They spread from the Unakas
of Tennessee into the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky; and they
have remained to this day what they were then, a primitive folk
of strong and fiery men and brave women living as their
forefathers of Watauga and Holston lived. In the log cabins in
those mountains today are heard the same ballads, sung still to
the dulcimer, that entertained the earliest settlers. The women
still turn the old-fashioned spinning wheels. The code of the men
is still the code learned perhaps from the Gaels--the code of the
oath and the feud and the open door to the stranger. Or were
these, the ethical tenets of almost all uncorrupted primitive
tribes, transmitted from the Indian strain and association? Their
young people marry at boy and girl ages, as the pioneers did, and
their wedding festivities are the same as those which made
rejoicing at the first marriage in Watauga. Their common speech
today contains words that have been obsolete in England for a
hundred years.
Thrice have the mountain men come down again from their
fastnesses to war for America since the day of King's Mountain
and thrice they have acquitted themselves so that their deeds are
noted in history. A souvenir of their part in the War of 1812 at
the Battle of the Thames is kept in one of the favorite names for
mountain girls--"Lake Erie.
Pages:
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221