiseled out of a slab of pink granite at nearby Salisbury Quarries, stands 14-1/2 feet in height on a river rock and cement base of slightly more than fifteen feet. 
 One face of the arrow is adorned by crossed tomahawks, crossed muzzle-loading rifles, and a powder horn. The other side carries a profile of Chief Sequoia.

A brass tablet attached to the arrowhead bears the inscription: "This marks the site of the Old Indian Fort built A. D. 1756, the western outpost of the United States and North Carolina until 1776." 


Actually the arrowhead is not on the site of the original fort, which was located approximately where the Mountain Gateway Museum stands today. 



sources: http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/nchh/amerindian.html#18th
www.oldfort.org/History.htm
www.familyorigins.com/users/l/y/t/C-R-Lytle/FAMO1-0001/d13.htm
A Popular History of Western North Carolina, by Rob Neufeld, The History Press, 2007



Arrowhead+Monument Old+Fort+NC Cherokees Catawbas appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The Carolina coast was the site of the earliest evidence of pottery making in North America, with pieces dated 4,500 BC and tempered with Spanish moss.

In 1540, when Hernando De Soto traveled through the Carolinas, the Catawba Indian Nation controlled 55,000 square miles of land including portions of North Carolina and Virginia, and most of South Carolina. The Catawba Nation has maintained the longest pottery making tradition in North America and was instrumental in keeping the Cherokee pottery making tradition viable.

The Catawba, who eluded forced removal to Oklahoma by the US Government during the 1830s, joined with their former enemies, the hold-out Cherokees, hiding in the hills, in the struggle to remain on their homelands. But by 1847 most of the Catawba left the Cherokee and returned to their original base in South Carolina (the 1760 treaty of Pine Hill and 1763 treaty of Augusta had established a fifteen mile square reservation for them along the Catawba River). Before they departed, they left behind a permanent influence on Cherokee pottery making.

The Native American Art Collection at the University of Houston - Clear Lake purchased this bowl by Cherokee potter Cora Wahnetah in 1969.

"The Catawba and Cherokee pottery families intermarried," says Michael Simpson, author of Making Native American Pottery. "A cross-fertilization of methods took place, with the final result being that the Cherokee adopted the Catawba method of firing in an open pit, abandoning forever the traditional mound firing method, which has been nearly forgotten in modern times."

Within both traditional Catawba and Cherokee culture, women were the potters, though that gender barrier was broken during the 20th century.

After pulverizing dried clay and mixing it with water, Cherokee craftswomen molded and coiled their earthen vessels. The coil building method more easily accommodated the production of large storage pieces.

Cherokee potters often used carved wooden paddles to imprint designs --- zigzag, crosshatch, feather and figure motifs---and smooth the surfaces to make them waterproof. Partly dry pottery may be burnished with a polishing stone to achieve its characteristic satin patina. Some pieces are deeply carved, some painted with slip (a liquid form of clay that may have color additives).

If clay preparation is not done correctly, or the pots are constructed incorrectly, they will crack upon simple drying. If stone polishing takes place at the wrong drying stage, or the friction of polishing is allowed to overheat and hence dry out the still damp clay, the pots will be rough- sanded, rather than smooth-polished.

This Cora Wahnetah wedding vase has been low-fired, burnished, and has an inscribed design.

The stone polishing procedure is a method that smooths by compressing the clay particles, not by sanding it, hence contributing to its strength, rather than weakening it.

The work is unglazed, and is fired in pits of burning bark and native woods, the subtle tones of red, cream, and soft grey to deep black determined by the kind of wood used in the fires. To further waterproof the insides, corncobs and bran were thrown into the fires while the pots hardened.

The vast tourist market in the North Carolina mountains that opened starting in the 1920s provided an important source of income for the Cherokee potters. Traditional wares were being produced in very small quantities, but pottery making was maintained through the creation of small decorative ware for sale.

