North Carolina: A Self-Portrait; N. C. Bicentennial Master I

North Carolina, a self-portrait, is a bicentennial project of WUNC in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves, their state, their families, their interest, and each other. Like this. There's also among blacks, particularly, but faith healing or the practice of a root doctor, so-called, is very important. In a sense, illness is not caused by sickness, by bacteria, by viruses, it's caused by the devil, and if you have the right potion or the right words said over you, or if your spirit is in the right place, then you may be cured, and that's still not widely practiced. It would be disservice to the state to say that many of its citizens still believed in

that kind of medical care. But among the very poorest members of the state who are not close to more modern forms of medical care, and even some of those who are near some of the medical centers, but who are very poor and who have been raised on a cultural understanding of illness and why people become sick. The root doctor and faith healing play a very important role in their lives. I praise for peoples to be healed, and I am gifted, and I'm also a prophet. And faith comes first, first is faith, and then healing. You got believed that God will heal you for you to be healed. You got to believe that, because if you doesn't believe that God cannot help you, he

cannot heal you. That comes to me, sometimes it comes to me for me to pray for him to be healed. They get sick, and later bronch her a little baby here. She came to the hospital, and the doctor sawed him away, and she carried him back again, and he gave him a little something to take, and they knew child no good. The child is I'm a clothesman who got here. She said the child wouldn't cry. She brought me, I put my hand up on him, because I put it on, and I prayed for him. When he did, he called for demon out of him. See, peoples that sickness ain't nothing but demons. And when that demon come out, he opened his eyes and went to plan, so he was healed. But it's God that does the healing, people can't heal you. Everybody don't have that gift. They may tell you they do, but they don't. It's not for everybody to pray for you.

Some people want it so bad, they'll go around and say they got it, and they're full of the devil, and when they pray for you, you will soften you before. The thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina are self-portrait. After the complete program, Wednesdays at 7 and Saturdays at 5 on W.U.N.C. Chapel Hill. North Carolina a self-portrait is a bicentennial project of W.U.N.C., in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves, their state, their families, their interest, and each other. Like this. I'm almost a folklore debunker. I think, for example, the story about how Nags had got his name, that records residing on the beach at Nags Head, and there were people certainly throughout the colonial period

and on into, certainly to the Civil War, and even up until comparatively recent times, who derived part of their income at least from what came ashore from wrecked vessels, including the vessels themselves. So the story is that they tried to lure vessels ashore, and the system they use was at night to get one of the beach ponies, the Nags, tie a ladder into its neck, and let it walk along the dunes close to the ocean. To a vessel at sea, this would look like the light hanging in the mast of a vessel bobbing at sea, or at anchor rather, and they would therefore head into what they thought was a safe anchorage and pile up on the beach. Then the records would kill the crew and steal the cargo, and this is a very popular story. It's also a very popular story throughout the Florida Keys, and it's also a very popular

story in Cuba, and elsewhere throughout the world, and there are, however, other stories as to the origin of Nags Head, which I think probably have more credence. One of them being that the headlands from the sound side, when the vacationists first came down here, and their early 1800s, are resembled a Nags Head. There is a story about the same time, too, that a man came here from England, who had patronized a Nags Head tavern in London, and gave the name to his habitation here, and there are others. I really have no idea which is true. The thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina are self-portrait. After the complete program, Wednesdays at seven, and Saturdays at five, on WNC Chapel Hill.

North Carolina, a self-portrait, is a bicentennial project of WNC, in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves, their state, their families, their interest, and each other, like this. Well, for over 300 years, there has been a legend attached to those woods over there, and this legend is still rife within this village. I know that my mother, as a girl, was told this story. My grandmother, as a girl, was told this story. My sister was told this story, and my sister was born and dead long before I ever came along. This story is the legend of teachers' light, and it's been handed down by the natives

of Stumpy Point Village in Deir County, North Carolina, for three centuries. Across the bay, which is an arm of Pamlico Sound, lies little dismal swamp. It's over this swamp that the light appears. According to legend, the light guards one of the many treasures buried by Edward Teach, Julius Blackbeard, the infamous pirate. The light is always seen in the same general location, sometime it hovers, sometime it bobbles, it is not seen with any regularity, nobody can foretell when it will appear, but when the atmosphere is especially clear, and the light has appeared, the light looms in glorious splendor over those woods over there. Youngsters and the oldsters alike see it, and when it does appear, we all watch it, and we wonder, well, we'll teach this light

