Legend of the Cherokee Rose

 

An 1882 issue of Gardeners' Monthly and Horticulturist magazine shared a story about the legend of the Cherokee Rose. I especially appreciate their wry skepticism over the origins of yet one more "Indian" legend:

Legend Of The Cherokee Rose.—The Christian Advocate tells the following story, which we record, as we usually do in such cases, more as a matter of news than as a genuine legend. It is a misfortune that there is no way by which a genuine legend can be distinguished from a newspaper lie; but for the credit of the newspaper name from which we quote, we will hope that there is such a legend afloat, and that the story was not expressly manufactured for its columns.

It may be remarked, in passing, that the origin of the Cherokee rose on this continent is enshrouded in mystery. It was found by Michaux in the South, but has never been found wild since his time. It is hardly believed to be a native rose, though by analogy with some other rare Southern plants, it might be. It has Asiatic relatives:

"The legend of the Cherokee rose is as pretty as the flower itself. An Indian chief of the Seminole tribe was taken prisoner by his enemies the Cherokees. and doomed to torture, but became so seriously ill that it became necessary to wait for the restoration to health before committing him to the fire. As he lay prostrated by disease in the cabin of the Cherokee warrior, the daughter of the latter, a young, dark-faced maid, was his nurse. She fell in love with the young chieftain, and wishing to save his life, urged him to escape; but he would not do so unless she would flee with him."

"Yet before she had gone far, impelled by soft regret at leaving home, she asked permission of her lover to return for the purpose of bearing away some memento of it. So, retracing her footsteps, she broke a sprig from the white rose which climbed up the poles of her father's tent, and preserving it during her flight through the wilderness, planted it by the door of her new home in the land of the Seminole. And from that day this beautiful flower has always been known between the capes of Florida and throughout the Southern States by the name of Cherokee rose."

Let's explain here that the Cherokee Rose, Rosa laevigata, is a white, fragrant rose native to southern China and Taiwan south to Laos and Vietnam. The species was introduced to the southeastern United States in about 1780, where it soon became naturalized (and even invasive). It is the state flower of Georgia.

The version of the purported legend published in 1882 was just one variant.  In White's 1855 publication, Historical Collections of Georgia, the story was only slightly different:

Once upon a time, a proud young chieftain of the Seminoles was taken prisoner by his enemies the Cherokees and doomed to death by torture; but he fell so seriously ill, that it became necessary to wait for his restoration to health before committing him to the flames.

As he was lying, prostrated by disease, in the cabin of a Cherokee warrior, the daughter of the latter, a dark-eyed maiden, became his nurse. She rivalled in grace the bounding fawn, and the young warriors of her tribe said of her that the smile of the Great Spirit was not more beautiful. Is it any wonder, then, though death stared the young Seminole in the face, he should be happy in her presence? Was it any wonder that each should love the other?

Stern hatred of the Seminoles had stifled every kindly feeling in the hearts of the Cherokees, and they grimly awaited the time when their enemy must die. As the color slowly returned to the cheeks of her lover and strength to his limbs, the dark-eyed maiden eagerly urged him to make his escape. How could she see him die? But he would not agree to seek safety in flight unless she went with him; lie could better endure death by torture than life without her.

She yielded to his pleading. At the midnight hour, silently they slipped into the dim forest, guided by the pale light of the silvery stars. Yet before they had gone far, impelled by soft regret at leaving her home forever, she asked her lover's permission to return for an instant that she might bear away some memento. So, retracing her footsteps, she broke a sprig from the glossy-leafed vine which climbed upon her father's cabin, and preserving it at her breast during her flight through the wilderness, planted it at the door of her home in the land of the Seminoles.

Here, its milk-white blossoms, with golden centers, often recalled her childhood days in the far-away mountains of Georgia; and from that time this beautiful flower has always been known, throughout the Southern States, as the Cherokee Rose.

In recent years, the legend has been recycled - or "appropriated" if you wish - to complement a certain narrative about the "Trail of Tears."   The National Park Service got in on the act by disseminating this version of the new and improved legend:

The Cherokee were driven from their homelands in North Carolina and Georgia over 100 years ago when gold was discovered on their lands; the journey, known as the "Trail of Tears”, was a terrible time for the people - many died from the hardships and the women wept. The old men knew the women must be strong to help the children survive so they called upon the Great One to help their people and to give the mothers strength. 

The Great One caused a plant to spring up everywhere a Mother's tears had fallen upon the ground on the journey. He told the old men that the plant would grow quickly, then fall back to the ground and another stem would grow. The plant would have white blossoms, a beautiful rose with five petals and gold in the center for the greed of the white man for the gold on their land. 

The leaves would have seven green leaflets, one for each Cherokee clan. The plant would be strong and grow quickly throughout the land all along the Trail of Tears. The stickers on the stem would protect it from those who might try to move it, as it spread to reclaim some of the lost Cherokee homeland. The next morning, the women saw the beautiful white blossoms far back on the trail. When they heard what the Great One had said they felt their strength returning and knew they would survive and the children would grow and the People would flourish in the new Cherokee Nation.

OK. Whatever. 

Back in the 19th century, the Cherokee Rose was a popular subject for poetry: 

THE CHEROKEE ROSE 

Come ripple your fleetest,
Oh rhymes that are meetest,
In praise of the sweetest
Wild blossom that blows.

