September 8, 2021 • 53 mins
It's no secret that the story of US history taught in school doesn't always match the reality of certain events -- and the deeper you dig, the stranger some stories become. In today's episode, the guys dive into the historic mystery surrounding Melungeons and other communities collectively known as tri-racial isolates, groups throughout the southern and eastern United States known for their enigmatic origins and insular, rural communities. Where did these groups actually come from? Are any of the legends about them true? Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. If you are listening to this
show in the United States, then there's a surprising possibility
(00:47):
that this story affects you directly in ways that you
may not fully understand. Here's what happened, folks. In a
previous Listener Male segment, Matt, Noel and I touched on
the concept of mysterious people and communities in North America
and specifically in what would later become the United States.
(01:07):
These groups today in the world of academia are known
as tri racial isolates. Historically, they've been the subject of
extensive speculation, racism, rumor mongering, and even allegations of conspiracy.
So today we are diving deep into the fact, fiction, folklore,
and fantasy surrounding these groups were exploring their mysterious origins,
(01:29):
and we're pulling back the curtain of history to see
whether we can finally determine the truth amid all these
at times bizarre tall tales. Full disclosure, I am a
descendant of one of the groups. We're going to spend
a lot of time on the community known as the Malungeons.
I will try and no doubt fail not to be biased.
(01:51):
Here are the facts. So first, we're gonna travel to
the eastern seaboard of these old United States. And while
we're there, that's one of the reasons why we're going
there is because this phrase that you may hear, try
racial isolate it UH, for a long time referred to
a very specific group of people, the one that Ben
(02:12):
just mentioned, the Lungeon's. And there's well, there's a reason
for that. We're gonna learn about it. A try racial
isolate is a term for a community of individuals whose
ancestry is some mixture of various things, UM, including African,
Native American, European UH and other I mean various other sources.
(02:35):
And it's it's almost always three, right, That's why you
get try racial isolate, pretty simple. Yeah, And then The
isolate part comes from the fact that a lot of
these groups essentially self segregated. UM. They existed in small
communities that tended to enter mary Um only with other
members of their community. And Ben, you point out that
(02:57):
they kind of didn't really get out much. There's a
lot of good reasons for that. Yeah. Yeah, Oh, and
we should also mention, just for anybody who has seen
this as a video clip on YouTube or some other source,
I agree, it's kind of dumb to wear sunglasses inside,
but I just had I just had a surgical procedure,
(03:19):
so I I have to wear these part of and
no map. Part of the reason I'm wearing these is
so you don't have to look at what's going on
under here for a few days. Then it's not going
to tell you is that he just got his cybernetic
eyes installed. And uh, it's all good. They're gonna be
awesome though, or as they call in the crypto community,
(03:39):
laser eyes. And I was gonna say, then, are you
sure you didn't you're not wearing your sunglasses inside so
we can watch you weave then breathe your storylines, right,
because you could probably see the screen reflected here. Uh yeah,
hopefully this is a temporary thing. But that's that's what's
going on. But just wanted to point that's the lyric
(04:00):
and I wear my sunglasses at night by Corey Heart
that most people think sounds like gibberish, and honestly it
doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense,
But he apparently wears his sunglass at night. So we
can watch you weave then breathe your storylines. You know,
it's funny you mentioned that I was listening to that
song earlier today, so it's yeah, it's hits different at
(04:22):
least this afternoon. But you're absolutely rich. Noal. The isolation
part is key here. A lot of these communities began
by design in isolated, somewhat inaccessible areas. You know, these
were not areas with the best farmland. These were not
areas with the best fishing or access to other towns.
(04:43):
They were places that would be difficult to find unless
you knew what you were looking for and how to
get there. Melungeons are one of the most well known
examples of these tri racial isolates, but they are far
from the only examples. You may have been more likely
to hear of a community known as the Lumby may
have also heard of the brass Ankles or people who
(05:05):
are simply referred to as the Turks. All in all,
they're believed to be somewhere around two hundred different groups
or communities qualified as tri racial isolates, and they're mainly
in the eastern and southern United States. It's a it's
a relatively distinct phenomenon in this country for centuries. You
(05:28):
you may not have heard of most of these groups,
by the way, but for centuries these groups were exotic size,
and they were considered mysterious or even in some cases,
capable of supernatural feats. What do we mean by that?
We mean stuff like magically stopping bleeding, or being able
to uh draw somehow an illness out of somebody, or
(05:50):
even being a sin eater been um you know, growing
up being aware of this part of your history. Is
this something that your folks told you story is about
when you were young. Yes, and those stories are more
prevalent in older populations. So a great aunt would talk
(06:12):
about this or or something like that. But we have
to realize, you know, history is closer to the modern
day than a lot of people assume. Like this is
a fun fact no one knows how old my grandfather
lived to be because the records of his birth were
in a courthouse that burned down. There are a lot
(06:33):
of burning courthouses at the time as well, So so
if you look back in your own past, you'll inevitably
find questions right or unsolved things. And that's going to
play a role in today's story as well. Uh, you know,
let's let's stick with the Malungeons, so we know they're
part of a larger phenomenon. But when we ask ourselves
(06:56):
about any tri racial isolated whether Malungeon's, LUMBI, what have you,
one of the first questions that pops up for a
lot of people, especially their descendants, is well, where where
did they originate? Here is the legend as I've heard it, Um,
Matt and Nol have each heard a version of this. Uh,
probably off air at our favorite local chicken wing spot
(07:18):
or something like that. So, way way way back in
the day, once upon a time, somewhere in the sixteen hundreds,
maybe somewhere in the seventeen hundreds, maybe sometime earlier, the
first big wave of European colonizers were exploring the Appalachian Mountains,
meaning that they were they were looking to settle down
(07:39):
somewhere to find resources, not just passing through. And for
anyone who doesn't live in the United States, that's the
large older Mountain range on the eastern side of the
United States. Yes, yeah, home to the Appalachian Trail. And
when these colonizers are, these explorers, whatever you want to
call them, we're in this area of the world. This
(08:00):
um what if you look at it on a map,
you'll see the state of Tennessee has an attenuated tip
on the right hand side, on the eastern side, and
that connects with parts of Kentucky, parts of Virginia. Anyway,
these Europeans, these guys are in there and they stumble
across this kind of twilight zony. They stumble across this
(08:20):
bizarre settlement deep and what are known as the hollers
or the valleys of this area. And the people they
see surprise them because they have dark skin, like much
darker than you would expect from say European and the Mediterranean.
They have some of them have blue eyes, which is weird.
Their hair is straight, their noses are identical to those
(08:41):
of those European explorers are similar enough. And these folks
don't live in cabins. They live in long houses, and
in some versions one version, I like, they speak an
archaic form of English, like uh, the kind of thing
that would make you wonder whether these people from a
different era of time. This is this is funny and
(09:01):
maybe we maybe we can all play this game together.
I was told a re enactment of this first contact.
So the explorers come up, I don't know who wants
to be an explorer, and they basically say the following
who hell are you? Uh? What do you mean? Asked
the people, Well are are you? Are you Indians? Indians? Uh? What? Well,
(09:24):
what happens if we're If we're Indians, Well you gotta
get the hell out of here. Oh oh for real? No, no,
that no, we're not Uh We're not Indian, We're um.
And they like looked around, They're like, what what else
do you What else do you got? Yeah? Now I got.
I would assume the uh explorers laundry listed some other
(09:45):
like undesirable possibilities, right like, well, you know, you might
be Portuguese, you might be you might be Jewish, you
might be Roma, although they would have used the pejorde
of Gypsy at the time, and they would have name
some other things. And this game, this sort of cat
and mouse game, continued for centuries because maluneon people who
(10:09):
often didn't know their own origin, would change the story.
They told outsiders whenever it was convenient, so, oh no,
we're not you know, Native Americans, we're we're actually black.
Then they came back and they said, hey, did you
say this earlier thing? And they're like, oh what, No,
who told you that? I don't believe that guy were
Roma or whatever. And this was this was a practice,
(10:33):
this sort of metamorphosis of the lie was a practice
for aimed at survivals. You would discard a label and
it became too dangerous, as often did. Yeah, for for
my money, been the way I'm seeing, it's very similar
to what we've just said here. But uh, it feels
like the less they would go with whatever is the
(10:54):
least dangerous option at any given time, depending on what
the the colonizer's the the white folks that are coming through,
we're seeking or seeking to eradicate. Maybe I don't mean,
it's all really really bad and rife, and it was
you had to kind of walk on eggshells. Yeah, I
(11:16):
completely agree. And so Europeans, as every student history knows,
settle further and further inland. Colonial powers at the time
make a couple of moves meant to originally stem this,
like setting up, you know, a British zone of influence
and drawing a line on a map. But a line
on a map is not the same thing as a
(11:38):
physical demarcation. So the Malingan community becomes surrounded by other
people but still isolated. They're extremely rural, they're extremely impoverished.
They're also still not of the new country that is
springing up. They are not part of the United States really,
(11:59):
and and their to day life doesn't doesn't really change.
So this is a funny story, this mix up in
this like, uh, we're Portuguese, l O L. This kind
of stuff is its hall tail, but it has a
little bit of fact mixed in. And it's true that
various authors over time described tri racial isolates like the
Malngeans as any number of things, usually because they had
(12:23):
their own kind of badger in the bag here and say, oh,
they're Portuguese, No weight, says another author. They're actually Turkish.
No wait, says another author. They're a lost tribe of Israel.
Hear me out, you know what I mean, and what
they're descending some mysterious shipwrecks from the ancient era of
the Phoenicians, Like Phoenicians were legendary sailors, right, so that
(12:46):
this based entirely on that fact. Some guy was like, oh, yeah,
I could be there. Phoenicians though, if you think about it,
those are the ones that were really good at pronouncing words, right,
just based on the spelling. Yes, yeah, that's them. Uh.
