Floyd

Welcome to Floyd where stories unfold In the heart of Appalachia, treasures untold From Main Street lights to the Blue Ridge sights Let's take a look at what's happening tonight

You're listening to the Floyd Main Street Podcast.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm your host, Lucas Graham, back for another edition of this week's Floyd Main Street Podcast.

Joining us today, on duty in uniform, the Colonel.

How's it going today? Doing all right, sir.

Hope you're behaving yourself and getting along all right.

Heard you were down at the Floyd Fair today.

They'd just taken this job.

They'd come up from, they grew up in Floyd, Virginia.

So part of Appalachia, they, you know, they moved to New York.

The only people they know is my father had a sister, Aunt Bert, I call her Roberta, who had married a black contractor.

And so she was living nearby in the same town.

But my mother had a huge family of seven siblings, almost one brother, all girls.

They grew up in a segregated south of the town, part of Floyd they live in.

Everybody knew everybody.

Welcome to Floyd where stories unfold In the heart of Appalachia, treasures untold From Main Street lights to the Blue Ridge sights Let's take a look at what's happening tonight

You're listening to the Floyd Main Street Podcast.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm your host, Lucas Graham, back for another edition of this week's Floyd Main Street Podcast.

Joining us today, the colonel has returneth.

I expect you to salute when you say that.

I should, as much as you've been working.

I've been hearing you've been working a lot these days.

Welcome to Floyd where stories unfold In the heart of Appalachia, treasures untold From Main Street lights to the Blue Ridge sights Let's take a look at what's happening tonight

You're listening to the Floyd Main Street Podcast.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm your host, Lucas Graham, back for another edition of this week's Floyd Main Street Podcast.

Joining us today, the usual ensemble, but I'll let Eric go first this week since last week.

And I quote, so rudely had his microphone muted for the first part of the show.

This is something I'm seeing on Facebook.

This is something that's happened before that we've had people coming around and these door-to-door salesmen going on.

Yeah.

So we went to, we went to Floyd, Virginia.

We hired a pickup band of local old time folk musicians, and we s- and we told them flat out, I said, "We're not trying to make a folk record.

We just wanna see what happens when we teach you our songs.

Unless, it's like the, the Afro-Cuban stuff.

Guys grow up, it's the food, it's the culture, it's the whole thing, so it's nice to be able to touch, touch that and, and kind of partner up with it, right?

Oh, absolutely, but it's also weird because, you know, we'd, we'd read about Floyd, Virginia, where the Floyd Country Store, you know, 52 weeks a year every Friday night they have this Friday night jamboree.

Ah, okay.

and I just got really into watching these documentaries about people who were making music, not because they were making any money at it, but just for the love of it, and sort of the joy that they had when they played, and we wanted to capture all that.

So we went to rural Virginia, to a town named Floyd, Virginia, where the country store there has a weekly jamboree every Friday night of old-time musicians.

We're like, okay, we'll pull into town on a Friday.

We'll go to the jamboree.

So I was flying to DC from Amsterdam.

He was flying to DC from LA.

And he was supposed to pick me up in a rental car and drive us three hours south to Floyd, Virginia.

But while I was in Lithuania, you know, like I knew his mom was on her deathbed and there was a decent chance that, you know, that we were going to have to call the whole thing off.

End of chapter 1.

Recording by Jim Locke of Floyd, Virginia.

CHAPTER II.

