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Kevin and all,
I'm not sure how best to do this, but I'm going to try to address YOUR points, while keeping both previous posts intact (from yours). To do that I will separate my NEW comments and responses by lines of XXX's. That will help to keep the related thoughts together and more in context. CCC
KEVIN SAID THE FOLLOWING COMMENT WITHOUT* QUOTATION MARKS:
First, I appreciate your well thought-out post, and the respectful way in which you present your views. It's hard to know where to start in replying, so I'll just address your comments using parts of your post;
CURTIS SAID THE NEXT COMMENT *WITH* QUOTATION MARKS:
"It's an even bigger problem to try to prove the null hypothesis wrong."
I also completely understand your views about "proof by lack of evidence", and have encountered that attitude many times myself. I do think we've all been guilty of this at one time or another, and to tell the truth, I'll show how this applies to your views as well.
[new response from Curtis]
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There is a place for scholarly speculation based--in part--on the LACK of something showing up where it might be expected ... in the case of a WORD, the lack of it showing up in a certain place at a certain time may be an indication that it hadn't yet been accepted, or of its complete rejection, or an indication that it hadn't yet reached that place at that time, or that it had already come and gone, or that it had become taboo, or that it was too sacred to be uttered ... including the possibility that the word may have been a "secret word" spoken only to other members of a select group. For example, here’s a quote regarding problems in American Indian education: “In some communities, especially among the Pueblos, the language or some stories in the language are not shared with outsiders or unqualified persons.” http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/stabilize/iv-education/
Consider this quote: “Hunters’ societies educate their initiates in the knowledge of control over the wilderness, which involves extensive training in occult medicine. But this esoteric knowledge is not shared with outsiders, and secret knowledge becomes an important factor in the relationship of hunters to non-initiates [i.e., to outsiders]. From: In Search of Sunjata: The Mande Oral Epic as History, Literature and Performance, Ralph A. Austen, 2000.
The Jews didn’t allow the name of God to be uttered OR written with its vowels, because it was too sacred. The word for God’s name was like the burning bush, a symbol. When Abraham looked at God he was only allowed to see the back of him … or the brightness would have blinded him. So the word representing God’s name was treated with similar reverence. And that was INTERNAL to the people. How many precious words and songs, stories, and names for each other were not shared with OUTSIDERS?
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Curtis, again, etc.:
"People talk about "scientific" ways of approaching the issue of Melungeon origins, but then set up false foundations for the "research" ... or for whether or not they will consider that either there are other explanations OR whether they should give up on the dearly held and compelling belief. Circular arguments abound, and people--like yourself, Kevin--and I have great respect for you--get so used to an idea being true, they they don't stop to question whether or not it is, in fact, true, after all."
Kevin, again, etc.:
I agree with Virginia DeMarce when she stated that genealogy was the best tool for Melungeon research. I believe one should work backwards from the known to the unknown. To start at 1618 and jump forward can lead to faulty conclusions, which mirrors what Brent did with his theory. You can take any historical event and appear to connect the dots when you leave a gap of 200 years in between. This is the problem with Kennedy's stranded Turks hypothesis, and this is the problem with the Melungu theory. I could use the historical fact that there were Mullinses on the Mayflower and insist that these were the Mullinses that ended up on Newmans Ridge if there was nothing to indicate otherwise, but that wouldnt make it a fact. A proper technique would be to take a family or an individual, for example Vardy Collins, who was without a doubt a Melungeon, and trace him back, to see that he owned land, voted, had high standing in his community, etc. (Vardy's better documented than most non-Melungeon individuals!) This type of research, by people like DeMarce and J Goins, has been used to shatter the old stereotypes and beliefs that have been long held about Melungeons. To start with an historical event and speculsate ahead is building the false foundation you're refering to. One must force themself to either ignore contrary evidence or use speculation to make the puzzle pieces fit using the latter method.
