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Archiver > Melungeon > 2004-02 > 1076296839


From: "Curtis" <>
Subject: [Melungeon] Re: What Fers? HAGGIS
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 19:20:39 -0800
References: <20040209011646.5769.qmail@web21326.mail.yahoo.com> <023001c3eeac$060851e0$533a1cce@computer>


I don't see fun poked at researchers, at all.

Research--whether genealogical research, family history, local history, anthropology of the culture, population studies, tracking the migration, or analyzing articles by commentators--has been essential to the process. But it is not the only aspect of the process. Just as DNA isn't.

How people feel about what they are learning, the emotional and psychological scarring that is associated with having grown up with known or unknown family secrets, the issue of irrational bigotry . . . both toward and from Melungeon descendants . . . are also essential to making sense of what is going on here. By sharing stories and offering comfort as well as "reality therapy" to each other, we minimize the trauma many have experienced, and help to develop mew ways of sharing the information, internalizing it, adapting to the new reality, and gaining an understanding of what it all means.

When any one perspective attempts to control and dominate the phenomena we share in this complex learning and growth experience, the very real result may be the development of a hybrid Melungeon-Ridge HAGGIS.

As some know, the Haggis is a mythical Scottish animal that lives on the hillside but because fore and rear legs on ONE side of its body are longer than the legs on the opposite sides of its body, it can only run around the hills in ONE DIRECTION [You have to imagine it and visualize the problem:
\' | <<<<<
..\

So along comes an amateur animal breeder and develops a NEW breed of Haggis . . . but with the short legs on the opposite side of the body as the existing breed.

| '/ >>>>
./

The resulting brain injuries incurred by the head-on Haggis crashes are too painful to talk about.

Suffice to say that ultimately it will be a "one left standing" scenario . . . unless the last "matched pair" of opposites knock each other off the Ridge before it's all over.

Hardly makes sense.

Better to accept each other gifts, join forces, and work out the differences in the best interest of all concerned.

Curtis


----- Original Message -----
From: Penny Ferguson
To:
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Melungeon] Re: What Fers!



Hello everyone, I just came home from a week end of babysitting with my two
grandsons, 5 and 4 who think they are the Long Ranger and Tonto, and my 18
month old beautiful little granddaughter, Hannah.

I must say that having read lots and lots of emails on this list that it
makes me not want to attend anything the MHA has or is a part of. As a
Melungeon researcher, and an Appalachian researcher, it seems to me that the
research part is out the window for some folks, and fun is poked at people
who do research.
The very people you claim to be are the ones you are making fun of.

Penny




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