Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 20: The Mothperson Prophecies (w/ special guest: Emily Hilliard)

Episode Date: August 11, 2017

In episode 20, we welcome our friend and professional folklorist, Emily Hilliard to discuss labor and capital's roles in the creation of folklore, West Virginia's Mothman legend, and why so many whites think they're directly descended from brown people (i.e. Cherokee Indians, Melungeons, Pocahontas, etc.), among other topics.

Are those chili peppers on your earrings? Yeah, I wore them for Leo season, for the Leo party last night. What's the reason? It's fire. That's my fieriest earring. And the eclipse. What happens in Leo season? Everything changes.

Damn right it does. Leos are terrifying humans, really. They kind of are. They 100% are. You think I'm terrifying? In what way? I've come around to you, but most of them... They're very gregarious to fault.

Some might call it shifty. I always think that they have red hair, but not all of them do. But what kind of personality do you associate with red-haired people? My dad was a Leo. My stepdad was a Leo. My mom lived with a Leo for a long time. And I have three ex-Leos. You're Leo'd out.

Me and my mom had to make a pact. No more motherfucking Leos. You were born in August or September. You need not apply. No, it's the end of July. Oh, okay. And August. Because the cuspers, because I'm a Cancer

and the Cancer Leo Cuspers are probably the craziest. What's your rising sign? Scorpio. So what does that mean? It's a rising sign. Where do horoscopes fall in this

sort of folklore? um how'd that get going um i don't really know that much about the origins but i feel like it's it's definitely folklore because like what we're doing right now we don't really know what it's supposed to be but we're just like oh yeah leo's right wait hold on is there a universal standard of horoscopes or are these like very like local are they very like um because like i've seen people with like blogs about horse so if you're a if you're a leo in the united states you're also leo in myanmar i think it's universal yeah i think so, yeah. I mean, I think there are certain standards that go with each sign, but then... How does the Gregorian calendar affect that, too?

I have no idea. And leap years? I don't know. That's good. Because wouldn't it just shift all the signs every leap year? Yeah, yeah. If you were... You're right. Like, if you were just one day cut off. But I guess it's about where the position of the planets

when you were born. Oh, how would you know that? I mean, I guess it's probably not that hard to figure out. Yeah, you go online. It's based on. You act like I'm a simpleton, Terrence. The day you were born. Oh, he doesneton, Terrence. The day you were born. Oh, he doesn't know how to.

The time you were born. The place you were born. Couldn't tell you all these things. My mom was always weird about horoscopes because I think she thought it was kind of witchcraft, which I guess in a sense it probably is. Yeah. If you believe in such things. Go right down with the witches.

Oh, my mom was like when people in her office would read their horoscope off and just, you know, just the girls just chatting it up. She would just... That's sinful? She wasn't like a tight ass about it, but she would just be like, kind of like how people are about Ouija boards,

like just kind of like, I ain't fooling with that. You know what I mean? Gar ain't fooling with horoscopes. She ain't fucking with horoscopes. She ain't fucking with Ouija board she ain't fucking with the ouija board i don't blame her people were like that with harry potter oh yeah like the christians yeah evangelicals the christians yeah amy were you uh baptized in the christ Christian tradition at any point?

no well my grandmother baptized me when I was in college it was really sweet like a DIY baptism I had asked her once when I was home did you ever secretly baptize me? because she's Catholic and my brother and I weren't raised Catholic she was like no but do you want to be?

And I was like, sure. And then the next time I came home, she was like, come into my room for a minute. And she had a little Tupperware full of holy water. And she like did a cross thing over me. And she wrote me a little card.

It was very sweet. It was like this very special moment. I thought you were going to say she had like a stone basin. It was very sweet. That's very nice. It was like this very special moment. I thought you were going to say she had like a stone basin, a very large adult-sized stone basin. She's like, you got to get in there. The Pope was there. The Pope was there. Pope Francis was there.

Wear your white dress. Right, right. I like that. I'm kind of into like cultural religion like just you know wearing the yarmulke you know just kind of like I'm into ritual and ceremony

even if I don't really believe it totally I think that's why the Catholic church is so compelling to people I do think that's why my grandma continues to go it's about the ritual it is very ritualistic I couldn't keep up with all that was going on telling to people. I do think that's why my grandma continues to go. It's about the ritual. It's a ritual. I couldn't keep up

with all that was going on. Sitting, standing, knees. A lot happening in the Catholic church. I've only been a couple times. I feel like there's a lot going on. There's also the whole thing that it's basically polyism, which is pretty fascinating. What?

It's like polytheism. Because of the three? Well, because the saints are basically gods. They're not like... Innocents. I mean, they're not actual gods. You know what I mean? They're not humans. They aren't? No. You pray

to your saints, you know what I mean? There's certain saints for certain things. Like certain... The saints of good luck or some shit. What would Catholics say about that, though? to your saints, you know what I mean? There's certain saints for certain things. Like, certainly the saints of good luck or some shit. What would Catholics say about that, though? If you were to say, aren't your saints gods? Would they recoil at that?

Would they be like, yeah. They would probably say it's complicated. I don't know. I shouldn't speak for Catholics. It sounds like polytheism, though. And then all the icons. Right. Icons are badass. My favorite saint was St. Christopher, only because the Vatican pulled his credentials.

