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Post by Gary Carden on Aug 23, 2004 14:36:21 GMT -5
Oh, yes, I know a bit about Blairsville, Ga, and that strange rock that resembles the one above Cullowhee, N. C. I used to teach Cherokee history at Young Harris, a place dear to my heart because of Byron Herbert Reece, the Georgia mountain poet that taught there until he committed suicide. For what it is worth, I taught school in Cartersville, Georgia for five years, and used to watch them excavate the Etowah Mounds.
I dreamed last night that I heard my grandfather say, "I et me a bait of roast'nears and cornbread and it give me the mully-grubs."
Gary Carden
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Post by Ol' John Brown on Aug 27, 2004 20:48:54 GMT -5
Yep,
I know 'bout them mully-grubs!
I git the same if I eat just before bed time too!
I'm back-tracking a little bit but does anyone out there remember The Snowbird Quartet?
They were notorious for "runnin' on Indian Time".
Folks eventually got used to it and stuck around to hear them sing when they showed up. Turns out that they were thought of to be worth waiting for.
Just for the record; my Dad, Ol' Mark Brown, sang and played bass for them and this is how I learned about "Indian time".
Sure, this had nothing to do with India, but the Cherokee of the area understood how this all come about and it would have been much more appropriate to call this "Cherokee Time" but the Cherokee that I grew up with thought it all a big laugh and didn't sweat the details.
After a while, folks came to realize that a specific time was not a point that these Cherokee performers related to or stuck to. They finally realized that such terms as "just before dark" or "just after dark" brought them more desirable results.
As far as what the tribe that I grew up with preferred to referred to as; well, "Native American" is just something generic that the government came up with. The term "Indian" is not often looked upon as insulting as it is looked upon as a big joke since tribes understand that this is a huge mistake made by explorers that thought that they had reached India.
Yes, no matter how far back in the woods one goes (and I grew up "in the middle of the woods" of Western North Carolina and have ventured as deep into the woods as might be humanly possible) the answers, in my experience come up the same . . .
The terms "Indian" and "Native American" are at least, laughable to the older folks. They, contrary to popular belief, know where these terms come from.
They prefer to be referred to as whatever Nation (tribe) that they truly are . . . such as Cherokee, for example.
So, with the fact that the tribes who first inhabited the nation know that the terms " Indian" and "Native American" are either misconceptions of long ago or just made up generic terms, back to "Indian Time". . .
It looks to me like the individual tribes; collectively, have the last laugh here!
OL_JB
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Jo RobinsonWilliams
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Post by Jo RobinsonWilliams on Oct 11, 2004 11:36:31 GMT -5
I am so truly blessed to have stumbled on to this site today, and I want to thank "youens" for all "yourn" postings.
I was "borned" and raised in York Co. PA -- far, far away from the mountains of East TN, NC and VA. My extensive family moved to PA in the late 40's, looking for work. We lived very clannishly out in the country, so by the time I started school, I talked a little differently than my classmates. It was a source of frustration and amusement to my teachers for many years. At the age of 51, I am still chided sometimes for my speech.
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your messages and replies. Though they have been dead for many years, your written words have brought back to me with perfect clarity the voices of my beloved grandparents and great aunts and uncles. "Looky yonder," my grandfather would say.
I'm of the opinion that my speck of mountain and Cherokee blood has been my greatest gift. -- Jo Robinson Williams
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Post by Gary Carden on Oct 15, 2004 10:57:41 GMT -5
You would probably get a kick out of a chapter in the new book, TEXTThe Appalachians: America's First and Last Frontier. TEXTTEXTCheck it out if you can. It is called "The Quare Gene." Written by Tony Earley, it is a wonderful example of folks who don't "talk right." Got lots of words that will be familiar to you, too.
Gary Carden
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Post by bluestone on Nov 3, 2004 15:27:05 GMT -5
I am so excited to find this site, and can't wait to tell my sister about it. Though I was neither born nor raised in the mountains of Appalachia, there is hillbilly blood running through my veins.
