Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/20

 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

relied upon only for transporting farm products and store goods. Oxen are generally the chief draught animals in the more remote regions. In the springtime a heavy rain of a few hours will cause "a tide" which for a day or more effectually puts a

stop to travel. In the summer the creeks are very low, and offer no obstacles save the loose stones which cover their beds.

The population of this region is singularly free from what we are wont to call "for- eign" elements. The mountaineers are predominantly, if not exclusively, of English, Irish, u- ■ ^ ■*E^ * /* '" and Scotch origin.

r' •*" Jf -** -^ ' They came in the

westward move- AN "UPRIGHT" CORN FIELD mcnt from Vir-

ginia and North Carolina. Such names as Noble, Allen, South, Strong, Combs, Sewell, Hargis, Stacy, and Mullins tell of British stock.'

By intermarriage for three or more generations the ties of kinship have been extended along the forks and creeks, until one is struck by the frequent recurrence of the same name. The family ties seem very strong and arouse, perhaps, the keenest sense of social solidarity to which the mountaineer responds. This tribal spirit has been a powerful factor in the feuds and

■ Professor William I. Thomas, who spent several summers in the Cumberlands, gathered from the daily speech of the mountaineers a list of three hundred words obsolete since about the sixteenth century or surviving only in the dialects of England.