They are also the inventors of the letter P and
the letter H. That is shaking his head hard at
(13:07):
that part of it, my part of it, not your
factual part, then I would know. That's I think. I
think all we can agree that is entirely factual at
least you know that would that would fly for a
fact in the world of early Malnian communities. And the
thing is, if you went back in time and you
(13:29):
told somebody in this area of the world you met
a you met a Milencheon, and you said you're a Milencheon,
it would be fighting words. It was a pejorative, it
was an insult. It was not it was it was
not cool, you know what I means. It wasn't like
saying hey, you're an at lantern or something like that.
(13:51):
It was much closer to racially derogatory term and and
and similarly to other racially derogatory terms. We know it
would have eventually go on to become a word used
to self identify and kind of take back those negative connotations.
But we'll get to that in a bit. Yeah, and
and first we have to figure out where that word
(14:11):
comes from, because if you've never heard it before, it
sounds strange, like is it a native American word? Or
did some European get really mad at somebody for stealing chickens,
which happened a lot to happen to my family too. Uh.
And then did they just get at a loss of Uh?
Did they get so upset that they were at a
loss for words? Beat me here, Paul. But were they
(14:34):
trying to like call someone a motherfucker like you London?
And then just yeah, two hopped up on the on
the moonshine and they had slurred a little bit, right,
let's get all the stereotypes in there. Yes it Uh,
it's weird because a lot of people tried to guess
at this phrase, at this etymology, and they found some
(14:55):
interesting things or interesting ideas, but again none of them
having conclusively proven. Yeah, and it's because they don't all
seem to be a perfect fit, right, Like, I think
the one that makes a lot of sense to me
is the French word melange, which you might know is
just like a mixture, like a potpourri, you know, various
(15:16):
ingredients um that you can you can use that word
in terms of literature or any other thing, but it
would also be like maybe culinary um. It also could
potentially have linguistic roots in the phrase melan can, which
is a Turkish expression referring to something possessed, you know,
something not of this earth, a cursed soul perhaps. Yeah,
(15:38):
that's not a great look. Who are you people where
the cursed? Yeah? But yeah, but then also you've got
thrown in there, you know, words that go back or
words that mean things like eggplant that just sound kind
of similar with the the melania or melanina. Uh, you know,
(15:59):
it's a bit strange. It's a bit strange because that
one in particular would just be referring to quote, dark
skin on on somebody. Is that does that come from melanin?
Do you think like or do you think melanin comes
from that etymologically, the pigment that makes for dark skin. Yeah,
that's a that's a good question. I know that the
(16:20):
it comes from Melanine comes from the Greek so melas
or melan meaning black, right, so it could be a
common it could be a common phrase there. Uh. And
we know that there was a pretty diverse mix of
languages in this in this time period, in this part
(16:42):
of the world, like the Panopoly native languages that existed,
and all the languages that immigrants brought over when they
crossed the Atlantic. The one that was interesting too, I
think this stood out for you as well. No, was
the idea that it's how the phrase somehow implied jin
(17:05):
d g I N and and for anyone who hasn't
read it yet, either in the title or description of
this episode, malungeon is spelled m E l u n
g e o n and the concept of it the
way it sounds at the very end of that word malungin.
I can totally see why that what may fit there,
and also why you may have some beliefs in supernatural
(17:28):
abilities of somebody who's been labeled this anyone listens to
the show, I'm sure knows the concept of jin but
just as a refresher it would be malevolent spirit, you know,
but also has been kind of incorporated into the idea
of genies or like wish granting, perhaps more benevolent spirits,
but usually there's a bit of a monkey's paw bargain
in those wish scenarios. One of three intelligent life forms
(17:52):
created by Allah, right, the they're the angels, and then
there are the humans, and then there are the jin
You're crafted from smokeless fire. It's a it's a fascinating story.
And um, there is a wonderful podcast on our network
of Pure Podcasts which is all about jin which I
believe you ep Matt correct. Yes, it's fantastic. It was
(18:15):
created with the help of Aaron Makey than Darry made Lore.
It's called The Hinde Gin. So here we are. We're
about twenty minutes into the show, and I have been
somewhat indirectly accused of being Jinny. That's why, you know,
come on, that's why there's this whole history. It's part
of the that's so kind you guys. It's um it
(18:37):
fits with the sunglasses, right, because if you've seen American gods.
The Gin character in there has to wear sunglasses all
the time because he has fiery pupils right right. The
sunglasses off there would be like it would be a
dead giveaway smoke where zero smoke, smokeless fire, whereas I'm
much more in a ocular phantom of the opera situations.
(18:58):
So we'll keep you a little more die elated than fired. Yeah,
we'll keep this and uh, we'll keep this on for everybody.
But the thing is, none of these explanations have been proven.
Any of the explanations we just outlined, and none of
them really answer the question that we posted the top,
where did the Malengions come from? We're gonna pause for
(19:18):
a word from our sponsor and we'll be right back.
Here's where it gets crazy. Well, the way I always
learned it is the answer to where the Milenians come
from is Hancock County, Tennessee, and they're like two other counties,
And there are a couple of families that are thought
to be Milencheon. But that's not that that's not really
(19:42):
what people mean when they ask that question. It's like
if you have if you have grown up in the
US and you are from a multi racial or mixed family.
Then one of the dumb questions you have to put
up with is someone saying where are you from? And
then you say, okay, I'm from I'm from Los Angeles, bro.
(20:04):
I don't know what you want me to tell you.
It's interesting here though, because I mean, with those kinds
of questions, you're referring to a very long history. With this,
you're referring to a handful of families, like you said,
in a very isolated community. Over it's almost like a
modern religion, you know, like being a more men or something.
It's like it's not ancient, it's much more contemporary. And then,
(20:25):
if I'm not mistaken, one of the families, I believe
it's pronounced Boland, not Boland like your name, but it's
more of a d sound. There are a couple. So
the problem there is the illiteracy that was widespread at
the time. So I'm related, for example, the last name
bulland I am related to people who spelled it differently
(20:48):
because they were all kind of freestyling based on how
they thought the name would look on paper. So there
are Bulands, there Collins, There are collins is excuse me,
they're goings. These are names that you'll hear brought up
pretty often. Uh, And for many many years, at least
in the case of luncheons, they were, like you said, mant,
(21:12):
they were considered something old, something from far beyond the
days of the thirteen Colonies in the United States. And
that is not entirely inaccurate. Uh, the the idea. The
thing that gets me is it feels like that that
first contact legend I heard feels very much like an
(21:33):
episode of a of a science fiction show, or it
feels like something you might see at the beginning of
a horror story and in in there back in the
day before it was okay to be maluncheon, they were
often treated like something out of an HP Lovecraft story,
you know, like something not not entirely human. Now that
(21:55):
I think about it, I don't know that I've seen
one walking on a Sunday. I'm pretty sure I saw
one levitating the other day around back behind the barn. Well.
I mean it was even worse than that, it was.
They were used as a as one of these creatures
like the Dwende. When we talked about those and the
(22:15):
goblins on that episode where when we talked about some
of the old witch stories that we brought up on
that episode as well. They were used as a thing
to essentially fear when you like, as a folklore fairy
tale that you would tell your children, perhaps if you
lived in a surrounding area, um, literally don't go into
(22:35):
the woods. Female lungeons might get you right like a
bit of a boogeyman or even like but beyond that,
more on a sociological level, kind of scapegoats in the
same way that witches were used to blame, uh, to
have something to point to when things went badly. Yeah,
and this is weird because this this stuff, which is
(22:55):
a an iteration of very very old folklore beliefs common
in common on the African continent, common in Europe. Wherever
you go, any place that has people will have these
kind of boogieamen and they have malgis happened to be
a very easy, like regional flavor for that same fear.
(23:17):
But at the same time, we see the modern US
state evolving the modern country of the US. The first
Tennessee Constitution, which is written way back in sevent gave
male free people of color the right to vote. A
lot of folks don't know that, uh, and it it
(23:38):
didn't last forever because after the rebellion led by Nat
Turner in eighteen thirty one, Tennessee went back and changed things.
But that does mean technically, if you want to be
a lot of fun at parties, you can say the
Malungeons were some of the first free people of color
to vote, at which point your friends will stare at
you blankly and then say, has anybody listened to Donda yet?
(24:02):
It's pretty okay? Um? Uh? Is that because they could
pass for white pen in some cases, not not in
the beginning, and not not for a long time actually,
but they definitely did not. They didn't look like anyone else,
you know. This is part of why there was such
mystery and so much folklore about the community. It wasn't
(24:24):
entirely kind. You can read a lot of it in
there's several books out, But I'd just be very careful
about their credibility because some of those books, especially the
older ones, will get to why they have their those
books have problems. But yes, people were accused of witchcraft.
It wasn't just don't go out the woods at night, kiddo,
(24:45):
The Malgans will get you. They didn't really say what
the male engines would do if they got you, would
they eat you? Would you have to party with them
in like a Rip van Winkle kind of style or
when Yeah, right, maybe they would lock you up in
they're vast silver mines and or just coffers of silver
that they had. Perhaps there are riddles involved. Uh, that
(25:07):
would be great. Uh. This part of the world is
and remains a place that puts a lot of emphasis
on on good stories and music and those bits of folklore.
So yeah, maybe they would have some riddles. Would the
riddles make sense? I don't know, Maybe maybe not. But
the let's get back on the silver hoards. Yes, right, Uh,
(25:31):
this is something Matt. I don't know how much we
want to talk about this. We've alluded to it in
the show in the past, and you talked about it.
We're not gonna say the whole thing. There are legends
of hidden silver cashes and minds amongst the hills of
the Appalachia that allegedly someone of Malungeon descent hit there.
