Melungeon Historical Society: Are These Customs Jewish or Appalachian?

Monday, November 28, 2011

Are These Customs Jewish or Appalachian?

by Janet Crain

I would preface my comments below with this statement;

I love and respect Jewish people everywhere. I have absolutely no animosity toward them, but rather I sympathize with everything they have been through. I'm sure some did come tothe New World and hide their heritage. But not in the droves suggested by certain writers. And nothing in any historical nor DNA evidence indicates they contributed any genes to the Melungeon population.

Several so called "proofs" of Jewish practices have been offered up on the Internet and in certain books.

One of the examples offered as proof is refuted by this information;

"having the Star of David inscribed on gravestones."

If the Crpyto-Jew's ancestors truly left as long ago as purported, there was no "Jewish only association" with the Magen David (Star of David) at that time for them to unconsciously remember and perpetuate for 600 hundred years. This was an ancient symbol that has only become strongly associated with Jews in the last hundred years. It is probably deeply rooted in our collective ancient human memories.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/star.html

Posted on the Rootsweb Melungeon list 25 Sep 2007

Hi Listers,

There are 2 articles in the just published issue of Appalachian Quarterly (available from the Wise County, VA, Historical Society) which you might find of interest. The first is called "Burial Practices in Souther Appalachia";
It is based on a thesis by Donna Stansbury. Accompanying it is an editorial on Appalachian burial practices by Rhonda Robertson. Both cite several rituals that are likely Jewish in origin (and are currently practiced by some Jews).

Among these are:

1. Burying the body within one day of death, facing the east.

2. Waving a candle over the body and placing three handfuls of salt in a wooden bowl on the deceased's chest.

3. Stopping all clocks at the time of death

4. Covering all mirrors at the time of death

5. Placing silver coins over the eyes of the deceased.

1. This is so simple I won't even offer a source. Common sense tells us that in a time before embalming and the availability of metal coffins, the dead were buried as soon as possible. And, yes, a Christian would want to be facing East.

2. Again common sense tells us that candles are burned to reduce bad odors. Flowers were placed nearby if in season for the same reason. Salt and earth either separate or mixed placed in a dish on the body is an ancient practice probably going back to paganism.

3. & 4. Stopping all clocks at the time of death:

Covered mirrors

"The Victorians had a lot of superstitions associated with death. When there was a corpse in the house you had to cover all the mirrors," she said. "And if a mirror in your house was to fall and break by itself, it meant that someone in the home would die soon. When someone died in the house and there was a clock in the room, you had to stop the clock at the death hour or the family of the household would have bad luck. When the body was taken from the house, it had to be carried out feet first because if it was carried out head first,
it could look back and beckon others to follow it into death."

http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews43.shtml

(According to Albion's Seed these practices predated Victorian time.)

5.Placing silver coins over the eyes of the deceased:

In Roman times coins were placed in the eyes or mouths of the dead so that the person could pay Charon, the ferryman, to row them across the river Stix. It is easy to see how that custom entered British sensibilities as Rome ruled Britain for over 400 years. Many soldiers retired there with a villa and an English wife. The custom had plenty of time to spread throughout Europe and beyond, extending into every place the Romans occupied.

There are several other Appalachian practices that some have contended are Jewish. These beliefs have spread all over the Internet. I will list those that come to mind.

Endogamy or cousin marrying. This is certainly a way to keep a line pure and protect land and money from
dissipating to outsiders. That is why so many groups the world over have employed this practice. It is certainly not confined to Jewish people.

Marrying at home or at a close relative's house instead of in a Church. This is a common practice among many people, especially settlers in frontier areas where the nearest church may be very far away. A traveling minister might find himself performing a dozen weddings of young lovers anxious to tie the knot while an official was available.

Abstaining from eating meat not properly bled out. This is forbidden in the New Testament. Acts 15:20

I am sure I have missed a few things, but I will close with this one;

Sweeping the corners of a room toward the center. This is one that puzzles me. Who would sweep from the middle of the room toward the corners? That would accomplish nothing and just be moving dirt around. LOL

Remember Melungeons were first found in a Christian Church; Stony Creek Baptist church. Some people have even tried to say the Primitive Baptist Church was a cover for Crypto (hidden) Jewish people. This is also said about the Quakers and possibly others. Free Masonry is likewise implicated. None of this makes any sense.and reflects these writers' lack of familiarity with the subject.

