To the outsider far removed, or even to people in the nearby lowlands,
mountain people may seem stoic. A mountain woman whose husband is being
tried for his life may sit like a figure of stone not for lack of
feeling, but because she'd rather die than let the other side know her
anguish. A little boy who loses his father will steal off to cliff or
wood and suffer in silence. No one shall see or know his grief. "He's
got a-bound to act like a man, now." The burden of the family is upon
his young shoulders.
Mountain folk love oratory. Men, especially, will travel miles to a
speaking--which may be a political gathering or one for the purpose of
discussing road building.
To all outward appearances they seem unmoved, yet they drink in with
deep emotion all that is said. Both men and women are eager to go to
meeting. Meeting to them means a religious gathering. Here they listen
with rapt attention to the lesser eloquence of the mountain preacher.
But at meeting, unlike at speaking, they give vent to their emotions,
especially if the occasion be that of funeralizing the dead.
Much has been written upon this custom, but the question still prevails,
"Why do mountain people hold a funeral so long after burial?"
The reason is this. Long ago, before good roads were even dreamed of in
the wilderness, when death came, burial of necessity followed
immediately. But often long weeks, even months, elapsed before the word
reached relatives and friends. There were few newspapers in those days
and often as not there were those who could neither read nor write. For
the same reason there was little, if any, exchange of letters.
So the custom of funeralizing the dead long after burial grew from a
necessity. The funeralizing of a departed kinsman or friend was
published from the pulpit. The bereaved family set a day, months or even
a year in advance, for the purpose of having the preacher eulogize their
beloved dead. "Come the third Sunday in May next summer," a mountain
preacher could be heard in mid winter publishing the occasion. "Brother
Tom's funeral will be held here at Christy Creek church house."
The word passed. One told the other and when the appointed Sunday rolled
around the following May, friends and kin came from far and near,
bringing their basket dinner, for no one family could have prepared for
the throng. Together, when they had eaten their fill, they gathered
about the grave house to weep and mourn and sing over "Brother Tom,"
dead and gone this long time.
The grave house was a crude structure of rough planks supported by four
short posts, erected at the time of the burial to shelter the dead from
rain and snow and scorching wind.
Many a one, having warning of approaching death, named the preacher he
wished to preach his funeral, even naming the text and selecting the
hymns to be sung.
As the service moved along after the singing of a doleful hymn, the
sobbing and wailing increased. The preacher eulogized the departed,
praising his many good deeds while on earth, and urged his hearers on to
added hysteria with, "Sing Brother Tom's favorite hymn, Oh, Brother,
Will You Meet Me!"
Sobs changed to wailing as old and young joined in the doleful dirge:
Oh, brother, will you meet me,
Meet me, meet me?
Oh, brother, will you meet me
On Canaan's far-off shore.
It was a family song; so not until each member had been exhorted to meet
on Canaan's shore did the hymn end--each verse followed of course with
the answer:
Oh, yes, we will meet you
On Canaan's far-off shore.
By this time the mourners were greatly stirred up, whereupon the
preacher in a trembling, tearful voice averred, "When I hear this
promising hymn it moves deep the spirit in me, it makes my heart glad.
Why, my good friends, I could shout! I just nearly see Brother Tom over
yonder a-beckoning to me and to you. He ain't on this here old troubled
world no more and he won't be. Will Brother Tom be here when the peach
tree is in full blowth in the spring?"
"No!" wailed the flock.
"Will Brother Tom be here when the leaves begin to drap in the falling
weather?" again he wailed.
"No!"
"Will Brother Tom be up thar? Up thar?"--the swift arm of the preacher
shot upward--"when Gabriel blows his trump?"
"Eh, Lord, Brother Tom will be up thar!" shouted an old woman.
"Amen!" boomed from the throat of everyone.
As it often happened, Tom's widow had long since re-wed, but neither she
nor her second mate were in the least dismayed. They wept and wailed
with fervor, "He'll be thar! He'll be thar!"
"Yes," boomed the preacher once more, "Brother Tom will be thar when
Gabriel blows his trump!"
Then abruptly in a very calm voice, not at all like that in which he had
shouted, the preacher lined the hymn:
Arise, my soul, and spread thy wings,
A better portion trace.
Having intoned the two lines the flock took up the doleful dirge.
So they went on until the hymns were finished.
After a general handshaking and repeated farewells and the avowed hope
of meeting again come the second Sunday in May next year, the
funeralizing ended.