Southern Appalachian belief culture in the Foxfire archive

Assembling Culture

Assembling Southern Appalachian Belief Culture from the Foxfire Archive

This project looks at the belief structure of people in the Southern Appalachian mountains as recognized through the Foxfire archival project, documentary evidence and artistic interpretation. Through an examination of belief systems it is believed that unique cultural aspects of this isolated group of people can be determined. The Foxfire project is an archive that documents how the people lived prior to the mass introduction of outside influences that happened concurrent to the ability of residents to electrify their houses which occurred from approximately 1935 and into the 1950's. Prior to this time the residents of these southeastern mountains were isolated due to the remoteness of villages, and they were able to remain relatively self-contained even though some sections were being encroached by industry. The belief systems in this examination include religion and healing, but mainly relate to how stories of hauntings and ghosts provide a glimpse into the cultural norms of the community. It is argued that these stories, which were prominent throughout the region provided a means for cultural survival despite evidence of its breakdown during the beginnings of the industrial and electronic ages. The examination of this evidence demonstrates how certain types of tales are used in primitive and modern communities to shape norms and other forms of belief through a look at the verbal recounting of the beliefs themselves, and then a comparison to other belief systems that produce an isolated culture of similar belief systems and ideologies.

Background

Culture derives from a shared language, experience and belief system. Over time this may not remain exactly the same, but the society as a whole does move, somewhat synchronously, over the same period to develop communally. The language can be altered to such an extent that what came before is almost unrecognizable to the people in the present such as with Old English vs. New English, but the fact is that the culture which grew up with Old English has also evolved to accept the more complex and deliberate language which has adapted to chaining political and social times. The experiences can be seen in the history which the culture shares. In the United States, for example, there are necessarily (because of the great influx of many cultures) a variety of shared experiences when a group of people first arrives in North America, but over time the experiences of earlier Americans are taught to the new raft of people, and this helps them to assimilate/acculturate. Belief system though, that may be the most difficult to instill when a culture is as vast and diverse as that with in the United States of America. This could be one of the main reasons that many believe that there is no true American culture, but a conglomeration of small offshoots of other cultures that have remained intact amongst the vast colorless mass of humanity that gloms onto whatever comes to its shores (Schmidt 4).

However, there are those European-American cultures which have survived in the United States and researchers have provided a vast archive of their cultural reality in present times, and the roots from which they sprung. The Foxfire Project began as a class project started by a social studies teacher, Eliot Wigginton, in which he tasked his class with scouring the nearby communities for people who had grown up with the pioneering ways of the region. The class collected stories from people who had lived during a time when the Appalachian Mountains were so isolated that a distinctive culture grew up which was hardy, self-sufficient and superstitious. The archive first included first-hand accounts of everything from how the people raised a barn to when they planted corn. There was a reason for every technique and these generally had to do with some notion of signs for which the people looked. These beliefs and methods for conducting life grew into a cultural construct that extended even into the pidgin English dialect spoken by the people in the Southern Appalachians.

While the archive provided in the Foxfire set of books, and the subsequent museum and web pages is important to the success of any study of the Southern Appalachians and how the culture was influenced, it is also necessary to look at other source material to fully understand the archive. The most powerful and all-encompassing aspect of the Southern Appalachian culture explained in the Foxfire series and similar archival information is that the culture was shaped by values and beliefs more than any other element. Thus, it is important to gage the parallels that occurred in the experiences of other cultures in order to draw a true comparison, such as the surrealist movement in European culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is interesting to compare the surrealist movement in art and culture, and the culture in the Southern Appalachians to discover how powerful belief is in every phase of development.

The archive concerns itself with the physical needs of the people as a primary means to understanding how they lived and survived in the harsh conditions of an isolated, mountainous region, but information regarding the unexplainable that turned into foundational belief is even more cogent regarding cultural heritage. Many people interviewed for the series remembered being taught morals related through tales of "haints" (a colloquial version of the word "haunts" or ghosts), planting began at certain times and harvest could only occur when weather and plant signs pointed to a fruitful gathering, and medical remedies were passed down that related more to metaphysics that physiology and practical medicine. In this isolated culture in which people had to rely on common resources and where the modern world did not intrude to an large extent until the middle of the twentieth century, the Foxfire archive demonstrates how people used their force of belief to conduct every part of their lives. This system continues to have a great deal of influence even in the early twenty-fist century with regard to political affiliation, religion, healing, and many other areas of life. The fact that many of these behaviors came from superstitious Scotch-Irish and American Indian ancestors is, in large part, what the archive discusses.