THE FORM OF THE CONTINENT america forms the longest and straightest bone in the earth's skeleton the skeleton consists of six great bones which may be said to form a spheroidal tetrahedron or a pyramid with a triangular base for when a globe with a fairly rigid surface collapses because of shrinkage it tends to assume this form that is what has happened to the earth geologists tell us that during the thousand million years more or less since geological history began the earth has grown cooler and hence has contracted moreover some of the chemical compounds of the interior have been transformed into other compounds which occupy less space for these reasons the earth appears to have diminished in size until now its diameter is from two hundred to four hundred miles less than formerly during the process of contraction the crust has collapsed in four main areas roughly triangular in shape between these stand the six ridges which we have called the bones each of the four depressed areas forms a side of our tetrahedron and is occupied by an ocean the ridges and the areas immediately flanking the oceans form the continents the side which we may think of as the base contains the arctic ocean the ridges surrounding it are broad and flat large parts of them stand above sea-level and form the northern portions of north america europe and asia a second side is the pacific ocean with the great ridge of the two americas on one hand and asia and australia on the other next comes the side containing the indian ocean in the hollow and the ridges of africa and australia on either hand the last of the four sides contains the atlantic ocean and is bounded by africa and europe on one hand and north and south america on the other finally the tip of the pyramid projects above the surrounding waters and forms the continent of antarctica it may seem a mere accident that this tip lies near the south pole while the centre of the opposite face lies near the north pole yet this has been of almost infinite importance in the evolution not only of plants and animals but of men the reason is that the arrangement gives rise to a vast and almost continuous land mass in comparatively high latitudes only in such places does evolution appear to make rapid progress evolution is especially stimulated by two conditions the first is that there shall be marked changes in the environment so that the process of natural selection has full opportunity to do its work the second is that numerous new forms or mutants as the biologists call them shall be produced both of these conditions are most fully met in large continents in the temperate zone for in such places climatic variations are most extreme such variations may take the form of extreme changes either from day to night from season to season or from one century to another in any case as darwin long ago pointed out they cause some forms of life to perish while others survive thus climatic variations are among the most powerful factors in causing natural selection and hence in stimulating evolution moreover it has lately been shown that variations in temperature are one of the chief causes of organic variation morgan and plough for example have discovered that when a certain fly called the drosophila is subjected to extremes of heat or cold the offspring show an unusually strong tendency to differ from the parents hence the climatic variability of the interior of large continents in temperate latitudes provides new forms of life and then selects some of them for preservation the fossils found in the rocks of the earth's crust support this view they indicate that most of the great families of higher animals originated in the central part of the great land mass of europe and asia a second but much smaller area of evolution was situated in the similar part of north america from these two centres new forms of life spread outward to other continents their movements were helped by the fact that the tetrahedral form of the earth causes almost all the continents to be united by bridges of land if any one doubts the importance of the tetrahedral form let him consider how evolution would have been hampered if the land of the globe were arranged as isolated masses in low latitudes while oceans took the place of the present northern continents the backwardness of the indigenous life of africa shows how an equatorial position retards evolution the still more marked backwardness of australia with its kangaroos and duck-billed platypuses shows how much greater is the retardation when a continent is also small and isolated Today, no less than in the past, the tetrahedral form of the Earth and the relation of the tetrahedron to the poles and to the equator preserve the conditions that favor rapid evolution.