Really? Yes. So he was sainted up, and then they're like, eh, we're going to. Is that the one that you're supposed to get a statue and bury upside down when you're trying to sell your house? He actually maybe, I think he's like the patron. It's like a lot of incongruous things

that he's like the patron saint of, but I think, yeah, I think he is. And like running red lights. Because he's got something to do with the home. But yeah, he's like the patron saint of bachelors. If you run a red light, you're supposed to be like Saint Christopher. Yeah.

Saint Christopher would totally be a Bernie bro. 100%. Yeah. A man of the people. Yeah. So it's like, how do you get your sainthood credentials revoked? Especially after you're dead. You gotta really fuck up in heaven or something.

Yeah, right. Like, your emails come out. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody doxxed him From beyond Alright I'm gonna do that thing that Tanya hates that I do Where I say Let's start the show

I'm gonna get him a bell that he can ring And say the show's starting Maybe a gavel Yeah you're right it already has started There's no point in trying to pivot this towards any kind of elevated Conversation Although I do want to I want to pick up where no point in trying to pivot this towards any kind of elevated conversation. Although I do want to, I want to pick up where, I want to pick off, god damn it.

Pick off. I want to pick up where we left off last night. I don't remember leaving off anything. This is good. This is good that you don't remember. Which part of it so we started talking about um we started talking about how there is a actual like turnover in the sort of like world of folklore right now i yeah i think that's true like you were saying the mothman used to not be. It was. I'm already fucking it up. Okay. Well, my read on it is that when the older generation of folklorists were trying to establish themselves as like an academic discipline, they sort of strayed away from like the cryptozoologists.

Right. And now the young folklorists, like people my age, are like, let's bring them back in the fold. people my age are like, let's bring them back in the fold. Let's bring folklore back to the people because it's of the people anyway. And so all those cryptozoologists, they're basically doing folklore. They're interested in folklore.

So let's engage that. Okay. Is this causing a schism in the folklore community? Are you all the John McCains, the mavericks of the folklore world? It sounds like they're the John McCains. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Or, I mean, the generation that doesn't fuck with cryptozoology. Yeah, maybe that's true.

They're the John McCains indeed. They're the John McCains in word, right? Okay, yeah. I don't know if I'm following this. This is a bad metaphor. I'm sorry. What he's trying to say is you're Mavericks. Yeah.

Yeah, I went to this conference recently in Bloomington, and you could totally see the shift. There was, like, the old guy in the back who was like, you know. Does he have a pony, too? I don't think this one, but there's a lot of, there's some good attire at folklore conferences. You know, it's funny.

There was a joke in that one episode, like 16 or something like that. Tanya made a, she took a shot at folklorists. I'm actually earing her shit out right here on the episode, but I cut it from the episode because I was like, what if Emily hears that? Well, I mean, shit out right here on the episode but i cut it from the episode because i was like what if emily hears that well i mean i do think that there's a tradition of like folklore carpetbaggers basically yeah yeah that might make sense like northern folklorists i mean i'm from indiana but you know coming in and taking the culture and leaving and not really doing much for the communities that it came from i personally haven't heard any folklore shit talk here in the building out on the streets of

waspwood but it's terrible not a day goes by where i'm not hearing somebody throwing shots people get shot over it people lean out the window But is there a difference between, like, is there a difference between, like, folklore? This is probably such a stupid question. I apologize in advance. Is there, like, a difference between, like, folklore and urban legend? Or is it basically, like? No. I mean, so I think what the issue is and one of the problems with the discipline is that everyone has their understanding

of what folklore is like if you ask just anyone they would be like oh yeah folklore it's urban legends and academics used to i think like that older generation used to be like now it's artistic communication in small groups you know like um but now people are like let, let's bring that modern understanding and say, yes, it's urban legends and it's memes and it's the art of everyday life. So then I would imagine that. Yeah. I mean, are there folklorists of the Internet at this point? Yeah. The Library of Congress American Folklife Center is archiving memes.

Wow. Wow. Crying Jordan, hopefully, is the first ballot to enter. Yeah, we should pull it up.

They have a website of all of their things. It is funny to think about how future generations will explain Crying Jordan. Like, in 2300.

Like, how the fuck are they going to explain sounds like a basketball by the way what's basketball right why is it funny that he cried but but at the same time there's also like this um we were talking a little bit about this last night like there is this sort of it's also kind of hot right now, though. You've got the history... All of our history channels. We got into this long conversation last night about The Mothman. But there's a lot of

shows on the history channel and stuff that are totally devoted to specific... It's like a Bigfoot show. There is a show called The Folklorist. Oh, yeah? When I do my talks about what is folklore, there's this one photo, and it's like a guy in a suit,

and he's talking to a guy in a Bigfoot costume. And behind him it says, The Folklorist. And The Folklorist is the guy in the suit. I guess. That's the implication, but maybe not. Maybe he's Big not. Maybe not. Maybe he's Bigfoot. Maybe he's Bigfoot.

Right. I live right next to the Snake Man of Appalachia. Oh, shit. Yeah. It was one of those fucking History Channel shows. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Or Discovery or something. Yeah. I always get him and the Turtle Man mixed up. Yeah. Well, Turtle Man don the Turtle Man mixed up. Yeah. Well, Turtle Man don't live in Letcher County. I don't know if they were so much focused on folklore as they were, like, getting into crazy shit. Like, getting bit by snakes and stuff. And they'd be like, this is crazy.