The well known Cherokee potter Cora Wahnetah (b. 1907), whose work is shown here, tapped into that outside market starting in the 1940s. As a young girl, she had learned pottery making from her mother, in the traditional Cherokee manner: first forming the very simplest type of pot (pinched); next, the slab pot, and finally the coiled pot.

Wahnetah’s work varies from traditional pieces-- pit-fired, incised pots--which would have been used in ceremonies by her ancestors, to contemporary pieces. Her pieces are owned by the Department of the Interior and are on permanent display at Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual in Cherokee, NC.


sources: Catawba Indian Pottery: The Survival of a Folk Tradition; Thomas John Blumer; Univ of Alabama Press, 2004
www.cherokee-nc.com/index.php?page=30
www.carolinaarts.com/608ncpotterycenter.html
Making Native American Pottery, Michael Simpson, Naturegraph Publishers, Happy Camp, CA, 1991



Cherokees Catawbas native+american+pottery appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The annual Cherokee Gourd Artists Gathering convenes this weekend in Cherokee, NC. Gourd design today mainly encompasses the arts and crafts world of vases, pots, and plates, but it has a politicized function in Cherokee history. Highly stylized gourd masks have for hundreds of years been an essential part of the Booger Dance, a charged ritual of reaction against outsider intrusion.

Crafted from large gourds or carved from buckeye wood, the masks represent faces of foreigners, such as Africans, Germans, French, Chinese, or other Indian tribesmen.

The Cherokee also make masks of hollowed-out hornet or wasp nests to personify mean or evil whites, or whites consumed by a disfiguring illness such as smallpox. Dyed with vegetable pigments and decorated with bits of fur to suggest eyebrows, beards, and mustaches, the masks also have decidedly sexual connotations.

For example, a mask might feature a large pendulous gourd for a penis-like nose, surrounded by a base of opossum fur to represent pubic hair. These caricatures of genitalia represent a Cherokee belief in outsiders' obsession with sex.

In 1935 and 1936, anthropologist Dr. Frank Gouldsmith Speck observed performances of the Booger Dance at the Cherokee’s western North Carolina reservation and recorded what he saw.

The Booger Dance contains four distinct components, or "acts." In the first act, according to Speck, after about thirty minutes of social dancing, four to ten or more masked men stamp into the performance area, a room in a private residence, in a state of general mayhem.

They wear simple costumes of ragged European-style garb, sheets, and bed quilts, draped over their bodies and shoulders, and sometimes over the head. Some of the Boogers fall to the floor in feigned convulsive seizures; others mockingly strike and push at the spectators in hopes of clumsily manhandling the women and girls.

The Boogers chase the screaming and giggling females throughout the room, all the while underscored with music, obscenely gesturing by thrusting their buttocks to display gourd phalluses. Speck notes that these phalluses sometimes contain water, which when released obviously imply ejaculation. After completing this first sequence, the Boogers compose themselves and take seats on a board or bench near the wall.

The brief second act begins when the host ("the Driver," since he drives the action of the evening) heralds the strangers' arrival. In whispered Cherokee, the Driver asks the Boogers' leader his group's identity; the leader tells the Driver that they are from a "distant land and going 'north' or 'south'".

The Driver loudly broadcasts the leader's response and then asks what the Boogers want, to which they unanimously reply, "Girls!" More fumbling girl-chasing follows and the women respond with more squealing and giggling. The Boogers then impulsively demand a fight, but in their broken Cherokee they announce they want to dance, unwittingly punning the words "dance" and "fight," which differ in the Cherokee language only in the placement of accent.

At the beginning of the third act, and before the Boogers dance, the Booger leader whispers his mask name to the Driver, who loudly "translates" it. The Booger name follows one of two themes: names of foreigners, such as German, Frenchman, Black or Chinese; or descriptive and obscene names of private parts of the body, such as Black Buttocks, Sooty Anus, Rusty Anus, Big Phallus, and Her [Vagina] Has Long Hairs.