the five nations on the contrary apparently represent an energetic people who were on the upward path and who might have achieved great things if the whites had not interrupted them southern indians resemble people whose best days were past for the mounds which abound in the gulf states appear to have been built chiefly in pre-columbian days their objects of art such as the remarkable wooden mortars found at key marca and the embossed copper plates found elsewhere in florida point to a highly developed artistic sense which was no longer in evidence at the coming of the white man it is interesting to see the way in which climatic energy tended to give the five nations a marked superiority over the tribesmen of the south while agriculture tended in the opposite direction there has been much discussion as to the part played by agriculture among the primitive americans especially in the northeast corn beans and squashes were an important element in the diet of the indians of the new england region while farther south potatoes sunflower seeds and melons were also articles of food the new england tribes knew enough about agriculture to use fish and shells for fertilizer they had wooden mattocks and hoes made from the shoulder blades of deer from tortoise shells or from conch shells set in handles they also had stone hoes and spades while the women used short pickers or parers about a foot long and five inches wide seated on the ground they used these to break the upper part of the soil and to grub out weeds grass and old corn stalks they had the regular custom of burning over an old patch each year and then replanting it sometimes they merely put the seeds in holes and sometimes they dug up and loosened the ground for each seed clearings they made by girdling the trees that is by cutting off the bark in a circle at the bottom and thus causing the tree to die the brush they hacked or broke down and burned when it was dry enough there is much danger of confusing the agricultural condition of the indian after the european had modified his life with his condition before the european came to america for instance in the excellent article on agriculture in the handbook of american indians conditions prevailing as late as seventeen ninety four in the states south of the great lakes are spoken of as if typical of aboriginal america but at that time the white man had long been in contact with the indian and iron tools had largely taken the place of stone the rapidity with which european importation spread may be judged by the fact that as early as seventeen thirty six the iroquois in new york not only had obtained horses but were regularly breeding them the use of the iron axe of course spread with vastly greater rapidity than that of the horse for an axe or a knife was the first thing that an indian sought from the white man in the eighteenth century agriculture had thus become immeasurably easier than before yet even then the indians still kept up their old habit of cultivating the same fields only a short time their regular practice was to cultivate a field five ten and sometimes even twenty or more years and then abandon it what hindered agriculture most in the northern part of the deciduous forest was the grass any one who has cultivated a garden knows how rapidly the weeds grow he also knows that there is no weed so hard to exterminate as grass when once it gets a foothold mere hoeing seems only to make it grow the faster the only way to get rid of grass when once it has become well established is to plow the field and start over again but this the indians could not do when first a clearing was made in the midst of the forest there was no grass to be contended with little by little however it was sure to come in until at length what had been a garden was in a fair way to become a meadow then the indians would decide that it was necessary to seek new fields one might suppose that under such circumstances the indians would merely clear another patch of forest not far from the village and so continue to live in the old place this however they did not do because the labor of making a clearing with stone axes and by the slow process of girdling and burning the trees was so great that it was possible only in certain favored spots where by accident the growth was less dense than usual when once a clearing became grassy the only thing to do was to hunt for a new site prepare a clearing and then move the village this was apparently the reason why the iroquois although successful in other ways failed to establish permanent towns like those of the pueblos and the jaidas their advancement not only in architecture but in many of the most important elements of civilization was for this reason greatly delayed there was little to stimulate them to improve the land to which they were attached for they knew that soon they would have to move farther south the character of the grassy vegetation changes and the condition of agriculture alters with it the grass ceases to have that thick close turfy quality which we admire so much in the fields of the north and it begins to grow in bunches often a southern hillside may appear from a distance to be as densely covered with grass as a new england hayfield on closer examination however the growth is seen to consist of individual bunches which can easily be pulled up so that among the southern tribes the fields did not become filled with grass as they did in the north where the women had relatively little difficulty in keeping out this kind of weed as well as others in this survey of aboriginal america we have been impressed by the contrast between two diverse aspects of the control of human activities by physical environment we saw in the first place that in our own day the distribution of culture in america is more closely related to climatic energy than to any other factor because man is now so advanced in the arts and crafts that agricultural difficulties do not impede him except in the far north and in tropical forests secondly we have found that although all the geographical factors acted upon the indians as they do to-day the absence of metals and beasts of burden compelled man to be nomadic and hence to remain in a low stage of civilization in many places where he now can thrive in the days long before columbus the distribution of civilization and the red man's continent offered still a third aspect strikingly different both from that of to-day and from that of the age of discovery in that earlier period the great centers of civilization were south of their present situation in the southern part of north america from arizona to florida there are abundant evidences that the indians whom the white men found were less advanced than their predecessors the abundant ruins of arizona and new mexico their widespread distribution and the highly artistic character of the pottery and other products of handicraft found in them seem to indicate that the ancient population was both denser and more highly cultured than that which the europeans finally ousted in the gulf states there is perhaps not much evidence that there was a denser population at an earlier period but the excellence of the pre-columbian handicrafts and the existence of a decadent sun-worship illustrate the way in which the civilization of the past was higher than that of later days the aztecs who figure so largely in the history of the exploration and conquest of mexico were merely a warlike tribe which had been fortunate in the inheritance of a relatively high civilization from the past so too the civilization found by the spaniards at places such as mitla in the extreme south of mexico could not compare with that of which evidence is found in the ruins most remarkable of all is the condition of yucatan and guatemala in northern yucatan the spaniards found a race of mild decadent mayas living among the relics of former grandeur although they used the old temples as shrines they knew little of those who had built these temples and showed still less capacity to imitate the ancient architects farther south in the forested region of southern yucatan and northern guatemala the conditions are still more surprising for to-day these regions are almost uninhabitable and are occupied by only a few sickly degraded natives who live largely by the chase yet in the past this region was the scene of by far the highest culture that ever developed in america there alone in this great continent did men develop an architecture which not only in massiveness but in wealth of architectural detail and sculptural adornment vies with that of early egypt or chaldea there alone did the art of writing develop yet to-day in those regions the density of the forest the prevalence of deadly fevers the extremely enervating temperature and the steady humidity are as hostile to civilization as are the cold of the far north and the dryness of the desert the only explanation of this anomaly seems to be that in the past the climatic zones of the world have at certain periods been shifted farther toward the equator than they are at present practically all the geographers of america now believe that within the past two or three thousand years climatic pulsations have taken place whereby places like the dry southwest have alternately experienced centuries of greater moisture than at present and centuries as dry as today or even drier during the moist centuries greater storminess prevailed so that the climate was apparently better not only for agriculture but for human energy at such times the standard of living was higher than now not only in the southwest but in the gulf states and in mexico in periods when the deserts of the southwestern united states were wet the maya region of yucatan and guatemala appears to have been relatively dry then the dry belt which now extends from northern mexico to the northern tip of yucatan apparently shifted southward such conditions would cause the forests of yucatan and guatemala to become much less dense than at present this comparative deforestation would make agriculture easily possible where to-day it is out of the question at the same time the relatively dry climate and the clearing away of the vegetation would to a large degree eliminate the malarial fevers and other diseases which are now such a terrible scourge in wet tropical countries then too the storms which at the present time give such variability to the climate of the united states would follow more southerly courses in its stimulating qualities the climate of the home of the mayas in the days of their prime was much more nearly like that which now prevails where civilization rises highest from first to last the civilization of america has been bound up with its physical environment it matters little whether we are dealing with the red race the black or the white nor does it matter whether we deal with one part of the continent or another wherever we turn we can trace the influence of mountains and plains of rocks and metals from which tools are made of water and its finny inhabitants of the beasts of the chase from the harrow to the buffalo of domestic animals of the native forests grass-lands and deserts and last but not least of temperature moisture and wind in the direct effects upon the human body at one stage of human development the possibilities of agriculture may be the dominant factor in man's life in early america at another domestic animals may be more important and at still another iron or waterways or some other factor may be predominant it is the part of the later history of the american continent to trace the effect of these various factors and to chronicle the influence that they have had upon man's progress.