Though tripping most lightly,
And pattering brightly,
Ye ne'er can sing rightly
The Cherokee rose.

The zephyr that kisses
Its petals hath blisses
That paradise misses
And seraph ne'er knows.

So charming its face is,
I long to change places
With bee that embraces
The Cherokee rose.

In sultry midsummer,
Who would not become a
Luxurious hummer
That merrily goes.

Defying the lances
That noonday advances,
To revel where dances
The Cherokee rose.

Shame on the brown thrushes
That pipe in the bushes!
My melodic gushes

Were sweeter than those—
If I could sit swinging
Where perfumes are winging
More worthy my singing

The Cherokee rose. 

- From Rhymes and Roses (1895), by Samuel Minturn Peck

A Hermit of the Smoky Mountains?

Saint Paul the Hermit, Jusepe de Ribera, ca. 1638

Dig into obscure documents from 19th century America and you’re liable to find intriguing accounts of hermits. I’ve investigated the stories of several Southern Appalachian hermits and will continue to update those accounts. 

For now, let me introduce yet another eccentric with a scruffy beard and a scholarly bent. If the newspaper reporter is correct in placing him in “South” rather than “North” Carolina then it does narrow down the possibilities for precisely where he might have lived. Northern Oconee County? Pickens County? Or perhaps the Dark Corner of Greenville County? In any event, it is curious that the reporter alluded to the “Smoky Mountains of South Carolina.”

My initial research has yielded no information beyond the newspaper article itself but I won’t give up.  As usual with these tantalizing stories, you wish the writer could have told us more than he did.  Our hermit, on his way home from an Atlanta book- run, garnered attention and perhaps more than he would have wished, as he passed through Gainesville, Georgia. That’s all we know. At least for now.

Macon Telegraph [Macon, Georgia] April 5, 1897

QUEER OLD HERMIT.

Gainesville Visited by a Recluse From the Mountains of South Carolina.

Gainesville, Ga., April 4. — A very queer and curious specimen of humanity passed through this city the other day. A brief sketch of him and his life — the ideal life of a hermit of the woods — may prove interesting reading.

He gives his life as one of entire solitude, living aloof from the world out in a small hut over in the Smoky Mountains of South Carolina, but says that he is known far and wide all over this country. It was with much difficulty that he could be induced to speak at all, but when he had been given a good meal and had been taken to a warm cozy fireside and had a few pennies stored away in his old trousers' pocket, which were collected from the curious crowd about him, he threw off his mantle of faked dumbness and proceeded to narrate quite an interesting history of himself, his trials and successes is his area of travel.

He looks like a model Georgia cracker but converses as a wise old sage. He says that he is no tramp, but a true, honest and upright man, and that his only pleasure in life consists in living the life of one banished from society, away from a precise and an exacting, cruel world.

He has been on a trip to Atlanta for the purpose of purchasing a few needed books, for he could procure them there a few cents cheaper than elsewhere. He is now on his return trip carrying with him forty pounds of literature swung in a sack across his back. With his huge bundle of books, his large, long walking staff, his gray, grizzly and tangled beard, and his peculiar and cute manner, he presents quite an attractive and curious sight.

He told of his Irish parentage, being born in Dublin, Ireland, of his early childhood and his progress along these lines. He told of his love affairs and his marriage, his wife's sad death, and of his trials and successes as a school master and professor, told of being connected with several notable institutions of learning. He told of his service in the army, and of his privations in the service. He told how the people had treated him in his travels, of his life as a hermit with his home In the woods, no one he could call his friend, no one that cared what became of him, with only his walking staff, his book and the sad, fearful silence to keep him company, but he has accustomed himself to these things and cares not for them. He can stare the whole world in the face and not twitch a muscle.

Having told all this he joked a bit in a dry, cynical manner, and, warming up to his subject, he displayed a little of his oratorical powers in a short address. He spoke of ancient Rome, of the old heroes, quoted fluently from Shakespeare, touched on infidel religion. mythology, philosophy, geology, etc., and seemed to be personally and familiarly acquainted with all these things, he is surely a "diamond in the rough” and shows by his discourse that he is a smart and learned old individual, but owing to his total banishment from society, he appears uncouth and talks quite strangely at times.

The man is certainly an interesting, odd old character, and would furnish food for entertaining study.

*   *   *

See also, “A Gathering of Hermits”

https://heartofthecowees.blogspot.com/2024/09/a-gathering-of-hermits.html

Small Town Monsters

I almost scrolled past the new video that popped up in my Youtube feed last night. Fortunately, I overcame my hesitation and watched it. And you should, too.

Here’s some context before I address the superb new video itself. 

Generally, I cringe whenever I see that a content creator has combined Southern Appalachian Culture with the Paranormal. My dismay applies not just to the producers of such spurious, exploitative slop, but to the readers and viewers who lap it up and come back for seconds.

Going back through my notes, I found something I wrote after watching a program on Judaculla Rock, produced by the History Channel or some such network. My BS detector activated when I recognized one of the “local guides” in the program as a fellow who had moved to Bryson City and promptly marketed himself as a genuine Mountain Man. I could see through his long white beard right away. His brogue was folksy enough to fool some listeners, but it very clearly was NOT Appalachian. He would tell reporters that he didn’t know how old he was. He would share witticisms from his old hillbilly Grandpappy.  He probably boasted that he built the log cabin he was born in, but that last part is mere speculation on my part.