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The problem with a “genealogy-only” approach [or a “science-only” approach] is that it limits common sense and the lessons of history, the knowledge of human nature, and the realities of how people respond in particular kinds of situations from being permitted to “fill in the gaps.” That leads to lots of loose bricks, stacked too high to withstand wind and shifting sand beneath.
We have plenty of knowledge about how humans react to change, to prejudice, to being isolated, alienated, and made to live in fear, suddenly deprived of their own culture, their rights, their familiar implements and food, etc.
Read the following article about the “Black Jews” from Ethiopia, who were “repatriated” to Israel some years ago—creating new racial discrimination problems and challenging the Israeli people in many new ways. One issue is that they were noticeably darker than Sephardic Jews, and that they have obvious African ancestry. One factor that was known but not given much credence before the Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel is that many generations ago, the Jews in Ethiopia had African slaves. Many of those slaves converted to Judaism, and their generations married in with the families of their former masters—since the tie of being Jewish carried much greater weight than “ethnicity” or “color.” So the complexion of the Jewish community in Ethiopia tended to become as dark as that of their neighbors. Read the paper at the link. See what we know about such things. Is this not science, also? Can’t we use THIS and many other “sciences” to fill in the gaps and act as the mortar for this history we are building?
http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/journal_of_folklore_research/v040/40.1salamon.html
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"For example, you state that the Melungeons of old did not call themselves that name / word ... or that there is no evidence that they did. But I have stated elsewhere (on Joanne's Research List) that, in fact, there IS evidence that they did."
Perhaps I worded my views to have left them open for misinterpretation. My view is that the evidence is overwhelming that the people called Melungeons did not self-identify by that term, and furthermore resented it altogether, not that there's no evidence that they didnt use the term themselves. There are MANY relevant sources which empahtically stated that the Melungeons did not like to be called that, and even in the 1840 article, the two individuals who called each other Melungeons did so as insults. I would like to see the evidence that you're refering to. If you'd like, I'll follow up with examples of my point of view.
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I assert again that not only is the evidence NOT overwhelming that they didn’t use the term, but—in fact—there IS no evidence of the kind. There’s that proving the null problem again. On the other hand, I believe that the existence of the term Melungu in the Portuguese language … as an acknowledged borrowed word from the Angolans, and the fact that we KNOW the Angolans were brought here, etc., and that we have certainly sufficient evidence that some of them were involved in the development of key Melungeon family lines … even if Goins is the only one that every shows it, that the fraternization among the lines, the close connections kept that led to them continually moving along together, marrying back and forth, etc., PROVES that they started out very early with a kind of familial connection that wasn’t necessarily by blood, per se, but by the kind of connection that the work Melungu implies. Given the way the term is used …. Which is more or less the way “Paisan” is used by expatriate Italians and Italian Americans, etc., and that EVENTUALLY it started being recorded by people who lived around the Melungeons ABOUT the Melungeons makes it clear that the expression developed from one that was spoken in some kind of community solidarity for generations … perhaps even beyond the last memory of the truth … as a friendship, comraderie, and familial tag to the ties that bound the group together for at least 200 years … beginning long BEFORE people started writing down the expression that the group was called. Furthermore, it is not reasonable to believe that the term spontaneously appeared and was accepted AS THE ACTUAL NAME FOR THE GROUP unless it was first used casually enough for outsiders to hear it and understand that it WAS their name, so that they (the outsiders who knew them) could agree sufficiently on what—and who—was MEANT by the use of the term when it was said and written down by them ABOUT the Melungeons. That is, the outsiders must first have gotten sufficiently used to it and confident in its application to be able to use it ON PAPER without explanation as to the origin … other than idle speculation by some of those repeating what they’d read (i.e., about “mélange, etc.). But some who wrote the word down DO give a huge hint when they say this same group whose name they have just used are Portuguese – given that—even if they WERE Portuguese—those folks would have been separated from their Portuguese forebears for generations. We KNOW that they were said to speak a kind of Elizabethan English with archaic English expressions … but only one word regarding them remains that had a Portuguese slant … and that was a Portuguese word borrowed from the Angolans. If they had actually BEEN Portuguese descendants (i.e., of grandparents from Portugal, say), their language would have been littered with Portuguese expressions and they would certainly not have continued to bear the English accent. But if they came here with little knowledge of Portuguese, and what they knew accented in their own dialect, SPEAKING NO ENGLISH … then they would have learned their English from those for and with whom they lived and worked in Virginia (or the Carolinas). When did the British speak Elizabethan English? In the very early period of the Colonies. Who is Virginia named after? The Virgin Queen. True, she was dead by 1619, but the influence of the language and accent of the court on the first settlers—in the southern colonies, at least—would have been profound … so that any African indentured to those colonists would have learned the language that way. And if they stayed relatively insular and isolated in their own groups .. speaking the Indian tongues with the Indians, and maybe their own among themselves for a while, they could have still maintained the manner of talking of the colonists by the time they hit the radar screen in the 1840’s or so. AND, for the same reasons, they would have continued in their way or addressing each other … just as the Shaker, Quakers, and Mennonites continued in their unusual speech … using Thee and Thou in one case, and German expressions in the other.