End of chapter 5.

Recording by Jim Locke of Floyd, Virginia.

End of The Red Man's Continent by Ellsworth Huntington.

sagittarius english bowman peruvian arrows or spears mexican hunter and war-god maya hunter and war-god capricornus english sea-goat peruvian beard mexican bearded god maya aquarius english water pourer peruvian water mexican water maya water pisces english fishes and knot peruvian knot mexican twisted reeds maya notice how closely these lists are alike the ram does not appear in america because no such animal was known there the nearest substitute was the llama in the old world the second constellation is now called the bull but curiously enough in earlier days it was called the stag in mesopotamia the twins instead of being castor and pollux may equally well be a man and a woman or two generals two landsmen not familiar with creatures of the deep the crab and the cuttlefish would not seem greatly different the lion is unknown in america but the creature which most nearly takes his place is the puma or ocelot so it goes with all the signs of the zodiac there are little differences between the old world and the new but they only emphasize the resemblance mathematically there is not one chance in thousands or even millions that such a resemblance could grow up by accident other similarities between ceremonies or religious words in the old world and the new might be pointed out but the zodiac is illustration enough such resemblances however do not indicate a permanent connection between mediterranean civilization and that of central america they do not even indicate that anyone ever returned from the western hemisphere to the eastern previous to columbus nor do they indicate that the civilization of the new world arose from that of the old they simply suggest that after the people of the mediterranean regions had become well civilized and after those of america were also sufficiently civilized to assimilate new ideas a stray ship or two was blown by the trade winds across the atlantic that hypothetical voyage was the precursor of the great journey of columbus without the trade winds this historic discoverer never could have found the west indies suppose that a strong west wind had blown him backward on his course when his men were mutinous suppose that he had been forced to beat against head winds week after week is there one chance in a thousand that even his indomitable spirit could have kept his craft headed steadily into the west but because there were the trade-winds to bring him the way was open for the energetic people of europe to possess the new continent thus the greatest stream of immigration commenced to flow and the new world began to take on a european aspect End of chapter 1.

Recording by Jim Locke of Floyd, Virginia.