But wouldn't we say, like, snake handling in Appalachia is kind of folklore? Yeah, definitely. The whole, like, amped up storyline of it all. Yeah, and now it's like there's the folklore of the snake handling narrative. Like I feel like there's, well, it's just been done so much. People are like, oh, do you document snake handlers? I'm like, I think that's been pretty well documented. It's so funny because I'm Pentecostal.

I grew up Pentecostal. And I can recall so many times people coming into our church with cameras to record, and our pastor's just like, hey, well, great. Maybe we can spread the gospel this way. And kind of the types it was, you know, or whatever. That's got to do pretty incredible things for your faith.

I would have, I don't know how I would have felt if someone was recording me, but like just doing the praise and worship. Yeah. I would be killed to see footage of you doing praise and worship. I freaking love you, Jesus.

You killed someone. Except I didn't say foot. I freaking love you, Jesus. But they would always leave disappointed because we didn't handle snakes. I was about to say, Pentecostals don't handle snakes. Church of Holiness, Pentecostals do. Okay. But I'd say folklore, though, is more like the stories that people tell about themselves.

Yeah. So it's from the ground up. from, it's the ground up. It's not top down. Right. And there's, as a result, there's probably a lot of pretty interesting stuff in it, but like there's probably a lot of like racist tropes in a lot of it. Right. Or, you know what I mean?

Like stuff like that. You get all of it. I mean, I think this is where Neil Hurston said, it's a boiled down juice of human living, I think is the quote. But yeah, so you get, you see how groups are, because everyone can contribute to it. You kind of get like, it's not least common denominator, but like you get a distilled nugget of, oh, this is like a societal trope. Yeah. Like with Mothman, I think there's all those things like the men in black is like the government fear.

And yeah, I think we'd have to break down Mothman a little bit more. But yeah, so you can pick out. It's not about proving or disproving. It's about, oh, why do you believe what you believe? And what does that mean that you believe that? Yeah. Right. Well, it's interesting. Like the idea of academics, like actually trying to like police the boundaries of what it is by saying that, like, oh, we're not going to address cryptozoology is literally the opposite of it. to be anti-elitist. Well, I guess it always has had elitist paths,

but I think at its core, in its ideal world, it's not. I've never even heard the term cryptozoology. It's just the fancy. It's not a familiar. I'm curious about cryptozoology because I wonder if any people that the scientific community were just saying,

oh, you're batshit crazy. The New Jersey Devil or the Bigfoot or the Yeti. The Chupacabra. Albino alligators living in the New York City sewer. I wonder if any of those guys have ever been vindicated. Have we ever found any sort of like no not once well when i was growing up there would always be every now and then it's funny i used to keep a little collection of it actually there'd be a photo on the front page of my newspaper of somebody holding

up a head of some unidentified animal they'd be like you have to collect it yeah yeah because i thought the chupacabra they would say yeah I was like yes I put it on my wall and connected it all with the strings and shit and I was in my garage children I implore you take out your mercury feelings I was the crazy guy scientific the scientific community? Speaking from experience here. But there would be, like, pictures of people holding, like, a head of a mysterious creature. Like, this is a chupacabra. This is it.

And you'd look at it and you're like, okay, I don't know what that is. You're right. But it could be, like, a possum head in, like, a certain degree of decay or something. It has to. It's got to changed its appearance? Well, it's funny because it's like pseudoscience, but it has a narrative to it. If science actually ever did,

I say science, capital S or whatever, actually did address some of this, it would take some of the fun out of it. It has to actually remain this thing that is almost unattainable. If we actually found the Bigfoot, the whole thing would be like, oh, this... I don't think people actually really want to find him.

I mean, they do, but it's a psychological thing, like this game they play with themselves. I guess cryptozoology is kind of divorced from the Mothman of the New Jersey Devil a little bit, though, right? Maybe. Because there's kind of like a spiritual, ghostly, I'm not saying that right.

Oh, there's a supernatural. Supernatural dimension to things like that, as opposed to the Bigfoot could just be some sort of homo species that is just... You're right. Well, apparently Mothman's a fallen angel. Oh really? Oh really? What's the origin story of Mothman? So basically what I say is folklore.

Like I don't have it down pat. So I'm just gonna say what I know. Well this will be the first time anything untrue was told on this podcast. So let the record show um so my understanding is i think it was like 62 or 63 and there were two couples like outside of point pleasant west virginia and it was like a lover's lane situation sort of sounds like and they drove up to this area that was uh like everybody calls it the TNT area.

I think it was a former ammunition plant. So there was some weird stuff that happened in this area. And apparently there were all these government agents who would do security in the area. So they're up there on this vista, and they get chased by this giant creature that's, like, eight feet tall, red eyes, with huge wings. And like they get in the car and he's like flying over their car. And they say that in the top of the car, the wings made these divots. And then he was, I think maybe he was seen a few times around then, but then he was not seen for like

40 years. Which is really interesting, I think. Remember we watched this like Terrence and I were at the drive-in. Yeah, I forgot all about that. We watched this like little documentary. It's kind of like, you know. The Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere?

No. What's my name? you know kind of like a little no that was a good I? That was a good documentary. This one was a little more DIY. But they were talking about, like, how the Mothman tends to spring up around, like, calamities that happen. Yeah. There was a bridge collapse.