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"The fact that they are not recorded as having used the expression is meaningless. Furthermore, there is ALSO no record attesting to the idea that others who used the expression did NOT get it from them ... much less that they got it from "the French," from the Turks, from the Arabs, from the Armenians, or from old English in the form of "malengine.""
It's ironic that you would use the Null Hypothesis after pointing out it's meaninglessness and the difficulty to disprove it. Since early writers on Melungeons stated that they did not like the word, the lack of evidence otherwise would bolster that case, imo.
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That’s not what I am saying. I am simply pointing out that you can’t, on the one hand, attempt to rule out the African origin because of a lack of written evidence, while continuing to cling to every other etymological grab bag without applying the same standard. But whereas the “may be from mélange” comment is OBVIOUSLY an opinion, the Melungu origin follows the illiterate Angolans across the sea, and through the Gap. AND it is an origin about which NONE of the writers would have had ANY opinion since they knew neither Portuguese or Angolan … much less the history of the Melungeon’s trek from the coastal regions to the ridges. HAD they known any one of the three, their opinions would surely have addressed the expression Melungu or, at least, the possibility of the word originating in Africa rather than coming from French! Even Dutch would make more sense because the Dutch briefly had control of Angola. But—in spite of goofy arguments from Francophiles—there is no serious relationship between the Melungeons OR their neighbors and the French. Yes, there was one family that was French, and maybe those who worked for them, but could one family, in one generation have labeled all the groups, and across that span to distance and time? Please be serious.
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"Yes, there are negative comments recorded about the Melungeons, and yes, "malengine" and all the other supposed word origines--none of which is related to the other--all have some kind of negative connotation. Only one has a positive connotation."
Which word origin has positive connotations?
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Melungu.
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"Do you think for a minute there weren't people who wanted Vardy Collin's natural spring? What are some of the ways they mught have used to get it away from him? How would he have had to act to protect his resources and family? Why? Because he was someone of some different origin? Or, more specifically, because he was perceived by some--in spite of the cover story--as being at least part-Black?"
Perhaps, but this is total specualtion without evidence of
any actual attempts to deprive Vardy of his rights and property. Vardy's trial for illegal voting does not tell what his defense was, but it does show that he was aquitted, and the wealth of documentation on him shows his respected standing in the community. Again, it is not Null Hypothesis to point out the lack of evidence of legal prejudice towards Vardy when a situatiuon has been alternately hypothesised.
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I’m not saying that Vardy faced a particular legal threat to his property, but that ALL Melungeons were aware that such a threat existed dating to the very early changes to the law in Virginia and the other colonies, with respect to people of African descent. ALL of them would have been on their guard, ALL the time. The cover story was a STANDING way out of any predicament related to the question of whether or not their dark complexions were due to African heritage or not.
