20/10/2005
stampa
invia
The history of the first American colonials is almost comforting: they were Anglo-Saxons
looking for their fortune, and for some escaping persecution in their homeland,
and thanks to them the America of today was born. An adventure full of tribulations,
but one with a happy ending. The majority of pioneers were white, Christian and
northern European. But it’s exactly for this that in the New World old prejudices
also found their place. A developing society that through the course of centuries
brought together immigrants from every continent, yet those that were different
have been systematically marginalised. Segregation of Afro-Caribbean’s is well
known. Those that are “different” were not categorised by racial means. It wasn’t
obvious like with the others. It didn’t effect the same number of people. But
just because of this it was no less cruel. And still today, in an out of the way
zone in the Appalachian mountains that stretch between Eastern Tennessee, Kentucky
and Virginia, there are those that can tell the story.
Breaking a taboo. Wayne Winkler, Melungeon from his mother’s side, is a man that for the last
ten years has been working to reclaim an identity that has been negated for the
last two centuries. Challenging the indifference of the elders that say to the
young: “If you had had to suffer the discrimination that we did, you wouldn’t
be so proud today.” In 1995 Winkler founded the Melungeon Heritage Association. The same year he organised a meeting of those that had the same origins. “I
expected fifty or so people, but six hundred came. The following year, two thousand.”
Winkler remembers the first time he heard that terrible word. “I was 12 years
old, I was in a shop with my brother and my grandmother, a Melungeon. At a certain
point a client called her a ‘black squaw,’ a double insult because to call an
Indian woman a squaw is like calling her a prostitute. That evening I asked my
father what Melungeon meant, he took me aside and explained. But the discussion
was taboo in my family.”
Where they come from. The origins the Melungeons is still unclear. The only sure thing was discovered
by Winkler, it was the first documented use of this name in 1813. The term could
have six different meanings, none of which are positive. There’s the possibility
that it’s derived from the French mélange, mixture. From the Greek melos, black. From the Portuguese melungo, sailor. From the Arabic, melunjinn or the Turkish meluncan, “dammed soul”. Or from the ancient English melengine, malicious. Words all of different origins, each one supports hiss theory. Winkler
has written a book on the topic, he believes that the first Melungeons were Portuguese
sailors from the era of the great explorers (and, therefore, also North African,
Indian). Another Melungeon author, Brent Kennedy, in his two books on the origins
of this community looks towards Anatolia. But he’s talking about late Fifteen
hundreds, Sixteen hundreds. Documents don’t exist that would give a precise identification.
The only accepted fact is, that from wherever they came, these pioneers settled
in the poorest rural zones of the Appalachians –a land only useful for small stock
farming and subsistence agriculture, certainly not for plantations- and here they
integrated more easily with the other “differents”: the black slaves and the native
Americans. A kind of union between the marginalised. It has given birth to a mixture
that Winkler and Kennedy call “tri-racial.”
stampainvia
A journey through the lands of the Melungeons
The history of the first American colonials is almost comforting: they were Anglo-Saxons
looking for their fortune, and for some escaping persecution in their homeland,
and thanks to them the America of today was born. An adventure full of tribulations,
but one with a happy ending. The majority of pioneers were white, Christian and
northern European. But it’s exactly for this that in the New World old prejudices
also found their place. A developing society that through the course of centuries
brought together immigrants from every continent, yet those that were different
have been systematically marginalised. Segregation of Afro-Caribbean’s is well
known. Those that are “different” were not categorised by racial means. It wasn’t
obvious like with the others. It didn’t effect the same number of people. But
just because of this it was no less cruel. And still today, in an out of the way
zone in the Appalachian mountains that stretch between Eastern Tennessee, Kentucky
and Virginia, there are those that can tell the story.
The origins of the name. Melungeons. An etymologically bastardised word, not pure, like the origins of those that
it has labelled. It’s the name that baptised a small agricultural community, that
no-one -not even themselves- knows where it came from. White but olive skinned,
for sure not White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Turkish? Maybe. Descendants of Portuguese or North African sailors? Could be.
Europeans mixed with African slaves and Native American tribes? Very probable.
In the rigid racial separation between whites and blacks of the Eighteen hundreds,
the Melungeons were indecipherable. They were a closed society, still today their
descendants all have the same surnames: Collins, Mullins, Gibson, and Goins. They
didn’t have the same rights as whites. They didn’t want to be aligned with blacks.
Up until the point they became of type of “American gypsy.” Seen as shady, unreliable,
and unable to assimilate. “If you’re not good, the Melungeons will come and take
you away,” white mothers would say to their naughty children.
Breaking a taboo. Wayne Winkler, Melungeon from his mother’s side, is a man that for the last
ten years has been working to reclaim an identity that has been negated for the
last two centuries. Challenging the indifference of the elders that say to the
young: “If you had had to suffer the discrimination that we did, you wouldn’t
be so proud today.” In 1995 Winkler founded the Melungeon Heritage Association. The same year he organised a meeting of those that had the same origins. “I
expected fifty or so people, but six hundred came. The following year, two thousand.”
Winkler remembers the first time he heard that terrible word. “I was 12 years
old, I was in a shop with my brother and my grandmother, a Melungeon. At a certain
point a client called her a ‘black squaw,’ a double insult because to call an
Indian woman a squaw is like calling her a prostitute. That evening I asked my
father what Melungeon meant, he took me aside and explained. But the discussion
was taboo in my family.”Indifference of a peoples. Today Winkler’s curiosity is now shared by more than a thousand members of his
association. There’s the desire to understand, to dig deep into their past. Anything
but easy: for the elderly the word Melungeon remains an insult. They don’t speak
willingly. It’s for this reason that journalists, who in the last 10 years have
descended on the county of Hancock in Tennessee, fifty thousand inhabitants almost
all with Melungeon origins, have got the impression that it’s an un-welcoming
and impenetrable place. Knocking at the doors of small spartan houses asking,
“Excuse me, but do you happen to be Melungeon?” It’s like going to the house of
an elderly Afro-American person in Alabama and asking them, “Do you happen to
be black?”
Where they come from. The origins the Melungeons is still unclear. The only sure thing was discovered
by Winkler, it was the first documented use of this name in 1813. The term could
have six different meanings, none of which are positive. There’s the possibility
that it’s derived from the French mélange, mixture. From the Greek melos, black. From the Portuguese melungo, sailor. From the Arabic, melunjinn or the Turkish meluncan, “dammed soul”. Or from the ancient English melengine, malicious. Words all of different origins, each one supports hiss theory. Winkler
has written a book on the topic, he believes that the first Melungeons were Portuguese
sailors from the era of the great explorers (and, therefore, also North African,
Indian). Another Melungeon author, Brent Kennedy, in his two books on the origins
of this community looks towards Anatolia. But he’s talking about late Fifteen
hundreds, Sixteen hundreds. Documents don’t exist that would give a precise identification.
The only accepted fact is, that from wherever they came, these pioneers settled
in the poorest rural zones of the Appalachians –a land only useful for small stock
farming and subsistence agriculture, certainly not for plantations- and here they
integrated more easily with the other “differents”: the black slaves and the native
Americans. A kind of union between the marginalised. It has given birth to a mixture
that Winkler and Kennedy call “tri-racial.”Alessandro Ursic
Articoli correlati:
Gli argomenti più discussi:
Le parole chiave più ricorrenti:
