Ginseng and Appalachian Culture: Settlement to Contemporary Times

Lonzo Mullins: I love it in these hills and I'll spend the rest of my days here. 36 Ginseng and Appalachian Culture: Settlement to Contemporary Times by Steve Mooney The root of the ginseng plant has long been prized by the Far Easterner and the American Indian. As long as 5,000 years ago the Chinese, believing the medicinal and aphrodisiacal powers of the root, began to develop an extensive market for ginseng, which they called "jen-shen" ("manlike") because of its gnarled, human-shaped root. And perhaps just as long ago native Americans began to use the root, in combination with jimsonweed and pokeroot, to produce a hypnotic, trancelike state in youths who were preparing to undergo coming-of-age rituals or in medicine men who wanted to commune with the gods. Interestingly, these native Americans too were struck by the shape of the ginseng root and called the plant "garantoquen ," which also means "manlike." Ginseng in Colonial North America According to historians, white men first became active in the North American ginseng trade in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, some 50 to 75 years before the Revolutionary War. Around 1700, Father Joseph Lafitau, who had been a missionary in China and had participated in the ginseng trade there, noticed the use of a remarkably similar plant by Mohawk Indians in Canada. Like Asiatic ginseng (panax pseudoginseng), the plant used by the Mohawks had a stiff stalk which branched out into leaf groups or "prongs" divided into five fingers like a human hand, and at the topmost center of the stalk bright red berries appeared in late summer or early fall, when the leaves began to turn a yellow-gold color. Since Lafitau knew the value of ginseng in the Orient, he decided to join the Mohawks in gathering the North American variety (panax quinquefolium), hoping to export it to China. Lafitau soon built several large drying ovens and taught the Mohawks to cure ginseng by this method. Within a few years Lafitau had developed a bustling export business and by 1717 Indians from as far away as Green Bay, Wisconsin, were bringing ginseng to ship to China via France (Mellinger 1975, 245). Within another decade or two knowledge of ginseng had spread to the other European groups living in North America and the plant's root had become touted as a powerful aphrodisiac, potent hypnotic, and a surefire cure for almost any ill. A little ginseng root, folk knowledge stated, could cure sexual impotence , ward off the ills associated with old age, provide a quick fix for a stomachache , settle a bad case of nerves, and paradoxically, act both as stimulant to 37 those in need of a lift and sedative to those in need of rest. The comments of William Byrd in The History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina, Run in the Year of Our Lord 1718 are representative of colonists ' beliefs about ginseng, and identify several of the supposed powers of the plant's root: To help cure fatigue, I used to chew a root of ginseng as I walked along. This kept up my spirits. It gives an uncommon warmth and vigor to the blood. It cheers the heart of a man that has a bad wife, and makes him look down with great composure upon the crosses of the world. It will make old age amiable by rendering it lively, cheerful and good humored. (Mellinger 1975, 247) Ginseng and Appalachia: Settlement to Civil War Ginseng has been a part of the folk culture of Appalachia since frontiersmen began to push westward in sporadic numbers in the first half of the eighteenth century, and since the first permanent settlements appeared in the region in the 1760s. As early as the 1780s references to ginseng and mountain culture began to appear. In 1784 George Washington wrote: "In passing through the mountains, I met a number of persons and pack horses going over the mountains with ginseng" (Mellinger 1975, 247). In 1793 Francois Andre Michaux noted that ginseng was the only product of Kentucky that was worth overland transportation to Philadelphia (Mellinger 1975, 247). A few years later, in 1802...