Speck writes that the Boogers then each dance a personal clown dance of "awkward and grotesque steps" resembling "a clumsy white man trying to imitate Indian dancing.” The Booger is a very real threat and not a diluted caricature for the Cherokee to digest more easily. The Booger is, for the Cherokee, a local symbol, corresponding to the universal symbol or archetype water, and it represents Chaos, Chaos capable of annihilating order but also of restoring order.

The Booger's name is taken for the first word of the song and each time the name is chanted, the audience erupts in applause and shouting. After the clown-dances, the Driver invites the Booger leader and his troupe to dance the Eagle or Bear Dance, dances of peace and honor.

The leader whispers his decision (the Eagle Dance, the usual choice) to the Driver and an intermission of five-to-ten minutes follows to prepare for the subsequent dance. The Boogers remain seated on their bench or rush outside for a break.

After the intermission, and before the peace dance, the singers chant a song demanding tobacco for their services. The Driver then fills and lights a pipe, taking a puff for himself. He offers the pipe to the drummer and the singers, who each take a puff. Once all of the musicians have partaken in the smoking ritual, the Driver puts the pipe away.

The Driver then places a deerskin on the floor before the Eagle Killer, whom Speck calls the dramatic star of the evening, indicating the importance of the Eagle Dance and of the eagle itself. The Eagle Killer, as his name denotes, killed the eagle to obtain the feathers essential for the Eagle Dance.

The Driver presents the Eagle Killer with symbolic gifts in honor of his deed. These gifts traditionally included a deerskin (for moccasins), tobacco (to calm the nerves), a knife, lead and powder (for livelihood), and buttons and pins (for the Eagle Killer's female relations). According to Speck, however, by 1936 five cents had supplanted the traditional gifts.

The fourth and, according to Speck, most important act of the Booger Dance proper then begins. The singers chant the song of the Eagle Dance and the Boogers move onto the floor with the Cherokee men who begin to dance the peace dance.

The dancers, impersonating eagles flying higher and higher to escape the hunter's arrows, circle gracefully with their arms outstretched, right hands clutching wands of seven eagle feathers, gourd rattles in the left. In ancient times, the Cherokee carried entire eagle tails, but as the birds became scarce they substituted wands of sourwood (believed to hold power against witches) holding feathers of the sacred number seven.

Cherokee women then join the Boogers in the Eagle Dance, one woman for each masked figure. As the women serenely dance, each carrying an eagle-feather wand in her left hand and nothing in the right, the Boogers advance upon them sexually.
They desecrate the purity of the dance, mocking the hospitality of the Indians, and, for Speck, symbolically mime the cultural "rape" of the Cherokee. They exhibit their gourd phalluses, obscenely bumping and grinding. Unperturbed, the women continue to dance with great dignity.

At the close of the dance, the Boogers boisterously bound for the door. The Boogers make one last grab for an unwary female, but fail to drag off their struggling victim. They run into the night, leaving the spectators in side-splitting laughter. The Boogers then return, sans masks and costumes, as well-behaved Cherokee men, and the social dancing and party continue.


Sources: “Returning to the Sacred:
An Eliadean Interpretation of Speck’s Account of the Cherokee Booger Dance,” by William Douglas Powers, The Journal of Religion and Theatre, Vol 1, No 1, Fall 2002
http://www.rtjournal.org/vol_1/no_1/powers.html
http://www.chattoogariver.org/index.php?req=booger&quart=F2003


appalachia Dr.+Frank+Gouldsmith+Speck Cherokees Booger+Dance Eagle+Dance Cherokee+NC appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

Early one day long ago from time out of memory the people of a Cherokee town awoke and faced east to say their morning prayers to the Creator in heaven (Ca-lun-la-ti). In the distance could be heard the cry of an owl, a sign of death and bad luck. The eastern sky began turning many colors, and it looked as if a storm was about to take place. Indians from other villages joined them and there was a feeling of sadness.

