ABSTRACT
In the American Southeast lives a group called the Melungeons. Or do they? Although travelers and journalists have reported on the mysterious Melungeons since the late 1800s, “consistently treated as one of Appalachia’s best-kept secrets” (Schrift, 2013: 15), according to Melissa Schrift, no one actually identified as Melungeon until surprisingly recently. Indeed, she contends that it is “more productive to conceptualize the Melungeon story as a regional legend that, similar to the structure of all legends, is a loosely structured narrative with an appealing story, a basis in actual belief, and a cultural message” (23). No one is even certain where the Melungeons came from or what their physical traits are. Some claimed that they were Native Americans; others said they were Portuguese or Turks. Most likely a corruption of the French word mélange for “mixture,” the name “Melungeon” is probably an invented term for individuals who were of racially mixed ancestry in a time and place where racial mixing was a serious social problem. Persons with the physical appearance of mixed races were typically condemned as “lazy, immoral, illiterate, filthy, violent, superstitious, defiant, cowardly, mysterious, and primitive” (41); understandably, people tended
