Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-11-17
THE MOUNTAINEERS.
Some Real Facts in Regard to Them
Interestingly Told
BY ONE WHO HAS LIVED WITH THEM
In the Main They Are a Worthy
and PeaceabIe People.
SOME OTHER PECULIARITlES

| Written for The Evening Star.
| An interesting article appears in The Star
| of the 7th instant, purporting to give re-
suits Of observations by DR.. j. H. Porter
while prosecuting scientific researches
among the southern Alleghanies. Some pop
ular fallacies are exposed, while others
more hurtful are reiterated. / was born
and reared among these same mountains,
end, as school teacher, timber agent, spe-
cial deputy collector and special examiner
for the bureau of pensions. have had ample
opportunity to study the natives and know
fairly well their peculiarities of belief, ver-
nacular and habits. There is scarcely
section, however remote, in western North
Carolina. east Tennessee. southwestern
Virginia and southeastern Kentucky with
which 1 am not familiar with every cross
roads and by-path.
| The Whisky and SNUFF Habits.
| Observations as to the use Of whisky and
the snuff habit will admit of notifications
| In a large degree. The men Of the noun
tains do use whisky-that u.s. some Of them
but a careful comparison justifies the
statement that vastly smaller proportion
are addicted to its abuse, or use, than In
the cities of the south elsewhere. The
whisky manufactured by Bill Nye's noun
tain chemists" is generally sold to bar
keepers in the towns, and resold by them
under internal revenue stamps. Habitual
| drunkenness is looked on by the mountain
people as a great disgrace, and the use of
whisky for other than medicinal purposes
| Is regarded as ground sufficient for the eX-
pulsion of the offender from almost any
church. 1t is just to say that the snuff
habit exists in isolated cases. Some of the
women use snuff-usually old ones-in the
|
girls the habit is not found except in the
| lowest classes. The average mountain girl
is disguised at the thought of such a habit,
and she is in no danger of taking up the
| cigarette habit, which is becoming too prev
alent among certain of the female popula-
ton of our cities.
The state of Education.
The popular belief this point is quite
misleading. Among the older people sign
ing by mark is too common. They had little
opportunity to acquire education. They, or
their fathers, were pioneers of the noun
tains. They cleared the forests, built roads,
| erected rude structures for worship and
were kept hard at work to keep the wolf
from the door. They had no trade except
among themselves. and the men manufac-
| tured their own farm implements, even
nails, by means of the old-fashioned ham,
| country. Many of them knew something
of the three RS" ''readin, 'ritin' and
rithmetic." while some of the more fortu-
nate ones acquired good classical educa-
@-tions. There ara few of the4Spsuuger gen.
| erations who cannot read and write and
| ''cipher, too" There are few young men,
| especially in the mountains of east Ten
nessee, who have not mastered the rudi-
ments Of English grammar and the common
| school arithmetic. For the latter they
seem to have particular aptitude. A large
percentage of them have a fair knowledge
of algebra. geometry, trigonometry, and
some of them would give Yale and Harvard
graduates points on integral and differen-
tial calculus and idiomatic Latin and Greek
In one of the widest sections of that whole
mountain region, of my personal knowledge.
nine young men have taken classical
courses-three of them at Yale. They did
not belong to families above the average
and literally worked their way through COL
lege Some of them took high rank in their
classes-none Of them were below the aver
age.
Their SuperstitiOns.
Superstitious? Yes, to some extent but
only among the most ignorant classes,
which form a smaller proportion Of popula-
ton than in our large cities There are some
who belive with Longfelow that
| ''All houses wherein men have lived and
died are haunted houses'-there are places
in almost every community-houses where
mysterious deaths have occurred spots by
| the wayside where human blood has been
shed-where the simple folk quicken their
| footsteps after nightfall, and the belated
farmer boy Is apt to experience a creepy
feeling up his spinal column and tendency
| on the part of his hair to lift his hat from
his head. and if he does not whistle some
wild rollicking mountain air to keep his
| courage up he will probably break INTO a
run. There are legends among the people
not unlike those of Herne, the Hunter;
| the Flying Dutchman, and the Headiess
| Hessian. While the people of these noun
| tains are largely Scotch-Irish, there are
| great number who are of German extrac-
ton. And, so far as 1 have been able to
judge, most of the superstitions that have
| existed consisted of the localiZation of the
| folklore of the Germans. There are ira
ditions among some of the mountaineers
which have few points of difference from
Observation-Disclosures as he
is called by the Germans, who was con-
demnad to hunt on until the day of judg-
ment," because he hunted on Sundays He
hunts, accompanied by two dogs, in heaven
all the year around except at Christmas.
when he hunts on the earth. Should one of
his dogs run into house his master
rushes by, he will lie down in the ashes
and nothing can make him stir until the
year has gone round and the hunter leaves
again. He brings bad luck to the house.
hold where he takes up his abode. Then
have heard in these mountains another
legend not unlike Frederick Barbarrossa
Red Beard"-sleeping with his knights
around him under the ravens hill until his
red beard had grown through the table on
which his head is resting. These are simply
llegends-beyond the experience of the old
est MISUNDERSTANDING to some locality
believed by nobody. There are. however
superstitions Of more recent date and with
out a suspicion of classical origin. In GER
tain localities there are people who recount
experiences of personal contact with haunts
One favorite method the haunts have for
amusing themselves Is to get on horses, At
| certain points, behind their riders and ride
to some other certain point on the road
where they dismount unceremoniously
| as they mounted.
Believe in Witchcraft.
Then there are people who claim that they
or members of their families have been
ridden by witches. In one section 1 was
in the neighborhood when a witch had been
making a boy do service as a means Of
transportation The family had to take it