My dad was born in Pike County in southeastern Kentucky. After many years of not being able to visit Kentucky, I had the opportunity to go there last fall. As soon as I saw the landscape start to change in Northern Alabama (I'm on the Gulf Coast), I began to feel as though I were going home. When I arrived at my relative's home, that Kentucky "twang" was music to my ears.
My sister, in the last year or so, found out that our great-great grandmother on our maternal grandmother's side was a Cherokee whose father spirited her away from the Trail of Tears. The story is that he made his way through North Carolina in Kentucky and settled near an area called Greasy Creek.
My sister and brother-in-law are building a vacation home near Frenchburg, KY. I had never visited that part of the state, but fell in love with it. Now when life here in Mobile, AL gets to hectic, and people seem to be so thoughless of others, all I can think of is getting back to those hills, permanently.
Again, love the web site -- Debbie Blackburn
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Post by Gary Carden on Nov 4, 2004 13:25:41 GMT -5
Somewhere in my attic is a little pamphlet called "Greasy Creek." Maybe I ought to see if I could find it.
Gary Carden
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Post by KayDee on Dec 4, 2004 1:17:24 GMT -5
I know all about Grassy Creek. I live in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, Southwest Virginia, on the poor end of the state. My grandmother had so many quaint sayins'..."have a little guide of yourself", and "follow your own lights". Has anyone else ever heard these sayings? How about "dumber than a coal bucket", "goin' out spreeing", Gawd willin' and the creek don't rise", "goin' sangin"? Well I just stumbled acrost this site, and thought Iwould chime in my two cents worth.  Kathy Dingus www.life-ppf.comAppalachian Stories, Poems, Recipes and Humor |
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Post by Gary Carden on Dec 23, 2004 22:48:12 GMT -5
Well, several weeks ago, I published an article in two regional newspapers asking for responses from folks who had ever heard anyone use the word "cyarn" which usually refers to "carrion" or something dead in the woods. The response was amazing and contradictory. I got responses from Winston-Salem, Kentucky, Maggie Valley, Sylva, Bryson City, and Seaford, Virginia. Most responses was very firm in the belief that the word did mean "carrion," but the most interesting one was from a columnist on a Winston-Salem paper who insisted that the word was Scot in origin and was spelled with a "k" (kyran) and referred to manure. Interesting disagreements. My own grandmother definitely said "kyarn" and she definitely meant that something was rotten.
Gary
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Post by bettymcg on Jan 5, 2008 10:58:04 GMT -5
I'm from Yancey County. My Great-aunt Ruth, born in the 1880s, had a lot of colorful expressions. She would say "honestncanidly" (honest and candidly) and "Iwishtimanever" (I wished I'm a never - I still don't know exactly what that meant . Also, as a child she had learned to say the alphabet backwards, and to tell a story about a family which had 26 children and named them for each letter of the alphabet. I used to beg her to tell me these things when I was a kid. She was vivacious and funny and I miss her still today. Almost everything she said was funny. For example, she used to say that one of her sons was so ugly as a baby that she kept him covered up and wouldn't let people look at him. (He grew up to be a very handsome man.) She and my Granny were from a family of 8 children who grew up in a l2-room log house which is still standing on Elk Shoal Creek. I'm proud of my heritage and I love your website! |
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Post by bettymcg on Jan 5, 2008 11:03:23 GMT -5
Yep, I've heard lots of people say "That smells worse than kyarn", so I guess it must mean carrion or at least something rotten. How about the word "mazzard" meaning any small pesky animal?
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Post by Nelma Jean Bryson on May 14, 2008 12:00:19 GMT -5
Wow Gary, glad to find this site! You shoulda tole me it war hare...dang, all us natives of Jackson County and Sylvie needs to know thar's sum place to talk to kin! Happy to join your group and look forward to exchanging thoughts, ideas, memories, etc. with all y'all...
Nelma Jean Bryson
Author, Mama Dal
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