Yeah. And there's something, like, like, the 13th rung on the bridge is what collapsed and then mothman was found like on the 13th day like 13 years later there's some 13 things he's kind of like what tupac was with seven remember that yeah um but then there's this other theory that's based in both the Bible and Greek mythology that says that there are three fallen angels foretold in both the Bible and Greek mythology. And Mothman's one of them. Oh, shit, and the devil was one of them.

What's the second one? They don't have the devil. Oh, they don't? Yeah. That seems like a pretty... So they say Mothman is like a... When a fallen angel has mated with a human woman. He's like a Nephilim? Yes, exactly.

Damn. Breaking out these words. What's a Nephilim? I used to dispatch at the fire department. Like when I would come home from college and the wintertime and stuff like that. And, like, there would be all these firefighters that would just, like, come up there.

And, like, there was this one guy that was, like, really into, like, what would you call, like, just sort of, like, pseudo-theology. You know, just, like, stuff that's, like, not really in the Bible. Right. You know, but he would talk about, like, the Nephilim. It's like when, you know, when there was the war in heaven like stuff that's not really in the Bible. Right. But he would talk about the Nephilim.

It's like when there was the war in heaven and God kicked out all the angels and Lucifer that they mated with the women of the earth and produced Nephilim. Yeah, so Mothman being one. Mothman being one. Being the most famous of those progeny. Is there a Mothwoman? Yeah, that's a good question.

Well, I've seen all this stuff recently that's like Mgeny is there a moth woman yeah that's a good question well i've seen all this stuff recently that's like mothman is my boyfriend um mothman is trans you know mothman's gender fluid yeah yeah so moth person yeah yeah well there's a what's the like there's like a cowgirl kind of flatwoods yeah the flat Flatwoods monster She's like wears this weird like pointy bonnet. I don't know that much about her. What does she do? She sounds super creepy Yeah she's another like mothman. Yeah there's a mountain

monsters and there's one more. Flatwoods monster. I'm gonna have my folklore license provoked. Is that like Flatwoods Kentucky like Ashland area where she hangs out? No Flatwoods is West Virginia too. The Mothman? Greenbrier. No, that's Greenbrier.

These are on Defend Appalachia shirts. That's how I know. Oh, yeah, yeah. So Mothman is pretty spooky, but do you have any other good spooky? What's some good spooky? We just brought you in here. I feel like I'm so bad at being a folklorist in this way. We're trying to pigeonhole you. What is your favorite?

What drew you to folklore? What is your favorite part of being a folklorist? I have a lot of origin stories, I guess. You're coming out as a... Tell us your coming out story as a folklorist. I love a good coming out story.

Did you face the stigma bravely? Yeah, like I had to hide my little recorder under my bed. How'd you break it to your mother? And I was like, Mom, I've been doing oral history. Then she kicked you out of the house. Not in his house. That's how I made it to West Virginia

She apologized to you She's like you know how I feel about this It's just that like your uncle I just didn't understand You saw what it did to him One of the big things was reading this uh shirley collins book and she was uh she is a well she's still alive she's in her 80s she's a british uh banjo player and folk singer and she traveled with alan lomax through the south and i'd like known all these

like dude collectors but in her book she writes about being a woman doing this work and how all these ballad singers these women who wouldn't sing for alan would sing for her and that i don't know that was pretty cool different perspective yeah yeah um and most of these women had never performed they just sung inside their homes and uh i don't know i think i realized oh there can be this feminist aspect to it too and it combined all these things i was interested in already so it's more boring than what where what's what's uh what differentiates uh folklorist from archivist so archivist would mostly deal with what's already created, like content that's already created.

And folklorists are, especially public folklorists like me, are doing documentation work. So we're actually creating the content and doing oral histories and putting on concerts and that sort of thing. Yeah. I just kind of wanted to talk a little bit about like where like folk tales like originate you know what i mean like do that does it come from like trauma you know does it come from like well i mean like where does a lot of like folk tales

come like why do they why are they so persistent in certain cultures and why are they you know is that right make it is that a really broad question? Yeah, kind of. But, but I think the reason that it has such resonance is because like a ballad, it's so old, like it could be from 1600s or 1500s England. And then it goes through all these different forms and then it comes to Appalachia and then it takes on the place names of Appalachia. But there's something in that ballad that is so resonant with humans throughout all these places and all these um times that that's like the boiled down juice it's like oh this murder ballad or this story exists for a reason because it's almost archetypal or it it has these things that everyone can connect to.

Right. So I guess that doesn't really answer your question. Yeah. I mean, is Paul Bunyan like a... Oh, yeah, totally. It's like your typical folktale. Yeah. Yeah, John Henry.

Right. And so do they originate in factual... I mean, generally not, I would think, right or like no I think they do yeah yeah like well John Henry um was supposedly um a slave and was probably working like on a prison gang yeah um and I think there's probably a lot of a lot that story. And then also, like, the story is about industrialization and labor and, you know. Yeah. I think those stories that have that resonance, that's why they become a folktale. Right.

And also people wrote songs about it. Right. And, like, told stories. Yeah. I think I do remember asking you this last night about any like kid stories. But like one that I heard growing up was Big Toe. What's Big Toe? My Big Toe.