(25:57):
There are tales of this out there, some of which
have been um A lot more has been made of
them than maybe is worth. It almost has like Lord
of the Rings asked qualities to it like the idea
of like the dwarves and they're like cashes of treasure
that they hoard like beneath the misty mountain or whatever.
You know. Yeah, this is uh, this these are very
(26:20):
good points because the idea, I don't know it kind
of metastasized the way that a lot of a lot
of these stories do. But the support for this idea, uh,
would be found in numerous reports that, uh, some non
legion person knows them Legion person right, their community is
(26:43):
several miles over or whatever, and one day this person
who is from a community that is just as poor
as everybody else. They were not a very they were
not very many well to do people in that in
that community. Uh, all of a sudden they show up
and they've got like silver coins buttons, and that's what
they're paying for stuff with instead of like ginsing or whatever.
(27:05):
You know, would have been foraged, and that would have
been a time where like that kind of trade was acceptable.
Like there wasn't necessarily you know, um legal tender that
they were always using. It could have been more on
barter systems in this rural parts of the country, but
silver to barter good barter, I usually get a lot
from the from the general store for like an ancient
(27:27):
piece of silver. One would think, yeah, and it's also
a weird flex they could work against you. I mean,
it's kind of like going to your local gas station
and then getting, you know, a cup of coffee for
what like a dollar thirty five and then paying for
it with a hundred dollar bill. Sure, it's like when
(27:48):
they when they tell you if you've done a big
heist or something, or like done some sort of crime,
don't go spreading your money around because you're gonna try
attention to yourself. Don't don't whip out the Bend bucks
when all you need to pay for some coffee, right right,
People will be suspicious. And one of the reasons people
were suspicious about this Silver Mind story or the secret
(28:12):
Horde of Silver was that there was there were already
rumors that something like this existed, and they became connected
to Malungeon's because of that report of someone who was
expected to be impoverished suddenly seeming to have a lot
of wealth. Was it due to their infernal powers, or
was it due to their perceived close friendship with native populations,
(28:37):
or did they know some kind of like this is
what people forget. Even back then, and like the seventeen hundreds,
folks were practicing a kind of belief in ancient hidden history,
you know what I mean, Like the idea that when
you hear somebody saying, well, you know, actually the um
insert group here, you know, they could say, oh, actually,
(29:00):
you know, the Templars came over way way away before
your history books want you to know that Europeans visited
the quote unquote New World. People were saying stuff like
that back then too, and they and they believed it.
And but I just want to walk back something I
said earlier slightly. I mean, I said, how this might
(29:20):
be looked at as maybe more of a modern thing
um as opposed to like races that maybe have existed
for thousands of years. Uh, that's maybe more how he
would see it today. But the people of the time,
we're looking at it through a lens of superstition, and
they were looking at them as like these ancient beings
almost right, yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is a symptom
(29:40):
of othering, you know, of saying these people look a
little too different from us to be you know, maybe
they look too different to actually be people. So the
thing is there is a legend of a silver mine
in that area, and it's an old legend. It's called
swift Silver Mind, and the the reason it is thought
(30:04):
to exist is because of the journal of an Englishman
named Jonathan Swift. He claims that he discovered this mind,
and the legend goes he was making bank off of
it until things went wrong. The money got too good.
He ended up walling it up. He betrayed somebody, or
was betrayed in turn. He was stricken blind, perhaps by
(30:25):
an act of God, and unable to return to the mind.
People still celebrate this. They conjecture over whether it's in
Tennessee or Virginia. That I believe there's like an annual
celebration for the mind. There are people who are looking
for it as we speak. But Jonathan Swift, if you
if you dig into his story, he's a kaiser SoSE man,
(30:48):
he's a ghost. This isn't the Jonathan Swift he wrote
Gulliver's Travels, who maybe was of the same era. But
it's a very arresting name. I know. I wish it
was him, though, that would give us more to go
wide right. Everybody in Jonathan Swift book is based on
his encounters in the US. That would be great. Uh,
(31:10):
But I like to mention authors Noel, because now we're
going back to the idea that each new author seems
to be purposely playing the game of telephone, and they're
playing it on eleven on a scale of one to ten.
Nobody can just say, Hey, I'm confirming this person's theory,
and I think this sounds good. Everybody's got to have
(31:31):
their own thing, you know what I mean. And so
they add more and more layers to the overall myth.
And that's where we see some really wild claims start
to come about. Sure, we have authors like David Beers
Quinn and ivor Noel Hume who um conjectured that the
Malungeons were descended from Safardi Jews who fled the Spanish
(31:52):
acquisition and came to North America as sailors. Um. There's
also whispers around as time saying that the great explorer
Francis Drake didn't actually repatriate all of the Turks that
he saved from the Sack of Cartenia, but in fact
some came along with him to the colonies. Okay, so
(32:15):
we got Drake in here, will we see some lungeons
in the next Uncharted game. Did you guys play Uncharted?
I did. I didn't finish the most recent one. But
those are epically great games, all right, So I expect
a royalty check in the mail, uh if they If
they do that, I don't think they have to pay. No.
I don't think so, because then they have to pay
(32:35):
everybody else, right, I don't think video game companies pay reparations.
I was looking for royalties well, dream big. Uh. There
are any number of other suggestions. They're largely from what
could be described as authors who are running the gamut
between self educated to scholarly, between amateur or to UH,
(33:01):
someone with personal firsthand experience because they have family members
who told them some of these stories. The first most
popular theory about the Malugeons was that they were the
descendants of UH of some Europeans who came over way,
way away before Europeans officially reached the US, and then
(33:23):
UH people of the Cherokee nation. This is almost certainly
false as an origin story. Will see why in a moment.
If you put all the myths aside, and they're so
cool and I wish some of them were true, you
know what I mean? I would love to be able
to like give people the evil eye or to you know,
(33:43):
stop someone's bleeding or stopped their heart with just like
some I don't know, in some weird incantation fingers, the
poison fingers. I thought that was a Frederick plan. That
was a good sound stinger. I just watched the movie
I think it was on Netflix about that. I felt it.
I felt a stinging poison fingers as a kung fu movie. Anyway,
(34:09):
I don't know where you can stop someone's heart by,
like do do do? Do? Do? Like just tapping on
their chest like it's a single strike right on the back. Oh,
and now there's some style on. It is a death blow,
but it takes a second to kick in. So if
you put all the myths aside, melungeons did, and in
(34:29):
some cases still do, look physically distinct from their neighbors
in this again, this little pocket of Appalachia. And that
means that regardless of how much they attempted to culturally assimilate,
going to Christian churches, uh, participating in public works, whatever,
(34:50):
those physical differences meant. The rumors and the persecution against
these communities and again other communities like them, other tri
racial isolates would continue. So over time, malungeons began to
purposely assimilate on a deeper level. They were attempting to
marry and interbreed outside of their own communities with existing
(35:11):
European American populations. And it used to be just you
know the people that they met. You met someone fell
in love. You didn't think too much about what social
class or higher argument. But this, this change means that
they were attempting to escape or hide their origin or identity.
(35:32):
And again, the origin story was itself a conspiracy. It
would always change when it was convenient or necessary. So
you probably haven't heard of these folks before. Try racial
isolates unless you grow up around one of these communities,
where you yourself remember one of these communities. And the
reason you haven't heard a lot of those odd stories
(35:54):
are first, these are often disadvantaged populations. Secondly, they're often
very small in number, and third, they don't really fit
into the kind of cut and dry textbook history of
the US as taught in school rooms. For a very
long time, US history was taught in terms of absolutes.
(36:15):
You know what I mean, we're the good guys. These
dates happened, and this is why this thing is important,
And we've only got time for one paragraph on this,
so we're moving on, you know what I mean? And
this means that amateur researchers didn't have much to go
on for a long time except disparate clues and records
(36:36):
and courthouses that didn't burn down oral tradition which has
a lot of bs in it. Uh. And then while
they were trying to unravel the mystery, their process eventually
and inevitably led to two very very big problems. The
first one we've already kind of discussed here. The tri
(36:57):
racial isolate groups were often attempting to hide their true
identity for one reason or another, usually because of persecution
from an outside group. So you know, there all those records,
if you can't find them, are gonna be kind of
hidden hidden away amongst other identities, right other, whether it's
(37:18):
racial and identifying identities or names that are different or changed.
It's just it's something that's very difficult to pin down.
I think I'm getting that right, then maybe I'm wrong,
But it feels as though that's one of the most
difficult things, is that the paperwork becomes muddy. But yeah,
and think like someone who let's say someone's interviewing in
(37:41):
person who is melungeon, but they've they've cast it away.
It's before the nineteen sixties, when when the word became
okay and became not an insult due primarily to one
stage play but story for another day. You're trying to
talk to someone about this because you're researching it, and
they don't want to talk to you because they're like,
(38:01):
you know, me and my parents and my grandparents actually
spent a long time trying to get away from that.
So if we could keep all our questions to the album,
I don't know. I guess they made an album or something.
But this assimilation continued. People wanted to pass his quote
unquote white and things like my freckles could be considered
(38:22):
physical proof of this assimilation. But that's that's one. That's
one problem. That's a very real problem. But we shouldn't
ignore the second Leviathan of a problem, which isn't Many
of these researchers had something we talked about pretty often
on this show. They had heavy confirmation bias. Like let's
say you're writing a book and you say, you know,
(38:45):
I heard there was Turkish descent involved, or I being
a student of Phoenician history. I am certain that the
lungeon's what we call belungeons today are actually Phoenician, and
I am going to discover the truth. But I am
going to prove that this is so. And this means
that they would, you know, they would cherry pick stuff that,
(39:09):
you know, that seemed to enforce their narrative or strengthen it.
But on the flip side, especially people thought they were
descended from the lungeons. We have to keep in mind, Uh,
these people have created their own narrative that's very close
to them, and so they might avoid answers that make
them uncomfortable. There was literally the stuff they didn't want
(39:30):
themselves to know about, you know themselves. Right, Yeah, we're
going to AH and this is where we go to
the next most recent big turn. I think you can
see what we're telegraphing here, folks, definitely better than I can.
Fast forward to the advent of commercial DNA technology. This
(39:51):
now it is possible you can spit into a you
can swab the inside of your cheek, and you can
learn all sorts of things about the people who ultimately
lead to you spending time here on Earth. So we
rarely get to say this on our show, but it's official.
The mystery of the malungeons is solved. The problem is
(40:13):
a ton of people do not like the answer. We'll
tell you why after word from our sponsor, and we're back.
And I don't know if any of you caught that,
but Ben through shade at his own eyes while wearing
shades at night, it was beautiful. Dude. My I'm gonna
(40:37):
be honest with you, Like, if it looks like I'm crying,
my eyes are just leaking, I'm not like emotionally potato potato,
my friend, potato potato. Yeah. Um. So you know, we
keep using this termal lungeon, and it is a bit
(40:58):
strange that we're even using it this often in an
episode of a podcast because it did have such a
negative connotation for so long. But it turns out this
word that was a pejorative. It wasn't really based in
science in anyway. Yeah not in neither were many of
the other ones that you mentioned at the top of
the show. Ben. Um. Those are all in various ways
(41:22):
and by various people, used as terms of abuse and
often just catch alls for biracial people, you know, when
where they don't like The people that are slinging these
insults around aren't doing it because they care whether a
person identifying as melungeon thinks that they're from Portuguese descent.
They just look at them as this other that looks different,
and this is a term of abuse, much like the
(41:44):
term red bone and Cajun kind of culture would be
used as a term for, you know, biracial people, and
that's another term that was taken back by those that
would identify as such. Also, the word malungeon has the
added disadvantage just being an awkward, clunky word linguistically. You
(42:04):
know what, why couldn't we be witch breed? That's way cooler,
But it's no one. No one asked us. But so
the lungeons back in the day and their modern descendants
there the first the idea of a scientific term. Here
(42:25):
is a bit of a moving goal post, because I
was trying to think about how to say this without
being defense, without offending anybody. But uh, you know, we're
big on comic book and fiction analogies here on stuff
they don't want you to know. And there is in
the world of Marvel Universe something called the deviance if
(42:48):
you're if you're not too familiar with this. They're wrapped
up in the Eternals. You'll see deviants in the upcoming
Marvel movie The Eternals. But the thing about deviance in
the comic book is that in comic book universe is
that none of them look exactly alike. The main thing
they have in common is that they are collectively called deviants. Uh.
(43:10):
Luncheon people are not deviants. People in general are not deviance.
You know, they're all people. But the group described as
Malungeon's they don't have the same level of genetic homogeneity
that you would see and say the Han Chinese, right,
They wouldn't because they are the result of so many
(43:30):
mixtures of people from widespread variety of places across the world.
The odds are pretty high that each family has its
own unique genetic lineage. So DNA testing was, for the
first time in history able to conclusively trace the roots
of some core families that founded what would have become
(43:53):
known as Malungeon's today or Melungeon Country. And a lot
of people who proudly consider themselves in Malungeon's in East
Tennessee and Virginia, in parts of Kentucky. Uh, We're dead
set on seeing their family story proven true. You know, Oh,
(44:14):
we do trace back to some mysterious hinterland of the
Ottoman Empire. Oh, we are actually the descendants of uh
some people Francis Drake rescued or we are secretly from
a lost tribe of Israel, etcetera, etcetera. Uh. No, you
can trace the Malungeons back. It starts in Virginia. It
starts a long time ago in Virginia, like in the
(44:37):
Wolf fifteen hundreds of Virginia, which deer point noal is
still comparatively recent. Sure, and and they can trace it
back to a specific area of Virginia, the Tidewater region
I guess of Virginia. And there are multiple, um pretty
substantial studies that proved this. Most famously, there was a
relatively recent Danna study in the Journal of Janet Genealogy. Uh.
(45:01):
The lead researcher of that study, ROBERTA. Estes, and her team,
found there was genetic evidence that proves the families historically
called Melungeon's um are mostly the offspring of sub Saharan
African men and white women of Northern or Central European origin.
That's the part that kind of pissed some people off
(45:23):
because I think a lot of folks really hung onto
that Portuguese part of it. Yeah, it's the it's the US.
There were a lot of people is as terrible as
is that took this news poorly because they were offended
by the idea that they could be in any way
black is that's where they were in life. So it
(45:47):
so Stes dealt with this and they they theorized that
various melungeon lines could have sprung up, Like they said,
the genetic proof is there from unions of indentured servants,
black and white, indentured servants who were living in Virginia
until the mid sixteen hundreds when some very important legal
things happened, and some very unclean legal things. We're talking
(46:09):
about the practice, the widespread practice of chattel slavery. And
they note the researchers note that as laws were put
into place, uh slowly over a period of time, like
the old adage about boiling frogs, these laws increasingly penalized
people for doing for practicing what was called mis engeneation,
(46:31):
which is the big one that that was overturned with
Loving versus West Virginia. Mis engineation. Yeah, the name of
the law though it was like it was something like
the Racial Purity Act or something really awful sounding like that.
It's terrible to say that they're they're so many, and
these were going like colony by colonies, state by state, um.
(46:53):
So the various family groups that existed as their existence
was being made illegal, it only intermarry with each other.
And eventually they started migrating away. Because if you don't
like the law in one place, then you don't agree
with it and you can leave, Then why on earth
would you stay, especially if you know it's going to
impact the lives of your children. So they migrated centuries
(47:16):
and centuries and centuries, go from Virginia through the Carolinas
before settling primarily in the mountains of East Tennessee. Why
did they seem so well established when other Europeans came right,
That's that's a question for a different day, because those
other explorers probably weren't aware of what what happened that
led these people to live there, And the claims of
(47:39):
things like Portuguese ancestry were just a ruse, a very conspiracy,
because they wanted to remain free, even if they were
called free people of color. The most important part of
that phrase to them was the one at the beginning free.
And they also wanted to retain social privileges that would
come with the idea of passing. And so in short,
(48:00):
they were trying to cover up part of their collective past.
In most cases, they were trying to cover up African ancestry.
And that conspiracy, as crazy as it sounds, worked incredibly
well for a long time. Like it worked, they were
considered different. And also, yes, it does sound silly to
want to cover up something like that, because, as we
(48:21):
all know, science proves that if you are a human being,
then your ancestors ultimately originated from the African continent. Yeah,
and it's not difficult to know why, right, Why why
would a large group of people conspire to hide their identity,
Because it does not take much at all to crack
(48:42):
open even a history book that sanctioned by the United
States and the Departments of Education and see the atrocities,
the crimes that were committed against anyone who was not
let's just say it white enough within the colonies and
uh and in the early United States, even before it
(49:03):
was a country, right as as things were just being
settled and colonized and there's a very good reason to
want to. As you said, then pass for something that
something other. Yeah, yeah, I mean travel back to even
as recently as the early eighteen hundreds in this part
of the world, and say that you are Malungeon. What
(49:24):
would you do to give your kids a better shot
at success in life? For most people, the answer is,
and it should be, virtually anything I can do is
what I will do. And this ruse, this conspiracy was
so successful that over generations, actual Malungeons fell for the
story once meant to protect them from outsiders. You can't
(49:46):
tell me we're not Turkish, etcetera, etcetera. And oral traditions
and folklore are fascinating, and they are often based in
some grain of truth. But DNA is solid evidence. It
can't be ignored. The mystery is solved, and those who
claim him it is not either have their own unique
non Malungian family history or they may simply not want
(50:07):
to admit the truth. The pattern of hiding from the past,
even when it becomes a parent that you're doing so,
is Sadly, it's not unique to Malungeon's. It's not unique
to try racial isolets. It's not unique to the United States.
It is an important lesson. Is the ultimate takeaway from
this mystery is I think I'm trying to be positive here.
I think in some ways it's inspiring. And Matt, I
(50:30):
think we found the perfect person to give us the
last word on what we can take away from this episode.
The mystery of the malungeons. That recent DNA study that
we mentioned earlier, which you can read about, by the way,
if you look to the Associated Press and Travis Lawler,
you can find this and I would type this into
your search bar. A whole lot of people upset about
(50:54):
upset by this study or DNA and the truth about
Appalachia's malungeons. So there was this this DNA study we
talked about, and there was some response to it. There's
a sociologist named g Reginald Daniel who spent much of
his life around three decades, uh, just studying this this
whole thing multi racial communities within the United States, and
(51:16):
this is his quotation quote, all of us are multi racial,
and this study is recapturing a more authentic United States history.
Well said, yeah, and it's and it's a mission that
everybody should be on board with. You know, there's there's
(51:36):
this tendency that happens not with everybody, but as people
age and as they begin considering their mortality more often
or more deeply, their interest in the past also increases.
I'm sure everybody listening can think of one older relative
who got super into genealogy right and maybe learned some
(51:57):
amazing things. And you may have found yourself going on
journey like this. It is a noble undertaking and it's
something that those who come after you will appreciate in
their own time. And with this in mind, we passed
the torch to you, or we put a badger in
a bag and we toss it to you. What what
do you think? Do you have any multi racial background
(52:19):
in your family? And if so, did it surprise you?
How was it handled? What does stories like this make
you think about what we have yet to learn about
the past of the US and what this could mean
for the future. Please let us know. We can't wait
to hear from you. We try to be easy to
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(52:43):
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(53:06):
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(53:35):
you to Know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
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your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. If you are listening to this
show in the United States, then there's a surprising possibility
(00:47):
that this story affects you directly in ways that you
may not fully understand. Here's what happened, folks. In a
previous Listener Male segment, Matt, Noel and I touched on
the concept of mysterious people and communities in North America
and specifically in what would later become the United States.