He would board the tourist train to tell stories and, according to the online reviews, passengers were enthralled by this colorful “authentic” Mountain Man. (It slays me just how many glowing reviews used that word "authentic".)

One discerning tourist, though, suspected that Mountain Man was not what he claimed and uncovered a very credible charge of Stolen Valor in one doozy of an expose.

"Slick" is about right

Nevertheless the storytelling Mountain Man was on a roll, it would seem, until COVID, and then the curtain came down on that little show.  

Here’s a bit of my own rant from 2016:

A couple of years ago, one show that will remain unnamed shot a program on Judaculla Rock. It was the overblown, conspiracy-theory, pseudo-scientific “investigation” one would expect and even cast an “authentic Appalachian guide,” who happened to be some dude that showed up in Bryson City a few years ago, grew out his beard, put on a rustic costume and adopted poor grammar to market himself as a Gen-yew-wine Hillbilly or something like that. But people love his act…

Bottom line: if you stumble upon a Judaculla video (or any other video) featuring the costumed jokers pictured here, DO NOT waste your time with their demeaning play-acting.

To point a finer point on it, dear reader, do you know Jim Crow?  I'm not talking about "Jim Crow laws" but about the original Jim Crow, a character created by white actor Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice in the 1830s, who performed in blackface and portrayed a stereotypical, clumsy Black man.  And I'll bet his antebellum audience enjoyed the "authenticity" too.

That explains why I was dubious about any new video!

On the Other Hand...

Happily, it turns out that a newly released video “The Nantahala Bigfoot Pursuit” is a real gem. Filmmaker Seth Breedlove actually has roots in the mountains. He found credible people with credible accounts of Bigfoot sightings.  And his cinematography reveals a genuine love for this region, conveying the natural beauty and majesty of our environs.

One of those informants featured in the documentary is someone I met more than 40 years ago. I remember Jeff Carpenter as an affable, smart guy, and seeing him again convinced me that this video is the real deal. Jeff certainly is. I would recommend this episode to anyone, even a Sasquatch skeptic.

Browsing Breedlove’s channel, “Small Town Monsters,” I was surprised by the vast number of films he has produced. In addition to his new video, I urge you to check out “Bigfoot: The Shadow of the Smokies” which also presents the people and places of this region in a loving and respectful manner.  

You can read much more about Seth Breedlove’s prolific career at his Wikipedia entry, where you will find this passage:

In 2018, when asked if he believes the individuals he interviews for his documentaries, Breedlove stated, "The simplest answer is I want to believe, but my confounded brain just won't let me accept everything I hear. I have too many questions as to how some of the phenomena could exist without definitive proof being offered for their existence. Having said that, I tend to believe that people I interview have experienced what they claim to experience more than I disbelieve them, so I think continuing to look into these subjects and seek answers to them is important."

Emergence of the Swallowtail

Warm temperatures have persisted this month and so I was not surprised to see a caterpillar actively engaged in life yesterday.

Since I did not recognize the green caterpillar with a yellow "necklace" I turned to my field guide and was delighted to learn that it is destined to be a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, like the one (from 2008) pictured at the top of this page.

Looking back through my notes, I came across a set of photos, quotes and observations from July 13, 2008:

"The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity."    -    George Carlin

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
R. Buckminster Fuller

"A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly."
Andre Gide

[July 13, 2008]  A few minutes ago, I happened across a black [Pipevine] swallowtail butterfly that had just emerged from its chrysalis. You could call it a new beginning, although it means the swallowtail is commencing on the final month of its life. For half a year or more, the swallowtail has lived as something other than a butterfly, first as a caterpillar and then as a pupa.

The caterpillar feeds on the foliage of umbellifers, such as carrot, fennel, angelica, dill and milk parsley plants, growing rapidly and shedding its outgrown skin four times. Eventually, the mass of the caterpillar’s body breaks down to provide nutrients to the cells of the young pupa that will develop inside the chrysalis and burst forth as a butterfly.

As soon as it can fly, the butterfly seeks a mate to produce the fertilized eggs that will be laid on a food plant and start the cycle all over again when they hatch as tiny caterpillars.

The three photos above are of this afternoon's swallowtail. Here's a swallowtail that I saw last August.

For a view of the stages of the swallowtail’s life cycle:
http://www.pbase.com/rcm1840/lifecycleofblsw

From another source, here's time lapse video of the swallowtail breaking out as a butterfly:

And if you're inclined to raise a swallowtail to maturity, click here for detailed instructions:

http://www.glorious-butterfly.com/black-swallowtail-butterfly.html

"The butterfly's attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign." Primo Levi

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." Rabindranath Tagore

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." Nathaniel Hawthorne

It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing

Travel north on Highway 28 out of Franklin, NC and you’ll catch glimpses of the Little Tennessee River here and there. If you’re especially good with directions, you might leave 28 and find the gravel road that takes you to Needmore. It is a minor miracle that this free-flowing stretch of the river was not impounded behind a hydroelectric dam. The power company that owned Needmore certainly entertained that possibility, until about 30 years ago, when it agreed to sell the land, which is now protected under the state gamelands program.