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"Now you (collectively) say that the word, itself, was one that depicted them as dirty, mangy, liars, etc., and that even the word that stuck with them was really only an insult. Why do you say it? BECAUSE THEY DENIED THE WORD ABOUT THEMSELVES."
I didnt say the word depicted them that way, I said the word was often USED in contemporary accounts in such a way as to suggest an outlaw image. Sort of like "poor dark trash".
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Well, that’s what I mean, too.
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"And yet--from the discussions over the last few days--it is clear and obvious why they would NOT want to be labeled in ANY way that might jeopardize any aspect of their rights or freedom. So that if the word "Melungeon" had morphed into a perjorative, they would certainly have wanted to disavow it. Wouldn't they."
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the record indicates that they enjoyed rights and priveledges that others in the area enjoyed and with the exception of the 1844 illegal voting charges, there's no record of any attempt to deprive them of those rights.
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that’s not true. There were changes to the laws—local or colony-wide dating back to the late 1600’s and 1700’s, that made intermarriage illegal, for example, and it impossible to inherent land, etc. those cases and laws have been discussed before. Joanne and Jack are certainly up on the list.
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"The word did not merely "follow them," they brought it with them. Then others perverted it, turning it into a derisive term that they needed to shed to avoid the problems associated with it once it began to be enunciated and repeated by outsiders. Outsiders didn't make the name up, but outsiders ruined it."
With all due respect, Curtis, this is pure speculation, with no evidence to back it up. Its very likely that the word is a provencialism that was found only in the mid-Appalachian region until it caught on to a wider usage through publicity. Why werent all the other similar racial groups called Melungeons?
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I don’t think it’s speculative, at all. There is just a bias against the view that makes one tend to want to dismiss the evidence (see above). The bias, sadly, stems from the original bias that made the cover story necessary in the first place … that is, racism.
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"You have the evidence of the origin as a word from the language of the Portuguese colony from which slaves were taken ... FROM WHICH THE FIRST AFRICANS IN THE BRITISH COLONIES CAME FROM. You KNOW this. You know the Portuguese took the word from those people, and you know that the word was used here ... for decades as an "inside" word, used in the way of the MEANING of the word: "Shipmate," "Comrade," "Mate," "Countryman," and "Fellow-Traveller." No one wrote it down BECAUSE THEY DID NOT WRITE. But once they got away from Coastal Virginia, when they thought it was safe, before the threat of some of the laws that came along, they let their guard down and outsiders heard them use the word. Some married in with outsiders. The word became known. It was repeated, used ABOUT them, and finally used AGAINST them."
Again, this is all speculation and nobody KNOWs any of this. These same arguments can be used in support of Kennedy's theories, as well as others. Without being able to connect the dots between the Portuguese/Angolan arrival and it's earliest KNOWN documented usage in 1813, this is another theory that's unproven, though I'll say it does warrant serious consideration and more research.
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they are by no means the same arguments. Kennedy had an incomplete grasp of an historical event, and before he knew the truth he had already committed to a view that he apparently had difficulty changing later … or he simply decided not to change. In any case, his sorry tale is far, far different and based on a wisp of a piece of lint floating on a sunbeam. The Melungo / Angolan origin is strong and sensible.
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"Kevin, you say that they "DID NOT self-identify by that word." And yet you have absolutely NO evidence that is true. None whatsoever. The evidence that they DID use it and, indeed, brought it with them, is contained in the word, itself, and is a direct reflection back to where the old man at the head of each family came from ... as well as the fact that the word was SO meaningful and in such use that the Portuguese, themselves, ended up borrowing it ... NOT because they needed to invent a new word, but because they KEPT HEARING IT, and understood what it meant. So well did it convey the meaning of "Comrade," etc., that the Portuguese simply adopted it."
Early accounts of Melungeons maintained consistantly that they did not use the name to apply to themselves. I dont understand how you can be so persistant about a percieved lack of evidence there, while maintaining that an obscure word survived for hundreds of years while showing NO evidence at all of it's usage before 1813.