CHAPTER II.

THE FORM OF THE CONTINENT america forms the longest and straightest bone in the earth's skeleton the skeleton consists of six great bones which may be said to form a spheroidal tetrahedron or pyramid with a triangular base for when a globe with a fairly rigid surface collapses because of shrinkage it tends to assume this form that is what has happened to the earth geologists tell us that during the thousand million years more or less since geological history began the earth has grown cooler and hence has contracted moreover some of the chemical compounds of the interior have been transformed into other compounds which occupy less space for these reasons the earth appears to have diminished in size until now its diameter is from two hundred to four hundred miles less than formerly during the process of contraction the crust has collapsed in four main areas roughly triangular in shape between these stand the six ridges which we have called the bones each of the four depressed areas forms a side of our tetrahedron and is occupied by an ocean the ridges and the areas immediately flanking the oceans form the continents the side which we may think of as the base contains the arctic ocean the ridges surrounding it are broad and flat large parts of them stand above sea-level and form the northern portions of north america europe and asia a second side is the pacific ocean with the great ridge of the two americas on one hand and asia and australia on the other next comes the side containing the indian ocean in the hollow and the ridges of africa and australia on either hand the last of the four sides contains the atlantic ocean and is bounded by africa and europe on one hand and north and south america on the other finally the tip of the pyramid projects above the surrounding waters and forms the continent of antarctica it may seem a mere accident that this tip lies near the south pole while the centre of the opposite face lies near the north pole yet this has been of almost infinite importance in the evolution not only of plants and animals but of men the reason is that the arrangement gives rise to a vast and almost continuous land mass in comparatively high latitudes only in such places does evolution appear to make rapid progress evolution is especially stimulated by two conditions the first is that there shall be marked changes in the environment so that the process of natural selection has full opportunity to do its work the second is that numerous new forms or mutants as the biologists call them shall be produced both of these conditions are most fully met in large continents in the temperate zone for in such places climatic variations are most extreme such variations may take the form of extreme changes either from day to night from season to season or from one century to another in any case as darwin long ago pointed out they cause some forms of life to perish while others survive thus climatic variations are among the most powerful factors in causing natural selection and hence in stimulating evolution moreover it has lately been shown that variations in temperature are one of the chief causes of organic variation morgan and plough for example have discovered that when a certain fly called the drosophila is subjected to extremes of heat or cold the offspring show an unusually strong tendency to differ from the parents hence the climatic variability of the interior of large continents in temperate latitudes provides new forms of life and then selects some of them for preservation the fossils found in the rocks of the earth's crust support this view they indicate that most of the great families of higher animals originated in the central part of the great land mass of europe and asia a second but much smaller area of evolution was situated in the similar part of north america from these two centres new forms of life spread outward to other continents their movements were helped by the fact that the tetrahedral form of the earth causes almost all the continents to be united by bridges of land if anyone doubts the importance of the tetrahedral form let him consider how evolution would have been hampered if the land of the globe were arranged as isolated masses in low latitudes while oceans took the place of the present northern continents the backwardness of the indigenous life of africa shows how an equatorial position retards evolution the still more marked backwardness of australia with its kangaroos and duck-billed platypuses shows how much greater is the retardation when a continent is also small and isolated Today, no less than in the past, the tetrahedral form of the Earth and the relation of the tetrahedron to the poles and to the equator preserve the conditions that favor rapid evolution.