You don't know this? I heard Big Toe. That was kind of like a haint tale. Yeah, it was a haint tale. And I was told it a lot as a kid and then i was like at a party in virginia a few years ago and someone told beardy poe which was the exact same story but just like slightly different and it was called beardy poe it was what is the story what's the uh there's a voice from the distance that says, who stole my big toe or something like that. Yeah, well, there's this, like, granny in the garden,

and she's hoeing, and she hits a toe, and she hasn't had any meat in weeks. And she's like, I'm eating this motherfucker, and she boils it. Right. And all this. This is the whole... So with Beardy, does he boil a beard? Does he boil his beard no beardy poe i can't remember

exactly how it goes but it's some it's a tail it's beardy poe's tail and beardy poe is a thing and the same thing with the toe that night when she lays down to sleep she hears i want my big toe. Fuck me up. Oh, yeah, the kid. I don't know why. Oh, yeah, fuck me up, too. And then it happens, like, three times. I want my big toe. How do they ever resolve that?

I'm sorry. I don't know. He, like, comes in. The granny ends up getting ate. Oh, wow. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. But that's, like, that construction is a,

it appears in a lot of kids' folktales. I'm trying to, there's, I've definitely grew up with a version of that, but I can't remember what it was. And then there's also like a joke upon that too, where it's like, oh, no, that's different. Like the window washer one. There's like a guy who's like i want to wash your window it's basically the count from certain history and then you don't know what

it is and then it's just like the window washer yeah like it's something um innocuous yeah like but it still has a thing that's like i want yeah. Yeah. The reprise or whatever. Right. But then it's just like, Oh, and then it was just like my cat or whatever. Yeah. Uh, beardy pose, like a hairy bean and someone gets its tail somehow and then it comes and eats the granny or whatever.

Yeah. Okay. But yeah, all those kids stuff or like, um, like hand clap games or ring around the rosy like little songs that kids sing on the playground oh yeah totally yeah and aren't those like like getting ring around the rosy get some sort of like yeah it's fucked up yeah i think i think that's um has been refuted but okay

but yeah i'm not sure i'm gonna check with you because i'm anytime that like I'm bad to just spout out urban legends no but that's that you're doing folklore right there really so I'm a practitioner Tom is one of the upper echelon but what's so funny about that is that like I've heard you tell many a tall tale well so many well one that I that I used to spit out all the time was... My favorite's about the man with a pet bear. Oh, that's true. That's 100% true.

The sit on the couch with him. What the fuck? No, no, no. The one in the elevator where it's basically like a racist thing or like it's a black guy or whoever is like in the elevator with like this sort of like meek white woman and she gets like all scared because of her preconceived notions and then like he ends up sending her flowers and like it with the note card attached it says thanks for the laugh signed famous black person usually sam Sammy Davis Jr. or Eddie Murphy.

Oh yeah. You know what I mean? You see, there's always this too with like Bill Murray or some shit. You know on the internet. He like taps somebody on the shoulder and he's like, nobody will believe you. Everybody sends it around. Everyone spreads it around. They're like, oh my god Bill Murray sent this.

That's the good shit. Or like when people post on their Facebook, like, I am saying that Facebook does not have the right to my photos and this best protects me copyright. Right, right. Like, that's basically folklore. The mammies.

I bet Facebook's just existence has like necessitated just this huge increase in like interest in folklore. Oh, yeah. Sure. So what can you deduce from a certain, has like necessitated just this huge increase in like interest in folklore oh yeah yeah sure so what can you deduce from a certain like say for example like earlier we were talking about like you have this tale and like the grandmother gets eaten like what's the moral of that or like what are they trying to like teach you like what are the sort of values they're trying to instill in you by like telling you these stories right right probably like i mean it's some kind

of fable about being honest and or some shit you know right i know but you would think it would go the other way just like if you're giving me eat it you know when in rome is the subtext yeah well there's the one that's like it's like a couple teenagers, they drive up to Lover's Lane again. Yeah. And then there's the hook. The hook, yeah. But I feel like that's to stop teen pregnancy. Right, right.

Yeah, there's some of those urban legends you can really tell. Yeah. Oh, this is why. Well, it's interesting that the mothman originated at the time of like the zodiac killer and stuff like that where you actually had people going out you know up to like lover's lane or whatever and like actually getting murdered like right like six people yeah like this was just a tree and There was a lot of people. Back then. Back then, yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right.

Yeah, things have changed. It's harder for a serial killer. And they're the NSA. It's hard times out there for serial killers. Are you going to make me out to be a crazy old coot for your paper? Are you crazy? Of course not. up there for serial killer are you gonna make me out to be a crazy old coot for your paper i may be blind but i'm not deaf sorry it's just a joke a joke everything's a joke everybody around here treats this thing like a cartoon character the mothman is gonna strike a game and when he does you can mark my words nobody's gonna laugh yeah no no i think i was going to strike again, and when he does, you can mark my words.

