Today, I found myself teaching an impromptu art class and also furthering the cultural knowledge of a group of children. These little ones have never before heard the Cajun tall tales, nor the Gullah Tales, nor the Tales of the Gypsies and had no idea such subcultures existed here in the United States. This is why I paint, this is why I visit, and why I teach. I myself, being a blend of more than 3 cultures, ethnicities and races, believe it is important to preserve the heritages of these lesser known people groups.
My family, we are Melunge (a.k.a. Melungeon), is a blend of Romany Gypsy, European, African (and they say, but I sincerely doubt this particular portion at times- also American Indian). Of this ethnic and racial blend the Gypsy and the African heritage (gained from freed or escaped slaves) were, for a while, the unspeakable portions of our lineage. My family surname (we hail from the Newmans Ridge area of Tennessee) actually appears on this 1943 list of colored people masquerading as white in Virginia, where my family then lived. To escape the stigma of being a “free person of color” (oftentimes Gypsies were referred to as such) or the stigma of being a “person of color”, they adopted the story that they were “white” . They did in fact masquerade themselves as what they were not entirely and in the process of doing so, through assimilation to the surrounding cultures, our cultures were nearly lost with only bits and pieces of curious “old wives tales” and superstitions remaining.
So few people today know their family history or geneaologies, so few know the rich cultural backgrounds from which they are descended, and because of this we must continue the work of researching, teaching, and depicting them in forms of art and literature.
Sister Indigo Art 