Their Characteristics

              From: Thompson, The Highlanders of the South ( 1910)
THEIR CHARACTERISTICS
IF you should see a man make the sign of the cross before eating you would not need to
ask his religion; if you should hear him say “ hadn’t ought a done that,” or “ Cunnel
Johnson, suh, of Geo’gia,” you would at once recognize his home section. In the same
way would you know the mountain man by the way he talks, acts, and has his being.
It does not seem out of place to put loyalty as the first of the characteristics by which a
man of the Southern Appalachians should be known. He may not have any Indian blood
in his veins, but loyalty, to him, can have but one meaning, and that never to forget either
friend or foe. Likes and dislikes without any logical reason save that of an unreasoning
prejudice have cost many a man his county office and many a church its opening wedge
into a community needing the influence only a church could give. It is an old saying that
if a mountaineer likes you he will die for you, and if he dislikes you you will in all
probability die for him. The writer fears this is all too true. Many a time has this loyal
mountaineer been known to travel miles on foot, enduring severe cold and pain and often
hunger, to warn a friend thought to be in danger. Doubtless he would be just as zealous in
the pursuit of an enemy. He has been known to divide his last morsel of food with a
wayfaring man, be he stranger or acquaintance. What greater loyalty could one find
anywhere?
He is essentially a man of the woods, and prefers that his surroundings be such. “ Store
clothes” may have come to many of these people, but the real mountain man prefers his
“ double Dutch breeches” and his brogan shoes tied with ground- hog hide; while his wife,
warm- hearted soul that she is, wants her “ linsey- worsted” basque- and- overskirt set off
with a little “ breakfast shawl” and a large kerchief bound over her head. Glowing colors
appeal to the hardy and simple- hearted mountaineers almost as much as to the aboriginal
tribes on other continents of which we hear so much from traders and travelers. You often
see the mountain youth with a red handkerchief about his neck, and if it is silk in quality
and deep red in color he is more the envy of his fellows. Not less pleasing are these fast
colors to the feminine part of the inhabitants, bright red and deep blue being their favorite
colors. If you doubt this just examine the calicoes and notions in a mountain country
store. It often matters not whether the colors are fast or merely passing. The present show
is sufficient to sell the goods, and that is all for which either the merchant or the customer
seems to care. Shirts, trousers, coat, shoes, socks, and hat constitute the wardrobe of the
average Southern mountaineer. Very few of them wear underclothes. They are hardy, and
nearly all of them have early in life been subjected to some kind of hardening process so
that they do not mind what many of us would term severe hardships.
Unkemptness, to coin a word, would perhaps be another characteristic of this son of the
forest. The longer he wears his hair, and the more un- combed, the more of a mountain
man is he. Just a few weeks ago the writer saw a mountaineer come in astride of one of
four mules drawing a lumber wagon. On his head was the characteristic black slouch hat
covering long, flowing locks of hair as black as the hat. His face had not seen razor or
scissors in months. Would you be surprised to know that this man is a mountain