Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South

Closing Thoughts

closing thoughts Larry was one of the first core Melungeons I met in Hancock County. He is the son of evangelical, sharecropping parents. He grew up working the land on Newman’s Ridge, alongside his brothers and sisters. Distressed from years of sun, his skin holds the patina of the legendary Melungeon —rugged, worn, olive. His face looks like a homegrown potato, folded and dimpled with curiosity and character. I spent hours talking to Larry on his front porch. He talked about everything that related to his life as a child and adult and punctuated his stories with jokes, advice to me about raising my sons, and banter about Catholics, the media, and the government. He playfully boasted to his friends that an anthropologist had visited him a couple of times. “They knew it’s Melungeon business,” he said, and they laughed about him “getting studied.” He told me this in the context of one of his favorite jokes: They were doin’ a census in the mountains, and the census taker knocked on the door, asked the little boy, said, “Your dad home?” And the boy kinda talked funny, said, “Nope. Somebody killed him.” “What about your mom, she home today?” the census taker asked. “Nope. Run off with a man.” 180 Closing Thoughts Finally got down to say, “Is your brother home?” “No, he’s gone to Harvard.” He said, “What’s he studyin’ at Harvard?” “Nuttin’.” “What’s he a doin’ there?” “He’s not studyin’. They’re studyin’ him!” Though I never thought the joke was particularly funny (even after tracking down original versions), what was interesting to me was Larry’s refrain after telling the joke: “So you’re an anthropologist, and that’s what you’re doing . Studying me. Studying the brother at Harvard.” I was never entirely comfortable with Larry’s synthesis of our relationship. Still I admired his acute sensibilities regarding my presence and questions. Long saturated by outside interest in Melungeons, Larry did not withhold his wellhoned skepticism. Late one afternoon Larry’s inquisitiveness about what I was doing got the better of him: “What do you think keeps driving you with this now? Your curiosity’s just killin’ you? Guess I’d ask you what in the world you’re doin’ this far from home, your drivin’ force? You thinking somewhere in your genetic arena, you might be in there too?” I’m sure I looked at Larry with a slightly dumbfounded expression. I measured my response: “No, I don’t think I’m a Melungeon . When I started this, I was living in Tennessee and wanted to do something local. When I moved to Wisconsin , I stayed interested. I’m not sure why.” I felt some relief when Larry responded, “So, you’re investing all your time and money and not just sure why. I ask myself that question too when I go to the [Melungeon] Unions. Why does it matter to me? And I don’t know if I have an answer either. I guess just my curiosity and to see what’s goin’ on. Don’t you ever ask yourself why?” “Yeah, I ask myself why a lot,” I responded, thinking to myself, “more than you know and Closing Thoughts 181 not just about Melungeons.” Larry jerked me away from my neurotic philandering. “But what can you learn from talking to me? ’Cause you know, if you coulda talked to my granddaddy, you might have found something interesting, but what do you learn from talking to me?” “Well, it’s interesting to know what people think about being Melungeon,” I offered. Larry was relentless. “What do you think that I think about Melungeons? Would you not agree that most folks pursuin’ this Melungeon thing so much . . . it’s just personal gain for them. The old folks say they’re flickin’ their lick. That’s my take on it.” I was beginning to have flashbacks of my most uncomfortable moments in academia: vicious red scribblings of “so what???” on a graduate school paper; a publication review that ended with a miserly, “This is so bad it boggles the mind”; a teaching evaluation in which a student demanded her money back. Academia is certainly no place for sissies, but I had yet to be accused of “flickin’ my lick.” I wasn’t even entirely sure what that meant, but it didn’t sound like a compliment. My first...