(01:07):
These groups today in the world of academia are known
as tri racial isolates. Historically, they've been the subject of
extensive speculation, racism, rumor mongering, and even allegations of conspiracy.
So today we are diving deep into the fact, fiction, folklore,
and fantasy surrounding these groups were exploring their mysterious origins,
(01:29):
and we're pulling back the curtain of history to see
whether we can finally determine the truth amid all these
at times bizarre tall tales. Full disclosure, I am a
descendant of one of the groups. We're going to spend
a lot of time on the community known as the Malungeons.
I will try and no doubt fail not to be biased.
(01:51):
Here are the facts. So first, we're gonna travel to
the eastern seaboard of these old United States. And while
we're there, that's one of the reasons why we're going
there is because this phrase that you may hear, try
racial isolate it UH, for a long time referred to
a very specific group of people, the one that Ben
(02:12):
just mentioned, the Lungeon's. And there's well, there's a reason
for that. We're gonna learn about it. A try racial
isolate is a term for a community of individuals whose
ancestry is some mixture of various things, UM, including African,
Native American, European UH and other I mean various other sources.
(02:35):
And it's it's almost always three, right, That's why you
get try racial isolate, pretty simple. Yeah, And then The
isolate part comes from the fact that a lot of
these groups essentially self segregated. UM. They existed in small
communities that tended to enter mary Um only with other
members of their community. And Ben, you point out that
(02:57):
they kind of didn't really get out much. There's a
lot of good reasons for that. Yeah. Yeah, Oh, and
we should also mention, just for anybody who has seen
this as a video clip on YouTube or some other source,
I agree, it's kind of dumb to wear sunglasses inside,
but I just had I just had a surgical procedure,
(03:19):
so I I have to wear these part of and
no map. Part of the reason I'm wearing these is
so you don't have to look at what's going on
under here for a few days. Then it's not going
to tell you is that he just got his cybernetic
eyes installed. And uh, it's all good. They're gonna be
awesome though, or as they call in the crypto community,
(03:39):
laser eyes. And I was gonna say, then, are you
sure you didn't you're not wearing your sunglasses inside so
we can watch you weave then breathe your storylines, right,
because you could probably see the screen reflected here. Uh yeah,
hopefully this is a temporary thing. But that's that's what's
going on. But just wanted to point that's the lyric
(04:00):
and I wear my sunglasses at night by Corey Heart
that most people think sounds like gibberish, and honestly it
doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense,
But he apparently wears his sunglass at night. So we
can watch you weave then breathe your storylines. You know,
it's funny you mentioned that I was listening to that
song earlier today, so it's yeah, it's hits different at
(04:22):
least this afternoon. But you're absolutely rich. Noal. The isolation
part is key here. A lot of these communities began
by design in isolated, somewhat inaccessible areas. You know, these
were not areas with the best farmland. These were not
areas with the best fishing or access to other towns.
(04:43):
They were places that would be difficult to find unless
you knew what you were looking for and how to
get there. Melungeons are one of the most well known
examples of these tri racial isolates, but they are far
from the only examples. You may have been more likely
to hear of a community known as the Lumby may
have also heard of the brass Ankles or people who
(05:05):
are simply referred to as the Turks. All in all,
they're believed to be somewhere around two hundred different groups
or communities qualified as tri racial isolates, and they're mainly
in the eastern and southern United States. It's a it's
a relatively distinct phenomenon in this country for centuries. You
(05:28):
you may not have heard of most of these groups,
by the way, but for centuries these groups were exotic size,
and they were considered mysterious or even in some cases,
capable of supernatural feats. What do we mean by that?
We mean stuff like magically stopping bleeding, or being able
to uh draw somehow an illness out of somebody, or
(05:50):
even being a sin eater been um you know, growing
up being aware of this part of your history. Is
this something that your folks told you story is about
when you were young. Yes, and those stories are more
prevalent in older populations. So a great aunt would talk
(06:12):
about this or or something like that. But we have
to realize, you know, history is closer to the modern
day than a lot of people assume. Like this is
a fun fact no one knows how old my grandfather
lived to be because the records of his birth were
in a courthouse that burned down. There are a lot
(06:33):
of burning courthouses at the time as well, So so
if you look back in your own past, you'll inevitably
find questions right or unsolved things. And that's going to
play a role in today's story as well. Uh, you know,
let's let's stick with the Malungeons, so we know they're
part of a larger phenomenon. But when we ask ourselves
(06:56):
about any tri racial isolated whether Malungeon's, LUMBI, what have you,
one of the first questions that pops up for a
lot of people, especially their descendants, is well, where where
did they originate? Here is the legend as I've heard it, Um,
Matt and Nol have each heard a version of this. Uh,
probably off air at our favorite local chicken wing spot
(07:18):
or something like that. So, way way way back in
the day, once upon a time, somewhere in the sixteen hundreds,
maybe somewhere in the seventeen hundreds, maybe sometime earlier, the
first big wave of European colonizers were exploring the Appalachian Mountains,
meaning that they were they were looking to settle down
(07:39):
somewhere to find resources, not just passing through. And for
anyone who doesn't live in the United States, that's the
large older Mountain range on the eastern side of the
United States. Yes, yeah, home to the Appalachian Trail. And
when these colonizers are, these explorers, whatever you want to
call them, we're in this area of the world. This
(08:00):
um what if you look at it on a map,
you'll see the state of Tennessee has an attenuated tip
on the right hand side, on the eastern side, and
that connects with parts of Kentucky, parts of Virginia. Anyway,
these Europeans, these guys are in there and they stumble
across this kind of twilight zony. They stumble across this
(08:20):
bizarre settlement deep and what are known as the hollers
or the valleys of this area. And the people they
see surprise them because they have dark skin, like much
darker than you would expect from say European and the Mediterranean.
They have some of them have blue eyes, which is weird.
Their hair is straight, their noses are identical to those
(08:41):
of those European explorers are similar enough. And these folks
don't live in cabins. They live in long houses, and
in some versions one version, I like, they speak an
archaic form of English, like uh, the kind of thing
that would make you wonder whether these people from a
different era of time. This is this is funny and
(09:01):
maybe we maybe we can all play this game together.
I was told a re enactment of this first contact.
So the explorers come up, I don't know who wants
to be an explorer, and they basically say the following
who hell are you? Uh? What do you mean? Asked
the people, Well are are you? Are you Indians? Indians? Uh? What? Well,
(09:24):
what happens if we're If we're Indians, Well you gotta
get the hell out of here. Oh oh for real? No, no,
that no, we're not Uh We're not Indian, We're um.
And they like looked around, They're like, what what else
do you What else do you got? Yeah? Now I got.
I would assume the uh explorers laundry listed some other
(09:45):
like undesirable possibilities, right like, well, you know, you might
be Portuguese, you might be you might be Jewish, you
might be Roma, although they would have used the pejorde
of Gypsy at the time, and they would have name
some other things. And this game, this sort of cat
and mouse game, continued for centuries because maluneon people who
(10:09):
often didn't know their own origin, would change the story.
They told outsiders whenever it was convenient, so, oh no,
we're not you know, Native Americans, we're we're actually black.
Then they came back and they said, hey, did you
say this earlier thing? And they're like, oh what, No,
who told you that? I don't believe that guy were
Roma or whatever. And this was this was a practice,
(10:33):
this sort of metamorphosis of the lie was a practice
for aimed at survivals. You would discard a label and
it became too dangerous, as often did. Yeah, for for
my money, been the way I'm seeing, it's very similar
to what we've just said here. But uh, it feels
like the less they would go with whatever is the
(10:54):
least dangerous option at any given time, depending on what
the the colonizer's the the white folks that are coming through,
we're seeking or seeking to eradicate. Maybe I don't mean,
it's all really really bad and rife, and it was
you had to kind of walk on eggshells. Yeah, I
(11:16):
completely agree. And so Europeans, as every student history knows,
settle further and further inland. Colonial powers at the time
make a couple of moves meant to originally stem this,
like setting up, you know, a British zone of influence
and drawing a line on a map. But a line
on a map is not the same thing as a
(11:38):
physical demarcation. So the Malingan community becomes surrounded by other
people but still isolated. They're extremely rural, they're extremely impoverished.
They're also still not of the new country that is
springing up. They are not part of the United States really,
(11:59):
and and their to day life doesn't doesn't really change.
So this is a funny story, this mix up in
this like, uh, we're Portuguese, l O L. This kind
of stuff is its hall tail, but it has a
little bit of fact mixed in. And it's true that
various authors over time described tri racial isolates like the
Malngeans as any number of things, usually because they had
(12:23):
their own kind of badger in the bag here and say, oh,
they're Portuguese, No weight, says another author. They're actually Turkish.
No wait, says another author. They're a lost tribe of Israel.
Hear me out, you know what I mean, and what
they're descending some mysterious shipwrecks from the ancient era of
the Phoenicians, Like Phoenicians were legendary sailors, right, so that
(12:46):
this based entirely on that fact. Some guy was like, oh, yeah,
I could be there. Phoenicians though, if you think about it,
those are the ones that were really good at pronouncing words, right,
just based on the spelling. Yes, yeah, that's them. Uh.
They are also the inventors of the letter P and
the letter H. That is shaking his head hard at
(13:07):
that part of it, my part of it, not your
factual part, then I would know. That's I think. I
think all we can agree that is entirely factual at
least you know that would that would fly for a
fact in the world of early Malnian communities. And the
thing is, if you went back in time and you
(13:29):
told somebody in this area of the world you met
a you met a Milencheon, and you said you're a Milencheon,
it would be fighting words. It was a pejorative, it
was an insult. It was not it was it was
not cool, you know what I means. It wasn't like
saying hey, you're an at lantern or something like that.