Nobody's going to laugh. Yeah, no, I think I was going to talk about, like, the whole, like, race dimension, talking about, like, localizing and talking about, like, the whole Cherokee and Melungeon thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I wanted to ask Emily about that, like, just in terms of, like, how how like like race stuff like that gets purchased and like because you know i know so many people hell i think probably all of us maybe even till i was like you know kind of realized i wasn't really a cherokee and then right so many people by white you mean by white people yeah especially but particularly in the mountains yeah how does how does that my aunt and uncle got into a actual fist fight over uh the the reality of our relation to pocahontas at thanksgiving one time wow yeah why so yeah they go in an actual fight

i i have a cousin that has like a um i, he's an otherwise and tells a guy he graduated from Stanford. And he's got, he's got at his parents' house, there's, like, this, like, wooden plank that looks like it was made at, like, a gift shop in Gatlinburg. And he goes, you see, man, it's foretold. And it was, like, it just said, like, Powhatan on it or something. And, like, had, and had every generation of somebody down and it just made this huge leap from a relative that you could

reasonably attribute as your great-great-great-grandfather to Pocahontas. It has to have this degree of abstraction to it in the sense that I think it's kind of it probably comes from a place of guilt in some ways I think that's true yeah

because there's no I mean like once you're actually like if we're talking about this if we're talking about what it actually means it's like the solution to it is like the dissolution of America as an idea and and also as a literal actual power structure so you think things like that exist as like a kind of insulate yeah like appropriate

and say you know it wasn't so bad or maybe not even say it wasn't so bad but like I bear this burden with native people because there's a question. There is honestly a question of complicity, no matter how far down.

Like that wasn't me. Yeah. You know, and this is interesting. This is actually something I've been thinking a lot about with that white trash book, which is that a lot of those type books, like populist accounts of early early american history they don't take into account where they don't really talk about the fact that a lot of like early settlers

were genocidal like militias you know what i mean no matter how poor or where they fell on the sort of like hierarchy of of whatever they were uh actively going out of their way to ethnically cleanse. I don't know. It's just kind of like... You've upset Tanya. Yeah, did I? You've upended her, what she thought was true. I blew her mind.

She's like thinking about America, and now she's like, oh, shit. Pocahontas is my grandmother. Pocahontas is my grandmother. I don't give a fuck. This is bullshit. What y'all say. This is bullshit What y'all say This is bullshit But there are a lot of like

Folktales from I feel like I mean like Isn't Tonto Like a sort of like Or is that actually From a TV show I'm just taking that

From like a TV show Tonto from The Lone Ranger From The Lone Ranger Alright I'm taking this From a TV show Yeah I think so I've mixed

Are you talking about Squanto Maybe Squanto? Maybe Squanto. Was that an actual historical figure? Yeah, the Native American who welcomed the pilgrims. Right, right, right, right. No, Tonto was the Long Ranger's native sack kick. I think I was thinking of Squanto, though.

What about Poncho? Poncho Lefty? Poncho Lefsy. Poncho Lefsy. Johnny Depp played Tonto in the Lone Ranger reboot. And Johnny Depp is another grown man that perpetuates that myth. He goes to powwows and shit. Well, I guess what I was trying to get at there is that if you take a story like Paul Bunyan

or something like that, if you take a story, if you take, like, a folktale like that, or even, like, yeah, okay, let's just use, like, Paul Bunyan for right now. Okay. Like, you know, this guy, just like, what was Paul Bunyan? He had an axe, right, and a blue...

He was a lumberjack. A lumberjack, like... Big blue eyes. Right. Like, was there, like, I don't know, is it is it supposed to invoke some sort of like working class pride or is it supposed to like invoke like it was there like a historical Paul Bunyan or was it actually just like this sort of like mythos, this idea that like. remember i think there is sort of there is actually like a precursor to paul bunyan and it was told in logging camps like it was stories that people would tell and right but maine and michigan both claim paul bunyan and oh shit yeah so there's some beef the lot the logging community is in maine and michigan but yeah i went together and fight over it. Fuck you.

He's from Michigan with their chainsaws. And then I think there is a tale about how, like when Paul Bunyan walked from Michigan to Maine and it took him like five steps or something. You know, something like that. Right, right, right. But yeah, I went to this really awesome logging museum in Maine and they talked about like the precursor to Paul Bunyan, and I can't remember his name,

but I think Paul Bunyan is actually not real. I think it actually may be a corporate. Oh, shit, really? I think so. That then became part of the lore and then became a folk hero. And I'm trying to think of another example of that. So like you're saying like.

Like maybe the Green Giant. I don't know. Johnny Afflecine. He was an industry's work. The guy on the bounty paper towel. Yeah. Like every bro's last minute Halloween costume. Beard bro.

Yeah. So you're saying in like 400 years like they'll have that as like their Paul Bunyan they're like he wore t-shirts he had paper towels he right right that's that is kind of that is kind of interesting that like now you you're talking about sort of the working class dimensions of stuff like that like to me how like paul bunyan was kind of a corporate creation or whatever the or the jolly green giant or whatever that's the folklore at least yeah yeah but like how does that like sort of stick around but like something like the battle of blair mountain something that really happened but it's not

taught in schools like how does that get squashed out? Right. I mean, well maybe, I think maybe we need to be better about our storytelling about it. Yeah. Like actually, um,

like what is the nugget we can tell about the, the, the battle of Blair mountain? Yeah. Cause like if we're telling a story about, you know, John Henry, who was probably real,

there's something in there that we can relate to. So maybe we need to do the same with, like, Sid Hatfield or something, you know? Yeah. Right. Right. It's not a single, like, a single person didn't rise as the telltale. Plus, I just think after the Battle of Blair Mountain, there was just, like, so much trauma.

