The Melungeons
A Strange
and Little Known Tennessee People
Descendants
of Aztecs and Pizarro’s Spaniards - Their Peculiar Manners and Customs
- Speculations: “Who are These Peoplle?
(From a Special Contributor)
July 29, 1894
Several years ago, while
traveling through upper East Tennessee, I incidentally heard of a
peculiar race of people living in the mountain section of country
embraced within the limits of Hancock county. Having heard enough to
awaken my curiosity, I determined to investigate for myself their
history, habits and race features, as I could find no written mention
of them in any magazine, newspaper or historical word of the State.
In pursuance of my object I made several trips through their country
and made a study of their habits of life and physical trait of
character, gleaning what I could from them, of their traditions and
history, and believe that I have now sufficient evidence to clearly
establish who these people really are, and to what race they originally
belonged, tracing them unerringly to the present time. In this I
have been greatly aided by the kindly suggestions and valuable
information received through the researches by Dr. Bachman, which he
very kindly placed at my disposal for use in a more complete and
extended historical sketch of these people, which I will publish
later. I will now only attempt a brief sketch, showing who these
people are, which has been a question much discussed, and about which
many theories have been advanced. While following up and linking
together the evidence which sowed clearly that theirs was even yet a
distinctive, original race from ours, I visited the Anthropological
Building at the World’s Fair, and there obtained conclusive evidence
that I was not mistaken in the theory which I had believed the correct
one.
Locally these people are known as “The Melungeons.” They are generally
of fine appearance, being tall, and unusually well formed, with
straight black or reddish hued brown hair, black or brown eyes, always
keen and piercing in their glances, high cheek bones, square cut jaws,
and of an erect - even - proud - carriage, some of their women being
remarkable for their beauty. They are intelligent, but very reticent,
and also reserved in manner; particularly so when interrogated as to
their history. They are friendly with their fairer skinned
neighbors, and in some instances have intermarried with them but as a
rule they choose husbands or wives among themselves. They are strictly
honest, yet distrustful to some extent of advances coming from
strangers. They are firm friends, but implacable and even
treacherous enemies. They live mostly in small frame or log
houses, farm a little, hunt and fish and take life easy.
They have but little money, and seem to care but little for it. They go
nearly always armed with rifle of shotgun, whether to trade at some
neighboring town or to visit a neighbor. Some of them -- mostly
the younger members - can read and write fairly well enough for the
ordinary transactions occurring in such a primitive community.
They have and enjoy all the rights of citizenship, yet they live and
move, a distinct and separate body from those around them, preserving
their individuality and racial distinction.
“Who are these people?” has been asked thousands of times, doubtless by
some passing traveler, who quickly noted their clean-cut, distinctive
race features, speech and bearing. The answer made invariably is
“Melungeons” - Our fathers who settled here along about 1790 to
1800, found them here, with
another small settlement near Nashville’s present site.” This is
all you can obtain in the way of information by casual inquiry.
But investigation proves these people to be true descendants of the
Aztecs, with the blood of Spain and Portugal, as I will endeavor to
show later, and, in giving you the proofs, you must follow me in an
apparently aimless ramble - or what at first will seem such to you - up
among the cloud-crowned mountains, the dark, shadowy caves, where the
sun peeps only at noon to lighten the gloom and gild the shadows with
its golden light for an hour; beneath frowning, toppling cliffs, pass
up the deep and gruesome gorges, wrapped in shadow and mystery beneath
the giant firs; listen to the splashing, leaping waters of flowing
brooklet, as it winds the sinuous way over, around and under the
moss-covered rocks, or huge fragments hurled from the beetling cliffs
above; through beds of ferns - only such ferns as can here be found -
and sweet smelling woodland flowers; climb with me to the topmost
peaks, where the “thunder heads” gather their forces for the coming
storm, and the eagles build their nests.