(13:51):
It was much closer to racially derogatory term and and
and similarly to other racially derogatory terms. We know it
would have eventually go on to become a word used
to self identify and kind of take back those negative connotations.
But we'll get to that in a bit. Yeah, and
and first we have to figure out where that word
(14:11):
comes from, because if you've never heard it before, it
sounds strange, like is it a native American word? Or
did some European get really mad at somebody for stealing chickens,
which happened a lot to happen to my family too. Uh.
And then did they just get at a loss of Uh?
Did they get so upset that they were at a
loss for words? Beat me here, Paul. But were they
(14:34):
trying to like call someone a motherfucker like you London?
And then just yeah, two hopped up on the on
the moonshine and they had slurred a little bit, right,
let's get all the stereotypes in there. Yes it Uh,
it's weird because a lot of people tried to guess
at this phrase, at this etymology, and they found some
(14:55):
interesting things or interesting ideas, but again none of them
having conclusively proven. Yeah, and it's because they don't all
seem to be a perfect fit, right, Like, I think
the one that makes a lot of sense to me
is the French word melange, which you might know is
just like a mixture, like a potpourri, you know, various
(15:16):
ingredients um that you can you can use that word
in terms of literature or any other thing, but it
would also be like maybe culinary um. It also could
potentially have linguistic roots in the phrase melan can, which
is a Turkish expression referring to something possessed, you know,
something not of this earth, a cursed soul perhaps. Yeah,
(15:38):
that's not a great look. Who are you people where
the cursed? Yeah? But yeah, but then also you've got
thrown in there, you know, words that go back or
words that mean things like eggplant that just sound kind
of similar with the the melania or melanina. Uh, you know,
(15:59):
it's a bit strange. It's a bit strange because that
one in particular would just be referring to quote, dark
skin on on somebody. Is that does that come from melanin?
Do you think like or do you think melanin comes
from that etymologically, the pigment that makes for dark skin. Yeah,
that's a that's a good question. I know that the
(16:20):
it comes from Melanine comes from the Greek so melas
or melan meaning black, right, so it could be a
common it could be a common phrase there. Uh. And
we know that there was a pretty diverse mix of
languages in this in this time period, in this part
(16:42):
of the world, like the Panopoly native languages that existed,
and all the languages that immigrants brought over when they
crossed the Atlantic. The one that was interesting too, I
think this stood out for you as well. No, was
the idea that it's how the phrase somehow implied jin
(17:05):
d g I N and and for anyone who hasn't
read it yet, either in the title or description of
this episode, malungeon is spelled m E l u n
g e o n and the concept of it the
way it sounds at the very end of that word malungin.
I can totally see why that what may fit there,
and also why you may have some beliefs in supernatural
(17:28):
abilities of somebody who's been labeled this anyone listens to
the show, I'm sure knows the concept of jin but
just as a refresher it would be malevolent spirit, you know,
but also has been kind of incorporated into the idea
of genies or like wish granting, perhaps more benevolent spirits,
but usually there's a bit of a monkey's paw bargain
in those wish scenarios. One of three intelligent life forms
(17:52):
created by Allah, right, the they're the angels, and then
there are the humans, and then there are the jin
You're crafted from smokeless fire. It's a it's a fascinating story.
And um, there is a wonderful podcast on our network
of Pure Podcasts which is all about jin which I
believe you ep Matt correct. Yes, it's fantastic. It was
(18:15):
created with the help of Aaron Makey than Darry made Lore.
It's called The Hinde Gin. So here we are. We're
about twenty minutes into the show, and I have been
somewhat indirectly accused of being Jinny. That's why, you know,
come on, that's why there's this whole history. It's part
of the that's so kind you guys. It's um it
(18:37):
fits with the sunglasses, right, because if you've seen American gods.
The Gin character in there has to wear sunglasses all
the time because he has fiery pupils right right. The
sunglasses off there would be like it would be a
dead giveaway smoke where zero smoke, smokeless fire, whereas I'm
much more in a ocular phantom of the opera situations.
(18:58):
So we'll keep you a little more die elated than fired. Yeah,
we'll keep this and uh, we'll keep this on for everybody.
But the thing is, none of these explanations have been proven.
Any of the explanations we just outlined, and none of
them really answer the question that we posted the top,
where did the Malengions come from? We're gonna pause for
(19:18):
a word from our sponsor and we'll be right back.
Here's where it gets crazy. Well, the way I always
learned it is the answer to where the Milenians come
from is Hancock County, Tennessee, and they're like two other counties,
And there are a couple of families that are thought
to be Milencheon. But that's not that that's not really
(19:42):
what people mean when they ask that question. It's like
if you have if you have grown up in the
US and you are from a multi racial or mixed family.
Then one of the dumb questions you have to put
up with is someone saying where are you from? And
then you say, okay, I'm from I'm from Los Angeles, bro.
(20:04):
I don't know what you want me to tell you.
It's interesting here though, because I mean, with those kinds
of questions, you're referring to a very long history. With this,
you're referring to a handful of families, like you said,
in a very isolated community. Over it's almost like a
modern religion, you know, like being a more men or something.
It's like it's not ancient, it's much more contemporary. And then,
(20:25):
if I'm not mistaken, one of the families, I believe
it's pronounced Boland, not Boland like your name, but it's
more of a d sound. There are a couple. So
the problem there is the illiteracy that was widespread at
the time. So I'm related, for example, the last name
bulland I am related to people who spelled it differently
(20:48):
because they were all kind of freestyling based on how
they thought the name would look on paper. So there
are Bulands, there Collins, There are collins is excuse me,
they're goings. These are names that you'll hear brought up
pretty often. Uh, And for many many years, at least
in the case of luncheons, they were, like you said, mant,
(21:12):
they were considered something old, something from far beyond the
days of the thirteen Colonies in the United States. And
that is not entirely inaccurate. Uh, the the idea. The
thing that gets me is it feels like that that
first contact legend I heard feels very much like an
(21:33):
episode of a of a science fiction show, or it
feels like something you might see at the beginning of
a horror story and in in there back in the
day before it was okay to be maluncheon, they were
often treated like something out of an HP Lovecraft story,
you know, like something not not entirely human. Now that
(21:55):
I think about it, I don't know that I've seen
one walking on a Sunday. I'm pretty sure I saw
one levitating the other day around back behind the barn. Well.
I mean it was even worse than that, it was.
They were used as a as one of these creatures
like the Dwende. When we talked about those and the
(22:15):
goblins on that episode where when we talked about some
of the old witch stories that we brought up on
that episode as well. They were used as a thing
to essentially fear when you like, as a folklore fairy
tale that you would tell your children, perhaps if you
lived in a surrounding area, um, literally don't go into
(22:35):
the woods. Female lungeons might get you right like a
bit of a boogeyman or even like but beyond that,
more on a sociological level, kind of scapegoats in the
same way that witches were used to blame, uh, to
have something to point to when things went badly. Yeah,
and this is weird because this this stuff, which is
(22:55):
a an iteration of very very old folklore beliefs common
in common on the African continent, common in Europe. Wherever
you go, any place that has people will have these
kind of boogieamen and they have malgis happened to be
a very easy, like regional flavor for that same fear.
(23:17):
But at the same time, we see the modern US
state evolving the modern country of the US. The first
Tennessee Constitution, which is written way back in sevent gave
male free people of color the right to vote. A
lot of folks don't know that, uh, and it it
(23:38):
didn't last forever because after the rebellion led by Nat
Turner in eighteen thirty one, Tennessee went back and changed things.
But that does mean technically, if you want to be
a lot of fun at parties, you can say the
Malungeons were some of the first free people of color
to vote, at which point your friends will stare at
you blankly and then say, has anybody listened to Donda yet?
(24:02):
It's pretty okay? Um? Uh? Is that because they could
pass for white pen in some cases, not not in
the beginning, and not not for a long time actually,
but they definitely did not. They didn't look like anyone else,
you know. This is part of why there was such
mystery and so much folklore about the community. It wasn't
(24:24):
entirely kind. You can read a lot of it in
there's several books out, But I'd just be very careful
about their credibility because some of those books, especially the
older ones, will get to why they have their those
books have problems. But yes, people were accused of witchcraft.
It wasn't just don't go out the woods at night, kiddo,
(24:45):
The Malgans will get you. They didn't really say what
the male engines would do if they got you, would
they eat you? Would you have to party with them
in like a Rip van Winkle kind of style or
when Yeah, right, maybe they would lock you up in
they're vast silver mines and or just coffers of silver
that they had. Perhaps there are riddles involved. Uh, that
(25:07):
would be great. Uh. This part of the world is
and remains a place that puts a lot of emphasis
on on good stories and music and those bits of folklore.
So yeah, maybe they would have some riddles. Would the
riddles make sense? I don't know, Maybe maybe not. But
the let's get back on the silver hoards. Yes, right, Uh,
(25:31):
this is something Matt. I don't know how much we
want to talk about this. We've alluded to it in
the show in the past, and you talked about it.
We're not gonna say the whole thing. There are legends
of hidden silver cashes and minds amongst the hills of
the Appalachia that allegedly someone of Malungeon descent hit there.
(25:57):
There are tales of this out there, some of which
have been um A lot more has been made of
them than maybe is worth. It almost has like Lord
of the Rings asked qualities to it like the idea
of like the dwarves and they're like cashes of treasure
that they hoard like beneath the misty mountain or whatever.
