When the Smokies became Government land, a great many people were moved
out. But also a great many were left in. Today there are around 400
native mountain people still living in the Tennessee half of the park,
probably an equal number on the Carolina side.
But it is hard for them. They are no longer masters of their own souls.
His independence is a mountain man’s staff of life, and the reason he
was here in the first place.
Today a mountain man in the park dare not go hunting. He can’t even have
a gun, unless he’s a trusted old-timer allowed to keep it for
sentimental reasons.
He cannot trap. He cannot cut down a tree. He dare not cut balsam boughs
for an outdoor bed. When a mountain schoolteacher wants to give some of
the boys a whuppin’, he has to get a Park Warden to cut the switches for
him.
The mountain people live within the shell of their traditional
existence, but it is an empty shell. The spirit has gone out of the old
log house; an unseen guard stands watch at the door over their
liberties. They are gradually leaving.
It is impossible both to retain, and to exhibit publicly, a natural way
of living. Two more generations, and the old mountain culture of the
Smokies will live only in the museums and the empty log cabins with
Government signs on them, and in the schools that teach the newly
educated youngsters how to weave and spin and hew as their forefathers
did. That’s all that will be left.