One biting question I must ask is why would they retain the tribal name while discarding the tribal identity?
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Remember that most all the families were closely allied with some of the surrounding bands of Indians ... thenselves of mixed heritage. The best decritions of the Melungeons indicate that they had darker skin but apparently straight hair. That traight seems clearly one they would have inherited from their Indian blood--and not from African OR Portuguese ancestry. The degree to which they had been "tribal" back in Angola would have been greatly moderated already in Angola by the very effective efforts of the Portuguese priests. You can read about the conversion of the tribe in question. To get some idea, see:
http://www.sonairsarl.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/c0/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gDC2NnH0NjAxdHA38Pb1PDUAsjAwjQL8h2VAQAwgmNmQ!!/
on that page, do an EDIT, FIND ON THIS PAGE ... "Resisting Colonization" and "Settlement of the Colony" and you can get some idea.
There was already a de-tribalization inherent in both the converstion of the African kingdoms, and in the steady influence of the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch. By the time the 20-and-odd and later arrivals got here, they were already very familiar with Portuguese ways--PLUS they had been captured and held by the Portuguese, then shipped out by them--all the time in their custody, split away from their families, and shown only the Portuguese example. When they got here, there was another kind of tribe--the Indians--and the Melungeon forebears appear to have latched onto the Indians' way of life to some extent, while continuing to become more and more westernized so as to maintain a separate identity ... NOT British or White, but something of a hybrid between African, Indian, and European ... keeping the best, shedding the rest. But I maintain that ONE of the things they brought and KEPT and which acted as a unifying and binding tie ... was the that word the Portuguese heard them use so often that they even adopted it into their own language: Melungo ... eventualy morphing into Melungeon ... probably taking the form of the word for their American Indian counterparts: In'jin >>> in like manner Melun'jin ...Melun'jun ... Melungeon.
You will say, of course, that I have no hard evidence that any of that is true. Well, please note that ...
... One well-known athiest [whose name I will not utter out of spite] made the folllowing observation about God [whose name the ancient Jews were forbidden to utter]: "Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. "
Of course the athiest uses the lack of certain kinds of evidence of God's presence as PROOF that God doesn't exist. I suspect that very few of us on this list accept that reasoning about God. The fact that a child was allowed to die, or that a horrible earthquake killed 50,000 people in China, that a dam burst and many were drown -- all apparently without the intervention of God -- does NOT prove that God does not exist. Most of us would reason that God DID intervene in different ways, giving comfort, protecting some, etc. And we would immediately refer to out beliefs as to why suffering happens to good people, about how sin came into the world, about how things are being allowed to play out ... but that God's mercy will be shown in the end, and although we look through a glass darkly now, we will understand it better, by and by. That is to say, we do NOT allow the lack of certain kinds of evidence to serve as "the evidence of absence" in some cases. SOME things we take on faith .... and NOT only about God. We have faith in breathing, in our hearts beating. We have faith in our loved ones ... in spite of the bad performance of some people we read and hear about, and even in spite of out loved ones OWN bad behavior in the past. That is, we are able to suspend our disbelief in the service of believing IN SPITE of a lack of evidence ... AND we are willing to look for and codify a rationale for continuing to believe in the face of lacking evidence BECAUSE SOMETHING INSIDE TELLS US IT IS TRUE. This level of inquery is too often left off of the scientist's list of "how to conduct research" ... and yet, when you listen to scientists explain how they got the inspiration for their discovery, again and again they say things like "it came to me in a dream," "I saw an insect crawling along and it did somethong with its wings that reminded me...," "A child said something to me and it caused me to think ...," "I found this piece of newspaper that had blown up against my fence where I was out in the yard, and there was a part of a story that led to to do a Google search which, in turn, led me to ...," "I remembered something that my Grandfather told me when I was a child," and so forth. All are mysteries and not "scientific, at all." All are examples of the wonders of the mind and the way things work together to make pieces collected over a vast expanse of time, fit in place at the precise moment where the "hunch" can lead to gold ... and where the discovery can serve a higher purpose, propelling us forward.