You know. Yeah, this is uh, this these are very
(26:20):
good points because the idea, I don't know it kind
of metastasized the way that a lot of a lot
of these stories do. But the support for this idea, uh,
would be found in numerous reports that, uh, some non
legion person knows them Legion person right, their community is
(26:43):
several miles over or whatever, and one day this person
who is from a community that is just as poor
as everybody else. They were not a very they were
not very many well to do people in that in
that community. Uh, all of a sudden they show up
and they've got like silver coins buttons, and that's what
they're paying for stuff with instead of like ginsing or whatever.
(27:05):
You know, would have been foraged, and that would have
been a time where like that kind of trade was acceptable.
Like there wasn't necessarily you know, um legal tender that
they were always using. It could have been more on
barter systems in this rural parts of the country, but
silver to barter good barter, I usually get a lot
from the from the general store for like an ancient
(27:27):
piece of silver. One would think, yeah, and it's also
a weird flex they could work against you. I mean,
it's kind of like going to your local gas station
and then getting, you know, a cup of coffee for
what like a dollar thirty five and then paying for
it with a hundred dollar bill. Sure, it's like when
(27:48):
they when they tell you if you've done a big
heist or something, or like done some sort of crime,
don't go spreading your money around because you're gonna try
attention to yourself. Don't don't whip out the Bend bucks
when all you need to pay for some coffee, right right,
People will be suspicious. And one of the reasons people
were suspicious about this Silver Mind story or the secret
(28:12):
Horde of Silver was that there was there were already
rumors that something like this existed, and they became connected
to Malungeon's because of that report of someone who was
expected to be impoverished suddenly seeming to have a lot
of wealth. Was it due to their infernal powers, or
was it due to their perceived close friendship with native populations,
(28:37):
or did they know some kind of like this is
what people forget. Even back then, and like the seventeen hundreds,
folks were practicing a kind of belief in ancient hidden history,
you know what I mean, Like the idea that when
you hear somebody saying, well, you know, actually the um
insert group here, you know, they could say, oh, actually,
(29:00):
you know, the Templars came over way way away before
your history books want you to know that Europeans visited
the quote unquote New World. People were saying stuff like
that back then too, and they and they believed it.
And but I just want to walk back something I
said earlier slightly. I mean, I said, how this might
(29:20):
be looked at as maybe more of a modern thing
um as opposed to like races that maybe have existed
for thousands of years. Uh, that's maybe more how he
would see it today. But the people of the time,
we're looking at it through a lens of superstition, and
they were looking at them as like these ancient beings
almost right, yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is a symptom
(29:40):
of othering, you know, of saying these people look a
little too different from us to be you know, maybe
they look too different to actually be people. So the
thing is there is a legend of a silver mine
in that area, and it's an old legend. It's called
swift Silver Mind, and the the reason it is thought
(30:04):
to exist is because of the journal of an Englishman
named Jonathan Swift. He claims that he discovered this mind,
and the legend goes he was making bank off of
it until things went wrong. The money got too good.
He ended up walling it up. He betrayed somebody, or
was betrayed in turn. He was stricken blind, perhaps by
(30:25):
an act of God, and unable to return to the mind.
People still celebrate this. They conjecture over whether it's in
Tennessee or Virginia. That I believe there's like an annual
celebration for the mind. There are people who are looking
for it as we speak. But Jonathan Swift, if you
if you dig into his story, he's a kaiser SoSE man,
(30:48):
he's a ghost. This isn't the Jonathan Swift he wrote
Gulliver's Travels, who maybe was of the same era. But
it's a very arresting name. I know. I wish it
was him, though, that would give us more to go
wide right. Everybody in Jonathan Swift book is based on
his encounters in the US. That would be great. Uh,
(31:10):
But I like to mention authors Noel, because now we're
going back to the idea that each new author seems
to be purposely playing the game of telephone, and they're
playing it on eleven on a scale of one to ten.
Nobody can just say, Hey, I'm confirming this person's theory,
and I think this sounds good. Everybody's got to have
(31:31):
their own thing, you know what I mean. And so
they add more and more layers to the overall myth.
And that's where we see some really wild claims start
to come about. Sure, we have authors like David Beers
Quinn and ivor Noel Hume who um conjectured that the
Malungeons were descended from Safardi Jews who fled the Spanish
(31:52):
acquisition and came to North America as sailors. Um. There's
also whispers around as time saying that the great explorer
Francis Drake didn't actually repatriate all of the Turks that
he saved from the Sack of Cartenia, but in fact
some came along with him to the colonies. Okay, so
(32:15):
we got Drake in here, will we see some lungeons
in the next Uncharted game. Did you guys play Uncharted?
I did. I didn't finish the most recent one. But
those are epically great games, all right, So I expect
a royalty check in the mail, uh if they If
they do that, I don't think they have to pay. No.
I don't think so, because then they have to pay
(32:35):
everybody else, right, I don't think video game companies pay reparations.
I was looking for royalties well, dream big. Uh. There
are any number of other suggestions. They're largely from what
could be described as authors who are running the gamut
between self educated to scholarly, between amateur or to UH,
(33:01):
someone with personal firsthand experience because they have family members
who told them some of these stories. The first most
popular theory about the Malugeons was that they were the
descendants of UH of some Europeans who came over way,
way away before Europeans officially reached the US, and then
(33:23):
UH people of the Cherokee nation. This is almost certainly
false as an origin story. Will see why in a moment.
If you put all the myths aside, and they're so
cool and I wish some of them were true, you
know what I mean? I would love to be able
to like give people the evil eye or to you know,
(33:43):
stop someone's bleeding or stopped their heart with just like
some I don't know, in some weird incantation fingers, the
poison fingers. I thought that was a Frederick plan. That
was a good sound stinger. I just watched the movie
I think it was on Netflix about that. I felt it.
I felt a stinging poison fingers as a kung fu movie. Anyway,
(34:09):
I don't know where you can stop someone's heart by,
like do do do? Do? Do? Like just tapping on
their chest like it's a single strike right on the back. Oh,
and now there's some style on. It is a death blow,
but it takes a second to kick in. So if
you put all the myths aside, melungeons did, and in
(34:29):
some cases still do, look physically distinct from their neighbors
in this again, this little pocket of Appalachia. And that
means that regardless of how much they attempted to culturally assimilate,
going to Christian churches, uh, participating in public works, whatever,
(34:50):
those physical differences meant. The rumors and the persecution against
these communities and again other communities like them, other tri
racial isolates would continue. So over time, malungeons began to
purposely assimilate on a deeper level. They were attempting to
marry and interbreed outside of their own communities with existing
(35:11):
European American populations. And it used to be just you
know the people that they met. You met someone fell
in love. You didn't think too much about what social
class or higher argument. But this, this change means that
they were attempting to escape or hide their origin or identity.
(35:32):
And again, the origin story was itself a conspiracy. It
would always change when it was convenient or necessary. So
you probably haven't heard of these folks before. Try racial
isolates unless you grow up around one of these communities,
where you yourself remember one of these communities. And the
reason you haven't heard a lot of those odd stories
(35:54):
are first, these are often disadvantaged populations. Secondly, they're often
very small in number, and third, they don't really fit
into the kind of cut and dry textbook history of
the US as taught in school rooms. For a very
long time, US history was taught in terms of absolutes.
(36:15):
You know what I mean, we're the good guys. These
dates happened, and this is why this thing is important,
And we've only got time for one paragraph on this,
so we're moving on, you know what I mean? And
this means that amateur researchers didn't have much to go
on for a long time except disparate clues and records
(36:36):
and courthouses that didn't burn down oral tradition which has
a lot of bs in it. Uh. And then while
they were trying to unravel the mystery, their process eventually
and inevitably led to two very very big problems. The
first one we've already kind of discussed here. The tri
(36:57):
racial isolate groups were often attempting to hide their true
identity for one reason or another, usually because of persecution
from an outside group. So you know, there all those records,
if you can't find them, are gonna be kind of
hidden hidden away amongst other identities, right other, whether it's
(37:18):
racial and identifying identities or names that are different or changed.
It's just it's something that's very difficult to pin down.
I think I'm getting that right, then maybe I'm wrong,
But it feels as though that's one of the most
difficult things, is that the paperwork becomes muddy. But yeah,
and think like someone who let's say someone's interviewing in
(37:41):
person who is melungeon, but they've they've cast it away.
It's before the nineteen sixties, when when the word became
okay and became not an insult due primarily to one
stage play but story for another day. You're trying to
talk to someone about this because you're researching it, and
they don't want to talk to you because they're like,
(38:01):
you know, me and my parents and my grandparents actually
spent a long time trying to get away from that.
So if we could keep all our questions to the album,
I don't know. I guess they made an album or something.
But this assimilation continued. People wanted to pass his quote
unquote white and things like my freckles could be considered
(38:22):
physical proof of this assimilation. But that's that's one. That's
one problem. That's a very real problem. But we shouldn't
ignore the second Leviathan of a problem, which isn't Many
of these researchers had something we talked about pretty often
on this show. They had heavy confirmation bias. Like let's
say you're writing a book and you say, you know,
(38:45):
I heard there was Turkish descent involved, or I being
a student of Phoenician history. I am certain that the
lungeon's what we call belungeons today are actually Phoenician, and
I am going to discover the truth. But I am
going to prove that this is so. And this means
that they would, you know, they would cherry pick stuff that,
(39:09):
you know, that seemed to enforce their narrative or strengthen it.
But on the flip side, especially people thought they were
descended from the lungeons. We have to keep in mind, Uh,
these people have created their own narrative that's very close
to them, and so they might avoid answers that make
them uncomfortable. There was literally the stuff they didn't want
(39:30):
themselves to know about, you know themselves. Right, Yeah, we're
going to AH and this is where we go to
the next most recent big turn. I think you can
see what we're telegraphing here, folks, definitely better than I can.
