"Tales from Sacred Wind Coming of Age in Appalachia" by Cratis D. Williams--Book Review

Williams, Cratis D., and David Cratis Willams and Patricia D. Beaver, Editors. Tales From Sacred Wind Coming of Age in Appalachia (Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Co. 2003)

For my regular readers over the past month or so, it is no secret that I love this book.  Some of the most popular and easiest written blog posts I have ever done have been about particular segments of issues which Cratis D. Williams discusses in the book.  I have written about Death, Dying, and Burial Practices In Appalachia; Croton Oil And Cratis Williams; Traditional Appalachian Children's Games; and One More Short Lesson From Cratis Williams.  I had also written a much earlier post about some reading of his work which I had one under the title Responses To Some Reading Of Cratis Williams.  All of these posts were very easy to write and well received by my readers.  Cratis Williams was the Dean of the Appalachian State University Graduate School and taught there for several decades in addition to being one of the most influential scholars in all of the field of Appalachian Studies.  I have said repeatedly that I never met Dr. Williams and I regret that a great deal.  He was erudite, well read, incredibly funny, and one of the best experts on the culture of Appalachia, especially in the early twentieth century.  

This book was edited by his son, Dr. David Cratis Williams and Dr. Patricia D. Beaver who had been one of his professional colleagues at Appalachian State University.

Cratis D. Williams--Photo by the Williams Family

It was published eighteen years after his death.  It is basically a memoir of the first twenty or so years of his life.  It is assumed that he intended to complete a comprehensive memoir of his entire life and simply did not have the time during his academic career to complete and subsequently did not live long to complete the work after his retirement. That is a tragedy since this book is one of the finest books ever written about Appalachian Culture in the early twentieth century, especially the culture of the Big Sandy River Valley and Eastern Kentucky.  This book was published as the eighth produced in the Contributions To Southern Appalachian Studies Series from McFarland & Company in Jefferson, North Carolina.  The series is now comprised of roughly forty books and still being expanded regularly by the publisher.  They cover numerous areas of interest in the greater field of Appalachian Studies.  Although I have not read anywhere near the entire series, I am sure the majority of them are well worth reading.

Now, to get back to "Tales From Sacred Wind...", I am sure that most people tend to think that the name Sacred Wind for the post office in the community on Caines Creek in Lawrence County must have been rooted in religion.  According to Williams, it was not remotely rooted in religion.  He relates the story of how the first postmaster had been tasked with naming the post office and wanted to find a particularly meaningful name.  He had struggled with that effort and was sitting on his porch one day with a friend talking about the effort when the friend passed gas loudly and demonstratively and said, "Name it after that." which is exactly how the postmaster arrived at the name of Sacred Wind.  

The book covers numerous areas of Appalachian Culture including those I have written about and numerous others such as feuds, family strife up to and including patricide and pedicide, the United Baptist Church, one room schools, education in general, farming, child birth, midwifery, and many others.  The book is well written but, if there is one area in which to critique it, the quality of the writing is variable, at times well above average and, at other times, the quality drops a bit.  The book was apparently written over several years in small to medium segments or sections each on a particular topic.  After his death, Cratis Williams' son and Dr. Beavers edited the manuscript and McFarland published it.  I am sure that it does not have the same level of consistency and quality that it would have if Cratis Williams had lived to fully complete the work to cover his entire life.  But the work is well worth reading and I certain that many of my regular readers on this blog will attest to that fact also.  It is well worth the money, time, and effort to buy and read it.