Preface by Otis Bulfinch
Mr. Worley remarks that no explanation is necessary to understand the title of his lecture: "The Folk-Origin of the Arkansas Myth." That may have been true in the mid-1950s when he spoke to the Arkansas Folklore Society, but I'm not so sure these days. With all that Walmart money pouring in and Crystal Bridges garnering accolades from around the world and all of Northwest Arkansas bursting with population and prosperity and Eureka Springs becoming the counter-culture hub of the Ozarks and Johnny Morris building the Marble Falls Nature Park at the site of the long defunct Dogpatch and the Walton boys building bike trails on every gopher hill, not to mention the discovery of lithium deposits in the Smackover Formation in southwestern Arkansas, it might be worth recalling that Arkansas used to be considered retrograde, regressive, an enclave of hillbillies, a poop depository, to paraphrase the current vulgarian in the White House. H. L. Mencken summarized the "Arkansas Myth" thus:
Several years ago I enjoyed the somewhat depressing pleasure of making a tour of the country lying along the border between Arkansas and Oklahoma. … Such shabby and flea-bitten villages I had never seen before, or such dreadful people. Some of the former were so barbaric that they did not even have regular streets. The houses, such as they were, were plumped down anywhere, at any angle. As for inhabitants, it is a sober fact that I saw women by the roadside, with children between their knees, picking lice like mother monkeys in a zoo. … There were few fences. When one appeared, it was far gone in decay and there was always a sign on it, painted crudely, with the e's backward: "Prepare to Meet Thy God."
That in a nutshell is the Arkansas Myth, and like all myths, one can speculate and debate its foundation in reality. That the Arkansas Myth once existed is certainly true, and Mr. Worley simply wants to know why. Have we Arkansans (or Arkansawyers, in Mr. Worley's words) always been "backward, lazy, cussed, ignorant, and pugnacious individualists?" Or do well-heeled and ostensibly well-educated folk enjoy sneering at those of us who are contented with little and value belonging over belongings? Perhaps the answer lies, as it so often does, in the middle ellipse of a Venn diagram. Regardless, I hope you enjoy Ted Worley's speculations on the origins of the Arkansas Myth.
"The Folk Origin of the Arkansas Myth"
Part One
A Paper Read By Ted R. Worley Saturday Morning, June 19th At the [1954] Annual Meeting of the Arkansas Folklore Society
I suppose no one needs an explanation of the title of this essay. Arkansawyers have lived with the Arkansas myth for more than a century, and others, if they know anything about the state, know the myth. Otto Rayburn calls it the "Arkansas Legend"; James Masterson calls it the "miasma" that hovers over the big lie, while at the same time using the myth somewhat awkwardly and apologetically as tourist bait.
I propose to examine the several explanations of how Arkansas acquired its distinctive personality and then to offer my own explanation.
All sorts of people have advanced all sorts of theories about the origin of the myth, for reasons had to be found to account for the state's reputation for backwardness, laziness, cussedness, ignorance, pugnacity, and individuality. The geographical explanation sounds the most scientific. The state's physical geography is the villain. The state's front door was a swamp so formidable that roads could not be built. The atmosphere of eastern Arkansas was said to be composed almost entirely of gallinippers and buffalo gnats. The impenetrable canebrakes harbored bears that gobbled up livestock; moccasins swam in the green scum of bayous and coiled about the sinister cypress knees. Drinking water was reeking with malaria. Little frogs sang "Quinine, quinine, quinine," while larger ones croaked "Double the dose, double the dose." Annual overflows drove the settlers and varmints to the knolls and ruined all crops. The mountains were equally forbidding. Roads were impossible, the soil was thin, so thin that corn had to be planted with a crowbar and squirt-gun. Chiggers, ticks, and poison ivy required that any excess energy be used in scratching. Industry was limited to the lumber and stave business — lumbering up one side of mountains and staving down the other. Geographers also pointed out the contrariness of the rivers in running in the wrong direction. They joined the Mississippi at an acute angle, so that immigrants had to backtrack from the mouth to their destination.
A second explanation of the myth may be called the political explanation. Arkansas, it was said, was a victim of the Jacksonian spoils system, which gave the territory ignorant time-servers as officials. These ne'er-do-wells, opportunists, and adventurers were characterized by a common desire to spend as little time as possible in the state. In the early years of statehood they launched a state banking system that enriched a few planters and impoverished the state and ruined its credit. Meantime land swindlers and speculators stole the public domain before the sturdy squatter had a chance at the land. The disinherited, so the story goes, moved to the Ozark mountains and tried with indifferent success to eke out a living by hunting and raising cattle on persimmon sprouts and bitter weeds.
Then there is the crime-wave theory. Masses of criminals fleeing from sheriffs poured into the state and preyed upon the simple Indians, extracting their money and goods by a liberal use of whiskey. Counterfeiters, it was said, went about with hatfuls of spurious notes. Slave-stealers and murderers, such as the John Murrell gang, found perfect haven in the canebrakes. Steamboat passengers consisted of desperate gamblers and criminals fleeing from justice. There were tough characters known as the Arkansas toothpick. The bowie-knife became known as the Arkansas toothpick. Even the non-criminal Arkansawyers were ready to fight for any reason, or for no reason. Gentlemen fought duels; ordinary men just fought. "Excuse me," says the Arkansawyer in an Opie Read story, as he knocked a stranger down; "my eyesight is failing and I thought you were a friend of mine."