Soon, the Little People (Yun-wi T-suns-di -- dwarfs or fairies with long black hair) who lived deep in the forest appeared to the Cherokee; they were only two feet tall and often brought messages to the people. They spoke first to the tribal elders and then to everyone who had assembled in the town.

They told a story of both greatness and sadness. Many years ago, a new star (no-t-lu-si) had appeared in the eastern sky beyond the big salt water. A special boy-child had been born to a tribe chosen by the creator. He had grown into a man of wisdom and had taught his people the ways of the Creator and the straight white path of peace.

He was a man of kindness and brought strong medicine (nu-wa-ti) to his people. Although he taught purity and harmony with the creator, he had many enemies who would not hear his message of peace. They would not believe that his medicine made sick people well. Thus, on this day, they would torture and kill this wise man, and he would walk towards the nightland (death).

As the sky grew dark, the Indians sang a death song to honor this beloved man of peace whom they called the Son of the Creator. All of the animal nations of the forests soon came and stood by them. Because of their sorrow, the Cherokee began to cry. Their tears soon covered the ground. When their weeping had ended, they looked down and saw that their tears had been changed into small stone crosses.

For the Indians, the cross design had always represented the cardinal points or the four directions. Now it had a new religious meaning. The Creator (E-do-da) had heard their prayers and songs and had given them a gift. The Cherokee kept these stone crosses and always honored them.

The Chiltoskey family of Cherokee, NC has preserved this Cherokee legend of the stone crosses.

source: www.patcovahistory.org/fairystone.htm


Cherokee+myths Cherokees Christmas+in+Appalachia appalachia Appalachian+tales appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

Breaks Interstate Park, located astride the SW Virginia/eastern Kentucky border along the Russell Fork of the Big Sandy River, is one of only two interstate parks in the nation. Perhaps the scale of the 5-mile-long, .25-mile-deep gorge that forms the park's centerpiece cannot rival that of the Grand Canyon, but the 250 million year old "Grand Canyon of the South" IS the largest gorge east of the Mississippi.

The park takes its name from this gorge, which forms a “break” in Pine Mountain. Passes through these rugged mountains were called breaks by early settlers. Where the raging waters have carved the solid sandstone to break through Pine Mountain, nature has dressed the canyon walls in some of the region’s most spectacular scenery.

Daniel Boone is credited with discovering The Breaks in 1767 as he attempted to find ever-improved trails into Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley beyond. Both he and Simon Kenton explored here in the last quarter of the 18th century.

Because of elevation and moisture differences, the park contains various biospheres, ranging from oak/hickory climax forests on the drier ridge tops to a laurel/hemlock environment in the bottoms and along the creeks. This biodiversity results in an amazing display of spring wildflowers, including rare plants like yellow lady’s slipper and Catawba rhododendron.

The region was a hunting ground for Cherokee and Shawnee Indians. It is the home of Pow Wow Cave, used by the Shawnees.

The crown jewel of the park is the Towers, an imposing pyramid of rocks more than half a mile long and a third of a mile wide. The area around the Towers is said to contain the lost silver mine of Englishman John Swift. In the late 1700s Swift supposedly had one or more silver mines that were subsequently lost. He spent the last part of his life trying to relocate them. The lost mines are one of the great –and recurring- legends of southeastern Kentucky.

Public Law 275 created the park on August 14, 1953, and today, the 4,600-acre Breaks accommodates more than a third of a million visitors annually.

Sources: “Hiking Kentucky” by Brook Elliott (1998, Human Kinetics)
www.virginia.org/site/features.asp?featureid=283
www.breakspark.com
www.parks.ky.gov


Breaks+Interstate+Park Grand+Canyon+of+the+South Daniel+Boone Simon+Kenton Cherokees Shawnees appalachia +appalachia+history appalachian+geology