Our Southern Highlanders

I just finished Our Southern Highlanders by Horace Kephart and it was a well executed documentation of life among the Appalachian mountain people before modern ways and industrialization came to the high mountains of southern Appalachia. Kephart was the first person that I know of that came into Appalachia and documented the simple lives of the Southern Highlander. He didn't come here to save them, preach to them, or think he was better than them, and that makes all the difference to the untrusting mountaineer.

Kepharts book covers a wide range of life and issues as they pertained to the average mountain family. Chapters range from bear hunting to fugitive hunts, and many other far flung areas of life in the mountains. Special attention has been paid to moon shining. Kephart used a subtle eloquence in describing the social, legal, and geographical influences effecting the proliferation of moon shining in the Appalachian mountains. Time is spent looking at it from the average mans point of view as well as the revenuers, along with the a detailed explanation of the creation of mistrust in the government by most mountain people.

This book is by far one of the most important works as it pertains to Appalachian culture and the society created by the highlanders in isolation. Descriptions of how law was handled, to the peculiar dialect, and even feuds are explained in a cohesive way to give rational that modern man can make sense of. He tells the story of a proud and independent people that faced life on life's and mother natures terms. These were not stupid people, just the opposite, as most of them could make almost everything they needed from the forest.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Southern Appalachian culture before it was trampled by modern civilization and a society that saw them as backwards. On a side note, Kephart was a pig. He abandoned his family to live in the Smokies for the purpose of writing. I find it a bit ironic that Kephart analyzes the mountain family while his is suffering without him. Kephart died before he ever returned.