Tradition

My grandmother was born in northern Georgia, in an area of southern Appalachia where the rolling hills just begin to turn into mountains. On her mother's side, the family can be traced back to the 14^th century, to the county of Wiltshire in England, the land of Stonehenge and Silbury Hill. On her father's side, there is not much information. Family tradition says that his family was from the Carolinas and was originally from Scotland.

To this day, the area where my grandmother was born is remote. The community is still little more than a crossroads, one of them asphalt, one of them gravel. People can get in and out of the area a little easier now, a car is much faster than the buggy that my great grandfather drove, but the trip into town is still not a quick one. Little has changed in the 98 years since my grandmother's birth. Shopping malls, four lane highways and fast food restaurants have not penetrated here. Traveling through these hills one is struck by the loneliness, the lack of other human beings. It is not hard to imagine what life must have been like just after the turn of the century, when the hills and valleys were dotted with small clapboard houses next to fields of corn and the next door neighbor was a half mile down a steep and muddy road.

I am pleased to admit that for most of my life I was interested in the stories my grandmother told me of how life was when she was young. Often, when I would ask her questions, she would be somewhat sheepish in answering as if she were embarrassed to confess to doing things or having thought in ways she considered to be "old timey" and not in keeping with modern ways. But, I am glad that she told me her stories. And, having seen where she was born, I can see how these "old timey" ways sustained her family and all of the generations before her and how these old traditions survived their journey across hundreds of years and the Atlantic ocean, all the way back to the British Isles. Traditions survived because they somehow made life a little easier and less frightening. They were ways of doing things that worked for people, for grandparents and grandparents before them. There was no reason to change.

I have done a lot of research on folklore over the years and many times I have been awed at finding an obscure reference to an obscure tradition in Scotland or England and finding it familiar because it was something my grandmother had told me about. One of these was the idea that when a baby is born, certain rituals have to be performed in order to keep the baby from getting the hives. It was said that if "the hives got around the baby's heart" the infant would die. My grandmother firmly believed in this possibility and followed the prescribed rituals for her children to prevent its occurrence. When I was born, she insisted that my parents do the same for me. My father, who had read Dr. Spock from cover to cover by the time of my delivery, was horrified. His daughter was to have the best in pediatric care. No old timey witch doctors would get hold of his offspring!

I had always thought that hives was an allergic reaction of the skin so I never understood what my grandmother was talking about when she said that hives could "get around a baby's heart" until I was reading an excellent book on Scottish folk tradition, Folk Tradition and Folk Medicine in Scotland. Hives was an old term used in rural Scotland to describe a collection of several different ailments prone to affect children. A sickly child was described as being "hivie". If a small child died suddenly, especially if there was no obvious illness affecting it, it was said that hives had gotten around the child's heart. Apparently, one of the many old definitions of hives was what we know today as sudden infant death syndrome.

The fear that children were in danger of getting the hives and dying suddenly and the knowledge that precautions could be taken to prevent it no doubt saved many a parent from worry and assured them that they were doing the best they could for their children. In a world where there was no penicillin and the nearest physician was an hour long horseback ride away there was comfort, at least, in knowing that you were doing for your children what your parents had done for you. And so, an ancient tradition of Scotland survived and lived on in the hills of southern Appalachia. My grandmother, born in an era before science and medicine had found their way into her remote community, was trying to make sure that all precautions were taken to preserve my life just in case the pediatricians didn't really know what they were doing.

As far as I know, I never was subjected to the anti-hive ritual, unless of course my grandmother found a way to do it without my parent's knowledge. I have survived to middle age with the benefits of modern medicine at my disposal. Sometimes, though, I find that doctors just don't have the answer for everything and I rely on an old remedy that I learned from my grandmother to fix what is ailing me. They work for me just like they worked for her. I have many of her old remedies, her rules for planting and harvesting by the signs and other mountain lore that was handed down through countless generations, finally reaching her. But, I am saddened to know that there is much that she forgot before she could tell me and there is much that she never bothered to ask her parents because she thought some of their ways were too "old timey" to be important. I feel a loss knowing that I will never have these things.

My grandmother was pretty healthy by today's standards. She died in her sleep at the age of 93. Her mother died in her sleep too, at 96. They must have been doing something right.

A Note to our Readers: This article is about one tradition from one small community in Appalachia. Thousands of other family and community traditions still exist in the lives and memories of the people of this region. Sadly though, as the older people pass on and their children move away from rural communities to work in cities, the old ways of the past are disappearing. People today are often too busy or too uninterested to make an effort at learning about and preserving the traditions of their grandparents. Each one of us is a link in the chain. If we lose the connection to our past it will be the generations that come after us that will suffer. If you have knowledge of folklore or traditions in your family or community that you would like to share, contact us here at the Celtic Republic of Appalachia. We will mention them in future articles on the traditions of Appalachia and by doing so help in their survival. Help us keep tradition alive.