Fast forward to the advent of commercial DNA technology. This
(39:51):
now it is possible you can spit into a you
can swab the inside of your cheek, and you can
learn all sorts of things about the people who ultimately
lead to you spending time here on Earth. So we
rarely get to say this on our show, but it's official.
The mystery of the malungeons is solved. The problem is
(40:13):
a ton of people do not like the answer. We'll
tell you why after word from our sponsor, and we're back.
And I don't know if any of you caught that,
but Ben through shade at his own eyes while wearing
shades at night, it was beautiful. Dude. My I'm gonna
(40:37):
be honest with you, Like, if it looks like I'm crying,
my eyes are just leaking, I'm not like emotionally potato potato,
my friend, potato potato. Yeah. Um. So you know, we
keep using this termal lungeon, and it is a bit
(40:58):
strange that we're even using it this often in an
episode of a podcast because it did have such a
negative connotation for so long. But it turns out this
word that was a pejorative. It wasn't really based in
science in anyway. Yeah not in neither were many of
the other ones that you mentioned at the top of
the show. Ben. Um. Those are all in various ways
(41:22):
and by various people, used as terms of abuse and
often just catch alls for biracial people, you know, when
where they don't like The people that are slinging these
insults around aren't doing it because they care whether a
person identifying as melungeon thinks that they're from Portuguese descent.
They just look at them as this other that looks different,
and this is a term of abuse, much like the
(41:44):
term red bone and Cajun kind of culture would be
used as a term for, you know, biracial people, and
that's another term that was taken back by those that
would identify as such. Also, the word malungeon has the
added disadvantage just being an awkward, clunky word linguistically. You
(42:04):
know what, why couldn't we be witch breed? That's way cooler,
But it's no one. No one asked us. But so
the lungeons back in the day and their modern descendants
there the first the idea of a scientific term. Here
(42:25):
is a bit of a moving goal post, because I
was trying to think about how to say this without
being defense, without offending anybody. But uh, you know, we're
big on comic book and fiction analogies here on stuff
they don't want you to know. And there is in
the world of Marvel Universe something called the deviance if
(42:48):
you're if you're not too familiar with this. They're wrapped
up in the Eternals. You'll see deviants in the upcoming
Marvel movie The Eternals. But the thing about deviance in
the comic book is that in comic book universe is
that none of them look exactly alike. The main thing
they have in common is that they are collectively called deviants. Uh.
(43:10):
Luncheon people are not deviants. People in general are not deviance.
You know, they're all people. But the group described as
Malungeon's they don't have the same level of genetic homogeneity
that you would see and say the Han Chinese, right,
They wouldn't because they are the result of so many
(43:30):
mixtures of people from widespread variety of places across the world.
The odds are pretty high that each family has its
own unique genetic lineage. So DNA testing was, for the
first time in history able to conclusively trace the roots
of some core families that founded what would have become
(43:53):
known as Malungeon's today or Melungeon Country. And a lot
of people who proudly consider themselves in Malungeon's in East
Tennessee and Virginia, in parts of Kentucky. Uh, We're dead
set on seeing their family story proven true. You know, Oh,
(44:14):
we do trace back to some mysterious hinterland of the
Ottoman Empire. Oh, we are actually the descendants of uh
some people Francis Drake rescued or we are secretly from
a lost tribe of Israel, etcetera, etcetera. Uh. No, you
can trace the Malungeons back. It starts in Virginia. It
starts a long time ago in Virginia, like in the
(44:37):
Wolf fifteen hundreds of Virginia, which deer point noal is
still comparatively recent. Sure, and and they can trace it
back to a specific area of Virginia, the Tidewater region
I guess of Virginia. And there are multiple, um pretty
substantial studies that proved this. Most famously, there was a
relatively recent Danna study in the Journal of Janet Genealogy. Uh.
(45:01):
The lead researcher of that study, ROBERTA. Estes, and her team,
found there was genetic evidence that proves the families historically
called Melungeon's um are mostly the offspring of sub Saharan
African men and white women of Northern or Central European origin.
That's the part that kind of pissed some people off
(45:23):
because I think a lot of folks really hung onto
that Portuguese part of it. Yeah, it's the it's the US.
There were a lot of people is as terrible as
is that took this news poorly because they were offended
by the idea that they could be in any way
black is that's where they were in life. So it
(45:47):
so Stes dealt with this and they they theorized that
various melungeon lines could have sprung up, Like they said,
the genetic proof is there from unions of indentured servants,
black and white, indentured servants who were living in Virginia
until the mid sixteen hundreds when some very important legal
things happened, and some very unclean legal things. We're talking
(46:09):
about the practice, the widespread practice of chattel slavery. And
they note the researchers note that as laws were put
into place, uh slowly over a period of time, like
the old adage about boiling frogs, these laws increasingly penalized
people for doing for practicing what was called mis engeneation,
(46:31):
which is the big one that that was overturned with
Loving versus West Virginia. Mis engineation. Yeah, the name of
the law though it was like it was something like
the Racial Purity Act or something really awful sounding like that.
It's terrible to say that they're they're so many, and
these were going like colony by colonies, state by state, um.
(46:53):
So the various family groups that existed as their existence
was being made illegal, it only intermarry with each other.
And eventually they started migrating away. Because if you don't
like the law in one place, then you don't agree
with it and you can leave, Then why on earth
would you stay, especially if you know it's going to
impact the lives of your children. So they migrated centuries
(47:16):
and centuries and centuries, go from Virginia through the Carolinas
before settling primarily in the mountains of East Tennessee. Why
did they seem so well established when other Europeans came right,
That's that's a question for a different day, because those
other explorers probably weren't aware of what what happened that
led these people to live there, And the claims of
(47:39):
things like Portuguese ancestry were just a ruse, a very conspiracy,
because they wanted to remain free, even if they were
called free people of color. The most important part of
that phrase to them was the one at the beginning free.
And they also wanted to retain social privileges that would
come with the idea of passing. And so in short,
(48:00):
they were trying to cover up part of their collective past.
In most cases, they were trying to cover up African ancestry.
And that conspiracy, as crazy as it sounds, worked incredibly
well for a long time. Like it worked, they were
considered different. And also, yes, it does sound silly to
want to cover up something like that, because, as we
(48:21):
all know, science proves that if you are a human being,
then your ancestors ultimately originated from the African continent. Yeah,
and it's not difficult to know why, right, Why why
would a large group of people conspire to hide their identity,
Because it does not take much at all to crack
(48:42):
open even a history book that sanctioned by the United
States and the Departments of Education and see the atrocities,
the crimes that were committed against anyone who was not
let's just say it white enough within the colonies and
uh and in the early United States, even before it
(49:03):
was a country, right as as things were just being
settled and colonized and there's a very good reason to
want to. As you said, then pass for something that
something other. Yeah, yeah, I mean travel back to even
as recently as the early eighteen hundreds in this part
of the world, and say that you are Malungeon. What
(49:24):
would you do to give your kids a better shot
at success in life? For most people, the answer is,
and it should be, virtually anything I can do is
what I will do. And this ruse, this conspiracy was
so successful that over generations, actual Malungeons fell for the
story once meant to protect them from outsiders. You can't
(49:46):
tell me we're not Turkish, etcetera, etcetera. And oral traditions
and folklore are fascinating, and they are often based in
some grain of truth. But DNA is solid evidence. It
can't be ignored. The mystery is solved, and those who
claim him it is not either have their own unique
non Malungian family history or they may simply not want
(50:07):
to admit the truth. The pattern of hiding from the past,
even when it becomes a parent that you're doing so,
is Sadly, it's not unique to Malungeon's. It's not unique
to try racial isolets. It's not unique to the United States.
It is an important lesson. Is the ultimate takeaway from
this mystery is I think I'm trying to be positive here.
I think in some ways it's inspiring. And Matt, I
(50:30):
think we found the perfect person to give us the
last word on what we can take away from this episode.
The mystery of the malungeons. That recent DNA study that
we mentioned earlier, which you can read about, by the way,
if you look to the Associated Press and Travis Lawler,
you can find this and I would type this into
your search bar. A whole lot of people upset about
(50:54):
upset by this study or DNA and the truth about
Appalachia's malungeons. So there was this this DNA study we
talked about, and there was some response to it. There's
a sociologist named g Reginald Daniel who spent much of
his life around three decades, uh, just studying this this
whole thing multi racial communities within the United States, and
(51:16):
this is his quotation quote, all of us are multi racial,
and this study is recapturing a more authentic United States history.
Well said, yeah, and it's and it's a mission that
everybody should be on board with. You know, there's there's
(51:36):
this tendency that happens not with everybody, but as people
age and as they begin considering their mortality more often
or more deeply, their interest in the past also increases.
I'm sure everybody listening can think of one older relative
who got super into genealogy right and maybe learned some
(51:57):
amazing things. And you may have found yourself going on
journey like this. It is a noble undertaking and it's
something that those who come after you will appreciate in
their own time. And with this in mind, we passed
the torch to you, or we put a badger in
a bag and we toss it to you. What what
do you think? Do you have any multi racial background
(52:19):
in your family? And if so, did it surprise you?
How was it handled? What does stories like this make
you think about what we have yet to learn about
the past of the US and what this could mean
for the future. Please let us know. We can't wait
to hear from you. We try to be easy to
find online. That's true. You can find us on the internet.
We are conspiracy stuff on YouTube, or conspiracy stuff on
(52:43):
Facebook and Twitter, or conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. And
you can also give us a good old fashioned telephone call.
That's right, one eight three three std w y t
K that's the number. Leave your name, not your real name, though,
a cool nickname that we can all you. That's the
best way to do it. You've got three minutes, use
them as your own however you wish. If you've gotten
(53:06):
more to say, then can fit into those three minutes.
We highly recommend you send us an email. Our addresses
conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want
(53:35):
you to Know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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