We all know and accept this kind of intervention as not only possible, but likely IF WE ARE OPEN TO IT. But, admittedly, it's not the kind of thing you cal PLAN for, nor does something in the realm of the "unexplainable" always happen. So it's not "scientific" because it is not replicable.
STILL ... we are talking about FAMILY issues, and family issues are NOT always subject to scientific solutions ... AS WE ALL KNOW. Here you are, someone who PRAYS for intervention to get your son or daughter to come to their senses, to make your grandchild well, to reawaken the fire in your marriage, to help you to forgive your father or mother, to help them forgive you, or accept your mate ... and you are open to and constantly seeking intervention in your lives on these family matters. I am tellling you that the matter of genealogy IS, fundamentally, a FAMILY MATTER, and that in the blood, somehow, down through the generations, are inklings and sparks that lead us and keep us from being able to forget the ancestors. AND ALL OF YOU KNOW IT ... ALL OF YOU HAVE FELT IT. All of you have been LED to find someone ... NOT by a ghost, not in some witchy-way ... but by some otherworldly sense of "this is right, that isn't" owing to whatever other than biology is passed down from parent to child--whether in the blood or one it, around it, through it, or as a reflection of it. SOMETHING CLINGS. And it calls to you and tells you whether this or that path of enquiry is valid and will be fruitful, or is a lie and nothing to do with us. "He who has ears, let him hear." "To each are given gifts." Some more than others. Sensing science is a gift. Inspiration and perspiration, remember? True, mostly its perspiration, but you simply can't discount the INSPIRATION ... especially not "in the name of science" ... since ALL science has benefitted by the magnetism of inspiration. ALL science. Including the science of genealogy. And you all know that already.
So, after reading this, close your eyes and ponder it --> Slaves captured in the Atlantic, taken from the Portuguese, brought to Jamestown. What happened to them and their offspring. Who did they become after serving their indentures? What would they have done in response to the threats against them because of their origins? Would they have stayed in a loose group of comrades, shipmates and fellow travellers--people connected by some tissue of relatedness ... the only ones they could trust and count on to watch each others' backs? Would they influence each other for generations, and move together until, at last they belended in with their neighbors so well, and the truth of their origins had been so well dispatched, that they could let go of each other and drift into the mainstream?
But then--and here's the thing we should all be wondering about--after having let go and drifted apart ... no longer NEEDING the protection that the group provided ... explain how and why they are all coming back together now? What distant bugle calls us to this formation, back into ranks of our little army, reforming ... back-to-back after the battle was already won? Why are you here now? reading this?
Somethings encompass science. Some are beyond it. The absence of external evidence does not preclude the presence and reality of internal evidence ... no matter how "unscientific" it may appear to some. Science can be a crutch or a filter if you let it. Or it can assist you up to and even through the doors it cannot explain ... or explain away.
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"Since I know who you are, Kevin, I am surprised that you--of all the active Melungeon researchers--would deny the African ancestor, too. But, hey! Who am I to judge?"
I do not deny African ancestry for Melungeon families, my opinion is that it's a given, like their European ancestry is. I do doubt very seriously that there is a common origin for all families identified as such, including any notion that they all collectively came on a slave ship, pirate ship, etc. That being said, I do think there's a pretty good case made that the Goins family may have originated in Angola. Unproven, but compelling. To speculate that every Melungeon family has the same history is a mistake in my opinion, whatever their ancestry holds. I'm not saying that's your position Curtis, just stating my opinion. The gist of this debate centers on the origins of the word "Melungeon", which has long been at the top of the unanswered questions regareding these people. I still dont think anyones come close to solving this question, the one real "mystery" pertaining to the subject.
Thanks for the oppurtunity for this exchange of views, Curtis and I look forward to seeing the post that you mentioned. Feel free to clarify or expand on any of your views, or make any points you feel like making. Regards, Kevin
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The thanks is mutual.
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Curtis friend9
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