Only one bridge crosses the river as it flows through Needmore and you won’t be driving across that bridge. It is one of North Carolina’s few remaining footbridges, and what a fine bridge it is!



I can’t tell you exactly how many state-maintained footbridges survive in 2025. I know that some of the mountain counties which contained numerous suspension footbridges were hit hard by Hurricane Helene last year, and many bridges in Yancey and surrounding counties were wiped out by that storm and flooding.

But the bridge in Swain County still stands, and is the highlight of any visit to Needmore. I should have measured the length of the bridge. "The length of a football field" would be good approximation.  It spans a broad and shallow section of the river and the center support of the bridge sits upon an island in the middle of the waterway.



No words or pictures would do justice to the spectacular scene as I saw it yesterday, a perfect autumn day. Nevertheless, I came away with plenty to talk about.



I did notice padlocks attached to sides of the bridge. This is something I’ve seen on other bridges. I guessed at what it meant and I was about right. Starry-eyed couples come to the bridge, snap a padlock onto the structure and then toss the keys into the river as a symbol of their unbreakable bond. Supposedly, this practice dates back to ancient China or, at the very least, to an Italian book and movie from about twenty years ago.



The article that disclosed this custom cautioned against the practice as it could compromise the integrity of bridge. I scoffed at that warning, until I read:

Between 2008 and 2015, an estimated 700,000 padlocks were attached to the Pont De Arts bridge in Paris. Although a single lock weighs just a few ounces, having so many was equivalent of adding the weight of 20 elephants to the bridge. As a result, a section of the railing collapsed into the river. Afterward, the city removed all locks and has continued to do so ever since. There's even an activist group, No Love Locks, that advocates against the practice and goes after influencers and brands that try to incorporate the imagery into their marketing.

For now, the Needmore bridge should be alright, as long as no elephants try to cross it.

I drove right up to the steps of the bridge on the west side of the river. If you walk across the bridge and down the stairs on the other side, you’ll find a gravel road. I know exactly where that road is, but to drive from the western end of the bridge to the eastern would require 11 or 12 miles of travel, if not more.

While I was on the bridge, I took note of some construction details. Hundreds of steel rods were heated and bent to form part of the support mechanism for the foot boards.



The NC Department of Transportation sheds more light on the role of these bridges and how they were assembled:

Pedestrian suspension footbridges found in the mountains of western North Carolina are known colloquially as swinging bridges because of their notorious bounciness.

Whether a modest footbridge or a long-span highway bridge, the principles of suspension technology are the same. A continuous cable supports the deck by means of suspenders. The cable is in tension, and thus materials such as rope, bamboo and wire with a high resistance in tension historically have been very suitable for the type and usually quite economical.

Suspension footbridges were built in numbers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A combination of topography, isolation, rural poverty, few good roads, many families without automobiles, and limited resources for building bridges provide a context for why the suspension footbridge was well-suited to Appalachia.

Mountain rivers frequently flood​ and the inexpensive footbridges could be quickly built and easily replaced. They also were a way to provide alternate all-season crossings for isolated farms and residences.

The footbridges were often in narrow valleys, constructed to provide access from the road or railroad on one side of a stream to houses, fields or paths on the opposite bank. The bridges were used by residents to walk to the store, post office, mailbox, church or school.

Unfortunately, none of the first-generation, locally built, suspension footbridges are known to survive. All of the examples identified are second or later generation examples built as replacement bridges by the State Bridge Maintenance Unit from 1947 to 1965. Most have been rebuilt once or twice since then.

The bridges are largely composed of salvaged or modern stock materials such as steel rods, bolts, washers, dimensional lumber, and woven wire fence that are commonly found in state maintenance yards. With few exceptions, the towers are salvaged beams, particularly truss members from old highway bridges, that have been cut up and welded together.

In 2005 NCDOT maintained 21 suspension footbridges in Graham, Jackson, Macon, Mitchell, Swain and Yancey counties. The oldest swinging bridge in the state, and one of the most complete, was built by the Maintenance Unit in 1947 northwest of Bakersville (on the site of an earlier footbridge) to provide a safe path for children crossing Big Rock Creek on their way to school (Mitchell County Bridge 223).

The article from the NC DOT does include a photo of one Little Tennessee footbridge in Macon County, along with a descriptive caption.



A suspension footbridge over the Little Tennessee River (Macon County Bridge 330) in Cowee, built in 1964 on the site of 1948 and 1916 predecessors (source: NCDOT bridge inspection files).

If I’m not mistaken, though, that bridge and one other bridge in the Cowee/Oak Grove vicinity have been removed. All the more reason to make the trip to Needmore to visit one impressive footbridge.

How the Natchez Found Refuge in the Mountains

 [Published February 1, 2018 in Smoky Mountain Living magazine.  One of the under-appreciated chapters of Southern Appalachia heritage and history is the presence of native people other than the Cherokee.]

Eight hundred years ago, across the southeastern region of North America, the great Mississippian civilization flourished. Artisans crafted stone and metal into objects of sublime beauty. Farmers grew vast fields of corn on the river bottomlands. Laborers raised up enormous flat-topped mounds, some as tall as 100 feet and with enough space at the top to accommodate a modern-day football field. On those mounds dwelt an elite caste of priests who ruled over their people in peace and war.