just hover tonight, or we'll do a devil dance. The thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina are self-portrait. Here the complete program, Wednesdays at seven, and Saturdays at five, on WNC Chapel Hill. North Carolina, a self-portrait, is a bicentennial project of WNC, in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves, their state, their families, their interest, and each other, like this. Of course, in the case of ghost stories, you have to use a lot of editorial judgment because you will talk to two different people who saw the same ghost at the same time, and you may get two rather different versions of what took place. You have to, two people will see the same ghostly happening at the same instant, but they'll get quite different impressions

of what happened. There's an old story of a mountain here that's called the Bluff Mountain. Everybody always tells this one. The Bluff is a mountain. That's a few miles back. At that time, the only way to get on it, of course, was to walk up. At the top, it's a very flat, many acres and at one time, this old gentleman was supposed to be up there and he got greatly scared, but he never told anybody what scared him. This story was always told that he ran all the way. It would be like ten miles from his home, from the mountain to his home, and he told my grandfather what he saw. He said, if I leave ten days, you can tell what I am telling you, but if I die before that, don't tell it. On the ninth day, he died, and when he died, all the rocking chairs rocked. My students, I mean, I knew that. I thought I had the original

perfect version. It was supposed to be my grandfather, but then when they would tell it, a child by some other name, you know, another family, well, they always told it that it was their grandfather, so I think that's sort of a general H. County folk tale. Well, there's a Bluff out and up here. It's a beautiful place. Once upon a time, there's an old man by the name of Perkins, and my grandfather hadn't had some cattle up there, and my grandfather, and Perkins has to meet up and solve the cattle to do something. Perkins went before he did, and he got scared to death and ran off with her, and left the prince of his fingers on the fence rail, and got home, and they told my great grandfather, if

he lived ten days, he'd tell him how to scare him to death, but he died on the eighth day, and they said, every child in the house rocked when they died. You believe that tale? Well, it's been handed down. The thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina are self-portrait. Here the complete program Wednesdays at seven, and Saturdays at five, on W.U.N.C. Chapel Hill. North Carolina, a self-portrait, is a bicentennial project of W.U.N.C., in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves, their state, their families, their interest, and each other, like this.

North Carolina is really full of ghost stories. When I was a kid growing up, we used to have slumber parties, and of course that was the high point of the evening. We're telling all the ghost stories. There's the one about the light, I wish I could think it exactly so I'm probably tell you better, that is swings down. I think it's in the eastern part of the state. It's supposed to be in a railroad man that I think got hit in the light swings, and they haven't been able to figure out what it was. I read a book about the different phenomena in this area, and my husband said he went down there and actually saw it with the light swinging in the air, and he couldn't figure out where it came from either. Down at eastern part of the state where the trainman was supposed to have been killed by a train, and now the light goes up and down the track where he's carrying his lantern up and down the track, and you can still see it. I've not seen that, but I have seen the brown mountain lights, and I'm not so sure that there aren't a few things like that that aren't true, because I've seen the lights, and

for the chill bumps all over my body while I was watching them, they can give you quite a thrill. Well, if you stand, if I get the place right, it's a grandfather mountain, between grandfather and, and I believe it's grandmother mountain, there are two mountains that face each other, and in between them is Linville Gorge, which is a very, very wilderness area with snakes and boars and all kinds of things, and during a certain time of the year you can stand there looking across the grandfather and see the lights coming out of the mountain. Now, there are just little balls of light that dance around, and there are different colors, and no one can explain where they're coming from or why, and for years they thought they were reflected lights from the trains, but then they found out that in the Cherokee legend, the lights were there then when there were no trains. So they've done all kinds of research, and they really don't know where they come from, and of course there's always an old codger up there to tell you that they're ghost

and things coming out of the hills, so they're really quite exciting to see, and you have to play it right to see them, they don't come out for just anybody, I understand, you have to be there, especially on a cool summer evening, they'll be there. So if you want to see them, you'll have to plan it. By ghost to concern, modern man generally is just as fearful and just as credulous as where his medieval ancestors really I find, and as I talk to people, they have a great deal of respect for ghost as I do. We've learned to split the album, and we've been to the moon, but deep down inside of we tend to believe in ghosts. Nobody wants to become one, but we have not progressed educationally in sophistication to the point that we don't look and listen with respect for attention when ghost to concern.

The thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina are self-portrait. Here the complete program Wednesdays at 7 and Saturdays at 5 on WNC Chapel Hill. North Carolina a self-portrait is a bicentennial project of WNC in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves, their state, their families, their interest, and each other, like this. North Carolina is very as a rich, a great deal of story material in this state that has never been put to paper on or any other permanent form, recorded otherwise, and it should be because one day we're going to lose it, you know. Some of these stories can exist only so long being passed along by word of mouth, you eventually let somebody get busy

and get some permanent form somewhere, we may eventually lose some of it. Some old farmer when I was walking through his cotton field measuring it for compliance said, do you know how Bowweeville's got to North Carolina, and I said no, I never heard. He said, well, I'll tell you, we didn't have any Bowweeville's in North Carolina a few years ago, but they had lots of them down in Alabama and Georgia, and the farmers in Alabama and Georgia didn't like it because we were going to good cotton, and they said, you know what, when I'm dead, we're done, I guess he said, he picked himself a whole shoebox for the Bowweeville's, and he come up here and I seen him walking out through the field, scattering Bowweeville's in my cotton, and we've had him ever since. Well, I always like to look back to the stories that my father's mother, my grandmother used to tell me, she lived to be 94 years old, she was born in slavery and she grew up in slavery. And one of the most amazing things that she used to tell us was that when she was a little

girl when she was 7, 8, 9 years old, 10, she wanted, she had a tremendous desire to learn to read and write, however, the master, the slave master, their particular slave master did not allow any of those slaves to learn, it was strictly forbidden for slaves to even be caught reading a book on to read and write, and there's a very interesting commercial now, a public service announcement that's aired on most of the television stations here in the triangle area, the deals with that same story, it depicts the days when slaves were behind closed doors and Ella shanties and they were reading back candle lights and maybe some minister was teaching them and you hear the horses come up and they hit the books, this is the same thing my grandmother used to tell me when I was growing up, she wasn't allowed to read and write, she used to say they used to hold spelling matches in the cotton fields under tone, you know, maybe she would be in this role and maybe an adult that had

some expertise would be in another role but she would have been spelling lessons while she's picking cotton and the master was away. So much of our folklore and legends are going by the board when all folks like me die out unless somebody writes it down. The thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina are self-portrait. Hear the complete program Wednesdays at 7 and Saturdays at 5 on WNC Chapel Hill. North Carolina are self-portrait is a bicentennial project of WNC in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves, their state, their families, their interest and each other like this.

Having been brought up strongly, if I can use that term religious environment, my parents were very religious and I had to go to church all the time and I had to, you know, I believed but there's a funny thing that used to happen when I was a kid, you know, we'd be sitting in church on Sunday mornings and it seems like I would always have to be sitting next to my mother and if you're familiar with Southern Baptist, you know, in churches, you know, the people that they get the spirit and the shout, you know, and it's used to it to amaze me, you know, that people would shout every Sunday morning. So after a while I got to thinking and remember I got a little Mickey Mouse watch for Christmas and I just, I don't know how it started but once in the morning I looked at my watch and it was five minutes to 12 and the sisters and the brothers over in the corner got up

and started shouting, right? They got the spirit, anything and thing about that, next Sunday morning I looked at my watch, five minutes to 11, they got up and they started shouting, so this went on for about a month, I guess about four or five Sundays and it was falling to pattern. So I told my mother, I said, you know, it's funny thing but the sisters over there get the spirit every Sunday morning at five minutes to 11, right on time, you know, she didn't give me any explanation about that. So I found myself every Sunday morning at five minutes to 11, I would hunch my mother and point to my Mickey Mouse watch and the sisters would jump up and she would pinch me and I think I got punished more for my Sunday morning clockwork than church but we went to Sunday school, went to church on Sunday, we go to church on Sunday night, we go to Bible school in the summer. So I think I had a pretty nice religious upbringing.

However, since I become a adult, you know, thinking for myself, which I have, I'm leery about most things that I suppose to be, black churches, I can say for black churches because I've been to black churches all over the world and I think black churches are more commercialized now than before like when I was coming up as a young fella. Actually it was then and I didn't know it but thinking back, I don't ever recall the minister dealing with local and civic affairs, he was strictly dealing with the word of the Lord and that's what I think churches should be all about. However, nowadays, and well, it's a history of black religion that black churches are the foundation of the black revolution or they're really the spokesman for the black community.

