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“Riproarious Shemales”: Legendary Women of the Crockett Almanacs
- University of Missouri Press
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202 “Riproarious Shemales” Legendary Women of the Crockett Almanacs The designation “riproarious shemales,” coined by Davy Crockett scholar Michael A. Lofaro, refers to frontier women who performed phenomenal feats and who were featured in some of the anonymous tall tales published in the Crockett Almanacs between 1835 and 1856. These “half-horse, half-alligator” kind of women actually reflect characteristics of their male frontier counterparts in that they enjoy the freedom of men and exhibit the strength,independent spirit,courage , and self-confidence of males. These legendary frontier women, who acted out essentially a masculine script in accordance with the demands and necessities of frontier life, were the antithesis of the so-called sentimental woman associated with the nineteenth-century “cult of true womanhood,” a figure revered for her passivity and submissiveness,helplessness,humility,emotionality,physical weakness —prevalent characteristics of women characters often featured in women’s magazines and novels, gift annuals, and religious literature. The Crockett Almanacs contain fifty-eight stories portraying variations of the “riproarious shemale”type. Characters like Katy Goodgrit, Florida Fury, the Mississippi Screamer Sal Fink, Sally Ann Whirlwind Crockett (Davy’s wife), Lottie Ritchers, Nance Bowers, and Sal Fungus, who, though ironically created by male raconteurs, are empowered women, women who perform extraordinary feats, and thereby transcend the restrictive domain of the nineteenth-century ideal of womanhood. These are active women who work outdoors and show some of the same talents and capabilities associated with frontier men. They also know how to fight and hunt and how to use the skills necessary for survival in a wilderness society. Among these larger-than-life “shemales” are Nance Bowers, who “war seven feet tall out of her stockins . . . could wipe her feet with her hair . . . [and] swing on the top of a fifty foot hickory tree”; Judy Coon who let her toenails grow to an inch in length and went to a nest of wild cats and stomped them to death with her feet; Sal Fink who“fought a duel once with a thunderbolt all to flinders, an’ gave the pieces to Uncle Sam’s artillerymen, to touch off their cannon with”; Sal Fungus who could “laugh the bark off a tree . . . , dance a rock to pieces . . . [and] sing a wolf to sleep”; and Lottie Ritchers,“the flower of Gum Swamp” who “Riproarious Shemales” 203 “chased a crockodile one evening till his hide cum off . . . [and] carried twenty eyes in her work bag, at one time, that she had picked out of the heads of certain gals of her acquaintance,”making them into a string of beads that she wore when she went to church. While these mythic “shemales” are women with expanded roles, incredible strength, woodsman skills, and assertiveness—in many respects nearly the equal of the legendary frontiersmen—and while the anecdotes about them are among the earliest renderings of tall tales about women in American literature, the characters are never given voice to recount their own adventures in the first person. Nor do their attributes equal or exceed those of the mythic Davy Crockett, also featured in numerous tales in the Crockett Almanacs. Rather, the exploits of the “shemales” are narrated by anonymous male authors of these sketches who usually assume the persona and voice of Davy Crockett and who typically portray these female adventurers incongruously as being like men. Even so, these spectacular “riproarious shemales” do enlarge the boundaries of women’s roles, and taken collectively the Crockett Almanac tales that feature them show a new dimension in the portrayal of women in antebellum southern humor, a perspective that challenges the gender politics of a patriarchal society, albeit humorously. Texts: “Sal Fink, the Mississippi Screamer How She Cooked Injuns,” Crockett Almanac, 1854 (Philadelphia: Fisher and Brother, 1854).“Katy Goodgrit,” Ben Hardin’s Crockett Almanac , 1842 (New York: Turner and Fisher, 1842). “One of Crockett’s Infant Children Grinning Lightning at a Bear,” Crockett Almanac, 1845. (Boston: James Fisher 1845).“The Flower of Gum Swamp,” Crockett Almanac, 1841 (Boston: James Fisher, 1841). Sal Fink, the Mississippi Screamer, How She Cooked Injuns I dar say you’ve all of you, if not more, frequently heerd this great she human crittur boasted of, an’pointed out as“one o’ the gals”—but I tell you what, stranger, you have never really set your eyes on “one of the gals,” till you have seen Sal Fink, the Mississippi screamer, whose miniature pictur I here give, about as nat’ral as life, but not half as...