Additional reading

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~valorie/review-when_scotland_was_jewish.htm

No comments:

First Use of the word Melungeon

The earliest known written use of the word "Melungeon" is in an 1813 Scott County, Virginia Stony Creek Primitive Baptist Church record:

"Then came forward Sister Kitchen and complained to the church against Susanna Stallard for saying she harbored them Melungins. Sister Sook said she was hurt with her for believing her child and not believing her, and she won't talk to her to get satisfaction, and both is 'pigedish', one against the other. Sister Sook lays it down and the church forgives her."

The Melungeons were found here:

LITTELL'S 1849

You must know that within ten miles of this owl's nest, there is a watering-place, known hereabouts as 'black-water Springs.' It is situated in a narrow gorge, scarcely half a mile wide, between Powell's Mountain and the Copper Ridge, and is, as you may suppose, almost inaccessible. A hundred men could defend the pass against even a Xerxian army. Now this gorge and the tops and sides of the adjoining mountains are inhabited by a singular species of the human animal called MELUNGENS.

BURNETT 1889

It appears that the Melungeons originally came into east Tennessee from North Carolina, and the larger number settled in what was at that time Hawkins County, but which is now Hancock. I have not been able to hear of them in any of the lower counties of east Tennessee, and those I have seen myself were in Cocke county, bordering on North Carolina.

DROMGOOLE 1890

The Ridge proper is the home of the Melungeons. These people, of whom so little is known, inhabit an isolated corner of the earth, known as Newman’s ridge, in Hancock county. First, I saw in an old newspaper some slight mention of them. With this tiny clue I followed their trail for three years. The paper merely stated that “somewhere in the mountains of Tennessee there existed a remnant of people called Malungeons,......I merely mention all this to show how the Malungeons of today are regarded, and to show how I tracked them to Newman’s Ridge in Hancock County.....

HUMBLE 1897

The Blackwater Valley lies between Mulberry and Newman’s Ridges, and is from half a mile to mile wide. Twenty years ago it was still a wilderness, but is now under good cultivation, and divided into small farms upon which are rather poor dwellings and outbuildings. In this valley and along Newman’s Ridge, reaching into Lee County, Virginia, are settled the people called Melungeons. Some have gone into Kentucky, chiefly into Pike County, others are scattered in adjacent territory.

OTIS 1900

These people are called the Malungeons. ................ ......The Malungeons number between 400 and 500. They live on Black Water Creek, in Hancock County, which section they have inhabited for more than 100 years. ................ The records of Hancock County show that the Malungeon ancestors came to Powell's Valley as early as 1789, when they took up lands on the Black Water.

JARVIS 1903

Greasy Rock Creek, a name by which it has ever since been known and called since, and here is the very place where these Melungeons settled, long after this, on Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater. ............these friendly “Indians” live in the mountains of Stony creek, but they have married among the whites until the race has almost become extinct. A few of the half bloods may be found-none darker- but they still retain the name of Collins and Gibson, &c. From here they came to Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater and many of them are here yet....

CONVERSE 1912

The northern end is drained by Blackwater Creek, which winds its way leisurely northeastward through narrow strips of verdant meadow land. Here, along the banks of this sparkling stream and on the top and eastern slope of Newman's Ridge, is the home of the Melungeons.

WILSON 1914

Occasionally the student of ethnology may stumble upon a community that is a puzzle, as, for example, that one occupied by the 'Malungeons' of upper East Tennessee.

MOORE AND FOSTER

So far as is known they were first found in Hancock County on Newman's Ridge, soon after the Revolutionary War. Now they are settled in several counties, although still most numerous in Hancock County.

PLECKER 1942-1930

We have in some of the counties of southwestern Virginia a number of so-called Melungeons who came into that section from Newmans Ridge, Hancock County, Tennessee..............

August 5, 1930
Mr. J.P. Kelly.Trustee of Schools,
Gap,Lee County, Virginia

Dear Sir: office has had a great deal of trouble in reference to the persistence of a group of people living in that section known as "Melungeons", whose families came from Newman's Ridge, Tennessee.

CAMBAIRE 1935

It seems the Melungeons came into Hancock County between 1810 and 1851.

OSBORNE 1947

From what I gathered from Uncle Wash, the Melungeons started coming to Wise and Scott Counties about 1820. These people came in about equal numbers from Kentucky from Newmans’ Ridge and lower end of Lee County. A few came from North Carolina.