When Europeans arrived in the 1500s, the Mississippian world was already dwindling away. One likely cause was climate change:  the Little Ice Age began in the 1300s and continued through the 1700s. With cooler temperatures, crop yields suffered, upsetting every other aspect of life in the once-mighty Mississippian societies. 

Art was neglected. Fields went fallow. Vast plazas and mounds were deserted. Priests lost their power and prestige.

More than all the other descendants of the Mississippians, the Natchez kept the old traditions alive, well into the 18th century. The homeland of the Natchez was the lower Mississippi River Valley, where they observed an ancient caste system with a demigod called the Great Sun as their paramount leader.

The Spanish and the French colonizing the Gulf Coast targeted the Natchez for enslavement in the early 1700s, and for many years the Natchez skirmished with the French. The Great Sun died in 1728, and soon thereafter an uprising by the Natchez ended with their crushing defeat.

Driven from their homeland, remnant bands of survivors sought aid from the Creek, the Catawba and the Cherokee. One Natchez group settled among the Overhill Cherokee near the confluence of the Little Tennessee and Tellico rivers. Eventually, their village was called Natchey Town, and a nearby stream still bears the name Notchy Creek. 

Around 1740, the Natchez on the Little Tennessee crossed the mountains to the Hiwassee, near a Cherokee village and mound in Peachtree Valley, east of present-day Murphy, North Carolina. Cornelius Doherty, the first white trader among the Cherokees on the Hiwassee, encouraged them to take in the Natchez, explaining that even though they were small in number, their alliance would strengthen the Cherokee. The Natchez settled on the northern bank of the river directly across from a granite petroglyph depicting a horned serpent. The Cherokee name for the site was Gwalgahi, meaning “Frog Place.”ActiveCampaign

While the Cherokees welcomed their new neighbors, they did regard them as “a race of wizards and conjurers.” Known throughout the Southeast for their wealth of ritual knowledge, the Natchez were unrivalled as dance leaders. The sights and sounds of their ceremonial dances in the Peachtree Valley must have been unlike anything witnessed before or since in the southern mountains.  They preserved their unique culture by discouraging marriage outside the tribe, speaking their own language and holding their own councils.

The Natchez settlement on the Hiwassee continued until 1820, when the American Baptist Foreign Mission Board acquired the land for a mission, school and farm. To make way for the mission, the Natchez moved five miles southeast where they joined Cherokees residing on Brasstown Creek.

Though the Natchez integrated more fully into Cherokee society, they never completely abandoned their heritage. A woman named Alkini, of full Natchez blood, lived among the Cherokee until her death in 1895. She was remembered for speaking with a drawling tone that was distinctly Natchez.

Ties between the Natchez and the Cherokee extended beyond their living in close proximity. The renowned Cherokee statesman of the 18th century, Attakullakulla, lived for a while in Natchey Town on the Little Tennessee. He married Nionne Ollie, who was born Natchez, taken captive as a child, and adopted into the Cherokee tribe. Their son, Dragging Canoe (1738-1792) became a war chief of the Chickamauga Cherokee. His fiery defiance was the extreme opposite of his father’s cool diplomacy.

After the 1775 Treaty of Sycamore Shoals ceded a large tract of Cherokee land, and 65 years before the Trail of Tears, this offspring of a Natchez-born mother anticipated the future struggles of the Cherokee and the shared fate of the Natchez in their midst:

“We had hoped that the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone. They have passed the mountains, and have settled upon Cherokee land. When that is gained, the same encroaching spirit will lead them upon other land of the Cherokees, and the remnant of the people, once so great and formidable, will be compelled to seek refuge in some distant wilderness. Should we not therefore run all risks, and incur all consequences, rather than submit to further loss of our country? Such treaties may be alright for men who are too old to hunt or fight. As for me, I have my young warriors about me. We will hold our land.”

Neighbors on the Mountain

One evening last week, I stepped out my back door and noticed the leaves of a wild grape vine.   I stopped to take a closer look at various galls and damage to the leaves, where insects had been feeding.  

I turned over one leaf and noticed a tiny spider, Spintharus flavidus. 

Hello!

Their face-like abdomens are only about the size of a SESAME SEED, hence a bit of blur in the image. These beauties have the ability to adjust the color of their silk to enhance the effectiveness of their webs.  Given their diminutive size, it's a miracle I even saw them. 

The view out my window, some might assume, is a simple still life.  But, no, it is a busy thriving complicated community, a place of life-and-death dramas and colorful characters, like Spintharus flavidus.

From Arachnids of North Carolina

Spintharus are typically found in leaf litter or the undersides of leaves in low vegetation where they construct small and difficult to observe webs. These webs are simplified ‘H-webs’ (Levi, 1963a; Agnarsson, 2004) where the spider is in the middle facing down towards the gluey droplets at the base of the web. Agnarsson et al., 2018. From there, Spintharus monitors a pair of lines, and awaits potential prey's blundering into and becoming trapped by them.

"Longing for Freedom is a Mental Disorder" - Pt. I

 [From November 6, 2016 - Anticipating the Drapetomania Pandemic.]

