Deer Spirit

As our island's deer population increases its foraging ahead of leaner winter months, we're more likely to spot them in our backyards or along roads. If you're especially lucky, you may encounter a rare piebald deer, the result of a genetic mutation that affects the pigmentation of the coat. The mutation becomes more common the more isolated deer populations are, so our island-bound deers' interbreeding may make the mutation more common here than in areas with larger territories.

Seen at Lake House recently

The piebalds' unusual appearance has generated a considerable amount of myth and folklore. Native Americans consider the piebald as a spirit transitioning from this world to the spirit world, and that sighting one was an omen of impending change. In many Native American cultures, it's still strictly forbidden to kill a piebald deer, interrupting the soul's passage to the next world. Hunters have their own folk wisdom about taking a piebald, the more superstitious among them believing that killing a piebald puts a curse on future hunting success, or may even mean the hunter will die within a year.

Piebalds are not as rare as albino deer, which are typically pure white; and except for piebalds' mottled coats, they are often as healthy as their normally colored brethren. But piebalds are more susceptible to abnormalities at birth, particularly malformed internal organs and spinal deformities, which severely reduce chances of post-natal survival. Some piebald adults may also have shortened or crooked legs, making it difficult for them to avoid predators. Fortunately, these misfortunes are rare; although the presence of numerous piebalds in any one deer population can be an indicator of excessive interbreeding and can reduce the overall health of a herd.

courtesy The Island Connection

If you see a piebald, consider yourself fortunate to see an individual who's beaten the odds; and, who knows, letting you know that change may be in the air.

First Builders

Photo (c) William C. Judge

As lots are cleared and new homes rise on our island, it's easy to forget that that others were here long before us, leaving behind one of the oldest and largest archeological ruins in North America, just across the North Edisto River. The Fig Island shell ring seen above - an ancient site built up of hundreds of years' worth of clam, oyster and other shells along with fish bones, pottery and primitive tools - is one of thirty such sites along the southeast coast between South Carolina and northern Florida. It was first excavated in the late 1960's, although the entire complex wasn't fully identified until 2002. Nearby is the smaller Pockoy Island ring, still under excavation in Botany Bay.

Aerial view of Fig Island 1 (courtesy National Park Service)

Fig Island occupies a narrow peninsula jutting from Edisto Island into the river and, dated to about 4000 years ago, is the largest and one of the oldest of the southeast's rings. Besides a main, circular shell ring, two smaller, connected structures surround it, making it the most complex of known rings. The main ring, Fig Island 1, had steep midden walls rising as high as twenty feet surrounding a 470-foot-wide open central area; Fig Island 2 and 3 (which is actually C-shaped, rather than fully circular) featured ramps leading up from their central areas to a shell path connecting the two. Excavations of all three rings have never revealed evidence that they were permanently occupied.

Courtesy South Carolina Humanvitae

So what were these mysterious structures used for, and who built them? Although theories are many, pottery shards obtained from all three Fig Island rings indicate the site was regularly visited by Late Archaic-era inhabitants who traveled seasonally between forested uplands and coastal sites, at a time when sea levels were some three feet lower than today. The lack of evidence of permanent structures leads some archeologists to consider shell rings as monumental or ceremonial sites for social or spiritual purposes. Radiocarbon dating on Fig Island indicates that more than 750,000 cubic feet of material was deposited in a relatively short time span, indicating deliberate intent rather than the accumulated detritus of household middens.

Although the meaning of Fig Island remains elusive, its archeological importance has led to its designation as both a National Historic Landmark and a National Historic Site, with limited access overseen by the National Park Service, mostly for research teams. But you can enjoy an armchair visit to Fig Island here.

SING OUT

The structure pictured above may not look like much but it is, in fact, a National Historic Site and was once the heart of African-American social and religious life on Johns Island. Moving Star Hall, on River Road opposite Fields Farms, was built just after the First World War as a "praise house" for Black farming families, one of the few surviving such houses in the southeast. Before the Civil War, white plantation owners allowed their enslaved workers to build such houses at a time when few Blacks had the resources to build their own churches or were not allowed to travel to services elsewhere.

Moving Star Hall, c. 1920 (courtesy SC Picture Project)

Moving Star Hall, built by Blacks who managed to raise seven dollars to buy the materials, was a relative latecomer to the dozens of praise houses that once dotted Johns Island. It was built well after Emancipation and just as Johns Island was being connected to the mainland by the first Limehouse Bridge over the Stono River - a wood-and-creosote swing bridge that stood just to the west of today's soaring concrete affair.

Moving Star Hall was the headquarters of the Moving Star Association, a mutual benefit society that helped raise money for families who couldn't afford to treat their sick, who were struggling to feed themselves after a bad harvest, or who couldn't pay for funeral and burial services for their dead. Meetings of the Association were held three evenings a week. And on Sundays, rollicking, foot-stomping "ring shout" gospel singing filled the air. "That hall be full of people. Every Sunday," one surviving community member told historians in the 1960's. "It give me strength, spirit to carry on."

The Moving Star Singers, from left: Janie Hunter, Mary PInckney, Benjamin Bligen, Ruth Bligen and Loretta Stanley

The Hall became most famous for the Moving Star Hall Singers, who came to national attention during the folk music revival of the 1960's and who were first recorded by the musicologist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. The group performed all over the United States during the 1970's and 1980's, including at the White House, and recorded several albums of traditional African-American gospel music. The names of some of the singers still appear in street names along River Road in honor of Janie Hunter, Ruth and Benjamin Bligen, James Mackey, and other singers.

(View a brief clip of the Moving Star Singers here.)

By the late 1960's, much of the Association's social outreach had been transferred to the Progressive Club a mile or so south on River Road, founded by Esau Jenkins, who was a frequent preacher at Moving Star Hall. But gospel study classes and worship services still take place at Moving Star, with all invited. "Whether you are white, whether you are dark like myself," John Smalls said back in the 1970's, "or a different color, come in. Anytime you come, you is in. So sing, shout, get happy." *

(* Quote from "Ain't You Got A Right To The Tree Of Life?", Simon & Schuster, 1966)