Follow with me in the dusky light of waning day, that distant spiral
column of smoke denoting the lowly roof, beneath which I shall
find shelter for the night and enjoy with me the free hospitality of my
host Nuno and his wife Luizan, with little Nonah and Cecilia and Juan
peeping from the cracks between logs, with bright wondering eyes at
their strange guest, and mark well these names, all around in the same
family; three Spanish or Portuguese sounding and two Indian or Aztec;
for in this is one of the direct evidences offered as to “who are these
people.”
Upon the top of one mountain we found the blackened rocks, fragments
fused, fragments disintegrated and crumbled dust made by signal
fires. Down in that dark cove we fund stone hammers, stone bowls,
half formed upon the rock of which it is still a part. Within the
shadows of that gloomy gorge we found arrow-heads of flint. We
passed into a cave. It opened into a large cavern, through which
a tiny brooklet flowed, and thence out into the gorge we just had
left. In this cave is a broken copper medal, an iron implement
too badly eaten into by rust to be recognized as to its name or use, a
small bag composed of woven grss, a broken piece of pottery - a bowl -
with - how strange? - the Maltese cross upon it. The pottery
showed threads of grass baked in the clay, that it might be stronger in
its structure, a broken dagger of finely tempered steel, before this
destroying rust penetrated its polished surface. Further on a
piece of heavy dark cloth, covered with shells and teeth of fish - salt
water fish - sewn upon it with twisted fibers from the plant known as
the “devils shoe string” - among the mountaineers of today - with a
bone needle, for here is the needle close by, and not many feet off a
broken piece of curved metal, unquestionably part of a helmet, and many
other traces all of which you can find duplicates of at Nuno’s home,
and which he shows to you with pretended indifference, but with secret
reverence. As in the case of the names, we have in these relics a
proof of presence of the Spanish soldier and Indian presence at the
same time; or if you prefer the knight of Portugal and the Aztec
Princess living in love and harmony together.
But let us go out from this dark depository of ancient secrets, and
once more, under the light of day, wend our way to the mouth of the
gorge, then out upon a level basis, fertile and green, a mile or more
in diameter, circular in its general form, locked in by towering
mountains on every side except flowing from the forge just behind us
the brooklet winds its way to nearly the center of this plain
There it is joined by streams from several similar gorges. A small lake
is formed of cold, clear water, and from this is a nobler stream flows
out through a natural cleft in the solid mountain wall, narrow its
channel and steep its bed. The waters rush through with a steady
roar, resembling the deep-toned rumbling of thunder. Around this
pool, or lake, I have mentioned, and covering several hundred aces in
its bounds, is the remains of a rock wall built by human hands, and yet
perfect beneath the surface, and easily traced. Within its bounds
is a cemetery in the southwest corner. Who built so great and strong a
wall as this must once have been? What people lie in that cemetery?
The fact that this wall was six feet thick laid in regular courses, and
cemented together by the use of a mortar now difficult to determine its
component parts, is proof that it was built by a people who certainly
could not be classed as ignorant savages, and the further fact that it
was built around a never-failing supply of pure water, in the center of
a fertile plain with but one narrow outlet which could be guarded and
defended and in which buffalo and other animals could be herded, shows
that it had been selected with keen sagacity and for some well-defined
purpose
If besieged by their enemies, they were prepared to stand with comfort
a long one, and in times of peace secure against the depredations of
ferocious animal marauders, with which the forest were then undoubtedly
thickly inhabited No descent could be made successfully by men
from the precipitous mountain sides, as these, being sparsely covered
with vegetation, would at all times be exposed to view; and again, if a
descent was made they would be at the mercy of those sheltered behind a
strong and almost impregnable wall, while the distance was too
great for a flight of arrows to prove destructive, or even the bolt
from a crossbow or the shot from an harquebus fired from the
surrounding heights.