“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
- Theodore Dalrymple

“By now we are even unsure whether we have the right to talk about the events of our own lives.” 
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Despite the focus of the past few posts here, my recent ruminations have been framed in a much broader historical context than a single election cycle.  We probably overestimate the impact of electing one candidate over another.  Elections reveal culture as much or more than they change culture.  And so, the story to tell will not come to an end (or begin anew) after next Tuesday.

The dystopian present and future we face will not be averted by electing the “right” candidate.  Nevertheless, political theater does shed light on the deep dysfunction of our society and the threats that do exist.

So, I need to revisit HRC’s “basket of deplorables” quip, (for hopefully the last time): 

…what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that…. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

As revealed here a couple of days ago, it is almost certain that the Clinton speechwriters lifted the laundry list of deplorables from an enlightening article by James Simpson writing for Accuracy in Media, “Reds Exploiting Blacks – The Roots of the Black Lives Matter Movement.”

There is plenty of unfortunate name-calling across the political spectrum.  Rather than engaging in a legitimate debate over issues, it seems easier to discredit those who disagree.  From the Left, we’ve heard the endless repetition of "hate-filled," “bigot,” “racist,” or fill-in-the-blank “-ophobe” applied to anyone advocating an alternate approach to current problems. Hence, voicing concerns about the potential for terrorist infiltrators among Syrian refugees earns one the label “Islamophobic.”

As Stephen Paul Foster explains:

The strategy here is to turn all potential opposition on the right into Klansmen or Nazis, stereotyped creatures of low intelligence and primitive animosities.  People like this, of course, have no place on the political spectrum other than the far fringes where they can be alternately ridiculed or ignored, or perhaps even, punished….  

Foster goes on to suggest there is something more repressive to the “phobic” designations than mere insults:

This proliferation of “phobias” is by design of the left yet another way to marginalize people who disagree with them.  Phobias are a kind of mental illness, and hence irrational. Irrational people cannot be taken seriously except as threats to themselves or those around them.  

If you object to unrestricted immigration from the various hellholes across the world, you are a “xenophobe”.  

If you have a traditional view of marriage, you are a “homophobe”.  

If you think bringing a lot of young Muslim males into the country from places like Syria and Somalia is not a good idea you are “Islamophobic.”  

You do not argue, debate or reason with phobic people. You ignore them, or, if necessary, repress them.  They “thankfully” as Hillary said are “not America”, that is that social-political part of America where people get to compete in making their case for their beliefs and their way of life. 

By being “sick” in this intended psychiatric-phobic sense, a person loses the respect and consideration for his wishes and opinions and potentially even the legal protection of his freedom and property.  Refuse to sell a wedding cake to gay couple and see what happens. Don't want your daughters to share bathrooms and shower with guys who like to think they are girls?  This is just the beginning. 

In other words, "Basket of Deplorables" is more or less equivalent to "Looney Bin."

Of course, pathologizing dissent is not without precedent in American history.  But it is looking more and more like the old Soviet approach to political repression.  Sasha Shapiro, writing in Vestnik: TheJournal of Russian and Asian Studies, recounts that era:

  

The Marxist-Leninist understanding of consciousness allowed Soviet psychiatry to adopt the view that a healthy citizen was one who lived according to Soviet society's expectations and norms. Thus, if human consciousness is the affirmation and manifestation of social life (as Marx proposed) and simultaneously the reflection and creation of the objective world (as Lenin argued), then a political dissident is someone who rejects his objective social world and displays an incoherent understanding of his environment. Anti-Soviet behavior such as protesting Soviet laws and customs, attempting to travel abroad, or participating in human rights protests was taken to be symptomatic of mental illness….

Under Leonid Brezhnev's administration after 1964, psychiatry was harnessed as a tool for censorship to suppress dissent. Official records show that 20,000 citizens were hospitalized for political reasons, mainly on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, and dissemination of fabrications with an aim to defame the Soviet political and social system. Most historians and scholars agree that this number is an underestimate on account of unreleased documentation.

Many of these hospitalizations happened quietly and quickly without attracting media attention and were justified by psychiatrists and high-level political officials in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). In these cases, officials from the Ministry of Health were given direct orders from regional officials from the City Soviet to target certain individuals who had been marked by the KGB for certain anti-Soviet behavior.

Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway, after examining 200 such cases, developed a classification of the victims of Soviet psychiatric abuse. They were categorized as:

1. advocates of human rights or democratization;
2. nationalists;
3. would-be emigrants;
4. religious believers;
5. citizens inconvenient to the authorities.

In his 1970 open letter to the public entitled, This Is How We Live, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote: 

The incarceration of free thinking healthy people in madhouses is spiritual murder, it is a variation of the gas chamber, even more cruel; the torture of the people being killed is more malicious and more prolonged. Like the gas chambers, these crimes will never be forgotten and those involved in them will be condemned for all time during their life and after their death.

At this point, I have about forty pages of notes to distill into a discussion of the current pseudo-science of psychiatry and its manipulation for political purposes in the United States. This has been a problem of no small concern to individuals on both the political right and left.  Suffice it to say that, in the near future, a cunning political operative can avoid the discomfort of attempting to outlaw “homophobia” or “Islamophobia” or “you name it” by having those “conditions” treated as “psychological disorders requiring treatment.” 

And even when powers-that-be stop short of incarcerating "free-thinking healthy people in madhouses" we've seen plenty of other more nuanced measures to pressure and inhibit and silence individuals - to strip them of their freedom, little by little.

