Mythologies of the South

A myth is merely a story that gives meaning. At its most basic level, a myth is not inherently bad or a sign of ignorance, but a neutral term. Yet, there can be different mythologies that cultures follow and these mythologies can take on different moralities. When mythologies are not examined, questioned, or reinvented, then a mythology can be problematic. Particularly in the American South, this has largely been the case when considering mythologies like the Lost Cause melding together white supremacy, violence, and justifications for economic exploitation. When we look beyond the historically dominant framing of the Lost Cause mythology, we realize that while the Lost Cause is morally repugnant, it is also historically inaccurate. This unit shows how the American South is not a monolith, but a cultural gumbo.

Though not truly embodying the Lost Cause mythology, Rodger Lyle Brown’s Ghost Dancing on the Cracker Circuit: The Culture of Festivals in the American South offers us a chapter where locals romanticize Hernando De Soto and attitudes of the Lost Cause are mirrored. Brown describes the first women “Conquistador” in the society. She complains, “To tell you the truth, we just wish the Indians would go away,” after being questioned about the local protests of the Hernando De Soto Celebration by groups like the Native People’s Information Exchange, Tiyospaya American Indian Student Organization, and the Florida American Indian Movement. Her response, without the hint of irony, offers us a glimpse into the delusion of the De Soto mythology where he is regarded as a great explorer and brave soldier that defeated the Indians. In this framing, De Soto is viewed through the lens of a mythical, fictionalized character. Likewise the perspective of the Indigenous people is not respected, and it disregards the historical account of De Soto’s raping, pillaging, and exploitation. Even though De Soto is not directly tied to the Lost Cause or the Confederacy, some of the same qualities given to De Soto are not unlike the mythical visions of Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

“The Symbolic Lynching of James Meredith” by BH Combs et. al also helps use parse out how the Lost Cause mythology is embedded into the physical landscape of institutions and how that is representative of the larger dominant belief system. In this case, the University of Mississippi is examined. The authors argue that the incident of a noose being tied around James Meredith’s neck is not out of line with the symbolic landscape of the university, especially when we consider the university’s Confederate iconography, mascot, and building names like Vardaman Hall, named after Mississippi’s “Great White Chief.” It is interesting to consider this reality, particularly in present day, when the University of Mississippi has evolved into a more international, diverse space. While many donors and alumni would like the “Old times they are not forgotten” to remain as the dominant narrative, we see that even the publication of this paper shows progress. The student body is slowly becoming more and more diverse and these long held beliefs seem to slowly—maybe not at the rate we would like—fading.

As places like the University of Mississippi become more diverse, I think it is also helpful to briefly consider the American South beyond the black and white racial binary. It is important to remember that the mythologized American South is not uniquely a Southern phenomenon, but is also prevalent in other parts of the U.S. and abroad. In Monique Truong’s article, “Southern, Reborn” we see how Truong’s book publisher, from outside the South, did not know how to package Truong’s coming-of-age story of a Vietnamese-American women in North Carolina. For the publisher, it was hard to grasp the American South as being something other than a black and white racial binary and a nuanced approach to the regionality of the American South was not considered with the choice of a magnolia for the book cover. This is a familiar story for communities like the Jews, Lebanese, and Chinese in the Mississippi Delta. Like Truong, their cultures, traditions, and foodways did not neatly fit in the Southern stereotype and had to be negotiated over time.

Returning to the idea of mythology, I would argue that Cajun/Creole cuisine offers a vision of the American South as a cultural gumbo. In a gumbo, the Indigenous, European, and African influences are visible and it is a dish that could only happen when those cultural influences could interact. A dish like this could be seen as a counter-mythology to the white hegemony. Joe York’s documentary Viet Cajun presents one of the next iterations of cultural blending with a Vietnamese crawfish boil. For me, Southern foodways offer us a way to reinvent the mythology of the American South as a place where tradition and innovation are not at odds, and the tradition is based in knowledge and craft, not racial hierarchies, violence, and economic exploitation. This would also coincide with the larger American ideals of democracy and multiculturalism, but could only be achieved with education, an acknowledgment of our region’s shortcomings, and a formation of a moral imagination.