Appalachian Studies Association National Conference

This afternoon I got back from the ASA conference in Boone. I presented a paper there that is one of the starting points for my new book. The paper is "Gnarly Roots: Exploring the British Sources of Appalachian Folk Magic."

Here's the abstract--

 As Appalachian mountain culture is transformed through modern technology and generations of rural isolation are broken by in-migration, some of the older folk traditions are fading into obscurity. My area of research is folk magic and superstition and “Gnarly Roots” marks the next step in this research. In this paper, I will link certain practices and beliefs to similar ones in the British Isles and attempt to find the migrational links that brought these practices into the southern Appalachians. I began my formal exploration of this material with the presentation of the paper “Hillbilly Hoodoo and the Question of Cultural Strip-mining” as part of the Forging Folklore colloquium, hosted by Harvard’s Department of Folklore and Mythology, in 2007. My continuing study led to the publication of a primer on these traditions called “Staubs and Ditchwater” in June 2012. My next step is to look at the sources of these traditions—Cherokee, Scots-Irish, German and English, beginning with English and Scots-Irish. With the help of colleagues in Britain, I will be acting as a “spellcatcher”—as earlier musicologist were “song catchers” in the southern highlands tracing the haunting mountain music to its British roots. “Gnarly Roots: Exploring the British Sources of Appalachian Folk Magic” is the first step in this cultural exploration and will continue with a research trip to Great Britain and Ireland in the summer of 2013.

And here are the opening paragraphs--

My roots in these old mountains are deep and gnarled. My story is a familiar one of poor soil and a narrow escape and a return home. And even as these roots grow older, I am looking backward over my shoulder. Looking eastward.

Some of my people practice old ways of healing and justice that academics may refer to as Appalachian folk magic. It is called “granny magic” and “cove doctoring”, too, but most of the people who practiced it—and practice it still—don’t have a particular name for it. They are country folks who know what herb to use for what and how to whisper warts away and blow the fire out of a nasty burn.

 I grew up in a cove in west Buncombe county at a time when a silver dime on a string was worn by teething babies and a tired woman could prevent a pregnancy with the strategic use of Queen Anne’s Lace seeds. Those old ways stuck with me through college and graduate school and have come full circle in a book I published last year—a primer called “Staubs and Ditchwater.”  In this modern age, an author can’t simply write a book and find a kind publisher to print it up.  She must give talks and do book-signings and those have been a delight and an education as I learn what other people have done in their own coves and hollers.