Thus we find them at home and obtain an idea of the manner in which
they lived. In brief, they were constantly at war with some other
tribal race. They lived in fortified cities; their food consisted
of fish and fowl and flesh, with edible plants, maize, roots and
salads. There is, however, no vestige of grain food or slightest
sign of their having ever tilled the soil. they had intercourse
with the tribes along the seacoast or made expeditions there
themselves, as proven by their clothing, which we have shown already in
another part of this article in some instances to be a cloth ornamented
with sea shells, shark’s teeth and animal teeth, serpents teeth,
etc. Thus we know they strove to ornament their dress; probably
used plumes and feathers in their headdress, wore picturesque costumes,
mantels of furs and cloaks of bright-colored feathers. They bury
their dead in two ways, although a common cemetery was used. One
cloth or a fur mantle - laid full length upon the back, with arms
crossed upon the breast, with the head to the west, the feet to the
east. In other words, in rising the face would look toward the
sun.
Slabs of stone encase the body, as a vault in appearance. In some
instances inscriptions have been cut upon these, but in the lapse of
centuries water and fire have destroyed all but the traces of
these. In the other way the bodies are buried in a sitting
position, with the knees doubled back over the breast and supporting
the chin. These bodies are sown up in a mat of woven grass, or
shroud of woven feathers, soft, thick and skillfully put together.
These bodies are not encased with stone slabs, but sit with their faces
turned toward the rising sun.
These remains of walled cities and cemeteries have been found in
several places in Tennessee. Haywood briefly mentions one
discovered by the first settlers from Virginia and North Carolina near
the present site of Nashville, but only in a casual way and without
particulars. The ruins can yet be seen by excavating at that
point and in other places, which I intend to mention in a later article.
When I visited the World’s
Fair I spent ten long days in the anthropological building and also
visited the cave of the cliff dwellers. To my great pleasure I
found perfect duplicates of what my researches in the mountains of
Tennessee had brought to light.
Now, let us take all the evidences we have before us-the names,
features, bearings, habits, fondness for bright clothing and ornaments,
traits of character and disposition, relics yet preserved in their
homes, although unassociated as links in the chain of a direct history
of their ancestry in the minds of the present tribe or race of
“Melungeons,” yet is convincing to me that they are the diect
descendants of the Aztecs and Portuguese, the latter commingling with
the Aztecs probably as far back as the sixteenth century-I say this
because I believe I can furnish proof of evidence difficult to refute
of this being true-tat the Aztecs welcomed among them these few
adventurers and that the union of the two races never extended farther
than a limited area and a proportionately small amount of mixed blood,
these being confined to the present limits of Tennessee, and
represented now by a few hundred “Melungeons.”
The terrible tribal conflicts, disease and later conflicts with our own
people have decimated and destroyed all but a few of their descendants,
who yet linger among the mountains, which once knew the presence of a
great and powerful nation other than ours. This nation in
Tennessee-as shown by the evidence I have introduced-both in their mode
of burial and weapons and habits of life contained the blood also of
another separate and distinct race in their veins, and that these were
men of Portugal and Spain, who either deserted or were captured from De
Soto’s army.
In this manner, I now close this hasty sketch of “Melungeons” of
Tennessee, except to say
that I have gathered and preserved many of their traditions,
which I hope later to make public and further confirm the position
assumed in this article. I would like, further, to suggest that
the evidence found here, in New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Mexico, Peru
and Chili, and the exhumations of Egyptian tombs prove that the Aztecs
were the same race of people in each country above named, only modified
by climate and surroundings; that they ruled in Egypt and ruled the
Western Hemisphere, with the Maltese cross following them everywhere,
and to the almost utter extinction of their people and their race down
to the present race. there is indubitable proof of the existence
of a Masonic order extending through centuries of time among the Aztecs.
R. A. BOWIE
The 'World's
Fair' in 1893 was actually the 400th anniversary of Columbus -- and
I've found a little about the anthropology building and some of the
anthropoligist.