WORDEN 1947

Whatever they are—the Malungeons still are on Newman’s Ridge, in Hancock, Rhea and Hawkins counties of Tennessee, and a few across the border in Virginia. Many are scattered by ones or twos miles from the isolated ridge top they occupied for so long.

E. PRICE

The persistent folk tale, however, insists that the Melungeons are unusual racially; it identifies them as a dark-skinned people whose center is on Newman's Ridge in Hancock County. The Newman's Ridge-Blackwater area seems to be the locality where they have the deepest roots.

VINCENT 1961

colony of folks in this end of Tennessee settled along Newman's Ridge, and on Mulberry Creek in what is now Hancock County, and a few miles out from Sneedville.

DAVIS 1963

Trapped in poverty, snubbed by their fair-skinned neighbors, some of them withdrew to the poor land along Snake Hollow, deep in the rattlesnake-infested gorge in the shadow of towering Newman’s Ridge. Some of them settled along the northern end of the valley, at the Virginia line, where Blackwater Creek flows, and some settled on the Ridge.

BERRY 1963

For a century and a half, the prolific Melungeons have migrated in all directions from Newman's Ridge. .... There are fifteen hundred in Lee County, Virginia....Five hundred are in Scott Count, Virginia........A thousand are found in Wise County, where they are known as "Ramps."

GAMBLE

The only true Melungeons left, however, reside in the nearby mountainside areas known as Snake Hollow and Mulberry Gap.

H. PRICE

they occupied Newman's Ridge---rough and steep in places, but offering some table land and numerous hollows. Here they located near springs or creeks.

S. PRICE 1968

But whatever their origin, the group eventually settled in Hancock County, along Newman's Ridge and in settlements known as Blackwater, Snake Hollow and Vardy.

NORDHEIMER 1970

Newman’s Ridge overlooks Sneedville, a poor community of about 700 persons near the Virginia border. In the early 19th century nearly 350 Melungeons settled on the ridge, coming down into the valley only on rare occasions to forage for wild vegetables and sell moonshine whiskey. They lived apart from the whites for generations. The ridge was a hilltop sanctuary against the outside world and its prejudice.

FETTERMAN (Price) 1970

They bore the Melungeon names which appear on Newman's Ridge: Collins, Mullins, Brogan, Goins, Gibson, Bowlin. They were free of the restrictive legislation aimed at slaves and former slaves during the 1700s and 1800s.

YARBROUGH 1972

Those left in Snake Hollow, Blackwater, Vardy and Mulberry - are few in number, Most have left the hills for jobs in cities far and near. And time is catching up with those remaining. In 1931 there were 40 Melungeon families living on Newman's Ridge above their ancestral home.

LYNCH 1973

And the white man forced them high into the Clinch Mountains, principally Newman's Ridge just outside present day Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee.

BIBLE 1975

In East Tennessee, they have spilled over into the neighboring counties in an extension of the Hancock County families...... ......... "Melungeon surnames were noted in southwestern Virginia as early as 1820, but the families were not classified until 1870, when the census enumerators in Lee County listed the county and state of birth of each person. Of forty-six families whos names suggest they were Melungeons, thirty had one or more members who had BEEN BORN IN HANCOCK or HAWKINS County. Eight had members born in Scott County, and at least one of these also had been born in HANCOCK COUNTY. One person was born in Letcher County, Kentucky of parents born in HANCOCK and Scott Counties. The adults of a Goins family (one of the few listed as mulatto) were born in Surry and Ashe Counties, North Carolina; their children were born in Knox, HANCOCK and Grainger Counties, Tennessee. This is the best direct evidence available to confirm the relationship between several different groups of Melungeons and the importance of NEWMAN'S RIDGE as a CENTER OF THEIR DISPERSAL, but it is evident that the secondary Melungeon localities were also fed from North Carolina and Virginia

HAUN

Most of the mountain people refer to them as Blackwaters and Ridgemanites.” But even in that long gorge, winding some 20 miles in a half-mile-wide band between Newman’s Ridge and Powell Mountain there are few “pure Melungeons” left today.

WINKLER 2003

The only people who were called Melungeon 100 years ago were those who lived in or near Hancock County, Tennessee--including Lee, Scott, and Wise Counties in southwest Virginia.

Melungeon Historical Society

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Monday, November 28, 2011

Are These Customs Jewish or Appalachian?

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