Excerpts from the Foxfire Archive Relative to the Topic

The archival information that has been gathered over the past 40 years tells a story about the people who have inhabited Southern Appalachian mountains, but it is also provides a means to look at an American pioneer heritage that had been lost in most other areas of the country. Culture has a way of quickly moving past what it formerly was, and forgetting about that past (De Caro 1). The fact that this area of the country (and some others that have mountain ranges equally as old such as the Ozarks and the Ouachita's) was behind the cultural development of the rest of the country can be explained by the fact that it was so isolated (Green & Best 3). But, it can also be framed in the ideas of a culture that wanted to remain isolated as it saw what the rest of the country was becoming. Due to the simplicity of this rural life and the fact that it was relatively unspoiled, people wanted to be left to themselves, and, though poor in terms of financial accouterments, the people who remained in the Southern Appalachian region for generations were also proud and suspicious of other areas of the country. The reasons for this hiding are easily gleaned from the Foxfire archive.

Religion

The people in this area have practiced a very conservative form of Christianity that has remained unchanged for centuries. Although there were different denominations in the mountains, they all were believers in the that the Bible was infallible and this prompted many of the beliefs and images that have become a part of Southern folklore. It was important to document what the archives said about the religion of the people, and to examine documentary footage, to determine how isolation has formed beliefs that are still practiced, even in places where they are illegal.

Pentecostal churches in the area are known for their belief that God will save the people from any form of illness, physical danger or possession (Cheek & Nix 24). Throughout the collection of data for the Foxfire project, the researchers conducted interviews with people who were either involved in the religious practices mentioned, or the researchers attended services during which various observances were practiced. The church services observed were fairly commonplace for the most part, but there were certain practices which are common only to certain regions in the Southern Appalachians. Among these were snake handling, poison drinking, fire handling and speaking in tongues. It must be noted that speaking in tongues is a common practice throughout the United States among Pentecostal and Free Will congregations, but they are not coupled with the other rituals.

A metaphysical belief in a monotheistic God who controls all actions whether animal, plant or mineral is not uncommon. Christianity, Judaism and Islam (these being the monotheistic religions with the largest number of adherents) account for approximately 4 billion people with a religious affiliation worldwide. These beliefs bring comfort and promise a better life for most, but they also protect the believer in this world and the one to come.

The Christian adherents seek the wisdom written in their Bible which is divided into two major sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and 66 books scattered amongst the two (39 in the Old and 27 in the New). In the gospels of the New Testament is the book of Mark. From this book, the Christians in some Southern Appalachian churches have selected a verse that tells them to what extent they are protected by God. The verse, Mark 16:17,18, says;

17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;

18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Documentary evidence on PBS, the National Geographic Channel and other outlets has shown these practices, and the Foxfire archives also mention fire handling (Cheek & Nix 56). A documentary from the Nat Geo Wild show Animal Underworld presented the use of snake handling and speaking in tongues during a church service. The snakes were both copper heads and rattle snakes of different varieties, and the host showed various people both handling the serpents and seemingly coming away unharmed. The people talked about how their belief kept them safe (Snake Handling). Cheek and Nix discuss the processes of fire handling and drinking poison in much the same way. The people in the church believed, due to the words of the verse in Mark, that they would not be harmed no matter what dangerous action they performed (57). The caveat to this, from the people performing the actions, was that if the person did not have faith in God they would be harmed just as anybody would. One gentleman, called Brother Huff, stated that "When I hold fire, it feels cool, just like there's no fire there" (Cheek & Nix 57).