Yeah. Now we tell like a really romanticized story about that event, but it was really fucking dramatic. Yeah. Terrible at the time. I mean, and there's also like who's getting to be folk heroes, dudes. Right. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. heroes dudes right yeah right yeah um i i mean maybe it is about like what is the because a lot of this is you just if you would map it out it's just a giant game of telephone really yeah um but maybe there are things that break through like maybe with john henry it was the songs that then um people pick up on that and it can be disseminated further. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, Mother Jones kind of rose as like a little bit of a fable, but she was obviously an actual person. Yeah, you're right. Mother Jones does have a sort of like focal... She has a magazine

now. That is very bad. Completely commodified. Mother Jones, God. They hate homeless people. Oh, God, yeah. So bad. Who are some of the unsung feminine heroes of folklore? Like the female John Henrys, or is it just like it was such a male-dominated thing for so long?

Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, I I mean women didn't have as high profiles and they were like doing work inside the home so I think that that but there's like I don't know like maybe calamity Jane or any okay Pocahontas I do think is definitely folklore cuz she died really young and had like two kids or something. And there's no possible way.

In Britain. In posterity she's been slut shamed. She had two kids not even in America. It was over in Britain. Yeah. It's just completely impossible.

She's just like slut shamed in posterity. Yeah, she was like if she was real like if what all the kids in Appalachia are saying like she was like

fucking for like 17 years straight yeah I'm trying to think of some others yeah I mean there I think there is something that works both ways when there's a corporate thing that then becomes folklore because in some ways it its profile is raised because it is corporate and then it enters the people's lore. But then there's also something cool about that because people are taking back a corporate figure

and adding their own stories to it. But I even think about with hand clap games, kids singing a popular song song like a popular song like a beyonce song right but then they don't know all the words and they like mess it up and then it becomes sort of a it enters folklore at that point don't go jason waterfalls that was mine what or i saw this i saw the sun yeah do you think that by that token you think like chester cheetah will be a folk hero at some point i don't know oh you know like the cheetah oh yeah yeah yeah maybe well like hot cheetahs and takis yeah yeah i don't think he referred to chester in it though um um but yeah all that

stuff that that then like gets back, which is pretty cool. Right. Wendy from Wendy's. She'll be a folk hero. Morton's Salt Girl. Morton's Salt Girl. Yeah, Morton's Salt Girl. Yeah.

That's also a lot of Halloween hipster girl Halloween costumes. Right. Or the baby from the suntan bottle. Right. The copper tone. Yeah, the copper tone girl. Like a bare copper tone girl yeah the bare butt copper tone girl yeah it's it's so funny because like you know obviously i like try to square like my nostalgia for figures like that and not kind of feeling one with them with my anti-capitalism and it's like

sometimes it's hard because i don't want to i'm a total like sucker for that kind of sometimes it's hard because I'm a total sucker for that kind of stuff. Right. For brands? Yeah, I'm a brand whore. Did you guys have racks around here? We did have racks. R-A-X.

R-A-X. Do you remember Uncle Alligator? Uncle Alligator Meals? Vaguely, I do. And the only reason I do is because the only racks, I think, still operational in Kentucky is in Harlan. And me and Evan stopped there to get a milkshake and there was all this kind of like, I mean you felt like you were in the

late 80s again. I need to go back to a racks. Yeah, there was one in Harlan. Check her out. Still there. Maybe today's agenda. Yeah, you gotta do that. But yeah, I'm gonna try to bring Uncle Alligator into the folk hero status.

Hell yeah. And Chester Cheeto Chester Cheeto yep Pink Panther Yeah What about Aunt Jemima Ooh that's a problematic one Oh yeah Or Uncle Ben

Right right Yeah I mean I think it has, but... Red men, tobacco. But she also changed. Like, at some point, she became, like, no more a mammy bandana on her head and was, like, a middle class... Really?

Yeah, yeah. She became, like, they changed her image, and then she became, like... I think she has, like like a pearl necklace or something. She became like a middle class black woman. But that was some conscious choice. Right. But still like.

Imagine how that board meeting went down. We've been, everybody knows. Everybody knows why we're here today. Right. We have a PR problem, people. But then Mrs. Butterworth. Yeah. She's like the white analog, but she still

sort of has her apron, right? She's kind of got the big blouse. And the syrup bottle is actually in the shape of her. In the shape of her. You're right. That's good. Talk about like commodifying women's bodies. Yeah.

You know, it's interesting talking about all this, how like people need almost stories to sort of make sense of their their world and their identity i was i uh i worked a basketball camp one time with uh lewis farrakhan's grandson mustafa farrakhan and we kind of got friendly and i was chatting him up about because this was when this was like the earlier iteration of woke tom you know what i mean yeah so like i was like first stage like i'm not like all these guys over here man i i know what you're going through go on i'm right about you but after i was insufferable he he told me something i thought was interesting he was like you know how like the nation of islam has this sort of origin story for white people about we were created by this mad scientist yakov in this like factory on

this island in the caribbean and all this stuff and then we went on to populate the world and well i had no idea i don't know about that yeah go look up dr yakov doctor that's amazing and um you know he he he told me he said um you know, my grandfather doesn't literally believe that story. But it helps them to sort of make sense of and give them an identity preferable to what America was offering them at the time. And, you know, he told me this story about his when his grandfather would go to the beach, would be a sign that said no no in words no yeah no i don't want to say kikes but you know like the drug return for jews and no dogs and to think about like having that constantly blasted as a kid, you know what I mean? And your face like, you know,

it's not like wholly irrational that you would cling to this. You need another narrative. Yeah, you need another narrative. It's reclaiming. No matter how, and if you think about it, it's no more implausible or ridiculous

than like our resurrection story if you're a Christian or, you know. Well, yeah. I mean, it gives a sense of agency. Yeah. In a way. Totally. Yeah. Yeah yeah i think that's i mean that's like what the cool part of it is i think that you're

actually studying this democratic form that people are creating their own culture and it's not coming from uh or they take it back from a corporate standpoint. But yeah, they're making up their own narrative about themselves. Do you think this is what Harry Cottle was trying to do? For the region. Well, you know, like if you... Harry...