And here is what I find most objectionable about political correctness, just how insidious and coercive it has become throughout our society.  Again, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

“If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?”

Our increasingly Orwellian society will be addressed in future posts.  The PC police are not the only agents of rampant dehumanization, but their role in that process is undeniable.  

For now, it might be helpful to revisit a chapter from early American history demonstrating the misuse of psychology for political ends. When I first encountered “drapetomania” I thought I had stumbled upon some clever satire.  But no, this really happened.  David Pilgrim, curator of the Jim Crow Museum, tells the story:

In May, 1851, Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright, a Louisiana physician, published a paper entitled, "Report On The Diseases and Physical Peculiarities Of The Negro race." The paper appeared in The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, a reputable scholarly publication. Cartwright claimed to have discovered two new diseases peculiar to Blacks that he believed justified enslavement as a therapeutic necessity for the slaves and as a medical and moral responsibility for their White masters. He claimed that Blacks who fled slavery suffered from drapetomania. In his words:

"Drapetomania is from draptise. A runaway slave is mania mad or crazy. It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptoms be absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers. In noticing a disease that, therefore, is hitherto classed among the long list of maladies that man is subject to, it was necessary to have a new term to express it. The cause in most cases that induces the Negro to run away from service is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation, and much more curable as a general rule. With the advantages of proper medical advice strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented, although the slaves are located on the borders of a free state within a stone's throw of abolitionists."

It was common in the 1840s and 1850s for proslavery advocates to claim that Blacks benefited from being enslaved to Whites. For Cartwright, and other proslavery defenders, any Black slave who tried to escape must be "crazy." The "uncontrollable urge" to run away was a symptom of the mental disorder. Later, Cartwright would argue that drapetomania could be prevented by "beating the devil out of them." Amputation of the toes was also suggested.

Cartwright also described another mental disorder, Dysaethesia Aethiopica, to explain the apparent lack of work ethic exhibited by many slaves. The diagnosable symptoms included disobedience, insolence, and refusing to work -- and physical lesions. What treatment did Cartwright suggest? "Put the patient to some hard kind of work in the open air and sunshine," under the watchful eye of a White man.

Parallels to today’s plantation of Political Correctness should be obvious to any thinking person. 

The War on Beauty

 Brilliant analysis from Julia James Davis.  Fabulous channel.

Exploring the Past on Courthouse Hill

My path to retrieving a timely document from long ago took an unexpected detour and I discovered more than I expected:

But first, some background is needed.



The old Jackson County Courthouse in Sylva, North Carolina is touted as the most photographed courthouse in North Carolina. And I can believe that.

I’ve photographed it many times myself. And I’ve gathered vintage postcards featuring the structure.

Having resided in the Cullowhee Valley and Cowee Mountains for “several” decades I suppose I’ve SEEN the courthouse thousands of times, though mostly in my rear-view mirror. And it will continue that way until the highway engineers finally devise a plan to have the one-way stretch of Main Street run TOWARD, rather than AWAY FROM, the attractive historical building.

The star of the scene, however, must be the long, long stairway ascending from the fountain on Main Street. I remember driving , and even walking, to the top of the hill to find the courtroom, or Clerk of Court, Register of Deeds, Sheriff’s Department, County Jail, Employment Security and several other government departments as I recall.

Local government back then looked a little dilapidated and penurious, especially compared to today’s burgeoning facilities.





When first I came to Sylva, the stairway on that hill brought to mind the Laurel and Hardy movie where the duo struggles to move a crated piano up a precipitous flight of stairs, at great peril to themselves, innocent bystanders and the musical instrument itself.

That is not what I intended to write about although I have more to add on the subject...eventually.

What I intended to write about was a speech delivered atop the courthouse stairway on Sept 18, 1915.




On that date, General Theodore F. Davidson addressed those who had gathered for the dedication of the Confederate Soldiers Monument. 

Why bring up that event now?

Because the monument at the center of that 1915 ceremony, returned to the top of the local news this week. To recap as succinctly as possible:

1915 - The monument, topped with a statue of a Confederate soldier, was installed and dedicated

2020 – Activists mobilized to demand the removal of the Confederate Soldiers Monument

2021 – After deliberation by the Jackson County Board of Commissioners, the monument and statue remained. New bronze plaques were attached to the sides of the monument, covering the original inscriptions.

2025 – The current Jackson Commissioners ordered removal of the bronze plaques, restoring the monument to its original appearance. In response, activists have renewed their calls to remove the monument.

That is where we are as of this week.

A lot of ink has been spilled on the controversy, on the origins of the monument and the alleged intent of its builders. So, I will limit myself to adding just ONE obscure document to flesh out the story.

Several years ago, knowing that the dedication of the monument was such a Big Deal in 1915, I suspected and hoped that the text of the keynote speech had survived somewhere. And, EUREKA!, much of the speech is included in an article published the following day in the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper, reprinted in its entirety herein.

But, let’s return for a moment to my distracted musings over mental images of Laurel and Hardy on the steps of Courthouse Hill.

It is no wonder that “The Music Box” released in 1932, was etched in my memory. It earned the first Academy Award ever presented for Best Live Action Short (Comedy) and it is included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. And some critics suggest it is the most iconic of Laurel and Hardy’s movies.  Click here to watch the complete movie.