Comparisons for the Foxfire Archive

Many systems of belief exist that have begun due to people's attempt to understand their environment and contain it into a usable form. The archivists examination of the people in the Southern Appalachian mountains revealed a consistent theme. The people of the mountains were not averse to the outside progress of the rest of the world (especially the United States), but they also wanted people to respect their rights and the issues that they thought were important. For example, the snake handlers were interested in the free practice of religion as they saw fit, but most have been stymied in this because laws, meant to protect citizens, have encroached upon that belief. The people in these communities told tales and made crafts that were useful in some way to the furtherance of the community and the same can be said for other systems of belief.

The archive provides a constant reminder that the people of the Southern Appalachians were very much interested in the metaphysical world that was just beyond their grasp. The reader can see this in the ghost stories and the religion of the people, but also in the way that they lived. Houses were raised at certain times of the year, crops were planted according to the stages of the moon and astrological signs, and people believed that healing was as much a product of the subconscious as it was the conscious endeavors of a doctor or healer. The beliefs also shaped the politics of the region into a belief that is very mistrustful of outsiders and of authority that does not coincide with their own metaphysical beliefs. The similarities to the stories gathered by the Brothers Grimm have already been examined, but there are other parallels that can be drawn to more modern belief systems. One of these that exhibits itself in the ethereal tales of haints and other metaphysical beings is surrealism.

Surrealist beliefs were drawn from the writings of Andre Breton and others who had lived in Paris prior to the beginning of the First World War. The primary belief of the artists and writers who made up this culture was that that rationalism was the enemy of pure thought and that they, the artists had a duty to examine the true world as they saw it. One of the primary beliefs of the movement was that people could see beyond what was right in front of them and that there were other worlds beside the shady truth that most people looked were always asking other to look at. It was also a belief that wanted to banish the prevailing tides of political and religious conformity that the world existed under (Cohen 3). For the surrealists, this took the form of Marxism, a system that they could believe in because it was the opposite of the Western democracies that they believed were responsible for war, poverty and other negative aspects of life.

It is interesting to draw see how the people documented in the Foxfire archive move in consort with the people of the surrealist movement. The artists in Paris were just as insulated and isolated as the people who lived in the mountains of Southern Appalachia. It was a choice that the artistic community made, but some of the ideas it generated were little different, at least from the metaphysical side, as those the mountain people believed. The surrealists were Marxists because they believed in the superiority of humans over government and of the thought life over what others believed to be reality. In one passage from Cohen's book she relates that "disregarding the dream language in which Benjamin describes the products of the superstructure, Habermas uses the passage to echo Adorno's opinion that Benjamin's interest in ideological 'expression' takes him from the realm of materialism to the realm of myth" (29). The thought is that Walter Benjamin worked to see the world from his own non-conformist construction. He worked more in fantasy than the mountain people did, but the way in which they framed their beliefs is similar to Benjamin and Breton.

Another of Bretons' works is a novel called Nadja. This may book may demonstrate an even better match between how the mountain people felt and the world in which Breton and other surrealists also existed. He writes "Such a word [haunt] means more than it says, makes me, still alive, play a ghostly part, evidently referring to what I must have ceased to be in order to be who I am" (Breton 11). The character in the book is discussing the world that now exists for him. He feels like he is a person apart, as the surrealists believed, and not someone who is connected to this world. It is interesting that he uses the word "haunt" because it the feeling of haunting can be seen in many of the images in pictures taken of the Appalachian people during the visits of the archivists. Breton's character is alive, but is forced to play a "ghostly part." The people of the mountains often felt the same way in the stories that they related to the students conducting the interviews.

The surrealist art is also reflected in some of the hex symbols that people would paint on their barns and other outbuildings. A belief in the supernatural was strong in the mountain people, and they believed that there were signs they could use which would protect them from harm from the Devil and other fallen angels. Many surrealist paintings that demonstrate and alternate reality are akin to the hex symbols that the mountain people used. It was believed that certain shapes and symbols were the most effective and these often came to people in their dreams. Breton used written imagery to portray his understanding of the subconscious, but there were other members of the surrealist movement, such as Salvador Dali, who painted what they dreamed or saw in visions. Although the surrealists did not believe that the artwork had any significance beyond a glimpse into what they believed reality was, they painted what they saw in their subconscious or dreams. The symbols painted by the Appalachian mountain people to ward off evil bear some resemblance to these paintings. They are often geometric, but often they take on the more abstract shapes of fractals and other mathematical representations of what the particular man or woman saw. These symbols were often blessed by a minister so that they could achieve a desired potency.