Most, I know all the people now, they could listen to a newscast on a Friday night and before forming an opinion or even discuss it, they'll wait to hear what their minister has to say Sunday morning and they will agree with that. It's normally Kingston in black community and black churches, but black churches have always, and I guess they're still, I know they're still, playing that role in the black community as the leader of the black community, the menaces, ideologies, also those of the black community have, I always said that I thought churches should not be that commercial but they have performed that service for the black community for so many years or who

am I to say this is wrong, but when I go to church, whenever I do, I like to go to where they're preaching the word of the Lord using the church as what I think it was meant to be. The thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina are self-portrait. Hear the complete program Wednesdays at 7 and Saturdays at 5 on WNC Chapel Hill. North Carolina, a self-portrait, is a bicentennial project of WNC in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves, their state, their families, their interest, and each other, like this.

It is an interesting thing that unfortunately urban areas do not have the law or folklore or whatever else that a rural area does, I know students always like to go talk to granny who lives in the mountains to learn about her experience as a young girl and it seems romantic and exciting. And somebody who has a grandmother that grew up in the city, they don't want to talk to you, a big deal that grew up in the city, it doesn't sound quite as romantic, but I think there might be a lot there we just haven't uncovered it yet. At 4 I had a job, I remember that, I had a job at 4, my job was to dress up and walk down to the post office and have my hands canceled, it was very busy. I would walk in and the man behind the area there, it wasn't the postmaster, just one of the clerks would see me coming in and I'm mother's sixth child, you know, so we'd say there comes Kourme's last flapper and I'd walk in and I'd put my hands up on the counter, I couldn't look over the counter but I'd reach up like that and he'd cancel

that when I turn around and walk on, I was very busy at 4, very busy and I had to watch a lot of people. My father was a Republican politician up in Davidson County and where Republicans were not unheard of and my father had this deep, deep love for the state of North Carolina and he used to tell us five kids that North Carolina was the greatest state in the union and not only that but it was the only state in the union where the air was fit to breathe and I remember that he would take us on trips to Raleigh and to Moehead City where the politicians gathered in the early days and the old Atlantic hotel down there and he never went outside the state if he could avoid it unless it were to Washington and his political interests drew him there and I recall that on the train we would be in Readsville going

north and the next stop was Danville in Virginia and my father would come where we were sitting very frightened at the rushing of the train and he would say now you children you draw good deep breaths because we are getting ready to cross the state line into Virginia where it is very difficult to breathe and we didn't so we pulled in and drew in our breath because we figured that we would be as fixated as soon as we cross the state line well that's just the sort of story which I was that I tell to illustrate my father's enormous love for this state and it was really years before I found out that it was equally possible to breathe in Virginia and South Carolina as it was in North Carolina.

With thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina a self-portrait here the complete program Wednesdays at seven and Saturdays at five on WNC Chapel Hill. North Carolina a self-portrait is a bicentennial project of WNC in which the people of North Carolina talk about themselves their state their families their interest and each other like this do other people around here still tell tales like that I mean when you talk like that I know you grew up talking to other people and your parents and your grandparents I'll bet told stories like that yeah are there still other people like that for you to talk to no there's not a person here now that uh that I know of on the on the place that uh that likes to sit down and talk about hunting and fishing like I do they don't

think in talk at where because they don't have time and okay until about 30 years ago there was a marble yard right behind this block had lights so growing me and could shoot marbles the night game called ring me and marbles are almost as big as billion balls about the size of snooker balls if you know playing games that's a little bit different from kind of marbles it sure and play but this was an adult game I believe I said it had lights so you could play it night it always slice melons or peaches or something well they were all sorts of business and professional man who four gathered from 10 o'clock in the morning at 10 o'clock at night shoot marbles most of them wouldn't be able to do that today because they've got an appointment they're uptight about their balls the supervisor but these people didn't

give a damn shooting marbles was more important than uh something else you see and of course to talk me had they not been had this not been a forum and arena the marble game would have faded and it took the food, booze and a talk to perpetuate marbles and these people who are outrageous are who really need their own thing are gone and as I say I doubt that they could cut it if they were here today because they are cannibals somebody else you see they're not free agents in the sense that these people were the thoughts of North Carolinians from North Carolina a self-portrait here the complete program Wednesdays at seven and Saturdays at five on WNC Chapel Hill.