“We’ve got no end of fine sights to see.” Mountain folk are justly boastful. “Down at Bardstown is the Talbott Tavern built 162 years ago, one of the first such taverns where travelers could tarry west of the Alleghenies. On the walls there are the marks of bullets left by the pistols of Judge John Rowan, who fought a duel with Dr. Chambers and mortally wounded him. There’s Audubon Memorial State Park with all manner of paintings, books, and pictures left by Audubon, kin of a French King, who spent many a happy day roaming the hills of Kentucky and studying the ways of wild birds. And no country can claim a greater man than was born right here at Hodgenville, and even if we didn’t have a memorial built out of stone to Abraham Lincoln he will live in our hearts as long as the world stands.” The mountaineer who sings the praises of his native land eyes his listener attentively. “Bless you, folks are so friendly and kind of heart in Kentucky they even have a refuge for turkeys. There is a sanctuary for this native American fowl in the Kentucky Woodlands Wildlife Refuge just west of Canton. And to make sure the wild creatures do not starve there are vast unharvested crops grown on the cleared land and left for them to feed upon. Here too, if travelers will drive slowly along the wooded trails, they are most sure to come upon a startled deer, for there are more than 2000 roaming in the woodland.”
Along with other traditions there survives in Kentucky the medieval rite of blessing the hounds which takes place usually on the first Saturday in November. In his clerical robes the Bishop of Lexington, in the heart of the Blue Ridge, performs the ceremony much in the manner of the prelates of ages past. With proper solemnity the bishop bestows upon each huntsman the medal of St. Hubert, patron of the hunt, while the gay-coated hunters stand with bowed heads and the hounds, eager for the hunt, move restlessly about the feet of their masters.
Across the Blue Ridge in the Carolinas fox hunting and horseback riding are sports as popular as in Kentucky. But above all the things in which the people of the Carolina mountains lead are their matchless handicrafts, weaving, spinning, and their skill in play-making.
Who hasn’t heard of “Prof.” Koch, Director of the Carolina Playmakers and of the group’s plays? And the thing about the Playmakers which sets them apart is that they are chiefly of the mountains. Their plays are made out of the life of mountain folk. Archibald Henderson declares, “Koch is the arch-foe of the cut-and-dried, the academic, the specifically prescribed. All his life he has demanded room for the random, outlet for the unexpressed, free play for the genius.” Nowadays he travels by caravan with his Carolina Playmakers from coast to coast that the world may see for itself what genius unrestrained can turn out. If one wishes to see them, in their own setting, which thousands of us do every year, there is The Playmakers’ Theatre at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the first theater building in America to be dedicated to the making of its own native drama.
“This love of drama is in the blood of Carolinians,” they themselves will tell you. “Get three of them together and before you can say Jack Robinson they’re building a play. A folk play, each one with an idea, a situation. Why, right over to Kernersville in North Carolina the first little theater was born. And say, if you want to hear ballad singers, stop wherever you’re a-mind to in the Blue Ridge in the Carolinas and keep your ears open. There’s a fellow over on South Turkey Creek, little more than a dozen miles as the crow flies from Asheville, and you’ll hear the finest singing of old-time ballads you ever listened to. Mostly menfolks like best to sing. Womenfolks turn to the loom, particularly in North Carolina.”
A visit to the Weave Shop at Saluda convinces the visitor of the skill of mountain women. Fabrics of unbelievable beauty are turned out at handlooms and it is mountain women who lead in the work.
Much has been written on the subject of handicrafts but perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of the diversified subject is Allen Eaton’s Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands.
Through Allen Eaton’s knowledge of handicrafts and his untiring efforts a great service has been rendered the mountain people of the Blue Ridge in marketing their wares. For he has been instrumental in organizing a handicraft guild which serves the entire southern mountain region. The co-operating units cover various phases of handicraft. The Shenandoah Community Workers of Bird Haven specialize in toy making, while The Jack Knife Shop of Berea College, the Woodcrafters and Carvers of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the Whittlers at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, embrace most every type of handicraft in their output which is the work of mountain boys and girls.
It was to mountain people that George Washington looked for hope and help in the hour of our country’s need, and two later presidents held the same opinion. The mother and the wife of a president of these United States have done likewise.
One winter day more than a score of years ago a group of children huddled about the pot-bellied stove in a little log church in the mountains of Georgia. They had trudged through snow and mud and a cold, biting wind to reach this one-room church house. Though the older folk were eager to teach the children lessons of Scripture, few of them could read or write. A mountain child, like every other child, delights in hearing an older person read, whether it be a make-believe story or a real story from the Bible. “Wisht you could read the Word,” an eager little girl this winter day said to the old woman who, though she could neither read nor write, was doing her best to explain from a small colored leaflet the meaning of the Sunday School lesson.