This connection of art and, in some ways thought, is a commonality between the people archived by the Foxfire project and surrealist adherents, but that is where the similarity ended. It is necessary to make the distinction that the disgust felt by the surrealists for the world outside of their ideology does not come across in the interviews that were conducted with the hill people during the Foxfire project. Interestingly, these people were proud of the life they lived, and proud of the fact that they were considered outsiders by many in the "real" world. However, some of the images bely this interpretation also. The life in the mountains, even during the 1970's and 1980's when the archival information was collected was not easy. The people who were being documented lived a depressing, difficult life because of the poverty cause by the isolation they experienced. The reason that the old ways still existed for many people was not because they did not want better, but, in many cases, because they could not afford better. This is a departure from the surrealists. Many of the artists in the movement were poor, but only because they chose to be. They wanted to live apart from the world and to be a thorn in the side of the establishment. But, it was also a mainstream movement. In other words, the artists haunted the edges of society out of choice; the people who lived (and live) in the Southern Appalachian mountains has no choice whether they lived in poverty or not. The poverty was as much a part of the culture as the stories they told and the beliefs that they held. This also made the people feel like ghosts rather than a part of the real world.

The archive paints a pleasant picture, for the most, part of the people in the Appalachians, but it was not always successful in masking how the people actually felt. One story recounts how one man had to go to school during the warm days of early Fall and late Spring without shoes. He said that he was never dirty because his mother would the family clothes in the creek behind their house every Tuesday. He did not believe that there was anything different about how he and his family lived until he had to change from the country school where they had gone to a new elementary school closer to a larger town. The principal and teachers would not allow he and his brothers to enter the school until they were appropriately attired. He found out that this meant that they not only had to wear shoes every day, but that they had to have clothes without patches in them. Even though the people at the school knew that he and his brothers were, of necessity, forced to wear the clothes that they did, they were still made to accept the charity of others. This fact alone was difficult for a self-reliant person from the mountains, but it also opened the boys up to criticism from their classmates (Cheek & Nix 161). The man admitted feeling like an outcast and a "ghost" because of the way that he and his brothers were treated. Many of the people from the mountains could relate similar stories because it was not uncommon for there to be no money in the house for weeks on end. The people had to subsist on what they could hunt and fish for. Many also had large gardens, and the hill communities worked together to provide for each other's families when there was enough to go around. This sense of community may have helped produce the attitude that was explained by those who felt like ghosts when they were out of their usual element. The feeling is similar to that which Ralph Ellison speaks of in Invisible Man.

Another community that, though not forced to live as the mountain people did, was similar in some ways to the Southern Appalachian people were those who inhabited the hippie communes during the 1960's. The life that the commune dwellers chose was somewhere between the ideology of the surrealists and the simplicity of the mountain people. The main idea was to live a life apart from general society and to make sure that everyone was in harmony, to the greatest extent possible with nature and each other. Miller states that "Central to the community-building process was the sense of dropping out of a decadent society and building a new and better order on the ashes of the old" (192). The people in the communes wanted to remain completely self-sufficient, as did the people in the hills, and they wanted to govern themselves. There was a certain feeling of lawlessness that was present in both societies, but the anarchism of the one (hippies) was not akin to the conservatism and religiosity of the other. The similarity is in the way both communities made their own clothes, farmed their land and provided for each other. The Foxfire archive provides an ample view of the life that the mountain people lived and these lifestyles are also captured with the visual assistance of the museum that was built from the physical representations of the tales told during the interviews.

Visual Representations of the Haunting Archive as Seen through Surrealism

What are the reasons that a people, whether it be those who ascribed to surrealism or those depicted in the Foxfire archive, choose to express culture or, at the very least some belief, through the depiction of haunting sequences? The surrealists believed that they were trying to get in touch with something within themselves which was not apparent in the corporeal world. The same can be said of the Appalachian hill people. Unexplainable events happen every day that puzzle, confuse, terrify and, to some people, demand an explanation. The people who interviewed for the Foxfire archive created art in the form of hex signs to ward off evil spirits, carvings and paintings of the beings they saw. Surrealist art is all a vision of how the metaphysical world manifests itself to the individual who is creating. This section takes a closer look at the coalescence of these two very different traditions and how haints and surrealism connect on the visual plane.