No, it wasn’t filmed in Sylva. The actual filming location, including the stairway, remains intact in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles. The famous stairway consisted of 133 steps, 26 more than 107 steps connecting Sylva’s Main Street and Old Courthouse. Tourists still delight in finding the stairs made famous in a classic comedy, marked now by a commemorative plaque.

Onward, at last, to the original point of this mission. General Theodore F. Davidson delivered the speech. He was a leader in business, politics and other civic endeavors in Western North Carolina and his comments came 50 years after the end of the War. I wish I could have been there to hear General Davidson’s lofty oratory. I wished I could have joined in their picnic. And I wonder if they brought plenty of fried chicken, potato salad and banana puddin’.


General Theodore F. Davidson

For the rest of this installment let’s turn the spotlight to the General and his eloquent remarks at the monument dedication:

Asheville Citizen-Times, September 19, 1915

Jackson County’s Monument to Confederates is Unveiled – Impressive Ceremonies Mark the Unveiling of Beautiful Memorial at Sylva – General T. F. Davidson of Asheville, Speaker of the Day

Speaking to the large audience which filled every seat of the big auditorium, General Davidson paid a splendid tribute to the North Carolina mountaineer solder, who with little or no interest in negro slavery, fought, the speaker declared, for the great foundational principle of the God-given right of every people to regulate the form of government under which they are to live. He spoke in part as follows:

Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Love of country, veneration for the memory and pride in the valor and achievements of ancestors, have ever been the distinguishing characteristic of great peoples, and have been the inspiration of their statesmen and warriors, their painters and sculptors, and the themes of their historians, poets and orators.

All history is the record of the possession and exercise, or the lack of these virtues; civilization has no monopoly of them; the painted savage, chanting the weird death song over the body of his dead chieftain, obeys and expressed the same impulse and emotions that tuned the harps of Homer and Scott, and inspired the pens of Herodotus, Tacitus, Hume and Macauley.

Unhappy must be the lot and contemptible the character of that people, if such there be, in whose souls these sentiments have no place. We feel their inspiration today as we come together, not to recall, for that would assume we had forgotten, or were in danger of forgetting, but to dedicate this beautiful monument and consecrate this spot to the memory of the men and the events of fifty years ago, when our fathers and brothers and comrades, the flower of the manhood of the age, made the most heroic struggle and exhibited the most illustrious qualities, courage, endurance, fidelity, devotion, for which history has no parallel. Most of them have crossed over the river, and “sleep the sleep that knows no breaking,” but thank God, their memories shall never perish from the face of the earth.

How the Confederate soldier fought is known to all men. In every capital, and every city of the south there stand beautiful and costly monuments with eloquent tributes to the valor of the Confederate soldier: in hundreds of cemeteries from the Potomac to the Rio Grande there are countless tombstones and tablets – many, many with the sad word, “unknown,” the only epitaph, with tender inscriptions voicing the love and loyalty of the southern people.

In every public library and museum, and in a great many private collections, there are stored hundreds and thousands of books, pamphlets and manuscripts collected, prepared, edited, preserved and printed, solely with the purpose of transmitting to future ages a true history of the exploits and renown of the Confederate soldier. The record is made; upon it we take our stand; and with heads erect, look in the face of the future, and like our first parents in their original purity in the Garden of Eden, we are not ashamed.

But why they fought, it is vital should be kept constantly prominent. In our natural anxiety to preserve stainless the conduct of the Confederate soldier on the field and the southern people under the varying conditions, civil and military, of that long struggle. I have sometimes thought it might be we would overlook, or not sufficiently appreciate the great principles which lay at the foundation of the contest, and which were so closely involved.

It is a painful reflection that there is among our people, of all classes, especially among that portion which must soon assume the political and social duties and responsibilities of the country, so little inclination to acquire knowledge of the fundamental principles, or even of the practical workings of our system of government, state and national.

This general indifference, or ignorance of these vital questions is most deplorable and dangerous. May I venture to suggest to the excellent and devoted men and women in charge of the education, public and private, of our youth, that much of responsibility for this state of things might be brought to their doors, or rather to the doors of the modern systems of education they have adopted in their solicitude to keep abreast with what some call the “advanced methods” of the day?

It may be all right to teach the boy who is soon to be a man and citizen, and as such a factor of more or less influence in governing the state, where his liver is located, and what food and drink will best suit it; and perhaps the art of reading before learning the alphabet, or how to spell may be desirable, but it surely would not detract from the intellectual or utilitarian value of our schools should they give a small portion of each day to instruction upon the simple principles of government. These principles teach us in every hour of our lives, our happiness and prosperity depend upon them, and yet, I doubt if there are half a dozen schools, including our higher institutions, where the constitution of our state, of our republic, finds a place in the curriculum.

Let us hope that there will be some improvement in this direction. And I venture to take the liberty of urging upon all my fellow-citizens the importance, nay the solemn duty of giving greater consideration to these topics, for if they sincerely desire to be useful citizens, such knowledge is absolutely essential; and if they desire, as I have no doubt they do, to preserve untarnished the record of the Confederate soldier, they will find his greatest vindication in a true understanding of the great natural and constitutional questions for which he went to war.