Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1894 — CLAY THEIR DIET. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CLAY THEIR DIET.

THESE ARE NOT INDIANS NOR NEGROES, BUT WHITES. The Clay is Without Smell or Taste, and While Possessing Some Oily Properties it is Poisonous and Induces Premature Decay. Ever since my childhood I have heard about the clay-eaters of the Southern States, but until a few weeks ago I regarded them as a my h. In the interest of an immigration company I was making an examination of the valleys of the Eastern Blue Ridge, extending from the headwaters of the JJanawlia, in West Virginia, to the headwaters of the Chattahooche, in Gfeorgia. While in the foothills, about thirty miles south of Mount Airy, accompanied by a guide, my attention was attracted to two men, whose strange appearance indicated some unusual disease. Like all the mountaineers, these men were lean and lank; but their forms were stooped, their limbs attenuated and their eyes as dull as those of a dead fish—and these are certainly not the characteristics of the men of the Blue Ridge. The color of these men was a sickly ashy gray, the beard was thin and straggling, and the hair suggested wigs of faded Spanish moss. Dilapidated straw hats, cotton shirts and butternut trousers constituted their whole attire.

At the first appearance of these men my guide whispered: “Them’s clay-eaters,’’ but still I was slow to believe that I was in the presence of the people of whom I had heard so much. The tender of cigars, which to these men, were great curiosities as well as luxuries, broke the ice, and I succeeded in entering into conversation with the elder. I say “elder,” but there was really nothing in the appearance of either man to indicate his age. They might have been brothers, or father and son, and if either could have told his age, which is doubtful, he might have passed for 20 or CO, for the faces looked like death-masks rather than those of living beings. “We-uns live up the crick,” said one of the men in reply to my question, and he indicated the direction by pointing his long arm, with its yellow, attenuated finger, in the direction of the mountain 'to the right. “Is it far from here ? ” I asked. After a painful pause, during which he sucked at his cigar and stroked his chin nervously, as if making a calculation, he dras.’pd out: “Waal, hit ain’t so far. Yar a stranger har, I reckon.” I confessed that I was, whereupon he continued, with the invariable introduction, “Waal, we-uns lives up nigh to the Harracan.” “Harrican” was «, new word to me, and I certainly would have been left in ignortance had not the guide come to the rescue by informing me that the “Harrican District” meant a place near the head of the valley, where, many years ago, hundreds of acres of forest had been leveled by a destructive hurricane. “What do you do at the Harrican?” I asked.

“Do!” repled the man, in the same dazed way, and with the same stroking of the chin, as if the question perplexed him. “Why, we-una lives thar. ” “What do you do for a living?” was my next question. “Oh, not much of nawthin,” he responded, and for the first time a ghastly smile flitted over the death mask, while his companion, who so far liifd remained reticent, and seeming indifferent as to what had been said, broke into a cackling laugh. Reasoning that these men were not sensitive, nor particularly dangerous if anything I might say offended them, I came directly to the point by asking: v “Are you clay eaters?” “Waal, yes,” drawled the man. “We-uns is bleeged to eat it when thar ain’t nawthin’ better.” I must confess that this information gave me a throb of delight. I was in the presence of people whom, all my life, I had regarded as myths. Against the wishes of my guide, who assured me that the country in the direction of the Harrican “was the most God-forsaken on the top of the green earth,” I determined to go there. About three miles from the point whore we met the two men we entered a labyrinth of fallen timber,which told me without question that this was the “Harrican.” The trail skirted the timber for about half a mile, and then it ended in a little valley like a cul de sac. Before reaching this place the fact that it vvas inhabited was indicated by a blue smoke column that rose straight in the clearest of amethystine skies. But this was not the only sign. A poor Southern white without a number of yellow curs would be an anomaly'. As we neared the cluster of little log cabins, these curs came into evidence. They were as lean and famished-look-ing as their masters, and appeared to have as much intelligence, and far more spirit. Standing in the door of the nearest cabin we saw a lank woman," covered with one ragged, dirty cotton garment, her ashy face and expressionless eyes showing unmistakably her relationship to the men. About her, in various stages of nudity, were a number of children, all lank of limb and wide of girth, ail having the same