south of the great granaries of north america and eurasia the plains are broken but occur again in the orinoco region of south america and the sahara of africa thence they stretch almost unbroken toward the southern end of the continents in view of the fertility of the plains it is strange that the centres of civilization have so rarely been formed in these vast level expanses the most striking of the inverse resemblances between america and the old world are found along the atlantic border in the north of europe the white sea corresponds to hudson bay in america farther toward the atlantic ocean scandinavia with its mountains glaciers and fiords is similar to labrador although more favored because warmer next the islands of great britain occupy a position similar to that of newfoundland and prince edward island but here again the eastern climate is much more favorable than the western although practically all of newfoundland is south of england the american island has only six inhabitants per square mile while the european country has six hundred to the east of the british isles the north sea the baltic and lakes ladoga and onega correspond in striking fashion to the gulf of st lawrence the river of the same name and the great lakes from ontario to superior next the indented shores of western france and the peninsula of spain resemble our own indented coast and the peninsula of florida here at last the american regions are as favored as the european farther south the mediterranean and black seas penetrate far into the interior just as does the gulf of mexico and each continent is nearly cut in two where the canals of suez and panama respectively have been trenched finally in the southern continents a long swing eastward in america balances a similar swing westward in africa thus cape st roque and cape verde are separated by scarcely sixteen degrees of longitude although the extreme points of the gulf of mexico and the black sea are one hundred and forty degrees apart finally to the south of the equator the continents swing away from one another once more preserving everywhere the same curious inverse relationship even more striking than the inverse resemblance of the new world to the old is the direct similarity of north and south america in physical form the two continents are astonishingly alike not only does each have the typical triangular form which would naturally arise from tetrahedral shrinking of the globe but there are four other cardinal points of resemblance first in the northeast each possesses an area of extremely ancient rocks there are laurentian highlands of quebec and labrador in north america and the highlands of guinea in south america second in the southeast lie highlands of old but not the most ancient rocks stretching from northeast to southwest in the appalachian region of north america and in the brazilian mountains of the southern continent third along the western side of each continent recent crustal movements supplemented by volcanic action on a magnificent scale have given rise to a complex series of younger mountains the two great cordilleras finally the spaces between the three mountain masses are occupied by a series of vast confluent plains which in each case extend from the northern ocean to the southern and bend around the southeastern highlands these plains are the newest part of america for many of them have emerged from the sea only in recent geological times taken as a whole the resemblance between the two continents is striking if these four physiographic provinces of north and south america lay in similar latitudes in the respective continents we might expect each pair to have a closely similar effect on life in fauna flora and even in human history they would present broad and important resemblances as a matter of fact however they are as different as can well be imagined where north america is bathed by icy waters full of seals and floating ice south america is bathed by warm seas full of flying fish and coral reefs the northern continent is broadest in the cool latitudes that are most favorable for human activity the southern expands most widely in latitudes whose debilitating monotony of heat and moisture is the worst of handicaps to human progress the great rivers of the northern continent correspond very closely to those of the southern the mackenzie however is bound in the rigid bands of winter for eight months of each year while the orinoco the corresponding south american river lies sweltering under a tropical sun which burns its grassy plains to bitter dust even as the sharp cold reduced the mackenzie region to barren tundra the st lawrence flows through fertile grain fields and the homes of an active people of the temperate zone but the amazon winds its slow way amid the malarious languor of vast tropical forests in which the trees shut out the sky and the few natives are apathetic with the eternal inertia of the hot damp tropics only when we come to the mississippi in the northern continent and the rio de la plata in the southern do we find a pair of rivers which correspond to any degree in the character of the life surrounding them as well as in their physiographic character yet even here there is a vast difference especially in the upper courses of the river each at its mouth flows through a rich fertile plain occupied by a progressive prosperous people but the rio de la plata takes its rise in one of the world's most backward plains the home of uncivilized indians heartless robber adventurers and the most rapacious of officials not infrequently the degenerate white men of these regions yielding to the subtle and insidious influence of the tropics inflict the most outrageous abuses upon the natives and even kill them on slight provocation the natives in turn hate their oppressors and when the chance comes betray them or leave them to perish in sickness and misery the upper mississippi on the other hand comes from a plain where agriculture is carried on with more labor-saving devices than are found anywhere else in the world there states like wisconsin and minnesota stand in the forefront of educational and social progress the contrasts between the corresponding rivers of the two americas are typical of the contrasts in the history of the two continents chapter two Chapter 3 of The Red Man's Continent by Ellsworth Huntington.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Jim Locke of Floyd, Virginia.

The Geographic Provinces of North America.

And they're flat footing, they're step dancing.

And just up the road, there's a remarkable place in Floyd at the Floyd Country Store.

On Friday nights, they have a jamboree.

Local musicians play outside up and down the main street, and then inside there's a feature band, and people are getting up, all generations.

Which is a dance hall, and that you'd find that many nights of the week.

And again, it's multi-generational.

The Floyd Country Store in Floyd, Virginia.

In Mississippi, the Blueberry Cafe in Clarksdale.