Salvador Dali is probably the most famous and commercial surrealist artist, but he does not embody the concept as well as others. Dali's work seemed more an imagination than a representation of something else. Possibly the same can be said for other artists of the genre, but many were trying to depict what Benjamin called the "profane illumination" (Cohen). This was a vision of the metaphysical universe, that which is within and does not express itself in the physical, which was expressed, by many, on canvas or in sculpture. It is also true that, in the case of the surrealists, the clarity of the inner vision was often associated with the use of hallucinogens.

When the mountain people produced art of a similar nature they were usually not under the influence of mind altering substances (although the vision itself could have manifested under the influence of "strong drink"), but they tried to honestly show what they believed they had seen. Their profane illumination was also more of a symbol than an actual physical picture; meaning it took the form of a design and not something that looked like a discernible animal or human form. The art contained in the Foxfire archive is not unique as folk art, but the section that describes visions and hex symbols is. The interesting element of the hex symbols is that they often resemble one another very closely though they may have been authored by people who lived hundreds of miles and many years apart. There was no possible means of collaboration, so how did these people determine that a symbol used to ward off evil spirits should look exactly alike? Also, the depictions of what they saw were also, generally, relatively similar. It is interesting when comparing the profane illumination, so to speak, experiences of the mountain people with the surrealists, that they had so much in common.

Surrealist art is often psychedelic as would be expected from art that was the result of hallucinogen-induced nightmares, but artists often used similar forms to depict their experiences confronting the inner vision. Many different colors and shapes were often interwoven, and if people or other recognizable elements were used (such as Dali's clocks), they were skewed from what seemed natural to the eye. Of course, much of the art can also be said to have been produced for its shock value, but there is always something of value in it too. The art was often very "busy" also. There seemed to be little "rhyme or reason" to it, but that was exactly the point. This was the confused inner illumination.

The same can be said of the images created by the Appalachian people in the Foxfire archive. Their visions and art were produced from minds that had either been under the influence of some substance or they were reacting to some unknown something that had terrified them. Thus, the visual and verbal depictions were often fantastic and fear-inducing themselves. That is the legacy of the haint stories and folk art which was a part of it, and it is also that of the surrealist profane illumination tradition.

Conclusion

An archive is conceived and kept so that people who want to reference their past will have a record of its passing and be able to gain practical knowledge from documentation, visual images (art, photography), and electronic recordings of that past. The Foxfire archive contains all three in its attempt to capture a style of living that is almost completely lost in the present. The archive is available through the books that were written using the interviews that were collected and from the pictures that the archivists took. As with most archives, this project required a dedicated staff who was wholly committed to saving reminders of the past that they believed were somehow instructive for the future.

The evidence collected for this review primarily concerned the belief systems of the people from the Southern Appalachian region and how these beliefs shaped their lives. As can be seen from the evidence gathered, belief in supernatural signs, stories and religious artifacts controlled most of the people's lives. It can be gleaned from the information that these signs were used because the people felt that they were isolated and needed some advantage against the harsh landscape that they had chosen to live in. Basically, these beliefs offered a sense of comfort. They were also used as a warning, both moral and cautionary. The many haint stories told to the archivists were, in general, based in complete fiction and were told for their entertainment value. However, some of the stories were completely believed by the teller and were used to warn listeners of the evils that populated the world. These evils could be from spirits, but they were most likely loosed because of the bad actions of a person. Like the story related about the group of teens who were accosted by ancient spirits who disapproved of their drinking and carousing. The people believed that the mountains are sacred, and that they are protected by ancient spirits.

This project introduces the reader/audience to the power of archival evidence and provides a small glimpse into the belief systems of an isolated group of people. Because the beliefs and systems of isolated people are disappearing as modernity encroaches, it is even more important to preserve them for posterity. The Foxfire archive was created for just this purpose.