deathly complexion, but with nothing suggestive of childhood about them excepting their size. The second man, who had up to this time been as mute as the proverbial clam, pointed his arm at the woman in the door and called out: “That's Sal. Sal. she’s my wife.” Regarding this as an introduction, I raised my hat and dismounted. At the expense of veracity I ventured to say: “You have a fine lot of children, madame.” Her thin lips parted, revealing two rows of long, yellow teeth, and she said, in the same cracked voice that distinguished the men: “Yes, thar’s a right smart lot of them, and thar’d be more if they wasn’t dead!” * Refusing the man’s offer to enter the hut, which we found to be devoid -of furniture, myself and the guide staked our horses in a patch of rich grass by the margin of the stream and then began an investigation. We found the little settlement to consist of fifteen huts, a few of which were abandoned, and that the population, all told, numbered thirtyseven. On the slope back of the huts patches of sickly corn were growing, but there was no domestic animal in sight except our horses. There were trout in the mountain streams and wild hogs in the woods, but these lank, lazy men did not seem to have energy enough to catch the one or hunt the other, and I subsequently found that even the corn would not have been planted had it not been for the women. The guide lit a fire to make some coffee, and while engaged in this operation a number of children, with a curiosity of which their seniors seemed devoid, gathered about us and watched the operation. But this curiosity was the only indication of childhood; there was no wondering comment passed between them; no burst of laughter came from their thin, ashy lips. They simply stood and stared at us, like so many potbellied manikins or naked and dissipated brownies. Suddenly I heard a cry in th e distance, and saw a lean girl of 12 or 13, with long, matted hair, rushing toward us, while she held extended in her right hand a bluish-gray substance. Without paying any heed to us, the girl passed from one to the other of the children, each of whom twisted off a piece of the clay she held in her hand. Each child rolled the morsel between dirty palms till it was as round as a marble and about the same size, and then it was clapped between the thin lips, and the chewing began in much the same way that I have seen children in the North chewing gum. This clay must have excited the salivary glands to excess, for soon the chins and lips of the children were covered with a bluish-frothy muck. I took a piece of the clay and found it without smell or taste, but evidently saturated with some natural oil. In response to my question as to where she got the clay, the girl pointed to a red scar, evidently a landslide at the head of the little valley, and said in the squeaky voice that characterized these people : “ You-uns’ll find right smart up thar.” After lunch' myself and the guide went to the place indicated, and under a thick layer of yellow clay we found a stratum about two inches thick of the bluish-gray substance which these peoDle used as food. There were signs all about indicating that the place had been worked for years, and my examination showed that the supply was practically inexhaustible.

In conversation with the people I was told that they preferred corn bread and meat to the clay, but as : the former required effort to produce I them, and the clay was hand to j hand, they regarded it ns the main i source of food. They begin eating it j before they can crawl, and they continue the practice through all the years of their lives. I was impressed with the fact that this clay was at once a food and a slow poison. Its toxic qualities were indicated in the shriveled limbs, distended stomachs and ghastly complexions of the people who use it, while the fact that for months at a time during the Winter season, it is the only food of which they partake, indicates that it contains some elements of nutrition. My subsequent investigation led me to believe that clay-eating is a habit as deadly and persistent as the alcoholism or morphine mania. In many cases wehre the clay-eaters hav,e been so placed that they could get an abundance of wholesome food they still craved and pined for this mineral substance. lam led to believe that it is more destructive of vital energy than opium, and that one of its most powerful manifestations is that of premature old age. After seeing the first clay-eaters I had no difficulty in finding and recognizing others. They live in communities wherever the clay is to be found, and they hold little or no association with the outside world. In North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, during my three months of travel, I must have met fully /one thousand people who were addicted to this habit. Ido not think that in all the number I saw one man or woman who was 50 years of age, though, as I before stated, even the young looked pro tern aturally old.

In intelligence these people are quite on a par with the lowest savages of Polynesia. and compared with them, the most ignorant black field hand of the South are demigods in intellect. Of morality they have no conception. They are as ignorant of anything like education as the. pigmies of the great African forest. Of God and the hereafter they have only the most savage conceptions, though even the children swear with a Dicturesque fluency that is at first startling. It is a curious fact that when the Cherokees occupied much of the country those of the tribe who contracted the clay-eating habit were at once ostracized and treated as pariahs, and I am inclined to think it was from the Indians that the early white settlers contracted the habit that has resulted in their complete degradation.

TYPICAL CLAY-EATERS.

THEIR MOUNTAIN CABIN.