I mean, if you read Not to the Comfort Ones, it's just replete with all this kind of like the Melungeon thing is in there is the blue the blue people I don't know what the blue people

I don't know what the blue people look on your face wait isn't there a new movie or something it's a TV series oh it's a TV series

it's a TV series it's not out yet dear lord it's about this blue boy and he falls in love with a normal girl, and the dimensions of the complicated process. Complex and weird. But yeah, Night Comes is full of a lot of how we got here, and it's all supposedly we're

the orphans and criminals. The dregs of England. Of England, yeah. All the people that couldn't. We were basically just... Like the narrative about Australia. They were all convicts. We were all convicts and orphans.

The undesirables. But he does perpetuate some of that sort of Ray Smith stuff. Talks about the copper-skinned Appalachians and how they had mingled with the Melungeons and the Cherokees and all this kind of stuff. And this is a guy that was like a history professor at UK. He's not like

a dummy, you know what I mean? Our local library's named after him. Yeah. Wow. So, it's no surprise this guy was a eugenicist by the end of his life. Yeah. Yeah, but anyway, like, otherwise intelligent people, you know, for whatever reason, be it, you know, just, you know,

adopting an alternative narrative or just willful ignorance about, you know, whatever. Or like Emily was talking about, the whole sort of guilt, the internalized guilt of that. I think people sort of come up with these things. And they run the gamut from just completely innocuous to kind of ugly. But that's also a narrative that if you're educated or you're intelligent, you don't have superstitions or you don't have I think so I mean like because um then you're classifying it and

and it gets a little classist exactly yeah I mean I think everybody has it I don't think you can like separate it was just part of being a human yeah yeah I have I mean I'm just like atheistic as it gets, but I totally have things that I do that I know I have are not based in any

actual. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think that's like, how could you even live without that? Like those stories.

I mean, it's, it's part of what makes it makes things interesting. Really. Right. Right, right. Yeah. Well, final question. Was Nick Cage in National Treasure a folklorist?

What? Folklorist or archivist? Folklorist or archivist. Yeah, that's going to be our new game on the show. Folklorist or archivist? Wait, in the movie National Treasure? Yeah, you remember that movie where he's like going around and searching for like

It's so dumb It's like all about how great America is But it's like, it just paints this picture of like an Indiana Jones type I see Like an archivist type person Well is he like

recording people's stories? No, I think he's like using they were trying to find the constitution oh then he's probably an archivist he's an archivist yeah

we don't need to claim him we can get we can get Caroline in on this right but he is in the wicker man yeah

which is sort of like I mean I I love the original which is like one of my favorite movies, but I refuse to see the main-based retelling. Yeah, we should watch it because it's apparently awful, egregious.

But that story is based on a lot of folk narratives. narrative. Like a person being sacrificed to improve the overall well-being of a... On a remote island. But then it kind of flips the script because it's like, oh, these pagans are

actually worshipping a false religion too because Lord Summerisle just brought it. Right, right. um but yeah anyway that's a whole other thing but played by a very young uh uh chrisper guest christopher lee christopher lee right he's in lord of the rings yeah yeah film real motherfucking film hours right here on the Trill Valley. Yeah, I am like part of this folk horror group. That's mostly based in- Folk horror?

Folk horror. Folk horror. Folk horror. Folk horror. That's mostly like based in Britain, but it's all of these like, i'm trying to think of a movie that would fit that like a modern movie like maybe the babadook oh yeah yeah where you're actually taking these folk narratives who also may be in the library congressman collection for too long as a gay icon i think the babadook and Mothman have something in common there

right yeah that's tight I like taking figures like that and totally putting them to anyway I like that that's good I like it when they do that

that's good stuff alright we're at hour 15 Oh, totally. I like that. That's good. I like it when they do that. That's good stuff. I like it. I like it. I like it. All right, we're at hour 15. Wow. That's a banger. This is fun.

This is a lot of fun. Good episode. Thanks for being on with us, Emily. Thanks. This is fun. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, for sure. Partying with us, hanging out.

Yeah. Can we call this episode the Moth Person Prophecy? Yeah, okay. Yes. All right. Well, goodbye, everybody. now yeah can we call this episode the moth person prophecy yeah okay yes all right well uh goodbye everybody don't you know love i'm coming home to you I'm on my way

I'm on my way I'm coming back to you Lonely love, lonely love, don't you know you're the one Don't you know you're the one that I love

Ooh, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee Ooh, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee me Oh, wait for me I'm on my way I'm coming back to you I'm on my way And I'm all alone I'm coming home to you. Lonely love, lonely love, away from me.

Away from me, my love. © transcript Emily Beynon.