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The Appalachian Region
Before we can discuss the folk magic and religion of
Appalachia, it is necessary to define what is meant by the
Appalachian region both geographically and culturally.
Appalachia, as defined by the 1965 federal legislation that
established the Appalachian Regional Commission, is a 200,000
square mile region that follows the ridge of the Appalachian
Mountains from southern New York to Northern Mississippi. It
includes all of West Virginia and parts of twelve other states:
Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee,
and Virginia.
However, when one thinks about the Appalachian culture, this
is not the geographic region that usually comes to mind. Using
both topographic and socioeconomic criteria, Raitz and Ulack
(1984) define the boundaries of Appalachia differently than
the Appalachian Regional Commission. They found that “the
mental maps of Appalachia among “insiders” (native residents),
“cognitive outsiders” (those who lived in Appalachia but did not
consider themselves “Appalachian”), and “residential outsiders”
(those who lived outside the region) varied.” 4 As defined by
Raitz and Ulack, and many of the insiders queried in their study,
Southern Appalachia includes much of the middle and all of
eastern Tennessee, the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah
Valley of Virginia, much of western and all of eastern Kentucky,
western North Carolina, southern West Virginia, northern Alabama,
northern Georgia, northwestern South Carolina, and much of the
Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia.
According to McCauley (1995), Campbell’s 1921 “map of
the region best represents the geographic range, especially the
central areas, in which we find mountain religious culture at its
most pronounced.” Campbell’s map extends from northern West
Virginia to northern Alabama and includes parts of Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia. This same region also best exemplifies the geographic
area most associated with traditional Appalachian folk magic.
European settlers first started arriving in the Appalachian
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